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Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

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Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#51

Post by Dalewyn »

TriangleCoconut wrote: post #28
Dalewyn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized this rather spectacularly with MMORPGs. I've long been a fan of open world MMOs with basically next to no mandatory quests. Think Runescape, Ragnarok Online, MapleStory, etc. Loved them, and Ragnarok Online is to this day still among my top favorite games of all time. One day, Guild Wars 2 dropped to great hype and fanfare and I bought it to try it out. Good fucking god damn hell in a shit basket, I fuckin…

OOT: You've just described my exact most memorable gaming experiences over the last two or so decades. I've been struggling to find something I liked enough of late. Would you mind sharing what you're into these days?

Japanese mobile games, namely Fate/Grand Order and Princess Connect! Re:Dive. Playing on the Japanese home servers, mind, since I speak Japanese.

(RIP English Priconne, Crunchyroll is bad civilization.)

I don't have the kind of time or energy to devote to grinding anymore like I used to in RO and the like, but I'm always a sucker for good writing which FGO and Priconne give me in spades.

And before anyone mentions it: Yeah yeah, they're gacha games. Gambling. I don't care. Japanese gachas are generally good, and I'm getting my money's worth when I whale. :V

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#52

Post by theshrike79 »

noobermin wrote: post #11

I initially closed the tab in disgust but reopened it to hate read it further to even more completely confirm my own disgust. This is why modern "gaming" which is closer today to flashy fantasy oriented story telling (where you press (x) to advance the story) just doesn't appeal to me. I have nothing wrong with movies or RPGs of the old sort where it's just one drawn out story, but I usually expected most of a "game"…

People like different things.

I unashamedly play all games at the lowest difficulty setting and will look at guides online if I get stuck for more than 60 seconds on a puzzle.

I'm there to experience the story, not hone my skills at dodging bullets or doing 720 noscope headshots or getting microsecond jump timings correct.

Some people enjoy those things, I don't.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#53

Post by theshrike79 »

tormeh wrote: post #36
uejfiweun wrote: post #2

To tell you the truth, playing these games taught me that I really don't care for quest-dependent games. I feel like CDPR games have no way to interact with their pretty worlds outside of the heavily scripted quests. You can generally just go anywhere you want, take anything, even loot the entire office of the captain of the army, and nobody even reacts. Contrast this to Bethesda games, where the entire game is an el…

Calling Bethesda games "simulation" is a bizarre exaggeration. You mean the games where NPCs will let you rob them if only you place a bucket on their heads? That's a no from me. I don't think any games I've ever played did world-scale simulation well. I've heard good things about Dwarf Fortress, though. I'd rather have tightly constrained but well executed experience than an unconstrained experience where everything…

DF simulation goes to crazy degrees of detail, that's the fun part in it.

Even for combat where two ASCII characters are fighting they have actual physiology in play calculating hit locations and the effects of different weapons on different parts of the body and even internal organs.

All for a line of text in a combat log most people won't read.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#54

Post by uejfiweun »

tormeh wrote: post #36
uejfiweun wrote: post #2

To tell you the truth, playing these games taught me that I really don't care for quest-dependent games. I feel like CDPR games have no way to interact with their pretty worlds outside of the heavily scripted quests. You can generally just go anywhere you want, take anything, even loot the entire office of the captain of the army, and nobody even reacts. Contrast this to Bethesda games, where the entire game is an el…

Calling Bethesda games "simulation" is a bizarre exaggeration. You mean the games where NPCs will let you rob them if only you place a bucket on their heads? That's a no from me. I don't think any games I've ever played did world-scale simulation well. I've heard good things about Dwarf Fortress, though. I'd rather have tightly constrained but well executed experience than an unconstrained experience where everything…

Wow, I clearly have a different view on games than you (nothing wrong with that of course). To be honest, I thought the bucket head on NPC thing was a fantastic example of how you can interact with the systems of that world in creative ways.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#55

Post by prohobo »

sbierwagen wrote: post #9
prohobo wrote: post #4

The hell is he talking about? Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are way past the golden age of gaming. They have nothing worthwhile to contribute here. It's reminiscent of mobile game designers from the 2010's, and how they were making "engaging" games. Lots of presentations about making engaging experiences that immerse players into the lore of the game world. Actually, just mediocre manipulation tactics pushing people i…

I'm not sure what you're responding to? The phrase "golden age" does not occur anywhere in the submission. This is a summary of a presentation by CD Projekt employee talking about the two games he's worked on, so naturally it's focused on those two games.

The golden age was when most modern game design principles and techniques were established, between 1993-2005 (roughly).

My criticism is that this presentation by CD Projekt is not helpful but harmful to indie developers. It's clear in the presentation that their mindset is similar to the mobile game era of manipulation and control of the player. Ostensibly in this case to "make them want to continue".

Engagement is skinner box jargon used by companies like Zynga and has nothing to do with making a good game.

Because the presentation promotes this mindset and because it's about two games that mostly were made possible by golden age game design, and not their own innovations, I don't believe they have anything meaningful to contribute on this topic.

The quest design in Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk is neither innovative, nor very fun. It may be effective in the manipulative sense, but that doesn't contribute to the artistry of making games fun.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#56

Post by prohobo »

hayst4ck wrote: post #17
noobermin wrote: post #11

I initially closed the tab in disgust but reopened it to hate read it further to even more completely confirm my own disgust. This is why modern "gaming" which is closer today to flashy fantasy oriented story telling (where you press (x) to advance the story) just doesn't appeal to me. I have nothing wrong with movies or RPGs of the old sort where it's just one drawn out story, but I usually expected most of a "game"…

Are slot machines fun? I think it's pretty clear the answer is yes. Diablo 2 is a glorified slot machine, most RPG mechanics are slot machine-y. Play the slot machine while you upgrade the slot machine (via gear) which reduces your chance of losing is a clearly popular gaming category that is able to gather entire conventions of fans. Is there strategy? Kinda, I guess, but not at a core mechanic level. There is a spe…

That's a very postmodern take on the art of gaming. So, supposedly slot machines are on par with chess?

"Just dopamine manipulation" and "glorified slot machine" are overly deconstructive and cynical beliefs, to the point where I doubt having this mindset could ever lead to creating a good game like Diablo 2. You could deconstruct all of human behaviour to dopamine spikes, but that kind of thinking usually leads to a race to the bottom; like what you're not necessarily defending but excusing.

Most of the games we love were at the very least heavily influenced by game design developed by naive artists and programmers who wanted to "make something cool".

Doom is the perfect example, in terms of both game design and tech. id Software wanted to blow everyone out of the water with that game, and so they focused on making it as fun and impressive as possible. There was no mentality of skinner boxes there, just inspired ambition and love of play.

Yes, almost all games are made to make money. That doesn't preclude artistic ambition, and good games are primarily about making something fun.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#57

Post by spoiler »

Dalewyn wrote: post #42
bigger_cheese wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who likes Guild Wars 2 the game makes the distinction between quests (i.e. the Story) and Events which are constantly occurring in the world. As you wander through zones in the world dynamic events will spawn for example you might run into a merchant in need of an escort between villages or you'll run across a farmer who needs you to defend his flock or whatever. Many events are simply on a timer and some…

The thing is I couldn't just go from zone to zone: I was inundated with quests everywhere I went . I couldn't ignore them, they were in my face every chance they got. It's kind of like trying to use the internet today without an adblocker. Much like how the internet spams ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS in my face every chance they get, Guild Wars 2 spammed QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS in…

As someone who played RO for years...

The similarities are exactly why I enjoyed GW2... Are you talking about the hearts or the events? The Achievements? The main difference is that the world the player experiences is more "coherent" in GW2 because of the Elder Dragon threat and their involvement in it (ie their hero's journey).

Also, what are "quests" to you?

There's so freeform stuff you can do in the game. Most of the Hearts you can complete without ever really caring about them. It's just a nice little exp bonus. Events? People can just not do them. Go to a different area (as in, hold W for 10 seconds, or use a waypoint?).

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#58

Post by gambiting »

Aeolun wrote: post #29
gambiting wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree, cyberpunk had a fantastic story, compared to the witcher 3 that I've tried to finish about 4 separate times and failed every time - the side quests are fantastic, the main quest is just unbelievably dragged out and boring. Everyone mentions the blood baron quest - and yes, it was great, outstanding even. I've never seen anyone mention anything after that point - it's just a mess of narrative that gets…

> memorable side stories I struggle to remember any aside from the cowboy detective (because he was so unimaginably annoying) and the magic taxi. Magix taxi was fun, but the ending was fairly unsatisfying.

I've played the game a year ago and I still remember:

- the story where a guy agrees to be crucified on live TV

- the whole detective sidequest - it's a shame you only remember him being annoying, the entire story about family, about finding your relative, about solving a horrendous crime mystery - absolute masterpiece.

- the whole Panam sidequest - she grew from someone I didn't care about to being a close companion. And the quest where her and the rest of the aldecaldos go to steal the neural-link driven tank is just epic. Also her relationship with the aldecaldos.

- whole Judy storyline, where she comes to gripes with the death of her close friend and how the system doesn't care about any of them. The moment when you sit with her at the edge of a poisoned lake and talk about life will always be in my memory.

- the side quest with destroying the prostitution gang owners so that the women could basically get revenge and run it themselves - 10/10 for some moral choices.

- the entire Rogue + Johnny content that wasn't necessary for the main mission. Damn that character goes through a redemption arc like no other.

- the AI taxi quest was actually stupid and it felt like an excuse to make some out of universe jokes(with one taxi being voiced by Glados from Portal if I remember correctly). But I mean....meh. The final choice was cool.

All of the above adds to the fact that at the end of the game you actually care about the characters that surround you and you want to see them there with you. I've gone back and played through every possible ending(other than the secret one because it's so bloody hard) just to see what happens. And in the endings where you don't contact Pam or Judy...man it's actually heartbreaking. Like it makes you feel like shit. None of this would happen if their sidequests weren't actually good.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#59

Post by Dalewyn »

spoiler wrote: post #57
Dalewyn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is I couldn't just go from zone to zone: I was inundated with quests everywhere I went . I couldn't ignore them, they were in my face every chance they got. It's kind of like trying to use the internet today without an adblocker. Much like how the internet spams ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS ADVERTS in my face every chance they get, Guild Wars 2 spammed QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS QUESTS in…

As someone who played RO for years... The similarities are exactly why I enjoyed GW2... Are you talking about the hearts or the events? The Achievements? The main difference is that the world the player experiences is more "coherent" in GW2 because of the Elder Dragon threat and their involvement in it (ie their hero's journey). Also, what are "quests" to you? There's so freeform stuff you can do in the game. Most of…

>Are you talking about the hearts or the events? The Achievements? The main difference is that the world the player experiences is more "coherent" in GW2 because of the Elder Dragon threat and their involvement in it (ie their hero's journey).

I didn't even get that far because I was inundated to my armpits with QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE QUEST IS AVAILABLE with literally any action I took. It was nauseating and quickly drove me mad.

What makes me wonder to this day is if I had a different client from everyone else, because quite literally noone I ever talk to about this seems to be able to relate (case in point).

>Also, what are "quests" to you?

The kind you would find in RO, Runescape, Skyrim, and so on. Scripted things to do, but not particularly conspicuous and in the way if I'm not interested in pursuing them.

Re: Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3

#60

Post by fauxpause_ »

mecha_ghidorah wrote: post #49
fauxpause_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah count me as someone who thought Elden Ring’s quests sucked hard. It’s only up to you to miss 80% of the game in the sense that you absolutely will miss 80% of the game unless you look it up on a wiki. And then when you do them it has basically no impact on anything. Like… you could have been able to do something really light touch like ask the merchants if they’ve heard any rumors on where characters are.

> It’s only up to you to miss 80% of the game in the sense that you absolutely will miss 80% of the game unless you look it up on a wiki. And then when you do them it has basically no impact on anything. ....What? I mean you might miss the quest lines but this isn't Skyrim. The questlines are a teeny tiny portion of the content in a From Soft game. The quest lines are fun little bits of interactivity and current plot…

That’s true. I just meant the quests and borrowed language from the parent.
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