What kind of new quest types would you like to see added?

[zztong]

Note: Restore Functionality (mentioned above) - I had envisioned having to either (1) install a MacGuffin from the trader or (2) assemble materials, and then deliver and install them to locations such as the top of a tall skyscraper to get an antenna and transmitter working. But honestly, there can be all sorts of infrastructure that survivors might want to setup.

IDEAS: I have mentioned before trying to get the Tier 0 POIs into the mix as that is existing content that not all players explore.

* Delivery - The trader gives you a satchel to leave in a POI. (It reuses the fetch quest but changes the direction.)

* Relocate - Perhaps a trader wants you to pickup a satchel at one Tier 0 POI and deliver it to another Tier 0 POI. You would get kind of a Tier 1 quest experience between the two, but no final loot box, so the trader might need to be a little more generous.

* Alt Buried Treasure - You could put buried treasure quests inside of Tier 0 POIs.

* The trader could give you a smoke canister and have you go to a Tier 0 POI, deploy the smoke canister to signal an airdrop, which contains something the trader wants.

IDEAS: We often talk about quests given by a Trader, but there could be more variants of quests delivered like the map quests. That is, you find a reference to something to do found in treasure so it doesn't take up a slot in your trader quests:

* You could find a wanted poster in loot and try to earn the bounty. The target (now a zombie; perhaps a bandit) has a 50% chance to show up in a wandering horde.

BIGGER: Fallout 4 had this notion of camps where you built shelters for survivors. It was neat, once, but Fallout 4 didn't really go far enough with the crafting/building for those camps and it was easy to lose interest in them. Sadly, adding a bunch of survivors to wander around a settlement is probably taxing if they took resources like a zombie or bandit, but what if that were virtualized... you didn't see them but monitored them via some kind of "settlement claim block" or "settlement workbench"? Or, maybe the traders themselves are the settlement item and you have to deliver it resource to get the trader to "grow" in capability. That is, it's always a 60x60 POI, but at first it is small. At certain milestones it grows. Only the forest one starts large.

 

[8_Hussars]

A bigger picture idea:

* Clear a small town of bandits, which I think it about chaining quests together.

That's a good point that I did not address (maybe outside scope of the OP question?) but certainly there needs to more "modes" of play and bigger chain quests. Sandbox mode, Story mode, the Rebirth Purge mode, escape to safe zone mode, need to be available in vanilla.

Certainly, the basic clear area quest could be expanded (and chained) to a "Clear Town" style. Perhaps, along with that a "Restore Town" quest chain. Restore power is a big POI and you have to fix the infrastructure and distribution network. Similarly, restore water would need to fix the infrastructure and distribution network.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Why not? Nothing wrong with a quest that does things differently.

I'm certainly not opposed to the idea. Just not sure whether adding a quest with different bounds than a standard quest is within the scope of the sort of things TFP are likely to do at this point.

 

[Jost Amman]

I think the problem with Jobs (Quests) in games is that they're all very predictable.

The best type of new quest I would dream to see, not just in this game but in ANY game, is one that doesn't tell you from the beginning exactly what you have to do to reach your goal, but lets you figure it out by yourself by giving you more vague clues or generic locations or categories of objects.

Examples:
Hugh - "A bear was spotted near town terrorizing our couriers. We need you to hunt this beast down and bring us proof of kill."
Bob - "I want to fix my old car but I need some stuff to complete the job. Can you find me a radiator and some springs? Oh, also some red paint!"
Rekt - "I'm going on a date with Jen, and I want to bring her some high-end meds she'll appreciate... bring me an assortment of medications of all types and I'll later decide what to give her. If you do that I'll pay you double their value, and Jen will, let's say, be VERY grateful... if you know what I mean." *Rekt smirking*
Joel - "My best courier told me he's the fastest in all of Navezgane. If you can beat his record and get from here to <Trader X> in less than <Calculated Best Time> I'll give you a reward of your choice from my best stuff!"

 

[Riamus]

I think the problem with Jobs (Quests) in games is that they're all very predictable.

The best type of new quest I would dream to see, not just in this game but in ANY game, is one that doesn't tell you from the beginning exactly what you have to do to reach your goal, but lets you figure it out by yourself by giving you more vague clues or generic locations or categories of objects.

Examples:
Hugh - "A bear was spotted near town terrorizing our couriers. We need you to hunt this beast down and bring us proof of kill."
Bob - "I want to fix my old car but I need some stuff to complete the job. Can you find me a radiator and some springs? Oh, also some red paint!"
Rekt - "I'm going on a date with Jen, and I want to bring her some high-end meds she'll appreciate... bring me an assortment of medications of all types and I'll later decide what to give her. If you do that I'll pay you double their value, and Jen will, let's say, be VERY grateful... if you know what I mean." *Rekt smirking*
Joel - "My best courier told me he's the fastest in all of Navezgane. If you can beat his record and get from here to <Trader X> in less than <Calculated Best Time> I'll give you a reward of your choice from my best stuff!"

I've seen similar types of quests in games fairly often, so they aren't that uncommon. Sometimes they are entirely unclear on where to go, while other times they give you at least a general area to look, such as your "near town" option that would obviously be somewhere within a close radius of the town.

These aren't a bad option for quests, but they tend to get old even faster than what we have now. At least with what we have now, we can get quests from any of a thousand plus POI. That doesn't get old quite as fast as a bunch of "go find something" or "bring something here" or "bring me something" quests. For example, let's say you have a quest to find a radiator and springs and paint. You do it. What's your next quest? Do the same thing? Or will it be another quest with different items? How many of those can you do before you've done them all? How many "stories" can be written (the quotes you gave for the traders)? I doubt we'd see a thousand plus different ways to do any of those kinds of quests you mentioned. It's one reason you see so much dislike from people for gather quests.

Now, I'm not saying they couldn't add these to the game. Any new quests are a bonus. But I think having ones that scale better in terms of how many times you can do the quest type without repeating it will provide better replayability.

The one type you listed that I think really isn't a good option in this game is the speed one. Because of how the map is designed, there isn't really any kind of track design type of thing that would impact your ability to drive between two points at max speed. It isn't like a racing game with hairpin turns or traffic that might cause you to fail. Here, you just go straight from point A to point B and maybe dodge some trees or rocks or POI here and there. Unless there happens to be something in the way, such as a large mountain or even a long fence, it should always be possible to complete it in time. They couldn't make the time too close to the best possible or people would get annoyed from failing if they are a second or two delayed and the supercharger would either make it even easier or else make it impossible to do without that installed, depending how the time is set up.

 

[warmer]

Building quest. repair a building so it's a viable storm shelter again
Restarting a communication tower - could involve supplying charged batteries
Retrieve supplies after a Bandit raid of a trader

 

[Ostentatio]

To spin off of sentiments of 'less trader reliance' and chain quests - the treasure map items give a quest entry to find the treasure chest, don't they? (Oop, zztong mentioned them also, hadn't seen that) What could be fun is a treasure-map-%-or-rarer note that starts a sequence of special quests following a paper trail (probably with additional notes/clues in POI end-loots, mailboxes, purses, etc) to find a 'new' NPC in a below-ground, difficult-to-spot-normally bunker POI. Maybe they could be a new trader, but it'd be more interesting I think to have them be another quest-giver (maybe with non-trader-available quest types) with no trade inventory, but with specialty rewards of a higher quality than standard trader rewards- like a doctor NPC might give medical supplies or a chemistry station, or a prepper NPC might be an alternative way to get solar cells or unique traps/weapons. That might fit in better post-bandit update and be more work than it seems worth, but variety of things to do with worthwhile payoffs are always good.


I remember way back, there used to be a secret trader stash of higher-rarity items, wasn't there? Maybe a new type of 'special job' might come up every so often to get access to something like that until the next restock. Heck, maybe even a trader/faction reputation system where you get a side quest to bring the trader a list of themed items to increase your standing with them (I'd also suggest it decays over time so you can't be 100% with all of them at the same time, or maybe some of them reduce your standing with other traders) for better general rewards or access to a secret trader inventory.

Edit-add: I was going to think that, to complement the nighttime-start quests, there might be a POI you have to complete and turn in before the trader closes for the day- but that probably would not work well, between time-crunches and different daytime length settings.

 

[Jost Amman]

These aren't a bad option for quests, but they tend to get old even faster than what we have now.

You mean older than knowing exactly where to go and what to find?

The difference is that the "general area" and "random item" quests I'm proposing won't need a specific POI to be completed.
That also means you can complete them while scavenging POIs in a more natural way.

That doesn't get old quite as fast as a bunch of "go find something" or "bring something here" or "bring me something" quests. For example, let's say you have a quest to find a radiator and springs and paint. You do it. What's your next quest? Do the same thing? Or will it be another quest with different items? How many of those can you do before you've done them all? How many "stories" can be written (the quotes you gave for the traders)? I doubt we'd see a thousand plus different ways to do any of those kinds of quests you mentioned. It's one reason you see so much dislike from people for gather quests.

1) How many variations? That's the developer's problem. Pay me and I'll find you an answer for sure.
2) What's the difference between repeating the current quest types and the quests I'm proposing? I didn't invent boredom with this.

The one type you listed that I think really isn't a good option in this game is the speed one. Because of how the map is designed, there isn't really any kind of track design type of thing that would impact your ability to drive between two points at max speed. It isn't like a racing game with hairpin turns or traffic that might cause you to fail. Here, you just go straight from point A to point B and maybe dodge some trees or rocks or POI here and there. Unless there happens to be something in the way, such as a large mountain or even a long fence, it should always be possible to complete it in time. They couldn't make the time too close to the best possible or people would get annoyed from failing if they are a second or two delayed and the supercharger would either make it even easier or else make it impossible to do without that installed, depending how the time is set up.

You're overthinking the issues in my opinion... look at the positives instead. Give 'em a BIG reward but make it VERY difficult. They could add some way to calculate the best route beforehand (they have access to map data, don't they?) and then the player may check the route and decide to (e.g.) build a bridge over a crack or river to shorten the path before he starts the challenge at the starting point.

Bam! you've made the challenge both about being swift and about being smart (planning ahead).

And what about storms? What if a storm goes off while you're driving to your destination?
Can you arrive there in time before it starts? Will you try to endure the damage for a while so that you can keep going if you're almost there?

As you can see the random element makes this type of challenge much more interesting than it seems.

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:04 AM

I remember way back, there used to be a secret trader stash of higher-rarity items, wasn't there? Maybe a new type of 'special job' might come up every so often to get access to something like that until the next restock. Heck, maybe even a trader/faction reputation system where you get a side quest to bring the trader a list of themed items to increase your standing with them (I'd also suggest it decays over time so you can't be 100% with all of them at the same time, or maybe some of them reduce your standing with other traders) for better general rewards or access to a secret trader inventory.

There has been talk about a "reputation system" in the past.
But not before they add actual factions (e.g.: White River vs. Bandits).

 

[Riamus]

You mean older than knowing exactly where to go and what to find?

The difference is that the "general area" and "random item" quests I'm proposing won't need a specific POI to be completed.
That also means you can complete them while scavenging POIs in a more natural way.


1) How many variations? That's the developer's problem. Pay me and I'll find you an answer for sure.
2) What's the difference between repeating the current quest types and the quests I'm proposing? I didn't invent boredom with this.


You're overthinking the issues in my opinion... look at the positives instead. Give 'em a BIG reward but make it VERY difficult. They could add some way to calculate the best route beforehand (they have access to map data, don't they?) and then the player may check the route and decide to (e.g.) build a bridge over a crack or river to shorten the path before he starts the challenge at the starting point.

Bam! you've made the challenge both about being swift and about being smart (planning ahead).

And what about storms? What if a storm goes off while you're driving to your destination?
Can you arrive there in time before it starts? Will you try to endure the damage for a while so that you can keep going if you're almost there?

As you can see the random element makes this type of challenge much more interesting than it seems.

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:04 AM

There has been talk about a "reputation system" in the past.
But not before they add actual factions (e.g.: White River vs. Bandits).

*Shrug* The current system may be the same kind of quests, but you have 1000+ variations. It is repetitive mainly at the end because there are far fewer tier 5s. But there are still many variations. It gets boring because you've (we've) played so many hours that we know everything. Any quest will get boring after so many hours. Other games that you play for 50 or 100 hours may seem less boring for quests, but that's just because you don't play anywhere near as much.

I do think having some more quest types is a good thing. But I'd rather see quests that people will regularly do instead of ones like the restore power for buried supplies quests that so many people mostly ignore. I'm certainly not taking a speed quest that requires me to build a bridge just to successfully complete it. A race through a storm could be interesting, though. But the challenge is negated entirely by just using a 4x4. I just don't think racing is a good quest type for this game.

Give me quests to defend an area, or to completely clear a small town of zombies instead.

 

[8_Hussars]

I've seen similar types of quests in games fairly often, so they aren't that uncommon. Sometimes they are entirely unclear on where to go, while other times they give you at least a general area to look, such as your "near town" option that would obviously be somewhere within a close radius of the town.

These aren't a bad option for quests, but they tend to get old even faster than what we have now. At least with what we have now, we can get quests from any of a thousand plus POI. That doesn't get old quite as fast as a bunch of "go find something" or "bring something here" or "bring me something" quests. For example, let's say you have a quest to find a radiator and springs and paint. You do it. What's your next quest? Do the same thing? Or will it be another quest with different items? How many of those can you do before you've done them all? How many "stories" can be written (the quotes you gave for the traders)? I doubt we'd see a thousand plus different ways to do any of those kinds of quests you mentioned. It's one reason you see so much dislike from people for gather quests.

Now, I'm not saying they couldn't add these to the game. Any new quests are a bonus. But I think having ones that scale better in terms of how many times you can do the quest type without repeating it will provide better replayability.

The one type you listed that I think really isn't a good option in this game is the speed one. Because of how the map is designed, there isn't really any kind of track design type of thing that would impact your ability to drive between two points at max speed. It isn't like a racing game with hairpin turns or traffic that might cause you to fail. Here, you just go straight from point A to point B and maybe dodge some trees or rocks or POI here and there. Unless there happens to be something in the way, such as a large mountain or even a long fence, it should always be possible to complete it in time. They couldn't make the time too close to the best possible or people would get annoyed from failing if they are a second or two delayed and the supercharger would either make it even easier or else make it impossible to do without that installed, depending how the time is set up.

An underlying assumption of this perspective, is simply adding quests lines to the current Trader Quest Treadmill schema. The difference between a "retrieve the supplies" quest and a proposed "retrieve the resources" quest in the current trader centric model appears negligible.

However, some are proposing a diversion from that paradigm. Resource/item gathering can fit well in the context of longer chained original and themed quest lines.

 

[theFlu]

The difference between a "retrieve the supplies" quest and a proposed "retrieve the resources" quest in the current trader centric model appears negligible.

Hmm.. I see them quite different. A "retrieve resources" is usually complete before accepting the quest .. "50 springs you want? Yeh, I got that in my storage". So instead of fighting or .. you know, doing anything, you'll go home and grab the stuff...

 

[4sheetzngeegles]

Remote Billboard quest/activity.

The model is already available in the game, just has to be rendered.
On get focus, show the request, just like pointing at the trader.
Each picture or note would show an individual message on the screen
to accept or ignore.

Similar to Dying light. These can be retrieval, find, hunt, etc.
The only thing missing are roving NPCs, just replace them with Roving Zs.

Incorporate or use the people on the posters, and the kickstarter backers
as the subjects. Missing person please find, Missing pet dog, please return
if found. Wanted posters for "fill in the blank" TFP can use random names, like
the mapgens do, kickstarters, forum users etc.

For returns, find macguffin and return it to a drop box area, using the mechanic
for fetch satchels, basically a loot container, receive a reward.

It can be localized to a neighborhood that the player is in at the moment, be
obscure, or point to a biome. If obscure it could be something that may be read
accepted and forgotten but later, a trader may say thank you, and give a random reward.
a kind of how the killing zombies mrmu does, I got a reward that I wasn't expecting.

In the note it could be from a Trader, TFP member, Kickstarter, pretty much anyone.
Just for Giggles, it could be a quest that in the end retrieves a note, from Faatal or
other team members, with upcoming updates, that have not mentioned on the forum
an easter egg of sorts, Once complete it could lead to a fanart poster that can be placed.

All in all it could be used as a mechanism, that players come across as they travel vs extending
the trader list.

 

[Kyoji]

I think the problem with Jobs (Quests) in games is that they're all very predictable.

The best type of new quest I would dream to see, not just in this game but in ANY game, is one that doesn't tell you from the beginning exactly what you have to do to reach your goal, but lets you figure it out by yourself by giving you more vague clues or generic locations or categories of objects.

Examples:
Hugh - "A bear was spotted near town terrorizing our couriers. We need you to hunt this beast down and bring us proof of kill."
Bob - "I want to fix my old car but I need some stuff to complete the job. Can you find me a radiator and some springs? Oh, also some red paint!"
Rekt - "I'm going on a date with Jen, and I want to bring her some high-end meds she'll appreciate... bring me an assortment of medications of all types and I'll later decide what to give her. If you do that I'll pay you double their value, and Jen will, let's say, be VERY grateful... if you know what I mean." *Rekt smirking*
Joel - "My best courier told me he's the fastest in all of Navezgane. If you can beat his record and get from here to <Trader X> in less than <Calculated Best Time> I'll give you a reward of your choice from my best stuff!"

I like the ideas, but we would have to rework the one quest at a time concept as it would be much inferior to others with clear objectives and an end room stash. The purpose of these quests is that you can pick them up and still continue doing other things in other RPGs whereas in 7D2D it would limit you to either never taking them or possibly spending days completing them. The race one might set you back to negative value from when you entered.

Like someone else said. Traders can give their quests and limit those to one at a time, but there should be NPCs wandering around like in Humanitz where you can interact with them and do quests like these that are less defined and you can complete over a period of time.

 

[warmer]

To spin off of sentiments of 'less trader reliance' and chain quests - the treasure map items give a quest entry to find the treasure chest, don't they? (Oop, zztong mentioned them also, hadn't seen that) What could be fun is a treasure-map-%-or-rarer note that starts a sequence of special quests following a paper trail (probably with additional notes/clues in POI end-loots, mailboxes, purses, etc) to find a 'new' NPC in a below-ground, difficult-to-spot-normally bunker POI.

This sounds cool, I like a multi stage quest that provides a bigger story than a simple dig, retrieve, and return

 

[Pokketninja]

Firstly, thanks @Pokketninja for taking the time to get feedback from the community.

1) A primary consideration would be disconnecting quests from traders and trader stage. The reliance on the trader and the trader monopoly on providing quests, does a disservice to the game. There are so many more ways to play the game, yet many players just get into the trader quest treadmill vibe as the only way to progress (see the trader always open and removal of quests limits as symptoms of the trader quest treadmill, and not QOL mods).

2) The introduction of RPG style quests (optional) and more NPC quest providers would be a net benefit for game play variation. Even though its shoe horned into the existing game mechanics (and still done well), I enjoy what Grim Tales has done.

1. Missing Patrol Car – break into a number of Cop Cars without lockpicking to engage. (The player also gathers rare materials to craft a mod)
2. Mary’s Revenge – triggered at a 3000 Kill Streak (Configurable). Kill Streak resets on death. (Good fight and receive some rewards)
3. Pigeons Carry Diseases – pigeons: some people hate them and some people absolutely adore them. (Good fight and receive some rewards)
4. Interloper – keeping your eyes and ears open can lead to interesting things. (Need to craft a receiver and craft a transmitter, then locate that transmitter properly - Gather intel over time, that results in basically a high tier infested quest)

3) Certainly, the existing quests could be modified to be more game lore centric. Clear quests/defend quests could be provided by, and linked to, survivors, and survivor POIs. Fetch quests could be provided to gather intel or materials (e.g. to find the cure, to find who's responsible, to kill save Noah/Duke, to be directed to the safe area, etc).

4) Kind of overtaken by the bland fixed "challenges". Variations of "Kill so many of these zombies", gather resources quests, and/or multi staged versions of those kind of quests would be a nice change.

5) Leaning into some form of; find survivors, defend suvivors, and escort survivors to an extraction point/safe zone would be very interesting and lore centric.

6) Veering away from the OP question a little. Crafting a locator/transmitter for air drops would be very cool. Players could decide where to request the drop. If they don't deploy one, there is no drop. The drop could still be a randome distance from that designated point. Certainly, a battle over the crate much like the burried supplies quests, but more difficult fights, should be implimented.

There have been many good quest ideas put forward in other threads, hopefully many will migrate here.

I can agree with this! Thank you for your input. Personally for me, I don't really start trader quests since I think it just takes away how the game used to be played. Like for instance, you would clear a poi in each town to get your loot. Now I see where people just go to the pois that have quests and pre-loot, finish the quest, then repeat. They don't look other pois.

Having those quests you mentioned above could really change the way the game plays. Especially with adding NPC or Bandit Quests.

 

[Gamida]

Rekt - "I'm going on a date with Jen, and I want to bring her some high-end meds she'll appreciate... bring me an assortment of medications of all types and I'll later decide what to give her. If you do that I'll pay you double their value, and Jen will, let's say, be VERY grateful... if you know what I mean." *Rekt smirking*

With what is going on in the States with the JE Files I think that one might be a bit much.
I think the others are pretty good though.

 

[aceguy7]

Maybe some sort of escort a npc safely from point A to point B to escort to another near by town/ building safely within a said amount of time? I also like the idea of hunting quests for bears or wolves.

I always liked the idea of a mechanic shop in the desert and the mechanic will have quests, maybe sells mod parts for vehicles, kind of a mid game thing and he can repair vehicles, help him repair his shop and clear zombies....you bring him certain parts and in return he builds you a dune buggy 2 or 3 seat.

 

[8_Hussars]

Hmm.. I see them quite different. A "retrieve resources" is usually complete before accepting the quest .. "50 springs you want? Yeh, I got that in my storage". So instead of fighting or .. you know, doing anything, you'll go home and grab the stuff...

That’s fair, and admittedly a poor choice of words on my part. However, an underlying assumption is that we’re limited to using resources already available in the game.

Too often we keep thinking in terms of changing the deck chair color or rearranging the deck chairs when what’s really needed is a redesign of the deck or the ship itself.

Instead, consider it as “retrieve and/or gather widget(s).” Those widgets could be introduced in several ways. They could be linked to quests like the Grim Tales “Missing Patrol Car” mission, connected to POIs and loot containers similar to how the Supercorn seed recipe is currently obtained. They may even be tied to specific zombie types or biome types (e.g. gather x number of "Grace skulls", Chuck "vests", etc.).

 

[theFlu]

Too often we keep thinking in terms of changing the deck chair color or rearranging the deck chairs when what’s really needed is a redesign of the deck or the ship itself.

Too often do we externalize our cognitive processing to Large Language Models, that are excellent for the purpose of producing filler sentences, heck, even entire paragraphs that sound scientifically sound, but fail at the level of symbolic representation of the subject matter. For instance, here, the suggestion of changing the well known fetch quest from "a box in a house" to "gather five boxes from five different houses", doesn't not seem to meet the level of difference as is suggested by "redesign of the ship itself".

Yes, this post was entirely written by a lump of meat running at 50W; and the lump in question doesn't really have an averse reaction to the proposal at hand, per se. It just got a slight bit curious about the details of the linguistics at display here...

 

[zztong]

I like traveling around the world. Perhaps a quest where I am asked to reveal some region on the mini map? An alternative is where it generates way points for me to visit. I'm not sure where the rewards comes in other than getting paid that the end. Maybe somebody's got an idea that completes this train of thought.