- The Witcher 3 has some of the best quests in modern RPGs.
- That is mainly because CDPR typically refuses to accept 90% of the ideas that are pitched.
- The lead quest designer encouraged the designers to pitch all of their ideas to select the best ones.
The Witcher 3 has so many memorable moments that it can be difficult to pick a few. However, the quests involving the Bloody Baron, the Mirror Master, and the Kaer Morhen battle stand out.
Such quests have led to the game earning its reputation as one of the industry’s best RPGs. According to CDPR, the main reason behind this quality was the fact that it was very particular about accepting pitches.
Why it matters: A similar level of quality was observed in Cyberpunk 2077, which came with detailed narratives and quests.
As expected, the developers at CDPR pitched many quests during the development of games like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3. However, around 90% of the ideas were rejected, showing that CDPR made no compromises.
In an interview with PCGamer at GDC, the lead quest designer of Cyberpunk 2077, Pawel Sasko, who also worked on The Witcher 3, revealed why the quests ended up so good.
A good designer has an acceptance ratio of their ideas of between five to 10%.
– Pawel Sasko
He believes that designers with 10% acceptance ratios are the best that any team has. However, even such designers end up having most of their pitches rejected.
Sasko emphasized that the idea behind this approach is to encourage the designers to pitch all of their ideas. Eventually, the ideas can be filtered out, with only the best ones appearing in the game.
While it sounds like a simple technique, it has been effective for CDPR so far. Sasko said that even the best designers have bad ideas, so it is not disrespectful for any designer to get their pitch rejected.
Delving further into this topic, Sasko revealed that he often gives the designers a list of genres along with themes for sample pitches. Then, the designers write him 5-20 pitches a day, which gives the developer a good insight into which ones to pick.
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