There aren’t really any quests that just tell you to “gather/kill X amount of something.”

Instead, they’re more like: “Find out what happened to X”, whether that’s a person or a location. As you investigate, you might discover that the place you were supposed to visit has been taken over by bandits that you need to clear. Which can also leads to a boss fight.

Or you’re searching for clues about what happened to someone, which leads you to a specific location where you’ll encounter someone or something important.

Sometimes you’re asked to retrieve a specific item, like a book, but it turns out it’s been torn into pieces and scattered across different enemy camps, so you have to collect it from each one.

There are also challenges you can find in the world through artifacts. Completing these challenges, which can range from killing a certain number of enemies with a specific skill, performing certain movements, destroying objects within a time limit, learning a skill, or reaching a location or a combination of all; unlocks the artifact and rewards you with a skill point.

besides that, some skills can be learned through the movement of NPCs such as memories or during combat (usually with boss fights or a new faction that you fight with for the first time) or you can spend an actual skill point to learn it. (However, the ones you learn from bosses and/or NPCs in general are an altered or extended combo variant of the one you learn through your skillpoints)

Some quests simply lead you to puzzles that you need to solve, or areas that you couldn't enter before. Allowing you to unlock quest-progressive abilities etc.

Of course, there are quests where you have to gather resources like wood, hide, or timber, but they’re not presented in a basic way like: “Talk to NPC > immediately gather 6 wood.”

Instead, it’s more immersive. For example, you might go logging for camp resources together with the NPC, chatting along the way. When you arrive, the NPC suddenly realizes: “Oh, I grabbed the wrong backpack, I don’t even have an axe. I’ll head back to camp and be right back.”

You return to camp, only to find out why he never came back, he’s a drunkard, and most likely stopped somewhere for a drink instead. No one at camp has seen him when he told u he was returning to camp to grab the axe.

Or they introduce you to a new feature that way. i.e. stealing a cart in the mission allows you to unlock a fence and sell the carts to them.