How much effort is it to create 1 simple fetch Quest?

[Iscah]

I don't think the important question is "how much effort to make a quest?" but "is there a worthwhile story to be told for this event?"

Unless they have an actual good story idea for the quest, then I would rather it be kept short and sweet. Too often they drag out seasonal quests with trite paint-by-numbers "emotional" stories where a simple one would do.

Also, on pure numbers for this specific Valentione 2023 event, it's not "just" the one quest because you also have the series of vignettes afterwards. They're still fairly short and it would be nice to get more of them, but it's still an example of the quest extending beyond the single quest.

[Jeycht]

You forgot the extra zone that was created for the event, plus the after-quest wrap-up.

It's an old map from 2 years ago and they already used last year too. Nothing to develop there.

[Jeeqbit]

The function of having a task to fetch an item is obviously less effort than the story and items. It's the story, character development, cutscenes and item development that take a lot of the work and then have to be translated across several languages.

But it's not like they don't keep producing other types of quests which are gated by weeks, such as beast tribes, custom deliveries and other little side quests we've had recently to add lore to the MSQ.

[Deveryn]

Honest question, how much development effort is it to create 1 simple fetch Quest?

The reason I'm asking is - we already have a content drought as of it is right now, and I thought, great, there is at least Seasonal Event Valentione. But then, *gasp* it is only exactly 1 Quest.

What's preventing SE from just having monthly simple events to alleviate some of the drought's frustration? How much effort is it to just create 8 simple quests, tied to a monthly event?

...

For one thing, you're missing the localization step and probably several more items, but anyway...

Three words: Quality Over Quantity.

I'm so over hearing about this and that being lackluster. Why? Because it didn't fill some great space of time? XIV is a story game and that's exactly what they deliver Everything looks pretty well thought out. (It's unfortunate that the outfits weren't totally ready, but they made an adjustment.) There are even bonus interactions with NPCs you've met along the way. I wasn't terribly interested in the rewards, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless.

If you want more quests more often, the quality will surely suffer. They're not just going to give you simple fetch quests, they're going to tell a story. There's plenty of "busywork" to do without quests being tied in. Perhaps you would consider taking up fishing or crafting.

I've done seasonal events elsewhere and I'm glad this is just a one and done thing that doesn't interfere with the daily / weekly routine, though they do tend to have some optional repeatable. It's never diverting too many players away from whatever other content there is to do. You can run it on the first day or the last day and not miss a thing.

[Hycinthus]

Any time spent creating a quest takes away time from devs making "actual" content.

The dialogue must be written and localized for all areas. The NPCs need to be coded and tested if they're in a new place and tested for conflicts if they exist already. If there are monsters to be killed for drops they need to be flagged to drop the loot or item for people on the quest and checked to see if this interferes with any other quests/skills/challenges. The rewards need to be calculated against other available rewards and the lore impact tested for conflicts with other storylines and narratives. There is probably a LOT I'm not even thinking about, but as I don't design games it doesn't come to mind easily.


Quite honestly, in my opinion I'd rather they spend this kind of time on making content releases deeper than distracting people with 3 minute busywork.

Thanks for sharing. Basicaly what you’re saying here is that 8 fetch quests will probably consume quite considerable amount of time that it will take away from making other patches or future expansions. This is noted and if that’s the case I agree. That’s why I want to hear other perspective.

[Payadopa]

"SE should create monthly sets of busywork quests to keep us busy during content droughts."

5 seconds after the implementation...

"OMG why is this content so meaningless? Why did they bother adding it at all when it's literally just busywork?"

The last thing XIV needs is more boring quests. Tribes have cornered that market years ago. Go get all relics if you're that terminally bored.

[Ardeth]

Everything they add to the game is so contrived or convaluted that I actually find something like a 1 and done quest for Valentine's Day to be refreshing and welcome.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but every time they add anything that on paper sounds simple enough gets bogged down by random inserts of busy work.

It's like the Island Sanctuary. I got into it rather late and didn't look anything up. It is way more convaluted than it would ever need to be. You grow crops, collect materials, raise animals and etc. But they, for whatever reason it needed just absolutely terrible xp rates and babys first Excel spreadsheet/ stock market simulator.

It's kinda why I take anything they add outside of the normal gameplay loop with a grain of salt. And I'm happy that all of it is optional.

It's like Eureka or Bozja. I hate both of them for their own reasons. Guess what? I never have to do them ever. That's what I want. More of that, please.

[TaleraRistain]

You should watch the Live Letters sometime. They've had sections before where they will do something like "What are the steps to this questline" or such and there are things people mentioned here but a lot more. It's not as simple as just go code something for 20 minutes and stick it in when you have something like an ongoing MMO.

[dspguy]

But what you fail to account for in your estimation of effort is a critical thing - every step is easy for one person's work, but this isn't one person's work. Each of steps is worked on by different people in different departments.

Can't emphasize this enough. While I don't work for SE, I can't imagine development is that different from the bigger picture.

There's the "story and lore" department. How does this fit into Eorzea? Do they tie in pre-existing characters? Do we need to make a new character? What are they like?

There's the art department - new items, new characters, new zone(?), new decorations, even the new thumbnails of the items. New emotes?

Then there's actually translating the lore, art (and other stuff I left out) into the actual code executed both server side and client side.

I'm also leaving out all the infrastructure that it took to even make all of that happen. While they did have to write their own engine for much of how this is done (and that work is already done), whatever that infrastructure is dictates how the half dozen departments probably have to work together to get a "simple 10 minute quest" live in the game.

[Hycinthus]

Everything they add to the game is so contrived or convaluted that I actually find something like a 1 and done quest for Valentine's Day to be refreshing and welcome.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but every time they add anything that on paper sounds simple enough gets bogged down by random inserts of busy work.

It's like the Island Sanctuary. I got into it rather late and didn't look anything up. It is way more convaluted than it would ever need to be. You grow crops, collect materials, raise animals and etc. But they, for whatever reason it needed just absolutely terrible xp rates and babys first Excel spreadsheet/ stock market simulator.

It's kinda why I take anything they add outside of the normal gameplay loop with a grain of salt. And I'm happy that all of it is optional.

It's like Eureka or Bozja. I hate both of them for their own reasons. Guess what? I never have to do them ever. That's what I want. More of that, please.

What dont you like from Bozja?