So many quests, so few played...

[tcosta1982]

Hey All,

I've said this to a lot of people over the years, so I think it's time I make this suggestions public.

There are A LOT of quests in DDO, but for the most people I see the majority doing something like this each life :

Korthos > Ringleader > Info Is Key > Waterworks > STK > 3BC > VON > Ravenloft > Gianthold > Wheloon > Forgotten Realms > TR

I think a good solution to get people playing some of the other quests would be to tie a small saga to chains and even group up some of the disconnected quests. Like 1 Saga for each House and then the ones that have kind of meh end rewards.

I think there is a lot of opportunity to get some of these lesser played quest groups played.

What do you think?

[HungarianRhapsody]

Hey All,

I've said this to a lot of people over the years, so I think it's time I make this suggestions public.

There are A LOT of quests in DDO, but for the most people I see the majority doing something like this each life :

Korthos > Ringleader > Info Is Key > Waterworks > STK > 3BC > VON > Ravenloft > Gianthold > Wheloon > Forgotten Realms > TR

I think a good solution to get people playing some of the other quests would be to tie a small saga to chains and even group up some of the disconnected quests. Like 1 Saga for each House and then the ones that have kind of meh end rewards.

I think there is a lot of opportunity to get some of these lesser played quest groups played.

What do you think?

I'd like to see an automatic XP bonus for the least played quests. If that XP bonus gets big enough over time, they'll get played eventually.

[Sir_Noob]

Another simple solution would be to affix a certain amount of bonus xp for different quest completions.
With their being a hefty bonus once reaching say 200 + quests. I have no idea where to cut off as this bonus could be a quick way to level and maybe not need to do 200 quests for a level 20 TR.

Problem is though and I can understand this portion of the equation is most people who commit to expediting their TR train want to spend as little time and effort in gaining those levels to they can TR again. It is just far too grindy if you are after the big rewards of completionist.

For me, I enjoy first lifers and am an altoholic, however, I have a couple of characters sneaking up on their first TR.
This will be interesting as I wonder if this is where the fever starts. That first TR and seeing the rewards.


.

[Thrudh]

Another simple solution would be to affix a certain amount of bonus xp for different quest completions.
With their being a hefty bonus once reaching say 200 + quests. I have no idea where to cut off as this bonus could be a quick way to level and maybe not need to do 200 quests for a level 20 TR.

Problem is though and I can understand this portion of the equation is most people who commit to expediting their TR train want to spend as little time and effort in gaining those levels to they can TR again. It is just far too grindy if you are after the big rewards of completionist.

The irony, of course, is that it could be far less grindy if they didn't play the same quests over and over.

[Thrudh]

Part of the problem is certain favor unlock are pretty important.

So most people are going to run the same bunch of Coin Lord and Kundarak quests to unlock inventory each TR.

And flagging for raids might be important to anyone who is going to stay at cap for a bit on each life, so you end up running all those same quests too.

I personally have advocated for years that exp be dynamic, based on how often a quest gets run.

Least run quests should slowly have their exp boosted until they become attractive to run again.

I assume changing the system that drastically would be too much work, so I'm totally for the idea of just giving us a huge bonus each week to run the 10 least run quests from last week.

And advertise them each week too, of course!

[banjo174]

Korthos > Ringleader > Info Is Key > Waterworks > STK > 3BC > VON > Ravenloft > Gianthold > Wheloon > Forgotten Realms > TR?

Uhm... Something is missing from this list, unless you are talking about first lifers. Also... Who does Korthos anymore?

[cdbd3rd]

....Also... Who does Korthos anymore?

*Raises hand*

Korthos quests (Village and Island) are fast/easy 42 Coin Lord rep, so over halfway to the first inventory bag.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I'd like to see an automatic XP bonus for the least played quests. If that XP bonus gets big enough over time, they'll get played eventually.

Nice idea. Plus the more one plays a quest, the less xp it hands out.

I always do Korthos - except Misry's Peak to Elite for favour points, all of the time. I *need* that extra inventory space, being the hoarder I am.

[Rys]

Some xp balancing should take a place but the way they dealt with the rxp formula only shows they have no idea what they are doing and how some quests are too long or difficult for the lame xp they give and vice versa.

[Lonnbeimnech]

*Raises hand*

Korthos quests (Village and Island) are fast/easy 42 Coin Lord rep, so over halfway to the first inventory bag.

This, so that the second bag is unlocked after waterworks, at lvl 4

[Enoach]

I'm all for adding more Heroic Sagas to the equation.

However, you have to keep in mind that it could be a doubled edged sword.

While Sagas do promote running more quests, it does also promote running a set of quests.

Next is the reward system that comes with Sagas. While what usually comes to mind is the Character XP, there are also the skill tomes and Guild Favor options. Too many Sagas could shift the dynamic.

Next is how to compose the Saga. The good news is with the rich storyline there are lots of connectors. That being said you want Sagas to be a minimum of 10 quests.

If I remember correctly they have mentioned in the past they would like to add more Sagas, but they are still working out the balance on how that would effect the current game.

---
I agree that if you run the same quests over and over again a person could find it monotonous and it can detract from the "fun" factor. Especially when you know the quest so well it is like "Groundhog Day"

[NemesisAlien]

Uhm... Something is missing from this list, unless you are talking about first lifers. Also... Who does Korthos anymore?

[Saekee]

Often when quests are first made, a chain or something is created that gates the effort, dragging it out so that one earns some end reward in a raid or nice item. So for example, look at all that has to be done to be gated to run Zawabi's Revenge. That was due to the sought-after items in that raid. The gating quests are very long and difficult although now people have figured out how to zerg two of them (well, one was always zerged). Chains of Flame, a long, arduous grind of a quest, is often skipped in favor of the faster walkups. If you look at many quest packs, you will see this tendency of long gating quests and why, due to powercreep, those quests are now avoided.

Thankfully, the developers have stopped doing this kind of thing, so recent packs can be done as one wishes based on the individual quests.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Nice idea. Plus the more one plays a quest, the less xp it hands out.

I always do Korthos - except Misry's Peak to Elite for favour points, all of the time. I *need* that extra inventory space, being the hoarder I am.

(and I'll note that we already have mechanisms for reducing the amount of XP that a quest gives for repeated runs, so we don't need more "less XP" mechanisms. Just a "more XP" mechanism for the quests that rarely get run.)

[systemshaker1941]

Really, its as simple as normalizing the amount of XP. The quests don't get run because they grant terrible XP compared to others. Another option would be to increase named item drop rates.

Some mechanic other than favor that encourages running more varied content would be cool, though.

[Yokido]

I will /sign any revamp that encourages players to utilize old content, including OP's suggestion.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I usually try to get (regarding "old content" here) myself througfh the Tangkleroot chain, and then taking that staff with the ability to szummon an animal, because I often think it's nice to have an additional party member summoned this way which/who can either be

- add to the dps
- distract enemies from me
- be "cannon fodder" (sounds harsh, but that's reality in higher levels)
- scout areas before me and stir up enemies before i can see them

etc.

I don't value loot always for their character usefulness, I also take tactics, and when the loot list doesn't offer me anything great, then even the look of the item into count.

Last night, for example, I chose Marguerite's Robe from the Catacombs loot list, because it just looks nice.

If glam mirrors weren't so expensive, I'd perhaps make a glam version out of it. And there are random loot items out there of which i like the look, too.


So, older content still has its uses for me.
But that's probably rather because i just don't have any high level toons.

[JohnFlory]

Funny, I'm thinking the same thing ever since I'm done with the 5k favor farming on my main. The way I see it, the current system leads to a fracturing and concentration. New quests have laughable XP but insane loot - those that want XP won't run them, hence the fracturing. And with only a third of the quests ever being played, a party based game will always concentrate on certain quests.

I actually had a fun way to allow players to fully experience (pun incoming shortly) the game once again - by choosing a "slow life" at character creation. Slow lives would only be possible with certain restrictions (no iconics, no first or second life, maybe even require standard completionist, so 13 total lives), would require twice the amount of XP to gain while in turn greatly increase the chance for named loot drops in quests that are run for the first time (that's crucial, otherwise people could farm one of those to 30 and forever get the very same crazy drops). It would also yield a special new form of past life that puts you from 30 back to 1 and gives special goodies. You might receive a cosmetic for finishing such a life for the first time, you might get +50% rxp while in a slow life (and doing a quest for the first time), etc. Obviously, that's just some outline, the proper balancing and fine-tuning has to be thought out a bit more.

Ultimately, this would encourage, and even force people to play less-played quests again - but only if they choose so. A life like that would be pretty tough, for sure. This would also allow for new quests to actually yield resonable XP - but we would definitely need more quests at level 18-19, because there isn't much going on at that range compared to the XP required.

[droid327]

I think to a certain extent it's an unsolvable problem. There will always be a meta. Attempts to eliminate the meta inevitably result in merely redefining it.

In DDO, the meta is xp/min. So people, especially VIPs who have access to everything, will naturally gravitate towards the path of least resistance: the most XP in the least time for the least amount of effort. Adding new bonuses and tweaking them around will only make them find a new equilibrium. Things like first-time bonuses do a good job of discouraging repeat quests, but there's not really a mechanic you could introduce to stop people from repeating quests BETWEEN lives, short of making bonuses/penalties that persist through TRs, which would NOT be a very popular idea...

However, I think there IS one thing they could do (and should do) that would eliminate some of the non-XP related gating on some quests, and that's more fast travel. I know there are a lot of quests that I would do a lot mroe often if it wasnt such a slog to get out to them. If you could just quick-travel closer to quest entrances, I think that would add at least a little more diversity to the quests people choose to run. And it might have a trickle-down effect on other quests in Sagas, too...if you can change one quest in a Saga from "annoying" to "daily", then it makes it that much more tempting to just run the rest of the quests and finish the Saga.

Another thing they could do is reduce the monologuing in quests you've already completed. I'm looking at you, Lords of Dust. No, I'm not surprised you are not who I thought you were. I'd love to have a toggle option to "skip NPC chatter"...it really breaks up the fast-paced feel of a quest, can be frustrating if you're burning buff time, and if it adds 30 seconds to a quest you're clearing in 4:00, that's a pretty significant penalty to your XP/min. But that's, for example, something that can make me decide not to run Tracker's Trap or Thrill of the Hunt...just blah blah blah can I please shoot you now?

[Lonnbeimnech]

I usually try to get (regarding "old content" here) myself througfh the Tangkleroot chain, and then taking that staff with the ability to szummon an animal, because I often think it's nice to have an additional party member summoned this way which/who can either be

- add to the dps
- distract enemies from me
- be "cannon fodder" (sounds harsh, but that's reality in higher levels)
- scout areas before me and stir up enemies before i can see them

etc.

I don't value loot always for their character usefulness, I also take tactics, and when the loot list doesn't offer me anything great, then even the look of the item into count.

Last night, for example, I chose Marguerite's Robe from the Catacombs loot list, because it just looks nice.

If glam mirrors weren't so expensive, I'd perhaps make a glam version out of it. And there are random loot items out there of which i like the look, too.


So, older content still has its uses for me.
But that's probably rather because i just don't have any high level toons.

If you mean the Robe of Duality, that's an awesome item to have on a caster between lvl 2-4, basically doubles the damage of lvl 1 spells