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Town Builder - 68 - The Quest System
🕑 Added 2024-07-27 20:42:39 +0000 UTCChapter 68: The Quest System
Simba looked impressive as he flexed his new humanoid frame. I had selected him a catkin body with tiger coloring. His head was a little larger on his body than most catkin in Malcum, but he looked fearsome and no longer cute, with dangerous fangs appearing when he talked. His speech had a deep, throaty, almost growl to it. “Tallis, level 39? Really? I am disappointed in you. What have you been doing with all your time?” His disappointment was that his level matched mine.
I was a little surprised he didn’t know, but he probably did and was needling me. I rolled my eyes. “I have been building a city, and now, I can’t level until the new players catch up.”
The feline shook his head in good humor, “Fine, we need to get to work if my level is stuck at 39 for the foreseeable. I can still increase my skills, so you can send me off on quests, or we can do them together. You have an Adventurer’s Hall I believe?”
From what I read before summoning Simba, the companion quest system was a huge cheat in my opinion. Players with companions were allowed to send them on Adventurer’s Hall quests and rake in the rewards for themselves. The quests even counted toward the players Guild advancement. The companion NPC would complete the quest just like a player, increasing his or her skills while doing so. Of course, the companion could be killed or fail at the quest as well.
“We can head over to the Adventurers Hall and talk with Danny.” I started walking, “Glad to have my snarky and little kitty back.” I reached over to rub his head, and he leaned into it to allow the petting.
“I only resemble one of those remarks,” Simba said, purring softly before realizing what he was doing and stepping out of reach.
As we walked, I asked, “So, if you are here to advise me. What do you advise?”
“I can only advise you in your avatar's development. I cannot answer direct questions about the base building. You have to hire specific NPCs for that,” Simba said while extending and retracting his impressive claws on his hand.
“What skills do you have?” I asked. I hadn’t had time to read too deeply into companion skills and development in the wiki and updates.
“I still have the same skills and spells I learned when I was with you,” Simba said while slashing a tree and stripping the bark. “Yeah, I am going to like this body.” He turned to me and listed them without me opening the interface. “All seven of my skills are centered around nature magic. I wanted to be able to transform into a beast.” He looked down, “That is one item I can cross off my bucket list. But yes, I have free skill slots, and you need to direct my development.”
“How does that work? I select a class from the list, correct?” I said, recalling what I had recently read.
“No, you select my profession. Then I tailor my development by selecting my class, profession at level 25, and finally the profession at level 100,” Simba stated. Are you going to allow me to keep my freedom and choose for myself?” These NPC companions had the same development as players, but with fewer skills. Where a player had access to 23 skills and could learn more but suffer a learning penalty, these expensive AI companions only had 13 skills but gained bonus skills from their profession and specialization.
“No,” I stated.
“I see,” the disappointed catkin said. “What am I to be then?”
“Whatever class is best at killing players, select something good in that vein,” I said. I figured Simba would be an ideal bodyguard when the players came calling.
“So, I do get to choose something,” he purred loudly while he went into thought, and we reached the Adventurer’s Hall. Danny was inside talking to Neral, my NPC Guildmaster. Her elf companion was sipping ale and waiting patiently at a table in the empty room.
“Danny, this is my tutorial companion, Simba. I just hired his services for the next month. Do you want gold to hire yours? You had a pixie, right?” Danny studied Simba, curious at the odd catkin.
“He reminds me of a certain cartoon character from when I was little who peddled cereal.” Simba scoffed at the remark. “I think I will hold off from owing you any more favors. Maybe after Goatyah joins the Kingdom of Malcum, I can negotiate some benefits. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. The moment quickly passed and she was focused again.
Danny indicated to Neral. “The Guildmaster was telling me how quests here work. Even though the quest might be for a dozen plains lion pelts, you have to get them yourself. You can’t go to the auction house, buy them, and turn them in. Everything has to be done by your hand, no shortcuts.”
“Or the hand of your companion,” I replied confidently. Danny looked confused, and I guessed she hadn’t read everything yet.
Neral interrupted our discussion. “I will explain the guild advancement system.” A familiar chart appeared behind him with some illusion magic. I didn’t realize Neral had illusion magic.
Rank Requirement Max Quests
Copper level 5 reached 1
Bronze 100 tier 1 quests completed 2
Silver 250 tier 1 quests, 100 tier 2 completed. 3
Gold 250 tier 2 quests, 100 tier 3 completed 5
Platinum. 250 tier 4 quests completed. 8
Mitheral. 500 tier 5 quests completed 12
Adamantium 1000 quests completed at tier 1 through 6. 20
“Since you are both copper card holders, you can currently only choose one quest at a time. That quest can be assigned to your companion if you wish. Depending on their skill and relation to you will determine how long it will take them to complete the quest.” Neral stated.
Danny was confused, “You mean how well our companions like us will determine how fast they work!” She looked over at her elf companion, who raised his mug to her.
Simba chuckled a throaty growl, “Of course! Tallis could send me on a fetch quest to get flour across town, but I could decide to get lunch, go swimming, and maybe chase some birds before actually getting to it.” Simba’s eyes got lively when he said chasing birds. Danny exhaled, exasperated, and looked at her elf companion, whom she had been trying to pay more attention to.
Neral pointed back at the chart. “Since you are both copper adventurers, you need to complete 100 tier 1 quests to gain promotion to bronze. Follow me to the job posting board.” Hundreds of slips of paper were on a long stone wall. I already knew I could sort them in my interface rather than use the physical representation in front of us. But this added to the immersion factor.
Neral pulled down a slip that clearly said tier 2 quest. “Now, if you wanted to, you could go and take this quest and complete it for the rewards, but remember, your promotion requires one hundred tier-one quests. Completing this would get you a head start on your silver promotion but not help with your bronze promotion that requires 100 tier 1 quests.”
“So, I could take this tier six quest and accept it?” I pulled a quest for 12 pairs of Onyx Minotaur horns from the Burning Desert.
Neral laughed, “You could but look on the back. There is a time limit and a price for failure. The Burning Desert is also level 120 to level 125 lands and six thousand miles from here. Although,” he winked, “as an esteemed Guildmaster, I might know a dungeon that is closer and where the same species of Minotaur live.” I looked at the time limit and failure price. It had a six-day timer and a 100 gold penalty for failure. With my extensive wealth, I didn’t think the failure cost would ever deter me.
Danny asked, “Can you drop quests? What if I found an awesome chain quest, but my quest slots were full?”
Neral shook his head. “There are a few one-time-use dungeon rewards that can expunge an active quest. But always check the time limit. If you get stuck with a quest that has no time limit, you will have to complete it to free the slot.”
“What about other quests?” I asked as I had my Sullen God quest chain.
“These limits,” he indicated the chart, “only pertain to Adventurer’s Guild quests. You can get these same quests by talking to NPCs as well, but they will not count toward your promotion quota in the Guild. So you essentiallly have the ability to accept an unlimited of quests outside the Guild quests, though those quests have a time limit as well.”
I walked the wall of quests to confirm something with my interface. As the lord of Malcum I was able to have my NPCs offer quests. And yes, those quests were here as well. I quickly compared the rewards and frowned. It appeared the quests offered here offered slightly less rewards. Guildmaster Neral explained, “It is just a small conviemce tax for players. No running around and talking to everyone.”
Danny asked a good question, “So other than being able to find quests easier, what other benefits do our Adventurer’s Cards do for us?”
Neral laughed at the human archer, “You mean that is not enough!? Well, there are lots of benefits beyond that. You can rent a room in any Adventurer Hall and access that same room from any other Adventurer Hall. The Adventurers Hall has its own shop, and what you can purchase is based on your rank. At tier one, all you can buy is basic potions, not better than Tonna’s potions, and limited to 5 purchases of each per day. But the offered items get much better the higher your rank.”
I was not overly impressed. “Anything else?”
Neral was not perturbed by my tone. “World quests.” He motioned to the board, “None posted currently but during the Incursion other special events, dozens of unique quests will be posted only in the Adventurer Hall. Those quests do require a minimum rank. For instance, you are not going to be able to accept the quest to kill an Incursion General as a copper adventurer.”
“Anything else?” Danny said.
Neral sighed, “There are Looking for Group postings, Raid quests requiring large number of players, and even rare quests, like chain quests.” Neral board and pulled three quests. He handed me the three quests. “Now it is a secret for now but if you hold these postings you will notice the paper is thicker and stiff. That makes then chain quests.”
“And why are you telling us if it is secret?” Danny asked, feeling the paper.
The giantkin smiled, his deep voice booming in a laugh, “Because I am employed by Lord Tallis.”
“So, what quests do you suggest for us?” I asked.
“If you are a group, you need to form the group with a leader, and then the leader accepts a quest. You need to have a slot available in order to accept a quest.” The red-haired giantkin explained. Danny sent me an invite, and I accepted, finding four in the group.
“Do you want to be the leader?” She asked.
“No, you are a much higher level than me,” I will be you Robin for today.
Neral pulled a sheet off the wall and handed it to Danny. She accepted it and a prompt appeared in my interface.
Your group leader has accepted a new quest. Do you wish to clone the quest and use a quest slot?
I accepted the quest before reading it, trusting Neral and Danny.
Tier One Quest Accepted. The halfling farm outside of Malcum has been plagued with giant groundhogs. Kill 10. Reward 50 silver. One Tier 1 Quest Completion.
Neral explained his selection. “Normally, a tier one quest takes about an hour to complete solo. Your group should be able to complete this one in just a few minutes once arriving at the farm. You want to knock out your hundred tier-one quests as quickly as possible. Some quests are repeatable, but only the first instance will count toward promotion, you need to do one hundred different unique tier-one quests. Not the same quest one hundred times over!”
“Thank you for the help, Neral.” Are we ready then?
Simba held up his paw. “I still have to select my specialization. I think I am going to choose Mystic Executioner. At least, that is what it will evolve to at level 100. The profession is called Arcane Assassin at level 25, and it follows the mage path at level one.”
I recalled the basic choices players got on starting the game.
Warrior, +100% to stamina regeneration, +25% to health regeneration, -25% magic pool regeneration
Mage, +100% to magic pool regeneration, -25% to stamina and health regeneration
Adept, +25% to all regenerations, +25% faster skill growth
This first selection was more a preference for a player's style of play. The real class came at level 25 when you selected your profession and got your real bonuses.
Simba explained his decision. “The specialization focuses on one-on-one combat using debuffs to bring down an enemy, monster of a player. It has a lot of defensive capabilities as well. The primary magics are spirit: death, water: cold, chaos: darkness and air: force.”
I looked over at Danny, who was impressed, “What is your specialization?” She had passed level 100 already, so she would have had the chance to select one.
“I haven’t selected my specialization yet. I have a few more requirements yet to evolve my profession from the archer. I am shooting for Thunderous Bowman, but my lightning and air magic need to reach level 23.” She chuckled at her own play on words. “It allows me to transmute arrows into lightning after they leave my bow. I can add an array of effects to the lightning as well so don’t tell me I could have just learned the lightning bolt spell.”
“How close are you?” I inquired, as I had not seen her use any lightning spells when we established her town.
She frowned, “Level 1. I just got the air: lightning magic skill shortly before the reset, and now I can't level it. I didn’t level it because I never got a chance to get into town to purchase some lightning spells.” She shrugged hopelessly.
Simba started to get impatient. “Well, you can't level your skills, but I can. Let's go kill some varmints.”
The walk to the halfling farms was short as they were only a quarter mile outside the walls. Strangely enough, this quest was not in under my town quests. Then again, that made sense as I only had a few quest givers. Tilda Sparrowcall was one of the NPCs I had recruited from the player auction. She brought a massive family of 21 with her, and they were growing most of the wheat and barely any rye for Malcum. This, in turn, supported our brewery. I was thankful I didn’t have to micro-manage the economy of Malcum. Kytalia was doing that for me.
The quest was anticlimactic as the most difficult part was finding the dog-sized groundhogs. Danny’s elf companion had a life-sense spell that could find them and then we just had to drive them out. I was a little taken aback when Simba attacked with his claws, shredding the first groundhog into a gory mess.
Licking the blood to clean his claws, he explained his actions, “I need unarmed combat at 23 as one of my requirements.” For some reason, I had some doubts about the pleasure he was taking in cleaning his paws. I could always turn down the game's gore setting to not show blood, but I decided against it. The creatures were only level one and two, and we never encountered more than two at a time. It was a jokingly easy quest.
We completed it with Neral, and he handed us his next suggestion.
Tier One Quest Accepted. Patrol the road from Malcum to Barrista. Reward 20 silver. One Tier 1 Quest Completion.
This was just a thirty-mile ride to the town south of Malcum and back. Normally, roads were safe zones, but since this was a quest, we had four bandits ambush us on the way. All were just level three, and we looted them for ten gold pieces of gear to sell.
Simba continued with his bloodthirsty slayings, and I remembered how the AI had single-handedly eradicated every small animal in Malcum when he was first allowed to kill. I began to think his AI personality may be flawed. Best not to voice such thoughts aloud.
I had to confirm with Neral that the bandits were just created by the quest, and I didn’t have a bandit problem on the trade road. He nodded, “With such an immense quest board, the system needs to create quite a few quests. For escort and patrol requests, you could have encountered monsters, bandits, or barriers to be overcome to complete the quest. The higher the tier the more difficult the challenge.”
Later, we were returning from our four easy tier-one quests of the day. Galana caught us as we were riding in through the western gate from collecting porcupine quills. “I take it these are for you.” I said, pulling out the quest bundle.
“They are Lord Tallis, but there is a more pressing matter. Two players entered the town a little while ago.” She informed me.
“Where are they?” I asked, trying to calm myself. I knew it was going to happen, but I hoped the Silver Linings Playbook Guild would have arrived first. At least I had Danny at my side.
“They wandered around town and entered the Adventurer’s Hall a few minutes ago. They have not done anything to warrant aggression, but my gnome detectives are keeping an eye on them.” She informed me.
I checked my town map, and yes, there were two players in the Adventurer’s Hall. We dropped off the horses and went on foot. With Danny next to me and her impressive 119 level, I didn’t have anything to worry about. We entered the Hall to find one player, of the angelkin race, scanning the quest board and the other player, a muscled male elf, talking with Neral.
I used my analysis skills on both.
Sinful Echo, Level 8
Conundrum, Level ???
Damn it. Sinful Echo was one of the fastest leveling players and the Conundrum was like us, a hard-wired player.
Sinful Echo had been talking to Neral and turned to face me, his angelic persona evident, but his cosmetics, using black facial hair and violet-tinted eyes made me think I was not going to be happy meeting him. Even less so, when he studied me and stated, “So you must be the architect everyone is looking for.”
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Comments
Erick Thiemke
he just is focused on a select few skills
Koral
Tallis is an adept which give +25% to skill growth. Yet compared to other players, his skills are behind. In an earlier chapter, it was noted he only had 4 master skills, but one of the players had 9. Why is this? Is Tallis just really bad at developing skills?
Koral
some corrections: convenience tax: Guildmaster Neral explained, “It is just a small conviemce tax for players. No running around and talking to everyone.” that make THEM: That makes then chain quests.” I will be YOUR: “No, you are a much higher level than me,” I will be you Robin for today.
Erick Thiemke
I forgot that but they now cost 10k gold a month so players expect it. Also they are now combat able/group able. If that doesn’t work for you I can add he had to be an beastkin to get around the restriction
Jack
I thought tutorial companions were mentioned to be locked fully to pure animal forms because of 'abuse'. Why is simba now humanoid?
M van Dongen
Lol. He still hasn't gotten a real spymaster and some diplomats. He's going to be a kingdom soon.
Silver Beard
Something like, but the author pointed out the mechanic. I thought it was his pathetic level, but MC's drafting is top notch. It was simply the quality of the essence. We already know the quality of ingredients can improve a builds specs; just didn't tier up enough I suppose.
Eriach
So you mean like the guard station he had for around the portal stone that spawns 6 guards?
Silver Beard
He's got his Library stuff banked? Just waiting for another player to make Legendary.
Silver Beard
So much for shining bright. He can still do that but the cost to build just went through the roof. Hopefully the player guilds will help for a price ofc. Just was wondered what was keeping him from making police/guard stations that spawned level 200 NPCs to keep the soon, sudden influx of players in line.
Erick Thiemke
Never stated. It is tied to his drafting levels. The material cost of the buildings is never gone too much in depth but the higher the level of the building the more costly the essences needed to build them. When the players join the game it is going to be harder to get what he needs from the auction house. Right now he is the only player who needs essences to build. But other crafters will need them soon for artificing and potion work. About to get competitive. I will try to add a few paragraphs. Soldier is about 2/3 done but I will probably do a second Soldier today and then World Sphere on Monday
Silver Beard
I don't think it was ever put in print; but it seems like the level of the NPCs his building can create are tied to his relative level as he makes the buildings or is there some other mechanic?
Silver Beard
Yes, get Simba to do the copper quests and spend that time grinding out blue prints for the Launch. Author is deliberately diverting attention to preserve the story. Bugger!
Erick Thiemke
always with the prison. once a new player passes his level he can begin to gain experience again
jsw
Typo in the title.
J S
Oooh. Not good.
J S
Chapter title
Nick Vasquez
It says tow builder on the title.😂
Silver Beard
sorry I don't recognize that
Nick Vasquez
Tow?
Silver Beard
Now he has Simba, will he get more detailed information on prospective auction NPC's? As mentioned with his perks and support... Experts could become masters a lot faster. Maybe the way forward is to buy out auctions for those close to Mastery... rather than Masters themselves
Jeremy Young
TFTC
Silver Beard
Thanks for sharing. Blessing in disguise- since he's about to be outed no matter what. Time to truly shine as a Game Architect with all his bonuses and perks. He's going to need the wealth to keep his citizens happy and the buyout auctions going forward to protect it. Wealth is power. First: transfer all his wealth to the town treasury. (the other players know how much he made from the auctions- killing him will give them a fortune if it's still on his avatar.) Ignore the players; they've already sold him out. There's nothing to be gained but a headache. I would send Simba to complete the quests up to his current level. Spend these days leading up to launch creating 4 plans: Epic adventure all with NPCs and stone regen, a Very Rare Guild Hall with NPCs and stone regen, and a vocation center for NPCs (shoot for adding skill slots for NPCs that attend daily... +1 after 3 mos, +2 after 6 mos) also with stone regen. [My thought is the NPC's will with enough slots gain a better AI, and gain self-awareness enough to realize they need to support the strongest candidate for life... and might be influenced enough to meddle down the road. It might also point out other players with a similar mind set.] Fill in the 4th with something random from his list: Alchemy shop, blacksmith, apartment, etc. Make enough for 3 postings... every 10 days. Then spend the 30 days grinding levels as he can. Finally, he should upgrade that uncommon wall design to Rare or Better and divert, create, buy another building crew to make it happen. For this though he's going to need to convince Danny to build a Mining outpost into the Mtn to find the right stone to make the walls feasible. I would absolutely avoid any town hall, police, or library, for other players. More police maybe for his town as more players are absolutely going to show up; but no more than that. A prison might be worth creating, so long as he can include a back-door to release him. Create the perfect prison only to find himself the only inmate? That won't work out well. He's still 40ish and everyone else will soon outstrip him.
