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[Fast Jimmy]

Howdy do, BSN.

I'd like to start a conversation about Quest Gone Wrong.


In Dragon Age 2, we are introduced to a lovely character named Sister Patriece.

Sister Patriece is a member of the Chantry. She recruits us by putting herself in harm's way purposefully and used the robbers she attracted as both bait and a test for our character to prove their worth. She then tells us this, point blank and then proposes a job for us. Everything about this chick says "I am not someone to trust, you really would do best to just turn around and head the other direction." Instead, we are forced (since this is a Main Quest plot, for reasons that don't become clear until Act 2 of the game) to do her quest, despite EVERY red flag possible that we should not. This happens again in Act 2, where interacting with her winds up causing a mini-war to break out.

Some people are just trouble. And... sometimes quests are, too.

What I am wanting to discuss in this thread are bad ideas for quests. No, not stupid fetch quests, but quests which, by doing, bites the character in the proverbial ass. Quests that can seem to offer huge rewards, but wind up making things worse than ever. Quests that make us wonder ig we even made the right decision waking up in the morning.

We do see these quests in games at a pretty regular basis. But they are often tied to the main plot - you take them because you must, they are disastrous because you have to have the disaster happen. But what I wanted to talk about is OPTIONAL quests, side quests, which can blow up in our face. 

So, with that in mind, let me start outlining some ideas of what I am talking about.

How Did I Wind Up In This Mess?

This quest type is where the character enters a quest that seems fairly straight forward and yet, before too long, they realize they are in the middle of something they had not anticipated at all.

This doesn't neccessarily have to always be a "bad" quest. For instance, farmer Joe can ask you to find out why his missing sheep are disappearing. Examining his field, you hear a rumbling and wind up falling into an underground cavern, where you must fight through an entire giant ant colony. After battling your way out, bloodied and bruised, you go to the farmer and tell him his problem is solved and that he shouldn't worry about his sheep anymore. The farmer gives you your reward - a free 5 GP. Laddy-freaking-da.

This type of quest can be beneficial, in the fact that it offers up more content and more XP. So its not a total waste for the player to do, but from our character's perspective, they just went through hell and high water totally unexpectedly and for next to nothing as a reward. And that's fun. Well, if you're a player who's into that kind of thing.

I Should Have Never Trusted Them...

An NPC approaches you about doing a task. Things look shifty from the start - the quests seem odd or too easy and the quest giver is on the sketchy side. But you accept the quest anyway. And it turns out that this was the wrong thing to do, as you have just done way more harm than you had anticipated.

An example of this is the Fighter's Guild questlne in Oblivion, where you are asked to spy and infiltrate a rival group, the Blackwood Company. As your initiation, you are sent to kill goblins and are given a special potion to help your prowess in battle. Turns out that the potion is a hallucinogenic and the band of goblins you killed was actually an entire town of innocent viallgers.

This quest is pretty brutal in that, by your actions, you have actually ruined (and ended) the lives of innocents. In the very next quest, you use this information to take the organization down. Still... the fact that the game gave you the option to take the quest makes it questionable if you should do it at all. After all... that village would have remainied alive if you never activated that quest line...

The problem with this type of quest is that it A) involves an evil quest giver - not inherentlly all that bad and it brings nothing of real value to the table. The XP gained from killing these "trolls" is negligible, as is the monetary reward. It is part of a quest that helps you complete the Fighter's Guild questline, but that in and of itself doesn't bring a lot to the table except an extra rank, a small monthly sum of gold and a completionist's peace of mind. So have we really done anything worthwhile? Its a debatble question.

Some Quests You Just Shouldn't Do

Now here is the real kicker idea. One I'm not sure I've seen a game do before. 

Have your character offered an optional side quest. Listen to the offerer of the quest. Decide if you want to do it or not. And, if you do complete the quest, you are worse off then you were before. 

Say the quest giver stabs you in the back and robs you blind - with no recourse to hunt the traitor down. Say the quest itself destroys a high-level item of yours and offers no compensatory loot at all. Say the quest causes a permanent damage to stats or attributes, with no cure or remedy.

Now... why in the world would anyone ever ask for this to happen?!

The idea behind this is that taking jobs from any random person who is asking for help is awfully naive. The motives behind the person hiring are not always pure. The risks involved are not always understood. And the rewards can often be MORE than overstated. If racking up riches, gold and powerful equipment were just as easy as standing around town and listening for someone to complain, the adventuring business would be BOOMING in every gaming world I've ever seen.

The question is - if quests are going to result in a cost that will be undoubtedly bad, why the heck would anyone do them? 

Two solutions to that.

One, you mix in the good quests with the bad, where a player will never know if they do X side quest, it will result terribly, or if they do Y side quest, it will pan out. A flag being set that has things ending up good or bad, where on one playthrough, the quest turns out fine and you get your reward, but in other playthroughs, things hit the fan and it winds up hurting you in the long run. This can seem a little arbitrary, but it would certainly make people hesistant to do every quest just to be a completionist.

Two, you accomplish some in-game good. Sure, your Epic Sword of Pwnage that cost you a quarter of your total gold is destroyed... but those orphans are sure glad their home isn't being closed down! Or, you helped freed the slaves... its a shame that blood mage cursed your soul and now you have 10% less health. 

This could make the quests being done have some type of tangible benefit. Maybe even these are companion quests which make your companion more powerful, but the main PC weaker/broker/less well equipped. That would certainly bring into question whether or not you'd want to complete every companion's personal quest story, wouldn't it?


TL;DR:

Games can be predictable with quests that have us come in, save the day and rack up the gold. But quests that we can choose to do and which still may have unexpected outcomes or even just downright bad things happen are a good way to break up the monotony. Sure, its a little sadistic (or is it masochistic?) to enjoy seeing our characters struggle, but if it keeps us as the player on our toes, constantly second guessing our actions, then doesn't that lead to a more memorable and intriguing game then just the same old humdrum?

What do you think, BSN? Do you like quests that fall apart?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 09 février 2013 - 05:28 .

[AlanC9]

Should you get XP for a "quest you just shouldn't do"?

[Fast Jimmy]

AlanC9 wrote...

Should you get XP for a "quest you just shouldn't do"?

Arguably, you maybe should get more?

After all... the lessons we remember the longest are the ones we learned the hardest and whatnot.

[Shya]

When Sister Patriece asked me ta do her quest I wanted a 'I'd rather stab u in the eye' button.

[Daralii]

Shya wrote...

When Sister Patriece asked me ta do her quest I wanted a 'I'd rather stab u in the eye' button.

I think that's the renegade interrupt.

[Missy_MI]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
One, you mix in the good quests with the bad, where a player will never know if they do X side quest, it will result terribly, or if they do Y side quest, it will pan out. A flag being set that has things ending up good or bad. This can seem a little arbitrary, but it would certainly make people hesistant just to be a completionist.

Two, you accomplish some in-game good. Sure, your Epic Sword of Pwnage that cost you a quarter of your total gold is destroyed... but those orphans are sure glad their home isn't being closed down! Or, you helped freed
the slaves... its a shame that blood mage cursed your soul and now you have 10% less health.

Oh god. Two, I pick option two!

Protagonist would end up a peg-legged beggar by the end of the game, but at least my crazy completionist tendencies would be satisfied. Attempting to mine all the planets in Mass Effect 2 to depleted status stopped being fun pretty quickly but I just couldn't stop...

Modifié par Missy_MI, 09 février 2013 - 06:07 .

[Fredward]

I like the idea of quests having a kicker somewhere along the line where I just go "oops" but the completionist in my gets the howling fantods at the idea of just leaving a quest because it puts me in a bad situation. So I'd rather somewhere along the quest you have the option of cutting your losses or doing something terribly daring and dashing and turning the tide. This has to be something not obvious though, there has to be some initiative on the player's part.

Oh and these quest should definitely just be for flavor, because if they became the new default I'd just get annoyed.

[nightscrawl]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

For instance, farmer Joe can ask you to find out why his missing sheep are disappearing. Examining his field, you hear a rumbling and wind up falling into an underground cavern, where you must fight through an entire giant ant colony. After battling your way out, bloodied and bruised, you go to the farmer and tell him his problem is solved and that he shouldn't worry about his sheep anymore. The farmer gives you your reward - a free 5 GP. Laddy-freaking-da.

This is a very common type of quest in WoW as well, particularly in the leveling areas. You have to collect a number of items from mobs: you kill them getting any XP and loot they might drop, your turn in the quest for a money/loot and XP reward. This is a very standard quest type and I certainly don't think it should be eliminated, BUT the problem is that they tend to be very obvious. In an MMO where the goal is to level it's not that big a deal, but I think a similar thing in a SP RPG should be disguised a bit better. The Chanter's Board quests in DAO were particularly egregious offenders of this.

An example of this is the Fighter's Guild questlne in Oblivion, where you are asked to spy and infiltrate a rival group, the Blackwood Company. As your initiation, you are sent to kill goblins and are given a special potion to help your prowess in battle. Turns out that the potion is a hallucinogenic and the band of goblins you killed was actually an entire town of innocent viallgers.

This quest is pretty brutal in that, by your actions, you have actually ruined (and ended) the lives of innocents. In the very next quest, you use this information to take the organization down. Still... the fact that the game gave you the option to take the quest makes it questionable if you should do it at all. After all... that village would have remainied alive if you never activated that quest line...

I actually think this sounds like a fantastic quest! It seems that the writers purposely set out to mess with the players' heads and accomplished just that.

The problem with this type of quest is that it A) involves an evil quest giver - not inherentlly all that bad and it brings nothing of real value to the table. The XP gained from killing these "trolls" is negligible, as is the monetary reward. It is part of a quest that helps you complete the Fighter's Guild questline, but that in and of itself doesn't bring a lot to the table except an extra rank, a small monthly sum of gold and a completionist's peace of mind. So have we really done anything worthwhile? Its a debatble question.

I think you are looking at that particular example in the wrong way. I think with that one that the journey is more important than the final "reward."

Have your character offered an optional side quest. Listen to the offerer of the quest. Decide if you want to do it or not. And, if you do complete the quest, you are worse off then you were before.

I do like the concept of this, as I don't think the mentality should be, on starting a new area, to run around and get all of the quests without thinking, as usually is the case. However, I don't think the result of quest completion should be permanent damage to your character, as I discuss below.

Say the quest giver stabs you in the back and robs you blind - with no recourse to hunt the traitor down. Say the quest itself destroys a high-level item of yours and offers no compensatory loot at all. Say the quest causes a permanent damage to stats or attributes, with no cure or remedy.

I think this is too severe.

One, you mix in the good quests with the bad, where a player will never know if they do X side quest, it will result terribly, or if they do Y side quest, it will pan out. A flag being set that has things ending up good or bad. This can seem a little arbitrary, but it would certainly make people hesistant just to be a completionist.

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion here. Do you mean that each quest has a chance to "go bad" via a 50% dice roll? If so, I do think this is interesting. The problem I see with having quests that are set with bad endings is that on repeated plays people will avoid them because they have that meta knowledge.

Two, you accomplish some in-game good. Sure, your Epic Sword of Pwnage that cost you a quarter of your total gold is destroyed... but those orphans are sure glad their home isn't being closed down! Or, you helped freed the slaves... its a shame that blood mage cursed your soul and now you have 10% less health.

To be honest, unless the intangible reward (ie freeing slaves) is VERY good and compelling, I don't think most players will opt for it if they know the consequences. You can comment on meta knowledge all you like, about players ruining their own first-play experience by looking things up, but the reality is that it DOES happen. People don't want to get burned because of perceived "mistake" on their part. It happened with friendship/rivalry, and it will happen with this, only on a much more severe scale.

To my point about the intangible reward being really rewarding, I would have taken a considerable hit to my personal power level if I could have saved Leandra's life. Something on that level is worth it to me. With other examples that you cite, it would depend on my mood at the time and the amount of such quests I have to deal with. I'm willing to play the hero and take a hit for those kinds of causes, but how many hits can I take before I start to severely damage my progress in the game?

This could make the quests being done have some type of tangible benefit. Maybe even these are companion quests which make your comapnion more powerful, but the main PC weaker/broker/less well equipped. That would certainly bring into question whether or not you'd want to complete every companion's personal quest story, wouldn't it?

Now this is very interesting and something I would like to see. This could be very compelling depending on how the quest and actions are carried out. An obvious sacrifice for your follower (in this case your PC power level) shows great loyalty to them (increasing their power). This can also be tied to crisis points for the follower and other such things.

Yes, I do like this idea, very much.

Do you like quests that fall apart?

I actually think this is somewhat separate from the rest of your post. I think the story aspect of a quest can fall apart, with the result not turning out like you expect. Leandra's death being a main example of this since you are unable to save her, despite the various paths that the quest can take. I don't much like a tangible hit to your character because it feels like a punishment, instead of just an action consequence.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 09 février 2013 - 07:27 .

[Wulfram]

I tend to feel there should be a way of "completing" any quest in a positive manner. Though sometimes this might involve ignoring what the original quest giver wanted you to do and instead going to tell the Templars about the spooky guy in black robes who wanted you to fetch the amulet of demon summoning.

[Swagger7]

I like the ideas of more ways to have a quest go wrong, but there should still be at least one way to avoid the mess or at least put all the pieces back together. Failure should never be the only option (glares at Zombie Mom).

[Wulfram]

Also, Merrill's Act 3 quest. Don't do it, then Marethari lives.

Though this feels wrong to me. If you don't do the quest then Merril should go off on her own, and end up dying along with the Keeper.

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

We should have the option of giving Merrill to the Templars, I don't agree with alot of what the Templars do, but god dammit I wish they'd take Merrill, they take Bethany for less.

[nightcobra]

i wonder how many people went this way...

Modifié par nightcobra8928, 09 février 2013 - 11:31 .

[In Exile]

It seems that the problem with that is that you're designing content to actively screw the players over, and essentially encouraging players to not play part of your game. Besides annoying players because the game is going "LOLZ! GOT U!!!!", if you actually get a sequel off the ground then you'll have players actively suspicious about which part of your games are traps.

And I know that's what you're going for - but you'll find a lot of players don't want a feature that's the equivalent of opening a cereal box and finding excrement inside.

[Fast Jimmy]

In Exile wrote...

It seems that the problem with that is that you're designing content to actively screw the players over, and essentially encouraging players to not play part of your game. Besides annoying players because the game is going "LOLZ! GOT U!!!!", if you actually get a sequel off the ground then you'll have players actively suspicious about which part of your games are traps.

And I know that's what you're going for - but you'll find a lot of players don't want a feature that's the equivalent of opening a cereal box and finding excrement inside.

I agree, it would have to be handled carefully. But isn't that the nature of the world? If you're not careful with what you get yoruself involved in, you may wind up doing something that is either more work than its worth, something that compromises your ethics or that you wind up paying for through the nose in the long run.

I'm not saying any game should be LITTERED with these types of quests. Nor should they always be not properly detectable (a mustache-twirling guy in a cape may not be a good quest giver... although if occassionaly the game did make it so would be fun as well). But the very existence of a quest that you may regret taking seems intriguing to me. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 09 février 2013 - 05:06 .

[Knight of Dane]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

i wonder how many people went this way...

I did with my Chantry-liking Sebastianmancer.

Anyway: I too would like some more branching.

A quest I really liked from Skyrim was one where you could give up a redguard woman's name to the Alikir, help her kill the Alikir or Go to kill the Alikir, halt, and then agree to backstab her.

Now, I know Skyrim is another formular, but this kind of branching is great. The same way you could complete the Orzammar royalty in four ways, side with behelen, side with Harrowmont, side with Bhelen behind Harrowmont's back or vice versa.

[nightscrawl]

nightcobra8928 wrote...

i wonder how many people went this way...

Wow... I had never seen that before O_O. I'm not willing to do a full play that way, but it is pretty awesome.

[Harle Cerulean]

I don't know. I like the idea of quests that my character may regret taking, but I think any quest that the player regrets taking is a bad quest, and a bad idea. The point is to have fun, not get frustrated because the game is pulling fast ones on you.

[AlanC9]

TW1 did have a few quests I didn't think Geralt should have anything to do with.

As for Harle Cerulean's point above, the XP reward should take care of that, unless other penalties are severe.

[Medhia Nox]

Being careful requires first and foremost - information. Secondly - a chance to do a few things: 1) Cancel the quest. 2) Turn the tables.

The information doesn't have to be obvious - but what it must be is: 1) Repeated at least twice before the threshold of no return. 2) Repeated at least one more time afterward to show the player that it was indeed provided.

===

DA 2 is kind of a study of these events happening to the PC, but without any information or agency on the player's part - which is, I believe, where DA 2 totally fails.

Also - and this is SO important - if you don't want your player solving the puzzle and raging at the screen because the PC is supposed to play stupid... don't add the ingredients to explosives and make it obvious that someone is going to blow up a Chantry.

That's an example of 4th Wall information damaging your game.

[Chaos Lord Malek]

I happily did her quests and helped her drive out the Qunari heathens. I see nothing wrong with it.

[Fast Jimmy]

Chaos Lord Malek wrote...

I happily did her quests and helped her drive out the Qunari heathens. I see nothing wrong with it.

Yes, but she put you in a death trap a number of times because she thought you were totally expendable. If someone did that to you in real life, you'd be pretty ticked off with them, even if you agree with their principles behind it. 

I didn't want to focus overly much on the Sister Patriece quest, as it just stood out in my mind. It would have been great if it was optional. Sadly, it was not.

[nightscrawl]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Great topic, Jimmy.

I'd like to point out that for the first classification, "Justice" fit rather well into that. What started out as collecting items for a potion quickly turned into something else. However, the nice thing about that was that I was allowed to back out when things suddenly escalated.

I don't think this is the best example as the result is the same regardless of your actions. Or is it more important to you that you didn't participate, rather than have the ability to change something?