Recently, I’ve been playing some games(rpg) with no quest markers, which made me think about the role of quest markers at all and how much they are needed. I think it gives the game a specific immersive feeling, especially if the quest is interesting to complete.
And then I remembered that diablo 2 actually does not have quest markers as well and for me at least the immersion level compared to diablo 4 is much better. Now, I am not proposing anything related to diablo 4 in terms of changes, but I am curious how are you feeling in games with and w/o quest markers.
Do you find it irritating when something needs to be found by dribbling out or intuition, or else you love to seek the objectives yourself?
I have no issues with them one way or the other. I came from a world where they were non-existent, and had no issues. However Quest Markers and guides have been around for a long while. GTA (1997) had a quest guide arrow. Urban Chaos (1999) introduced an enemy scanner and quest compass. You could even argue that back in 1985 with Gates of Dawn and the introduction of mini-maps was one of the first to introduce quest markers in a manner of speaking.
Finding some one with a quest regardless if they’re pinpointed on your map, have an exclamation mark, or no indication at all, doesn’t bother me in the slightest though.
Well, honestly, I would love to hide the side quests once and for all. Yeah I can just not do them, but they are still there and probably it’s something mental in me, but I can’t stand objective clutter everywhere where I go, I try to involve it in my game somehow.
This is not the only game with objective clutter, but I really don’t enjoy the side quests in D4. Most are just plainly wrong to my understanding of fun, others just being half-cooked and make me cry as a designer and the rest fell literally like a filler or a mouse-click burner.
So yeah if we had a button to toggle these off the map, I would not have to unwillingly remind myself every time I log in, that there a re like 1000 things irrelevant to me in this game and like just 2 relevant.
Basically, I think that side quest are not much relevant activity and they could be very well toggled off the game for me personally.
I agree with this actually. Give us an option to just not see them at all. Even when I see a random quest item drop out in the open, I tend to ignore it, unless I’m clicking like a madman picking up loot, then it magically makes its’ way into my inventory.
Quest markers are one of the best and worst things to ever happen to gaming. They make it possible to do everything in a game most of the time without having to waste hours and hours walking around listening to a thousand NPCs say “hello”, but on the other hand, they suck much of that sense of exploration right out of a game.
The problem is that game design itself has changed right alongside the advent of things like quest markers. Designers used to make you hunt down hidden this or that. Now, the goal is to give you a really long checklist so that you can say you got your hours in and completed everything.
There are two vying senses of satisfaction at play, and most games decide to choose just one. I think the middle way would probably be best, but we also live in an era of digital achievements and “missable items” guides which lead to people feeling as though they’re missing out if they don’t immediately hunt down every last bit of content in a game. The problem now is that even in games without quest markers the same approach to games is dominant. Exploration in gaming has been demystified and I don’t know if we can ever put the genie back in the bottle.
I am fine with them. However it should never be either/or. If a quest comes with clear indications; “Go to the town of Whatever” then mark it on my map.
Since it is known information.
But if it is “bandits are probably hiding in a cave in the northern mountains” then don’t mark a specific cave. That information is not known. At most, mark the whole area known as the northern mountains with a “Bandit cave?!” tooltip.
Overall, don’t ruin the exploration when exploration is the goal. But also don’t hide information from the player/character that they are already supposed to know.
I prefer them but when it’s vague and optional. Like when you press or hold a button and the arrow points you in the direction you should be going, and once you get to the general location, there’s a big circle around that area on the map. It’s not too specific but not nothing at all. Just enough so you’re not lost and frustrated and can look around and find secret or optional stuff along the way. If you do get lost, it takes 10 seconds these days to minimize the screen and find a walkthrough on youtube.
In a lot of games, they also give hints right on the quest objective of what you should be looking for.
Well said! That mechanic is a whole fresh hell in and of itself. I hate it when you get a giant swathe of the map encircled with whatever the “objective” color is. It’s somehow a combination of quest marker meets exploration that makes both all the more dull.
Edit: I clearly did not read your response thoroughly enough. I really dislike it when they take most of the exploration out of my hands that way.
Ok, you’ve gotta admit, the timing of our two responses is pretty hilarious!
It’s always fascinating just how diametrically opposed two perspectives can be, even on the mundane stuff that shouldn’t get anybody riled up.
I was recently playing Prey and Jedi: Fallen Order & Survivor and liked the way they handled the quest markers and objectives. A lot of games seem to handle it this way. I don’t like when they tell you exactly where to go on the dot because it’s not that hard to find it and it gives you an incentive to explore the area a bit.
I can agree so far that it can make the map look silly if it is full of color coded quest circles.
But as long as it is just there to remind me that I had a quest leading into the mountain area, etc. then I think they are quite fine.
No need to send the player back to reading through their entire quest log each time they want to remember town names, area names etc.
Any sensible adventurer would presumably mark down such information.
That said, bonus points to devs if they can make the map look less gamey when doing this. Like handwritten notes, circles etc on the map, at least if it is supposed to be medieval times. GPS maps are a bit weird in such a setting.
Souls ARPG game include Elden Ring does not have quest marker. This encourage players to explore the open world and discover its secretes. D4 put quest marker to let players complete the campaign as fastest as possible assuming the end game is more interesting. But unfortunately their end game during launch were only Heltides and Nightmare dungeons
