The Nature of Tasks

As someone who plays a lot of RPGs, including some MMOs, I think a lot about the nature of tasks in games. I finally started playing Xenoblade Chronicles last week while on my way to a wedding, and I was immediately thrust into a complex anime-style storyline… but not so fast! There are about a million sidequests right off the bat, including some that only spawn at certain times of day. I’m the kind of person who dives right into sidequest hell, but I started to wonder if I was going to end up way overleveled. However, if I skipped all of these sidequests and got into the plot some more, would I be underleveled? Would coming back for these be trivial and unfun?

The game didn’t give me nearly enough information to figure this out, so I just sort of settled on doing a crapton of sidequests to see what would happen. Well, I ended up with a bunch of gear I don’t care about, a ton of money that I haven’t spent because it seems totally irrelevant so far, and levels on characters that, in a game like this, could very well die off permanently in a chapter or two. Who knows?

I don’t know what Xenoblade Chronicles is asking of me, and I find that a little frustrating. I’ll keep playing, doing sidequests, and digging into the plot, but I wish there was a little more direction. Maybe you could tell me how many sidequests are available overall, like Yakuza does, or better yet, tell me how many are available in each area per chapter. That way, I have smaller goals to work towards over time.

Of course, the game most notorious in my mind for giving me tons of tasks to accomplish is World of Warcraft. In WoW, there is largely one direction to go - forward toward more content of greater difficulty. To get there, you have to accomplish a ton of what ends up feeling like busywork - experience this questline and its story, solve this puzzle to open this chest, grind Torghast a bunch to level up your legendary to the maximum level because nothing below the maximum is acceptable. The model is basically “If you have to do all these tasks every day and play a ton, you’ll have to stay subscribed.” It’s the kind of thing that, in my opinion, leads to unhealthy play patterns followed, in my case, by burnout.

I used to engage with WoW in a very unhealthy way, but I take it at my own pace now, staying out of high-end raid content. I don’t want to feel behind if I don’t do my WoW tasks on a given day, or even in a given week. Some of the newer systems, like Protoform Synthesis, have actually helped - I have access to new long-term goals like “Get all the snail mounts and pets,” and those are goals I can accomplish at my own pace without worrying about having to satisfy other players with my progression in order to ever get into a group. Want to do a +10 mythic dungeon? Better hope you have eight +15s done or your resume won’t get you into that group. It’s like applying for a job where you’re expected to have three years of experience in a coding language that’s only two years old.

There’s one MMO that I think has gotten tasks right, and that’s Final Fantasy XIV. In WoW, you kind of have to do everything, because everything has some piece of gear or other object behind it you’ll need to Do Raids And Mythics And PVP Real Good. FFXIV takes things in the opposite direction: you can’t do everything. No, really, you can’t. There’s too much content. Tons of optional quests with little reward other than fun storyline content. World bosses that appear every few days and drop tokens you can use for cosmetic rewards. Long grinds for weapons that look cool but won’t make a dent in the newest raid bosses. Player housing with tons of tiny things to place just how you want them. The newest patch, which dropped two days ago, even has Animal Crossing. No, seriously, you get an island where you can harvest materials, build stuff, and let your mounts and minions roam free. You can buy a couple of cosmetic rewards there, but no gear - it’s just all about cultivating your island and having fun.

Today, while I was doing the new story quest content, I got distracted in one of the main cities of the expansion by a jumping puzzle. In WoW, I’d have to do a jumping puzzle to get some kind of item that would help me progress my weekly meter for a faction that I need to hit Revered with to get flying, and I would feel forced into it and frustrated. In XIV, it’s just something I can do if I want to. I’ve been trying for 15 minutes and I don’t have it yet… and I’m still having fun.

Halfway there!

What’s the reward for this jumping puzzle? Well, it’s an entry in the Sightseeing Log, a piece of optional content I’ve barely started working on, plus a cool view and a sense of accomplishment. That’s it. Looking and feeling cool is the true endgame of Final Fantasy XIV, and that’s perfect for me. I can set my own goals and go at my own pace without having expectations forced onto me by the community. I still play and enjoy WoW, but I have to work hard to make their task system work for me. In XIV, each task is a new opportunity to have fun, feel good, and maybe even learn something.