Beamdawg You Failed on the 10 Cat Quest
Beowulf
Member Posts: 236
This Quest takes like over 30 an hour to do and the food thing malfunctions so I have to get more. I did not count time but it seemed like almost an hour for me to find all the cats- they seem to spawn randomly. After the first 7 or so it you have to tour forever to find them. Then one died in a fireball trap I crossed. The quest is not fun and bad in every way a quest could be designed. I think the area with the wild magic is cool with the random events but your cat quest designer should be made to drink Korean boiled Cat soju. oh no don't buy that- it is made from boiled alive cats. Put that on your patch list..... But I recommend everyone not to do it until they do patch it.
3
Comments
Satisfying trolling the game back after the lag stopped.
i) it is super-repetive. Annoying fetch X quests may the a trope of MMOs, but I don't play those for a reason.
ii) even if the number of repetitions were lower, such as 3, there is absolutely no hint, guidance, or logic on where you should go to look for the next cat. You are literally left without a clue, wandering aimlessly around a map that is (in my case) devoid of encounters as you explored it fully on the way in. This is something to do instead of having fun with the rest of the game.
iii) the cat escaping mechanic is doubling down on the bad - even if you are doing everything right, you may have to do it all again anyway, but it won't be at all different or exciting, just prolonged for no clear reason.
iv) it falls really unlucky on typical pacing, as the common scenario for me is fully explore the wild magic zone, seeking the refuge, gain access to the refuge, and spend a fair amount of time strolling around talking to everyone. Of all the tasks you pick up, this is the obvious one to pick first, as it is the only one close by. So we get a lot a 'dead' time catching up on the back-story of many characters, followed by an uneventful quest running around looking for sprites to chase. It quickly adds up to several hours of dead time, where nothing eventful happens, you don't acquire any notable xp, nor any really useful new items as the reward for this quest is more flavorful than useful.
I agree it could use either simplifying, or spicing up to make it more interesting - I dread to think of how a real cat would interact with and abuse a wild magic zone, never mind 9 of them! It has been this way for over 2 years though, and I doubt is high on the priority list to revisit at this point.
I agree that the cat quest is really poorly implemented. I'm guessing it was made for shits and giggles, and in that way they succeded, but I agree with @greenwarlock above.
I think this just might be the point where I'll give up on my first no-reload run.
This quest is very different from all others in BG1 and BG2, and probably this is why I can't say bad things about it. Neera is a wild mage, so quests related to her should be different.
I can understand people getting upset when these cats get out of the backpack, but they are cats you know, and my cat rarely sits in one place. Faerun definitely has a place for cats, so they behave quite realistically.
@bengoshi the problem is not that this quest is different, it is that it is not fun. Worse, it is anti-fun, it actively sucks fun out of the game, while taking too much time and attention.
How could it be improved?
It could happen in a new (wild magic) map, so that you gain access to for the quest, so you are guaranteed to be exploring somewhere new while hunting cats. The simple addition of a map makes it relatively simple for the developers to add content to occur while exploring. The worst part of the current experience is that the exploring is typically dead time, with nothing happening.
Give each cat discovery a trigger for some interest event/content, so we get more than exactly the same game experience repeated ad nauseum.
Limit the number of cats that can be found on any one trip, forcing you to break up the monotony with other content. If you are RPing, and this is not forced on you, it is very hard to ignore the simplest/closest/most-urgent? task in front of you.
Simplify the quest so that you are never hunting long for a cat - have a cat appear on a trigger within 10-15 seconds when you are actively searching, anywhere on that map.
Speed the quest - have the remaining cats follow show up as following you into the camp after you deliver the third. I would argue three gives the flavor of the quest, there is little to be gained with an additional 5 repeats, and the players have the /option/ of trying to herd more back if they genuinely enjoy staying to hunt in the first wild-zone map.
I'm curious how others might try to remedy this quest (rather than simply pulling it apart). How could we inject the fun or pace back into this part of the game?
Hardly ever have we seen such tedious quests. And you'd believe they worked on the tediousness to make it as annoying as they could:
It happens in the wild forest. Which means no haste.
The cats moves which makes it annoying to find them
RNG makes you drop the cat => shitty micromanagement and bullshit situations with cats dropping just before you change map.
"Well, that's fine. Being an adventurer and all, you probably don't have the time to waste."
Edit: Do you mean between Kylee's Dagger and Herding Cats? I wasn't trying to suggest any similarity, just using the quote.
It feels to me more like a new (to BG) developer's first attempt at a quest, before they have understood the flavor of the game. It is a standard trope for a modern adventure game, offering minimal xp and reward (so not affecting the power-curve of the game) while having some interesting interactions with the game engine - it is far more interesting to write than to play. By the end of implementing this quest, you should have picked up most of the skills necessary for adding new content to the game.
After which I too am furious what kind of arcane mysteries was used to accomplish it.
"Comment" would have been a better word than "lesson." I know how sensitive people are to the idea of being lectured to by Beamdog, so I should be more careful with my language. Either way, I find it completely implausible that a developer would unironically make a literal herding cats quest.
Yes, I had forgotten about the herding cats meme in my frustration with this quest, although it did jump out the first time I played. It does not make the gameplay any more redeeming, and adding frustration simply to validate injecting yet another pop-culture reference into the game is also questionable
On the bright side, it is generally quicker to complete than scoring a point playing Desert Bus. Please note that is not a gauntlet being thrown down to future BeamDog quest-writers!
And yes, if this quest were as optional as Noober and Neeber, it would be less problematic (but no less frustrating for the completionists among us).
Of course, it helps that I thoroughly explore the Wild Forest upon arriving there every game, seeing all the events and getting the XP for disabling the traps, which gives me a clear run. Which might be a side goal of the quest: Get the player to see all of the Wild Forest in case they just beelined to the exit and skipped over everything else.