About Quest XP

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Cherek
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Cherek » 27 May 2020 11:44

Zhar: Like I said in my post just before this one, it's not possible to know if players got full or partial rewards for the variable quests. Yes, such quests could be adjusted so all new players don't end up with the same problem. But then again, it's a big job to go through our quest to identify and fix them - and it would not help anyone who's already done it. Letting people redo it simply wont work either, since then we'd first have to remove the correct amount of QXP from the player, and we just don't know if players got partial or full rewards, so the problem remains.

While I agree there are some problems with some quests, and that the variable QXP system used on some quests (I don't think it's that many) isn't good, I don't think the quest system as a whole is as problematic as you do. I think the amount of work needed to fix these things would only end up being a small improvement to the game experience, and I think there are other things we can spend all that time and effort on. Like I've said before, doing adjustments to individual quests to improve story / logic / syntax, and maybe adjust the rewards (if they're static and the reward is way off compared to the effort) could be doable. But redoing the whole quest system does not really feel like a good use of our limited resources, I think it's fine to keep things as they are for now.

Tarlok
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Tarlok » 27 May 2020 13:41

Well I'm not a wizard, but fixing crappy old quests that give too little exp seems relatively easy to me by changing the quest to use a new quest bit (this is the flag that tracks who did what quest) and upping the reward to what the current appropriate level is. New players solve the quest and get the nice new reward and are happy (sure beats the old crappy reward!). Old players solve the quest again, because its its a new bit and seems like a new quest to the old players, and they get a nice reward for solving the quest again. Sure, the old player has a tiny bit more exp than new player, but old reward sucked anyways and was relatively insignificant. Everyone is better off than before the quest was fixed.

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Cherek
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Cherek » 27 May 2020 17:39

Tarlok wrote:
27 May 2020 13:41
Well I'm not a wizard, but fixing crappy old quests that give too little exp seems relatively easy to me by changing the quest to use a new quest bit (this is the flag that tracks who did what quest) and upping the reward to what the current appropriate level is. New players solve the quest and get the nice new reward and are happy (sure beats the old crappy reward!). Old players solve the quest again, because its its a new bit and seems like a new quest to the old players, and they get a nice reward for solving the quest again. Sure, the old player has a tiny bit more exp than new player, but old reward sucked anyways and was relatively insignificant. Everyone is better off than before the quest was fixed.
Sure, it's possible, but if we do this for a bunch of quests, the accumulated "tiny bit more XP" won't be so tiny. I really don't like giving a permanent advantage to some players just because they started playing earlier. And even if it's technically just a small advantage, players will likely hear of this and be discouraged simply because they know they missed out on something, and that older players have something they can never get.

Like I mentioned before, I think it makes more sense to just "fill up" the missing XP for those who already did the quest (as long as it is a static quest, which the majoity of poorly rewarding quests likely are). There are several ways to accomplish this. It could simply be some sort of check on login, a manual command you do at the orbs, or perhaps you need to redo the quest. Either way, this has the same effect as the one you proposed, but it's completely fair to all players, old and new.

If a wizard with the required skills and access wants to try to tackle this I absolutely think it's worth considering. However, I personallly don't feel it's a high-priority project right now, and not something I plan to try to "push". I think we have a number of other more urgent issues that would have a bigger positive impact if fixed.

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Zhar
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Zhar » 27 May 2020 18:18

Cherek wrote:
27 May 2020 11:44
Zhar: Like I said in my post just before this one, it's not possible to know if players got full or partial rewards for the variable quests. Yes, such quests could be adjusted so all new players don't end up with the same problem. But then again, it's a big job to go through our quest to identify and fix them - and it would not help anyone who's already done it. Letting people redo it simply wont work either, since then we'd first have to remove the correct amount of QXP from the player, and we just don't know if players got partial or full rewards, so the problem remains.
I think changing them to static rewards would be beneficial anyway. This problem disappears for anyone who will do the quest from this point onwards. It will persist for people who got partial reward but that's something they'll just have to accept and move on. I still think such a change would not be insignificant and would prevent a lot of headaches down the road and be in general beneficial for almost everyone.

We could also get some info from the domains that have variable qxp stating how much qxp you're actually missing if you skip on some parts (not in numbers, just simple statement like it's a lot of exp or just a little).

For example, on one of my chars I've found disks of mishakal just lying on the ground so I went and turned it in (you don't look a gifted horse in the mouth when you're apprentice). Did I miss like 2 fantas on that or slight progrees in qxp? Would be good to know.
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Drazson
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Drazson » 27 May 2020 21:44

Since you both say varied quests are a problem to calculate, just don't start with them. I don't have a cheatsheet (or access to one I guess) but take the sheet, see the lowest rewarding quest that is not variable in any way, add some xp to it or double or whatever. Or take awesome quests (I vote for the ferret tags quest, I don't think it's variable?) and buff those.

If Wizards agree that the current situation is a bit too harsh brute-wise (which I assumed the opposite), it seems like it's a system that can be steadily improved in a kind of straightforward way.

Targun
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Targun » 28 May 2020 02:50

For once, I'm really not convinced about actual value the quests bring to the game. All players do almost all quests from cheat sheets. It's no wonder wizards don't want to code new ones. It takes a lot of effort which will not be appreciated. People will just rush through it as soon as the solution is published. (In all fairness wizards did leak most of quests themselves and either way - it's not possible to police it).

Yes, there will be those few players that actually enjoy questing very much; looking for clues and discovering the surroundings. The rest of them however, will complete the quests because they have to. Especially when there are so many on Genesis that it becomes tedious (alts anyone?). Not to mention many of them are half broken, while others will grant you less XP if you don't do them in a "proper way".
  • You found the golden sewing needle lying on the ground in the sewing room? Too bad... oh so too bad... you only get 1/2 of the XP available. You were supposed to go to building X, ask this specific set of questions and then examine the the barn, examine door, examine hinges, examine loosen hinge, loosen hinge further, examine further loosened hinge, remove excess tar with rag by the fork, examine cleaned further loosened hinge, examine golden sewing niddle, pry golden sewing needle
It's not Minas Tirith or any other area that's the issue, it's that qXP cap is set way too high. It should've been at around 70%-80% of _currently_ available quests. This way you can choose what quests you want to do on which character. You can maintain character integrity, without bending over and backwards and just enjoy the experience, without worrying that you have not examined every single thing thin the room, or did not hit some checkpoint, and simply stop to smell the roses without any pressure.

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Cherek
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Cherek » 28 May 2020 11:48

I am all for fixing any half-broken, align-restricted, and variable reward quests. I honestly don't think we have too many of either, but a big part of the job is simply identifying which ones need fixing. Sure, lowering the quest cap could be one way of "covering up" the issues instead of fixing them, and work-wise it's of course much easier. There's some negative side effects though. For example players who did spend a lot of time to get an edge in brutality suddenly lose it and become more brutal (and will likely not be happy), and new players will struggle to grow as big as old players since they will suffer from more brutality. But I'll admit it is an interesting idea...

I wonder if we could do something else for those who DO finish all quests? Perhaps some other kind of more cosmetic reward or something...?

Yeren
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Yeren » 28 May 2020 23:00

This became quite a thread, wow.

I don’t think q-cap should be modified or quests bits reset. This would give some players an edge which newer will never cover.

Also I’d like to point out you don’t really need all quests. I still have about 30 left, but still was able to make it to top10 in the ranks. So no - quests are not the end of the world :)

I am for one a character who dislikes questing - MOSTLY. Why? I died too many times... my last two deaths (actually one double) were because I tried solving a goodie-restricted quest with my evil char.
This happens time and again. And the solution “make all goodie quests and go bad” won’t really work for a character 20 years old...

So my 2cc: please enable align-restricted quests for all. Some of the quests are a PLEASURE to solve. Even despite my hatered for example - I actually LOVED all the “new” (all besides the first 8q) in Sparkle! They are absolutely brilliantly written.
These were the only quests I didn’t use “help” to solve... perhaps the align restricted ones (MT) will be fun, too? After all, they are fairly new, too.

Chanele
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Chanele » 29 May 2020 10:23

I dont really see the problem here...

Why not just keep cap as it is? Dont raise it when new quests is introduced, dont raise it when low rewarded static quests are adjusted. Eventually you will not "have" to do all quests but rather choose which ones and you can still reach the cap.

Also, add combat/general experience in portion with amount of quest xp recieved, will make questing alot more fun for youngsters,

Targun
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Re: About Quest XP

Post by Targun » 30 May 2020 03:14

Cherek wrote:
28 May 2020 11:48
[...] There's some negative side effects though. For example players who did spend a lot of time to get an edge in brutality suddenly lose it and become more brutal (and will likely not be happy), and new players will struggle to grow as big as old players since they will suffer from more brutality. But I'll admit it is an interesting idea...
Maybe those negative side effects don't need to apply (or do they)? For the argument's sake, if cap was to be lowered to 70%(7/10), then the value counted towards brutality could be increased by 10/7.
Cherek wrote:
28 May 2020 11:48
I wonder if we could do something else for those who DO finish all quests? Perhaps some other kind of more cosmetic reward or something...?
I wanted to touch on this in my previous post as well. Perhaps even beyond cosmetics. The (rather uncrystallized) ideas that were banging around my head were:
Trade qXP above cap for tokens. Some spending examples:
-imbue stones (maybe certain imbues could be unique for tokens)
-craft npcs that could create powerful items for player and/or guild (bonus social aspect)
-shady/holy npc, where you could purchase some top-notch items already existing in the game

Cosmetics - short/long appearances changes, items with emotes, titles and whats not.
Utilities- item that can be enhanced with more tokens invested in it, with unique short term powers such us: significant boost to resistance against chosen school of magic, physical resistance, dmg boost, ports to preset or player chosen location and so on, so forth.
Every newly completed quest above cap, could rewards n-times experience as GeneralXP

The idea is to keep quests (including weekly Sparkle mini-quests) still desirable, but at the same time not break immersion and character integrity, or force people into doing something they thoroughly not enjoy. At the same time, open some new ways or mechanics to be added. They can be added with time, while not having to back-track and correct possibly dozens if not hundreds of quests and adjust - likely outdated - code.
Chanele wrote:
29 May 2020 10:23
I dont really see the problem here...

Why not just keep cap as it is? Dont raise it when new quests is introduced, dont raise it when low rewarded static quests are adjusted. Eventually you will not "have" to do all quests but rather choose which ones and you can still reach the cap.

Also, add combat/general experience in portion with amount of quest xp recieved, will make questing alot more fun for youngsters,
It's certainly an option as well. Though new things appear on genesis at somewhat steady pace, so before any noticeable effects (from player perspective) take place it may take another decade or so ;)

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