I recently had a fairly negative experience with a quest in the game Dragon’s Dogma 2. It was so bad that here we are writing up some of my thoughts about it. Let’s first talk about the particular quest and why it was bad and then maybe create some guidelines for what to avoid when making a quest.
The Quest
The quest in ..question (haha) is titled the Riddle of Eyes. This quest is the very first part of a multipart quest line involving the Sphinx. The cool factor for finding the Sphinx is very high. The monster is found on the top of a mountain that you needed to venture past a ruined castle, through a cave, past a magic stone golem, and finally up a long set of stairs. The creature is very large and imposing. You as a player should get the sense of “I just found something really cool here!” and I did. They trick us into thinking that there will be a single riddle, and a very old and overused one at that. When we actually interact with the Sphinx, we find out that we have five different riddles to answer and none of them are the lame “What has 4 legs in the morning, 2 legs at noon, and 3 legs at night?”. “This is great!” I was thinking at the time.
The very first riddle is: “Our eyes are our allies, yet oft do they betray, for eyes tell lies, so I advise, and thence do lead astray. Yet how will your eyes advise you? Venture through yonder door and retrieve that which is of greatest value.”. When she gives you the riddle, a locked doorway opens nearby and this is a mini dungeon with an ogre boss at the bottom. As soon as you enter through the doorway, if you turn around, you will see a chest above the door. This chest contains the item of the greatest value. As soon as I grabbed it, I knew immediately that this was the item needed for the quest. It is called the “Sealing Phial”. It is a one of a kind item that says it can store a single npc. This becomes a really interesting item with a few different uses. What the description happens to leave out though is that it is single use. At this point in my play through I had another npc with me, a boy named Rodge, who needed protecting. So I decide that this is fantastic and I can put him in the phial. As soon as you do, the description of the item changes to indicate that to remove the npc, you must break the phial.
After clearing out the dungeon, I return to the Sphinx. The quest turn in doesn’t even list the filled phial as an option. This means that a filled phial is viewed technically as a different item in game. Thus, the quest line has been ruined. From what I gather we not only miss out on the reward for this riddle, but also on the full reward for solving them all.
Why is this bad quest design?
As a player, I knew without a shadow of doubt that the Sealing Phial was the necessary item for the quest. I could have gone and turned it in right away but instead it sounded fun to use. It was fun to use by the way. If the item description had even remotely mentioned that it could only be used one, I would not have used it. This causes me as the player to feel very bad. The way the game loading system works as well meant that I could not undo this. Let’s take a step back to state very clearly that quests need to be failable. As a player we need to have agency, the ability to impact the game world through our choices or outcomes from our actions. With that in mind, why am I upset that I failed the quest. It comes down to not enough information that using the item would fail it.
Some options that could have prevented these negative feelings:
- The item clearly states single use
- The game gives us an “are you sure” dialog
- The quest accepts the filled phial for turn in
- The item is not single use
- The item can be obtained elsewhere
Let’s go through these one by one. If the item clearly stated it was single use, the player would have cause for understanding that using it is permanent. If the game gave us an are you sure dialog box, this would also give the player cause for concern on using it. Both of these do fall into some negative patterns though. A player may still think that a used phial could be turned in. So if the quest allows us to turn in the filled phial, we remedy the initial issue and both of our first potential solutions. This could cause an issue if you have to turn in the phial and then permanently lose the npc that was in the bottle. I can be swayed both ways on this. It could be a consequence of action, one with a small impact or one with a very large impact (depending on the npc in the vial).
My favorite possible solution however is that the Sealing Phial is no longer a single use item. Does this break the game? I do not believe so. If this item is a single instance in the whole game and can only hold a single npc at any given time, there is little cause to think it would break the game. If a single npc being in the bottle breaks the game, then it still breaks the game as a single use item. Instead of breaking the phial to remove the npc, you would simply uncork it. This is one of my favorite options because it gives the player a valuable and fun reward for exploration off the main path. We already get some of that feeling by finding the Sphinx in the first place but that is a momentary “woah” whereas the item can be a constant reminder of the experience. If the item was infinite use, I could have easily just removed the npc and turned in the quest.
The final option which could even work with all the previous (except maybe the infinite use version) is if we were able to obtain this item elsewhere in the game. We would still have the initial negative feelings around not being able to finish the quest if we incorrectly used it early. However, it then gives the player a new potential focus to find the object elsewhere. This is a new exploration event and can be a vehicle to transport the player into new and interesting areas.
Quest guidelines
The below are some of the my thoughts on what makes a quest good or bad. This is likely not a fully exhaustive list but is a good start.
What makes a bad quest
- Doesn’t make sense
- Can be failed without any kind of warning
- Not interesting
- Repetitive
- Causes the player to go back and forth multiple times between two places
- Reward isn’t worth it
Quests need to make sense. The player should understand why they are doing what they are doing. The player should have an idea on where to go and how to complete. The quest does not need to give 100% of the information, but enough to not be nebulous. If the player completes the quest and doesn’t understand why the turn in required a special rock, the quest was a failure.
Quests also need to make the player feel good. This means that quests shouldn’t be randomly failable. Clear victory and failure conditions should be made apparent. This could be a time limit (now the player doesn’t need to know that there are 20 minutes left, but they need to know that a time limit exists). A failure that the player doesn’t understand makes them feel very bad. A failure that the player fully understands (I didn’t get there in time, I made a choice that sounded like it would have a negative outcome over here, I couldn’t defeat the enemy, etc) may make the player feel bad about the quest but also provides the player with the feeling that they are legitimately having an impact on the world. A balance certainly exists here and may take trial an error to discover.
If the quest is boring why even make it? Simple fetch quests are an example of a boring quest. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t exist at all, but they should very clearly be few and far between. A quest that states “obtain n items from x monster” isn’t memorable and likely doesn’t have a world impact. Players should be interested in the reason that the quest exists and make a choice on if they want to take it on.
An interesting quest that is identical to 10 other quests has become repetitive and thus boring.
Nothing is worse than a quest that has you run to a location, then back to the start, then back to the location, and maybe even back again. Be more creative!
Finally, there should be an interesting or good reward. This doesn’t not necessarily mean an item or money. The reward could be that an npc doesn’t die! It could be that you get free entry into a town or a discount at a store. There are so many options here, make it memorable.
What makes a good quest
- Impacts the world
- Has player agency
- Gives the player an interesting experience
- Directs the player to an interesting area
- Gives a good/fun reward
A lot of the description down here may just be the opposite of the above.
The quest should have some kind of impact on the world. This impact may just be for a single npc, “please rescue my dog!”, but we should see the outcome. In the example of saving a dog, the dog will now be there next to that npc if you ever revisit. This gives the player a visual outcome for their actions. If you don’t take the quest or fail the quest, that dog isn’t there. The impact may also be very large.
Player agency ties in directly to the first bullet point. The player should be able to have some kind of choice, this may be simply not accepting the quest. A bigger choice is that you need to choose an npc to support and the other ends up in a bad situation. The choice should have consequence to the player, good or bad. This fully leads into allowing the player to fail. Quests that only have one outcome, end up with less player engagement.
Quests should be memorable. This interesting experience may be due to a player feeling smart while solving a puzzle. It may be that the player was directed to an off the road area that normally wouldn’t be explored.
Quest rewards, as described above, do not need to be items. But please, do give unique items for quests. The more rare and hidden away the quest, the better it is to give the player an item that will be with them and remind them of the experience! This does mean, that the item should be something that the player wants to keep on them but also something that is unique or rare enough. A potion will never remind the player, neither will gold.
Ending thoughts
A great game with a few bad quests can completely ruin a player’s experience. The quest above in Dragon’s Dogma 2 has unfortunately really soured my own fun in the game, enough that i’m not too sure if I want to continue streaming it. This example shows that the bigger the quest, the more important it is to not disappoint. If the bad quest was a random quest in town to obtain a small amount of gold, the impact is much less severe. We know that games need a certain volume of side quests to fill out the content. Ensure that the bigger ones have more time and focus on their design.