Quests need to be reworked

[wundyboy]

I'm going to put this bluntly. The entire questing system needs to be reworked for namely these reasons; difficulty, availability, and investment.

Before I start, I was told repeatedly during my hiatus that 'Ah, it's better now wundy, you'll notice these differences as soon as you start playing again!' I will say that this is an entirely wrong statement, and nothing has changed, except rampant clique behavior to ensure that the quests are crushed in the most efficient possible methods. I refused to partake in any sort of clique behavior, and have been playing solo for the past three days by myself. It has been a very difficult experience, and there is no  efficient means of gaining strength without relying on people who have been playing for the past month or so, and have grinded their asses off to get to the point where they are currently.

This underlies the massive problem of the current quest system of EFU; it is not built around a single PC uniting other PCs through in character interaction and means, but rather reinforces the idea that to succeed mechanically on EFU, you are required to have an composite party ordained OOCly with friends, and using OOC methods to ensure maximum mechanical efficiency, be it through PVM, or PVP.

Starting with availability, the randomness of quests does not help people who do not have plenty of time to go look every couple of hours for seams, explorables, and other means of randomly generated experience points. The equation is simple; the more time and luxury you have in your real world schedule, the more quick and expediently you are going to get kitted, regardless of deaths and other losses. This may seem fine, but for players who can play 24/7, this puts them on a level far beyond the average player for EFU.

  Is it fine to have those who are above and beyond the rest? Sure. But consider this as you read along- there has already been speculation from new players that because there are people with massive amounts of loot / supplies online, it is pointless to even bother logging in and trying, as you'll never catch up to them. I think that's a fair assessment, one that really drives away any new players.

Difficulty of quests is my second point. I don't understand how two 2-6 quests can be so mind numbingly far apart in difficulty. If we compare the Stonebuilder quest, where you explore an abandoned mansion, and the Annoyed Pondsman quest, where you battle bullywugs and giant frogs, 95% of the time people would prefer to go to the Stonebuilder quest. I don't know what happened, but I did the Annoyed Pondsman quest tonight, and I was fighting monsters that had no place in being in a level 6 cap quest. Monsters that pierced blur, had an excessive amount of AB and damage, and were very high in HP. If I go run Stonebuilders, I breeze through the quest.

If a DM could clarify why two quests, which are both dedicated to the same level group, are so vastly different in difficulty, that would be wonderful. And this is not the only case of quests in the same level range are so varied in strength either; it's a very notable thing in every single quest you can do.  I can list more comparisons as well, but the point I am trying to make here is that there should not be a superior option in choosing a 6 cap quest over a different 6 cap quest, or whatever level you would prefer to think of it as.

Time investment is my last point. It is far more considerably worthy of my time, as of right now, to spend two weeks as a level 4 to 5 PC, grinding up gear, supplies, loot, and more,  rather than trying to brute force my way to level 8 and having nothing to my name to speak of. I would like the DMs to consider the following, 'Would the playerbase have more fun wasting three weeks as a low level PC, or a high level PC that can actually interact with the server without having to stress over supply income?' The latter is far more enjoyable, as less time spent on having to 'gear up' is more time being able to interact with the server and create a story.

If we take these three factors, we can see that there is a massive problem with EFU being experienced as a solo player learning the means of EFU. It is not very newbie friendly, and even I, a guy who's played this server for seven years, has been struggling to do well. If I merely caved and called upon a few friends upon the discord, I have no doubt that I could be level 8 and well kitted / geared in the next week or two. Is that the right experience that this server should be taking? I don't think so, and I hope the DMs will reconsider their stance.

If the DM staff will not address the questing system, I would at the very least hear publicly the stance on what the DMs wish to do with the direction of EFU from a mechanical stand point- where do they want the level caps to be, where do they want the supply level to be, and how to address new players joining the server wanting to learn to play the game proficiently - that would be great and I think help address a few problems that a lot of players, both new and old, are facing.

If any players would also like to voice their concerns in a constructive manner, that would be awesome as well. I am not making this post to be bitter or irritated, but to offer a valid point of criticism in improving the state of this setting that the DM staff has worked very hard on over the past several years.  Think of this quote - Just fuckin have fun. Were playing wizards on computers thousands of miles away from each other, and not everyone is as good at it so just treat them fair and fuckin have fun with them too - when you're writing your response. It helped me out a ton when writing mine.

Thanks for reading.

[Random_White_Guy]

Since my own concerns raised previously DMs did a lot of stuff to add some really cool explorables and more IG content that's not just I'm level 4 for the 30th time, time to deliver more pie.

I'd say the best solution as I can see it is normalizing some of the Static Quest seams but also increase the danger/difficultiy of the Planar Fragment seams of which some can be pretty harrowing.

Whatever the system is called where previously Vlaid and of late Pigadig "Opens more seams" at certain hours- I think that should just be a standard feature of Seams being way more common. Let the fact of WHICH seams show up be the randomness every day rather than A) the chance they even show up B) whatever ones can be found.

Make B the emphasis.

Then there's still the random exploration system of finding the potentially lethal but also rewarding Planar Fragments which has that "While exploring we found this crazy rip in the world" vibe.

Also I don't know how difficult it would be to do but I think having something like the old Debt Collection system or the Rumor Mill reporters, having a Planar Prospector saying what Seams are at the Rifts today or what have you could help a lot. Having to log in, run to the rifts or around the other areas, find what seams are out there then having to come back and try to put together a crew/etc. leads to a fair deal of trying to OOC coordinate for even simple quest crews.

[Gippy]

I wills start this by saying I have no friends, (ok, maybe one...) I took a break at the same time you did, and it's true I struggle...

But the struggle has generally been more enjoyable.

With my playtime (2-3 hours, every other night) I have only once logged on and been like: Oh shit, nothing to do.

Here's my comments:

There are 7 static 3-7 quests in rings 97-99.

There's  one 4-10 quest in rings 97-99.

There are 2 static 2-6 quests that always spawn.

The chance of a seam spawning in rings 97-99 is QUITE HIGH, but could be higher, and one ALWAYS spawns - it's just sometimes out in a distant land.

The Annoyed Ponds quest used to be really easy, it was reported that something was wrong with it - thanks for the second bug report!

That you are a veteran, used to rocking, and now you're like me a washed up scrub awash in new content takes some getting used to.
Some of RWG's suggestions are really good.

You can't really sit as a lowbie for 2-3 weeks because of quest caps, but if that's how you want to play, go for it! Generally the lowbie circuit gets you a set of plate and then you just move out of it. As someone with limited time, and a shit playzone, I think I've pretty well gamed the lowbie circuit into the ground and it's not as wild as you would think.

We have a lot of cliques, it's true, and they do excel... but generally everything is so much EASIER that most people can make by until 6-7 which is fine unless you're like a sorcerer, and eventually almost anyone will make it to 8, even washed up scrubs like me.

That there's this: "Well, I can't even get ahead so why even bother" mentality is stupid. Yes, certainly PLAYING more nets you MORE. This has been in EVERY chapter of EFU and is generally something ALL GAMES have. I don't know how to alleviate it, but certainly skill, friendships, strength of concept all attract DM attention and rewards that are beyond TIME SPENT.

[Stranger]

My experience with EFU:C's quest content has been fairly positive. I have engaged only casually with the PvE content, but my characters have experienced both the purgatory of a level 4 isolated exile and the cushy luxury of a level 10 faction boss.

Because I don't quest very hard or very regularly, I have yet to experience this nirvana state of "supply bloat." I think that I still do quite well for myself. Unless I'm playing a monster (which is meant to be a trail of tears), everything feels "just right" for me. There is a thriving player economy right now in both the Peerage Ward and Ticker  Square. I can buy a solid kit of equipment with relative ease. I can reliably achieve level 7. I have bamboozled and subdued several characters with nothing more than a cheeky rat amulet.

If I just walk up to some adventurers, they are probably down to quest and probably already know where to go. I've never seen the "cliques" refuse to let a well-meaning stranger accompany them. Nothing in the low/medium range can't be done with a few cheap buffs from found items, bought items, or a helpful NPC mage in the Open Door.

Some quests are harder than others, but I've done them all and I know what I can or cannot handle. In fact, that knowledge is incredibly important, and I have great sympathy for new players getting shredded by, for example, a Vuncobane death frog they're inadequately buffed to handle. Or getting incinerated by Lord Darkskull.

I believe that wundy's struggle has more to do with the nature of the Peerage than the quest system. Like that confused newbie complained, just the other day in #efu-main, it can be a staggeringly adversarial place. Close cooperation between Houses has been discouraged. Close cooperation with Ticker Square has been discouraged. But if you're the lonely outlier in an unpopulated  association, your House can't really "do its own thing." Of course wundy feels alienated by the system when the current circumstances starve him unless he kowtows to his rivals.

It might be helpful to revisit the Peerage's welfare options. Something akin to the Pauper Ponds collection system or the Ticker Square wages. Nothing will be as profitable as the cosmopolitan merchant culture. But it doesn't have to be. They just need access to a standard PvP kit of potions or scrolls.

I think it would be good to increase the variety of available consumables in the prestige shops and, much more importantly, the ways to earn small amounts of prestige to spend in those shops; particularly for retainers left forlorn or "flying solo."

[Cruzel]

He is absolutely right on the point where you're much better off soloing at 2-5 for a couple weeks, the lowbie quests are far more rewarding than the higher level quests. The only 'rewarding' high level quests I've seen so far are orcs (and only with a mega efficient group), myrmyceleon fort, and lizardfolk cave.  The rest seem to be roughly a net zero gain in terms of loot/supplies.  Mostly because the rest of the quests with 10 max are just old lowbies with higher max caps because of seam/explorableness.

After 8 the gold/supply dropoff is real (especially after morghoul nerf). You're 100% better off slowburning it since these days there's not as many big DM quests that give out those sweet sweet potion sacks.


But to echo contrast Gippy:  As someone who generally has either a LOT of time each day or no time at all for EFU, I've had days where I've wandered for HOURS in low pop just looking for discoveries because the other 2-4 people online are off questing.   This is definitely something that happens, and honestly unless the PC is ringrunning/exploring new content... wandering around for hours looking for shit to do is not really fun.

At the end of the day this is a game, that is generally far more immersive than most MMO's and people get more attached to their PCs and when they feel like their time is being wasted and gaining nothing, it contributes heavily to burnout. DMs in discord scoffed at the idea of "guaranteed questing" but honestly, some static content just as a BARE MINIMUM would not hurt, at all.   

Someone being able to login and be like "yeah I got an hour or two, let's run these two static quests" and at least have a shot at gaining some xp/supplies before going off looking for seams would be super helpful for this.  Stuff like the meat-turn ins for the fire seam, and rat tails.   Obviously, you don't want someone grinding to 9 with shore jellies and ignoring the rest of the content.  But a capped way to say "oh you missed the train, here you can grind this a bit" to still make someone's time /worth it/ on EFU is not a bad thing, at all.   Because that's what it boils down to.  We come to EFU to have fun, and progress a character.  Sometimes (often?) we die and lose xp/supplies, but that doesn't necessarily mean we haven't progressed our character. People just want to know for sure, when they login, they'll be able to do /something/.  Exploring the same 4-6 areas in ring 99 for an hour or two every day  just looking for stuff to do (and most of the stuff you can find is for lowbies) isn't really fun, or interesting.  The game world in that respect doesn't really feel "alive" so much as "intentionally obfuscated  to unsuccessfully offset dullness"


As far as the OOC cliques go?  I don't know. Personally, I try to quest with everyone I can, at least a couple times. For me,  rather than Clique up, I have an OOC list of players I will do my best not to quest with. This is usually because I've caught them skimming loot from chests  and gold from the piles, (This is actually a pretty huge problem with some of these newer players and an announcement post wouldn't be out of order IMO.  I've literally watched someone walk up to the gold pile placables invisible, run back to the group and during the loot splitting go "damn, so nobody found gold?") or because we've died a lot together and they've ignored my attempts to give them survival  tips both icly/oocly. 

Otherwise, most groups will take on the rando that walks up and says "Yo, where you going? Room for 1 more?" I've rarely seen anyone turned down from a quest group when there was room. Sometimes they'll boot the rando out after 1-2 quests if they were doing dumb stuff, but that's still pretty rare.

[Aethereal]

A slight tangent, but one possible remedy or another opportunity for PC progression is the Stronghold system. My experience of it has been incredibly positive as a way to keep those characters who for whatever reason end up with more solo time or even isolation something to always work towards but also something that inherently involves the rest of the server either to cooperate together to build up, or pose as a challenge to conquer and claim (or just pillage and or loot) for themselves especially if there is an ideology clash or even greed involved. This is especially true when items to boost the stronghold (which up till but not including level 8 provide XP for turning in) can be found from random spawns in the game world - which encourages exploration - in addition to the traditional sources such as the dispensary and as special rewards from certain quests. Keeping items of Royal Favour and building materials as a base for all strongholds - creating competition and conflict over these things - but also having thematic reagents found in specific locations (something found in certain Seams or Rings perhaps) that are suited specifically to one particular stronghold seems the ideal which is already in place to some extent. Maybe just drawing more attention to this system while making some changes to further enhance the ideas I've mentioned would help.

A super achievement of the system could also be given to those Strongholds that have stood the test of time and made it to the highest tier and kept it that way receiving a token of permanence in the game world.

[Arslefjun]

From a playing solo perspective I think EfU:COR is a lot easier to get by in compared to previous versions.
To the point of level 7 anyway.
Its pretty tough to progress past that if you don't find some people to hang out with. Which can be tough I guess.

[Howlando]

After a busy summer I have some more time for EFU now and will be trying to finish, add, and improve existing content. Feedback and specific suggestions is always very very welcome.

[wundyboy]

After spending more time doing quests, I have come to the conclusion that, in general, it's far better to be duoing or three manning quests. I've found that I've gained far more reward if there is less people to dole out spoils to, which is a problem.

In particular, these quests have given out splendid rewards three manning / two manning...

An Acidic Tomb (A random explorable quest)
The Astrolaboratorius (However you spell it, in the Air Seam)
Exploring the Trash Gull Nest (The quest in the Water Gardens)
The Iron Nails Gang (A random explorable quest)
Annoyed Pondsman (Ponds quest, with the bullywugs..)
Breadbloods
Cobbledogs (Both in 97th)
Troubles in the Mines (Random quest spawn in the Earth Seam)
The Uncharted Isles (The Adult Wyvern in particular- the other variations of this quest don't seem to be rewarding at all)
The Kobolds quest in the Frozen Tear (The only thing of value here, however is the gold split. Loot value is extremely garbage- I don't even loot this quest any more)
Lord Darkskull (It varies, some times it can be super rewarding, other times it can be very bad)
Ghosts in the Opera House
Lizardfolk
Yuan-ti
Mudfeast
Trolls (All in the 95th)
An Abandoned Mansion (Quest in Ticker Square, Stonebuilder offers it)

These quests I've noticed have had really bad loot tables...

The Chapel of the Silver Trail
The Kobolds quest in the Frozen Tear (mentioned above)
Lord Darkskull ( Mostly good for gold, otherwise it is varied; some times you can get very good stuff, some times you get nothing at all)
The kobolds quest in the 98th granted by the elf (It costs a lot of supplies to do, and in return your best bet is to pray for a single dirty ash- seems bad...)
Ghosts in the Opera House (Good for gold, bad for supplies / loot; too reliant upon scavenging for reward)

And that's about all I can think of as of now. I haven't had the opportunity to pursue other quests, so I don't know how they reward or not.

Mostly, I want to point out that two manning / three manning quests is simply the most efficient way to play EFU right now. While that may seem fine, it enforces a clique mentality and makes it harder for new players to join in, in my opinion anyway. I have also noticed a HEAVY decline in quest sendings. In fact, the only time I see a quest sending is for the lower level quest content, or from players who have found a seam.  And even if you do make a sending, the chances of people showing up seem to be extremely low. Also in my time playing, I've noticed that the more people you bring on a quest, the difficulty simply skyrockets.

To give an example of this, on the quest 'An Acidic Tomb', I two-manned it with another player. It was the easiest thing of my life, and I hardly used anything at all. Some healing, six shield charges, and two vials of barkskin. I gained about thirty cure moderate wounds potions, a wand of healing with 25 serious healing charges, two hundred gold, and some other miscellaneous stuff. On a time I brought a six man party to it, we had a much harder time and used far more supplies because of how many monsters had spawned for our larger group. I believe I gained around five cure moderates, and twenty groat.

If the DM staff thinks the answer is to nerf An Acidic Tomb, I would highly beg them to reconsider. It's not that duoing or three manning quests should go unrewarded - after all, it can be difficult to do, and relying on more people is a frustrating experience for sure. I think what the goal should be is to increase rewards for bringing more people on a quest. The locked gold chests is a good idea to enforce it. How about expanding upon that idea further? Potion chests that only can be opened with more people. Loot chests that can only be opened with more people. That'll give people to want to bring more people on quests, instead of being far more rewarded on duos / trios.

At the end of the day, I think the main issue is assuredly the rewards being granted for bringing four or more people on a quest. It's too inefficient, which is where I've really found my main problem. I hadn't been two manning or three manning quests, and that's why I was not gaining as much as I had been in previous chapters of EFU. It definitely needs to be addressed, in my honest opinion, and I hope that the DM staff considers my words with some credibility. I have been doing this for over seven years now, and I don't like to 'blow smoke' for no reason. I like playing on EFU, and I do this for fun, so I hope that this situation will be improved.

[Blue41]

The rewards system for the Mongrelwoods Orc quest is really nice and I'd love to see it used on more of the harder quests.

[Howlando]

EFU quests being more rewarding for smaller groups rather than larger has been an issue for as long as we've been in existence. It's difficult to get right, but I've made some quick changes to the stated quests - most of them will now have a placeable that gives a randomized sum of GP to each PC that clicks on it; so that should help with larger groups.

Future quests and new content will likely continue to make use of systems to appropriately reward groups regardless of size.

Thank you for the feedback!

[Scrappa-yeti]

If we are doing specific QA loot requests, I think level 1 orbs is too good. For some reason the QA starting/closing blip hands out 50 gold per person, which makes no sense, given it is an OOC light. If that was fixed it would still be worth taking.

I might just be unluckly, but I never see decent rewards on Trolls. It can be a really rough quest for lots of groups (which I like), but the loot tables are stocked full of the specific troll loot. And the negatives on all those items are so severe I have never seen anyone pick one up during the loot share (the -resist v acid and fire).

Also, fixing the Bookshop quest should be a high priority, because it is a quest new players see really early, and the inability to turn it in must be confusing (also it does not accurately represent the mostly polished nature of the EfU QAs).

[Grouch]

I think Mort's new loot system has quite a lot of potential for all quests.

As for the lack of sendings, EFU has always pushed PC's into factions and groups and pitted them against each other; for higher level content some people see it has nurturing future enemies if they bring people who aren't 'one of them'.

That being said, back when I did Stonebuilder Billy I would get so many people coming to my sendings I would have to exclude some people unfortunately. I think its mostly about WHO is making the sending, if its a well known warrior then people are far more likely to show than if a wimp mage or a rogue made the sending. I won't go to a sending if the Wizard is calling for people to stand in front of him while he shoots fireballs at orcs.