I've noted that most of the quests with the 6 - 12 ranges are quite long. After level 8, you are confined to epics for scripted quests. I was hoping that the next quests made could be short, intense quests, instead of really drawn out quests for this level range.

I'm sort of tired, so I'm sorry for the lack of elaboration. I hope it is clear enough.

Pretty much has to be long. Otherwise high level casters shellack it. High level casters have so many spells at their disposal that the only effective way to prevent them from dominating or crazy-buffing their warriors with round/level buffs to beat a quest is to extend the quest.

-Cross

perhaps by putting some of the more high end monsters in you could possibly create a quest that could be relativly short but still be challenging. (Kind of thinking along lines of blue mushroom quest only replace elemental with a mid-high lvl daemon or something)

Allow me to rephrase and simplify my previous post:

Short, intense combats are absolutely dominated by spellcasters.

If you have preparation, and only have to fight for 1 minute, there is no "party" in this world better than a bunch of melee clerics who have buffed themselves with every goofy spell known to man, knowing that combat will not outlast their (short) durations.

It is impossible to balance a short quest for both these types of characters, and for normal parties. It -is- possible to balance a long quest, which is why we make them.

-Cross

ah yeah i get you now. However i still feel my idea has some merit perhaps if you made a monster that could use dispel magic and have some spell resistance that would enable you to have a fairly short quest time wise yet make sure the quest is still challenging. (admitadly im not sure this is posssible but no harm in suggesting right?)

Crushing quests with round/level spells is one reason, another reason is that if you want to advance past level 6-7 purely by questing you're going to need to do more than log on every day to do a quick, half an hour quest.

There are some other reasons, but it's basically balance that the majority of the higher level quests are long.

There are, incidentally, some shorter high level quest and I'm not opposed to adding more so long as the XP given is quite low.

There are, incidentally, some shorter high level quest and I'm not opposed to adding more so long as the XP given is quite low.

I personally like the idea of a quick, low XP output quest. I found recently that if I wanted to do a high-lvl quest (with say and 8th lvl character) that I would need to start the quest within minutes of logging on, and spend the next few hours on said quest. This made gaming a little difficult to the point where I only bring on my 8th lvl character for RP and rarely do any quests with him. Having a quick quest with low-XP output is a good idea in my book, since it means I still get all the joy of questing, but the low-XP output helps discourage the powergame aspect of it.

<Everything that Crosswind and Howland have said> +

A short quest would be incredibly hard to balance for high level players, I think.

They'll either completely wreck it or be slain without any hope of surviving.

I'm not sure people would enjoy that kind of thing.

I don't see how it could be done without getting ridiculous. "Let's go kill that dragon/balor/lich again."

I was thinking something along the lines of the length of the old Chosen quest (Captain handed it out). Spawns would include smallish, challenging parties of X (insert monster here): High AC fighters, big damage rogue types, dispelling mages, and party-buff cleric NPCs. Fighting enough of those could effecively balance spell durations (ie - dispels) and be challenging much like longer quests which throw a whole hell of alot of baddies at you which are only difficult because of their numbers (which causes lag).

I'm really suggesting this for casual questers who hit high levels. Especially those who don't have two or three hours to sink into a quest.

Friend: "Let's go quest for a bit." You: "Alright, need to go to bed soon though. But yeah, after several days of just events or RP, I'd love to mindlessly hit things." Friend: "Let's do quest Y." You: "If I recall, that quest takes about two hours plus with loot dividing. And heck, if a DM throws in some spice or somebody dies that's another half hour tacked on." Friend: "Oh. Well, fine. Let's do quest x then. It's shorter but just as challenging." You: "Lovely."

Perfect world, yeah, I know. But that was the point of the first post.

After level 8 the number of casual quests does taper off somewhat, leaving only the long ones, that's true. However generally speaking by the time you've hit level 8 you are already quite locked into quite a number of server plots, and if not, should have enough IC contacts that you could be. So far as powerquesters go (like me) I am happy to get more set in player and DM plots for xp once scripted questing loses it's flavor. And I think that it's better that way.

The problem with the big bang quests (the short high danger ones) is that if you are a priest or wizard, as Xwind said you can buff a character ridiculously and beat it...but that leaves a secondary problem with such quests...higher level PC's who DON'T run around with a gigapriest or archwizard can't do them, for fear of getting uber pwned in the face by the beefed up denizen. I think the current set up is the better between the two.

My two cents and a ha'penny.

Meow-Mix!

I agree entirely that there should be short high level quests yet if you dont like it cant you just make a new char for your main?

I usaly get bored of my chars when they hit 5 so i've never had a level 8 :)

...a drow patrol roaming around might make a nice quick and justifyable encounter for a group of lvl 8+'s

If the militia/wizards had heard reports of a patrol, they might send the towns best hero's out to bushwhack it so it doesnt report the towns location.

Jadelink

..a drow patrol roaming around might make a nice quick and justifyable encounter for a group of lvl 8+'s

I agree for that, It would be like a counter party... although the members of the drow party should be well thought of.

(Perhaps several options to the same group, in which you could go to different paths, to fight different group types. The quest will be given once, so once you attacked a party, there will be no more (in order to avoid quest leeching). The drow should be strong (lvl 6/7+). Ofcourse, there will be the random monsters/animals on the way, and let us not forget these times when drow will come to attack sanctuary when we fail on such task...)

I would agree that one or two short level 7+ quests would be nice. But I understand the difficulty of balance.

What about a level 7+ fed-ex quest to the sand caverns or some place far away from the city?

The more distant regions of this server are dangerous to any level character and still pose a good deal of travel time, but not an intense amount.

This option also allows for addition of another quest with minimum scripting and world building compared to creating whole quests that then have to be tested and balanced for monster content and loot.

No more fedex quests. The one to Mur was already made way easyer anyways so I doubt one for a far off area would last.

The fed ex quest to Mur was supposed to be hard by way of the massive weight of the package and the distance to be covered. I thought that the weight was somewhat debilitating for low level characters. I also disagree with the new alternate route to the Fort that makes it 99% risk free, though ICly the new route does seem to make sense.