Desperately need a better method of tracking down and talking to specific lords

[Iskenos]

I've been trying to complete the "Neretzes' Folly" quest, which entails having to travel all across the continent and speak to 10 different lords. It is now day 178 and I've only spoken to 7 of 10. Yes, I can look at the Encyclopedia on a certain lord's page and see where he or she was "last seen." Okay, fine. I go to that place, which of course isn't always close by. Days of travel later, checking the place they were last seen every day, and once I finally converge on their path, they are not there. Quite often, their "last seen" location doesn't update every day so I can be hunting for them in a very large area since the places they might possibly be in the given area increases as time passes.
On to the next problem. I have finally found a lord that I have been tracking down for about 10 days. Great! Now I can talk to him and then I'll only have one more person to track down across the continent! (But wait, there's more!) He is in a siege camp and I have no way of talking to him because he is not the leader of the siege. Now I have to wait Until the siege is done. Hopefully he doesn't get taken prisoner.
Now let me give some suggestions on how this may be fixable. In Warband, this problem existed but never became so frustrating, and I was able to overlook it if the hunt didn't go on for too long. What made the difference in Warband is that I could ask any lord or lady in the same faction as the one I was chasing and mostly be given an answer, which includes things like "(Insert lord here) is travelling to (insert final destination here) and should be near (Insert nearest settlement to their current location here.)" That worked well enough. I would like to see this added to the game as soon as possible, because at the moment the system I have just isn't good enough.

 

[Robbie_RGJ]

This quest is also just a chore and should be removed or have an option to skip it. If I had to do this everytime I made a new character I would be very upset

 

[Iskenos]

True. Even if it was easy to find all the lords, it is really way too much travelling for a single quest. But that's not my main focus here.

 

[Princeps Senatus]

It's a horrible quest. I enjoy the lore and everything but like -- it is extremely out of the way, disrupts normal gameplay, and is a waste of time. There should be better ways of doing it.

Heck, I'd even prefer it if you could just mail letters to the lords and had to wait a few days in-game to get a response. At least then you could do something useful at the time instead of chasing the lords all across every corner of the map.

 

[MKLVN]

If you don’t enjoy the quest why not just ignore it? You don’t even have to go to the bandit hideout with your brother you can just immediately go do whatever you want after the combat tutorial.

I disagree on the siege bit though, you’re some random wanderer- why should a Lord allow you into their siege camp to ask about a battle that happened years ago? The dynamic of them possibly being captured or busy doing something else just adds complexity to the quest and shouldn’t be considered something that’s wrong with it.

I agree that asking where a Lord is should be a simple dialogue option though and theyll answer depending on their relation with you.

 

[Iskenos]

Update: A huge army came and crushed the siege camp that the lord I needed to speak to was in. He's now been taken prisoner.

 

[Iskenos]

The point of this thread isn't the quest, it's the ability to track down heroes, and not being able to speak to them if they're in a larger party is really frustrating

 

[GetAssista]

You can ask other lords about the battle and they refer you to the lords you need. Then you would look for their location in the Encyclopedia (clicking the name link on the dialog). Info can be outdated tho, not to mention it takes time to get there

Different nation' lords refer you to a different guy. There is more than 10 lords on the map that you can speak to to get to a total 10 for the quest. So keep chatting with everyone

 

[Iskenos]

Yes, it's the outdated part that is the problem. I understand the realism aspect, but we can at least know, for example what I said in the OP:
"What made the difference in Warband is that I could ask any lord or lady in the same faction as the one I was chasing and mostly be given an answer, which includes things like "(Insert lord here) is travelling to (insert final destination here) and should be near (Insert nearest settlement to their current location here.)" That worked well enough. I would like to see this added to the game as soon as possible, because at the moment the system I have just isn't good enough. "

 

[ikari]

Yeah it's a not a very good design - I've finaly finished the quest and I've rejoiced ... and then I've realised that I need to find a king of a so I can ask him if I can join ... I had to do this kind of thing relatively often in Warband and it was not that great of a game machanic there but it was bearable - this is insufferable mostly because when it finaly updates the person is often on the other side of a kingdom - it's bad because my army has about the same speed as his but he knows where he is going and I'm not so he can be outrunning me basicaly until he decides to come my direction (if we don't miss each other at night for example) or stay at one place

I also think that lords are spending more time in prisons than they did in Warband