Map Editor - Guide - Seer's Hut quests
This guide serves as a showcase and explanation of what the Seer's Huts quests can offer post 1.7.0 HotA update, where adding more than one quest (including repeating quests) has been added to the Seer's Hut properties in the Map Editor.
Let us start by taking a look at the Seer's hut properties.
The list of quests on the right will go from top to bottom for one-time quests once, and then from top to bottom for multiple quests, repeating. This is the primary feature we will take advantage of for the sake of the quests. Because of it, we can create complex quests with backstories.
Take a look at the screenshot above. The quest asks for Todd the artificer, but the text specifically ignores a mention of him. Todd has not been a playable hero so far, instead placed in a prison. The player will not know to look for Todd specifically, unless they decide to check Quests in the Heroes tab (but almost no player does it). As a result, you can hope that most players will ignore this quest until they find Todd.
The quest provides a small reward to incentivise further visiting the Seer's Hut. Otherwise the player might decide to give up on trying.
The next few one-time quests provide no reward, which can be off putting; this is countered by the text, which repeatedly mentions how these costs are necessary for a much bigger gain in the future.
Finally, the player is convinced and agrees to pay up. Next quests see him bring workforce to the building and Engineers to operate it. Provided the players goes on through all that trouble, they get rewarded. But not with a quest reward, but rather with an access to the Multiple Quests.
The first repeatable quest sees the player pay for no reward; the second asks to bring unupgraded units and rewards the player with upgraded ones. This way, the Seer's hut functions identically to an upgrade building being used to upgrade our units - first quest asks for gold for the upgrade, second takes the unupgraded unit and upgrades it. These quests will repeat, alternating, and as a result the player will have the experience of earning the upgrade building differently than through building it in their Town.
This changes a lot for the Seer's Hut quests going forward. Example uses:
- Quests with multiple requirements:
- Now the first quest can ask for part of the requirements with no reward, except for unlocking quest 2: Quest 2 asks for further requirements.
- Quests with multiple rewards:
- First quest asks for requirement and provides a reward; second provides a 2nd reward to anyone (by using "Achieve Experience Level 1" for example or other trivial quest
- Quests with stories to them:
- Each quest can act as a different story element. Say you want to make the map about Sandro rising to power. You can now add a Seer's Hut next to the starting town which will ask the player to first bring Titan's Thunder, then Angel's Wings, then the Cloak of the Undead King, etc. and with each attempt congratulate you and state how you're getting closer to your goal. The rewards can be, in this case, a banned artifact or multitude of resources sought by a quest guard / gate, effectively opening different areas based on player's progress. In combination with Giant, Huge and Extra Huge maps, this can be used to place multiple different maps within one map, each blocked by something sought by a Seer's Hut which will provide a key to the new Quest Gate, and as a result in a way exceeding the limit of 32 maps per campaign.
- Or you can have a Dragon Slayer campaign on one map, with next Seer's Huts quests asking you to kill next dragon and grating you a "key" artifact or resource sought by the quest guard of the next area.
- Seer's Huts can now serve as:
- Creature upgrades (Return with creatures, Reward: creatures)
- Creature replacements (Return with creatures, Reward: creatures)
- Trading posts (Return with resources, Reward: resources)
- Arenas (Return with resources, Reward: Primary skill)
- Colloseums of the Magi (Return with resources, Reward: Primary skill)
- War Machine Factories (Return with resources, Reward: Artifact)
- Black Markets (Return with resources, Reward: Artifact)
- Keymaster's Tents (any quest(s), reward: artifact or resource sought by a quest guard or quest gate)
- Or one or more of the above, one by one.
Note, that each of these new uses of the building can have an unlimited number of requirements (f.e. resources, creatures, experience level, secondary skills....). For now, the order of quests cannot be influenced and none may be skipped, and as a result each part of the quest should be manageable, and the "optional" (or potentially unwanted by a player) parts of the quests should be left for the Multiple Quests or the last One-Time quest (provided no Multiple Quests are used). If the Seer's Hut is supposed to act as, f.e. a Trading post, having it work as X resources for Y, or perhaps X resources and Y condition for Z, it is vital that there are no more Multiple quests to repeat before the Trading post can be used again, unless they are intended requirements. Having four Multile Quests X for Y, Z for A, B for C and D for E in a row will mean that to trade X for Y twice, the player must perform every other Multiple Quest.
Think twice before using "Has deadline". The quests that have a deadline may not be completed (even on the day of the deadline) and no quest following them may ever be completed.