Rift Watchers » Blog Posts » Questing in RIFT: Not As Bad As You’ve Heard
Questing in RIFT: Not As Bad As You’ve Heard
RIFT’s questing sucks.
I’ve heard this said over and over again. Every time it’s by someone who has played MMOs for the last 3+ years and has completed no less than 50,000 of them. Let’s please keep our objectivity here, because, I’ve got to tell you, RIFT is no worse than any other game out there. It is Kill Ten Rats, Collect Ten Foozles, Zap 10 Badwots with the Magical Badwot Zapper,but you know what? It does it with style. It’s flashy. It’s fast paced. It’s dangerous. Those are three things quests should be. Quests don’t overstay their welcome (most of the time). For the most part, you hit a hub, do some quests, do some follow-up quests, and move on. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a good Epic Story thrown in there.
Sounds familiar, probably.
See, this is what I don’t get. We can rail against RIFT for having “crap quests” and yet cheer it on for being “familiar.” This and a few other double standards somewhat amaze me. Quests are what we’ve seen before. Yes. They are. Does that make the game less fun? Does it make LotRO, or Age of Conan, or Aion less fun? Let’s just do ourselves a solid, right now: Everything pre-Cataclysm sucks. Cataclysm was the tipping point, it seems, because from that point onward big chunks of the MMO blogosphere got done with the questing system.
And that’s really what it is: players are just done with the questing system. To say that RIFT’s quests are so bad completely lacks context. RIFT’s quests would have fit in very well last year. For what they are, they’re fun. They’re not breaking the mold with soul-like innovations, no, but they are standard MMO fare. The people saying questing sucks so bad are the same people who have already played this system in LotRO, and Age of Conan, and Aion. They’re also the same people most excited about SW:TOR, and Guild Wars 2, and Dynamic Content. They have sampled the sweetest fruits and most varied fruits and found RIFT lacking. Let’s be clear here: RIFT is no worse than those other games and in some ways is better. The ways it’s better are the little details where Trion’s flair comes out. And yeah, I agree, I wish there was more of that.To say that there is some grand difference, that RIFT is “unfun” is a damnation that would better read “I’m SO tired of the questing system.”
Yet, to simply say “this, the biggest part of the game, the one you’ll be stuck in for the next 49 levels, is unfun,” is tantamount to saying “don’t bother.” That’s what bothers me. RIFT is one of the best PvE MMOs to come out since 2004 WoW. It doesn’t break the mold in the most practical areas. It’s a lot more subversive than that. After you get used to the class-freedom, the constantly changing environments, and perpetual sense of danger, how do you go back to the static worlds of yesterday? How does WoW not look like the sleepy-eyed giant with the safe and secure playground? That’s it, right there. That’s why players should bother and take notice, because, make no mistake, whether you say RIFT is dynamic or not, it changes things. It’s the first shot in the war against staticism (yeah, I made that up). Fans of the genre need to perk up and listen, because this is the first real movement towards next generation’s MMOs.
I’m not saying RIFT’s questing is perfect. It is a weak point in the game. It’s grindy, like all questing systems, repetitive, and, most importantly, un-innovative. Where they’ve subtly but meaningfully evolved other aspects of RIFT, their questing system remains firmly in The Burning Crusade era of MMOs. It’s easy to see why people would be let down. But what it does, it does well. Quests are interesting and varied; quest text is worth reading for this reason alone. Spell effects are intricate, colorful, and flashy. Quest hubs are designed for the 2011 player: objectives are clearly marked and close together. There’s very little “take this package to Timbuktu via horse and buggy.” That makes quests quick and easy to complete.
What we need to address is the root of Character Power Progression — or CPP as Nils puts it. Whether experience comes from scripted quests, scripted rifts, or scripted events, it all comes down to the same thing: kill the guy, get the stuff, complete the quest. Every way we know it can get old. That’s human nature and one of the top few areas that MMOs are growing stagnant in.
The MMORPG industry NEEDS innovation, but let’s not lay the blame at Trion’s feet. They simply had the misfortune of releasing in a time when most of us were ready to move on from 10 Foozles and Badwot Zapping.
Written by Chris C.
Chris has been involved with MMORPGs since the MUDs of the mid-nineties. Four years ago, he stepped into the world of graphical games with World of Warcraft. Since then, he's played just about every major MMO under the sun, and some of the not-so-major ones, too! When not writing about Rift, Chris acts as the Site Manager for the Vagary TV gaming network. Chris also writes the MMO and console gaming blog, Game by Night, along with the weekly column Some Assembly Required at Lagwar.com
Filed under: Blog Posts · Tags: leveling, Planes of Telara, pve, questing, Rift, trion
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Nice article Chris.
Questing in RIFT is fine to me. I don’t know how many ways you will find to innovate an in-game tasking system which simply equates to exploration with some fetch and kill type of work. Quests for the most part, in any game design, help move the player through a story arc while giving them filler tasks to afford advancement opportunities. Also, the questing systems moves the player around the world or environment and is used by game designers to put the player in the suggested place at the correct time during their progression in the game. The methodology and presentation varies from game to game, where some games present the information, dialog and tracking well — and some fail. The core rules of designing a system like this is pretty much the same in any RPG. The questing system in a MMORPG is designed for the sake of familiarity. Unfortunately, it sees a slow evolution from game to game.
I suppose an innovative idea would be to have the game do the quest for you, or just push a story arc subliminally through in-game VO and SFX. Maybe, do away with kill quests totally and create a new genre of quest called “empathy” quests. The player sits down with the bears and discusses his/her feelings in a situational/decision point dialog tree. The player discusses why he/she would rather be the bear’s friend instead of kill them. Then, you could transition into a nice dexterity challenge where you, as the player, have to do a series of keyboard inputs to keep the bear from eating your face.
I am sure the someday, some clever game designer will come up with a new method of moving a player through the content and giving them progression without feeling a grind. Maybe you can just start the player at level cap and not have a progression or grind at all.
When you say the industry needs to innovate, I think that’s a little bit of a broad statement. Maybe you meant to say that game design in MMORPGS should find a little innovation. I think if you looked more closely at RIFT, you will see that there is a good bit of innovation starting to happen with this title — but probably not as much as they have hyped.
I will close this dissertation in affirming that I appreciate everyone’s opinions and am just expressing mine, as a game developer of over 25 years now. Back when I worked on tabletop games, I saw this same argument (about base game rules) many times over. This “innovation” argument is perpetual and always will be.
Yeah, that is what I meant. I personally don’t have any problem with the traditional quest model because no one has yet found a better solution short of grinding. That works in some places but I don’t think a game like RIFT would be successful with that approach. Innovation will surely come at some point, probably in small incremental steps like other areas of MMORPG development. Whether it will be dynamic content or events ala Guild Wars 2 is yet to be seen.
The fact that people *want* something new is quite evident, though. I just hate hearing people make it seem like RIFT is a bad game because it uses a traditional quest model. In comparison to some of their other advancements, questing definitely seems less innovative. Calling it out like that, though, is like calling out a fingerprint on an otherwise nice car. It could be cleaned up and the car would be “improved” for it, but it’s no deal breaker.
I have to say that I find questing in Rift to be the least enjoyable part of the game, but that’s not to say the questing is bad. Rift quests are entirely passable, they’re just very mundane for the most part. They get the job done, but don’t bring much of anything new to the genre.
And that’s OK. Having a traditional questing system acts as a foundation on which they built their more innovative systems. If dynamic content is around, you can quest. If you don’t feel like PvPing, or the queues are too long, you can quest. If you’re too low level for the nearest dungeon or there’s nobody willing to run it, you can quest.
Questing in Rift isn’t intended to be the high point, it’s intended to be the background activity you do when nothing else is available, or when you just want to have quiet evening.
If a player finds Rift’s quests dull, DON’T DO THEM. You can easily level up quickly in Rift without ever doing a single quest. There are even ways you can get xp (albiet slowly) without ever fighting at all – exploration and Collections.
The people who have been praising WoW for the past 6 years and then complain about Rift’s quest system or global cooldown really need a good slapping around
Grr.
“If dynamic content is NOT around, you can quest.”
WTB post editor
That’s a great point. The fact that questing alone won’t carry you all the way to 50 is a pretty good indicator that Trion doesn’t see it as the “only” way to level; not to mention, there are lots of rewards and incentives for focusing on the dyanamic content instead. In the upper 40s, it’s pretty common to see calls for rift grinding groups for just that reason. And there’s the fact that rifting is much quicker XP than questing. When you need 200k to level and are still getting 4k a quest, taking up other activities is a pretty good idea.
Great points, Peter. Thanks for commenting!
I don’t find the quest system to be particularly problematic personally. Is there some repetition? Sure. Does it feel painful? No moreso than any othe MMO. is it the least ‘innovative’ part of Rift? Probably.
I also wanted to comment on the concept that Cata questing was this amazing innovation. Sure the use of phasing was cool, but it got to the point where they seemed to be looking for opportunities to phase for the sake of doing so rather than game progression. I found Cata questing to be painfully linear. You could not skip anything or would find yourself completely stuck. Sure, the story lines were outstanding, but there was a distinct lack of decision making. You were forced to do every single quest in order. That’s NOT my definition of innovation.
I agree. I enjoyed questing through Hyjal but the experience only went down from there. I hated how linear everything was. My guild has the misfortune of rolling on a PvP server, which usually I don’t mind, but in the case of Cataclysm, it meant that griefers could literally stop you from progressing. Can’t move to another hub? Too bad, may as well log out or queue for a dungeon. There’s also something to be said for not putting every quest objective within eyesight of the NPC who gave it. Seriously, Dragon? You want me to kill those bad guys while you sit here flapping your wings? LAZY.
I’ve made it a point to do all the quests in one area before moving on (get the quest achievement for the zone). Here are some things I’ve found:
1. The quests aren’t sponsored by Fedex…so your not usually running from one quest hub, across the zone to hail someone, then to run all the way back only to be sent back across the zone for something that you forgot. Most of the time, the quest hubs flow. So you go to a quest hub, you do the quests in the local area, and once you are done with that mini story line your moved to the next hub. There’s some flexibility in this in that you may have options of which quest hub to go to next but there’s not a whole lot of back and forth
2. Sure the quests are tasks, kill 10 of this, go harvest that. However, there are quests mixed in to the chores that tell a story and if your just a clicker (don’t read the text) you may not realize that each zone is telling a story. And generally you start some where low at the beginning of the story, and then end by concluding it…Silverwood is very obvious in this. However throughout the story there are chores littered within the story quests.
3. I don’t think quests need to be innovative. I think having a few epic quests, which rift has is fine. Quests really serve one purpose for me anyways, to get xp and items for something I’d already be doing anyways: Killing stuff.
I think quests are what they are. A mini goal to get some experience and explore new areas. That said, I enjoyed a number of unusual quests in Warcraft. Like taking control of ships, blowing up other ships, diving to the bottom of lakes wearing breathing apparatus, riding on top of storm giants and directing them to kill 100 whatever with their storm bolts, etc. Riding dragons to fire breathe towns, etc. Warcraft actually does have a number of non traditional quests. It doesn’t have to be collect or kill this or that.
You’ve made some great points sir! I am not sure how any one MMORPG can be blamed for bland questing any more than the other. WoW created that problem and everyone else has followed suit. They’re all lame and they’re all mostly chores.
Rift actually has some quests worth doing in it. The stories are pretty interesting and progress across the whole game in some cases. I like that.
I also like that Rift doesn’t punish you for not questing. You can level perfectly fast by chasing after Rifts and invasions. I do it all the time. If you don’t like questing go kill mobs like I do!
[...] Rift Watchers — Questing in RIFT is not as bad as you’ve heard “It is Kill Ten Rats, Collect Ten Foozles, Zap 10 Badwots with the Magical Badwot Zapper,but you know what? It does it with style. It’s flashy. It’s fast paced. It’s dangerous. Those are three things quests should be.” [...]
Very good post.
I think Rift’s questing is a bit better than just alright. The content of the quests is pretty bog-standard, but the bells and histles are quite often pretty impressive. You don’t see much of that in the first zone or two, but by mid-levels all kinds of fireworks start to happen.
I thought I was pretty much burned out on quest-hub gameplay, but it turns out I’m not. So long as the quests are snappy and there are some unexpected manifestations, explosions or transformations, with losts of flashy visual special-effects and some amusing voiceover, it seems I don’t mind doing a few quests after all.
And I do feel that questing in Rift is pretty much optional, anyway. It’s true that in the last ten levels, when xp gain slows quite markedly, you probably aren’t going to want to forego those extra xp bursts that quests offer, but if you really don’t want to quest it’s more than feasible to level doing Rifts, Dungeons and Warfronts.
I have to admit, I’m not here to knock other games, but…. I love rift. I can play and get questing done and excel a level or two, and still have time for pvp prior to dinner. The best part is I don’t feel attached to the game. Whereas in other games to move forward you have to be online for X amount of hours and that takes time from family. I feel rift allows the casual gamer to still move ahead, and also rewards the more hardcore gamer with more in the end. I can’t complain, I am glad I bought a subscription.
It’s not that the system is bad, but for me it’d be nice if I didn’t have to try and cut through way more mobs than is necessary and then have to do it again for all the respawns. There are some areas where this isn’t that big of an issue, but there are areas that going back and forth and back and forth makes you sick of killing those guys everytime you want to do something.
You make some excellent points, Chris. For veteran MMORPG players, questing can seem to be old hat. Unless we get wrapped up in story, or see something innovative, we get bored quickly. But as you noted, Rift has that world where you can chase rifts a great deal of the time and level that way. A couple of the questlines are quite fine, namely the Werewolf line in Gloamwood. Too bad some of the easymode-loving players didn’t “get” the fun of being changed when the sun went down.
The visual effects are nifty, and there’s a feel to many of the quests that make them seem less painful. I have to agree with Kars above that mob density can be annoying. I hate having to kill my way in to grab something and kill my way out again, when I’ve already put enough of those guys into the ground to fill a crater. But at least the quests don’t insult our intelligence and drive us nuts on technicalities. Anyone remember the Vanguard quests where you had to gather something like 10 lead idols and they added weight to your bag so if you were a plate-wearer you ran out of stamina when you only had 6 of them? SHEESH!
Creating innovative and exciting quests/activities in game will always be a developer’s major challenge. Rift has come a long way toward reducing the quester’s ennui, and it’s still a lot of fun to play whether you quest or not. The next generation of play, however, will definitely be something to look forward to!
I’m sorry, I’ve been playing MMOs since Everquest first came out, before that I played in Play by Mail games. I have no problem with the quests in Rift. I’m loving the game. Questing is how you level up. I think the rifts are fun. I think the quests are interesting, even though they get repetetive, but that’s what you have in an MMO. Kudos to Rift for making a game I think is fun. I got awfully tired of WoW. I’m not a PvPer, I prefer to play PvE. And for the most part I like to solo. Rift makes it easy for me to do this. Thank you Trion!
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