Research-Quest-Design
Research on Quest Design for Project II.
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THE SECRET WORLD OF QUEST DESIGN
About the author
I am Gerard Romeu, student of the Bachelor’s Degree in Video Games by UPC at CITM. This content is generated for the second year’s subject Project II, under supervision of lecturer Ramon Santamaria.
Figure 1. The Secret World. Funcom (2012)
Introduction
In this article, we will go through what quests are, what quests must be like and what they must transmit. Even though the information is mostly focused around the RPG and MMO genre, it can be useful to design quests for all kinds of games.
Quests may seem a minor feature of a game but quests must be properly developed in order to keep and reinforce players’ feeling of immersion. An important amount of good games tend to have a poor approach to Quest Design, due to a low amount of resources being put into it, which can make the whole product to fail. Pointing resources and time to quests, on the other hand, normally make the game to have a notable success because of it.
What is a quest?
Definition
According to wikipedia “A quest, or mission, is a task in video games that a player-controlled character, party, or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward”.
This is the basic definition and as, lot of us may know, anything we can do by ourselves or group to get a reward to upgrade your character or to advance deeper into the game is a quest. Anyway, there are different types of quests and more things have to be clear before starting to wonder our quests for our future game.
Figure 2. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Ubisoft (2019)
Main types of quests
Main Quests - Main Quests are focus points in the narrative, story, etc. Anything that is not related to the main story or plot of the game can not be considered as a one Main Quest and is considered as a Side one.
Main Quests normally tell the story of a protagonist -who tends to be the player. They can be used to reach important points into the narrative determined by the protagonist’s transformation. Main Quests start at the early stages of the game, introducing the main story, and develop it as the player progresses.
Side Quests - Instead of narrating the main storyline, Side Quests help to explain, describe and discover the world that surrounds the main character, as well as its inhabitants, while existing out of the main narrative. These let the player explore the world without being linked with the main plot. Normally, side quests are useful to upgrade your character’s level to access to Main Quests with more experience so those quests are not too tough, among others,…
Side quests can make or break your game — good ones draw players further into your world; bad ones may sour players on the entire experience.
Categories of quests
Quests are classified and divided into 5 different types:
Who Says Fighting Never Solved Anything? - Kill Quests - “These robots are terrorizing our village, and it needs to stop! Please destroy as many as you can find!”
Kill quests are straight forward: find x monsters in the region and kill them.
Figure 3. Destiny 2. Activision (2017)
The Only Time You’ll Ever Toggle Run/Walk – Escort Quests - “I hear there are bandits on the roads these days, please help me get back to my family.” Your job is to follow this NPC to their destination, oftentimes protecting them along the way.
Figure 4. Resident Evil 4. Capcom (2005)
Hoarders: MMO Edition – Gather Quests - “I need to bake a cake. Go fetch me some Deku tree roots.” The job of the player is to go around the map and bring x number of a certain object.
A Gift for that Special Someone – Delivery Quests - “I don’t have the courage to do this myself, so could you give Sarah these flowers for me?” The job is simple, the player has to go and deliver a thing to a certain place.
Immerse Yourself – Interaction Quests - “Please, you call those dance moves? I’ll show you how it’s done!” There is no reason interacting with NPCs—or the game world—shouldn’t give the players experience points. The focus of these quests are the less used mechanics.
Basic pillars of quests design
Every year we play hundreds of quests, but a huge number of them disappear into the mists of memory. As I mentioned before, quests can make the difference between two similar games. There is not a unique way to create quests that will make yours shine among the others or an infallible formula that will make them perfect. Anyway, this are basics and tips created from Patrick Mills, designer at CD Projekt RED the creators of Witcher 3, that is considered one of the best games ever talking about quest design subject. So, let’s start with that quest design masterclass.
A good quest can come from anywhere
Starting with a blank sheet of paper is a nightmare for anyone in a creative industry, and that’s certainly true for quest designers. Just where do you start in creating something that will get people playing? Well, it could be anywhere. With even the smallest idea, a quest can be created. It’s all about applying something that is worthwhile to the situation.
Every quest must tell a story
It’s obvious that the player wants to be interested in the story that the quest itself explains. Some question that comes to the player’s mind is: Why should I, hero of the realm, spend my time finding fish for the local fisherman? All too often these types of quest make little sense, and have no narrative framework to support the task.
Banish your fear of dialogue
Talking of dialogue is important, we can’t be frightened to use it. It’s easy to think that conversation in games should simply be there for narration or because It’s needed, but when It’s done correctly, dialogue is an equally engaging element of the game. If your scenes and your story are interesting, then the gameplay will be too and people will enjoy playing it.
Don’t underestimate your audience
You’re not going to capture a player’s imagination if you don’t give them anything to think about, and if your player isn’t engaged, then why do they want to play at all? We should never back away from complexity, we should trust in our audience and try to challenge them. If we’ve made something interesting, we trust that if players are engaged they can understand and appreciate complexity. The only time people they really shy away from complexity is when it’s presented in such a way that they’re not engaged with it or they feel powerless to it. Making your game engaging is what makes it accessible for everybody.
Make the world relatable
One thing that’s important in life is making big decisions. We’ve all had to do it, and we understand that when it comes to major choices nothing is clear and get easily confused. Frequently, most games make the mistake of revealing major repercussions just seconds after a choice has been made. There’s no real deal to making sure the end result of a choice is not the way the player wants it to be.
Let the player do what they want
When combining quest and story design, it’s important to remember that there are two people involved: the player and their character. In a non-interactive medium like a film it’s fine for the hero to head off and do something that the audience doesn’t want them to do. But in games the audience needs to want to get involved too. Force players to perform tasks they don’t want to do, and you’ve failed them.
Creation process
How are quests designed in professional teams?
It is often assumed that a quest designer is a writer, responsible for just quest text and dialogue. The truth is, that’s about 5% of a quest designer’s job. Quest designers are storytellers, but the best quest designers tell story with the world far more than text.
For most teams, a quest designer is responsible for planning and building content primarily for outdoor zones. This involves identifying major stories and themes, creating characters, planning fauna, planning a “flow” through the zone,… Depending on the studio, this can mean a quest designer can have a great deal of independence in the characters they want to make and the stories they want to tell, as long as they generally fit the game. In this context, level designers build the physical world itself. They work closely with quest designers as is easier and more accesible to plan around the content that is going to be placed at any part of the map.
As all designers, quest designers have to communicate everything they need from other teams, so forming good relationships with other subteams makes for a better designer.
Example of good/bad quest design
When creating quests there are some things that que may watch out and we can completely avoid thanks to these 3 guidelines that in most of the cases may be the difference between a success and a completely failure quest. All of the tips are recaps from most of companies when creating quest for video games, their successes and their errors. These are the guidelines:
- A good quest informs the main plot or the area it’s located in in all respects — lore, NPCs, etc.
- Side quests should be quick and fun to complete (15 min).
- Side quests should use the core gameplay mechanics and avoid special case new functionality (or be careful with it).
Now, having these guidelines interiorized, let’s start with best example of video games on the quests subject. Any way, I want to go deeper in this topic and as we may know a lot of video games that are highly successful thanks to a certain number of quests, but we might not know which ones are those quests. So why don’t we take a deep look to the best and worst quests of some video games? Let’s start.
Good examples
Finding JC – South Park: The Stick Of Truth
If there’s one thing South Park doesn’t shy away from, it’s irreverence. In this quest, you’ll be tasked with finding Jesuschrist in the town’s church. Once you’ve done so, you’ll be able to summon him in any non-boss battle. This is an example of how a side quest can alter the main gameplay being able to play with the “reward” of the quest as a trophy to explore the map until you find JC.
Witcher Wannabe – The Witcher 3
In this awesome quest you have to face a “Witcher”. He can’t even take on a single ghoul, and when you find him, he’s hiding, instead. What makes this quest great? It is like a judgement, you get to decide what the consequences of impersonating a witcher are. Do you give him to the village elder, with grim consequences? Let him go? There are a few options available, and it’s up to you.
The Papyrus Mysteries – Assassin’s Creed: Origins
The Papyrus Mysteries feel like what collectibles would be if they had a point. Exploring the landscape of ancient Egypt, you can find papyrus scrolls, each containing clues about an item hidden in the world and its location. So far, so good. Anything special. It’s how these scrolls use the vast landscape at their disposal that is fascinating. There are huge parts of the map that have no purpose other than for these scrolls, and they can provide you with frankly incredible views and extraordinarily fun puzzles. These are collectibles done in a right way.
Bad examples
Kid In The Fridge – Fallout 4
Fallout has always had a pretty dark, serious tone. This quest is just terrible. It doesn’t make anything clear and it just leaves you with a ton of more questions. This kid has been stuck in the fridge for 200 years, and yet, is totally fine? Why is he just totally unharmed and unchanged by the whole experience? It just messes with the tone and the main plot of the game: It’s incoherent.
Finding The Korok Seeds: Breath Of The Wild
Even the best games in the world are lacking in the development and planning of quests. Anyway, we all know that Breath of the Wild is superb. That being said, collectibles aren’t fun for 99 percent of players. It feels like meaningless busywork*. Breath of the Wild takes this annoying little habit to a whole other level. While in other games you may have a few hundred **collectibles, there are no fewer than 900 of these things hidden throughout the world.
Getting The Master Sword – Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The process of getting the Master Sword exemplifies what’s wrong with this quest. Getting to the sword’s resting place takes an absolute age. It’s also a deeply frustrating experience. You have to follow Skull Kid down interminable paths, then solve a puzzle that involves moving statues into the correct position. These statues mirror your movement. It is an upset experience.
Dangers of grinding
Grind is a concept that no gamer wants to experience, and yet, it’s very hard to nail down what it is. “Grinding” or “Grind” can mean different things depending on the genre and player, anyway we’re going to define it as this:
Grind is the period of time in a game when the player’s ability to progress is reduced to a few set options, and everything else will not move them forward. One of the key signs that your game becomes a grind is when there are things the player could be doing, but doing them would be a waste of time at this point.
Origins of grinding
In 1975, two students at the Southern Illinois University released DND, inspired by the classic table-top game Dungeons & Dragons. DND was one of the first games to feature non-linear progression, meaning players could return to any level of the game to look for rarer treasure or amass experience points. This unique game design at the time allowed players to repeat quests and find better gear as they readied themselves to take on the Golden Dragon. In other words, all of a sudden, it paid to repeat the same tasks over and over for incremental gain.
Today
The real problem and danger about “grinding” is that gamers who replay the same levels, quests, and missions to slowly level up before taking on the actual next challenge that lies ahead. And what began as a gaming term has become an everyday saying.
Bibliography
Files
What is a quest? Types of quests