Is questing too simple?

[hrugner]

So this video popped up on my suggested videos on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAkP5VjIv8

It's a video by Extra Credits, and it discusses quests in MMOs, how they used to be in Everquest, and how they are now in WoW. I wanted to hear your opinions on it. I would personally like quests in WoW to be like that because I like the concept of quests, actually playing the game instead of just logging in every Saturday to raid. I'd like them to be enjoyable, to have depth, instead of just ''go stab x amount of y in the face and come back'' as a way to get to 90, or in WoD, 100. Quests like that would make WoW feel like an actual Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game instead of just pressing buttons to generate numbers, to get better gear, to generate even bigger numbers with 25 other people.

The more people who watch this series the better.

There was an old WoW quest where you discover the remains of Sully Balloo's husband beneath Thandol Span. I have no idea if it's still there. It was cool because I'd fallen off the bridge accidentally and made the discovery while making my way back to land. WoW used to have hidden quests and even hidden quest hubs all throughout. There was the swamp of sorrows riddle, the grime encrusted ring, the sunken ship and the waves of naga in Azshara... all kinds of cool little things to find and do.

For some reason, someone decided that since most players never saw those things they weren't worth being in the game. However had that thought should be nibbled on by unattractive people with the lights on.

[Deleted]

I guess they could introduce Tibia-like quests where you have to go into a deep deep dungeon, figure out switches and items needed and fight really strong mobs in order to get the precious loot at the end.

[Sierra85]

I would argue the legendary cloak quest is something. Yes, there are parts that are obnoxius and just RNG, but take it from here and run with it. Or..if you disiked every single aspect of the legendary quest, then knock yourself out and say how you would do it. Just saying it should be "super epic and difficult" is a bit vague.

The legendary cloak quest was a good chain overall, it told a great story and did have some challenge involved. Even the firelands legendary staff quests had some good moments, like the nexus part.

I think there should be "story" mode quests like the legendary quest, that take you into scenarios, that take you around the world. Story content to do at max level that pushes the story along. It would be a way for players to get to know faction heroes better at max level. E.g. you do the thunder bluff quest, you do the iron forge quest etc etc. You learn about the zones, the heroes and have some sort of story associated with them.

The rewards for such quests could be valor, bonus roll coins etc. The story and character development has to be the central goal however.

[Enosh]

the last thing i want when getting another class to a level where they are fun to play (aka about 70-ish when most classes finally have all their shit) is taking the whole process even longer...

[Ronduwil]

It's funny to hear someone fixating on the quest log as something that breaks immersion and the sense of exploration. When I started playing RPGs half the fun was actually mapping out the world yourself. I filled reams of graph paper with maps for dungeons from games like Zork, Ultima, Wizardry, and Bards Tale. Forget having to search for quests; you actually had to be an amateur "cartographer" to get anywhere

Sadly, the fact of the matter is that hiding information via "secret" quests is pointless in this day and age. That ring quest he was talking about would be online the day it was discovered and some third party info site like wowhead or wowpedia would incorporate it into their quest list. MMO champion might even put up a blurb or two about it. Pretty soon everyone would know about it and anyone who hadn't read up on that quest chain yet would be called names like lazy, noob, and bad. I miss those days too, but I'm sorry to say that there's just no going back to them.

[rated]

The legendary cloak quest was a good chain overall, it told a great story and did have some challenge involved.

I actually did too, but I did it as it was all being released. If I was to come back now and re-do that entire quest line for the first time...I'd probably dislike it lol

[gibbie99]

I think leveling is both too easy and too hard. The quests are no problem, the speed from 1-60 is way too fast, but from 80-90 way too slow, plus with the merges it means everyone in the world who is on that quest is now competing with you. I Had 10 people doing the exact same quest yesterday. Just ridiculous. LFG is not much better, from palys who dont concencrate, to rogues rolling on +int gear...just so many bad players, not just lazy but "oh you need this? well screw you" mentality.

[Phasma]

WoW had quests with purpose at one time. They were called attunement quests and people complained about them. Why? Time restraints. It's the same excuse that is being used to slowly destroy everything with purpose in WoW. Things with purpose tend to take time to achieve, after all. It really makes me question the sanity of some players that want to take no time to do absolutely nothing in the game. That's exactly what they are asking for when they ask to make things more convenient and less time consuming.

[Zka]

Oh I'd so hate this EQ style questing, really. Noone has time to read and memorize all the little things they encounter. And internet sites make it unnecessary as well.
WoW questing isn't bad, it's just the mobs are way too easy and the boring quest grind takes way too long.

[Vash The Stampede]

Here's part 2 of said video.

[Thugicorn]

Questing system in WoW was just kind of bad to begin with.
I think the boring fetch/kill quests should be the first types of quests you do until 60.
After 60 I think quests should be more dynamic, more challenging (let's be honest, the difficulty between a level 1 kill quests isn't far from a level 60 kill quest), and maybe more epic.
I liked TERA for one major reason : Almost every monster had an ability or a mechanic you could learn to more easily defeat that monster. I miss this above all else. Monsters (outside of dungeons) are so dry and flavorless.

Oh I'd so hate this EQ style questing, really. Noone has time to read and memorize all the little things they encounter. And internet sites make it unnecessary as well.
WoW questing isn't bad, it's just the mobs are way too easy and the boring quest grind takes way too long.

Plenty of people have time to do this. What you hate is basically what the core of an RPG is.
There were no huge highly detailed databases when EQ came out. It was mostly word of mouth, if anything.
Quest grind being too long is relative. But it does feel like a long while when the tasks are so repetitive.
RPG's for the most part were always about the journey. However, blizzard spotlights the destination.

[dusselldorf]

My favorite game in history was Morrowind. The quests and world there were very immersive and you had to use clues to figure out where to go and how to get there. I've not had the same experience since.

[Ronduwil]

Here's part 2 of said video.

While I prefer the type of questing this guy was describing at the beginning of part 2, it's simply not a good fit for today's MMOs. There are two reasons for this. First, those kinds of quests simply have no replayability. As soon as the player has solved it the first time, it's as good as solved across all characters with no work. At that point it's no longer a quest; it's a chore. Second, today's players are too lazy to puzzle all that out themselves. Instead they'll go to wowhead, thotbot, wowwiki, wowpedia, or any other past/future web site that catalogs these quests and makes their solutions available for all to see. In fact, today's players define those who prefer to puzzle things out for themselves as "lazy" and "bad" for expecting to play through puzzles rather than researching their solution ahead of time and improving their efficiency.

I liked what he said about limiting the number of quests, and I think WoW has often failed in this regard. A classic example of that is Halfhill Valley. The minute I get there I'm given five quests leading me to five different hubs, each with five more quests. Upon leaving the Jade Forest I'm faced with a quest explosion, and the only time I bothered with those was on my first character because I wanted to complete them all. I think questing should be more either/or. You can choose to help one NPC but there's no time to help both. Right now it's kind of ridiculous that Stoneplow is about to be overrun with Klaxxi but they can wait if you prefer to quest in Kasarang Wilds for a while instead. Instead of being an urgent matter that needs tending to Stoneplow becomes a nagging chore that you may or may not get around to when you have the time. For me that's non-immersive.

[Breccia]

It looks to me like you're asking about more involved quest types and questlines. If anything, I think the revamp in Cata as well as new zones in MoP have moved in that direction. Could they go further? I admit, I would like to see a new Battle for the Undercity -- that quest was about as good as I can remember. But I don't think Blizz is interested in slowing everyone down from reaching endgame content, by forcing them to "chew their food slowly". Maybe the really deep storyline quests and/or those with larger, world-changing repurcussions could be part of the new WoD factions? Firelands-style stuff.

[Vash The Stampede]

It looks to me like you're asking about more involved quest types and questlines. If anything, I think the revamp in Cata as well as new zones in MoP have moved in that direction. Could they go further? I admit, I would like to see a new Battle for the Undercity -- that quest was about as good as I can remember. But I don't think Blizz is interested in slowing everyone down from reaching endgame content, by forcing them to "chew their food slowly". Maybe the really deep storyline quests and/or those with larger, world-changing repurcussions could be part of the new WoD factions? Firelands-style stuff.

A good example is a quest like The Legend of Stalvan. That quest still had a lot of boring things to do, but at least you got to see a developing story out of it. It also wouldn't hurt to have more voice acting and less text. Also less bad voice acting, as it's gotten pretty bad lately for Blizzard. Most of it sounds so cheesy and heroic.

It also doesn't help that most of the quests can be done by smashing your face into the keyboard. At that point it gets repetitive and boring.

[Varabently]

I personally think that everything in the game besides heroic/normal raiding and pvp should be made much more difficult. I mean you can solo 3 man scenarios at level, what's up with that? You can probably solo "heroic" 5 mans too. Questing is obviously child's play and I think if you are going to have difficult content that you want people to do (like challenge modes, heroic scenarios and heroic raids), you should prepare them for it.

But when you do that, you alienate a fair number of your players. There's a lot of wow players who never look on forums, never look up specs, and just play for fun. There's nothing wrong with that, but when you try to improve difficulty you scare them off. These are the players with holy paladins in strength gear or people autoattacking or whatever. That's fun for them and that's fine, but the game simply can't cater to everyone. I think WoW has stretched itself too thin and doesn't really work for many players. I'd rather they picked a demographic and cater to them instead of trying to please everyone.

If I'm not in that demographic, great, the game is no longer for me and I can move along. But that's not great business. If they can keep more players playing (i.e. not necessarily happy, just not mad enough to quit), that's preferable.

[Ronduwil]

A good example is a quest like The Legend of Stalvan. That quest still had a lot of boring things to do, but at least you got to see a developing story out of it. It also wouldn't hurt to have more voice acting and less text. Also less bad voice acting, as it's gotten pretty bad lately for Blizzard. Most of it sounds so cheesy and heroic.

That quest was extremely annoying to me. You had to travel half way across the world to bring back something that then prompted him to ask for yet another out-of-the-way item. The ultimate reward wasn't even worth it because by the time you had fought your way to the next quest item and back multiple times you had out-levelled your "reward" several times over. I prefer the current approach.

The problem is that with rested XP bonuses, guild buffs, and heirlooms, most characters out-level their current zone within a couple of quests. Even without heirlooms every instance and many quests award blue gear. For that reason the mobs seem trivially easy. I think that if they nerfed the XP gains and scaled back the frequency of blue rewards the difficulty would fix itself again. I still think that the game is much harder for inexperienced players than what the MMO enthusiasts on this forum claim.

[ComputerNerd]

Latest bandwagon to jump onto it seems.
I see lots of complaints from the experienced players, those who simply cannot offer a fair and unbiased view on the difficulty of questing.

What I would want, is genuine feedback from players new to the MMO genre giving their feedback.
Players who are playing wow as their first MMO, on their first or only on low level characters with a fairly limited amount of experience.
Those matter here, not the vocal players who keep this subject coming up.
Notice who it is suggesting changes to quest difficulty ? All one-sided.