Why all Souls games have terrible quest systems

[Mark]

The fact that you have to exhaust dialogue to even progress in quests is just baffling. Usually its 2 times you talk to a person but some quests require you to talk to them until their dialogue is exhausted which could be more than 4 times. And the new dlc with the St Trina where you have to die 4 to 6 times to get the summon and armour is bad game design.

If the devs intentions were to make a game where you are supposed to miss out on quests then fine they did an amazing job but they are really limiting gameplay and storytelling because they cant figure out how to code multiple lines of dialogue into one interaction.

TLDR: Exhaust Dialogue is a lazy and poorly designed mechanic leading to missed quests and storytelling in the game. (Edit: Wow, not to mention those quests that require you to EMOTE and quests that are hard locked once past a certain point without the game telling you)

[ssj grumpig]

I played a bit of DS1 and DS3 last night, and yeah the NPC dialogue is nowhere near as vague as it is in ER. Especially in 3, you are told pretty explicitly (by comparison) what's up in terms of direction even if the people telling it to you have their own motivations

[Sharkon]

it's their trademark. cyptic npc's and high difficulty. without internet and wiki pages, nobody would even have the slightest clue wth is going on.

[Janthis]

The quests are more like Easter eggs, really. I don't even know how people discover the correct way to do some of them, except by exhausting trial and error or just datamining.

[Seijana]

How about you ♥♥♥♥ up an entire questline by exhausting dialogue options in the WRONG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ORDER?

[SoulSlayer]

Автор сообщения: zmanbuilder

I use a guide for quests in souls likes, but still messed up in the dlc...

Lies of P does its quests rather plain and simple, i liked it.

Lies of P marks where quests are in the little (bonfire) locations.

[Bladez_Overlord]

Автор сообщения: BingusDingus

Автор сообщения: Oreo Boy

I love that design because it makes you use your brain and its more immersive, having a journal and waypoints is so boring

One of the worst examples of this is initiating Ranni's quest line, to be able to start it you must talk to Blaidd, but to do so you must somehow figure out to go to Kale of all people to get an emote to talk to him. It's so insanely obscure that most people would never even discover it, and that's a pretty major questline.

Kale at least starts off as a simple guide if you talk to him. Assuming you explore Limgrave before going to the Roundtable, he's the only NPC you could think of to ask questions. And you still get the chance to be prompted to Ranni's questline by Rogier if you miss Blaidd. Yes, Ranni is more suspicious of you if you take Rogier's route, but it still allows you to get to the same ending for her. You could even skip 'Renna' and have no real side effect.

[Rust Vendor]

questing system is completely stupid, but it goes hand in hand with the character writing itself. Or I should say, lack of characters, there's no reason to give have a ♥♥♥♥ about any of these characters because interacting with them is like talking to an animatronic at chucky cheese, it's completely shallow and uncompelling. I think a lot of the dialogue is well written, but it fails entirely at making you feel like you are part of the story because it's so impersonal. Which is weird because it contrasts with the feeling you get by playing the game, like I do feel like I'm on an adventure. But it's on my own and has zero to do with these robots. I only want to talk to the robots because they give me items, I absolutely never have felt like I actually cared about the outcome of a quest unless one option was just disgusting or weird. The endings in Elden Ring have to be the most disappointing of any game I have finished in the last few years, like it might as well just fade to black for how pointless and uncompelling they are, just completely devoid of emotionality.

[Sweetllew]

Dont forget just the quest system you have to write down steps or you will forget if you stop to do anything but the pvp is abmismal and punishes players for getting any sort of help with how invaders work

[BingusDingus]

Автор сообщения: Oreo Boy

Автор сообщения: BingusDingus

Heavily disagree, if i remember correctly, there was only like 3 or 4 different quests in the game where the characters even give you a general idea of what you need to do, the rest are just complete loose threads that you have to stumble into. Even those quests, there's many parts of them where you're left to your own devices.
That's the fundamental issue, you're given nothing to go off of. Even if i was just told that what i was looking for was somewhere around a certain area of a region that'd be fine.

One of the worst examples of this is initiating Ranni's quest line, to be able to start it you must talk to Blaidd, but to do so you must somehow figure out to go to Kale of all people to get an emote to talk to him. It's so insanely obscure that most people would never even discover it, and that's a pretty major questline.

Listen to dialogue and youll know everything, i got rannis ending on my first playthrough by accident. Explore, get immersed, listen to what characters say, basic RPG stuff, and you got it. The mystery and sense of discovery is all part of the package and why those games are so good

There's nothing to listen to. Literally how you start Ranni's quest is you discover Blaidd howling in a tower and you are given absolutely zero clues of how to progress. Unless you're looking up a guide, which mind you if your player must go outside the game to even follow a quest means your game design is flawed, you'd have to stumble upon it.
The other ♥♥♥♥♥♥ part about this is that you cannot even start the Festival of Radahn without first starting Blaidd's quest. Can't use the optional boss excuse anymore either since he is now required to even access the DLC.

Off the top of my head, the quests that give you zero direction at all are;
Nepheli Loux
Gatekeeper Gostoc
Hyetta
Millicent, mostly.
and more.

Some of them aren't so bad, like alexander, so long as you find him the first time, which isn't hard as he's right off the main path and you can hear him, you'll just come across him as you follow the main paths of the game. But others are entirely missable like Boc, didn't even come across him in my first playthrough.

Don't understand what it is with fromsoft fanboys pretending it isn't what everyone knows it is. Everyone knows their quest design is terrible and requires a guide to follow, it's not even a debate.

[Rust Vendor]

Автор сообщения: BingusDingus

Автор сообщения: Oreo Boy

Listen to dialogue and youll know everything, i got rannis ending on my first playthrough by accident. Explore, get immersed, listen to what characters say, basic RPG stuff, and you got it. The mystery and sense of discovery is all part of the package and why those games are so good

There's nothing to listen to. Literally how you start Ranni's quest is you discover Blaidd howling in a tower and you are given absolutely zero clues of how to progress. Unless you're looking up a guide, which mind you if your player must go outside the game to even follow a quest means your game design is flawed, you'd have to stumble upon it.
The other ♥♥♥♥♥♥ part about this is that you cannot even start the Festival of Radahn without first starting Blaidd's quest. Can't use the optional boss excuse anymore either since he is now required to even access the DLC.

Off the top of my head, the quests that give you zero direction at all are;
Nepheli Loux
Gatekeeper Gostoc
Hyetta
Millicent, mostly.
and more.

Some of them aren't so bad, like alexander, so long as you find him the first time, which isn't hard as he's right off the main path and you can hear him, you'll just come across him as you follow the main paths of the game. But others are entirely missable like Boc, didn't even come across him in my first playthrough.

Don't understand what it is with fromsoft fanboys pretending it isn't what everyone knows it is. Everyone knows their quest design is terrible and requires a guide to follow, it's not even a debate.

my recent playthrough I didn't finish a single one of those quests and I even knew about them and was trying to do it so I could have the most amount of stuff before the DLC. I got to the point where I was burning the erdtree and then I was like ok it's now or never, but I just was like ♥♥♥♥ it I don't feel like reading a webpage and backtracking through enemies Ive already killed 3 times.

I think the people that like how obscure it is not because they actually found and completed them on their own, they just like the idea that others are struggling. I remember fightincowboys inital review of Elden Ring and he was like yeah this game is amazing but I talked to some lady who asked me for grapes and then never saw her again? That was actually his main critique was that side quests were just very hard to follow.

[Radene]

TES: Oblivion really spoiled us, didn't it.

[Zoid13]

i don't find them terrible at all. quite the opposite i think they are amazing.

its more organic and on the player to explore and workout the clues and hints that get dropped both my environmental queues and the cryptic hint filled dialogue of the npc's

its also great for replay. you can find stuff you missed multiple throughways later.

people that say you need guides and whatnot to play from-soft games make me sad. what other developers do things like having an illusory wall behind an illusory wall that opens into a whole +1 or 2 zones and hours of content. every other developer has the mindset of "hey we spent X millions making these zones and quests, lets force the players to go do them in a way that's impossible to miss"
Fromsoft want you to miss things. they want your journey and discoveries to be unique and feel rewarding to work out what to do. they don't spoon feed you and im thankful for it.

i hate other games "greetings traveller! i need you to go collect X item from this man over there, let me mark him on your map so you cant possibly miss him!"
now that kind of quest system i find super lame and doesn't feel rewarding in the slightest.
huur duur i can follow a map icon to get loots im so clevers.
and if thats what you prefer to do. use an external guide. don't ruin the games with ubisoft cooties :)

Fromsoft design is king :D

[Akemua]

Автор сообщения: Oreo Boy

Автор сообщения: BingusDingus

Heavily disagree, if i remember correctly, there was only like 3 or 4 different quests in the game where the characters even give you a general idea of what you need to do, the rest are just complete loose threads that you have to stumble into. Even those quests, there's many parts of them where you're left to your own devices.
That's the fundamental issue, you're given nothing to go off of. Even if i was just told that what i was looking for was somewhere around a certain area of a region that'd be fine.

One of the worst examples of this is initiating Ranni's quest line, to be able to start it you must talk to Blaidd, but to do so you must somehow figure out to go to Kale of all people to get an emote to talk to him. It's so insanely obscure that most people would never even discover it, and that's a pretty major questline.

Listen to dialogue and youll know everything, i got rannis ending on my first playthrough by accident. Explore, get immersed, listen to what characters say, basic RPG stuff, and you got it. The mystery and sense of discovery is all part of the package and why those games are so good

It's impossible to do Ranni's quest by accident, because you are required to follow specific steps with nothing to guide you. Some of it, yes. But her quest involves some really obscure jank that requires you to actually think about and TRY and do.

https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Ranni+the+Witch

You're not doing all that by accident. That is 100% intentional.

[Inflated_chair]

Автор сообщения: Ichi-niiPL

Personally i think it's fine.

People got used too much to hand holding in my opinion and having the answers spoon-fed to them.
You've the icons for NPC on map, if you pay attention to dialogue, you'll know what to do, and you can always google it if you don't.

id just like to have them say im going to head east maybe not that obvious but just vanishing with no clues is just annoying

[Haru]

It's not perfect but I will take it over the homogeneous, sloppy hand-holy sh*t.