02-16-2018, 01:08 PM
Just to say, while I wanted to explain my thoughts and reasoning, I'm taking your opinion on board as well Straz.
As far as quests giving more rewards being justifiable because they're long and difficult, the same can go for most personal storylines too. Hell, I still haven't finished most of the ones I've started (not that I'm a rolemodel for writing quantity). For me personally, I just feel there's no reason a quest should give more.
What I DO think is that, while an appropriate item reward for a quest shouldn't be so great as to invalidate non-quest writing, I'm cool with an item being more expensive than a straight OM reward, at least in theory. That's because you don't get to choose what it is (unlike free OM which can become any reward).
The other problem is the complexity in grading. Quests need a separate system for approval/grading if we're going to be replacing the OM reward with something else. Such a system needs to be balanced - which makes it a pain in the ass for graders using it. We kinda have a hard enough time getting things graded promptly as is, without adding more complexity and staff work. So yeah, while a limited number of quests with special rewards is okay, I definitely think they should be the exception rather than the rule.
In practice what that means is, people can still try to submit ideas for quests with special rewards, I just hope they do so in a way that keeps it fairly balanced with standard OM rewards, and I wouldn't expect staff to start churning out such quests because it's a pain in the ass and frankly, it's just not priority #1. I'd rather make more events and focus on special rewards for those - they give more people a chance to participate, so it makes sense to spend our time on those, rather than focusing on small quests that can be done by a single person.
As far as quests giving more rewards being justifiable because they're long and difficult, the same can go for most personal storylines too. Hell, I still haven't finished most of the ones I've started (not that I'm a rolemodel for writing quantity). For me personally, I just feel there's no reason a quest should give more.
What I DO think is that, while an appropriate item reward for a quest shouldn't be so great as to invalidate non-quest writing, I'm cool with an item being more expensive than a straight OM reward, at least in theory. That's because you don't get to choose what it is (unlike free OM which can become any reward).
The other problem is the complexity in grading. Quests need a separate system for approval/grading if we're going to be replacing the OM reward with something else. Such a system needs to be balanced - which makes it a pain in the ass for graders using it. We kinda have a hard enough time getting things graded promptly as is, without adding more complexity and staff work. So yeah, while a limited number of quests with special rewards is okay, I definitely think they should be the exception rather than the rule.
In practice what that means is, people can still try to submit ideas for quests with special rewards, I just hope they do so in a way that keeps it fairly balanced with standard OM rewards, and I wouldn't expect staff to start churning out such quests because it's a pain in the ass and frankly, it's just not priority #1. I'd rather make more events and focus on special rewards for those - they give more people a chance to participate, so it makes sense to spend our time on those, rather than focusing on small quests that can be done by a single person.
Curious about me and the characters I play? See the 'Staff' page! See also the rosters for my characters Samus Aran or Enel if you'd like to see examples of well-formatted rosters. Hope you enjoy the Omniverse!