The Journey Is The Reward, Unless It's Designed Otherwise.

Garr recently suggested an interesting quest variation: all monsters in the quest area have no experience value, but the boss's treasure chest more than makes up for the loss of combat experience.  My understanding on the motive for such an area is to award non-fighter characters an equal share of the area's experience.  Neither mystics nor healers need concern themselves with how many combat shares they have: they would receive an equal slice of the reward pie at the end of the quest.

That is, assuming that someone doesn't solo the pie.

I have run numerous invasions which have included the appearance of an invasion boss.  It has been my observation that players typically strive to take down the boss as quickly as possible, and that typically means there is no waiting for others to tag the boss.  And any chest which is dropped by the invasion boss is picked up just as fast as it is dropped.  This observation leads me to wonder if a quest based around a sizable end treasure would be shared consistently and equally.

The idea itself isn't a bad idea, and it would make for an interesting social experiment.  There are still a lot of questions that require answering: would players wait for other players for a predictable quest chest?  What incentive is there for sharing a large treasure chest?  How does a player get compensated if that player misses the reward?  Assuming that issues around the reward distribution may be resolved (I have some ideas on how to address that), the larger questions remain: is this a good quest?  Is this a fun quest?

I don't have the answers, but I do have the questions!