I really can't see what the problem is with xp farms.
It effects nobody, aside from the fact that they really need a tab of their own so legit quests aren't pushed off the front page.
Granted I sort of get the item drop getting a nerf as that actually might have an effect on the rest of the people playing.
If people are willing to put up with a couple of boring hours to net some exp let them, from what I hear you can do every dungeon and foundry quest at 60 anyway so that content is still gonna get used once the exp is maxed out.
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hugopttttMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 13Arc User
edited May 2013
i think the developers need to brig back the foundry EXP and the Exploit exp quest, people only do this in her secundary chars and i wanna do that to, i dont wanna play the same story again -.- The developers need to change this i think and bring back the foundry EXP...
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divinehopeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 48
edited May 2013
Well they just didn't need to nerf it into oblivion.
Well they just didn't need to nerf it into oblivion.
Oh, I think they did. After all, the *wrong* people were having fun, and having fun is just *not* what games are about!
(facepalm)
I think some people would rather have a game that reflects their personal standards but no one plays rather than a game that other people can play differently than they *want* other people to.
Obviously in an MMO there are effects on other players that need to be accounted for, but I really don't see that here (apart from the pathing exploits and that sort of thing, but most of the farming I saw was just based on low-complexity maps that did the same thing high-complexity maps did with less story).
I really can't see what the problem is with xp farms.
It effects nobody, aside from the fact that they really need a tab of their own so legit quests aren't pushed off the front page.
Granted I sort of get the item drop getting a nerf as that actually might have an effect on the rest of the people playing.
If people are willing to put up with a couple of boring hours to net some exp let them, from what I hear you can do every dungeon and foundry quest at 60 anyway so that content is still gonna get used once the exp is maxed out.
It does effects others it effects those people who spent a hours upon hours on their Foundry mission only to get it shuffled to the bottom because the drove of exploiters all four stared the Ob or farm mission, it will in effect kill legitimate foundry missions.
I have bought this up before and the resounding reply from the pro grinders was "We don't care" Ergo we could care less about your farm quest.
It does effects others it effects those people who spent a hours upon hours on their Foundry mission only to get it shuffled to the bottom because the drove of exploiters all four stared the Ob or farm mission, it will in effect kill legitimate foundry missions.
I have bought this up before and the resounding reply from the pro grinders was "We don't care" Ergo we could care less about your farm quest.
Than Cryptic should make a farming tab and be done with it, but I am sure you would still whine about it.
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iamdoctordeathMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
They could have done two things. 1- all enemies have at least one ranged attack that they will use if they cannot reach you in melee range. 2- Make it so you can only have one monster per x,y coordinate- the ability to stack monsters in one spot is a big culprit.
At the very least, option one should happen. Make it so ogres through a big old axe, and you get 50 ogres throwing an axe that hits you for 20% of your health each- good luck aoe farming that from range.
Frankly- I don't even really care about exploit maps- what I do care about is that I can't find decent maps because half of the top twenty are exploits. Give exploit/farm maps a tag, make it so they're separate- benefits exploiters because they can easily find what they want, and benefits people who don't want to deal with that because we don't have to see exploit maps when we're looking for something to do.
No need to fear that it might happen, this is exactly what will happen. It happened in CoH, and now history is just repeating itself. Unfortunately player-designed content systems are a magnet for unscrupulous players.
It will shake out like this: roleplayers will get continual use out of the system since they will mostly use it for their own storytelling (they won't be playing your missions, they'll be playing their own missions), people who are writing missions to entertain others will be largely ignored (except for the small community of authors playing each others missions), average players won't use the system at all because there will be little incentive to do so, and exploiters will massively eclipse everyone else when exploits are discovered.
I wish I had some good news, but there really isn't any.
This. Wednesday is telling it true. I've seen it as well in City of Heroes. Their "foundry" (more accurately called "Mission Architect") went through the very same process......years before this game or even Star Trek Online put user generated content into it's games.
Honestly, it's as if Cryptic is incapable of seeing what went on in the past and building from there.
Edit: I've read several threads so far and every suggestion as to what to do to "fix" things has already been done in City of. Nothing is new here, people. Really. It's all been done before. And none of it worked well. The "solutions" implemented did solve problems....temporarily. Best just to forget the foundry even exists and move on. Nothing to see here.
Well they just didn't need to nerf it into oblivion.
In my opinion, the problem started way before the nerf, back in beta weekend 1. Have you not noticed that leveling in Neverwinter is slightly accelerated compared to other MMORPGs? Doesn't this seem almost like a blessing in disguise?
Let's look at some pros and cons to the foundry nerf.....
+ You won't cap in one weekend, hence play the game longer
+ You'll learn to play your class better (as a result of not leveling as quickly then immediately switching to the next class)
+ Other foundry missions might get some more plays (if only out of experimentation of something new)
- People are conditioned for instant gratification of levels in Neverwinter due to poor initial design, so if the XP isn't up to par with dev content, there's no point in doing foundry missions
- Losing players, as has been stated frequently around the forums, and therefore losing potential money and game growth
- Word of mouth can hurt reputation
One of the biggest complaints on class forums is nerfing Rogues or CWs, and consequently, the most popular question asked is, "How is another player's playstyle ruining the game for you?" The same could almost be asked of the foundry's nerf. "How is another player being higher level affecting YOUR game?" I've yet to see an intelligible player response, but I can imagine the reason behind the devs doing this:
PL exploits means the players get bored faster by reaching end-game quicker. That means less money (the most important thing about MMOs, apparently). It also hinders the player and their skill with their class because they don't learn the tactics of the game, other than long-range nuke or kiting.
In conclusion, this system failed before it really even got started with such a high leveling speed in the first place, and now everyone wants to push the red button and have everything now. The foundry can only go downhill from here, just like CoH. As for me, I'm staying indifferent to the game and the dev's choices. But for now, I'm going back to RPG Maker VX Ace.
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divinehopeMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 48
I really can't see what the problem is with xp farms.
It effects nobody, aside from the fact that they really need a tab of their own so legit quests aren't pushed off the front page.
Granted I sort of get the item drop getting a nerf as that actually might have an effect on the rest of the people playing.
If people are willing to put up with a couple of boring hours to net some exp let them, from what I hear you can do every dungeon and foundry quest at 60 anyway so that content is still gonna get used once the exp is maxed out.
It does effects others it effects those people who spent a hours upon hours on their Foundry mission only to get it shuffled to the bottom because the drove of exploiters all four stared the Ob or farm mission, it will in effect kill legitimate foundry missions.
I have bought this up before and the resounding reply from the pro grinders was "We don't care" Ergo we could care less about your farm quest.
Apparently I was too subtle in my initial post. I hope I've rectified that problem now?
Now would anybody care to take another crack at explaining to me what exactly is wrong with using the foundry to hit level cap in a few grinding hours? As someone else mentioned I've not seen a single reasonable argument.
Apparently I was too subtle in my initial post. I hope I've rectified that problem now?
Now would anybody care to take another crack at explaining to me what exactly is wrong with using the foundry to hit level cap in a few grinding hours? As someone else mentioned I've not seen a single reasonable argument.
Hitting level cap within a few grinding hours is not how the game is meant to be played: It completely and totally trivializes the achievement of earning level cap. It trivializes the months of development time the Dev team spent designing the leveling experience. No MMO on the market is designed so that you can hit the level cap in a few hours of grinding, so it's unreasonable to expect that as a desired feature in this one.
And probably the most solid argument from a business perspective: End-Game Content is limited right now (unless they add dungeon/raid quest development to the foundry), as the game has not even fully launched yet. There are still many features that are being heavily developed and are currently not playable in the Open Beta. If players can spend a few short hours grinding and get to the level cap extremely quickly, those players will be less satisfied with the product as a whole after they've experienced end-game content in it's currently limited form. All of this contributes to a negative reputation for the game itself, which can be extremely detrimental to longevity and profitability.
People are only angry because they feel like they don't have a tool that they used to level quickly anymore. What you need to understand is, that tool was never supposed to be there in the first place. That's why creating "exploit" maps is an offense that can lead to a ban on your account. I personally think they should take it a step farther, and give any player who played through an "exploit" map more than once get a temporary ban as well. It's really easy to tell if a map is an exploit: If you can shoot stuff without it shooting back, common sense dictates that there is something wrong.
Alone in the darkness, that is where you truly discover yourself. Without self, without the core of your identity, you are nothing. - Rasmenar
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drakedge2Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Easiest fix: If a monster cannot find a way to attack you, it becomes invulnerable until it hits you with something.
Either that, or after a certain amount of time teleports to you hehe.
As far as using the foundry as a grinding tool, I don't see a problem with that specifically. What I had a problem with was that these "quests" were clogging up the foundry system, topping the best chart, getting thousands and thousands of plays, and five star reviews for something that took someone all of about 5 minutes to make.
Meanwhile foundry authors like me who spend an average of 52 hours to make just one 20 minute quest go unnoticed, get an average 3 - 4 star ratings (I am happy with a 4 star, but when something that is empty with nothing but 20 ogres standing in the middle of a tiny map gets a higher rating it kinda pisses me off).
What there needs to be is a different section for the grind fests so that it doesn't fuddle the content that people have actually labored over and love.
The other problem with grind maps is when they started trapping the mobs so that they couldn't touch the player. Those are exploits and yes there is a problem with exploiting.
Either that, or after a certain amount of time teleports to you hehe.
As far as using the foundry as a grinding tool, I don't see a problem with that specifically. What I had a problem with was that these "quests" were clogging up the foundry system, topping the best chart, getting thousands and thousands of plays, and five star reviews for something that took someone all of about 5 minutes to make.
Meanwhile foundry authors like me who spend an average of 52 hours to make just one 20 minute quest go unnoticed, get an average 3 - 4 star ratings (I am happy with a 4 star, but when something that is empty with nothing but 20 ogres standing in the middle of a tiny map gets a higher rating it kinda pisses me off).
What there needs to be is a different section for the grind fests so that it doesn't fuddle the content that people have actually labored over and love.
What exactly is the problem with that? It's bad because your feelings were hurt? The authors of those quests gave the players the content that they wanted.
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kamaliiciousMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 0Arc User
Apparently I was too subtle in my initial post. I hope I've rectified that problem now?
Now would anybody care to take another crack at explaining to me what exactly is wrong with using the foundry to hit level cap in a few grinding hours? As someone else mentioned I've not seen a single reasonable argument.
Not only does it not affect anything, the real world money sinks are at high levels. High level mounts and companions, mass raise dead scrolls, guaranteed rune fuses when the fuse chance is 1%, etc. I'd be surprised if Cryptic didn't want people to be high level.
That means less money (the most important thing about MMOs, apparently).
This is absolutely the truth. The ignorant, frothing masses will call this greed, but you have to be realistic. It takes an incredible (most times unfathomable) amount of money to design an MMO, not to mention operate and maintain all of the servers that have to be running CONSTANTLY to keep it online. Developers do a LOT of hard work, do you expect them to do it for free when a majority of their time is devoted to game development? They have to make a career out of it. You have to pay the power bills at the server farm, and if you don't own the data center it's located at you have to lease the space as well. For a game to be considered successful, it needs to be more than a break-even. The amount of PROFIT a game brings (that's the money you have AFTER costs are deducted) has to be HIGHER than the cost for maintaining the game for a publisher to continue funding it.
Example (Scaled down to smaller numbers for easier understanding) :
If your game costs $100 to run, and it brings in $150 a month, it is not considered "profitable".
Sure, at the end of the month you have $50 in your pocket. However, if you had chosen not to run that game this month, you'd have $100 in your pocket instead. So, from a business standpoint, the smarter move economically would be to just drop the game and stop running it.
A big part of Cryptic and PWE being opposed to Exploit maps, and concerned that Farm maps trivialize leveling, is that there is substantially LESS time the player spends in the game overall. Yes, that means less money for them. Rage at it all you want, that is the way a business works, and not a single game publisher or developer on this planet would do it differently. If they did, they'd never get investors and they would have no starting capitol, so unless they get incredibly lucky with Crowd Funding (which is the VAST MINORITY of cases) the project would die before development even began in earnest. That's the way of the world.
Alone in the darkness, that is where you truly discover yourself. Without self, without the core of your identity, you are nothing. - Rasmenar
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blamzilaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Example (Scaled down to smaller numbers for easier understanding) :
If your game costs $100 to run, and it brings in $150 a month, it is not considered "profitable".
Sure, at the end of the month you have $50 in your pocket. However, if you had chosen not to run that game this month, you'd have $100 in your pocket instead. So, from a business standpoint, the smarter move economically would be to just drop the game and stop running it.
While I agree with the majority of your post, this is not correct. You paid out $100 in running the game. You made that $100 back, so you are at a net 0. Then you made $50 on top of that. So you have $150 in your pocket, but expended $100.
If you didn't expend anything you would have $100 in your pocket but no profit (a net 0). Instead you have $150 in your pocket with $50 profit. The big question is whether the $50 you made in net profit was worth the time you put into it.
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kamaliiciousMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 0Arc User
Example (Scaled down to smaller numbers for easier understanding) :
If your game costs $100 to run, and it brings in $150 a month, it is not considered "profitable".
Sure, at the end of the month you have $50 in your pocket. However, if you had chosen not to run that game this month, you'd have $100 in your pocket instead. So, from a business standpoint, the smarter move economically would be to just drop the game and stop running it.
Month 1, day1, have $100 in pocket. Do nothing. Month 2, day 1, have $100 in pocket.
Start month 1, day 1, with $100 in pocket. Day 1 afternoon, spend the $100 to pay the game expenses for the month. End of day 1, have $0 in pocket. Day 31, have $150 in pocket from customers.
While I agree with the majority of your post, this is not correct. You paid out $100 in running the game. You made that $100 back, so you are at a net 0. Then you made $50 on top of that. So you have $150 in your pocket, but expended $100.
If you didn't expend anything you would have $100 in your pocket but no profit (a net 0). Instead you have $150 in your pocket with $50 profit. The big question is whether the $50 you made in net profit was worth the time you put into it.
You are forgetting that $100 of that $150 is going to be payed towards the next month's expenses. A company wants it's products to be self-sufficient after their initial investment (in this case, the starting $100). Generally initial investments will cover many many months if not years of operation, but as I said the example is scaled down drastically.
Alone in the darkness, that is where you truly discover yourself. Without self, without the core of your identity, you are nothing. - Rasmenar
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kamaliiciousMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 0Arc User
Month 1, day1, have $100 in pocket. Do nothing. Month 2, day 1, have $100 in pocket.
Start month 1, day 1, with $100 in pocket. Day 1 afternoon, spend the $100 to pay the game expenses for the month. End of day 1, have $0 in pocket. Day 31, have $150 in pocket from customers.
Month 2, day 1, have $150 in pocket.
broken down for easier understanding...
Correction: Month 2, day 1, have $150 in pocket, pay $100 for this month's expenses. Have $50 in pocket. That $50 would need to be invested in either new development or another project within the company itself. Which is generally why, a game is not considered to be truly profitable unless it's actual PROFIT (in this case, the $50 at the start of month 2) is higher than the costs. That's pretty much exactly what happened to City of Heroes. The game was still technically bringing in income, but the money that was expended monthly for maintaining it was better served elsewhere.
Correction: Month 2, day 1, have $150 in pocket, pay $100 for this month's expenses. Have $50 in pocket. That $50 would need to be invested in either new development or another project within the company itself.
Your assumption is that the company is required to continue the game. The assumption is false. Month 2, day 1, they can do whatever the want to with the $150, including close up shop (with more money than Month 1 day1).
Economy is much more complicated then that, since everything has shareholding, stock, credit and bankruptcy options - that's what almost every company does. In todays world you don't have to make profit to earn money. It's one of the reasons I'm afraid to give any money to perfect world for this game. The prices are suspiciously high, they seem to be hardly expecting this game success on this scale. I'll wait and see after this game is out of beta and how will Perfect World handle their customers.
Ah, but you are forgetting. You know that hamster in the wheel that keeps the servers moving? You know, the one that inexplicably decides to take a break at peak gaming hours on a Saturday night? I also suspect this is the same animal they consult on experience nerfing decisions...
Yeah, his food costs $2.50/day. Need to work that into these calculations.
Oh, and the guy that feeds him and changes his litter makes $1.50/day.
Ah, but you are forgetting. You know that hamster in the wheel that keeps the servers moving? You know, the one that inexplicably decides to take a break at peak gaming hours on a Saturday night? I also suspect this is the same animal they consult on experience nerfing decisions...
Yeah, his food costs $2.50/day. Need to work that into these calculations.
Oh, and the guy that feeds him and changes his litter makes $1.50/day.
Yeah someone at Cryptic needs to be fired. They have made dismal decisions and are about to kill a game before it launches.
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siskaxxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 15Arc User
edited May 2013
Taking the reward away makes the risk not worth it.
If I spend 5GP in resources to do a quest what am I getting back on that? You can say a fun time but these games are about rewards. They went with the gold/loot drop on the floor for the feeling that you are getting rewarded but then take that away. Not even speaking to the fact of the EXP. Even at 60 I might want to level a new pet that I saved up to get......
I feel let down.
I really can't see what the problem is with xp farms.
It effects nobody, aside from the fact that they really need a tab of their own so legit quests aren't pushed off the front page.
Granted I sort of get the item drop getting a nerf as that actually might have an effect on the rest of the people playing.
If people are willing to put up with a couple of boring hours to net some exp let them, from what I hear you can do every dungeon and foundry quest at 60 anyway so that content is still gonna get used once the exp is maxed out.
It does effects others it effects those people who spent a hours upon hours on their Foundry mission only to get it shuffled to the bottom because the drove of exploiters all four stared the Ob or farm mission, it will in effect kill legitimate foundry missions.
I have bought this up before and the resounding reply from the pro grinders was "We don't care" Ergo we could care less about your farm quest.
Hitting level cap within a few grinding hours is not how the game is meant to be played: It completely and totally trivializes the achievement of earning level cap. It trivializes the months of development time the Dev team spent designing the leveling experience. No MMO on the market is designed so that you can hit the level cap in a few hours of grinding, so it's unreasonable to expect that as a desired feature in this one.
As if it was every any kind of achievement to reach level cap. I really don't see any difference between me farming a map and me spamming 1 to get through the dialog and running after glowy sparkles on the floor whilest killing whatever is hostile. I'm pretty sure the game was not meant to be played that way either but so what? Leveling is the worst part of NW if you are trying to play with friends who have more or less time available cause you are simply not allowed to play together. Hitting 60 in a day and explore the game together then works much better. A problem btw which guild wars 2 solved rather well.
It is not unreasonable to expect some kind of feature to be able to play with your mates.
And probably the most solid argument from a business perspective: End-Game Content is limited right now (unless they add dungeon/raid quest development to the foundry), as the game has not even fully launched yet. There are still many features that are being heavily developed and are currently not playable in the Open Beta. If players can spend a few short hours grinding and get to the level cap extremely quickly, those players will be less satisfied with the product as a whole after they've experienced end-game content in it's currently limited form. All of this contributes to a negative reputation for the game itself, which can be extremely detrimental to longevity and profitability.
Last I heard there's a lvl 60 version available of every dungeon and foundry which is a huge boon to end game content, near limitless even. Heck that's why I was interested in this game in the first place.
Not to mention people can hit cap in a few days so if the end game was actually that bad people would have *****ed about it already. For examples of this I'd point to any mmo that's come out recently that banked on people not hitting the cap for a few months such as the starwars mmo which was blasted for having no content at cap.
People are only angry because they feel like they don't have a tool that they used to level quickly anymore. What you need to understand is, that tool was never supposed to be there in the first place. That's why creating "exploit" maps is an offense that can lead to a ban on your account. I personally think they should take it a step farther, and give any player who played through an "exploit" map more than once get a temporary ban as well. It's really easy to tell if a map is an exploit: If you can shoot stuff without it shooting back, common sense dictates that there is something wrong.
This is true, but it also just boils down to "It's against the rules because it's against the rules" Which is not on its own justification.
To be fair a good number of people were upset because their legit foundry quests stopped giving any proper exp/items/gold for the time spend.
In trying to stop exploit maps they've hurt a lot more players rather than doing something more sensible like put up a farm tab, as it stands they've crippled the most interesting aspect of this game which is the worst thing they could have done.
Comments
It effects nobody, aside from the fact that they really need a tab of their own so legit quests aren't pushed off the front page.
Granted I sort of get the item drop getting a nerf as that actually might have an effect on the rest of the people playing.
If people are willing to put up with a couple of boring hours to net some exp let them, from what I hear you can do every dungeon and foundry quest at 60 anyway so that content is still gonna get used once the exp is maxed out.
Oh, I think they did. After all, the *wrong* people were having fun, and having fun is just *not* what games are about!
(facepalm)
I think some people would rather have a game that reflects their personal standards but no one plays rather than a game that other people can play differently than they *want* other people to.
Obviously in an MMO there are effects on other players that need to be accounted for, but I really don't see that here (apart from the pathing exploits and that sort of thing, but most of the farming I saw was just based on low-complexity maps that did the same thing high-complexity maps did with less story).
It does effects others it effects those people who spent a hours upon hours on their Foundry mission only to get it shuffled to the bottom because the drove of exploiters all four stared the Ob or farm mission, it will in effect kill legitimate foundry missions.
I have bought this up before and the resounding reply from the pro grinders was "We don't care" Ergo we could care less about your farm quest.
Than Cryptic should make a farming tab and be done with it, but I am sure you would still whine about it.
At the very least, option one should happen. Make it so ogres through a big old axe, and you get 50 ogres throwing an axe that hits you for 20% of your health each- good luck aoe farming that from range.
Frankly- I don't even really care about exploit maps- what I do care about is that I can't find decent maps because half of the top twenty are exploits. Give exploit/farm maps a tag, make it so they're separate- benefits exploiters because they can easily find what they want, and benefits people who don't want to deal with that because we don't have to see exploit maps when we're looking for something to do.
This. Wednesday is telling it true. I've seen it as well in City of Heroes. Their "foundry" (more accurately called "Mission Architect") went through the very same process......years before this game or even Star Trek Online put user generated content into it's games.
Honestly, it's as if Cryptic is incapable of seeing what went on in the past and building from there.
Edit: I've read several threads so far and every suggestion as to what to do to "fix" things has already been done in City of. Nothing is new here, people. Really. It's all been done before. And none of it worked well. The "solutions" implemented did solve problems....temporarily. Best just to forget the foundry even exists and move on. Nothing to see here.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
What's to whine about they were nerfed end of story....except for the thread after thread from alt accounts about Sl@p n da fAc3!!!
:rolleyes:
In my opinion, the problem started way before the nerf, back in beta weekend 1. Have you not noticed that leveling in Neverwinter is slightly accelerated compared to other MMORPGs? Doesn't this seem almost like a blessing in disguise?
Let's look at some pros and cons to the foundry nerf.....
+ You won't cap in one weekend, hence play the game longer
+ You'll learn to play your class better (as a result of not leveling as quickly then immediately switching to the next class)
+ Other foundry missions might get some more plays (if only out of experimentation of something new)
- People are conditioned for instant gratification of levels in Neverwinter due to poor initial design, so if the XP isn't up to par with dev content, there's no point in doing foundry missions
- Losing players, as has been stated frequently around the forums, and therefore losing potential money and game growth
- Word of mouth can hurt reputation
One of the biggest complaints on class forums is nerfing Rogues or CWs, and consequently, the most popular question asked is, "How is another player's playstyle ruining the game for you?" The same could almost be asked of the foundry's nerf. "How is another player being higher level affecting YOUR game?" I've yet to see an intelligible player response, but I can imagine the reason behind the devs doing this:
PL exploits means the players get bored faster by reaching end-game quicker. That means less money (the most important thing about MMOs, apparently). It also hinders the player and their skill with their class because they don't learn the tactics of the game, other than long-range nuke or kiting.
In conclusion, this system failed before it really even got started with such a high leveling speed in the first place, and now everyone wants to push the red button and have everything now. The foundry can only go downhill from here, just like CoH. As for me, I'm staying indifferent to the game and the dev's choices. But for now, I'm going back to RPG Maker VX Ace.
So? They liked the farming quests and there entitled to voicing there objection about them being removed/nerfed, just sayin.....
Now would anybody care to take another crack at explaining to me what exactly is wrong with using the foundry to hit level cap in a few grinding hours? As someone else mentioned I've not seen a single reasonable argument.
Hitting level cap within a few grinding hours is not how the game is meant to be played: It completely and totally trivializes the achievement of earning level cap. It trivializes the months of development time the Dev team spent designing the leveling experience. No MMO on the market is designed so that you can hit the level cap in a few hours of grinding, so it's unreasonable to expect that as a desired feature in this one.
And probably the most solid argument from a business perspective: End-Game Content is limited right now (unless they add dungeon/raid quest development to the foundry), as the game has not even fully launched yet. There are still many features that are being heavily developed and are currently not playable in the Open Beta. If players can spend a few short hours grinding and get to the level cap extremely quickly, those players will be less satisfied with the product as a whole after they've experienced end-game content in it's currently limited form. All of this contributes to a negative reputation for the game itself, which can be extremely detrimental to longevity and profitability.
People are only angry because they feel like they don't have a tool that they used to level quickly anymore. What you need to understand is, that tool was never supposed to be there in the first place. That's why creating "exploit" maps is an offense that can lead to a ban on your account. I personally think they should take it a step farther, and give any player who played through an "exploit" map more than once get a temporary ban as well. It's really easy to tell if a map is an exploit: If you can shoot stuff without it shooting back, common sense dictates that there is something wrong.
Either that, or after a certain amount of time teleports to you hehe.
As far as using the foundry as a grinding tool, I don't see a problem with that specifically. What I had a problem with was that these "quests" were clogging up the foundry system, topping the best chart, getting thousands and thousands of plays, and five star reviews for something that took someone all of about 5 minutes to make.
Meanwhile foundry authors like me who spend an average of 52 hours to make just one 20 minute quest go unnoticed, get an average 3 - 4 star ratings (I am happy with a 4 star, but when something that is empty with nothing but 20 ogres standing in the middle of a tiny map gets a higher rating it kinda pisses me off).
What there needs to be is a different section for the grind fests so that it doesn't fuddle the content that people have actually labored over and love.
The other problem with grind maps is when they started trapping the mobs so that they couldn't touch the player. Those are exploits and yes there is a problem with exploiting.
That and the post above me said it very well.
This is absolutely the truth. The ignorant, frothing masses will call this greed, but you have to be realistic. It takes an incredible (most times unfathomable) amount of money to design an MMO, not to mention operate and maintain all of the servers that have to be running CONSTANTLY to keep it online. Developers do a LOT of hard work, do you expect them to do it for free when a majority of their time is devoted to game development? They have to make a career out of it. You have to pay the power bills at the server farm, and if you don't own the data center it's located at you have to lease the space as well. For a game to be considered successful, it needs to be more than a break-even. The amount of PROFIT a game brings (that's the money you have AFTER costs are deducted) has to be HIGHER than the cost for maintaining the game for a publisher to continue funding it.
Example (Scaled down to smaller numbers for easier understanding) :
If your game costs $100 to run, and it brings in $150 a month, it is not considered "profitable".
Sure, at the end of the month you have $50 in your pocket. However, if you had chosen not to run that game this month, you'd have $100 in your pocket instead. So, from a business standpoint, the smarter move economically would be to just drop the game and stop running it.
A big part of Cryptic and PWE being opposed to Exploit maps, and concerned that Farm maps trivialize leveling, is that there is substantially LESS time the player spends in the game overall. Yes, that means less money for them. Rage at it all you want, that is the way a business works, and not a single game publisher or developer on this planet would do it differently. If they did, they'd never get investors and they would have no starting capitol, so unless they get incredibly lucky with Crowd Funding (which is the VAST MINORITY of cases) the project would die before development even began in earnest. That's the way of the world.
While I agree with the majority of your post, this is not correct. You paid out $100 in running the game. You made that $100 back, so you are at a net 0. Then you made $50 on top of that. So you have $150 in your pocket, but expended $100.
If you didn't expend anything you would have $100 in your pocket but no profit (a net 0). Instead you have $150 in your pocket with $50 profit. The big question is whether the $50 you made in net profit was worth the time you put into it.
Start month 1, day 1, with $100 in pocket. Day 1 afternoon, spend the $100 to pay the game expenses for the month. End of day 1, have $0 in pocket. Day 31, have $150 in pocket from customers.
Month 2, day 1, have $150 in pocket.
broken down for easier understanding...
You are forgetting that $100 of that $150 is going to be payed towards the next month's expenses. A company wants it's products to be self-sufficient after their initial investment (in this case, the starting $100). Generally initial investments will cover many many months if not years of operation, but as I said the example is scaled down drastically.
Correction: Month 2, day 1, have $150 in pocket, pay $100 for this month's expenses. Have $50 in pocket. That $50 would need to be invested in either new development or another project within the company itself. Which is generally why, a game is not considered to be truly profitable unless it's actual PROFIT (in this case, the $50 at the start of month 2) is higher than the costs. That's pretty much exactly what happened to City of Heroes. The game was still technically bringing in income, but the money that was expended monthly for maintaining it was better served elsewhere.
MMO's take a lot of money to continue, so in this case the company is pretty much required to continue it if they want to keep making money.
Yeah, his food costs $2.50/day. Need to work that into these calculations.
Oh, and the guy that feeds him and changes his litter makes $1.50/day.
@kmhknight
My campaign: The Madness Plague.
My quest: Blacklake Gold
My guild: "The Older" Age 30+, Casual
If I spend 5GP in resources to do a quest what am I getting back on that? You can say a fun time but these games are about rewards. They went with the gold/loot drop on the floor for the feeling that you are getting rewarded but then take that away. Not even speaking to the fact of the EXP. Even at 60 I might want to level a new pet that I saved up to get......
I feel let down.
It is not unreasonable to expect some kind of feature to be able to play with your mates. Last I heard there's a lvl 60 version available of every dungeon and foundry which is a huge boon to end game content, near limitless even. Heck that's why I was interested in this game in the first place.
Not to mention people can hit cap in a few days so if the end game was actually that bad people would have *****ed about it already. For examples of this I'd point to any mmo that's come out recently that banked on people not hitting the cap for a few months such as the starwars mmo which was blasted for having no content at cap. This is true, but it also just boils down to "It's against the rules because it's against the rules" Which is not on its own justification.
To be fair a good number of people were upset because their legit foundry quests stopped giving any proper exp/items/gold for the time spend.
In trying to stop exploit maps they've hurt a lot more players rather than doing something more sensible like put up a farm tab, as it stands they've crippled the most interesting aspect of this game which is the worst thing they could have done.