Quests: What Worked & What Can be Improved
“Exciting Changes Coming to Legendary!”
I’m M.T.M., and these words terrify me. Not just because they mean redoing my beloved spreadsheets (who am I kidding, that’s the fun part) but because it means another week of confused players scrambling to figure out what is going on and relearning the game instead of enjoying it. Helping answer the accompanying flood of posts over in the Questions section has helped earn me a jaunty little crown in the app, but the stress of constant changes just isn’t worth it.
The recent Commander event, “Entropy’s End,” brought us Quests. Compared to some updates, I felt the community got a good deal of information ahead of time so we could prepare. They first appeared on the new Legendary Roadmap, there was a FAQ in-game and on the forums, some videos in the app, Legendary YouTube phenomenon TBone was given a preview image to share on his channel, and the Game of Zeroes podcast had a special guest on to give a few details.
Oh…right. At this point I should make clear that I got the opportunity to hear a bit about Quests several weeks ago, and have been very excited about the idea. Based on what I was told and what I’ve seen, I believe the game team’s primary emphasis, then as now, was on the ability of Quests to help guide new players into how to play and progress in the events. Which, great, I agree that is incredibly important.
Personally though, I was most interested in the potential Quests might offer in terms of keeping things interesting for all players throughout an event, without constantly adding more bosses, more systems, and more complexity. Sure, you could always choose to play any part of the game/event, but the rewards tend to be locked behind grind, grind, grinding the same few bosses. So, now you better understand where I was going into “Entropy’s End” and the inclusion of Quests. I really wanted Quests to be good, and worth the trouble. Now, having played an event with Quests, I can confidently say…I still really hope they will be worth the trouble. Eventually.
Look, I’m not going to try and say it was all rainbows and butterflies. There was one unicorn, but he’s just a guildmate of mine and he didn’t have a great time either. Starting out, I was enjoying Quests and getting rewards at a good pace, but soon problems started cropping up. Various Quests required content that was locked out until later and instead of the existing boss grind, we got a bunch of different boss grinds. The pace slowed, there were some bugs and UI issues which compounded confusion as to exactly what counted for various Quests, and as many have pointed out, the “Build the Event Deck” Quest seems entirely backwards (build the deck to finish the collection to get runes to…build the event deck?). Perhaps worst of all, this week saw another appearance of my nemesis…the unremovable red exclamation point.
The framework for rewarding unique challenges — and simple challenges too — is certainly present in Quests though But some Quests and corresponding challenges just worked better than others. Having a reason to do a few Ultimate missions was fun, but using Tsathoggua to kill Guild Bosses felt less like a unique way to play and more like your parents making you drag your annoying kid brother along to the movies. “No one invited you, Trevor! And no, Carl doesn’t think you’re funnier than me and…MOM DO I REALLY HAVE TO BRING HIM WITH ME?!?” (Also, I don’t really have a brother named Trevor, but you get it). More importantly though, there weren’t enough Quest Points available allowing you to skip Quests that didn’t interest you or were too difficult (Ultimate Bosses, I’m looking at you), which can be frustrating rather than fun.
As for the goal of helping new players? It is hard to get into the mindset of someone brand new to the game but I think Quests will help. There were a few tutorial-style messages on the Quests, and the Support Hero quest was very thorough (maybe too thorough to do every time). The unified collection and specific goals should help new players find their footing and progress in the event. But also, there is certainly room for Quests to grow. I feel like, once again, the framework is there but there is still much that needs to be filled in.
All said, however, I’m really hoping that is the route the game takes, rather than just tossing the idea aside or trying something else entirely different. Dear Arena, where are you? Are you okay? Blink twice if you need me to send help! Despite everything, I think the concept of Quests is good, and is one of those changes that will eventually be worth the trouble of a rough event. Do you agree and think Quests have potential, or is it an idea best quietly shuffled off to the side? Let me know in the comments.
