Questing: I don't get it

[ezrast]

This thread is an attempt to understand the viewpoint of people who enjoy the 1-79 experience of WoW.

First, some background: I'm a young 'un; I've never sunk any serious time into any MMO prior to 2006 (beta'd a couple things, played a very little SWG, but that's all). I played City of Villains to 43 and liked it a lot, only getting bored because I didn't have anyone to play with regularly. Played a little EQ2 about a year ago to 27, mostly liked it but I'm not sure if I would pay for it (it was when they fully activated *all* inactive accounts, including old trials, for two months). Last September, a friend convinced me to pick up WoW. With triple experience, the leveling was fun enough, allowing me to skip anything I didn't feel like doing (while still giving me more than enough time to learn2play, for the "1-79 is a tutorial" folks). As I understand, one of the reasons why WoW was initially so popular was because it allowed you to level to cap entirely on quests. What I don't understand is why people think this is so great. One reason is that people like to read quest text, which I can understand (while wholeheartedly disagreeing with), but I'm sure that's not all of it.

In my view, the only thing the majority of quests add to the game is a whole lot of walking. I would rather spend 20 minutes killing foozles than spend 10 minutes killing foozles and 10 minutes walking to and from the quest giver. Killing things *is* more fun than walking, right? So why does surrounding all your combat encounters with a bunch of forced travel make the game more fun?

I've tried leveling a character without the benefit of a permanent companion (after my friend and I hit 80 we sort of diverged; one of us will PvP while the other levels; one of us will twink while the other raids; dunno why that happened). I can't stand it. If leveling were designed to be done by grinding mobs, I would at least have the freedom to explore, kill things, and move on at my own pace instead of being railroaded into "kill THIS many of THIS mob at THIS place NOW" all the time. If leveling were designed to be done in instances, that would be even better because adding other players always makes the experience more interesting. But as it is the entire process is so fucking cold and mechanical that I honestly have to wonder how any human can go through it, especially more than once, without their soul getting flensed away piece by piece.

This may come across as trolling and I know I am probably playing the wrong game, but honestly I'm just curious to see if anyone can provide some insight as to what I'm missing that the other 12 million of you aren't.

[Ashamanchill]

You are absolutely right.  It was fun the first time through, the following two not so much.  But beware what you wish for, there are games out there (WAR), where quests cannot get you to the max level, and grinding mobs or pvp is required, and they don't quite hold up to the 'kill ten boars for me plz' model. 

[Koyasha]

The reason most people like quests overall is that it wraps the killing into bite-sized chunks, so rather than sit here and camp these mobs for three or four hours, you kill things in bite-sized chunks and get big exp rewards when you turn in the quests.  Frankly, there's not much difference between doing quests and getting bonus exp every 20th kill.  Other people just play these games because everyone else is playing them now.  For some reason "grinding" mobs is bad but questing is good, in the minds of most people.

I have to note that many (most?) of the people who prefer the quest model actually don't want to read the quests, they go out of their way to avoid the quests, doing things like downloading mods that show you where to go and what to kill without having to even read the quest text that tells you exactly what to do.

Ironically, as one of the people that does read quest text, I in some ways agree that quests - at least typical quests in the post-WoW era - are boring and reduce your freedom to go forth and kill whatever you want.  You, it sounds like, would have liked EverQuest, (perhaps you still would) which (ironically, despite the name) wasn't quest-focused.  You advance by going forth and killing whatever is of the appropriate level, wherever in the world you can find appropriately-leveled things, and leveling is also done through dungeons (cause really, they're just another place you go to kill appropriately-leveled things, but they usually require a better group and drop some decent loot too).

It's also partly related to the fact that left to their own devices, people tended to find the easiest mobs that gave the best exp, maximizing their exp/hour ratio.  This is logical if your purpose is advancement, which it is in these games, but it tends to lead to the most boring killing.  Quests were sort of introduced as a way to get people away from the cycle of killing the most efficient mobs to level on, to the exclusion of all else.

[Oban]

Having played EQ and FFXI, I strongly prefer the WoW model of questing to level rather than grinding on camped spawn points. 

Yes, I am one of those awful people that uses questhelper and its ilk though.

I used to love running instances over and over, but now that instance xp has been nerfed so much it really does not make sense to enter an instance until level 80.

[Merusk]

Because grinding mobs is ENTIRELY brainless.  Even if getting that bonus xp that Koyasha mentioned you're still sitting in one spot endlessly killing the same 3-4 spawns until your bar fills up. It sucked in EQ but I did it because that's the only game that was out there.  You also never wanted to leave once you had a good spawn location or a good group because if you did, you were guaranteed that it would be camped when you got back online - because it was a good spot - and you would be waiting on lists or solo grinding much inferior spots for hours.  It sucked.

There was also no reason beyond advancement for the killing.  You had nests of driders, roaming giants, camps of lizzardmen and skeletons and all the other fantasy bits in EQ but never a reason to kill them beyond, "It's experience" or "it attacked me first."  There was no narrative beyond one you made up to soothe your own mental frustration at endlessly grinding on these packets of XP in different wrappers.

In WOW I read all the quests and I enjoy even the stupid ones.  It's a little narrative that gives me a task list.  I like 'to do' lists and crossing things off of them, it's a mindset.   On top of that all these different tasks and quest lists give me another meta game, optimizing my task path.  I dislike mods like Quest Helper for the crap of "Go here now, do this now."  I used it only to be sure I was killing the RIGHT mobs (something WoW needed to improve on.) and now that the main UI tells you that information I don' need QH at all.  If I really can't find a mob, or the quest text is stupidly ambiguous I just tab to WoWhead.

It also means that things can happen at my own pace.  I don't feel obligated to sit on an hour or two or three more than I should have because, "Damn this group is great and I've gotten more xp than I did in the last week solo. If I leave now I'm going to be fucking myself over.. I can eat dinner/ do those errands/ clean the house later."   I can stop after doing a few quest kills/ collections and head off and not worry about things.  That stuff will still be there, as accessible as it is right now, in a few hours or days.

You sound like your sole reason for killing is to hit the cap, and you never experienced the alternative. Yeah, you're going to hate questing because it's all you know and it feels like it's holding you back.  Play FFXI for a while or even oldschool EQ like Koyasha mentioned. It's got exactly what you said you'd rather do, so give it a shot and see how much you really like it.

[Malakili]

  It's a little narrative that gives me a task list. 

This.  Even when I've done a zone multiple times, the little stories are still somewhat nice to follow, and are a distraction from the fact that I'm essentially doing the same thing over and over.  Now, questing is the end-all.  I've had plenty of fun in games without quests as their main model for content, but I think WoW does it fairly well.

[ezrast]

You sound like your sole reason for killing is to hit the cap, and you never experienced the alternative. Yeah, you're going to hate questing because it's all you know and it feels like it's holding you back.  Play FFXI for a while or even oldschool EQ like Koyasha mentioned. It's got exactly what you said you'd rather do, so give it a shot and see how much you really like it.

Hmm. This does seem like the obvious logical conclusion, but for some reason it never occurred to me to seriously consider subbing to FFXI because, well, who subs to FFXI any more? But after this and this I guess I could do it and be comparatively normal slightly less creepy!

edit: linking is hard

[Musashi]

I think they're just telling you to do it so you see why it's so retarded.

Questing allows you to solo your way to the end game with little dings and grats in the form of quest xp and rewards.  That's pretty much it.

[ezrast]

I think they're just telling you to do it so you see why it's so retarded.

Well yeah, I get that, but an education is an education, right? I mean, I asked the question.

Still, I can't help but wonder if people are confusing "questing was a great improvement" with "leveling faster was a great improvement" since, from what I've picked up around here, even at launch WoW let you level quite a bit more quickly than other games. Like I said, at three times the normal rate I found leveling positively tolerable!

Then again, I never even hit cap in Shadowbane, and hell if that wasn't grindy, open, and ridiculously quick to level. That had its own entire set of issues though. Maybe I should goof around in there one last time before it dies. For educational purposes.

[Xanthippe]

I enjoy the storylines.

It gives me a to-do list.

It can be a guide of sorts, as to what level mobs are appropriate for me to hunt.

The little dings along the way motivate me.

I especially enjoy quest series such as the draenei one that leads to a final quest where the villagers celebrate and dance because I was the hero.  That line was awesome.

Suggestion:  why don't you try grinding for a few levels and see how much you enjoy it?  Or grind 1-80?  To me, that's tedious.

I play for the stories, pretty much.  Take the questing out, and wow combat just isn't compelling enough for me to do.

[Koyasha]

I have to note that while I like the stories, they feel much much more bland in WoW and other quest-dispenser games than they did in EQ, cause they're fed through these quests instead of through the world in general.  More people see it now, but frankly I enjoyed lore back in EQ much more, especially in Kunark, Velious, and Luclin - especially Luclin, which despite being screwed up because of the SOE changes/departure of a significant amount of the EQLive team and so on, is probably the most interesting lore setting I can think of in MMOG's.  Hell, the screwed up broken/disjointedness of it may have been an upside, making it more interesting to dig out the knowledge, than it would otherwise have been.

Plus, in EQ, the few quests you did felt important, probably because there were few of them.  Felt less like you were running errands for every two-bit moron that needed some random animals killed.

That's not to say that I don't like the to-do list concept at times as well.  Quest-dispenser games like WoW have a lot of advantages also, and I'm not sure I'd want to throw those all away and return to the early ages of EQ.  But sometimes, the quest dispenser thing does feel like being constrained and railroaded, and I wonder if there's not some better way than either of these paths I've been on.

[WindupAtheist]

I mix some grinding in with my questing. Sometimes you just plain want to go to the necropolis and kick the shit out of undead legions, even if you're "supposed" to be enjoying the "story" of some retarded walrus-guy who needs twenty moose pelts.

[ezrast]

Suggestion:  why don't you try grinding for a few levels and see how much you enjoy it?  Or grind 1-80?  To me, that's tedious.

Hey, I might try that and see where it gets me. The difference (I imagine) between that and picking up FFXI or somesuch, though, is that in WoW groups are nigh-impossible to find when you're leveling. And really, I play MMOs to play with people; I seriously think I wouldn't mind running progressively harder versions of RFC over and over again all the way to 80 if I had a regular group or a reliable source of PUGs. So the other beef I have with questing is that it encourages people to play by themselves instead of with me - WoW is the least conducive to grouping MMO I've played.

[Hindenburg]

in WoW groups are nigh-impossible to find when you're leveling

That'd be because solo quest grinding gives better xp and offers less risk. The effects of a solo friendly game. The alternative, as presented by FFXI and others, isn't as popular.

[Koyasha]

You definitely do sound like someone who should give FFXI or EQ1 a try.  Although back when I played, groups that were fun to be in were hard to find in FFXI due to the forced combination of japanese and english servers - a lot of groups didn't understand each other well enough to converse, so you got a lot of sitting around killing shit for four hours without anyone saying anything other than necessary tactical information.

[pxib]

That'd be because solo quest grinding gives better xp and offers less risk.

After about level 14 and before the addition of the hub at Dustwallow for the late 30's, and then until you reach a few of the great spots in the Outlands... solo grinding of yellows offers a much better experience/time than questing and has virtually zero risk.

It's dull as paste, but the numbers don't lie. Questing is nice because it gives you more satisfying *ding* than "yay, i just completed another bubble"

[DraconianOne]

That'd be because solo quest grinding gives better xp and offers less risk.

After about level 14 and before the addition of the hub at Dustwallow for the late 30's, and then until you reach a few of the great spots in the Outlands... solo grinding of yellows offers a much better experience/time than questing and has virtually zero risk.

It's dull as paste, but the numbers don't lie. Questing is nice because it gives you more satisfying *ding* than "yay, i just completed another bubble"

Please to be posting the numbers then because I disconcur.

[Merusk]

Depends on Horde vs Alliance.  Horde it's definitely the case at some points, and even the old Horde leveling guides said things like, "Go grind out a level and a half to two levels, because everything else that you can do at this point takes too damn long for too little xp."  There were also a few points in Jaime's that I seem to remember it saying you were only advised to do certain quests for gear or recipes rather than the xp returns because it was a pain in the ass to do them.

I think they're just telling you to do it so you see why it's so retarded.

Questing allows you to solo your way to the end game with little dings and grats in the form of quest xp and rewards.  That's pretty much it.

No, I said it because it sounded like it's what he really wants to do.  Those are the only two games I can think of that offer it at this date.  Even Vanguard went the questy route because people enjoyed it more.

[Paelos]

I didn't get to max level in DAOC the first go-round because I gave up in the high 30s grind. It was just too ridiculously boring. However, I reached max level in WoW in about a month, and subsequently get to max level in all the expansions in roughly 2 weeks. The model appeals to me much more than mindless grinding crap.

[Lantyssa]

Mainly I like quests for the story and to break up the monotony.  I can always go kill something or explore.  Sometimes it's nice to have a reason to do those things.  (For me, this is something Free Realms almost did too well.  There is always something to do.  It gets so distracting that I may never end up getting to my original goal.)

It doesn't help that I did my grinding in the MUD days.  I killed more foozles in those years than is possible to count.  It ground the grind right out of me.  It's fun to go on a rampage, but as a style of play I can't do it anymore.

[Ratman_tf]

After grinding games like DAOC and AO, I was so happy with WoW's quest system. Little stories and reasons to go harvest mobs instead of just... standing... there harvesting crabs and beetles.

Now, after doing it twice (once to 60 on Alliance, and once to 80 on Horde) I'm totally burned out on questing. Wrath was one big questgrind to get back to raiding for me, and I begrudged every point of XP along the way.

[Xanthippe]

That'd be because solo quest grinding gives better xp and offers less risk.

After about level 14 and before the addition of the hub at Dustwallow for the late 30's, and then until you reach a few of the great spots in the Outlands... solo grinding of yellows offers a much better experience/time than questing and has virtually zero risk.

It's dull as paste, but the numbers don't lie. Questing is nice because it gives you more satisfying *ding* than "yay, i just completed another bubble"

Are you basing this on current information?  Because in my experience questing is far faster xp than grinding, and has been for quite a while now.  It was reworked at some point but I forget when.  Questing is much faster than grinding.

[Xanthippe]

There were also a few points in Jaime's that I seem to remember it saying you were only advised to do certain quests for gear or recipes rather than the xp returns because it was a pain in the ass to do them.

James' old guide is out of date for new quest rewards.  If you follow it, you'll outlevel it very quickly, and end up skipping sections.  The new version has no grinding at all.

These changes went in when the world elite mobs were made non-elite, whenever that was.

[pxib]

Ah, I haven't played the game in... actually I don't remember the last time I played. I'm just going from memory. I hadn't realized the increases in quest XP were that substantial.

[ezrast]

It probably depends a lot on class and spec, as well. I could see where mass grinding might work well for plate wearers but I always play squishies, where I kill things one at a time and then run out of mana. It's definitely slower.

[Sutro]

Maybe it's a little glory days -ish, but I can somewhat agree that the Golden Age of Questing we find ourselves in has some things left to be desired.

More and more people I talk to reminisce about EQ. There were certainly cock-stabbing grinds, but there's a significant portion of people who miss the public dungeon feel of going into a zone, not being harnessed by quests, and sitting down and bullshitting for a while. There was something very "massive" about being able to go to Sol B and interacting with people. Not necessarily -cooperating-, but having dialogue.

Something I notice about newer MMOs is that you can virtually play them as a solo game. I don't really care for that, and I think it's taking the medium in the wrong direction. The paradigm of questing, where you are basically in a lot of "mini-levels" gated by the quests you're on, really takes away a lot of the accessibility of groups. Not to mention that a great deal of quests actually penalize you for grouping - reference the hundreds of WoW quests that require quest drops.

Some have tried to recreate it, a'la LOTRO and Sarnur/etc., but there's still something very lacking in there. Sarnur, for example, has very little personality in its content. The zone looks great, but it's all the same critters and no real context for them being there. There's a few 'rare spawns' that can sort of be camped, but the shards aren't really worth the time in many cases. (all that said, I did several grinds in Sarnur and enjoyed it!)

Let's compare that to Guk. Guk had a zillion different mobs, of differing levels, names and archetypes. There were scryers where you would expect scryers, there were mages where you would expect mages. It didn't have the soaring architecture that's so very common to new MMO dungeon design, but that, IMO, was actually a good thing - it kept things packed in, with social 'roads' with 'people pitstops'. I know that's weird heighty-flighty language, but it's true. As you progressed through the zone, some things made sense even if there wasn't a quest-giver who told it all to you. And as you levelled, you found more and more people to pick their minds and ask advice, join up with, etc. It wasn't just advancement for dings, it was also advancement for being able to be part of a larger social group (in the space of three or four levels!). Guk was unique insofar as it kind of 'leveled with you', which hasn't really been repeated yet.

Now, the only 'people pitstop', so to speak, is usually built around raiding and progressing through gear tiers - you level so fast, and the worlds are so large, and the power/capability differentials between levels so great that you have to do it virtually on your own for four to five months before you can have that experience. And when you get there... Raiding's cool, but it's not for everyone and there's a lot of things endemic to it that can make it inaccessible to a lot of people.

Anyway, the previous tl;dr is meant to say, "I feel ya." I don't see why games can't really support both modes of advancement, though.

[Ratman_tf]

Bring back precasting!

[Selby]

Until patch 2.3, leveling in WoW still had dry spells where you were out of yellow and green quests and only had reds and oranges that soloing was almost impossible for.  The Horde was what I played almost solely, so I knew it well.  There was the mid 30's dry spell where you just sat out in the Mirage Saltflats and ground on mobs for 1-2 levels as it was easy and rewarding in terms of trash sale value.  The early 50's was horrible because if you wanted to do WPL, you had to start out on elite Scarlet Crusade mobs (burn the tent) and only *then* were you able to move onto the quest chains that weren't elite.  It was a complete pain and grinding was a way of life if you weren't good at switching from zone to zone via Jame's guide or something similar.  Once they detuned a bunch of quests, it became easier as mobs weren't hitting so hard and there were more quests that you could actually do solo or before just plain running out of them.

Now, if you grind you are missing out honestly.  Some people prefer it, but when you can do back to back quests for 10k exp each, the levels come quickly and grinding quickly becomes obviously something that isn't intended anymore.

[SurfD]

TThe early 50's was horrible because if you wanted to do WPL, you had to start out on elite Scarlet Crusade mobs (burn the tent) and only *then* were you able to move onto the quest chains that weren't elite. 

I don't remember those mobs ever being elite.  I do remember they suffered from what I liked to call Murloc syndrome.  In that they were clustered so close together with random patrolling mobs among them that half the time you pulled one you got 4 more within 10 seconds.  That, and that because there were so many of them by time you managed to clear to the tent as a solo class they were already starting to respawn.

[Merusk]

More and more people I talk to reminisce about EQ.

Distance makes all pain fade.  There's also 4 years of new gamers who hear about it and make up their own narrative because they only hear the fond memories. Similar to the number of people who say they played UO in the "Dreadlord Days" and want them brought back vs the actual number of people who played in that time frame.

EQ sucked, period. I have plenty of fond memories about my time spent there - and we're talking about 30+ hours a week for 4 years - to reminisce about, but the game play is in no part of it.

I don't remember those mobs ever being elite.  I do remember they suffered from what I liked to call Murloc syndrome. 

I seem to remember that 3-4 mobs clustered around the map table were elite, so you couldn't just slaughter the whole camp and had to be somewhat sneaky about it.  Coming up from behind the tents, killing the pats and the stationary patrols and then running up and burning the tents quick before running away because, yes, the respawn was stupidly high.

[Kageru]

Quests also draw you through the zone. In EQ the only part of a zone I explored in many cases was the zoneline. That's where the groups sat, for hours on end, while someone with high mobility went out and got the mobs for you to process. So boring. And encouraged really crap zone design because all they had to do was build a simplistic map and sprinkle it with mobs. And lots of zones with poor xp or overtuned mobs sat empty because players naturally gravitated to the best XP/hour which is also where the groups were.

Moving from that to WoW was one of those epiphany moments of "wow, why did I put up with that tedium?"

[DraconianOne]

I seem to remember that 3-4 mobs clustered around the map table were elite, so you couldn't just slaughter the whole camp and had to be somewhat sneaky about it.  Coming up from behind the tents, killing the pats and the stationary patrols and then running up and burning the tents quick before running away because, yes, the respawn was stupidly high.

They're definitely not elite now - can't recall them ever being but perhaps one or two were. They are still all closely grouped though and it's still a pain in the arse quest if you're not stupidly high for the zone. Tried it the other day and aggroed everything around the tent before I knew what was happening. The casters are still a bitch.

[Sjofn]

I seem to remember that 3-4 mobs clustered around the map table were elite, so you couldn't just slaughter the whole camp and had to be somewhat sneaky about it.  Coming up from behind the tents, killing the pats and the stationary patrols and then running up and burning the tents quick before running away because, yes, the respawn was stupidly high.

They're definitely not elite now - can't recall them ever being but perhaps one or two were. They are still all closely grouped though and it's still a pain in the arse quest if you're not stupidly high for the zone. Tried it the other day and aggroed everything around the tent before I knew what was happening. The casters are still a bitch.

I fucking hate that quest SO MUCH. I very very rarely ask for help on quests from people way higher level than what I'm doing, but for that quest, I ALWAYS make Ingmar kill everything with his hunter.

Also, the Horde should totally have a flight point at the Bulwark. I don't care that the Undercity is right there, FLIGHT POINT AT THE BULWARK PLEASE.

[Lantyssa]

The Goblins can construct it at the Bulwark right after they get done digging tunnels through all the walls in the Undercity.  My Horde group is based out of the UC and I hate its layout with all the passion my undead frame can muster.

[ezrast]

Really? I hang out in UC all the time; it feels less sprawling and huge-for-no-reason than the other cities, with the important stuff all centrally located.

Except for the battlemasters, fuck them all the way over in their random tunnel.