Quest Showcase

For all talk about quest development - creation, testing, and quest system.
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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

That's absolutely possible. I'll implement it into the Barbarian one just to prove it :P

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

That's absolutely possible. I'll implement it into the Barbarian one just to prove it :P
So, will it happen every time it is barbarian? Or just a chance to happen with a barbarian?

If second, and it's not too hard to do, then we might come up with some very interesting quests I am sure! My problem with having very complex quests in Daggerfall comes from the fact that they are many and repetative, not suited for complexity.

But if there can be several potential outcomes to even most routine quests - that would increase variety so much! Without making the quests over the top at the same time! I'll think about it some more later.

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Absolutely, you can make practically any action link into any other on a scale of probabilities. It's a rudimentary system so we can't use things like 17% vs 83%, but we can do any number of ratios against each other.

These relate to two major ideas I'm writing about, which are circular quests (enormous epic-scale quests with diversity of choice and meaningful outcomes) and perpetual quests (after achieving level 3, you'll get a letter once every 3-4 weeks asking for help with a unique quest, for the entirety of the game. Skyrim's Radiant quests, but far more interesting).

I'll summarize the "when" parts that are functional so far in DFU, the conditions for a quest action:

When you pick up a certain item,
When you talk to a certain NPC,
When the time is between X o'clock and Y o'clock,
When you've hurt a certain enemy,
When you've killed a certain enemy,
When you're level X or higher,
When you're at a certain place,
When you're carrying a certain item and talk to a certain NPC,
Or any combination of the previous conditions (for example, bring a Daedra Heart to a vampire NPC in a house between 11:00 PM and 4:00 AM)

And here are the actions available right now:

Make a certain NPC accompany you.
Make a certain enemy or group of enemies appear around you, once or multiple times.
Make an accompanying NPC leave you.
Make a certain enemy appear at a certain fixed place in a building or dungeon.
Make a certain item appear at a certain fixed place in a building or dungeon.
Make a certain item appear in a certain enemy's inventory.
Make a certain NPC appear at a certain location.
Make a certain NPC at a location disappear.
Make a certain sound play once or every X minutes.
Make a yes/no prompt appear. For the yes and the no, different actions can be planned.
Make a message appear on the screen.
Make a different quest start, without ending the current quest.
Make a timer start, like quest time limits, or even for independent actions.
Make a timer stop.
Offer an item to the PC's inventory, with the inventory screen or without it.

Go ahead and mix together a few of the conditions and actions and see what you come up with. If there are any limitations on where we are now with Daggerfall, I'll say so.

One example I did a short while ago was a Fighters Guild protection job. You're asked to accompany an NPC to his house in another city. Once inside, he hears someone within, and starts panicking and disappears from you. You have between 7 and 10 in-game minutes to kill the two assassins inside the house, or they'll find your client and he'll die, making you fail the quest.

Another example is another protection job, where it's a 50% chance that someone will break into the house and you'll have to fight them off, and a 50% chance where nothing will happen. If someone does attack you'll get extra gratitude dialogue when the quest ends, but in both circumstances you'll get paid.

One that I have planned is a merchant who asks you to stand guard inside a building while his investor comes for a meeting. There's a 66% chance someone will attack, and a 33% chance that nothing will happen. This just goes to show there are varieties in probability available. Just make a ratio and I'd say that's what we can do; for example, a 5/8 chance, or a 2/7 chance, or anything else. You can have more than two outcomes on a single probability as well. For my perpetual quest system, I'm setting it up so it'll activate one of 11 quests at random for now, which I'll be increasing in the future.

Code: Select all

_countdown_ task:   
     pick one of _GO_
     startquest PINIT2

_GO_ task:
     level 3 completed
     pick one of _Q1_ _Q2_ _Q3_ _Q4_ _Q5_ _Q6_ _Q7_ _Q8_ _Q9_ _Q10_ _Q11_ 
If this code doesn't make much sense yet, just take notice of the line that says "pick one of." From there it'll randomly choose any of the 11 quests I've set up to it. I could say "pick one of _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q1_ _Q2_ _Q2_ _Q3_ _Q3_ _Q4_ _Q4_ _Q5_", which would give a 4/11 chance of being quest 1, a 2/11 chance of quest 2, a 2/11 chance of quest 3, a 2/11 chance of quest 4, and a 1/11 chance of quest 5.

In other words, there's a lot we can do.
Last edited by Jay_H on Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

I've separated that last quest into four and re-packaged the quest folder.

On a technical point, I've also renamed all my quests. I wanted an easy way to distinguish them from all other quests that'll be made, in case people want to add or delete them specifically. This'll help to keep a lot more order in the future.

The Barbarian quest has a technical snag, so it doesn't spawn the additional enemies like planned but it's still completable. The other three quests are completely functional.

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Midknightprince
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Midknightprince »

@Jay_H

Oh man....the castle defense quest is so fun, and you gotta haul butt :D
Check out my YouTube Channel!

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

Feralwarlord wrote:Fighters Guild quest:
you need to go to a dungeon to retrieve an item for a client, when you pick up the item the client and a couple of bandits will spawn and the client will say something like "anther fool has come to my trap, now die" then attack you, on the clients body will be a note indicating that he's you client, to complete the quest you need to take this note back to the fighters guild.
Your request is fulfilled.

JHFG007: The Fighters Guild asks you to do simple courier work. All you have to do is recover a gem from a residence in another town and receive instructions on where to take it. How hard could it be?

I changed a few details around, since town-based quests seem to be a little more popular right now than dungeon-based ones. This seemed like the most plausible narrative I could create for it. If you want I could shift this to a dungeon (it would take very little effort, just changing a few variables and a couple lines of text).

In all, I really like this idea. I'm going to add minor probabilities on some of my quests of nontraditional endings; the courier's dead before you arrived, or the item was already stolen, or the person refuses to pay you and you have to fight them, and so on. Unpredictability will keep people interested.

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

JHMG00X: A prototype for a Circular Quest. A powerful lich has appeared in a regional dungeon and begun making havoc in the area. The PC is asked to interrogate the lich and learn its objectives.

I want Circular Quests to be epic and dynamic, of a level exceeding Daggerfall's classic quests. Normally they won't come from the Mages Guild directly but I can change that later. This is an idea I've had for quite awhile now, so this is just the first one I wanted to put to paper.

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

JHIM005: Innkeeper and Merchant quest. A troublesome sibling needs to finish a bar fight started last night, and the shop owner asks for your help to resolve it. The question is, what'll you do if the sibling refuses to pay?

This quest is meant to give a 2/3 chance of fair payment and 1/3 chance of trying to cheat you, but right now that mechanic's a little buggy, so I've set it to always try to cheat you to make it a bit more dynamic.

And with that we now have 30 custom quests in Daggerfall Unity!

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Interkarma
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Interkarma »

Awesome work Jay. You're testing the limits of these systems beautifully, and sharing what you learn with others. I couldn't ask for anything more. :)

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Jay_H
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Re: Quest Showcase

Post by Jay_H »

JHIM006: Innkeeper and Merchant quest. The merchant desecrated a powerful sorceror's tomb and now needs to get back to it to undo a curse. Skeletons will spawn infrequently during the quest's duration.

This quest has two different paths, chosen by the game. The mechanic's a little buggy so it won't happen with the frequency that's intended, but there's a minor chance of a happy ending and a greater chance of a sad ending.

Known limitation: the questgiver does not disappear at the start of the quest as intended.

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