Persistent Quests

[hannahcoldkiller]

This is a minor issue right now, but I was wondering if there was any plans in the near future to change some of the minor quests into persistent ones that can be done only once. Seems that we since our content has expanded exponentially that some of the gopher/fed ex quests could be changed to persistent. They have a limited replay value, and I think that some players exploit them as a form of grinding. To each his own I guess, but it breaks the RP atmosphere to split into groups where each person is delivering a fedex mostly OOC.

The Aucklorn quests are all cool, but after one or two times you're really only doing it for xp. IMO Das is better than other servers because you don't have to run around mindlessly killing mobs to get to lvl, and there's enough content that gaining xp is becoming only a secondary part of the gameplay. I wouldn't mind staying at 8 for months as long as there's something to do, which is where I think the sever almost is.

[Starkwold]

While I understand where you're coming from, and in spirit I agree with you, I don't think the server has progressed enough where we could implement persistent quests to that extent.

If we do that, we'd have to start implementing more combat oriented areas (just combat, no quests), or people will get very frustrated very quickly.

[Wired]

Maybe on a per-user basis?

Code: Select all

if (GetLastName(oPC) == "McGinty") 
{
     bPersist = TRUE;
}   

[/size]

[hannahcoldkiller]

Maybe on a per-user basis?


Code: Select all
if (GetLastName(oPC) == "McGinty")
{

aw, I love scripter humor. Anyway , perhaps not at the moment, but eventually I think it would make sense. When I was putting together a walkthrough, I got to level 3, almost 4 on one run through all the starter quests. I didn't do Falier, the agrimony quest, the leathers one, or maybe fur hunting. It took me two hours to do all of them and I had enough money to get starter gear. Don't know why Agrimony/Goblins is the only persistent one, either. It's a pretty decent quest for 2-3. Lowering the difficulty of the other goblin quest a little could make it a good for 3-6. As it is, or was, I haven't been there in a while, some people were avoiding it because of risk vs reward reasons.

[Wired]

Well let me answer your concern a little more seriously -- We do need more low and middle-level quests, that is definitely an development objective for the next release. There will be new, additional low-level dungeons and quests.

Fedexes serve a purpose, which is to get new players oriented to the server and get them started here. Yes, an experienced player can run them all in sequence, but that's not what they're designed for; feel free to skip them if you prefer, up to you.

What you probably aren't aware of is that all of the low-level quests have recently been revamped. Quest limits have been revisited, AC, AB, and CRs have been adjusted on monsters, as have all of loot tables, so maybe give those ones you're ruling out another look.

[hannahcoldkiller]

Fedexes serve a purpose, which is to get new players oriented to the server and get them started here.

Yeh, I like most of the fed exes, the early ones and the later ones. I do them everytime I start a new toon. The concern wasn't that there's not enough to do at low levels, but since there's more to do that it might be better to have some of these quests only be done once per PC. You can do the seamstress quest at 19.

I guess I'm referring mostly to the Aucklorn quests. People invis there, give the kid her rattle, find the dead body, fill the bottles, and run back. The necra fang collection I could see being repeatable because it gives a reason to stay in Aucklorn and fight, but seems like most of the time people are running through the good part (and also damn hard at low levels) to get to the errands just to lvl up. Which is cool, of course, if that's your thing, I guess. I dunno.

[ErictheRed]

I think the simplest fix for the Aucklorn "problem" is having enemies that can detect invisibility. Surely the bats' sonar is good enough to detect an invisible person, eh?

[Mon-da-oth]

The bats are good enough to find someone in hiding if they stray to close to them.

[hannahcoldkiller]

The issue is not necessarily the ease of getting there, but that people are grabbing the errand quests for quick xp at the expense of immersion and an environment conducive to RP. I think the Laugwart is another one that's along the same lines. But, like I said, it's still a minor issue.

[The Explorer]

IMO this idea in principal has merrit but when having to solo with a seriously weak build not being able to redo Aucklorn quests would make some chars not worth adventuring as.

Laugwart should remain Redoable; on the adventuring side with a party of 3 chars average lvl 13 he still wins, been attacked by him when my Char transitioned into the area = my Char dead so only easy for strong - Uber builds, on the RP side I suppose it's true that a living ogres head can only be taken once but you never know perhaps the Talon have an Uber cleric that heals him right up when you hand the head in.

[Remy Overhead]

Ultimately, I personally believe that persistent quests at this time would be a bad idea. As stated before, there is a large gap of xp missing at certain levels. I'm by no means saying at any point we shouldn't have persistent quests, It is just that right now there are too many gaps that those quests fill when it comes to leveling.

I don't know about some, but i actually enjoy just slaying monsters over and over with a buddy or by myself, using tactics and shooting the proverbial *cough*. That is why I think repeatable kill/collection quests are good and fun.

In fact, I believe that repeatable (plausible, such as "Get me dem goblin ears!") turn in quests should be more prevalent at all levels. In all honesty other then quests, there is not much to do or kill when no one is around.

As Explorer said, not everyone is a cleric powergamer power build character. Just because you personally can do the harder quests solo, for some, it's rather an accomplishment to go from one area to the next without dying.

[hannahcoldkiller]

IMO this idea in principal has merrit

Yeah, I don't think the server is yet at the point to support persistent fed exes. I was speaking mostly to the fed exes, also. I'm still for the collection quests, dungeons, assassin quests, gladiator fights, and mostly everything else to be replayable. I'm not even against easy xp. But replaying them over and over everytime there's a reset, I think, encourages a different kind of play that I think is contradictory to what I think Das is all about.

Just because you personally can do the harder quests solo, for some, it's rather an accomplishment to go from one area to the next without dying.

I don't know if this was directed at me, personally, or you were saying you in general, but I do understand the dynamics and have been playing das several times a week for almost 2 years. I only have one character that's hit the max at 17 (which is a powerbuild for sure). The next highest is 15.

Early on in das you had to do the starter quests at least 3 times to get high enough to do mob killing quests. That was during the terrible times of transition crashes and server crashes in the middle of delivering something where you lost an hour of your time. Das has come a long way since then, and to a point the quests are already quasi persistent because the server stays up for several days at a time.

Like I said it's a minor issue. I just wanted to see what people thought and if there was any plan to change some of them to persistent.

[Remy Overhead]

I don't know if this was directed at me, personally, or you were saying you in general

No no! I wasn't trying to make a personal attack of any kind. I was just merely stating the fact.

Like I said however, right now I just don't think it's feasible. Not to say that it should never happen though! In a perfect world, Dasaria never crashes, or restarts and there are plenty of quests to do repeatable and persistent that you never run out of things to do or level on!

[Toman Ironarm]

Maybe I'm so far out in left field I'm past the bleachers, but I'm not certain that persistent quests at this point in time is a good idea, the simple reason being that the quests already in game are extremely difficult to complete solo, and groups are sometimes non-existent.

In general, rewards from the quests you work on come from one of two sources:

A.) The treasure chests/crates/bodies/etc found in a monster lair (such as the crypts in Caer)
As the monsters themselves are penniless and have nothing of value, this makes using costly and critical supplies to fight through enemies tedious and frustrating.

B.) Completing and turning in the quest.
Since most quests, with the exception of FedEx quests require groups, this is problematic, as sometimes a group cannot be found.

With those two restrictions on rewards from questing, it makes it doubly hard to quest unless you have high armor, high health, and are able to take down monsters relatively quickly and without much suffering. If you cannot find a group, or If you cannot meet all three of the conditions above, then your going to be using up your supplies just to hunt. Sadly, those supplies can only be restocked by either looting treasure from a mob lair (though this is hard due to the reasons listed above), completing quests which (unless they are Fed Ex quest types) is hard due to the above, or going out and gathering up as many leather hides as you can possibly carry and then selling them in bulk to a shopkeeper in Caer.

Unfortunately the problem with any of these methods is a lot of downtime. Either you have no quests to work on that don't require a group, you cannot kill the monsters for your quest on your own, you cannot hunt where you can gain experience, or you are out of supplies, in which case you are mindlessly farming something or other to get enough money to buy supplies (which is extremely expensive in some cases.)

Until there are more quests available that are repeatable (the bug belly quest from Daris' farmer comes to mind) to more level ranges, I don't think adding persistent quests is a good idea. It would just move to make a bad situation a bit worse.

Be aware however, that I am directing this post primarily at the level 1-10 range. I've never had a character reach tenth for the above reasons, so I cannot say beyond that point what is available beyond that.

[hannahcoldkiller]

This is a minor issue right now, but I was wondering if there was any plans in the near future to change some of the minor quests into persistent ones that can be done only once.

Yeah, I don't think the server is yet at the point to support persistent fed exes.

I guess sometimes things get missed when we skim message threads. I was just wondering if it was a possibility in the near future. By near future, I meant roughly the next 4-6 months. Wired said there was some low-mid level stuff coming down the pipe soon.

Some people don't like fed ex quests. I actually do. They are brief, and expand the world and the greater storyline. Most of the ones we have are very well written. Where people generally agree with me,at least in priciple, is the repetitive use of them by the same character to lvl quickly is not necessarily a positive thing.