Meet the NPCs in their quest locations during Festival

[res7less]

It would be interesting (and immersive) to meet the Collectors who are sent off on errands by Quinton during the preparations for the Festival in their respective locations.

Ledge and Sally in the Pumpkin Woods, Luke and Marino in the Evergrind Fields and maybe even Biggs and Wedge in Seasonne. There could even be a side quest involved, for example, since the player is prematurely finished with his honey anyways, he could be sent to gather the Collectors home, or bring them provisions or something like that. Perhaps even individual tasks, like remind lazy Wedge & Biggs to get to work, warn Ledge to focus on the task instead of hitting on Sally and find Luke's axe, that Marino stole and hid. And inbetween there could be new, interesting, optional dialogues, which involve the individual relationships between the people.

 

[Kana]

I'd like to know what happened to that other girl who passed, I think her name was Mei Ling?

 

[Own]

Seems like interfering with others tasks when you're on a deadline to get your own stuff would warrant a scolding.

I'd like to know what happened to that other girl who passed, I think her name was Mei Ling?

Oh, she failed horribly. You can talk to the other participants inbetween rounds to see how they did. Only the people on the steps after the trial actually passed.

Except for Morgan. He's just waiting to be hit with the retcon stick, apparently.

 

[Kana]

 

[The G-Meister]

I'd love this if it was implemented correctly. From a gameplay standpoint, I would think there to be three options:

1. Have no mention that you can find them, and in turn have no particularly beneficial rewards
2. Have a mention from someone that you can find them, and in turn have a small quantity of extra, non-obligatory (for 100%) bonus content such as a cutscene, or some drops from that area (as an example)
3. Have it obligatory that you go and help them, and in turn have a gameplay segment where you help them, possibly with obligatory (for 100%) rewards

Why not have a passing/no mention of a sidequest? Because all sidequests count towards 100%, and this content is only available for the period that the festival preparations are going. Locking off obligatory content because you decided to leave it for later or had no idea it was obligatory is not a good thing to implement when it comes to getting 100% - Getting up to 98% and realising the content you need to complete has been locked off from you is a real kick in the teeth, and has turned myself and I'm sure many other a hardcore, masochistic completionist off a game.

 

[KoBeWi]

On the other hand, if only one of these quests was available and required for 100%, so you had to choose one, leaving the others for another playthrough, that would positively affect replayability.

 

[The G-Meister]

I don't think going through all of the game's content again to experience everything the game has to say is a great idea. As long as the reward is the same, I wouldn't replay the whole story for a different quest - I'd just pick a different one when I happen to be replaying for the rest of the game.

In fact, I was watching the Co-Optional Podcast's VOD yesterday, where they brought up the idea of games having a mode which essentially just lets them experience the story. There's clearly a market for things like this, due to the popularity of let's plays and game "movies" (where people record and upload all of the cutscenes from a game) on YouTube.

Linking that back in, if these sections are so small compared to the quantity of content in the main questline, what stops people looking up those different options online or duplicating a character before the event and picking different ones? It feels to me like an unnecessary bar stopping people from easily experiencing all of the content.

 

[res7less]

Locking off obligatory content because you decided to leave it for later or had no idea it was obligatory is not a good thing to implement when it comes to getting 100% - Getting up to 98% and realising the content you need to complete has been locked off from you is a real kick in the teeth, and has turned myself and I'm sure many other a hardcore, masochistic completionist off a game.

I haven't thought about the 100% issue, to be honest (not much of a completionist myself, usually). I'd be fine with that content not counting towards progress, I just feel that most of the players wouldn't be traveling to the places during the preparations otherwise, which would result in the work done being in vain. So it would be good if there was at least some reason for the player to visit those places during the preparations. For all I know it could be even part of the preparations questline, but in that case it wouldn't be as satisfying to find the NPCs in those locations for the explorative player archetype like it was in the origin of the idea.

Being explorative myself, it feels very rewarding when finding things which are not obligatory, especially if they are not recorded anywhere. Following that logic, it would be most satisfying for me if the NPCs were just placed there with some dialogues without any mention of them whatsoever, but when making content one has to be thinking of other archetypes as well, which is why I came up with a side quest for it, thus making the issue more complicated in regard of counting towards progress.

 

[The G-Meister]

Oh yeah. I'd love to find them while they're out grinding, perhaps taking a break from being overwhelmed by monsters. You've just gotta be careful enough to please both those who care about the story and those who care about gameplay (or both!). If you didn't bring up the word "sidequest" I probably would've dropped a like and left this post be

 

[res7less]

If you didn't bring up the word "sidequest" I probably would've dropped a like and left this post be

I'm glad you didn't as your point of a sidequest needing to count towards progress, while in this case being only available during preparations, is completely valid. From the three possible solutions you mentioned, I guess I would be tending towards 2, but not necessarily with a cutscene or drops. I guess something between 1 and 2. Like 1.5, but that would only be my personal preference. In my opinion the extra dialogues when talking to each would be reward enough for those who deliberately set out to look for them.

I actually noticed that when watching a stream, where someone did the alchemist quest during the preparations. It was then where I thought "Huh. Ledge and Sally should be here right now." Perhaps some more side quests within Evergrind City, that have no relation to the festival preparations (thus remain startable and completable throughout the rest of the game), but become available right then would be a way. They could be sending the player to Seasonne and the Evergrind Fields, like Bella's quest does with the Pillar Mountains (but is available much sooner than the festival preparations).

 

[The G-Meister]

Oh fair enough. Those suggestions were really the maximum you could get away with for each of the situations. Of course, there are minimum limitations as well - I don't think it's a good idea to force players to go to three areas to hear a brief conversation. Having said that, a passing mention with some extra dialogue isn't pushing the boundaries at all in my eyes