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Experience gain for questing and why it is a design flaw.
qombi
Member UncommonPosts: 1,170
World of Warcraft changed the MMORPG genre in subtle ways. They used past MMORPG design and made some minor changes. I will first say I loved the original World of Warcraft game, I dislike the expansions but that is another topic. I admit that. I also started playing MMORPGs with Everquest and loved it as well untill certain expansions.
Thought here is the game flaw that was mainstreamed with World of Warcraft, experience gain for quest turn ins. I will explain why this is flawed and this has nothing to do with how fast leveling is or is not. That is independent of this topic.
Great experience gains for quest turn ins produce linear game play and limits player freedom. Sure quest can still be in a game but I say for items only. Experience should be gained by killing things. Quest should be optional not mandatory to level the same speed as others. Experience gains from quest promote short group times and player's not grouping in general. This is due to not having the current quest or the player concerned about being on a different quest, and players finishing the quest being worked on by the group and then disbanding.
Not having experience gain for quest would promote freedom to group with whoever is your level at any location and not having to worry with what quest do I have to do next, or what quest does this person have etc etc. I am not advocating slow xp gain for anyone that I may be scaring. The xp gain from killing monsters could be adjusted to the same rate as currently but only with the quest being optional quest for gear, gold, items etc.
Imagine picking up only quest you want but then seeing a group is in a neat place you would like to try but you have no quest there. Well it would not matter because xp would be the same, you just wouldn't get that item you wanted at this time. At one point in MMO history people were forced to group and people hated being forced to do these things.
Well now people are forced to do another thing and that is quest. Let's fix this devs!
Comments
The two sandbox games I play Eve and Ryzom don't give XP/SP for completing quests.
I actually prefer it that way.
It keeps quests as an optional game mechanic since you only recieve Currency/Items on completion.
It doesn't make any sense to me to be honest.
If your playing WoW you get Xp for killing, why do you need Xp for quest completion?
It just feels more realistic the way ryzom and Eve do it over what WoW offers.
I understand that a NPC can pay you with money or items for a job well done but how does he give you XP to be better at your class? you should get that as you do the quest (Killing/Exploring)
Anyway I agree OP
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
You're entire argument assumes a game without experience via questing would be less linear, which is wrong. WoW, as in other games who don't use heavy questing, your still put down a defined linear path determined by your level. A level 1 character in WoW can no more kill a level 30 mob, just as in EQ1 a level 1 player can no more kill a level 30 mob.
Edit:
I did ignore the group part of your argument. However, that part of your argument is flawed too, because you're either going to find people who want to group for fun, or those who want to group for leveling. Those that group for fun will be more than happy to work quests till you're both at the same level, those who do it for leveling will have the same problems finding groups in a quest-based game versus a grind-based game.
I would be fine with a game that has ZERO questing. That's right, cut out all the NPC's and all their stupid stories that dont' change the game world.
Well, not ALL the NPC's, leave in some shop keepers, but they buy and sell yuou stuff, they don't ask you to go collect 20 beetle tongues, or take their old shoe to Mr. Fizzywinkle in the next town.
Here's the only quests I'd put in. "Bring me X,Y, and Z and I'll give you a cool item".
And those pop up about every 5 levels. That's it.
Well...you're in the minority. The very concept of Role Playing games is based on questiing. Whether killing X os something or slaying a dragon or rescuing a princess...quest, quest, quest.
Actually you're right and wrong.
Roleplaying games are based on Quests. However, RPG"s are based on Quests that change the world.
Play a paper n pencil game. You kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and stays dead.
Play a single player RPG, you kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and he stays dead.
But play an MMORPG, and kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he gets up so the next player can kill him. And don't get me started on phasing in WoW, that's not changing the game world at all, it's just an illusion the game world is changing.
So until quests changes the gameworld. Just get rid of them, they are a waste of time, and I won't bother to read the stories since they don't matter.
Actually you're right and wrong.
Roleplaying games are based on Quests. However, RPG"s are based on Quests that change the world.
Play a paper n pencil game. You kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and stays dead.
Play a single player RPG, you kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and he stays dead.
But play an MMORPG, and kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he gets up so the next player can kill him. And don't get me started on phasing in WoW, that's not changing the game world at all, it's just an illusion the game world is changing.
So until quests changes the gameworld. Just get rid of them, they are a waste of time, and I won't bother to read the stories since they don't matter.
Everybody can't change the world in a MMO on any grand scale in an everyday manner. That concept has been dubunked since forever. Its funny how Bliizard is the only developer to actually attempt it with their phasing tech, yet they catch the most slack from the ankle biters...like you=) An illusion of changing the world is better than nothing. Its simply a HUGE waste of resources to create quality content that can only be completed by 1 player or 1 group of players. Its not feasible. 10k different players on 1 server simply can NOT effect the gameworld in any meaningful way if the developer expects any sort of consistent gameplay experience. If they throw out the rulebook and just tell players "screw YOU", it can be done, but then no one will play your game;) They log off for a few days and the quest can't be finished. An NPC vital to a quest gets killed, so the quest can't be finished. One player changes something vital to another quest another player is on, so that quest can't be finished, which trickles down. It cant work.
Or, throw content out the window like Eve, so the developers don't have to actually create anything besides a shell. Let the players make everything up. Then again, we all know that always turns out badly.
However, grinding mobs for XP does not change the world either so by that standard is just a big waste of time as well.
I always considered the 'grind mobs for XP' model to be a big design flaw in MMORPGs. It is really just a placeholder in places where the devs did not have the resources to put real content.
Frankly I would just get rid of XP altogether and instead replace it with a quest/reputation/achievement system where new levels, skills and gear open up as you complete tasks or series of tasks. So instead of 'proving' to the game that you are ready for more options by amassing a set number of XP, you would do so by doing a related task first. eg. in order to learn swords you first have to show that you can kill things with a club, if you want to train to use the Inferno spell you fist have to become proficient in Fireball and Scorch.
I'd prefer that experience gain not be given for killing, but only for questing. If experience is given only for killing, that encourages players to find the one type of mob that you can kill the fastest, and then kill hundreds or thousands of them to gain a few levels, then move on to the next. That is insanely repetitive, and makes for terrible gameplay.
By contrast, if experience is given only for questing, that might encourage players to kill ten of one mob, then 20 of another, then 15 of the next, and so forth. That keeps players moving around, and introduces a lot more variety into the routine.
If the goal is to make a game group-friendly, then either experience for killing or experience for questing are both doing it all wrong. The key is to make experience not matter, so that anyone can group with anyone else, rather than being stuck many levels apart. Puzzle Pirates does this, and Guild Wars comes pretty close.
I think the trick is having tasks to do or jobs so to speak with the epic quests thrown in for good measure or not at all.
Say if there is a merchant and he needs the 10 pelts from the wolf. He will pay you 1 gold per 10 pelts for a max of 5 sets. That is basically you job that should keep you grinding away. The blacksmith need copper and tin and will pay 50 copper per ore or ingot. Or Fed Ex missions taking transport jobs (Maybe escorting caravans of cargo to different towns).
I think that is where the tasking or jobs will work the best without actual questing. Kind of like SWG of old with the mission terminal.
(starting to like this idea of jobs)
Or how about,
Epic tasks where you find precious gems in dungeons. Like in Oblivion where you find (i forget the name of the jewl) the X jewl. Then you get contacted by a third party saying how they found out you had it and they would like you to search for more. If you find so many you get the reward (of money).
I think it might work best of jobs only gave money and armor, weapon, jewlery came from crafters.
Posted by Josher on 2/25/09 at 1:20:57 PM
Originally posted by Ihmotepp
Originally posted by spikenog
Well...you're in the minority. The very concept of Role Playing games is based on questiing. Whether killing X os something or slaying a dragon or rescuing a princess...quest, quest, quest.
Actually you're right and wrong.
Roleplaying games are based on Quests. However, RPG"s are based on Quests that change the world.
Play a paper n pencil game. You kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and stays dead.
Play a single player RPG, you kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he is dead, and he stays dead.
But play an MMORPG, and kill the evil Hill Bandit leader, and he gets up so the next player can kill him. And don't get me started on phasing in WoW, that's not changing the game world at all, it's just an illusion the game world is changing.
So until quests changes the gameworld. Just get rid of them, they are a waste of time, and I won't bother to read the stories since they don't matter.
Everybody can't change the world in a MMO on any grand scale in an everyday manner. That concept has been dubunked since forever. Its funny how Bliizard is the only developer to actually attempt it with their phasing tech, yet they catch the most slack from the ankle biters...like you=) An illusion of changing the world is better than nothing. Its simply a HUGE waste of resources to create quality content that can only be completed by 1 player or 1 group of players. Its not feasible. 10k different players on 1 server simply can NOT effect the gameworld in any meaningful way if the developer expects any sort of consistent gameplay experience. If they throw out the rulebook and just tell players "screw YOU", it can be done, but then no one will play your game;) They log off for a few days and the quest can't be finished. An NPC vital to a quest gets killed, so the quest can't be finished. One player changes something vital to another quest another player is on, so that quest can't be finished, which trickles down. It cant work.
Or, throw content out the window like Eve, so the developers don't have to actually create anything besides a shell. Let the players make everything up. Then again, we all know that always turns out badly.
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I See no reason why you can't have individualized quests for players, "quests" or whatever you want to call them, could be created by players. Look at craigslist, that works, someone posts a job, you do it, you get rewarded.
And if a team of GMs can keep creating new shit to do then your game has failed in my eyes.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I think a worse example of giving too much XP for quests is LoTRO.......When I was level 36 I was bored and decided to kill mobs for a couple hours while I was talking to a friend on the phone.......I lost count of how many monsters I killed but it was well over 100.....I got less than 10% of my next level.......Soon after a did a fed ex quest....Simply run this item to another town.......I got 25 percent XP for it........Now which one should have made my character better??......And this was my beef most of the time in LoTRO.......It was way too quest driven and simply lost alot of its luster because of that.......Combat was stale and boring for the most part and the animations were lacking........It just seemed like the playerbase accepted that this was how the game was played and that was that.........
Questing is the future because grinding XP is fucking boring. I loved SWG to bits but I couldn't start doing them fucking picket missions over and over and over and over again! I wanted to be doign story driven Star Wars quests instead. Just a shame that when they delivered that, the NGE happened and it wasn't really Star Warsy.... like the Legacy quests is so far away from anyhting Star Wars.
ToR should be interesting because it seems like they're pushing the questing and story driven content and hopefully then we'll have single player story experiences in mmorpgs. I'd rather go on an Epic adventure with my friends to stop Darth Vader or whatever and blow up the death star in a massive Kotor long quest chain, than sit and grind on frigging mobs for XP.
Tbh I don't care for XP or gaining levels.
/total agreement
Grinding mobs is only boring if it's predictable and risk-free.
Introduce to "risk" (say a stinging death penalty) and some random stuff (say a high level wandering mob like a giant or griffin that slowly cruises around the zone) and suddenly grinding mobs becomes very interesting.
I never got bored of grinding mobs in EQ1, it was always sort of scary. I did get frustrated with the uber slow rate of experience gain, but that's an entirely different issue that a dev can correct very easily.
grinding quests is fucking boring too. the ONLY game i think did quest grinding right is City of heroes. took a quest got a group went into the quest instance dungeon and fought enemies ... not this bullshit kill 10 wombats and return thier spleens to me.
Grinding mobs is only boring if it's predictable and risk-free.
Introduce to "risk" (say a stinging death penalty) and some random stuff (say a high level wandering mob like a giant or griffin that slowly cruises around the zone) and suddenly grinding mobs becomes very interesting.
I never got bored of grinding mobs in EQ1, it was always sort of scary. I did get frustrated with the uber slow rate of experience gain, but that's an entirely different issue that a dev can correct very easily.
Nope, thats called making it tedious AGAIN. Good luck finding more than a few 1000 that are willing to do that again..outside of Korea that is=) You know theres a reason people didn't go BACK TO EQ after switching to WOW.
If the items are not that big a deal then players will skip the quests but if you make quests give players good items you are essentially creating a time sink.
They have to take the time to do the quest because they need the item but factoring travel time and the lack of XP reward you are actually making less XP than you would be just grinding. So there would be portions in the game of earning minimal XP and slowing progression to try and get an item that you need to keep progressing. It would be kind of annoying wouldn't it.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
I would absolutly love a game where the only exp or SKILL (points) you get is pure grinding (like old dark age). Make the quests just for a title, cash and/or a gear reward (make it not a gear based game! ). Easy. I am sure not too many want to agree with me. I love watching the prgress when i gring compared to doing quests. I need to see the 2 hrs i put in made a bar moved at least, and not the fact i found 10 mushrooms or whatever.
grinding quests is fucking boring too. the ONLY game i think did quest grinding right is City of heroes. took a quest got a group went into the quest instance dungeon and fought enemies ... not this bullshit kill 10 wombats and return thier spleens to me.
Who said anything about grinding quests? Just make quests story driven with decisions to make and more gameplay mechanics. I never grinded quest sin EQ2 and I found some of the most fun quests in that game and couldn't care less about my level. That is until they released the game half done and everyone left for WoW. I didn't grind on quests to get XP....... I did quests for fun. Death Knight in WoW is another example of amazing quests and the whole quest line upto the Dead Mines was great. too.
When you have fun an meaningful quests thats when you stop focusing on gaining XP and when you start having a fun time.
I do not find sitting in a field killing endless amounts of mobs fun.
I do not find doing the same old randomly generated picket mission in SWG or Agent mission in EVE fun.
Let me progress my character not through XP and grinding but through story driven quests that let me make decisions. Let me say I have this reward or my character knows this skill because I decided to save Yoda and become his padawan where as you killed him and you will never learn these skills.
I'm sick of this whole level and grinding XP template where we pick a class and we are all clones. Why can't I gain skills through quests in the game and you have to make choices in quests to give you different skills and that way your character changes to what kind of person you are and not what the developers wanted. Why do we need levels? Why can't the characters skill be based on your knowledge of the game like an FPS or something.Why can't my character get scars and change it's appearance in the game as a form of progression?
I'm sick of XP XP XP XP....... I don't want fucking XP.
I don't think the concept of questing/killing for xp is bad in and of itself, it's the combat of the game that's usually boring. Just look at every great action game from the first Mario Bros to God of War in which you have to kill tons of enemies. Notice it's never referred to as "grinding". Why? Because the combat is dynamic and satisfying. In most MMOs, the mob just runs up to you, you press a few buttons and wait for a health bar to drop to zero. This all happens in a sort of vacuum with the same animations and actions over and over again. In my opinion, a good next-gen MMO needs to have combat that's on par with or surpasses the combat found in the best (normal) action games, which means having the ability to use the environment itself to your advantage, dodging obstacles, incorporating running and jumping into your attacks, etc.
Because you don't have to spend hours doing one level over and over and over before you're allowed to go on to the next one.
Quest experience gain is not a design flaw, it is just not the way you (or I for that matter) prefer to play our mmos. Just because we don't prefer it doesn't mean it's wrong.
Very true. Quest experience gain is a design choice and a mechanic enjoyed by many players.
Just not me so much.
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