You Deserve Better Side Quests - Extra Credits Gaming 

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The breath of the wild village you help build is a good example of this. It's sometimes stuff like getting a bunch of wood, but you don't mind because each time you get to see new houses and such. And other times you go around talking to people to find new villagers to move in.

I love how the "get rid of the vermin" quest was approached in Icewind Dale. _First of all:_ The game starts directly with a conversation, which you can steer towards learning about the local bar. Nothing about the vermin at that point, only that there is a bar and that the person who talked to you wants you to meet him there because he might have work for you to do. (And no, he's not the bar keeper. He just wants you to join his expedition.) _Secondly:_ The bar keeper isn't speaking about the vermin in the cellar if not pressed. You can ask for a drink, at which point the bar keeper is telling you that she can go and make you something great to eat in the kitchen, but that unfortunately all her beer barrels up here are emptied out. If you press for what "up here" means, she will say that there is a cellar and that there are more barrels, and will then laugh it off when you ask her to bring one up then. If you then press further, she will finally admitt that there is a bug infestation in her cellar and that she is just too scared to go down there to bring a new barrel up. _And that brings us to point 3:_ The bar keeper isn't wrong about being scared of the bugs! When you encounter them at 1st level with almost no gear to speak of and only some sticks to your name, then killing those agressive pests might well be your doom depending on your group composition and positioning. I remember the shock I was in when I first encountered this quest and my Rogue died within a single combat round by 2 bugs getting the drop on him. And I got in there with 6 characters. Even if the bar keep was a female halforc, there's no way she'd have lived to tell the tale of her heroically bringing a barrel of beer up the stairs. This encounter is basically telling you everything about the game right away: Death is cheap. Combat is dangerous. And things you think you know might be way different here.

The other thing I think you can do with side quests that you didn't touch on: World building. Rather than having no story at all in a town, or having an NPC just flat out explain it to you, you can have the player explore the problems of a specific location through quests that all revolve around the central conflict of an area. If you're going to have a town that's being occupied by an evil empire, you can help a citizen sneak out of town, deliver supplies to a resistance holdout and help an evil border guard pick up a can off of the ground. Little bits of non-story that help reinforce the kind of place the player is in without overtly saying it.

One of my favorite "rat butt" quests is in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The first quest you get when you join the fighter's guild is about rats in some lady's basement. But surprise surprise, it isn't a rat infestation, it's her pet rats, and they're being killed by mountain lions. And it's not as simple as killing the mountain lions and telling her there's a hole in the wall. No. First you go find some other NPC, a hunter, to kill some more mountain lions near the city walls to help prevent this again. But still, this isn't it. She thinks someone is plotting to kill her rats. So, you do a stake out at night where you discover an NPC creeping. But you can't just confront her. You gotta catch her in the act. Once you do then you can confront her. Where you're left with a choice. Report to the Rat lady and you'll gain a level in speechcraft. Or don't and the culprit will give you a level in acrobatics instead.

You missed a perfect example in the Witcher quest where you do exterminate a bunch of rats from a warehouse. The actual quest is trivial, and it's meaningful because of the character interactions. You have a long conversation with Trish during it, and you are betrayed near the end as they want to turn you into the witch hunters for extra money. The character writing turns this bog standard quest into a pretty meaningful story

Another game that did this really well was Kingdom Come Deliverance. Most of the sides quest were actually meaningful and multi-part. The "fetch quest" style of quests (gather meat, win fist fights, etc) were specifically labeled as activities so the player knows these are less important.

I like how Horizon: Forbidden West handles quests, while also doing away with the annoying task of tracking down that one last quest. I especially liked how there were several quests that seemed like one-off quests, which then unlock further quests down the road that build on the characters that you interact with. Not to mention that even in the resource collection quests, there's an aspect of character building that makes you interested in even the one-off quests.

I wish that a games story would start with an innkeeper telling you “go to my basement and kill all the rats down there.” And then the ENTIRE MULTI-HOUR DRAMEDY THAT FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGES THE WORLD THE GAMES SET IN is started because of this ONE quest.

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines did this really well, too. They put a few side quests in the same location along with a bunch of others in the area. Some of them required stealth, others were a decent amount of investigation. You needed to look up names in a bail bondsman’s computer! And then you had to read the info and figure out where to go and what to look for next. It was so neat!

I personally think a good example of this is what happens if you take Cait as a companion for long enough in Fallout 4, when she confesses to you that she’s still hooked on all those narcotics and asks you to help her find the vault that will cure her, its the first time she ever asks you for anything, and her gratitude is immense if you complete the quest, so you really feel happy when you are done with the mission

Not a single mention of Runescape? I'm kind of surprised by that. Even the very earliest and most basic quests in the game - Cook's Assistant (go fetch ingredients for a cake) and Sheep Shearer (go get a set of shears and click on a bunch of sheep) - have little tidbits of fun writing and are well-integrated into the lore of the game. Respectively: Cook's Assistant gets referenced a bunch, since the cook pulls the same exact trick on literally everyone he can... including an NPC you show around town in a much later quest. The actual problem - that the cook is frankly incompetent to the point where he can't even bake a cake despite trying literally thousands of times - is the whole reason the 100th quest (Recipe for Disaster) gets kicked off. Sheep Shearer introduces new players to The Thing, which later gets expanded upon until you're infiltrating a compound of Soviet penguins hidden in a glacier. Clockwork disguises are involved. Both quests also serve important roles as introductory content, getting players used to navigating around the Lumbridge area in particular but also more broadly interacting with world objects and their inventories to complete tasks.

This video makes me absolutely want to play a game where you lead generations of rats battling to reclaim their ancestral home from a corrupt innkeeper

A tip from my time playing TTRPGS: tying the quest back to the main story of the game. I remember a D&D campaign where the main goal was to kill a dragon king - a simple, overarching goal. Every detour on our journey there had something helpful to assist in that goal, whether that was information about said dragon king or artifacts to battle with. It really gave us this feeling of agency and richness in the world, where every potential decision had something to be gained from it.

One thing that always bothered me was MMO quests that are along the line of “Hello adventurer, I have a problem and only you can fix it” even if the MMO starts with something like “you are one of many individuals who just arrived to these lands”. It would be cool, if the start of an MMO talks about you being one in a group of people, that the quests given are more team themed I.E. “Please complete this test that is available for anyone to complete once” or “as a merchant I’m looking for this stock, you’ll only need to bring me a handful with how many have already helped” or “only brave adventures enter that dungeon and survive, so I dare you to go in and survive” or “can you help the other warriors protect the village from the never ending goblin hoard? Only for a short while” or “if every person kills 10 forest flies, then that should help eradicate the species. What are you waiting for? Kill 10 forest flies and do your part for the community”

This is a good look at the problem narratively, but making the quests mechanically engaging is also important. I'm going to enjoy killing those 10 rats a lot more in Dark Souls, where the combat is difficult and rewards playing thoughtfully, than in Skyrim, where the rats and I just swing at each other until someone dies. I had a hard time enjoying most Witcher 3 content because I didn't find the combat or other gameplay mechanics engaging, and while the narrative helped it didn't fully distract me from how little enjoyment I got out of the actual fighting. It's a balance to be sure, and sometimes you can get away with just one thing being strong, but getting both right is the real recipe for success.

every time i play any RPG game, one of my thought is "What crazy side quest that i gonna get to out of this game" because for me, a good side quest can make the player feel good to do to level up, exploring the map better and the NPC have more character that even player want to just sit down and have a chat before back a new quest

I realized I've killed more rats in more game quests than I can count. Little rats, monster rats, diseased rats and yes even the rat quest for the tavern keeper, but he made no bones about serving them to customers. So another good idea is letting the player set up an extermination service! Gold for rat butts! It's something that was memed more times than I can count too.

Yakuza is great at doing this, some of my favorite moments are the side quests, and it is all canon to the story of the game, meaning Kiryu actually did all these quests, he actually got super into a children's card game, he actually helped an illegal immigrant deal with her pimp by delivering her a pizza, and he actually worked at a real estate company with the help of his pet chicken Nugget. These even go across games, with later games continuing the quest chains and bringing back characters from side quests.

For all it's other issues, Cyberpunk 2077 had some fairly good side quests. Even the simple fixer gigs often have more depth to them than a surface look would reveal. And even the NCPD jobs will have links to other gigs or side stories. Course to see that it often means reading the notes you come across.

NieR automata is one of the only open world games I've gone out of my way to 100%, and that's mostly because a massive chunk of the side quests felt like good episodes of a TV show with their stories, whether or not the quest itself was actually interesting to play or not.

I think "Collect 10 rats" quests are great. Because they made me give up on world of warcraft at level 15 and I never looked back while half my friend circle turned into total WOW crackheads, back in my university days.

This feels like the base of an NPC character for D&D. funny we don't apply it more to electronic gaming!

3:00 this reminds me of the quest Neko is a Cat in Genshin Impact. it tells a story about a cat asking us to repair her shrine in hopes that human returns to the shrine and maybe her friends too, not knowing that her friend is dead long time ago.

Bounties in pillars of eternity and deadfire take the place of the ratbutt quests so I think there is a place for them so long as they are characterized correctly

Some of the best side quests I’ve played were in Kingdom Come Deliverance They really add to the immersion/narrative

I like the Kingdom of Loathing version of this where it turns out the rats are in the inn’s basement because someone left the rat faucet on

whenever good quest design comes up my brain automatically bring up that bloody baron from the Witcher 3. that quest had me going through every single emotion a human can have, i was sure i'd murder this monsterous man but by the end i felt pity and helpd him move on peacefully and be a better person. I'll remember that quest till the day i die.

This is exactly how Runescape's quest design works. Back in the early 2000's, this sort of quest design was common in MMOs, with the obvious offender in World of Warcraft. Runescape never really did this sort of thing - even back that far back, while Runescape's quests were still dominated by one-shots that were designed really simply, most quests weren't really like this, with only the absolute noobiest quests being anywhere near the 20 rat ass quests and only Imp Catcher being much of a pain in that regard because it required 4 different relatively rare drops from an annoying mob. And then, in 2005, Runescape released the Slayer skill. With Slayer, you ask dedicated characters called Slayer Masters for a task. The Slayer Master then generates a Rat Ass quest for you by rolling from a table some number of some mob that you need to kill. "Go kill..." _rolls dice_ "...118 greater demons." Killed 'em all? Great. "Now go kill..." _rolls dice_ "...79 blue dragons." In this one skill, Jagex made it _abundantly clear_ how formulaic this plot structure is. There's nothing to Rat Ass quests but "Go kill rats," and Runescape's Slayer skill proves this beyond doubt by offloading this structure 100% to RNG.

So yeah, turns out I'd love to play a game where the innkeeper hires me to deal with the rat problem in his cellar. Gotta get a druid to speak with animals, get local government involved, apply for grants from the king, ensure both sides have good legal representation, negotiate land rights and usage rights, hammer out and register written agreements... Maybe I'll get the blacksmith & bandits expansion.

I feel like this advice will be useful for DMs too. I've always struggled with the "side quest" part of running a campaign but hopefully the advice in the video will make it more interesting for my players

One of my favorite games that does side quests well is the Mass Effect trilogy where the quests go on to effect future games in both a big way and small ways showing you are making actual change to the world

6:25 - "Now for side quests this can't be some piece of vital information, especially if they can be missed." *From Software has entered the chat*

Having side quests be narratively, world-buildingly and character-wise important is something I never really consciously thought of, but appreciated when I saw it. I'm glad you dragged it to light.

Two words: Souls games I know it's a worn out thing to bring up but they are a master class in quest chains developing character and world narrative. You don't need the difficulty and obscurity that those games use for other reasons to do exactly what they are doing from a narrative perspective.

"Rat's ancestral home" Idris Elba: You...keep talking

there is the rat killing quest in Morrowind's fighters guild, where it's meant to be an introduction to the kind of menial work that the fighters guild does on a normal day, while also having some fun because the person who gave the quest is obsessed with pillows for some reason.

This reminded me of the aftermath of a couple quests in genshin impact. One of the characters asks about a sword, and after you go clear the area out you return and they give you a reward. They then ask you if you found the sword, and then give you the quest reward. It's a massive missed opportunity that there is never actually a sword to find, because think about how cool it would be if your random daily quest just happened to have an optional part to it. It wouldn't even be difficult to implement a sword sometimes appearing in the fighting area, but because they didn't it just drops so much depth that could have been there

One game series that’s consistently done side quests well is the Kiseki/Trails series as they often have world building story to them, some connect to later side quests and you’re rewarded in both narrative and gameplay for doing them as characters will acknowledge the reputation gain and you get access to better gear for your characters.

I made a quest in ESO where you have to kill and collect ten rats and then turn them into a ten headed rat monstrosity to scare someone. Short quest with goofy characters - the two who give the quest, subtly reveal that they swapped bodies in their last failed ritual. It doesn't always have to be a quest chain but in general, selling meaningful relationships or making meaningful quests definitely takes time. Chains are a great approach.

I really feel like Ghosts of Tsushima had some memorable side quests with a narrative that motivated me to see them through

I usually do most quests regardless but I like the sound of narrative quests. If done well and not overly long they would be really fun.

In FFXIV most side quests don't lead anywhere, but there are a few that have long quest chains with a special reward at the end for players that go out of their way to do them

Guild Wars 2 actually is a good example of good side quest and story quest design. Sure, you could fight the creatures, but some quests give you completion by solving riddles, talking to ghosts, etc.

Love to Extra Credits returning to it's roots! Analysing games through the lens of Art is what made me fall in love in this channel.

This reminds me of something Max0r said about the side quests in Cyberpunk 2077 “This game is like reading 6 dirty copies of war and peace, and every 20 pages you have to stare at cardboard.”

I was longing for a new video about quests! I enjoyed and used lots of the knowledge I gained from your videos about game design, storytelling, community, and quests, and would be so much happy if you would make more videos on those topics. Thank you so much! 😄

This video reminds me to some sidequests in Star Ocean. In these quests, player (as Ratix alone) can wander around city (current one) and talk to any party member to increase relationship. Some talk could open up hidden mission requiring entering dungeon to complete. It was memorable and gives depth to sidequests. In general, the reason behind kill 10 rats sidequest is simplicity for both players and developers. There are many ways to make it less boring without doing too much extra work. I like the tip given in the video about adding another tied sidequest or adding narrative. Tying the sidequest to main quest narrative might be good too.

Tip: if the dialogue associated with a sidequest takes longer to get through that collecting those ratbutts, you're doing it wrong. :)

I'm playing Final Fantasy XIV (a MMORPG) as I watch this. One of the other issues with sidequests are quest hubs. FFXIV does put effort into its side quests, and it has side quest chains where you'll follow an NPC, and a lot of the sidequests are helping to fill out environmental lore. However, I arrive at a new town and there's 12 sidequests. I'll go to each NPC, read all the dialogue, and move on to the next one. By the time I get to the quest location, I don't remember why I'm doing or for whom, and the conversation when handing in also has little context since I don't remember what I did for the quest. The number of times I've gone into a dungeon not remembering why I'm there because I had other quests at the same time is almost 100%. I do agree with you that I think a smaller number of more focused and better written quests would be more enjoyable. Most MMOs, I'll read the main quest stuff and skip all the side quest dialogue. One thing they do right is limiting the amount of effort their quests need. A lot of quests don't require any killing. When there's drops needed, it's usually at 100% so it's little more than an alternate way of counting kills, and when needing to kill, it's usually a small number. The regional quests where players might need to work together, a single player might only need 12 kills to complete the quest. Stuff that depends on rare drops or rare spawns do exist, but they're rarely tied to quests.

Sunless Skies and Sunless Seas have the best and most creative side quests of any game I've ever played. They don't generally have the same level of decision making as something like Pillars of Eternity (which takes 2nd place in the side quest Olympics imo) but they're so rediculously well written. Those are games where you can turn over a rock (sometimes literally) and discover a transformationally good little novelette of weird, gothic, eldritch mystery/tragedy/horror. It's masterful.

Small bit of colour to make that rat butt example already better: You enter the tavern and just ask about for information. The barkeep gives you that info but, seeing you armed, asked you to help them with some vicious creatures in the basement. You ask why the local lord doesn’t help, and they say that they asked but received no aid and so have to ask you to help for nothing but good will. Completing it gives you some favour with the barkeep and maybe some of the locals who praise you for helping. This allows for colour (the government is weak and falling apart, gives the adventurer some levels, and allows you to have a mini arc for the tavern)

Really wish Destiny 2 would do this more often. Most story quests end up being "go here and shoot bad guys and at the end you'll get some dialogue if you don't immediately leave" With destiny's amazing cast it makes me sad we don't get to go on very big narrative arks with them. This has gotten somewhat better recently (see the season of the haunteds therapy sessions) but it could definitely be better

I did often enjoy the quest chains in WOW, the ones that had an actual storyline in Vanilla were quite enjoyable.

Regarding the Quest skipping expectation, I have found it similar to a philosophy I have picked up in life: Respect cannot be expected, in doing so you will lose it. Respect must be given freely and you will find that in doing so, you will earn the respect given to you. ... Meaning, if you want players to give your quests respect, you must first respect your players enough to give a quest worth respecting.

Personally I think Final Fantasy XIV did a good job with a lot of its one shot side quests, as most usually give you a decent context as to why they want you to go out and complete the various tasks. Be it slaying a creature or gathering some seemingly random trinket, there is usually always something there added to expand your understanding of the world and its characters. But this is likely an uncommon example of there being actual time taken to write a very short story behind each side quest to help with immersing the player in the world if they choose the time to read what is being said by the NPC's giving the quests, as well as the hand in items often have descriptions attached to them. So yeah I agree we need to work harder on side quests in games, as a good side quest will help with world building and immersion, while a bad generic one can just annoy a player and break the immersion.

This is the really big difference between Guild Wars 2 and any other MMO like WoW. I remember trying WoW and there were so many fetch quests while leveling. But in GW2, you do an event in an area like, collecting a bunch of grapes for a farmer. But then all the grapes attract an attack by centaurs because they want grapes! And after the attack, you got to attack the centaur camp to keep them from attacking again! Chains, peeps.

Fallout New Vegas has the best side quests: Ghost Town Gunfight is one of the first quests you find in the starting town. The local residents ask for your help in defending from a raider gang. You are naturally invested in the town because these people helped you after you almost died from a bullet to the head. But they don't send you to kill x number of raiders, or bring y amount of weapons so they can defend themselves. Instead you have to use your skills to convince the people to help. And then you can help in the final battle against the raiders. Or you can decide to help the raiders take over the town. Or you can just decide this isn't your problem and move onto other things. And the game rewards you in the ending with slides that detail the future of the town depending on your actions. Or you have the quest Bleed Me Dry, where the owner of an arena has you collect eggs from different creatures for her arena. This is a simple fetch quest, you literally go to a place, get the eggs and come back for a different objective until you find all the possible eggs. But this simple quest is meant to make you explore the map and discover locations where you can do more stuff. The first part of her quest makes you visit Vault 22 where you can do 6 more side quests, including 2 for the NCR, one of the major factions. And this quest rewards one of the most powerful shotguns in the game and a possible romantic partner (the questgiver) regardless of your character's sex. And the we have Beyond the Beef where you investigate the disappearance of a rancher's son. I don't want to spoil this quest because it has over 5 possible endings, depending on how you decide to tackle it. Every quest in New Vegas has either an interesting story, or memorable characters, or multiple paths to completion, or is related to the larger conflict of the game, or shows interesting worldbuilding, or illustrates the messages of the game.

I love Xenoblade Chronicles 1 & 2's side quests cause they usually pop after a major story events and are usually the fallout or side effect to that event. Like a new area opening up new dangers, are people you met before are trying to leave town cause their home was invaded. They have reasons for asking your help and have seen you around town and seen you fight so they know you are a traveler and either you or someone in your party can get something done. I especially love XBC2's blade quests cause you learn the personality of your blade through your battles with them, victory dialogs, and flavor text so when their special quests unlocks you see why that particular thing is meaningful to them and form a deeper understanding of what they are like, and they are all completely optional only needed to fully upgrade a blade's skill tree if you want to.

Probably the reason why I remember more from the Spiderman ESU missing students quests than the other side quests... And enjoyed how it branched out from the main story line.

The quest in Legend of heroes trails in the sky where theres a stalker in the hot bath and you gotta investigate lives in my mind rent free 24/7 you expect it to be some random pervert and find him, then you find its not a person but a pervert monster, you thin "well its just one, kill him and leave" then it turns its a horde of horny monsters that escape, they are a lot of classic monster fodder there and just when you think its no big deal they combine into a mega sheepatron transformer and roll out, THAT QUEST WAS AMAZING, after that quest I never skipped a quest in any trails game, I was floored

2:00 leave it to Extra Credits to get me invested in the "Inn keeper was the real villain" plot line

The first summoner game had a very good side quest, there was even a side quest that spanned from the beginning of the game up to the almost end of the game which gave you a very rewarding equipment.

Majora's Mask and The Witcher 3 have the best side quests. I still love the "Guild" quests in Skyrim.

I've always wanted to play a game that starts off with many one-off rat butt quests that evolve into a main quest and it's up to the player to piece together the clues/coincidences/connections to get into the game's main purpose.

Each rat has an 11% chance of having a butt, but no other rat parts will be accepted as proof.

I do think that part of the problem is just the sheer number of quests we as players have to do in most side-quest related content, particularly in MMOs, coupled with the lack of any real value most quests bring outside of just "progress to the fun part of the game". If I walk into a town and see 6 side-quests, I'm probably not going to have the patience to read 6 opening halves to a story that doesn't really have any relevance to the plot, but you bet I'm going to take all 6 at the same time because it's more time-efficient than doing quests one at a time.

My favorite game that handeled side quests well is crosscode, has plenty of variety in them instead of alot of go here and gather item or kill x enemy, still has those but usually as the start of a questline. My favorite sidequest uses the setting perfectly, its a game in a game so the sidequests are a mix of stuff from the npcs that are players and npcs of the game in the game, my favorite has you team up with a player to glitch out of bounds into a dev testing area with some puzzles and a test boss with essentially glued together assets, the bosses drop is also the basic healing item to further solidify that it wasnt meant to be fought.

As a person who is on the last localized trails game (Trails of Cold Steel 4) that series has done amazing things to make me care about even the most minor NPCs, unlike something like final fantasy the whole series is a persistant world, each game still has an independant ark and theres 3 "sets" of games so far (Sky 1/2.3, Crossbell 1/2 & Cold Steel 1/2/3/4...you could arguably spilt Cold Steel into 1/2 and 3/4) that have their own larger arks.

I love Majora's Mask because of it's side quest-y nature and the fleshing out of "side characters". It's one of my favorite games still because it does side quests so good

The Yakuza games also have a knack to make side quests engaging as side plots. I'll never forget Miracle Johnson 🕺

I've always thought using a quest chain for low level TTRPG characters is the best way to start a campaign, as it can package character backstory, why you are a party, and setting up the larger narrative really well, versus the lvl 1 Goblin Stomp for a bounty

I love how in Pokemon games, your primary quest is "Complete the Pokedex". Your secondary one is "Defeat the region's Champion". And then you just encounter other people's lives and events. Team Rocket? Sure, they're a criminal organization actively causing trouble, murdering resistant mother (Marowak), and attempting a "corporate merger" (with Silph Co.), but you never have a "quest" to beat them. Yes, you'll have to do so because they keep impeding your progress on the main quests, but you've never been tasked with doing so. The same applies to each evil Team to deal with. The side quests that typically come up are things like: "Will you trade me for this Pokemon (to advance your Complete Pokedex quest)?" (For which you may have to go find a rare Pokemon to trade, if you haven't already obtained it.) "Will you watch over this Pokemon for me?" (which you may be able to choose to return later, and can choose to not do so!) "I (or Someone I have interest in) lost an important item in X area and am not able to find it, will you please return it?" (For which you will typically be granted a service/item that empowers your gameplay. And even if not, it's usually a believably important lost item for that character, rather than just '10 flowers for unclear reasons') "Will you get rid of those ruffians that are troubling me/this place?" (Typically unlocking a service or location) Legends Arceus rather breaks the mold by explicitly having a quest system, but it also made big changes in a number of other ways. And it does so quite well! Even collection quests tend to be tied to helping deal with apparent problems, and may give you access to new items or services. Some may even encourage the player to gain meta knowledge (or give up and look up a guide), which I don't think I often (ever?) see in other games. (Referring to the Manaphy quest).

This is something I enjoyed about The Outer Worlds. Lots of Quest Chains with Personal Interactions. It wasn't just done for the Rewards, but also for Story Progression. Nier: Automata ALSO had some GREAT Side Quests that I really loved

I'm addicted to the sidequests in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, partly because every side quest has some impact on the state of the world, while digging into the deeper ramifications of overturning its war-torn setting. The sidequest arcs often make me feel like more of a hero than the main story!

I just discovered the channel because im interested in how game design could be better ! i wish there was more of these videos ! Please give us more of this , its so interesting!

I am a solo designer working on an RPG, and I agree. I think one reason so many of these quests exist, is frankly just that they are easy to make. You just make a variable to count the 10 things they need to get, which are already items in your game world, and then a "switch" or boolean to determine if they've done it or not. Then they go back to the NPC and he spews out some fun little lines of dialogue about the quest, and you're done. It doesn't really make for good content though. The guiding principle I've used while creating my game is just constantly asking "Why?" Why are they doing this, why does he need that, why is this item in the game world, why does the quest giver live here, why is his village here, what do they do, etc. and on and on. If you do this, your content will fit into your game world coherently, and the quests and personalities of the quest-givers will also be integrated into the game world. This ends up netting you "World Building" points just by you continuing to design your game. I find quests can even be boring, hum-drum, or run-of-the-mill gameplay wise, but if you remember that you are creating a Role. Playing. Game. which needs to take place in an interesting Fantasy. World. the quests will create engagement for the player. We don't even need the high-level triple-A studio mechanics everyone dreams of some day creating themselves- "living breathing world," day night cycle, radiant AI for the NPCs, etc. You can create the illusion of a living, breathing world using very deterministic mechanics with only basic programming, and the player will buy into it and be engaged if you've done the above. Good video.

Narfi from Skyrim is a decent example of this. It’s a super simple fetch quest but the choice at the end is something that kind of sticks with you.

Gosh, your channel and everyone working on it are amazing!!!! 👍❤️

A chore that needs done is a endemic part of a interesting world no world is complete without the day to day life stuff

One way I could see making one off sidequests work is rewarding them narratively. Let's say you go to this run down inn where you clear out the rats, what if you were rewarded with getting to stay at the inn for free and cheaper prices for food or alchoholic beavarages. And everytime you go to the innkeeper he reacts with something along the lines of "Hey, how is my favorite customer?" or with another more personal greeting. And as the story goes along this inn keeps growing and becomes more profitable. Now the player cares for the innkeeper, as the relationship feels more personal, and since you get to stay there free and get cheaper food and drink they are motivated to return there. And since players keep returning there again and again they will grow more attached to the place. And because of the adventurers help the place thrives. Now a sidequest that was all about hunting ratbutts is one that the players will remember more fondly with very little effort. Seeing a change in the world, even a small one, is quite rewarding. Heck one good example is the 14 heart events in Stardew Valley. When you do most of them the world changes in one way or another, a grave where Abigail killed her first monster to save you, a tv room in the back of the bar where the guys watch sports each sunday, a painting you painted with Leah, a music box from Sam's career as a music maker for a cartoon etc. None of these changes really matter in the grand scheme of things, but they are sentimental because these changes happened thanks to you. And these are nice mementos of your relationship to these characters.

That was pretty interesting. If there's one downside to better quests, though, I'd say it's getting too many at once. It's really easy to get overwhelmed if I roll into town and I'm suddenly on six different multi-stage quests, feeling pulled in every direction.

nice to hear about better quests and quest making

one of the big reasons i love borderlands2 are the absolute best side quests in the series

When it comes to sidequests in FF14, I'd say the Tribal Quests have it right, especially since they're repeatable. Typically, these quests form minor errands that are simple "there and back" style quests. They also randomly select three quests each day, so there's variety there. Storywise, these are literally just minor errands a lot of the time. You build up trust with that tribal faction, then after a few days to a week, you get a mainline quest for the faction that advances their story and adds more quests to the pool. Let's use the Vath as an example. Their goal is simple. Set up an adventurer's guild in their territory. Your daily quests are basically supply runs or "our guys have run into some trouble, go check on them" for the most part. The main quests for that faction though are focused around both building up the guild and your Vath friend trying to fully assert his individuality from the hive mind that the Gnath (the wider faction that the Vath broke off from) are subject to.

Reminds me of the isolated side quest in the Super Nintendo game Chrono Trigger where a character, who since the beginning of the game had a paraplegic mother sitting in a rocking chair at home, goes back in time to her childhood home where her mother is caught in a crazy home invention and is going to lose her legs. You have to shut off the machine by entering an unknown password. If you paid attention, though, you'd learn the password is the mother's name. Which is a name you'd known if you paid attention even earlier. And when you enter L-A-R-A on the controller and go back to the future, the mother just walks around and says things like "oh, it's such a lovely day for a walk". There's no bonus item or XP or anything. Just the joy you feel for helping someone... and, I guess, the satisfaction of solving the puzzle.

ESO has done this very well. All their quests are either part of a chain or are a daily quest to go kill a world boss or do something in a delve(solo dungeon).

I loved this in BOTW when there was a city building quest with many character arches. Even though it is still guilty of this problem.

Ironically enough I was just thinking of the rat quest, people look down at it because it's a troupe, but people don't realize that civilians wouldn't be able to fight back rats that give adventures a fight. The town would surely die off if the rats aren't taken care off.

Completely unrelated but my grandpa (born in 1915) used to sell rat tails to the county as a bounty program. His cousin lived in a different county that wanted heads so they would mail each other the appropriate parts and get two bounties for the price of one

This is an area in which I think Final Fantasy XIV has noticeably improved over time. There are a LOT of "kill X nouns" quests, but as the expansions keep coming, there are more quests that link together, or develop characters or locations, or unlock a new story. Heck, the Endwalker expansion managed to make follow quests that are fun - because you're walking and talking with NPCs you care about! (Also they move at the same speed you do. That part is definitely key.)

Hmm, I might use this design theory in my TTRPGs games

Another point about Witcher quests specifically, is that there’s usually more than one way to complete a give quest. Most commonly, with monster slaying quests, there’s usually a pacifistic route, that serves to defy the world view that Witchers are only heartless killers, and that all monsters are evil. They encourage players to think critically about quests and examine the facts before enacting judgement. Sure, things sometimes boil down to “monster is evil, now kill it” but it helps develop Geralt’s character as more than a simple monster slayer.

Imagine if Dark Souls NPCs just wanted rat butts. Solaire just needs 5 rat butts to find his sun. Siegmeyer just wants the gates open to Senns Fortress and then he just leaves.

Ff14 started doing this with some of the quests in storm blood, where you help an npc with something over the course of several quests, often interlinking with another quest chain later.

We need a side quest where the rats hire an adventurer to stop the mad murderer that lairs in the beer dungeon.

All I can think about throughout this video is "Poor rats..."

I must be a boring questgiver in some cat RPG, because my cat leaves me rat butts all the time.

My favorite fetch quest was in Monster Hunter Generations: Get 3 Abyssal Mushrooms. Reading the quest is nothing special, they're located in a remote part of the map. When you arrive, a cutscene plats, introducing one of the box art monsters. This monster is miles ahead of a newbie skill level, and challenging for experts. It teaches newbies the importance of survival and prioritizing the mission objective, and a reward for those daring and skillful enough to take down the monster early.

one of my favorite games that did narrative quest really well was eastshade. Instead of one off quests, most of them were multipart and/or chain quests. Along with this, the game rewards you for playing in a slow, thoughtful manner, so players listen to the dialog and appreciate the characters. I loved the writing and acting in that game, it made the characters memorable and brought the world to life. The best part is that the game was basically just narrative, exploration, and fetch quests. But because of the quality of the game, I actually loved it.