Guild Wars 2

I understand the idea that Anet wanted to remove the traditional quest system from the game as it could be very tedious and repetitive. However there’s something really nice and good about quests; they let you interact with NPCs, understand the lore, the story and the situation and condition of the area you’re in and the NPCs from that area. Without quests these NPCs and areas are left isolated.

We now have the Hearts which in the end are a type of collective quests without the middle man, I mean you don’t have to talk to them to know what’s going on – you just have the stuff you have to do, usually kill things and done.
You can complete all hearts without ever talking to a single NPC or figuring out what’s going on, which is what I did after my first two hearts.

After I found out you didn’t need to talk to the heart NPCs I just ignored them completely unless I wanted to buy something.

Quests are a nice way to talk to NPCs, to interact with an area and care about exploring an area.
For example Lion’s Arch is a huge city with a huge amount of NPCs but they’ve ALL gone to waste, if they’re not craft masters or trying to sell you something, why would you talk to any of them? They’re nothing more than scenery.

I’ve done world completion and saw all these awesome places which were just isolated and ignored because there’s no point or reason for any player to explore those areas further. If you had quests which took you to those areas and made you talk to NPCs which asked for something and explained about the area, you’d learn a lot more about the areas, the NPCs and so much more.

You’d have an actual reason to interact with all the fantastic locations in the game.

They didn’t need quests to be repetitive, only add quests where quests matter. Only have quests that tell you something about a person or area. That way you have a reason to actually talk to NPCs, because as it is, you currently have none.

what exactly are you complaining about? you say yourself that there are npcs everywhere with something to say, but YOU choose not to speak to them…

Almost all the NPCs will talk to you about something if you click on them. Many are quite funny, too. The thing I hate about traditional quests are the immersion-breaking icons floating over their heads and even worse, the boring slog from one side of a map to the other just to hand in my 10 sticks of firewood or whatever. Such a waste of time.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Almost all the NPCs will talk to you about something if you click on them. Many are quite funny, too. The thing I hate about traditional quests are the immersion-breaking icons floating over their heads and even worse, the boring slog from one side of a map to the other just to hand in my 10 sticks of firewood or whatever. Such a waste of time.

Well that boring move from one part of the map to another to hand stuff in isn’t actually out of the game at all. There’s many hearts and events in which you have to gather up items such as metal pipes and hand them in, or just bring items one by one by one. So though they managed to remove most of the tedious work that quests had, a lot of it and the core concept of the tedious quest system is still there.

Yes most NPCs do talk to you if you talk to them, but you have no motivation to do so. You have no reason to, no rewards for doing so, many areas are just pointless to explore because going to them just serves no purpose. A lot of lore from the game I had to just by mistake stumble upon because I have no indication, nothing to make me go seek out that lore.

Like the tablet in the Grove left behind with the Sylvari teachings, one day I just happened to stumble upon it by accident and was amazed by it, I found it to be so cool that it was right there. If there was a quest in the Grove that had you do something with the tablet like going and “taking notes” on it, or some sort of task that makes you learn more about the tablet, it’d be fantastic.

Things like that which teach you and make you interact with the world and people around you, without being repetitive; like an NPC asking you to gather 10 wood logs, then 10 wolf hide, then 10 copper ore. Those kinds of quests (which kind of are still in the game) I agree have no purpose, but more meaningful quests should be in there.

Delryn.7235:

Yeah, there are a few hearts that involve bringing the person something, but these are much fewer in GW2 than most MMOs and they don’t involve covering the whole region to do it. Distance is much less than an entire region and often the item you’re carrying includes a skill with a speed buff.

It’s the situation with you CAN do something, but you have no REASON to do it.

Like high level characters going to low level areas, if they didn’t make event rewards scale to your level and the loot drop also scale to your level, you COULD go back to play low level areas but you’d have just no REASON to do so.

You can do a lot, but unless you have a reason to you wouldn’t do it. Like monthly, if monthly didn’t have a nice reward I’d not bother doing it. If WvW kills wasn’t in monthly, I’d never bother going to WvW.

If there wasn’t kill variety in daily, I’d not bother exploring different locations.

It gives you something to do and a reason to do it. And in a lot of areas in the game which have been left isolated (especially cities), that’s what’s missing.

There’s loads of stuff to explore. It’s living world, and what I miss is NPC’s directing you to locations or dungeons or just the traditional DnD type quests that this world perfectly is fit for. I would LOVE to see NPCs trying to hire you (Or hell, maybe even players) for you to go to these locations to find something, and you just travel along the world where these things are hidden or put down that lead you on your own world adventures or youre own quests.

I hope the precursor scavenger hunt can fulfill this role (but I dunno what they’re doing with that, or if they have the resources)

I only know that I would go around the world put in small objects and hints and extra token rewards in puzzle dungeon mini dungeon or hidden treasure chests and brew it together with a story behind it and then go to LA call out for LF 5 people to try my queststory.

That would really get me excited. Especially as I KNOW some of the puzzle chests are able to give you exotics. (the chance is like 1 in a thousand probably, and I really do these jumping puzzles quite alot.)

But yeah Font of Rhand is my favourite mini dungeon atm, since the complexity of that one is just, wow. I really would love to see more of that stuff over anything else.

I agree with FrizzFreston, it’s what I mean. I don’t want the tedious quest system, I want what quests represent, the idea and qualities behind it. Interaction to learn and explore in places and ways you wouldn’t normally.

The fact that you know the heart npcs have stuff to say and choose not to listen to them shows that you have no interest in what they have to say.

So why do you want the game to make you listen?

I don’t think they need to change the current system so much as they need to emphasize how important it is to go talk to the heart vendor when you finish. There are a lot of them that drop pretty useful stuff and a lot of folks look right over them.

The letters they send you in the mail start to get… repetitious after a while. Those would be a good place to start. Maybe list, in the mail, the items the heart vendor is now willing to sell to you when you finish.

Minion of Vey.4398:

The fact that you know the heart npcs have stuff to say and choose not to listen to them shows that you have no interest in what they have to say.

So why do you want the game to make you listen?

The reason I don’t talk to the Heart NPCs is the same reason I don’t want tedious and repetitive quests. Usually the Heart NPCs just talk about what they need; “oh adventurer, my dolyaks have run wild and I need to get them back, please lure them back using this lazer gun gives you a lazer gun”, what they have to say is usually pointless.

I want something the makes you explore and interact with more meaningful things, as I already explained having an NPC in the Grove which asks something of you related to the tablet would be wonderful.

Something that gives you a reward while also making you explore, learn and enjoy the experience.

All in all I’m not complaining about the heart npcs, they do their job in populating the areas around the game with plenty of activity, but there are some places in the game (cities) which are just lacking.

Also other than the heart npcs or event npcs out in the world, what’s the point of other npcs? If they could come up with something that those other npcs could do or ask of you, SOMETHING that would help you interact with them would be nice.

Tolmos.8395:

I don’t think they need to change the current system so much as they need to emphasize how important it is to go talk to the heart vendor when you finish. There are a lot of them that drop pretty useful stuff and a lot of folks look right over them.

The letters they send you in the mail start to get… repetitious after a while. Those would be a good place to start. Maybe list, in the mail, the items the heart vendor is now willing to sell to you when you finish.

Yes! absolutely brilliant, every now and again I try making myself read what they have to say in the letters but once again, it’s usually pointless stuff – repetitive as you said. It’d be great if they gave useful information such as what they’re selling, and things like places and people around there who would need your help (kind of like the scouts but in a more subtle way).

This seems to be a problem with many games I have played now, including the other MMO’s. I recently played World of Warcraft for example and the introduction quests to Mist of Pandaria (coincidentally, those are the quests you can do during a trial) was absolutely amazing. It felt like you were in the story, but once you got further in the game it quickly became an annoying segmented story that didn’t make much sense other than mindless grinding.

The only thing close to a story in an MMO I have ever experienced is from this game with Personal Stories.

I would like to see the Personal Story expanded to the other Elder Dragons myself. After killing Zhaitan that is it. I would like to see more story about the other Elder Dragons. Maybe add in some more zones on to the already large map that we can access.

Am I the only one who absolutely hates the heart system in this ?

Game would’ve been awesome with only DEs all around.

Orr is a step in the right direction (other than risen pack density), but lower DE difficulty and increase rate of events all around.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Almost all the NPCs will talk to you about something if you click on them. Many are quite funny, too. The thing I hate about traditional quests are the immersion-breaking icons floating over their heads and even worse, the boring slog from one side of a map to the other just to hand in my 10 sticks of firewood or whatever. Such a waste of time.

Actually, if you were to harken back to the days of RPG’s, before MMO’s were a popular thing. Try playing some old-fashioned Baldur’s Gate, or Neverwinter Nights (the original, first BG and NWN). You’ll notice that the quest givers have absolutely zero quest indicators floating over their heads. Instead, you have a whole journal, which is updated after each step of the quest you perform. Most traditional quests have you start at point A, then arrive at point B, to turn in your quest. Much more stream-lined, than the Renown Hearts in GW2. Besides…it’s the Personal Storyline, in GW2, that is more like the traditional quest. Personal stories do in fact, have you run from one end of the zone map to the other, and go all the way BACK to point A. So, progression for traditional quests would seem to be: Point A to Point B; Personal Storylines are usually Point A to Point B, maybe even a Point C, but usually back to Point A, at some point. You really do more running around in Personal Storylines, than in Traditional Quests.