I have a bone to pick with myself; but maybe if I include some trigger words it will force some of you guys to discuss with me too. ;)
I have spent a large amount of time recently reading articles and watching videos about some of my most wanted upcoming games; namely The Witcher 3, Final Fantasy XV and Xenoblade X. They make themselves very attractive in people's eyes; promising hundreds of hours of content and huge maps. Therein lies the bone-picking part: I am paradoxically attracted and repulsed by those increasingly large numbers.
Do I really want all that content?
Whenever I hear that large of a number in regards to map size or possible playtime, I start wondering how much of that content is worth those extra hours, and how much is just repetitive filler. How much variation can you get out of quest design when you have a set number of gameplay mechanics, puzzles, and combat possibilities? Negating the possibility of addictive mini games and DLC expansions, how do you keep the player engaged for all those promised hours after the storyline is complete?
In Skyrim, you had an almost endless amount of questing to do thanks to randomly generated quests. You could talk to locals (whose behavior towards the player did not differ, no matter if you were the High King or some pleb; but I digress) and gain jobs from them long after you had completed every storyline quest. Being randomly generated however, these quests were blatantly similar to one another. For example, an old man asks you to go find his family heirloom which is at the bottom of a Draugr infested crypt that has been "sealed for thousands of years". You face the same old leveled Draugr in the same old dungeon and gain randomly generated loot. Old dude gives you 500 gold. The world before and after that quest will be exactly the same. Big whoop for your family heirloom old man, there are 800 other people like you asking for the same favour. I absolutely loved Skyrim, but after completing the main questline as well as Winterhold/Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood questlines, I had no interest in it. People convinced me that there were over 300 hours of content in that game but I did not make it nearly that far.
To anyone who played Episode Duscae, I have seen the feedback from the survey and I want to ask you this: What makes repeating those same combat sequences for hundreds of hours worthwhile? Really that's a trick question since the final game will have more combat implementations, but it still poses a great question. Once the main story has been completed, how can you narratively contextualize a quest in a fulfilling manner to make the combat redeemable?
I see a huge difference between random NPCs repeatedly asking you to fetch or kill in exchange for gil, and established NPCs begging you to retrieve a magic stone (persay) that will save their life from a dangerous threat. Consequences and rewards things should be implemented in the game's world and not just implied. The threats and set pieces should be dynamic. After you have finished, the NPCs should treat me differently. The world should feel different. That is how you make extra quest content worthwhile.
Am I asking for too much? Am I wrong in my criticism of dev's claims? Do you have anything to suggest? Reply cos I'm lonely.
#1 Amb-ass-ador
