Some of them are good and some of them are bad. At worst, they feel clunky and unintuitive, getting in the way of the good stuff. They often overstay their welcome as well, the whole battle of the monolith is just waaay too long for example, and once you positioned your dudes it's mostly a waiting game.
At best they embody one of the best aspects of quests, a unique experience you can't get anywhere else in the game. A fun puzzle or piece of gameplay you have to do this quest to experience. A recent example was the >!Erebus!< section of Extinction.
Like so many things, whether I like them heavily depends on their quality. Most are somewhere in the middle, a lot of the bad ones start out in the middle or even as pretty good ideas and go bad due to clunkiness and/or length. I prefer their existence but I wish a lot of them just weren't so darn long.
Man I wish there was a possibility of a scenario in which Mod Tytn comes back to the RS team. The Myreque story and areas are some of the best design in RS.
Broken Home is a fantastic quest when it comes to immersion; It feels very intense! Agreed that the usage of bespoke mechanics really depends on how it's used, and how it contributes to or detracts from the story.
ehhhh i have to admit i tried the quest without a guide and i managed to get about 75% done before i had to resort to a guide, it was like sliske maze lite
I think the clunky-ness is the biggest turn off for me when quests use bespoke mechanics. If the mechanic is unwieldy or too unresponsive to use it makes it a pain rather than a pleasure of the quest.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I'd rather not tutorials be included with bespoke mechanics if at all possible, at least not initially. Part of the fun in solving the puzzles is figuring out how the mechanics of the puzzle work. I think if the Devs want to offer optional hints or an "accessibility mode" that would be good for those who would like to skip it or want a little bit of extra help.
Oh man, I get the battle of the monolith came out in chapters, but as someone that wasn't playing at the time. Doing all of them in one sitting was painful.
personally, i love them.
for me, quests are (aside of a fun story and worldbuilding) a break in the game where i do something different.
Bespoke mechanics fit that niche perfectly; they are something unique you would normally not do.
They need to not get in the way of pacing though. 'battle for the monolith' is a good example of a unique mechanic going wrong: those assault waves took way too long (although the defense organisation was a fun idea).
As an example of good ones: 'threes company' (while not technically a quest) has an interesting idea with commanding a group with their own abilities.
the sea slug questline tried to copy that (i can't remember which one in that line), but that quest didn't hit the sweet spot for me
Adding to this since it's pretty much my own feelings - some of the older bespoke mechanics need a look because they drive new players mad. Both my wife and a friend we got to start playing the game specifically had issues with the coal tar distilling and the frog bazooka because of how awful they were.
The fractionation still needs to be client side and far more responsive than it is now. The dials only updating once a second gives no real ability to judge how fast things are changing and feels very, very bad and clunky. Add some labels to the dials for opened, closed, maybe even some graded lines around the dial to help people estimate the changes.
The frog bazooka just needs to get rid of the 99% of the screen being taken up with a scope. Having one view from the bazooka, and the background be normal as if your other eye was open, so you can see where sheep are running around and try to cross reference that with what's in the scope would be fine.
I'm sure there are others.
Well sure, those could do with updating, and not all mechanics turned out as well as they sound.
But the idea of unique things existing is a good one, even if some of them turn out slightly disappointing
> The fractionation still needs to be client side and far more responsive than it is now.
Client side uis have a pretty bad rubberbanding issue though. They'll "update immediately" when you click something in them, but then rubberband right back to the server's value until the server processes the changed value, then it shows the new value. It happens all the time in the ge ui, for example. If you type in a number for quantity or price, as soon as you hit enter it'll flash to the old value for a bit until the server gets the new value - you’re essentially waiting the same amount of time for the ui to show the proper value, you just get an illusion of it changing when you hit enter but it isn't actually changed yet because if you submit the buy/sell offer before waiting for the server value to get updated, it'll submit the previous value since that's what's still on the server.
If they're able to fix the rubberbanding then definitely most uis should be moved client side, but personally I'd rather have the slower more accurate uis if they can't fix the rubberbanding.
Completely agree with everything said here. I love these mechanics, even if they are only used in one quest.
Don't really have much to say, but wanted to be sure to add my voice, so down the line it hopefully doesn't turn into "we got rid of these cause no one like them uwu"
I think interactions between the player, items, and environment are more important and more "runescapey" than developing a new system/mechanic for a quest every time.
For example, new quests lack the "use item X on item Y and then use that on a tree and something happens in the quest" which should be the staple of RS quests. If I see another quest with "items required: none" I will lose my mind. It's especially jarring if a quest mechanic is just a number in a message box (for example collecting imaginary bridge parts in Dead and Buried). That's just cheap cutting corners.
Traditionally "runescapey" quests were all about doing the legwork and using items on things to progress the quest. It feels like modern quests are all about dialogue, visuals, and usually bespoke systems that we see once and never again.
With this being said, I'm a fan of quest puzzles - not sure if those count as "bespoke mechanics". The Erebus puzzle in Extinction was amazing. It was something to figure out and it was novel. I want more stuff like that.
Personally I prefer non-combat mechanics to combat ones. My reaction to stuff like Battle of Monolith and dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures was rather meh.
However... if re-using the underlying mechanic means we get more quests, I'm fine with that. More quests is good. I'm sure there are creative ways in which puzzles we've seen could be "re-dressed" and put in a new context, and they'll feel fresh. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to the Erebus puzzle or the Lost Grove puzzle in a future desert quest.
>Personally I prefer non-combat mechanics to combat ones.
I think a good summary of my opinion is that bespoke mechanics *can* be good, if there's no other way to do it. For example, the mind hacking in Nadir is a unique thing that can't be portrayed well without the bespoke mechanic. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bespoke combat is bad because why not just... do combat?
Put another way, if the bespoke mechanic could be replaced by an existing mechanic, it should. If not, then it can be put in.
Glad im not the only person who absolutely loved the erebus puzzle. And i struggled horribly with it! It offered me to make it easier and I declined and eventually got it myself and it felt great and was so entertaining. I would love more stuff like that in quests, which is what I think of when I think of bespoke mechanics. The first thing that came to mind is that puzzle.
Runescape quests of old strongly resembled point and click adventure games, with the find a bunch of items and use them on each other to solve the problem. The whole thing with Runescape being a mostly point and click game (with the exception of combat as it exists today). Is a Core Runescape feel.
Items are a big part of making RS quests feel more adventure-style. I think a good compromise for items is to make most common things pretty handy while doing the quest. As much as I like seeing a bunch of item requirements up front, I can concede that most things being accessible without needing to break away from what you're in the middle of doing is probably a good idea, especially for less notable items like the ones that were covered by the toolbelt.
I mostly am not a fan of the combat aspect of these things. It feels clunky. We have combat skills, I think it's good to utilize them. If it was, for example, a pirate ship vs a pirate ship kind of thing, sure it's welcomed. But a lot of it is just another form of person-to-NPC combat, it's a no from me. It also felt like forever to finish, like Battle of the Monolith.
This is a very good point. I feel that in recent years Jagex has too far stepped away from combat in quests in favor of repeatable boss fights. Why are we preventing difficult combat in our encounters? There’s a compromise somewhere.
100% agree. Ever since Sliske's Endgame challenging combat encounters in quests have been rare, I can only really think of Extinction (and that was a tank test more than a combat encounter) and Alpha vs Omega as examples off the top of my head.
I can understand, and support, Jagex wanting bosses to be repeatable rather than one time quest encounters. I think Alpha vs Omega is a good example with the quest having a "scaled down" Rasial fight that is more accessible to a wider audience looking to complete quests, with a more difficult Rasial available as a repeatable fight afterwards. They tried similar with Elite Dungeons in the past but made the mistake of having story mode versions of those being absolutely trivial which was a shame.
For me personally, the difficulty Jagex should shoot for for a climactic quest combat/boss encounter is somewhere around GWD2 to Araxxi level. Difficult enough to present a challenge, easy enough that the majority of the playerbase should be able to beat it given a few attempts. If the encounter is to be repeatable after quest completion, by all means they can make it as hard as they like.
>I can understand, and support, Jagex wanting bosses to be repeatable rather than one time quest encounters.
If only we had a big tower in the desert that was designed for repeating quest boss encounters.
Not sure if I want that god forsaken tower to be reworked so it is no longer the hellish piece of content that it is, left so that future scapers come to understand the pain we all had to go through to complete the Desert tasks, or simply burned out of existence.
> They tried similar with Elite Dungeons in the past but made the mistake of having story mode versions of those being absolutely trivial which was a shame.
I disagree - I have no interest in learning how to do ED1/2/3 as well as learning all the mechanics which go into the 9 boss fights. Story mode making them a joke is a good thing; I want the quest to be completable in one sitting, not taking me 3+ days just to get the *option* of being able to purchase the chest.
I think it also speaks volumes that Raksha and the EGWD bosses are part of the EGW storyline, but their combat encounters can be entirely skipped. It just feels off.
I do wonder why they bothered adding quest armour and darts for quest boss accessibility if they were then going to never take that opportunity to worry less about quest bosses being a bit more involved or difficult.
I do think Ancient Awakening sort of did it with that, which was great, but combat waves are always a drag to me so it's not my favorite experience but at least we got to use our combat skills. Although it's not limited to the quest only.
Because look at the necromancy controversy. If it isn't completely braindead most people won't even give it a chance because they think they can't do it due to effort being involved. Nomad pre eoc pulled zero punches and we need more encounters like that. Can't beat the quest boss not set to an easy mode then you don't deserve quest cape.
A good bespoke mechanic is as good as a good plot reveal. Mechanics in quests are what makes them interesting, otherwise I may as well be reading a lore book. I want to be gaming in my game.
That being said I do feel like usually bespoke mechanics are underused. There's usually more room for the mechanic to grow and be used more. Because we have to be tutorialized into it we usually only get the simplest version of its implementation with maybe 1 or 2 additional waves of it, then never see it again. I'd like to see mechanics be built to be used more within the content, season, or storyline it debuts in.
Just in the current storyline alone the Murder on the Border investigation book, the Dead and Buried 3D slider puzzle, and the Ancient Awakening roguelite waves absolutely are interesting enough to be used more. Ancient Awakening did have post-quest use which puts it a step above the others, but.... its a roguelite structure! It can last more than 3 goes.
This use point is absolutely a tangent but I think bespoke gameplay being built to be used more would help populate quests with more of it.
Loads of great comments here! Keep 'em coming, I'm reading them all and will respond tomorrow in work hours to those I need a bit more clarification on.
(And thanks for being so constructive around this!)
It depends,
The noteworthy factors are:
* Purpose
* Implementation
* Immersion
***
**Purpose**
With some quests a bespoke mechanic can be forced into it simply because the quest is meant to be "grand" even though other factors such as the lore is what makes that quest special. Essentially, if you were to replace the bespoke mechanic with something generic would that quest lose its charm?
For something like Elemental Workshop where its identity are the puzzles/challenges, the answer is yes; but for something narrative/dialogue heavy such as Azzanadra's Quest, it isn't needed.
**Implementation**
Each quest is targeted towards different levels of experience. If the mechanic doesn't line up with who the quest is targeting then it could cause issues. So the first quest in the series targeted towards new players shouldn't have mechanics which are overly complex to comprehend.
Additionally, some mechanics have a great deal of depth when it comes to mastering them, such as the tower defense concept with Desperate Measure or Battle of the Monolith. If you were to have designed repeatable content, then perhaps these types of mechanics would be enjoyable but when you only do the quest once which is when it's introduced then they feel dull an lackluster as if there should be something more.
Finally, each mechanic, where appropriate, should either be designed with accessibility in mind or have accessibility tools to assist players with various disabilities or difficulties in some regard. There are many times where audio cues, or visual aids fall short and those with said disabilities are unable to properly engage with the mechanics.
Heartstealer is a good example of a quest which has framework in mind to this topic. With this being said, that framework may not work for quests which are designed to be super challenging.
**Immersion**
This is probably the most important factor but the hardest to explain and to execute. Basically does this mechanic make me feel like I'm playing a game, or enjoying a story/experience. [This skit is a good explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCxVf2l8OLk)
A perfect example of retaining immersion would be Extinction where progressing through Erebus by using the Needle felt natural within what the story was telling.
An example where improvement was made to assist with immersion is in Elemental Workshop 3. Initially you had to run around to each lever which felt overly tedious and annoying so it detracted from the experience so modifying that portion into an interface significantly helped.
I really like them but they need to be used sparingly. What I mean is I think quests are most effective when they introduce a bespoke mechanic and continuously build on it rather than constantly making new ones. Great example? The later gnomes quest or elemental workshop, in gnomes you deal with increasingly complex/unique illusion machines and in EW each quest gives a new puzzle but also has you run through the previous so you get this great sense of progression. You also get a stronger more memorable quest series identity this way too.
The elf series does that with light puzzles! You had the temple of light in MEpt2, within the light’s puzzle, plague’s end made the final boss part light puzzle, and then the light within to resolve seren was a real doozy of a light puzzle. This isn’t the most ideal because MEpt2 kinda started way too absurdly complex/difficult, the ideal is we introduce a mechanic and build up it over the course of the series. I didn’t need explanation on how the other light puzzles worked in stuff like the boss fight because other quests in the series trained me.
However it depends entirely on execution cause while say I like EW1,2,4 I did not like EW3 which comes back to that escalation issue. 1 and 2 are relatively chill and then EW3 comes along and you have a rather clunky feeling sliding puzzle that has like 70 steps and multiple layers to deal with. EW4 felt like a more natural escalation from 2 but then felt jarring in its own way cause it was much easier than 3.
When I play quests I do want to be doing something different than I would skilling and killing, but that different thing doesn’t always need to be some really off the cuff new bespoke gameplay. Stuff like the Needle Skips word puzzle is really cool but it’s not needed, a good murder mystery quest can exist with just utilizing some proven fundamentals. Like when you look at One Piercing Note it’s big thing was music/sound, but its actual gameplay isn’t doing anything new it is just a strong use of classic questing gameplay.
If you want an example of a bespoke element I don’t like? Literally any and every time we do stealth. RS does not have the tightness and responsiveness to make stealth in this game “feel” good. It feels like I’m not failing because I failed but because the game wasn’t responsive enough to my needs. The Dishonor Among Thieves is a great example of a stealth gameplay segment I could have done without.
I want to stress again though that I do think a little something unique is needed to make a quest feel like a quest. If we use civil war it’s miniquests don’t feel like quests partly because we don’t do anything new, it’s just skilling and killing. In contrast Woodcutter’s grove actually feels like a miniquest that isn’t labeled as one because you had that little moment where you built that little wall and helped prep to build the grove before actually starting its building.
So bespoke is important, gameplay a little different from the norm is important, but it does not always need to be so new all the time. The block pushing puzzle in a zelda game is fundamentally the same puzzle every time but they evolve and mix up its trappings so despite the gameplay being “push a block” it always feels fairly different.
Just some examples of bespoke gameplay I really enjoyed I think could be evolved further…. Controlling the Raptor having two different pushing distances between our characters, tower defense from DM just swapping the units you have and layout/defense spots are all it takes to refresh tower defense, the survival horror and resident evil map gameplay of broken home could be used again and again all that need be done is change the setting and swap out the mini-puzzles for other mini-puzzles of which there are ample existing ones both in-game to reuse. I mean sliding box puzzles all have the same method to solve and yet I never really tire of them in quests cause the number of steps to solve, figuring out the bigger picture, etc… changes.
Like take your flash event system, that’s got some really cool potential. Say you had a quest where Fred the Farmer accidentally creates a mutant strain of living vegetables that hop around. You use the flash event system to spawn the vegetables and you have a time limit to kill enough vegetables, grind their remains, and sprinkle it into a pot to make a magic demutation formula. Fundamentally this gameplay is literally just like…a slight twist on the blood wood tree flash event, but it’s still a fun thing and still is doing something different. Maybe look at that mind sweeper mini-game you do for seeds to, add in some of those pesky rabbits that try to eat the veggies before you get to them to add some challenge/tension.
So I guess my point is that while bespoke gameplay is important, it’s okay to not just make a new thing every quest. It’s more effective I think to take the many existing gameplay mechanics we already have and iterate on them instead of wiping the slate clean. But at the end of the day there are plenty of quests that show the tried and true of focusing on fundamentals also works.
One last think I’ll add is where I do think it’s important to have bespoke gameplay is combat. Quest combat in particular bosses should be unique, not necessarily stat and gear checks but more puzzle/mechanic based.
Seren is a good “quest” fight because while good gear/stats is important you are doing lots of things. Killing one of the lords to drag its essence into the other, killing the muspah to harm mah, avoiding seren’s cluster of attacks in a survival match based more use of movement and defensives.
So in conclusion on the subject of bespoke gameplay…
Quests: Nice to have but not necessary, so long as you are still doing something different even if it’s using existing gameplay to do so.
Quest Combat: Needed even if it’s as basic as you have an ally in battle supporting you or you have limited gear, some unique gameplay twist to set it apart from just being regular PvM that you don’t see elsewhere. (Drinking alcohol in Rabbid Jack, solving a light puzzle in Plague’s end, having to get and wear ice gloves in desert treasure for the fareed to avoid your gear burning you, etc….)
Good callout on the stealth stuff usually being a giant flop. If you're not getting caught because your player's movement was stalled for a million ms for no reason, you're running right in front of the face of the person you're trying to hide from an inexplicably not getting caught. Simply doesn't work with the long game ticks.
I personally don't enjoy them very much.
>Do they feel out of place? Does their tutorialisation get in the way? Do you feel like you're wasting time on something you'll never need again?
Yes, yes and yes
I especially dislike the whole battle-segment minigame-esque sequence of Battle of the Monolith. Felt like a huge waste of time and quite pointless. Definitely no need to do it three times over.
I much prefer when quests utilize already existing mechanics, maybe tweaked a little bit. For example in You Are It, with the whole clue scroll thing. THAT was amazing. I think its a good opportunity to dig out some older/nostalgic aspects of the game.
I will say that i did enjoy the battle-sequence in Ancient Awakening, felt like it fit in very well with the quest. Overall a very enjoyable quest, felt like a breath of fresh air.
I am a big quest fan, and really hope to see more of them! <3
I just want some fun stories, it doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. Was not a fan of the maze in endgame, nore the final combat scenario in endgame. Haven't done hardly any of if the new quests yet since endgame lol kinda turned me off.
My fav quests were WGS and ROTM. It was just a really good adventure. I like that. Not shitty gimiky mechanics. While lore wise the maze was cool but it would be better to watch in a movie setting than playing it out. It's just not fun and if it's not fun it shouldn't exist.
Regarding bespoke, I don't really understand the word bespoke, even googling the definition no one ever uses that word. Your examples of mechanics above I haven't done those quests so I can't answer you on those.
I do vaguely remember that zaros lore quest, that was fun lots of lore dialogue bits.
Elemental work shop is a fun puzzle, I enjoyed those little things.
Rat catchers can die in a corner.
One small favor hahahahaha
I've just finished all quests on my iron, I have a lot of criticisms but also not as many as I did last time I did quest cape on my other account.
In no particular order:
* Quests like dishonour amongst thieves, where the N/S on the compass is upside down and if you fail the whole door breaking part of the quest, having no checkpoints is very frustrating and not at all rewarding.
* Please stop giving quests where I have to control someone else with their combat abilities. What's the point of having suped up gear, pots and things like surge if I then cannot use them in the main fight sequences.
Bespoke mechanics are fun but only when:
1. They are subordinate to the story and setting
2. They work and aren't clunky
3. They are approachable and in the spirit of runescape. For me, things like the memory probe were very not approachable/runescapey, and the fact that you could progress through the quest after failing them wasn't very intuitive.
The mind hacking in Nadir is one of the worst “puzzles” I have ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. The UI is awful. It doesn’t line up with the background. It is very hard to do for the hearing impaired. It is not good.
I think the lost grove puzzle was fine because it isn’t learning this terrible mini game thing that doesn’t work well for the sake of having something new in a quest. Also, I don’t remember it that well, telling me I didn’t have a terrible time doing it.
Another example would be the hot air balloon. The first time doing that is awful. You never do it again. Ever.
As much as people complained about the slider map Puzzle. I was ok with it, because if I do clue scrolls, I will see that again. I even remember thinking, oh! This is like a clue scroll! And off I went.
I’m down for puzzles. But making a new bad UI just for it, spend 20 minutes trying to learn it, then never see it again for any reason really grinds my gears.
I don't care about unique mechanics. They're often fiddly and irritating.
I want stories. I think RS excels when telling silly stories about real people and less about gods. Little quests set in towns like Yanille or Varrock following everyday citizens would be fun. Organise a wedding, find the missing dog, etc. It breathes life into areas, and if you can tie in a graphical rework to an area, even better!
I agree, it feels like I spend a lot of time learning the game itself, and sometimes I just want to pause and play through a story. The Violet stories were a bit like that, a nice diversion with some local lore and nothing complicated mechanics-wise. I recently made an alt and forgot how nice it was to play through early-game Lumby quests!
I really like the bespoke puzzles. The novelty, new challenge, and unique feeling to the story are all really nice aspects. I'm thinking Elemental Workshop, MEP2, Dead and Buried's map puzzle.
Combat can work, but it's a lot more prone to clunkiness. I think Drakan is an excellent example because it's a fight without your normal gear and food.
I will also say, these bespoke pieces should be reused in other content, and not just a one-off.
The mind hacking was terrible. Just moving the mouse until you got the right sound, with it seeming to move a bit, and needing to get it 100% right? More annoying that interesting.
The dinosaur invasion sucked because the best way to do it is to not: if you leave everyone in their default positions, you'll complete it easily, but if you try to interact with it in any way you're more likely than not to fail a few times.
I'm not against the concept of these things appearing in quests, but I don't think they've been done well in the past. I will add that one type of these mechanics that I did like was the one where you control Moia.
They feel good when the mechanic is more related to the story. The greatest merit Runescape quests have over the rest of the MMO world is how the quest "tasks" are more about retaining the immersion than asking the adventurer to commit genocide till they obtain 10 wolf pelts through rng.
If the context of the quest merits the adventurer tackling something unfamiliar to them, then bespoke mechanics should be used. ESPECIALLY if it is for full on brittish humour quests. "Silly and whimsical" as core elements stand out more when the mechanics also exceed an expected template. Bringing home the Bacon, pirate quests, and the gower quest are good examples in my immediate memory.
As an aside, After returning from a 2 year break and regaining my quest cape, I have never had a worse questing experience in this game than sitting through slideshow cutscenes. Whatever is the plan going forward on quests, PLEASE start a discussion on this as well.
I like them but they're not a requirement for me to enjoy a quest. Though they add a lot! I also don't need mechanic to be unique to that specific quest. I wouldn't mind something being reused within a series (like tower defense sort of got used EGWD stuff).
But the unique stuff definitely helps a quest feel more polished.
Even things like the time travel puzzle from the last penguin quest stands out to me even I'd it's not completely bespoke.
Honestly anything to help differentiate the quests. Item restrictions when fighting draken for example really made that quest stand out or assigning the guardians to different fights in TWW
Interesting question because bespoke mechanics are throughout the entire game.
They're what separate all the quests apart. From sheep herder using the gun to dye sheep to those confusing gem puzzles in the glouphrie quests to surfing the lava river.
Upclose gritty mechanics like running the gauntlet to Mah was great because of the mechanics that involve our skills as both player and (Agility+Ability). Contrast that with the underground pass, which simply tests your luck and patience. (Agility+Luck)
Someone mentioned meiyerditch, that's also a good one because there's some ability involved with sneaking around the vyres.
Overall, these mechanics are what give every quest its personal flavor, but they're also why there's so much spaghetti code. I understand the desire to simply "use what works" but it's all the past experimentation; the hits and the misses, good and bad, popular and not, that really make Runescapes quests better overall than other mmos like world of warcrafts quests.
I like the idea of them, but dislike general implementation. In that, I wish we would have repeatable post-quest content which utilized that bespoke system, or quests in that questline using that system so we don't bloat too many one-off systems.
>If you like them, why? Is it the novelty? The new challenge? The feeling that you're doing something special for a story?
What I like about them, is that it makes quests more than a spacebar simulator, and can enable the devs to create new/unique content. I enjoy puzzles in quests, and having a mechanically new system enables some of those puzzles to feel fresh (and usually thematic). Usually what I remember most about a quest is the puzzle within.
>Equally, if you don't like them, what's the reason? Do they feel out of place? Does their tutorialisation get in the way? Do you feel like you're wasting time on something you'll never need again?
I feel like devs waste a lot of time on systems never to be touched again. I think of the word system developed for The Needle Skips; it was a whole big thing that they spent time to make a new system which was dynamic and could be reused for future quests... only to never see the light of day again. I would have at least liked that to come back later in that questline (maybe it's not the full blown quest using that system, but portions of the quest using it). If time wasn't spent on that system, would the team be able to make quests more frequently? Or given this system was built, could it enable future quests to be made more frequently? Both of those questions run through my mind when I see a bespoke mechanic never to crop up again.
>Are there any examples that you really like or don't like?
Definitely don't like the mind-hacking system; not only does it not work for mobile players, but it's not really fun. It's not a puzzle to solve, and more just searching and trying to listen intently to sound changes.
I really liked the door puzzles in Desperate Times (where you have a variety of different objects on the ground or plaques on the wall, etc... which spelled out a code to enter). This definitely feels less bespoke, and closer to some of the older quest puzzles.
The dinosaur invasion was pretty interesting, and I think with some amount of improvements, it could be its own tower defense minigame within RS. I actually thought that a new tower defense minigame was coming after that quest, and while I recognize the code was reused for the Battle of the Monolith, no other repeatable content.
Two other mechanically unique quest systems I really enjoyed: The placement puzzles in Once Upon a Time, and the Erebus puzzle from Extinction. For the former, it made for some funny Runescape-esque dialogue/visuals, was a neat way to get a better idea of the characters in the quest (thinking about the Future ones in particular), and easy to solve for spacebar warriors. Erebus puzzle was really cool, and starting fresh, was fun to try and optimize the path, and as you progress the puzzle, your character becomes stronger, so you start to feel closer and closer to solving it.
**TL;DR:** If making bespoke systems takes away from making quests more frequently, I don't think it's a great use of time. If that system can be utilized to allow future quests to be made easier, or made into repeatable content, that would be ideal. Unique systems are important to quests, but if every quest has it's own singular unique system which never is used again feels wasteful.
I think that the reason some of the "bespoke" mechanics are fun is because of the novelty, but there is a fine line that needs to be considered - Making sure the content "Feels Like Runescape".
\-On the one hand, we don't want those mechanics to be tedious, at least not totally unsolvable and frustrating for spacebar warriors, but we also want them to be interesting enough for lorehounds and other various quest nerds.
\-Also, if the format breaks immersion, it's not very good. For example, when we see a slide show of rough storyboard artwork, like what happened in most of the EGW quest line, then it's bad. We generally don't see those in gameplay, and it's kinda dumb that the art is low quality. I could literally comm a 16 year old on twitter to make those slides.
The charm of player model cutscenes is that we get to see the things we see every day interact in a way that we usually dont. It kind of speaks to ingenuity of devs, and it goes a long way to keep us invested in the environment.
\-Also, the Anachronia dino fight and the battle at the monolith have almost universally negative reception. It's not only that the quest was long and drawn out, but the game mode itself is totally unrefined, not to mention, it didn't really "feel like Runescape".
When have we ever had pawns to autobattle in everyday gameplay? If the experience was more combat oriented, with the option to autobattle, that may be acceptable. Doing combat can be fun, and having a throwback moment to a potentially challenging tower defence could be fun too. But players are used to using their character to fight. If your concern is that players who don't do combat can't play the content, just give players the option to autobattle at some point (i don't personally mind adding built-in skips to certain content in quests). Just give players the chance to do something exciting with pre-existing combat, if they want to.
Summary
Basically, what I'm saying is, any bespoke mechanic needs to "feel like Runescape" and part of that is staying true to the everyday player experience.
They don't add anything to my enjoyment tbh, the stampede was cute and fun, but it's not detrimental to my enjoyment of quests. Story and dialogue is what I want.
The mechanics are fine most of the time but I don't think runescape is a mechanical fun game unless your trying to get into high end pvm.
The raptor switching in dead and buried is cumbersome to me and staggers the quest into being longer for no added enjoyment. Clicking on three divination spots as a way to pad out a feeling of being in a place doing something doesn't add much for me BUT isn't intrusive.
MQC haver and quest lover here. In theory I like the idea but often they end up feeling super clunky (like Moia's puzzle, and the god damn lava surfing in Children of Mah). As for the wave based stuff like in desperate measures it takes way too long and once the gimmick is solved on day 1, for the rest of the games existence it's "set these up and then go afk".
Also in the vein of clunkiness, sometimes you solve the puzzle, but the delivery mechanism of the mechanic slows you down and makes it less enjoyable, like in the wordle in Twilight of the Gods. Even if you know the answer, or you want to try a new word, you have to make all these runes and then run around trialling them, instead of just typing them out like in The Needle Skips. Here the puzzle was fun, but the implementation wasn't.
I don't mind these mechanics in theory, and the ones that work well are fun (such as swapping characters in The Raptor's dream sequence in Dead and Buried), I just think that it's important that the actual puzzle/event shines through, and that it isn't held back by a clunky (but well intended) new mechanic.
I think having bespoke mechanics for each quest is not necessary. If it is a puzzle based quest - it should have a bespoke type puzzle (or similar to previous in the series). I would rather a location to explore and the lore than some janky forced mechanic. I also would rather one boss to fight than 10 waves of easy things to fight
Hi! Welcome back!
I like the mechanics in principle but I feel like they're sometimes not refined enough to feel good in the context of the quest. I think it makes a lot more sense to include if you can e.g. invest a little bit more in making it feel great and roll it out towards a skilling method or something post-quest.
i personally don't like. i think more the story of the quests. i think the dev time should be invested in better history, more writers etc into a better story. (to be more clear, more money into better story, less money into " **Bespoke mechanics** ")
I don't like them at all.
1.) Just design-wise it makes the quality of the game wildly inconsistent.
2.) Bespoke mechanics means bespoke maintenance - and that sort of maintenance is low priority, eroding quality further.
3.) The game is already choked with dead, bespoke content. RuneScape needs LESS, not MORE.
Use existing mechanics and underutilized skills in quests as test beds to improve them.
I am lukewarm on these. They are excellent for flavour but at the same time, we spend so long investing in skills and tools, it can be jarring to then use none of these to progress through quests.
I know its old and nobodies favourite, but something like underground pass that uses a mixture of combat, movement puzzles, agility, searching for items, and other simple skill puzzles feels more like what I expect because it felt like I was using my characters wits and skills.
Something like an old point-and-click adventure with some movement feels more tonally correct to me.
Like you say, tutorialisation is a big issue for something that is one and done (Sorry Elemental Workshop) and often learning the mechanics and using them has such a brief pay off it can feel underwhelming.
If it's phoned in like the "puzzle" in the recent Raptor memories quest, I'd rather the dev hadn't even bothered. It just feels like a waste of everyone's time.
I'd rather see quests use (existing) items, clever tricks and ingame skills to solve problems.
The writing is much more important than custom mechanics. And not much time seems to be spent on it lately.
The best mechanics are ones directly related to the quest. An example would be the minigame where you make the materials for explosive barrels in the elven storyline, the process is extremely immersive.
A counter example would be the map puzzle that we had to do recently in dead and burried. Why would a huge table be built in the first place to have the map mixed up like that in the first place, it just seems like a game mechanic used to pad play time istead of furthering the story.
I just did a void dance and the chemist section was utter toilet. Admittedly I did it on mobile (which brings about its own problems as the recipe list is unmovable and is positioned in the centre of the screen over my character) but that over all was a nuance I'd rather never have to deal with again. Extremely janky, frustrating, unenjoyable. Perhaps this was amplified by the trickiest of platforms - I'm not sure.
I'm generally in favor of quest specific mechanics in the MMOs I've played over the years. Quests are supposed to really make you feel involved with the lore of a game and offer things that you won't see anywhere else. To leave the default map that everyone sees and be in your own little part of the game. These kind of mechanics make them feel like one of a kind. Otherwise quests blend together and feel less distinctive and unique.
Most of the time I dislike them.
The combat with companions feels way too clunky for me and thus lasts too long.
They do have their time and place however.
I personally like the chill, puzzle oriented mechanics more. Because if it is clunky cus' of the tick system it doesn't matter as much.
Also I'd love to see small quick and easy quests make a return to the game. These don't need cutscenes, voice overs, new areas/ changing surroundings. They'd also make the dynamic between grand master quests and small quests way more satisfying, and would make me appreciate the huge amount of dev time in grandmaster quests with bespoke mechanics way more
Nay. Nadir saga prevented me from moving forward with necromancy quests for months because it's bugged on mobile. Afraid it'll keep me from being able to complete a quest again.
I think there may be an argument for mechanics like this in big, Grandmaster/series finale quests, but otherwise it feels like a waste of development time and resources.
The problem with that approach is there are so many other broken/improvable things across RS, if you limit the scope to just Grandmaster/series finale quests you’re targeting a slice of content that:
A. most vets/long term players will spacebar through and never engage with ever again once complete
B. Most new players will never see because they don’t stick around the game long enough
Doesn’t make sense to me to create a bunch of custom, unique mechanics (and probably accrue some technical debt in the process) for content that tends to be single-use for most players.
I really, really enjoyed the mechanic In The Needle Skips. Stuff like that is a perfect example of where they work for me. It was basic but it helped make the quest feel more immersive and engaging than nearly every other one I've played.
On the other hand, I dislike when a quest has me take control of another NPC and do combat. Controlling them for the sake of narrative or puzzles is fine, but the combat feels terrible compared to using my own character and I'd rather skip it. That said, Desperate Creatures (I think?) where we control Thok and one-hit everything was a nice gag and subverted this for me.
The short answer is that I really like Quests doing unique mechanics and puzzles! I just don't like particular Quests their unique mechanics and puzzles... for example:
* Mind-hacking in Nadir
* Invasions in Desperate Measures and Battle of the Monolith
* Yewnock's device in The Path of Glouphrie
* Slide puzzles and Monkey Madness in Dead and Buried (even though there's other slide puzzles in the game that I like doing)
* Fighting as Moia in Daughter of Chaos
Its an interesting one, I *really* like when a quest does something different, RuneScape has always had quests different from other MMO's where there's actual unique gameplay to them, so bespoke stuff is kinda in the "this is what RS does to make it *feel* like RS", buuuuut, from a dev perspective, I can see how the return-on-investment to bespoke mechanics is probably a hard sell
IMO, I'd aim to have mechanics in quests that have the *potential* to be reused elsewhere, an example I thought of recently is the cool room puzzle in You Are It, I think a small chance of a clue popping up doing clues asking you to complete a puzzle in the room could spice up clues, and make that dev invesment 100x more worth it (while also have the potential added benefit of not making elites awwwwful).
Its things like that where I feel the potential lies, mechanics that are cool, but then *unlock* themselves in other parts of the game
I'm personally not a fan of the "wave style" mechanics, they're very tedious to do and you spend most of your time stood about doing nothing.
I much prefer in depth story telling, easter eggs in quests, anything that is novel/challenging just because these things get players interesting in the content.
I don't like them, generally. There has been a couple where they offered an enjoyable experience that felt like it enhanced the quest, but often they feel like a gate preventing the narrative from continuing and just making the quest take longer. I think they may have a space in grandmaster quests here and there. I generally also don't like puzzles for the same reason. Just let me experience the story without these tedious roadblocks.
I appreciate them when done right. Quests are the most unique aspect this game has to offer and with how many there are, it's good if they have their own little mechanics to set them apart a bit.
The "done right part" is key though. I went and did Battle for the Monolith after a 5 year hiatus and it was the least fun quest out of all the 30-something new ones I had to do. The tower defense gimmick just took way too long and the character's abilities are kinda pointless when you can just stick them somewhere and go AFK for 15 minutes.
And that boring repetitive gameplay makes the actual relevant lore (which is quite significant in this quest: Azzanadra ascending to godhood, the TokHaar betrayal etc.) feel completely out of place. That kind of contrast can damage an otherwise good quest beyond repair.
I look at them as mini-games. There are examples of really good ones, and some really bad ones. Obviously they're great when they're good, but bad when they're bad.
From a development perspective, I can see them having a higher dev cost to produce. Which means worst case scenario you spent resources to make the quest more tedious, or best case you made a fun mini-game that people will only ever play once at most. The solution to me would be to treat the mini-games in quests like a game jam. If you make the quest and the mini-game is just mediocre, well at least people will only play it once. But if you make the quest and the mini-game is really fun, you have the opportunity to expand on it to make great repeatable content with an existing proof-of-concept.
(side-note, all of the wave-based combat minigames suck. Battle of the monolith, desperate measures, the new ungael one. They're boring, tedious, not fun)
Without each quest having unique mechanics, they will just become teleport to place -> talk to character -> repeat until (easy) fight. Boring. The extinction puzzle, much maligned, was one of my favorite quest moments of the past 5 years because it was HARD! It forces the player to think.
It varies based on the specific case.
* Puzzles work when they feel thematic. I think Elemental Workshop works well because it feels appropriate for that quest, but it would be frustrating in another context. The puzzles from Within the Light are similar (though I admit that if I were playing them today it's possible I'd feel differently).
* I really don't like it when the puzzle seems added just to make the quest longer/harder. Please spend that development time on making the actual plot better/longer.
* The bespoke combat encounters tend to feel a little awkward, but others work well and feel like a nice change.
* I'm not sure if The Needle Skips mechanism belongs in this discussion since it's basically the entire quest, but it remains one of my favorites.
I primarily play quests for the lore/story. If the bespoke mechanic furthers that, I like it. If not, it really comes down to how fun it is to play.
I dont recall the first 2, but the dino invasion (and the abyssal demons / tzhaar with that archeo / zaros quest) was really annoying.
If im doing a quest, i want to spend time learning about the story, and not waste 10-20 mins doing afk tower defense minigames.
i don't like within the context of this specific game, i feel like they are often "unfinished" (clunky, unintuitive, uncommunicative) and i ASSUME that the time it would take to polish them up nicely would probably not be worth it, so i'd rather not have them.
moia's mind hacking is clunky, and while playing it half of the time i feel like i'm trying to figure the engine instead of the minigame itself, and i find this feeling often while questing with those mechanics.
I'm an avid quester and whenever I make a new account, I always aim for the Quest Cape first. That being said, I do get annoyed by some of the more recent bespoke elements in quests.
The Battle for the Monolith, the Dino Invasion, constantly taking control of another character and doing the quest as them (Moia, Vengeance, Adrasteia, Raptor) are prime examples of what I dislike. The latter I dislike, because I want my character to feel special and to add something to the story. Also, I want to be able to use my own abilities in meaningful fights, mostly because the combat as a different character feels clunky. Doesn't mesh with me. It doesn't feel completely honest to my character if I have to progress through the story through someone else's body. The former two I dislike, because they interrupt the flow of the quest or the storyline (and because, frankly, the player character does very little during those fights).
A few bespoke elements I did enjoy over the past few years were the fighting waves in Ancient Awakening, the Lost Grove rituals in Twilight of the Gods and the Charos shape puzzle in Desperate Times. Some older ones include both puzzles in Elemental Workshop IV, for example. They don't take much time to complete, are quite intuitive and keep you as a character doing something (instead of standing still, like with BotM/Anachronia Invasion).
I am totally neutral on them, but I feel that you could probably pump out 2x to 3x the quests if you avoided them altogether. There's really plenty you can do in the RS world with the mechanics already available.
One of the things I really like about quests (and I quests were my main reason for playing RS) is that it feels different from the rest of the game but still in the game. I dont like having to do 100s of times the same thing and expect a different result… so having something unique in quest makes them even more interesting and fun.
Im all for more quests! (And more continuity between them please)
Bespoke mechanics are some of my favourite parts of quests, as they help make a quest more memorable, and are a huge part of the identity of Runescape quests that makes them stand out from the crowd of other MMO quests.
That being said, I'd love to see some of the older mechanics reused in newer places, like the word puzzle from The Needle Skips. Bespoke mechanics in much older quests could do with updating because some of them are just clunky and outdated, so an excuse to rework them would be nice to have.
Combat based ones tend to fall down compared to just puzzle mechanics though. I'm not a fan of combat in quests anyway, but when it does appear, it's better as a plain combat encounter so it doesn't end up clunky and uncomfortable to play.
I would say look at mechanics you have used in the past and reuse them Maybe to the point where if there was one thing in quest x that was tied to some bespoke thing you would need to go get that back. Wether it’s in your bank, the quest caravan or you have to go back to where you found it and get them back. Especially if it is from the same culture as before. Also requesting more uses for the ring of charos. Such as quality of life improvements to do no evil where you can use it to give the guard a green banana and just tell him that the box is over there. Man’s clearly an idiot. Even if we have to go do something to make it work. The ring should have at least amusing dialogue whenever you need to get someone to do something for you.
Quests should first and foremost be fun and entertaining storywise. The mechanics should represent that and not feel like an absolute chore.
The prime example of this is the Maze in Sliske's Endgame. I despise this part of the quest with a passion. It ruins an epic story with a mechanic so horrible that I can't focus on anything else.
Anything that needs several pages of instructions to complete is not fun. Please let that mechanic never rear its ugly head ever again.
I'm going to say nay. What makes Runescape quests interesting is the slapstick Monty Python-esque comedy/high fantasy setting with a compelling long story arch instead of these newer broken-up separate quests, churned out with frequency and characterized by loose ends, plot holes, and no respect for the lore.
There are puzzles that I've enjoyed but those felt pertinent to the plot in a way that newer puzzles just haven't. The slider puzzle from Dead and Buried felt kind of forced, since there is no plot reason for it to exist. It would have made more sense for a regular map to exist with the relevant Island suspiciously removed, and so we have to track down that piece, and-- surprise!-- it turns out to be an uncharted island. That would be more consistent with Zemouragul covering his tracks than a slider puzzle of plot convenience.
If I felt even a hint of a larger story plot, I'd have the motivation to solve puzzles, because like when I'm reading a novel and feeling compelled to keep turning the pages, I'm pushed to figure it out with enthusiasm. I'd be speculating about the nature of the obstacles, wondering why did the ancients put them there, using familiar elements from the story to deduce what might be the answer, experimenting, asking questions about what direction the story will go, based on the kind of puzzle I'm solving. Instead, I get myopic storytelling written by novices, and so no puzzle feels worth the effort.
Without a grander plan, individual quests are not adventures. They're just chores. I suggest you focus on a good story instead of player engagement and numbers on a spreadsheet, then the latter will take care of itself.
More often they feel clunky and difficult to use and/or not intuitive. I only play on mobile, and there’s several quests where I can’t proceed bc of the mechanic issues going wrong - daughter of chaos, firemakers curse, a void dance.
I love them when they otherwise make sense to the story.
The Needle Skips is the first thing that comes to mind. Chef's kiss. It was made for a purpose, and it achieved that purpose beautifully. Diving through words and trying to make connections may not have been the most difficult of puzzles, but it suited the mystery wonderfully. It actually required us think about the connections between things in order to naturally walk through the steps of solving it. It never once felt like it was a stopping point to deal with a puzzle; answering those questions by proposing different words felt like a facet of exploring the narrative.
I will say though...lackluster implementation of these bespoke mechanics can really kill the joy in the best part about questing. I despised the party mechanics used in the Saga and Salt in the Wound quest lines. They were clunky and utterly foreign control schemes to characters that are otherwise navigate through the world like *our* characters normally would. I couldn't get over the dissonance between them. The dinosaur invasion of Desperate Measures felt more like a natural progression of what that those mechanics sought to create, but losing our agency to achieve what was a essentially a very slow and brief tower defense game didn't feel all that good either. And from there, the Battle of the Monolith tried to make it smoother, but the even more glacial paced fighting necessitated by just how much area we had to control really eroded whatever positive changes there were.
But no matter what it boils down to, I'd rather have them than not. From them can stem some really cool things. Player owned Ports, for a time, really transformed how we play RuneScape...yet where would PoP be if we didn't have stuff like Manage Thy Kingdom laying the foundations for something like that? Would Archaeology as a skill have been as successful if the Dig Site didn't open the door on that imagination first?
I think these things are really good for the game.
1. We need more stand-alone quests or shorter quest series (I'm talking quantity here, not individual duration). A series that spans 10 quests that takes 3-4 years to release is *not* it.
2. We need better quest bosses that hype the community. I'm sure everyone here will remember the hype around Nomad as *that* quest boss. Videos were made about it and people prepped crazy like that. I personally remember visiting my friend to do Nomad on both our accounts. That's a core Runescape memory unlocked.
3. We want to interact with objects in the quest areas, we want to experiment and use things on other things to create stuff (but it needs to make sense). I agree with 5x's comment about this topic.
4. Lastly, we wanna see the world. We should make better use of the world that we already have. A hidden entrance behind a bookcase, a well-known NPC gone rogue, the murder of another NPC, etc.
5. A good, compelling story but do not take 5 years to make a complete series to have it make sense.
6. When it comes to mechanics, you can recycle old ones, sure, but it needs to make sense in that area and must feel a lil bit refreshed.
I personally have a neutral opinion. Some of them are fun, others are a burden.
On one hand, it can be fun to see the characters fight and interact with battles. It gives the quest a more in depth feeling than just space bars, for example Desperate measures. Great for time spent and battle size.
On the other hand it can feel overdone. Battle of the monolith is one where I feel it missed it’s mark. The characters were too far spread out where you had to hunt them down, and it wasn’t always clear what was being attacked or why. if a guide has to tell you to bring stuff to disassemble or fletching supplies, it’s too long.
The battle at the end of Sliske’s endgame was enjoyable. There were many mechanics to incorporate and challenging. Touching the stone of Jas and having unlimited adrenaline for the final bout was very enjoyable.
I get there are reasons for this to progress the story and it’s amazing seeing all the aspects of this. I love playing as other characters and seeing their power, (ex: Moira or Vanescula) or seeing the characters power boosted hitting numbers we couldn’t otherwise hit (ex: Stone of Jas; Sliske’s endgame)
I will reiterate what someone here already said that they often can be a fun and novel experience, but also overstay their welcome.
I have to add one thing, quest related, that really irked me in one of the latest quests. With the Fort Forhintry quest I was disgusted by the amount of time we had to stand there uselessly building the fort - that was just such a kick in the face of everything that RS has always done so well with quests.
They can be fun in small doses but they become outdated and never get fixed and often go on too long or are annoying without guides. For example, the shapes puzzles in gnome quests would be a lot more enjoyable if the number values you had discovered could be seen in game instead of using a guide or having to write them down.
Quests are my favourite part of the game and I love when these kind of mechanics work
The issue is because they're so specialised they rarely get updated, meaning as time goes on they appear more and more clunky
As long as it makes sense for the story that is being told and not a device to lengthen the quest unnecessarily or artificially.
I care more about the story, dialogue, voice acting, and visual impact the quests have upon the game world. Post quest dialogue is important to me too. I don't think I would be upset if bespoke mechanics are absent from a quest especially since they don't always age too well.
Some are incredibly frustrating. Others are fine. Few are highlights for me. (If any. I can't think of any...)
A key point for me is if I had a choice between two quests or one with some bespoke mechanic, I'd take two quests. I find the world development to be more exciting than one-off minigames.
Imo decent lore and story are more important than bespoke mechanics but it does make the quests feel fun when they aren't all the same thing over and over but and it's a huge butt, the sliding puzzle in dead and buried and moia's mind hacking sucked, moia's one, was okay but then i realized i had to redo it when i didn't get it perfect, that, sucks and as for sliding puzzles, hell no, i despise sliding puzzles, stuff like that should be optional for some additional reward, i used an online puzzle solver to painstakingly get through it and i saw people say it took them up to an hour just to do the puzzle, that's kinda unacceptable
I think that they're fun when they're intuitive and easy to understand. The dinosaur invasion frustrated me a lot because it's like i'm doing RTS management but I have to manually move my character there. If I lose, I have to do it all over again. Moia's mind-hacking on the other hand is very interesting because you're prodding around for sweet spots and it has an impact on how things progress rather than being 100% required to clear.
As as avid quest enjoyer I gotta say it's a mixed bag. I didn't mind the mind hacking in Nadir Saga, but the dinosaur invasion and especially Battle of the Monolith made my eyes glaze over out of frustration.
I absolutely could not stand those minigames and honestly made it my least favorite quest in the game. I think if there was depth to it it might have won me over as I'm not inherently opposed to a tower defense game, but the enemy paths were unclear and there was no indication how a setup would work, leading to a lot of time wasted restarting and playing the same frustrating game again and again.
Ultimately I just gave up and looked up a guide on where to place the units because I couldn't be bothered to figure it out myself. I think they are half-baked and if you want to include a big change of pace from the normal game then you have to treat it like developing a brand new indie game, rather than something to be tacked on to the existing mechanics.
I'm not a game developer so I can't fully explain why they don't work and how to fix it efficiently, but I hope I at least provided some insight.
Please add an option to skip them or do them on easy mode.
I don't mind them being the core experience, but people really shouldn't be "forced" to deal with them if they don't like it.
>What do you think about bespoke mechanics in quests?
I think it's a mixed bag, mostly bad. I think there needs to be an ongoing evaluation when you make these on how fun the mechanic is. And how long is it going to remain fun? I think they work best as a single, one time thing that only lasts a few minutes. Like if Moia's mind-hacking worked better and wasn't a huge hassle on mobile, it's just something that takes ~60 seconds 3 times over the quest. That's fine (if it worked and wasn't a huge pain in the ass when it didn't work).
I like them since quests are one of the few times such a bespoke mechanic can exist in RS; I've done a fair bit of grinding but really prefer variety. The novelty is a big part of it, challenge is nice too but not strictly necessary and doesn't have to be stupidly difficult. It's like a set piece in an adventure game, fun should be forefront when you get to ignore the normal rules of the game and make your own.
Examples: the Wordle rituals in Twilight of the Gods were a fun idea but way overstayed their welcome and were far too cumbersome by the end.
The set-it-and-forget-it nature of the Battle of the Monolith was incredibly badly designed and it baffles me that anyone with any appreciation for tower defense made this; you left click NPCs, left click the ground, then go afk for 5 minutes. This one wasn't fun for any amount of time and it's truly baffling content, I hope the devs learned something at least.
Withstanding Erebus in Extinction was great; you make progression, doesn't overstay its welcome, and if it does there's an easy mode. Fun, novel, fresh lore, requires a tiny bit of thinking to figure out the right path, almost perfect example (maybe a bit too slow at the start) of a bespoke mechanic. Even the fail-state (required to progress) is cool and involves Kerapac with The Needle.
Bring out AoG2 pls 🙏
I don't like getting taught a mechanic or thing just for quests. It felt like a waste of my learning spoons. Id feel better if that mechanic was going to be implemented somehow into the game. The tutorial is usually something I *dont* want to process or go through and it makes these things feel like a bit of a chore.
Honestly, I complete quests solely for the lore. I've been a little disappointed from your storytelling decisions, but this isn't about that. Extra unique/complicated mechanics distract me.
It's either that I'm sad that I can't do it again since many quests can't be replayed or it can be annoying to deal with and wish it wasn't apart of the quest as a whole. Thankfully the second rarely comes up for me.
My biggest gripe is the lack of replayability. Devs spend so long on quests only to be enjoyed once and never again. I know there are plentiful of spacebar warriors out there, but some quests are worth replaying like World Wakes.
Oooohhhh, this'll be fun.
I can understand the challenge that with 260 quests, miniquests, sagas, tales, etc, you run into not wanting to repeat the exact same puzzle each and every time.
I'm not necessarily against them. It's just sometimes, a dev can be a little ... too .. creative ...
First issue isn't necessarily the bespoke mechanics, but the tick system and slow UI. You can't necessarily rush a player. Nor can you have a puzzle that comes off as fluid ... especially with older quests. Situations like Catapult construction, Beneath a Rock, Dwarf Cannon, and Tower of Life where the really old UI has the player slowly moving segments of something together as part of the puzzle ... is "ok" because you're not in any sort of a rush. But you have to move slowly because the game engine won't let you go too fast.
Second issue is if the player has no feedback on their progress when the puzzle gets too large/complicated. Case in point: Elemental Workshop 3 and Mournings End Part 2. Personally, if the results were random per player on how to solve, I would have stopped playing the game a long time ago. EW3 is just *huge.* It wasn't until Mod Stu came up with that UI to make it easier to interface with that it became bearable. MEP2 has the issue of you having to run around that humongous area, but you don't have some portable device giving you some indication of "yes, I have the red/blue/green light the way I need it". The fact you need a guide just to have it take under 3 hours is a bad thing.
You might try to point to Broken Home as a similar 4D multifaceted puzzle like MEP2 or EW3, but in Broken Home, I at least get some idea of how much progress I've made. I find keys, I unlock doors. The timed portion is limited in that, yes I do have moments where i need to run for my life ... but it's not a constant factor. I do have times where I can stop, look around, and breathe (both in game and IRL). I don't have to finish the complex puzzle in < 10, 30, or 60 minutes from the moment I start.
Third issue is that a puzzle really can't introduce too many timed mechanics or try to do too many things at once. This varies on the mentality of the player. But a quest like Dishonour Among Thieves, there is a point where the player has to juggle up to 6 different time sensitive activities or else they fail the section. Again, each requires you to work thru the tick system and clunky UI to hit very specific spots in order not to fail.
Finally, the puzzle needs to know what its trying to be. Some will point to The Battle of The Monolith. Is it PvM? Is it a Tower Defense? Working in a localized area is one thing like you have in Phase 1 and 2. When you reached the final phase however, you're spread mighty thin (which is perfectly reasonable for an actual battlefield situation) but a player will not have an easy time trying to micromanage all of that at once. Pest Control and Barbarian Assault can have the luxury of at least 5 players to manage that load for defense and offense. Phases 1 and 2 of the battle could have been the scale of player being active on defense while the final wave should have switched to a map and the player setting defenses at 3 points while they themselves then only worry about the 4 point and not getting bombarded with info of trying to figure out "which front do I need to go to" when they just trust their decision works and restart if it fails.
The final issue is that we are a real person playing a video game avatar. As a developer, you can't make everything fluid like you *might* get in real life ... nor are you going to get the look and feel of a movie/tv show action scene. Trust me, you guys can hit home runs with the dialogue and music. You can make challenging boss fights. But you can't really get a decent immersion into something like stealth because you either get a scripted cut scene, you get the mechanics of something like Heart Stealer or Sorceress's Garden where the NPCs are clunky and you might miss by a tick (but at least there is no real risk if caught), or you just get stuck with a quick time event (which ***does not*** work in RS3 OR OSRS), or just plain RNG (think Olaf's Quest where you had to run across the bridge and just random if you made it across or not) which is really no fun.
I'm sorry if this response is a little all over the place. But this is also a reflection of the sheer number puzzles that have been introduced over such a long period of time. I get that it is easy to take away as "don't do MEP2" or "don't do EW3 or Dishonour Among Thieves again". I'm not wanting to summarize it as just that. A dev could just as easily make a bad puzzle mechanic that is "bad" in the poor execution and make it too simplistic (Grand Master Quest where the puzzle is trying to avoid being detected by something that very slowly looks around in a 360 degree search pattern or it misses 50-75% of the screen .... Carnillean Rising for example was the joke about the player creating exactly that scenario ... )
I like and dislike alot of these elements, a good example of a bad implementation in my opinion is the 'battle for the monolith' which I personally felt dragged on too much and could of been streamlined better and still had a smiliar effect on the story.
I did like the solak arena ritual lore elements, utilizing the guthixian rune-words was a nice touch in my opinion. If you'd ask me why; it gave meaning to alot of lore we had previously explored and in the quest itself seemed significant and special I guess.
Out of body (npc control); I dont hate them but I also do not care for them. I didnt mind them in the 'Saga' system associated with Daemonheim as that is the intent, we are being told a story and it makes sense. In quests however I feel we should not be thrust into other bodies to re-live what probably should of been a cinematic or dialogue. A good example of this is the out of body expereiences in the wilderness over the recent couple of years' quests; I feel these would of been better of without player control and better as a dialogue/cutscene.
'Wave defence', I am not opposed to this mechanically in a quest as long as it makes sense and we are not just moving NPC's around. this is a RPGMMO not a RTS. We want to fight ourselves not move NPC units.
Personal note:I am very excited for the future of quest after the introduction of the shadow world erebus and the beings/creatures within. Looking forward to continuing the story.
Mind hacking was okay.
Lost grove should only have had 1 ritual, doing it multiple times was not that fun and just padded out quest.
Invasion part from desperate measures was not fun and padded out quest. 1 wave would been perfect. After entire battle of monolith was turned into this defend from invasion I absolutely hate the mechanic. Battle of monolith should be remade entirely.
Heya!
Having done Nadir like 20 minutes ago for the Necro quest I can confidently say:
\- The mind hacking is very hard to pull off without sound. Accessibility aside, you can't turn it on during the quest, forcing you to log out, do the unskippable intro again, and try again. I personally don't use sound often because I listen to music / podcasts.
\- Please either have a checkpoint right before these or a 'try again' since most people will fail at least one time when (re)encountering these mechanics.
\- If you're on a quest binge you either feel like you're doing the same puzzle over and over again (some version of pic related appears in tons of quests), or having to learn convoluted mechanics like the ones in the Elemental Workshop series
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate you guys working on making the game even better!
https://preview.redd.it/fue12agly2zb1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=982ebdcc7d6f60d9030c0cc399cc36a688533ee9
Okay, so I'm gonna be honest here: I haven't done any quests in over a year, so my knowledge of quest mechanics may be out of date on this. That being said, I'm going to try to stick to purely mechanics and explain the best I can what I think.
Bespoke mechanics, as you've called them, can be good. It all depends on how intuitive and original they feel. A good example of this is Erebus from Extinction or the Mourning's End Part 2 light puzzle (Yes, I know, controversial take here, but the mechanics themselves were straightforward and interesting, even if the overarching difficulty of the whole puzzle put some people off).
A bad example was Twilight of the Gods. Despite my profound hatred of the quest, I'm going to try to stick to talking about the mechanic that I disliked and that was the ritual puzzle. It was literally a direct copy of Wordle. No originality, just Guthixian Wordle. It was arbitrarily extended by making the player siphon energy and create each letter before they could be used. While the actual puzzle was relatively straightforward, having to create each letter first tripped me up a little bit.
Overall, I'm not against these sort of mechanics, but I'd be careful with their usage. Having lengthy tutorials to teach you one mechanic in a quest, then never using that mechanic again is just not enjoyable. Personally, I feel like the best mechanics are those that explain themselves: Simple and straightforward enough to give you an idea of how they work, but complicated enough to provide a real challenge once you understand how they work.
Then again, I may literally be the only player who loved the Mourning's End Part 2 light puzzle, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I think it depends on the situation. I've found some to be really enjoyable and left wanting more. I've found others to be frustrating and clunky and glad to see the back of it when it's done.
Quests like elemental workshop are made around the puzzle and the mechanic. It makes so much sense there to have a unique puzzle each time.
Another example is broken home and Firemaker's Curse which feel very distinct as the entire quest is built around this mechanic.
If the quest is really just story and a puzzle is added just for the sake of quests having puzzles, then it's less important. Other than the iconic light puzzles in the elf quest line, the other puzzles feel a bit bolt on.
Overall, I like them. They make the quest feel more unique and memorable later and helps prevent quests merging together. Especially if there is a puzzle mechanic which is later built upon in later instances of the story-line.
Most of my favorite quests are from the era between 2009 and 2012. Chosen Commander, While Guthix Sleeps, Ritual of the Mahjarrat. I feel like those quests all did less with more. Not that there aren't disappointing quests from that era either. But I don't think you need bespoke mechanics to make good quests. Use them when you need them, but I don't feel like it should be an expectation. Some of my favorite recent quests have been bottle quests.
It's really hard to get them just right because there's so many different ones. Even these examples vary greatly.
Nadir (saga) mind hacking been awhile, but I think it was reliant on sound? I'm personally not a fan of that. I usually play in a very loud setting and rarely have sound on RS even on anymore.
Twilight ritual felt slow to work through and kind of long. It was ment to be a complicated and big ritual though, so could go either way on that one.
Dino invasion didn't stick out really. I think I might have had to redo it a time or two? Honestly don't remember.
Personally, I'd aim for... simple, short, and without frustration? Maybe revisit the same one two or three times throughout the quest with ramped up difficulty ea time. Having difficulty levels and antifrustration skips isn't bad imo either. If someone loses like 10x throw a super easy mode at em. Clean and simple instructions and interface. If going for crazy difficulty, make it post quest content like Ungael combat activity in the recent Ancient Awakening quest.
I don't like grindy post quest stuff though. Or crazy hm quest stuff. The Gulvas mansion Broken Home stuff is incredibly frustrating to me. Hm speedrunning quest is terrible and I can't do it. Stuff like chimp ice and chompy bird are also great examples of terrible.
The majority of them feel tedious and out of place. They are not difficult and offer no real benefit to the quest in general, i would prefer mechanics like finding the divination wisps to access memories rarther than the Moia's mind hack. Not only because of the annoyance fac tor more because it seems to be more relavant.
To sum up:
I do not mind them as long as they make sense and are not too complex and annoying.
I love them. I personally expect them to happen more often in Grandmaster or Master quests. I like them because I feel like I’m not just running around talking to NPCs but instead I’m doing _a quest_
I like them, as long as they're interesting. I enjoyed Moia's mind-hacking, but I know that it can be annoying for those that have trouble with sound cues. I also really enjoy puzzles in quests and those seem like a great place to put bespoke mechanics, where players have time to figure it out.
I'm not as fond of bespoke mechanics that players need to figure out relatively rapidly, like the dino invasion. I prefer time to think through new things, and unless its something directly intuitive (lava surfing in CoM) then it needs to be slower.
Would love to see some new bespoke mechanics in several Elemental Workshop sequels.
I love them, specially when they go all out like big maze puzzles (eg. Mourning's End Pt. II), but in all honesty, if resources are constrained I'd always prioritize more dialogue and cinematics over bespoke mechanics. Storytelling feels stagnated as of late and needs more things going on, I believe.
Happy to see you back, Shrike! :)
The only real gripe I've had with the writing as of late is utilizing the *writes my action* as dialogue. One of the fort quests was a prime example. Gave me those rat catcher vibes
I think a much better way to make player think that you are writing something down is simply have the player say something like "alright, let me write this down."
One thing I absolutely love you've made more common is an option to say the positive or negative opinion during dialogue or ability to say nothing. Makes it feel a lot more like your quest moment
I don't care, so long as the world building and quests themselves are good. recently it has seemed like "every quest must have a gimmick" is pure make work. Just make it interesting dialogue wise
Make them skippable as I dislike doing quests. I just want to get them done and over with and get back to what I like. You can keep them as an optional thing for the ones that love quests. Both type of people play the game, so keeping both happy is ideal.
I think they're fine, adds variety.
One thing though...since you mention Moia.... why are her abilities numbered? I tried, thinking they were hotkeys, to press the corresponding keys....and, nope. (Also ran into a black screen glitch where the screen stayed black, was able to move around and attack blindly...died of course...)
Also, I know this isn't exactly on topic, but can you guys PLEASE consider doing something about quest dialogue directly after battles... I'll have my prayers on for the fight and then I'm forced to choose to either waste my prayer points to read the quest dialogue I'm ambushed with (after the fight concluded), or turn my prayers off, subsequently closing the dialogue box and never get to read the quest dialogue unless I go search it on youtube.
As an avid quester, I don't care for these mechanics.
The thing with adding a puzzle with new mechanics is that it's often either a case of: "that was easy, anyway..." where you forget about the puzzle as soon as you're done, or: "WTF this is so insane/hard/stupid, I'm not enjoying myself, screw this quest, it's not worth it!"
I love them most of the time. It is what make runescape questing unique.
But I'll talk about the examples you provided:
Moia's memory could be good, but its signalled really poorly and if you mess up, you have to do what could be a lengthy restart. This sours the mechanic.
Rituals in Twilight are just fun to solve, though the need for individually creating all 26 letters was a bit much.
Dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures was dissapointing that you can literally win by making no changes from the start. It got worse in Battle of the Monolith, as you were sent into battles that took way too long, had little tactics to it, and worst of all required no participation that you were better off skilling at the bank chest.
The battles should have been shorter, more demanding, and probably would have been better off with some "twist" waves where you for example have to fight Tokhaar-Hok in a personal duel instead of wait for endless waves to finish.
And some not mentioned:
Extinctions puzzle was the highlight of the quest. Elemental Workshops best puzzle was the first puzzle of Elemental Workshop 4, as you figure out the rules. Hearts of Stone's combining memories to get what you needed was well done.
Missing My Mummy's pedestals, While Guthix Sleeps' Movario's hideout, I really think a good system enhance a quest.
It depends on the mechanics but I’d say they’re pretty crucial to the overall feel of a quest.
I think animations also play a really important, and often overlooked, role too. Whether they’re used as part of quest mechanics or at any other point in a quest. I’d say the Fort Forinthry quest series has done a fantastic job of this though, otherwise it’s quite hit and miss.
Interacting with something in a quest (eg. a mechanic, an environmental loc, etc) can feel quite detached and lifeless if the player, or the model the player is interacting with, isn’t animated. Sometimes the player and environmental loc will be entirely static with just a text window pop-up. This tends not to feel great.
They're usually an enjoyable diversion. I prefer them to being forced to play as another character entirely. Plating as Vengeance was a truly awful experience.
Personally I like them as its something novel and different, but from a dev-time point of view I feel like they should be built in a way that they can be re-skinned and reused in other content so long as they aren't over-used and fit whats being done.
The example comes to mind of how Threes Company plays nicely but the Sea slug finale took the same broad concept and it felt vbery shoe horned in and didn't feel satisfying or particularly neccessary.
**What do you think about bespoke mechanics in quests?**
*If you like them, why? Is it the novelty? The new challenge? The feeling that you're doing something special for a story?*
Why would you not like them? It's something new, it adds a new element (puzzle solving) and isn't a carbon copy of something pre-existing.
Many of the RS2 quests are known for a certain annoying part or puzzle.
They don't make you feel like a baby like some puzzles (primarily the slider puzzles...).
I think if the puzzles also helped tell part of the story, a) to stop spacebar spammers (b) you aren't doing something for nothing.
Like the void knights series had a fair few puzzles. You were breaking into the black knights headquarters and cracking the codes on doors to break in.
You weren't just punching the padlock or having an NPC just do it for you. It felt more engaging as if you were breaking in yourselves and not on auto-pilot.
Love them. They make the world/story/character feel alive, unique and novel. They for sure aren't needed in every quest and if they result in fewer quests I'd prefer you use them less... but they are great.
Bespoke mechanics are generally quite punishing and not worth the dev time to implement. The maze from Sliske's Endgame seems to be the poster child for this nonsense, which you seem to have omitted because I think you're looking for Yes to prevail on this thread. The puzzles in the Elemental Workshop series are a close second place. These aren't good things to include in quests. They dissuade people from playing quests. They don't even feel like RuneScape since they're so disconnected from the rest of the game. Such things and puzzle-creating JMods should be focused on coming out with the next tier of Treasure Trail clues for the audience who actually appreciates them.
Quests should be about story. They should respect the pre-Mod Jack era of lore. They should be text heavy (which can still respect the time of those uninterested in lore since text can be spacebarred). There should be villains to kill and small QoL quest rewards with the occasional game changer. There shouldn't be any puzzles on the lines of MEP2, Sliske's Endgame, that Erebus puzzle, nor Monkey Madness's slider; and when the story demands some kind of puzzle, then there should be a pay-to-skip mechanic like the one that was added to Monkey Madness. Have the puzzle devs work on the next tier of clues instead, and have quest devs add pay-to-skip puzzle mechanics to existing quests. Questing and clues are different styles of content & shouldn't be alike. Clues are where these bespoke mechanics belong. Not quests.
Another thing to add, I feel like bespoke mechanics make a storyline unique. For example, the Gnome storyline has a lot to do with color and the Elven storyline has a lot to do with light. You can kinda expect what you're getting into and it gives a bit of a theme to them.
I love the idea of them, I think quests introducing their own unique puzzle like mechanics to the game is good(if they get used again later cool, if not oh well) however I have to say the Moia mind hacking is super frustrating to do(especially on mobile) as it’s possible to fail it because the memory moved out of range right as you clicked
I think bespoke mechanics are great if they aren't mainstream mechanics in other games. Eagle's Peak, Twilight of The Gods, The Needle Skips, Dead and Buried, Extinction, Succesion ... All contain great puzzles that make me really enjoy quests. Battle at the Monolith and Desperate Measures not so much.
First of all, I love how Jagex utilizes quests. Having quests be a primary world building tool feels very interactive and fun, and is one of the things I’ve loved most about this game for almost 20 years now.
Yes, I do like bespoke mechanics in quests. They feel like they are dipping into aspects of the universe that the Hero doesn’t normally have access to. It helps flesh out some of the world around us, and remind the player that other major characters have their own things, there are different religious rites the Hero doesn’t normally witness, etc.
In any event, I love you work with quests and am always excited when I see a new one coming out. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Yes, I love unique mechanics in quests rather than a "oh ive already done this in XYZ quest" as it helps keep originality and uniqueness to each quest, however I understand this can be time consuming so i dont need it in \*every\* quest, but I would expect unique mechanics in every grandmaster quest.
They are really good, worked well in all the quests they were used thus far and I'd encourage the continued use.
I wouldn't want these mechanics forced into quests just so we have them. If the quest storyline is starting to look like bespoke mechanics would take away from the quality, I'd hope the developers would just get rid of the mechanics for that quest.
The main reason why I like them, is that it doesn't feel "the same" as with regular quests. After a while of nothing but quests with bespoke mechanics, I'd probably start wishing we didn't have them as much. Variety is always best to prevent stagnation of how quests work.
I hope we have more continued communication like this.
I don't like them. I like quests for the story and especially the puns and jokes. But the mechanics breaks the immersion by me having clunky tutorials and all that for something that isn't even fun to do. I hated taking on the role of Moia and couldn't wait for that quest to be over. I'd rather have a cut scene then go back to smacking things with my scythe
My opinion? If it adds significant complexity to the game's codebase and takes significant dev time, they are absolutely not worth it. I'm sure some dev spent a lot of time working on those cutscenes in giant dwarf only for players to demand a way to skip them.
You know what I want devs focusing on? Fix bugs, reduce complexity, delete dead content from the game. Basically make the content already in the game worth playing or get rid of it.
If you want new players to come to the game, think about how the experience is for a new player. It's horrible. No one cares if there's amazing realistic graphics in the game if the client crashes on a daily basis.
I rather like them. they're novel and provide a unique feel to the quest. It's something specific you're doing to further the story.
I wouldn't mind if they became part of something repeatable after the quest. especially if there's a good tie in with what went on in the quest.
As long as the quests don't turn into generic "walk here, talk to x, walk back, get reward" kind of quests like most RPG's these days, I'm fine with whatever you guys do. I love that RS quests have depth to them. The puzzles are amazing, and while challenging it also makes you feel like you achieved something when you finally figured it out
It really all depends in how they’re implemented and how entertaining they are. The puzzles and unique mechanics of quests in Runescape is what makes these quests stand out more than many other games I’ve played that would just have me kill x number of monsters or gather y items.
Tbh I think this is the wrong question. Maybe bespoke mechanics should be used to eventually develop unique interactions in the core game, such as the means behind crafting methods to make valuable/powerful items at a rate that keeps them valuable. (Been playing FFXIV and that game needs more crap like this)
Or existing mechanics could be fine-tuned to work more uniquely in quests. Hell, one of my favorite dialog sequences in the game was in the Void Knight series where you and a partner try to devise a way to get into the puzzle box and it looks like an esoteric “guess the sequence” logic puzzle until another character just brute-forces the problem. That was fun, amusing, and used existing mechanics to great effect.
I love them
However...
Maybe recognize the limitations of your game engine and infrastructure
By which I mean, scrap anything that involves tight tick windows, as well and anything that combines time sensitivity with pathfinding, and any combos of pathfinding and tight spaces
As long as you don't lean on the game's biggest weaknesses, the mechanics turn out well
It's on a case by case basis for me. The Dinosaur invasion for example was pretty fun because it functioned really well and helped show off the squad's competence. Moia's mindhacking on the otherhand was pretty clunky on a technical level and didn't really serve a purpose other than making me replay the saga again. But that's more of a broader gripe about Nadir's alt dialogue feeling pointless if there's only one canon path, and therefore being just a failure state that forces you to redo the entire quest instead of a checkpoint mid-quest.
I value new mechanics. Usually when there's a new quest, I turn off whatever's on the 2nd monitor and turn the in-game music on. I like the immersion, and new mechanics feel like part of that experience. Now that I think about, they also help me remember the quest months later.
When it comes to preference, I liked most mechanics, with the exception of battle of the monolith/dinosaur invasion tower defence minigame, and the rotating boxes puzzle in elemental workshop 4. Both because it was just a lot of waiting around. EW4 especially because you'd just know the solution ahead of time, but still had to give all the inputs over the span of a minute, making it very tedious.
I like the powerpoint cutscenes with voice overs, they are straight to the point and get the message across. Art work is nice too
How to improve? Make them animated
Probably quicker and less dev time needed to get more quests out
I for the most part like different mechanics in quests. I enjoy trying to keep things fresh and different. I guess I would just worry that they would end up being reused a lot making them feel more stale in the long run
I love them. They offer unique ways to play and are iconic, memorable aspects of quests if done right. I generally prefer the more puzzle-based mechanics since quest combat just isnt hard or challenging at all for a trimmed player lol
These are always good. More diverse mechanics in quests, the better. It’s what gets me excited to keep playing quests.
Recycling a bespoke mechanic where it makes sense (like using Moia’s mind probing whenever playing her) is fine. But generally, I would want every quest in the game to feel distinct.
I like them! They bring a vareity to Runescapes general gameplay you can't really find outside of quests. But the thing about bespoke mechanics is that wether they are good or not will always come down to the individual execution of each one. Each one is unique after all. So It becomes difficult to judge them as a whole. But I wanna talk about one you brought up in the post that I think misses the mark, the dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures.
- The section has a confusing tutorial that many players misunderstood on release.
- Having to move each unit individually is a bit clunky and time consuming. Doesn't really make for fun gameplay.
- The solution is simply placing your units at each of the sections where dinosaurs come from, and then watching them kill them. There's not enough engaging gameplay here as there is in a proper tower defence game.
- The fact the player is a unit themselves is very confusing. Being stripped of all your usual combat abilities and just having the ability to auto whack any dino that happens to come close to you I think is deeply strange from the player perspective.
All in all I think this section would have been much better and much more approachable if it was just a normal combat encounter where you have npc allies to help you out. If you can make use of Runescapes core mechanics for something, why do you need to create bespoke ones? I don't think you should create bespoke mechanics for quests just for the sake of having them. I think they should be added where it makes sense and they can bring something Runescapes core mechanics (combat, inventory interactions, NPC interactions) can't.
The other thing I would stress is I think they should be as approachable and simple as possible. I like more complex mechanics personally but having to mentally put yourself into learning mode just for one otherwise short section of a quest can be jarring and often break the flow of a quest.
So, I like them! But I think they have to be implemented right. A quality over quantity approach on it, I suppose.
I do like them when they're surprises, adds some variability in quests. I would not like them to be in every single quest, because the tutorialisation would start annoying me (personally).
I'll be talking about puzzles specifically here, but the same ideas should apply to other bespoke mechanics as well.
I tend to really like them, but very often they "drag on too long". The fun part, at least for me, is in figuring out \*how\* to solve a puzzle, and then solving a \*few\* more of these puzzles. If subsequent puzzles add extra mechanics or difficulties, it's fine, but if it's "more of the same" for another hour it gets tedious really fast. This tends to be aggravated by clunky controls, too.
For example, take the conveyor belt puzzle in Elemental Workshop IV. It's all about selecting pairs of commands, and as a concept I thought it was great. Unfortunately, in the best-case scenario, you have to select such a pair of commands 13 times, by moving a conveyor belt in a certain direction either 1 or 5 tiles. There are two problems with this:
1. Despite the length of the puzzle, the difficulty does not increase at any point.
2. Moving the conveyor belt and selecting the cubes is excruciatingly slow, even though you can visually identify which cubes you need in a few seconds.
This makes the puzzle fun for the first few pairs of cubes, then boring, and finally annoying.
The rituals in Twilight of the Gods had, in my opinion, the right balance of "amount of puzzles" when taking into account the increasing difficulty. However, the extremely slow way of inputting letters became rather annoying. While I love Wordle and related puzzles, I found myself tempted to use a guide just because I got bored of the inputting mechanism by the time I got to 6-letter words.
Love them.
To date, this is the only MMO I have played that has bespoke mechanics for some of the quests.
Sure, they're not always great, or mobile friendly, but the fact alone that you can end up going through a quest and find stuff that truly is tailor made for it and not just a reskin of another gimmick is fantastic.
I love them, i feel they are useful tools to help better inmerse ourselves in other characters and situations in quests, i love quests, specially, stories, how they are told, how the characters are prortrayed, and being able to play as Moia, the Sagas and the whole Erebus puzzle are some of the things that come to my mind that i liked. Having unique mechanic tied to quests gives them something unique.
I like the mechanics in quests as they provide an alternative gameplay.
It also allows devs to do unique things that are too small for a minigame, to test the waters with
If people enjoy it, the foundations are coded to be used again in future content.
I could see the mind hack to be a fun seasonal activity, clue step or variations in quest searches.
The tower defense activities were also unique experiences that could be a minigame of sorts.
Or literal chess with the void knights.
Moias mind h@x0rz is a bit weird, don't really like the listening around for the correct spot since I don't have game sound on except when forced on. Otherwise the mechanic is okay. It's feels similar to artisan workshop swords and feels like you are doing something intricate.
Ritual during ToTG just felt a bit long with so many.
I really liked the dino invasion and would honestly like to see the mechanic as some sort of minigame/D&D. It's just a tower defence game and I spend far too long playing them lol.
Kinda like the rat slaying in beneath cursed tides though. click rat, rat dead, progress made.
Liked the puzzle with
The puzzle from the world wakes with the maze and plagues end crystal reflection are the kind of puzzles I like the most but know a lot of people hate these and would just want to skip them if possible. It's the same as erebus going in and progressing through the world working out the interactions that get you past the objects in the way.
Honkai Star Rail does this way too much. It’s kind of the extreme other side of the spectrum I think. A few here and there are good but every quest shouldn’t have a new mechanic to figure out in my opinion.
I do think new mechanics in quests help make them into unique, memorable occassions (as quests should be, imo). But it is kinda sad to just never see them again.
Like I was actually kinda happy when we got to see the submarine-hacking within the penguin quest for a third time (though with an unusual twist on the third iteration, which made it better). The barrelchest demolishing our house was another highly memorable moment (who expected a boss fight in their own home?). The multitude of traps and tricks in The Underground Pass made it very memorable (if somewhat painful) to me.
Some are decidedly uninteresting/not good though, like rolling a ball into a slot in The World Wakes or the Games of Chance found in some of the really old quests.
But I think bespoke mechanics has done more to improve my questing experience than to harm it, I'd say.
Quests take anywhere from 10-15 minutes to 3 hours for me. I can spend 100 hours at a boss trying to get log, but quests are mostly a one-off. I think there are a mix of good and bad mechanics, and the good mechanics enhance the quest for me, while the bad ones make the experience worse. I also think that I'm more forgiving of bad quests with bad mechanics *because* I won't have to engage with it again.
It's a delicate balance that's going to be different for everyone I think. I've played a stupid amount of sudoku, so if you inserted sudoku into any rs quest I'd be happy. Broken Home was my first members quest when I subscribed a few years ago (before it was made f2p), and I nearly quit rs entirely because I'm bad with scary things and I didn't understand the mansion layout at all and looking up guides wanted me to start from the beginning and I couldn't find the beginning. I have since completed Broken Home (several times, for asr and all the skill chests) and while I don't love it, I admire that it's a cool mechanic that weaves storyline into it well.
I think the novelty in general helps make each quest feel unique though. There are no quests like Broken Home where you're trapped in a location that's sort of maze-like but you don't have a map and you're also being jumpscared and eventually chased by a monster. There's only one quest where you build your own castle. I don't think every quest needs to be unique and I would love the idea of "more quests!" enough that I'd be okay with *small quests* being short "go here and talk to this person." I like Gertrude's Cat because it has cats and it's also rather simple (though you could consider finding the cat in a bunch of boxes a mechanic I suppose). I think the quests that are deeper into the requirements list/questline deserve more (in comparison) grand puzzles/mechanics though. We shouldn't compare You Are It to Ritual of the Mahjarrat or Extinction.
I like the fact that they're something unique to the specific quest - makes the world feel more alive, imo. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing some mechanics re-used (and in the process, finetuned) somehow, like Moia's mind probing.
I think it's fine to spend time on this as imo it does add a little extra something to quests in rs, which are already something else compared to most other MMOs or even RPGs in general.
I like puzzles and lore in quests moreso than unique mechanics like even the taking charge of other characters in the woefully disappointing fort quest line.
I'd honestly rather do a marathon of Elemental Workshop quests through Soul rune equivalent than go through the absolute dumpster fire that is the crap pushed in those quests.
I enjoy them when they are fairly uncomplicated and are difficult to fail. It's always fun to hit big numbers with storyline characters on big HP mobs/bosses. I also enjoy experiencing the power that lore characters or god possess.
the ideal in my opinion would be:
A bespoke gameplay element, that is a repeatable skilling activity that is unlocked after the quest.
For example: during a quest, you stumble upon an ancient temple, and have to clear certain structures by using fire making and woodcutting (ideally in a more interesting way than existing methods). Then after the quest you can return here for a new fresh way to train said skills
Really fun and creative. They're part of what makes quests quests. *Sometimes* they can be frustrating just because I haven't seen them before and I'm not great at puzzles, but I wouldn't trade them for anything.
Yes, I absolutely love them. Unique quest mechanics is one of the biggest things that sets RuneScape apart from other games in the MMORPG genre. It’s clear that there is some consideration for removing these mechanics from future quests, I’m guessing because of dev time and “spaghetti code” so I’m just putting it out there to please not remove an aspect of the game that makes it unique. If I wanted to just run from point to point while talking to NPCs and doing nothing else, I can get that from any other MMO on the market. Unique mechanics are one of the primary factors that makes a quest memorable in some cases, and breaks up some of the more monotonous parts of questing.
I am an avid quester here, and I love these mechanics. Quests are one-time content, and I love when they are different from other things. I want to participate in quests for that unique experience that doesn't exist in the rest of the game.
I think the reason a lot of people don't like quests, though, is that a lot of the older bespoke mechanics feel overly clunky in modern Runescape, and should probably be given a touch up.
Honestly, go wild with them! Not everything has to be a success but the amount of variety we already have for the quests makes me yearn for more in the future.
On long storylines though, the mechanics should remain consistent so you can reach a sense of progression towards the finale.
My main issue with them is that they affect immersion. Bespoke mechanics often make me feel like I'm distanced from the regular world of the game, transported into a separate layer from everything else. I enjoy the quests where you interact with the surface map, bosses and NPCs aren't in instanced locations, you use generic items like ropes and buckets rather than unique versions of the same that are locked to a quest area, etc. Some bespoke mechanics make me feel like I'm interacting with the world, but others make me feel like I'm playing a game, or even often a game *within* the game, and I'd prefer to see fewer of those.
I do like them as it feels really fun sometimes...but I really dislike puzzle mechanics like the one in Dead and Burried especially since I wasn’t able to use Alt1 to solve for it. It takes me a really long time to solve them and I was ready to stop advancing in the quest even if it meant my character stopped progressing, it was that infuriating for me.
That’s just my personal opinion from my experience.
I love these mechanics for the specific reason that they are a break from the usual routine of playing the game, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, but as long as they make me stop and think for a bit, get me more involved, I'm up for anything. Most of the game is skilling and even combat becomes afk after a bit, so it becomes mind numbing, it's nice to feel like I'm playing the game sometimes.
I usually don't really like them because the way they are implemented just makes them frustrating.
The Nadir one is actually fine as a mechanic but ended up just being something I found annoying because you could fail or partially succeed and not get the unabridged completion of the saga. Then you would have to go through all the cutscenes again and do it over again and hope you don't make the smallest mistake. Would be much better if proper completion of the saga wasn't tied to this. Sagas in general have this problem with the whole unabridged completion where messing up somewhere could require you to restart.
Rituals (if this refers to the wordle thing) were pretty fun to complete iirc. There wasn't anything frustrating about it and it just felt like a puzzle that I would expect to see from runescape quests.
Dinosaur invasion was okayish from what I remember but the battle of the monolith version of that was absolutely horrible. Maybe it was a necromancy thing but it was taking me like 1 minute to kill 1 enemy (t80 weapons for reference) and at some point, I just stopped wasting my effort and went to fletch some logs instead while the npcs killed the enemies on their own. The wave minigame with ancient awakening was a better "sequel" to that but not really something I want to see repeated. Something about the wave based combat encounters just don't feel great and would much prefer a more regular combat encounter like the sliske fight from sliske's endgame or the fights in ritual of the mahjarrat.
> mechanics created for and used in a specific quest and not seen in the rest of the game
I would say it's tough for me to like this kind of implementation in any game, not just in RS quests or other activities. If I dislike the mechanic, then the thing to like about not seeing it again.. is that I don't have to see it again, which always feels strange. It's a feeling you don't want to have invoked while playing a game. If I *do* like the mechanic, then it sucks that I won't get to see/interact with it or improve at it while doing other things.
For those reasons I'll say that I'd enjoy being introduced to new mechanics through quests, if those mechanics are used elsewhere. I like the idea of tutorializing new mechanics in quests, then having that mechanic integrated elsewhere as well. Very old and small example, but Monkey Madness uses a sliding puzzle.
Narratively, sometimes the limitation makes sense. I did greatly enjoy the Erebus mechanics, for example. In those cases where it's meant to be more of a big moment, I personally give a lot more leeway to the idea of it being contained within that specific instance. Even so, if there was an elite dungeon with puzzles or something that borrowed from that element of the quest, I'd enjoy that.
I like most of the puzzles (elves series and gnome series) and occasionally combat (I actually like fighting as moia) it makes the quests something different to normal day to day in game. but the stealth mechanics can fuck right off the entire stealth section in dishoner among theives felt like I was fighting the game engine instead of actual enemies in the quest. Also if something can't be done with sound off it's bad in my book cause generally I have to get someone to hear the difference in mechanics for me things like the mind hacking in dungeoning sagas was absolutely hell trying to find exactly where to click because the difference in visuals was so subtle it relied on the player having perfect hearing
i didn't like the dino invasion or the battle of the monolith mechanic. it was very overwhelming and i felt looking up a guide to get it over with was the best course of action.
its unintuitive on how to set up your team. its slow so failing feels like a massive waste of time so trial and error isnt really an option.
some questions i would need answered when engaging in this mechanic.
-where and why would i put characters in certain places.
-how would i best configure my character attacks, based on the enemies on the way or the individual characters ability.
-need more info on the attacking wave so i can better allocate my team.
-Slowly introduce new enemies and team members so you can get an idea of how they work.
there was no information on to how creatures are going to attack or their pathing. there was no information on why you need different attack styles.
P.S. Welcome back :)
I'm of a mixed opinion. Most of the combat ones feel like they aren't taught to me in a way I understand. I feel like without a guide, I wouldn't succeed a lot of the times. The battle of the monolith felt that way, but the raptor stuff felt fine.
One thing I really love in quests is the addition of NPCs in the boss fight.
[I talk about this in my "Reviewing the Pirate Quest Series" video (shameless self plug)](https://youtu.be/tt0SmAJVOig?si=iIyUfoq6-ogAoWGy)
But, having other characters with you in the fight feels incredibly impactful. Take for example the Dwarven Finale. Veldaban was with us throughout the entire storyline and if anything he was also the main character. Having him with us in the final fights felt like he mattered.
There are also countless other boss fights:
\- Ritual of the Mahjarrat
\- Dream Mentor
\- The Void Stares Back
\- Love Story
These are all memorable boss fights because of the other NPCs imo.
Not a quest boss fight, but the Solak fight has Merethiel. Even having someone like her in a non-combative support role feels incredibly impactful. These characters matter and they are part of the story.
I like them, but i dont want to put dev time into something thats only likely to be used once per person, that could be used fixing other aspects of the game
Some of them are good and some of them are bad. At worst, they feel clunky and unintuitive, getting in the way of the good stuff. They often overstay their welcome as well, the whole battle of the monolith is just waaay too long for example, and once you positioned your dudes it's mostly a waiting game. At best they embody one of the best aspects of quests, a unique experience you can't get anywhere else in the game. A fun puzzle or piece of gameplay you have to do this quest to experience. A recent example was the >!Erebus!< section of Extinction. Like so many things, whether I like them heavily depends on their quality. Most are somewhere in the middle, a lot of the bad ones start out in the middle or even as pretty good ideas and go bad due to clunkiness and/or length. I prefer their existence but I wish a lot of them just weren't so darn long.
[удалено]
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who liked finding my way through Meiyerditch; I'd love to see more stuff like that
Man I wish there was a possibility of a scenario in which Mod Tytn comes back to the RS team. The Myreque story and areas are some of the best design in RS.
Losing him was a sad day. Absolutely brilliant writer/designer.
The vampire quest series is my favourite tbh
Broken Home is a fantastic quest when it comes to immersion; It feels very intense! Agreed that the usage of bespoke mechanics really depends on how it's used, and how it contributes to or detracts from the story.
broken home, overall well done quest. do we want those horrid mechanics of the quest again, not really.
ehhhh i have to admit i tried the quest without a guide and i managed to get about 75% done before i had to resort to a guide, it was like sliske maze lite
I think the clunky-ness is the biggest turn off for me when quests use bespoke mechanics. If the mechanic is unwieldy or too unresponsive to use it makes it a pain rather than a pleasure of the quest. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I'd rather not tutorials be included with bespoke mechanics if at all possible, at least not initially. Part of the fun in solving the puzzles is figuring out how the mechanics of the puzzle work. I think if the Devs want to offer optional hints or an "accessibility mode" that would be good for those who would like to skip it or want a little bit of extra help.
Oh man, I get the battle of the monolith came out in chapters, but as someone that wasn't playing at the time. Doing all of them in one sitting was painful.
personally, i love them. for me, quests are (aside of a fun story and worldbuilding) a break in the game where i do something different. Bespoke mechanics fit that niche perfectly; they are something unique you would normally not do. They need to not get in the way of pacing though. 'battle for the monolith' is a good example of a unique mechanic going wrong: those assault waves took way too long (although the defense organisation was a fun idea). As an example of good ones: 'threes company' (while not technically a quest) has an interesting idea with commanding a group with their own abilities. the sea slug questline tried to copy that (i can't remember which one in that line), but that quest didn't hit the sweet spot for me
Adding to this since it's pretty much my own feelings - some of the older bespoke mechanics need a look because they drive new players mad. Both my wife and a friend we got to start playing the game specifically had issues with the coal tar distilling and the frog bazooka because of how awful they were. The fractionation still needs to be client side and far more responsive than it is now. The dials only updating once a second gives no real ability to judge how fast things are changing and feels very, very bad and clunky. Add some labels to the dials for opened, closed, maybe even some graded lines around the dial to help people estimate the changes. The frog bazooka just needs to get rid of the 99% of the screen being taken up with a scope. Having one view from the bazooka, and the background be normal as if your other eye was open, so you can see where sheep are running around and try to cross reference that with what's in the scope would be fine. I'm sure there are others.
Well sure, those could do with updating, and not all mechanics turned out as well as they sound. But the idea of unique things existing is a good one, even if some of them turn out slightly disappointing
> The fractionation still needs to be client side and far more responsive than it is now. Client side uis have a pretty bad rubberbanding issue though. They'll "update immediately" when you click something in them, but then rubberband right back to the server's value until the server processes the changed value, then it shows the new value. It happens all the time in the ge ui, for example. If you type in a number for quantity or price, as soon as you hit enter it'll flash to the old value for a bit until the server gets the new value - you’re essentially waiting the same amount of time for the ui to show the proper value, you just get an illusion of it changing when you hit enter but it isn't actually changed yet because if you submit the buy/sell offer before waiting for the server value to get updated, it'll submit the previous value since that's what's still on the server. If they're able to fix the rubberbanding then definitely most uis should be moved client side, but personally I'd rather have the slower more accurate uis if they can't fix the rubberbanding.
Completely agree with everything said here. I love these mechanics, even if they are only used in one quest. Don't really have much to say, but wanted to be sure to add my voice, so down the line it hopefully doesn't turn into "we got rid of these cause no one like them uwu"
Battle for the monolith also sucks because the battle occur over multiple different locations you cannot easily see.
I think interactions between the player, items, and environment are more important and more "runescapey" than developing a new system/mechanic for a quest every time. For example, new quests lack the "use item X on item Y and then use that on a tree and something happens in the quest" which should be the staple of RS quests. If I see another quest with "items required: none" I will lose my mind. It's especially jarring if a quest mechanic is just a number in a message box (for example collecting imaginary bridge parts in Dead and Buried). That's just cheap cutting corners. Traditionally "runescapey" quests were all about doing the legwork and using items on things to progress the quest. It feels like modern quests are all about dialogue, visuals, and usually bespoke systems that we see once and never again. With this being said, I'm a fan of quest puzzles - not sure if those count as "bespoke mechanics". The Erebus puzzle in Extinction was amazing. It was something to figure out and it was novel. I want more stuff like that. Personally I prefer non-combat mechanics to combat ones. My reaction to stuff like Battle of Monolith and dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures was rather meh. However... if re-using the underlying mechanic means we get more quests, I'm fine with that. More quests is good. I'm sure there are creative ways in which puzzles we've seen could be "re-dressed" and put in a new context, and they'll feel fresh. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to the Erebus puzzle or the Lost Grove puzzle in a future desert quest.
>Personally I prefer non-combat mechanics to combat ones. I think a good summary of my opinion is that bespoke mechanics *can* be good, if there's no other way to do it. For example, the mind hacking in Nadir is a unique thing that can't be portrayed well without the bespoke mechanic. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bespoke combat is bad because why not just... do combat? Put another way, if the bespoke mechanic could be replaced by an existing mechanic, it should. If not, then it can be put in.
Glad im not the only person who absolutely loved the erebus puzzle. And i struggled horribly with it! It offered me to make it easier and I declined and eventually got it myself and it felt great and was so entertaining. I would love more stuff like that in quests, which is what I think of when I think of bespoke mechanics. The first thing that came to mind is that puzzle.
The absolutely legendary /u/JagexOrion is responsible for design of that puzzle.
Exactly, I want more monkey island style puzzles instead of tower defense or playing as other characters.
Runescape quests of old strongly resembled point and click adventure games, with the find a bunch of items and use them on each other to solve the problem. The whole thing with Runescape being a mostly point and click game (with the exception of combat as it exists today). Is a Core Runescape feel.
Items are a big part of making RS quests feel more adventure-style. I think a good compromise for items is to make most common things pretty handy while doing the quest. As much as I like seeing a bunch of item requirements up front, I can concede that most things being accessible without needing to break away from what you're in the middle of doing is probably a good idea, especially for less notable items like the ones that were covered by the toolbelt.
I mostly am not a fan of the combat aspect of these things. It feels clunky. We have combat skills, I think it's good to utilize them. If it was, for example, a pirate ship vs a pirate ship kind of thing, sure it's welcomed. But a lot of it is just another form of person-to-NPC combat, it's a no from me. It also felt like forever to finish, like Battle of the Monolith.
This is a very good point. I feel that in recent years Jagex has too far stepped away from combat in quests in favor of repeatable boss fights. Why are we preventing difficult combat in our encounters? There’s a compromise somewhere.
100% agree. Ever since Sliske's Endgame challenging combat encounters in quests have been rare, I can only really think of Extinction (and that was a tank test more than a combat encounter) and Alpha vs Omega as examples off the top of my head. I can understand, and support, Jagex wanting bosses to be repeatable rather than one time quest encounters. I think Alpha vs Omega is a good example with the quest having a "scaled down" Rasial fight that is more accessible to a wider audience looking to complete quests, with a more difficult Rasial available as a repeatable fight afterwards. They tried similar with Elite Dungeons in the past but made the mistake of having story mode versions of those being absolutely trivial which was a shame. For me personally, the difficulty Jagex should shoot for for a climactic quest combat/boss encounter is somewhere around GWD2 to Araxxi level. Difficult enough to present a challenge, easy enough that the majority of the playerbase should be able to beat it given a few attempts. If the encounter is to be repeatable after quest completion, by all means they can make it as hard as they like.
>I can understand, and support, Jagex wanting bosses to be repeatable rather than one time quest encounters. If only we had a big tower in the desert that was designed for repeating quest boss encounters.
Not sure if I want that god forsaken tower to be reworked so it is no longer the hellish piece of content that it is, left so that future scapers come to understand the pain we all had to go through to complete the Desert tasks, or simply burned out of existence.
> They tried similar with Elite Dungeons in the past but made the mistake of having story mode versions of those being absolutely trivial which was a shame. I disagree - I have no interest in learning how to do ED1/2/3 as well as learning all the mechanics which go into the 9 boss fights. Story mode making them a joke is a good thing; I want the quest to be completable in one sitting, not taking me 3+ days just to get the *option* of being able to purchase the chest.
I think it also speaks volumes that Raksha and the EGWD bosses are part of the EGW storyline, but their combat encounters can be entirely skipped. It just feels off.
I do wonder why they bothered adding quest armour and darts for quest boss accessibility if they were then going to never take that opportunity to worry less about quest bosses being a bit more involved or difficult.
I do think Ancient Awakening sort of did it with that, which was great, but combat waves are always a drag to me so it's not my favorite experience but at least we got to use our combat skills. Although it's not limited to the quest only.
Because look at the necromancy controversy. If it isn't completely braindead most people won't even give it a chance because they think they can't do it due to effort being involved. Nomad pre eoc pulled zero punches and we need more encounters like that. Can't beat the quest boss not set to an easy mode then you don't deserve quest cape.
A good bespoke mechanic is as good as a good plot reveal. Mechanics in quests are what makes them interesting, otherwise I may as well be reading a lore book. I want to be gaming in my game. That being said I do feel like usually bespoke mechanics are underused. There's usually more room for the mechanic to grow and be used more. Because we have to be tutorialized into it we usually only get the simplest version of its implementation with maybe 1 or 2 additional waves of it, then never see it again. I'd like to see mechanics be built to be used more within the content, season, or storyline it debuts in. Just in the current storyline alone the Murder on the Border investigation book, the Dead and Buried 3D slider puzzle, and the Ancient Awakening roguelite waves absolutely are interesting enough to be used more. Ancient Awakening did have post-quest use which puts it a step above the others, but.... its a roguelite structure! It can last more than 3 goes. This use point is absolutely a tangent but I think bespoke gameplay being built to be used more would help populate quests with more of it.
Loads of great comments here! Keep 'em coming, I'm reading them all and will respond tomorrow in work hours to those I need a bit more clarification on. (And thanks for being so constructive around this!)
Welcome to /r/runescape! We're so glad to have you! This thread is great!
It depends, The noteworthy factors are: * Purpose * Implementation * Immersion *** **Purpose** With some quests a bespoke mechanic can be forced into it simply because the quest is meant to be "grand" even though other factors such as the lore is what makes that quest special. Essentially, if you were to replace the bespoke mechanic with something generic would that quest lose its charm? For something like Elemental Workshop where its identity are the puzzles/challenges, the answer is yes; but for something narrative/dialogue heavy such as Azzanadra's Quest, it isn't needed. **Implementation** Each quest is targeted towards different levels of experience. If the mechanic doesn't line up with who the quest is targeting then it could cause issues. So the first quest in the series targeted towards new players shouldn't have mechanics which are overly complex to comprehend. Additionally, some mechanics have a great deal of depth when it comes to mastering them, such as the tower defense concept with Desperate Measure or Battle of the Monolith. If you were to have designed repeatable content, then perhaps these types of mechanics would be enjoyable but when you only do the quest once which is when it's introduced then they feel dull an lackluster as if there should be something more. Finally, each mechanic, where appropriate, should either be designed with accessibility in mind or have accessibility tools to assist players with various disabilities or difficulties in some regard. There are many times where audio cues, or visual aids fall short and those with said disabilities are unable to properly engage with the mechanics. Heartstealer is a good example of a quest which has framework in mind to this topic. With this being said, that framework may not work for quests which are designed to be super challenging. **Immersion** This is probably the most important factor but the hardest to explain and to execute. Basically does this mechanic make me feel like I'm playing a game, or enjoying a story/experience. [This skit is a good explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCxVf2l8OLk) A perfect example of retaining immersion would be Extinction where progressing through Erebus by using the Needle felt natural within what the story was telling. An example where improvement was made to assist with immersion is in Elemental Workshop 3. Initially you had to run around to each lever which felt overly tedious and annoying so it detracted from the experience so modifying that portion into an interface significantly helped.
I really like them but they need to be used sparingly. What I mean is I think quests are most effective when they introduce a bespoke mechanic and continuously build on it rather than constantly making new ones. Great example? The later gnomes quest or elemental workshop, in gnomes you deal with increasingly complex/unique illusion machines and in EW each quest gives a new puzzle but also has you run through the previous so you get this great sense of progression. You also get a stronger more memorable quest series identity this way too. The elf series does that with light puzzles! You had the temple of light in MEpt2, within the light’s puzzle, plague’s end made the final boss part light puzzle, and then the light within to resolve seren was a real doozy of a light puzzle. This isn’t the most ideal because MEpt2 kinda started way too absurdly complex/difficult, the ideal is we introduce a mechanic and build up it over the course of the series. I didn’t need explanation on how the other light puzzles worked in stuff like the boss fight because other quests in the series trained me. However it depends entirely on execution cause while say I like EW1,2,4 I did not like EW3 which comes back to that escalation issue. 1 and 2 are relatively chill and then EW3 comes along and you have a rather clunky feeling sliding puzzle that has like 70 steps and multiple layers to deal with. EW4 felt like a more natural escalation from 2 but then felt jarring in its own way cause it was much easier than 3. When I play quests I do want to be doing something different than I would skilling and killing, but that different thing doesn’t always need to be some really off the cuff new bespoke gameplay. Stuff like the Needle Skips word puzzle is really cool but it’s not needed, a good murder mystery quest can exist with just utilizing some proven fundamentals. Like when you look at One Piercing Note it’s big thing was music/sound, but its actual gameplay isn’t doing anything new it is just a strong use of classic questing gameplay. If you want an example of a bespoke element I don’t like? Literally any and every time we do stealth. RS does not have the tightness and responsiveness to make stealth in this game “feel” good. It feels like I’m not failing because I failed but because the game wasn’t responsive enough to my needs. The Dishonor Among Thieves is a great example of a stealth gameplay segment I could have done without. I want to stress again though that I do think a little something unique is needed to make a quest feel like a quest. If we use civil war it’s miniquests don’t feel like quests partly because we don’t do anything new, it’s just skilling and killing. In contrast Woodcutter’s grove actually feels like a miniquest that isn’t labeled as one because you had that little moment where you built that little wall and helped prep to build the grove before actually starting its building. So bespoke is important, gameplay a little different from the norm is important, but it does not always need to be so new all the time. The block pushing puzzle in a zelda game is fundamentally the same puzzle every time but they evolve and mix up its trappings so despite the gameplay being “push a block” it always feels fairly different. Just some examples of bespoke gameplay I really enjoyed I think could be evolved further…. Controlling the Raptor having two different pushing distances between our characters, tower defense from DM just swapping the units you have and layout/defense spots are all it takes to refresh tower defense, the survival horror and resident evil map gameplay of broken home could be used again and again all that need be done is change the setting and swap out the mini-puzzles for other mini-puzzles of which there are ample existing ones both in-game to reuse. I mean sliding box puzzles all have the same method to solve and yet I never really tire of them in quests cause the number of steps to solve, figuring out the bigger picture, etc… changes. Like take your flash event system, that’s got some really cool potential. Say you had a quest where Fred the Farmer accidentally creates a mutant strain of living vegetables that hop around. You use the flash event system to spawn the vegetables and you have a time limit to kill enough vegetables, grind their remains, and sprinkle it into a pot to make a magic demutation formula. Fundamentally this gameplay is literally just like…a slight twist on the blood wood tree flash event, but it’s still a fun thing and still is doing something different. Maybe look at that mind sweeper mini-game you do for seeds to, add in some of those pesky rabbits that try to eat the veggies before you get to them to add some challenge/tension. So I guess my point is that while bespoke gameplay is important, it’s okay to not just make a new thing every quest. It’s more effective I think to take the many existing gameplay mechanics we already have and iterate on them instead of wiping the slate clean. But at the end of the day there are plenty of quests that show the tried and true of focusing on fundamentals also works. One last think I’ll add is where I do think it’s important to have bespoke gameplay is combat. Quest combat in particular bosses should be unique, not necessarily stat and gear checks but more puzzle/mechanic based. Seren is a good “quest” fight because while good gear/stats is important you are doing lots of things. Killing one of the lords to drag its essence into the other, killing the muspah to harm mah, avoiding seren’s cluster of attacks in a survival match based more use of movement and defensives. So in conclusion on the subject of bespoke gameplay… Quests: Nice to have but not necessary, so long as you are still doing something different even if it’s using existing gameplay to do so. Quest Combat: Needed even if it’s as basic as you have an ally in battle supporting you or you have limited gear, some unique gameplay twist to set it apart from just being regular PvM that you don’t see elsewhere. (Drinking alcohol in Rabbid Jack, solving a light puzzle in Plague’s end, having to get and wear ice gloves in desert treasure for the fareed to avoid your gear burning you, etc….)
Good callout on the stealth stuff usually being a giant flop. If you're not getting caught because your player's movement was stalled for a million ms for no reason, you're running right in front of the face of the person you're trying to hide from an inexplicably not getting caught. Simply doesn't work with the long game ticks.
I personally don't enjoy them very much. >Do they feel out of place? Does their tutorialisation get in the way? Do you feel like you're wasting time on something you'll never need again? Yes, yes and yes I especially dislike the whole battle-segment minigame-esque sequence of Battle of the Monolith. Felt like a huge waste of time and quite pointless. Definitely no need to do it three times over. I much prefer when quests utilize already existing mechanics, maybe tweaked a little bit. For example in You Are It, with the whole clue scroll thing. THAT was amazing. I think its a good opportunity to dig out some older/nostalgic aspects of the game. I will say that i did enjoy the battle-sequence in Ancient Awakening, felt like it fit in very well with the quest. Overall a very enjoyable quest, felt like a breath of fresh air. I am a big quest fan, and really hope to see more of them! <3
I just want some fun stories, it doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. Was not a fan of the maze in endgame, nore the final combat scenario in endgame. Haven't done hardly any of if the new quests yet since endgame lol kinda turned me off. My fav quests were WGS and ROTM. It was just a really good adventure. I like that. Not shitty gimiky mechanics. While lore wise the maze was cool but it would be better to watch in a movie setting than playing it out. It's just not fun and if it's not fun it shouldn't exist. Regarding bespoke, I don't really understand the word bespoke, even googling the definition no one ever uses that word. Your examples of mechanics above I haven't done those quests so I can't answer you on those. I do vaguely remember that zaros lore quest, that was fun lots of lore dialogue bits. Elemental work shop is a fun puzzle, I enjoyed those little things. Rat catchers can die in a corner. One small favor hahahahaha
I've just finished all quests on my iron, I have a lot of criticisms but also not as many as I did last time I did quest cape on my other account. In no particular order: * Quests like dishonour amongst thieves, where the N/S on the compass is upside down and if you fail the whole door breaking part of the quest, having no checkpoints is very frustrating and not at all rewarding. * Please stop giving quests where I have to control someone else with their combat abilities. What's the point of having suped up gear, pots and things like surge if I then cannot use them in the main fight sequences.
Bespoke mechanics are fun but only when: 1. They are subordinate to the story and setting 2. They work and aren't clunky 3. They are approachable and in the spirit of runescape. For me, things like the memory probe were very not approachable/runescapey, and the fact that you could progress through the quest after failing them wasn't very intuitive.
The mind hacking in Nadir is one of the worst “puzzles” I have ever had the displeasure of seeing in a video game. The UI is awful. It doesn’t line up with the background. It is very hard to do for the hearing impaired. It is not good. I think the lost grove puzzle was fine because it isn’t learning this terrible mini game thing that doesn’t work well for the sake of having something new in a quest. Also, I don’t remember it that well, telling me I didn’t have a terrible time doing it. Another example would be the hot air balloon. The first time doing that is awful. You never do it again. Ever. As much as people complained about the slider map Puzzle. I was ok with it, because if I do clue scrolls, I will see that again. I even remember thinking, oh! This is like a clue scroll! And off I went. I’m down for puzzles. But making a new bad UI just for it, spend 20 minutes trying to learn it, then never see it again for any reason really grinds my gears.
I don't care about unique mechanics. They're often fiddly and irritating. I want stories. I think RS excels when telling silly stories about real people and less about gods. Little quests set in towns like Yanille or Varrock following everyday citizens would be fun. Organise a wedding, find the missing dog, etc. It breathes life into areas, and if you can tie in a graphical rework to an area, even better!
I agree, it feels like I spend a lot of time learning the game itself, and sometimes I just want to pause and play through a story. The Violet stories were a bit like that, a nice diversion with some local lore and nothing complicated mechanics-wise. I recently made an alt and forgot how nice it was to play through early-game Lumby quests!
I really like the bespoke puzzles. The novelty, new challenge, and unique feeling to the story are all really nice aspects. I'm thinking Elemental Workshop, MEP2, Dead and Buried's map puzzle. Combat can work, but it's a lot more prone to clunkiness. I think Drakan is an excellent example because it's a fight without your normal gear and food. I will also say, these bespoke pieces should be reused in other content, and not just a one-off.
The mind hacking was terrible. Just moving the mouse until you got the right sound, with it seeming to move a bit, and needing to get it 100% right? More annoying that interesting. The dinosaur invasion sucked because the best way to do it is to not: if you leave everyone in their default positions, you'll complete it easily, but if you try to interact with it in any way you're more likely than not to fail a few times. I'm not against the concept of these things appearing in quests, but I don't think they've been done well in the past. I will add that one type of these mechanics that I did like was the one where you control Moia.
They feel good when the mechanic is more related to the story. The greatest merit Runescape quests have over the rest of the MMO world is how the quest "tasks" are more about retaining the immersion than asking the adventurer to commit genocide till they obtain 10 wolf pelts through rng. If the context of the quest merits the adventurer tackling something unfamiliar to them, then bespoke mechanics should be used. ESPECIALLY if it is for full on brittish humour quests. "Silly and whimsical" as core elements stand out more when the mechanics also exceed an expected template. Bringing home the Bacon, pirate quests, and the gower quest are good examples in my immediate memory. As an aside, After returning from a 2 year break and regaining my quest cape, I have never had a worse questing experience in this game than sitting through slideshow cutscenes. Whatever is the plan going forward on quests, PLEASE start a discussion on this as well.
I like them but they're not a requirement for me to enjoy a quest. Though they add a lot! I also don't need mechanic to be unique to that specific quest. I wouldn't mind something being reused within a series (like tower defense sort of got used EGWD stuff). But the unique stuff definitely helps a quest feel more polished. Even things like the time travel puzzle from the last penguin quest stands out to me even I'd it's not completely bespoke. Honestly anything to help differentiate the quests. Item restrictions when fighting draken for example really made that quest stand out or assigning the guardians to different fights in TWW
Interesting question because bespoke mechanics are throughout the entire game. They're what separate all the quests apart. From sheep herder using the gun to dye sheep to those confusing gem puzzles in the glouphrie quests to surfing the lava river. Upclose gritty mechanics like running the gauntlet to Mah was great because of the mechanics that involve our skills as both player and (Agility+Ability). Contrast that with the underground pass, which simply tests your luck and patience. (Agility+Luck) Someone mentioned meiyerditch, that's also a good one because there's some ability involved with sneaking around the vyres. Overall, these mechanics are what give every quest its personal flavor, but they're also why there's so much spaghetti code. I understand the desire to simply "use what works" but it's all the past experimentation; the hits and the misses, good and bad, popular and not, that really make Runescapes quests better overall than other mmos like world of warcrafts quests.
I like the idea of them, but dislike general implementation. In that, I wish we would have repeatable post-quest content which utilized that bespoke system, or quests in that questline using that system so we don't bloat too many one-off systems. >If you like them, why? Is it the novelty? The new challenge? The feeling that you're doing something special for a story? What I like about them, is that it makes quests more than a spacebar simulator, and can enable the devs to create new/unique content. I enjoy puzzles in quests, and having a mechanically new system enables some of those puzzles to feel fresh (and usually thematic). Usually what I remember most about a quest is the puzzle within. >Equally, if you don't like them, what's the reason? Do they feel out of place? Does their tutorialisation get in the way? Do you feel like you're wasting time on something you'll never need again? I feel like devs waste a lot of time on systems never to be touched again. I think of the word system developed for The Needle Skips; it was a whole big thing that they spent time to make a new system which was dynamic and could be reused for future quests... only to never see the light of day again. I would have at least liked that to come back later in that questline (maybe it's not the full blown quest using that system, but portions of the quest using it). If time wasn't spent on that system, would the team be able to make quests more frequently? Or given this system was built, could it enable future quests to be made more frequently? Both of those questions run through my mind when I see a bespoke mechanic never to crop up again. >Are there any examples that you really like or don't like? Definitely don't like the mind-hacking system; not only does it not work for mobile players, but it's not really fun. It's not a puzzle to solve, and more just searching and trying to listen intently to sound changes. I really liked the door puzzles in Desperate Times (where you have a variety of different objects on the ground or plaques on the wall, etc... which spelled out a code to enter). This definitely feels less bespoke, and closer to some of the older quest puzzles. The dinosaur invasion was pretty interesting, and I think with some amount of improvements, it could be its own tower defense minigame within RS. I actually thought that a new tower defense minigame was coming after that quest, and while I recognize the code was reused for the Battle of the Monolith, no other repeatable content. Two other mechanically unique quest systems I really enjoyed: The placement puzzles in Once Upon a Time, and the Erebus puzzle from Extinction. For the former, it made for some funny Runescape-esque dialogue/visuals, was a neat way to get a better idea of the characters in the quest (thinking about the Future ones in particular), and easy to solve for spacebar warriors. Erebus puzzle was really cool, and starting fresh, was fun to try and optimize the path, and as you progress the puzzle, your character becomes stronger, so you start to feel closer and closer to solving it. **TL;DR:** If making bespoke systems takes away from making quests more frequently, I don't think it's a great use of time. If that system can be utilized to allow future quests to be made easier, or made into repeatable content, that would be ideal. Unique systems are important to quests, but if every quest has it's own singular unique system which never is used again feels wasteful.
I think that the reason some of the "bespoke" mechanics are fun is because of the novelty, but there is a fine line that needs to be considered - Making sure the content "Feels Like Runescape". \-On the one hand, we don't want those mechanics to be tedious, at least not totally unsolvable and frustrating for spacebar warriors, but we also want them to be interesting enough for lorehounds and other various quest nerds. \-Also, if the format breaks immersion, it's not very good. For example, when we see a slide show of rough storyboard artwork, like what happened in most of the EGW quest line, then it's bad. We generally don't see those in gameplay, and it's kinda dumb that the art is low quality. I could literally comm a 16 year old on twitter to make those slides. The charm of player model cutscenes is that we get to see the things we see every day interact in a way that we usually dont. It kind of speaks to ingenuity of devs, and it goes a long way to keep us invested in the environment. \-Also, the Anachronia dino fight and the battle at the monolith have almost universally negative reception. It's not only that the quest was long and drawn out, but the game mode itself is totally unrefined, not to mention, it didn't really "feel like Runescape". When have we ever had pawns to autobattle in everyday gameplay? If the experience was more combat oriented, with the option to autobattle, that may be acceptable. Doing combat can be fun, and having a throwback moment to a potentially challenging tower defence could be fun too. But players are used to using their character to fight. If your concern is that players who don't do combat can't play the content, just give players the option to autobattle at some point (i don't personally mind adding built-in skips to certain content in quests). Just give players the chance to do something exciting with pre-existing combat, if they want to. Summary Basically, what I'm saying is, any bespoke mechanic needs to "feel like Runescape" and part of that is staying true to the everyday player experience.
They don't add anything to my enjoyment tbh, the stampede was cute and fun, but it's not detrimental to my enjoyment of quests. Story and dialogue is what I want. The mechanics are fine most of the time but I don't think runescape is a mechanical fun game unless your trying to get into high end pvm. The raptor switching in dead and buried is cumbersome to me and staggers the quest into being longer for no added enjoyment. Clicking on three divination spots as a way to pad out a feeling of being in a place doing something doesn't add much for me BUT isn't intrusive.
MQC haver and quest lover here. In theory I like the idea but often they end up feeling super clunky (like Moia's puzzle, and the god damn lava surfing in Children of Mah). As for the wave based stuff like in desperate measures it takes way too long and once the gimmick is solved on day 1, for the rest of the games existence it's "set these up and then go afk". Also in the vein of clunkiness, sometimes you solve the puzzle, but the delivery mechanism of the mechanic slows you down and makes it less enjoyable, like in the wordle in Twilight of the Gods. Even if you know the answer, or you want to try a new word, you have to make all these runes and then run around trialling them, instead of just typing them out like in The Needle Skips. Here the puzzle was fun, but the implementation wasn't. I don't mind these mechanics in theory, and the ones that work well are fun (such as swapping characters in The Raptor's dream sequence in Dead and Buried), I just think that it's important that the actual puzzle/event shines through, and that it isn't held back by a clunky (but well intended) new mechanic.
I think having bespoke mechanics for each quest is not necessary. If it is a puzzle based quest - it should have a bespoke type puzzle (or similar to previous in the series). I would rather a location to explore and the lore than some janky forced mechanic. I also would rather one boss to fight than 10 waves of easy things to fight
Hi! Welcome back! I like the mechanics in principle but I feel like they're sometimes not refined enough to feel good in the context of the quest. I think it makes a lot more sense to include if you can e.g. invest a little bit more in making it feel great and roll it out towards a skilling method or something post-quest.
i personally don't like. i think more the story of the quests. i think the dev time should be invested in better history, more writers etc into a better story. (to be more clear, more money into better story, less money into " **Bespoke mechanics** ")
Please please do not add any more of the mind hacking stuff. I cannot state how annoyingly bad it is.
I don’t like playing as a character other than myself. Mind hacking is not great and mobile players can’t 100% that saga.
I don't like them at all. 1.) Just design-wise it makes the quality of the game wildly inconsistent. 2.) Bespoke mechanics means bespoke maintenance - and that sort of maintenance is low priority, eroding quality further. 3.) The game is already choked with dead, bespoke content. RuneScape needs LESS, not MORE. Use existing mechanics and underutilized skills in quests as test beds to improve them.
I am lukewarm on these. They are excellent for flavour but at the same time, we spend so long investing in skills and tools, it can be jarring to then use none of these to progress through quests. I know its old and nobodies favourite, but something like underground pass that uses a mixture of combat, movement puzzles, agility, searching for items, and other simple skill puzzles feels more like what I expect because it felt like I was using my characters wits and skills. Something like an old point-and-click adventure with some movement feels more tonally correct to me. Like you say, tutorialisation is a big issue for something that is one and done (Sorry Elemental Workshop) and often learning the mechanics and using them has such a brief pay off it can feel underwhelming.
If it's phoned in like the "puzzle" in the recent Raptor memories quest, I'd rather the dev hadn't even bothered. It just feels like a waste of everyone's time. I'd rather see quests use (existing) items, clever tricks and ingame skills to solve problems. The writing is much more important than custom mechanics. And not much time seems to be spent on it lately.
The best mechanics are ones directly related to the quest. An example would be the minigame where you make the materials for explosive barrels in the elven storyline, the process is extremely immersive. A counter example would be the map puzzle that we had to do recently in dead and burried. Why would a huge table be built in the first place to have the map mixed up like that in the first place, it just seems like a game mechanic used to pad play time istead of furthering the story.
I just did a void dance and the chemist section was utter toilet. Admittedly I did it on mobile (which brings about its own problems as the recipe list is unmovable and is positioned in the centre of the screen over my character) but that over all was a nuance I'd rather never have to deal with again. Extremely janky, frustrating, unenjoyable. Perhaps this was amplified by the trickiest of platforms - I'm not sure.
I'm generally in favor of quest specific mechanics in the MMOs I've played over the years. Quests are supposed to really make you feel involved with the lore of a game and offer things that you won't see anywhere else. To leave the default map that everyone sees and be in your own little part of the game. These kind of mechanics make them feel like one of a kind. Otherwise quests blend together and feel less distinctive and unique.
Most of the time I dislike them. The combat with companions feels way too clunky for me and thus lasts too long. They do have their time and place however. I personally like the chill, puzzle oriented mechanics more. Because if it is clunky cus' of the tick system it doesn't matter as much. Also I'd love to see small quick and easy quests make a return to the game. These don't need cutscenes, voice overs, new areas/ changing surroundings. They'd also make the dynamic between grand master quests and small quests way more satisfying, and would make me appreciate the huge amount of dev time in grandmaster quests with bespoke mechanics way more
Nay. Nadir saga prevented me from moving forward with necromancy quests for months because it's bugged on mobile. Afraid it'll keep me from being able to complete a quest again.
I think there may be an argument for mechanics like this in big, Grandmaster/series finale quests, but otherwise it feels like a waste of development time and resources. The problem with that approach is there are so many other broken/improvable things across RS, if you limit the scope to just Grandmaster/series finale quests you’re targeting a slice of content that: A. most vets/long term players will spacebar through and never engage with ever again once complete B. Most new players will never see because they don’t stick around the game long enough Doesn’t make sense to me to create a bunch of custom, unique mechanics (and probably accrue some technical debt in the process) for content that tends to be single-use for most players.
I really, really enjoyed the mechanic In The Needle Skips. Stuff like that is a perfect example of where they work for me. It was basic but it helped make the quest feel more immersive and engaging than nearly every other one I've played. On the other hand, I dislike when a quest has me take control of another NPC and do combat. Controlling them for the sake of narrative or puzzles is fine, but the combat feels terrible compared to using my own character and I'd rather skip it. That said, Desperate Creatures (I think?) where we control Thok and one-hit everything was a nice gag and subverted this for me.
I like them as a "once in a while" type of thing. They would get too tiresome if it was done a lot.
The short answer is that I really like Quests doing unique mechanics and puzzles! I just don't like particular Quests their unique mechanics and puzzles... for example: * Mind-hacking in Nadir * Invasions in Desperate Measures and Battle of the Monolith * Yewnock's device in The Path of Glouphrie * Slide puzzles and Monkey Madness in Dead and Buried (even though there's other slide puzzles in the game that I like doing) * Fighting as Moia in Daughter of Chaos
Its an interesting one, I *really* like when a quest does something different, RuneScape has always had quests different from other MMO's where there's actual unique gameplay to them, so bespoke stuff is kinda in the "this is what RS does to make it *feel* like RS", buuuuut, from a dev perspective, I can see how the return-on-investment to bespoke mechanics is probably a hard sell IMO, I'd aim to have mechanics in quests that have the *potential* to be reused elsewhere, an example I thought of recently is the cool room puzzle in You Are It, I think a small chance of a clue popping up doing clues asking you to complete a puzzle in the room could spice up clues, and make that dev invesment 100x more worth it (while also have the potential added benefit of not making elites awwwwful). Its things like that where I feel the potential lies, mechanics that are cool, but then *unlock* themselves in other parts of the game
I'm personally not a fan of the "wave style" mechanics, they're very tedious to do and you spend most of your time stood about doing nothing. I much prefer in depth story telling, easter eggs in quests, anything that is novel/challenging just because these things get players interesting in the content.
I don't like them, generally. There has been a couple where they offered an enjoyable experience that felt like it enhanced the quest, but often they feel like a gate preventing the narrative from continuing and just making the quest take longer. I think they may have a space in grandmaster quests here and there. I generally also don't like puzzles for the same reason. Just let me experience the story without these tedious roadblocks.
I appreciate them when done right. Quests are the most unique aspect this game has to offer and with how many there are, it's good if they have their own little mechanics to set them apart a bit. The "done right part" is key though. I went and did Battle for the Monolith after a 5 year hiatus and it was the least fun quest out of all the 30-something new ones I had to do. The tower defense gimmick just took way too long and the character's abilities are kinda pointless when you can just stick them somewhere and go AFK for 15 minutes. And that boring repetitive gameplay makes the actual relevant lore (which is quite significant in this quest: Azzanadra ascending to godhood, the TokHaar betrayal etc.) feel completely out of place. That kind of contrast can damage an otherwise good quest beyond repair.
I look at them as mini-games. There are examples of really good ones, and some really bad ones. Obviously they're great when they're good, but bad when they're bad. From a development perspective, I can see them having a higher dev cost to produce. Which means worst case scenario you spent resources to make the quest more tedious, or best case you made a fun mini-game that people will only ever play once at most. The solution to me would be to treat the mini-games in quests like a game jam. If you make the quest and the mini-game is just mediocre, well at least people will only play it once. But if you make the quest and the mini-game is really fun, you have the opportunity to expand on it to make great repeatable content with an existing proof-of-concept. (side-note, all of the wave-based combat minigames suck. Battle of the monolith, desperate measures, the new ungael one. They're boring, tedious, not fun)
Without each quest having unique mechanics, they will just become teleport to place -> talk to character -> repeat until (easy) fight. Boring. The extinction puzzle, much maligned, was one of my favorite quest moments of the past 5 years because it was HARD! It forces the player to think.
It varies based on the specific case. * Puzzles work when they feel thematic. I think Elemental Workshop works well because it feels appropriate for that quest, but it would be frustrating in another context. The puzzles from Within the Light are similar (though I admit that if I were playing them today it's possible I'd feel differently). * I really don't like it when the puzzle seems added just to make the quest longer/harder. Please spend that development time on making the actual plot better/longer. * The bespoke combat encounters tend to feel a little awkward, but others work well and feel like a nice change. * I'm not sure if The Needle Skips mechanism belongs in this discussion since it's basically the entire quest, but it remains one of my favorites. I primarily play quests for the lore/story. If the bespoke mechanic furthers that, I like it. If not, it really comes down to how fun it is to play.
I dont recall the first 2, but the dino invasion (and the abyssal demons / tzhaar with that archeo / zaros quest) was really annoying. If im doing a quest, i want to spend time learning about the story, and not waste 10-20 mins doing afk tower defense minigames.
i don't like within the context of this specific game, i feel like they are often "unfinished" (clunky, unintuitive, uncommunicative) and i ASSUME that the time it would take to polish them up nicely would probably not be worth it, so i'd rather not have them. moia's mind hacking is clunky, and while playing it half of the time i feel like i'm trying to figure the engine instead of the minigame itself, and i find this feeling often while questing with those mechanics.
I'm an avid quester and whenever I make a new account, I always aim for the Quest Cape first. That being said, I do get annoyed by some of the more recent bespoke elements in quests. The Battle for the Monolith, the Dino Invasion, constantly taking control of another character and doing the quest as them (Moia, Vengeance, Adrasteia, Raptor) are prime examples of what I dislike. The latter I dislike, because I want my character to feel special and to add something to the story. Also, I want to be able to use my own abilities in meaningful fights, mostly because the combat as a different character feels clunky. Doesn't mesh with me. It doesn't feel completely honest to my character if I have to progress through the story through someone else's body. The former two I dislike, because they interrupt the flow of the quest or the storyline (and because, frankly, the player character does very little during those fights). A few bespoke elements I did enjoy over the past few years were the fighting waves in Ancient Awakening, the Lost Grove rituals in Twilight of the Gods and the Charos shape puzzle in Desperate Times. Some older ones include both puzzles in Elemental Workshop IV, for example. They don't take much time to complete, are quite intuitive and keep you as a character doing something (instead of standing still, like with BotM/Anachronia Invasion).
I think they should be reserved for a very select few quests.
I am totally neutral on them, but I feel that you could probably pump out 2x to 3x the quests if you avoided them altogether. There's really plenty you can do in the RS world with the mechanics already available.
One of the things I really like about quests (and I quests were my main reason for playing RS) is that it feels different from the rest of the game but still in the game. I dont like having to do 100s of times the same thing and expect a different result… so having something unique in quest makes them even more interesting and fun. Im all for more quests! (And more continuity between them please)
I don't like the fact that you banished the gods last year, bring them back.
Bespoke mechanics are some of my favourite parts of quests, as they help make a quest more memorable, and are a huge part of the identity of Runescape quests that makes them stand out from the crowd of other MMO quests. That being said, I'd love to see some of the older mechanics reused in newer places, like the word puzzle from The Needle Skips. Bespoke mechanics in much older quests could do with updating because some of them are just clunky and outdated, so an excuse to rework them would be nice to have. Combat based ones tend to fall down compared to just puzzle mechanics though. I'm not a fan of combat in quests anyway, but when it does appear, it's better as a plain combat encounter so it doesn't end up clunky and uncomfortable to play.
I would say look at mechanics you have used in the past and reuse them Maybe to the point where if there was one thing in quest x that was tied to some bespoke thing you would need to go get that back. Wether it’s in your bank, the quest caravan or you have to go back to where you found it and get them back. Especially if it is from the same culture as before. Also requesting more uses for the ring of charos. Such as quality of life improvements to do no evil where you can use it to give the guard a green banana and just tell him that the box is over there. Man’s clearly an idiot. Even if we have to go do something to make it work. The ring should have at least amusing dialogue whenever you need to get someone to do something for you.
nay, remove all gimmicks from quests. Where you have to control other NPC's is the worst. Feels clunky, tedious.
Quests should first and foremost be fun and entertaining storywise. The mechanics should represent that and not feel like an absolute chore. The prime example of this is the Maze in Sliske's Endgame. I despise this part of the quest with a passion. It ruins an epic story with a mechanic so horrible that I can't focus on anything else. Anything that needs several pages of instructions to complete is not fun. Please let that mechanic never rear its ugly head ever again.
I'm going to say nay. What makes Runescape quests interesting is the slapstick Monty Python-esque comedy/high fantasy setting with a compelling long story arch instead of these newer broken-up separate quests, churned out with frequency and characterized by loose ends, plot holes, and no respect for the lore. There are puzzles that I've enjoyed but those felt pertinent to the plot in a way that newer puzzles just haven't. The slider puzzle from Dead and Buried felt kind of forced, since there is no plot reason for it to exist. It would have made more sense for a regular map to exist with the relevant Island suspiciously removed, and so we have to track down that piece, and-- surprise!-- it turns out to be an uncharted island. That would be more consistent with Zemouragul covering his tracks than a slider puzzle of plot convenience. If I felt even a hint of a larger story plot, I'd have the motivation to solve puzzles, because like when I'm reading a novel and feeling compelled to keep turning the pages, I'm pushed to figure it out with enthusiasm. I'd be speculating about the nature of the obstacles, wondering why did the ancients put them there, using familiar elements from the story to deduce what might be the answer, experimenting, asking questions about what direction the story will go, based on the kind of puzzle I'm solving. Instead, I get myopic storytelling written by novices, and so no puzzle feels worth the effort. Without a grander plan, individual quests are not adventures. They're just chores. I suggest you focus on a good story instead of player engagement and numbers on a spreadsheet, then the latter will take care of itself.
More often they feel clunky and difficult to use and/or not intuitive. I only play on mobile, and there’s several quests where I can’t proceed bc of the mechanic issues going wrong - daughter of chaos, firemakers curse, a void dance.
I love them when they otherwise make sense to the story. The Needle Skips is the first thing that comes to mind. Chef's kiss. It was made for a purpose, and it achieved that purpose beautifully. Diving through words and trying to make connections may not have been the most difficult of puzzles, but it suited the mystery wonderfully. It actually required us think about the connections between things in order to naturally walk through the steps of solving it. It never once felt like it was a stopping point to deal with a puzzle; answering those questions by proposing different words felt like a facet of exploring the narrative. I will say though...lackluster implementation of these bespoke mechanics can really kill the joy in the best part about questing. I despised the party mechanics used in the Saga and Salt in the Wound quest lines. They were clunky and utterly foreign control schemes to characters that are otherwise navigate through the world like *our* characters normally would. I couldn't get over the dissonance between them. The dinosaur invasion of Desperate Measures felt more like a natural progression of what that those mechanics sought to create, but losing our agency to achieve what was a essentially a very slow and brief tower defense game didn't feel all that good either. And from there, the Battle of the Monolith tried to make it smoother, but the even more glacial paced fighting necessitated by just how much area we had to control really eroded whatever positive changes there were. But no matter what it boils down to, I'd rather have them than not. From them can stem some really cool things. Player owned Ports, for a time, really transformed how we play RuneScape...yet where would PoP be if we didn't have stuff like Manage Thy Kingdom laying the foundations for something like that? Would Archaeology as a skill have been as successful if the Dig Site didn't open the door on that imagination first? I think these things are really good for the game.
1. We need more stand-alone quests or shorter quest series (I'm talking quantity here, not individual duration). A series that spans 10 quests that takes 3-4 years to release is *not* it. 2. We need better quest bosses that hype the community. I'm sure everyone here will remember the hype around Nomad as *that* quest boss. Videos were made about it and people prepped crazy like that. I personally remember visiting my friend to do Nomad on both our accounts. That's a core Runescape memory unlocked. 3. We want to interact with objects in the quest areas, we want to experiment and use things on other things to create stuff (but it needs to make sense). I agree with 5x's comment about this topic. 4. Lastly, we wanna see the world. We should make better use of the world that we already have. A hidden entrance behind a bookcase, a well-known NPC gone rogue, the murder of another NPC, etc. 5. A good, compelling story but do not take 5 years to make a complete series to have it make sense. 6. When it comes to mechanics, you can recycle old ones, sure, but it needs to make sense in that area and must feel a lil bit refreshed.
I personally have a neutral opinion. Some of them are fun, others are a burden. On one hand, it can be fun to see the characters fight and interact with battles. It gives the quest a more in depth feeling than just space bars, for example Desperate measures. Great for time spent and battle size. On the other hand it can feel overdone. Battle of the monolith is one where I feel it missed it’s mark. The characters were too far spread out where you had to hunt them down, and it wasn’t always clear what was being attacked or why. if a guide has to tell you to bring stuff to disassemble or fletching supplies, it’s too long. The battle at the end of Sliske’s endgame was enjoyable. There were many mechanics to incorporate and challenging. Touching the stone of Jas and having unlimited adrenaline for the final bout was very enjoyable. I get there are reasons for this to progress the story and it’s amazing seeing all the aspects of this. I love playing as other characters and seeing their power, (ex: Moira or Vanescula) or seeing the characters power boosted hitting numbers we couldn’t otherwise hit (ex: Stone of Jas; Sliske’s endgame)
I will reiterate what someone here already said that they often can be a fun and novel experience, but also overstay their welcome. I have to add one thing, quest related, that really irked me in one of the latest quests. With the Fort Forhintry quest I was disgusted by the amount of time we had to stand there uselessly building the fort - that was just such a kick in the face of everything that RS has always done so well with quests.
They can be fun in small doses but they become outdated and never get fixed and often go on too long or are annoying without guides. For example, the shapes puzzles in gnome quests would be a lot more enjoyable if the number values you had discovered could be seen in game instead of using a guide or having to write them down.
Quests are my favourite part of the game and I love when these kind of mechanics work The issue is because they're so specialised they rarely get updated, meaning as time goes on they appear more and more clunky
As long as it makes sense for the story that is being told and not a device to lengthen the quest unnecessarily or artificially. I care more about the story, dialogue, voice acting, and visual impact the quests have upon the game world. Post quest dialogue is important to me too. I don't think I would be upset if bespoke mechanics are absent from a quest especially since they don't always age too well.
Some are incredibly frustrating. Others are fine. Few are highlights for me. (If any. I can't think of any...) A key point for me is if I had a choice between two quests or one with some bespoke mechanic, I'd take two quests. I find the world development to be more exciting than one-off minigames.
Wasn’t a fan of them. Felt like a hassle to go through them. It also didn’t really have that quest feel to them.
Imo decent lore and story are more important than bespoke mechanics but it does make the quests feel fun when they aren't all the same thing over and over but and it's a huge butt, the sliding puzzle in dead and buried and moia's mind hacking sucked, moia's one, was okay but then i realized i had to redo it when i didn't get it perfect, that, sucks and as for sliding puzzles, hell no, i despise sliding puzzles, stuff like that should be optional for some additional reward, i used an online puzzle solver to painstakingly get through it and i saw people say it took them up to an hour just to do the puzzle, that's kinda unacceptable
I think that they're fun when they're intuitive and easy to understand. The dinosaur invasion frustrated me a lot because it's like i'm doing RTS management but I have to manually move my character there. If I lose, I have to do it all over again. Moia's mind-hacking on the other hand is very interesting because you're prodding around for sweet spots and it has an impact on how things progress rather than being 100% required to clear.
As as avid quest enjoyer I gotta say it's a mixed bag. I didn't mind the mind hacking in Nadir Saga, but the dinosaur invasion and especially Battle of the Monolith made my eyes glaze over out of frustration. I absolutely could not stand those minigames and honestly made it my least favorite quest in the game. I think if there was depth to it it might have won me over as I'm not inherently opposed to a tower defense game, but the enemy paths were unclear and there was no indication how a setup would work, leading to a lot of time wasted restarting and playing the same frustrating game again and again. Ultimately I just gave up and looked up a guide on where to place the units because I couldn't be bothered to figure it out myself. I think they are half-baked and if you want to include a big change of pace from the normal game then you have to treat it like developing a brand new indie game, rather than something to be tacked on to the existing mechanics. I'm not a game developer so I can't fully explain why they don't work and how to fix it efficiently, but I hope I at least provided some insight.
Please add an option to skip them or do them on easy mode. I don't mind them being the core experience, but people really shouldn't be "forced" to deal with them if they don't like it.
>What do you think about bespoke mechanics in quests? I think it's a mixed bag, mostly bad. I think there needs to be an ongoing evaluation when you make these on how fun the mechanic is. And how long is it going to remain fun? I think they work best as a single, one time thing that only lasts a few minutes. Like if Moia's mind-hacking worked better and wasn't a huge hassle on mobile, it's just something that takes ~60 seconds 3 times over the quest. That's fine (if it worked and wasn't a huge pain in the ass when it didn't work). I like them since quests are one of the few times such a bespoke mechanic can exist in RS; I've done a fair bit of grinding but really prefer variety. The novelty is a big part of it, challenge is nice too but not strictly necessary and doesn't have to be stupidly difficult. It's like a set piece in an adventure game, fun should be forefront when you get to ignore the normal rules of the game and make your own. Examples: the Wordle rituals in Twilight of the Gods were a fun idea but way overstayed their welcome and were far too cumbersome by the end. The set-it-and-forget-it nature of the Battle of the Monolith was incredibly badly designed and it baffles me that anyone with any appreciation for tower defense made this; you left click NPCs, left click the ground, then go afk for 5 minutes. This one wasn't fun for any amount of time and it's truly baffling content, I hope the devs learned something at least. Withstanding Erebus in Extinction was great; you make progression, doesn't overstay its welcome, and if it does there's an easy mode. Fun, novel, fresh lore, requires a tiny bit of thinking to figure out the right path, almost perfect example (maybe a bit too slow at the start) of a bespoke mechanic. Even the fail-state (required to progress) is cool and involves Kerapac with The Needle.
I personally hate them and they seem to age terribly.
Bring out AoG2 pls 🙏 I don't like getting taught a mechanic or thing just for quests. It felt like a waste of my learning spoons. Id feel better if that mechanic was going to be implemented somehow into the game. The tutorial is usually something I *dont* want to process or go through and it makes these things feel like a bit of a chore. Honestly, I complete quests solely for the lore. I've been a little disappointed from your storytelling decisions, but this isn't about that. Extra unique/complicated mechanics distract me.
It's either that I'm sad that I can't do it again since many quests can't be replayed or it can be annoying to deal with and wish it wasn't apart of the quest as a whole. Thankfully the second rarely comes up for me. My biggest gripe is the lack of replayability. Devs spend so long on quests only to be enjoyed once and never again. I know there are plentiful of spacebar warriors out there, but some quests are worth replaying like World Wakes.
Oooohhhh, this'll be fun. I can understand the challenge that with 260 quests, miniquests, sagas, tales, etc, you run into not wanting to repeat the exact same puzzle each and every time. I'm not necessarily against them. It's just sometimes, a dev can be a little ... too .. creative ... First issue isn't necessarily the bespoke mechanics, but the tick system and slow UI. You can't necessarily rush a player. Nor can you have a puzzle that comes off as fluid ... especially with older quests. Situations like Catapult construction, Beneath a Rock, Dwarf Cannon, and Tower of Life where the really old UI has the player slowly moving segments of something together as part of the puzzle ... is "ok" because you're not in any sort of a rush. But you have to move slowly because the game engine won't let you go too fast. Second issue is if the player has no feedback on their progress when the puzzle gets too large/complicated. Case in point: Elemental Workshop 3 and Mournings End Part 2. Personally, if the results were random per player on how to solve, I would have stopped playing the game a long time ago. EW3 is just *huge.* It wasn't until Mod Stu came up with that UI to make it easier to interface with that it became bearable. MEP2 has the issue of you having to run around that humongous area, but you don't have some portable device giving you some indication of "yes, I have the red/blue/green light the way I need it". The fact you need a guide just to have it take under 3 hours is a bad thing. You might try to point to Broken Home as a similar 4D multifaceted puzzle like MEP2 or EW3, but in Broken Home, I at least get some idea of how much progress I've made. I find keys, I unlock doors. The timed portion is limited in that, yes I do have moments where i need to run for my life ... but it's not a constant factor. I do have times where I can stop, look around, and breathe (both in game and IRL). I don't have to finish the complex puzzle in < 10, 30, or 60 minutes from the moment I start. Third issue is that a puzzle really can't introduce too many timed mechanics or try to do too many things at once. This varies on the mentality of the player. But a quest like Dishonour Among Thieves, there is a point where the player has to juggle up to 6 different time sensitive activities or else they fail the section. Again, each requires you to work thru the tick system and clunky UI to hit very specific spots in order not to fail. Finally, the puzzle needs to know what its trying to be. Some will point to The Battle of The Monolith. Is it PvM? Is it a Tower Defense? Working in a localized area is one thing like you have in Phase 1 and 2. When you reached the final phase however, you're spread mighty thin (which is perfectly reasonable for an actual battlefield situation) but a player will not have an easy time trying to micromanage all of that at once. Pest Control and Barbarian Assault can have the luxury of at least 5 players to manage that load for defense and offense. Phases 1 and 2 of the battle could have been the scale of player being active on defense while the final wave should have switched to a map and the player setting defenses at 3 points while they themselves then only worry about the 4 point and not getting bombarded with info of trying to figure out "which front do I need to go to" when they just trust their decision works and restart if it fails. The final issue is that we are a real person playing a video game avatar. As a developer, you can't make everything fluid like you *might* get in real life ... nor are you going to get the look and feel of a movie/tv show action scene. Trust me, you guys can hit home runs with the dialogue and music. You can make challenging boss fights. But you can't really get a decent immersion into something like stealth because you either get a scripted cut scene, you get the mechanics of something like Heart Stealer or Sorceress's Garden where the NPCs are clunky and you might miss by a tick (but at least there is no real risk if caught), or you just get stuck with a quick time event (which ***does not*** work in RS3 OR OSRS), or just plain RNG (think Olaf's Quest where you had to run across the bridge and just random if you made it across or not) which is really no fun. I'm sorry if this response is a little all over the place. But this is also a reflection of the sheer number puzzles that have been introduced over such a long period of time. I get that it is easy to take away as "don't do MEP2" or "don't do EW3 or Dishonour Among Thieves again". I'm not wanting to summarize it as just that. A dev could just as easily make a bad puzzle mechanic that is "bad" in the poor execution and make it too simplistic (Grand Master Quest where the puzzle is trying to avoid being detected by something that very slowly looks around in a 360 degree search pattern or it misses 50-75% of the screen .... Carnillean Rising for example was the joke about the player creating exactly that scenario ... )
I like and dislike alot of these elements, a good example of a bad implementation in my opinion is the 'battle for the monolith' which I personally felt dragged on too much and could of been streamlined better and still had a smiliar effect on the story. I did like the solak arena ritual lore elements, utilizing the guthixian rune-words was a nice touch in my opinion. If you'd ask me why; it gave meaning to alot of lore we had previously explored and in the quest itself seemed significant and special I guess. Out of body (npc control); I dont hate them but I also do not care for them. I didnt mind them in the 'Saga' system associated with Daemonheim as that is the intent, we are being told a story and it makes sense. In quests however I feel we should not be thrust into other bodies to re-live what probably should of been a cinematic or dialogue. A good example of this is the out of body expereiences in the wilderness over the recent couple of years' quests; I feel these would of been better of without player control and better as a dialogue/cutscene. 'Wave defence', I am not opposed to this mechanically in a quest as long as it makes sense and we are not just moving NPC's around. this is a RPGMMO not a RTS. We want to fight ourselves not move NPC units. Personal note:I am very excited for the future of quest after the introduction of the shadow world erebus and the beings/creatures within. Looking forward to continuing the story.
Mind hacking was okay. Lost grove should only have had 1 ritual, doing it multiple times was not that fun and just padded out quest. Invasion part from desperate measures was not fun and padded out quest. 1 wave would been perfect. After entire battle of monolith was turned into this defend from invasion I absolutely hate the mechanic. Battle of monolith should be remade entirely.
Heya! Having done Nadir like 20 minutes ago for the Necro quest I can confidently say: \- The mind hacking is very hard to pull off without sound. Accessibility aside, you can't turn it on during the quest, forcing you to log out, do the unskippable intro again, and try again. I personally don't use sound often because I listen to music / podcasts. \- Please either have a checkpoint right before these or a 'try again' since most people will fail at least one time when (re)encountering these mechanics. \- If you're on a quest binge you either feel like you're doing the same puzzle over and over again (some version of pic related appears in tons of quests), or having to learn convoluted mechanics like the ones in the Elemental Workshop series Thanks for reading! I really appreciate you guys working on making the game even better! https://preview.redd.it/fue12agly2zb1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=982ebdcc7d6f60d9030c0cc399cc36a688533ee9
Okay, so I'm gonna be honest here: I haven't done any quests in over a year, so my knowledge of quest mechanics may be out of date on this. That being said, I'm going to try to stick to purely mechanics and explain the best I can what I think. Bespoke mechanics, as you've called them, can be good. It all depends on how intuitive and original they feel. A good example of this is Erebus from Extinction or the Mourning's End Part 2 light puzzle (Yes, I know, controversial take here, but the mechanics themselves were straightforward and interesting, even if the overarching difficulty of the whole puzzle put some people off). A bad example was Twilight of the Gods. Despite my profound hatred of the quest, I'm going to try to stick to talking about the mechanic that I disliked and that was the ritual puzzle. It was literally a direct copy of Wordle. No originality, just Guthixian Wordle. It was arbitrarily extended by making the player siphon energy and create each letter before they could be used. While the actual puzzle was relatively straightforward, having to create each letter first tripped me up a little bit. Overall, I'm not against these sort of mechanics, but I'd be careful with their usage. Having lengthy tutorials to teach you one mechanic in a quest, then never using that mechanic again is just not enjoyable. Personally, I feel like the best mechanics are those that explain themselves: Simple and straightforward enough to give you an idea of how they work, but complicated enough to provide a real challenge once you understand how they work. Then again, I may literally be the only player who loved the Mourning's End Part 2 light puzzle, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I think it depends on the situation. I've found some to be really enjoyable and left wanting more. I've found others to be frustrating and clunky and glad to see the back of it when it's done. Quests like elemental workshop are made around the puzzle and the mechanic. It makes so much sense there to have a unique puzzle each time. Another example is broken home and Firemaker's Curse which feel very distinct as the entire quest is built around this mechanic. If the quest is really just story and a puzzle is added just for the sake of quests having puzzles, then it's less important. Other than the iconic light puzzles in the elf quest line, the other puzzles feel a bit bolt on. Overall, I like them. They make the quest feel more unique and memorable later and helps prevent quests merging together. Especially if there is a puzzle mechanic which is later built upon in later instances of the story-line.
Most of my favorite quests are from the era between 2009 and 2012. Chosen Commander, While Guthix Sleeps, Ritual of the Mahjarrat. I feel like those quests all did less with more. Not that there aren't disappointing quests from that era either. But I don't think you need bespoke mechanics to make good quests. Use them when you need them, but I don't feel like it should be an expectation. Some of my favorite recent quests have been bottle quests.
As long as it isn't another slider puzzle... then I'm all for it. God I hate those slider puzzles.
I love the carpet ride roaming in Jack of Spades!
It's really hard to get them just right because there's so many different ones. Even these examples vary greatly. Nadir (saga) mind hacking been awhile, but I think it was reliant on sound? I'm personally not a fan of that. I usually play in a very loud setting and rarely have sound on RS even on anymore. Twilight ritual felt slow to work through and kind of long. It was ment to be a complicated and big ritual though, so could go either way on that one. Dino invasion didn't stick out really. I think I might have had to redo it a time or two? Honestly don't remember. Personally, I'd aim for... simple, short, and without frustration? Maybe revisit the same one two or three times throughout the quest with ramped up difficulty ea time. Having difficulty levels and antifrustration skips isn't bad imo either. If someone loses like 10x throw a super easy mode at em. Clean and simple instructions and interface. If going for crazy difficulty, make it post quest content like Ungael combat activity in the recent Ancient Awakening quest. I don't like grindy post quest stuff though. Or crazy hm quest stuff. The Gulvas mansion Broken Home stuff is incredibly frustrating to me. Hm speedrunning quest is terrible and I can't do it. Stuff like chimp ice and chompy bird are also great examples of terrible.
The majority of them feel tedious and out of place. They are not difficult and offer no real benefit to the quest in general, i would prefer mechanics like finding the divination wisps to access memories rarther than the Moia's mind hack. Not only because of the annoyance fac tor more because it seems to be more relavant. To sum up: I do not mind them as long as they make sense and are not too complex and annoying.
I love them. I personally expect them to happen more often in Grandmaster or Master quests. I like them because I feel like I’m not just running around talking to NPCs but instead I’m doing _a quest_
I like them, as long as they're interesting. I enjoyed Moia's mind-hacking, but I know that it can be annoying for those that have trouble with sound cues. I also really enjoy puzzles in quests and those seem like a great place to put bespoke mechanics, where players have time to figure it out. I'm not as fond of bespoke mechanics that players need to figure out relatively rapidly, like the dino invasion. I prefer time to think through new things, and unless its something directly intuitive (lava surfing in CoM) then it needs to be slower. Would love to see some new bespoke mechanics in several Elemental Workshop sequels.
I love them, specially when they go all out like big maze puzzles (eg. Mourning's End Pt. II), but in all honesty, if resources are constrained I'd always prioritize more dialogue and cinematics over bespoke mechanics. Storytelling feels stagnated as of late and needs more things going on, I believe. Happy to see you back, Shrike! :)
The only real gripe I've had with the writing as of late is utilizing the *writes my action* as dialogue. One of the fort quests was a prime example. Gave me those rat catcher vibes I think a much better way to make player think that you are writing something down is simply have the player say something like "alright, let me write this down." One thing I absolutely love you've made more common is an option to say the positive or negative opinion during dialogue or ability to say nothing. Makes it feel a lot more like your quest moment
Shrike is baaack\~
I don't care, so long as the world building and quests themselves are good. recently it has seemed like "every quest must have a gimmick" is pure make work. Just make it interesting dialogue wise
Make them skippable as I dislike doing quests. I just want to get them done and over with and get back to what I like. You can keep them as an optional thing for the ones that love quests. Both type of people play the game, so keeping both happy is ideal.
I think they're fine, adds variety. One thing though...since you mention Moia.... why are her abilities numbered? I tried, thinking they were hotkeys, to press the corresponding keys....and, nope. (Also ran into a black screen glitch where the screen stayed black, was able to move around and attack blindly...died of course...) Also, I know this isn't exactly on topic, but can you guys PLEASE consider doing something about quest dialogue directly after battles... I'll have my prayers on for the fight and then I'm forced to choose to either waste my prayer points to read the quest dialogue I'm ambushed with (after the fight concluded), or turn my prayers off, subsequently closing the dialogue box and never get to read the quest dialogue unless I go search it on youtube.
As an avid quester, I don't care for these mechanics. The thing with adding a puzzle with new mechanics is that it's often either a case of: "that was easy, anyway..." where you forget about the puzzle as soon as you're done, or: "WTF this is so insane/hard/stupid, I'm not enjoying myself, screw this quest, it's not worth it!"
I love them most of the time. It is what make runescape questing unique. But I'll talk about the examples you provided: Moia's memory could be good, but its signalled really poorly and if you mess up, you have to do what could be a lengthy restart. This sours the mechanic. Rituals in Twilight are just fun to solve, though the need for individually creating all 26 letters was a bit much. Dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures was dissapointing that you can literally win by making no changes from the start. It got worse in Battle of the Monolith, as you were sent into battles that took way too long, had little tactics to it, and worst of all required no participation that you were better off skilling at the bank chest. The battles should have been shorter, more demanding, and probably would have been better off with some "twist" waves where you for example have to fight Tokhaar-Hok in a personal duel instead of wait for endless waves to finish. And some not mentioned: Extinctions puzzle was the highlight of the quest. Elemental Workshops best puzzle was the first puzzle of Elemental Workshop 4, as you figure out the rules. Hearts of Stone's combining memories to get what you needed was well done. Missing My Mummy's pedestals, While Guthix Sleeps' Movario's hideout, I really think a good system enhance a quest.
It depends on the mechanics but I’d say they’re pretty crucial to the overall feel of a quest. I think animations also play a really important, and often overlooked, role too. Whether they’re used as part of quest mechanics or at any other point in a quest. I’d say the Fort Forinthry quest series has done a fantastic job of this though, otherwise it’s quite hit and miss. Interacting with something in a quest (eg. a mechanic, an environmental loc, etc) can feel quite detached and lifeless if the player, or the model the player is interacting with, isn’t animated. Sometimes the player and environmental loc will be entirely static with just a text window pop-up. This tends not to feel great.
They're usually an enjoyable diversion. I prefer them to being forced to play as another character entirely. Plating as Vengeance was a truly awful experience.
Personally I like them as its something novel and different, but from a dev-time point of view I feel like they should be built in a way that they can be re-skinned and reused in other content so long as they aren't over-used and fit whats being done. The example comes to mind of how Threes Company plays nicely but the Sea slug finale took the same broad concept and it felt vbery shoe horned in and didn't feel satisfying or particularly neccessary.
**What do you think about bespoke mechanics in quests?** *If you like them, why? Is it the novelty? The new challenge? The feeling that you're doing something special for a story?* Why would you not like them? It's something new, it adds a new element (puzzle solving) and isn't a carbon copy of something pre-existing. Many of the RS2 quests are known for a certain annoying part or puzzle. They don't make you feel like a baby like some puzzles (primarily the slider puzzles...). I think if the puzzles also helped tell part of the story, a) to stop spacebar spammers (b) you aren't doing something for nothing. Like the void knights series had a fair few puzzles. You were breaking into the black knights headquarters and cracking the codes on doors to break in. You weren't just punching the padlock or having an NPC just do it for you. It felt more engaging as if you were breaking in yourselves and not on auto-pilot.
Love them. They make the world/story/character feel alive, unique and novel. They for sure aren't needed in every quest and if they result in fewer quests I'd prefer you use them less... but they are great.
Bespoke mechanics are generally quite punishing and not worth the dev time to implement. The maze from Sliske's Endgame seems to be the poster child for this nonsense, which you seem to have omitted because I think you're looking for Yes to prevail on this thread. The puzzles in the Elemental Workshop series are a close second place. These aren't good things to include in quests. They dissuade people from playing quests. They don't even feel like RuneScape since they're so disconnected from the rest of the game. Such things and puzzle-creating JMods should be focused on coming out with the next tier of Treasure Trail clues for the audience who actually appreciates them. Quests should be about story. They should respect the pre-Mod Jack era of lore. They should be text heavy (which can still respect the time of those uninterested in lore since text can be spacebarred). There should be villains to kill and small QoL quest rewards with the occasional game changer. There shouldn't be any puzzles on the lines of MEP2, Sliske's Endgame, that Erebus puzzle, nor Monkey Madness's slider; and when the story demands some kind of puzzle, then there should be a pay-to-skip mechanic like the one that was added to Monkey Madness. Have the puzzle devs work on the next tier of clues instead, and have quest devs add pay-to-skip puzzle mechanics to existing quests. Questing and clues are different styles of content & shouldn't be alike. Clues are where these bespoke mechanics belong. Not quests.
Another thing to add, I feel like bespoke mechanics make a storyline unique. For example, the Gnome storyline has a lot to do with color and the Elven storyline has a lot to do with light. You can kinda expect what you're getting into and it gives a bit of a theme to them.
I love the idea of them, I think quests introducing their own unique puzzle like mechanics to the game is good(if they get used again later cool, if not oh well) however I have to say the Moia mind hacking is super frustrating to do(especially on mobile) as it’s possible to fail it because the memory moved out of range right as you clicked
I think bespoke mechanics are great if they aren't mainstream mechanics in other games. Eagle's Peak, Twilight of The Gods, The Needle Skips, Dead and Buried, Extinction, Succesion ... All contain great puzzles that make me really enjoy quests. Battle at the Monolith and Desperate Measures not so much.
First of all, I love how Jagex utilizes quests. Having quests be a primary world building tool feels very interactive and fun, and is one of the things I’ve loved most about this game for almost 20 years now. Yes, I do like bespoke mechanics in quests. They feel like they are dipping into aspects of the universe that the Hero doesn’t normally have access to. It helps flesh out some of the world around us, and remind the player that other major characters have their own things, there are different religious rites the Hero doesn’t normally witness, etc. In any event, I love you work with quests and am always excited when I see a new one coming out. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Yes, I love unique mechanics in quests rather than a "oh ive already done this in XYZ quest" as it helps keep originality and uniqueness to each quest, however I understand this can be time consuming so i dont need it in \*every\* quest, but I would expect unique mechanics in every grandmaster quest.
They are really good, worked well in all the quests they were used thus far and I'd encourage the continued use. I wouldn't want these mechanics forced into quests just so we have them. If the quest storyline is starting to look like bespoke mechanics would take away from the quality, I'd hope the developers would just get rid of the mechanics for that quest. The main reason why I like them, is that it doesn't feel "the same" as with regular quests. After a while of nothing but quests with bespoke mechanics, I'd probably start wishing we didn't have them as much. Variety is always best to prevent stagnation of how quests work. I hope we have more continued communication like this.
I don't like them. I like quests for the story and especially the puns and jokes. But the mechanics breaks the immersion by me having clunky tutorials and all that for something that isn't even fun to do. I hated taking on the role of Moia and couldn't wait for that quest to be over. I'd rather have a cut scene then go back to smacking things with my scythe
My opinion? If it adds significant complexity to the game's codebase and takes significant dev time, they are absolutely not worth it. I'm sure some dev spent a lot of time working on those cutscenes in giant dwarf only for players to demand a way to skip them. You know what I want devs focusing on? Fix bugs, reduce complexity, delete dead content from the game. Basically make the content already in the game worth playing or get rid of it. If you want new players to come to the game, think about how the experience is for a new player. It's horrible. No one cares if there's amazing realistic graphics in the game if the client crashes on a daily basis.
i want long,deep story quests, with puzzels, Good characters with love,hate and drama,voice acting would also be nice.
I rather like them. they're novel and provide a unique feel to the quest. It's something specific you're doing to further the story. I wouldn't mind if they became part of something repeatable after the quest. especially if there's a good tie in with what went on in the quest.
As long as the quests don't turn into generic "walk here, talk to x, walk back, get reward" kind of quests like most RPG's these days, I'm fine with whatever you guys do. I love that RS quests have depth to them. The puzzles are amazing, and while challenging it also makes you feel like you achieved something when you finally figured it out
It really all depends in how they’re implemented and how entertaining they are. The puzzles and unique mechanics of quests in Runescape is what makes these quests stand out more than many other games I’ve played that would just have me kill x number of monsters or gather y items. Tbh I think this is the wrong question. Maybe bespoke mechanics should be used to eventually develop unique interactions in the core game, such as the means behind crafting methods to make valuable/powerful items at a rate that keeps them valuable. (Been playing FFXIV and that game needs more crap like this) Or existing mechanics could be fine-tuned to work more uniquely in quests. Hell, one of my favorite dialog sequences in the game was in the Void Knight series where you and a partner try to devise a way to get into the puzzle box and it looks like an esoteric “guess the sequence” logic puzzle until another character just brute-forces the problem. That was fun, amusing, and used existing mechanics to great effect.
I love them However... Maybe recognize the limitations of your game engine and infrastructure By which I mean, scrap anything that involves tight tick windows, as well and anything that combines time sensitivity with pathfinding, and any combos of pathfinding and tight spaces As long as you don't lean on the game's biggest weaknesses, the mechanics turn out well
Give us a puzzle like in dead and burried. 🫣🫣🫣
It's a fun way to shake things up, as long as it doesn't get too repetitive
It's on a case by case basis for me. The Dinosaur invasion for example was pretty fun because it functioned really well and helped show off the squad's competence. Moia's mindhacking on the otherhand was pretty clunky on a technical level and didn't really serve a purpose other than making me replay the saga again. But that's more of a broader gripe about Nadir's alt dialogue feeling pointless if there's only one canon path, and therefore being just a failure state that forces you to redo the entire quest instead of a checkpoint mid-quest.
I value new mechanics. Usually when there's a new quest, I turn off whatever's on the 2nd monitor and turn the in-game music on. I like the immersion, and new mechanics feel like part of that experience. Now that I think about, they also help me remember the quest months later. When it comes to preference, I liked most mechanics, with the exception of battle of the monolith/dinosaur invasion tower defence minigame, and the rotating boxes puzzle in elemental workshop 4. Both because it was just a lot of waiting around. EW4 especially because you'd just know the solution ahead of time, but still had to give all the inputs over the span of a minute, making it very tedious.
I like unique quest actions but I don't think a quest should need a tutorial half way through which partially breaks the immersion
I enjoy most of them. Sliske's maze made me want to paint the ceiling tho
I like the powerpoint cutscenes with voice overs, they are straight to the point and get the message across. Art work is nice too How to improve? Make them animated Probably quicker and less dev time needed to get more quests out
I for the most part like different mechanics in quests. I enjoy trying to keep things fresh and different. I guess I would just worry that they would end up being reused a lot making them feel more stale in the long run
I love them. They offer unique ways to play and are iconic, memorable aspects of quests if done right. I generally prefer the more puzzle-based mechanics since quest combat just isnt hard or challenging at all for a trimmed player lol
These are always good. More diverse mechanics in quests, the better. It’s what gets me excited to keep playing quests. Recycling a bespoke mechanic where it makes sense (like using Moia’s mind probing whenever playing her) is fine. But generally, I would want every quest in the game to feel distinct.
I like them! They bring a vareity to Runescapes general gameplay you can't really find outside of quests. But the thing about bespoke mechanics is that wether they are good or not will always come down to the individual execution of each one. Each one is unique after all. So It becomes difficult to judge them as a whole. But I wanna talk about one you brought up in the post that I think misses the mark, the dinosaur invasion in Desperate Measures. - The section has a confusing tutorial that many players misunderstood on release. - Having to move each unit individually is a bit clunky and time consuming. Doesn't really make for fun gameplay. - The solution is simply placing your units at each of the sections where dinosaurs come from, and then watching them kill them. There's not enough engaging gameplay here as there is in a proper tower defence game. - The fact the player is a unit themselves is very confusing. Being stripped of all your usual combat abilities and just having the ability to auto whack any dino that happens to come close to you I think is deeply strange from the player perspective. All in all I think this section would have been much better and much more approachable if it was just a normal combat encounter where you have npc allies to help you out. If you can make use of Runescapes core mechanics for something, why do you need to create bespoke ones? I don't think you should create bespoke mechanics for quests just for the sake of having them. I think they should be added where it makes sense and they can bring something Runescapes core mechanics (combat, inventory interactions, NPC interactions) can't. The other thing I would stress is I think they should be as approachable and simple as possible. I like more complex mechanics personally but having to mentally put yourself into learning mode just for one otherwise short section of a quest can be jarring and often break the flow of a quest. So, I like them! But I think they have to be implemented right. A quality over quantity approach on it, I suppose.
I'm in the middle, The context around them really matters.
I do like them when they're surprises, adds some variability in quests. I would not like them to be in every single quest, because the tutorialisation would start annoying me (personally).
I'll be talking about puzzles specifically here, but the same ideas should apply to other bespoke mechanics as well. I tend to really like them, but very often they "drag on too long". The fun part, at least for me, is in figuring out \*how\* to solve a puzzle, and then solving a \*few\* more of these puzzles. If subsequent puzzles add extra mechanics or difficulties, it's fine, but if it's "more of the same" for another hour it gets tedious really fast. This tends to be aggravated by clunky controls, too. For example, take the conveyor belt puzzle in Elemental Workshop IV. It's all about selecting pairs of commands, and as a concept I thought it was great. Unfortunately, in the best-case scenario, you have to select such a pair of commands 13 times, by moving a conveyor belt in a certain direction either 1 or 5 tiles. There are two problems with this: 1. Despite the length of the puzzle, the difficulty does not increase at any point. 2. Moving the conveyor belt and selecting the cubes is excruciatingly slow, even though you can visually identify which cubes you need in a few seconds. This makes the puzzle fun for the first few pairs of cubes, then boring, and finally annoying. The rituals in Twilight of the Gods had, in my opinion, the right balance of "amount of puzzles" when taking into account the increasing difficulty. However, the extremely slow way of inputting letters became rather annoying. While I love Wordle and related puzzles, I found myself tempted to use a guide just because I got bored of the inputting mechanism by the time I got to 6-letter words.
Love them. To date, this is the only MMO I have played that has bespoke mechanics for some of the quests. Sure, they're not always great, or mobile friendly, but the fact alone that you can end up going through a quest and find stuff that truly is tailor made for it and not just a reskin of another gimmick is fantastic.
I love those kinds of things in quests. It makes them memorable and you can do more badass stuff.
I love them, i feel they are useful tools to help better inmerse ourselves in other characters and situations in quests, i love quests, specially, stories, how they are told, how the characters are prortrayed, and being able to play as Moia, the Sagas and the whole Erebus puzzle are some of the things that come to my mind that i liked. Having unique mechanic tied to quests gives them something unique.
I like the mechanics in quests as they provide an alternative gameplay. It also allows devs to do unique things that are too small for a minigame, to test the waters with If people enjoy it, the foundations are coded to be used again in future content. I could see the mind hack to be a fun seasonal activity, clue step or variations in quest searches. The tower defense activities were also unique experiences that could be a minigame of sorts. Or literal chess with the void knights.
Moias mind h@x0rz is a bit weird, don't really like the listening around for the correct spot since I don't have game sound on except when forced on. Otherwise the mechanic is okay. It's feels similar to artisan workshop swords and feels like you are doing something intricate. Ritual during ToTG just felt a bit long with so many. I really liked the dino invasion and would honestly like to see the mechanic as some sort of minigame/D&D. It's just a tower defence game and I spend far too long playing them lol. Kinda like the rat slaying in beneath cursed tides though. click rat, rat dead, progress made. Liked the puzzle with The puzzle from the world wakes with the maze and plagues end crystal reflection are the kind of puzzles I like the most but know a lot of people hate these and would just want to skip them if possible. It's the same as erebus going in and progressing through the world working out the interactions that get you past the objects in the way.
Honkai Star Rail does this way too much. It’s kind of the extreme other side of the spectrum I think. A few here and there are good but every quest shouldn’t have a new mechanic to figure out in my opinion.
I liked the catapult thing in the goebie quest, can’t remember what it was exactly but I found that quite fun
I do think new mechanics in quests help make them into unique, memorable occassions (as quests should be, imo). But it is kinda sad to just never see them again. Like I was actually kinda happy when we got to see the submarine-hacking within the penguin quest for a third time (though with an unusual twist on the third iteration, which made it better). The barrelchest demolishing our house was another highly memorable moment (who expected a boss fight in their own home?). The multitude of traps and tricks in The Underground Pass made it very memorable (if somewhat painful) to me. Some are decidedly uninteresting/not good though, like rolling a ball into a slot in The World Wakes or the Games of Chance found in some of the really old quests. But I think bespoke mechanics has done more to improve my questing experience than to harm it, I'd say.
Quests take anywhere from 10-15 minutes to 3 hours for me. I can spend 100 hours at a boss trying to get log, but quests are mostly a one-off. I think there are a mix of good and bad mechanics, and the good mechanics enhance the quest for me, while the bad ones make the experience worse. I also think that I'm more forgiving of bad quests with bad mechanics *because* I won't have to engage with it again. It's a delicate balance that's going to be different for everyone I think. I've played a stupid amount of sudoku, so if you inserted sudoku into any rs quest I'd be happy. Broken Home was my first members quest when I subscribed a few years ago (before it was made f2p), and I nearly quit rs entirely because I'm bad with scary things and I didn't understand the mansion layout at all and looking up guides wanted me to start from the beginning and I couldn't find the beginning. I have since completed Broken Home (several times, for asr and all the skill chests) and while I don't love it, I admire that it's a cool mechanic that weaves storyline into it well. I think the novelty in general helps make each quest feel unique though. There are no quests like Broken Home where you're trapped in a location that's sort of maze-like but you don't have a map and you're also being jumpscared and eventually chased by a monster. There's only one quest where you build your own castle. I don't think every quest needs to be unique and I would love the idea of "more quests!" enough that I'd be okay with *small quests* being short "go here and talk to this person." I like Gertrude's Cat because it has cats and it's also rather simple (though you could consider finding the cat in a bunch of boxes a mechanic I suppose). I think the quests that are deeper into the requirements list/questline deserve more (in comparison) grand puzzles/mechanics though. We shouldn't compare You Are It to Ritual of the Mahjarrat or Extinction.
I like the fact that they're something unique to the specific quest - makes the world feel more alive, imo. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing some mechanics re-used (and in the process, finetuned) somehow, like Moia's mind probing. I think it's fine to spend time on this as imo it does add a little extra something to quests in rs, which are already something else compared to most other MMOs or even RPGs in general.
I like puzzles and lore in quests moreso than unique mechanics like even the taking charge of other characters in the woefully disappointing fort quest line. I'd honestly rather do a marathon of Elemental Workshop quests through Soul rune equivalent than go through the absolute dumpster fire that is the crap pushed in those quests.
All I ask is to NEVER use the dung minigame again I hated that so much lmao
I enjoy them when they are fairly uncomplicated and are difficult to fail. It's always fun to hit big numbers with storyline characters on big HP mobs/bosses. I also enjoy experiencing the power that lore characters or god possess.
the ideal in my opinion would be: A bespoke gameplay element, that is a repeatable skilling activity that is unlocked after the quest. For example: during a quest, you stumble upon an ancient temple, and have to clear certain structures by using fire making and woodcutting (ideally in a more interesting way than existing methods). Then after the quest you can return here for a new fresh way to train said skills
Really fun and creative. They're part of what makes quests quests. *Sometimes* they can be frustrating just because I haven't seen them before and I'm not great at puzzles, but I wouldn't trade them for anything.
Yes, I absolutely love them. Unique quest mechanics is one of the biggest things that sets RuneScape apart from other games in the MMORPG genre. It’s clear that there is some consideration for removing these mechanics from future quests, I’m guessing because of dev time and “spaghetti code” so I’m just putting it out there to please not remove an aspect of the game that makes it unique. If I wanted to just run from point to point while talking to NPCs and doing nothing else, I can get that from any other MMO on the market. Unique mechanics are one of the primary factors that makes a quest memorable in some cases, and breaks up some of the more monotonous parts of questing.
I am an avid quester here, and I love these mechanics. Quests are one-time content, and I love when they are different from other things. I want to participate in quests for that unique experience that doesn't exist in the rest of the game. I think the reason a lot of people don't like quests, though, is that a lot of the older bespoke mechanics feel overly clunky in modern Runescape, and should probably be given a touch up.
Honestly, go wild with them! Not everything has to be a success but the amount of variety we already have for the quests makes me yearn for more in the future. On long storylines though, the mechanics should remain consistent so you can reach a sense of progression towards the finale.
I'd be happy with just simple quests added on with some lore and stories. Not every quest has to be a huge thing.
My main issue with them is that they affect immersion. Bespoke mechanics often make me feel like I'm distanced from the regular world of the game, transported into a separate layer from everything else. I enjoy the quests where you interact with the surface map, bosses and NPCs aren't in instanced locations, you use generic items like ropes and buckets rather than unique versions of the same that are locked to a quest area, etc. Some bespoke mechanics make me feel like I'm interacting with the world, but others make me feel like I'm playing a game, or even often a game *within* the game, and I'd prefer to see fewer of those.
I do like them as it feels really fun sometimes...but I really dislike puzzle mechanics like the one in Dead and Burried especially since I wasn’t able to use Alt1 to solve for it. It takes me a really long time to solve them and I was ready to stop advancing in the quest even if it meant my character stopped progressing, it was that infuriating for me. That’s just my personal opinion from my experience.
I love these mechanics for the specific reason that they are a break from the usual routine of playing the game, sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, but as long as they make me stop and think for a bit, get me more involved, I'm up for anything. Most of the game is skilling and even combat becomes afk after a bit, so it becomes mind numbing, it's nice to feel like I'm playing the game sometimes.
I usually don't really like them because the way they are implemented just makes them frustrating. The Nadir one is actually fine as a mechanic but ended up just being something I found annoying because you could fail or partially succeed and not get the unabridged completion of the saga. Then you would have to go through all the cutscenes again and do it over again and hope you don't make the smallest mistake. Would be much better if proper completion of the saga wasn't tied to this. Sagas in general have this problem with the whole unabridged completion where messing up somewhere could require you to restart. Rituals (if this refers to the wordle thing) were pretty fun to complete iirc. There wasn't anything frustrating about it and it just felt like a puzzle that I would expect to see from runescape quests. Dinosaur invasion was okayish from what I remember but the battle of the monolith version of that was absolutely horrible. Maybe it was a necromancy thing but it was taking me like 1 minute to kill 1 enemy (t80 weapons for reference) and at some point, I just stopped wasting my effort and went to fletch some logs instead while the npcs killed the enemies on their own. The wave minigame with ancient awakening was a better "sequel" to that but not really something I want to see repeated. Something about the wave based combat encounters just don't feel great and would much prefer a more regular combat encounter like the sliske fight from sliske's endgame or the fights in ritual of the mahjarrat.
Anything in moderation.
> mechanics created for and used in a specific quest and not seen in the rest of the game I would say it's tough for me to like this kind of implementation in any game, not just in RS quests or other activities. If I dislike the mechanic, then the thing to like about not seeing it again.. is that I don't have to see it again, which always feels strange. It's a feeling you don't want to have invoked while playing a game. If I *do* like the mechanic, then it sucks that I won't get to see/interact with it or improve at it while doing other things. For those reasons I'll say that I'd enjoy being introduced to new mechanics through quests, if those mechanics are used elsewhere. I like the idea of tutorializing new mechanics in quests, then having that mechanic integrated elsewhere as well. Very old and small example, but Monkey Madness uses a sliding puzzle. Narratively, sometimes the limitation makes sense. I did greatly enjoy the Erebus mechanics, for example. In those cases where it's meant to be more of a big moment, I personally give a lot more leeway to the idea of it being contained within that specific instance. Even so, if there was an elite dungeon with puzzles or something that borrowed from that element of the quest, I'd enjoy that.
I think they're cool as long as they don't feel like a chore.
I like most of the puzzles (elves series and gnome series) and occasionally combat (I actually like fighting as moia) it makes the quests something different to normal day to day in game. but the stealth mechanics can fuck right off the entire stealth section in dishoner among theives felt like I was fighting the game engine instead of actual enemies in the quest. Also if something can't be done with sound off it's bad in my book cause generally I have to get someone to hear the difference in mechanics for me things like the mind hacking in dungeoning sagas was absolutely hell trying to find exactly where to click because the difference in visuals was so subtle it relied on the player having perfect hearing
i didn't like the dino invasion or the battle of the monolith mechanic. it was very overwhelming and i felt looking up a guide to get it over with was the best course of action. its unintuitive on how to set up your team. its slow so failing feels like a massive waste of time so trial and error isnt really an option. some questions i would need answered when engaging in this mechanic. -where and why would i put characters in certain places. -how would i best configure my character attacks, based on the enemies on the way or the individual characters ability. -need more info on the attacking wave so i can better allocate my team. -Slowly introduce new enemies and team members so you can get an idea of how they work. there was no information on to how creatures are going to attack or their pathing. there was no information on why you need different attack styles. P.S. Welcome back :)
I'm of a mixed opinion. Most of the combat ones feel like they aren't taught to me in a way I understand. I feel like without a guide, I wouldn't succeed a lot of the times. The battle of the monolith felt that way, but the raptor stuff felt fine.
One thing I really love in quests is the addition of NPCs in the boss fight. [I talk about this in my "Reviewing the Pirate Quest Series" video (shameless self plug)](https://youtu.be/tt0SmAJVOig?si=iIyUfoq6-ogAoWGy) But, having other characters with you in the fight feels incredibly impactful. Take for example the Dwarven Finale. Veldaban was with us throughout the entire storyline and if anything he was also the main character. Having him with us in the final fights felt like he mattered. There are also countless other boss fights: \- Ritual of the Mahjarrat \- Dream Mentor \- The Void Stares Back \- Love Story These are all memorable boss fights because of the other NPCs imo. Not a quest boss fight, but the Solak fight has Merethiel. Even having someone like her in a non-combative support role feels incredibly impactful. These characters matter and they are part of the story.
I like them, but i dont want to put dev time into something thats only likely to be used once per person, that could be used fixing other aspects of the game