Hand-holding or initiative?, The style of a your quests Options

[Lena Wolf]

Now that I've released a large quest mod (TWMP Skyrim Alive) with several quest lines, I am getting questions from users who get stuck, and not because of bugs. This got me thinking back to all the various games that I played and how they handle quests and quest lines, how much hand-holding they provided and what I found fun and what not so much. Given that most people on this forum have already played a game or two I thought we could discuss this.

I'll start with a comparison of Morrowind TES3 and Oblivion TES4. In Morrowind you start on a ship, arrive in a strange land, get a package to deliver fully expecting to be thrust into the thick of things... and what does Caius tell you? "You're no good to me at level 1, go off, do stuff, come back when you're stronger." Huh? In Oblivion on the other hand, you do get thrust into the thick of things straight away, and with great urgency - just like in most other games I played.

The first time when I played Morrowind, I got discouraged and confused. What do you mean - go off and do stuff? What am I supposed to do..? But now, so many years, games and playthroughs later, I absolutely love this approach. And it continues like this throughout - Caius never puts any urgency onto his requests, he's a typical fellow who speaks softly and carries a large stick. And with that we arrive at the topic of quest markers, etc.

But it's over to you now. What approach to quests do you like or dislike? Do you like it structured or do you prefer to be told to go off and do stuff?

[Acadian]

Both actually.

When it comes to the big picture, I really want an open world that does not channel you too much. I hated the big quests (Redcoats vs Bluecoats and the dragonborn stuff) in Skyrim but the game was open enough that it didn't make much difference. I really enjoyed the first time Buffy got out of Oblivion's prison and the game basically said, "You can go do what Baurus said or ignore it as long as you like and go just explore/adventure."

Now that said, when it comes to the micro picture within an accepted quest, I want hand holding. Specifically, I hate puzzle quests unless they are really easy. If the puzzle quest is easy enough, Buffy can figure it out in game and that's fine. The moment we have to go to the web to look up how to do it (which is most puzzles for Buffy and I), it's a fail in my book. Basically any quest where I have to go to the web to figure out how to do it is a fail as far as I'm concerned.

One reason Buffy's been playing ESO so very long now is that they really nailed the mix I like. Incredible massive open world sand box where you can totally choose what you do and don't want to do. But if you do accept a quest, it provides plenty of info and help so we never have to go look up how to complete a quest and almost never get stumped by a puzzle.