A. tasks is just a less fancy word for quests. I mean it is literally the same thing.
B. Once the "new" players runs out of "tasks" they will ask for more and still quit because they "finished" the game.
C. These "task" chains would be a lot of work to do proper. Looking at the past I am not optimistic SV can do it in the time that is left. And we do need a skill up system at release that works WELL. Not a broken chain of "not-a-quest".
D. I didn´t like the "tasks" (egg delivery) in the first game very much either. They were static and unrealistic for the most part. I would rather see them replaced with something else than more of them.
In the end it´s just the opposite of the sandbox idea. It´s literally a themepark. Adding it in parallel would eat up delelopment costs for a shitty questline instead of improving the actual game play. It´s another example where people can´t see the benefit of having one character per account to the original design.
I do miss the old days where I would have had support against quest ideas, but I guess times have changed.
I'll agree with you fully that my main concern with my suggestion is that it may be too much of an undertaking for the development team.
I probably have my head too far in the clouds thinking that this would be something that wouldn't be botched. Its definitely hard to fully explain my idea of 'quests' for everyone to understand but it would be nothing like typical themepark MMOs which require no thought. I think my original post saying they would be akin to Everquest's way of adding quests is as close as I can get to explaining them.
I agree that they are making good changes by only having one character per account because yes as long as you don't re-roll your character because it's not the right race or age then you would only need to do the grind one time.
I have literally just explained it in my post. If experience gain is tied to damage done etc. macroing will be less effective. Maybe a number will clear this up for you:
Macro: Doing 0,1 damage per second with a wooden sword - 0,1 experience gain per second.
Fighting walkers: Doing 10 damage per second (bigger hits split by seconds) - 10 experience gain per second.
One skill point from 0-10 = 100 exp. Macro: 1000 seconds Fightin walkers: 10 seconds + gold + actual gameplay
You can adjust the number to your liking.
This would be a good change to the current system that would not be that hard to implement.
I guess at the end of the day I find the idea of running around interacting with the NPCs getting a little Myrland lore, some riddles, some vague dialog, to lead to an inevitable quest/task is much more entertaining gameplay than simply going out and killing some pigs or walkers for a few hours for not much reason more than to level your skill up as fast as possible.
The current skill system isn't going to stop me from playing the game. If they tweak it for the better without this suggestion I'll be happy, but I'll still be bored until I've skilled my character to near max level.