What if "Quest Failed" doesn't really mean the end o : V - Skyrim

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:13 am

I Would say that certain quest cant fail, Some quests will have rewards, like the Chillrend in oblivion

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:45 pm

I voted for other because I would like to see this for some quests, but only for some.
If it was like that for every quest and you were like me who has to know everything about everything and solve everything so things can be NEAT UND TIDY, then this kind of stuff would be doom.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:12 am

I'm all for this. More flexible questing is always a good thing. And what some people should note is some quests in Oblivion were like this. Some good examples are http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Two_Sides_of_the_Coin and http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:A_Brotherhood_Betrayed. There are a few differences though.

In Two Sides of The Coin it isn't so much about being able to make up for failing a quest and get some kind of reward, it is about choosing who to help. Imagine if you could also help attack the farm and kidnap the girl for some of the spoils.

A Brotherhood Betrayed is strictly a timed quest. You either catch the guy or you don't. I would like to be able to miss him at the cave, but then see muddy footprints heading north so you can still catch him before he escapes to another province. Because realistically, showing up 1 minute too late wouldn't make you fail the quest, hell you would probably still be able to see him leaving.

Edit: Another set of good examples is the Dark Brotherhood quests. You can do specific things for bonuses but if you fail the bonus you can finish the quest, just with a worse reward.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:20 pm

MIght work as long as the reward for completing the quest diminishes the more failures you have in that questline.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 4:12 am

MIght work as long as the reward for completing the quest diminishes the more failures you have in that questline.

That's the general idea. Although, there should be the rare occasion where failing part of it is beneficial to you. Like maybe you let the girl get taken to their hideout and after you rescue her and kill the bad guys she says she heard two of them talking about a hidden passage with more spoils, one that you wouldn't normally notice. Of course not all quests should have that, only rare ones.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:32 am

That's the general idea. Although, there should be the rare occasion where failing part of it is beneficial to you. Like maybe you let the girl get taken to their hideout and after you rescue her and kill the bad guys she says she heard two of them talking about a hidden passage with more spoils, one that you wouldn't normally notice. Of course not all quests should have that, only rare ones.

^Yes. and like someone stated before, some quests would be better for your character. like from the example:
-Defending the farm= Warrior
-Sneaking into hideout for rescue= Stealth.

The rewards should be of a lower level the more failures you have, but sometimes the lower level item might be better for your character.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:43 am

Spoiler'd for length. My idea concerning this one for Radiant Story (RS).

Spoiler

I remember ResistanceKnight making a thread talking about evolving quests in a similar manner. This should be included with Skyrim onward, simply because you will probably run into previous template combinations with Radiant Story. You might get the "Rescue 's child from X" quest template several times, maybe not in a row, but multiple times possibly over an entire playthrough. And even if you don't, I suspect the...somewhat "linear" nature of quests may become stale after some time, possibly causing some to completely turn down certain quest offers.

However, if quests changed numerous times, it would keep the player from always knowing what will happen with common quest templates. In your Jenna example, let's say that it's a quest generated by Radiant Story, and that you get the quest template of "Protect from X". There could be several variations of it, like how many your protecting, or fighting against, but it's all basically the same thing. Without evolving quests, we might correctly guess that we'll get no reward from failing the random quest. So, after we do it, maybe possibly after the first time, it might feel tedious to the player and make the player ask,"Why this again?".

With the "evolving quests after failure" idea planted firmly in the player mind and in-game, the player may like that failure doesn't immediately mean no reward. However, they still can figure that the ending will be the same based on either success or failure. This is a great idea nonetheless, but those who like variation in their quests may suffer, however with all the possible quest templates with Radiant Story(RS) offers, this is doubtful.

I'd like to see is a more proactive RS. I'm assuming, since my knowledge on RS is limited, that it only generates the template and items/NPCs associated with it. I'm hoping that it changes the direction in which the quest is headed. Like let's say you forgot to go to Jenna's farm and you go there, figuring that the bandits got her, however you find several bodies of badies and evidence suggesting that nearby ogres have taken Jenna. Asking NPCs about any ogre hideouts, you find out there is indeed a nearby hideout, in a small dwemer ruin. You then proceed to eliminate and kill the ogres, and you successfully save Jenna, QUEST COMPLETE! However, you find an item of some importance on the ogre cheiftain, and it gives you a quest that leads to another dungeon, or perhaps a series of ruins. This provides additional bonuses to doing RS quests, and gives them some flavor.

The idea that "Quest failure only alters and continue the quests" will provide a nice safety net and will give players a sigh of relief. However, quests should have a point that failure is the end. It should apply after one or two failures, anything more and your done. Handcrafted quests should also have this feature, except maybe for the MQ.

All the above is describing situations where there is more ways to fail a quest than simple player death. It's also an idea, mainly, for the quests randomly generated by Radiant Story (RS).

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:50 pm

Spoiler'd for length. My idea concerning this one for Radiant Story (RS).

Spoiler

I remember ResistanceKnight making a thread talking about evolving quests in a similar manner. This should be included with Skyrim onward, simply because you will probably run into previous template combinations with Radiant Story. You might get the "Rescue 's child from X" quest template several times, maybe not in a row, but multiple times possibly over an entire playthrough. And even if you don't, I suspect the...somewhat "linear" nature of quests may become stale after some time, possibly causing some to completely turn down certain quest offers.

However, if quests changed numerous times, it would keep the player from always knowing what will happen with common quest templates. In your Jenna example, let's say that it's a quest generated by Radiant Story, and that you get the quest template of "Protect from X". There could be several variations of it, like how many your protecting, or fighting against, but it's all basically the same thing. Without evolving quests, we might correctly guess that we'll get no reward from failing the random quest. So, after we do it, maybe possibly after the first time, it might feel tedious to the player and make the player ask,"Why this again?".

With the "evolving quests after failure" idea planted firmly in the player mind and in-game, the player may like that failure doesn't immediately mean no reward. However, they still can figure that the ending will be the same based on either success or failure. This is a great idea nonetheless, but those who like variation in their quests may suffer, however with all the possible quest templates with Radiant Story(RS) offers, this is doubtful.

I'd like to see is a more proactive RS. I'm assuming, since my knowledge on RS is limited, that it only generates the template and items/NPCs associated with it. I'm hoping that it changes the direction in which the quest is headed. Like let's say you forgot to go to Jenna's farm and you go there, figuring that the bandits got her, however you find several bodies of badies and evidence suggesting that nearby ogres have taken Jenna. Asking NPCs about any ogre hideouts, you find out there is indeed a nearby hideout, in a small dwemer ruin. You then proceed to eliminate and kill the ogres, and you successfully save Jenna, QUEST COMPLETE! However, you find an item of some importance on the ogre cheiftain, and it gives you a quest that leads to another dungeon, or perhaps a series of ruins. This provides additional bonuses to doing RS quests, and gives them some flavor.

The idea that "Quest failure only alters and continue the quests" will provide a nice safety net and will give players a sigh of relief. However, quests should have a point that failure is the end. It should apply after one or two failures, anything more and your done. Handcrafted quests should also have this feature, except maybe for the MQ.

All the above is describing situations where there is more ways to fail a quest than simple player death. It's also an idea, mainly, for the quests randomly generated by Radiant Story (RS).

I agree and like this idea. Basically having a few different RS templates that may or may not merge with each other. You could save Jenna from bandits one one save and it just be that. But on a different save it takes you across all of Skyrim on an epic adventure by random chance. I also do agree there should be a point where failed is failed. It should be about where the OP said. Fail quest 1.A and get quest 1.B, fail that and get quest 1.C, after that you can either complete it or fail it and that is it. But like it has been said before, not on all quests.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:35 am

I would think that this would be pretty simple, just add a few more scripts to the quest.

Based on your OP, I think that the quest should advance based off of time (After X number of hours, it advances to the next stage), which could probably be easily implemented. There is no reason to not have this.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:23 am

Even if just a few quests were time sensitive, not only would replayability go up greatly but the world itself would feel believable. It would feel as if the world was moving at its own pace, even though it really is paying close attention to what the player is doing...or in this case not doing.

I'd like to see even the larger quest lines impement this in parts of the ark, just not to the degree it could be put in side quests. The quest itself wouldn't be completely time sensitive, but if we have to meet someone or pull something off in a limited time frame the world should react to our inaction as well as our actions.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:18 am

It can piss you of, if you fail a quest... But it's your duty to save your game, before you fail.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:43 am

The difference being that if you failed a quest in Oblivion, it was over, other quests weren't born of your failing.

Yep, I've always been annoyed with that in Morrowind and Oblivion. In Daggerfall you just keep getting new quests, well, as long it's not a part of the main quest as you have to finish those properly.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:02 am

I always hated the way in Morrowind and Oblivion, that a quest just either couldn't fail or were nonadjustable, or you had to do some specific circumstance in order to progress it.

I agree with the OP, it is a nice idea.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:58 pm

It can piss you of, if you fail a quest... But it's your duty to save your game, before you fail.

But if something new and different was born from your failure, wouldn't that add to the world and possibly entice you to continue on to see what happens? Not only would replayability go up because you can both fail or complete a quest, now the world would react to that failure in a believable way which could lead to unique parts of the quest you may not have had to see if you just completed the quest right away.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:36 pm

Sounds pretty good. I like this idea.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:40 pm

YES!!!!!!! If it is truly an alternate world, then there is no "quest failed". Its just like the whole radiant story thing, there's always something to be done. Although doing it right the first time would probably be best, lol.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:12 am

I like the idea of an evolving quest, maybe have it during the guild quest :thumbsup: .

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:37 am

Who would want timed quests? They're just a pain. I'm pretty sure i remember Todd Howard say something about being able to go out into the world and do whatever you want and being able to come back and finish business from before being a part of the allure of Bethesda's RPG's.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:58 am

Who would want timed quests? They're just a pain. I'm pretty sure i remember Todd Howard say something about being able to go out into the world and do whatever you want and being able to come back and finish business from before being a part of the allure of Bethesda's RPG's.

that's weird, because Daggerfall (and maybe arena, never really played very long) had ONLY timed quests. This OP advocates SOME timed quests, and i don't think that deviates from Todd's TES philosophy.

EDIT: and i think Todd was talking about the fact that you don't have to do the main quest right away, you can do everything else and then come back to it. The idea posted in this thread does not inhibit you to do that in any way.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:20 pm

I was in the middle of creating a very similar thread... i then remembered i already did it.

(it'll only be so long before i make all of my "original" ideas for skyrim into threads)

What if &#34;Quest Failed&#34; doesn't really mean the end o

What if "Quest Failed" doesn't really mean the end o