An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not)

I thought of something similar as well. An emissary ledger type thing for buried treasure would actually be so good!

I was thinking of maybe two separate ledgers, one for burying and one for digging up player treasure. This along with the ability for player maps to move servers after a server shuts down, if possible, would help tremendously for the quest board!

@peony7185 said in An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not):

I thought of something similar as well. An emissary ledger type thing for buried treasure would actually be so good!

I was thinking of maybe two separate ledgers, one for burying and one for digging up player treasure. This along with the ability for player maps to move servers after a server shuts down, if possible, would help tremendously for the quest board!

I even thought about this part of server shutdown, which is if I'm not mistaken 48h, but I ended up having no idea, I left it sort of as a risk factor.

To me this seems like introducing meta gaming in order to get players to do something undesirable. The current emissary ledgers reward players for doing something they are already doing. There is a difference, and I've yet to see something that tries to make players do something they don't want to do that doesn't make them instantly resent that system.

If there was a point to burying treasure, players would do it. In that case, adding a leaderboard would be an enhancement to an already enjoyable system and be received a lot differently than something like this would be. This has the appeal of a fished splashtail leaderboard. You're not actually fixing what is unenjoyable about the activity, you're just slapping a ranking on top but the fact remains that it still sucks.

@d3adst1ck Hmmm good point actually, didn't think of it like that

@d3adst1ck said in An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not):

To me this seems like introducing meta gaming in order to get players to do something undesirable. The current emissary ledgers reward players for doing something they are already doing. There is a difference, and I've yet to see something that tries to make players do something they don't want to do that doesn't make them instantly resent that system.

If there was a point to burying treasure, players would do it. In that case, adding a leaderboard would be an enhancement to an already enjoyable system and be received a lot differently than something like this would be. This has the appeal of a fished splashtail leaderboard. You're not actually fixing what is unenjoyable about the activity, you're just slapping a ranking on top but the fact remains that it still sucks.

That's a good point.

@touchiertooth28 said in An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not):

@targasbr

I'm not sure whether I'd actually partake in the ledger. I already don't do it for OOS, MA, GH, and Athena because I don't really care for how those Trading Companies operate.

I'd still give it an upvote because it is an incentive.

However, I'd really just prefer if the OOS Madame used her crystal ball and revealed the highest valued item that is buried. This would incentivize potential treasure hunters by giving them their best case scenario. It will also incentivize treasure donators to potentially one-up what they already see.

The idea is to really be an incentive, because I myself am way behind on these ledgers for only going up the reaper emissary.

@touchiertooth28 said in An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not):

@targasbr

I myself am way behind on these ledgers for only going up the reaper emissary.

Me too. But it kind of exposes how much you prefer to play Reaper versus the other Emissaries. That is not really something that the ledger has fixed because at the end of the day, many of us play for what we think is fun, not so much for the reward.

I'm not the best example of this, I've been in this game for so long that earning items and making commendations is not my goal, unless they are limited time and will become rare one day.

For this idea I thought more about common players, for example, I know many players who find Tall Tales boring, especially the first ones because they have to do it 5 times each, but they only do it for the curse of gold. It's more of an incentive, not a rule.

@kakaroto9766 said in An idea that might save Quest Boards (or not):

Thats a good idea.

But also there needs to be some incentives for burying GOOD treasure.

Whenever I want to get an achievement of burying treasure I just bury trash.
And whenever I have taken a quest from the board I just dig up trash.
Honestly finding an old boot would be cooler than the dozens of silver chalices I find.

If there is some incentive to bury GOOD treasure, then there will be more of an incentive to take the maps.

I think leaderboards/ledgers, should include/weight the value of the treasure you bury.

I thought it would be interesting for the ledger points to be proportional to the item's value.

-------------------------- Some more ideas I would suggest to encourage boards:

• If you bury a treasure worth 3k+, you will bury some of your essence with it. The game will save the looks of your char when you bury it, as well as the next text message you type. When someone digs that treasure out, a ghost with the looks of the pirate who buried the treasure will spawn, and drop extra treasure when killed. The pricier the treasure you buried the stronger the ghost will be, and when he is killed, he will wail the message saved y the player who buried the treasure. So basically people who come get your treasure will see see who buried the treasure, fight them and get a short text message from them.

I found this idea quite interesting, it would be an extra incentive, very good.

-When you bury an expensive item, it spawns 3 empty "clue scroll" you can write and/or draw on them and bury them elsewhere in the island. They can either: Each note leads to the next and then to the next all the way to the treasure, or all 3 notes give hints about where the treasure is. Your quest map either shows where the first clue is buried or where all of them are.
When someone finds your treasure they will get to pick a "star rating" option to rate how good or bad was the treasure hunt. Maps in the quest board will show how many stars average a person has. We could have achievements around this as well as ledgers.

I found this part a little too complex, but I don't think it's a bad idea.

-To avoid expensive loot and good quests being wasted: If a player takes a quest from the board with expensive loot in it, and does not use it. It shows back in the board when that player leaves the game/server

The quest board definitely needs some sort of update, which i assumed when it launched it would get one at some point in the future.

Now, seeing as how the community has mostly abandoned the feature, i find it unlikely it will be supported or updated.

That being said...

The problems with the quest board as i see it are as follows.

1- it only caters to one quest type.

2- it doesn't reward the person using the feature in any worthwhile way.

3- it's not very fun to do.

So, with that being said. How do we fix it?

1- The feature needs to be a full-on player-created quest system. You need to be able to create riddles, sunken ships, player vaults and have an entire tool kit at your beck and call to create interesting quests/voyages. If my pirate could appear as a ghost pointing my quest takers on the correct path, all the better.

2- This feature needs to be a part of a new trading company, one with their own currency that you only get by making these quests and having people play them, this currency could then be spent to purchase exclusive cosmetics and items only found within the trading company.

3- The quests that are created from this system need to stick around on a universal quest board that can be accessed from any session and don't just exist purely on one server. After a certain amount of people play the quest it can disappear but it needs to stick around and actually get played.

I'm very aware that the proposed changes above have issues but they aren't anything that couldn't be worked out and in fact have been worked out in other online games with similar creation tools.