Idea Partial Overhaul - Questing System Logic

[Dreadful]

In going through the Black Pearl quest for the first time, I decided along the way to take the time to read through the dialogues, look at the journal entries, and try to actually understand the story. I noticed a few more minor things along the way that could/should definitely be fixed, but looking back at it overall, I think I may have found a way to solve an issue with the logic of the questing system as well as potentially help the often-loathed length of the Liberation of the Black Pearl storyline quest.

In the image above, the goal given to you in the quest is to recover 6 planks of wood from EITC Marauder ships. This is one of the primary things that makes the BP quest so lengthy - "defeat and collect" (DAC) quests. They require you to go and defeat a number of enemies and bring back specific items. And while this is a typical thing for any quest based game or MMO to do, I think POTCO went about this a bit lazily. In the above quest, I went and defeated 1 EITC Marauder and received 1 wooden plank for my efforts. Really? 1 wooden plank is all that entire boat had to offer? There are many quests just like this one, where you should be able to collect multiple items from one enemy or container, not just one. So, my suggested fix is one I've seen in other MMOs before and one that would just make more sense logically - have each quest drop an amount of the needed item within a certain range. For example, to get my planks from EITC Marauders, I would receive from 1-5 planks per ship. This cuts my amount of work from finding and sinking 6 of them to likely only needing to find and sink 2-4 of them. It's a relatively small difference, but if the concept were applied across the entire questline (and the other quests in the game as well), it would make a huge difference timewise.

However, there is another issue with questing logic for DAC quests, and it's pretty similar to the previous one.

In all honesty, I screenshotted this because of the strange glitch with my ship spawning inside someone's Brig. But, the quest goal in the top right shows "Capture Captain Jones from an EITC Barracuda ship." When I go and defeat an EITC Barracuda, the first one I defeat instantly gives me Captain Jones. This logic just doesn't really make sense - every EITC Barracuda has Captain Jones? How many Captain Joneses are there? So, again, a fix for this is one I've seen used in other quest based MMOs - there's a % chance for each Barracuda defeated that I will recover Captain Jones. For example, there could be a 33% chance that I would find Jones on each Barracuda I defeat, so it may give me a message saying "Did not recover Captain Jones from EITC Barracuda. Try again.", or I may see a message saying "Collected Captain Jones." In theory, this concept would be applied to every quest where I am told to go and collect an item there can only be one of. And in reality, this would only make the BP quest slower, sort of counteracting the previously suggested fix. But I think overall, questing would still go at least slightly faster and it would definitely make more sense.

Thoughts?

 

[Mathias]

As far as the defeat and collect quests, I do agree. Not so much with the capture and maroon. It pull immersion out of the game when every ship of the class has this person you're supposed to capture, but having to go after numerous ships just to find one person and maroon him on an island, hopefully without sea turtles nearby, can be quite frustrating which makes us less willing to play the game.

An issue that many games these dealing with is pop-in, problem is, if pop in wasn't a thing, vegetation would be nonexistent except for the occasional pickups, or the devs would have to reduce polycount drastically, or cut back on special effects. The issue of pop-in, along with capture quests is a compromise that hopefully retains a happy player base, even if at the cost of realism.

 

[Dreadful]

As far as the defeat and collect quests, I do agree. Not so much with the capture and maroon. It pull immersion out of the game when every ship of the class has this person you're supposed to capture, but having to go after numerous ships just to find one person and maroon him on an island, hopefully without sea turtles nearby, can be quite frustrating which makes us less willing to play the game.

An issue that many games these dealing with is pop-in, problem is, if pop in wasn't a thing, vegetation would be nonexistent except for the occasional pickups, or the devs would have to reduce polycount drastically, or cut back on special effects. The issue of pop-in, along with capture quests is a compromise that hopefully retains a happy player base, even if at the cost of realism.

I understand your point, and I get that the majority of the community would likely take ease over realism. Just wish that weren't the case I guess, as I'd take realism over ease and most other conveniences in the game.

 

[Davy Gunshot]

My issue is why a specific ship? Why not defeat six Eitc galleons or Five navy sloops of any type or even require it to be over a specific level... the problem i find with questing is that it requires so many ships that you could sail for hours and not find because ships dont seem to be spawning properly or in the places they are supposed to be in.

 

[Ayame]

My issue is why a specific ship? Why not defeat six Eitc galleons or Five navy sloops of any type or even require it to be over a specific level... the problem i find with questing is that it requires so many ships that you could sail for hours and not find because ships dont seem to be spawning properly or in the places they are supposed to be in.

THIS. Had an awful time finding corvettes and greyhounds even switched servers to find them.

 

[Dreadful]

THIS. Had an awful time finding corvettes and greyhounds even switched servers to find them.

My issue is why a specific ship? Why not defeat six Eitc galleons or Five navy sloops of any type or even require it to be over a specific level... the problem i find with questing is that it requires so many ships that you could sail for hours and not find because ships dont seem to be spawning properly or in the places they are supposed to be in.

That's an issue as well, but ultimately that should be fixed when the quest tracker is implemented.
Also, for future reference, I think you can find Corvettes around Outcast and Cutthroat (flagships) and greyhounds around Raven's Cove, not too sure about the greyhounds though.

 

[Ayame]

Thats an issue as well, but ultimately that should be fixed when the quest tracker is implemented.
Also, for future reference, I think you can find Corvettes around Outcast and Cutthroat (flagships) and greyhounds around Raven's Cove, not too sure about the greyhounds though.

I've been trying to memorize where I see certain ships now. Corvettes are between Outcast Isle and Cutthroat like you said. They are also around Isla Perdida. I think Greyhounds are around Raven's Cove (and Isla Perdida) like you said.