Monster/dungeon quest ideas

[Shadow]

Right now I'm thinking of lots of cool things and quests that are very town and npc centric for the expansion. This part is great, however every time I try to think of quests that involve the dungeon or monsters I get side tracked and get back to the town and npcs. So to spur some ideas, what kind of dungeon related quests would you guys like to see?

[Bak]

When I'm feeling masochistic, if there are a spawn of sprites, I try to keep the torches in an area lit, despite them turning them off. Maybe something similar... 8 purple braziers are in one (big) room, and they all have to be on at the same time (just for a moment) to pass the quest.

Maybe an area where all the support pillars have to be destroyed and the rubble cleared up. (Yes, I'm playing an archer at the moment. )

Two sundials on a level. After clicking one of them, have a limited amount of time to reach the other one. (Definitely want to figure out where both of them are, before starting the race.)

Male and female townspeople in one hut. He has lost his wedding ring on level X. Need to find it before she notices.
If the quest is solved promptly, another townsperson appears in a nearby hut. (Kids grow up so quickly...)
If the character takes too long, the quest will still appear to be active, but when the ring is returned, she disappears
and he turns renegade.

There is a new vendor nearby! But instead of slaying X creatures on level Y, you have to escort the vendor
from level Y up to the town stairs.

[FloodSpectre]

Tainted Water Supply, given by Apothecary. Maybe it should be restricted to characters over level 30 as well. The town gets their water supply from a well that taps an underground river that unfortunately passes through the dungeon at some point. You are tasked with destroying the monsters who are poisoning the water and subsequently constructing some defense towers to guard it.

The towers' bases could be in place already and clicking on them begins a "construction countdown", but the counter only decrements if the player is clicking on the base. As the counter decreases the health of the tower rises, and when full the tower is complete. While the player is building the towers monsters will begin to spawn from some distance and attack the player and the objects under construction. When an incomplete tower takes damage it also takes longer to finish building it.

This might be a bit complex overall, but I like it The more variety there is in the nature of quests, the better.

[FloodSpectre]

I wanted to elaborate a little more on my idea above, but I had very little lunch break left

Prevention: this scenario can be prevented by finding plans or killing the monster in charge of the plan (usually a boss).

Effects: when the water is poisoned, townspeople will slowly lose Vitality points. When any of them reaches zero, they're dead. Vitality decay would be slower in the primary town square NPCs than it would be for the standard townsfolk. The player's character will also eventually start losing Vit at some point, lending some additional urgency to the quest. Finally, food prices may rise due to the contaminated water being used on crops.

Failure: the quest wouldn't have an actual failure per se (like the "destroy the xxxxxx machine" quests), it would instead be a town-killer if not dealt with soon enough. It would also be a precursor to town attacks, as they've successfully weakened the town for the final attack.

Success: a large reputation gain, relatively rapid Vit regeneration for the townsfolk, and an instant cure for the player character from the Apothecary.

[torikamal]

I really like the poison the town idea where the NPCs may start to die eventually.

I also like the idea of defending an underground spring and needing to protect it while towers are constructed.

I also really dig the lighting the torches idea. I've always felt that the ability to light and douse light sources should have further interaction in-game.

The destroy the pillars is also a cool idea: "A bunch of baddies are having a meeting in an inaccessible room right above these pillars. Break the pillars in the area so that they cannot hatch their plans!"

[Roswitha]

Originally Posted by FloodSpectre

Tainted Water Supply, given by Apothecary. Maybe it should be restricted to characters over level 30 as well. The town gets their water supply from a well that taps an underground river that unfortunately passes through the dungeon at some point. You are tasked with destroying the monsters who are poisoning the water and subsequently constructing some defense towers to guard it.

The towers' bases could be in place already and clicking on them begins a "construction countdown", but the counter only decrements if the player is clicking on the base. As the counter decreases the health of the tower rises, and when full the tower is complete. While the player is building the towers monsters will begin to spawn from some distance and attack the player and the objects under construction. When an incomplete tower takes damage it also takes longer to finish building it.

This might be a bit complex overall, but I like it The more variety there is in the nature of quests, the better.

Have you been playing Diablo I recently? With the exception of the towers, that first paragraph seems to be lifted straight from there. Including the title.

Not that it's a bad idea; just making sure we give credit where credit is due.

[Max_Powers]

I really like the rescue this or that person quests. However, it would need to have more urgency added to it. It would be much more super hero-y if you could maybe hear the person being hurt(or crying out for help)once on the level they are being held. Also, if they could like be held inside a room/area(that you can see in)in a much larger room and you have to clear the room to activate levers to gain access to said inner room. If you take too long(or possibly aren't sneaky enough)the NPC gets murdered( slowly and painfully) right before your eyes. This would be one of those urgent quests that add that uneasy feeling you have while just trying to defend the town, but also adding a frantic, desperate feeling.

There could also be implications for not saving them. Just some ideas could be:

1)Members of the town go renegade and try to kill you. They could outright try and kill you or they could be sneaky about it - like slipping you poisoned potions and/or food. Maybe cursing all the items in town, or cursing some/all the items in your personal stash(not shared).

2)The loss of main NPCs - one way or another.

Then there are all the super hero stuff like getting some item(s) that would be in a super hero nature. It could just be like a superman type cape, or Thor's hammer or maybe even Green Lantern's ring(which could add a green glow around your character providing damage absorption). Reduced prices. Larger stock of items. Better items overall.

[jakobrogert]

Whatever you do, I would definitely like it if you implement more quests which provides some dynamic change to the current world - such as the brigther/darker dungeons.

Another slightly overlooked opportunity, I belive, is quests which require or is greatly helped by being several people. The cooperative play in games is usually lifted a lot if you have to help each other out and actually communicate on how to solve a problem.
For example "big objects" that need to be hauled - which means one player is carrying a huge box, while the others need to protect this fellow who cannot do much besides move around (in order to bring this box to a specific location for reason X).
Another example would be tasks that need to be executed simultaneously in two different places, or a specific place (shrine?) which must be defended against a siege of constantly spawning enemies, while someone is tasked with performing a complex task (this could be anything from moving a heavy object to point B, to just a progress bar which is progressing slooowly).

To provide a tangible example: A specific type of gate appears on a level, which can only be destroyed by activating three dimensional locks. Once players start the process of activation, monsters will come from all over the level to stop the players and increase in numbers with each lock activation, causing a dramatic crisis towards the last lock, which again, could be a progress bar. For extra sadism, the locks could come with the requirement to be activated in a specific order. The benefit of such challenges are the increased sense of accomplishment from doing something together.

The obvious problem here would be that they are co-op specific and quite unplayable in single player, so perhaps making content which is multiplayer specific is out of the question, unless you feel like adding an AI to npc's who could carry out some of the tasks.

[Magitek]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Right now I'm thinking of lots of cool things and quests that are very town and npc centric for the expansion. This part is great, however every time I try to think of quests that involve the dungeon or monsters I get side tracked and get back to the town and npcs. So to spur some ideas, what kind of dungeon related quests would you guys like to see?

Let me have a quick hack at this (I will keep most of them simple):

Demon/Elemental gateway kill-quest, similar to your standard gateway; only it's more of a unique in that it spawns more champions itself and buffs an entire floor with something random. Elemental gateways might provide an entire floor with +50% fire damage, so players might opt to equip themselves correctly with ice weapons/fire armor, the element should probably be visible on the quest.

Demon infestation spirals/totems/whatever search-and-destroy quest. Like ordinary pillar supports but spanning several floors in depth and perhaps growing up/down with time. Perhaps it could change some statistics within a level, or seed dangerous demon types for each floor it expands to.

Slavery ring. Where you have to free half a dozen hostages. Each hostage cage would spawn a gatekeeper that had to be defeated before saving them.

Arena. A special room (or gate) where you have to fight an ongoing spawn of enemies to get the reward/complete the quest, or have rewards based on time it takes you to kill the entire lot.

Forge. Another special room where monsters will get damage upgrades from if left alone. The forge picks random monsters in the game (perhaps one floor above/below?) and grants them this permanent bonus. The player might have to destroy this to prevent town attacking monsters from being better equipped etc.

Permanent fixtures. A quest to activate an artifact in the dungeon of significance. A permanent world-wide increase in magic finding for the player or similar.
It would naturally be guarded by abnormally powerful monsters for the level.
Perhaps this could also be used offensively against super-bosses, decreasing their resistances or something.
The quest would be optional.

Dungeon floor control. A quest where you have to capture and hold several key areas. (basically a kill/defend quest with timers for capturing/losing stuff)
I'm not sure how Din's Curse AI would hold up, but you could add onto this by making monsters (slowly) assault each location.

Extermination of a new species. Players must seek out monster X and eliminate. These monsters are basically permanent champions(without the sweet drop rate?). Failing to complete the quest in sufficient time makes these creatures a permanent resident in the dungeon.

Monster taming quest. Capture X amount of monster-type(by killing them? touching them? using an item?) and returning to town. Perhaps the reward might be a friendly monster-type-guard for the town.

Genocide/food pyramid quest. By eliminating one monster type or destroying all of such-and-such's food supplies, you eliminate an entire monster-type from the entire dungeon for the rest of the duration of that town.

Monster alliance. By collecting "blah-blah-blah" you can persuade an entire monster-type in the dungeon to ally with the players, ofcourse, the items are rarer than normal or must be collected in a greater quantity than usual collection quests.

Destroying a dungeon floor. Similar to Baks support pillar idea, only that you destroy 8+ pillars in order to collapse the entire floor/dungeon, eliminating "blahblahblah" threat to the town. (possibly too overkill due to other quests getting squashed with it but whatever, or use it as a "boss quest" with monsters swarming to defend fortified pillars.)

Room types.
Certain portions of the dungeon might have room based effects, a red floor for instance might mean anyone on the tile is granted +50% fire damage, or takes fire damage constantly or loses cold resistances. I would like to see these sorts of things seeded within dungeons for a bit more of a tactical mix up. Totems are sort of already like this, but they only work against you.
This isn't actually a quest! but whatever!

On the note of rescue quests, perhaps we could have the occasional side-popup (showing the npc, and his health decreasing for a moment) for npcs taking damage on a level near you. Just so you knew something bad was going down.

That should do for now. Hope it inspires some interesting stuff.

[FloodSpectre]

Originally Posted by Roswitha

Have you been playing Diablo I recently? With the exception of the towers, that first paragraph seems to be lifted straight from there. Including the title.

Not that it's a bad idea; just making sure we give credit where credit is due.

I thought I did give credit but I must have revised it at some point and not added that in again. I had originally said (adapted from Diablo 1) at the beginning there. It's actually been ages since I last played D1 but clearly it made an impression upon me!