It is time to get rid of flagging and teleport people to quest location

[Pandjed]

First off, disagree with the OP in most regards.

Aside of that, "flagging" is used as a super-broad term and treated like it's all like in Disciples of Rage or Masterminds of Sharn, where you actually are banned to run certain quests without completing others (truth is, you can reddoor most of the quests that needs flagging in DDO),


Also, I'm open and say that I think Curse of Strahd is the worst expansion the moment you look at anything that's not between quest entrance and quest exit (game doesn't respect the expansion's narrative, a vast and beautiful wilderness that cost the devs hours to make has no appeal to be explored, sentient weapon implementation is horrid, gear broke the power system, aasimar have no tie-in in RL or anywhere in the game; to name a few), so bringing it up was already a big minus.


Now onto the more reasonable points.

What flagging does:

• Allows to make storylines work out in specific order and logic: If you did A, then B becomes possible, which is why you get that next quest
• Brings people to actually play the content as intended and designed
• Puts the character and therefore the player into a position of power within the narrative: The only way for the story to unfold is to go through it
• Encourages longer groupings as players are less likely to quit mid-chain
• Makes people open up LFMs as some chains/flaggings are harder than their level would inquire (like lshroud flaggers on heroic)

What devs did to circumvent some disadvantages:

• Most quests can be reddoored
• Most new raids don't need flagging (last one THTH iirc and it came with a [delayed] non-flag raid)
• Sometimes new quests that should be behind flagging to make sense story-wise don't require flagging after all

What wilderness areas do:

• Allows for exploration
• Give each quest a physical context to the place they're happening
• Tell a story without words (if King's Forest were the size of the Gatekeeper Grove, nobody would take it seriously, but this way we can be at awe how much the King owns in forest alone)
• BBEGs and some other NPC do tell a story with words in several of them and allow context within a storyline that can only touched upon within quests without bloating them
• Gives the experience of partaking in the world by traveling it and facing the enemies that are outside the safe walls of civilization
• Stormreach doesn't become Sigil (in two ways)

What devs did to circumvent some disadvantages:

• Introduction of horses
• Teleportation options in bigger wilderness areas (though after RL by traveling to certain areas or completing quests; SM could use a marsh teleporter though)
• Less tricky paths to traverse in newer wilderness areas (though Cogs is half/half imo)
• No raids in wilderness areas anymore, and teleport options directly to staging areas

So I make a counter-suggestion: Add flagging via wilderness area for new quests that uses wilderness maps and add some wilderness related bonuses for the favor (House Orien may be a great patron, and bonuses like +10% traveling speed on and off horse, a mount, etc.). After completing such a wilderness quest, an Orien agent can teleport you to any quest entrance, as the player/character knows the wilderness by that point.

[ahpook]

...

• Allows to make storylines work out in specific order and logic: If you did A, then B becomes possible, which is why you get that next quest
• ...
• Brings people to actually play the content as intended and designed

You can do that without forcing people to play it in order. When feywild came out we played it in order so we could enjoy the story. But when you run it on an alt or a later life, it is nice to not be forced to play it that way. Feywild was not made worse because it removed the flagging mechanisms of Sharn (boo sharn) or Ravenloft. A well told story will bring people to play the content as intended. People don't read chapters out of order in a good book (or movie) even though they can. They may however in a poorly written one. Or one they have read several times.

What wilderness areas do:

• Allows for exploration
• Give each quest a physical context to the place they're happening
• ...

I like wildernesses and I am not set against running to the quest the first time. However, it would be nice if once you found the quest you could teleport there directly rather than have to run each time. However, some people don't even want that and why should the fact that I like wilderness require everyone to run through them? Much like the story arc's people should want to run through wilderness because it is interesting and rewarding. But that might be impossible to maintain across several lives.

So I make a counter-suggestion: Add flagging via wilderness area for new quests that uses wilderness maps and add some wilderness related bonuses for the favor (House Orien may be a great patron, and bonuses like +10% traveling speed on and off horse, a mount, etc.). After completing such a wilderness quest, an Orien agent can teleport you to any quest entrance, as the player/character knows the wilderness by that point.

Something like that would add to the reward. Make it simple: Once the explorers are found and the map's fog of war is uncovered, allow teleport to any quest entrance. THough I would prefer each quest to be individually "unlockable". Ideally this should be persisted through TR.

[TheAlicornSage]

Why how can you disagree, on the basis of what? Its like disagreeing that water is good for you.
Also here is something for you, you can still run to quest entrances and flag for things. Let the rest of us enjoy the game ty

On the contrary, just because you think something is a no-brainer, doesn't mean it is an objective fact, it can still be merely a subjective opnion, regardless of how "obvious" it seems to you or even how common that opinion is.

Just consider skinner boxes, sure one can follow the feedback to make a better skinner box, but that's not a good thing, so one shouldn't be helping someone lost to a skinner box become even more invested in the skinner.

There is a certain element of an experience that exists only when barriers exist. It's like how Dark Souls is difficult and wouldn't work as a game if it wasn't difficult. sometimes the downsides of an experience are essential to the experience. You might disagree about whether flagging is essential, but that doesn't make you objectively correct.

Therefore, no it is not like disagreeing that water is good for you.

Also, "let the rest of us enjoy the game" is a bad argument. Some people want instant gratification and a participation award for everybody, but including such things actually makes for a very unhealthy game psychologically speaking, and even if that wasn't the case, it can ruin the game for others even more than the frustration of flagging ruins it for you.

As an example, it would be stupid for Dark Souls to be easy, because that would destroy the entire point of the game and make it worthless and boring for the players who currently love it.

Additionally, it is actually a common thing for people to hate the results of getting what they asked for.

So don't be so quick to assume that your ideas would be good for the game.

[TheAlicornSage]

Once you have played the game for X number of reincarnation 3-5-10 or honestly to just create player interactions alone. Get rig of flagging.
Flagging is A not fun, its B not fun especially alone when you have to flag for a group or something coming up and u are probably the only one around C you don't have the players to make flagging fun or runner like such games as world of warcraft where u need to flag for a bunch of raids and dungeons.
Get rid of it, its not fun, nobody enjoys it. They might enjoy the quests to flag for in which case make the rewards better or maybe it gives extra rewards if you are flagged like better loot drops or more exp bla bla. But get rid of flagging all together, thank you.

Also we have a bunch of locations that people avoid playing if not primarily then entirely because of walking around the wilderness areas. Teleport to the dungeon entrance via some wayfinder ala curse of strahd where u get area teleporters that bring u to a dungeon. It exists make it happen. I doubt it will take more than a few days of work for any developer to place a wayfinder a teleport platform in X area.
The added benefit, shorter wilderness areas opened less lag etc etc etc.

If you want to make wilderness areas more valuables, add something precious to them favor for completing stuff, bonus gems like from the daily/weekly roll that people can use for reincarnations etc etc.
In a game based on 100s of past lives you are running in no danger of content shortage for examp, if not add more items or more loot or honestly anything maybe you can unlock something cool.

Make the game more social and make it easier for players to play together, again players playing together I imagine is good for the servers too, 100 players open separate instances maybe half of them would open separate instances and then rest will play together aka less resources.

Make it happen.

Also while I am at it, you have AI generated art that takes 10 seconds, its time. Make new icons for items that look different stop using the same icon for the same items creating player confusion.
If you want me I WOULD DO THE WORK of creating the art for you for the separate items for free. I can photoshop and draw and use the ai art we can make it poppin.

Actually, I love the wilderness areas and wish they would improve further, not make them skippable. I don't mind walking places to get there, heck, half the time I don't even use the recall function when completing a quest. I do wish they'd do better, like have quest exits coming out somewhere other than the entrance more often and have more random and variable encounters occur in wilderness areas that are more interesting and spice things so walking to the same quest isn't always the same. Larger wilderness areas that difficult to navigate (but with a good long winding road to follow) so one has to spend time finding shortcuts to get somewhere quicker, adding to the exploration feel.

Though I do agree with gaining favor or other rewards for the exploration quests.

As for social, no. I really like when I can run into other players in wilderness like areas, and maybe help someone if I run into them having a fight, but I absolutely hate grouping for quests. Never once had fun running a quest in a party in any mmo ever, including this one. That's not something that can be fixed by the devs either. I'm a calm and patient player that loves looking around and exploring. I hate when players just run through everything as fast as possible, so I hate grouping. I would love more opportunities to randomly run into players outside hub zones though (because I wouldn't be grouped with them and thus not bound to their rush, so it livens things up a bit), but I suspect that would be difficult or impossible to implement.

Updated Icon art is something I can support, but it doesn't really need any AI nor artist, just render each item alone and take a pic and use that for the icon. Or make generic symbolic icons, so a symbol for light armor to be used with all light armors for example, this would actually make scanning through items quicker, then the naming scheme can be updated so the names inform us on the aesthetics, instead of three different looks for leather all being called leather, you might have scoundrel's leather, fine leather, and military leather, just as an example. A few letters in a corner of the description box for the random elements such as whether certain pouches or attachments are on the item in question.

But, if they want to stick with individual icons, just render each on a colored background, and save it as an image. It'd be much better, in my opinion, than art which isn't always very representative of the item's actual aesthetics.