Quests hold the game back

[IcyTorrent]

The incredibly obscure and nigh impossible to complete without looking it up online really hold the game back in my opinion. I would give out a ring a solid 9 out of 10 if it were not for this reason. As it stands I got a back it down to maybe a 7.5 out of 10.

I like to experience the majority of what a game offers, but needing to Google almost every quest ruins immersion and is tedious.

I like that there's a deeper layer, but it basically doesn't matter if it's so incredibly vague and impossible to solve without referring to the wiki.

This was not such a problem in previous titles because they were largely linear and their worlds were significantly smaller. But the open world nature nature exasperates this problem.

[Mr. Nobody]

I 100% agree with you but there is a massive contingent of fans that think reading the wiki is a skill that somehow makes them a better gamer than you. Tons of people just google good builds, quests, and items and then call other people terrible at the game for wanting to experience it without the wiki.

I would estimate there are about 0.001% of people who actually figured out how to access the Hinterlands organically yet somehow that's okay to a bunch of people.

[Nauct]

I missed a bunch of em, did a few of them without looking anything up. All the ones I attempted to do I did complete. The rest I can get next go around

[Nauct]

Originally posted by Mr. Nobody:

I 100% agree with you but there is a massive contingent of fans that think reading the wiki is a skill that somehow makes them a better gamer than you. Tons of people just google good builds, quests, and items and then call other people terrible at the game for wanting to experience it without the wiki.

I would estimate there are about 0.001% of people who actually figured out how to access the Hinterlands yet somehow that's okay to a bunch of people.

I looked for so many hours and as soon as I ran out of areas to look, I checked a youtube video, fake ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wall on the other side of the map. I like the fake walls, but not when they're for key things

[FashionSuckMan]

They really aren't that complicated. There are always hint in dialogue and environment for as to where you should go next. Some are kinda obscure but it is what it is. With all the secrets in this game, its a given that you will miss stuff. Trying to find everything just kinda ruins the experience. Its ok to miss stuff.

[Nauct]

Originally posted by FashionSuckMan:

They really aren't that complicated. There are always hint in dialogue and environment for as to where you should go next. Some are kinda obscure but it is what it is. With all the secrets in this game, its a given that you will miss stuff. Trying to find everything just kinda ruins the experience. Its ok to miss stuff.

It makes it feel a lot more special when I do complete a quest, instead of completely free and meaningless, guaranteed success

[SpottedHare]

I mean the alternative is go into the menu and read the exposition every time you pick up a blue item to see if its keyitem. then open the map and re talk to every single npc again just in case it had a nosense trigger. It more the fact we know soft quest design suck that we know how to check list all the bs to make it work.

[vamirez]

Without making a good vs. bad statement - quests in these games are not like quests in a traditional CRPG. They don't go in a journal, you have no bullet points to work off, or hints, and they are all optional. They are NPC story lines, and it is expected that you don't find them all in one playthrough. Community interaction is also a part of it, indeed.
Now I can understand that one issue might be that this game is so large that you won't do several playthroughs to find more NPC storylines. On the other hand, this game is actually much more lenient regarding being able to complete NPC quests late in the game compared to earlier games.

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by FashionSuckMan:

They really aren't that complicated. There are always hint in dialogue and environment for as to where you should go next. Some are kinda obscure but it is what it is. With all the secrets in this game, its a given that you will miss stuff. Trying to find everything just kinda ruins the experience. Its ok to miss stuff.

Yeah, like when Ranni tells you to find her doll in a hole in the ground miles away that you already explored. She was really explicit about that 🤣

[ShivaX]

Honestly, nothing wrong with reading a wiki.

For a lot of the old timers, it's part of the experience, running into a quest, trying to figure out if you can advance it. Usually failing, but those times you don't feel pretty good.

It's better than it used to be, but it's definitely not for everyone. But it also usually doesn't matter much.

[Mr. Nobody]

Originally posted by FashionSuckMan:

They really aren't that complicated. There are always hint in dialogue and environment for as to where you should go next. Some are kinda obscure but it is what it is. With all the secrets in this game, its a given that you will miss stuff. Trying to find everything just kinda ruins the experience. Its ok to miss stuff.

Curious what the hint in dialogue is that tells me I need to (Ymir Questline spoilers) wander randomly around the overworld to find a random gesture then perform that random gesture in front of a random statue in a completely different section of the map to access a massive chunk of map in the Northeast that allows you to complete a quest that has multiple bosses locked behind it.

[Nauct]

If you guys ever played DnD and the DM was like, "You guys just totally skipped this whole quest line I planned out" Dark Souls is like that. If you don't like that you can just look it up, nothing stopping you

[Volatility]

I love ER. But the quests/lore are so obtuse and vague that I barely pay any attention. I don't have the patience to try and puzzle over stuff so abstract and vague. But to each their own.

[Mr. Nobody]

Originally posted by Nauct:

If you guys ever played DnD and the DM was like, "You guys just totally skipped this whole quest line I planned out" Dark Souls is like that. If you don't like that you can just look it up, nothing stopping you

The problem is it's nothing like that though. The quests are equivalent to a DM planning out a whole quest line, then making the requirement to trigger it a person has to randomly say the word "Hippopotamus" 5 times while sticking there index finger up their nose.

[Nauct]

Originally posted by Mr. Nobody:

Originally posted by Nauct:

If you guys ever played DnD and the DM was like, "You guys just totally skipped this whole quest line I planned out" Dark Souls is like that. If you don't like that you can just look it up, nothing stopping you

The problem is it's nothing like that though. The quests are equivalent to a DM planning out a whole quest line, then making the requirement to trigger it a person has to randomly say the word "Hippopotamus" 5 times while sticking there index finger up their nose.

I mean usually it's talk to an NPC 3 times before you go to the next area, that's like 90% of the quests

[ShivaX]

Originally posted by Mr. Nobody:

Originally posted by Nauct:

If you guys ever played DnD and the DM was like, "You guys just totally skipped this whole quest line I planned out" Dark Souls is like that. If you don't like that you can just look it up, nothing stopping you

The problem is it's nothing like that though. The quests are equivalent to a DM planning out a whole quest line, then making the requirement to trigger it a person has to randomly say the word "Hippopotamus" 5 times while sticking there index finger up their nose.

I mean obviously our DM in any Souls game is a jerk.
I mean look at *gestures at basically everything*.