I wish that all quest items only required for a quest would be removed from your inventory on completion of the quest or removal of the quest. Sometimes my inventory is like my closet, filled with stuff I use, stuff I might use, and stuff I don't even remember getting.
"1) talk to the skeleton 6 times to start the quest 2) talk to the gnome 6 times to update the quest 3) talk to each of the 3 gnomes 6 times to get the 3 sub quests 4) pick up the 6 different pieces of the body 6 times (groundspawns with a respawn timer, 36 of them needed for a full group) 5) deposit the pieces in the coffin 6 times" Funny, but as a single account owner I need to do many things like this only once. This game encourages boxing waaaay too much. One human being at the keyboard: 1) Talk once to the quest giver - six toons get the quest. 2) Talk once to the gnome - six toons get an update. If these quests were truly solo then I'd have to do it once for each character I wanted to complete the quest and so would Bob_Boxer. Instead of advantage there would be some offetting disadvatage for players wanting to advance an army as if it were one character. (I'm doing the Merc and Partisan tasks in a regularly working together group. I have zero problem doing part of or even an entire task to help those who are helping me. I agree, grouping with 5 other humans ought not be discouraged - each one having to hail the gnome is does not discourage grouping). This too is a valid concern and I hope is gets consideration as well.
As a single account owner I too only do it once. But if I'm in a group and we're trying to do it all at once, it is like herding cats to keep everyone together, get them to the right places (especially when you have groupmates who don't seem to know how to use their quest window to look at and know what they are doing. But this problem has nothing to do with Boxing. It's about setting up quests in such a way that people aren't stuck in a groundhog day loop trying to help other people. Oh and as an improvement idea, it would be REALLY nice if we could have some way to view a groupmate's quests, so you can see what quests someone else has, and what stage they are on. Put a privacy toggle on it for those who don't want to share; but for people who are trying to help guildmates and friends through the tasks, it would be a godsend.
I expect there to be some issues that come up when you are grouping - some one is AFL, doesn't know what quest step they are on, etc. that's not new or unexpected. There's a difference between not discouraging grouping with live players and making boxing even easier. As an individual, hailing the gnome once is not a burden. Hailing him 6 times by a boxer might be? I suggest then grouping with 5 live humans and reducing that burden. Inspecting another's progress in a quest is a good example. There's no huge burden in 6 humans individual reporting that they have or don't have an update to the loot 6 hearts step. Battleaxe says in group, "3/6" Archie says in group, "I have 4 hearts." etc. It doesn't even appreciably make it easier for me to run inspect to see where a living breathing group member is than for all of us to report our progress each time a mob of the appropriate type is killed. <- working together. But it's clearly a huge perk for a boxer to inspect a boxed toon rather than tab into that toon, look, and tab back to the hydra leader. Not discouraging grouping with real players should not be removing the few disincentives to box.
You seem to think that it's boxers who are complaining about it. (And while they might it's not really an issue). The real problem is the Groundhog day quest, especially when you are trying to lead people through it. If you're lucky, everyone is paying attention, knows how to use their quest tool, and is watching and quick to answer. But in my experience, when I'm running a quest with 5 others it's more like: "OK who has Quest A?" "I do" "I do" "What's that quest?" "How do I get it?" "Who do I hail?" "I've hailed, but he won't give it to me." "No I haven't done prereq quest M." "No wait, there it is. I had it all the time." ... etc... *later* "Now everyone hail this NPC to update to the next kill stage." ... "Who needs which kills now?" "I need 1 more." "I need 2 more." "What kills do I need? Where am I looking?" "Quest A in your journal..." "I don't see that stage. Says I need to kill 1 more of prev_mob" or "Says I need to hail NPC." "I'm back guys. I hailed the NPC. Where are you guys?" Frankly, boxers have it easy when it comes to running these quests since they can see what stage each box is at. Running that with real people (quasi random real people at that, not just a fine tuned Raid team), can be an exercise in frustration. Being able to see others quests would at least make things a little less frustrating.
In my experience players learn how to use the quest tool, learn how to see their progress, and learn how to stay with the group if they want to advance. Certainly by level 100 they've learned these things - or they ought not advance until they do. Frankly in most quests boxers do have it easier than players grouping with others. If there are some quests that require them to do things individually for each toon and that's more of a burden than me having to hail once for my single account owner main, then that offsets the many many quest where boxing is a huge advantage. As I posted, there's a difference between relieving the burdens on individual players when they group and reliving the few burdens imposed on boxers. The hailing the gnome to get an update and your don't have to switch toons to check a boxed toon's progress are great examples of things that relieve a burden imposed on boxers that's not a burden for live individuals playing each toon. In contrast, must be done in sequence group tasks advantage boxing and long standing groups while discouraging pickup groups, even with guildmates. Can do in any order quests relieved an unnecessary burden on individual account owners. We need more things to encourage people to play with others.
It would help if you could search for quests by zone. First question a anyone tends to ask when joining a group is "Are there any quests I need to get?" or "What quests are you working on?" If you could quickly check the quests for that zone it would help those already working on quests and those asking the question to see if they have the quest(s) in question. Having the quests dotted around in the list of spells makes it easy to miss one and waste time trying to get a quest youi ahve in a list, especially if the quest name starts with a A or The.....a number of times someone has remembered the name without looking it up and missed that vital first word out of the quest name.
I see this all the time, even today. Sometimes it's me doing one of the /silly/ questions listed out and other times I'm the one instigating the quest leadership and others are trying to catch up. This happens more than folks might realize.
Exactly. Sure by L100 people should know how the quest tool works. But RL distractions, unfamiliarity with acronyms people use, the zones they're in, etc... can make it hard to keep track of what's going on. Especially for Group/Quest leaders who are trying to escort the group through the quests. Minimizing the DejaVu quest steps would help a lot. And now that I brought it up, a Quest Journal compare tool would help a LOT more. (We can already tell if they completed a quest before with the achievement window; now we just need a way to see if they have a quest and what they need for that quest). Oh and having Zone names with quests would be Really Nice too. (Zone name for where the quest started and/or for the zone of the first incomplete step)
I disagree with you. Boxing quest are easy. Herding live players through the same quest steps over and over again is a big reason why people don't want to group with live players. The current system dissuades people from grouping with others because they can control their boxes, they can't control live people. Most of us have enough aggravation in RL. We don't want to deal with in a game we play for fun. Banging your head against your keyboard because people may be having an off day is not fun.
