Game Design A Criticism On The Use Of Coordinates And Unimmersive Gameplay.

Hey,

Today I was playing the quest 'Shadow of the Beast' and throughout the quest I felt incredibly irritated and annoyed at the way the quest is designed. It had me thinking about what makes me enjoy a quest and what makes me feel immersed in the story and I think I have narrowed it down to a key point. Below I will explain this point and how future quests can (and some already have) improve on this.

What makes players feel immersed?
Players like interesting stories and they want to be immersed in them. They want to take part in them. Unfortunately there are a whole bunch of quests that either do not have an engaging story or that do not allow the player to be immersed by having them stare at their quest book and f3 screen for coordinates. I believe this should not be the case in so many quests and in my opinion no coordinates should ever be given in the questbook except for the very first stage. And even then should there be an option to find the quest giver without chasing coordinates.

Comparing 'Shadow of the Beast' to 'Misadventure on the Sea'
Let's take a look at the first stage of Shadow of the Beast.

"Talk to Dereg in his house."- says the quest book when you haven't started the quest yet. This description is totally unhelpful and I HAVE to use the coordinates.

Now see what Misadventure on the Sea does:

"Visit the Nemract bar at [114, 40, -2176]". It gives the coordinates but it also tells you to visit the Nemract bar. A place you have probably already visited in Sayleros' Brother. It is also a place the player bought potions and so is probably familiar with. No need to chase coordinates here. And even if you haven't been to the bar yet you still know roughly where to go.

Next you get given your first real task:
SOTB:
"Bring back the three escaped cows near the two bridges and in the cave under the farm to Tolem." This stage was absolutely unbearable in my opinion as the two bridges are obscured behind the farm and the cows can spawn anywhere from on top of them to a whole distance away. The cave is also not easy enough to find. And even when you found the cows I was under the impression I had to lead them back to the farmer but no. The quest intends for me to kill them which is in my opinion a lazy way around a technical difficulty.

MOTS:
"Clean the bodies in the boat. Look for clues on how to escape at the same time. The quest tracker tells you how many of the bodies you have cleaned". There is no room for ambiguity. I need to look around the ship and clean bodies. I get a clear objective and there is room for immersion at the same time.

The second task is roughly the same:
SOTB:
"Follow the footprints to find another victim of the beast."- Now this would have been alright had it been blood again. Instead I have to follow footprints. It took me a little while to figure out that they referred to the holes in the ground. If you are going to use blood as the breadcrumps trail then keep using it. Don't switch mid way.

MOTS:
The entire chapter of Misadventures on the Sea until you enter the rat invested cellar is incredibly smart and very well put together. One clue leads to the next without having to constantly look around wondering whether or not they mean for you to follow something. Everything has a purpose and you can basically not go wrong. There are many smart setups and payoffs and I especially loved the chicken.

Next up is Shadow of the Beast's greatest problem:
I have to fetch 32 cobblestone for this guy... That in and of itself is not a problem but when I arrive at the merchant I notice it requires 'Naga Tails' to buy. So the 32 cobblestone is just a lazy excuse for me to have to grind the same mob I just grinded for half an hour after which I threw away the junk. But alas I grind the crap out of these mobs and buy the 32 cobblestone.

Next I am send to a guy who just randomly tells me he has a toad in his backyard which I need to kill. I look around for a toad but am unable to find it. After 15 minutes I look it up on Youtube and it appears to be a glorified zombie. I kill it and enter the cave where the quest out of the blue throws a puzzle at me. There is absolutely no reason for it to be there but I solve it and wait. I hear a door open but I don't see it... Again I spend some time figuring out why this puzzle isn't working before I realize the door opens somewhere else. This should be communicated. Perhaps with a line of redstone lamps that turn on?

I get through the door and the boss fight is just plain bad. As a shaman I have to place the totem to use my aura enchantment but because the boss is a giant there is no real way of telling whether or not you placed the totem correctly. I suggest changing the boss substantially.

Misadventures on the Sea does it correctly:
The fight in the cellar was amazing. It challenged me but it didn't feel out of place. After having beaten the rats you escape the ship by means you had previously planned out (Without having to read extensive dialogue or look at the quest book). You get rewarded with a little game and then the story raps up neatly. This was an amazing quest and it succeeded everywhere Shadow of the Beast failed.

Ok, this turned into a wall of text. Sorry but I hope my criticism is helpful! Thanks.

 

The problem is that most of these unimmersive coordinate reliant quests are that most are pretty old, dating back to the gavel update, or even the quest update. The CT are getting better at this, with multiple examples:

1. Misadventure on the Sea: what you stated above.
2. Quests like Deja Vu, Memory Paranoia, and 1000 Meters Under are a good example of not "doing", but experiencing. That's partly why they're some of my favorite quests (and the community's, too).
3. The Dwarves and Doguns Questline, along with all of the Silent Expanse quests, are also designed very well (Dwarves and Doguns a bit less than SE quests, but that's alright).

Now, obviously, there's a huge gap between quests like Deja Vu and 1000 Meters Under, D&D and SE quests. This gap of not very well-designed quests is what I call the "mid-life crisis" (because that's practically what it is). From what I've seen, it ranges from Level 50 to Level 90. Most quests in here aren't as well designed (considering the rush that was Gavel) and more reliant on coords and lazy designs. So 50 to 90 might be hard to bear. However, there are exceptions (eg. memory paranoia) and late game (90+) is definitely where the quests are the best in the game (although the last quest in gavel, Royal Trials, isn't a good representation of gavel itself, and therefore gavel is quite underwhelming).

So yes, I agree with you fully.

 

This is not directed at anyone.

There is a pattern if u haven't noticed it yet. The new quests are generally better, with some that aren't new still being good. The content team is no doubt reworking the quests to make them better as you suggested, and of course this takes time. They take their time to make a better quest and not another mediocre one. Again this is a good point, but I'm sure it is not getting overlooked.

 

I don't like using coordinates, because usually there's something like a mountain on the way and I have to find a way around. For me, it's a lot better when I get information like this: "Talk to someone in camp southwest of Olux", because I don't have to look at my coordinates and I don't spend a lot of time looking for a house.

 

Was just thinking about this, there should be just more general information, like north / south of x or something. Describing landmarks, and maybe even some sort of ingame seamless map system if that's possible (I know about dynamic map) ? Even a hud compass might work?

 

Where would you put it?

I think that the current system is mostly good.

 

Suppose, just to help with immersion. I guess at the top but then I just found out about wynnlits mod or whatever, which is basically all you need.

 

I quite enjoyed the Shadow of the beast quest personally, but the footprints were initially confusing as you think you're looking for a normal monster and then BAM.

I have no issue with co-ordinates being in the book, the only time they shouldn't be in there is if it's very very obvious of where to go, not everyone can be as RPG savvy as you lol, I didn't really like misadventures of the sea to be honest; although the storyline of it is one of the better ones (good guy joining villains/not heroes in a questline hasn't been done too many times), but the weird event near the end where you have to press the buttons then get off the island (like seriously why couldn't they just have the Captain come over) ruins the quest for me. It's almost as if Wynncraft are trying TOO much to make every new quest have some weird scripted and buggy event, one of the worst new quests is Poisoning the pest, which in my opinion is one of the worst quests in Wynncraft.

I think they should definitely have an option to turn coordinates off if you want though, to help some people with immersion who want it, you have to remember most people on the forums are veteran players and know the quests quite well, but it's different for a newbie going into them first time and the lack of cords may put them off :(.

P.S Who didn't look up the cords for Dereg xD

Apart from the new poisoning the pest, which is terrible (45 second cutscene which is boring and pointless, no fighting, no puzzles, no good characters, nothing new etc etc) Even the tutorial (another new and bad quest) is better imo

 

I think you are missing the point though. I mean that coordinates should never be there because it should be obvious where you should go just from the context. The fact that we all had to look up the coords for Dereg is a game design flaw. I agree with you that the buggy scripting parts of quests are pointless and should be avoided. Poisoning the pest also really needs a rework again.

 

(Yes, I'm aware there's much of this thread that I'm not addressing)
If a player paused in the middle of a quest (e.g., taking a longer break from Wynncraft or focusing on professions for a while), that player would not know what to do. Even "if it's very very obvious of where to go" and the stages are written very well, that player will still need a guide (such as the wiki) if the game doesn't provide coordinates.

"such as the wiki"
Somehow getting everyone to realize that the wiki exists would eliminate the need for coordinates in-game, although it wouldn't do anything else to help with the issue of immersion.

 

But if you quit during the quest the immersion is broken anyway right? Maybe make the descriptions in the quest book more descriptive?

 

Here's an example where the player starts in a barn in a valley northwest of [city] and then has to go to a nearby cave with moss and orcs in it.

Stage 1: Talk to [NPC] in the barn in a valley northwest of [city]
Stage 2: Investigate the nearby cave with moss and orcs in it

Stage 1: Talk to [NPC] in the barn in a valley northwest of [city]
Stage 2: Investigate the nearby cave with moss and orcs in it in the barn in a valley northwest of [city]

 

If we assume player knows where the city is

 

I actually hate coordinates. I would use Wynntils to track the locations but my computer isn't able to handle it well. They need to find some way to make tracking locations easier.