99 réponses à ce sujet

[Sartoz]

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Well, Bio said the MEA game is:

1. massive.

2. The FB3 rendering engine is capable of generating good looking planetary terrain.

3. Artists are tasked to customize the terrain.

4. There is a new and improved Mako.

 

Seems to me that Bio wants to show off the FB3 capabilities with lots of Make exploration of said beautiful terrain. Question is wether the exploration is necessary to "level up", find better gear or generated by meaningless side quests? Put another way, how does Bio explain the need to use the Mako in this "massive" game?

 

So, yes, there will be fluff type side quest because "real" ones take time and resources to do.

[Malanek]

I think side quests need to be severely curtailed and looked at very critically.

 

I have just resubbed to swtor and played through the imperial agent storyline again with 12 X xp for class missions which means you can do the class missions and only the class missions. And the story feels so, so much better.

 

There are two main reasons for this. Firstly it is focus. When you are dealing with an intricate plot it isn't a good idea to drag a player away from it and bombard them with information relating to dozens of other objectives. The player will miss things or simply take longer to adjust when following the main, more important story again.

 

The second is immersion. When you are following a highly important mission, you should not be getting sidetracked to do something trivial. There are also so many other aspects in different quests that contradict each other and break immersion. As an example for the SWTOR Imperial Agent story

 

Spoiler

In the second chapter the republic effectively gain control of you for a time via mind control technology. They give you orders and you have to respond. This plays out nicely in missions it was designed for but there are also all the planetary missions where you behave as normal on the imperial side. Although it is given a flimsy justification (maintaining cover as a double agent) it doesn't feel at all convincing.

 

There is a time and place for sidequests because a lot of people like them. I would only ever set them during periods where nothing much is happening with the main story. They should all be given their own story to make them interesting to the player. Fetch quests should probably be abolished completely. They are worse than useless because they are both a distraction and an irritating timewaster. If you really want to add these very simple things to the game, they should be completely optional, clearly marked as unimportant, and have to be deliberately acquired by the player who has to go out of their way to pick them up.

 

Sidequests imo should make up less of the game than the main story, roughly about 30% of the game at most. It has become a trend to make this the wrong way round. 

[LordSwagley]

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Well, Bio said the MEA game is:

1. massive.

2. The FB3 rendering engine is capable of generating good looking planetary terrain.

3. Artists are tasked to customize the terrain.

4. There is a new and improved Mako.

 

Seems to me that Bio wants to show off the FB3 capabilities with lots of Make exploration of said beautiful terrain. Question is wether the exploration is necessary to "level up", find better gear or generated by meaningless side quests? Put another way, how does Bio explain the need to use the Mako in this "massive" game?

 

So, yes, there will be fluff type side quest because "real" ones take time and resources to do.

10 Varren Hides here I COME!

[AdmiralBoneToPic]

Basically just don't follow the Ubisoft/Bethesda(post fallout 3)/Rockstar side quest/design template. You got that Bioware.

[Larry-3]

I only like side-quest if they help in the main story or help a character develop. Other then that, why waste disk space? This reminds me of something... BioWare stated that we could not holster our gun in Mass Effect 3 because there was not enough room on the disks. Well why did you not take away one of the useless fetch-quest that only gave use five points of Wars Assets... hmmm, BioWare?

Work on everything except for side-quest, then use whatever room is left to add generic side-quest.

[wolfhowwl]

I only like side-quest if they help in the main story or help a character develop. Other then that, why waste disk space? This reminds me of something... BioWare stated that we could not holster our gun in Mass Effect 3 because there was not enough room on the disks. Well why did you not take away one of the useless fetch-quest that only gave use five points of Wars Assets... hmmm, BioWare?

Work on everything except for side-quest, then use whatever room is left to add generic side-quest.

 

The issue there was with console memory constraints not disk space.

[PhroXenGold]

I quite like Sylvius' suggestion of getting rid of the main/side quest divison. Not certain how well it would work, but I'd be interested to try it.

 

But assuming they don't do that, the one thing I really want is for the sidequests, regardless of the exact content of them, to make sense in the context of the main plot.

 

ME1 for example, did this extremely badly. There was simply no justification for your character to be doing many of the sidequests given the story. The central plot is telling us that there is a concrete and immediate threat to the galaxy, and you always have a direct lead on that threat. So why would Shepard ever do any of the sidequests (or exploration for that matter) on non-plot worlds? There simply isn't the time to do them. The ones that you can do while advancing the plot - say, for example, that guy on Feros who asks you to pick up some data from the Exo-Geni building, is fine, as you're in there anyway, and it'll only take a couple of minutes - but anything involving diverting from trying to stop Saren (with the possible exception of the Geth in Armstrong, as you could believe they were connected) makes no sense what so ever.

 

DA:I suffered from this too. There certainly was some need to divert from the main story, as the Inqusition needed to gain power, and some of the side content was clearly directly linked to Cory, so completing it would interfere with his plans, but at the same time, you again always have clear informaiton on what the massive threat to the world is up to and the story implies there are serious time constraints on you (ones the game utterly fails to implement, much to my dismay), so in the context of the story, the bulk of the content makes no sense for the Inquisitor to be doing.

 

BW's more linear, less "open world" games work a lot better, as the bulk of the side content is stuff you can do while advancing the plot. You don't have to go out of your way to do it. And, of course, to be fair, this isn't by any means just a Bioware failing. Most open world games suffer from this exact problem.

 

As for how I would fix it, well, the obvious answer is to put periods in the main plot where you don't know exactly what you have to do to advance it. To have times when you have to go out exploring, looking for clues, doing sidequests in the hope of finding information (and conversely, when you do have an immediate lead, you should have to follow it up rather than pissing about helping people with their life problems).

[Sartoz]

Big Snip

 

As for how I would fix it, well, the obvious answer is to put periods in the main plot where you don't know exactly what you have to do to advance it. To have times when you have to go out exploring, looking for clues, doing sidequests in the hope of finding information (and conversely, when you do have an immediate lead, you should have to follow it up rather than pissing about helping people with their life problems).

 

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I agree.

 

But marketing wants to say that for your $79.00 you get to play 150+ hours and then EA can put in their FY Financial Reports, that quadrillion minutes were played in ME:A

[N7Jamaican]

I like side-missions in Mass Effect.  Only thing I wish was, some were fun.  Some had no impact on the game, some had minor story archs.  They need to flesh it out more.  I want there to be a story within a story.  Like we have our main mission, but there's a few side missions that has its own story line and villain.

[PhroXenGold]

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I agree.

 

But marketing wants to say that for your $79.00 you get to play 150+ hours and then EA can put in their FY Financial Reports, that quadrillion minutes were played in ME:A

 

I'm perfectly happy to have 150 hours of content, most of which is not directly tied to the main plot. I just want decent justifications as to why my character is doing that content and not just saving the world (or galaxy or whatever).

[N7Jamaican]

I'm perfectly happy to have 150 hours of content, most of which is not directly tied to the main plot. I just want decent justifications as to why my character is doing that content and not just saving the world (or galaxy or whatever).

 

I want a good time sink in the game, they say the Helius cluster is of over 100s of solar systems. So I figure 8-9 main missions, and then a butt ton of side missions.  It's an RPG, I don't see why people want less to do...  Less to explore..

[PhroXenGold]

I want a good time sink in the game, they say the Helius cluster is of over 100s of solar systems. So I figure 8-9 main missions, and then a butt ton of side missions.  It's an RPG, I don't see why people want less to do...  Less to explore..

 

Some of it I suspect is simple resource allocation. Certainly with regards DA:I, I've hear a lot of comments from people saying that they wanted less side content and more main story, and to be fair, if it is a simple "one or the other", then I'd agree, even if it means less content total. I mean, I'd prefer to have, say, a 40hr story and 60hrs of other content (side quests, explorations etc), than a 20hr story with 120hrs of other content, as the story is the main reason I play games like this. But assuming that adding in extra side content doesn't impinge on the resources for the main story, then more of it is good. Provided, of course, it makes sense for that content to exist in the context of the main plot and the setting.

[MissOuJ]

I absolutely love side questing (usually), but ... yes please.

 

For me, side quests are simply not fun if they're not well-designed and give me something beyond currency / XP - I'd rather have a handful of branching side-quests which reward me with story / character content or even just with unique loot with interesting blurb or which unlocks an interesting codex entry than dozens of survey minerals / Prothean data discs / matriarch's writings type quests. (Even though that last one ties into the faith of Konrad Verner in a way which is pretty hilarious, so kudos for that!) So yes, I'm 120% behind this. 

[Nonoru]

How can you have an issue with TW3's sidequests TC? I mean, people are burning out because there's too many optional good things to do in the game? I would understand if TW3 was a fetch quest festival but, those were possibly the most interesting ones I've done on console. In retrospect, I would have liked more of those. 

 

On the contrary, I would actually suggest, even encourage, Bioware to create such nice and meaty side stuff (and a decent amount) to do that it doesn't feel like you're doing chores. 

 

Have side quests like the Witcher 3's. Full of interesting content

 

Exactly. 

 

Examples of what I consider bad "sidequests".

• Collect 10 Varren Hides.
• Brave Hero I dropped my ring in some cave, go get it.
• Kill 50 space pirates.
• Break 3 Mook Spawners.
• Plant 15 flags in the ground.

If there are to be sidequests (its an rpg) then make them atleast have a decent setup and entail some decisions (Let some pirate go and he will help you later in the quest or something) so that we are incentivised to play them again to get a different outcome. Make each sidequest a little story of its own that will flesh out the world, provide role-play opportunities, give your companions some character (eg: Pvt Bob thinks killing these surrendering slavers is awesome), and provide unique rewards (helping some turian marine gives you access to a turian helmet or something...). Unlikely I know but I can hope.

 

I'll second this. While I can accept a few fetch and stuff, if it allows me to discover some good loot on the way, I would rather have fleshed out content. Especially how structured Bioware stories are, I think they would gain to work more on a few quality sidequests than npcs request galore #1246643.

[MissOuJ]

How can you have an issue with TW3's sidequests TC? I mean, people are burning out because there's too many optional good things to do in the game? I would understand if TW3 was a fetch quest festival but, those were possibly the most interesting ones I've done on console. In retrospect, I would have liked more of those. 

 

(Disclosure: I haven't played TW3)

 

What seems to be the problem with TW3's side quests (according the complaints I've heard) is not so much that there are "too many optional good things to do in the game" as much as "there are too many branching side quests which take you to new places with even more side quests ad infinitum after which you're too exhausted and over-leveled to do the main missions - and also, what was I doing 10 side quests ago?", which would suggest that there's a problem with pacing.

 

As many problems as ME2, ME3 and DA2 had, they got pacing right: you could only do so many optional side quests before you'd either 1) run out of things to do except the main plot, or 2) the game forces you to do a story mission. It keeps you interested and invested in the main plot - and makes sure you didn't forget what you were actually supposed to do to save the world 10 raided bases / dragons / loyalty or follower missions / optional boss fights ago. Another option would be timed missions, which I personally don't like all that much, although I admit they make sense (like the Grissom Academy and Tuchanka Bomb missions in ME3).

 

My solution? Limit the number of active quests available in the player's journal at any time, and do soft timed missions (like ME2's final mission: to save absolutely everybody you need to do it immediately if you have already done all the loyalty missions). I think one more thing that ME3 got right is that not doing side quests can also be a choice, and it can/should also have story or character related consequences.

[Amplitudelol]

Examples of what I consider bad "sidequests".

• Collect 10 Varren Hides.
• Brave Hero I dropped my ring in some cave, go get it.
• Kill 50 space pirates.
• Break 3 Mook Spawners.
• Plant 15 flags in the ground.

If there are to be sidequests (its an rpg) then make them atleast have a decent setup and entail some decisions (Let some pirate go and he will help you later in the quest or something) so that we are incentivised to play them again to get a different outcome. Make each sidequest a little story of its own that will flesh out the world, provide role-play opportunities, give your companions some character (eg: Pvt Bob thinks killing these surrendering slavers is awesome), and provide unique rewards (helping some turian marine gives you access to a turian helmet or something...). Unlikely I know but I can hope.

 

You have just described the Inquisition (in other worlds general mmorpg leveling / the Bioware single player open world) experience. Though, some of them could be entertaining. For example: 50/50 space cow hit by Mako. Even mmorpg-s are trying to shake things up with questing and i hope Bioware learned a lot since the game of 2014.

[AlanC9]

I'll second this. While I can accept a few fetch and stuff, if it allows me to discover some good loot on the way, I would rather have fleshed out content. Especially how structured Bioware stories are, I think they would gain to work more on a few quality sidequests than npcs request galore #1246643.

Thing is, even if you throw out all the collection quests you probably won't free up enough zots for one high-quality sidequest.

[Big Magnet]

I dislike this distinction between side-quests and main quests.  If there has to be such a distinction, hide it from us so we can't tell which quests advance the plot.

Please, no! I absolutely hate when I think I'm beginning a little sidequest and end up starting a big "point of no return" main quest  >.<

 

 

About the sidequests thing, I do hate "get me 10 of XYZ" fetch quests. But I absolutely LOVE a mini-plot sidequest: Something small that starts like a simple crime scene investigation and ends up with you uncovering an entire network of organ black market.

[AlanC9]

Please, no! I absolutely hate when I think I'm beginning a little sidequest and end up starting a big "point of no return" main quest  >.<

Well, that's a real issue, but it's easy enough to not have the game work like that.

[Xaijin]

Having sidequests is great, but don't just add a bunch of them just for the sake of fluffing up the game. While sidequests are optional, many players carry a completionist OCD-esque mindset where they feel compelled to complete every sidequest -- not only does this lead to them burning out and losing interest (many people reported this with Witcher 3), but it can also dilute the narrative focus of the game. I never had this problem with the Mass Effect series, but I feel like I should post this just in case BioWare feels the need to go crazy with number of sidequest as some way to show off how big the game is. 

 

EDIT: I want to make it clear that I don't think the previous ME games had too many sidequests, nor am I saying the next ME should have less. I am only warning of the potential dangers of adding too much as some other games have done. There are better ways to spend the resources anyway (like more main story quests). 

 

 

A: Citation needed because the maojority of feedback on Witcher is the sidequest are something that should be the new standard, and the brunt of player dissatisfaction is that the sidequests can't be completed due to leveling issues, which is actively being worked on.

 

B: Reusing assets is extremely extremely unlikely to be done away with, so unless you plan on donating several million dollars for asset work-up for every MEA quest, I'm not sure how this would ever occur. Also, you'll probably be paying for server costs on acquiring all this new content, so you might wanna break out the second mortgage. Also a white paper on how you plan on making this work in MP is probably a thing to do as well.

[N7Jamaican]

I am struggling to beat DA:I and I am dying to beat it so I can trade it in.  I try doing the side quests in the game, and it's boring and feels like a chore.  Perhaps it is because I am not really a fan of the DA series. 

 

Regardless, I don't want it to be boring like DA:I

[KAGEHOSHI-]

A: Citation needed because the maojority of feedback on Witcher is the sidequest are something that should be the new standard, and the brunt of player dissatisfaction is that the sidequests can't be completed due to leveling issues, which is actively being worked on.

 

B: Reusing assets is extremely extremely unlikely to be done away with, so unless you plan on donating several million dollars for asset work-up for every MEA quest, I'm not sure how this would ever occur. Also, you'll probably be paying for server costs on acquiring all this new content, so you might wanna brrak out the second mortgage. Also a white paper on how you plan on making this work in MP is probably a thing to do as well.

 

A: source http://kotaku.com/he...itch-1722886021, look at the number of people who agreed with the article (the stars), the comments that agreed with the article (and the number of stars on those comments). I'm not saying this represents a majority, but it's certainly an opinion shared by many.

 

B: I think you're misunderstanding something. I am not saying to get rid of sidequests, in fact like sidequests. I am saying to just not overdo them like some some other games have. What do servers have to do with singleplayer story missions? What does multiplayer have to do with overabundance of lack therof of sidequests? I'm not a developer, so it's not my job to provide a detailed white paper for a simple suggestion that essentially amounts to "don't overdo it." I'm not actually sure you understand what my post is about. 

[wolfhowwl]

Thing is, even if you throw out all the collection quests you probably won't free up enough zots for one high-quality sidequest.

 

I agree but why not just cut them because they suck?

[StealthGamer92]

Having sidequests is great, but don't just add a bunch of them just for the sake of fluffing up the game. While sidequests are optional, many players carry a completionist OCD-esque mindset where they feel compelled to complete every sidequest -- not only does this lead to them burning out and losing interest (many people reported this with Witcher 3), but it can also dilute the narrative focus of the game.

Agreed, but I also want to point out those OCD "I can't enjoy a game with too much content because I have to 100% it" people are not a great group to defend as them being catered to will ruin the experience of the far more people who treat it as a game and not a task to be completed.

[AlanC9]

I am struggling to beat DA:I and I am dying to beat it so I can trade it in.  I try doing the side quests in the game, and it's boring and feels like a chore.  Perhaps it is because I am not really a fan of the DA series.

You've stopped doing the sidequests, right?