Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jul 4, 2018 17:17:45 GMT -6
The current state
I have some problems with the way quests were handled in the beta - to the point where I'd rather have no quests at all.
So this lady just lost her loved ones and the first thing she really wants is you just killing random mobs as an act of revenge... What the hell...
I mean, we're not even talking about specific enemies that have killed her loved ones. These are just any mobs of the same type!
This makes absolutely no sense to me and on top of that they are just plain boring quests. The lamest run-of-the-mill type of quests in the book! Killing an enemy type a bunch of times does not feel like I'm finishing a quest. It has no interactions distinguishing it from regular gameplay. I'd just go off and kill monsters on my way anyway. Why is there a quest for this? The rewards for these quests are just as pointless as the quests themselves and can be obtained through other means so in my run I didn't even bother after I beat the first one. It isn't even worth coming back to her after playing around for a bit and accidentally finishing quests through means of normal gameplay. These quests are totally devoid of meaning or player agency.
Now... enough ranting! Let me propose a different way of presenting similar quests that I think makes a lot more sense both in a narrative and ludic way:
A new model for quests
So she lost her relatives right? Okay, solid story to begin with. Let's say a quest works like this: Story: she wants you to go to the place where demons have captured or killed someone she cared about. The deceased body is still there and she wants you to retrieve it so it can be buried. The demons who killed her relative are also still present. She wants you to kill these demons too - this is out of a thirst for revenge but now it makes sense because these are the exact demons that killed the person she cared about. When you get back to her (either with the body or with the message that you buried the body on the spot), she has a good reason to be grateful and even give you something personal that would be impossible or hard to retrieve through other means.
Gameplay-wise the mission would be separated into four parts: Story, Exploration, Combat and Reward & Closure.
Story: She tells you about what happened to her relative and about the monsters who did this. This doesn't only inform you about what you're going to fight but also adds player motivation through the narrative element. Done well, this could lead to the player feeling the need for revenge themselves because they now know something about the deceased one.
Exploration: The player receives a description of where to search for the demons to kill. This could be a room anywhere on the map. A marker on the map would be fine too but I'd like a good description more as it fosters true exploration as opposed to just going to a well defined point on the map. The player can go out and find the described room for themselves. If the player enters the room before the quest is activated, it's just a normal room. If the player enters with the quest activated, this is where the Combat phase starts.
Combat: This one is significantly different from the way it's currently handled in that specific exciting and challenging encounters with a set amount of enemies in the same room at the same time can be crafted. Kill 8 Mortes? Easy. Boring, in fact. Kill 8 Mortes surrounding you all at once? Now that's a bit more of a challenge! I imagine that the door would close behind the player once they enter the combat room. It would be similar to the way this was done in the PS2 Castlevanias in numerous areas. Once all enemies are dead, the player gets a message that a quest has been fulfilled and the deceased one can now rest in peace. This ushers in the final phase of Reward & Closure.
Reward & Closure: The player returns to the questgiver. As you tell them about avenging her loved one and giving them peace there are three kinds of reward for the quest:
- Narrative reward - the questgiver now has a proper reason to be grateful and express her gratefulness to the player.
- Item reward - the questgiver gives the player a hard-to-obtain or unique item with a story to it, making it feel special.
- Gameplay reward - the next mission is now unlocked starting the cycle again, giving you more interesting missions like this with added challenges.
As an aside: the final relative on the list could still be alive so the last quest unexpectedly becomes a rescue mission. The saved relative can then be another person in the village to give you quests of a different kind. This would also provide some additional closure to the story arc of this questline.
Advantages of this model: - It makes sense narratively
- It's more motivating both for story and gameplay reasons
- It has a proper dramatic story arc for each quest
- It isn't THAT much more work than the current system (a bit more work to set up the specific encounters and decide on rooms but the benefit is worth it)
- It rewards and encourages exploration
- It sets up specific, exciting combat situations that you wouldn't have during regular gameplay
- It rewards the player in many ways
Thank you for reading!
Do you too have issues with the current system? Is this just me? How do you like my proposed model? How could the model be improved? Share your thoughts!
|
|
inherit
2754
0
Jul 17, 2018 12:41:45 GMT -6
9
tekrelm
34
Jun 30, 2018 15:40:47 GMT -6
June 2018
tekrelm
|
Post by tekrelm on Jul 4, 2018 19:55:55 GMT -6
I completely agree! The quests in the demo right now do feel like placeholders, so I presumed there was still a lot about how they are supposed to work that we can't surmise from the demo. I hope they're planning to head in this sort of direction with them before the game releases. In fact, I realize now that I was pretty much counting on it: if the game came out with the quests as they are, I'd have been quite disappointed. I suppose the reason I expected them to change was because of the quests in Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia. It's been too long since I replayed either of those brilliant games, but I remember the quests being a lot more interesting than what we got in the Bloodstained demo so far. Regardless, I would be very happy with the quests if they used the template you've laid out here.  Edit: I know it's sort of frowned upon to admit to looking to other games in the genre for inspiration, but I can't help but think of Diablo 3 in regards to the way they do quests. They have more than just quest givers in town, they also have people and things that you run into out in the world that start little events. What if... you come across a huge, locked treasure chest, and slumped over it is a corpse dressed like a thief, and he's holding a journal. The journal says something like "I finally found the key to the chest; I managed to swipe it off of that giant minotaur-looking demon in the Castle Entrance. Now I just need to wait until the coast is clear before I make my move on the chest; I gotta get the treasure without being seen, or I'll be killed." Miriam would then comment, saying, "He doesn't have the key on him. That demon must have reclaimed it." Then you get a quest to venture to the Castle Entrance, find the special monster somewhere in the zone, kill it, retrieve the key, and then return to the chest to get the loot within. Another quest idea: you enter a room that you may have even been in before, but you find a woman in a cage calling for help. Demons surround her, poking at her with spears. When you start attacking the demons, they call for help, and the exits to the room are temporarily sealed. You have to fight off a few waves of enemies that spawn into the room, and when you've cleared them all out, you open the cage and receive a reward. Miriam will tell her to get back to the safety of town, and she runs off, presumably to make it back safely, even though you'll never see her again, and she probably died. You know, stuff like that. I think that would be cool! |
|
caer
New Blood
Posts: 76
inherit
986
0
Jul 8, 2020 0:30:05 GMT -6
67
caer
76
Dec 22, 2015 2:27:51 GMT -6
December 2015
caer
|
Post by caer on Jul 4, 2018 23:16:48 GMT -6
That is an amazing idea and I fully support it 1000%.
Much like you and many others I was also very bothered by the quest structure. Like, the quests make kiiiiiiind of sense from a story perspective, but they are not interesting at all. Taking hem out so as not to draw attention to such lackluster quests would be better than this for the game's reception.
I was thinking that it would be nice to have quests work more like achievements, so that they force you to try weird ways to play the game, or peform specific combat feats. I think that could work from a gameplay perspective, but it would make zero story sense to receive that kind of quest from someone.
But your idea would instead make quests a vehicle for really interesting and potentially difficult combat scenarios, that are still fully optional. I for one would love that as I think it is something the Igavania games have generally lacked.
The only things needed is to make sure that quests have some form of difficulty marking and can be cancelled/take place in rooms with no other player benefit. This is because otherwise low skill players might forced to miss out on some exploration aspect due to not being good enough to finish a difficult quest.
|
|
Yän
Herald of the Moon
Loyal Familiar
Posts: 476
inherit
Herald of the Moon
1316
0
Jan 2, 2022 8:01:36 GMT -6
415
Yän
476
Jun 12, 2016 6:59:44 GMT -6
June 2016
yaen
|
Post by Yän on Jul 5, 2018 2:35:04 GMT -6
What if... you come across a huge, locked treasure chest, and slumped over it is a corpse dressed like a thief, and he's holding a journal. The journal says something like "I finally found the key to the chest; I managed to swipe it off of that giant minotaur-looking demon in the Castle Entrance. Now I just need to wait until the coast is clear before I make my move on the chest; I gotta get the treasure without being seen, or I'll be killed." Miriam would then comment, saying, "He doesn't have the key on him. That demon must have reclaimed it." Then you get a quest to venture to the Castle Entrance, find the special monster somewhere in the zone, kill it, retrieve the key, and then return to the chest to get the loot within. I love this idea. It makes for a feeling of great anticipation as you're eager to see what may be in that mysterious chest. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! |
|
inherit
1711
0
Aug 1, 2019 16:08:29 GMT -6
32
yulia11
155
Sept 5, 2016 21:46:04 GMT -6
September 2016
yulia11
|
Post by yulia11 on Jul 5, 2018 5:57:46 GMT -6
I wouldn't mind special sanarios, enhanced enemies and even mini-bosses. Just imagine a few axe knights suddenly jump into the room and try to throw their axe at you while the one to your immediately left attempt to swing. You can, of course, use your tentacle shard to make short work of them but at the same time they can easily mess you up. Or this lion enemies that is quicker has a bigger sword who ate her husband that you need to track down, who will caually one shot a low level Miraam.
|
|
inherit
2540
0
Jul 11, 2018 0:06:51 GMT -6
11
bloodful
16
Jun 3, 2018 6:17:57 GMT -6
June 2018
bloodful
|
Post by bloodful on Jul 5, 2018 6:45:06 GMT -6
I completely agree and also support this idea 1000%! I wish to see more narrative to the quests and more meaningful rewards - I rather they do away with the "kill 8 Morte - type quests with trivial rewards" all together. It's also a great way to create side stories simply by making a seemingly straight forward quest into a quest chain; eg. you avenge the fallen family members only to find that one of the slain family members was part of a suspicious organization, which upon further quests/investigations turns out to be a demon worshiping cult. The quest can continue to expand from there to become bigger and more serious side story! Most importantly I see this as a very economical way to increase content since: - As you have suggested this model allows for otherwise ordinary rooms that already exist to seamlessly become challenge rooms.
- Is also a great opportunity here to make ordinary monsters with unique attributes/behaviours/stats making them mini mob-bosses. This provides additional challenge by using the quest as context without greatly increasing the amount of programming involved or having to even to change the mob's visuals much/at all.
Hope the devs see this and share what they think! |
|
inherit
1881
0
Oct 29, 2019 17:44:00 GMT -6
449
freddythemonkey
489
May 23, 2017 4:59:35 GMT -6
May 2017
freddythemonkey
|
Post by freddythemonkey on Jul 5, 2018 10:13:35 GMT -6
I absolutely agree. I brought up this point in my feedback thread.
Quest should make sense and evolve from the old model - and even in the past these sorts of quest USUALLY (I may misremember something) had a bit more sense narratively. If I recall right, in OoE the lady that gavr you killing quests said something like "The crows are causing problems, kill X of them to reduce their population". Not at all complex, but better than "Morte killed my husband, go kill some random Mortes to avenge him". Like, why 8 Mortes? Why random ones?
|
|
Nezuto
Master Alchemist
Welcome to my world....
Posts: 662
inherit
238
0
Jun 18, 2024 3:35:49 GMT -6
510
Nezuto
Welcome to my world....
662
Jul 8, 2015 12:18:42 GMT -6
July 2015
nezuto
|
Post by Nezuto on Jul 5, 2018 10:28:47 GMT -6
OoE had a really decent quest system to it. Was kind of hoping something like that can be done with Bloodstained. The cooking/forging/go kill stuff all had a decent feel to it, most of the mats were a grind to get(not always a bad thing) or only dropped from a unique mob that had special reqs to access (anyone up for some curry?). Not to mention having to actively backtrack/progress further, in order to find some of the mobs that would need killing. Going to assume that what we have, currently, is just placeholder material, mostly and that everything will start toning out a lot more as we advance the beta. (Not counting all of us that have managed to sneak into the other portions of the GoS)
|
|
yey