Key takeaways from the quest design of Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by fauxpause_ » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:33 PM UTC

Trasmatta wrote: post #45

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.

I think From needs to evolve their approach to quest design (it hasn't really changed since Demon's Souls), but it's also an intentional design choice that much of the content of their games is easily missable.

It was, however, MUCH worse in Elden ring because the environments were so big and often so empty. while they were fun to explore once, they tended not have to have anything in them aside from a cool aesthetic.

I think the only quest I managed to naturally find all the plot beats for was Jar Alexander.

Sekiro was their best work. I’ll say this to the end.

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

#62

Post by hirundo » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

snozolli wrote: post #22

I thought the Cyberpunk story was pretty good, but the game mechanics pushed you toward the next quest in the main storyline all the time. This resulted in me burning through the main story quickly, then being presented with "touching" messages from all the characters during the credits. Except I barely knew who any of these characters were, since I'd hardly done any of the side missions where you get to know them. S…

> but the game mechanics pushed you toward the next quest in the main storyline all the time

I didn't feel this pressure, which resulted in the opposite problem. I played all of the side missions before anything else where they were available. By the time I finished those and got back to the mainline, I was all powerful and the story was an unchallenging walkthrough.

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

#63

Post by spoiler » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #59

spoiler wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 AV…

Hmm. To me it seems like you maybe didn't get out of the new character instance. That thing is basically a 20-30 minute (depending on race) racial story instance.

Those tend to have linear progression most of the time, and I think you maybe mistook the instance's progression objectives as quests. Once you get out of that, it's an open world and you can do what you want, though.

I think it's worth giving it another try, it's a great game.

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

#64

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

TillE wrote: post #3

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…

Totally agree. It's the design philosophy of pick from a menu of scripted choices vs interact with a simulated world. I don't think Bethesda has ever quite lived up to that ambition even in the days of Daggerfall and Morrowind, but they have at least tried.

Morrowind was pretty close. Clunky by modern standards, and I remember playing it on Xbox years ago and having no f-ing clue where to go or what to do -- a lot of GameFAQs helped -- but it really made it feel like a real world.

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

#65

Post by Trasmatta » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

fauxpause_ wrote: post #61

Trasmatta wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think From needs to evolve their approach to quest design (it hasn't really changed since Demon's Souls), but it's also an intentional design choice that much of the content of their games is easily missable.

It was, however, MUCH worse in Elden ring because the environments were so big and often so empty. while they were fun to explore once, they tended not have to have anything in them aside from a cool aesthetic. I think the only quest I managed to naturally find all the plot beats for was Jar Alexander. Sekiro was their best work. I’ll say this to the end.

> Sekiro was their best work. I’ll say this to the end.

Agreed, 100%. Sekiro is a masterpiece.

I think they did it a disservice by adding the online messaging system to it post release though. I like the system in Souls, but it just really doesn't belong in Sekiro and ruins the mood.