Daily Quests; a Harmless Plot Device or a Necessary Evil?

[thefreshjedi]

Thinking back to WoW, I noticed how a lot of WoW revolves around Item-Centric treadmills, and part of that treadmill is grinding endless hours of reputation to build levels for obtaining newer and better gear, mounts, or other in-game items.

The most frustrating aspect of this treadmill system is the maximum number of Daily Quests you can do to grind said rep, thus forcing you to return to the same event again tomorrow, only to obtain another small amount of reputation, only to repeat ad infinutum until you unlock whatever limitations you need to achieve X items. This quite frankly is frustrating as hell, as many of you might or might not agree, but.. from a marketing and development standpoint is genious, because it forces players to continue playing over a longer duration of time to keep coming back to reach their achievements.

And obviously since this requires much time, it also requires you to keep an active subscription in order to do so. This mechanic not only ensures that you wont be leaving the game anytime soon, but also lengthens the time inbetween quests and prevents others from instantly unlocking the best gear too soon.

As a necessary evil, it fullfills two roles.

1) Keeping people from leaving the game, and;

2) Keeping people from reaching achievements that might unbalance the game otherwise, at least all at once, and there is the chance that they may give up on it, and move on, ensuring that only the most dedicated achieve certain things while others move on.

In a matter of fairness you have to credit Blizzard with this formula for achieving multiple things in one simple mechanic.

All this being said, do you think that Cryptic should also use a similiar mechanic, and would a mechanic like this serve the same purposes, such as unique ships or ship equipment, bridge officers, or even the feared Admiralty overpowering the universe? How should Cryptic allow players to acquire items without upsetting the balance, yet still keep players interested in the gameplay, and should the game itself be intriguing enough to do this without said mechanics? This should go without saying, but obviously developers also need to make a buck, and what's fair, what's not, and what's just plain dirty tactics, and do you as a player support or deny this?

-avery

[TGcable]

Thinking back to WoW, I noticed how a lot of WoW revolves around Item-Centric treadmills, and part of that treadmill is grinding endless hours of reputation to build levels for obtaining newer and better gear, mounts, or other in-game items.

The most frustrating aspect of this treadmill system is the maximum number of Daily Quests you can do to grind said rep, thus forcing you to return to the same event again tomorrow, only to obtain another small amount of reputation, only to repeat ad infinutum until you unlock whatever limitations you need to achieve X items. This quite frankly is frustrating as hell, as many of you might or might not agree, but.. from a marketing and development standpoint is genious, because it forces players to continue playing over a longer duration of time to keep coming back to reach their achievements.

And obviously since this requires much time, it also requires you to keep an active subscription in order to do so. This mechanic not only ensures that you wont be leaving the game anytime soon, but also lengthens the time inbetween quests and prevents others from instantly unlocking the best gear too soon.

As a necessary evil, it fullfills two roles.

1) Keeping people from leaving the game, and;

2) Keeping people from reaching achievements that might unbalance the game otherwise, at least all at once, and there is the chance that they may give up on it, and move on, ensuring that only the most dedicated achieve certain things while others move on.

In a matter of fairness you have to credit Blizzard with this formula for achieving multiple things in one simple mechanic.

All this being said, do you think that Cryptic should also use a similiar mechanic, and would a mechanic like this serve the same purposes, such as unique ships or ship equipment, bridge officers, or even the feared Admiralty overpowering the universe? How should Cryptic allow players to acquire items without upsetting the balance, yet still keep players interested in the gameplay, and should the game itself be intriguing enough to do this without said mechanics? This should go without saying, but obviously developers also need to make a buck, and what's fair, what's not, and what's just plain dirty tactics, and do you as a player support or deny this?

-avery

Daily quests are a bandage to cover up a mistake.

[porksbro]

the main poster has a good point. there is no fun in a game that just hands out the same item to(from the get go) everyone for just for logging on ,but the treadmill system in a way makes you stand out as someone that has done a long/hard task.

something given has no value.

i played wow for some time. i have been clean for 2 years now(lol). :D in the end i did leave the game but wow did open the mmo up using good ideas like the grind.

the best thing to do is improve on the treadmill system not just poo poo on it like people do. it did make wow a power house in the mmo world.

thats my 2 cents

[thefreshjedi]

the main poster has a good point. there is no fun in a game that just hands out the same item to(from the get go) everyone for just for logging on ,but the treadmill system in a way makes you stand out as someone that has done a long/hard task.

something given has no value.

i played wow for some time. i have been clean for 2 years now(lol). :D in the end i did leave the game but wow did open the mmo up using good ideas like the grind.

the best thing to do is improve on the treadmill system not just poo poo on it like people do. it did make wow a power house in the mmo world.

thats my 2 cents

In a way, all MMO's are a treadmill, regardless of internal mechanics. To be honest, an MMO is a stand-(or sit) in place activity that mimmicks "real-life events" (such as walking, running questing, etc.), only the user is doing these things virtually, inside the confines of a program. It's unfortunate that WoW has achieved so much success using this mechanic against us, but for profit, and entertainment, which some of us happily continue to support. Perverted as it may be, Blizzard has defined the MMO landscape, whether we agree or not, so what mechanics can we come up with that will surpass this, or reinvent it, without reducing the overall impact it has on our gaming experience?

-avery

[Exist-nl-]

There has to be some filler content .

[sandman105]

Personally, I enjoyed some of the daily quests in wow, but not all. Over all I think this is a good addition to the game play. Yes it can be repetitive, but so is doing the same dungeon over and over trying to get a drop.

If included in STO, I would like to see the way daily quests (daily missions?) would add to the way we play the game. Extra content is always nice, however it would be a challenge in my opinion for cryptic to take this concept and make it even more rewarding and fun to do than the way blizzard has made it.

[sir_theodorik]

I envision daily quests to deliver medical supplies to a colony in an epidemic crisis (real life inspiration what?), or scanning anomolies, or tracking Borg movements, or patrolling a high traffic sector, or something along those lines. I think in STO I would be okay with it as long as there was SOME kind of variation. In wow, you did a daily quest and every day it was EXACTLY the same. Maybe Cryptic could through in some Genesis-inspired randomization to keep things interesting, but offer players a chance to pick the general type of mission they feel like going on.

[thefreshjedi]

I envision daily quests to deliver medical supplies to a colony in an epidemic crisis (real life inspiration what?), or scanning anomolies, or tracking Borg movements, or patrolling a high traffic sector, or something along those lines. I think in STO I would be okay with it as long as there was SOME kind of variation. In wow, you did a daily quest and every day it was EXACTLY the same. Maybe Cryptic could through in some Genesis-inspired randomization to keep things interesting, but offer players a chance to pick the general type of mission they feel like going on.

This would be nice if the Genesis software could also generate daily missions that were required for grinding rep, but if they could be random and different every time. But, they should also take the time to create them from scratch using some amount of imagination too, because I worry about a repeat of Starwars Galaxies mission generation terminals, where you would get different quests, but just more of the same quests that were slightly different. I.e., go here, kill x Wookies and return. (yawn)... do something original: go here, speak to the wookies about a possible alliance, and return to attempt to influence them with different tactics each time. That sort of thing maybe?

-avery

[sandman105]

Maybe they can create a bunch of these missions and put them on a rotating schedule that changes from week to week, so you never get the same mission twice in a row.

Lets say they have.... 50 daily missions. you complete 10 of them everyday for 5 days. The missions reset, having completed them all and you start over, but they are given in a different order, and maybe a few of them have altered objectives from the last time you played it.

Anyway, probably just a dumb idea but I just thought of it and decided to jot it down. :cool:

[cmahecha]

It's a game, a form of entertainment. We all come here to spend (waste?) our time. There has to be a carrot there for us to chase so we keep playing the game. It's impossible to make content that keeps players occupied for a year or so. Not really possible, so that's why there are grinds, and repetitive content.

The secret is to make them fun. If the developers can do that, we'll be there for hour upon hours happily grinding away.

[USS_Parallax]

They need to be made more fun and more diverse. They usually get old fast.

[_Pax_]

Maybe they can create a bunch of these missions and put them on a rotating schedule that changes from week to week, so you never get the same mission twice in a row.
An excellent suggestion.

[Commander_Nate]

As long as they are optional, ex: not required for everything one might want, and made variable so they don't become repatitve, I could see something like this.

[Kazzy]

Just remember that when you get to that point in endgame there is exploration to do as well

[OuroborosAgain]

I hated the daily quests in WoW
You need to grind up rep for this blah, you need to make money by doing a really boring task, NO!

I dont think it would be within Cryptics norm to make a static mechanic like daily quests, they're great with customization and variability (looking forward to the genesis engine).

so i'd vote C.) a huge letdown

[VanCaptain]

Daily quests or repeatable quests are fine as long as there varied, its when they feel "forced" becuase it provides rep or kit that you "need" or feel as tho in order to progress. The last thing any of us want, is to feel as though we have to log onto a game, grind rep for an hour, grind instance for an hour, spend an hour toying with odd quests/ah surfing then log off, rinse and repease everyday... I'd prefer to log on, have some fun, do something different, kill some Klingon honourless dogs and go to sleep, happy and content.

[indigowhale345]

Daily quests suck. I mean terribly suck. The biggest problem with them isn't the repetitiveness, its the lack of freedom to do it your own way.

By that I mean simply, you MUST do daily quests every day, or you essentially waste the potential. It conversely also means you can't pick and choose when to grind these daily quests, such as doing 2 hours worth one day and none the next, you have to do an hour every day or you can't earn everything you want to. And that's a problem.

In most MMOs, if I want to grind out currency, I can grind it whenever I feel like it. If I want to put in 8 hours on a weekend and spend the week doing more enjoyable stuff, then I can. But put in these stupid special daily quests for special taco flavored currency and then you turn the game into a job. You MUST do it every day or sacrifice your earning potential. You can't just accrue a weeks worth of those quests and then do them all in a day if you have the time and desire to.

CO has them in the form of endgame content, UNITY missions. And it sucks.

You want UNITY merits for endgame gear? Then you have to do these every day to get a handful of merits. If you don't do them every day, oh well, that potential to earn those few merits is gone. You can't do yesterday's daily and today's daily back to back.

The only good thing about them is that you also earn key fragments that you can use to get into the 2 endgame instances to get more merits, and you can use those keys once a day or one after the other all on one day, or whatever you want to do.

I don't want to play a game that tells me what to do and when to do it. I want to do what I want when I want. If they want to limit the earnings in some way, I can handle that (but I don't like it), but not when its on a day to day basis, that makes it a job and is not fun. Daily quests are not the answer.

They could easily sidestep my major problem with them by letting you accrue points for daily missions. Say every day you get one point, automatically, and if you want to use it every day to pull a quest you can, or if you save up 7 and use them all on Sunday, you can do that too.

[jackel1981]

I remember reading an interview with Jefrey Steefal who made an honest admission that developers do this to increase the lifespan of content. Usually in an MMO as soon as new content has been placed into the game the community would have swallowed it up and be begging for more.

Of all the MMOs im following at the moment Cryptics approach to this problem seems to be the one with the most promise. The genesis system may seem like a small part of the game but I think people are going to be surprised at what its going to do for the gameplay experience

[porksbro]

day quest is new to me when i played wow you grinded rep at you own pace. this ones a day thing just sound bad from the start. if i am a hardcore player i want to have the ability to play for 18 hours on the weekend if i wanted

[wslaby]

I wouldn't mind daily quest at all as long as they don't have some special prize. Maybe daily quest should be just easily accessible with a decent reward. So you could do it once a day for that small extra lump of quick exp. an
item or 2 then go one your way to pvp, explore and episodic quest w/e else. And those who hate them can skip them with out any noticeable loss and everyone is happy. :D

[6Dragon6]

I hate daily quests its ok 2-4 times but when you do them every day it gets stupid same thing every day change it a bit make them different every day not the same over and over that is not end game content that is stupid

[Griffin]

Isn't this what Exploration content will come down to?

The same old missions with different graphics and enemies and stuff, grinding your way to maximum skill level, endless days of running missions for reputation and material reward?

Daily quests with a fancy name I say, but I could be wrong.

[Trowa824]

You know one of the reason why blizzard put daily quest in the game is for another way players to earn gold instead of buying it from gold farms.

[6Dragon6]

Daily episodes would be interesting but have them different everyday might be challenging but a lot better then same thing over and over

[Norexan-Guy]

I agree with some of you in saying that daily quests should not be the same each and every time. Would the Genesis system allow these dailies to be open-ended?

To allow daily, variable episodes to be open-ended would probably make these more fun than if these were linear, randomly generated (and altered) though they are.

[rabidchocobo]

I think a daily cargo run is fine, as long as they keep it to a dull roar. If they need to have WoW's 25/daily limit (WoW Quel'danas veteran), that's going way too far. People were spending 3-4 hours a day just on dailies. It was crazy. Supply a moon outpost here, escort a diplomatic ship there, and then you've got a nice dosage of free latinum/merit/exp/skill points. Since this is the first game where you can get actual rewards for just going out and seeing what you can see, a couple of daily quests can add some missions to what some might otherwise never get to. I look forward to seeing how Cryptic balances this mechanic with its others.

[Rakos]

Im thinking of a daily quest around the lines, go recruit a new BO or find these 3 spatial anomalies.

Maybe one like the episodes always do and its, Transport Diplomat A to planet B and watch out for the pirates in the nebula C.

could be fun?

[Bhendar]

I agree with some of you in saying that daily quests should not be the same each and every time. Would the Genesis system allow these dailies to be open-ended?

To allow daily, variable episodes to be open-ended would probably make these more fun than if these were linear, randomly generated (and altered) though they are.

I think the main thing to remember here is that the biggest difference between WoW and STO is the scale.
STO is in space, with virtually infinite scope thanks to the Genesis system. Wow was set on two (now four) continents with defined edges beyond which you cannot go.

In theory, Cryptic could add new exploration quests every day and never run out of space to put them in - and from what I understand of the Genesis-driven episode generation it is quite likely that we will get completely new (or different enough to be considered new) missions in every aspect of the game (patrolling, exploring, episodes), no matter how many times we take a mission.

Personally I'm really looking forward to the exploration side, finding loads of places no-one else has seen!

[_Pax_]

Another thought:

Mission: "Patrol Sector _____"

Make it so each Region has between 5 and 10 Sectors to patrol. You can do one Patrol mission per region, each day.

Now, when you go to the NPC who assigns these, you're not told what sector you will be patolling - you only find THAT out, after accepting the mission. And the sector assignment is RANDOM (with a streak-breaker effect to prevent seeing the same sector, say ... three times in a row).

AND, further, give each one of them two or more variations on how exactly it plays out. SOMEtimes, you get an uneventful cruise through two or three star systems. SOMEtimes, you get the scarier half of the Navy saying "six months of boredom punctuated by six minutes of stark screaming terror". And even for that "Scarier half" bit? You never know WHICH of the systems that'll happen in, nor precisely who your opponent(s) might be.

If there are, say, 5 variations of each Sector Patrol, and 10 Sectors per Region ... well, even just in one Region, you've got a pretty good amount of diversity right there. Add in that there'd be several Regions to go to, and ... it'll take you a long time to see every permutation of every Sector in every Region, even ifyou NEVER repeat a single permutation.

The bonus is: since these are simple "fly through and look for problems" missions, involving (say) 3-4 systems and random placement of each "problem" ... once the SYSTEM for placement is set up, there's not a huge amount of effort involved to turn out lots of these missions.

Picture if, for example, each Patrol generates itsel like this: first, when you enter a star system a "roll of the dice" is made (random number form 1-100) on a table to determine what, if anything, is in that particular system. Depending on the result(s) from this step, one or more other additional "tables" get their own "roll".


[u]System Contents

40% = No Event; [I]Nothign to see here; move along.
20% = Neutrals; Non-hostile ship(s). May include opportunities for diplomacy, which may reward Bridge Officers, equipment, etc. Really good for diplomacy-minded Captains.
20% = Hostiles; RED ALERT! Arm the phasers, 'cause someone is VERY unhappy to see you. Nature and amopunt of enemies determined by where the sector is, and your degree of advancement. Escorts and Tactical captains wil be happy.
10% = Distress Call; Someone is in trouble, and needs your help. A lot of this will favor Engineer tpes, but sometiems Science/Medical types will have an advantage.
05% = RARE ENCOUNTER; ignore if any prior roll has been 91-00; One of those things that becomes the topic of discussion at starbase cafeterias across the Quadrant, for the next several weeks. ENJOY!!
05% = Roll Twice, ignore all results 01-40 & 96-00


The more systems in the PAtrol, of course, theless likely for a completely uneventful patrol.

1 system: 40%
2 systems: 16%
3 systems: 6.4%
4 systems: 0.26%
5 systems: 0.1%


However, COMBAT won't be TOO common; the chance for a trip with no COMBAT (other than Rare encounters) would be:

1 system: 80%
2 systems: 64%
3 systems: 51.2%
4 systems: 41%
5 systems: 32.8%

[Sirjohn45]

Ok now I am laughing alot of the threads are from people from WOW...now that is funny..Considering STO is so far from anygame out there..........so lets just wait to see what Cryptic has for us.............I am sure they will surprise all the people who put this game down or from other games who try and compare

[thefreshjedi]

Ok now I am laughing alot of the threads are from people from WOW...now that is funny..Considering STO is so far from anygame out there..........so lets just wait to see what Cryptic has for us.............I am sure they will surprise all the people who put this game down or from other games who try and compare

Sirjohn, welcome to the forums. There have been numerous debates already with regard to what content will be within STO, be it a mixture of other games already existing, such as EvE, WoW, SWG, etc. etc. These games have a long history and each contains elements that are either favorable to some players or things which others detest the point of the OP was to distinguish whether or not Cryptic should use something similiar to daily quests in their gaming mechanism. And if something like that might be merited here. Please try to frame your response around that discussion.

Thank you,

-avery