Six suggestions to breathe life back into old quests

[jhorn02]

I saw another post today (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=255083) noting the repetition we go through while leveling multiple characters. It made me think about several threads I've seen suggesting how to make quests less predictable and thus, more exciting. Here are six suggestions that I think would go a long way toward making quests feel less repetitive. I wish I could give credit to the originators of these ideas, but I can’t even pretend that I can remember. Anyway, take these for what they are: thought provoking suggestions for mechanisms to make this very good game even better.

P.S. For those who would cry “Don’t waste dev time on this. More new content!” – I agree, but I’d imagine (some of) these improvements taking far less dev time than new content and honestly, if I had my choice I’d give up 4 new quests in return for adding new flavor to the 50 quests I’ve run 50+ times (and will have to run several more times while leveling new characters). Just something to think about…

Random trap locations
Add a few additional traps to quests that already contain traps and give each a % chance of appearing in a given instance. Not every quest should have traps, but those that do should have traps and trap boxes appear in different locations on different runs. I'm tired of seeing vets jump up and down beside a blank wall saying "trap box is here"...so unrealistic and makes trap sense virtually useless unless you're running a quest for the first time.

Random trap types
For elemental traps, vary the trap type from one instance to another. This could be achieved by placing 2 or more traps in close proximity with a random generator that determines which (if any) appear. The possibility of having two traps occasionally spawn in almost the same location wouldn't be that bad and, in fact, has already been done (the first shrine in Monastery, among others). Blade traps would be trickier to vary, but could also be done with a little more work.

Randomize monster CRs
Add a small amount of randomness to each monsters CR...about 20% should do. For instance, any mob at CR4 or below would not vary, but a CR 5 mob could range from CR4 to CR6 while a CR10 mob could range from CR8 to CR12. It would add flavor and challenge to the game if you stumbled on a group of 4 CR12 monsters when you were expecting 4 CR10s. As long as the variation isn't too great, it shouldn't overwhelm most parties and would tend to average out over the course of a quest...with a few easier encounters and a few harder ones. Bosses should probably have fixed CRs since they fall outside the normal spectrum of mobs.

Randomize monster types
This would need to be done in moderation and in the right locations, but it would be nice to have spots within some quests where the type of mob changes from one instance to another. We see hints of this with the norm/hard/elite mechanic and in a few other unique spots, but adding more examples of this would increase the challenge and surprise in quests. Imagine a warforged opening a door to face a rust monster or mindflayer instead of a troll. This could reintroduce some PNP-type suspense of never knowing what you're going to find behind a locked door!

Randomize monster locations
Allowing monsters to spawn in slightly different locations within quests would add surprise and realism to the game. Open one door to find a lonely mob. Open the next to find five of its friends. The implementation of this would require careful coding so that parties aren't overwhelmed by too many mobs at once, but varying the spawn points would add a little more realism.

Randomize (some) quest maps
I realize that truly random adventure maps are likely impossible with the amount of crafting that goes into creating DDO dungeons. However, particular areas of particular quests could be randomized. We see hints of this in a few quests, but it would add a little more variety to quests.

[k1ngp1n]

/signed

Unfortunately, I don't hold out hope that this will be implemented, but doing so would indeed unravel a whole new play dynamic. Of course then we'd have a bunch of players screaming, 'OMG! That trap is SO NOT FAIR!'

*sigh*

[JPDefault]

Even if I know this will fall on deaf ears, I'm going to /sign.

Metagaming is an easy button, and Turbine seems to add one of those with every release

[grodon9999]

Agreed - more stuff should be random.

[rdasca]

/signed and double signed. With the exception of the random maps, everything you just put forth would require only a little time and since we know that they make some of these changes for epic, then the Turbine devs could do it if they wanted to.

[Loromir]

What would really be cool, is if this was implemented without warning. Think of all the zergers who run these quests blindly because they have run then 100's of time. All of the sudden, they hit a quest that has random mobs in random locations right after they hit a random trap.....Ding!!!!

I can just hear the fowl language clogging up the servers chat rooms. It would be hilarious!

[LordPiglet]

/signed

Would also be cool if they had random fake trap control panels. I.E. you ran up to the control panel, the moved up and the trap went off because it's actually on the opposite side of the trap, or opposite wall, etc.

[Halbarad]

/signed If they do this, I might actually have to be awake when I'm running those lowbies through STK and Tangleroot!

[FluffyCalico]

Random trap locations
.

It's not going to happen. This was requested before the very first mod back when the game came out. They gave VON2 simi-random traps and locations in that maze. People whined and cried so much about not being able to know exactly where every trap was and what type it was that they never did it again until Reavers reach in Monestary and people again cried so much it won't be happening a 3rd time.

They have tried this 2 times and 2 times got to much whineing on the forums over it I don't see them ever doing it again.

What would really be cool, is if this was implemented without warning. Think of all the zergers who run these quests blindly because they have run then 100's of time. All of the sudden, they hit a quest that has random mobs in random locations right after they hit a random trap.....Ding!!!!

I can just hear the fowl language clogging up the servers chat rooms. It would be hilarious!

LOL hate to meet the zergers you run with. Good zergers would go meh and keep going.

[Meetch1972]

I'm all for the spirit of the OP! Great ideas. The only part that should be particularly challenging to developers is map randomisation - retrofitting that to existing dungeons would probably be painful.

One thing I would avoid doing, just for completeness, is randomisation in casual mode. To me, casual == easy == predictable == you're just running Prey on the Hunter for runes and don't want to know about any unexpected traps or mob surprises and let's face it, I don't think many would complain if the maze wasn't random on casual.

The difficulty increase going to Hard then Elite could then up the number of traps/unexpected mobs on a random basis. Going to Elite might not necessarily mean the traps hurt so much more than they currently do on Hard, but of course they would be far less predictable and improve the importance of having someone find them, whether it be the painful or not so painful way.

Plus, more traps randomly placed in the dungeon means more opportunity for components for the Rogue to make traps/grenades as of U5. Imagine being able to turn some of that extra risk into extra throwing damage a little later on...

I do hope the devs can give some feedback on whether there are plans for any of this!

[Mister_Peace]

Random encounters don't make narrative sense and would reduce immersion. Remember the Depths quests. I don't ever want to see rust monsters and iron golems cohabitating.

[Halock]

Random encounters don't make narrative sense and would reduce immersion. Remember the Depths quests. I don't ever want to see rust monsters and iron golems cohabitating.

You can easily make it semi random, assign ti a pool of monsters so you dont get what you are talking about happening.

Take inspired quarter for example, walking down a hall you get 2 fighters and 2 wizards, every time, you can make it randomly choose what those 4 will be, from the list of possible enemies for the dungeon. You might get 4 wizards, 1 war 3 clerics, 2 rogues wizard cleric, w/e, just some change rather than the old, bust open this door, our wizard fingers the casters before the shards hit the floor, melee follow soon after.

What you're describing would be silly, but is easily avoidable.

As to people crying about random traps, i think if you made spot do the wave thing on the person who senses that a trap is near like what you get on a box when you search for traps, should make it much more smoother for dungeon crawling with random traps and alleviate some of those whines. Would also give some use to some of those ranger flavor ( curently ) type skills/spells

[FluffyCalico]

Random encounters don't make narrative sense and would reduce immersion. Remember the Depths quests. I don't ever want to see rust monsters and iron golems cohabitating.

Better not go in thernal east then

[Chaosprism]

Cry for help does this sort of thing


theres a LOT of traps in this quest but it's random as to whether or not they're there.


They could retrofit old quests this way, and I think for the ones that get played a lot (the f2p) ones and ones you need to semi-farm this idea is a sound one.



I'd also like to see very rare creature spawns in some quests... maybe even one that spawns NOT on the enemies side..
SO it actually fights THEM when it spawns.

You could also have a rare chance for a MEETING of sorts to take place in a mission where theres a lot of creatures in one room.

[Rakian_Knight]

What's this...........an idea that promotes............,no it couldn't be,..............PLAYING SMARTER!
I love most of the ideas making things where you aren't sure where that next trap is going to be or if it is going to throw a weak poison at you or boiling water. Also the mob types would be nice, have a small table of mobs in the quest and let the trash mobs be a random assortment of the quest monsters.

Maybe not all of them are on the same side, maybe on one run you get lucky and find a group of Kolbolds that ran into some smugglers now their are Kolbolds fighting you, Smugglers fighting you, and Kolbolds fighting Smugglers, or (promoting smart game-play) pull the Smugglers to the Kolbolds where they fight leaving you to deal with the ones who survive.

/signed

Also again this is just my thoughts

~Rakian_Knight

[Kepli_Moonshadow]

/aye

Just for the heck of it.

[jhorn02]

Those are both interesting ideas.

I'd also like to see very rare creature spawns in some quests... maybe even one that spawns NOT on the enemies side..
SO it actually fights THEM when it spawns.

I've often thought this game should include more opportunities for encounters that don't just involve killing everything that spawns.

The devs did something like that in the Ghola Fan prison. The guards and inmates will fight each other unless you draw aggro. The quest is much easier if you DON'T fight everything. I can imagine encounters where an overpowered boss spawns along with an ally. Much testing would have to go into making sure the encounter was balanced, but I think it could be done. In Weapons Shipment, the titan is overpowered, so all you really have to do is sit back and wait...but I'd like more situations where you have to pitch in and work collaboratively with a NPC to beat a boss. (Unlike Threnal, where Coyle is more detriment than help).

There is one other quest where I seem to remember two types of enemies fighting each other, but I can't remember which. Seems like its a mid-level quest...

You could also have a rare chance for a MEETING of sorts to take place in a mission where theres a lot of creatures in one room.

This would be difficult unless the creatures that were meeting were from various "factions" and began to fight each other. A room full of creature would be a lot for a party to handle (not to mention lag concerns).

[tkneip1874]

/signed.

what i have always thought that devs should do is implement quests like they did the devils assault. sure i dont like the quest and have only done it when it first came out. but was it a surprise when my friends and i ran it on elite with lvl 16 toons thinking we are going to walk through this lvl 8 quest and we got smoked. when we went back in i looked and noticed it was a lvl 18 quest. just imagine running ww on elite with lvl 16 toons and actually be challenged...

[sh0uzama]

Very well put together.

Devs, please consider it seriously.

[Chai]

/signed.

Putting things into the game like this would curb metagaming to the point where running the same quests over and over again would still have some sense of adventure.