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Is the quest grind driving folks away from games?
pencilrick
Member Posts: 1,550
I was trying to think of why I quit EQ2, Vanguard, WAR, and (periodically) WOW, and the point of annoyance that brought me to each decision was when I found myself loaded up with tons of mundane quests and no desire to do them.
Rare quests are exciting. A few quests are still cool. But stacks upon stacks of quests become a chore.
Don't do quests, you say? Well, all folks tend to follow the path of least resistance, and so feel compelled to do these quests, but that doesn't mean they like it.
Just like if someone threw a bunch of one dollar bills in the air, people might drop to their hands and knees to pick them up, but again that doesn't mean they enjoyed it.
I, for one, am hoping new MMORPG's scale back on the quests. Having a quest log with 20 quests to do is not fun for many.
Comments
if they made quests more than just "Kill X amount of Y" and "Take this box of pretty flowers to the inn" then quests wouldn't be a problem.
Played: Runescape, World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
I didnt mind quests much at first but then they jsut got to be too much.......I think LoTRO put me over the edge as it was nothing but a questathon.........It also doesnt help when the game gives 100x XP for taking Ms Hobbit a pie over killing a massive troll.......Between WoW, EQ2, and LoTRO I am definitely burned out on quests........
I agree, I can't stand questing. It isn't the least bit fun when you have no choice but to run an extraordinary amount of boring thoughtless quests over and over again to level. To tell you the truth I enjoyed the group grinding in SWG much better than any quest grind system. At least with the group grinding I talked to people while I leveled, instead of being trapped in the anti-social quest grind of current MMOs.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
Are you serious? What are you going to if not quests?
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im to lazy too use grammar or punctuation good
Are you serious? Have you only started MMORPGs since this was the case? There was a time when players went out and hunted for xp or monsters for items. It is a strange concept but players made their own quest. The game was a quest. You went where you wanted and killed what you wanted. You didn't have to linearly travel the npc quest paths.
And an answer to the original poster's question. Yes, forced questing has driven me away from MMORPGs.
Crafting, territory control, NPC political games, wander the countryside, classic dungeon crawling, mini games, 'talk' with people + enjoy company, and then some more interacting with people.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
The thing is when you release a game like that nowadays it's labeled as an "asian grindfest".
The thing is when you release a game like that nowadays it's labeled as an "asian grindfest".
And exactly what is doing quest after quest? I think I am with the asians then. I prefer making my own adventures. If you make interesting content then there is no need for quest to lead you around. You will want to explore it because it is fun.
"I heard there was a giant troll in the bottom of that cave."
"Someone said they found a underwater cavern that lead to a sunken city with many giant monsters and plenty of treasures."
So do you need a quest to tell you to find and kill the troll or can you decide that on your own? Do you need a quest to tell you to kill twenty gnolls or can you think for yourself? Maybe they will drop coin, or some loot you want. Perhaps you want reputation from killing them.
Why not decide yourself, why not think for yourself. I know I can.
Well it's driven me away for one.
I don't think I'll be playing any more mmorpg's with quests as the primary focus unless the implementation is radically different from how it's being done at the moment.
nothing wrong with quest, and guess what you have the choice not to do any if you love to grind. O and tell me the difference from I heard there was a under water cave to a city, then an NPC quest tells you hey i heard there is a cave to a city . if you go that way bring me a item and i will reward you a bit of coin. nothing you didn't find it yourself.Or i heard there is a big troll at the bottum of the cave. same point you heard it.. guess you not thinking for yourself still.
Point is take quest if you like or don't . I love Lineage 2 but hate the grind so i don't play now. but a few quest in it would be great. gives both me and grinders a choice.
PS. I think it would be cool to here someone in eq2 say lvl 80 and not 1 quest or collection done in my book. i would not do it, but hey i hate grinding. still be something to hear...
Are you serious? What are you going to if not quests?
Well sorry I have to ask but are you really serious?
I mean what are you going to do with no quest, well that is excactly what MMORPG use to be if I wantwed to quest only I got tons of single player RPG's that offer just that. MMORPG use to be a place where we the players/community made our own story's, gained xp by random kills, making it so that we used our imagination to proceed in the game world instead of being handhold most of the time (90%) with current MMO's
A MMORPG use to be that much more then a single player RPG, it was a RP heavan as what we couldn't do with single player RPG was to truly live the life of your virtual character, creat and share with the ingame community, unlike today where greed/need seems to have taken over the pleasure of simply having fun, now even single player RPG's or even FPS games offer me more then what ever current MMO game can offer me (except for it having a community part), as it use to be the other way around I enjoy single player game but moved to MMORPG because they offered so much more then to just quest, it offered a breathing living virtual world compared to the maps we see today with MMORPG's, sure there are a few games that stil offer the more traditional type of MMORPG, but unfortunaly I got abit tired of the fantasy setting.
Hopefully when seeing the last couple of "THESE MMORPG WIL SAVE THE WORLD" seem to gather not even near the 1 mil. subs maybe developers will start to see that their is no satisfying the masses to try and make a game that offers something for everyone as history these last few years much have proven that gamecompany's and it's devleopers should foccus on certain segments in the community and truly start to offer different but most of all a beter and more open experiance then single player games.
For now single player games has grown from maps to being more open-world, why did MMORPG go the other way from being virtual worlds to what we see today is just small maps?
Edit: don't get me wrong I enjoy questing, but it should not or never be the only thing to do within this MMO space.
Yeah, but that's grinding. Seriously, for most people they would rather do chores than grind.
When i showed friends how one leveled in lineage 2 (grind) they thought I was nuts. "So, you kill monsters over and over and over again?" "And you pay for this?" "What a waste of time and money".
I can't really take seriously the fact that grinding is better than questing. Especially because most people don't make their own quests. They camp in a room or spot, kill mobs and shoot the shit. That's ok, especially as I'm sort of immune to grind, but I could never, with a straight face, sell anyone on that. I'd be embarrassed to.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I have to agree. Questing feels too much like a job. I don't mind questing if it felt special. However, with the current games following the trend set by WoW, it's anything but. You're doing the same types of quests over and over again up until you reach max level. It's too much!
Rather than having thousands of similar quests holding your hand through the whole ordeal, the quests should be limited, long and hint at what you should do. The player him/herself needs to figure out how best to proceed. Quests need to be special.
Back when I started UO, there were no quests, you made your own. The game was flexible that way. Sometimes you would go and hunt monsters or maybe you found a treasure map and got your friends to help you dig it up or maybe you were trying to save up money for a house or a ship. Hell, people role played highway bandits and pirates, killers and thieves. Then there were people on the other side of the fence who hunted the bandits, pirates, killers and thieves. Good, evil, neutral were all valid styles and they were all fun.
One guy I know played a miner/smith and loved it. Another guy sold tamed horses to other players. They were both successful because success in UO was not based on how many purples you had. The game gave you total freedom to do what you wanted. Total freedom to set your own goals and follow through.
My little rant aside, unlike newer games, UO didn't force you into a particular frame of mind -- reach max level and to find better purples. Rather it provided all the tools needed to have fun and the player decided exactly how to have fun. WoW and all the new MMOs don't give you those tools, they force you to play in a particular way by drowning you with quests and providing a never ending carrot on a stick in the form of better items.
Quests that advance story lines are good and worth having devs put in games. But quests for grinding, where you repeat the same quest hundreds of times, is bull poop.
WoW pre BC was a blast, hell pvp was fun till BG's came into the game. WoW went to shit when devs tried and found it successful in trapping dim wits into mindless grinds instead of actually creating fun content that can advance story lines or help develop your avatar. Then other MMO's decided to follow the WOW model, god I hope that changes soon.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
Back in the 90s when I was big into MUDs (text games that were the precursors modern MMOs) there were no 'quests' as such, but there were storylines you could follow.
My first 'real' MMO - a little known game by the name of Underlight was almost entirely player-driven. PCs could send you out to do things, even give you XP as a reward.
Later on I played DAOC and for the most part if you weren't pvp'ing you were grinding mobs. It did have some quests but they were hugely difficult and took a long, long time (months) to complete.
And then WoW brought us the current version of questing. I don't mind games that use the quest mechanic the way WoW does it, but i do think they should replace the word 'quest' with 'mission' and save the real quests for something a bit more epic. WoW's high-end raid quests do retain the epic feel and difficulty of the older quests, especially some of the classic-WoW raid quests, and were actually one of the big reasons I stuck with WoW as long as I did.
As far as the mission-quest itself goes as a method of advancement - the old methods of grinding mobs with your buddies are still available. Personally I never liked camping the same random forest clearing killing the same mobs with the same group for hours and hours - when I played WoW my guild *always* helped each other out with quests, even if only one person was doing it other people would join in. Apparently this isn't the norm though.
To the OP.
I agree that sometimes doind mindless quests can be boring, but a good game should offer enough diversity so players are not forced to do quest in order to level.
Having said that I don't believe doing quests is the main reason why people leave MMOs, actually I think that they keep people playing longer than they should, since is the less boring form of grind.
I am gonna list the games I played and the reasons why I left so you have an idea:
WAR= Just boring, I can't explain exactly, but didn't feel like logging in.
EQ2= Left after RoK because the game has been devoid of all the challenges
SWG= Left after NGE see EQ2 for the reasons
Vanguard= Servers too empty, too difficult to group up
AoC= Game revolve too much around guilds, can't do anything if you are not in one
EQ= Left to play EQ2 (Best game so far)
UO= Left to play EQ (Second best game)
EVE= I like the game, but didn't particularly like the SCI-FI theme and being in space all the time is kinda boring
AO= Good game, but again SCI-FI is not my thing.
Lineage 2= Pointless PvP, and too much grind, this game is devoid of quests
GW= Excellent game but it didn't feel like a MMORPG
CoH= Same as GW, too much instancing, it didn't feel like a virtual world
DDO= Forced grouping, no solo, no overland world to explore, epic fail
LOTRO= Way, way to easy. To me it felt like WoW for kids (if that's even possible)
DAoC= RvR was ok, but I didn't like the PvE bit (reminds me a bit of WAR)
AC= Good game but too similar to EQ, so I concentrated playing EQ which I found superior at the time.
Tabula Rasa= Multiplayer FPS game in a persistent world, no thanks
WoW= Still playing, the game is a huge grind, but quests are not the problem
Also although I tryied many Korean games, I have to say that the lack of quests, and the fact you have to grind XP by killing mobs, put me off those games (hoping Aion is different)
So as you can see I had different reasons to leave games, main reason is usually the overall design is not fun, rather than one particular elements like the quest system.
Quests don't prevent me playing WoW, which is maybe the game that most abuse them.
So I don't agree with you.
yeah just like when people got bored of the camp and items grinds of the past mmos, it's now at a point where people will now see quest grinding in the same light(other than the fanbois) Really can't see the mmo genre changing for some years yet though, especially quest being a central part of mmos- it is just adding to this component to make mmos more appealling.
There are a good number of people that play a mmo a few weeks and quit because they already see the trend of the game and it just doesn't appeal to them unless it just had that little more excitement or casuality for them.
I don't mind the quest grind but alot of mmos make it dull and boring to do. I guess that is why I played games such as FFXI and Guild Wars for the longest time. There is no such thing as quest grind for levels.
I agree here. In EverQuest (back in the day), you would get killed by some roaming, slightly overpowered, named npc. And we would make it our quest to group up and seek revenge on said npc. Or grouping in the Oasis trying to avoid sand giants who were 20-25 levels above you and could 2-shot kill you was an adventure in itself.
Yes me too, I can't stand the stupid quest grind.
I like questing, However many games have to many grinding quest.
Worst one ever was in 'EQ2. Someone wanted me to get his book, which he dropped and suspected local wildlife eaten. Then I had to kill 20 buggs, back again and bored as h*ll, he sent me to kill 20 birds and so on. 100 blody animals had eaten the book and then he just put them together again. The quest was stupid, illogical and incredible boring.
Questing should be stuff like saving a fair maiden from a monster, not slaugtering the local wildlife. Quest series can be in many part leading up to something but the main thing about them should be that it makes the player feels like a hero(or a villain). I want to be surprised at times.
A quest should be a story in itself, not "go and kill 10 of those ones".
We should look more on pen and paper RPGs, will the players there spend most of their times being errand boys? No way. You are having a big goal and if you achive that you get another one. Off course you also have small goals but they should not be in the way of the big ones.
Take AoC: Big goal: kill the bad guy. Ok, not that original but it works. And you got a quest serie to succed, that's good. Too get there you'll have to grind a whole lot of junk with a few intresting plots in between, not good.
We need to remove the worthless quest, or at least most of them. A quest serie that start with something that seems useless but then get's the player involved in wierd stuff works well.
Questing should feel fun and rewarding, not "sight, I have to kill another 20 bears again". Fewer really long quest with more XP instead of loads of meaningless ones are the way to go. I hate being the henchman of the hero or bad guy, who tells me to do all kinds of boring junk, if I wanted that I would get a job at McDonalds.
I am very burnt out of questing in MMO"s now. I miss the days of exploring and finding new monsters to kill, even the grinding for my jedi in SWG was a ton more fun then trying to find a certain NPC in the middle of nowhere and wasting 20 minutes to try and find it.
I hate that quests give you more experience now then just grinding (if I felt like grinding every now and then). EQ2 is an example of that. I remember on my first character I grinded some and maybe if I ran across a cool quest I would do it. Now grinding is a waste of time, much easier to get experience questing. And being an altaholic I was burnt out on my 4th lvl 80 and quit the game. (Sick of raiding at end game too).
Right now I am not playing any game. They all changed to be like WoW. And some people like myself don't want another WoW. I want something new and fresh. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.
My twopenny worth:
Almost, by definition, an MMORPG should have quests and when I buy an MMORPG I expect there to be quests. What I mostly look forward to is exploring the world and unearthing all the mysteries it holds. And quests conveniently make you do this in a satisfying - goal achieving - way. In fact questing (like the legends and myths of old) was all about DISCOVERY and encountering a variety of creatures.
I don't mind the "Go kill X amount of X" type quests because I know that I am going out to uncover more of the world and discover different locations.
What I find TOTALLY objectionable are the quests that send me back to THE EXACT SAME PLACE to kill a different type of creature, or boss slightly further on, or to gather plants or precious stones (or whatever) in the same place that were not collectible before.
These type of quests force the player to revisit old places and it is then that the word "grind" comes into play and, in the worst case, even feelings of resentment creep in.
Originally posted by SaintViktor
I don't mind the quest grind but alot of mmos make it dull and boring to do. I guess that is why I played games such as FFXI and Guild Wars for the longest time. There is no such thing as quest grind for levels.
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ugh... I stopped playing FFXI because I couldn't quest without grinding to the right level. Drove me nuts.
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Originally posted by Loke666
Questing should feel fun and rewarding, not "sight, I have to kill another 20 bears again". Fewer really long quest with more XP instead of loads of meaningless ones are the way to go. I hate being the henchman of the hero or bad guy, who tells me to do all kinds of boring junk, if I wanted that I would get a job at McDonalds.
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I like this idea.
Anyway I really didn't mine leveling from 1-60, then 60 to 70 in WoW, questing. It's was the Alts I leveled that felt like the grind.
op: Yes quest grind is annoying. I hate being towed along by my nose to advance my character.