9 réponses à ce sujet

[Qis]

After thinking for some time...some side quests are unreasonable side quests...

1. why someone want to pay 1 sovereign for someone to give 10 deep mushrooms, that guy can buy at any store and cheaper.

2. blackstone irregular can sent the letter themselves
- at Lothering, just walk few spaces to the Chantry, the guy is there
- at Redcliff, he just need to enter the Chantry, the woman is there

3. if blackstone irregular can pay mercenary or the warden, they sure can buy 10 health poultice at any store

4. mage colletive can mark the 2 of the blood mage houses themselves at Denerim

5. miriam can pay 50 silver, sure she can buy 3 lesser health poultice that are a lot cheaper at any store in Lothering

6. why must the Warden busy him/her self with an elf guy romance problem?

7. ....many more

Modifié par Niza, 13 mai 2011 - 01:39 .

[digi_ronin]

I happen to work in the field of quality assurance for software, for a big well-known company. I know  padding when I see it. Not that it takes any special training to do so in this case, though -  80% of the "Quest Boards" quests are blatantly obvious padding.

While playing them, it becomes very clear that most of them were either shoehorned in at the end of development or, as an alternative, originally planned as being more complex but noone ever got to fleshing them out. They have no dialogue, no choices, no reactions, no item rewards, let alone their own locations. They are WoW-style questing at its worst. Their only "benefit" is that they were cheap to develop and that there are tons of them.

And yes, some of them are so blatant that it breaks the immersion.

That being said, actually I found several companion quests almost equally disappointing... or even insulting, if you want. Alistairs sister? Wooo a single (unsatisfying) 30seconds-dialogue with no repercussions at all. Wynnes apprentice? The same. That's quite pitiful considering the hoops you have to jump through to start them.

Don't get me wrong, the "real" DAO quests are very well done and Ioved them (like most of the game). But please Bioware, don't expect players to be stupid enough to not notice when you are padding or cutting corners. It shows. Sometimes painfully. And it costs you goodwill. Even filler quests demand a certain level of care. Less is more in this case.

Modifié par digi_ronin, 13 mai 2011 - 06:26 .

[Qis]

Yes, i don't see any point in Alistair side quest...just to get some bashing by his sister? What i do to deserve it? She call me a "tart" for nothing.

And Sten side quest...i have to travel across the map facing robbers and dangers in the mid way, then the sword is actually owned by the guy i meet earlier. Must pay 6 sovereign if i don't have Sten in my party, and for what? That sword is not worth the trouble.

"The flower" at Ostagar also a unreasonable quest, the kennel master got problem with only ONE flower? Sure he can get that ONE flower or the whole bunch of flowers at anytime before non-soldiers not allowed to get into the wilds.

Oh yes...Jetta...totally not worth to mention as a quest....in my first play through i though the lock box is something important to give to someone called Jetta in Redcliff, but actually it is nothing....NOTHING..i am not talking about reward, i am talking about a quest, it is not worth to become a quest.

Yes i agree with you digi_ronin.

Edit (add few things) :

Fazzil Sextant...i wasted so much time in Denerim to find this thing, turnout to be it can only be found prior to Landsmeet because of it is in Elven Alienage....The same with that Hooded Courier. I going to Denerim early in my early playthroughs, wasting my time searching for it.

A girl crying at Redcliff Chantry because her brother is missing...i can found her brother easily, just need to be in one of her house room, her brother is in a closet...what the...?

Oh yes i remember (off topic)... i play as Dalish Elf, refuse to help Redcliff village, i left to Brecilian forrest...after sometime there i go back to Redcliff...found Bann Teagan on the Chantry floor, turn out to be the only survivor. The question is...FOR HOW LONG HE BE LYING ON THE FLOOR??? 1 day? 2 day? 1 week? 1 month??? He woke up then running outside have no wound or sickness or whatever...fresh and alive :happy:

Modifié par Niza, 13 mai 2011 - 07:39 .

[digi_ronin]

Niza wrote...

"The flower" at Ostagar also a unreasonable quest, the kennel master got
problem with only ONE flower? Sure he can get that ONE flower or the
whole bunch of flowers at anytime before non-soldiers not allowed to get
into the wilds.

While your other examples are valid, this one occasion is not too bad. Since this one is at least the opener to a companion introduction, not jus a standalone throwaway quest.

Anyway, fetchquests ("bring me X") have been the standard fare of PC-RPG gaming ever since the beginning. The reason for this is that, in terms of development, it's the easiest possible setup to make the player do something. Send him somewhere to pick up an item, place some monsters on his path, and then check the inventory for the item when he talks to the quesgiver next time. Easiest quest script ever.

They are wildly popular with developers, even many mainquests in games are structured this way. But many devs fall prey to making certain typical mistakes with them.

• Asking for readily available items. Any instance where it's very clear that the idly cloudgazing NPC could just walk 50 steps and grab it himself. Immersion broken, player either wearily laughing or miffed.
• Asking for seemingly readily available items. The NPC asks for an apple. But without stating it, he doesn't just want a +10hp apple from the merchant next door. No, he wants a special quest apple that is in some chest on the other side of town. Player buys apple, nothing happens. Player confused and typically wondering if game is broken, until he maybe stumbles across the quest apple 20 hours later. Player then miffed. Worse case: player found qeust apple before and sold it somewhere because it didn't look special enough. Congratulations, player very miffed now.
• Ignoring economy. Which is a three-fold lose-lose dilemma, even. Usually related to consumables. Asking for something that is more expensive than the quest reward? Player miffed, unless he can acquire it for free somewhere. Giving too much reward for something cheap? Immersion broken. Heck, even if reward=price, the player will still hate it because he ran around for nothing. Basically quests for buyable items is always a big no-no, unless the NPC in question can not possibly go and buy the stuff himself.
• ...and many more.

Don't want to write walls of text here. Most of it is really nothing more but plain boring common sense. And yet, surprisingly enough, these things are still very common mistakes even in many of todays games.

Which is precisely why q people are needed, even if you have topnotch devs at your disposal. But of course such non-gameplay-critical mistakes are way down on the priority lists. The cheaper ones of the many outsourced gametesting companies (India is very popular these days) don't even test for them.

Modifié par digi_ronin, 13 mai 2011 - 07:44 .

[Gangster No.1]

digi_ronin wrote...
Ignoring economy. Which is a three-fold lose-lose dilemma, even. Usually related to consumables. Asking for something that is more expensive than the quest reward? Player miffed, unless he can acquire it for free somewhere. Giving too much reward for something cheap? Immersion broken. Heck, even if reward=price, the player will still hate it because he ran around for nothing. Basically quests for buyable items is always a big no-no, unless the NPC in question can not possibly go and buy the stuff himself.

I'm referring to the "Heck, even if reward=price, the player will still hate it because he ran around for nothing." At least for me that's not true if money isn't the only reward. If you get even only a small amount of experience points in addition to the money, such a quest is fine with me. It's still not a great quest, but at least you get something out of it, i.e. XP.

That's especially true in CRPGs with a finite amount of monsters and thus a finite amount of XP you can earn from killing them. I'd even be happy to do that quest under these conditions (finite amount of XP) even if I didn't get payed in money or items, because in a game where the total amount of XP you can earn is limited, I deem XP the most important and valuable kind of reward you can get. I'm still not saying that even under these conditions that quest is a good one, but it's at least somehow justified, although just barely.

Modifié par Gangster No.1, 13 mai 2011 - 07:59 .

[Qis]

@digi_ronin

Yup...and one more thing...about assembling items also a common quest in RPG. Some items are in unreasonable place, they just being put there because the game maker want it to be there.

Such as Ancient Elven Boots at Lothering Chantry closet, i don't see any explanation on how that boot end up there. Yes there is a bug on this, i got it after using bug fix mode.

Others are

-Glove of Vigilance in Orzamar Sharperate,

-Juggernaut Armor in a coffin while all other sets are with Revenant, i got confused at first. In the temple, i didn't do the Elven Ritual quest first, so i fight one Revenant in there, drop nothing, so i thought it is bug and frustrated. Turn out to be the Elven Ritual is the quest to get the last piece of Juggernaut Armor, it is in the coffin. Before that, i search all the possible tombstone in the forest....i thought i miss one tombstone somewhere...

-Top Sider Sword separated all over Deep Road, can only manage to get it after finishing the whole quest meaning i cannot use it to fight dark spawns and undead there. It have + damage against undead, so it is useless bonus because there few undead after Orzamar (since Orzamar is the late game place). Also the story is not matched with the bonus, it about a warrior die fighting dark spawn but the bonus is against undead...

I got the feeling the item bonuses are actually "just put it there" by the game maker. Most items are not useful in any way.

The same goes on the weapon design (off topic)...Ornamental sword and Chasind Flat Blade is 1000 more beautiful and look more ancient than the ugly over sized Yusaris and Ageless.

Edit :

speaking about revenants, Black Vial...also a pain in the ass as a quest with nothing useful...it is like being put in the game just to ****** off players...just pick a vial that will break everytime you pick them, then spoof!!!! a powerful monster will wipe out the whole party.....if you win you just get some not useful thing and some EXP...if kill all the Revenants in the game, get nothing at all as far as i know...

Modifié par Niza, 13 mai 2011 - 08:19 .

[digi_ronin]

Side note:
Where did I have my eyes all this time... after finishing Lelianas Song just now, I think I finally understood why most companion quests in DAO feel so awfully truncated and unsatisfying. And why none of them offers any closure. However, by now I see the pattern.

Developers didn't skimp on these quests - on the contrary. They were only meant as story hooks, right from the beginning.

That sister of Alistair? It kept bugging me why Alistair (who is arguably the most important NPC in the game) only gets a shabby, demotivating 30second conversation as his whole companion quest. By now I remember that I honestly expected her to get kidnapped later in DAO. Which would have been a golden chara development moment for Alistair after that nasty dialogue encounter. Saving a previously ill-tempered damsel in distress... well, it never happened. But it was meant to.

I'm very convinced at this point that BW had been planning on selling premium content modules for the other companions... it's anyone's guess why they didn't - but suddenly these blatant truncations make sense.

God, I hate this age of DLC... killing plotlines and leaving golden moments out just to further milk your helpless audience. Dammit BW. You too, Brutus?

Modifié par digi_ronin, 15 mai 2011 - 06:28 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

Dragon Age 2 actually improved companion quests, but practically at the cost of every single conversation with the companions being *about* stuff that revolved around their quests. Dialogue lacked the spontaneity of DA:O and could end up sounding like a broken record (ever known a person who could *not* stop talking about a single subject whenever you bumped into them? No matter where you were, that topic would always worm its way into the conversation?).

As far as 'padding quests' are concerned, how many RPGs don't have them?

[digi_ronin]

Shadow of Light Dragon wrote...
As far as 'padding quests' are concerned, how many RPGs don't have them?

Oh, I perfectly agree. Padding is normal, and nothing shameful in itself. It's just that DAO went overboard with it.

Having those rogue/chantry/mage board quests?
Perfectly good idea.

But in a self-respecting RPG like DA, even padding quests need a minimum of care. Which was not given for many such quests in DAO. Any quest, no matter how small, needs to offer at least a tiny something to the player. It isn't so hard. An emotional choice. A small throwaway but before unreachable location. A funny dialogue. A lot qualifies.

For example Tracking down those Blackrock deserters? Great idea for a padding quest. Just add one more dialogue line to be able to spare the guys, and you're home free. But no, all three of these rather pathetic guys crazily attack your godly party.

Or what about the many, many quests getting completed without having to move your chara an inch? Handing in consumables for example. One such quest? Sure. But DAO really goes through most of the basic consumables with this pattern.To the point where I was wondering "Hmm I already had poultices, mushrooms... where can I pick up a quest for elfroo-ahh, there it is." It makes them a pointless 5second-instagold excuse for a quest.

Many of the board quests are so content-free that they do not even get their own turn-in dialogue. Which is the pinnacle of skimping. Heck, if I just killed three deserters of your mercenary troupe, I expect some kind of comment on that. Something like "Serves them bastards right." Or maybe "A shame, really". Not a generic "I think I owe you a reward."

That is why I said that "Less is more" up there.

Things would have been fine if BW had cut down the number of padding quests by 50% and instead added a little bit more detail to the rest of them. No one would have missed them, really. But as it stands, sadly, many of them feel terribly contrived, shoehorned and shallow. Which makes them feel out of place.

Modifié par digi_ronin, 15 mai 2011 - 07:06 .

[Shadow of Light Dragon]

You are probably right. Personally I think the no-brainer quests are for the people who don't want to bother reading into things and just want their l33t XP. :/

After my 'padding quests' comment I went and looked at one of my favourite (older) RPGs (Ultima VII: The Black Gate) to see what its side-quests were like...and while there were few compared to a monster like DA:O, NONE of them were basic deliveries and all of them had a story and dialogue.

The most simplistic was rescuing a baby that had been stolen from its mother by harpies. All you have to do for that one is find the nest, kill the harpies and carry the baby back home.

More elaborate ones included a monk who asks you to get him an invisibility potion for some experiment. If you investigate, you learn his name is not known to the other monks that his description matches that of an escaped criminal from a nearby court. Giving him the potion allows him to escape the guards who've been searching for him, but if you learn the truth and confront him he drops his disguise and attacks.

All it takes is a little thought and a little dialogue to have a non-essential quest stand out. But then the Ultima games were very into personal quests rather than stock-standard 'go here, do this, come back for reward'.