Solo Quests

Wilwarin

Cadet
I don't know if this has been implemented in other games, but I figured I'd throw the idea out there and see what you all think...

I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the idea of "Epic" quests (usually resulting in some high end item in the end), in which there are a lot of parts, usually involving several smaller battles, which end in some kind of epic fight with a boss that can only be killed with a huge raid party, requiring that you be part of a high end raid guild to complete it, etc etc. Basically the same old story of what most of us hate about today's MMORPG's.

What about a quest with parts which must be completed by the player alone? For example, instead of there being some climactic battle requiring a huge number of people, you could instead have a quest in which the "climactic battle" is an instanced zone into which only the player doing the quest can be transported. The player must then fight his way through the zone, relying only on his own wits and skill to survive, in order to acquire the quest item at the end by means of his own merit.

Imagine reaching a point in a quest where you find yourself alone in the corridors of a dark cave, with no exit behind you, your only option to press forward into the impending darkness. Imagine the fear and excitement that would come from not knowing what will be around the corner, but that whatever it is you must fight it or be killed. This is the kind of quest experience I want, as opposed to the usual "okay guys we need to wait for our healers to log on before you can hand in your item to spawn super-omega boss #865 so we can attempt to fight it and probably die because we didn't time the heals correctly". Or even more likely, "I can't even do this quest because I'm not in a raid guild! Yay!"

Of course there would be aspects that would have to be worked out, like if you die, your corpse would have to be teleported somewhere where you could actually get it, but these are all minor details.

Anyways like I said before, I don't know if this has been done before, but if not I figured I'd throw the idea out there. So what do you guys think?
 
Zink: "...and enhance the RP experience greatly."
How so ?


LotRO has a few Quests along the main Storyline, that throw you into an Instance alone. They were done fairly well, i guess, and would sufficiently satisfy your Wish for Fear and Excitement. ... I hated them, because i'm afraid of Scripts.

I'd prefer the epic Battles to be open, so that anybody can take Part and Contribute, and get a Chance to reap a Reward. Ideally these Battles would also be set up in a Way that they're not just done to get the Quest finished, but to defend something desirable for everyone - like a Teleportnode, a Ressourcefield or a special Merchant.
 
I know how much everybody hates being forced to group. But if done properly, (think FFXI with multiple job LFG and specific mission/quest LFG, and ways to lower/raise your level to the group) I think being almost forced to group is well worth the inconvenience, the RP opportunities (in a game that would allow it as opposed to FFXI where it's pretty much discouraged), the meeting of new friends, the meeting of new enemies.

Plus you get that great group dynamic where everybody has to play their part, and have some real skill in order to play it well just to get out alive. Not like most games out there (EQ2, LOTRO, WOW) where it has less to do with skill and just 'showing up' is often times enough to win the day.


As for solo content... It's nice to have things to do alone, especially while you wait for a group, but as a long-time player of FFXI and seeing how (if it had been done a little better) much fun grouping can be. I'd much rather a game be group oriented with solo content than a solo game where you need people for some epic quests.


Just imagine being able to have a set group of friends that you can group with all day every day. When the group breaks up, you don't have to worry about not leveling to stay up with them, or anything like that... A buddy (level 24) comes on, you (level 46) take him and pickup some random guy (level 12) and start doing some cool quest... another buddy (level 33) comes on and rushes to join the quest... You all get some good stuff, more stuff per person than you would have received alone. You all get a lot of XP, more xp than you would have received alone.


My problem with most games (Gemstone is a primary target for me and probably always will be) is that it almost discourages group play. We have to split loot, where if we had done it alone, we would have gotten those nifty boots, not George over there. Theres too many monetary and xp reasons to do things alone in almost every game I've played.
 
I personally wouldn't exactly consider FFXI to be any sort of guide for planning group content. *grins*

That said, while both GemStone and DragonRealms feature combat and quests that are mostly done alone, the actual social aspect still exists strongly in other ways. In fact, I'd say it's preferable to leave group combat out of the equation as much as possible, because 1) it's less productive for players to always have to group and 2) it's also really not very social.

Sure, running through a dungeon with your buddy, ducking into corners, picking off the patrols, working hard to take down some dark cult leader is a fun adventure. But it's also a semi-rare event. What happens after you beat a place once? It becomes a chore to group and do it again. In WoW, this happened all the time. You could beat an entire dungeon one hundred times, just because you were hoping to get some specific drop you were looking for. After the first few runs, it loses all charm, and you begin to gripe and complain.

What is a more lasting, and more social, way of getting players to interact, is to make a separate non-combat, but still essential, portion of the game that revolves specifically around interaction. In DR, for example, different types of people provided certain services. Each of these services was in some way useful, and provided an impetus for people to gather and exchange goods and services, and to get to know each other because likely you'd be returning to get those services again a good number of times.

  • Empaths healed you up, and could also "Shift" your physical form, giving you unique looks.
  • Anyone, although normally Rangers and Thieves, could open treasure chests for you.
  • Smiths, typically Barbarians or War Magi, forged weapons and armor, which were some of the strongest in the game.
  • Tanners made leather, including armor, also some of the best.
  • Traders supplied strange and beautiful items, and could sell the gems and such you find on monsters for far more than you could alone, taking a percent of the profit.
  • Moon Mages could teleport you to far flung regions, locate people magically, and do all sorts of things besides like enchanting.
  • Thieves carved the best lockpicks, and could also locate people.
  • Rangers could take you along on their special wilderness trails as shortcuts in traveling, and could track enemies or people.
  • Fletchers, also typically rangers, could make bows and arrows, again, some of the best.
  • People who were skilled in foraging would supply healing herbs and raw materials.
  • Skilled alchemists would make potions of various sorts.
  • Skilled appraisers could tell you the accurate strengths of a weapon or armor, and accurate value.
  • Skilled climbers or swimmers could escort you through rough areas of terrain, allowing you to pass places you might not be able to by yourself.
  • Bards were just plain fun to be around.
  • The odd courier could be found to run items between folks in distant cities.
  • Clerics provided invaluable service after death, reviving people, protecting them from experience loss, protecting them from item loss, etc. They also preside over in-game weddings and such.
  • War Magi could produce snowballs in winter, fun throwable items which people actually would pay for sometimes.
  • Etc.
What this all essentially means is that after you went out hunting for awhile, you would come back into town and start running your various errands, which themselves take only a little time and are all beneficial, and along the way you run into that Trader who had that interesting cloak you wanted last week but didn't have coin for and you buy it.

Then you might bump into a wayward friend at the Empaths' guild and chat, then you head separate ways to sell skins or gems and whatnot, but realize you left a few items at your vault that you need, so off to get those. There you realize you've got a few treasure boxes stashed away that you couldn't open earlier, so you take them to your friend the box opener who's normally at his usual spot this time of day. While you wait, he's chatting with one of the local smiths about a new dagger or two, and you think "Oh, I could use a new shield" and maybe ask this smith you don't know what he can make. And it all snowballs.

~Dune~
 
Never said FFXI was an end-all be-all. I think it's got it the most right so far. Albeit it needs some very major tweaking.

I'm sick and tired of hunting alone! I don't want to do it anymore. Everywhere I go, everything I do, I'm alone. Sure in towns there's people, even people I need. But that doesn't make me feel any less alone in Gemstone.

There should be tangible and very real benefits to being in a group. With six people in a party you should be able to take on things, you couldn't in your wildest dreams kill alone. You should get a hell of a lot more XP for killing it and it should drop more per person that it normally would for 1 person.

Your XP/Hour of grouping should be at least 2x what it is alone...
You should come back with everybody laboring from all the boxes you have (Give em to that locksmith rogue).
Everybody should be so bruised and scarred from battle (Your healer will be a few minutes, and look like felgercarb in the mean time).
Armor, weapons, bows, shields all in need of some repair (That Warrior and Gearknight can get those taken care of).
Your animal helpers are all bruised and tired (Ranger to the rescue).
The spells on your group are fading (Necromancer, Cleric, and Wizard can help there).
You found three things nobody has any idea what they do (Bard, get a singing).


Think about all the fantasy books. It was always a group of people doing things for themselves, not going back to town and getting a town locksmith to open their boxes, some random healer to get them healed down.


Honestly, I really like Gemstone's experience system (it's somewhat... limited though). It makes you WANT to go to a safe area and get your items fixed, your boxes picked etc. WOW and it's clones do this "go back to town" thing with turning in quests. in FFXI you could spend hours or days without needing to go back to a town. There's no reason to.

If your 'mind' was about 5x bigger and took about 1/2 the time to go down (example: You hunt for about 1-2 [3 hours from empty to full] hours before you fill up, then need a 30-45 minute rest [1:00 to 1:30 to get completely empty again], sitting down in a relatively safe area, NOT necessarily a town).
That would be very nice. It would promote interaction, it would be good enough to keep power-gamers happy and RPers happy. The more people in your group (until you reach one of each profession), the longer you can stay out, and the shorter your rests can become, the more xp you get per hour, and the more silver/gold/plat whatever you take in per person.

At medium level (say level 40)...
In a full group, it would take 6 hours to get a level and you'll make 2x the currency, and 2x the special item drop rate. You can fight mobs at level 50 with one death every 2 hours.
In a half group (4-5 people), it would take 8-9 hours to get a level, you'll make 1.5x the currency and 1.5x the special item drop rate. You can fight mobs at level 45 with one death every 2 hours.
Completely alone, it would take say 12-13 hours to get a level. You can fight mobs at level 38 with little risk of death.

Can you be a loner? Absolutely. But you'll end up fighting lower mobs, for less money, garnering less fame, fewer special drops, and it will take longer to level.


Finding a group won't be hard when anybody you meet can pop themselves down to your level and help you out, and still get experience.
 
My major problem with FFXI? It forces you to group.

You want to get together with your friends and fight monsters? Hey, you should be allowed to without penalty. But in that same vein, if I want to spend my entire play experience soloing in combat and socializing elsewhere, I shouldn't have to party to complete things I want to do. And I shouldn't be at a major disadvantage.

The way a lot of games are, solo combat is most feasible and efficient, and that puts off the group minded players. But the reverse can also happen, making grouping so much better than soloing that you can't compete unless you group, which drives soloers to frustration. If you only reward group play, you are in essense making the game less fun for soloers as a way to dissuade them from the play style they find most fun, and all for some arbitrary reason.

It's important to strike a balance. And it's also important to maintain that balance throughout the game, unlike, say World of Warcraft radically shifting at end game.

~Alja~
 
I don't think that's your real problem with FFXI though... your problem is that It forces you to group with people around your level, and you can't do much of anything without a full group. There's no real way to solo, and if you're LFG you can only be looking for one group at a time.

Your friends may not have a level 48-52 that fit in a party properly with a taru paladin. So I'm forced to party with people I don't necessarily want to party with, e.g. a pickup party. Also it's hard to find somebody that you want to play with. Lets say you want to level your 50 Paladin, but you wouldn't mind getting your 26 Warrior up to snuff and your 75 black mage is always a good time. Also, you really need COP Mission 3-2, for that is level 40 capped so you can have your Paladin, Black mage, Thief, or White mage join that if they're looking for somebody specific.

You should be able to LFG on all 3 at the same time, along with LFG for the mission you need. Whoever gets the invite, you pop on them and go play.

See, what I'm saying is you should be able to party with your friends, no matter the level, and have some serious advantages for doing so.


I think game companies tend to half ass things. They do things FOR a player rather than playing the game and doing things AS a player.

I want solo content. Sure is nice to have things to do while I'm LFG... It's great to be able to go do some solo quests or kill mobs by myself. If I want to do the whole game like that, I can... It'll take 1.5x the time, not counting the time finding a healer and a picker and a bard etc. But I play an MMO, for the MM part. I play to play with people.

Right now I'm playing Gemstone with a fun little hunting buddy. We've gone from level 12 to 20 very quickly because we're helping eachother out. But we get 1/2 the loot. We can't stay out and overhunt for more loot, because we don't get enough XP out in the field. In GS, I could have gotten from 12 to 20 faster by myself, without having to worry about him.

The only positive is that I have somebody to get to know, somebody to talk to...
 
Zink: "...and enhance the RP experience greatly."
How so ?


LotRO has a few Quests along the main Storyline, that throw you into an Instance alone. They were done fairly well, i guess, and would sufficiently satisfy your Wish for Fear and Excitement. ... I hated them, because i'm afraid of Scripts.

I'd prefer the epic Battles to be open, so that anybody can take Part and Contribute, and get a Chance to reap a Reward. Ideally these Battles would also be set up in a Way that they're not just done to get the Quest finished, but to defend something desirable for everyone - like a Teleportnode, a Ressourcefield or a special Merchant.

First off, I was by no means suggesting that all quests should be done alone. That being said, there are indeed certain aspects of a RP experience that would be done best by forcing a player to complete a task alone. If you're having trouble imagining how a solo quest could enhance the RP experience, then I'll give you a few examples to illustrate my point.

To continue with my previous idea of being alone in a dark corridor...

Imagine a quest in which you alone are transported into a dark, labyrinth-like dungeon, with the purpose of navigating through the tunnels in order to find an important quest piece. Upon being transported into the dungeon, you find yourself in the presence of a benevolent spirit, who begs you to come to her aid in finding her body, and to take from it (insert quest item here) and to return the item to the man she loved in life, so that her spirit may finally be at peace. You offer the spirit your aid, and the spirit promises to lead you to her body in order to find the item. She warns you, however, that wandering the depths of this cave is a monster so horrid and powerful that any encounter with it would most certainly lead to your demise. Nevertheless, you follow the spirit toward her body, fighting smaller critters along the way (the spirit stops to wait for you as you fight of course). The catch, however, is that this monster (a minotaur perhaps) is indeed following a random path along the dungeon. If you happen to not be paying attention and wander into its sights, you will be forced to fight it and inevitably be killed (harsh, I know. But it adds an element of true fear to the game, making the possibility that you might actually be killed at any moment a truly exhilarating experience). After a long journey through the winding tunnels of the cave, you finally enter a large room, where the bones of a long dead woman are lying. You retrieve the item from the woman's corpse, and for your efforts the spirit offers to help navigate you the rest of the way. She leads you to an oddly shaped door, and instructs you as to the magical phrase which allows it to open. As you utter the phrase, the door begins to slowly open, shaking violently, the noise echoing throughout the entire cave. Suddenly, you hear behind you the bellowing cry of the minotaur, who has just arrived (spawned) at the sound of the door opening! "Hurry!" the spirit cries, as she rushes through the doorway. The minotaur begins to chase you, and you have no choice but to run, following the spirit through the winding corridors as fast as you can with the minotaur close behind you. At this point there could be all kinds of traps to slow you down, and if you make a wrong turn or get caught up, the minotaur will engage in combat with you, dealing massive damage with each attack, and most likely killing you after a short time. Finally, you reach the end of the tunnel and make a leap of faith through the (gate? portal?) escaping with your life by the skin of your teeth.

example 2: a rogue quest

In this example you are most likely in the middle of some kind of rogue quest, in which you suddenly find yourself thrown in jail after completing some previous part of the quest (it could be an enemy faction jail, or a friendly faction jail). You are alone in a jail cell, your gear and wyr missing, with the only thing to keep you company being the carcass of some dead animal, most likely a rat. What luck! The guard outside is sleeping! If only you had something to pick the lock of your cell. Of course, a bit of poking a prodding makes you realize that you can search the rat's corpse and remove one of the bones to use as a lockpick. After picking the lock of your cell, you must then sneak your way to the store room in order to acquire your items. If you are caught by one of the guards wandering through the prison, you will again be engaged in combat, knocked unconcious, and thrown back into your cell (if any of you have played zelda: ocarina of time, they had a part of the game that was like this, and it was a lot of fun). The ideas for the path that you would have to follow to get your items back and escape the prison are limited only by your imagination. Scaling rooftops, crossing between guards as their backs are turned, crawling under the floorboards or along the rafters of a ceiling in a highly populated hallway or room; these are just a few examples of what you could do....

Notice how the completion of the task at hand in both of these examples is something other than killing a monster to get an item. In the first example, the main objective is survival, while in the second, your task can only be completed if you don't engage in combat. Also note that neither of these quests would really make much sense for even a small group of people. I personally would find both experiences refreshing and novel compared to the way quests are implemented in the standard MMORPG. That being said, it is silly to put off an idea because it goes against your preferred style of gameplay. A player should be able to choose what he or she wants to get out of a game, without being limited and/or forced to adhere to the playing style preferences of the masses.
 
Wilwarin said:
First off, I was by no means suggesting that all quests should be done alone.
Neither did i understand it that Way.

Wilwarin said:
That being said, there are indeed certain aspects of a RP experience that would be done best by forcing a player to complete a task alone.
[Examples]
Notice how the completion of the task at hand in both of these examples is something other than killing a monster to get an item. [...] Also note that neither of these quests would really make much sense for even a small group of people. I personally would find both experiences refreshing and novel compared to the way quests are implemented in the standard MMORPG.
There seems to be a Misunderstanding about the Meaning of "RP". I'd basically describe it as behaving "in Character" - the Examplequests you give could be played with any Behavior, though... as can all in which your Character is isolated from the Remainder of the World. What your Examples do is give Ideas of how Gameplay could be in a Soloinstance, and i absolutely agree that such Experiences could be greatly enhancing to a Game - and also that you can get an RP-Feel into Gameplay by offering different Paths to Completion, but that can be done just as well in shared Spaces...

Wilwarin said:
That being said, it is silly to put off an idea because it goes against your preferred style of gameplay. A player should be able to choose what he or she wants to get out of a game, without being limited and/or forced to adhere to the playing style preferences of the masses.
I agree, more Diversity and Options are usually better. I didn't intend to sound like i was categorically against your Ideas - I was just voicing my Preference.
 
I think that FFXI did not do anything right in their grouping system. Past level 20 or so you could not solo anything and all you could do while waiting for a group (sometimes all day without success) is sit around. All the mobs were incredibly overpowered, nothing worse than losing to "easy prey". Which leads me to something I hate about games when they design an area for grouping is they make everything ridiculously tough. Like heroics in EQ2, generic slaves or "chokidia pup" being able to kill you in a few seconds is just stupid and bad for RP. Instead why not make more enemies that are smarter. Not just these stupid generic overpowered monsters that just stand around for you to pull and fight every single one in exactly the same way throughout the entire dungeon.
 
Pretty harsh to say they didn't do anything right and talk about only one aspect of the system.

The system itself (other than having to wait for a group which could have easily been rectified if they hadn't half-assed it) was very good. I would say I'd give FFXI's grouping system a 6/10, 8/10 if they made some very minor changes:
1) able to party with who you want in most respects - level pushdown or pull up closer to the group level
and
2) multiple job LFG, and quest/mission specific LFG
3) a bit easier solo. Instead of having 5000 xp/hr in a group and 500 xp/hr solo, make it 2500 xp/hr solo.

And actually you can't really solo... ever... the way the game is now. Maybe later levels in specific circumstances (Beastmasters after 30 solo pretty well, Black mages, Ninjas, Redmages, they can solo on specific mobs at around cap). At level 1-10, you get about 500-1000xp/hr still, you just don't notice as much because you only need a few 1000 xp to level.


As for the mob strength & being overpowered and overly generic, I'd say that's a separate issue. That's general poor level/mob design. However, I've yet to play an mmo where you don't have the same mob models being used over and over. The reason they're the same throughout the level is because there's always 10 groups at each area killing the same type of mobs. That probably just shows you that some mobs are way easier than others.



If we try to put what we learn from other games into an 'new game' perspective, we can take the best features of each system, modify them a bit, and stick them into the so-called perfect game. That's all I'm trying to do.

I left FFXI because of it's party system. But not because I was forced to party. It was because I was forced to party with people I didn't want to party with, and I couldn't party with people I wanted to (eg. my friends). I couldn't get missions and quests completed because it took too long to get people together that wanted to help out. And because I may have been fine with leveling many different jobs at the time, but I was forced to choose just one to LFG on.

After you get to some really nice places and make some good friends, you care less and less that you can't solo. But these just kept weighing on my mind.

All of these things added up to just poor design and an unwillingness for SE to fix their game. Granted, it would be a whole re-make of a few FFXI systems, but when something's broke, it's broke.
 
At any rate. enough about FFXI, lets talk about what games do wrong. I've played a lot of games, and I have to say... I have 2 problems with MMORPGs: The MMO and the RPG.

MMO - There's too much emphasis on solo play in most of these games. I feel like I'm playing a regular super-nintendo RPG. I talk to more NPCs than PCs. Granted you have to group to do certain epic-type quests, but how is that fun? The reason so many people like WOW is you get to cap very quickly and you get to play with your friends.
While level grinding, I might as well be playing a single player game.

RPG - What's role playing about these things? People talk about whatever they want, they're OOC 90% of the time, It's okay if you have no imagination to have your character act like you. But there's so many retarded jerks out there that give you felgercarb for actually role playing. Outside of Gemstone, I don't think I've had one IC moment in an MMORPG.
That's sad. The games themselves are designed to prevent RP in the first place. They're designed to prevent character interaction in general. So what's the point?
 
Sorry, that post was a bit confusing and muddled together but the genericness of the mobs wasn't in regard to FFXI or even a complaint about there being too many generic mobs. I was talking about EQ2 and how I hate when they make generic trash mobs super powerful. As for party systems I wasn't really talking about the LFG feature but the actual difficulty of setting up groups due to the need for everyone to be a very close level range and no way to "mentor" down like in EQ2. Also the fact that it's not that there is too many rewards for grouping or anything but the fact is that there is more or less no solo content at all in FFXI.

At any rate. enough about FFXI, lets talk about what games do wrong. I've played a lot of games, and I have to say... I have 2 problems with MMORPGs: The MMO and the RPG.

I completely agree with you. I don't even call them MMORPGs but just MMOs. The games are generally designed to be anti-social and grouping always to jsut grind through some area for the loot and exp. Even on the "role playing servers" there is almost no one who is actually ever in character.
 
In an ideal scenario, I would find MMORPG's most fun if they catered to small groups of friends, allowing them to explore the world together, grow together, all while not being forced to keep up with trivial things like each other's levels or a broken economy or what have you. I also want a game that makes me feel like I am a part of the world, whether I am alone or in a group. That being said, I suppose my definition of RP could be considered different from the pure dictionary sense, in that I consider RP to be more than one person acting "in character" around another. I consider it more of a total immersion into a world. When I first started playing Dragonrealms, I explored most of the world alone (heck I still do for that matter), while making acquaintances here and there with fellow members of my guild when I wandered back into town. I personally feel that this does add to the RP experience. An integral part of a character's life is spent on his or her own, and it is the sum of a character's experiences that makes him what he is. How else do you make for fun and entertaining stories around the campfire?

Anyways I feel like this post has degenerated into something I had not intended. For some reason I thought people might add insights into aspects of solo play or ideas on solo quests that might be fun or novel.
 
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