making quest solutions public!

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Do you think full quest solutions should be published?

yes!
19
54%
no!
7
20%
i don't care!
2
6%
there should be no quests at all (or qexp at least)!
7
20%
 
Total votes: 35

Windemere
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Windemere » 18 Sep 2014 04:53

Cherek wrote:
Windemere wrote: Brute is a way of forcing people to quest. Why do we want to force them to do anything. Lets reward them for exploring, questing, roleplaying, rather than forcing them to do it and making it a "chore."
We are also "forcing" people to randomly slaughter hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent NPCs to grow in size, which, depending who you ask is a serious "chore" too. Much more so than questing if you ask me.:)
It's fun to take one sentence out of an entire post and comment on it specifically. I think I had much more to say in my posts as you did as well.

We differ in play styles. This only enforces the need to not "force" anyone to do anything. In what I had posted I was suggesting finding a way to reward people for questing if they choose to do it but not penalize them for not. I think this allows for those who want to quest rather than kill to do so while also allowing people to kill if they choose to do that.

Windemere

Draugor
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Draugor » 18 Sep 2014 05:46

Just make quests optional, if you like questing... go for it, imo quests suck especially when they are either non functioning or changed making you spend a full fucking day solving it for not even a progress level >.< And no it aint RP if you're dredging through it yourself, who the hell wants to RP with themselves?

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Cherek
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Cherek » 18 Sep 2014 12:32

Windemere wrote:
Cherek wrote:
Windemere wrote: Brute is a way of forcing people to quest. Why do we want to force them to do anything. Lets reward them for exploring, questing, roleplaying, rather than forcing them to do it and making it a "chore."
We are also "forcing" people to randomly slaughter hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent NPCs to grow in size, which, depending who you ask is a serious "chore" too. Much more so than questing if you ask me.:)
It's fun to take one sentence out of an entire post and comment on it specifically. I think I had much more to say in my posts as you did as well.

We differ in play styles. This only enforces the need to not "force" anyone to do anything. In what I had posted I was suggesting finding a way to reward people for questing if they choose to do it but not penalize them for not. I think this allows for those who want to quest rather than kill to do so while also allowing people to kill if they choose to do that.

Windemere
Well that was the part I mainly disagreed with so I figured it was that part in your note I thought was extra interesting to discuss further, and it would be more clear what I was replying to specifically. Sorry if it felt like I ignored the rest, that was not the intention, and I definitely did not ignore the rest. I'll elaborate on your whole note below.
Windemere wrote:I think you make a good point Cherek,

While I think Cotillion was likely making his comment tongue in cheek (hard to tell on an online forum) I think there is merit to it.

We want to attract all kinds of players to the realms and this means being accommodating. You talk about wanting people to be able to discover Genesis the way we all did, which is valuable and important, but at present questing is a necessity in order to grow in the realms. You cannot just hunt and explore and kill, you MUST quest for your character to be viable.

That's challenging to do for some people and thus, we lose them when they find out they cannot enjoy the game the way they would like to. Hence my suggestion. Rather than having questing be a necessity, have it be rewarded separately. It could be through imbuements, quest only weapons that are accessed, a smithy that can be unlocked through questing, access to something else or simply experience for rapid growth over killing a bunch of stuff. Numerous ways for it to be viewed.

Brute is a way of forcing people to quest. Why do we want to force them to do anything. Lets reward them for exploring, questing, roleplaying, rather than forcing them to do it and making it a "chore."
I think you just you cant really do a game _without_ "forcing" people to play in a certain way, if you do it too general and let people do whatever they wish and be too accommodating to what you think "everyone wants", you'll lose players because of your game being to general. At some point you'll need to make a decision and go with what you feel yourself. In our case, what the wizards in charge feel like.

Also right now quests are partly optional. If you want to grow really big you probably need to finish perhaps half of then or so? Or maybe even less if you only do the big ones. Draugor is pretty big but since he's a quest-hater he's missing quite a few quests I think? Or so he told me once, correct me if I am wrong Draugor.

And you could of course still play without questing, you'll simply have to accept being smaller. And on the other hand if you don't like grinding for XP you'll have to accept being smaller too. Which is something many non-grinders do accept. With your suggestion questing becomes optional if you can live without all the "perks" from questing, but if those rewards are good enough people will feel "forced" to quest anyway since otherwise they wont have access to the super-smith, or the super cool weapon etc. If you feel you "have to" be a myth today, you'll probably "have to" have all those perks too. And if those perks are too insignificant, questing becomes meaningless instead. Also, either way you'll still need to fight. What good are all those perks if you're still got wanderer stats. So tons of combat remains non-optional. So after all the work of redoing it all we'll still end up with a similar situation as now I think?

Thats why I think only having "XP" is the best solution. And that of course means boosting the XP you get from quests. Or reducing the Xp you get from combat. So it a reasonable balance between them. Lets imagine you'd be a champion if you solved all quests in the game, and did not fight at all. (except the fighting involved in the quests). Then a player could actually decide to not grind and only quest and still have a decent mortal level. But you could also not make a single quest and just fight your way there instead.

I also think that it should be theoretically possible to recalculate the XP on our existing player base as well. Cotillion can probably answer that question better though. I am not really sure how a system with individual "perk" rewards would work on existing players? Maybe you can claim all your rewards somewhere? It sounds like it could become messy though? And we have what, 300+ quests? That's a lot of perks, quest items and other rewards to come up with, create, and perhaps in some cases items, to carry around.

There, hope you feel I answered your whole note. Now I disagree with all of it, not only a part of it.:P Nah, I don't think we really disagree that much though, we basically agree on the problem, just not the solution.

Laurel

Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Laurel » 18 Sep 2014 13:26

Rift - you reach lvl 10 questing in ca. 2h and from there on you can grow almost without breaks via PvP OR PvE OR questing OR instances - nothing forcing you to do any kind of mixing; I actually found mass PvP to be the most efficient way to level and get usable gear while doing so; if you join mass PvP or PvE the engine boosts your stats to meet the same level as the rest of the group and does the same to the enemies! this way you contribute (and get rewarded accordingly) even if you are way smaller than the biggies in team

Defiance - you follow the story line for ca. 1-2h and from there you can grow endless via PvP OR PvE OR quests/tasks OR instance -
nothing forcing you to do any kind of mixing; I found mass PvE to be the most efficient way to level and get usable gear while doing so; quests lead you by your hand; if you join mass PvP or PvE the engine boosts your stats to meet the same level as the rest of the group and does the same to the enemies! this way you contribute (and get rewarded accordingly) even if you are way smaller than the biggies in team

WoW - you leave the starting area and ... guess what ... you can really do just the same as above! However some stuff needed for progression unlocks only after questing, so that's the main difference

Aion - same shit as above, but the most efficient way to level and get usable gear is kiting mobs way bigger than yourself; you can help lowbies without any penalty for them, but with significant rewards for both sides!

For all of the above you have full quest solutions, helps, guides, addons, etc. at your hand free to use without any additional costs.

Genesis - you leave the starting area and are greeted by someone who boosts your size immediately (say 1 sweep of their beloved grind area). You are left with a huge brute requiring you to solve incoherent and sometimes extremely illogical tasks with very little and vague hints available for the next weeks to gain any further size.

I hate quests without a guide in ANY game! I don't think forcing anyone to solve riddles set by completely different people over different periods of time without any real logic and sanity-check on them is actually reasonable. I'd quit Genesis the next day after starting it if I didn't have quest files and friends to carry me around.
It's like expecting another person to paint a picture of exactly the same car you just painted - same colour, model, view, background, details - by just telling that person to "paint a picture of a car - not black, not 2 seated, not from above, not on a beach, not without tires" ... sure, I can do that. Why would you penalize me with lower reward (and it's not reversible ever!!! talking about screwed up props to gain full experience from a quest) if I do NOT end up with the same picture as yours?!?!?

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gorboth
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by gorboth » 18 Sep 2014 18:19

I agree that questing needs an overhaul. We've had discussions in the wizard ranks about it for years, and the trick is figuring out what would be a reasonable solution given the amount of work it would take to implement. The main problem is that no matter what solution we choose, the fact that we have these 300 quests created with different philosophies of game design and different standards of reward demands an overhaul if we want to make a meaningful improvement. Sure, we could just "turn off" quest experience, if we wanted to simply kill questing entirely. But if we did that, we would be making irrelevant more than half of the content wizards have toiled to create over the years. Quests are the stories of Genesis, in terms of in-game lore, and they have been lovingly crafted over the last 25 years by many (variably) creative and talented artists. It is one of the primary offerings of our game. What questing deserves is to be carefully gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and brought to a global standard of quality and reward. To do this, we would need a few of the players in the game who have done all (or most) of the quests to create wizard characters to help take on this task. I invite them to consider this.

G.
Mmmmmm ... pie ...

Draugor
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Draugor » 19 Sep 2014 19:32

Aye Windy, I have quite a few left to do, I have however been forced to do 70-80ish% of the quests in the game, and hating every moment of it, my size comes from ALOT of grinding, and I'm quite certain that if quests where to be made optional (add some other cash/gear rewards added to the qexp) we'd prolly have alot more newbies in the game and possibly alot of the older players aswell, I mean lets take... Monica, she was decent sized before, she comes back, sees that shes... well lets face it, shit. Now she has to quest wich sucks ass especially if you have lost the questdoc or if you like her las I saw is a goblin rda and thus you are unable to do quite a few big quests if you want to be able to get some size for competing with the others.

That would put anyone of from returning tbh

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gorboth
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by gorboth » 19 Sep 2014 19:39

I've gotten a few people who are interested in helping with a global initiative to revise and improve our problems with questing in Genesis since my post above. I took some time to analyze the situation and develop a proposal based on many of the things that have been discussed by wizards on this topic over the years, and the current issues that I hear most often from players.

What this will need to succeed will be hard work by player volunteers. I'd like to develop the team mentioned in item #I below. Please contact me if you are interested.

Also, I'll answer questions in this thread if any of the below doesn't make sense. Some of it is "wiz-speak" regarding how certain things are done behind the curtain. I think this is very possible, but will not be quick. I figure its worth doing right, so lets see if we have some hard-working volunteers who agree who are willing to step up.

G.

Code: Select all

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                             Quest Revision Proposal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   I. Commission a team of experienced questers (who do not necessarily
      need to be wizards) to go through each quest, by domain, using the
      orbs as a reference, and produce:

           A. A list of design improvements needed to address issues of:
                   1. Syntax
                   2. Sufficient clues needed to solve
                   3. Disruption potential (can it be ruined?)
                   4. Availablility (once per Arma = problem)
                   5. Exclusivity (ideally, all players have access)
                   6. Death Traps (justifiable, but RARELY)
                   7. Variable reward (penalizing players because they
                          didn't do it "right" is just maddening)

           B. Up-to-date solution (runthrough) documentation for each quest
              once implementation of the above improvemens has transpired.
              These will not be made public, but are important to have on-
              hand for wizard reference.

           C. A suggestion for the correct amount of qxp reward based on
              some global rubric. A well-considered rubric has been
              developed by Tapakah at: /w/gorboth/open/qxp_rubric.txt

      Nota Bene: It will be necessary to share wiz-info with players
                 on this team to achieve certain goals, which will be
                 considered acceptable for the greater good.

  II. Commission a team of wizards to implement the design changes needed
      for each quest. 

 III. Create an AoE module that stores the correct amount of qxp that has
      been awarded to any player (by name) for events.

  IV. Change game design to remove entirety of a player's qxp at logout.

   V. Expand quest-orb tech to:
            A. Store revised qxp reward amounts for each quest.
            B. When a player logs in:
                    1. Check their quest bits for each domain
                    2. Add qxp for each solved quest.
                    3. Add qxp based on the AoE event module.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This design has many implications. Among them:

   - Equality is achieved among old and new players in that rewards for
     quests that no longer exist are removed, and unequal amounts based
     on modifiers of the past no longer persist.

   - A new modifier that we choose to apply would affect all players,
     not just for those quests they do in the future, but also those
     they have done in the past. 

   - Quests could become a true alternative to grinding, becoming
     worth vastly more than they are currently. There would be no
     need for a cap to qxp.

   - We could remove brutality.

   - Potential exists (though would need to be thought through) of the
     ability to transfer solution of quests between officially registered
     alts. In this way, players who dislike questing could benefit from
     having done them on one character, and having the chance to 
     transfer that accomplishment to others, perhaps as a reward for
     time spent in the game, or some other incentive-builder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                   Submitted September, 2014, by Gorboth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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cotillion
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by cotillion » 22 Sep 2014 15:57

Windemere wrote: While I think Cotillion was likely making his comment tongue in cheek (hard to tell on an online forum) I think there is merit to it.
I'm very serious.

I've been pushing for getting rid of brutality for atleast 10 years and I have simple solution which could be implemented quickly.
But it seems like other wizards dislike simple solutions. :)

Laurel

Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by Laurel » 22 Sep 2014 16:18

http://youtu.be/kNRWvabBRDc

what actually makes people play games (yeah, the example used is WoW, but works for other games too)

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cotillion
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Re: making quest solutions public!

Post by cotillion » 22 Sep 2014 16:28

Laurel wrote:http://youtu.be/kNRWvabBRDc
what actually makes people play games (yeah, the example used is WoW, but works for other games too)
Yeah. But that's a bit off-topic.

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