Main Quests, Side quests !? Design / Ideas.

Hey people..

today i want to know from the community what quests, side quests they want to have in PoE (design,ideas). What do you expect of them?

-I like to have a straight main quest and within this main quest there should be sidequests which let you look behind the main story (extra informations). The benefits of the sidequest should be bigger treasures (better droperates) at the end of the quest. for example the side-quest giver say something about a big monster in a nearby area which killed countless heros. then you go to it and kill it;) you gain a reward of extra exp (more as normal) and a big treasure. (i mean the quest giver gives you nothing except this quest or maybe a random rare or a usefull object)
I think side-quests which give you a particular advantage (in titan quest: more stash) are a bad thing (some guys know the quest some not), sidequests should be for extra exp, special informations and better chances to get good loot because of killing hard monsters..

Last but not least they dont be to complex (central theme)

so that was it for me;) discuss it!

im not a big side quest fan, but i liked the way Diablo 2 did it. (besides some rewards made some quests a *must do* )

Like Bloodraven, a nice little extra story, chance for loot and a little bonus (free merc)

There just shouldnt be to much of them.

What is there to be discussed, in an APRG side quests should be just as you have already described it. Big amount of exp as a reward, but not as big as the main quest reward, same for the items. And yeah, it should be an elite of some sort or maybe a rescue mission where you need to find this many people and protect them from the surrounding mosters. Convoy side quests should be nice addition as well, like protecting a caravan on it's way to another city or help a group of soldiers to clean some area of monsters. Yeah, I know that it may be hard to implement, but they could at least try with the new acts. :)

I'd like to see the best systems of the genre mashed together.

What I mean by this is having a strong central plot/quest which drives the location of the game forward, while offering a multitude of optional side quests that can be pursued or ignored at will.

Some of these optional quests could splinter off into subquests themselves, but ultimately they wouldn't be required before progressing forward. Sacred II comes to mind as a game that pulled this off extremely well. Most side quests were forgettable, but one particular side quest was a highlight of the entire game, which could have been easily missed by those who don't deviate from the main course.

The second system that would be great to see is a Torchlight or Mythos inspired random dungeon generator that offers unique experiences of varying difficulties to the player to take up as they will, possibly for an entry fee.

"

ManosDS wrote:

The second system that would be great to see is a Torchlight or Mythos inspired random dungeon generator that offers unique experiences of varying difficulties to the player to take up as they will, possibly for an entry fee.

Yeah, I really liked the bottomless dungeon in Torchlight where you ran little side quests for the two NPC's outside of it. There were always a ton of them, and you just kept getting deeper and deeper into the dungeon. This way, even after you finished the main quest, everything just didn't suddenly end. You still had some options of things you could do.

I liked Torchlight, but i think the quests where completely obsolete. It was way to linear. I mean, you got a quest to kill a mob you would have to kill anyways. So the "quests" where just some extra xp for which you had to walk to an npc to get them. Unneccessary.
I'd really like to see quests that aren't automatically done and really reward players who "dig deeper" than they would have to anyways.

I didn't care for Torchlight past the scripted storyline. The endless dungeon was the same 5 levels repeated with slightly harder difficulty and the quests were just the same quests over and over again. Plus because of the enchanter in town, nothing that dropped in a dungeon was of value unless it was a new unique/set that you hadn't found before.

I personally like lots of side quests. The reason for this is to keep you so busy that you don't need to grind to level. Even if the quest is to go kill X monsters at least you are doing it for some NPC with hopes of a reward.

I hope to see quests like "My daughter has some magical talent, but is too weak to defend herself out there. Take this gem of fireball and level it up to level 3 for her."

Something cool like that.

If the game is paced right you shouldn't have to grind to level. You will just level up appropriately as you play through the game.

A handful of quests to provide an overall objective and narrative for the main story makes sense. But other than that I don't think quests are really necessary at all.
They are good in games with large open worlds to give the player something to do so they aren't lost and wandering aimlessly, but in a largely linear game like this, quests are redundant.
There's nothing more annoying than killing 200 zombies on your way to a town, then arriving at the town and getting a quest to kill 10 zombies. It's just pointless.

"

innoruuk wrote:

for example the side-quest giver say something about a big monster in a nearby area which killed countless heros. then you go to it and kill it;) you gain a reward of extra exp (more as normal) and a big treasure.

You can put the big monster in the game world, and let the player find it themselves. Then if they kill it it gives xp and big treasure.
I just don't see the need for a quest, it doesn't really add anything.

I really like the idea of caved in dungeons from the diablo 3 developers. When you enter a dungeon there is a chance that it will collapse in a given amount of time. I think that this will/would create a real cut-throat feeling... This should not happen in main quest dungeons of course!