Making quests more broadly appealing

[HuggetSukker]

Is anyone feeling the way I am? I have long felt there were a bunch of quests in Oblivion that were a bit of a hassle for very small rewards. I'm aware of some of the quest reward leveler mods that rebalance all quest rewards to always suit your level, but those only encourage me to save all quests for when the game gets tough, and those that let rewards level up with me just seem (sorry) cheaty to me.

 

Is it really all about the physical rewards? I found a mod that leveled you up in the various magic schools for completing the Mage's Guild Reccommendation quests. I definitely like that and think it's a great idea. If all quests could be sort of like that, directly helping you level up in the process, thus making boring fetch-quests and such much more desirable to complete. Not that the recommendations aren't allready a must if you want access to spellmaking and enchanting.

Another problem is how some quests are particularly designed (mostly in the reward) for particular character types. For example, the entire Knights of the Nine expansion seems to revolve around Blade + Blunt + Heavy Armor characters, because of the rewards. Yet, I could easilly complete them with a pure mage, and it's not an MMORPG, so why the hell discourage me from doing it? I can't give the rewards to my tank teammate, thus still benefitting from something my char would not normally use. Thus, if I don't need it, my only reward is the gold I can sell it for.

Then there is the Oblivion XP mod which, apart from changing the leveling system to XP-based, rewards you with XP for completing quests. Definitely a good sollution in my opinion, but right now I just want character leveling more ala vanilla, and I'm using KCAS.

Ofcourse, in vanilla, the level progress thing would be pointless. In vanilla, most try not to level up too fast. I'm playing Francesco's along with Deadly Reflexes and a bunch of small tweaks.

 

So can you name one or more mods that provide a really good sollution for this (in your opinion making quests more broadly appealing, and all worth it to go through), or just do a considerable bit to improve some quests in that way? Or is it another mod with these thoughts in thought yet to be made? I've never modded a TES or Fallout game, but if I had a bit of experience, I'd work on this instead of looking around and asking. I don't know how good a job OOO does on this topic?

[JCP768]

I personally like Integration's approach.

 

Some quests have immediately recognizable reward, but the quest itself was fun and interesting.

 

Some quests give nice balanced enchanted items, or spells.

 

Some give varrying rewards based on how good you did

 

Some quests do allow you increase your skill in certain areas

 

The quests are pretty varied (ie: not an endless repetition of Dungeon crawls, fetch quests, etc.)

 

Overall the best way to have a quest be good is for it to have interesting characters, a good story, and fun/diverse/non-linear gameplay. I mean you can get all the items, and money you'll ever need just by doing aimless dungeon crawls. cool rewards, and perks are nice, but they shouldn't be the primary focus of a quest.

 

EDIT: Of course this can't really be helped much when it comes to the vanilla quests.... You could always try companion mods I guess? Give those quest items really not suited to you to your warrior companion, or something.

Edited March 9, 2011 by JCP768