"Radiant Quests" in the GTA Series

[Alpha Demigod]

Anyone who has played Skyrim will know what I'm talking about. After you beat fixed, scripted, official, missions...you have the option of doing radiant missions. These quests are literally "never-ending"...you initiate a generic dialogue sequence and then the game handles the rest.

 

Sure, it's not as detailed as the main missions but they add personality to the post-game.

 

For instance, in Skyrim you can get "monster hunter" radiant quests. You talk to an NPC, she says "A citizen of _____ needs our help!" and then the quest journal tells you there is a Sabre Cat near Solitude that you need to kill.

 

Now let's apply this to GTA.

 

For example, the bounty missions from Maude. There are only 4 of them...I was very disappointed by this.

 

A "radiant quest" system would be easy to implement. You go to Maude, you get a generic dialogue and text "Hey Trevor, there's one asshole you need to bring in"

 

Then, on your phone, you get a randomy generated text "Mr. Derp near Fort Zancudo" or "Nail this scumbag by Grapeseed!"

 

The game then spawns a bounty and a bunch of guards in any area of the countryside, you go and kill them. Simple. In open world games this is easy to implement. There is so much detail, so many sights, so many places...it's a shame that so many of them have no purpose.

 

The text works like this: once the game spawns a cluster of enemies in an area, the area-detection then programs a text-message on the fly. The game CAN recognize which borough you are in. When you drive around, you can see it in the bottom right corner where the vehicle name is displayed. This has been a feature in every GTA.

 

If there is anyone who is unfamiliar with Radiant Quests, read this: http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Radiant_Quests

 

 

You can, of course, apply this to other scenarios. Let's say Franklin being a vehicle enthusiast has "car repo" missions like Brucie would issue to Niko in GTAIV.

 

A random vehicle spawns with hostile NPCs around it. Frank gets a text saying "Yo nigga, get me dis Entity XF that got boosted by some Vagos niggaz in Vinewood hills"

You go there, kill the hostile Vago NPCs, and then drive the car to a predetermined garage.

 

It adds to the character, immersion, and gives you something to do once you exhaust the limited side quests. 4 bounties, 4 bounties? Seriously?!

Edited June 1, 2014 by Dark Bordeus

[~Tiger~]

Moving to GTA Series Chat...

[Grievous]

At this point might as well bring back the Vigilante/Paramedic/Firefighter/Pimping/Gang War/Courier Delivery Service side missions ...

 

I honestly didn't liked the Radiant system in Skyrim. I get the idea, but the execution was lacking in incentive.

Sure it keeps you enough side missions occupied, but after you got to area X and kill Y and retrieve Z you're rarely if ever rewarded with something of value. Radiant worked best in the early levels of the game.

After completing all the scripted quests -which would have taken hundreds of hours already- might as well commence a new game from scratch.

 

What was great about the Four Bounties in V is that each target had lengthy conversations with Trevor, which kept the situation unique and fresh.

Having unlimited targets to hunt with none of this scripted conversations would feel empty and pointless, pretty much the same reason I was never so hooked with Vigilantes, Gang Wars and the likes in older titles.

 

More scripted conversations and side missions would be nice. Not the automatically content generated radiant system as we know it today.

[Drunken Cowboy]

I think the best adaptions of these were TLaD's gang wars and TBoGT's drug wars.

Even after the main story, you still had infinite opportunities for gang warfare.

TLaD's was cool, but after you've beaten a certain amount of them, the enemies would be so tough that you could never buff your backup high enough to be capable of contending with them.

TBoGT's was cool, but after the ambush, there was that long, annoying drive back to the lockup to return the truck or van of drugs.

 

Something like Red Dead's bounty hunting, or just random law-vs-crook encounters you could help either side in. GTA V needed SOMETHING post-story to give us an excuse to shoot people.

[universetwisters]

I don't see why that can't work. It'd be much more better if they have us more than 4 bounties though

[Alpha Demigod]

GTA V needed SOMETHING post-story to give us an excuse to shoot people.

 

Could not have said it better. I need motivations to explore the countryside and use my guns. Seeing as how the countryside is fully-developed and beautifully created but gets NO PROMINENCE in the campaign whatsoever...much of it can go undiscovered.

 

Sure, I have randomly driven around on an ATV and taken in the sights and stuff...but that just gets stale after a while. I want a natural way to discover it.

 

I need realistic, organic, and in-context reasons to drive around and use my weapons. The rampages end, the assassinations end, the bounties end...what is left? Just fighting it out with the cops or replaying missions?

 

Radiant bounty quests would have fixed all of this. There are beautiful settlements in Blaine County that go untouched. I don't care if there is no conversation with the bounty target. I could use my imagination and fill it in.

[killdrivetheftvehicle]

 

GTA V needed SOMETHING post-story to give us an excuse to shoot people.

 

Could not have said it better. I need motivations to explore the countryside and use my guns. Seeing as how the countryside is fully-developed and beautifully created but gets NO PROMINENCE in the campaign whatsoever...much of it can go undiscovered.

 

Sure, I have randomly driven around on an ATV and taken in the sights and stuff...but that just gets stale after a while. I want a natural way to discover it.

 

I need realistic, organic, and in-context reasons to drive around and use my weapons. The rampages end, the assassinations end, the bounties end...what is left? Just fighting it out with the cops or replaying missions?

 

Radiant bounty quests would have fixed all of this. There are beautiful settlements in Blaine County that go untouched. I don't care if there is no conversation with the bounty target. I could use my imagination and fill it in.

 

I would be fine with radiant quests with no talk, but for the sake of braking uncomfortable silence (we Finns don't have this problem) there should be an option of a bunch of generic conversations and an option to be silent, whichever you prefer.

[Sofa]

Doing anything with the empty end game wold screw with planned obsolence, request denied.

Ok jokes aside, yes i agree, post story the game is the weakest of the franchise, gta titles are getting incrincreasingly restricted to a narrative, unfortunate... Remember the first one?

[Midnightz]

Confused by the OP... In V, this functionality exists with the towing missions, taxi cab missions, arms trafficking both air and ground missions, and business property missions - all are recurring mini story-based tasks. As someone above mentioned, there have also been a ton of submissions in past GTAs - similar to the taxi and towing in V.