Idea procedualy generated endless Quests

[Dengar]

this concept is just about a Quest system.

im not sure if this is brilliance, has already been done, or just plain stupid but what about a quest system that randomly decides the next quest in a game. the game would be like runescape for a reference.

essentialy having several npc throught the game and when the next quest generates it decides which of these npcs you must visit and if you need to collect a certain item first and ifso then it also randomly picks the item. but having this system continue to generate a new quest once uve completed the last.

have a Quest Lvl counter so quests get harder each time. collect a certain number of items, fight this certain strength monster, ect

painfuly rough idea but I cant shake the idea that it might be fun. what are your thoughts community?

 

[Ting_Thing]

It could be good but it would take a lot of effort to make it good. I think the real battle is to keep things interesting. Generated quests could easily lack a compelling story-line, and it could easily slip into becoming mundane.

 

[Guest User]

i can't really add much here, but i do know of some examples of similar systems you could take a look at:

Bethesda came up with something like this for Skyrim, they called them "Radiant Quests" and they largely focused on things like small jobs (gathering items, chopping wood, killing x amount of enemies), clearing a location of bad guys, retrieving a random item, or delivering an item from one NPC to another. These are also in Fallout 4 as the now-infamous "settlement quests", which mostly always boil down to clearing a location of bad guys though you sometimes are given options on how to deal with it (paying money, sacrificing a random NPC, letting them come to your base, or attacking theirs). The difference in player reception to these quests is that in Skyrim nobody cared about them whilst in Fallout 4 there are metric tons of memes dedicated to just how awful and annoying they are.

so, I think Skyrim represents the best worst case scenario with these quests, which is what Ting_Thing said, they're mundane and (in Skyrim) you stop doing them when you no longer to Without mods to make the game harder, you stop needing money and experience like 2 seconds into the game. However, the good thing about Skyrim is that you're not forced to do them, receive no penalties if you ignore them, and usually have to make the conscious decision to ask an NPC for one.

The worst, worst case scenario is Fallout 4 where NPCs forcibly hand them over to you and then penalize you if you fail to do them within a certain time limit. Moreover, the sheer abundance of these quests and the fact they are impossible to escape from just makes it all awful. there was also a major issue with the game handing out locations that had recently been used as a quest location. which is repetitive and leads to the feeling that you're making 0 actual progress in the world.

For Bethesda's games they were meant to serve as side-quests, however, not as the main questline. I think there's some good lessons to learn from Fallout 4 when it comes to randomized quests, though. Dwarf Fortress also has this sort of thing in it's Adventure Mode, but quests only come in the form of "go to location X and kill Y". afaik these quests do not create new monsters to fight but rather select ones from the (usually) lengthy list of them placed during world generation. so if you, hypothetically, kill every single monster in the world, you will no longer be able to receive these quests. thing is, though, i don't think Dwarf Fortress's quests ever become pointless like Skyrim's do? so there is possibly some crucial difference in implementation here that might be worth looking into.

 

[Yal]

Dwarf Fortress don't have anything that's NOT randomized, so a lot of effort has gotten into making the randomized stuff good. Fallout 4 and Skyrim literally only has their randomized quests as filler, and it shows. To make your randomized quests good, you should ideally have the randomzer deep enough that it's at least not obvious the quests repeats, or at least not FEEL like you're doing the same thing over and over again. Just adding more independent variables is a good way to add variety, especially if they don't just tweak a numerical value - fighting other enemies, being in new dungeons, and so on.

 

[11clock]

General tip with procedural generation. Procedural generation is meant to be used to aid in the making of content, not what actually makes the content. Make this mistake and you'll end up with something like No Man's Sky.

 

[CloseRange]

This could be interesting but i feel like you would just end up with a bunch of grinding quests and non-engaging quests or story line. I have been working on Procedural generation is hard to pull off on keeping the player engaged. The absolute best way to keep a game engaging is lots of choice for the player. This is where game like minecraft succeed wonderfully while still having random generation. The problem with quests is not only is the game deciding what you will do but also forcing you to do them by not giving you much other options.
So good fix?

Random quests could work with more options. If you do decide to do this you should have the quests split up. Make it so the player can choose wheather they want to do quest A or quest B and then make it so their choice is meaningful: only let them do one or the other then if they do quest A then they can proceed to either quest C, D or E (could make what one they do random of the 3) but if they did quest B then its random from quest F, G, or H: the point is that player choice and computer generation are opposites but can work really well with each other if done right.

 

[Yal]

This could be interesting but i feel like you would just end up with a bunch of grinding quests and non-engaging quests or story line. I have been working on Procedural generation is hard to pull off on keeping the player engaged. The absolute best way to keep a game engaging is lots of choice for the player. This is where game like minecraft succeed wonderfully while still having random generation. The problem with quests is not only is the game deciding what you will do but also forcing you to do them by not giving you much other options.
So good fix?

Random quests could work with more options. If you do decide to do this you should have the quests split up. Make it so the player can choose wheather they want to do quest A or quest B and then make it so their choice is meaningful: only let them do one or the other then if they do quest A then they can proceed to either quest C, D or E (could make what one they do random of the 3) but if they did quest B then its random from quest F, G, or H: the point is that player choice and computer generation are opposites but can work really well with each other if done right.

One idea could be to design quests in such an open-ended way as possible that the player GETS agency over how to solve them. For instance, quests about retrieving an item from the bottom of a dungeon could be solved by fighting your way through them, or by stealthing your way through everyone guarding them, or by digging into the treasury from above using explosives or a drill. The fewer objectives are mandatory, the more can be optional. It's of course good if the game rewards the player more for solving the quest in out-of-the-box ways to promote using different playstyles when possible, but what is possible in the game engine can be hard to predict, so I wouldn't make this a top priority.

 

[CloseRange]

One idea could be to design quests in such an open-ended way as possible that the player GETS agency over how to solve them. For instance, quests about retrieving an item from the bottom of a dungeon could be solved by fighting your way through them, or by stealthing your way through everyone guarding them, or by digging into the treasury from above using explosives or a drill. The fewer objectives are mandatory, the more can be optional. It's of course good if the game rewards the player more for solving the quest in out-of-the-box ways to promote using different playstyles when possible, but what is possible in the game engine can be hard to predict, so I wouldn't make this a top priority.

This actually isn't a bad idea. If you made this then the whole game would need to be based off of this and might take away from everything else. Also it does turn the quest into a huge strategy/adventure and would be difficult to implement and require a lot of play testing. Though if someone could pull this off I would play it in a heart beat

 

[Yal]

Though if someone could pull this off I would play it in a heart beat

Check out Terraria, it's basically Minecraft with RPG elements in 2D. The creative elements does a LOT to spice up the gameplay... for instance, you can construct your own boss arenas to get an advantage in the battles, if a lake gets annoying you can drain it and walk across the seafloor, and you can eradicate entire biomes by placing enough plantlife and terrain from other biomes in them.