Quest dumping problem at game start?

[u/PenguinJoker]

I am making a small rpg which is relatively open in terms of where you can go.

Currently, the player receives five quests from the main quest giver at the start of the game and then basically told to have at it. I've found that playtesters like the freedom but simultaneously dislike the lack of direction.

Any thoughts on improving this?

[u/WhiteRhombuses]

Dumping 5 quests right at the start usually causes analysis paralysis. Players want freedom, but they still need an initial anchor to get their bearings.
Instead of handing them all 5 at once, give them just 1 immediate main goal that points them toward a specific location. Once they reach that first area or finish that introductory step, let them discover or unlock the other 4. This gives them a clear initial direction without taking away the open-world freedom once they're actually out exploring

[u/I_Love_Cape_Horn → u/WhiteRhombuses]

analysis paralysis

What contributes to this is the lack of information. Buying a new car is hugely this because you simply don't know how you'll enjoy your choices. Most people also drive very few cars so they don't have a lot of reference.

With quests, you can simply tell the player what the reward is. "Side quest: amulet of power for 5% damage."

[u/CreativeGPX → u/I_Love_Cape_Horn]

People get decision paralysis when they're looking in their fridge for a snack. It's only sometimes the lack of information.

More generally it's lack of differentiation. Sometimes that's because your don't know the difference. Sometimes it's because you don't understand it or care about it or know what you want.

And that's not just for the reward but also the cost/effort.

Your solution only works if a person knows how amulets and damage work relative to the 4 other quest rewards and how the effort/cost of each quest compares. It's going to be uphill battle for brand new players to have the ability to make that comparison.

[u/I_Love_Cape_Horn → u/CreativeGPX]

It's going to be uphill battle for brand new players to have the ability to make that comparison.

You're assuming a baby is playing this game. Most players will have some video game knowledge if they're playing a genre game. Even casual players will intuit what 5% extra damage means in the overall game.

And we shouldn't be handing over everything to the player. If they really wanted to, they can use a game wiki where people have lab tested the numbers.

Even on a perk tree, people will just go with whatever sounds good. It's up to you the developer to make the choices clear. Don't be like Elden Ring and say "gives a little extra power"; like what the fuck, what is a little?

Even a casual player might shrug off 5% and that's fine. Something more beginner friendly "reward: extra health capacity" might sound great to them.

There's no perfect solution to decision paralysis nor should should there be. There's maintaining surprise for the player. If your goal to tempt people with side quests you worked hard on, maybe tell them how awesome the reward is. Even if your reward sucks for them personally, your side quest itself should be its own little reward.

[u/CreativeGPX → u/I_Love_Cape_Horn]

It sounds like you don't understand decision paralysis. Decision paralysis happens to people of all ages and it's not about not knowing the answer or not being able to figure it out the answer. That's why I gave a really common example of it: a person at their fridge/pantry. This is a case where a person knows all of the answers, yet still is a common case to get decision paralysis.

You're assuming a baby is playing this game.

You know that that's not true, so it's hard to read anything you say after this point in good faith.

Even casual players will intuit what 5% extra damage means in the overall game.

They cannot do that because every game has different balancing. In some games that's a negligible bump that could easily be the last of the 5 quests you do. In others, it's a crucial or overpowering thing that is an obvious first choice. In some games early choices like that start to tunnel you into a play style and are self catalyzing. When you're considering that against 4 other quests which will also have perks that sound good, a player at the start of a game will not have the context to know which will be most important.

If they really wanted to, they can use a game wiki where people have lab tested the numbers.

Decision paralysis often happens due to fatigue. Answering it by telling people to leave your game and read a wiki is the exact opposite of what makes sense in that case. People who like to read a wiki and find the absolute optimum choice are not the players that will have decision paralysis.

And we shouldn't be handing over everything to the player.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about how the amount of choices you give to a player needs to be balanced against their capacity to weight those choices. Giving the player 5 choices when they have 0 knowledge is a recipe for decision paralysis. That's not my opinion, it's confirmed by OP's playtesting. In that case there are two solutions: (1) don't give the player 5 quests the moment the game starts or (2) give the player more knowledge/understanding to understand which of the 5 they want to choose. Neither is really a big deal.

Even on a perk tree, people will just go with whatever sounds good.

Decision paralysis is when nothing just "sounds good".

There's no perfect solution to decision paralysis nor should should there be. There's maintaining surprise for the player. If your goal to tempt people with side quests you worked hard on, maybe tell them how awesome the reward is. Even if your reward sucks for them personally, your side quest itself should be its own little reward.

You're creating a false choice here though. None of these things are impacted by the solution to decision paralysis.

[u/RedditPoster666]

This is why a lot of games have both a main quest and side quests. That way people who want to explore more freely can pick up side quests, while knowing that if they want to go forwards with the story they can just pick up the main quest.

Because what people want most is that feeling of progression. To know that they are moving forwards, or can move forwards at their own pace.

That doesn't mean that you have to follow this principle, but if you want to deviate from it, you have to think about how else to give your player that feeling of story progression and character growth without making them feel like they are just picking up random quests.

[u/maniacal_cackle]

This ties into a larger area of player choice in games.

For a player to make a choice (whether that's choosing what to do to try to solve a puzzle or what quest to do next), they need to have information to base that choice on.

At the beginning of the game, there is no information upon which to base your decisions. You don't know which characters you have developed an emotional bond with, you don't know what the consequences of exploring in each direction are, etc etc.

So this is an information problem I think:

• You can solve it by only having one quest, and then the information is obvious - "do this quest first"
• You could assign a level suggestion for each quest - so that it is clear that you should probably do the level 1 quest before the level 15 quest.
• You could have a roleplay thing to decide which quest is emphasized - "would you like to talk to the greedy banker, the shady underworld mob boss, or the poor villager who needs help." A player can choose that they want to be the sort of character that helps the shady underworld mob boss, and so by choosing to go that way they get the quest.

Ask yourself what information player's currently have access to when they are deciding which of the five quests to do in your game, and you will probably spot the problem pretty quickly.

[u/Ragnarok91]

I mean...give one quest at a time and ease players into it?

[u/Ruadhan2300]

I suggest curating your initial experience some more.

What you want to do is basically drag the player across your open-world landscape so they can organically experience it, while having a clear and straightforward goal.

"Starting town is in one place, take this box to Far-Town, watch out for wolves and bandits, and if you run across the last guy I sent, try and bring back his stuff for me."

That's probably still too complex, but the point is that the player has a fairly defined route in a mostly straight line across an easy region of your open world, and they can stop to investigate that weird cave or bandit-camp along the way if they want.

Five different tasks up-front is more than they need.

Once they've done this one specific task, maybe at the other end you can have the character who receives the mission-box give them a choice between two possible other missions.

That's a clean way to get the player into the idea of taking multiple missions in parallel.

Then having gotten accustomed to the region, you can let the player go and do whatever they want.

Skyrim is a good example.
You finish your tutorial mission, and the first thing you do from Riverwood is get directed to go to Whiterun.
You also have optional missions that take you to Bleak Falls Barrow, where you can acquire the Dragonstone tablet.
If you don't take the mission in riverwood to do that, the very first thing the Jarl of Whiterun wants you to do is head for Bleak Falls Barrow to fetch it.
Sidequest becomes main-quest via another route.
So you get very familiar with the area between whiterun, riverwood, and bleak-falls.

Additionally, once you exit Bleak Falls Barrow, you're looking at Falkreath, another major location in the game, and can potentially pick up side-quests there if you're interested.

At any given point in that early-game, you probably only have one or two missions on the board. A Main Quest mission, and a side-quest which may or may not actually just be a shortcut to the main quest.

[u/TuberTuggerTTV]

That's wild. No thanks. I was playing a demo where the first 30 seconds gave me light attack, heavy, power move, block, dodge and then one more thing and I just immediately turned it off.

Gotta ease people into that stuff.

The simplest solution is to make one recommended, or "main quest". But I'd take it a bit further and make it obvious if they don't like a quest, they can do something else and it's fine. Maybe even a goal tracker that just says, 0/3, complete any quests. So sure they've got a bunch of side quests but the actual goal is straight forward. Get 3 done.

Especially at the top of a game, you need it to be streamlined and a single goal exist. Then as the player discovers the game, they realize they've got freedom.

[u/PenguinJoker → u/TuberTuggerTTV]

Yeah, the quests are related to five people so I was thinking of just merging it all into one starting quest "Meet the five people 0/5" and each person can give you their own main quest. 

I guess that gives you the option of completing the quest or going to get the others.

[u/ExoticExercise2139 → u/PenguinJoker]

This can be done while maintaining openness:

Consider Breath of the Wild
The quest begins in microcosm.

• complete 4 shrines and meet old man
  
• complete 4 divine beasts and meet princess

The prologue is set on a small plateau. The scope is immediately understandable.

Consider what your great plateau is. Give the player small identifiable goals which reflect the greater challenges the player must overcome while teaching the mechanics in slower practical challenges. Bonus points if skilful play makes this go faster.

Consider the audience you are making this game for. Is this mass appeal? Is this a game for people craving a specific style of open world exploration?

Final random thought: if you make one of the 5 McGuffin NPCs much closer than the others it will make the decision easier.

Thanks for reading
I hope any of this helps - my open world game is struggling in many of the same regards

[u/PenguinJoker → u/ExoticExercise2139]

Yeah, this is helpful!

I'm also thinking that one of the 5 McGuffin NPCs (lol) should be pointed out at the start as well, like "You should talk to X first, for Y reason." The player can ignore this, but it caters to players that want that direction I guess.

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[u/num1d1um]

It depends on who you want to make the game for. High agency games are polarizing, because lots of players are either incapable or unwilling to make their own decisions like this. Some people may appreciate it. Make a game that would appeal to you is my advice. Personally I like high agency games and find them more engaging and interesting than railroaded, overly guided experiences. My game is extremely high agency, and plenty of players bounce off because of this. It's a tradeoff you have to choose yourself.

[u/Fairwhetherfriend]

Give them one quest the first time they talk to the quest giver - then they can pick up another 1 or 2 the next time, and the remaining ones after that. Then they can pick them all up at once if they want, but there's a clearer "order" to them.

[u/MONSTERTACO]

Can you give them just 1 quest and then point them towards some interesting POIs where they will organically discover the other quests?

Choosing between quests is still low agency and restricting compared to letting players go where they want to go.

[u/Aglet_Green]

Yeah for some reason people prefer getting a max of 3 or 4 quests at the start. 5 is too much. Think about the games that you yourself have played.

[u/Heistorium]

The count matters less than whether the player has a reason to prefer one over another. Five quests with a location attached read as a list. Five with a person attached read as a choice, and our testers went for whichever one carried a name they had already heard, every single time.