Trail or No Trail?

fallensbane

I am a day away two max on dropping my first foundry quest. Curious about what peoples opinions are on the trail. I can leave it on for those who just want to run the main part of the quest (skip the side stuff, exploration etc). Is there an option in game settings to disable the trail so players who didnt want it could just get rid of it?

tilt42

People can hit the Z key to disable the trail if they so wish. You should always support the trail unless it gets in the way of your quest design or the puzzles.

fallensbane

Thanks for the fast response. Since I know you can now toggle leaving it in is a non issue now. People who would rather not use it can just turn it off

lonnehart

Just curious here. Is it possible to deactivate the trail if you want the player to use clues to solve your puzzle instead of being lead around by a sparkly trail (not possibly made by a vampire)?

adjuchasbrokk

It depends, some people just like to know exactly where to go, others like to be given an objective and be told "figure it out".
I think the quest trails are only necessary if you're using wide open spaces or you've made a tiny entrance somewhere that the player has to enter in the middle of a city scene.
I prefer to use "area" over "point" for objectives as it falls somewhere between the two.

xdementia

lonnehart wrote: »

Just curious here. Is it possible to deactivate the trail if you want the player to use clues to solve your puzzle instead of being lead around by a sparkly trail (not possibly made by a vampire)?

Yes, you can decide what kind of trail your quest objective has. Your options are the trail, the area marker (blue circle), or nothing at all.

In the quest I'm working on, the trail completely trivializes the whole "investigation/exploration" part, but I don't mind. At most I'll put a warning that if you want to fully experience the quest the way I meant it to be played, please disable the trail.

For the same reason, I always make sure that spamming the "1" key makes you complete any "dialogue" objective. Gotta accept that a large chunk of the playerbase plays foundry quests by spamming 1 and following the trail.

adjuchasbrokk

xdementia wrote: »

the trail completely trivializes the whole "investigation/exploration" part

I agree, but I suppose one way of looking at it is that 'those who want to do it properly will do it properly'.

tilt42

lonnehart wrote: »

Just curious here. Is it possible to deactivate the trail if you want the player to use clues to solve your puzzle instead of being lead around by a sparkly trail (not possibly made by a vampire)?

Yes, and you shouldn't be afraid to use this if it benefits your gameplay. If the entire point is just because you want the player to explore though, you should probably reconsider.

A Hidden Blade was my own test of what you can do while turning off the trail. Once you get to the inn at the beginning of that quest, I deliberately disable the trail because the entire point of that section is to talk to people and interact with the environment in order to figure out where you are supposed to go. Once the player solves that puzzle, the trail is turned back on instantly. This is the kind of trail disabling that benefits the quest.

On the other hand, I've seen quests that were described as open, with sidequests and extra things to do apart from the main story. Some of these disabled the quest trail to force the player to explore, despite the central quest actually being pretty linear. This is the wrong approach in my opinion. The author should encourage the player to explore, but should never force it. This kind of design is more likely to frustrate the player than engage him, and if they want to explore without a trail, all they need to do is hit Z anyway.

zogvarnoka

Hmm, it is an interesting conumdrum. Do I use the trail and vague quest objectives to lead the player through those "optional areas" whether he wants to go or not? Or do I still use the vague quest objectives (like "Explore <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) but leave it up to the player to decide if they investigate the optional areas? Or do I want the player to have to think and explore in my story ala no fairy trail? Like tilt I chose the last option for some parts of my UGC and used area objectives for the rest. One thing to remember is the player can always use the map to see where they are and there is no fog of war on the in game map to hide unexplored areas.

I ran into one quest (a very popular one actually) that had seemingly optional areas off the quest path and easy to get to, but nothing was in them. Later on in the story the quest led me to those areas that now had mobs populating them and interactables. The whole thing felt just wrong to me. If you aren't going to have anything for the explorers like me to do in the "optional areas" then seal them off till the quest advances to them. Otherwise its just makes the whole quest ridiculous imo.