Met a nice NPC, had a friendly chat. Little did I know that by that point, I had already failed his quest line ...

:discussion: Discussion

... because many hours before I had used a key given to me by someone else, in a different part of the world.

That's right, by opening the door to the Fief of the Chill Curse, I prematurely ended the quest line of Drustan, who I wouldn't meet for another 15 or so hours. I didn't even do anything in the Fief, I quickly realised that I was far too weak for the area and turned around. Doesn't matter, opening the door means Drustan will not appear outside of the Alehouse in Lower Calrath, for some fucking reason.

Which begs the question why the fuck Andreas gave me the key so early to begin with. It feels so incredibly bad to be punished for exploring.

Posted Nov 1, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

1110
Unsight•

Byron and Winterberry are in the same situation.

You get the key required to go find Winterberry from a certain boss however if you walk 5 feet past the boss and go up the elevator then Winterberry instantly dies.

The only way to save Winterberry is to immediately turn around as soon as you beat that boss and go to a remote corner of a brand new area rather than walking 5 feet to the elevator in front of you.

115
Any_Ad2581•

Finding Winterberry feels like I am traveling to mirdor

62
RidgedLines•

Yeah I for whatever reason decided to not go immediately up the elevator and turned around and found her later on. Dumb luck.

15
koopatuple•

I'm actually the same way. I don't like leaving areas unexplored and I knew there was an area with a tunnel that I hadn't explored yet, so after the boss I ran back down to go check it out but signed off for the night. The next morning I began seeing posts mentioning this dumb quest design and decided to go look for her and lucked out on not missing her.

What really makes this quest very poorly designed, is Exacter Dunmire's quest line implies that you should hit up Revelation Depths after the Tower of Penance (I think that's where you get the Perception Wisp or whatever). Really, the quest lines for many of the NPCs are just poorly thought out. Kukajin or however you spell her name is another dumb one, since you can't summon NPCs for bosses without dying. Seeing as you can first attempt a lot of bosses beginning in the mid-to-late game, you'll miss out on her questline. I hope they address a lot of these weird quest design decisions in future patches.

4
OverwoodsAlterEgo•

I did the Exacter Dumires questline. How in the hell are you supposed to do that without a guide? Even with the guide he wouldn’t appear in correct locations due to quest trigger bug. Had to reboot several times to get him to quest trigger correctly. Same with Paladins Request…even with the wiki…no clue there on how do it organically. The Umbral ending? Glad they decided to New Game+0 with the fast travel option because there was not way I was going to even attempt to do it otherwise…

1
koopatuple•

Honestly, his questline was the easiest for me. That being said, after he says, "I must descend," most folks will realize he's talking about Revelation Depths. However, after he says that, he doesn't immediately go to Revelation Depths, but rather a random location in the Sunless Skein, for some reason? I have no idea how you'd find him there without starting at the entrance of the mines and exploring everywhere looking for him.

The icing on the cake for his quest comes with finding his gear. Not only is his gear NOT where he was standing in the Sunless Skein OR Revelation Depths, but instead it's at the entrance of the mines for some reason?? Again, just such weird ass logic in these quest designs.

2
Talomis•

Ugh happened to me last night😬

6
SpeC_992:crusader: Dark Crusader•

Same here...

2
ShinyBloke•

I really hate this element of the game, and I have to basically google every fucking choice, there should be a window that pops up saying something like are you sure you want to leave this area? There is ZERO way to know this, and the the NPC sells important shit including a respec, so it's really shitty this is designed this way.

3
Sunlighthell•

After I killed this boss I turned back and went down. However at some point I returned and decided to check elevator. Found out later about that. It's literally bad design trying to copy paste Souls quests without much thought. There's vestige above that elevator entrance.

This game gives me love/hate vibes constantly. I want to love it. There are many good things that sometimes built upon "default" souls mechanics but at the same time there are many VERY dumb things built upon same mechanics which basically nullify good things.

Like all items dropped on ground stay there forever and even if you throw enemy off the cliff you don't lose items because they will drop close to the edge. But at the same time for some idiotic reason inventory is limited to 1337, has no separate inventory for quest items which leads to progression ruined because if your inventory is full quests items will simply disappear, also real genius though that auto putting items in quick slots is fun good idea (in Remnant 2 there's setting which disables auto-equip for example)

It's "funny" that latest test branch before patch that should drop today is named "zeroqa" on steamdb. I don't know maybe devs mocking themselves considering some things in this game probably had literally zero q&a like mentioned situation with limited inventory and disappearing items (no one will be able convince me that it went through any testing) Also we know that majority of feedback regarding online was ignored.

2
caydesramen•

I was literally at that boss and found that out on this sub. Thankfully before I used the elevator.

The other thing is that Revelation Depths is one of the best areas in the game and most players won't even get there.

1
spoketherefore•

Lol—quests are not for blind playthroughs in this game. I didn’t even know winterberry existed until after I beat the game and was helping someone in coop. “Who the fuck is this?” Most of the fromsoft games have this same problem, though.

-1†
Ryanmichael4•

If you have to follow a wiki to complete the quests and make sure you don’t mess it up it’s not a good design if a significant number of your quests function like this. I wouldn’t mind for 1-2 of the quests to be “secret” in this way, but the fact is a lot of them have unpredictable steps that can just end up killing the NPC.

I hope future souls likes take a page from Lies of P when it comes to quests. Just display a little NPC icon next to the area on the fast travel screen. It’s not like it’s a map or a quest tab, but something so you don’t have to play the game from the wiki if you don’t wanna miss things.

27
SirSabza•

No, they bring the community together in fromsoft games, you get messages explore places, its more fun.

Also elden ring the quests are not difficult to do for the vast majority. Most of the quests they tell you what they want or where to go. The only major convoluted one i can think of is finding goldmask all the time.

4
M4ZZLED4ZZLE•

Try behind and then thrusting. Illusionary wall Amazing chest ahead.

Absolutely fun, thought provoking, and helpful messages. Absolutely define the genre.

1
spoketherefore•

I agree for the most part. Lies of P was just a little too hand-holdy for me. I want a middle ground between how souls and lies of p handles quests.

1†
F1shB0wl816:condemned: Condemned•

If you don’t want to miss things, then explore and replay. That’s sort of the point, learning from your mistakes and getting the results you want. Not everything’s meant to be completed the first time.

It’s enjoyable figuring things out for oneself, there gets to be a point where it kills exploration and the sense of discovery. I’d much rather it error on the side of obtuse or obscure but I enjoy replaying these sorts of games. It’s what leads to multiple runs of still having first despite feeling like I had done everything previously.

-10
Ryanmichael4•

I love figuring things out on my own as well in games. However the quests in these games are sometimes so horribly designed that the only way of figuring them out is through savescumming.

For you to say “explore and replay” is missing the point. I can explore and replay countless times and it would be near impossible find winterberry alive due to the layout of the level. Because if you touch the elevator without speaking to her and Byron, she’s dead. If you want 1-2 of the quests in the entire game to function like this, then I can’t argue that, but when most of them are seemingly random trigger points of no return, it sucks to play. Vendor leaves and you didn’t buy out his inventory before leaving randomly? Too bad. Do another playthrough. If it was only one vendor then at least it would be easier to remember on NG+, but they almost all leave. And there’s often times not a replacement vendor.

There’s a happy balance that can be met.

9
SirKage:lamp: In Light, We Walk.•

idk why people downvote you, first playthrough you can clearly see winterberry’s bloody backpack and bryon saying he killed her. That creates an incentive for the player to go for another playthrough to prevent bryon from killing winterberry. And yes, the devs use the elevator as a clear indicator because bryon moves to upper calrath, so the player knows not to go up there but they need the key from the boss. It’s really awesome, but people wanna find a reason to hate on these kinds of quests. If someone wants unmissable quests, go play standard rpg(s).

-9
GillianCorbit•

Except it's not a problem

-5
spoketherefore•

Matter of taste. Fromsoftware games are my favorites, and I loved this one as well. Personally, I think a lot of the quests would be better with more clues. I don’t want my hand held, but give me a little more. Also, some of the quest breaks were too arbitrary. Going up that elevator should not break Byron’s quest. That’s ridiculous.

6
GillianCorbit•

See and I have no problem with the elevator. It is a matter of taste, and that's fine. You might find it annoying even if I don't, I just can't stand the people who slander the game so bad bc of it. Its ridiculous.

-3
DoctahDonkey•

They definitely took the wrong lessons from Dark Souls in many ways. Nobody plays FromSoft games and says "y'know what's a great part of this series? Inelegant quests from NPCs that are hard to find and can fail in obscure ways you cannot predict without guides."

The games are enjoyed despite those flaws, not because of them.

37
Slkkk92•

Nobody plays FromSoft games and says...

Some of us actually do. I love FromSoft quests.

-7
Rulebookboy1234567•

You shouldn’t be downvoted for having an opinion. I like the obtuse quests too.

1
Rafahil•

Yeah the quest design in this game is beyond stupid. And this shit starts right at the beginning of the game when you fight the first boss. If you manage to defeat the first boss which in most cases is unlikely you will have failed 2 quests already and furthermore these 2 quests are mutually exclusive so you can only do one of them per playthrough anyway. And to make it worse, you meet that boss 2 or 3 more times during the game and are supposed to lose until the final real encounter so you can do those quests. It's impossible to figure this out without going to a wiki or something.

It's plain and simple bad design no matter how you want to rationalize it.

25
LoneRealist•

Rather than get rewarded for having the skill to beat a boss you're meant to lose to, you get punished. How ass backwards is that?

13
Have2BRealistic:crusader: Dark Crusader•

Dude. Git less gud. ;)

12
flogmeat•

I failed the Kukajin quest line by literally doing exactly what I am supposed to do.

Summoned her for the boss, got invoice, went straight back to Skybridge to pay her, she wasn’t there. Appeared in Upper Calrath and attacked me.

Absolutely ridiculous.

13
AshyLarry25•

I failed that quest by accidentally rolling into her when I encountered her, she literally died lol.

14
MASTEROFLUBRICANTS•

Same I smacked her a few times to see what would happen and she shattered in front of me, I just went "well, oopsie, hope she wasn't important"

3
wolan1337•

I did it on purpose to get her sword #BestDecisionEver

4
OriginalSprinkles718:condemned: Condemned•

I thought using a hammer on her was a good idea...

3
Lockhart-667•

I failed his questline the first time because although I met him in his previous two locations, I didn't see him in the third one and reached a certain point where his questline failed. I still have no idea of what point that was, but when I returned to the Fief to find him, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, I found his weapon and shield somewhere.

10
Zode1218•

I’m just playing through blind, I’ve lit two or three of the beacons, level 90 and loving it. I’ll worry about the quests in subsequent play throughs, they are cryptic and that’s fine with me. :)

10
SodaBoBomb•

Ah fuck, THATS why I can't find Drustan anywhere

6
OriginalSprinkles718:condemned: Condemned•

Who?

2
SpeC_992:crusader: Dark Crusader•

The game does a terrible job of trying to make you play through the game multiple times by creating these convoluted quests. Like, I know Souls games also have them, but this game does it worse imho. I locked myself out of Byron and Winterberry's questline because I took that damn elevator to Upper Calrath after Skinstealer.

It's like the game wants to "punish" you by exploring.

5
Pienpunching•

You praise From Soft for doing the EXACT SAME THINGS in their games.

Did it never occur to you that Byron killing Winterberry is suppose to be the default, with you finding out that Byron killed an innocent girl and you both feel bad, and so that upon a second play-through and doing things differently and try to find a better ending?

Oh right, nah, you want to use guides and cheat your game

4†
CountySurfer•

It's intellectually dishonest to say they do the exact same things. Their NPC quests are obscure no doubt, but they don't punish you for following your intuition and their game level design like LOTF does.

16
Ramy117•

Like the other reply says, it’s not the same thing.

Fromsoftware’s quests are sometimes unclear, but they absolutely are not so easy to fail like most of the quests in this game.

Just look at Elden Ring.

If you look at Ranni and Selvius’s quests it’s not unclear how to proceed or what may cause either to fail. Obviously trying to roofie Ranni would fail her questline. Not doing what Selvius says and giving the potion to someone else would fail his.

You can literally reach the final boss, and have multiple ending options (aside from one ending that locks you in, but can also be removed) to chose from. None of those other ending quests interfere with the others. In this game you get locked into the radiance ending by cleansing the first beacon only a few hours into the game.

10
Lyin-Oh:condemned: Condemned•

These people defending ER forget you could easily you can break Rya, Boggart, or Nepheli's questlines for doing some unrelated things in the game (and that's only the ones off the top of my head). Add to that most of the NPCs are absurdly hard to find, follow, or are super easy to miss without using any guides. Some of them has you back tracking to previous locations constantly, or jumping to completely unrelated places like Sellen's questline.

​

Got nothing against Fromsoft for this, but people acting like this is out of norm for soulslikes are kidding themselves.

7
Razhork•

Rya

By killing the lord and final boss of the Volcano Manor. Of course it fails at that point - you've caused the Volcano Manor to disband by completing the related legacy dungeon.

Boggart

Breaking it as in not having Boggart die to Dung Eater? You can break it then, but you're not missing out on anything. Boggart will be alive and you still have enough Seedbed Curses to complete Dung Eater's questline.

Nepheli

Her questline will fail by the point you reach Farum Azula, aka the final legacy dungeon of the game. There is a entire chasm between that and Byron's questline failing because you decided to take the elevator to the literal next area.

Even by FromSoft standards, the NPC questline fails incredibly easily in this game with no rhyme or reason.

12
Cplchrissandwich•

Nepheli quest can fail way before Farum Azula.

-2†
Chun--Chun2•

How? Because it literally can’t

2
GillianCorbit•

Thank you

-1
PhunkOperatorOP•

You praise From Soft for doing the EXACT SAME THINGS in their games.

Oh, I do? Because I can't remember even mentioning From.

Did it never occur to you that Byron killing Winterberry is suppose to be the default

Don't care, didn't even talk about that quest. What I said was "It feels so incredibly bad to be punished for exploring", which incidentally led to me rescuing Winterberry. Because I explored the level before using the elevator.

Oh right, nah, you want to use guides and cheat your game

If I had used a guide, this wouldn't have happened, would it?

I don't want to use guides, but I did indeed need a guide to understand what had happened to Drustan, after the fact.

7
StretchArmstrong74•

Did it never occur to you that a game has to be fun and engaging enough to want to play twice before you can get away with that kind of quest design? From gets praised because we WANT to play their games multiple times and it's not a big deal if we don't get everything right the first go. LotF is a slog and not a game I'd touch a second time, much less in a NG+ without vestiges.

3†
wishyouwerebeer•

That’s just like your opinion man

1
Grey_Beard257•

How long have your been a dev for lotf? Only a dev would get that bent out of shape lol

2†
Pienpunching•

how long you been going to fextralife, you have to be dumb to go yhere

-6
Big_Dave_71•

People pretending they don't use wikis with these games 🤣

6
Grey_Beard257•

Ok, what is that?

1†
Sculpdozer•

Elden Ring quest desighn is an absolute trash too. Story is good, but desighn is suped dumb and unintuitive. Noone ever praised souls games for quests that you need to do by reading a wiki. And I love Elden Ring, one of the best games ever btw.

-2
GillianCorbit•

Idk what the other guys are talking about, you are spot on. Its only a problem bc its THIS game. Its supposed to be difficult and almost a puzzle for some quests. But no, let's waaa waaa waaa all day about it as if its not a staple in souls-likes. Some of us like it this way, but since we aren't crying on reddit you don't hear about it.

-2
PrinnyWesker•

Oh damn. I didn't go there until Andreas disappeared and I'd already met Drustan twice before then. Am I still boned?

3
midegola•

Nope, your right on course

3
TheNorthernLion•

Same thing with the skinstealer boss, you kill him and the logical thing is to continue on from his boss arena up the elevator, but doing so locks the graveyard guys quest

I get it, «souls like»! Just shitty quest design tbh

3
2-AcetoxybenzoicH•

I know everyone is complaining about the quest designs in this game, but I think the real flaw with them is that few of them are actually satisfying stories. I also think that the obscurity adds to this problem because half the time you fail the character just disappears without a trace.

3
Razhork•

The quest NPC fail conditions definitely needs a 2nd pass. I also failed Drustrans questline the exact same way on my current playthrough although I completed it previously.

It's virtually all questlines that suffer from this one way or another. The Umbral ending can be failed as early as Fen by lighting up a beacon before using the seedpod on Damarose.

Drustran's can fail like you mentioned. Byron & Winterberry's fail if you take the elevator ride. Paladin Isaac's questline final reward relies on summoning him for Lightreaper in Calrath, aka you can't kill it before that point. Kukajain requires summoning her for most, if not all, bosses.

I'd really implore Hexworks to really do another pass on these particular steps in each respective questline. Prematurely failing questlines with no rhyme or reason were one of the worst aspects of older Souls quests.

Even FromSoft has been taking steps towards making them harder to fail (though not easier to find and complete).

2
OUC_Lunarian•

I feel like umbral is bugged because you can still give damarose the seedpod after fighting her as a boss just warp back to the shrine but it doesn’t leave the inventory but I also cannot recall if the adyr rune is still with you after opening bramis to continue the umbral ending, I started a NG+ to go about the umbral the right way, but they make it seem like you could still do umbral after lighting a beacon

1
Tiriom•

yeah we really need almost no way to fail in every game, people will really stop at nothing to stamp out anything unique about a genre, lets just add quest markers and a journal explaining all what to do so you guys can stop whining already

-1†
Razhork•

Nice little strawman you built there. I never said that quests should be unable to fail, just that the current iteration of quests fail in the most ridiculous and arbritary way possible.

2
Tiriom•

Yeah? Changing that makes them you guessed it much harder to fail

1
Ltbirch•

NPCs have skipped locations for me many times, check the next location if they are there. On my first playthrough Drustan skipped the alehouse for me too, but I found him in the fief.

2
PhunkOperatorOP•

So did I. Talked to him, lit the fire for him. Doesn't matter, his quest still ends prematurely because talking to him in Lower Calrath is mandatory. And if you miss him or (in my case) he never even shows up there, then that's that. Quest cannot be concluded properly.

2
Rulebookboy1234567•

Same I didn’t know he was in CLrath. Found him in the fief.

1
munch_cat:condemned: Condemned•

Oh shit, that’s another one then. Byron and Winterberry, Stormund and the banner of Judge Cleric and now Drustan.

2
May1stBurst:exiled: Exiled Stalker•

Unpopular opinion but I never ever care about the npc questlines in these games, having to have Fextralife open on my second monitor just so I can actually do them takes away from my enjoyment.

2
BananaPower247•

Oh no. More NPC's I'll never get to meet in my first playthrough. 😐

2
Boundman4th•

Oooohh so THAT'S why he showed up in my friends game and not mine....

1
Frodo5213•

Dude, I ruined many quests in my first (current) playthrough. All because I was too dumb to realize that there is a way out of the Hushed Knight's arena. Couldn't find my way anywhere, so bought the perch key and screwed everything up. Props to myself for going through an area probably 2x my level and at least getting through a good bit of it.

1
RufusDarkSoul•

Welcome to soulslikes.

1†