In favor of Repeatable Quests?

[Tamerlane]

Maybe something more like the caravan protection things from the first Fallout?

 

Like, you're going from town A to town B anyway, might as well guard some merchants along the way.

[aVENGER]

Worst. Idea. Ever.

 

Also, setting up a Yes/No question as a multiple choice poll = fail.

[Hassat Hunter]

While it works in, say, Freelancer exceptionally, for PE it's a big no-no.

I rather have they cut 500 quests then, instead of making 500 MMO-quests instead.

On a related note, I hope there will be few to none respawning encounters, as these can have the same effect if the party is able to rest/recover in between them; you can just play whack-a-mole until bored.

*cough* No monster-XP *cough*

(which only makes you an idiot if you try to farm them. Well I guess you can for gold and potential items though)

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Yes, if it is something like "bring me 20 X". But that sounds more like selling loot than an actual quest.

[Ieo]

Cool, so it seems more than 10-1 that people are not in favor of repeatable quests, with the exception that it seems almost everyone who posted here things that in some certain situations, if done correctly, it would be okay.

 

Thats how I feel, mostly no, but in rare situations if done in a cool and believable way, then maybe.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Well, my response is "NO" because I already play an MMO with substantial grinding. Dailies.... repeatables.... grind. And what exactly are such repeatable quests for? Money or reputation.

 

Now, as others have said, it's possible to have a few decently designed repeatables in single-player, but I will point out that one reason why they're more common in MMOs is because the quest and content design for that technical genre is lacking compared to single-player. Grinds exist in MMOs to keep players playing in a persistent free-roam world, ultimately.

 

Single-player content is different--grind doesn't fit in a single-player game with very strong narrative that should have a finite ending and thus finite content. And besides the tactical party combat bit, the narrative and dialogic content (of a really "good" SP game) is exponentially more+better than an MMO or MP game. This is because there is a vast variety of chains, of different outcomes, and so forth.

 

Repeatable quests in this sort of game is, IMO, cheap and lazy and counters the design philosophy of a self-contained narrative SP experience where players should be encouraged to quest--if you need reputation, the devs should calculate the max from all available quests and determine where the rep level boundaries are based on content cap. If you need gold, a combination of questing and kill loot should fill the bill, and the devs can balance for that because there is no laissez-faire player market the way there is your typical MMO.

 

I would support chain quests that give the appearance of a repeatable--for example, the arena pits in the Ust'Natha tavern (BG2, Underdark), which increase in difficulty/variety for each part of the chains but the chains are actually finite.

[eselle28]

If they don't have the resources for those extra 500 quests, I'd rather do without those 500 quests than see them replaced with 20 repeatable ones. Those work well enough in MMOs, but they tend to be unbalancing in single-player games. To the extent they're included, I'd rather that only the first bundle of wolf pelts is rewarded with XP. If someone wants to go kill every wolf in the world, the subsequent turn ins should only be rewarded with money.

[Eldmore]

Yes IF they use it with mini games

[PsychoBlonde]

I think this really depends on how it's handled. I would not mind "repeatable" quests like in Fallout 3 where there are just people around the world who will buy a given object, so if you're running short on cash you can just pile up a huge stack of scrap metal. Or, you have someone who will take your wolf hides off your hands and give you points toward crafting training or something. That would be fine. But I don't want MMO style "repeat this quest" options. It should feel more organic, where there's just always a bounty out for bandit ears, wolf hides, etc.

[Hassat Hunter]

Scalping bandits and selling them (BG) isn't a quest though... nor should it be one.

[Ieo]

Scalping bandits and selling them (BG) isn't a quest though... nor should it be one.

 

Ah, yes, bounties. Forgot about those---it starts with a quest, doesn't it? Then the rest is the optional bounty. That would make sense. I'm not sure I would like that for, say, building faction reputation (reminds me too much of throwing gold at a temple to up reputation in BG), but earning some coinage, sure...

[Karkarov]

How can I say this.... No.

 

This isn't an mmo, we don't need to bring mmo conventions into it.

[AGX-17]

No, this is not a muhmorpuhguh and repeatable fetch quests are not worth anyone's time unless they enjoy MMORPG grinding. If you do, you should seek the aid of a psychologist or neurologist immediately.

[SimonJ]

It is a no from me too. Early on in the game when you need money they have a value, but otherwise they can clog you inventory or journal unless they scale with your level.

[morrow1nd]

I would not like repeatable quests in PE. The ones I've seen in other quests quickly became boring work you repeat all over again to gain more money.

 

Maybe randomly generated mini FedEx quests would be a possibility: random NPC X wants object Y. If you, let's say, are tasked to find a snow wolf pelt by some shopkeeper that normally doesn't offer quests, the quest is long or short depending on how close to snow wolf territory the quest-giver is.

 

I agree. It shouldnt feel like grinding fest but it would be better to have mini quests that integrated nicely in PE world.

[Avaruz]

The best quests are the ones that are a puzzle to solve!

 

Not the ones where you know exactly what to do, it takes time to do, and nothing exciting happens.

[Carlo]

While it works in, say, Freelancer exceptionally, for PE it's a big no-no.

I rather have they cut 500 quests then, instead of making 500 MMO-quests instead.

On a related note, I hope there will be few to none respawning encounters, as these can have the same effect if the party is able to rest/recover in between them; you can just play whack-a-mole until bored.

*cough* No monster-XP *cough*

(which only makes you an idiot if you try to farm them. Well I guess you can for gold and potential items though)

 

Exactly. If respawning mobs provide anything valuable and are not too tough to defeat, they can be farmed forever, whether it's for XP or loot. And someone is guaranteed to do it.

 

Back closer to the main topic, things like Fallout's caravan guard experience (I wouldn't really call it a "quest") seemed well-balanced. You can also have a quest not be infinitely repeatable, which sometimes is a nice way of splitting the difference - succeed a few times at patrolling an area for monsters and they don't ever come back.

[Tusck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Mj1Us13Yk

[Imrahyl]

I think those repeatable "MMO" quests are not neccesary in this kind of games, it just break the magic of the old school rpgs. Baldur's Gate hadn´t them, why should P.E need them?

[HansKrSG]

I have never played a single player crpg with repeatable quests (not that I can think of anyway.) Repeatable quest have their place in MMO's where you need the player to keep on playing, in a single player with a strong story, its just an annoyance.

[Imrahyl]

I have never played a single player crpg with repeatable quests (not that I can think of anyway.) Repeatable quest have their place in MMO's where you need the player to keep on playing, in a single player with a strong story, its just an annoyance.

 

Totally agree. Maybe in Kingdoms of Amalur you can find some of that kind of quests, but I don´t remember doing them in classic games. I never had the need of them, I always had stuff to do.

[JFSOCC]

Repeatable quests have two big weaknesses that I can identify

 

1. They encourage grind.

2. The become a boring chore.

 

If Obsidian can put in repeatable quests that don;t play exactly the same every time (how do you script that?) but stay varied in how the play out

And make those quests to be entertaining in their own right, regardless of completion, then I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a few.

[Labadal]

If it has anything to do with collecting stuff, then please no. I don't care if there are around 5 quests like that in the entire game, but there are other ways to handle repeatable missions. Maybe you get the chance to help out with people that are wanted for different crimes. You get the mission from a board outside the law enforcement office or something like that. Killing vicious monsters could be another one. These monsters would be more like mini boss foes rather than regular monsters. There are many different ways to come up with quests that use the same formula, but still make them feel a little different. I hope there are a few side quests that allow you to solve them with only dialogue. Maybe help settle disputes, like the one mission in Dungeon Siege III. Only make it more complex.

[Remmirath]

No, I dislike quests like that. They are usually not interesting the first time, and they certainly are not by the third or fourth time. I can't think of any instance in which I think repeating the exact same quest would be a good thing.

 

Very similar quests, which are more of just 'things to do' than quests per say, that could be fine -- such as the arena example someone mentioned earlier. There are likely a few other exceptions that would work that I'm not thinking of, but in general, I think repeating quests have little to no value.

[Volourn]

Real RPGs don't have repeatable quests. that's garbage.

 

The closest to an acceptable 'repeatable' quest is maybe finding spell components for a mage or say animal pelts for a leatherworker or something liek that and even that shouldn't be overdone.

 

But, actually repeatable questsb like having to rescue the same princess a million times is just plain wrong.

[khango]

I don't like repeatable MMO quests, but I do like random encounters, or mysterious encounters.

 

The building where you find Celestial Furry and the party in that one inn which will just attack you come to mind as fun non-quest encounters in BG II. Likewise, once in a while you encounter a random group of baddies while travelling on particular maps where they re-appear every so often (Aggressive native species).

 

I liked those types of encounters. I hope they're in project eternity.

 

This leads me to a suspicion that there will be one or two ongoing quests, like redeeming rat tails in PST, (maybe this time it will be wolf pelts) kind of make sense and get you a little XP. I also figure there will be some 'flavor' side quests, like killing or bringing in one or two bands of bandits, or maybe some random encounters with 'competing' bands. Maybe to make such things rewarding they can give you reputation or fame?

Edited October 21, 2012 by khango