[2023] Story Arcs - just bigger public quests?

Garrtok;d-55346

Lets be realistic about that, there will be zergs farming both ways as soon as they pop up.
It will be like events in guild wars or public quests in warhammer online, just that some part is locked behind node progression and they will be farmed over and over again.

Hi all! Thanks for the feedback :) I was one of the designers on the livestream.

As a huge fan of public quests in both Warhammer Online and in GW2, I wanted to mention here that story arcs don't quite function in this way.

They are sometimes simply locked behind node progression, but we look at other variables, too. Some of which will, I hope, be a delightful surprise and be fun to satisfy even when they're datamined/discovered/whatever y'all do.

In terms of "farming" them, that's where I think you'll see the biggest departure from public quests in other games. These aren't like events with zergs/FATE trains/whatever pushing them forward (though we have an event system that more closely resembles this). They're more like "packs" of quests that are available for specific amounts of real time (from days to months depending on the scope of the arc and the amount of content in each pack). In some very rare cases, we advance the chapters in other ways, but whether or not we talk about that before we launch remains to be seen (because of potential spoilers). I'd compare it more with finding some time in your busy schedule to watch that episode of your favorite streaming show that dropped before the next episode is released.

You can't really farm the quests in any meaningful way, because once you've done the quests in a chapter, that's it until the next chapter. Whether 1000 people participate or 10, the chapters will stay active for the same length of time, and as long as you participate in the clearly-marked time frame in your quest journal, you're good. The only thing that a concentrated effort can help with is influencing the narrative paths through the arcs. The cooldowns between arcs repeating will also be quite long--proportional to the length of the chapters, but we're still in pursuit of the right numbers there. You can't do the individual quests again until the entire arc restarts.

Some events (our version of the public quests you were thinking about) and commissions will only be available while Story Arcs are in certain chapters, too. What could feasibly be farmed are story arc-specific crafting ingredients, however, I can't get into the specifics of how necessary and valuable those ingredients will end up being (we have other excellent designers worried about that).

[spoiler]

skotty

Garrtok;d-55346

Lets be realistic about that, there will be zergs farming both ways as soon as they pop up.
It will be like events in guild wars or public quests in warhammer online, just that some part is locked behind node progression and they will be farmed over and over again.

Hi all! Thanks for the feedback :) I was one of the designers on the livestream.

As a huge fan of public quests in both Warhammer Online and in GW2, I wanted to mention here that story arcs don't quite function in this way.

They are sometimes simply locked behind node progression, but we look at other variables, too. Some of which will, I hope, be a delightful surprise and be fun to satisfy even when they're datamined/discovered/whatever y'all do.

In terms of "farming" them, that's where I think you'll see the biggest departure from public quests in other games. These aren't like events with zergs/FATE trains/whatever pushing them forward (though we have an event system that more closely resembles this). They're more like "packs" of quests that are available for specific amounts of real time (from days to months depending on the scope of the arc and the amount of content in each pack). In some very rare cases, we advance the chapters in other ways, but whether or not we talk about that before we launch remains to be seen (because of potential spoilers). I'd compare it more with finding some time in your busy schedule to watch that episode of your favorite streaming show that dropped before the next episode is released.

You can't really farm the quests in any meaningful way, because once you've done the quests in a chapter, that's it until the next chapter. Whether 1000 people participate or 10, the chapters will stay active for the same length of time, and as long as you participate in the clearly-marked time frame in your quest journal, you're good. The only thing that a concentrated effort can help with is influencing the narrative paths through the arcs. The cooldowns between arcs repeating will also be quite long--proportional to the length of the chapters, but we're still in pursuit of the right numbers there. You can't do the individual quests again until the entire arc restarts.

Some events (our version of the public quests you were thinking about) and commissions will only be available while Story Arcs are in certain chapters, too. What could feasibly be farmed are story arc-specific crafting ingredients, however, I can't get into the specifics of how necessary and valuable those ingredients will end up being (we have other excellent designers worried about that).

[/spoiler]

It's awesome getting additional insight into this really unique and fascinating system, @skotty! Thank you for sharing 💪😁