Side-questing, Good Game-Design and The Future of Reborn?

[Tartar]

Side-questing has always been a major part of Reborn since it's inception. Powerful and Rare Pokemon have only been available to those who explored every nook and cranny of Reborn. And this was something that made especially the intro of the game very enjoyable. 

But in recent episodes, especially Episode 15, side-quests have become more elaborate to the point where many can't solve many side-quests without help from the forums. In addition, they have also started to include more story content and thus become essential to complete to get the most out of the story. 

 

And this leads me into the dilemma I see. In the most recent episode, so many side-quests were introduced (50, in fact!!) that a single player has no chance to experience everything introduced, and people had a hard time finding where to go without help from the forums and Youtube videos. This made for a great few weeks on the forums as people pooled their findings to solve all the new mysteries introduced, but frankly, I have my misgivings as to how healthy this inaccessibility is for the game from a game-design standpoint. 

 

When future episodes are released it is highly likely that when people who aren't active on these forums play through Episode 15, most of the quests that unlock after Adrienn is defeated will simply be skipped in favour of doing the next story event. Which pains me since Ame put her Heart and Soul into creating these side-quests and obviously wants us to play through them more than ever considering how vital they are to the progression of the stories of many characters.

 

And this leads me into my question, how does Ame want people to experience the game in the future? Once they've finished the story content of an episode, should they simply proceed with the story and skip many optional areas that unlock, or spend 10+ hours doing side-quests which are inherently less fun than the story content they could be experiencing? Because I think the game currently incentivises the former, which is frankly a shame.

 

Thus I question whether the current model for doing side-quests a good thing for the game as a whole?

[FairFamily]

Well I think it is an interesting and certainly worth a discussion. 

 

Well the first thing to ask is it bad to skip a side quest? With this I mean that a player decides to not search for them or progress them. He will just advance the main story. To be honest not really , we can't really force people to do side quests. We could but that's not a great idea. Reborn has a story that appeals to people. Locking them out of this experience for sidequests might stop people to play the game and is general not fun.

 

The second question is is it bad to miss a sidequest? So the player wants to experience the game but accidently misses a few sidequest. At first you might say it is bad,after all they don't get all the content even though they want to. But I have 2 arguments in favor for missing side quests. The first argument is that makes the world more wonderful. Finding a hidding place gives a sense of satisfaction for finding that place/item/pokemon but for that to work it must be missable. Seeing other people discover content makes me wonder if I have missed and might make search other areas for stuff I missed. It expands how big the game really is and is also a nice feeling. The second part is replayability I mean a a pokemon game reborn has some replayability by default since different teams give different experiences in terms of difficulty. The game also has some branching paths so replaying is not playing the same game over again. Now during the second run of the game, the playes might notice new things or talk to different people and unlock different sidequests diversifying his run. This also ties in with the previous argument it makes the world feel bigger if you find a new sidequest/are/item which you missed in your first run.

 

So all in all I say the system is fine as is.

[Waynolt]

22 minutes ago, FairFamily said:

Well the first thing to ask is it bad to skip a side quest? With this I mean that a player decides to not search for them or progress them. He will just advance the main story.

A concept I've been toying with (in my mind) would be to actually punish those who do seek out and complete most sidequests; the reasoning being that you're essentially wasting time when there is so much at stake already.

 

Imho it would be realistical but very unpopular (because it goes against completionist runs and against the principle of wanting to experience what the game has to offer, the very sense of wonder and discovery that you wrote about), so this would probably be a bad thing to add to a videogame.
Still worth mentioning in the forum though.

 

1 hour ago, Tartar said:

And this leads me into my question, how does Ame want people to experience the game in the future?

Imho it would be best to leave it as it is: if the player is willing, just let him/her/whatever discover the quests on his/her/whatever own.

P.S. I'm afraid that if you specifically want Ame's opinion on the matter (instead of "random user #69" 's ) you'll have to either write her a private message or at least tag her here.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Waynolt

[TwinAero]

I think part of the reason side quest has been increasingly ignored is that with the way pokémon works, past level 50~ most mons reach their peak of strength. Unlike the beginning of the game where doing side quest allows one to get stronger mons at low levels, if you have something that works once, it will almost always pull you through on every other major battle, making the casual player not bothering to do the side quest since the reward is not as crucial. 

Personal preference. Since side quest are an optional thing, I would like it if side quest was used to give a bit more flavor to the character cast. I know Ame plans to leave those stuff as post-game material, but having character interaction pushed as the last segment of a game seems a tad bit wasteful, as the interactions are suppose to be what draws us to like to characters and care enough to bother to get their content. It'd be nice if we could get to know more about them through optional side quests, players wanting more content will get to know the cast better, casuals will get to progress without having to bother with stuff they don't care about.

Slightly unreasonable I understand, having to plan for this type of story telling would probably murder the development time.

 

[Tartar]

4 hours ago, FairFamily said:

The second question is is it bad to miss a sidequest? So the player wants to experience the game but accidently misses a few sidequest. At first you might say it is bad,after all they don't get all the content even though they want to. But I have 2 arguments in favor for missing side quests. The first argument is that makes the world more wonderful.

And I wholeheartedly agree with this were it not for side-quests such as the Aster and Eclipse sidequests where missing it makes one miss the resolution to a story arc from the main story. 

Were sidequests merely ways to find Pokemon making them optional would be fine. In the case where side-quests unlock story crucial information, that is easily missable, that makes a lot more tricky to access whether players should be allowed to miss such content.

[Egzample]

The problem is, now we have too much time between episodes, so even when we are flooded with sidequests and stuff, we have something to do. When playing continously, I dont think that after beating Adrienn, anybody will struggle with sidequests and exploration more than necessary, instead of rushing straight to the desert.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

On 6/23/2017 at 5:45 PM, Tartar said:

And I wholeheartedly agree with this were it not for side-quests such as the Aster and Eclipse sidequests where missing it makes one miss the resolution to a story arc from the main story. 

Were sidequests merely ways to find Pokemon making them optional would be fine. In the case where side-quests unlock story crucial information, that is easily missable, that makes a lot more tricky to access whether players should be allowed to miss such content.

In the "We make Pokemon Reborn. Ask us anything" thread from a while ago, someone asked if those who didn't get the Shiny Charm from that branching story would be able to get it later, and Ame said yes. That could mean those who didn't get that story in E14 will be able to get it at a later point in the game. It doesn't confirm it since we could find the Shiny Charm somewhere else through different means, but it does mean it's possible. 

 

About sidequests becoming more elaborate as of E15, I think there have been elaborate sidequests since long before then. Off the top of my head:

-Beldum (how did anyone even find this)

-Scraggy

-Oddish Weed

-I think they no longer exist, but the sidequests for the Sail and Jaw Fossils through the cultists in 7th Street. I never did them myself but from what I heard they seemed elaborate

-The Magikarp sidequest (which isn't complete yet, but will probably be the longest sidequest in the game)

 

Reborn also isn't the only game with sidequests like this that are elaborate and/or missable. Rejuvenation has more of them than Reborn (many of which lead to extra content in the main story), and Desolation has a few of them too. Personally I enjoy these sidequests just as much as I enjoy the main story. 

[Tartar]

@Ice Cream Sand Witch The thing about Rejuvenation is that considering how the side-quests on the bulletin boards are so prominently featured and the nature of their content, it could be said that they're a major part of the experience, considering one would be underleveled were one to proceed without completing them. 

[MetrololAce]

My favorite thing about the game has always been the difficulty of the battles and the plot. I'm not a fan of side quests because they are usually contrary to both of those things. 

If it were up to me and I had side quests that actually advanced the plot then that should just be integrated into the main progression. I understand the interest in side quests to get rare Pokemon even though it's not my favorite because it adds length to using the team i want. 

 

Overall I feel this game is strong enough without that type of optional slog. Its graphically strong, the plot is exceptional and the difficulty is good and hopefully will get higher in the last few episodes. 

My vote is more length to the main developments and less side ventures.

[Amethyst]

On 6/23/2017 at 11:42 AM, Waynolt said:

P.S. I'm afraid that if you specifically want Ame's opinion on the matter (instead of "random user #69" 's ) you'll have to either write her a private message or at least tag her here.

haHA foiled again!!!

....just kidding, that's totally fair but i saw this topic by chance. tagging me in topics you guys want me to see is probably the best way to get my attention in the forum though. i dont spend as much time browsing these days.

 

 

so side quests. firstly, ICSW is right, things like the shiny charm will not be permanently missabale, you'll just get them early. A lot of the early game sidequests have become the same way as of E16. police quest used to be the only way to get growlithe and it was missable after a point but now you can find them in the wild.  the reward is still there in getting things early + more game content, but it doesn't have long term consequences to not do it. this is what i shoot for for sidequests.

 

also what 50???? in E16??? no way. is there a list????? man i made the stuff and i'd struggle to believe it's that many

 

ok so as for if i want a player to see it all or not-- sure. that'd be great. but i know many people dont care, and many people do care but cant be arsed to comb the gameworld to find everything, and many people who do care and do comb the gameworld still won't find everything. ....but that's not a bad thing, right? 

speaking as a player some of the things in games that have fascinated me the most haven't existed at all have been the things that are ridiculously esoteric or hard to find or that you'd think "there's no way this is going to lead to anything" but then it does lead to something and it's like woahh... so a lot of times when i'm thinking about what i want the player to experience i end up exploring those "there's no way" things and building on them to reward the players who do go out of their way to explore, or try different things, etc. i enjoy hearing about players who've spent hundreds hours on this game and then are reading and they're like "there's a what in chrysolia forest" because you know their world view just got shaken and they gonna be on their toes again for a while. 

in E16's case a lot of the sidequests were made with the intent of making sure there'd be enough to explore and discover in the new city to potentially last through the rest of the game

in the early game it was about making the city feel lively

in E17 it's about rewarding exploration

and also somethings were just draw onto the map to begin with so i had to relaize them l o l

 

but idk like different sidequests serve different purposes and im trying to leave options open to players while making sure that it feels like there's plenty to do 

also worth noting i dont generally think in terms of "at the end of the current episode"-- im looking more at how people will play through the game as a full. i imagine some people will do everything and others will strategize and find out what they need to do to get the things they want and go for it-- also why i've been packing multiple rewards into sidequests more and more lately so that the same game content can be valuable to more different players and not just whoever happens to want to use mega camerupt

 

this is a very rambling post and sorry for that that's just where my mind is that rigght now but hopefully it can answer a ffew questions about how im looking at things

 

 

 

[Commander]

Oh shi...I forgot about this topic. I guess Ame covered more than I would, but I kind of agree to disagree. I'll at least break sidequests down first before going into a bit more detail. So one thing that I really think people should realize that having too much in a game isn't necessarily a bad thing. Reborn has a lot of things to do, but trying to do everything every time (cough*route 1*cough) would get tedious so being able to breeze through the game in a second playthrough should be fun or at least not stressed to do sidequests. Rejuv I feel like I had to sidequest since well the HC thing is there and it's the only way to get good stuff. Reborn is kind of designed to do whatever you want. There's a plot that you have to follow, but you can choose to go a different way and I think I always loved how the first area was a big old place called Peridot Ward that overwhelmed me, but I dug around and saw all these little things that I wouldn't appreciate in a normal game. That's just how Reborn is designed is to explore the city so you can get stronger, not because you need to. But now I'll divide sidequests into three sections:

 

1. Story Sidequests: These sidequests are the ones players almost always want to get to learn more about characters. Interesting enough, most of these are very subtle and only a couple add a lot of context, but they don't have a big emphasis so I could see them being easily missed. While these do expand your knowledge, or even make your more confused, missing them is not a big deal as I have a feeling the story will explain itself for many of these moments, but not in as much detail. You learn very little of characters outside the main story tbh, but you do learn a lot about them in the main story.

 

2. Sub-story/Exploration Quests: You ever think about the Aqua Gang quests or how when you first flew back to neo-Reborn you explored the Geyser Area. There are certain quests or things you can do. A lot of these net you quite a few rewards so often they are the things people recommend to players and many of them are even fun. Very few of them are sub story which is why I condensed them as they are mostly about exploration. If you talk to NPCs, they help push you to explore the world a bit more.

 

3. Event Pokemon: If you look at the obtainable Pokemon, there are some that are just more or less you find the Pokemon to capture them. Honestly these are the whatever quests since only completionists or collectors really go for them. I don't mind them except for weather Pokemon. I really didn't like that concept too much before and E16 really hasn't helped with that. This is just kind of something to do on the side and often you'll randomly notice them.

 

Did you notice a certain word I said there? Explore. Nothing in Reborn forces you to do anything other than to move the plot forward. It's a really nice freedom I feel Pokemon has started to forget about and it gets worse every gen. So yeah, I don't really expect a lot of people to be doing sidequests or exploration since Pokemon more or less kind of is pushing away from that. If you don't like exploring you can enjoy the game still, but you do miss out on a lot of stuff that make Reborn, Reborn really. But yeah I found every Pokemon and sidequest by myself other than two things, one of which I would've found playing a new game and the other was Lapras. And Beldum, but ain't nobody able to figure that out by themselves. Point is that Reborn is designed to kind of play how you want which is something which was rare, but is coming back in style with Nintendo switch.

 

On 6/23/2017 at 1:42 PM, Waynolt said:

A concept I've been toying with (in my mind) would be to actually punish those who do seek out and complete most sidequests; the reasoning being that you're essentially wasting time when there is so much at stake already.

 

Imho it would be realistical but very unpopular (because it goes against completionist runs and against the principle of wanting to experience what the game has to offer, the very sense of wonder and discovery that you wrote about), so this would probably be a bad thing to add to a videogame.
Still worth mentioning in the forum though.

 

Let me rephrase this in a way that will make more sense: You are punishing players for being more invested in the game. You are then forcing players to play a certain way if not only a specific way taking away many of their freedoms. A game that bosses me around does not work out that much except in action packed games where there's so many different ways you can go about even the simplest of objectives. In a game with limited movement and a genre known for grinding, that...does not mix well. Look to do anti-grinding incentives (like Reborn's disobedience) before straight up punishing them hard for doing stuff. But the bigger thing is why have sidequests and make them if don't want people to do sidequests.

 

On 6/23/2017 at 1:53 PM, TwinAero said:

I think part of the reason side quest has been increasingly ignored is that with the way pokémon works, past level 50~ most mons reach their peak of strength. Unlike the beginning of the game where doing side quest allows one to get stronger mons at low levels, if you have something that works once, it will almost always pull you through on every other major battle, making the casual player not bothering to do the side quest since the reward is not as crucial. 

Personal preference. Since side quest are an optional thing, I would like it if side quest was used to give a bit more flavor to the character cast. I know Ame plans to leave those stuff as post-game material, but having character interaction pushed as the last segment of a game seems a tad bit wasteful, as the interactions are suppose to be what draws us to like to characters and care enough to bother to get their content. It'd be nice if we could get to know more about them through optional side quests, players wanting more content will get to know the cast better, casuals will get to progress without having to bother with stuff they don't care about.

Slightly unreasonable I understand, having to plan for this type of story telling would probably murder the development time.

 

We actually got two sidequests this episode that gave some very, very deep and interesting storytelling. Actually, 3 counting Corey. I don't think there will be that many in the Desert, but Agate City definitely could have quite a few possibilities as well.

 

As for the level 50 thing...oh boy this topic. You see, most people are far from the peak of their strength, but to get even higher requires you to grind a "low" level mon using trainers with really high levels or wild Pokemon with really low levels which making sure you don't level your own Pokemon too high so you don't have to worry about the level cap. And fights so far have not been that bad and honestly I've gotten through the pre-field days with a team that I got more or less since the start of the game so I never felt the need to swap my Pokemon out. And I still really don't (and heck no to trying to rotate Pokemon). It's actually around level 50 where the experience curve gets really bad as you're short on exp and it's really hard to level up. Maybe it's changed a little bit since I started but by the time I hit Luna, her mons were 10 levels above mine.

[Xenoxblades]

So as long as ALL sidequests availible could be done at any point in the story, I'm good. 

Because someactually I can't clear because I progressed on the story and if I wanted to do them, I need to start it over.

But frankly, if the game stays as it is now, there is no problem overall, most quests are doable at any rate, so.

[Waynolt]

10 hours ago, Commander said:

Let me rephrase this in a way that will make more sense: You are punishing players for being more invested in the game. You are then forcing players to play a certain way if not only a specific way taking away many of their freedoms. A game that bosses me around does not work out that much except in action packed games where there's so many different ways you can go about even the simplest of objectives. In a game with limited movement and a genre known for grinding, that...does not mix well. Look to do anti-grinding incentives (like Reborn's disobedience) before straight up punishing them hard for doing stuff. But the bigger thing is why have sidequests and make them if don't want people to do sidequests.

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of dynamic difficulty... example: if you spent 2 months of gameplay before reaching Team Meteor's base, then there will be 10 extra mooks you need to battle through.

 

Anyway, even though I do find this concept interesting, you are right: it would probably be a bad idea to add this in a Pokemon game.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Waynolt

[Tartar]

@Amethyst Thanks for your lengthy post, I certainly do enjoy your reading your thought process in regards to game design as you seem to think things through quite a bit. My main gripe is people missing story-relevant side-quests, as it would lessen the impact of the story and several minor characters depending on how prominently you'll want to feature side-quests with story content in the future. In general I like the idea that side-quests can tie into the story since this adds more meaning to them for players like me who already have all the Pokemon they'll ever need for the rest of the game. But the thought that that story content is missable just irks me the wrong way, especially considering how obscure some of the side-quests can be.

 

There's probably no way around this since story-related side-quests are a great tool for story-telling, and I do genuinely want more of such content. In either case, I'll trust you that you know what you're doing and will make the best possible game for us. 

 

 

And the 50 sidequests part was perhaps a bit unwarranted. During the development of EP16 you had a milestone progresss bar. The sidequests one said as 0/50, and you said something along the linbes of trying to finish one a day a back then. Maybe I misunderstood this as meaning EP16 had 50 sidequests. 

[Amethyst]

ohhhh yeahhh no that was 50% because the other 50% was probably for sidequest areas like the spring,

but in most cases things like, the leftovers quest would be 5 or the klefki thing would be 5, etc

deffo not 50 separate ones, yikearoni and cheese

 

im not going to put anything story-necessary in sidequests, but it is an extra bonus that can be used to reward people so i like to use that.

[Whitelight]

Just my personal perspective here, but I feel like Skyrim is the game that comes to mind when I think of "maximum side questing" and that game is so great that even though it was made in like 2012 it's still relevant today (and actually sold more copies on steam in the last year than fallout 4 lol). But anyway, the point is side quests are cool BECAUSE they are optional. I feel like it adds depth to your character in the game because what you do shapes who you are. Much like in Skyrim where you can go beat dragons to death with nothing but a pointy stick  or smite them with godlike power collected through countless hours of dungeon grinding, you can go through reborn with the mindset of collecting the strongest mons from epic side quests or just try to beat the game by the easier roads.

 

Tldr - can't ever have too many side quests, if you want a "full team" of questions mons you will only need to do 6 side quests any way

[Rain Spectre]

I feel like the sidequests are pretty intuitive and add to world more than anything. The only sidequest that is tied to the main story in EP16 is the Klefki quest, and sidequests that reveal backstory for major characters is nothing new in RPGs.