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Optional quest or waypoint?
kwsapphire
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 671 Arc User
Is there a way to designate an objective as optional, and/or only display the objective if certain conditions are met?
Specifically:
- Player enters quest (check)
- Player can talk to NPC or ignore NPC (check)
- Player can complete quest by getting to end point (check)
- If player talks to NPC and hits the right dialog tree, a new NPC is created (check)
- Player then gets a waypoint to the new NPC, [Instead of or in addition to] the quest objective. (How do I do this?)
- If player ignores first NPC or does not hit correct dialog tree, no second NPC is created and the waypoint leads to the quest objective. (check)
So far it seems like I have to create a "go to this area that contains the second NPC" as part of the story, which doesn't seem optional, and doesn't seem like it will only happen based on hitting the right dialog tree. I know how to make the second NPC spawn based on dialog from the first NPC, but don't know how to make talking to that second NPC an optional objective that has its own waypoint/sparkly path.
Thanks for your help!
Specifically:
- Player enters quest (check)
- Player can talk to NPC or ignore NPC (check)
- Player can complete quest by getting to end point (check)
- If player talks to NPC and hits the right dialog tree, a new NPC is created (check)
- Player then gets a waypoint to the new NPC, [Instead of or in addition to] the quest objective. (How do I do this?)
- If player ignores first NPC or does not hit correct dialog tree, no second NPC is created and the waypoint leads to the quest objective. (check)
So far it seems like I have to create a "go to this area that contains the second NPC" as part of the story, which doesn't seem optional, and doesn't seem like it will only happen based on hitting the right dialog tree. I know how to make the second NPC spawn based on dialog from the first NPC, but don't know how to make talking to that second NPC an optional objective that has its own waypoint/sparkly path.
Thanks for your help!
Post edited by kwsapphire on
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If you want to handle OR conditions, you need to get tricky and use hidden under-terrain encounters.
Advanced Foundry Wiki has some examples.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Edit: Rats, this doesn't accomplish what I'm looking for. There's nothing there about creating a waypoint or sparkly trail to the optional objective, which is the whole point of what I'm going for. (Literally, make a sparkly path to the new NPC if the player wants to go meet the new NPC.)
Ah well, I'll have to think of something else.
Ah, yep. Nothing to do that other than make your own.
I used a whole bunch of "glowing orbs" at terrain level to make my own "sparkly path" in Rise of Ingeloakastimizilian [NW-DHHD2GTGJ] as well as in Sage Ramiels residence in Old Magic [NW-DGBLCWRFP].
You can drop one down and set it's Appear When/Disappear When to some trigger and then cut-n-paste a whole bunch of them.
I also tried using a "straight chain" and burying it just below the path and setting it to interactive to see the sparkles above the terrain.
If you want to see that it's in Arena of Calimport [NW-DQQRXNNUP].
Welcome to the Foundry, where we have to hack nearly everything ourselves.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Oh, those are good ideas, thank you!
Also, the need for hacking reminds me of the days of base-building in City of Heroes. Meeemorieees. ;]
But as Eldarth said while there is no way to make an optional objective there are ways to make things appear and disappear based on different triggers and conversation choices. Very useful in either making a seeminly dynamic map or causing player's actions to play a role in the difficulty.
A lot of players make Foundry Missions with plain old difficulty sliders. Personally I always wanted to make a quest where the dialogue choices you made (To be a jerk, or to not be a jerk. That is the question.) would effect the number of enemies that would come or obstacles in your way.
But alas, there's no way to set anything up as optional. If it is an objective players must do it.
I really hope this is true and we actually GET them; unlike the bosses thing where they talked about it & never delivered.
The actual setting is kill TriggerMob.
Set it to Area, you get sparkly trail.
This objective would have to be put next to the main story objective, so it is dealt with during that time frame, otherwise it will prevent the main story from advancing and not really be an optional at that point.
Place a trigger mob under the ground very near the quest npc, have it walk back and forth on a set of platforms. (See wiki for ideas on killboxes) Have 1 platform set to disappear when you speak to the optional quest NPC, thus completing that part. Then have a 2nd platform set to disappear if the player chooses to skip the optional and proceed down the main path(reach marker). In either case, the assigned trigger mob dies and you complete that optional portion, whether the player decides to go speak to him or not, thus allowing for that choice of doing the optional or not. What you have that optionalNPC have the player do, is up to you and can be itself another optional. Granted you have to make sure the trigger mob dies in range of the player in either case, so there are some range limitations of where you can do this. Also, you will get the (Optional) Speak to MyOptionalNPC quest objective completed prompt, but that's the only way to deal with something like that. Granted the actual "go talk to this optional quest npc" portion completes either way, but you can have the player do other optional quests based on if they really chose to go talk to him. You don't get experience in either case for this(you didn't kill the mob yourself), so it doesn't reflect on that, only on the choice the payer makes.
It's a rather convoluted work around, but it does work and can be tuned in different ways to accomplish a semblance of having a true Optional quest tied into the main objectives. Just remember that one way or another, a quest objective has to be completed for the story to advance. Having the player complete that objective doesn't mean they have to go there themselves, you can make it so even if they choose not to do it, it still completes the objective so the story continues.
[1] Devils in the Sewer
[2] The Summoning
[3] Temple of the Winds
Clan Ravenclaw
Children's Babble
Solstice Academy
There are two corridors to the exit. When you pass a checkpoint, a wall appears behind you, so you can't double-back.
Expanding from that, you can use floating lights as pathways, or signs. You can use teleports to move people between copies of a building. You can block stuff with invisible (or actual) walls, so that the experience changes once you make choices.
So, for example, in my second mission, I have three paths to an objective. Now, you COULD double back and try all three, though if I had wanted to I could block that.
The obvious path, filled with mobs and danger. Another path, puzzles. A third path, light combat and somewhat tricky to figure out.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Then for each of several different options -- dialog options, finding another NPC to talk to, poisoning a different NPC, each one of those "solutions" spawns a hard guard mob over the drow assassin, which gets killed, triggering the Encounter Complete story objective.
Burns an encounter for the trigger, and one for each option, but if you've got them to spare, it can give you that flexibility.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics