Alright, bear with me, I'm writing this post at a time of day I really shouldn't be writing forum posts. But hey, the worst thing that can happen is being horribly, terribly flamed.

I have a rather radical proposal to make, which is "rebalancing" the rewards given out by honours quest. Where rebalancing means the usual nerfing completely, as far as experience and gold is concerned.

What my quirk is, pretty much anytime I come on, save for the really, really off-peak hours at around 8:00 - 10:00 CET, anytime I set foot into the places involving one of the simpler ones that I actually have a chance of doing (e.g. no wholesale slaughter of things that would eat me for breakfast), there's either someone re-doing it gods know which time, or someone being walked through the quest by someone who's already done it.

The few times I actually contacted said people as to what's their point of hogging the quests, the answer was something meaning roughly "it's teh fasts expz / easy phat lute", except with more and fancier words, mostly along the lines of "everyone's doing it, therefore it's okay", "do you want to know how to solve it", and similar apologetical nonsense.

Going out on a very think, dry, and cracked limb, I'll speak the dread words: I don't think that's the way it should be. I might be horribly mistaken, and my sample of specimens might be a lot less than statistically significant, But if that is indeed a widespread behaviour, I believe it's indicative of a flaw in the system.

First and foremost, if there is indeed a source of gold and experience that can be dubbed "easy", it's a threat to game balance. It's also (yet another thing) rewarding shallow, repetitive gameplay, and I don't think that's what Lusternia is / should be aiming for either. Either that, or I hate farming. But hell, I've been whapped around by newbies for using the mother of all ungodly OOC terms "realms" to refer to the game world in a say (HELLO, SAIGO!), I think I can get away with calling farming of any kind not quite proper IC conduct. ("Oh, look, someone killed that lady in Stewartsville. Again. You'd think she'd stay dead after the last umpty times. Ah well, let's get paid by the stupid villagers. Again. For finding who did it. Again.") Sic.

I still recall the first time when, with the help of one single hint, I finally had the stars aligned and the Newton Caves devoid of newbies enough to finally go through saving the gnomes rom start to end without someone killing one of the quest NPCs for experience (HELLO, LANA!) or hogging one of the items because it was lying around. I cursed at getting the damn widgets, cheered at my streak of luck in the caverns, sobbed with the shroomie regal couple as they found happiness, and in the end cackled at the very dead finks as they finally bought it. Yay for spiffy new title and all that, the money was negligible in the long run, as well as the experience. The fun of racking my brains at the albeit simple challenges, howewer, was unique and unreplacable.

Imagine the disappointment as I left that quite sheltered environment. Goodbye, actually getting to go on and solve puzzles. (I admit, I somehow managed to do the rockeater training. And despite the fact it gives inordinate amounts of money, I never entered that place after getting the honours entry.)

Call me selfish, because that's what I am. I want my quests. I want my puzzles. I want my stuff to do besides running FedEx-like between essence / scholars / pilgrims / seagulls / lantern fish / firefly squid / whatever someone else on some other task asks for over Celest CT, and the odd administrated event (which still usually ends up the mother of all PK brawls for most of the people involved). Because that gets real old real soon, and I'm not always in the mood to contrive some engrossing roleplay plot involving myself, or intruding into other peoples' ones to get out of the drivel.

So, to sum up, please, please, pretty please, make changes so the quests aren't susceptible to farming. I'd be perfectly happy with removing the monetary and experience rewards, leaving only the more elusive karma, and perhaps adding esteem, as rewards, plus the side effects / special bonuses of the quests.

The following people are advised up front to kiss my hairy backside, since I know they'll reply anyway:

a) Robots that would whine because they couldn't farm the quests for easy exp and gold anymore. Because frankly, I hate you and feel sorry for you at the same time, and couldn't give a damn if you lose a game feature to abuse at the expense of everyone else.

Anyone objecting with the argument "Look at player XY, he's done a lot of the quests too.". Because I'm not arguing they're never doable, but that the challenge of doing the quests should rest on the puzzle-solving, not finding the specific timeframe when it's actually possible to do it and then looking up a log of the walkthrough I arsed out of someone.

On a slightly related note, I also think all quest progress should be tracked per character, instead of them damn godawful timed tasks from hell lurking behind every corner - as if someone beating you to all the others wasn't enough. Reduce frustration and repetitiveness, replace with more actually challenging puzzles to solve. Cf. bugged-to-no-end Delport where I see people use trial and error all the time because it's nearly impossible to get the clues to what would otherwise be a very easy quest to do.

And as an obscure, probably unrealistic, yet intriguing alternative to removing quest rewards: allow for segmentation of the game in the engine, and split off quest areas for people who enter them as completely / partially private segments. Track personal timers between attempts at a quest to prevent abuse. I could also think of some tweaks to prevent PK from breaking, but I should really go to sleep now. This way, both the farmers and the questers are happy.

David Vallner
Currently playing as Siilaan

EDIT: Cripes, why did I put that last comment in again? I blame the coffee. And the gnomes.

Not really, how is a denizen meant to know, so and so has done this part of the quest, after a day, or a month, it's not realistic in game terms, yes people hog the quests, but it's something you'll eventually learn to deal with.

So... you're pretty much saying that quests shouldn't be worth doing? A lot of people prefer questing to bashing for their gold. Why should they not be able to do that just so the ones who quest just for the puzzles don't have to be bothered by the other people in a game played by hundreds. If other people bug you so much, why play a game that even has other people in it. Surely there are entertaining puzzle games out there.

I think there's a pretty good balance of both challenging and easy quests... the easy ones may be susceptible to farming, but it's also those quests that are most accessible to newbies who are just learning their way around. Sure it's frustrating when you can't complete one of the major quests on your first try, but this isn't a single-player game and you can't expect it to be. There is competition to do the quests between people for xp/gold as well as competition on a larger scale between organizations over things that have a much broader effect.


This... probably is not the best way to get those coders to take your complaints seriously. Most are not paid and probably could care less if you're a paying customer or not. (If I misinterpreted this comment my apologies)

Yeah, that was a rather irksome comment... we the coders, so ignorent comments such as that will really give you little respect

It -does- annoy me when people do the quests simply for the gold and exp. I want to do them so my honours can be ridiculously long like Kaervas's.

While it may be annoying that others constantly do these quests, please keep in mind that there are those of us (not a large number, to be sure, but the amount ought to grow with the esteem changes) who choose not to bash for experience and gold, and in fact don't kill anything. This leaves us with quests - pilgrims and scholars, yes, but also anything else we can get our hands on. I can tell you, I still need to spend a fair bit on bromides, even as a furrikin with superego and a constant beauty blessing. Very few constantly 'farm' quests, I know I only check on them when I'm wandering through most of the time.

It's very ill-thought out to try and have something nerfed because you're sulking that you can't get a chance to do the quests. There are more people than there are quests available - one day you'll get a chance. Especially if you're only after it for the honours line.

Personally, I find influencing much better for gold and experience anyway

I don't want to learn to deal with it, I want that to stop. I never said I'm an altruist, I want people that seek variety in questing (notably including, but not limited to me) to be rewarded, not the ones abusing the easy yields quests give.

Besides, NPCs already do track what part or how much of a quest you did when already (gnome weaponsmith / number of crystals, marble quarry owner / number of rockeaters trained), sometimes with timers, sometimes persistently. Your realism point is completely moot on so many accounts it ain't pretty anymore. It's unrealistic that the Delport lovers can last at best an in-game month with "the love of their life", that Stewartsville still has some population left with all the murders happening there, and I'm not even starting on the suspiciously short ruling term of the Rockholm dwarves.

The quests are NOT realistic, give or take some retroactive justification that is issued when someone from the administration team is pushed to it by someone extremely nosy about it, and they already require exercising suspense of disbelief. Requiring more to achieve making questing more enjoyable is not a bad exchange in my opinion.

Accessible to newbies? If I had a credit each time I see someone 500% of my might with the entry in honours redo / botch up Chateau d'Amour between me leaving to find a cow and coming back, I'd have trans everything by June. That is NOT what I'd call accessible to newbies.

Are you saying this competition of who's the better questhogger is the multiplayer aspect of those quests? I don't exactly consider that a really good way to bring this aspect into play. If redoing the quests -was- eliminated, then I'd understand it, but having to find those specific 15 minutes of a day when noone's around that knows the solution of a quest you'd like to have a try at already getting his gold/exp/karma fix is -not- competition. It's not a challenge. It's drivel, frustration, pure and distilled. Stop apologizing for other people's mechanical, intolerant gameplay habits.

As for the organisation vs. organisation quests, I'm not really objecting against those being redoable. I would still want to see just if and how them godforsaken gorgog rampages would go down in frequency if the only thing you'd get from releasing them is the gorgogs being released. And taking this one as an example, I also don't think the absence of a gold / exp reward would prevent Celest (give or take Magnagora) citizens from sealing them back up, I know someone would get to it just because they're so bloody annoying. This sort of competition I accept and welcome, since it is more in the spirit of roleplay-intensive gaming than walking between three villages constantly mechanically doing someone you've already done a zillion times before.



I wasn't aiming to insult / troll the development team. The comment was actually a brain fart and has since been edited away since I see it did detract from my point, its stupidity notwithstanding. That said, there is a clean flux of cold, hard cash from the side of the players to the Other Side. Think about how many transplanar cubices are in the game. Do the maths. Add to that, as you said, that most of the development team isn't even getting paid, and that hosting an MUD doesn't exactly cost a fortune. Go figure.

The question is, is it enjoyable to the majority of the playerbase? I for one enjoy being rewarded for time, whether that is spent puzzling, bashing, or influencing. A significant reward for completing a quest means that it should not be easily obtainable, and hence they are fine the way they are now. If quests were nothing other than the equivalent of twisting a personal rubix cube, what meaning does receiving an honors line have? Everyone will easily have all of them, and you aren't considering that the result of many quests are actually designed to have some external effect on the world. Remove that, and they become even more meaningless and far less immersive. MY enjoyment would be significantly reduced.

Also, I think you're a little too quick to throw around the word 'abuse'. Most of the big quests of Lusternia are designed so that each time the puzzle is different, and requires at least some thought to complete. If it's intended to provide a unique challenge for repeated attempts, why are people 'abusing' the system to do so?

Rather, what I find abusive is the tone with which you have taken towards the mostly volunteer administration of this game.

It's a nice thought, but in this case it's just not a good one. I'm glad you contributed your ideas, and if the administration really like what you've offered them, maybe something will come of it. I just seriously, seriously doubt it.

Just answering to the gorgog part David.. they prevent the cities (i.e Magnagora AND Celest) from doing some very important power quests. Trust me the people sealing them in again could care less about gold or exp reward, all they want is their quests back because they are screwed if the gorgogs stay out.

I can think of 3 or 4 players off hand who do. Just within the small fraction of the player base I know well.

Oh, you mean those of us like me? I haven't touched anything outside an arena that's not a starsucker / dream leech ever since I left Newton. Well, give or take Oleanvir rocs, but they started it. One reason might be because I horribly suck at it, but even then, I don't plan to ever go out and actively hunt anything not related to some IC motivation - like participating in a Celest vs. Magnagora quest; it's just plain too damn boring. So cut out on the elitism with me, please, you're not talking to the right person with it. Personally, I'd rather do runs around the mountains for half eternity AND eat a toilet brush than even set foot into the Dairuchi arble quarry because I prefer being considerate to someone else that needs to fund his first .

Oh, and you don't actually need a -lot- of people constantly farming quests. One per quest will suffice. If there's a single person bent on farming the three quests he knows at any chance because he can, it pretty much means those three quests will not be doable at all by anyone else while he's online. Lusternia hits some 80+ players online at peak hours. Do the maths.

If we have to rely on ways of mechanically gaining gold and experience without combat (sic) being present, I say the ones already in the game should be strenghtened that already have strong mechanical aspects to them. Increase spawning of scholars / pilgrims / supplicants / hay / whatever. Impose some restrictions so this increased spawning wouldn't be abusable / hoggable. Limit total number of those following a player at once? Maybe make the number dependent on charisma or influencing skill or something to give the limitation some internal justification / consistency. I never said it should be a flat-off nerfing. But leave the few ways of having fun on Lusternia in varied, non-mechanical ways to people who treat them as such.

QUOTE(Shakaya @ Feb 6 2006, 12:57 PM) 254752

Especially if you're only after it for the honours line.

Oh, and I forgot. I'm in it for the challenge and fun of solving the puzzles. I could care less about the honours line, although being able to see what quests I've solved at least myself for bookkeeping wouldn't hurt.

I don't think availability is a good limiting factor in obtaining quest rewards. The reward of a quest should be difficult to obtain by means of the quest itself being hard to solve, not hard to luck out on finding it after it resets.

So, right now, questing is twisting of Rubik's cubes that are made of very thin and fragile glass, and that keep magically reappearing at one place which you have to watch so noone gets to them sooner. Oh, and they magically drop money. So much better.

As for the external effects on the world, those can stay. In fact, those should stay, and instead should replace some personal benefit even more often. Makes a lot more sense to me.

EDIT: I'd personally rather see the multiplayer aspect present in some other form in the quests. Like ones that are only doable by small groups of players, requiring their coordination, or specific abilities of different archetypes / guilds. If quests are to be treated as multiplayer affairs, then it should be done properly, not as an ad-hoc race to who gets there first with each one. "A warrior, a guardian, and a mage walk into a bar" sort of questing would be very fun on both the puzzle-solving and the PvP interaction level to tackle.



Personally, I find the random aspect of the puzzles involved more effective at preventing a step-by-step walkthrough from existing rather than at providing actual replayability. From what I've seen from other people doing the easier ones, the basic principle of the puzzles remains basically the same. So this seems very much like alibism on your side. And even if the specific term "abuse" might be a bit harsh, I find the lack of courtesy of letting other people have a go at a challenge you already went through still rude. And I dare say there are indeed people that do it solely for the rewards involved as opposed to the unique challenge, and I think saying they abuse the system does indeed apply to them.

Alibism? Let's assume you're right. The intricacy of coding a system of unique puzzles each time is solely intended to stop morons setting up an alias. And quests are really only meant to be done once.

There's what, like 12 or so honors quests on prime? Figuring out a quest in which there is no time limit, no interference possible by any other character, and no real tangible effects to consider takes about, say, an hour at most. So you've got 12 hours to enjoy the quests of Lusternia.

Then what? You've 'won'?

Edit: I get that its frustrating. I still wish I could find times when quite a few of the quests aren't being done... but it makes completing them so much more of an achievement. Just, stick with it, and you'll get there eventually.

You're one to talk. Between talking down to the people who bring you this game and actively maintain it, considering yourself superior to them because you're the customer, and more or less saying that the game should center around people such as yourself ("I don't want to learn to deal with it, I want that to stop."), you're coming off as pretty arrogant. No one will take you seriously with such an attitude.

I think you're speaking from inexperience with the appeal of multiplayer games... but perhaps try a different tack.

What sort of quest would be worth the administrative time to develop and code, be used only once by each character, and present a significant and enduring challenge? At the same time encouraging immersion by having at least some sort of transient impact on the virtual world, and allowing for competing interests by characters with different motivations.

The more detailed your proposal, the better.

No, I'm not going to concede that (from the player's sight) randomly resetting timers are a good way to make quests challenging.

If you mean to add interference by other characters as a challenge elements, there are far better ways of doing so than making it a time race.

And yes, I believe that 12 hours of solving puzzles is vastly superior in enjoyability than 720 hours of cursing quests, timers, and quest hogs, and doing basically the same labor over and over and over again any day of the week.

I'd like something to be present as a change of pace in the game when there's nothing interesting happening RP-wise, and when I get sick and tired of mechanical numberchasing.



These arguments ad hominem are completely not relevant to the discussion at all, that's what I'm trying to point out. I don't want anyone to go on and claim his gameplay style is special and therefore requires things to stay as it is.

I proposed a change. Don't like it? Well poo, can't win 'em all. If you can actually prove it's a bad idea that shouldn't really be implemented and my set of proposed policy changes is completely faulty, well then go ahead and pose arguments against it. But keep from posing yourself as someone who would be hurt by the change unless you really would, and me as an arrogant idiot for the sake of flaming at me.

why not just have instanced quests for all village and maybe tosha and a few others, honour lines quests?

so everyone can do it, and its different for each person at any given time

I buy credits too, on another character of mine, I guess that makes me a paying customer too. I've been playing Lusternia since the start of open beta, in various positions in every guild, and each city and commune, and guess what! That doesn't mean I have a right to demand things from the already overworked and unpaid (or in two cases, probably underpaid ) coders who give up so much of their time so we can enjoy a game.

It is YOUR decision to buy credits, knowing that they could be lost by you changing guilds, by buying artifacts and then trading them in, by selling them for gold (OMGWTFBBQ shock horror!). Yes, you play and you even donate some of your money to the company, but in the end, you're one in a fairly large group. If you decide to stop spending your money on Lusternia, the mud isn't going to crash and burn. The rest of us will still be happy to waste our money on something we enjoy (and we'll enjoy it even more if those who can't appreciate that others like to enjoy the game too, and believe that everything shouldn't be handed to you on a plate leave).

Elitist? I'm not elitist. I love this game, I've been playing it for around 16 months now, and I'm defensive when people want to ruin things that others enjoy.

If you're so desperate to do the damn quest, become a certain annoying Celestian who sits around and hoards quest items until nobody else can do it.

Though I must admit, certain quest items repopping just as you're about to use them is -really- annoying.