When you think of what a quest is in a traditional MMO setting, you probably imagine going up to an NPC with a large exclamation point over their head, who gives you some arbitrary task to complete. “I want you to kill 50 pigs. Don’t ask why.” So off you go to kill 50 pigs, just because. “Bring me 10 ‘herbs.’ They’re for… Studying.” So off you go to get those funny looking herbs, and you get the feeling that he doesn’t do much studying at all.
What has Guild Wars 2 done to get rid of the grindy and arbitrary questing? Renown hearts are essentially the same thing. “Kill bats and spiders.” So off you go to kill bats and spiders, but you’re not sure how many you need to do. All this really does is cut out the middle man in questing. Just do the task and you’re done. No picking up or turning in, just -BAM- done.
After getting to level 80 players are often faced with the “what now?” dilemma. You can run fractals over and over, or dungeons, or bosses or whatever. Ultimately there’s just not a whole lot to do for endgame in GW2. I started to wonder why there are no more hearts, which are essentially quests, after you get to level 80 zones. Because you don’t need to level up anymore? That’s not what quests are ultimately supposed to be about. And I could always use more skill points and karma. That is as someone who hasn’t spend 24/7 in the game since launch and is actually having a hard time getting SP and karma. There are more avid players who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it. They’re more hardcore, and that’s ultimately not what Guild Wars is appealing to in the first place.
So what is this forum post all about? Well, I’d like to see an ACTUAL questing system implemented, minus the arbitrary and pointless grind quests. Once a player reaches level 80, I feel like the world should be absolutely littered with things to do, but it’s quite the opposite.
Here’s my suggestion: I’d like for there to be quests added as endgame content. Quests that tell a story, are fun and challenging to do, give new rewards and can be done with friends. I’m absolutely not suggesting to replace renown hearts with quests, or for there to be quests added alongside them for lower levels. This is absolutely only for level 80 characters, and they are to be challenging experiences.
I had this thought as I was looking through the map and wondered why there aren’t any hearts in 80 areas. I thought what it’d be like to have level 80 hearts, and my mind wandered. I thought this would be an excellent idea. I wanted to post this in the HoT forum, but with the expansion as far along as it is I don’t think they can add what I’m asking for in such a short amount of time. I then wondered if the “adventures” they spoke of would essentially be what I’m thinking. Even so, I’d like to see this added to all level 80 areas of the game and not just to the Maguuma jungle.
Sorry for the wall of text.
TL;DR – I’d like to see quests implemented as endgame content. No arbitrary grind quests, just fun and challenging content for level 80 characters in level 80 zones.