Josh Sawyer on Quest Staggering and why BG2 might have had it right

[Kore]

I have to echo that I really appreciate the great variety of quests that are available straight out of the gates in BG2, it makes the game much more replayable. One thing that I hate about DAO is that it funnels you into the same lengthy quest/dungeon early on so that early replayability becomes a trudge rather than enjoyable. It's so dull having to earn my right to become a Grey Warden every sodding time. BG2 is actually guilty of this to some extent too as Chateaux Irenicus is a lengthy dungeon. I appreciate the fact that areas like the Air Plane are optional, but it still makes replays a bit of a slog. Personally I would make the mandatory portion of Chateaux Irenicus shorter and the optional portion longer. Note that I consider items that are powerful for a long while in the game like Helm of Balduran and Metaspell Amulet to be mandatory. I can't bring myself to skip them, but I can skip less powerful items like Sword of Chaos.

 

That said, I appreciate that there can only be a limited number of quests in a game and one thing I dislike about BG2 is the lack of quests in the Underdark. I actually dislike that chapter of the game when I replay it because I always have to replay the same quest chain, the drow city stuff, every time. I'd rather have some of the early quest effort repurposed for this section and the mandatory quest chain in the Drow city reduced with exploration increased. 

[jamoecw]

To be honest, the PC doesn't know Irenicus runs the Assylum.

 

As far as he knows, she is just being held prisoner, but alive and well. Not tortured.

 

The PC can talk to a Coweled Wizzard or two, but nothing comes out of it. Honestly I think more interaction with them and more attempts to get Imoen free trough proper channels should have been there.

The cutscenes showing Imoen kinda gave the player info the PC shouldn't know.

i'll answer with a video i found:

 

irenicus decides to go with them only do to the time it would take to deal with all of them, clearly he has been fighting for some time, and the mages you see him kill are most likely (due to the damage to the environment) far weaker than what he was facing earlier.  you don't know that he is running the place (i never mentioned this), but you do know that the prison is less inconvenient to his goal (which involves torture and possibly the death of your sister).  it really sets a tone of urgency, when i first played this game i wondered why i couldn't take the fight to the people who were kidnapping my sister (lawfully or not), after all the cowled wizards seem like less of an obstacle than paying someone (a shady someone t that) a sizable fraction of the cities net income (40 lbs of platinum or ~.1% of 48 years of the western hemisphere's production on earth).  heck i imagined i would have to hack my way through their guild just to get to the dungeon to find that they had escaped.  instead i ran a theater (maybe i didn't run a theater that playthrough, but you get my point).

Edited May 29, 2013 by jamoecw

[PrimeJunta]

@teknoman: I agree. You could additionally make the game somewhat intelligent about offering time-limited quests. The usual 'lawnmowing' way of playing cRPG's is to go to a hub, talk to everybody, get all the quests, do all the quests, come back and get all the rewards. This is pretty silly IMO when you think about it, but it's the most efficient way to play most games so it's not a surprise that most people do. Time-limited quests don't work all that well in this type of system, as you'll easily end up with several timers running and some will run out, and there's no way to tell beforehand what will trip a timer. So you start fudging the system: "I have this (relatively lenient) timer running, but I better not talk to anybody until I've finished it so I wont accidentally start one" or, on subsequent playthroughs "Note to self: don't talk to merchant for kidnapped-wife quest before resolving poisoned-man quest." 

 

I would prefer a game that offered its quests more organically, which would make it easier to stay in character too. Timed quests would work in such a framework. Just not overdone, otherwise it becomes just another type of railroading.

[JFSOCC]

You could have a few quests with timers, and then warn the player if he's taking on more than one timed quest.

[Lephys]

You could have a few quests with timers, and then warn the player if he's taking on more than one timed quest.

 

The thing is, being able to effectively delay the start of a timer on a timed quest somewhat defeats the purpose of the timed quest in the first place. I think the best implementation of timed quests would be to simply hardcode in timed situations that begin when you arrive "at" them, no matter what you're focusing on or what quests you "start" or don't.

 

What I mean is, simply, that, if you arrive at the city of Weldwif, and there's some hostage situation going on, then the timer should effectively start when you enter the city, not when you go ask Lord Hegglespledd about his kidnapped daughter. Basically, the whole "this quest is available now" thing assumes the coincidence that that quest/situation happened to be in-effect at the same time you showed up to potentially handle it in a variety of different manners, so, having the quest timer start when you start the playthrough (and just have this hostage situation happen on the 7th day of the 2nd month, regardless of whether or not you even get to the city by then) just seems pointless to me, within the context of a coherent RPG.

 

But, yes, the details and factors surrounding that situation would need to be designed accordingly. It should be quite easy to at least learn about the existence of timed situations (since the timer started when you entered the city gate), even if you still have to do a lot of digging and go pretty far out of your way to effectively handle the situation within the given time frame. And the timing of them would have to be balanced accordingly. You wouldn't want 7 timed things to be happening side by side, but that's not to say you wouldn't ever want more than one at a time going on.

 

This is why I very much like the basic idea behind the passage of time (sort of the advancement of the world around you, mainly displayed in the "progression" of available dialogues and quests and NPC locations/behaviors) being directly related to the completion of understood-to-require-some-time quests. Basically, if you run around outside the town for a week, nothing actually advances (except for specifically time-sensitive situations). BUT, if you spend 4 days handling a quest situation, now things have progressed. People all say "Hey, it's really great how you handled that situation," or "I hate you and can't believe you botched that so badly," etc. But, they're acknowledging that you did something that obviously required more than an hour or so, so the game abstracts the reactive passage of time, even if it took you a longer or shorter amount of time to actually tackle the quest/situation.

[JFSOCC]

that's ridiculous, this is still a game we're talking about. If I have no idea something is going on, it should have no bearing on my game.

[Lephys]

That's why I said you should pretty much be "forced" to know of it. You still have the choice of spending a couple of days doing something else, THEN tackling it (and maybe, for the sake of example, you can go 3 days without addressing it, then still have time to handle the situation at maximum "effectiveness" if you hurry, or you can tackle it immediately, with urgency, and not have to worry as much about getting everything you want done in time).

 

It's just, if it's just a matter of "once you ask this guy about this situation, it suddenly becomes time-sensitive," then it's more like a little time-trial challenge than a situation that's actually connected to the rest of the game world. Basically, you know about the situation, and you can choose whether or not to start the timer on it. That should probably be avoided. If you know about something, and it's time-sensitive, it shouldn't wait on you (once you're aware of its existence).

[teknoman2]

to put it in a more organic way, it can be done in arcanum style, where you had the quests you had accepted and those just mentioned, that you knew about but had not spoken to those directly interested. so:

 

you arrive at a city.

you dont go to speak with the mayor to get the "save the kidnapped daughter" quest, but as you speak with the inn keeper, he tells you that the mayor's daughter has been kidnapped 2 days ago and the deadline for the ransom is a week (meaning they will kill her in 5 days). 

you dont get the quest as accepted (just mentioned), but the clock starts ticking.

you can officialy accept the quest, along with any consequences for failing, by talking with the mayor, or you can leave it at mentioned and if you dont go save her, the mayor will pay the ransom (you can kill the bandits and colect the ransom yourself or be even sneakier and wait for the mayor to pay the bandits, then kill the bandits and steal the money)

Edited May 31, 2013 by teknoman2

[Eiphel]

 

 NPCs who state a quest (oh I hate that word) in their first window of conversation is the worst idea ever. Quests given to you as soon as you enter an area is even worse, obviously. Completing a side quest should give you the feeling of exploration, not ticking off another box on the list of what the developers wanted you to do on your playthrough.

 

Yeah. I'm with ya there. I especially hate how you run into "Sara wants you to go and pick up her delivery from Steve's shop," and it's a quest. Sure, it's irksome that it's just a fetch-errand, but... wait, what if it isn't? What's irksome is that, the actual, involved QUEST doesn't start 'til you get to Steve's Shop, and he's missing, and there's blood on the floor or something. NOW something's up. Yet, in many games, it's all "congratulations! You made it to Steve's shop! 100XP for the first segment of that quest!"

 

No! You didn't do anything yet! The errand simply LED you to an interesting situation that now constitutes a quest.

 

It may seem like silly semantics or something, but I think the structure of such things should really just be divided into two separate things: Thus-far mundane happenings/context/leads, and actual quests.

 

Ehh, kind of like how Arcanum does it. When someone tells you something, you just jot it down in your journal, even if you don't know what you're supposed to do yet. "Sara would like someone to check on her undelivered package." It doesn't say "QUEST: Find Sara's undelivered package!". There's no unsolved mystery yet. Maybe she can't leave the house, and she just thought she needed to go pick it up, instead of waiting on it being delivered the next day. It's not a missing package. It simply wasn't delivered yet.

 

*shrug*. But, I digress a bit.

 

Arcanum's journal was pretty poor, but I do like the distinction it draws between 'Heard about' and 'Accepted'.

[Lephys]

to put it in a more organic way, it can be done in arcanum style, where you had the quests you had accepted and those just mentioned, that you knew about but had not spoken to those directly interested. so:

 

you arrive at a city.

you dont go to speak with the mayor to get the "save the kidnapped daughter" quest, but as you speak with the inn keeper, he tells you that the mayor's daughter has been kidnapped 2 days ago and the deadline for the ransom is a week (meaning they will kill her in 5 days). 

you dont get the quest as accepted (just mentioned), but the clock starts ticking.

you can officialy accept the quest, along with any consequences for failing, by talking with the mayor, or you can leave it at mentioned and if you dont go save her, the mayor will pay the ransom (you can kill the bandits and colect the ransom yourself or be even sneakier and wait for the mayor to pay the bandits, then kill the bandits and steal the money)

Yes! Like that!

 

I would add in a "just go and complete the 'quest' without actually telling anyone you're going to do it" option. I mean, if you show up with the Mayor's daughter, and they know YOU didn't kidnap her, I think he wouldn't say "Wait a minute... you never asked me about this, and officially did all the paperwork, so, I'm afraid I'm actually NOT grateful to see my daughter alive again, and I shall provide you with absolutely NOTHING in return. You know what? You can't even talk to me about it! Nor do you even gain experience, u_u..."

 

[teknoman2]

 

to put it in a more organic way, it can be done in arcanum style, where you had the quests you had accepted and those just mentioned, that you knew about but had not spoken to those directly interested. so:

 

you arrive at a city.

you dont go to speak with the mayor to get the "save the kidnapped daughter" quest, but as you speak with the inn keeper, he tells you that the mayor's daughter has been kidnapped 2 days ago and the deadline for the ransom is a week (meaning they will kill her in 5 days). 

you dont get the quest as accepted (just mentioned), but the clock starts ticking.

you can officialy accept the quest, along with any consequences for failing, by talking with the mayor, or you can leave it at mentioned and if you dont go save her, the mayor will pay the ransom (you can kill the bandits and colect the ransom yourself or be even sneakier and wait for the mayor to pay the bandits, then kill the bandits and steal the money)

Yes! Like that!

 

I would add in a "just go and complete the 'quest' without actually telling anyone you're going to do it" option. I mean, if you show up with the Mayor's daughter, and they know YOU didn't kidnap her, I think he wouldn't say "Wait a minute... you never asked me about this, and officially did all the paperwork, so, I'm afraid I'm actually NOT grateful to see my daughter alive again, and I shall provide you with absolutely NOTHING in return. You know what? You can't even talk to me about it! Nor do you even gain experience, u_u..."

 

 

or you work for a political enemy of the mayor, you steal the ransom money, and the guy who wants to ruin him, appears as a good samaritan and pays (using the mayor's money but no one knows it) the ransom, effectivelly becoming the favorite of the town and becoming mayor himself at the next elections.

practicaly, with enough time and will, you can turn any situation into an infinitly complex quest

Edited June 4, 2013 by teknoman2

[eschaton]

New to the forums.  Just discovered this game was being made the other day.  Joy!

 

Ideas like a "second city" come across as gamey and restricting choice.  As does, for that matter, variants, like restricting you from getting into certain sections of the city until you've reached an arbitrary level of plot development.

 

One possibility, however, would be for the game to have a "fame" tracker similar to the Fallout series (although it might not have to be visible to the player).  Certain quests would only be open at the beginning - fetch quests, and those who are desperate for absolutely anyone to help them.  As time passes, however, you become more well-known among the social and political elite, and they're willing to share the more difficult problems with you (things which you might have heard about earlier).  Obviously there are further variants of this, such as either a good/bad reputation tracker (you won't be asked to kill random people if you get a reputation as a hero), or different reputations among different factions.  That said, this might end railroading the player a bit too much due to decisions early in the game (players should be able to roleplay sudden changes in their alignment),  

 

For the record, I liked the huge number of quests  the early portions of BGII.  It was a bit frustrating at times that they were so tightly that you'd often get sidetracked due to random encounters traveling between parts of the city, or say by Jahiera leaving the party, but this is probably more realistic than expecting a static world that sits around and waits for you to finish a quest.  

[Lephys]

or you work for a political enemy of the mayor, you steal the ransom money, and the guy who wants to ruin him, appears as a good samaritan and pays (using the mayor's money but no one knows it) the ransom, effectivelly becoming the favorite of the town and becoming mayor himself at the next elections.

practicaly, with enough time and will, you can turn any situation into an infinitly complex quest

That too. I wasn't intending to suggest the only possibility was the one I cited. I just wanted to spare people 1,000 words for once, by not citing every possible way in which you could "complete the quest." Heh. The point was that you should be able to get things done without going around and properly having tea with everyone in meetings about how you're going to get things done. Hell, you should be able to tell the Mayor you're going to rescue his daughter, use his aid to your advantage somehow, then help the kidnappers, and vice versa. Alongside not telling anyone anything, and still doing basically whatever the hell you want about the situation.

 

One possibility, however, would be for the game to have a "fame" tracker similar to the Fallout series (although it might not have to be visible to the player).  Certain quests would only be open at the beginning - fetch quests, and those who are desperate for absolutely anyone to help them.  As time passes, however, you become more well-known among the social and political elite, and they're willing to share the more difficult problems with you (things which you might have heard about earlier).  Obviously there are further variants of this, such as either a good/bad reputation tracker (you won't be asked to kill random people if you get a reputation as a hero), or different reputations among different factions.  That said, this might end railroading the player a bit too much due to decisions early in the game (players should be able to roleplay sudden changes in their alignment),

For what it's worth, I believe their planned reputation system will be fully capable of dynamics such as what you have described.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Lephys

[Archmage Silver]

I'm with a clusterbomb approach as well as a more structured, spread-out one. I've gotten used to both and everything in between over the years spent playing a multitude of games, including MMOs, which basically just throw everything at you.

 

Which one would I ultimately prefer? I think a variation of BG2's system would be the best one for me - cut down on the number of quests by removing trivial and fedex quests, and use the resources freed up from those to add more depth, story and personality to the remaining quests.

[Eiphel]

I'm with a clusterbomb approach as well as a more structured, spread-out one. I've gotten used to both and everything in between over the years spent playing a multitude of games, including MMOs, which basically just throw everything at you.

 

Which one would I ultimately prefer? I think a variation of BG2's system would be the best one for me - cut down on the number of quests by removing trivial and fedex quests, and use the resources freed up from those to add more depth, story and personality to the remaining quests.

 

I feel like a seasoning of trivial quests (with good writing) elevate a game by making it so the deeds of great import are broken up a bit by more of simply experiencing the daily nature of the world. Also they allow for amusing/irreverent/intriguing little asides which are compelling but not substantial or integral enough to devote more extensive quest design to.

[Tuckey]

Having a diversity of quests speaks to a deliberate design choice compared to say icewind dale.

 

I've been playing icewind dale lately and got stuck on the main quest path; little other quests for me to do so I haven't gone back to it since. It got irritating retreading old ground trying to work out how to progress. Never had that problem with baldur's gate and I don't think its a difficulty issue. My feeling is that it's a critical pathing issue i.e. the baldur's gates weren't so particular -raise a sum of money for Imoen rescue in bg2; and find out about Sarevok and destroy his schemes in bg1)

 

In icewind dale you need to do certain things to progress with sometimes little clue as to how to do them. Difficult quests should be available but mainly as side quests so players aren't frustrated. I mean I worked out how to resurrect the whole demi-lich thing from multiple parts by myself in bg2 but it wasn't essential to the story. Some things seem to be obscure as to how to accomplish them for some reason. Maybe it wasn't play tested enough outside the development team. Maybe the journal system didn't lay out the particulars very well, who knows - just my impression.

[teknoman2]

in the end, most quests in every rpg, are pretty typical in their structure, and mostly of the "fetch" type. what sets appart the well made ones from the "another fetch", is how they are structured within the game world (background story, interaction with other quests, multiple phases within the quests, multiple solutions etc) and how their completion affects your character and the world.

[Amentep]

I don't think the problem is - to me at least - too many quests in Athkatla, but too many quests triggered the minute you walk into a place by people who chase you down and force you into a dialogue screen.

 

If I'm on an urgent mission to save Imoen and I've taken up an urgent mission from Nalia to tell me of an urgent mission to save the DeArnise stronghold that she'll give me money (towards my goal) why do I want to be stopped by a runner to tell Minsc that there's an urgent mission in Umar Hills? At some point there are just too many things that trigger because you walk into a room, IMO.

[JFSOCC]

New to the forums.  Just discovered this game was being made the other day.  Joy!

 

Ideas like a "second city" come across as gamey and restricting choice.  As does, for that matter, variants, like restricting you from getting into certain sections of the city until you've reached an arbitrary level of plot development.

 

One possibility, however, would be for the game to have a "fame" tracker similar to the Fallout series (although it might not have to be visible to the player).  Certain quests would only be open at the beginning - fetch quests, and those who are desperate for absolutely anyone to help them.  As time passes, however, you become more well-known among the social and political elite, and they're willing to share the more difficult problems with you (things which you might have heard about earlier).  Obviously there are further variants of this, such as either a good/bad reputation tracker (you won't be asked to kill random people if you get a reputation as a hero), or different reputations among different factions.  That said, this might end railroading the player a bit too much due to decisions early in the game (players should be able to roleplay sudden changes in their alignment),  

 

For the record, I liked the huge number of quests  the early portions of BGII.  It was a bit frustrating at times that they were so tightly that you'd often get sidetracked due to random encounters traveling between parts of the city, or say by Jahiera leaving the party, but this is probably more realistic than expecting a static world that sits around and waits for you to finish a quest.

I think the best alternative, one which keeps every place in the game interesting right up till the end, is to repopulate areas with new quests after certain triggers are met, like main quest progression. So you'll don't just do all the quests in an area and move on, never to revisit. Rather, progressing in the story allows you to come back to old ground and experience new content. I think that's a good way to stagger quests.

[Lephys]

I think the best alternative, one which keeps every place in the game interesting right up till the end, is to repopulate areas with new quests after certain triggers are met, like main quest progression. So you'll don't just do all the quests in an area and move on, never to revisit. Rather, progressing in the story allows you to come back to old ground and experience new content. I think that's a good way to stagger quests.

Yup. I think that's probably a big part of the "clutter" feeling. Why would so much be happening all at once? And/or why would you hear about it all at once? If you took care of everything that was going on in a city, all in the first day, then what would happen in the weeks to come?

 

Staggered access to quests fits the much more naturally-occurring development of to-be-dealt-with situations.

[Kaine]

I've come into this discussion rather late, and I admit, that I didn't bother reading through the entire thread. So if I'm echoing someone else, please forgive me and ignore this.

 

I was quite young when I played BG and the rest of the gang, for that matter, and I often, especially in BG2, felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of responsibility for other peoples lives, that were thrust upon my poor hapless character at every turn. This ment that every now and then, I had to stop playing for weeks at a time. 
Since then I've often thought about ways to make the quest pressure a little lighter, without loosing the great variety and overall amount of quests, which I whole-heartedly agree, is a good thing...

 

My thought: Have (some) quests become available only after certain other quests, which have nothing at all to do with, and indeed may not even be in the same region as, eachother...
This, I believe, will ensure that the player doesn't have 800,000,000 quests to deal with at once, but may limit it to a few hundred thousand. AND (again, It's my believe) will create a better illusion of a real, dynamic world, where things happen, seemingly at random, so that one npc who might have a quest for you will not have it to begin with, because the event that sparked the quest "haven't happended yet." Also, in consecutive play-throughs, all quest will not be available at exactly the same time...

[Rabain]

I don't feel like BG2 ever gave me more than I could handle.  In some ways Athkatla made me feel a bit like BG1 before Cloakwood and BG city.  There was a lot to see and do, after which things became much more linear.

 

The only thing I'd worry about with staggering quests is that it could lead to either a large number of quests that go undone either because they are simply left behind as you move on with the main story or you couldn't be bothered once you reach a certain level and are ready to move a bit faster.  This could have the opposite effect of the intention, if you want the world to feel more busy with staggered quests you run the risk of it feeling empty if there are only X number of quests available at one time.

 

What I'd rather see them do is focus on what games like BG2 got badly wrong (Irenicus Dungeon) rather than something that was a big bonus for most people with a minor inconvenience (the number of quests in Athkatla).  Irenicus Dungeon is great first time and gets much more frustrating / boring with each play through, whereas for me at least Athkatla has so many options that each playthrough felt different as the order in which I could do things was quite large.

[Jobby]

Don't really like the idea of quest staggering for the sake of it, if it makes sense from a narrative point of view then great, but if it is simply a case of not getting Y quest because you haven't completed unrelated X quest then that's just downright silly imo.

[FlintlockJazz]

I'm not keen on the 'stagger by main quest progression' method myself to be honest.  Spread them around more instead, and have the player able to find out about 'troubles' in other towns or whatever via the rumours in bars, making the 'buy everyone a drink to hear rumours' thing you had in Baldur's Gate actually useful.  So those who want to immerse themselves in the side quests can do it while those who just want to do the main quest can do so.  Have new quests show in previously cleared locations when other questlines in other areas are done, discoverable again via drinking at the bar.

[Monte Carlo]

As much as I love BG2, even the design team acknowledge that the quest splurge in the first part of the game jarred against the more linear second half. I'm inclined to agree, but that's maybe with the benefit of hindsight (even though a writer wouldn't get away with it --- your editor would spot the problem and give you a re-write).

 

I still love BG2 and everything about it. That's what true love is - seeing the errors as triumphs.