Ideas for new kinds of questsFollow

People have been complaining about how FFXIV lacks content, which I honestly feel is a perfectly legitimate complaint. I admit, I often find myself with nothing to do except go out and grind on monsters mindlessly. Guildleves only take about 30 minutes to finish all 8, and then once you're done with that you've got no more Guildleves for the remainder of the cycle, which could be as long as 36 hours if you got all your Guildleves as soon as they were available. And if you're not currently at a level where you have any new quests to do for the Main Scenario or your class, then your only other choice really is to go do Behest. But again Behest only takes like 15 minutes to complete, and you can only do Behest once every hour.

And even when you do have Guildleves to do, they're all pretty much the same, and don't actually feel like genuine content. They feel more like a little side-game, like something to do when you're bored and have nothing better to do, and not like something you would want to spend all of your time doing, simply because they're so repetitive.

I suggested previously that Guildleves generally don't have very good storylines behind them, which is true for the most part. However, shallow storylines are only PART of what makes Guildleves dull and boring. More importantly is the variety of the gameplay mechanics involved in Guildleves. Or rather, the LACK of variety.

If you think about it, there are really only three different Guildleves in the entire game. They are:

1. Kill stuff
2. Craft stuff
3. Gather stuff

With Guildleves only ever asking you to do one of the above three tasks, the entire Guildleve system quickly becomes boring and monotonous. There needs to be more variety to the system for it to be at all entertaining.

With that in mind, I've decided to suggest different kinds of quests and goals which could be offered to make the game more entertaining. These quests may or may not be part of the Guildleve system (honestly, I would prefer they weren't, just so we won't be limited to 8 of them once every 36 hours), but with the additional variety these new types of quests would bring, the general feeling that FFXIV lacks content would almost completely evaporate. A couple of these new quest types are just the standard quests that every MMO has, but a few are a bit more unique.

Anyway, here's some of the ideas for additional quest types I've thought of so far:

Message Delivery:
Basic quest type that's in almost every MMO (kinda surprised FFXI doesn't have them). Go talk to NPCs, delivering messages either written or verbal. Lots of potential for story here, as you would get to see plenty of NPC interactions and dialogue.

Item Delivery:
Another basic quest type that's in almost every MMO. Essentially the same as Message Delivery, except you're handing off an actual item of some kind to the NPC, instead of just talking to them. Good story potential here.

Wilderness Gardening:
Plant seeds somewhere out in the wild. Why? Well for story purposes, perhaps an NPC wishes there were more flowers in a particular area. Maybe there used to be lots of flowers there before, but they all died out for some reason. That's just one example. SE could come up with countless other reasons.

Bombing Run:
Similar to the Wilderness Gardening quest (except destructive rather than constructive), you have to plant bombs or explosives of some kind in a specific location for the purpose of disrupting enemy operations. Perhaps you could even be required to sneak past enemies undetected. There are countless variations of this idea which could be made.

Treasure Hunter:
Find a treasure chest hidden in a cave, or under a rock, or in a building, or somewhere else. Maybe the treasure chest is surrounded by monsters. Maybe it's not. Maybe the treasure chest is booby-trapped, and you have to have a special "Disarm" skill to open it safely. A treasure hunting escapade like this that didn't directly involve fighting monsters would definitely add a bit more flair to game.

Historian:
An NPC has tasked you with learning about the history of Eorzea. Go to an in-game library and read a specific book, and then come back when you're finished for a reward. This right here has TONS of potential to add depth and background story to Eorzea. Of course, it would also require SE to add libraries and books to the game, but I think it'd be well worth the effort. Perhaps you could even get books as drops off certain monsters. Imagine, you just kill an NM, and the NM drops a book that you can actually open up and read right there, and that book gives you insight into the background story of the NM and/or the surrounding area.

Spy Hunter:
An enemy NPC has infiltrated an organization in the city, and you have to figure out which NPC it is. Perhaps there's an extra, unfamiliar NPC who wasn't there before hanging around the armorer's guild, and you have to unmask him somehow.

That's all I can think of for now. Feel free to brainstorm and add your own ideas for unique types of quests, or expound upon some of the existing ones.

Ps - we do item delivery quests already. They're local leves.

A photo shoot for F'hlarminn's next poster release (could make this a monthly competition between adventurers),
Star gazing to spot certain 'omens' for the followers of Nald'Thal
Metal Gear Shutdown - where you have to navigate past a group of Mammets gone mad in order to get behind them and reach their shutdown switches before they realise your there and retaliate.
Dust devils - probably a few quests that could be created based on having to struggle through a sandstorm. can't think of one at the moment
Thunder Tango - similar to ffx's thunder plains - a game whereby a person has to navigate through Gridania in a thunderstorm without getting hit by lightning

Faux Fashion - this would be based on the adventurer's knowledge of clothing gear available. One of the Weaver guild's weaving names has been embarrassed when presenting his/her seasonal collection on stage at the miner's guild as they didn't understand the types of gear that are normally worn together for particular jobs (eg (s)he placed bronze spectacles on a marauder) go there and lend a hand and help turn his sucker show into a success!!

The Bodyguard - F'hlarmann's new poster has created hysteric reactions among her fans. Assist her in navigating the shops to do her dailiy shopping without being harrassed by the overcome idiots.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2010 2:33am by justpassingthrough1

Edited, Dec 23rd 2010 2:36am by justpassingthrough1

Most of the time, these quests are used to shuttle the player from one quest hub to the next. That's why you find them in most MMOs because rather than getting your quest in the city and having to run to the hub to activate it, you stay in the hub for a while. Now, while you could try to do something to make these quests interesting, you would essentially be changing them from a simple delivery quest... if that makes sense. I would, personally, hope they avoid the "deliver item to person only to conveniently have item stolen from you on route." It's just used too often. ><;



Personally, I think the finding out why they died out and perhaps preventing it from happening again sounds more intriguing than just going to some place to plant flowers. Maybe that's just me. As for number 2, who are we supposed to sneak past to plant bombs behind the lines of? The Marmots? The Coblyns? Unlike FFXI where you had Davoi, Giddeus and Beau.... I forgot the zone name >.< for the various beastmen strong holds where you had some sort of conflict... that seems completely lack in FFXIV at the moment.




These are fairly standard fare for quests and I am almost shocked there aren't any in Eozora at the moment.

I think it would be kind of cool to have quests surrounding dungeons and/or NMs. Where you had to help someone or a city gather information and fight a foe. For example... take the Dark Cave from FFII. The gravity in the cave is so strong that you can't equip anything that is metal or you are, effectively, paralyzed. One researcher is looking into magics that may over come this, or perhaps a pair of brothers, one a blacksmith the other an alchemist or goldsmith could work on an alloy that is strong as steel, but not steel (glass steel, for example) but you had to get them to stop fighting with each other first.

Maybe a cave or dungeon is infested with a Grue-like creature. (Kudos to any Zork fans out there). You had to find out how to get rid of them, but the Grue is terrified of light and cannot be encountered when you have a torch or such, but the instant you don't have a torch, the grue's deadly prowess in the dark would make you easy prey. Thus you have to find a solution to fight the creature in it's preferred conditions while overcoming your weakness(es) in those situations.



Edited, Dec 23rd 2010 2:51pm by shinichoco

That's just my point though. Unless you are doing the missions or instanced stuff, you don't see ANY of this. I would think it a lot more meaningful if the mission was to go to some non instanced stronghold to lay bombs/traps or whatever.

The new Dev. team needs to go back to the FFXIV web site and put all those NPC's that tell a story, talk about the
beasts of the world, and/or tell the history of each city-state.

Remember the bestiary/nature Codex from the FFXIV website?

There should be an npc, preferably Frandelont Raimdelle, with a story arc surrounding the Raimdelle Codex.

-Maybe a Garlean spy has stolen/destroyed the book.

-Frandelont is asking for adventures to help him compile the book once again.

-We would first have to re-make the empty book, using various crafts to complete its original look.

-Now we are ready to set out into Eorzea to gather the info on each living creature and fauna.

-This is a quest we can start right off the bat, as soon as we find the NPC associatied to it. The progression for defeating the various mobs would scale in difficulty. As also locating the various plants botanist would have to help gather.

-Party play comes in when you have a botanist and a fighting type class in a party with the quest flag active from once the NPC gave it to you. Anything new found/discovered is registered in the codex and a detailed picture and lore is written down for you to read.

-Maybe Frandelont will give you sections at a time to complete and you would go back to him for confirmation and he then puts the detailed info in the book.

-This quest would be its own story arc as it could end up with you meeting new people and you assisting them to get the next lead on where to find the next item/target.

-This could lead to boss fights and timed activities.

IF The New Dev team could incorporate something like this surrounding the Codex it would add a unlimited amount of content, just for this story arc alone.