Side quested to death

[Thothistox]

I think some of the problems with sidequests can be solved if

1) they're not usable for grinding
2) they're not purely modular

The first problem was already solved in TW2: kill enough of one kind of monster and you gain exp fighting that particular monster. Keep killing more of that kind of monster and you get very little exp. In other words, experience is enemy-specific and also general. General exp allows you to level, while enemy-specific exp allows you to get better at fighting that particular enemy. If the amount of exp gained from side-quests was also either specialized in some way or limited, then it wouldn't be possible to generate an overpowered (and therefore boring) Geralt just from side-quests.

The second point is more difficult to implement, but it is the foundation of every good RPG. The quests should influence the choices and outcomes of other quests. It shouldn't be possible to "pull" a quest out of the game without a domino effect on everything else (i.e., the quests shouldn't be confined to their own modules -- they shouldn't be modular). If done right, the side-quests shouldn't be unlockable until the main quest progresses.

Some of the other ideas in this thread have also been really good. Geralt should talk to himself and remind himself of the urgency of his main quest, and also the NPCs should do the same.

 

[TheDeathRun]

The second point is more difficult to implement, but it is the foundation of every good RPG. The quests should influence the choices and outcomes of other quests. It shouldn't be possible to "pull" a quest out of the game without a domino effect on everything else (i.e., the quests shouldn't be confined to their own modules -- they shouldn't be modular). If done right, the side-quests shouldn't be unlockable until the main quest progresses..

Well in the demo it was stated that choosing to do certain quests could affect the availability (at the very least) of other quests. If I'm not mistaken that sounds like what you're looking for

 

[mavowar]

Side quests in The Witcher generally have a story to them. Think Mass Effect or Dragon Age Origins.

Also, KOA was a flawed game. Just too boring for my tastes.

Great combat though!!!

 

[witcher22]

I only do side quests if i have to. It kind of bugs me when it is impossible to advance because you have not collected 10 feathers, 10 times.

In something like oblivion or fallout because the main quest line is so short, i end up looking around doing all the various things.

I despise being over powerd in games. It is boring.

 

[EliHarel]

I only do side quests if i have to. It kind of bugs me when it is impossible to advance because you have not collected 10 feathers, 10 times.

Those sort of side-quests are wretched and I hope they'll be eradicated forever. Did you play The Witcher 2? CDPR managed to create many side quests there that were just enjoyable for their own sake. Not all of them, but quite a lot, and definitely more than other RPGs I've seen.

Troll Trouble
In the Claws of Madness
Malena
Hung Over
The Scent of Incense
Little Sisters
With Flickering Heart

There are more. I'll stop here, though, since the point is clear. TW2 had some great side quests. Not all of them were remarkable of course, but the majority of them at the least had substance to them that made their story interesting, even if the activity itself wasn't out of the ordinary. Some of them, activity-wise as well, were pretty awesome.

TW2 is maybe the only game where I did the majority of side quests because they were honestly fun and interesting, instead of just for leveling-up purposes. I hope that TW3 will continue this, improve it, and not have even one "collect X feathers" mission (though TW2's take on that was hilarious - see, even something as stupid as that was done in TW2 in a way that made it memorable).

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

...
I hope that TW3 will continue this, improve it, and not have even one "collect X feathers" mission
...

such quest were very immersive in witcher 1
local alchemist needs skulls of ghost dogs, you are a witcher (monster slayer) he gives you that job
or dentist who collects vampires teeth to studies

those quests had good back story and believable place in setting.

Not all side quest should end in laying drunk on beach after party with temerian special forces.
Give me some dull and dirty witcher work.

 

[His_Majesty]

Don't forget the quests added in the enhanced edition. I really enjoyed The Secrets of Loc Muinne. Haven't gotten to the new quest in the Roche playthrough.

 

[Minetor]

I've been playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning over the past couple weeks. I've put 17 hours into the game and I feel kind of the same way I did when I played Skyrim. That is that there are so many side quests that don't flow organically from the main quest that you can just go off and play side quests for hours upon hours and never even touch the main quest. I honestly cannot tell you a single thing about the main plot of KoA:R, nothing. All I've been doing is side questing myself to death. Side quest after side quest and when I thought I was about to finish the side quests that are available to me, even more pop up. My character is so highly leveled at this point without even doing any of the main quest.

What's the point of all this? Well, I notice this is a trend in open or openish world games. You can do so much stuff and go on so many side quests that the main plot of the game just doesn't matter. So what is TW3 doing to combat this problem? I just hope that TW3 solves this issue. TW games are known for their great stories, it would be a real shame to be side quested to death. Going off and slaying monsters and doing random people's dirty work for 40 hours before I go and see what's going on with Ciri.

The games you list are rpgs......the whole point is to get in the world and do random quests am sorry but moaning about side quests in rpgs is like moaning that you have to shoot people in a first person shooter and what do you do if you don't like shooting people you don't play shooters i will let you make your own choice on what you should do.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

"The scale of the open world in the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is unprecedented, so fear not – there is enough gameplay to keep you playing for weeks."

Source: http://www.nerdacy.com/2014/12/22/c...-being-addressed-with-extra-development-time/

So basically a ton of pointless filler content confirmed. Great... :hope:

 

[Scryar]

Source: http://www.nerdacy.com/2014/12/22/c...-being-addressed-with-extra-development-time/

So basically a ton of pointless filler content confirmed. Great... :hope:

No idea, how your comment is related to the quoted statement. He ist probably just talking about the overall playtime (100-120 hours was the last thing i read). Several weeks should be the time the average gamer need to finish the game. There is nothing about how the they filled the 100 hours content. We only know it will be 50 hours main story and 50 hours sidequests, which seems a much better balance than the 20 hours mainstory and 80 hours sidecontent I had with Dragon Age.

 

[Lieste]

such quest were very immersive in witcher 1
local alchemist needs skulls of ghost dogs, you are a witcher (monster slayer) he gives you that job
or dentist who collects vampires teeth to studies

those quests had good back story and believable place in setting.

Not all side quest should end in laying drunk on beach after party with temerian special forces.
Give me some dull and dirty witcher work.

Hell Yeah! I wore that trophy with pride (and it was actually fairly useful from my vague recollection).

 

[warbaby2.206]

No idea, how your comment is related to the quoted statement. He ist probably just talking about the overall playtime (100-120 hours was the last thing i read). Several weeks should be the time the average gamer need to finish the game. There is nothing about how the they filled the 100 hours content. We only know it will be 50 hours main story and 50 hours sidequests, which seems a much better balance than the 20 hours mainstory and 80 hours sidecontent I had with Dragon Age.

Depends on the filler... most of the busywork in DAI was utterly pointless. Story/content wise, it as the worst of the 3 games for me so far, but apparently it worked for the majority of players, though.

 

[Eldarth]

Depends on the filler... most of the busywork in DAI was utterly pointless. Story/content wise, it as the worst of the 3 games for me so far, but apparently it worked for the majority of players, though.

I think the same, Inquisition was lack of story, I cracked it because i wasnt sure if it was a good shopping, and thank the gods i didnt, i have never seen an story in a game that i dont give a fck so so much, really empty to me, Origins was the cooler, good background, story, being a hero in a setting that makes sense. You have to do it alone and try to get allies, but in the inquisition after the prologue, i had to go somewhere to find a priest and i had a camp with more than 30 soldiers of mine, but of course, I HAVE TO GO, ME AND 3 MORE GUYS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THE INQUISITION ALONE, they will, protect the camp so no one can steal our beautiful camp. Hate when this shit happens, if i have an army, come with me u fckers. Dont leave me alone agaisnt all of them, that btw, i didnt get why the hell there was ppl fighting each other, i mean, ok there was an demon invasion, but we closed it, and now templars and mages are fcking around that much just killing ppl with nonsense? Brainless.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

There is nothing about how the they filled the 100 hours content. We only know it will be 50 hours main story and 50 hours sidequests, which seems a much better balance than the 20 hours mainstory and 80 hours sidecontent I had with Dragon Age.

True, but experience tells me that no development studio managed so far to create a vast open world with gorgeous graphics AND fill it with dozens of hours of meaningful and a connected narrative at the same time. Studios which are way bigger than CDPR failed to do so. AC Unity's Paris is a great world, no question, but it offers only about 15-20 hours of meaningful content. Dragon Age Inquisition offered some very nice visuals and a huge open world but the world itself was rather lackluster and static and the meaningful content was about 20 hours max (as you've already said). And I don't even begin with Skyrim...

The point is that it is EXTREMELY challenging and an extremely big workload to make both. Either the world of Witcher 3 is full of filler content and MMO-inspired quests and tasks or CDPR are a bunch of development magicians who built that game in extreme crunch time. I indeed think that the amount or ratio of meaningful content will be bigger than in lets say DAI. But 50/50 is still a bad ratio. To me each hour of filler content drags the whole experience down.

Of course I should add that a basic quest that involves SOME storytelling like "person X gives you task -> you search something or collect something or kill some monster -> you get your reward" isn't a meaningful quest in by books. That's just a pointless MMO-style quest in a thin narrative disguise (DAI is actually full of such quests...)

I'd rather have much less content but all meaningful. I don't need to play the game for weeks while having an "ok" experience most of the time. I want to have a great experience while it lasts and if it lasts only a few days it's ok. Then I'll do something else with my time. The games I remember most are those in which almost every moment was impressive, meaningful and worth to remember. I want to play a game that honors my time and tries to fill it the best way it could. I don't see games as occupation therapy just to kill time. And killing time is what people tend to do most in vast open worlds. It's not even just the quests, it's also the constant travelling and running from A to B, even with fast-travelling. Skyrim for example is basically a running simulator with some combat from time to time. But most of the time you just run around which is - if you really think about it - a really boring and repetitive task and nothing to be remembered...

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Witcher 3 is trying to weave every side quest in the main plot one way or another. So the players don't feel like they're doing them just for the sake of doing them. Also the promises of eliminating "fetch quests" is also promising. CDPR is going as far as giving side activities a backstory (e.g. explaining why Geralt would do boat or horse races).

Nonetheless I hope CDPR are able to pull this off.

It's certainly good to hear that that is the intent.

I was kinda worried that with the sheer size of their game it would become "Witcher 3: Wild Busywork"; or alternatively "Witcher 3: Empty Landscape Simulation RED Engine Wolf Fur Tech Demo With A Couple Of Quests". Of course both (hyperbole aside) are still possibilities depending on how things are pulled off, but at least there are measures being taken to prevent that.

 

[wichat]

... CDPR are a bunch of development magicians who built that game in extreme crunch time....

Well, Christmas dates are made of magic dreams... let's dream a little about Magic CDPR at least until the harsh reality crush us with one blow. :cheers:

We'll have time to lick our wounds, don't worry.

 

[ImPeakingIt]

tbh i dont care how mundane a "filler-quest" might be, it could be gathering roses for a man so he can win the heart of a young maiden for all i care. As long as i get to see Geralt converse with the man and make one of his trademark witty remarks then that will make it all worth it. "The last time i went and gathered roses i had a much better reward at the end" The way the conversations are portrayed is a big part of making the quest worthwhile imo. The dynamic camera during the cut scenes which allows you to see all the facial expressions and gestures make it way more interesting then in DAI where all you see is the back of your character while they both stand static and all you see is their lips move.

 

[Ljesnjanin]

If I have to be side quested to death with witcher jobs, so be it...

 

[OptoNick]

Fetch quests are unavoidable - just because Geralt is a witcher, at least. And in gameplay demos we clearly saw this "hunt this creature down @ bring me / us the head / ear" template. But it's not a bad thing itself and if we will often has a choice (like in Ladies of the Woods) that'd be great.

 

[Vigilance.492]

or CDPR are a bunch of development magicians who built that game in extreme crunch time.

Why do they have to be in crunch time to create that content? They could have mapped out the world, designed and implemented dozens upon dozens upon dozens of interesting side-quests before "crunch time" even started. It's not like everything about the game has magically come together in just the last year or 1.5 years, the game has been in development a lot longer and just because there's been statements about PR hyping up a "bigger" game than what they actually had, doesn't mean that includes quest design and every aspect of the game itself.

One aspect of The Witcher 1 which definitely felt a little "archaic" after having played The Witcher 2 first was some of the side-quests, and basic nature of them. I definitely felt The Witcher 2 stepped things up in terms of Quest Design (Even if it was missing some of the more "Witcher Quests" - Vincent & Carmen, House of the Night etc - which is disappointing in retrospect), and it would be disappointing to see them fall into very basic quest design simply because of the open world.
I think it's all about improvement, and how much a developer wants to do so, and I think that based on everything we've seen in the footage of TW3 it seems like CDPR truly are trying to improve on TW1/2 in every area possible (Even if as presently onlookers we don't agree with some decisions), just like TW2 improved in many areas on TW1. I see no reason to believe that the majority of their side-quests won't be just as engaging and interesting as quests were in TW2, and even the many that were the same in TW1.

Just because they're going open world, and just because one of their PR figures wants to make a claim that "TW3 can be played for weeks", doesn't automatically mean that the game is going to be filled with tons of meaningless, redundant, pointless filler content. I do agree with you however and I'd actually rather not have filler content at all then developers shove it in the game and try to make out like as if there's "so much to do" (And sadly people lap it up). Just like someone stated earlier in the thread DA:I is a fantastic recent example that has tons of pointless filler fetch/kill quests and people love to boast (And the Devs did too) about how they are 100 hours into a playthrough and still haven't finished the game. Sure, it sounds great, but it's MMO level busywork that sadly lots of people find interesting, but ultimately fails to be meaningful and interesting content.

When I hear Marcin Iwinski make a statement like, "Witcher 3 can be played for weeks", to me that is more-so just generally referring to you playing the game for ages. Imagine someone who can only play for a few hours a day, well right there you've got over a months worth of playtime based on the supposed ~100 hours of quests the game is meant to have. So in reality his statement is true, just in a cheeky way. I agree that CDPR would have to be performing some kind of wizardry to pull off an open world game where every quest felt completely meaningful and there wasn't a single fetch/filler quest, however I think it's also pretty silly to assume that based on a statement like Iwinski's that the game will have tons of annoying filler content and start getting worried because of it. The Witcher 2 scored a nice balance, and I think the last thing the developers want is to regress in regards to quest design, and will do everything they can to ensure even though this is an open world, the content is as interesting and meaningful as it was in the previous games, but time will tell, I'm not entirely ruling out that they could fuck it up.

Apologies for the huge post, I just had a lot of things on my mind about this topic and not all of it is aimed directly at you, just some general thoughts mixed in there too.