Questing System Is Broken

[aaronk333]

Questing System Is Broken

I'm taking my time with this game and am doing as many side quests (secondary quests, witcher contracts and treasure hunts) as possible before moving onto the various parts of the main story line. But even at my slow pace I realize that it is impossible to avoid amassing vasts amount of "greyed-out" quests that award only 5 exp for completing them. I have also noticed the problem with only being able to track one quest at a time despite the fact that 2 quests may send me to the same general place (which I dont find out about later until I choose the next quest to track much later on)

This game shouldn't be going in the same direction as WoW (which also greys out quests and enemies that are significantly lower then the player).

Here is what I mean.

1) By greying out a quest you make them feel less meaningful and important. When I rifle through my quest list I tend to avoid the grey'd out quests since they feel insignificant.

2) Since there is no level cap there shouldn't be a problem with giving as much exp as possible,

3) There is no way to avoid grey'd out quests since the player will always level up faster then the amount of quests available,

4) Grey'd out quests stockpile like crazy! As stated above I have a ton of these quests and I could easily fill up my quest log with more of them by porting around and checking the notice boards.

5) This game should be providing as much incentive as possible for the players who take the time to do everything there is to do in this game. By awarding exp, players will be motivated to find and complete as many quests as possible (and Im sure the last thing the devs wanted players to do would be to skip as many side quests as possible and finish the game as fast as possible).


Finally, in terms of quest management you should be able to select as many quests as you want to track on the player interface. By doing this you can see on the map the areas where multiple quests are localized and can take care of many of them at the same time.

 

[gtcarlson]

Quest management I agree is a design oversight.

As for the quest system I'm surprised at how many people seem to think it's "broken" it's working compleatly as intended.

Here's what we know of what the devs want:
1. Have all players finish the game at a similar level.
2. Allow the player to be the appropriate level without doing side quests.
3. Have no level scaling of monsters or quests.
In order to fufill those goals there's not really much room for change.

If side quests never greyed out then you would be way overleveled because no scaling. or you force people to do sidequests so they finish at the right level.

Personally I do the sidequests for enjoyment not experience points, and I'm not bothered by the grey quests.

You don't have to agree with the design but in no way is it "broken".

I think it probably would be recieved better if quests scaled up (within 3 or 4 levels) but never scaled down.

I'm also intrigued by the thought of a "levelless" system where all monsters have static difficulty based on type and you gain ability points through quests and things of that nature. Odd for an RPG but combat would never become trivial and some monsters would obvioulsy require mutagens/skills/alchemy to defete that wouldn't be available till later in the game.

 

[aroth]

It's a little broken. Even if the devs are targeting a specific level for the endgame, it should be playable within at least +/- 5 levels of the target. That would allow more wiggle-room with the XP than what's currently implemented.

With quest management, I'd be happy if the game would just stop changing the focused quest if/when I happen to wander through an area or speak with an NPC associated with a different quest. Although also the ability to view all quests (regardless of classification) ordered according to the distance to the nearest quest objective from Geralt's current location would be incredibly useful. Like for when you have a lot of gear diagrams that you're trying to track down.

 

[WolvenGear]

Yes it sucks to do a big quests when the game give you 5XP, but its not a problem. Actually yesterday I asked if anybody knew of a XP-guide, but it doesnt look like there is one..
It would be nice if sombody made a XP-guide that tells you exactly what order you should do stuff in to make the most XP.

 

[looprevil1964]

Just do them all. It makes the game longer and if you already have the gear you want/need do it for completionism. I am anally inclined to do everything even if its not worth 1xp.

 

[Gerudon]

Exp should be the last reason to do a quest and in TW 3 it actually is. Giving full exp for every quest would just let you outlevel even more. What they might have done would be to have an exponentially rising exp curve, so that getting full exp for a low level quest doesn't do much, but that would lead to more or less the same result and would only be a psychological thing.

 

[kmetek]

I also noticed this...when you're outleveled you get only 5xp

 

[Mordamir91]

Here's what we know of what the devs want:
1. Have all players finish the game at a similar level.

That alone is a bad thing, I don't want to play a supposed free open world game as a developer intends or wants, I want to make it my own experience.

 

[WolvenGear]

I am anally inclined

 

[moonknightgog]

That alone is a bad thing, I don't want to play a supposed free open world game as a developer intends or wants, I want to make it my own experience.

Which is not how an RPG open world works.

 

[gtcarlson]

That alone is a bad thing, I don't want to play a supposed free open world game as a developer intends or wants, I want to make it my own experience.

You still can, you just finish the game in 5 level range regardless of the order you do quests, but dependent on how many you do. No this isn't skyrim where you can finish in a 100 level range, but without level scaling anything greater than a couple levels is impractical unless you change what levels count for.

 

[ju5t_me]

What they might have done would be to have an exponentially rising exp curve, so that getting full exp for a low level quest doesn't do much, but that would lead to more or less the same result and would only be a psychological thing.

Or just a linear increase in required XP every level, the current required XP/lvl curve is incredibly flat with only 2 bumps in the normal range (dunno if you need more XP/lvl if you are past 40, 60 etc). So reducing quest rewards is basically the only chance to prevent extreme overleveling.

Kinda funny that those 2 common complains are primarily psychological thing... I bet there were less complains if outleveled quests were blue instead of grey and the game had a more standard XP progression, but gives full XP for all quests, even tho the system still has the same properties(outleveled content is easy and XP rewards for this content are more or less worthless)

 

[rikj1984]

It's a little broken. Even if the devs are targeting a specific level for the endgame, it should be playable within at least +/- 5 levels of the target. That would allow more wiggle-room with the XP than what's currently implemented.

With quest management, I'd be happy if the game would just stop changing the focused quest if/when I happen to wander through an area or speak with an NPC associated with a different quest. Although also the ability to view all quests (regardless of classification) ordered according to the distance to the nearest quest objective from Geralt's current location would be incredibly useful. Like for when you have a lot of gear diagrams that you're trying to track down.

"Broken" by definition means it is not working the way the designers intended. I believe it works exactly how they intended, and thus the statement is false. One might not agree with, or like the way it was designed, but that is a different issue.

I think the current design allows for multiple playthroughs hitting different areas at different levels for a different experience. Maybe one playthrough you spend a lot of time on Velen side quests and Skellige stuff is greyed out. Perhaps another time you beeline through Velen/Novigrad on the main quest and hit Skellige at a lower level. It leaves your options open.

However, if you try to hit every quest on a single playthrough, a very large portion of them will be greyed out. The design is intentional, not broken.

 

[Rhovaniel]

In my opinion, there are three improvements/alterations that could be fairly easily made to solve these problems.

1. Make Witcher contracts scale to level. I am not suggesting any in-world mobs should be scaled and I am not suggesting that normal quests should be scaled. Just Witcher contracts, where the contract monster is usually behind a locked door or requires some sort of action (linked to the contract) to summon it. Why not make these monsters scale to Geralt's level. Then you can never out-level witcher contracts and won't feel the same pressure to complete them before they grey out.

2. Allow us to decline a level. Inform us that a level up is available and in the character screen allow us to confirm it or refuse it. If we refuse it, we don't gain the ability points and go back in XP to the point at the start of the current level. Then, if we feel we are over-levelling (say by doing to many contracts) we can stop the main quest (or secondary quests) from greying out.

3. Give us an extra difficulty level on top of the others with slower levelling.

 

[aroth]

"Broken" by definition means it is not working the way the designers intended. I believe it works exactly how they intended, and thus the statement is false.

Well if you want to look from the pedantic angle, then okay. It's actually a questionable design decision, which is causing a poor, or at the very least least, suboptimal UX in the final product.

Generally in software it's fair game to refer to such things as "broken" functionality. It may be what was designed and intended, but then it turns out that in practice what was designed and intended isn't actually optimal in terms of UX. That sort of thing actually happens quite often, and it's okay. With software the original design isn't a holy grail or a reason for dismissing observed deficiencies.

 

[rikj1984]

Again, I still don't think that's the case. It seems the intent is for players to do just a portion of the side quests in each playthrough, which would keep that portion of the game "fresh" as you repeat the game for different outcomes on the main quest.

The fact that this causes issues for someone who wants to do everything possible in a single play through does not make it a deficiency or a fault with the design. It's simply a consequence of someone's choice in how they want to play.

I fall into this category myself. I end up with a lot of greyed quests. I don't really care though. Whether the number 5 or the number 300 pops up on the screen on quest completion means absolutely nothing. As long as the quest was fun and interesting, that's all that matters.

 

[BaneSixEcho]

I'm with rikj1984 on this one.

At first I thought something was amiss with the design of the game, or perhaps I was doing something wrong. After a while I just stopped thinking about the suggested levels and how much experience I was getting, and played the game to enjoy the journey. In the end it all worked out just fine.

 

[aroth]

Whether the number 5 or the number 300 pops up on the screen on quest completion means absolutely nothing. As long as the quest was fun and interesting, that's all that matters.

I could agree with that, except for the fact that all of the equipment has level restrictions on it. I went out of my way to find all of the Witcher crafting diagrams, only to find out that the best stuff was completely unusable until level 30+. Then I tried to gain those levels by completing quests, only to hit diminishing returns that made it impossible to reach the required level without advancing right up to the final mission (I ended the game at level 34, which is the requirement for the Wolf School gear). I don't really think it's fun to have a bunch of items that the game encourages me to find (and which consume weight in my inventory, and which can only be crafted by completing two high-level quests), but then declares I cannot use until literally the eleventh hour.

If the equipment didn't lock me out of using it until I had gained a certain amount of XP, then I'd agree the amount of XP awarded is basically a non-issue. But since it does, I think it means they've got the balance wrong (the ability points and vitality gains from leveling up don't really amount to that much; however the equipment is kind of a big deal). At least for my style of play (which I think is not that different than yours), I found the "5 XP" thing to be a constant frustration. It's not really ignorable, because the game makes character level a gating factor on using certain items. It's making levels (and by association, XP) a focal point, and then refusing to give you any.

It's also somewhat ironic, I think, in that even the best sword isn't really that much more powerful than the ones 5-10 levels below. And certainly the best armor still won't stop you from dying in 2-3 hits if you get careless. So it's not like the level restrictions on the equipment even accomplish anything tangible.

 

[Death132]

Some people care far too much about numbers/stats and ruin the experience for themselves.

 

[Gerudon]

I could agree with that, except for the fact that all of the equipment has level restrictions on it. I went out of my way to find all of the Witcher crafting diagrams, only to find out that the best stuff was completely unusable until level 30+.

So...your problem is, that the best equip is locked until pretty far into the game...like in any other game ever....okay...

I honestly felt exactly the other way around. As soon as I get the Witcher set I want to use fro the playthrough, I stop caring about levels altogether. Sometimes I even forget to upgrade the equip for a level or two.

The problem here is, that CDPR can't do it perfectly in this case. Whatever direction they would choose, it would rub soime people the wrong way.

Let every quest give the nominal amount of xp: "Damn, I'm leveling up far too fast!"
Reduce the amount of XP for low level quests: "Damn, I'm not getting XP anymore."
Having the quests level with the player: "Damn, now leveling feels useless!"

The system the game has now is in my opinion the best alternative out of a bunch of flawed options and I don't know any open world RPG that has done it in a better, more satisfying way.