Ourorboros wrote: »

First, no one is forced to accept quests. For those overwhelmed by a large quest queue, the simple solution is control yourself and don't bite off more than you want to chew. Why should this be coded into the game and force everyone to be limited for what amounts to a play style issue? From my perspective, only hardware/software limitations should control the quest limit. The rest is a matter of choice. As to pacing the content and enjoying the game versus racing to the highest level, again it is a matter of personal choice. Since I have yet to complete Gold on my first character, I can't be accused of racing to the end. Yet I did explore the whole map as soon as I could (needed those skyshards since my main is also maxed in all crafts), and as a result I found many quests. I didn't add them, as I was under leveled and couldn't do them, but also becuase I had to leave room for quests I could do. Unless there are server limitations, why shouldn't an intrepid explorer be allowed to queue those quests as they are found, and complete them when able. That's a play style issue.

While “no one is forced to” makes logical sense it does not make good game design, and is not always a good reason to allow something. Limitations are a fundamental part of game design. Without them the approach and feel of a game completely alters, think about combat and how the limited number of abilities you can have compared to other games in the genre makes combat feel very different. This is the same in other aspects of the game. Having a limitation forces players to consciously think about something, make choices, and can lead to better engagement with that part of the game. Yes this does cater towards a particular play style, but that is a design choice. Do you design the elements of the game to be as good as they can be for the people that want to enjoy that part of the game, or as easy to ignore and just get on with for the people that do not really have that much interest in the content?

Now, after all that, my opinion might seem a bit odd! Personally I think they should get rid of the limitation.

That might sound like the opposite of what I was just saying, after all I was just spouting about the benefits of limitations, but hear me out. The (fabulous) videos linked earlier talk about the Secret World, that had a meaningful limit and I would never agree with that being increased. Here, however, we have an arbitrary limit that I did not know even existed. I am a quester, that is the part of the game I love, I have never hit cap, I have never had to think about which quests I am accepting, and I have never had the limit force me to engage more with the system. Therefore, I cannot see the benefit of keeping it.

I can see why others are suggesting a lower limit, and if this was a new game that had yet to be fully realised I would suggest that is something they should consider in the core of the quest design. However, the benefit for decreasing it but at this stage that is more of an afterthought then a design choice and I do not see it really working the way it would be intended.

So yes, I am for the limit being removed.

Chuggernaut wrote: »

I went with other, but would have gone with No if It's too confusing having more quests. was omitted.

That being said, I've never hit the limit and to be honest didn't know the game had one till this thread.

Do you run the zone and talk to everyone before you get to work or what?

As I explained several times, yes I did explore the zone before 'getting to work', whatever that means. I won't go into the reasons again, except to say I started this thread with comments about getting Quest Achievements. The achievement is a number, and rather large at that. So for me, and players like me, the quest queue limit can be a hindrance. For a game that advertised, and rather grandly at that, "Play the way you want", there are a ton of built in limitations. Guess that message was the marketing version. Maybe the developer version is more like "Play the way you want, as long as it's something we haven't limited". It's fine if you don't agree with or understand my play style, we all get to choose how we want to play (within limits, of course ).

Gandrhulf_Harbard wrote: »

The real problem is the appalling quest tracker that only allows you to track one quest at once, and has not been coded at all well so that when you finish a quest it just selects the next random quest, rather than a Zone relevant quest.


All The Best

That's a really good point about the quest tracker selecting random quests. I can't think of the number of times I've followed my quest marker only to realize it's not even close to the quest I was after.

VictoriaRachel wrote: »

Think about speed runners, it is an active community of people who work as hard as possible to finish games as quickly as possible. Does that mean they have ruined their experience? Of course not.

Imho, the answer is "of course, yes", even more in a TES game. Let's agree to disagree on that :-)

And of course everyone can play the way they want, but not require the game tools to be designed according to it, especially since there are alternatives (in this case, pen and paper).

Alone the complaint about the quest marker not changing automatically to the next relevant story quest is a sign that those players don't really care avout any quest content, just about objectives being ticked off as completed, and nothing else. They even need the software to take over for them not even being able to think about where they are in the story and what makes sense to do next.

VictoriaRachel wrote: »

By saying 'in your opinion' it ruins their experience shows exactly the problem. Your opinion is just simply not relevant to their enjoyment. You are welcome to have it of course, but to be honest it means jack. They can, and will, enjoy things based on their own opinions. So sorry but that is not something I will agree to disagree on.

Imagine you've bought a nice holiday in the sun. You come at a crossroads : left is what the organizer promised : sun, palmtrees, nice sea to swim, white sands and thelike. Right are buildings in construction, motorway, pollution and noise. But because right way is shorter (to what ? you don't know but you heard it's shorter) you choose to take the right instead of left.

You'll come back home and complain everywhere that this travel organizer is a thief and none of the promised journey was actually available, without even realizing that's your own fault for having chosen the supposedly shorter path. And you are not even aware of what you've missed because you have not seen it at all. You might even blame the organizer for not having forced you to take the left road.

That's exactly what speed players do : miss the whole thing for the sake of speed (why ? dunno), don't even realize what they've missed, reach endgame asap, complain that there is nothing to do, and come over to the forums to give everything and everyone a big thumb down.

So yes, I think these people are ruining their own game experience, criticize without knowledge, and it is better to encourage if not force them to choose the correct way and not the wrong one. There are achievements in the game because it's fashionable nowadays for every game to have "achievements", even the most ridiculous ones, but an Elder Scrolls game is 90% about story, lore and exploration. If people use their "open world freedom" correctly it's fine, if they abuse it they will miss the whole thing, so it's better to encourage them to play the game the way it's intended to be played.

Current limit does not improve the experience of people who enjoy questing (they don't even notice it's there) but it prevents rushers from rushing too much and complaining afterwards. Finishing a zone goes far beyond having all signs white on it.

I don't have quests to necessitate the need for a quest log...

wilsonirayb16_ESO wrote: »

Actually, I wish they'd remove half the quests in the game. There's far too many, and most of them are some variation of a fetch, go to the X, do this redundant thing that I could do myself but don't want to because the writers and developers lack creativity - kind.

Besides being inane and boring, they also end up culminating into too much experience gain.
Sure they could up the exp requirement per level, but I'd rather fewer quests that were more involved and longer lasting.

This would slow down the experience gain, as well as give us more lasting adventures.


Quality over quantity!

Ffastyl wrote: »

I think the default for Quest Gives should be off.

It shouldn't even be an option. The quest icons are silly and the quest tracker addons are just ridiculous.
If people can't be bothered to talk to NPCs, listen to their stories of fame, glory, near death experiences and quest for riches, then I question what their idea of adventure is.

And who are YOU to question ANY other players game experience?!! Even thought the poll results are in favor of losing or raising the quest cap, this thread seems to have attracted only posters dedicated to eking out every last iota of questing while savoring all the lore and details. Well guess what, not everyone wants to spend 5 or 10 years getting through the first alliance. Raising the quest limit doesn't threaten you slow pokes, and nothing in the OP had anything to do with impacting this type of player. So it leaves me wondering why this thread seems so threatening to them. And it galls me that they have to audacity to suggest THEIR way is the right way to play the game. At this point I would punctuate my opinion with a few choice epithets, but with the censors looking on, you can just use your imagination

drschplatt wrote: »

Maybe a nice compromise to the situation is not to allow the journal to store more quests, but maybe treat discovered quests a bit like discovered locations on the map. Once you find a quest giver, you should have the option to keep that location marked on your map somehow. For me the biggest irritation is that if my quest journal is maxed out, I can't keep track of a quest I happen to discover while I'm exploring. I don't always just quest in this game. Sometimes my guild likes to do zone runs where we do every world boss, dolmen and delve in a zone to help those who can't solo them. During those runs, I might stumble across a quest from a zone 30 levels ago that I never found before. I'd love to be able to easily mark on my map that there's a quest in that location so I can come back to it.

Thank you, my point exactly. There are two suggestions I can make, both are add-ons. Quest Map add-on shows all quests. Custom Pins add-on will let you mark the map. I guess you could also write it down, but WTF is the point of having a computer if you don't take advantage of it.

I don't think I've ever had more than 5-7 quests in my journal at one time, so I don't really see why.
But it wouldn't do any harm to increase it I guess, if it does effect how others play. What do you do? Go collect half the quests in a zone before starting any?

I couldn't care less how other people prefer to play their games, but 25 is half the quests in a zone. How do you even activate so many at once? I have never hit the limit.

Ourorboros wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

I couldn't care less how other people prefer to play their games, but 25 is half the quests in a zone. How do you even activate so many at once? I have never hit the limit.

Did you read the post directly above yours? Generally speaking, you reach the level cap by being an intrepid explorer and going beyond the zone you are currently leveled for. Think of it as taking a Skyrim approach to exploring ESO.

Actually, no, I started writing but then went away, leaving the tab open. The post above mine didn't exist when I started.

But I still don't understand, to be honest. "Skyrim approach" doesn't convince me because I never picked up so many quests in Skyrim either. The reason for this is that with 30 quests in my journal, by the time I reach the last ones on the list, I don't remember what they were even about and how I felt about the situaton. I don't promise to save a town and then leave for two months to do something else on the other side of the country. I don't promise to save a town if the enemies are 15 levels above me and I know I stand no chance. The only time I came close to the limit was when I filled my log with Cyrodiil quests.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing your playstyle, it's just very alien to me. To me it still feels very much like taking everything you come across without care why and what it is.

No, no reason at all. I'm not against raising the cap. I didn't vote because I don't care one way or another, the problem doesn't affect me.

MCMancub wrote: »

I have to imagine there's a performance issue directing their decision on this. 25 quests per character is much easier to maintain than 1000 quests per character from a database perspective. Then there's the issue of having each client query , maintain in memory, and render on screen potentially 1000 quests at a time.

Even when we query data in robust frameworks like SQL, data is only returned 50 rows at a time.

Thanks. This is the kind of concrete explanation for the cap I was looking for. I detest arbitrary limits...feels too much like a parental "because I said so".

Eh, I'm of the "better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it" mind set regarding raising the quest limit.

For those who enjoy systematically clearing quests as they find them, you'll likely not hit the quest cap so it's not a big issue for you. However there are others who like to move around, do a little here, a little there. Even still there are others who for one reason or another have to shelve a quest or two and come back to it later.

A large part of the problem as I see it is how quests are dispersed and how it's impossible to really keep track of them all (complete or incomplete) without either filling up a notebook or using addons, which while helpful aren't 100% foolproof.

If you've ever been to Cyrodiil for a good amount of time, you realize there are butt loads of quests just floating around. PvP related, PvE related, breadcrumb quests, quests in town, quests just floating out in the middle of nowhere, ect. It's pretty easy to fill up your quest log there and not uncommon to have to sit on more than a few of them for some time, what with the 10+ enemy troops standing between you and your quest objective and all.

Then there are some quests that are in really obscure areas. Totally off the beaten path and in the complete opposite direction of where your headed (once again this happens a lot in Cyrodiil). So instead of dropping everything, going back and clearing the quest, it would be more practical to log it so you don't risk forgetting about it or losing it's location and do it later.

Personally rather than worry about the quest limit itself I would prefer to have an improved quest journal that tracks both active and completed quests. That also provides us with the ability to make personal notes. A feature that would allow us to create and save custom map pins would also be appreciated.

Now with regards to the whole "It breaks immersion" argument. Immersion is great, really is. Who doesn't like to feel like they're really a part of the world they're playing in. You feel good when you can give lord Stuffypants his comeuppance. You feel powerful when your choices set into motion the collapse of an entire nation. Your heartstrings tug ever so much when you reunite a frantic mother with her lost and scared child. Lore's nice too. It gives us history and context. It Helps keep us all on the same page. However, it isn't always a compelling argument against making changes to a multiplayer game.

Ultimately immersion and the enjoyment derived from it is subjective, varying from person to person. A frustrated customer base and shoddy/broken game mechanics however are very much tangible, particularly to a developer's wallet. For the sake of implementing and improving gameplay, some aspects of immersion will be lost.

Does that mean we should say to heck with it and throw it out the window? No, certainly not. Why even bother with a coherent story if we're going to do that? Does it mean we should cling blindly to it and handicap ourselves? No. That wouldn't do us very much good either.

Also, the immersion argument isn't really a good one to use in this situation. The quest limit is something that should be addressed for the sake of user ease. Quest progression and story is something that should be addressed for the sake of immersion. Both issues are loosely related sure, but they aren't the same thing. If the story is decently written you could play the game backwards, sideways, upside down and inside out and still find as much immersion and enjoyment as you would playing it in the proper order, regardless of how many quests you have active. That being said, you also shouldn't have to sacrifice performance to do it either.

Now whether or not the limitation is there for technical reasons (because it's always technical reasons right, ) and whether or not any changes can actually be made because of those technical reasons is another matter all it's own.