Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Suggestion - More direction from the quest log

Ah, this argument. Close to my heart since I get a lot of complaints about one of my story-mods that people need to wander and are lost. And that they pretty much DEMAND of me I make the quest-log a walkthrough. Sad days for the RPG.

Making things intentionally vague or hoping people explore isn't appreciated anymore in this day and age. A quest isn't done along the way, it's done right from start to finish and then onto the next A-to-B follow a pointer. Even if a questgiver explictely states where to go, and people can re-ask them if they forget, that's apparently not enough, it all needs to be in the questlog. Named the NPC in the log? I'm asked to also include it's location, since just a name is not enough.
It makes me very sad.

I really like D:OS method myself, and I rarely had any troubles continuing, and if I did I went elsewhere and usually along the way found what I was looking for again and finish or move on the quest. Good times.

Maybe there could a scaling of this, and by making a smarter use of quest markers.

Kind of a shame that people just want games to be a snooze.

Which wouldn't be a problem if people didn't demand it of all games.

It was fine in D:OS. "Explore and you shall find."

Larian has to train players to engage with a quest even through they have to do some leg work to work things out.

Suggestion 1:
Reward the player for figuring things out with a tag such as 'resourceful'. The player could instantly lose this tag if they don't try to figure things out and instead hire a guide to find a person of interest/location for them. This would prevent players simply finding the location by saving/loading (on hiring a guide) if they want to keep the tag they would have to waste a lot of time loading back to before they hired the guide making it untenable to do so all the time. (I know some players will simply look at wikis but bear with me ~ some players can't be saved from themselves)

Also a tag provides interesting role-playing opportunities that some players will surely need to progress in a quest. The more you figure things out yourself the more impactful the tag attached ie. 'detective' which could open up some quest lines.

Humorous Suggestion:
I think Larian should have a quest in this game just to toy with people who want to be guided to an objective.

A mischievous imp who can shape change into a different appearance could turn up occasionally offering to guide the player to their objective and lead them to an ambush. ;-)

When I was young, boredom was a very different concept. Boredom meant having nothing to do.

Now, boredom means that there are better things I could be doing with my time. I could be washing the dishes, planning my finances, watching Netflix. I could read a book. I'd happily play Witcher 3 a fourth time. The kind of boredom I had when I was young now seems completely foreign. My time is a finite resource, and if Larian want my time then they have to earn it.

There are times in D:OS where it starts putting strain on this. When I return to the game after a break, I expect to be able to get into it again quickly. I don't expect to get all the answers, but I expect to know how to start making my next step towards the answer.

The path to the answer should not be boring. Exploration is all well and good, as long as it is entertaining. If your idea of "exploration" is talking to every NPC in the village until you talk to the right one , or searching the 60% of the map that's "north of the beach" and checking every cave until you find the right one... If you expect that to be entertaining, then you and I have very different expectations.