Best Approach for Linear, Auto-Starting Quests with Repeatable Failures?

[skartcher]

Hi everyone,

I’m new to Quest Machine and still learning my way around this fantastic tool. I’d appreciate your guidance on the best way to approach my use case to avoid heading down the wrong path.

Here’s what I’m trying to achieve:

My game is linear, meaning all quests should auto-start either based on a condition or when the previous quest is completed.
Some quests need to be repeatable if failed, restarting automatically until the player succeeds.
I want to keep things as clean and manageable as possible since I anticipate having a decent number of quests in the game.
I’ve noticed multiple ways to tackle this (e.g., Autostart conditions, scripting, messages, etc.), but I’m unsure which approach is the most efficient or fits best with Quest Machine's workflow.

Does anyone have experience with a similar setup or recommendations on the best way to structure this?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Tony Li]

Hi,

Since they're linear and they auto-start, you can forgo Quest Giver components and put all of the quests in the player's Quest Journal component > Quests list.

No need for Autostart conditions. Use the end of one quest to start the next one. In the first quest's Success node > True section > Actions list, use the Set Quest State action to set the next quest active.

For repeatable failures, set up failure check nodes similar to the example below, which "backtracks" the quest by resetting quest node states:

exampleQuestWithRepeatableFailure.png (58.32 KiB) Viewed 7955 times

This is similar to How To: Revert Quest Node States If Conditions Are No Longer True

[skartcher]

Thanks, Tony. This will be very helpful.

[Tony Li]

Glad to help! I suggest setting up a simple proof of concept to get your process down first. If you run into any questions, let me know.

[skartcher]

One more thing please, after backtracking from the failed check condition(a timer). How can I reset this Timer so it counts down again? currently, I used a message action in the fail check node (along with resetting the quest nodes) to set the timer back to its max value but it is not counting down (stuck at max value: 20sec)

image_2024-12-27_164241284.png (28.17 KiB) Viewed 7936 times

[Tony Li]

Hi,

The Timer quest condition uses a counter value to track the time left.

Use the Set Counter Value quest action to reset the counter value to 20.

[skartcher]

Yeah, I tried that too but the counter is still not updating(counting down)

image_2024-12-27_181157164.png (23.53 KiB) Viewed 7920 times

[Tony Li]

Hi,

I can reproduce this issue. I'll provide a fix by end of day.

[Tony Li]

Hi,

It was a little order-of-operations bug. This should fix it:

QM_TimerPatch_2024-12-27.unitypackage

[skartcher]

Fixed thank you so much