ESO Architect “Quest Builder”

Kallipsoe · April 2015

We have seen this with other games and I was wondering what the possibility of @ZOS adding it to ESO?

The concept is simple, adding a quest builder to the game that allows players to design a quest that they and other players can run.

Players could take pre-existing dungeons or design their own for the quest area “of course the quests would be instance to the player and his group not open world”.

Players would than add pre-existing creatures and boss’s to their quest. There would be a difficulty setting that would increase the amount of mobs in each spawning location and would increase also the boss mechanics and power. The difficulty setting would determine the quality of gear dropped by the mobs.

Players would add NPCs with written dialog explaining what the quest is about and what they need to do. Of course there would be no voice acting just an old school RPG experience.

The quest rewards for completing the quest would be determined by several factors; the amount of mob spawning points, the difficulty setting of the quest and the amount of major and minor boss fights.

It would also be a good idea to add PVP variants so that guilds could start fight clubs with the ESO Architect.

Why do I think this would be a good idea?

It would be a DLC that I would buy “@ZOS makes more $$$”

It would give players more to do once the content from @ZOS runs out. What I am asking for is to pay you so that we can make more content for you. “Hint, the content has already run out for most of us”.

This would add so much more fun to being in a guild. Guilds could design their own dungeons and run as a guild and have in house competitions with guild rewards going to the winners.

Fight Club “this could be a way to add player designed Arenas, dueling”

I also believe Role Players would get a kick out of this. They would also be able to set up and design their own guild areas to role play in without getting trolled by other players.

I will continue to refine and update this idea as I receive feedback and brainstorm.

onlinegamer1 · April 2015

Neverwinter has a very good system for this. I authored quite a lot of quests there and got lots of donations (of in-game gold) from players who enjoyed them. They implemented a very good way to prevent imbalance/exploitation (won't go into detail here, go read up on it if it interests you).

Shadesofkin · April 2015

I'd be completely down for this somewhat traditional included system, but I'd want a hardcore approval process.

Kallipsoe · April 2015

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

Neverwinter has a very good system for this. I authored quite a lot of quests there and got lots of donations (of in-game gold) from players who enjoyed them. They implemented a very good way to prevent imbalance/exploitation (won't go into detail here, go read up on it if it interests you).

Yes, Iv seen this work very well in other games though Iv never tried Neverwinter. I will defiantly go look at it, thanks.

nastuug · April 2015

Interesting concept. I've never actually had the pleasure of experiencing this type of thing within a game like ESO.

Shunravi · April 2015

I would love this. Especially if they do it through dream exploration with Vaermina... That way, anything stretching or breaking lore could be excused as a dream.

onlinegamer1 · April 2015

Kallipsoe wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

Neverwinter has a very good system for this. I authored quite a lot of quests there and got lots of donations (of in-game gold) from players who enjoyed them. They implemented a very good way to prevent imbalance/exploitation (won't go into detail here, go read up on it if it interests you).

Yes, Iv seen this work very well in other games though Iv never tried Neverwinter. I will defiantly go look at it, thanks.

Some very high-level points:

1. The builder has limits on each type of asset, so you can't build gigantic things, nor add too many monsters, too many traps, too many walls, too many floors, too many ... anything.
2. EXP is controlled by special rules to prevent exploiting (things such as if the mob never attacks you before it dies, its worth 0 xp)
3. There is no loot in the designer other than a single "end chest". Think of ESO "Normal" world chest, but not as good. Literally, forget about doing player-made quests for loot, its not gonna happen.
4. When someone runs a player-made quest, the system tracks how long it took them to do it. It does this... forever, tracking the time all players take to finish it. Each quest has an "Average Completion Time" statistic. Once a quest gets... I wanna say 20 plays (forgetting exact #), this time is then used to scale the Completion EXP of the quest. i.e. too short, EXP is nerfed, very long, EXP is buffed a little. This is another measure to prevent exploitation (i.e. a quest with "1 room and 1 mob, and you're done" is pointless to create due to this).

Some examples of things that don't work (i.e. that you can't exploit)
- a "Kill Pit": 100 melee-only mobs in a pit, you stand above them and nuke them down. You get 0 XP, nice try.
- The "1 room 1 mob, you're done" quest. You get XP for 1 mob (assuming it can fight you) and the end chest will have 1 gold and completion XP will be 1 XP.
- The "100 rooms each with 1 mob" quest: normal xp for the mobs, but likely will be quick completion and therefore very little gold/XP at the end.

In general, the system works well and doesn't require reviews by the game company, because the builder already has so many restrictions and limits, as does the actual play-through, that players can publish quests with no review necessary. Also, players are limited to 10 quests per account, so you can't spam the system with tons and tons of quests.

Ser Lobo · April 2015

Very interested in this. Would support even if rewards to players were minimal.

Merlin13KAGL · April 2015

You want the ESO version of Construction Set.

I'd like to see option for user created content somewhere along the way. I think they're missing out if they don't have this as a option.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure they're geared properly for such a thing, and it certainly isn't high on their priority list. There becomes grey areas regarding who's responsibility it is to maintain/troubleshoot such a thing.

It leads to phasing (you cannot have an item equipped that I was never able to acquire) and problems when someone abandons their user created content.

At the same time, it is a double answer to "Lack of Content," as it gives armchair devs something to do in the creation and other players something to do in the execution.

Kallipsoe · April 2015

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

Kallipsoe wrote: »

onlinegamer1 wrote: »

Neverwinter has a very good system for this. I authored quite a lot of quests there and got lots of donations (of in-game gold) from players who enjoyed them. They implemented a very good way to prevent imbalance/exploitation (won't go into detail here, go read up on it if it interests you).

Yes, Iv seen this work very well in other games though Iv never tried Neverwinter. I will defiantly go look at it, thanks.

Some very high-level points:

1. The builder has limits on each type of asset, so you can't build gigantic things, nor add too many monsters, too many traps, too many walls, too many floors, too many ... anything.
2. EXP is controlled by special rules to prevent exploiting (things such as if the mob never attacks you before it dies, its worth 0 xp)
3. There is no loot in the designer other than a single "end chest". Think of ESO "Normal" world chest, but not as good. Literally, forget about doing player-made quests for loot, its not gonna happen.
4. When someone runs a player-made quest, the system tracks how long it took them to do it. It does this... forever, tracking the time all players take to finish it. Each quest has an "Average Completion Time" statistic. Once a quest gets... I wanna say 20 plays (forgetting exact #), this time is then used to scale the Completion EXP of the quest. i.e. too short, EXP is nerfed, very long, EXP is buffed a little. This is another measure to prevent exploitation (i.e. a quest with "1 room and 1 mob, and you're done" is pointless to create due to this).

Some examples of things that don't work (i.e. that you can't exploit)
- a "Kill Pit": 100 melee-only mobs in a pit, you stand above them and nuke them down. You get 0 XP, nice try.
- The "1 room 1 mob, you're done" quest. You get XP for 1 mob (assuming it can fight you) and the end chest will have 1 gold and completion XP will be 1 XP.
- The "100 rooms each with 1 mob" quest: normal xp for the mobs, but likely will be quick completion and therefore very little gold/XP at the end.

In general, the system works well and doesn't require reviews by the game company, because the builder already has so many restrictions and limits, as does the actual play-through, that players can publish quests with no review necessary. Also, players are limited to 10 quests per account, so you can't spam the system with tons and tons of quests.

Yes, completely agree there would have to be restrictions in order to reduce some players ability to exploit it.

Gidorick · April 2015

You and I have very similar tastes @Kallipsoe

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso/p1

and while the concept is simple the implementation would be far from it.

Gidorick · April 2015

nastuug wrote: »

Interesting concept. I've never actually had the pleasure of experiencing this type of thing within a game like ESO.

You should check out Perfect World games... Neverwinter community creations are quite prolific.

Kallipsoe · April 2015

Gidorick wrote: »

You and I have very similar tastes @Kallipsoe

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/144735/player-created-content-suggestion-for-the-future-of-eso/p1

and while the concept is simple the implementation would be far from it.

@Gidorick great post and I am going to support your post and push it back up for discussion. I understand the implementation of such a system will be difficult, but I also believe the work would be worth it for the devs. I would agree with others that I want to see the addition of the three new zones, Imp City, Thief Guild, Assassin Guild and spell crafting first, but I would love for this idea to be in the works.

Gidorick · April 2015

I agree the effort would be worth it @Kallipsoe! If ESO had this option from day one we wouldn't be complaining about no new content, we'd be busy playing community levels and quests. Guilds would make public levels top use as guild halls. RPers would spend all their time making and playing in their own areas. It really would fill a lot of pots.