Variable God Quests

[Burn]

All the talk recently about quests has gotten me thinking of the god quests, specifically their rigidity in what they ask for.

 

Esp. those of us who regularly switch gods for whatever reason, it's no question that most who do gather all the necessary items and already have them ready to go when they go visit the priest, having all the "quests" done in under a minute.

 

I'm thinking maybe some more randomness in what is asked for might make taking a new god more of a challenge than it is currently.

 

For example: If the priest is asking for something that will be used as supplies for troops in battle (or they need resupplying after a battle), there's multiple things that could need resupplying. The priest could ask for a certain number of any one of those things. Maybe up to 10 options. various armor, weapons, even health essences or SRs could be asked for in that case.

 

But until you actually speak to the priest, you wouldn't know what was going to be asked of you that time. So even with a limited number of options that it could be (say, 5-10), stocking up before-hand won't necessarily be possible. Lists would most likely show up with all the possible options, but stocking everything (especially on the more expensive gods) beforehand would be near impossible, or at least not the brightest thing to do.

 

Some gods may be harder to select items for. Others quite simple... potion goddess for example... pots like extracts need all kinds of different flowers, asking for certain amounts of those would probably force some harvesting as even us high-level potters don't necessarily have them all in bulk stock.

 

The items for each god level would of course need to be at least near the equivalent value-wise.

 

 

Assuming this could be done code-wise (it would have to keep track of what was asked of each individual player), it would:

 

- Make the god quests more interesting, less predictable

 

- Force a little actual time/effort to be able to serve a god, not just gc

 

- Allow for a way to reduce the number of items in-game if there's too many (something getting too easily available in-game? Switch one of the god quests so it may ask for it on next server update. Yet more variety to the quests so they're unpredictable, and harder to make a list of all possible options. Also much better way of implementing such an idea than, say, changing formulas like what was done on TS pots.)

 

- The possibilities would be endless if the harvest god were ever implemented, hehe

 

- If, for example, there's people constantly switching, say attack/defense gods (I do this sometimes) to endless adjusting for "best training value", there could be *rare* chances implemented that a really hard or expensive task is given. Add a little risk to this kind of behavior. (If the user gets this and drops the god to start the quests over, there could be like a 1 week penalty imposed that they can't attempt to serve that god again for a week. Or something similar that would discourage such attempts.)

 

- In the same respect, the priest could award a rare chance of a simple task.

 

- Maybe some of the new NPCs could be brought into this action as well. The priest asks you to find someone and help them do something, rather than just give stuff to the priest. (Wanting more uses for the new NPCs being brought in-game, here's one, hehe)

 

 

 

Just brainstorming in an attempt to see if there's a way to make serving gods more than just the "get the stuff you already know it needs beforehand" thing it currently is.

 

I'm a casual god-switcher, and have plans to continue switching depending on my goals. As a jack-of-all-trades, switching primary skills happens regularly, and the gods get switched with them. Cost is only a minor thought when I do this since I plan them ahead, and of course have everything ready before I drop one god and visit the priest of the new one. Something like this would almost be like a regular "new quest" each time I did this rather than the 2-minute-hop it is now.

[Cycloonx]

Imo it would be unfair because some people would need to get items that are harder to get than others.

[Zamirah]

Imo it would be unfair because some people would need to get items that are harder to get than others.

So make it harder for every time people change, people would not change so often.

 

Maybe other quests could ne done more than once.

The chance Tankel don't fail is a little bigger every time you make the quest, more leather and wine can be bought for every click if you do the quest again.

(is it 20 or 40 wine now ? boring )

Edited June 24, 2009 by Zamirah

[Burn]

Imo it would be unfair because some people would need to get items that are harder to get than others.

 

Not necessarily. Well, the "rare" thing I mentioned, yes. But the standard ones would be to get items that are in the same "general" gc value and/or difficulty range.

 

i.e. in the Potion goddess I mentioned high-level flowers are a potion necessity and could be part of quests. Gather 10k blue berries vs. gather 10k rue vs. gather 2k gypsum ... they're all in the same ballpark in gc value and/or time consumed for harvesting, none really out of the way.

 

And yes, some may be slightly harder than others. But with the rare exceptions mentioned, only slightly. Because it's random, it wouldn't be picking you out specifically for "harder" stuff.

 

 

 

The main points are to make them feel different each time, not know what to expect, and generally put a stop to collecting items beforehand and doing every quest in one trip. I don't think that comes close to what was intended.

Edited June 24, 2009 by GoodDay2Die

[Burn]

So make it harder for every time people change, people would not change so often.

 

Point is to make them different and less predictable, not put people off altogether.

 

There's some that are already at the threshold of being painful (alch, pot, eng gods), making them harder would put people off them completely, and that's not the desired outcome. There's nothing wrong with switching gods as part of gaming tactics, no need to punish it.

 

 

The idea came when more quests were being added. Yes, they were interesting, had fun trying to do them, but when they're over, they're over.

 

The god quests are the only ones in game that are done (or at least have the potential to be done) more than once. Just making this change would at least make them feel different each time. And force a little work to get those increased levels at the time of trying to get them rather than getting it all in advance.

 

 

...

 

Rest ignored, nothing to do with god quests. Though...

 

more leather and wine can be bought for every click if you do the quest again.

(is it 20 or 40 wine now ? boring )

 

If you know the trick, both leather and wine are incredibly easy to buy up to full emu in 5 seconds or less. Even as a fully-leveled mule. But that's off-topic here, shame on me...

Edited June 24, 2009 by GoodDay2Die

[nathanstenzel]

Good idea, GoodDay2Die. If the things were random, I think it would as you folk have said make finishing the quests less instant, stop people from switching gods so fast and such.

 

I do not think it would be unfair....just bad luck if someone ended up with a request for an item that is a little harder to get than the others.....and not too bad of luck if all of the items have about the same value.

 

I don't know what the server notes for the god/npc quests, but I think it would just need to know the current worship-level/quest-step and current set of items to fetch for the next worship-level/quest-step. Both could probably be defined as a number. In fact, both numbers combined could be represented in a single byte if there are only 16 (or less) worship-levels/quest-steps and 16 or less different requests for a level. 16x16=256 heh. or he could just toss another entry in the game's database and have less code to modify. This is purely theory, mind you, since I have not seen and probably never will see the server's code.

[Elf_Ninja]

my 2 cents

 

Dunno about variable quests every time from the bottom up but I've always been interested in the idea of a on-going worship blessings. Meaning every month or every 3 months you reaffirm your dedication to a specific deity and get some temporary bonus/perk until the next time you need to reaffirm. That in my opinion could be variable.

 

This would be good in two ways 1)keeps people interested in the god quests 2)removes potential items that are building up in the game and creates a temporary market to get them out.

 

The quests every so many months could be adjusted based on the info radu has on items clustered up sto's that he feels needs to be removed say excess EWE's for example. Maybe to get a new bonus from mortos he needs 3 EWE for your next 3 month blessing. Then next time you go he wants 3 serpent stones or a bronze bar or 1000 leopard furs who knows but it keeps the player going back for the temporary bonus/perk.

 

I suggested this idea once for guilds to be able to serve gods and receive a bonus/perk of some sort but not sure if anyone noticed (guild offerings to gods though would have to be fairly large imo, but could have some neat benefit like being able to gain access to a book or item not makable by anyone but a person in a guild serving that god with a high enough skill lvl.)

[Vanyel]

Some variety to gods' quests as well as any other quests would be something interesting. As it has been pointed, though, it would require balancing it carefully.

 

Some, not too significant, differences between difficult (or namely prize) of items required for the quests wouldn't hurt too much. Otherwise people would be restarting the quests till they get something 'easy enough' for them to obtain.

Edited June 25, 2009 by Natsume

[Silvatica]

Even as little variation off only 2-3 different items for each level would do alot to make it more of a challenge to change god.

 

Another option would be that for every time you leave a god - the next time you retake the god it cost 20% more of each item to regain the same level.