How to make "gather stuff"- quests worth it

[Sir Francis]

Right now its like you are simply sacrifice 3 slots of loot if you choose such a quest without a real upside. Id suggest to add a real upside to these quests: gather grain=free food next run, gather relics = free/discounted stress treatment in church next week, gather medicine= discounts in quirk/disease treatment, gather idols = free rare or less trinket to take from the nomad wagon? It would also add a strategic element to the game, more consideration, depending on what you need to do in the next week :)

[Madmax]

This would make gather/activate quests a lot more interesting, definitely. I wonder if it could be combined with quest item stacking (maybe if the bonuses are, say 75% off materials or stress heals instead of 100% off). That would REALLY make gather/activate quests worth the hassle.

[dnrob7]

Aye. I wouldn't choose a quest like that unless there was a serious mongrel inspiring trinket at the ned of it.

[Sir Francis]

overall i think the goal should be to make these quests equally desirable to do on average. Item stacking would only justify benefits that are worth ~1500 gold, because thats what you are missing out on in the end. And such low value bonuses wouldnt be interesting imho. Always keep the balance, same with skills. They cant just buff everything, they have to maintain balance. An interesting way to do so would be to make skills even more situational (not all, of course) and at the same time more powerfull, so the overall usefullness and usage by the player remains the same. Of course, there are famous exceptions, like Bulwark of Faith and so on, that definitely need a nerf to keep up in the game, but overall i believe this is where its at.

[Lu]

Well the obvious solution is to tie the quests into town events somehow. For instance a famine could hit the hamlet with a wide range of negative effects that are only lifted after completing a grain gathering. In my opinion that's more interesting and more of an incentive to do the quest than simply getting free food on the next run.

[Sir Francis]

True that, but it should be made in a way that doesnt feel like the player is essentially forced to do lower-than-average income quests to prevent a puishment for not doing so.... reminds me of orthodox christianity somehow.... What im getting at is, short: no/ as few as possible forced-on gameplay decisions-> less boring/frustrating and a reward that really FEELS rewarding with these quests :) I hold my hopes up that RH will come up with something original and satisfacting...

[NotMeth]

Gather/Activate Quests are worth it because you leveled up too fast and now you're in Champion Dungeon and you can't afford to do too many fights so you bring a scout team that can scout the whole dungeon after just a few rooms so now you know where the quest objectives are and which path to take to avoid enemies so now you effectively have brough around 10K to 15K. It's now low income unless you're the kind of guy who zips out of dungeons as soon as the giant Crest appears, just do an extra 1 or 2 hallway to fill in the last 1 or 2 slots you have left. It's relatively safer than Explore or Cleanse missions since there are chances you clear the quest early so you can keep exploring the Dungeon knowing fullwell you can just leave if things get too hairy without fear of +20 Stress and no Rewards

Originally posted by Marma:

Well the obvious solution is to tie the quests into town events somehow. For instance a famine could hit the hamlet with a wide range of negative effects that are only lifted after completing a grain gathering. In my opinion that's more interesting and more of an incentive to do the quest than simply getting free food on the next run.

Yeah that seems like a neat idea but I can already see "MUH RNGUS"

[Bomoo]

I avoided them like the plague until I was able to mod my game to stack quest items into a single inventory slot.

[wckowalski]

Originally posted by Jethawkings:

Gather/Activate Quests are worth it because you leveled up too fast and now you're in Champion Dungeon and you can't afford to do too many fights so you bring a scout team that can scout the whole dungeon after just a few rooms so now you know where the quest objectives are and which path to take to avoid enemies so now you effectively have brough around 10K to 15K. It's now low income unless you're the kind of guy who zips out of dungeons as soon as the giant Crest appears, just do an extra 1 or 2 hallway to fill in the last 1 or 2 slots you have left. It's relatively safer than Explore or Cleanse missions since there are chances you clear the quest early so you can keep exploring the Dungeon knowing fullwell you can just leave if things get too hairy without fear of +20 Stress and no Rewards

Originally posted by Marma:

Well the obvious solution is to tie the quests into town events somehow. For instance a famine could hit the hamlet with a wide range of negative effects that are only lifted after completing a grain gathering. In my opinion that's more interesting and more of an incentive to do the quest than simply getting free food on the next run.

Yeah that seems like a neat idea but I can already see "MUH RNGUS"

I don't think them being more suited to deliberately not clearing the quest before leaving to avoid resolve xp is good justification from a game design standpoint.

[Nemo, Forevermore]

Solution 1 (simple): I would like to see an increase in gold payout for these quests.

or ...

Solution 2 (game changing): Make it so completing one of these quests could have a lasting impact on that specific region for a certain number of weeks. Examples:

Activate Altars/Cove: Quest states that the fish mens' power wanes now. Stock that Veteran Quest with Apprentice Monsters for a few weeks or stock that Champion Quest with Veteran Monsters for a few weeks.

Recover Artifacts/Ruins: Quest states someone would pay handsomely for the treasures. Just add lots of gold reward for this quest. You could even put a price tag on each artifact in the inventory slot like Consecrated Pews from the Prophet Quests (visual cue).

Gather Grain Sacks/Warrens: Quest states the estate will have more food and the pigmen will have less. Lower the number of hallway encounters and/or the number of monsters in each encounter for a few weeks. Also the caretaker could sell food at half price for a few weeks.

There are a lot of interesting ideas that could be done for Solution 2 to add more depth to the game's questing design. If I had the chance to make the monsters in the cove weaker for a bit at the cost of lower loot gains, I would definitely take that gamble and subsequently grind out a couple more Cove quests afterward to take advantage of the boon, even if the trinket rewards weren't enticing enough. It could even be useful to make a push to clear a boss a little easier for a few weeks.

Give me a relic fetching quest that is very rare and pays out handsomely and I will do that in a heartbeat. Right now I choose quests on a) trinket rewards, b) progression to a boss, or c) likelihood of looting, taking into account risk and reward and available hero pool. Some new flavors would alleviate some of that grindy feel that people can experience with regular scout/cleanse quests.

I think it's game dynamics like these that add more variables to questing and some extra uniqueness to each playthrough .

TL;DR - Make gather/activate quests more interesting by giving each one a little bit of its own unique spice.

[Nemo, Forevermore]

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

Right now its like you are simply sacrifice 3 slots of loot if you choose such a quest without a real upside. Id suggest to add a real upside to these quests: gather grain=free food next run, gather relics = free/discounted stress treatment in church next week, gather medicine= discounts in quirk/disease treatment, gather idols = free rare or less trinket to take from the nomad wagon? It would also add a strategic element to the game, more consideration, depending on what you need to do in the next week :)

Just giving them a make a, b, c, or d cheaper effect makes them feel very generic. How about some more spice with that?

[dlmcelroy0]

This request, in some form or another since initial EA release, crops up every few weeks or so...and I'm glad to see it crop up again. The implication of these quests is that they are having some sort of in game environmental effect. But it's purely cosmetic - cleansing corpses or gathering grain sacks has no actual impact. I believe they offer higher experience rewards than cleanse or explore medium dungeons, but that's about a wash - it will help marginally with power leveling replacements for dead Champions, but there's plenty of times when the faster advancement is going to hurt your overall mission management.

There is SO much opportunity to turn these missions into something more than a cosmetic gloss on medium dungeons. Adding in-game consequences would give players a bit of agency, something that is generally hugely curtailed in DD.

I saw a stream with Chris B. the other day, and from his comments I really do believe that RH has a long laundry list of items they would like to get in, but just the core game development (15 classes, 4 dungeons, Darkest Dungeon, mechanics) had to take priority and was a bigger task than many people realize. I am hopeful this is on that list, but it's always good to keep reminding RH. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

[Sir Francis]

Originally posted by mad_myke:

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

Right now its like you are simply sacrifice 3 slots of loot if you choose such a quest without a real upside. Id suggest to add a real upside to these quests: gather grain=free food next run, gather relics = free/discounted stress treatment in church next week, gather medicine= discounts in quirk/disease treatment, gather idols = free rare or less trinket to take from the nomad wagon? It would also add a strategic element to the game, more consideration, depending on what you need to do in the next week :)

Just giving them a make a, b, c, or d cheaper effect makes them feel very generic. How about some more spice with that?

Of course, go ahead and make clear, thought-through suggestions, thats what this forum is meant for :)

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Originally posted by Marma:

Well the obvious solution is to tie the quests into town events somehow. For instance a famine could hit the hamlet with a wide range of negative effects that are only lifted after completing a grain gathering. In my opinion that's more interesting and more of an incentive to do the quest than simply getting free food on the next run.

The devs have discussed such a notion during the last couple of team streams.

[aardvarkpepper]

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

Originally posted by mad_myke:

Just giving them a make a, b, c, or d cheaper effect makes them feel very generic. How about some more spice with that?

Of course, go ahead and make clear, thought-through suggestions, thats what this forum is meant for :)

the spice must flow anyways mad_myke did make a pretty involved post right before that one, or edited it in I dunno whatever but it's worth reading imo even if the suggested effects are way the **** too strong imo. (way too strong bro!)

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

Right now its like you are simply sacrifice 3 slots of loot if you choose such a quest without a real upside. Id suggest to add a real upside to these quests: gather grain=free food next run, gather relics = free/discounted stress treatment in church next week, gather medicine= discounts in quirk/disease treatment, gather idols = free rare or less trinket to take from the nomad wagon? It would also add a strategic element to the game, more consideration, depending on what you need to do in the next week :)

*Nominally* you say it would add a strategic element to the game and consideration - and though I agree conceptually that is the right way to go - in *practice* I think it does not make players *think* much more.

So you have a few stressed out heroes in a pretty good sized stable and what? there's no rush to treat them you can switch to other lineups and normally you do that some anyways because heroes lose stress while in town, not a lot, but some, and it's to your advantage to rotate anyways. So let's say you have some really stressed out heroes, and you know there's a stress-relieving cost cutting quest. Well then you just go for that for the expected discount. It's not a "strategic element" so much is it? or at least I would say it isn't. Same for disease reduction &c.

Oh all right you could say it *is* a strategic element conceptually, you could say it adds something to the game, but as I see it that suggestion only adds something *minor* to the gameplay. Even were it spiced up with interaction with town characters I'd say the gameplay strategic element would need to be more compelling.

exactly what implementation would I suggest? well just assume it's bad it's probably bad.

[Sir Francis]

The question is: should players be pushed/ forced to do these kinds of quests to prevent something bad in a town event from happening or should there just be a straigt "positive" reward. From my perspective it would just feel annoyed if the game would do the fist thing, If we think this through, the one thing we agree on should always be the "balance of decision". Nothing should be more desirable than another IN GENERAL on average. Of course, the more fluctuation in this matter the better, but if you sum it up there should be balance. (Dont mind me, just using my own threat to meditate over game design principles)