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Currently, the quest rewards (particularly for the daily quests) is quite low.

For example, there is a caravan quest that requires 5 level 100 items (boots of the winds), for a reward of 300 silver (a fifth of the cost of the boots), and three rank points. If you purchase those items, you are trading 15 gold for 300 silver, and 3 rank points.

Some of the caravan quests are better about this, but I think as a whole a majority of the 'rewards' in the game are more of a penance service charge, than an actual reward.

Look at the design structure of games like world of warcraft, or TERA, or Archage, or really any other game. You go and do a thing for an npc, be it traveling and talking to someone, delivering an item, killing 100 rats (which is a quest we have, in total atleast). The player gets: Significant money, usually making it worth doing in the first place. They never, or VERY rarely lose money in the first place. There is usually some sort of additional gain, from a next tier loot item. And then there is a reputation impact, which may only be a couple of points, but it is significant.

The daily quests are the opposite of that. You lose money (unless you are a crafter who happens to just have all of those things on hand), you don't usually gain any equipment, and you move somewhere between 1% to 3% closer to the next rank.

I am not saying that the solution to this is boost all the daily quest rank rewards, but it might be worth considering going through the whole of the quest system (and map rewards, for that matter), and boosting all rewards.

I understand that the main focus of the game is to roleplay, and with other players. It just seems like the game should be actively supporting the actions we are doing. These quest rewards are designed almost for the intent of them to not be done at all. It is poor design to put something in the game, and the design it for the express intent for people to not use it, or punishing them that they do. That is the current situation with some of these daily quests: The demand is too high, for too little reward. The result: players have to wait for the quest to expire and reset, to hopefully get a lucky random quest that is at the very least reasonable.

Thanks for the input!

Could you please elaborate on your proposal in more detail? Like, what kind of quest, including its difficulty, shall give what reward in terms of money/items/rankpoints? Such a guideline would really help to review our current quests and develop new ones. The ratio between effort and benefit is important to us and if some quests show an extraordinary high/low ratio, then we need to do something.

Concerning the daily quests, what is your exact proposal on the reward? I understood you consider it too low. How high would you expect the reward to be? I have my problems with the implication that one should be able to take the quest, walk to an NPC nearby, buy the required items and make massive profit out of that. This was never the intention of the daily quests. We have daily quests for fighters and for "item providers" - aka crafters.

Estralis

Hopefully others can also add ideas...If there was any monetary or rank reward for the Galmair last rat quest to "kill the boss" there was no inform. My character received a bad metal shield for 40 rank that is not helpful...and if anything else, I can't remember.



Newby rat quest suggestion in Galmair:

The initial coins and keeping most of the fur are fine. The boss/last which is snuggler and hard to kill for new ones should be increased to: Additional rank, 50 silver is fine with some prizes (for 20-30 skill) such as good shield (Maybe Vern can add), a good sword, initial armor and maybe even a helmet.

Achae Eanstray wrote:Hopefully others can also add ideas...If there was any monetary or rank reward for the Galmair last rat quest to "kill the boss" there was no inform. My character received a bad metal shield for 40 rank that is not helpful...and if anything else, I can't remember.



Newby rat quest suggestion in Galmair:

The initial coins and keeping most of the fur are fine. The boss/last which is snuggler and hard to kill for new ones should be increased to: Additional rank, 50 silver is fine with some prizes (for 20-30 skill) such as good shield (Maybe Vern can add), a good sword, initial armor and maybe even a helmet.

The reward for killing the boss in the cisterns is 30 silver coins and 10 rank points.

Estralis Seborian wrote:Thanks for the input!

Could you please elaborate on your proposal in more detail? Like, what kind of quest, including its difficulty, shall give what reward in terms of money/items/rankpoints? Such a guideline would really help to review our current quests and develop new ones. The ratio between effort and benefit is important to us and if some quests show an extraordinary high/low ratio, then we need to do something.

Concerning the daily quests, what is your exact proposal on the reward? I understood you consider it too low. How high would you expect the reward to be? I have my problems with the implication that one should be able to take the quest, walk to an NPC nearby, buy the required items and make massive profit out of that. This was never the intention of the daily quests. We have daily quests for fighters and for "item providers" - aka crafters.

Estralis

TL:DR
Daily quest rewards for crafters should be at the very least 50%, to 10% higher than market value, and boosting some of the rank points as well.

Daily quests for monster slayings should probably go up to twice the amount (or maybe more?) it would cost to summon the equivalent monster, times the number of monsters to be killed. (I'll admit, I am not super familiar in the realm of fighting, but I have read numerous complaints on low rewards for the fighting).


When it comes to the rewards for daily quests, particularly the crafting ones, I fully agree that a massive profit should not be seen. At the same point, they should be worth doing to some extent. For example, there is a quest that calls for 5 boots of the winds, which cost 15 gold, and the return of that is 3 gold and 3 rank points. Unless your character is a level 100 tailor (which by that point you are probably maxed out at rank anyway), that quest is not viable to complete. You lose money, for very little reward. It also makes these end tier items seem really, really cheap. Another quest calls for 10 storm hammers.

My suggestion would be if you are going to have daily quests, they should be with more common items (there is no reason that a trader is asking for level 100 items), and the pay range should be around 50%-110% of the product value, and consider at least three to five rank points.

If you look at the trade structure in the game, npc trades are likely the bulk of player sales, and they are coming in at a 5-10% sale value, and a significant portion of those are made with the intention that they be of low enough value that you need to gather all materials yourself (or a cheap gatherer) in order to make a profit. Having a daily quest where a player makes the actual equivalent value of an item only serves to reinforce the actual value an item has. This is made more so important when npc's sell almost every item in the game, limiting reason for players to interact with craftsman in general. (Yes, craftsman in theory can create better quality weapons but we have seen that diminish in some ways as well).


As for fighters:
Part of the problem with fighters is that they don't have a distinct flavor to them. If there is a training, or if there is some major doom situation going on, the fighters are easily identified. But in day to day Illarion life, nothing significant happens in that realm. They may go out hunting or whatever, but they don't have strong 'reason' to do so, other than training their skills (which can be done with players), or for random entertainment. The thing that seems to separate a fighter from a craftsman the most quickly is these daily hunting quests: Usually they are a bit difficult to do, and for a person who is set up as a dedicated crafter, it is a large venture. Usually not worth it. The problem is, there is also significant time in locating some of these creatures, getting across the map, fighting them, waiting for them to spawn, etc etc. If your character takes significant damage and uses a potion, or the armor gets damaged, then the profit margin is gone. The formula describing these sorts of daily quests should be considered to be of atleast marginal profit because they happen once a day, and might be considered to be a sort of character defining trait. Fighters go patrol their realms. Craftsmen supply the caravans. Alchemists go and provide herbs for other alchemists. These sorts of things help carve out and define a character as they are and give them a clearer identity. Even if a character does not fit into a class, it does give some definition to who they are as a person.


To put things into a perspective: The quest described with the boss in the cistern gives 30 silver. A mug (not a bottle) of beer costs 31 silver. A new player who has completed that final quest cannot even sit down and have a beer after the fight.

We could sit down and start making a formula for each and every quest in the game, but it would be difficult and would cause everything to be a cookie cutter, and difficult because of the wide scope that quests can have to be dealt with.

I also think it might be worth looking at other types of rewards beyond just loot and gems and rank and money. One of the coolest things from some games is the stories attached to some of their in game items. What if the final quest reward for the cistern rat quest gave a dagger called 'Rat's Tooth'? Make it just a plain, regular old dagger, with a name. Now, the characters in that town (do not pass it to every quest equivalence in the game or it loses it's purpose), have something unique. A memory, an item, something shared. It may not be useful in the same way that a level 100 sword would be, but it does add flavor and culture to a town. I also fully understand that these are HUGE changes to a lot of npc's.

It might be easier to take some of the ideas, update the rewards, and move forward with them.

We could sit down and start making a formula for each and every quest in the game, but it would be difficult and would cause everything to be a cookie cutter, and difficult because of the wide scope that quests can have to be dealt with.

Well, that is actually the task for us developers. And it is not an easy one.

Trying to get samples of what is being discussed.. is this one?

Pesnar Rolemnes in Runewick: Wishes 10 egg salads for a reward of 74 silver.

Unless you are a cook that can make this dish, to buy 10 egg salads ... 37 silver apiece for a cost of 3 gold and 70 silver. Possibly can buy from a cook but shouldn't that be more?

I don't know the rank points or if received rank since elected not to do the quest...

It is not the intention of the quests to stroll to a nearby NPC and just buy the stuff. If you say the reward is too low, please say how high it should be and why. Current reward is twice what the traders in the town pay for the items (four times compared to the secondary trader in other towns).

Estralis Seborian wrote:It is not the intention of the quests to stroll to a nearby NPC and just buy the stuff. If you say the reward is too low, please say how high it should be and why. Current reward is twice what the traders in the town pay for the items (four times compared to the secondary trader in other towns).

This particular quest rewards approximately half what it takes to buy the items. Perhaps not use egg salad if you wish the quest to be worth doing as mentioned previously. Another idea...you could require egg gathering and the gathering of ingredients for egg salad instead of the actual dish. (I don't know what the required ingredients to make egg salad but eggs, however that is a simple idea to make it worth doing), You could even require log gathering for plates.

Suggested reward:

My suggestion would be if you are going to have daily quests, they should be with more common items (there is no reason that a trader is asking for level 100 items), and the pay range should be around 50%-110% of the product value, and consider at least three to five rank points.

Estralis Seborian wrote:It is not the intention of the quests to stroll to a nearby NPC and just buy the stuff. If you say the reward is too low, please say how high it should be and why. Current reward is twice what the traders in the town pay for the items (four times compared to the secondary trader in other towns).

Then these quests shouldn't ask you for lv 80-100 items, New chars cannot complete these quests for quite a long time which means they also don't get as much rank points either.

Also note people don't have the elements to be churning out 5-10 pieces of lv 100 jewelry or equipment per daily quest.

Essentially what you are telling us is that your intention is for the char to roam around looking for other characters with the capacity to craft these things for possibly hours with potentially no result (still having to pay much more than the reward), or that you spend 4-6 hours a day on the game so you can level up to 80-100 only to find out you need rare materials for these things too?

These are not good designs for daily quests then imo

What maximum item level do you propose? The skill level of the character in the corresponding craft? Or a fixed value?

A lv 40-50 for normal quests would be fine I think, the higher level items should be for more difficult quests and not in such volume.

These numbers are just my opinion, anyone else can suggest otherwise.

I'd propose a maximum item level of 60 for the daily quests.

60 is an easily reachable middle ground for a new character solely focusing on the particular craft while remaining out of reach for those doing everything themselves for a while.
It also does not need pure elements.

Edit: I don't mind later one time quests (especially the final quests in quest lines) to require really hard to get stuff. But everything requiring pure elements has a tendency to every now and then be more expensive than the displayed value if purchased from player characters.
Considering the work required to get such a quest done, I'd propose them to yield a pure element (or a perfect level 100 element item, as some final quests already do) in addition to the regular reward.

I agree with Mephy and Q-wert. There should be no items higher than lv 60. Exception only with longer quest series, which can, usually, also end with ü 60.

There is more incentive for rp, I think. Then people have to ask other characters to get things done. And our craftsmen have more to do, are more important again.

I submitted a ticket for this proposal: http://illarion.org/mantis/view.php?id=11468