I've noticed a recurring feedback from the community when it comes to quest lines. Many players find it repetitive or boring and not varying, especially in worlds past Celestia. What I want to start a discussion on is: What do you think KI should do to add variety to their quest lines, if any at all?
For whatever reasons, the First Arc worlds get more praise than the Second Arc worlds. I've heard more people like the story and quest line of the First Arc. But here's what gets me: You do the exact same things in every world.
KI's range of quests are very limited. There are only 8 types of quests in the entire game split between Main and Side quests that the writers get to choose from: 1.) Talk to Character/Object Quests 2.) Defeat Creature Quests 3.) Collect Item Quests 4.) Defeat Creature and Collect Item Quests 5.) Solve the Puzzle Quests 6.) Defeat Boss Quests 7.) Activate Item Quests 8.) Dungeon Quests
No matter what world you go to or what difficulty you're playing at, you'll always do all of these quest types in every world.
How I look at it, I believe there are many factors that make or break a worlds favorability. Scenery, colors, characters and music are the more esthetics that will appeal to certain players and will never be to everyone's tastes so you can't exactly count these. When quests come together, I think of it has the writers being blindfolded and told to paint a picture with random colors. Many one story comes out perfectly and another is not-so-grand. But things just come about randomly while following a tight story outline. It's constantly changing between worlds, but somehow retains an on going theme. What seems to make or break the world is how the pattern of quests is laid out and what the quest over arching plot is. Some players will find Wizard City's story line of dispelling Undead out of the city much better than Celestia's story of helping the Spiral Goegraphic Society regroup itself and complete their mission of unlocking Astral magic. It's all vice versa.
But that doesn't explain why worlds in the First Arc are somewhat more popular than those in the Second. Both carry the same quests types. Each world has it's own story to an over arching plot. Could be the First Arc is just flat out easier and simplier? Is it that the Second Arc is more brutal? Are worlds not appealing in themes and quest lines? Is the game, in general, just getting old like eating pizza every single Friday?
What is your suggestion to KI as of future world quest lines? Do they need more puzzles? Or should defeat&collect quests be banned all together? Should they continue at all? Or have the got it down to a science and this whole post is just a waste of words and time?
"But that doesn't explain why worlds in the First Arc are somewhat more popular than those in the Second. Both carry the same quests types. Each world has it's own story to an over arching plot. Could be the First Arc is just flat out easier and simplier? Is it that the Second Arc is more brutal? Are worlds not appealing in themes and quest lines? Is the game, in general, just getting old like eating pizza every single Friday?"
The second arc is absolutely more brutal with a huge jump in difficulty, plus storyline started out far-fetched with Celestia and just continued to be so scattered that I totally lost interest. And even though we do the same kind of quests in each world, once you hit Zafaria and the seemingly non-stop 'do not collect' quests, or battling the same mobs over and over again, got old.
I don't think the game itself is getting old at all; I'm still here after more than 3 years. The problem I see is that those of us who will not go farther than DS or Celestia either by choice or because we don't have hour upon hour to spend on a game are going to have very little to do except starting new wizards all the time.
Personally I would love to see an alternative to the second arc. I doubt that will happen but in my opinion KI needs, at the very least, to continue with Wysteria and Wintertusk. I would love to see those two worlds expanded upon.
"But that doesn't explain why worlds in the First Arc are somewhat more popular than those in the Second. Both carry the same quests types. Each world has it's own story to an over arching plot. Could be the First Arc is just flat out easier and simplier? Is it that the Second Arc is more brutal? Are worlds not appealing in themes and quest lines? Is the game, in general, just getting old like eating pizza every single Friday?"
The second arc is absolutely more brutal with a huge jump in difficulty, plus storyline started out far-fetched with Celestia and just continued to be so scattered that I totally lost interest. And even though we do the same kind of quests in each world, once you hit Zafaria and the seemingly non-stop 'do not collect' quests, or battling the same mobs over and over again, got old.
I don't think the game itself is getting old at all; I'm still here after more than 3 years. The problem I see is that those of us who will not go farther than DS or Celestia either by choice or because we don't have hour upon hour to spend on a game are going to have very little to do except starting new wizards all the time.
Personally I would love to see an alternative to the second arc. I doubt that will happen but in my opinion KI needs, at the very least, to continue with Wysteria and Wintertusk. I would love to see those two worlds expanded upon.
I totally agree with your post. All three paragraphs make great points. I think the Wysteria and Wintertusk expansions would be really excellent ideas to pursue.
And cunning finnigan, thanks for the OP. Good topic to bring up!
I've noticed a recurring feedback from the community when it comes to quest lines. Many players find it repetitive or boring and not varying, especially in worlds past Celestia. What I want to start a discussion on is: What do you think KI should do to add variety to their quest lines, if any at all?
For whatever reasons, the First Arc worlds get more praise than the Second Arc worlds. I've heard more people like the story and quest line of the First Arc. But here's what gets me: You do the exact same things in every world.
KI's range of quests are very limited. There are only 8 types of quests in the entire game split between Main and Side quests that the writers get to choose from: 1.) Talk to Character/Object Quests 2.) Defeat Creature Quests 3.) Collect Item Quests 4.) Defeat Creature and Collect Item Quests 5.) Solve the Puzzle Quests 6.) Defeat Boss Quests 7.) Activate Item Quests 8.) Dungeon Quests
No matter what world you go to or what difficulty you're playing at, you'll always do all of these quest types in every world.
How I look at it, I believe there are many factors that make or break a worlds favorability. Scenery, colors, characters and music are the more esthetics that will appeal to certain players and will never be to everyone's tastes so you can't exactly count these. When quests come together, I think of it has the writers being blindfolded and told to paint a picture with random colors. Many one story comes out perfectly and another is not-so-grand. But things just come about randomly while following a tight story outline. It's constantly changing between worlds, but somehow retains an on going theme. What seems to make or break the world is how the pattern of quests is laid out and what the quest over arching plot is. Some players will find Wizard City's story line of dispelling Undead out of the city much better than Celestia's story of helping the Spiral Goegraphic Society regroup itself and complete their mission of unlocking Astral magic. It's all vice versa.
But that doesn't explain why worlds in the First Arc are somewhat more popular than those in the Second. Both carry the same quests types. Each world has it's own story to an over arching plot. Could be the First Arc is just flat out easier and simplier? Is it that the Second Arc is more brutal? Are worlds not appealing in themes and quest lines? Is the game, in general, just getting old like eating pizza every single Friday?
What is your suggestion to KI as of future world quest lines? Do they need more puzzles? Or should defeat&collect quests be banned all together? Should they continue at all? Or have the got it down to a science and this whole post is just a waste of words and time?
Thanks for reading!
I think that people mostly complain because in the second arc, the boss quests and collect item from enemy quests increased greatly in number, and the amounts in defeat enemy and collect quests increased. Personally, I would like to see more puzzles and cheating bosses. Not ridiculously hard, but enough to make the average player think. The recent worlds, and questing in general (At least for me) has just been blade, blade, blade, blade, kill. It gets insanely repetitive and boring. That's why I like pvp, and only level when I have to. I have completely lost interest in the rest of the game. The first time I played the game, quite a while ago, I loved questing. I didn't even know that pvp existed. After a while, though, questing just got to be the same thing every time. I stopped enjoying new characters. I quest maybe once a month, if I'm in the mood. I wouldn't say that the game has gone downhill, just that questing has always been very repetitive, and it would be good to have some variety and challenge sometimes.
The difficulty part has been talked about ad nausium. I myself have complained about it.
Im having a problem right now. I got to Azteca and stopped caring about the story. I just click and click and click till the dialog box goes away, and the same in Khrysalis. For me, that came out of frustration with all the Avalon bosses beating the tar out of my fire wizard, and it taking soo long, I just want to get thru the worlds now.
Going back and revisiting side worlds is a good idea, and I think it could be done fairly easily.
Even though there's those types of quests, I think it's the variety, how they spread them around, that makes it grueling or fun. Not having to:
1) Talk to somebody 2) Kill things 3) retalk to somebody 4) talk to somebody new 5) kill the same things you did in step 2 6) talk to second person 7) talk to third person 8) talk to first person 9) kill the same things as step 2 10) talk to first person 11) kill more of the same things
This seemed to happen to me in one part of Zafaria, just before being able to get onto the boat. There were those things by the first dock that we seemed to have to kill about 100 of before we could move on to another monster. Now sure, I was able to combine quests and not have to kill as many, but did I need to keep revisiting the same things? Why not just tell us to kill the 100 right off the bat and then talk to all the people? Why not limit how many people we needed to talk to?
It also seems to need more back and forth and over long(er) distances. Even with mounts this gets old fast.
There's also another problem, and that's with us users. We demand new content all the time and complain we get bored with existing content. A new world comes out, people zip thru it in a week, then say "ok, when's the new world out?" Sure, that's a minority, but it happens. You cant expect QUALITY work when you're constantly harassed for more and more.
Alternate storylines would be great. We can create many wizards and it would be nice if each one could follow a different path. example- at Mirror Lake when Morganthe invited me to join her, an accept / decline option would open up many new possibilities.
In addition to the reasons listed by others here, I think part of the reason the first arc is favored is because the wizard is a much lower level and does not have access to all of the interesting spells possible to their school of magic. A big motivating factor for me leveling up my different wizards knowing in a few levels I got a stronger attack spell or a useful utility spell. Once you have your Rank 8/9 spell (for some it's 7, some 10), there is VERY LITTLE to look forward to. Other than gaining a bunch more levels and repeating the exact same battles there is little incentive to level up further. The extra health is a possible motivation. If more utility spells were released as we gradually level up (like Avalon's spells; even though some of them are awful at least a lot of schools gained another utility spell in their aresnal.)
Another option would be gaining abilities that match their school (like Pirate101) every so often as you hit a certain level. Just a very ROUGH example of what they could be (I'm not saying use these examples.)
I realize all schools have these, but it would be neat to have school abilities that aren't in the gear. Just something to set them apart from one another EVEN MORE. Perhaps SOME automatic resist to their school of focus. - Could have an increase in health, shields, or defense - Could have an increase in attack, critical - Could have a heal boost, absorb shield boost - Could learn the ability summon more than one minion; gain some stun resistance; or even better for minion lovers conjurers being able to pick their minion's spell! needs something unique it's an outdated school ( I love myth fyi) - I'm glad they gave fire the detonate spell and corrected it. Fire should have most control over damage over time attacks. Fire could have an increase in attack or critical or to set them apart from storm - - Pierce! or random % chance to avoid enemy weakness/plague - like they need anything else
The first arc is popular because people can enjoy the entire thing instead of waiting for another world to come out. It is also easier without criticals, blocks, piercings, etc.
- Could have an increase in health, shields, or defense 
- Could have an increase in attack, critical 
- Could have a heal boost, absorb shield boost 
- Could learn the ability summon more than one minion; gain some stun resistance; or even better for minion lovers conjurers being able to pick their minion's spell! 
- I'm glad they gave fire the detonate spell and corrected it. Fire should have most control over damage over time attacks. Fire could have an increase in attack or critical or to set them apart from storm - 
- Pierce! or random % chance to avoid enemy weakness/plague 
- like they need anything else