Quests are objective based, there should be a purpose to their inclusion to start other than EXP or you wind up with shit just being filler.
I don't think the Souls games simply reward XP: NPCs can unlock areas, award consumable and equipable items, facilitate crafting, provide stat upgrades, join you in boss fights, betray you, dispense general lore/worldbuilding tidbits, etc.
Quests should also play to the strengths of the game they're in and not be counter to what gameplay systems the main game uses or they will wind up annoying. Take the Racing questline in forbidden west, the game engine it's running on wasn't really made with racing specifically in mind. While Death Stranding used it for racing as well the results were still mixed because the courses were made from open world areas that were haphazardly boxed in. While it did give a proper reward, the whole structure was not something that was built upon from what the game established and went off into a whole different genre entirely.
Absolutely, and I typically skip any racing content in these types of games precisely for the reasons you mentioned. However, I'd argue that the quests -- or just optional content -- in Souls games plugs directly into its core mechanics: exploration and combat. There are no side quests where you dash through an obstacle course on a time limit or anything that introduces new and ill-suited gameplay.
Soulsborne games tend to have very poorly explained quests, quests with an involuntary failure state(such as NPCs dying through no fault of your own), or poorly done fetch quests or reputation grinds that require rare drops. They're not laid out in such a way where it signals to the player to finish them. Especially compared to how the easily laid out the main campaign is and the boss souls being a direct reward to be used to upgrade a spell or get you a better piece of gear. Most of the time NPCs just serve as hints as what to do or to signal where to go next(i.e. onion knight sitting outside the gate)
Yes, the quests are poorly explained, but so is most everything in the game. This cryptic nature is a major thematic pillar, and I don't think the main progression is straightforward either: there are always multiple areas open to explore, the narrative throughline is kept terse and cryptic, and there's tons of optional content. Explicitly spelling out the side-quests would feel derivative and out of place against this backdrop.
There could be an argument made that some side quests are too obtuse and players should never be expected to figure out their prerequisites, but it never gets as bad as Final Fantasy XII's notorious Zodiac Spear where the player can't open a non-descript treasure chest in order to get the game's best weapon from that same chest later on. There's nothing in the Souls games that fights like that against its core mechanics. In other words, the non straightforward nature of the side quests isn't there to sell strategy guides. Instead, it reinforces and magnifies its core design pillar.
And there's at least one other element to keep in mind here: the messages and ghosts of other players. These community-planted hints help (and occasionally hinder) the process of piecing together info to figure out the world and its content.
The quests in Soulsborne games are not usually the types of things that benefit the gameplay. It's not a roguelike or roguelite where if you fuck up you can wait for the next run in a few minutes to try again since these games are usually a few hours long. You can't save at will and the game will always save over immediately if you screw a step up. The more involved quests require you to talk to an NPC, follow to to Location A then to B while keeping them alive. In execution they tend to come off as very annoying or tedious, especially since the NPCs don't respawn and you can't retread back to an earlier step and try again.
The escort missions are few and far between, and the NPCs can take
a lot of damage. There are also mitigating factors that nicely slide into the core gameplay, such as healing spells or area-of-effect buffs on weapons. And if things go sideways, there are no walking-dead scenarios; killed NPCs drop their vital items, and accidental attacks can be alleviated by paying for reputation-restoration. With that said, I can see how a lack of clear instructions and some instances where you only get one shot at something can be frustrating, but that's only if you approach it from a completionist point of view.
If you pay attention while exploring, seek out and consdier the various hints, and prepare for what you anticipate, then you have a good shot of completing any given task. The quest you mentioned earlier in Bloodborne is one I completed before the boss, and I'm sure many other players did as well. And if despite all that you fail, then you live with the consequences and move on.
It's not always the fairest, just like being randomly invaded by a phantom that waits for you to be close to dangerous enemies to attack, but it's part of the
journey. Attempting to 100% the game on your first try can severely increase the frustration factor, and I don't think that approach was ever intended. Build-limitations, the lack of checkpoints, and no ability to save-scum are all there to ensure that the stakes are high by not giving easy do-overs. True roguelikes can be even more punishing by flat out ending your run with one mistake, and the Souls series have an additional mitigating factor: finishing the game presents you with a New Game+ mode. It revamps the experience with tougher enemies, bigger rewards, some occasional new content, and another chance to tell a story with a different character.
Signifying a quest has begun and finishing it should also be in a similar vein to how the game gives feedback to when you die or you have defeated a boss. It makes your success more concrete and that what you didn't wasn't some developer afterthought.
I think this is a relatively minor nitpick. Aside from the bosses getting special treatment as they are extreme difficulty spikes that cap off exploration and present large new rewards, I don't think the quests
need the type of billboarding you suggest. Quests rewards are usually pretty clearly signaled via NPC dialogue and the rewards you get, so I don't see a vital reason to do more (unless you're achievement hunting and want to make sure you've completed everything, I suppose, but that doesn't gel with the game's overall vibe).
The quest structure that does work for them is to go to Location X kill enemy and open up new area or a path. That's how the main campaign works and the side activities should not really deviate that much from it, heavily involved NPC interaction really isn't something the game is set up for. Exploration is a major part of the series and players who explore more should be rewarded properly compared to players who make a B line to the exit.
Exploration in Souls games tends to be very iterative, and I think it works incredibly well with its quests. Grinding for resources to purchase new gear or level up, looking for rare drops, discovering new paths and areas, etc. all encourage multiple runs through one location and multiple interactions with any of its NPCs. And when those runs end, players tend to regroup and upgrade in the hubs with the highest concentration of NCPs. This makes it very natural to converse with NPCs to see what's changed, what new quests/items/lore are available, and it's done in an organic way that doesn't rely on quest markers or compass arrows.
That's what makes it so immersive for so many people.
