Side quested to death

[Scholdarr.452]

Ha, I did not even know this existed in English on the internet :cheers:

Link to the German version?

That's a bit of a presumptuous statement. You've never even played the game. So you don't whether the side quests are "crap" or not.

Obviously the the more content a game has the more generic the content usually is. But this is a design issue CDPR has stated they intend to resolve in the Witcher 3. If you want to know exactly how you can read my earlier post about it.

Maybe I got you wrong but if they say that 50 hours is for main story and another 50 hours for side quests everything else is more or less "pointless content". Maybe it was just that completionist term that made me suspicious...

 

[Phinnway]

Maybe I got you wrong but if they say that 50 hours is for main story and another 50 hours for side quests everything else is more or less "pointless content".

Pointless in what way? Isn't it up to player to decide whether a piece of content is pointless or not? Plus, in a true open world game you naturally want to have more content than the player can complete or order to make the world feel "big" and "alive."
Also... I get the impression you didn't watch that video. You might want to do that if you intend to take this discussion further.

EDIT: Okay, I got your post now. Yeah... I think the developer meant all that content would be side-quests. Not generic collection quests like Dragon Age Inquisition had.

 

[whiplash27]

I've been playing Dragon Age Inquisition. Game is fun, but it's another one that suffers from being able to stay away from the main quest to long. They have multiple side locations (all of which tend to have 95% of the same quest in each) that open up at a time where you can spend at least 5 to 10+ hours in each location doing all of the quests. So you can spend 30 or more hours just playing the side locations instead of doing quests that are part of the main quest. They did do it in a pretty nice way in that technically just about everything that you do has some sort of association with the overall scope of the game, but it still feels too detached. What they should have done is make it so that each of the locations that open up in the game has something to do with the main quest. You go there to fulfill part of the main quest and then you do everything else along the way. Maybe even tie in some of the side quests in order to progress in the main quest or make it easier to complete the main quest. This would have been doing questing right. It seems that this is what the Witcher 3 is going for, so I hope they deliver.

I do like the hub style of open world vs. the one massive map (like Skyrim). It allows everything to be more connected and allows you to complete the quests within the same hub rather than making you receive a quest in hub A and then traveling to hub B to complete it. It seems that TW3 is also going for the more hub style as well, although it seems to be only a few larger hubs (from what I gather) rather than how DA:I did it.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

My best guess is the "pointless content" they are talking about are events that happen along the way (like for example saving a citizen from roaming soldiers which want to pillage) or things you spend your time one to prepare for the quests, like alchemy, crafting, etc.

As for the content - 50 h + 50 h sounds good. I don't think we get as high as 100 hours, but I am sure that some people will "take their time".
I for example loved the time in TW2 when you were powerful enough to take on multiple enemies fluidly without taking too much damage. Loved upgrading Igni to a fireball of hell and upgrading my sign intensity and damage and going on a rampage to kill monsters and humans alike (around mid Chapter 2).
Imagine that in an Open World with monster respawn a stuff. I bet some people will stay and enjoy a few extra rounds of "monster bashing" (talking about the normal monsters, not the "Boss-monsters") just to get some more XP and get ahead a little bit, or just to have some fun (loved taking on a horde of nekkers or harpies in Chapter 2 of TW2) . Also some people are completionists and then a quest that might take 1 hour takes 1,5 or 2 hours instead.

As for the "no fetch quests". TW2 was already VERY void of any fetch quests, most things to do were natural things like helping someone solve a problem, killing monsters or making a moral choice. Not many fetch quests in there. Also, what I loved was the fact that you did have alternatives sometimes. A quest often told you "Do X or Y". Same as monster contracts. You could read a book about them OR you could fight a lot of them and learn about their weaknesses THAT way.

If they can keep up this level of storytelling and only occasionally have a fetch quest (with a good story to justify it) or a "go to"-quest I am happy.

PS: I remember very early in development the devs said they loved Skyrim but they knew that the story-content is sometimes just too empty and smiple and they want to avoid quests which do not tell a good story or quests that are too repetitive (in terms of fetch quests or other boring tasks), they wanted to fill the world with more live than Skyrim.

 

[moonknightgog]

PS: I remember very early in development the devs said they loved Skyrim but they knew that the story-content is sometimes just too empty and smiple and they want to avoid quests which do not tell a good story or quests that are too repetitive (in terms of fetch quests or other boring tasks), they wanted to fill the world with more live than Skyrim.

Story content is not enough. It is the structure of those quest the problem. Full of markers and indications, and from some prewievs seems that Witcher 3's quests work in that way.
And this is truly disappointing, because the "Skyrim-way" is the death of quest design.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

Story content is not enough. It is the structure of those quest the problem. Full of markers and indications, and from some prewievs seems that Witcher 3's quests work in that way.
And this is truly disappointing, because the "Skyrim-way" is the death of quest design.

On that we agree

 

[Scryar]

Having read several impressions, all praise the questdesign. In one of the previews the guy wrote that each quest has it's own litle story and so far there was not a single quest in which you do something just for the sake of doing it. If they can keep this quality for the whole 100+ hours I will be really impressed.

 

[whiplash27]

The problem with 100+ hours for me is the replay value instantly shrinks to "I may play this again, but not for a long long time." If a game takes 100 hours and I play 2 hours per day, I'll finish it in 50 days. Knowing me though, I can't put down a game, so instead it turns to 5 hours a day for 20 days or something. Not good when you have other stuff to do.

 

[Vigilance.492]

Having read several impressions, all praise the questdesign. In one of the previews the guy wrote that each quest has it's own litle story and so far there was not a single quest in which you do something just for the sake of doing it. If they can keep this quality for the whole 100+ hours I will be really impressed.

They praised the quest design, but reading deeper one thing I did notice is that people were saying that when they had to do "detective work" using Witcher Senses, it was very linear (Which they didn't say was bad, but IMO that is bad). Which I know sometimes by nature that's how a situation has to play out, but hopefully every time the game forces you to use the Senses for a quest, it's not always a linear, "spot the glowing red thing" type situation.

 

[moonknightgog]

They praised the quest design, but reading deeper one thing I did notice is that people were saying that when they had to do "detective work" using Witcher Senses, it was very linear (Which they didn't say was bad, but IMO that is bad). Which I know sometimes by nature that's how a situation has to play out, but hopefully every time the game forces you to use the Senses for a quest, it's not always a linear, "spot the glowing red thing" type situation.

Yeah, because witcher senses shows to you only the path that you need to follow. If they ld shows you even other disturbances traces, it would be better, because you have to identify the path you need to follow.
MGS 4 can be an example. When you had to trace Naomi, recognizing her traces among the soldier's one.

 

[ImPeakingIt]

Yeah, because witcher senses shows to you only the path that you need to follow. If they ld shows you even other disturbances traces, it would be better, because you have to identify the path you need to follow.
MGS 4 can be an example. When you had to trace Naomi, recognizing her traces among the soldier's one.

Like in the Witcher 2 when you had to find Cedric by following his blood trail. There were numerous "false trails" which lead elsewhere. I expect the same thing will happen in Witcher 3 when investigating using the Witcher Senses.

 

[KasiaDiamondDove]

Ha, I did not even know this existed in English on the internet :cheers:

In which languages it also exists? Maybe in German... ?

 

[Scholdarr.452]

They should have cut those "witcher senses" from the beginning. It's IMHO just a weak exuse (aka tool) for weak quest design. It's "dumbing down" in the truest sense of the word IMHO because it reduces the effort and time you have to put into solving a quest. It's a clear tool to make the game easier and more accessible. The problem with that it at the same time reduces the incentive for effort in both quest design and writing for CDPR along the lines of "Why writing an extensive dialogue or quest journal, why making assets for single quests if you could just use a "superpower" instead that makes both things more ore less obsolete?" CDPR can tell me all their PR BS but the imo the simple truth is that these "witcher senses" primarily cater to the mainstream ("casual") audience in order to reduce the needed amount of thinking, searching, reading or whatever other effort you can think of. I honestly hope only VERY FEW quests use these witcher senses but I have the bad feeling that actually A LOT will use them. And some of the previewers strengthened that fear by complaining about the overuse of the feature in their only three hours long game sessions as well... <_<

 

[frivolousam]

I hear you but you can only be so much hardcore when you're making a - most anticipated game - which is expected to be played by millions of people.

 

[Scholdarr.452]

I hear you but you can only be so much hardcore when you're making a - most anticipated game - which is expected to be played by millions of people.

I would have prefered a smaller but more focused game tbh. AAA sucks. Mediocrity by design.

 

[minicrom]

Personally I want to be a Witcher. So if there are tons of side quest I ll be very happy with it. It a open world. I mean when you have to cross the map to rach Yen or Ciri it makes sense that you do side quest on the road. It is said in the second book that while traveling Geralt does mission or borrow money to get information or simply travel. The reason to justify your main quest is there. You can do a bit of role play here. In a game your character don't eat but you can imagine he has to so making side quest when going to your next main quest is great It only one way to explain you making side quest when you have a rendez vous or something. Role playing Geralt's life is one of the reason I wait for this game so much !!

 

[hardom]

Spoiler

Well, we can see from the filters that he has, in the main (and biggest) skellige island, 7 caves to explore (probably some of them were already explored), 1 bounty monster, 3 bandit camps (I think), 6 contract quests(that he picked in the village), 3 dicks (or temples, or something), 2 treasures (or some kind of money, a bag icon can represent so many things), and roach of course
Probably except from caves and "temples" all the icons pobably disappear after completing the task (caves and temples still remain after you interact with everething possible there), perhaps the bandit camps respawn, and the icon remain

Well, remembering that geralt is level 35 so he had done already a lot, and that there are contracts from other cities (we can speculate that, since blandare, village he was, had 6 contract quests, that the other villages will have abour 4-6 too, well, from the image we can see fayrlund, a slighty bigger village that probably has 6 too,in the left sund, a plac with two houses so probably no contract, and more in the left a village with the name cutted because yes, with probably about 6 too, plus kaer trolde, which doesn't seem really big and has like, 8 quests. That makes 26 contract quests in the area that the image covers).
26 contract quests that can be anything, plus probably 4-6 monster bounty quest and 6-8 bandit camps ard skellige (or part of it) already has 36-40 quests to do
This speculation of mine is really inacurate but we can expect a number like that from ard skellige the biggest island of skellige island, plus no mans land/novigrad that make a kinda big number

 

[Geralt_of_bsas]

They should have cut those "witcher senses" from the beginning. It's IMHO just a weak exuse (aka tool) for weak quest design. It's "dumbing down" in the truest sense of the word IMHO because it reduces the effort and time you have to put into solving a quest. It's a clear tool to make the game easier and more accessible. The problem with that it at the same time reduces the incentive for effort in both quest design and writing for CDPR along the lines of "Why writing an extensive dialogue or quest journal, why making assets for single quests if you could just use a "superpower" instead that makes both things more ore less obsolete?" CDPR can tell me all their PR BS but the imo the simple truth is that these "witcher senses" primarily cater to the mainstream ("casual") audience in order to reduce the needed amount of thinking, searching, reading or whatever other effort you can think of. I honestly hope only VERY FEW quests use these witcher senses but I have the bad feeling that actually A LOT will use them. And some of the previewers strengthened that fear by complaining about the overuse of the feature in their only three hours long game sessions as well... <_<

WS are a great idea, the problem is they seem to be implementing it wrong. When it was announced I was excited naturally, because it has incredible potential, and the devs seemed to understand that, then after a lot of silence it seems they settled with the hand holding direction we've been hearing lately. Too bad.

 

[Xvenger]

speaking of hardcore questing, I just recently joined a runescape private server and say what you will about runescape but my god they know how to make quests right imo lol.
It's pretty damn hardcore without any help from a friend or a wiki and there's literary zero quest markers. All the clues you have are the ones in your journal which can be fairly obscure if you only do the bare minimum of exploration and investigating all while it maintains the right flavor. One of the few games I've played that actually makes some quests feel like an adventure.

Hope W3 can achieve the same level of complexity even with its seemingly linear mechanic of witcher sense