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[SNascimento]

The 'Fetch Quest Issue' is brought up a lot, but it mainly consistent of people saying "omg Bioawre please don't make fetch quests in MEA like you did in DAI!". And to speak the truth, it's a reasonable request. Mainly because, as most peopel who played DAI will agree, there were just too fraking many of them and some of the good parts of DAI  were drowned. A good example of quantity overwhelming quality.

But I want to go a little deeper than that to understand through a few examples why and how too many fetch quests become a problem. But more importantly, to talk about the good fetch quests DAI had. And it most certainly had those. I'll consider fetch quests both quests that involve that basic 'get a object, go there, do it, and return for reward' but also collectibles. I wont consider secundary quests , like the excellent 'A Stranger Rift in the Ruins' (the Tevinter ruin frozen in time) and the even better 'Tomb of Fairel', which is probably the best secundary quest in DAI. Neither will I consider the shortcoming of DAI main storyline.

So let's begin with a fetch quest that I consider to be very good: collecting shards. And it really is a good quest to have in an RPG open world game like DAI, and by looking at it in isolation I believe that is clear to see.

Basically, collecting shards consists of finding a place which is clearly marked on the map, using it as a locator to find the shards themselves and then go and get them. It's simple, finding the shards is not frustrating (it can be at a time when some are hard to reach, but that's to be expected) and it's easy. But what makes it good is the rewards. As people who played DAI knows, there is a temple in the game in which you can use the shards you collect to open doors to secret chambers that after a brief fight inside, will offer some rewards in the form of hard to find itens and unique bonus to your character magic defense. Those rewards are unique to this quest and give a sense of satisfaction after having to collect shards. And if you collect them all, there a last locked door that gives you some further reward. Bottom line, you are not collecting shards just for the sake of it. So as far as collecting mission goes, and they almsot inherently to open world games, this one is a great example.

In addition to that, a quest like this which is present throughtout the game gives you a good sense of progression. Something that is good to have in a open world games, that is, quests that are with you for most of the playthrough. But then comes the "too many issue". Another similar quests are also present in DAI, but a better example of this saturation may be seen in ME1. The were a few collectible missions that were present and were basically all the same: get to a point in the map and pick up a thing. And in the end they were just that. There were no great rewards and the sense of progression was lost to the mechanical aspect of repetition.

Wouldn't it have been better if collecting the Asari writing, for example, would lead to an Asari contacting you and asking you too help find a special one which would involve an interesting mission, after which you could get a special and maybe unique reward? Even better, what if the writing revealed aspects of the Asari civilization that are not to be found elsewere? That's the kind of thing the shard mission does and that's the kind of things MEA should have. 

So let's talk about those other fetch quests. I'll give two examples from the Hinterlands, both which I consider to be utterly terrible. The first is 'A Common Treatment' which consists in gathering herbs for a elf healer who cannot do it herself because of the violence going on around the region. Now this quest is badly designed from the beginning, as some of the herbs you are asked to find can be found right in the village you're in. But the problem is that in the end, not only it adds nothing to the game, it make it worse. There are dozen of quests that involve gethering herbs and/or minerals, no to mention other  uses for them like crafting weapons and upgrading potions. Why do you need even one more? In fact, why you need 9 out of 10 that involves that kind of action? The requisitions that you get when you reach a region for example are also not needed. You're already going to get herbs and minerals, there is no need to make quests that ask you to do that, and just that. And also gives almost nothing in return.It's possible that MEA will have a similar system in place, of collecting resources to craft things. That in itself is reason enough to get those resources, no need to have dozen of quests that ask the exact same thing without giving anything different in return.

A mission like this could work though, if crafted with care. For example, the elf healer might ask you to get rare herbs and will point you to a location. Once you got there, there might be a cool fight and you would find much more of those than she will need , and the simple reward of the mission will be them (in addition to things like exp, power, etc...). That might save you more time spent hunting for these rare herbs to craft something special or get that important upgrade to a potion. Or it might be a similar quest than it is in the actual game, involving looking for common herbs, but then the reward could be that the elf woman teaches the character a technique to gather herbs that will double the amount the hero gathers. And just like that, the time you will spend in the game doing that will be shortened by half.

The other abysmal fetch quests is Where the Druffalo Roam. Basically you are asked to herd an animal back to the farm. There is nothing to sa here. It's very boring at best and frustrating at worse. It involves no kind of challenge or offer a significant reward after completion. Basically I cannot help to wonder why such a mission was even in the game and hope no such similar missions will be in MEA.

But the problem in DAI doesn't come only from bad fatch quests like those, as it was already said, it the sheer number of them that makes it not work. There is room in DAI for simple fetch quests, but the amount of them make even the good ones feel bad and hurt the overall game more than they give fun to the player.

So that's it. I hope I might have shown one good example of a fetch quest in DAI (which might its most massive one) that in a similar way could make its way to Andromeda. It's almost impossible to think there wont be collecting missions in the next Mass Effect, but doing them like the shards would be a good idea. Also what I think should be avoided: multiple quests that ask the same thing and the sheer number of boring quests. And also, through the example of 'A Common Treatment' how a simple fetch quests can be good and add to the overall experience. So what you guys think?

[bondari reloads.]

The sheer fact that there's this high-level Rift between Druffy and the farm makes this quest enjoyable imo (use of exploits∝scale of the game, for me, tbh).

A Common Treatment at least gave you feedback via additional quests after you've "proven" yourself as a slayer of innocent herbs. (Achievement?)

I agree, if you have to have FQs, keep them to a minimum.

[SNascimento]

The sheer fact that there's this high-level Rift between Druffy and the farm makes this quest enjoyable imo (use of exploits∝scale of the game, for me, tbh).

A Common Treatment at least gave you feedback via additional quests after you've "proven" yourself as a slayer of innocent herbs. (Achievement?)
 

Well, you didn't need that quest for that Rift battle, right? Closing the rifts in itself is already a mission. About the second quest I didn't understand what you meant... 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

The sheer fact that there's this high-level Rift between Druffy and the farm makes this quest enjoyable imo (use of exploits∝scale of the game, for me, tbh).

Yeah, watching Druffy demolish high level demons was amazing and reward enough for the quest. 

[SNascimento]

Yeah, watching Druffy demolish high level demons was amazing and reward enough for the quest. 

Wait a second, it fights the demons?!

[Broganisity]

Wait a second, it fights the demons?!

Druffy don't give a nug. Druffy just takes what it wants, and that Demon booty? Mmph.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Wait a second, it fights the demons?!

Yeah. And not only that, but Druffy takes no damage. Which means as long as you stay alive Druffy will defeat all the demons for you. 

[mickey111]

nothing wrong with fetch quests. Witcher 3 had plenty of them, but the developers made it work by putting the quests in the context of well acted NPCs with personal motives that were logical in a time a nd place that made sense. After getting the quests, they would contunue keeping me interested with the relevant letters and journals, and witcher detective modes

[dgcatanisiri]

My critique of calling the shard collection a good fetch quest is that it's all this work and time and effort for minimal gain - by the time you have the ability to finish, when you're not being railroaded out of an area with shards because the local enemies are too powerful, the resulting payout of the elemental bonuses don't really make all that time and effort feel like it was necessary. Are these bonuses nice? Sure. But they don't really offer more than a minor stat increase at a point when you're probably already powerful enough to deal with all comers anyway (unless the enemies have been given ridiculous amounts of health to where your strongest attack on them is like a mosquito bite) and a lore mystery with no solution - why is the cave there, who built it, what was it used for... All of these are interesting questions with no answers in game.

 

If you're going to give a quest in this style, make the reward roughly equivalent to the effort being put in. If it's a collection quest that spans most or all of the available areas, then that's going to need a decent pay off, even just in the realm of answering player questions rather than outright experience.

[Tex]

nothing wrong with fetch quests. Witcher 3 had plenty of them, but the developers made it work by putting the quests in the context of well acted NPCs with personal motives that were logical in a time a nd place that made sense. After getting the quests, they would contunue keeping me interested with the relevant letters and journals, and witcher detective modes

I agree completely with this. sorry got no likes left

[Guanxii]

All secondary quests are essentially fetch quests - it's how you subvert the formula and mask the same-y-ness which is the key to the art-form. The best way to dress up a fetch quest beside focusing on the human drama between the NPC characters involved and side-lining the quest object to little more than a gameplay reward is to introduce unique gameplay e.g. Goat tracking with a cowbell. It's not rocket science.

 

Let's have dressed up fetch quests and unabashed actual fetch quests of the Read Dead Redemption[/Witcher 3] variety whereby you are constantly on the look out for collectable crafting materials to construct unique armors and guns.

[Chealec]

nothing wrong with fetch quests. Witcher 3 had plenty of them, but the developers made it work by putting the quests in the context of well acted NPCs with personal motives that were logical in a time a nd place that made sense. After getting the quests, they would contunue keeping me interested with the relevant letters and journals, and witcher detective modes

 

Indeed: