[suggestion] Sidequests and Rewards

[Abriael]

I personally appreciated a lot the introduction of sidequests in Final Fantasy XIV. While this first batch didn't include cutscenes (after all they are SIDE-quests ), the writing was nice and the flavor was spot-on.

There is only a rather big problem I see with the Sidequest system, and that's rewards.

At the moment a sidequests gives absolutely no experience and skill points. Not only, even the sidequest-related mobs are absolutely deprieved of any reward. Personally I think that this isn't really appropriate.

I understand and appreciate the value of flavor and lore, but every action in a MMORPG should contribute to character progression, and honestly the items received from sidequests (that can be all cheaply bought at the market wards in 5 minutes flat), don't feel like an appropriate reward for the time spent during the quest, nor contribute in any sizable way to character progression.

When people vocally asked for the introduction of more quests in Final Fantasy XIV, I can pretty much guarantee that 99% of them meant quests as a viable way for leveling up their character, like in 99% of the MMORPG out there (experience rewards for quests is an undeniable and almost ancient staple of the MMORPG genre, and even of offline RPGs), as an at least partial alternative to grinding and levequests (that at the moment feel kinda like directed grinding anyway).

I thought about why the development team chose to deprieve sidequest-related monsters of any kind of reward and loot, and Icame to the conclusion (please correct me if I'm wrong), that their position and the fact that they're all bunched up would make them an excessively easy farming target for grinding individuals and parties that are not involved in the sidequest at all.

I understand that point of view, but I honestly disagree with the results, as I feel that sidequests should definitely award at the very least as many skill points and experience as a comparable guildleve that takes roughly the same time to be completed. Otherwise people will see most sidequests as useless (and that's the general reaction I've seen on most forums) and skip them entirely, completely wasting their implementation.
After all, as I said, the awarding of experience for quests is a classic in MMORPG gameplay, and people have come to expect it, IMHO with reason, as they take time to be completed, and time should come with a sizable character progression reward.
The fact that sidequests aren't repeatable means that the impact of that experience/skill points award won't negatively influence the progression balance.

So I came out with a few (hopefully easy to implement) solutions that should allow the team to introduce experience/skill rewards without encurring in the problem of uninvolved people farming the sidequests mobs.

1: leave the mobs as they are, but award a sizable amount of experience/Skill points at the end of the quests, alongside the item. Again, that amount should be comparable to what is earned during a levequest of comparable time.
2: Let the mobs award experience/skill/loot exactly as levequest mobs do (pretty much in the same amount, even better, IMHO, the same amount of when guardian favor is active), and make them visible (and aggressive, when it's the case) only to characters involved in their specific quest, pretty much like levequest monsters.
3: Same as above, but let the mobs give experience/skill/loot only to characters involved in their specific quest. That way they would still be useless as farming mobs.
4: A combination of the above (which for me would be the best solution), letting character earn experience/skill both when killing the mobs, and on top of it, a further amount upon completion.

Again, those are just my personal suggestion, based on the fact that, at least before the endgame, time invested should always equal to character progression.
As a side note, I would add experience/skill rewards upon completion to all quests, including story quests and levequests. It definitely won't hurt, and it would add to the sense of accomplishment given by those activities.

note to the moderators: I erroneously posted this on the discussion section on the forum as well, unfortunately the forum structure is a bit confusing and suggests that this is the forum for the feedback on the site/forum only, while reading the sticky posts I realized that this is for suggestions in general on the game as well. Sorry for the mistake. Feel free to merge/move/delete the threads as necessary and appropriate. Thank you.

[Betelgeuzah]

I was wondering whether to make a new topic or post in this one, as my suggestion is quite different to the one presented above. I will, however, assume that the community representatives will look at the discussion further than just the original post.

That said, first I want to touch few parts of the OP that I don't quite agree with:

I understand and appreciate the value of flavor and lore, but every action in a MMORPG should contribute to character progression, and honestly the items received from sidequests (that can be all cheaply bought at the market wards in 5 minutes flat), don't feel like an appropriate reward for the time spent during the quest, nor contribute in any sizable way to character progression.

The important thing is, that the items received are valuable for the new players, not those with tens of millions of gil available. New players may not have enough money to start off and doing these quests is a nice way to get started, as well as to receive beneficial equipment that will make the character progress further. The reward may not be appropriate for those few players that have long since proceeded further than the appropriate level range of said quests, but you are not the demographic these quests are designed for. Just as the upcoming tutorial quests will probably be just as useless for you even though new players will find them quite valuable. For that demographic the quest rewards accomplish what they should accomplish.

Otherwise people will see most sidequests as useless (and that's the general reaction I've seen on most forums) and skip them entirely, completely wasting their implementation.

That is not true at all. The development team is paving the road for the new players to have an enjoyable, content filled experience from the get-go and to have variety of things to do from the beginning. People who have no means to get by will definitely see these quests as a useful addition.

Now, I would like to offer my own feedback and suggestions related to the issue. Thank you for listening.

The quests, as-is, are not that different from quests found in other MMORPG's. That said, I think it is quite likely that the quests will be compared to each other. What I mean, is that if in some other MMORPG quests that work like the ones in Final Fantasy XIV award experience, money, and equipment, while the quests in FFXIV only award equipment, disappointment will be inevitable. The quests function the same, but do not offer similar reward for your efforts. That is something that needs to be addressed, and there I agree with the original poster. However, our means of 'fixing' the system are different.

I see that in the latest patch 1.16, around 20-or-so sidequests were implemented. If we assume that this is roughly the normal pace of quests the development team will make available in a month's timeframe, I suggest that you shrink the total number of quests in a single patch from 20 to, say, third of that. Now, instead of implementing 20 simple quests that play like the quests in any other MMORPG out there, they would implement around 5 that are three to four times as 'good' as a normal quest. Sure enough, 5 quests is not much, but I think at this point quality is important factor when creating content for the upcoming new players, not so much quantity. Secondly, this would make the quests more drastically different from the quests found in other MMORPG's, which in turn would make the comparison between an FFXIV sidequest and another MMO's quest more even. Yes, you won't get Skill Points and there are less quests total, but they have much higher quality of storytelling and are more involving as well.

To summarize, at this point I think you have two options: Either keep the sidequests as-is and make it so you will be rewarded with skill points for your efforts just like in any other MMORPG, or you can lower the total number of quests, make the remaining quests much better to separate themselves from normal MMORPG quests and keep the reward system as-is. I, myself, would approve the latter option, but I am not saying that the former would not work. Either make the system more like the ones found in other MMORPG's and offer a huge quantity of quests, or make them better while keeping the rewards as-is.

Thank you for listening.

[Abriael]

The problem is that none of the quests are available at levels in which you're broke and really need items worth a pittance

Gil in FFXIV is very easy to get, even just doing normal guildleves and selling crystals/shards. This determines the fact that giving items that can be bought with gil (probably saving a lot of time) equals to giving a prize of little worth.

About bigger/more unique quests, they already stated that sidequests are only one kind of the quests they're going to implement. There will be different sets with different levels of breadth.

After all it's logical that they implemented first the ones that take less time to implement. Others like company quests and such (the infamous "quests that involve the danger faced by Eorzea") will come later.

[Neptune]

Progression! Give us exp and sp for questing! Don't make me slap you Yoshi-P!

[Lienn]

I personaly liked the new quests. They're pretty simple, but was the very first batch of quests and it was expected to be simple ^^

About the rewards, even thought most are "crappy", i really loved having black pearl earring and mercenary chainmail as reward. But reward isn't really important IMO...i enjoied alot "Dressed to be Killed" quest...was the first time in this game i couldn't just force brute my way out. It was a very smart quest that forced me to use strategy to complete. But all others were "meh". Hopefully next batch of quests will bring more interesting stuff.

About rewards, i do believe ir wasn't really good...i'd rather receive rewards like points to be exchanged for stuff to enhance my retainer or to be exchanged in certain shops, like if there were a "guild mark shop" for quest rewards...and could make the items on that shoping being rotative...every week day ingame having its own set of exchangable items...i bet it would be much more interesting than assigning an item you may not even want.

But my only problem regarding quests is the load of quest mobs roaming that have absolutely no use to anyone w/o the quest. I believe that one of these points would be interesting to do:

- Make them visible only to players with quest active
- Make them really normal monsters (would love it since their respawn rate is awesome...they have the respawn rate every monster should have)
- Make them not aggressive and not claimable by those w/o quest (its a shame you getting attacked by a horde of roselings in bloodshore and after all the effort to beat the 543654564345 plants down you noticining you received...nothing)

[Betelgeuzah]

Gil in FFXIV is very easy to get, even just doing normal guildleves and selling crystals/shards. This determines the fact that giving items that can be bought with gil (probably saving a lot of time) equals to giving a prize of little worth.

Honestly, leveling is so fast now that you won't get by with gil alone without having to stop to farm for money or just skip the early level equipment completely.

After all it's logical that they implemented first the ones that take less time to implement. Others like company quests and such (the infamous "quests that involve the danger faced by Eorzea") will come later.

Well, I am talking about the sidequests which players are going to compare to other MMO's quests, as they most resemble them.

[Lythan]

Everybody has valid points, but there is one thing I didn't see... what about all the rare/ex equipment drops from quests. One of the problems with the current rewards is that they are common. I loved getting gear in ffxi (even when it was worthless) that proved that I actually put the effort in to obtaining. And when the items were good, that made the quest chains worth seeking out!

[Lebannen]

The new sidequest implementation was a good addition, however you should get exp and skill points for slaying the monsters. Other than that I like them.

[RYU]

New sidequests : very good thing , but :

- cut scenes are needed , in SE tradition
- exp and skill points are necessary
- sidequests must be various , not only " go and kill xxxx monsters"

[Abriael]

New sidequests : very good thing , but :

- cut scenes are needed , in SE tradition

I'm amazed at how many have a very hazy memory of the "SE tradition". Only a minority of quests in Final Fantasy XI included cutscenes. Most of them had just scrolling text like sidequests in FFXI.

It's fairly logical that they implemented first the quests that don't include cutscenes, as making new cutscenes obviously takes more time/direction.