Quest Markers

Asherons_Call

Before I start I just want to recognize that ZOS / Bethesda didn't invent quest markers so they are hardly to blame. This is just a vent in general to the state of gaming today.

More and more players are showing an outcry for "immersion". The sad point is that many of the older games were so much more immersive than they are today. So many of the newer generation of gamers are asking for games not to be dumbed down but are unsure of how/where to start. One of the biggest changes in the past 15 years that contributed to this dumbing down is the addition of quest markers.

I often find myself looking at a little white triangle on my screen and map completely oblivious to everything else going on. I just follow the triangle until I get to my destination..then finish the quest and head back to the original triangle to the quest giver. I don't really look around me on my way there since there is no need to unless I see a black triangle meaning there is another quest nearby!. For immersions sake just imagine a quest that ran like this:

You run through a small town and head into the inn. The npc that is normally "in the know" is the local barkeep, so you talk with her. (Keep in mind there is NO triangle above her head!). After talking with her she directs you to an elf sitting at the far table in the room, so you scan the room and see that there is only one elf in here so that makes your job a little easier. The elf says that he does have some work if you'd be willing to head east, through a mountain pass, then north to a small patch of trees where you will find the remnants of a small campsite. He swears that is the last place he saw his dagger. It is very important to him but he had to leave in a hurry in the evening when he saw a goblin patrol coming down across the plains to the east right towards the patch of trees..

With no quest markers you must jot this information down in your quest journal (in-game journal of course) and re-trace his steps. Just as he said you find a small gap in the mountains to the east of town. You begin to head through but the elf failed to mention that a cave troll resides there.. After dispatching the troll you find among its plunder a backpack with a wax sealed letter addressed to the local noble that resides in the town that you just came from! Looks like you will be delivering a dagger and a letter now.

You make it through the pass and come out on a grassy plain where you then turn north. After some time you eventually see a break in the endless fields in the form of a small thicket of trees. This must be the place! You begin to search the area by starting in the place where you yourself would set up a camp. There is a pond on the eastern edge of the the thicket with a good sight line of the plains to the east. . You remember that the elf mentioned he saw a company of goblins heading from the east so he must have camped in this area. Sure enough you find the charred ashes of a small campfire and the bones of a hastily prepared rabbit, along with its pelt. Under the pelt you find the dagger. (There is no triangle leading you to this, but if you hover over the pelt you will get an "examine" option.

All of a sudden you hear the unmistakable knarled voices of a few goblins arguing. Since your TV has surround sound you can hear that the voices are coming from the northern end of the thicket. Since your path will lead you south back to town, you have a choice to either head back south unimpeded or to head further north to investigate the foul goblins. Perhaps they have some fine plunder you could relieve them of? The elf could do without his dagger for a little while longer

Saltypretzels

I gave the same input during beta. Quest "area markers" giving a general sense of where something is, are my preferred method here. Some quests do it that way.

Asherons_Call

Saltypretzels wrote: »

I gave the same input during beta. Quest "area markers" giving a general sense of where something is, are my preferred method here. Some quests do it that way.

That would an ok compromise but I'd still rather have all text clues in where you need to go. Immersion at its finest

Slylok

Asherons_Call wrote: »

Saltypretzels wrote: »

I gave the same input during beta. Quest "area markers" giving a general sense of where something is, are my preferred method here. Some quests do it that way.

That would an ok compromise but I'd still rather have all text clues in where you need to go. Immersion at its finest

This is something that they took from Skyrim. They had to settle a few things due to the " thats not like Skyrim " outcry that happened during development.

I prefer text clue myself or in this case voiced clues but I live with it because I lived with it in Skyrim.

UltimaJoe777

If the main concern of this thread is how quest markers are ruining immersion then don't worry so much. The quest markers only appear if you come within a short distance (what like 20m or so?) of the NPC or object. As a result you still have to actually take the time to look around and explore. If you don't like it though I'm pretty sure you can disable it from the Options menu.

EddieHavok

It seems like this was the case on a few missions in other older ES titles. I completely agree, it felt great to actually find a location and feel the sense of discovery that comes with the xp and caption pop-up. But now, I just click, click, click thru the dialogue and run thru as many map markers as possible then turn in the missions once I efficiently find myself close to that marker. Having so many open missions and completing them out of order really disconnects me from the world as well. Never would I suggest to only allow fewer open missions or whatnot because that would be majorly tedious. Its a fine line to try and balance efficiency and immersion but if there were a "veteran" mode that replaces exact markers with a more detailed journal entry then that might be cool.

Asherons_Call

EddieHavok wrote: »

It seems like this was the case on a few missions in other older ES titles. I completely agree, it felt great to actually find a location and feel the sense of discovery that comes with the xp and caption pop-up. But now, I just click, click, click thru the dialogue and run thru as many map markers as possible then turn in the missions once I efficiently find myself close to that marker. Having so many open missions and completing them out of order really disconnects me from the world as well. Never would I suggest to only allow fewer open missions or whatnot because that would be majorly tedious. Its a fine line to try and balance efficiency and immersion but if there were a "veteran" mode that replaces exact markers with a more detailed journal entry then that might be cool.

In order to use a strictly text based quest system they would need to drop the number of quests significantly since each quest would take longer. They'd also have to raise the exp award for each to balance it.

Yes I agree with you that I feel disconnected from the game world when I'm just chasing around markers.. For a true rpg experience you have to feel more like the decisions you make are your own and not following a set path

DaveMoeDee

It is better the way it is.

Asherons_Call

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

It is better the way it is.

Well played sir, I have now changed my stance and now love quest markers (checks my map for the nearest triangle)

DovresMalven

Pinkiller addon!

Asherons_Call

DovresMalven wrote: »

Pinkiller addon!

I looked it up and it looks cool, but unfortunately no addons available for console. Also this probably wouldn't truly be effective just removing the markers without adding more descriptive quest giver clues and dialog. The current system is based on the dialog being linked to a marker

rb2001

Your point is one in an umbrella of issues I regularly bring up to others about the lacking state of modern gaming.

Specific to this issue, I use PinKiller to turn all these rubbishy things off (from in game and the map, too), and Wykyd's Immersion to remove the compass and quest tracker completely. I then play and listen to NPCs and remember, and explore. Immersion.

ESO still isn't tailored to this kind of gameplay because it was built with the expectation that the player would just rush to the triangle, and so, in many cases, with how I play, I will have vague or no information almost "go meet x", and in these cases I just have to explore.

There have been a few extreme cases where I have literally nothing to go on because of how the game was designed, and so I flip the PinKiller add on off, check map, turn it back on (e.x. finish crafting writ, and there is zero indication whatsoever of which crafting box to go to).

I really don't like where modern gaming has gone, with its oversimplification and watering down of the true elements of the game medium; these elements are, in my opinion, the following:

• Player input
• Player thought about the world in which they are in, and the rules within and how they can interact with the game world
• Player control over what happens -- this is the in the nutshell version of what it means to be a videogame
• Player goal-creation, and player goal-oriented gameplay
• Mechanical modeling of the natural world (or fictional world), where there are simple or complex processes that occur, things change, player has input into these and can guide the changes - this covers everything from vegetation to swords and armor (player needs to be able to understand how these systems work and what affects them in the game world, and have ability to interact with these systems in meaningful and fun way)
• Player control over the events, story and timeline, how it unfolds
• Problem solving (how can I interact with the world in a meaningful way to solve my current goal or task that I have determined for myself is what I need/want to do?)
• Interactivity - this is a huge one, the world needs to be interactive in ways that movie or book medium cannot be (e.g. in Zelda I can pick up a pumpkin and throw it into the water, watch it bob and float, do the same with a rock and watch it sink, I can chop up a pot, I can pick up and pull a chain)
• Fun - games should be fun - Super Mario Galaxy is pure fun, while ESO a lot of things that are simply NOT fun (e.g. almost everyone playing would agree that the amount of time they spend in their inventory fighting clunky sorting menus and handling all this junk loot is not fun)

Modern games have lost these things for the most part, and what we have are scripted colorful linear worlds where the narration tells you where to go and when to press E to watch something sorta interesting happen.


A great example to show what has been lost is to go from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to Metro series.

I love both, but Metro is admittedly just a linear watered down stalker. The first is open world, player controls almost everything, directs their own goals at their own pace, thinks about problems and how he can overcome them, where the second is literally constant "go here, do this, press this button, watch pretty cutscene, rinse, repeat".

The first also has complex mechanical modeling of almost everything. Armor, bullet physics, bullet penetration of armor types and surfaces, different ammo types with different penetration/weight/travel characteristics, multiple different guns of each category/type, realism-based A.I. that actually works, a million ways to handle any given situation, a million game states possible because it's all open and up to the player, complex animal A.I. and ecosystem, a million levels of interactivity and unscripted interesting things happening.

Metro is the poster boy for scripted cool gameplay. Literally everything that occurs is scripted. The two games appear similar on the surface, but Metro is just a heavily scripted, linear take on one possible route through what it could have been.

Asherons_Call

rb2001 wrote: »

Your point is one in an umbrella of issues I regularly bring up to others about the lacking state of modern gaming.

Specific to this issue, I use PinKiller to turn all these rubbishy things off (from in game and the map, too), and Wykyd's Immersion to remove the compass and quest tracker completely. I then play and listen to NPCs and remember, and explore. Immersion.

ESO still isn't tailored to this kind of gameplay because it was built with the expectation that the player would just rush to the triangle, and so, in many cases, with how I play, I will have vague or no information almost "go meet x", and in these cases I just have to explore.

There have been a few extreme cases where I have literally nothing to go on because of how the game was designed, and so I flip the PinKiller add on off, check map, turn it back on (e.x. finish crafting writ, and there is zero indication whatsoever of which crafting box to go to).

I really don't like where modern gaming has gone, with its oversimplification and watering down of the true elements of the game medium; these elements are, in my opinion, the following:

• Player input
• Player thought about the world in which they are in, and the rules within and how they can interact with the game world
• Player control over what happens -- this is the in the nutshell version of what it means to be a videogame
• Player goal-creation, and player goal-oriented gameplay
• Player control over the events, story and timeline, how it unfolds
• Problem solving (how can I interact with the world in a meaningful way to solve my current goal or task that I have determined for myself is what I need/want to do?)
• Interactivity - this is a huge one, the world needs to be interactive in ways that movie or book medium cannot be (e.g. in Zelda I can pick up a pumpkin and throw it into the water, watch it bob and float, do the same with a rock and watch it sink, I can chop up a pot, I can pick up and pull a chain)

Modern games have lost these things for the most part, and what we have are scripted colorful linear worlds where the narration tells you where to go and when to press E to watch something sorta interesting happen.


A great example to show what has been lost is to go from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to Metro series.

I love both, but Metro is admittedly just a linear watered down stalker. The first is open world, player controls almost everything, directs their own goals at their own pace, thinks about problems and how he can overcome them, where the second is literally constant "go here, do this, press this button, watch pretty cutscene, rinse, repeat".

Thank you. True rpg games are dying in favor of ease of play and is disheartening.. We need a developer to go against the grain to renew the spirit of the rpg genre.

Also, I guarantee you that the whole argument about PVE being boring would be thrown out the window as quests would become more dynamic. People interpret clues in different ways so some people would struggle on certain quests while others would nail the clues due to their knowledge of the land, locations of npcs and landmarks, etc. There would even be some quests that could be so cryptic that only a select few could even complete them and would hold the key to completing them secret (Until of course one guy blows the lid off and posts it on reddit).

Pheefs

I changed my settings...
no black triangles on the compass, only white, so I have to find the quest givers in-world myself.

& no quest tracker on the screen either.
if I need to look at it, I can open the Quest Journal.

ever since I made those small changes, I feel more like I'm in the world.

& yes sometimes its still the joke of "I have a feeling its over here"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnXdlYR4eAw&feature=youtu.be

PBpsy

I wish they still made roleplaying games like they used to. These days it's all 'big choices' and 'visceral combat.' I miss those old games where you had to remember to drink water, and it took you five hours real time to fly somewhere!

rb2001

Asherons_Call wrote: »

rb2001 wrote: »

Your point is one in an umbrella of issues I regularly bring up to others about the lacking state of modern gaming.

Specific to this issue, I use PinKiller to turn all these rubbishy things off (from in game and the map, too), and Wykyd's Immersion to remove the compass and quest tracker completely. I then play and listen to NPCs and remember, and explore. Immersion.

ESO still isn't tailored to this kind of gameplay because it was built with the expectation that the player would just rush to the triangle, and so, in many cases, with how I play, I will have vague or no information almost "go meet x", and in these cases I just have to explore.

There have been a few extreme cases where I have literally nothing to go on because of how the game was designed, and so I flip the PinKiller add on off, check map, turn it back on (e.x. finish crafting writ, and there is zero indication whatsoever of which crafting box to go to).

I really don't like where modern gaming has gone, with its oversimplification and watering down of the true elements of the game medium; these elements are, in my opinion, the following:

• Player input
• Player thought about the world in which they are in, and the rules within and how they can interact with the game world
• Player control over what happens -- this is the in the nutshell version of what it means to be a videogame
• Player goal-creation, and player goal-oriented gameplay
• Player control over the events, story and timeline, how it unfolds
• Problem solving (how can I interact with the world in a meaningful way to solve my current goal or task that I have determined for myself is what I need/want to do?)
• Interactivity - this is a huge one, the world needs to be interactive in ways that movie or book medium cannot be (e.g. in Zelda I can pick up a pumpkin and throw it into the water, watch it bob and float, do the same with a rock and watch it sink, I can chop up a pot, I can pick up and pull a chain)

Modern games have lost these things for the most part, and what we have are scripted colorful linear worlds where the narration tells you where to go and when to press E to watch something sorta interesting happen.


A great example to show what has been lost is to go from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to Metro series.

I love both, but Metro is admittedly just a linear watered down stalker. The first is open world, player controls almost everything, directs their own goals at their own pace, thinks about problems and how he can overcome them, where the second is literally constant "go here, do this, press this button, watch pretty cutscene, rinse, repeat".

Thank you. True rpg games are dying in favor of ease of play and is disheartening.. We need a developer to go against the grain to renew the spirit of the rpg genre.

Also, I guarantee you that the whole argument about PVE being boring would be thrown out the window as quests would become more dynamic. People interpret clues in different ways so some people would struggle on certain quests while others would nail the clues due to their knowledge of the land, locations of npcs and landmarks, etc. There would even be some quests that could be so cryptic that only a select few could even complete them and would hold the key to completing them secret (Until of course one guy blows the lid off and posts it on reddit).

Oh, absolutely.

Right now, the process is backwards of what it should be, because the NPC governs everything, what you can and cannot do, exactly how to advance the quest. Not very good gameplay. Basically a movie where you have to do the boring part of walking to the next place and then pressing a button to resume the movie.

Instead of scripting everything and making us listen to all the exact same incredibly boring generic dialogues about lost shoes in the woods, the NPC interaction system could and should be flipped on its head - player-driven.


What does that actually mean? Okay, well, the Witcher 1 did this fairly well.

I find a note on a wall. That starts a quest, and it's mysterious. I can then go ask any NPC I meet questions about it. I can pick whomever I like and ask what they know.

I could, at any time, go up to any NPC and ask "what's around here?" "What's east?" "Do you know <person on this note>?" Etc.

I could travel to a fully different city and ask the diplomat in the bank what he knows about <x cave>.

I could go poke around in the forest where the note or NPC quest giver mentioned something (ESO has this to some degree, but it is scripted to be exactly only 1 place you have to go and always press E at it). There could be more interesting ways to interact with the world.


As you mentioned, some quests could be completely cryptic and not use the "quest" system so heavily or even at all. There could simply be things out in the world that you can find, a note that mentions something, a book, etc. Random sources of information that lead to things that aren't exactly spelled out as "go here, get this, kill that".

There could be master quests in which you need to do some real digging and thinking and scouring the entire map over time to find little clues, and no real help in your quest tracker and no triangle to tell you where to go.


There are numerous ways to implement dynamic quests instead of forcing every single player to suffer through the exact same scripted sequences and boring dialogues.

rb2001

While we're at it, ESO also really could do with some minigames. I love how Zelda and Witcher and other games include minigames within them.

Shops that run little games, dicing, whatever it be, it adds to the world and makes it seem more real by having games in it (because the real world has games in it). Inception.

rb2001

PBpsy wrote: »

I wish they still made roleplaying games like they used to. These days it's all 'big choices' and 'visceral combat.' I miss those old games where you had to remember to drink water, and it took you five hours real time to fly somewhere!

I really wish the fast travel was gone, and the trips to get somewhere were meaningful ones, and we had to bring water, food and supplies, plan in advance, to make sure we'd make it.

Maybe I should just return to MUDs.

Asherons_Call

PBpsy wrote: »

I wish they still made roleplaying games like they used to. These days it's all 'big choices' and 'visceral combat.' I miss those old games where you had to remember to drink water, and it took you five hours real time to fly somewhere!

I've seen this quote and it is funny but taking it a little extreme. There are ways to make PVE more immersive and dynamic without pressing x to pee every 2 hours

UltimaJoe777

rb2001 wrote: »

While we're at it, ESO also really could do with some minigames. I love how Zelda and Witcher and other games include minigames within them.

Shops that run little games, dicing, whatever it be, it adds to the world and makes it seem more real by having games in it (because the real world has games in it). Inception.

Inb4 legalized gambling in Elswyer.

Acrolas

The quest markers are just a combination of observation, memory, and cartography.

They allow the game to minimize introductions and directions. You can just assume your character was adequately informed how to do something during an unscripted moment, giving him more time to actually do it. It's being sent a memo, as opposed to sitting in a meeting.

Even if quests were completely text-based, I'm sure most people would want the option to save the quest map for use with other characters so you don't have to remember directions and locations for every quest. And there are a substantial amount of quests in ESO that require reading clues or sequencing items. AKA the quests most people will solve with a search engine.

I fully support more unscripted, feel-your-way-through-it quests in delves and other small areas, but in the open world, quest markers are more helpful than harmful.

rb2001

Acrolas wrote: »

The quest markers are just a combination of observation, memory, and cartography.

They allow the game to minimize introductions and directions. You can just assume your character was adequately informed how to do something during an unscripted moment, giving him more time to actually do it. It's being sent a memo, as opposed to sitting in a meeting.

Even if quests were completely text-based, I'm sure most people would want the option to save the quest map for use with other characters so you don't have to remember directions and locations for every quest. And there are a substantial amount of quests in ESO that require reading clues or sequencing items. AKA the quests most people will solve with a search engine.

I fully support more unscripted, feel-your-way-through-it quests in delves and other small areas, but in the open world, quest markers are more helpful than harmful.

Ah, as an option, they'd be harmless, but the game being tailored around their inclusion is what's creating the harmful effects for players who want a deeper level of immersion and realism in the way NPCs behave and events occur.

Also, a problem with that line of thought of yours is that to assume "my player was given adequate knowledge" is to say that something else happened, or something more happened, than I magically am not privy to, even though I was just there for the dialogue between my character and the NPC.

It in fact creates a distance and dissonance between the player and their own character and their level of interaction within the gameworld.

The player should feel a part of the world, bound by those rules and the knowledge/mechanics within it, not having to make assumptions / handwave about what was given/provided to their player character without the player's own knowledge.

That's in my opinion kinda hitting the whole issue on the head. Rather than SHOWING, it's telling, but it's even worse than that, it's "telling that I told you".

The game medium should be all about atomic little operations and gleanings of info from the game world directly, and the mechanisms and NPCs within it, not virtual info from an over head UI that is not part of the game world itself.


One of the many differences between a good game (which ESO is) and a great game (which Metroid Prime is) is that a great game makes you forget you are playing a game, and fully enraptures the player into the world, so much that the fictional world and its rules become the reality for that player, at the time.

Everything that happens and occurs in the fictional world encompass and make up everything the player knows about the world in a great game. The UI is either directly part of the game world (i.e. your actual physical suit HUD in Metroid's case), or additional required info, but the game world itself still provides as much context as possible for what's occurring and for why your player character is doing the things they are doing.

Events like these in ESO, where an NPC says "the hill" and your map determines which hill that is, take the player out of the experience, reminding them that they are in a game with nonsensical rules, and that their player character has to rely on knowledge accessed via a virtual screen that is not part of the actual world.


Also, that combination of memory, catography and observation should be my, the player's responsibility. That is what makes a game, a game, and not an interactive movie. I should be the one having to pay attention to the world and interact with it, get involved with it (get hot and heavy with it), make those connections myself, because those connections are what immerse me into the world, and make me forget I am playing a game.

EddieHavok

I'd have to say, some of the best time wasted in this game was running around looking for Treasure with the maps and actually remembering where that bridge is, or what part of the map looks like a large lake with mountains to the back. It felt Skyrim'y and I liked it. Until I ran around for a whole 10 minutes, couldn't find it, went to youtube, found it and left feeling less accomplished that when I started.

phairdon

Take a look at the image. Settings, Interface. You can turn off quest tracker, compass quest givers & so forth.

Enodoc

phairdon wrote: »

Take a look at the image. Settings, Interface. You can turn off quest tracker, compass quest givers & so forth.

Can you turn off in-world floating markers yet? Haven't looked recently. I don't mind compass markers but I really dislike the in-world ones.

EddieHavok

I like Skyrim.