A Potential Update

[Mornyngstar]

Nooks & Crannies
update ??​

The idea behind this is the quests in the limited wilderness area of Threnal specifically The Giant Lieutenants Lv 9, The Giant's Lair Lv 9, The Threnal Arena Lv 9, The Giant's Supplies Lv 10. These quests don't give favor and since they are walk up quests they don't give end rewards either. This setup was revisited in part with the quests in The Cogs for walkups, but Favor is rewarded on completion. I liked the feel of "finding" an area and questing thru it.

Now my idea is to add a number of quests like the Threnal ones but to scatter them across multiple areas. This could include Wildernesses and Public areas across many different levels. This could revitalize Wilderness that people skip and make it feel more like D&D for "Side Quests". This could also fill in some of the lower quest numbers per level. Not all of them would have to be both Heroic and Epic since we have King's Forrest as an epic only area, the quests placed there would have to be Epic. For the Wildernesses that have both Heroic and Epic the quests there could be different for each one. If they took a page from the game Dungeon Keeper they had a feature where on a Full Moon, Hidden levels would be accessible. Not sure if this kind of feature could be implemented in the current game. As a furtherance of this idea, if they can't do a single overall update then 1 or more quests added per quarter would be nice.

Now some people would say "Why run them if there is no favor?". So, a suggestion for that would be what if they gave for Casual, Normal, Hard, Elite favor at 0(1?), 1, 2, 3. While this is low it is better than nothing. Now the Favor from this could be included into a new group called Explorers or something like that (suggestions?). Depending on how many quests were eventually added this could add up to more than The Free Agents total.

Now this is my opinion, and I welcome others.

Edit: Refutor asked a question so to clarify my objective, imagine walking thru the Stormhorn wilderness and coming across a new cave. Upon walking up to it you get the quest "The Bear's Den" with the objective to kill the agressive bear that has been terrorizing the locale area (Lv 19 base). While inside you also encounter spiders, and other minor enemies and for the finally you find the bear and cubs also along with the many corpses of people that had been felled by the bear (Treasure & Loot). Average first time running 7-10 minutes, on replaying time should be about 5 minutes on Elite/R1 average. (Again, this is just my opinion/idea.)
The way to look at my idea is in Pen and Paper (PnP) D&D you would sometimes have minor side quests that aren't part of your main campaign (At least when I am DMing) even though it doesn't further the campaign it allows a little diversion to it.

Edit: Purr gave an example of the Yaun Ti rare located in High Road wilderness. This is a perfect example for size, location, duration and number of enemies for what would make a Nooks & Crannies style quest.

11/17/2024 Edit: Didn't know you could upvote on suggestions so to the right if you click on it, that gives this thread a vote. ----->

 

[Mornyngstar]

9. Explorer areas would be great places to put player made content. "Design a cave" contest etc
10. All those empty house doors in the Marketplace could lead to a randomly generated small solo dungeon!

Stole this from another thread since I hadn't thought of it.
The idea of more varied level solo quests (nonfavor even) is a great idea for all the builds and locations for public areas. This could be expanded in the wilderness areas like Barovia and Lamordia since there are so many nice buildings.

 

[Smokewolf]

Nooks & Crannies
update ??​

The idea behind this is the quests in the limited wilderness area of Threnal specifically The Giant Lieutenants Lv 9, The Giant's Lair Lv 9, The Threnal Arena Lv 9, The Giant's Supplies Lv 10. These quests don't give favor and since they are walk up quests they don't give end rewards either. This setup was revisited in part with the quests in The Cogs for walkups, but Favor is rewarded on completion. I liked the feel of "finding" an area and questing thru it.

Now my idea is to add a number of quests like the Threnal ones but to scatter them across multiple areas. This could include Wildernesses and Public areas across many different levels. This could revitalize Wilderness that people skip and make it feel more like D&D for "Side Quests". This could also fill in some of the lower quest numbers per level. Not all of them would have to be both Heroic and Epic since we have King's Forrest as an epic only area, the quests placed there would have to be Epic. For the Wildernesses that have both Heroic and Epic the quests there could be different for each one. If they took a page from the game Dungeon Keeper they had a feature where on a Full Moon, Hidden levels would be accessible. Not sure if this kind of feature could be implemented in the current game. As a furtherance of this idea, if they can't do a single overall update then 1 or more quests added per quarter would be nice.

Now some people would say "Why run them if there is no favor?". So, a suggestion for that would be what if they gave for Casual, Normal, Hard, Elite favor at 0(1?), 1, 2, 3. While this is low it is better than nothing. Now the Favor from this could be included into a new group called Explorers or something like that (suggestions?). Depending on how many quests were eventually added this could add up to more than The Free Agents total.

Now this is my opinion, and I welcome others.

Edit: Refutor asked a question so to clarify my objective, imagine walking thru the Stormhorn wilderness and coming across a new cave. Upon walking up to it you get the quest "The Bear's Den" with the objective to kill the agressive bear that has been terrorizing the locale area (Lv 19 base). While inside you also encounter spiders, and other minor enemies and for the finally you find the bear and cubs also along with the many corpses of people that had been felled by the bear (Treasure & Loot). Average first time running 7-10 minutes, on replaying time should be about 5 minutes on Elite/R1 average. (Again, this is just my opinion/idea.)
The way to look at my idea is in Pen and Paper (PnP) D&D you would sometimes have minor side quests that aren't part of your main campaign (At least when I am DMing) even though it doesn't further the campaign it allows a little diversion to it.

Edit: Purr gave an example of the Yaun Ti rare located in High Road wilderness. This is a perfect example for size, location, duration and number of enemies for what would make a Nooks & Crannies style quest.

11/17/2024 Edit: Didn't know you could upvote on suggestions so to the right if you click on it, that gives this thread a vote. ----->

IMHO The problem with quests such as this come from how loot rewards are attached to a quests completion. While also making Named-Loot a mandatory thing for it to be worth running. Gone are the days where adventuring was a thing, and in it's place we "grind". Only to have the rug pulled out from under our progress anytime the Dev's either release new content or alter the mechanics behind the game.

Edit: I forgot to add that from SSG's perspective, there has to be a $$$ reason for it to exist. Which more than anything else, would be the largest single constraint.

 

[Mornyngstar]

IMHO The problem with quests such as this come from how loot rewards are attached to a quests completion. While also making Named-Loot a mandatory thing for it to be worth running. Gone are the days where adventuring was a thing, and in it's place we "grind". Only to have the rug pulled out from under our progress anytime the Dev's either release new content or alter the mechanics behind the game.

Very good point for that type of crowd. What about the just past new players that would run said quests on low reaper for first time bonuses to boost their reaper xp? There are also the ones that just are the explorer type and check out everything and might stumble over a quest they never heard of? (note: I recently [2ish months ago?] played with someone who didn't even know about the quests in The Ruins of Threnal wilderness. He had been playing since Menace of the Underdark came out.)

There would be people of the xp/minute crowd that this would not suit (unless the quest was unbalanced) and those who would not want to run thru the wilderness if they could avoid it, also those who would say the favor was low/not there crowd so not worth running.

How many people out there wouldn't mind making a short whimsical quest that others could stumble over?

To address your question about loot: would an increase of the "Random named item loot table" entice you to run the quests? Imagine running a short 3-5 minute or less lv 5 quest and having a Sovereign Experience Elixir drop for you in the end chest? (I know it wouldn't happen often but when you run it there is always a chance. . . . . .)

 

[Smokewolf]

To address your question about loot: would an increase of the "Random named item loot table" entice you to run the quests? Imagine running a short 3-5 minute or less lv 5 quest and having a Sovereign Experience Elixir drop for you in the end chest? (I know it wouldn't happen often but when you run it there is always a chance. . . . . .)

Unless the droprate were rare, this would 100% be abused. Case on point...Borderlands was heavily abused once people discovered that Reaper shards could be easily farmed there.

 

[Tyran Thraxus]

Some creepy caves in Ravenloft would also be great....

 

[Tyran Thraxus]

"The Waterfall Test"

Found this and mostly explains the idea behind finding out of the way quests.

Yes, that would be fun, and not too difficult to create. More nooks and crannies please!

 

[The Narc2]

Not sure why this thread has been necroed, but no more quests without favor should be created. The reason for this is not to be discussed outside the club that does not exist and shall not be named.