Missions: More than Fame

[sehracii]

Currently as it stands, I see only two reasons to do missions: Fame and rites.

While those are nice, it seems there could be a whole lot more to it. Perhaps some of what I'm saying has been suggested before, but not any time recently, and I felt like making a new thread

It would be nice if doing missions had an effect on the game world. I'll take killing carnivores for instance. I know around Yrkanis, everyone and their brother kills dogs for fame. You'd think with a lot of people doing that, the gingo and ragus population would decline. And it should! On the other hand, if no one was doing those missions, the population should increase, and make it more dangerous in the area. A lot of newbies have trouble leaving Yrk because 10 feet down the road you're being swarmed, but doing the missions should help that.
(actually it already does, the dogs are killed so frequently it's actually been numerous occasions I've walked through there with not a dog anywhere, because they're being killed faster then they spawn, but that's a diffrerent situation altogether...)

Also, there are the kill bandit missions. If these missions are left unchecked, the bandit camps could grow in size, making them more of a threat. It would even be nice if if it was allowed to grow too big, they'd send out small scout parties to attack and pillage any homin they came across. But if the missions are completed in earnest, the camp size dwindles.

There are missions that ask you to collect food for friendly tribes. If that isn't done, the tribe population dwindles, pretty simple. And they're less likely to be able to kill aggro on you if you run there for help. But if they are provided with food, the tribe size increases and they can kill things you drag there even faster. (could also counterract your opposing religious faction, if they like to kill that tribe for fame. Build up their defenses insanely and watch some player have a big surprise)

For all of these, it would be necessary to have minumums and maximums so regions weren't totally devoid of a mob or tribe or overflowing with them either. Also, it's probably true that low level zones will have the missions done much more frequently, so the changes there would need to be more gradual. Zones which are mostly player empty though could have large effects from just doing the mission once, if a team is brave enough to go out there and face the dangers.
Besides, if players knew killing carnivore missions would decrease the population in their favorite harvesting area, they'd be more likely to do it.

There are also other mission types which I haven't thought of gameworld effect of yet:
-Craft equipment for the tribe (make the guards stronger? or maybe just adjust their population some more)
-Harvest random items to the tribe: dry straw, flower petals, firefly abdomen? I don't even remember what all that is for.

Also, there should be slightly different effects from doing missions directly for Kami and Karavan. But I'm not sure what, hehe.

What ideas do you have to offer to fill in the holes?

[aylwyne]

I love these ideas!

It's a great way to satisfy a couple of things I've been hoping for at once. 1) More meaningful quest system. 2) A way to affect the game.

You could even have the missions be somewhat interrelated similar to the missions were in the invasion event way back when. Like once some of the harvest missions were finished, some of the crafting missions would become available. After the goods were crafted, a delivery mission could become available to take the goods out to the tribe.

One thing I'd like to see in any such system is a way to get a general status at any time. Like when you talked to one of the main NPCs in town, they could let you know about the trouble spots in the land. They could say things like, "The Silt Sculptors had a rough winter and are having trouble mounting a defense against the cutes". That'd give you a clue to go seek out missions to help the Silt Sculptors.

[sehracii]

One thing I'd like to see in any such system is a way to get a general status at any time. Like when you talked to one of the main NPCs in town, they could let you know about the trouble spots in the land. They could say things like, "The Silt Sculptors had a rough winter and are having trouble mounting a defense against the cutes". That'd give you a clue to go seek out missions to help the Silt Sculptors.

That's excellent. It would definitely help with the balancing issues so the min and max thing I mentioned wouldn't need to do all the work.

As well as towns NPC's, Kami and Karavan agents scatterd around the land would be good for that.

[sehracii]

Also, I don't see the point of the special "Mission Materials"

You could maybe reserve them for very special quests, but I think the average "harvest 6 of these" missions should be for normal crafting materials.

Maybe if people knew where the stuff was they would actually do the missions. I know you can find the locations on some web sites, but it's an unnecessary hassle. What's wrong with making it collect 12 fiber?

[marct]

Maybe if people knew where the stuff was they would actually do the missions. I know you can find the locations on some web sites, but it's an unnecessary hassle. What's wrong with making it collect 12 fiber?

I must say I agree with this. I had posted back ages ago about missions noting many of the same things you have. On this particular item why not give some Idea of where to find the source that is up at the moment of that source, or make them multi step.

For Example: Visit a camp and get a collect some dry wood (they are construction materials and I think you may find more use for them soon) Why not send me to a Prospector and give me an idea where they are. Go talk to our prospector, You can find her south of blah blah blah landmark. You ge there and that person tells you what to go get and where. Maybe they show you where and you have to keep them safe on the way there. Once you get there they return to God mode. They tell you what to dig, and then who to take it to and where to find them. You return the goods and are rewarded. And along the lines you mentioned before, Maybe I see an extra wood fence go up where one was missing to keep the aggro out.

i could design 100's of these multi step missions that give meaning to these tasks, and the many things that are untapped in the game today. We need missions that lead you into the story, that rewward you for different things, etc. It would be really cool if I could design missions in-game and give rewards. I have mentioned this before. Maybe I need some wood or sap. Why not design a mission and reward people for doing it. Or reward a noob that could kill Ora and bring her eyes 30 of them to the NPC with an Amp? and I get the eyes they returned.


Noin.

P.S. That new job keeping you busy huh?

[thurgond]

Giving general directions to the location of mission mats is a great idea. Several rites give decent directions to mats and npc's.

Balancing the mob population based on how many missions were done would be a nightmare to code and could be a nightmare for players. For example, higher level players no longer take the kill 4 ragus and 4 gingo missions in Majestic Garden because of diminishing returns (the higher your fame gets, the less those 0-50 level missions give you). Pretty soon the gingos outside of Yrk are lining up to get at the next newbee to leave the gates. (Perhaps a bad example, they do this anyway).

Missions related to events are a good thing, e.g. every tribe wants armor and weapons to deal with a kittin invasion, tribes that don't get a minimum end up refugees camped outside a capital. Or tribes start asking for massive quanties of spicy aromatic plant because they want to participate in the All Atys Chili Cookoff in Pyr. The tribe that gets the most deliveries wins, and the guild that supplied that tribe with the most gets a nice global fame bump.

A much higher feature on my list is actually making fame more meaningful. At a minimum make kami/karavan fame affect TP ticket prices. Taking outpost missions should also require a minimum guild fame.

Now, fetch me 3 long beers and 4 short beers, but be quick about it because it's very urgent.

[vinnyq]

I am all for sehracii's suggestion too. I think it has been suggested before, by Raynes and a few others, but I really do want to voice that this is something definitely wanted, from a lot of players.

I hope the devs read this thread and take it into consideration.

This is not just something we wanted, this is something that will make us so happey that we'll run out on the street and grab as much random people as we can to tell them about it and shouting it from on top of a high tower

I have also suggested before that doing the delivery x supplies to npcs missions will allow the merchants in that region to provide better raw materials for crafting, and/or lower the cost of the materials base on how much "materials" they have in stocks.

e.g. the more deliver missions that were accomplished, the cheaper the npc raw materials. But the price slowly goes back up after a while as the "supply" dwindles down.

[Lukati]

Maybe we should come up with a list of what we'd like the devs to work on next. It was pretty clear that we wanted them to kill the bugs and get the outposts functional first, but after chapter III, what's in store for the game?

I say, seeing as everyone agrees that missions and fame need more depth/meaing/whatever, that the devs start re-working the missions and the fame system. Rites are a great place to start, and I'm sure the rites in the future are going to be worth doing, but basic missions and the fame system need a little fine-tuning. If the makers of the game want the players to be able to affect the game like they planned for us to, then giving everyone that basic power lies within missions and fame.

[mmatto]

Best suggestions in this thread for some time that I can remember!

[samwise1]

On the codeing side of things how difficult do you think it would be to say for example 10 ragus missions done in certan area= spawn time +2 miin. it wouldent even need to be a local thing, if sufficently large amounts of ragus missions could be done you could just do it as a global spawn change over that region. include the min max or even a sliding scale like DP ie: the number of missions required to rase it by to min could go 10 for first 2min 50 for second set of 2min 250 for 3rd ect. this would require some balencing which i think would be the hardest part.
This feature that makes the world realy interactive could add so much depth to more than just the missions. for example would a guild like their outpost zone totaly covered in agro? probably not. so they would look for missions to reduce this problem, or even be able to issue missions to people to help with this problem
introducing fame with guilds which could get you better prices or even allow you benifit from some of the outposts specal abilitys. should another guild get high enough fame with another guild an offical allience could be formed? what benifits this has over non offical ingame ones im not sure. but the implications just go on and on.

secondly do you think some form of partisan about especaly wanted features would work for us, maybe if some real thaught was put into them too? would this further our cause