Curious about the new questing system.

[KiriA500]

Alright, so, in the down time while waiting for A Realm Reborn to relaunch, I started up World of Warcraft (GASP!) again.

The first thing I noticed was how interesting some of the quests were. The quests in general seem to be far more sparse than before, so you don't really feel like you're just spamming non-stop fetch quests (I am only level 22, so this might change higher level). I did one where I had to gather a few items to create a disguise to sneak past some Orcs and plant bombs in their base. It was quite fun, because I had to sneak around and use special abilities only accessible during the quest to avoid detection.

Now, I got to thinking. I wonder if A Realm Reborn is going to follow something similar to this? I know Yoshi-P has said he made the development team play games such as World of Warcraft, so I'm curious if this is one of the things they wanted to use as reference. I'd personally love the quests to be more than just mindless fetch quests/kill quests, mainly because we already had those in 1.0 as Guildleves. I want the quests to be a bit more engaging!

Don't take this as a "OMG I WANT A WOW CLONE" thread. I just feel that questing in MMO's can change it up a bit from time to time. How about tossing us a "lasso the chocobo while riding a wagon" quests to break up the tedious "5 ore, plz can has?" stuff!

Either way, I'm going to play A Realm Reborn and (hopefully) enjoy it, so something like this isn't a deal breaker for me. I just found myself having quite a bit of fun playing World of Warcraft, and found that the process could be applied to Final Fantasy XIV quite easily (the flow that is, not necessarily the application itself), so I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to it.

Thoughts? Criticism? Cookies?

[Psykotsu]

Alright, so, in the down time while waiting for A Realm Reborn to relaunch, I started up World of Warcraft (GASP!) again.

The first thing I noticed was how interesting some of the quests were. The quests in general seem to be far more sparse than before, so you don't really feel like you're just spamming non-stop fetch quests (I am only level 22, so this might change higher level). I did one where I had to gather a few items to create a disguise to sneak past some Orcs and plant bombs in their base. It was quite fun, because I had to sneak around and use special abilities only accessible during the quest to avoid detection.

Now, I got to thinking. I wonder if A Realm Reborn is going to follow something similar to this? I know Yoshi-P has said he made the development team play games such as World of Warcraft, so I'm curious if this is one of the things they wanted to use as reference. I'd personally love the quests to be more than just mindless fetch quests/kill quests, mainly because we already had those in 1.0 as Guildleves. I want the quests to be a bit more engaging!

Don't take this as a "OMG I WANT A WOW CLONE" thread. I just feel that questing in MMO's can change it up a bit from time to time. How about tossing us a "lasso the chocobo while riding a wagon" quests to break up the tedious "5 ore, plz can has?" stuff!

Either way, I'm going to play A Realm Reborn and (hopefully) enjoy it, so something like this isn't a deal breaker for me. I just found myself having quite a bit of fun playing World of Warcraft, and found that the process could be applied to Final Fantasy XIV quite easily (the flow that is, not necessarily the application itself), so I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to it.

Thoughts? Criticism? Cookies?

Well some of the complaints about the original quest system was that it was repetitive. So I'm definitely thinkin that SE will take that as an opportunity to make some more diverse quests in ARR. We know they are being influenced by successful MMOs like WoW and GW2 so those types of quests are definitely welcome.

I'm not sure if they'll be that diverse for guildleves since they said those weren't changing to much.

I remember doing a similar quest in GW2 where I had to disguise myself as one of the elf leaf people. Not sure how a Charr pulled that off.

[Zezlar]

I don't mind spamming some quests that are similar, but I really want to see diverse quests that don't follow the kill/collect formula. That one you mentioned about sneaking past orcs and blowing them up actually sounds fun. If they want me to kill 15 rats to collect their tails, fur, eyes, wankers, and w\e they got. I'm going to get mad.

[Gramul]

The whole reason I was against WoW style questing was because of those dull repetitive quests. Sense you say that even they have improved, then yeah, I'm all for it. Make it feel less like padding and more like a game.

[Renen]

Maybe similar to GW2 quests? Those are fun. They vary from killing x mobs to hunting chickens with anti-chicken gun

[Wolfie]

I've been saying this for a while. Because WOW's gotten constant flak over repetitive fetch and kill quests, they've been doing varied and interesting quests/chains since WOTLK in 2008, and then went and revamped every quest/zone in 2010 with Cata.

We'll see if ARR was modeled after old school WOW or new age WOW.

[Preypacer]

For one, I'd like to not see a system where you're being guided through the game from quest hub to quest hub in a linear fashion. I'd like to see quests that require you to travel abroad, go to other zones, go to other cities (with teleporting, chocobos and air-ships available, it shouldn't be a big deal). I'd like to see quests where the goal is some specific objective that is not itself about killing mobs, but that would require you to either deal with mobs along the way, or otherwise find some way to avoid them (sneaking, disguise, causing a distraction, using decoys, etc).

I would like to see every little detail of a quest not spelled out and shown plainly on the map. If you're told "go to "such and such location" in "such and such zone" and locate "such and such" object. I would like for the description of the quest to be adequate for people to find such a place themselves, and then have to actually *find* the objective when they're there. Please no "arrows pointing where to go, which lead to a marker on the map of exactly where the spot is which leads to quest objects with sparkles or something like that coming off them". Please keep us in the equation and let us be part of the experience by actually requiring effort and thought to be made.

If there's one thing I can not stand about MMOs these days is how every single detail is spelled out for you to the point where it's literally nothing but connecting the dots and collecting your reward. It's about as close to a virtual skinner box as you can get. I have a brain and I'm not afraid to use it. So, please, give me the opportunity to.

As for quests that can be done in shorter time, that's where Leves come in. Sure they're mostly "kill x of y" type quests. But the system can be expanded beyond that. If you recall the "Assault" missions in XI, those were no more than 30-45 minutes to complete, and each had a variety of very interesting and diverse challenges involved. They can have a difficulty setting like they do now where you can solo them, or go up to a 5-star rating (or something similar). "Short-term content" doesn't have to be repetitive and boring.

There can also be shorter term quests that can be finished in, say, an hour or so. It doesn't have to be "multi-hour or 30 minute only". There's room for a variety in-between.

I personally enjoy longer-term content that takes more time to complete, but I also enjoy some shorter-term stuff from time to time as well. I also believe those who prefer (or perhaps require due to their lifestyles/schedules) more "bite-sized" content deserve and should fully expect something more interesting than paltry "kill and collect" tasks (I don't even consider them quests) that are all the same, save for what you're killing or collecting.

I'd also like to see very long-term, "career-long" goals to work toward. Everything doesn't have to be achieved "right now". Give people something to strive for long-term, with a series of smaller goals along the way building toward it. Let people choose a specific "end-result", thus giving them a branching series of quests or goals to choose between as they go. A personal career path, if you like.

How about quests that are "hidden"? Maybe it's an NPC in an out of the way place. Some object or relic that you find in a remote corner of the world that triggers an entirely new story arc that might be hinted at by NPCs in town, but isn't actually given out by one. Give something for those explorers among us to bite into.

There is so much that can be done with a questing system in a MMORPG. So much more than what is usually shoveled out and called "content". It could well be where a player - just looking to do some quest content - could log in, decide "eh, I did leves last night. I wanna do something else tonight", and have a number of different options open to them.

I'd love to see Yoshi-P and his content designers really dig in, get inspired, get creative and deliver up a variety of truly awesome content that players of other MMOs can look at and think, "damn... how come we can't get stuff like that in this game?". How cool would it be to see the script flipped, and people requesting to have "x" or "y" feature from FFXIV implemented in their games, instead of the other way around?

Of course, that's all my personal "hope" and it may or may not happen. But well, there ya go

[Nuru]

I would like to see something similar, like an imperial raid mission! ^^

[Elexia]

We'll see if ARR was modeled after old school WOW or new age WOW.

Old school WoW.

[Alhanelem]

Here's the quest system in a nutshell:

1) talk to NPC who has a problem
2) solve his problem
3) Profit

What other quest system is there?