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'Timid creatures now fight back when attacked.'

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  • jheinigjheinig Member Posts: 364 Cryptic Developer
    edited February 2013
    The ability to flag a creature as not dropping loot is currently not linked in any way to its behavior conditions. Thus, we don't have a good way to set up Foundry critters so that when they are set to not fight back, they don't drop loot.

    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.

    I'll talk to Zero tomorrow to see if we can work out a way to do this. No promises -- Foundry is not my normal area of expertise and I do still have a lot of other work to do! But I will at least do some brainstorming on the issue.
  • odyssey47odyssey47 Member Posts: 524 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    jheinig wrote: »
    The ability to flag a creature as not dropping loot is currently not linked in any way to its behavior conditions. Thus, we don't have a good way to set up Foundry critters so that when they are set to not fight back, they don't drop loot.

    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.

    I'll talk to Zero tomorrow to see if we can work out a way to do this. No promises -- Foundry is not my normal area of expertise and I do still have a lot of other work to do! But I will at least do some brainstorming on the issue.

    Your efforts are greatly appreciated. Thank you.
  • aesicaaesica Member Posts: 736 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    jheinig wrote: »
    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.
    That would most likely be sufficient. Thanks for looking into it. :D
    Rubberband Dance has been unlocked!
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  • expraidexpraid Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    our 2 cents

    our fleet canceled the monthly payments,to show our disagreement with the change,
    to make it simple, the recent greed-change to the dil, doff-wise, the resent lootchanges,and the needs for fleet-improvement leaves us as a rather small fleet no other choice then farming such missions,in a rather acceptable time,as a group of people with jobs.

    some may disagree, but we did pay monthly to show our respect,we have RL jobs,and most of us have families too, means our timeframe to play is small,and this foundrychange is going to "backfire" to a whole new level.

    lets see how long it stays,or in case it does,how much supportloss they can afford.
    we did it by choice,and those changes wont make us play some other foundry stuff,that's for sure,whoever got in mind,to get more visits for their foundry missions,just by crying about "exploits" .. it wont workout, not a bit,not at all.

    regards.
  • thundercatvobthundercatvob Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    This new change is indeed disappointing. I too am one of those that does not have much time to play and the ability to do short missions in order for me to keep up with the economy.

    I've always preferred to play by myself and not interact with too many people, especially those who I don't know. The foundry farming missions allowed me to play at my own pace and gather a decent amount of loot, same as those who enjoy playing STFs and such.

    Bringing back non shooting enemy ships would allow most of us who prefer to not interact with many, and those of us who don't have too much time to keep up and enjoy the game at our own pace in style.
  • satinaviansatinavian Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    The problem is not the exploit fix.

    The problem is, they went a bit overbourd with making everything an EC sink and/or Dill sink and introducing new grind-only currencies for Rep.

    People with limited time can't really participate anymore and have either to give up Rep or Fleet or Doffing or find exploits.
  • darkzenithukdarkzenithuk Member Posts: 57 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    Oh well, the foundry authors will just have to find a way around the changes, and no doubt they will do so over the coming days. This changes nothing, aside from making EC farming a little harder and more time consuming. People will still do it, so it was a waste of time in my opinion... time which they could have used to add more content to the game *cough* Klingons *cough*.
    Mortem a mundo, ortum republica, imperii ruina.
  • khamseenairkhamseenair Member Posts: 2,640 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2013
    I don't agree with them removing things that the majority of people make use of, that's only harming the game in the long run.

    Also, disabling this feature has now broken several non grind missions which relied on the enemies not fighting back for story purposes. Once again, destroying the foundry because people aren't playing the way they want them to. It's sad that people can't all just play the game the way they want to play it.
    Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
    True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
  • khamseenairkhamseenair Member Posts: 2,640 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2013
    satinavian wrote: »
    The problem is not the exploit fix.

    The problem is, they went a bit overbourd with making everything an EC sink and/or Dill sink and introducing new grind-only currencies for Rep.

    People with limited time can't really participate anymore and have either to give up Rep or Fleet or Doffing or find exploits.

    Exactly.

    This move also annoys me because it's broken foundry missions which used the feature to stop enemies attacking for story purposes.
    Join date is wrong, I've actually been around since STO Beta.
    True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
  • michaelp1989michaelp1989 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    Easy: Get a few people, 3 or 4 or 5, and play Nerandra, or other similar Tau Dewa missions. Lots of drops. You will have to play the game as intended, but making things go splodey is fun.

    You can even make it easier by raising need/greed to very rare or higher, so you don't have to worry about who gets it, it's based on who it drops for, or round robin it.

    You wont get dil directly, but you will also get rom marks for the daily.

    Okay but I won't be able to farm ec that quick using multiple toons (5) and I planned to save for JHEC or JHAS...now I can't because of this nerf/change. Managed only to farm 10mil ec before nerf. I even bought account bank for 1k zp and I feel that I wasted zp.
    BTW. I am a solo player in terms of farming.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • castsbugccastsbugc Member Posts: 830 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    I don't agree with them removing things that the majority of people make use of, that's only harming the game in the long run.

    Also, disabling this feature has now broken several non grind missions which relied on the enemies not fighting back for story purposes. Once again, destroying the foundry because people aren't playing the way they want them to. It's sad that people can't all just play the game the way they want to play it.

    There were larger concerns than just 'letting people play the game the way they want to play it' It had to do alot more with the risk vs reward balance being highly skewed, and the economic impact that knocks on from it.

    Trust me, I am rather annoyed at the functionality this spec game going away, especially since it puts another damper on being able to create the mythical destructible object that doesnt move. In one of these threads jheinig came in and said they would look into creating something that would give back the functionality of timid, but not drop loot. For at least some of us, thats all we are looking for. For those that were using it as an EC fountain...there is not much I can say to placate you beyond the fact that I know for a fact there are missions that 1)meet the repeatable requirements and 2)drop a pretty high level of eq without overwhelming you

    EDIT: Here is the link: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=7810271&postcount=94
  • crownvic2doorcrownvic2door Member Posts: 301 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    .....Great, with greedy people posting stuff up on the exchange for ridiculously high prices, and a busted in game economy, I was already planing on making more characters, but damn. nobody wants to finish fleet projects cause everything is too damn expensive, well I guess I'll have to find another way to get by in the game. :confused::mad:
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    The STF Simulator mission is/was initially designed to test prospective ship builds for use in STFs on the tribble test server, before making potentially expensive changes and requisitions on the holodeck live server.

    Initially it was just going to be a very rough approximation of the STFs, several rounds of Borg mobs.

    As I was developing the project though it occurred to me it could also serve as a tutorial/practice ground for those new to STFs. Complete newcomers to STFs are rarely welcomed on holodeck, PUGs may be willing accept a newcomer in Normal runs, but you rise to Elite runs (which is where the money is) and Premade/EliteSTFs channel, and the slightest mistake is heavily chastised.

    Finding 4 other players willing to sacrifice a cooldown or risk failing the optional because of a bad ship build or lack of knowledge is difficult enough on holodeck, on tribble its nigh impossible.

    So the project aimed to become more representitive of the actual STFs. There were things I immediately realised I couldn't do, timers, failing objectives. But the maps were there, a few assets were missing, so substitutions were made and could be explained in dialogue.

    I was making good progress, having found I could swap versions of items on objective complete to prevent players from targetting things they shouldn't and playing out of sequence, and I discovered the 'timid creature' behaviour worked as a substitute destructible object. That was, until the patch.
    Hmm... try making a seperate thread for it. I have my doubts as to how accurate you could make it. The behaviour of Gens when destroyed is not something you can correctly replicate in the foundry.
    jheinig wrote: »
    The ability to flag a creature as not dropping loot is currently not linked in any way to its behavior conditions. Thus, we don't have a good way to set up Foundry critters so that when they are set to not fight back, they don't drop loot.

    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.

    I'll talk to Zero tomorrow to see if we can work out a way to do this. No promises -- Foundry is not my normal area of expertise and I do still have a lot of other work to do! But I will at least do some brainstorming on the issue.
    that would be awesome! Several cryptic missions have this sort of feature and it'd be awesome to have it.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
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  • twg042370twg042370 Member Posts: 2,312 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    *sob*

    I... I wanted a banana and I went in to the grocery store. I tried to t-take one and the mean man with the badge told... *sniff*... he told me that I had to pay for it!

    WHAT SORT OF ORWELLIAN FASCIST WORLD IS THIS!?
    <3
  • bortjinxbortjinx Member Posts: 397
    edited February 2013
    twg042370 wrote: »
    *sob*

    I... I wanted a banana and I went in to the grocery store. I tried to t-take one and the mean man with the badge told... *sniff*... he told me that I had to pay for it!

    WHAT SORT OF ORWELLIAN FASCIST WORLD IS THIS!?

    You know twg, if you don't have something useful to say, don't bother opening your mouth.

    Personally, I don't care about the EC from the 'grinder' missions, and would much prefer to see people playing story missions, but until we get a way to get a decent story mission neatly fitting into a 30 minute slot where people can't rush it, people are going to use (or were at least) grinders to gain fleet marks and dilithium. Dilithium isn't a problem either, but I'll miss being able to get 120 fleet marks per hour.

    Yes, the grinders were boring, but the grinder missions weren't getting in the way of people playing story missions. People played those if they wanted to, and they played the grinders if they didn't want to play story missions.

    I enjoy playing story missions from the Foundry (and do so fairly regularly), but I don't always have time to play for an hour or two, and the grinder missions allowed me to keep up my fleet mark donations - especially handy for smaller fleets with alts where each person has to provide way more resources than in a larger fleet.

    So, instead of just ******** about people complaining when yet more options are taken away from them, how about you come up with a 30 minute story mission that people can play for their IOR?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • hanoverhanover Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    *sigh*

    If it's not whiny PvPers ruining something, it's whiny foundry authors. It would be so very delightful if people could just enjoy playing the @#$#^@% game without worrying about whether someone else is doing it "wrong."

    :mad:
    Does Arc install a root kit? Ask a Dev today!
  • crownvic2doorcrownvic2door Member Posts: 301 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    I know a way around this! post up stuff on the exchange for obscene amounts of ec!....Oh, wait....:rolleyes: Inflation.:mad:
  • atomictikiatomictiki Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    bortjinx wrote: »
    So, instead of just ******** about people complaining when yet more options are taken away from them, how about you come up with a 30 minute story mission that people can play for their IOR?

    Everyone knows that's impossible. REAL Foundry missions are 1 hour, or longer, and are timeless masterpieces.
    Leave nerfing to the professionals.
  • crownvic2doorcrownvic2door Member Posts: 301 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    atomictiki wrote: »
    Everyone knows that's impossible. REAL Foundry missions are 1 hour, or longer, and are timeless masterpieces.

    And incredibly boring when all your trying to do is bring the failing fleet back up from near death....grind for dil, grind for ec, its never ending, and for horrible payout anything halfway decent costs dill and the daily was the only way to get dill and fleet marks in a timely fashion.

    In other words if all foundry missions were an hour+ I'd never play them, And I'm sure others feel the same way.


    One thing for sure, I welcome season 8, I hope they bring some long storyline missions....and less of the puzzle/politics, more save the day, epic battles kind of stuff...oh and I want ten or more episodes to run.
  • chaoscloud#1972 chaoscloud Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    This whole Foundry nerdrage debate reminds me of STII-WoK:

    the farming grinders are James Kirk admitting what he did to win the Kobayashi Maru test,

    and the complainers who are against it and glad to see the "exploit" nerfed are like Kirk's son David who cries, "He cheated!" :P
  • grindisbaddesigngrindisbaddesign Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    And incredibly boring when all your trying to do is bring the failing fleet back up from near death....grind for dil, grind for ec, its never ending, and for horrible payout anything halfway decent costs dill and the daily was the only way to get dill and fleet marks in a timely fashion.

    While space is currently nonviable, there are some types of ground-based grinders that remain, for the time being, very efficient methods of dil/fm acquisition.

    And I'm with you on season 8, I hope it's a return to the usual quality story content. I hate what seasons 6 and 7 have turned the game into.
  • adorkabledoriadorkabledori Member Posts: 234 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    broadnax wrote: »
    You've argued that, but it has not been established. The argument that "the system allows for this behavior so therefore it must be all right" is a non-argument.

    Players find ways to exploit loopholes all the time; devs have to play catch-up to close said loopholes. Using a flaw in the system to gain rewards 'way above and beyond normal gameplay is called an exploit by just about every MMO developer out there. That's not spin, it's a fact.

    What Cryptic did with the timid ships is fix a bug, nothing more.

    Fine by me, but there are other bugs, that have been around since the beta that are needing more attention then this timide bug. And if it was so urgent, that they fixed it correctly. For example : "Easy Money" mission : before, yeah, correct, it was open fire and smoke a cig in between. Now, it's more, fire one shot and 25 angry battle cruisers are upon you with every nasty trick they know. It's became the reverse of what it is before with the result that it isn't fun either, but frustration.
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    jheinig wrote: »
    The ability to flag a creature as not dropping loot is currently not linked in any way to its behavior conditions. Thus, we don't have a good way to set up Foundry critters so that when they are set to not fight back, they don't drop loot.

    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.

    I'll talk to Zero tomorrow to see if we can work out a way to do this. No promises -- Foundry is not my normal area of expertise and I do still have a lot of other work to do! But I will at least do some brainstorming on the issue.

    This is exactly what I was saying to fleetmates... and it would be extra handy since we could costume such an NPC as a machine that has to be blown up.
  • castsbugccastsbugc Member Posts: 830 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    hanover2 wrote: »
    *sigh*

    If it's not whiny PvPers ruining something, it's whiny foundry authors. It would be so very delightful if people could just enjoy playing the @#$#^@% game without worrying about whether someone else is doing it "wrong."

    :mad:
    atomictiki wrote: »
    Everyone knows that's impossible. REAL Foundry missions are 1 hour, or longer, and are timeless masterpieces.

    Would you both please come down off your crosses for the moment and stop and consider the point that NOONE wins in this whole scenario. Stop to consider that if the devs that have their hands in the loot tables and such would have looked at the data coming from the foundry and game in general and seen that something was not within the guidelines they set for drops and such. Your use of PvP should be a great illustration of how a small number of people cannot change the course of this ship, so you think a few foundry authors have a better chance? There are probably more PvP'ers than Foundry authors as much as I hate to say.

    And no, REAL foundry missions are not any of your sarcastically toned things atomictiki. Though spotlight missions might have to be classed as timeless because regardless of any flaws that still exist in them (and you WILL still find flaws, be they bug provided or not) they are outside of player control and uneditable)

    Meanwhile the other side of the coin is that authors have lost a nifty ability to do things, like create destroyable hardpoints, or a friggen door even. So yes, noone wins in this, the people using it to fund things probably more so because it means everything takes longer to do because the easy money is gone. As someone who has spent ALOT of resources into a Starbase, I can feel the pain of smaller fleets, but I dont see this change being reverted anytime soon.
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    jheinig wrote: »

    It might be possible for us to create a default critter that does not move or fight, which is set to never drop loot by default, upon which you can place a costume. If we can do something like that, you could place this "object" anywhere and costume it appropriately as a ship, a creature, a crate, whatever.

    I'll talk to Zero tomorrow to see if we can work out a way to do this. No promises -- Foundry is not my normal area of expertise and I do still have a lot of other work to do! But I will at least do some brainstorming on the issue.

    Thanks Jhenig! Please also consider making an invisible version of this group. That wasy, we can use it to destroy doors and objects.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    This is exactly what I was saying to fleetmates... and it would be extra handy since we could costume such an NPC as a machine that has to be blown up.

    Well, there are limited costumes. If we had an invisible version, then we could use it with every object in the foundry, if there weren't collision issues.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • omnimagusomnimagus Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013

    And I'm with you on season 8, I hope it's a return to the usual quality story content. I hate what seasons 6 and 7 have turned the game into.


    Indeed, that's what worries me in all this. Again, the dilithium and energy credits are nothing I need and frankly I'm skeptical of the arguments being made that cryptic is worried about the game's economy. The loot drops and dilithium are capped daily unlike fleet marks. There is nothing in this change that can guarantee any effect whatsoever to those economies.

    What bothers me is that the parameters as to just how the foundry "should" and "shouldn't" be used aren't clearly defined anywhere that I can see (I may well be wrong about that though). In the arguments I saw back and forth in recent weeks regarding the foundry, it seemed a number of people desired to impose their view of what they think the foundry should or shouldn't be upon others. It seems the various powers that be have agreed with some of these positions, but in the long term I don't think anyone "wins". This means less people will play the foundry, how is less people using a tool good for the tool? How is people earning 600,000 ec's in 20 minutes instead of 60 more or less destructive to the game?

    This really rubs me the wrong way in principle. If the foundry is indeed a user tool, then I think it should be a neutral one. Let it be whatever the users want it to be. If the users want to make grinders, combat tests, stf tests, narratives, or avant-garde dancing borg circuses I don't see why we can't have all those things. Why must it be limited to a particular set of visions? Isn't this game big enough, vast enough for us all to do the things in it we like?

    I don't like this in practice or principle, and after sleeping on it, canceled my membership to the game this morning. I realize this probably doesn't matter to anyone other then me, but I see I'm not the only person who feels this way. This foundry issue is in the end, ultimately a rather small one, but there are a thousand other pinpricks bleeding many of the playerbase to death. This has been my favorite game, I don't have time to play two video-games, so this is where all my game time and money went to. Yesterday I started looking at alternatives. I sincerely hope that the development team is paying attention to the complaints, and that in the next season we move away from grind and back towards story. Because this is just becoming no fun at all.
  • starmada1starmada1 Member Posts: 139 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did.
    I saw a good point in another thread though... They can fix this, but there are plenty of more important things that need fixing. The Tau Dewa red alerts for example...
  • lordmalak1lordmalak1 Member Posts: 4,681 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    nagorak wrote: »
    I think it's a shame that we lost the functionality entirely. I hope that there will be some thought put into how the feature could be put back in.

    As far as your problem, you could try using a reskinned targ or mugato ensigns group as your "civilians" and set them to timid. They'll try to fight back when you attack them, but it will be pretty ineffective and they'll go down fast.

    What is now needed is an option to assign an action to a timid creature that has been attacked, be it fight or flight. This change to timid creatures always fighting when attacked doesn't seem a logical action to a freighter who doesn't stand a chance against a player controlled ship.

    Also loot drop from timid creatures should NOT be removed as freighters rarely travel empty, and many pirates got rich looting freighters in RL as well as fantasy. How much good gear can possibly come from a destroyed military vessel when they fight to the death where freighters will normally surrender.

    As well, this 'new' fix opens up another exploitable area: instead of reskinning battleships to look like freighters one could go the other way- reskin a freighter to look like a battleship (or other military vessel). not that the payout would be epic but imagine the battleship royal rumble where all the ships are freighters but look like battleships.

    :P
    KBF Lord MalaK
    Awoken Dead
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    Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
  • kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2013
    lordmalak1 wrote: »
    As well, this 'new' fix opens up another exploitable area: instead of reskinning battleships to look like freighters one could go the other way- reskin a freighter to look like a battleship (or other military vessel). not that the payout would be epic but imagine the battleship royal rumble where all the ships are freighters but look like battleships.

    :P

    You'd get freighter loot, not battleship loot.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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