Cataclysm Post Mortem -- Quest Design with Dave "Fargo" Kosak

[Deleted]

Of course. 2% warglaive drops was an intensive and emersive experience, while crafting a legendary through raiding and questing is not

derp

No, it needs them both: super low drop rate AND extremely long/hard questline...

[Adrim]

Not sure if trolling, or just very stupid... I'm kindof tending towards thinking the latter.

You got to be kidding. You wear stuff that makes you get more than average XP and then complain that in this mode the quests get grey quicker? Really? /facepalm

here... take off all those heirlooms if you're worried about leveling too fast..i mean really, here i'm going to put on, what 35% (45% with guild perk) more experience? and then BITCH about zones not lasting.. seriously stfu and go cry somewhere else.

Wow, so many people who fail at reading comprehension.

As I said VERY CLEARLY IN ENGLISH: the problem is that to complete these massive story arcs you are stuck in a zone past the point of advantageous leveling XP. Why the fuck should I still be doing doing green quests in Redridge at 20 when I'm now high enough level to start quests in Duskwood?

Even without heirlooms (which I have done on new servers) you are getting a "Hero's Call" to the next zone before you finish any of these massive chains. Not to mention, do just a couple dungeons and when you come out, your green quests are now grey.

The only people who complete these massive chains are twinks trying to get blues or Loremasters. It's not proper leveling. Unless you are stupid enough to think the only people who level are brand-new to the game and not interested in leveling a toon as quickly as possible.

[VanishO2]

They already admitted that Vash area was a failure...

Looks like your on the late train

It's a failure because they removed the raid... sad. With the raid and probably it's own set of dailies, the zone would be a lot better.

---------- Post added 2012-02-28 at 06:37 PM ----------

Some things that irk me:

No, there were no nooks and crannies in the old world, it's the most linear questing experience I've ever seen in an MMO.

The story telling was weak, but it mainly suffered due to really, REALLY, generic and dull story-lines. Go fix the world pillar, go kill the dwarves, go kill even more Twilight's Hammer - they're bad guys, trust us.

The 4.2 dailies were wasted and did not live up to expectations. You STILL had to do the same quests, over and over and over, but occasionally you'd get to swap out 2 or 3 of them for a different set of 2 or 3 that you'd already done over and over and over. The quests were unimaginative and the whole zone felt wholly unimmersive since the place pretty much hard resets each day and everything you accomplished the day before needs doing again.

Agree on the Elemental Bonds questline, it was boring with an OK story and some great visuals.

The rogue questline was fantastic to play, but felt incredibly disjointed and contrived. The actual raid quests were lazy as hell, and the out of raid quest lines, whilst a blast to actually play left me wondering "Why am I doing this again?" sure, I'm doing them for the oranges, but as an actual story I'm working through, why do I actually give a damn what this rogue black dragon wants done? And why are we killing these people again? Because he says so? Who are they? What have they actually done?

I'd have loved to see some more questions about how the design philosophy for end game got flipped on it's head and how promises for the most raid content ever per expansion simply got ignored, but I'll wait.

Not only that about 4.2 dailies, but they were also out of place. They should be live before the actual raid. Really stupid to make all that effort and "learn" about FL and it's residents that you've alread killed on the same day... We were still working out that big spider lair by the time we alread killed Ragnaros...

[Deadanon]

Intresting that they dont mention patch 4.1 at all...

Personally - I did not like daylies in Firelands at all. They became as repetitive as the rest. And the rewards were to far between.

25 daily quests are just to much IMO. 10 was fine. And considering that many players have many charas -it creates yet another way for player burnout. Do less - but make it better and more diverse.

Its alos possible to add weekly questslines of 5-8 quests that give more rewards than daily quests. Having diffrent quests like that for each character prevents player burnout.

[Sapho]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!He is perhaps a bit more positive about Cata than I am - but it does seem they've recognized quite a few of the problems (or at least, the things that I found problematic!). I'm looking forward to MoP a little more now

[Notos]

No, it needs them both: super low drop rate AND extremely long/hard questline...

I'm sorry, that is just a horrible idea. So you want there to be a questline to allow access to a legendary, only to have it have a super low droprate? Or do you want a super low droprate item to start a questline for a legendary? Both ways are dumb imo: why should they bother designing a questline if so few people are going to see it? And if you have to do a hard questline just to unlock the ability for a legendary to drop, you've essentially put in a lot of work for a reward that you may never get. Awful, awful idea.

[Deleted]

Fuck the Worgen and Goblin starting zones.

Fuck no longer being able to level with a friend like I have in every single xpac.

Fuck not being able to turn off XP or transmog or access any other Stormwind-only service due to phasing.

Fuck phasing entirely.

Fuck one-path-only quest chains.

Fuck having to run to a third-party website every time I accidentally miss an exclaimation mark god knows where in Deepholm.

Fuck Therazane chain on every single raiding toon.

Yeah, I've done the "new" questing. It's crap. Most of the jokes aren't funny (some I admit are). Most of the chains are not "epic" unless you want to spend your whole life in a zone WELL past the level you should be in here. I did the Redridge chain once at by the time I got to the end in full heirlooms, the quests were fucking grey. That's brilliant.

What I want is to get off the boat in Darkshore and have fifteen question marks, including some red ones, waiting for me. I leveled countless night elves through that zone...and Draenai and humans and really every race too...without getting sick of it. That was epic feeling.

New Azeroth is crap and Dave "Fargo" Kosak is my new most-hated developer. Every time I run into a mob that evades because it spawned inside a rock, or get stuck in a new place or see a really crappy looking terrain transition I realized that they could have done a few things well but instead they opted to do a whole lot of things badly.That's a failure on all sides.

You complain about questing being too fast, and still quest in full heirlooms? Then it's your own damn fault

[Deleted]

Dave Kosak I love you man, keep up the good work !

[bbr]

4.2 really put the final nail in the coffin for me tbh. Lots of anticipation, etc... and, all i got was a huge load of daily quests :/

[asher1611]

You know, for them saying the initial development and focus on 1-60 quests took away from their end game development...it is interesting to see so many people say they loved the difficulty and variety in T11 while finding T12 meh and T13 as /facepalm worthy. After 4.0.3, the initial xpac work was DONE. My worry going forward is how Blizzard failed to actually build new content into the expansion. I don't remember hearing so much that was planned, put into the game files, and left on the cutting room floor before it was pushed out -- at least not since vanilla.

Wow, so many people who fail at reading comprehension.

As I said VERY CLEARLY IN ENGLISH: the problem is that to complete these massive story arcs you are stuck in a zone past the point of advantageous leveling XP. Why the fuck should I still be doing doing green quests in Redridge at 20 when I'm now high enough level to start quests in Duskwood?

Even without heirlooms (which I have done on new servers) you are getting a "Hero's Call" to the next zone before you finish any of these massive chains. Not to mention, do just a couple dungeons and when you come out, your green quests are now grey.

The only people who complete these massive chains are twinks trying to get blues or Loremasters. It's not proper leveling. Unless you are stupid enough to think the only people who level are brand-new to the game and not interested in leveling a toon as quickly as possible.

I've leveled a bunch of alts both with and without herilooms and Adrim is correct. Jump on the heirloom point if you want, but that's attacking one detail instead of the whole picture.

It's the one single thing that disappointed me about Azshara. The zone is huge. There's a ton of neat, interesting goblin stuff in there. And yet by the time I got the breadcrumb quest to go to Bildgewater Port, it was already time for me to leave the zone. I had only half of the quests done.

At least with the old style you would get pockets of quests that would take you to certain areas of the zone and give you a little mini-glimpse or story about that particular area. I think Northern Barrens still holds on to that a bit. Southern Barrens is the one leveling zone I have not been through yet, so I do not know if I can say the same.

[darkpower]

Wrath style questing was good. Each quest in a hub sent you to one specific place to do all the quests instead of having to go all over the zone and beyond to complete each just to get to the next set of quests the hub had for you. Cata took this a step further, and those it was linear, linear can be good if done correctly. I wouldn't want to go back to how the 1-60 areas were pre-Cata (quest drops took too much luck to actually DROP, and hubs became too disjointed for anyone to really care about them). I wouldn't know why anyone would actually WANT that back (perhaps afraid of change from the "good ol' days"). I think they just have to tweak a bit of the Wrath-style questing and things will be fine.

[merex760]

Cataclysm questing was great 1-60, but high level questing was complete crap compared to Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. Hopefully we see a return to the better format in Mists of Pandaria. I'm pretty disappointed they liked how the Molten Front dailies turned out. I hated that area. So much. Bring back the dailies like Burning Crusade. Those were the best. Enough of the phasing crap. Wrath had the best leveling experience overall. It had a nice flow AND I was able to fill up my quest journal and have a choice of where to go within the zone I was in.

[fleps]

Oh.. my... God... They REALLY liked the Molten Front dailies? Seriously? It was the most painful dailies ever in this game. It was the first time after almost 6 years playing this that I didn't finished a story line / dailies farm in any of my chars.You keep doing it over and over and over to get 150 stupid things so you'll be able to get a quest then u need to get another 150 to do the other quest and.. Jesus.

[Okacz]

I like how some people nostalgia-rage over here.

New questing sucks, old was way funnier, because it was slower, less linear, more zones to explore. What?

You guys remember what youre talking about? Desolace with quests "kill centaurs here", "kill centaurs there", "kill more centaurs when you're on it"? Maybe huh, EPL with almost NO questing experiance for leveling players? Thousend Needles "Run here, run back, maybe kill some wyverns meanwhile"? Arathi Highlands "I dunno what to do now, so I gonna kill a few more elementals"?

Before Cata I hated 1-60. The worst part in leveling, and the one that discouraged from making alts. Just a pain in the ass. You moved from zone to zone because quests became too boring - there was no story around them to bind you to them at all. Exploration? Rather doing everything to avoid it. Interesting plots? Just compare them to current ones, and try not to laugh. Anyone knows what the old plot of questing in, for exampe, Feralas, was about? "We are surrounded by hostile npcs. Kill them, and pick your reward".

Laughing at current legenday storylines and stuff? Yea, BC ones were sooooo much better. One quest only - go to church and play for this damn Warglaive to drop this time. Vanilla? You mean "get enough money to buy Thunderfury"?

Dailies are bad? Show me better dailies in history of WoW. Argent tournament was quite ok I guess. And that is kinda all. MF dailies are maybe boring at the end (SO BORING), but when you start them they are quite entertaining for a few days in a row. Plus, they provide real goals - unlocking next stages.

So ppl, just give the credit where it should be given. Those things were GOOD in Cata. About questing - Ive got only one con on my mind. 4.1 or 4.2 was supposed to be a patch to introduce Abyssal Maw and continue Neptuons questline. We were awarded by revamped trolls (worst patch ever if you ask me) and quite fine daily quest hub. Shame on you, Blizz.

[Thallidomaniac]

Oh.. my... God... They REALLY liked the Molten Front dailies? Seriously? It was the most painful dailies ever in this game. It was the first time after almost 6 years playing this that I didn't finished a story line / dailies farm in any of my chars.You keep doing it over and over and over to get 150 stupid things so you'll be able to get a quest then u need to get another 150 to do the other quest and.. Jesus.

It seemed like even the Argent Tournament ones were less painful than Molten Front. I won't repeat the MF grind after the first character again.

[Deadanon]

I like how some people nostalgia-rage over here.

New questing sucks, old was way funnier, because it was slower, less linear, more zones to explore. What?

You guys remember what youre talking about? Desolace with quests "kill centaurs here", "kill centaurs there", "kill more centaurs when you're on it"? Maybe huh, EPL with almost NO questing experiance for leveling players? Thousend Needles "Run here, run back, maybe kill some wyverns meanwhile"? Arathi Highlands "I dunno what to do now, so I gonna kill a few more elementals"?

Before Cata I hated 1-60. The worst part in leveling, and the one that discouraged from making alts. Just a pain in the ass. You moved from zone to zone because quests became too boring - there was no story around them to bind you to them at all. Exploration? Rather doing everything to avoid it. Interesting plots? Just compare them to current ones, and try not to laugh. Anyone knows what the old plot of questing in, for exampe, Feralas, was about? "We are surrounded by hostile npcs. Kill them, and pick your reward".

Laughing at current legenday storylines and stuff? Yea, BC ones were sooooo much better. One quest only - go to church and play for this damn Warglaive to drop this time. Vanilla? You mean "get enough money to buy Thunderfury"?

Dailies are bad? Show me better dailies in history of WoW. Argent tournament was quite ok I guess. And that is kinda all. MF dailies are maybe boring at the end (SO BORING), but when you start them they are quite entertaining for a few days in a row. Plus, they provide real goals - unlocking next stages.

So ppl, just give the credit where it should be given. Those things were GOOD in Cata. About questing - Ive got only one con on my mind. 4.1 or 4.2 was supposed to be a patch to introduce Abyssal Maw and continue Neptuons questline. We were awarded by revamped trolls (worst patch ever if you ask me) and quite fine daily quest hub. Shame on you, Blizz.

I liked the 10 daily quests in TBC. 25 is just over the top.

Legendery quest arks should not be there. They should rather do weekly quests that everyone can enjoy.

Lastly - Quests do not have to tell a story. They need to be fun. After all -we all know that every zone has x amount of gathering quests - X amount of kill quests and so on. The story behind it does not make it any more intresting. Specially not when you are doing them again and again and again and again in a daily quest hub.

[greyghost]

No, it needs them both: super low drop rate AND extremely long/hard questline...

Then it requires a spelling test, a obstacle course and another whole raid that requires insane resist gear stacking for just 2 fights or else I will accuse Blizzard of being a carebear company and I'll stomp my feet until mom comes and OH MAN YOU'RE GOING TO BE IN TROUBLE THEN.

....

Legendaries are supposed to be representative of a Guild's invested time towards getting more-powerful-than-normal items to assist them in difficult raid challenges, not a litmus test for seeing how close to an insanely stupid Korean MMO grind you can push on people until they shrug and deem it not worth the effort. Your desire for making people suffer to get SOOPER COOL STUFF OMG is not shared by a large amount of Blizzard's audience. There's a reason only 60,000~ people played Aion in North America just 6 months after launch. Making stuff that takes weeks of dev time that is only obtained by just a few hundred people due to inane RNG is a waste of everyone's time.

[Neichus]

It seemed like even the Argent Tournament ones were less painful than Molten Front. I won't repeat the MF grind after the first character again.

I just finished the Molten Front quests on something like my 5th character. I couldn't stand to do the Argent Tournament even for my main.

^There, undeniable proof that the new daily design is going uphill rather than down...:P

[Prfct]

This is nothing more than a marketing strategy... they are hyping MOP by saying they learned from their mistakes so people thinks MOP will be different than cataclysm when everything points to the contrary (easier content, simplified talent system, LFR from day 1 cancelling heroics ilvl, only 5 levels of content from 85 to 90). Truth is they are preparing everyone to think everything will be different.

I really believe MOP beta will be limited to 1 or 2 zones and 1 or 2 levels, they won't let people see all the content in beta even if they paid the annual pass because if they did some would decide not to buy MoP (maybe some would burn out in beta). So they will continue hyping MoP saying 'we learned from all our mistakes' and then will say 'we won't let see you ALL of the content because it would spoil it for you... and once people buys the expansion everything will go to shit again and they won't care anymore.

I'm not a Vanilla player, I bought the game on cataclysm and I really don't like the direction the game took... progression means shit when a new patch gives everything away for free... WoW has become a 'Pay to win' game, you pay your subscription and you're entitled to everything the game has to offer without making any kind of effort (Dragon soul nerf WILL reach 35%) EXCEPT SHOP MOUNTS/PETS. New mount looks kickass and everyone can have it (everyone with money) how is that fair with the playerbase? Everyone who asked me to come play WoW a year and a half ago has already left the game, we're talking about 15-20 people, and the 20 people left with me raiding has decided to leave after madness heroic falls.

Sorry about my english it's not my native language... all I say it's that you can't catter to casuals without caring for the hardcore, eventually casuals get bored too and will leave the game without thinking twice because they know they can come back anytime and have everything handed to them in one or two weeks. What's stopping people from playing something else til the end of Pandaria and then comeback and do everything in one month and go away again? Ignorance, but they'll wise up eventually and Blizzard will lose a lot of potential money. Yeah, they will have 4 million players anyway but money and companies don't work that way and investors won't like to lose 5 million subscribers... I wonder what will they blame.

[crsh1976]

I think this is the first time I see them do something else than desperate damage control; about time.they saw how and why some stuff didn't work, now let's hope Greg Street is no longer in charge and have set themselves new goals based on facts and not some dickhead's fabled conception of what a good game is.