Quest System and Quest Log

[Geraldinho]

Hey godwokens,

I got severe problems with my quest log, with the quest system at all, I try to complete quests with the very very little information given and allways find myself at a point where I can't proceed because something is missing, a key, a npc I have to kill first I never heard of before, an other quest or whatever.

My quest log is overflowing with uncompleted quests, because I don't know where to go or what to do because there are no information provided at what to do or where to go.

Is that just a coincidence or intended by Larian?

I started taking my smartphone and google all the different quests and how to solve just to realize that this feals wrong somehow, I want to solve this stuff by myself if possible.

Anyway, any tips how to handle that stuff? I really try hard to like this game because I love the combat system and all the tactical aspects around it, character system is also incredibly well made, because it offers nearly infinite possibilities of skilling your characters.

The quest system is the only thing I am struggling with, and it somehow prevents me from enjoying the game.

Any tips how to handle it?

Thank you.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Can you take screenshots of this? I never really understood how people have troubles with quests.

You either need to explore the map or you need pet pal to complete some quests. I don't recall ever being lost tbh, most of my quests are closed except the ones that are in the next area.

[Chaoslink]

Yes. Stop trying to do quests. Just explore and wander about the map. Talk to everyone and just experience things as you go. Your mistake is you're using it like a quest log. Its a journal. It just tracks info based on what you've done for a quest. It doesn't actually tell you what to do next. This isn't the kind of game where you'll talk to someone, pick up a quest then go complete it and return for a reward. Everything just flows naturally. I have over 700 hours in the game and could probably count on one hand how many times I've opened the quest journal. Just explore. You'll complete them all passively.

[Stormwind]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Yes. Stop trying to do quests. Just explore and wander about the map. Talk to everyone and just experience things as you go. Your mistake is you're using it like a quest log. Its a journal. It just tracks info based on what you've done for a quest. It doesn't actually tell you what to do next. This isn't the kind of game where you'll talk to someone, pick up a quest then go complete it and return for a reward. Everything just flows naturally. I have over 700 hours in the game and could probably count on one hand how many times I've opened the quest journal. Just explore. You'll complete them all passively.

yeah it took me awhile before I realized this. It more tells you what you have done instead of what to do, though quest flags on the map can give you clues about where to go next. Read it to keep up with the storyline, but not really as a guide of what to do.

[Derek]

also, make sure you listen pay attention to conversations. It's really easy to lose track of what you do and need to do when you don't follow the conversations. They will sometimes word for word tell you where you need to go and what you need to do. Besides that, all quests have red flags with prominent locations having green flags. Just go to the red flags and explore. and as others said, the game is meant to be played blind. You have to figure things out yourself so follow the environment, enter random things like homes and dungeons, kinda make your own story.

[Geraldinho]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Yes. Stop trying to do quests. Just explore and wander about the map. Talk to everyone and just experience things as you go. Your mistake is you're using it like a quest log. Its a journal. It just tracks info based on what you've done for a quest. It doesn't actually tell you what to do next. This isn't the kind of game where you'll talk to someone, pick up a quest then go complete it and return for a reward. Everything just flows naturally. I have over 700 hours in the game and could probably count on one hand how many times I've opened the quest journal. Just explore. You'll complete them all passively.

LOL, ok. I did the complete opposite, permanently reading through the quest log (or journal) trying to find something that tells me what to do.

But that does not change the fact that I feel lost, because I WANT to complete quests right now but the game don't let me.

For example, I have to find out who is killing Magisters in Driftwood, but the only thing the quest log provides is "find out who is killing Magisters in Driftwood".

Yeeaah ... ok thanks for the hint.

I ran around the town several times and spoke with every charakter, some of them do some investigation here and there but no one provided anything to proceed in this quest.

And that bothers me a lot. Same for most of the other quests as well. Sometimes I complete a quest without knowing I have one, what is this?!

Why would a RPG let people complete quests on a random basis, makes no sense to me at all.

I really want to like this game, because combat, skills and crafting is so complex, deep and just amazing.

But quests are an essential part of an RPG, and randomly running around the map, randomly doing something and randomly completing stuff for other people does not feel good in my opinion.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by NighthawX:

But quests are an essential part of an RPG, and randomly running around the map, randomly doing something and randomly completing stuff for other people does not feel good in my opinion.

This game isn't your standard RPG. Its basically a tabletop RPG turned videogame. It also tends to bring back concepts from games back in the day, like the lack of your traditional quest system.

The specific Driftwood magister quest you're on has a few methods of completion, but you either don't have the ability you'll need to get the hint, or simply haven't talked to everyone yet. Make sure you've rescued the Meistr from the gallows almost immediately when you enter act two. You'll progress the first part of the main quest in the area and unlock a very important ability that helps for the rest of the game.

[Stormwind]

Well its not random, "find out who is killing magisters" is just sort of open ended.

This is my first run, and I didnt find out who did it, I just wound up killing the questgivers, kind of by accident.

But later I questioned someone near the docks who did in fact provide a clue, and if it was still important to complete at the time I likely could have tracked him down. No spoilers! But my next run I will try to do it.

[Stormwind]

Remember helping magisters accomplish their goals is an rpg decision.

They arent the nicest people in town! If you dont like them just go ahead and kill them instead of doing their bidding!

[Geraldinho]

But it feels random (to me at least).

I had a quest where I had to put an egg under some chicken and take care of its void chick. I didn't even realized what is meant by "taking care" of it. So I started interacting with it from time to time.

At some point in the game I realized that the chick is not following me anymore, so I took a look into the journal, it said "the chick died".

Ah, ok, nevermind. But maybe I would have earned more EXP if I just had the knowledge of how to "take care" of it and that bothers me, and tbh, that bothers me a lot.

Some quests end for some reason, some proceed for some reason etc and I don't know why, and that bothers me and it does not feel good.

I feel lost in space and don't know why things are happening, or I don't know what to do to make things happen. The only thing that offers a massive amount of fun is combat, damn, I love that, it's so good.

Unfortunatly there is not much combat in that game, or to less for my taste at least.

But I guess I have to accept that, all of that you guys mentioned and somehow get a clue of what I have to do by walking around the map and do random stuff.

At least it helps me that the quest log, or journal, is more like a diary that shows what happened in the past then a quest log that shows me what to do right now.

Maybe I can extract valuable information out of it.

Well, thanks to you guys.

[Chaoslink]

Yeah, it takes a bit to get used to. Don't worry too much about possibly missing a little exp here and there because something ended differently. Once you learn things and are more familiar with the quests going on around you, things'll make more sense. They just don't right now because you're new to it all and haven't fully explored everything. It tends to be a bit overwhelming to start, especially because you just reached a new act.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by NighthawX:

But it feels random (to me at least).

I had a quest where I had to put an egg under some chicken and take care of its void chick. I didn't even realized what is meant by "taking care" of it. So I started interacting with it from time to time.

At some point in the game I realized that the chick is not following me anymore, so I took a look into the journal, it said "the chick died".

Ah, ok, nevermind. But maybe I would have earned more EXP if I just had the knowledge of how to "take care" of it and that bothers me, and tbh, that bothers me a lot.

Yeah the chicken died in a fight and you didn't notice, ♥♥♥♥ happens. You just had to find the magic rooster that was going to help.

Originally posted by NighthawX:

Some quests end for some reason, some proceed for some reason etc and I don't know why, and that bothers me and it does not feel good.

I feel lost in space and don't know why things are happening, or I don't know what to do to make things happen. The only thing that offers a massive amount of fun is combat, damn, I love that, it's so good.

Unfortunatly there is not much combat in that game, or to less for my taste at least.

Yeah thats RPG's for you, some things triggers quests while others change quests. Like in Dragon Age Origins a town you enter will be destroyed when you leave it, you just had to do every single quest there before you left. The game doesn't tell you sure but it's common sense to get to a place and do all the quests first before moving on to other places. In DOS2 if you take too long to rescue the elf being harassed by Griff's crew she can die. A lot of things happen that you don't know about and they are there as a consequences and make the game not the same every time you play it.

Also there's plenty of battles in DOS2, if you want an extremely battle focused game then play XCOM2 tbh.

[Geraldinho]

Maybe the game is just like that, but I can't get used to it. I want to earn exp, I want to progress, I want to proceed, getting forward, but the game won't let me. If at least the story, dialogues, npc's etc. would be a little bit exiting, but they aren't, at least not to me.

So running around and talking to people feels even more of a huge bother to me, unlike in Witcher 3, the world of TW3 is just stunning and completely pulls me in with it's outstanding story telling and quest design, every talk to a stranger is entertaining in some way.

But devinity does not have any of this, imo. The combat system is what makes me play the game, its just so good, so good, skill system and crafting as well are so fckn awesome.

So I am a little bit devided between poor story, poor quest design, poor npc's and awesome combat, skill and crafting system.

Because I can't get used to this quest system, it feels so unsatisfactory. I have 27 active quests atm and can't proceed in any of it, I start loosing the overview of what to do next or who to talk to, and mindlessly running around the map without a clue and just letting things happen can't be the purpose of a game like that, that can't be true, or at least I can't believe that.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by NighthawX:

Maybe the game is just like that, but I can't get used to it. I want to earn exp, I want to progress, I want to proceed, getting forward, but the game won't let me. If at least the story, dialogues, npc's etc. would be a little bit exiting, but they aren't, at least not to me.

So running around and talking to people feels even more of a huge bother to me, unlike in Witcher 3, the world of TW3 is just stunning and completely pulls me in with it's outstanding story telling and quest design, every talk to a stranger is entertaining in some way.

But devinity does not have any of this, imo. The combat system is what makes me play the game, its just so good, so good, skill system and crafting as well are so fckn awesome.

So I am a little bit devided between poor story, poor quest design, poor npc's and awesome combat, skill and crafting system.

Because I can't get used to this quest system, it feels so unsatisfactory. I have 27 active quests atm and can't proceed in any of it, I start loosing the overview of what to do next or who to talk to, and mindlessly running around the map without a clue and just letting things happen can't be the purpose of a game like that, that can't be true, or at least I can't believe that.

Seems you got used to fetch quests and go to point A to point B and everything to be handed to you by a quest marker because you got used to not reading details. Heck even now I'm playing Dragon Age Origins and some quests require you to open your codex and read to find hidden things in the world from clues. You want to progress? Talk to NPC's and explore. You don't go to a town and expect every quest in the game to be handed to you on a silver platter. There's quests scattered everywhere for you to find, some aren't just quests, they're situations where your party falls into, not everything is a quest.

Let's digest fort joy for example.

Reach the fort, see an elf getting harassed by thugs, help her, she wants to meet you in a cave.
Go to the cave, meet Saheila, get quest to rescue Amyro.
Talk to everyone in the cave, get quest to help Withermore, find a frog fight.
Help Withermore
Explore, kill crocs
Free Amyro by finding Stingtail, he tells you of a way to escape
Kill Migo or if you talked to a magister she gives you a quest for Migo
The game tells you there's multiple ways to escape.
You decide to take Amyros path, kill the slugs, kill the magisters, kill the dungeon boss, escape.
Go back and talk to everyone in case you missed a quest
Do the arena
Explore
Boss in the castle
Enemies by the docks
Fight outside the castle

All you had to do is talk to NPC's and explore. We can do the same for the rest of act 1 and act 2 if you want. If you talk to every NPC and explore you'll do every quest easily.

[Geraldinho]

No, I am not used to getting everything served on a silver plate.

I love the Demon and Dark Souls series and played them hundreds of hours, nothing is served on a silver plate in any of these games, mistakes get punished and you don't even have a quest log/journal or marker in these games.

Dragon Age Origin is one of my most favorite games of all time, so much better then its 2 successors.

It's not that I don't get anything served on a silver plate, it's just that I allready talked to everyone, again and again, and it becomes repetitive and boring as hell. Talking to npc's feels like a huge burden, not as something exciting, like in The Witcher 3.

And to "explore" I need to level up finally, I am only level 10 and regardless which direction I want to proceed enemies are at level 12 or above. And a 1 or 2 or even higher level gap will make a huge difference between victory or defeat in devinity.

[Jumpem]

The quest handling is the worst part about this game. Quests can be finished in a "wrong" way. Actions can cause quests to be unfinishable or even unable to be got in the first place.