Potent Potable Quest Becomes Optional
The Potent Potable quest in Cobalt Scar, which required keeping 5 Othmir alive by using healing items on them (which had to be repeatedly picked up from an NPC) has stymied a number of players.
For them, this one quest has completely bottlenecked/stopped their progress in the Cobalt Scar quest lines. I personally was able to do the quest, but only solo (if I was grouped, then I got credit for any Othmir that died on my groupmates’ watch too 🙁 ). Not everyone grew up playing Castlevania and Mario, so I can see how it would be tricky for some.
From Dexella on the EQ2 Forums:
Hey everyone,
Thanks for your feedback about this quest. I do have some information about changes coming to “A Potent Potable” to pass along to you from the Dev team. I think you’ll be happy about this update!
The quest A Potent Potable has been a hot topic as it presents a challenge that must be overcome with personal skill and cannot be made easier by leveling, acquiring better gear, or bringing more group members. While many players enjoyed the challenge, it was a frustration to others, as it was a required step in the main story line. We did not intend this one quest to be a roadblock for the series, but also did not wish to make it so easy as to remove the fun of completing it.
As a compromise, we’ve made this an optional quest. Skipping it is as simple as speaking to Nika again once you’ve acquired it, and letting her know that you’d prefer to move on to the next quest. While this will prevent you from ever completing A Potent Potable, anyone who has completed Nika’s next quest, A Salty Farewell, may then return to Salt Breeze Camp to find an othmir medic offering a repeatable quest with an identical minigame. Successfully completing either the original quest or the new optional quest will reward you with both an achievement and a title.
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Comments (27)
Hmm
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So rather than get better at the game, we’ll just whine so they keep dumbing everything down because god forbid the poor little darlings can’t complete a simple quest.
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Eric
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As somebody who grew up well before the aforementioned games ever existed, and really sucks at those kinds of games (LOL), I did manage to finish this quest with only a little difficult. However, I have had other quests that stopped me from progressing a quest line and now how frustrating it is. I say bravo! I understand there are those who believe a game should be challenging and find working hard for everything is fun. That is fine. However, there are a lot of people who play a game to relax and just have a good time. Too often people who post choose to belittle the folks who pay their $15 a month and just have a good time. It is nice to see that the devs are acknowledging that this quest has taken away the fun for that group of customers and made it optional. If you believe games are only fun if they are hard, you still get to do it – if you believe games should relaxing and not stress you out, you don’t have to do it. Everybody wins.
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ARDUR
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hah that quest wasnt hard at all. Everquest 2 has become the existential fantasy land for retarded manbabies and dungeon grannies, and vets that are too ptsd to play harder games.
A SALTY FAREWELL INDEED!
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badcat
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I completed the quest on all of my level 95. I found it frustrating, but doable if you paid attention. The best way to complete it was solo and with nobody around standing on the bodies.
To me it was a minor problem. The real problem was the un-dead spawn rates in the othrmir camp. Certain of my cloth wearing toons found those quest hard.
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Abatha
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I think that if they skip this quest they should have all further rewards reduced by 10-25%
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Loch
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I actually thought that it was a nice break from “Kill 10 rats” or “Go search this area. Now come back. No go back to the same area again.”
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uberfuzzy
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The only trouble I had was it wasnt clear to click on the bucket to get more (could have used a CLICK THIS THING sparkle)
And my merc and pet kept getting my way of clicking the sickys (but they always do)
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Caela
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I don’t read every forum post, so I had no idea there were people with issues. I just did this quest the other day and I didn’t have a problem. I read that they are supposed to have a colored sparkly effect – I didn’t see that effect and had to mouse over them to get a health reading (sickly, very sick, dying, etc). Only took me two tries.
I do think it’s nice they added a title if you completed the quest – seems a reasonable reward.
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Charn
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I’ve been to Fan Faire (Forever!! down with SOE Live!) 5 years in a row, now. I’ve seen some people, coming from hundreds, even thousands of miles away, in scooters, walkers, and wheel chairs. Some of whom, though they can control their characters, by conventional or alternate means, may not have the physical capabilities or manual dexterity to be able to complete this quest.
I admit, the first time I tried it, I failed the quest. But once I realized what had to be done (and a couple more “practice tries), I did it and have done it on at least 4 other alts the first time through (though never without at least 1 or 2 deaths).
This is a not a first-person shooter or a “twitch” type game. Many people play this game for that very reason. Our characters are supposed to be able to have the ability to do this, don’t penalize people if they, themselves, cannot. To switch it up here and prevent further progression, or to criticize those that just cannot do it for whatever reason, is just going to alienate people and really isn’t fair to do over 8 1/2 years later.
I DID like the quest, but I applaud making it optional. Repeatable is even better. I WOULD like to go back and be able to do it with no deaths at all, without having to role up alts just to be able to accomplish that.
Bravo, SOE! Nice change.
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Pipsissiwa
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Still no title for completing 5000 unique (non-repeat) quests, but you get one for completing this single ‘frustrating but doable in a few goes’ quest. Sheesh.
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Sievert
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Charn, nothing in this game remotely requires the dexterity of a FPS game. Not disagreeing that some people are handicapped to the point where it is hard for them to control a mouse pointer. I also don’t have a issue with them making the (silly to me) quests doable by them. However trying to compare this game to a FPS or even close to it is ludicrous.
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Ottyr
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I’ve always hated minigames. I play a particular genre of video game because I like the genre and want to play in that particular style. Sometimes I feel like playing an RPG, so I play Everquest2. Other times I feel like playing an RTS so I play Starcraft2. I might feel like playing a MOBA so I play League of Legends. …you get the idea. To have a desire to play one of these games and then have them throw a different game type in your face, for me, wants to make me stop playing and (in this case) go find an RPG that actually gives me RPG gameplay. It was the same thing when I played Final Fantasy VII years ago. Whenever I got to Golden Saucer I dreaded playing all of those stupid minigames. If I want to play minigames (which is never) I’ll go play Mario Party. But, just like in Final Fantasy VII I always wind up going through the motions and playing the minigames, because the reward often outweighs the torture I put myself through when I play them.
However, I understand this is an MMO which means multiple people play the game together – and some of those people (for reasons beyond my own understanding) enjoy playing minigames. So it’s hard for me to ask for something to be taken out of a game just because I don’t like something. I think the solution they came up with is just fine. Again, I’ll probably end up doing the quest with all my other toons too, just because I’m that hopeless gamer that’s always endlessly chasing the carrot on the end of the string to get all of the nice shiny awards/achievements.
…that’s just my 2 copper pieces.
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Edoo
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today’s update also included a stealth ‘fix’ of /house_exit
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Badfae
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I think this is exactly the opposite of what Charn was saying. He actually SAYS
I think what he is saying, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is that people who have trouble with FPS and dexterity-requiring games, from disablity or whatever, should not be stopped from progression by being unable to complete a quest which requires skills that have never been required in this game for the past 8 years.
From my own point of view, I don’t see this as a ‘dumbing down’, I see it as making a quest which falls outside the abilities of some (abilities that have never been required in this game) to be optional. It took me several tries to finish the quest, and I’ve done it on several alts now, but it can be difficult. I think it is a good move.
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Striinger
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I’m sorry, but anyone who has 3 fingers on one hand, at least partial vision in one eye, and a reasonable expectation that they may not finish this quest first try should not get stuck on this. I take GREAT offense at the suggestion that these types of challenges are out of reach for someone with a disability. This is not a twitch puzzle.
I miss having some level of challenge where failure is an option. Maybe SOE could learn from the prep school who proved excess praise and shelter from failure prevents children from developing skills required to cope with disappointment. Is SOE making the next generation of tantrum snipers? *gasp* 😉
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uberfuzzy
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Re: twitch/dexterity in EQ2; I know some people that hate doing the EJ instance in the back where you need to do the pit jumping across pillars thing (They call call it the Mario zone). They only will run it with us if we have a conjuror (me) or a COV ready for them, they dont even try it anymore.
Now that I think about it, the goblin game grub feeding is a very close cousin to this “problem” quest, but with out a timer, or way to fail, or gate a whole quest chain of content…
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Le Clown
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I’ve raided for three decades and I couldn’t do this quest. All of you are hackers get banned.
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Karr
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Well I think it’s a bit much to make the quesst optional. Although my wife had problems completing it at times due to the problems she has with her mouse hand due to poor medical treatment when she fell and broke several bones in it a few years ago. Neither of us thought it too difficult, and there is also a bit of luck in it as the number of dying Othmir can vary as can the rate of demise. On on run while doing it on all 9 toons there were only 4 or 5 othmir to keep healed.
So instead of over reacting SOE should have just reduced the rate at which the Othmir health declines by a small amount and maybe capped the number to be healed at any one time to maybe 5 or 6 then maybe everyone would have been happy.
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Filly67
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It is so weird to me that this is the type of issue that they choose to address with all of the things that could be chosen and changed. I have the least Mario skills of any player in the history of gaming. My guild mates and friends have spent dozens of hours laughing at me when I continue to slide off of icy ramps, miss a step, fall off a bridge, etc…. No one dies more of self inflicted wounds then me. When they saw the pillars in EJ they had to jump into our chat channel to let me know how much I was going to suffer. But you know what? I do them, over and over if I have to because that is what is required and everyone else does it so why shouldn’t I. Yes, it took me failing once on the Potent Potable quest to figure out what I needed to do but is it even remotely difficult? No way.
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Gina
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Thank you, Charn.
Some people can’t do this type of quest for physical reasons.
Others play EQ2 instead of other games because they are sick of this type of gameplay and want to get away from it.
Thank you, SOE, optional is the way to go.
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Savas
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I thought this was just another quest like that feed the goblin game, I didn’t beat it the first time because I didn’t realize you could click the bucket thing to get more. I can see the need to move it to optional though for certain types of players.
So this change leaves me feeling apathetic, like most changes, hooray! I mean ..whatever.
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Honk
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Never had a problem whatsoever doing this quest. Got it done the first day along with the entire questline.
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Honk
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Couldn’t agree more with this. Some random quest some people had trouble with gets a title, yet the Everquester achievement gets not a single title nor an upgraded reward.
Does SoE know how to properly prioritize acheivements? Lizardmen don’t have a slayer title yet Brownies and Satyrs do?
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Blerg
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Honestly, if you are incapable of doing this quest due to some kind of physical impairment, I am not sure how you can get anything done in this game. Literally all you have to do is point and click and maybe re-position a couple times. The hardest part of this quest is figuring out who really needs healed and who can wait. And even then calling that hard is a stretch at best.
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Lettles
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I wonder if the average age of players in this game has anything to do with the difficulty level of solo content. I know just about everyone in my previous and current guild is almost over 40 years old.
I grew up with platformers and other games that required my hand-eye coordination to be very good so this quest was very easy.
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Madcat
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so much for a so little thing, but there is nothing bad to have optional quest… It should have more optional quest, LOT more. EverQUEST… Not just a single one with some step.
It’s a bit boring to see one single heritage(signature) quest be called an xpac.
Everyquest that can be failed should be optionnal or give a longer path to achieve it, not everyone can do it. Some miss a hand, some have low reactivity and open quest should be doable for most of us. Some challenge is welcome too (also called quick run, power level etc) It should have more option, short hard way and boring long (not so long ! hey! i m bored !) way 😉
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Charn
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Sievert:
I wasn’t comparing the game to an FPS, but this quest DOES require the manual dexterity and coordination with both hands (you can’t reach some of the otters and the medicine bowl without moving) that is needed in many first-person shooters. Since you could not get past this quest, and finish the quest line (which, to me, is an integral part of the game) I was making the comparison of the fine motor control needed for this quest versus first-person shooters.
Am I still glad they made it optional? Absolutely.
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