I implore any and all players who find this to be an irresistable itch they cannot scratch to let their thoughts be known here.
The Abandoned Quests counter has been in play in the ‘Statistics’ window of the Character Achievements Panel for a considerable time, now.
To my knowledge, I am not aware of any players who find this to be a positive thing - please equally post here if you do find it a good feature, as discussion is always good.
I am however aware of a number of Neurodivergent players (including friends and previous forum threads) who find this to be a painful and stressful feature, in its current state.
I posit that this feature should be removed entirely, for the following reasons:
It is not working as intended(?):
- For those who find this to be a positive addition to the game, and enjoy the feature, I have noticed that the game does not accurately track abandoned quests, and / or it is not adequately explained what consitutes “abandoning” a quest. Therefore, those who do like this statistic and are keeping score, are not receiving an accurate result.
Following some trial and error testing, I have noticed that several things seem to “count” as “abandoned” quests through no fault of the player.
- Completing a Dragonriding Race, but not beating your previous high score (note: Conversely, resetting the race using the stopwatch item does NOT seem to fail the quest).
- Passing through some World Quests while on other business (e.g. flying over it), but not participating in it or completing it.
- Being online during a Journal Activity but not reaching 1,000 Activity Points before the monthly reset.
- A Patch or Update which affects one or more quests you’ve already completed.
- Accepting a Daily or Weekly Quest but not managing to complete it before the Daily / Weekly reset due to other pressing commitments.
- Being forced to abandon a quest or reset it, due to a bug. (This outcome would of course be working as intended, but sometimes we are left no choice but to reset the quest.)
I believe it causes more (mental) harm than good:
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As mentioned, there are many Neurodivergent players in this community who are affected by smaller niggling things, myself included.
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Having “tainted” statistics that you cannot rectify (either because characters over 60 cannot be permanently deleted, or because you would have to remake a character you’ve put a lot of time into) can be a constant source of irritation; a niggling itch that you simply can’t scratch, but you’re always aware of it.
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In extreme cases, this can absolutely sour a person’s experience of the game, and negatively impact their investment in it.
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Other than striving to keep a “perfect” record on your character - which as discussed above, is very difficult with the current state of the counter - I cannot see a positive benefit to tracking your abandoned quests.
TL:DR - I do not see enough of a positive reason for your “Abandoned Quests” statistic to be tracked, and I believe it would be a true Quality of Life improvement for Neurodivergent Players in the community, to either remove this feature or make a provision for the feature to be optionally hidden.
I am not a developer, but I believe that this would not take a great deal of time or effort to do, as the counter is a display / tracking feature, rather than being integral to the functionality of other features.
I believe that the benefits in quality of life would be significant next to the work it might take to remove the feature.
Thoughts?