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[Suggestion] Can we get some more versatile quests?
hiddenfate
Banned Users Posts: 0 Arc User
Every single quest I've seen so far is a random variation of kill monster X to optionally get item Y and bring it back to NPC Z. Sometimes you have to go to location C instead of killing a monster for the item, but you'll inevitably have to kill one of the monsters guarding it...
D&D wasn't just hack and slash gore fest fun time and to see a game based off D&D doing what every generic MMO ever made, ever....I'm unhappy
. Are we really limited to relying on foundry developers to create some politics driven quests where your choice of words and actions are more important than just finding object X or Y?
My suggestion is that we have more word and dialogue driven quests in the game. You have voice actors, why not actually use them in a situation players won't just click the next dialogue button so they can hurry up and get the inevitable "Kill X and get B amount of experience" at the end of the chain?
Here's one for free.
Gowenna's Flowers:
The Half-Orc, Jorman, wants to buy flowers for his Half-Orc wife, Gowenna, as a birthday present but he's forgotten what her favorite flowers are are. Instead of asking her himself and getting an ax through his head he'd like you to discreetly find out what type of flowers Gowenna likes. He'd do it himself but seeing how indiscreet he's been so far he'd rather not get into more trouble.
^take this and convert it into standard Half-Orc slang.
Basic Pieces:
Jorman will tell the player about a flower stand he plans to buy the flowers at. The player can ask the owner of the flower stand what types of flowers ladies like to buy and the stand owner will talk about the Rose and its many colors.
Jorman will also mention his wife's friend, Lyddia, a human who hangs out in the market during the day. She'll ask you why you want to know and based on your charisma will either tell you that Gowenna likes the Hinny flower pod (because of the beauty of its moment of blossoming) or tell you in coarser terms to shove off.
You can further question Jorman and a character with enough intelligence will be able to narrow it down to either the Dahlia or the Hinny Flower. Wisdom can substitute intelligence for this part of the dialogue.
Finally you can ask other half-orc women in the market what their favorite flower is and guess based on that. (note: some will talk about the rose while others will talk about the hinny. The rest will just say they have no time for flowers.)
End:
If the player guesses the flower correctly, or Lyddia tells them, Gowenna will be incredibly happy and will give Jorman a big bear hug in a small cutscene while Jorman makes some funny noise. Jorman will award you with some experience and gold to compensate, and offhandedly mention that the ax might not have been so bad compared to the broken ribs.
If the player guesses wrong, Gowenna picks up the nearest object not nailed to the floor and smacks it over Jorman's head. Jorman goes unconscious and the player is chased away. If the player talks to Jorman afterward he thanks you for trying but you get no reward and he'll look at you funny the rest of the day.
Part of the allure of quests like this is the possibility of failure. If you mix up the flowers or just want to see a half orc bashed in the head with a plate then the quest is failed, you get no rewards, but you still leave laughing so in the end you win. Another part is that it actually feels like your player has some sort of soul instead of just being a direct route for your aggression, which must be relieved by throwing avalanche shards at tiny little dancing fey creatures. The outcome is reliant both on your guesswork and the character's ability scores which means that it forges a connection between player and character.
This type of quest should not exist only in the foundry section, it should be part of the main quest too. Also I wasn't entirely sure where to post this so if it's the wrong section please move it
D&D wasn't just hack and slash gore fest fun time and to see a game based off D&D doing what every generic MMO ever made, ever....I'm unhappy
. Are we really limited to relying on foundry developers to create some politics driven quests where your choice of words and actions are more important than just finding object X or Y?My suggestion is that we have more word and dialogue driven quests in the game. You have voice actors, why not actually use them in a situation players won't just click the next dialogue button so they can hurry up and get the inevitable "Kill X and get B amount of experience" at the end of the chain?
Here's one for free.
Gowenna's Flowers:
The Half-Orc, Jorman, wants to buy flowers for his Half-Orc wife, Gowenna, as a birthday present but he's forgotten what her favorite flowers are are. Instead of asking her himself and getting an ax through his head he'd like you to discreetly find out what type of flowers Gowenna likes. He'd do it himself but seeing how indiscreet he's been so far he'd rather not get into more trouble.
^take this and convert it into standard Half-Orc slang.
Basic Pieces:
Jorman will tell the player about a flower stand he plans to buy the flowers at. The player can ask the owner of the flower stand what types of flowers ladies like to buy and the stand owner will talk about the Rose and its many colors.
Jorman will also mention his wife's friend, Lyddia, a human who hangs out in the market during the day. She'll ask you why you want to know and based on your charisma will either tell you that Gowenna likes the Hinny flower pod (because of the beauty of its moment of blossoming) or tell you in coarser terms to shove off.
You can further question Jorman and a character with enough intelligence will be able to narrow it down to either the Dahlia or the Hinny Flower. Wisdom can substitute intelligence for this part of the dialogue.
Finally you can ask other half-orc women in the market what their favorite flower is and guess based on that. (note: some will talk about the rose while others will talk about the hinny. The rest will just say they have no time for flowers.)
End:
If the player guesses the flower correctly, or Lyddia tells them, Gowenna will be incredibly happy and will give Jorman a big bear hug in a small cutscene while Jorman makes some funny noise. Jorman will award you with some experience and gold to compensate, and offhandedly mention that the ax might not have been so bad compared to the broken ribs.
If the player guesses wrong, Gowenna picks up the nearest object not nailed to the floor and smacks it over Jorman's head. Jorman goes unconscious and the player is chased away. If the player talks to Jorman afterward he thanks you for trying but you get no reward and he'll look at you funny the rest of the day.
Part of the allure of quests like this is the possibility of failure. If you mix up the flowers or just want to see a half orc bashed in the head with a plate then the quest is failed, you get no rewards, but you still leave laughing so in the end you win. Another part is that it actually feels like your player has some sort of soul instead of just being a direct route for your aggression, which must be relieved by throwing avalanche shards at tiny little dancing fey creatures. The outcome is reliant both on your guesswork and the character's ability scores which means that it forges a connection between player and character.
This type of quest should not exist only in the foundry section, it should be part of the main quest too. Also I wasn't entirely sure where to post this so if it's the wrong section please move it
Post edited by hiddenfate on
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Comments
It's like Sword Coast adventures, you have to actually like D&D tabletop to understand the motivation behind this. There were a number of campaigns that had very little action or fighting in them (if any at all). The entirety of the campaigns would be a very large and well developed plot with the character having to act with wit, cunning, and luck to get out of it. Not just pass a trap or beat up another monster for the 1,000th time.
I do like your suggestion about randomized traps but the problems with it are a little steep. They'd have to remake every dungeon with every possible trap in place and assign a "chance" variable to it, at the start of the dungeon each chance variable is checked against a dice roll (say 1-20) and if the dice roll is less than the chance variable the trap will spawn (or a similar method). This could also create the issue of far too many traps spawning in a single dungeon. It would also create an interesting lag time at the start, with the size of some of these dungeons I could think of well over 2-3 thousand places for traps to be hidden. That's 2-3k dice rolls and a maximum of 2-3k traps.
Obviously they wouldn't make 2-3k traps but you can see the issue.
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I like pnp, but I like pnp as pnp. Video games are something else and can not do the same thing without being very boring. The fun of pnp is that while doing all of this you're sitting down with your friends, the fun of video games is combat.
If you really think story focus in games is boring then we should stop the argument here because you and I will never agree.
That's not D&D, that's call of duty with spells and dark fey instead of assault rifles and whatever they're killing now.
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A Comprehensive Review of Neverwinter <-- Read it!
Just want to correct your analogy from my point of view then I'm done here. What you are talking about is Zork with pretty pictures in the background where I want something (for a dated reference here) more like the legend of zelda.
And by "Zork with pretty pictures" you mean...
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
However
Neverwinter is not D&D. its a Computer game based on D&D. Its a mmo meaning its trying to get what most people want. As we all know you can't make everyone happy all of the time. As with a MMO you can only make most of the people happy most of the time. Neverwinter does a great job of adding variety and events to change things up. There is always something new you can do, most of the time though most people don't want to do it.
Its set in Neverwinter, a once grand city trying to rebuild itself on the ashes of old. Fighting enemies at every corner from the Nashers insides its own walls trying to take over control, to Valendra's forces also trying to take over neverwinter. Not to mention the chaotic magic that exists spewing forth demons every time someone sneezes.
If Jorman's biggest concerns are what flowers his wife likes then they must have it easy in Neverwinter. He needs a kid to ask his wife, not a adventure.
Adventures Wanted
- meaning you kill things
- meaning you stand up to the deepest darkest thing you can possible imagine, instead of running away. Every fiber of your body is telling you to run but you stand there and fight.
- meaning the farmer who just lost everything to the pack of orc's can feel some sort of justice when you wipe out the entire tribe.
Failure does exist in NW, We had a full group trying to run Epic Dread Vault. Everyone with a GS of over 11k. We failed. Several times. But it was fun, we made new friends during that time. Didn't get any reward, lost money on potions
Stand your Ground NW-DNBHK74ML
That aside, do you think that everyone in every part of the city is in trouble all of the time? Is Rix spending his entire time fighting or is he just doing his daily job? Maybe Jorman's just your average commoner of Neverwinter, just because he's a half-orc doesn't make him anyone really special.
And while I understand that Neverwinter is an MMO I don't see why that justifies it being like every MMO ever made, ever. If I just wanted to kill things repeatedly there's a plethora of MMOs I can choose from that are less buggy and more balanced. Neverwinter doesn't need to be Flyff set in the Forgotten Realms, it needs to be the forgotten realms taken to a much broader level. There were quests in the Forgotten Realms that had you kill nothing, but had a number of outcomes depending on your ability scores and choices of conversation (and skill checks but I can see why Cryptic doesn't want those in this game :P). Even a simple Whodunnit quest like in Oblivion would break the monotony.
The Lich quest in the graveyard was gold, and everyone agrees or they are wrong. I just want more of that, some humor and something different to break up the monotonous grinding. And potentially the option to download a video of that quest being played because I really like it.
My YouTube Channel
A Comprehensive Review of Neverwinter <-- Read it!