[Discussion] Quest System

[CollinHerber]

A few things come to mind when implementing a quest system

Everyone gets a set of base quests

Think of this as a campaign maybe? But everyone has some generic quests. Go kill this, go obtain this, complete this, talk to this person, etc.

Class specific quests

For something like Mages they could go fine a grimoir containing a spell
For summoner they could go capture some pet they can use to summon

Quest rewards

Quests could reward items, passive points, skill points, the whole array. Some basic quest rewards for the playtest and then more advanced quests and rewards as we progress.

Quest Book

The generic quests will appear in a quest book. This will give the player some direction instead of just the normal terraria experience.

Starting Quests

I like the idea of talking to an NPC to start the quest. "Oh help my child was abducted by goblins". Kinda like the Angler quest giving except you can track and see the quest within the quest book

• Create Abstract Quest Class #100
• Create QuestPanel #101
• Create QuestPanel Keybind #102
• Create QuestPanel UI Element #104
• Create ExampleQuest #103

[CollinHerber]

Any other thoughts on this system before I start making tickets for it?

[GabeHasWon]

A mod I worked on called Spirit has a quest system. As such, I have experience making and working for these.
A couple things I have to note/ask:

1. Be VERY careful about designing around multiplayer. Spirit's system wasn't, and that means it's super inconsistent, hard to read and hard to maintain.
2. Would these quests be per-world or per-player? For example, if I complete quest X, would that complete it for everyone or just me? I'd personally recommend per-player since then you can avoid most multiplayer interactions - with a few exceptions - but still have the full experience for each player.
3. Spirit also has you talk with NPCs to get quests & dialogue about them. This is generally fine, but my concern is how the quest book is obtained - if it's not just on the player by default, that causes quite a few issues.

Otherwise, I don't have any concerns with it. Even the admittedly pretty bad Spirit system isn't too bad to work on fundamentally, and it opens up a lot.

[CollinHerber]

Be VERY careful about designing around multiplayer. Spirit's system wasn't, and that means it's super inconsistent, hard to read and hard to maintain.

Not having multiplayer is mod suicide so we don't have an option, we must support multiplayer.

Would these quests be per-world or per-player? For example, if I complete quest X, would that complete it for everyone or just me? I'd personally recommend per-player since then you can avoid most multiplayer interactions - with a few exceptions - but still have the full experience for each player.

I was envisioning them being per player, not world. So you wouldn't be able to complete the quest just by joining the world.

Spirit also has you talk with NPCs to get quests & dialogue about them. This is generally fine, but my concern is how the quest book is obtained - if it's not just on the player by default, that causes quite a few issues.

I was imagining the quest book being simply a keybind to open the menu, and wouldn't be opened through an item at all.

[CollinHerber]

In addition to the keybind we should have a UI element they can click to open it, think like Boss Checklist.

Maybe the UI element and keybind don't work until a certain point in the progression, IE getting their first quest?

[GabeHasWon]

That's very similar to what Spirit does. In Spirit, you have to save a town NPC who then gives you the quest book + the first quest. In practice, this means a ton of people just don't know how to get the quest book, or that it even exists, it's by far one of the most asked questions for the mod. That with having it as a FAQ in the mod's description and Discord.
I'd personally say just give the player their first quest immediately, since it'd just make it clear for players and make sure they know it's in the mod.

[CollinHerber]

Several issues were opened for small slices for this new system. Let me know if there are any concerns or feel free to add to them