Elden Ring Quest's System

This project was created during a mentorship I took part in in 2023. Amanda, my mentor, guided me through the process of creating a UX Study in which I did, on a small scale, a problem-solving exercise on a real case scenario. My objective is to find a current problem in a created design, study the pain points that most annoy users, and create a proposal that could solve the problem for them.
In this case, I chose a game I have been playing lately, Elden Ring, and I personally find it difficult to follow the UI as a new player in the genre. After looking at it as a designer, and talking with some people, I realized these issues are fairly common for new users, so I chose this game as my starting point: how to make Elden Ring more enjoyable for players without taking away the nature of the game.
I feel this is a great challenge since this game and genre usually come with a community that loves the obscure/mysterious nature of the systems within them, and "just simplifying" elements would not be enough to satisfy the community or this Player Persona.

• Objective: Solving a retention problem with Quests inside the game.
• Responsabilities: UX Researcher, UX Designer.
• Duration: 6 months
• Team Size: 2 (Mentor and mentee)
• Game's genre: 'Souls Like'
• Platform: PC , Console

Process

For this project, I was part of an mentorship, with my mentor, Amanda Crampton. We decided on a workflow that could benefit my progress, avoid/circumvent the pain points of the project, and provide feedback often. Therefore:
We had bi-weekly meetings to follow the progress. I show my progress during the weeks and receive feedback during them or in the meeting, and we then plan ahead for the next work sprint. It was a great workflow that worked for both of us.
We tried to make this workflow as flexible as possible by allowing for re-arrangements or cutting content if it was necessary. Communication was the key.
We planned deadlines: This is a 6-month project outside of work hours, so time was a limiting factor. 

• The first 2 months were dedicated to the investigation: gathering information, learning about different UX Research methods, and doing interviews. I wanted to put a great focus on the pillars so the rest of the project goes as smoothly as possible: the Problem Statement and the Goals.
• The following 2 months were used to ideate/implement the proposed solution using Figma (Creating UX Challenges, Solution Proposals, Wireframes, and Prototypes). It was also a great experience to deepen my knowledge about Figma and FigJam.
• The last month was meant to be used to polish the project: do another round of interviews, check for potential new issues, etc. 
• We had another month planned as a buffer, which was used between implementing and polishing the project. Using this workflow, I also contacted other people, such as teammates at my department and other UX Designer, for further feedback to ensure I could provide as much perspective on the project as possible.

Problem Statement

Some users have found the quest system¹ to be annoying to use. According to different threads, forums, and videos, it seems that some quests are so random that players cannot complete them without guides.
However, some users do defend this obscure and abstract nature in quests as a trait of the Souls' franchise.
I believe there is an opportunity to add an optional system (UI, mechanic, or similar) that helps the user track quests or information gathered around them, so they don’t have to exit the title to check online wikis and engage more with the title (keep retention). This change would be oriented toward casual players and should be implemented in a way that is non-mandatory and non-invasive for hardcore players.
It’s worth noting that using guides is a common practice among seasoned players of the Souls genre.

• Background/Area of the problem
  Quest system/mechanics
• People affected 
  Casual players, players that had a break from the game and want to go back, players that want to discover everything in the game without breaking immersion.
• Impact
  Players are interacting less with these systems, experimenting less, and missing content.

¹ Sources:
The Problem With Elden Ring's Side Quests
Elden Ring quest system is basically "Where's Wally?", which is not the best approach
Denial about how bad the quest system is. 
The quest system…
Can we have an honest discussion about how bad the quest design is?
Elden Ring is my first From Software game. I absolutely love it, but it's not without its faults …
These games are great because they are immersive, and asking for quest markers and trackers undermines and cheapens that.
The quest system in Elden Ring is kinda a headache and it missed some potential
Game is great.. but that quest system is horrible

UX Interviews

Interview Goal

Finding out pain points in the UI elements of the game. How does the user feel about the Quest system? Can it be improved somehow? How do crafting and navigating the UI feel to the user?
This study was conducted with a small group of people.

Goals

After studying the first interviews, we can hypothesize that while the quest system’s mystery is a good thing, being too obtuse can cause annoyance among users. There is also the re-onboarding issue, where players who leave the game for a while and come back do not know where they left off. Therefore, the first goals we should cover are:

[Retention goal] The new system should be able to help players keep track of or continue quests without being obvious or giving away the mystery.

Players feel that some quests are mysterious enough, while others are too obtuse to understand where to go or what to do next. There are inconsistencies in some quests: some offer the players markers on the map or items that have text in them, while others do none of that. This system should balance the “mysterious” factor to be roughly the same and avoid the edges of players being annoyed at too much inconsistency.

[Engagement/Re-engagement goal] The new system must help ease players' re-onboarding and/or catching up with past or current quests.

Players have expressed interest in having some way to remember where they left the quests when they come back after a while. Since Elden Ring is a very extensive game (+100 hours), it's easy to leave the game and come back later.

[Consistency Goal] It must not break immersion.

In the interviews, players have expressed the desire to avoid exiting the game or being outside the main experience, therefore losing immersion in the title. Soul’s players want the challenge and the immersion to be as intact as possible.

UX Challenges and Competitor Analysis

With our goals, I created UX Challenges and studied some competitor solutions to compare and give ideas. The games chosen for this comparison have been Outer Wilds, Amnesia: The Bunker, and Subnautica. These titles have different but consistent solutions to engage with the user and make them engage better with the story, onboard, and re-onboard if they have spent time outside of the title. Some of the UX Challenges that I created are indeed solved in these titles. See the table below for more references.

User Journey Map

Solutions Proposal

Chosen Solution

The solution chosen for further research is #3 - In-game NPC. 
It offers the best approach to our current goals: Utility, Retention, and Immersion. Its ‘cons’ can be mitigated and its ‘pros’ are very positive for the player.

Breakdown

The new system will add functionality to Sir Gideon Ofnir's (NPC) Library, allowing the user to read the books within it. The books will offer past logs, given that the user has talked with Gideon first. This way, the user can relapse or reread information that has already been given.

Flows

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Wireframes with notes

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Clean Wireframes

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Wireframe Walkthrough

For more information, and the full project organization/access to the prototypes, please see the Figma file below.

Conclusion and Next Steps

After creating the mocks, videos, and a playable prototype in Figma, I interviewed the same users that I started my investigation with again. Since this system/new UI is not in the game, it's an abstract exercise for them, but the reviews I got were positive:

'I can see this implemented in the game; it would make a lot of sense'
'I don't think I would use it for Lore, but being able to check where I left the game is super useful'

With this proposal re-tested, I feel pretty positive about finishing the project, having found a solution that could both work for our goals: player retention, consistency, and engagement, AND that also recycles components already created in the UI, so the implementation would be easier than with other solutions.

Moving Forward

First, one big issue I found while creating the mocks and gathering information is that Elden Ring does not have a PC Button hint system. Meaning that while the game does work with keyboard and mouse, it always shows console prompts at all times, not keyboard/mouse ones. This makes PC players confused as to what button does what action. Another big thing is that some console buttons, like "Y", have multiple PC counterparts (in this case, 'F' for menus and 'E' while in gameplay). This is extremely confusing to PC players, who have to learn them by heart to operate the game correctly. Creating a new layout of controls for keyboard, the proper art for the key buttons, and re-designing the hint components could be a great exercise (and a really time-consuming task) to continue adding accessibility and consistency to the title.

Another thing I could work on moving forward is taking on other areas of the game to improve readability, retention, or accessibility. One example is Crafting: making the system easier to access and use, and adding "quick crafts" or useful functionality that would lower the barrier of use for these features.

Lastly, one thing that would be interesting to study as well is a re-design of the controls' system, so, for example, UI can be traversed with different buttons. This way, more methods of control can be used, and more people could enjoy the game. For example, using joysticks and Dpad for the same functionalities, like scrolling (which is currently something the user cannot do). There is also the possibility to study one-hand controller layouts, or simplified and pre-made ones.
This would go in line with similar AAA competitor titles. 

Special thanks

This project would not have been possible without the help of my mentor, Amanda Crampton. I cannot thank her enough for the guidance, meetings, all the articles she shared with me, and the feedback I got during the whole project!
I also wanted to thank Carlos, another Senior UX Designer at EA, and the people who accepted doing interviews for this project.