Why some Quests work and some don't

[TaleTeller]

One thing me and my WF friends talk about a lot is quests. When they're good, when they're bad, why are they good and bad, etc. I've been chewing over all our talks for a while and now, with the release of Chains of Harrow, it feels like a good moment to write it down.

In this post I'll look over Second Dream, War Within, Glast Gambit, Octavia's Anthem and Chains of Harrow and express my opinions on why they were good or not. Obviously, if you haven't played all these quests, spoilers ahead.

Just so we're all on the same page, I think Second Dream and Octavia's Anthem were good, while War Within, Glast Gambit and Chains of Harrow were lacking. This are my personal opinions and you're welcome to disagree, but I hope you'll read what I have to say first.

Oh, and this is gonna be a Long Post.

I think Quests have to balance 3 elements to be good: Gameplay, Lore/Story and Rewards, in that order of priority.

Let's look at the good quests:

The Second Dream

Spoiler

 

Second Dream drops a massive lore building on our heads. Lotus hid the damn moon and that's not even the biggest part! With the reveal of the Tenno, the Stalker, the Orokin, it's one big wham after the other.

The gameplay starts off as nothing unusual: a spy mission, sharkwing, following the Stalker... then in come the sentients. The fourth faction in a game so used to having only three, and possessing a passive that forces us to think rather than spam bullets (unless you have endgame guns in which case you still spam bullets, but I digress). There's also the Shadow Stalker, revamped bane of our existance which we now get to fight with our best gear for the first time and again in our most vulnerable state ever, and the giant orb of death on the moon. All these are new enemies which require different approaches and make the second half of the quest into a gameplay delight.

And finally, the rewards: an entirely new planet to play in, with new mods to farm and enemies to fight; the Focus schools which, even if they are not all equally good and in real need of a rework, completely changed the way people went into warframe and weapon builds; and two amazing weapons in the War and Broken War.

Final tally: 3/3, fantastic quest.

 

Octavia's Anthem

Spoiler

 

Now with Octavia's Anthem: what Lore we're given is, quite frankly, small. That Suda and Simaris were human, which we extrapolated from Ordis' cephalon fragments; that Octavia was used to coordinate the Warframes... and that's it. But even if the Lore is lacking, the story itself is great. What begins as trying to help Suda find some music and maybe fix her memory ends up being a fight against one of our most terrible enemies to save the entire cephalon race. I don't know about you guys, but as soon as Hunhow appeared I was 100% invested, and Ordis' message of undying love towards us is one of the most touching moments in the game thus far.

Now the gameplay, like Second Dream, starts kind of slow. Follow the pretty lights, tune the mandachord... then in come the sentients. And if Lua only gives us 2 per player and calls it fair, then having to deal with waves of 3 and 4 solo is a legitimate challenge. And of course, the final boss fight in Suda's datascape, a one-of-a-kind mission where parkour matters the most and Ordis and Simaris join you to kick sentient butt. What an insanely cool mission, even if I fell out of the world like a hundred times.

As for rewards, all we get is Octavia. Some people love her, some people hate her, I haven't gotten her yet but I don't feel too happy about an AFKframe. Still, I replayed the quest and even without getting rewards, it's a great experience.

Final tally: 2/3, a really solid quest.

 

Now we go into the failing Quests:

The War Within

Spoiler

 

Like it's predecessor, War Within has massive Lore and story. Teshin, the Kuva Fortress, the Queens, the secret of Orokin immortality, our past inside the Zariman, the final voice at the end that teases something more to come. It's a huge story that paves the way to the future. Unfortunately, it's severely harmed by the gameplay.

Unlike the above quests, War Within starts strong. Two captures, fast missions you can do in a heartbeat, and facing against Teshin who we've never seen on PvE. Then the stealthwing, my favorite part, and the exploration of the Kuva fortress all look very promising. Then we face the Queens and drop into what's basically a tutorial.

Now, tutorials are helpful. They're needed when you start a brand new game. But at this point, there's players who've been at this for years, and even the newer players have to have moderate knowledge of the game to have gotten to War Within. Then we're forced to drop all that and play as a powerless child with no enemies to kill, no abilities or weapons to use... basically the opposite of what we've come to know. And while new content and game modes are always appreciated, dropping a tutorial mid-game is just... off-putting.

And when we get out of the cave, we fight Kuva Guardians which boils down to being able to use gimmicks in the right way. And finally, the Big Boss, Teshin, Conclave Lord, wielder of Dual Nikanas, a soldier who's lived for centuries honing his skills- oh nevermind I beat him already.

Seriously. I was so hyped to fight Teshin. Then I take out my Mios (standard crit build) and he goes down in less than 10 seconds. What kind of boss fight lasts 10 seconds?

As for rewards, at first glance we hit jackpot. Orvius, Broken Scepter, Kuva, Riven mods, Kuva Fortress, Operator mode and sun/moon alignments... but it's all smoke and mirrors.

The Orvius' paralyzing effect is only good on a single enemy at a time, in a game where you're easily rushed by dozens of enemies. The Broken scepter's passive makes you a sitting duck. The Kuva Fortress had nothing valuable to farm. Operator mode is meant to be used only on Kuva missions and the alignments have yet to be used for anything. And the main dish, the Kuva and Rivens...

You all remember what Kuva farming was before the fortress moved around. A mission that may or may not spawn at all. RNG nightmare. Even now that they're more stable, the fact that you can get to a point where you'd have to do multiple missions for a single riven roll means there's something really messed up in the mechanic.

As for Rivens, while their impact on the game and particularly the weaker weapons is undeniable, are still far too tied to RNG. You can do a dozen rolls without getting the stats you want. Their initial inventory slots are far too limited for the amount of weapons we have, so we're bound to cough up some platinum. And that's if you can get them to drop from the sorties at all.

So. We have a reward that drops from a one-a-day event. Then we gotta farm a specific resource to make it better, with no guarantees that it will indeed be better than it was, and no way to save part of the stats we got. All or nothing all the way. RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG. Congratulations, you won the quest, your reward is the hardest farming you've ever done.

When compared to the easily farmed Focus one can't help but feel upset.

Final tally: 1/3. Solid story marred by boring gameplay and terrible rewards.

 

The Glast Gambit

Spoiler

 

Glast Gambit also starts very promising, with a story about people who have learned to live amongst the infestation, something previously unheard of, but that angle is quickly lost in Nef Anyo's Index. Sure we still get Neewa's messages and have the Lotus debate with Ergo Glast, but the storyline moves somewhere else entirely.

Gameplay-wise Glast Gambit opens with a mission I desperately wish would come back. The infested doors were really entertaining and I would love to see it become a new endless-type. Unfortunately that's as far as interesting gets. After that we get 5 index missions, one of them with a score limit (have fun playing that in pug) and another that's a forced failure. One spy mission in between and we're back to the index, and that's the end.

Now, I know what I'm gonna say here is old news, but nobody likes grinding. We've accepted it as part of the game because it's the easiest way to keep it truly free instead of free with pay-to-win, but if we can find ways to ease off the repetitiveness then we certainly will. So when a quest, a rare event that is suppossed to be something fresh and new, forces us to play the same mission 6 times... well, we're not gonna be happy.

As for rewards, we get Nidus, an amazing warframe.

Final tally: 1/3. Despite the solid warframe reward and great start, the Glast Gambit's promising story goes nowhere and falls terribly short on gameplay.

 

Chains of Harrow

Spoiler

 

Chains of Harrow looked great. Warframe's first horror-themed quest. The real horror was how short the scare lasted. True, the first mission is scary, but then you get to the Iron Wake and do the seance, and all the creepy lines the trailer showed are used in a conversation with a ghost child. That's one way to kill any spookiness.

Then we have to hunt for the relic, deal with an unkillable enemy who's really easy to escape from, go back to Iron Wake, have three capture missions that are basically the same with enemies so weak you can ignore them and go straight for the capture target without being downed. And I ran a Volt, so it's not just tanky frames that can do this.

And finally, an operator boss fight. But you can't die as the operator, so there's no game over. No restart. No reason to worry. You can fall a hundred times and still clear the mission. I was really hoping for a boss fight against Harrow, like Inaros did.

Lore-wise, this one's huge. The Void is a living entity. Transference carries a possibility of mental illness. Margulis wasn't the flawless saint we were led to believe. Red Veil origins. We might very well be haunted. I was hoping to see something about the Veil's leader, but I'm satisfied with what we got.

As for rewards, we get Harrow and Iron Wake. I don't have Harrow but I hear he is quite good and I'm excited to get him. Whereas Iron Wake... I mean, does it have anything the relays and Maroo don't?

Final tally: 2/3. But wait, if 2/3 is a passing grade, why am I counting it as a failed quest? Because it was boring. The trailed promised fear but it all ended when the enemies were so weak they couldn't harm us. The captures were monotonous, the only point we're in danger is at the beginning when protecting Palladino, and the boss fight is a copy/paste from War Within's and a total letdown.

This is a game. No matter how good the story or the rewards, if the gameplay is boring then the quest is a failure.

 

So. In my opinion, what makes a quest good? Well, both Second Dream and Octavia's Anthem had great, engaging storylines and diverse missions with powerful enemies, all culminating into a terrifying boss fight. Rewards don't really matter. Especially on this game, there will always be new weapons. New frames. New mods. But a Quest is an opportunity to deliver something new, something we've never seen before. If all you do it give us a single mission on repeat, or enemies so weak we could go in with freshly forma'd gear and come out with all 4 revives intact, then you're wasting a huge chance.

TL;DR: give us tougher, more engaging enemies to challenge us and different mission types to try.

Edited July 6, 2017 by TaleTeller
making it easier to read

[Xion]

Ahhh this is going to be a tough read. Would have liked some spoilers to help organize the post. Speaking of spoilers, should probably add a spoiler warning tag on the post.

 

Second Dream:

Spoiler

What I liked about the Second Dream was that quest constantly kept you thinking. The story always kept hinting about this reservoir and gradually informed you of what it is, what it does, and why it was hidden. Then the quest actually takes you to the reservoir, this unknown place that's completely brand new and you have to fight the Stalker that's been enhanced with new abilities and attacks, so you have to constantly think of what he's going to do next. Then the big reveal. This random child falls out of a pod and your frame instantly powers down, so you make this connection. It's a connection that didn't need to be stated, the player themselves made that connection which, IMO, made it a lot more powerful.

Octavia's Anthem, Glast Gambit, and Chains of Harrow:

Spoiler

I'm adding all three of these quests because I actually found their formulas to be very similar. First mission in the quest is this exposition-type sequence where the main problem is introduced. Following that is 2 or 3, in the cast of Glast Gambit even 4, missions that essentially has us doing the same exact thing only to lead to a somewhat unsatisfying ending. Octavia's Anthem beats out the other two quests though, by establishing two beautiful scenes, one in the start of the boss fight where you first see the Hunhow-possessed Suda and at the end where Ordis and Simaris are trying to save her. Power of love and all that. 

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I didn't notice any actual music for the CoH quest. I noticed the "jumpscares" for the first mission, but I was really hoping to hearing some spoopy ambient music.

TWW

Spoiler

The biggest reason, I think, that I didn't like this quest was because I feel that it didn't live up to the hype that both the playerbase and DE would give it, especially after the numerous delays that it would face. Other than that, I really did not like the fact that it was basically just a tutorial quest. A few aspects I liked about TWW though, was that we weren't able to turn back once we committed. This added an actual fear of danger the quest (in the parts where we're actually at the fortress). I also liked the unique infiltration part at the beginning, though I wouldn't really want it to be part of an actual mission. I liked that we got a new zone (one that moves, too) but man is there nothing to do in the fortress.

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Xionyde134

[TaleTeller]

1 hour ago, Xionyde134 said:

Ahhh this is going to be a tough read. Would have liked some spoilers to help organize the post. Speaking of spoilers, should probably add a spoiler warning tag on the post.

 

Second Dream:

  Reveal hidden contents

What I liked about the Second Dream was that quest constantly kept you thinking. The story always kept hinting about this reservoir and gradually informed you of what it is, what it does, and why it was hidden. Then the quest actually takes you to the reservoir, this unknown place that's completely brand new and you have to fight the Stalker that's been enhanced with new abilities and attacks, so you have to constantly think of what he's going to do next. Then the big reveal. This random child falls out of a pod and your frame instantly powers down, so you make this connection. It's a connection that didn't need to be stated, the player themselves made that connection which, IMO, made it a lot more powerful.

Octavia's Anthem, Glast Gambit, and Chains of Harrow:

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm adding all three of these quests because I actually found their formulas to be very similar. First mission in the quest is this exposition-type sequence where the main problem is introduced. Following that is 2 or 3, in the cast of Glast Gambit even 4, missions that essentially has us doing the same exact thing only to lead to a somewhat unsatisfying ending. Octavia's Anthem beats out the other two quests though, by establishing two beautiful scenes, one in the start of the boss fight where you first see the Hunhow-possessed Suda and at the end where Ordis and Simaris are trying to save her. Power of love and all that. 

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I didn't notice any actual music for the CoH quest. I noticed the "jumpscares" for the first mission, but I was really hoping to hearing some spoopy ambient music.

TWW

  Reveal hidden contents

The biggest reason, I think, that I didn't like this quest was because I feel that it didn't live up to the hype that both the playerbase and DE would give it, especially after the numerous delays that it would face. Other than that, I really did not like the fact that it was basically just a tutorial quest. A few aspects I liked about TWW though, was that we weren't able to turn back once we committed. This added an actual fear of danger the quest (in the parts where we're actually at the fortress). I also liked the unique infiltration part at the beginning, though I wouldn't really want it to be part of an actual mission. I liked that we got a new zone (one that moves, too) but man is there nothing to do in the fortress.

 

Edited, I really should have added the spoilers from the beginning

I agree that having the no-return zone in TWW added to the atmosphere of great danger, but even with that the rest of the quest falls flat

[TacticalOwl]

8 hours ago, Xionyde134 said:

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I didn't notice any actual music for the CoH quest. I noticed the "jumpscares" for the first mission, but I was really hoping to hearing some spoopy ambient music.

I actually think that not adding music in CoH made it spookier