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Why are Exploit Quest/Campaigns allowed?
klkcahboy90
Member Posts: 340 Arc User
There are many 0 min average playtime quests/campaigns out there.
Some of them are even on the "Best" list.
They mostly use the terms "Quick Review", "Fast Review", "Non-Beta Review", "Fast Achievement", "Quick Achievement" in their titles.
Majority of them starts off at the market area where you talk to an NPC and then either straight away collect reward from the chest beside the auctioner or inspect the drain in the middle of the market area before collecting the reward from the chest beside the auctioner.
The description of all these quests all states that they are there to help people get the achievements for foundry review or something along the lines of that.
My question is, why is this allowed?
It is obvious that this undermines the foundry achievements both for authors and for non-authors.
Authors can easily get all the foundry achievements for little to no effort and get their book imp or whatever rewards since these type of quests is almost guaranteed a 5 star and all it takes is to duplicate it 24 times to make a campaign of 25 quests. It is also an "ever-flowing" fountain of astral diamonds for these authors since non-authors have achievements that require them to tip foundries. From the names of the authors doing this, it is also very obvious that they have created multiple accounts to bypass the 15 quests per author limit to further exploit this.
Non-authors can easily get all the foundry community achievements for no effort by just doing this type of campaigns and spending astral diamonds on tips.
I believe that part of the non-author foundry achievements' purpose is to draw players to play the foundry quests. So, if this type of quest is allowed for players to get their achievements by doing nothing, it has lost that particular purpose.
Is there a purpose to these quests that I'm not seeing?
I understand that there are players who, for some reason, are uncomfortable with playing user-generated content and perhaps these quests serve as a way for them to get the achievements without actually playing foundries but as I have pointed out in the yellow text, there are side effects to allowing this to continue. Furthermore, though technically the achievements requirements are fulfilled by these authors and players who play these quests, it still seems somewhat unfair that they are fulfilled this way.
So again, why is this allowed?
Some of them are even on the "Best" list.
They mostly use the terms "Quick Review", "Fast Review", "Non-Beta Review", "Fast Achievement", "Quick Achievement" in their titles.
Majority of them starts off at the market area where you talk to an NPC and then either straight away collect reward from the chest beside the auctioner or inspect the drain in the middle of the market area before collecting the reward from the chest beside the auctioner.
The description of all these quests all states that they are there to help people get the achievements for foundry review or something along the lines of that.
My question is, why is this allowed?
It is obvious that this undermines the foundry achievements both for authors and for non-authors.
Authors can easily get all the foundry achievements for little to no effort and get their book imp or whatever rewards since these type of quests is almost guaranteed a 5 star and all it takes is to duplicate it 24 times to make a campaign of 25 quests. It is also an "ever-flowing" fountain of astral diamonds for these authors since non-authors have achievements that require them to tip foundries. From the names of the authors doing this, it is also very obvious that they have created multiple accounts to bypass the 15 quests per author limit to further exploit this.
Non-authors can easily get all the foundry community achievements for no effort by just doing this type of campaigns and spending astral diamonds on tips.
I believe that part of the non-author foundry achievements' purpose is to draw players to play the foundry quests. So, if this type of quest is allowed for players to get their achievements by doing nothing, it has lost that particular purpose.
Is there a purpose to these quests that I'm not seeing?
I understand that there are players who, for some reason, are uncomfortable with playing user-generated content and perhaps these quests serve as a way for them to get the achievements without actually playing foundries but as I have pointed out in the yellow text, there are side effects to allowing this to continue. Furthermore, though technically the achievements requirements are fulfilled by these authors and players who play these quests, it still seems somewhat unfair that they are fulfilled this way.
So again, why is this allowed?
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Perhaps 5,000+ quests published per day, and no employee(s) assigned to "police" them.
No "cops" ... no punishment ... anarchy. Simple. If people can get something for "free" they will.
How many employees do you hire that "produce" no income, merely drain it?
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Yes. Enforcement of rules is indeed lacking here. There is now a new community manager who is diligently playing through quests for selection of spotlight and featuring so hopefully, there will be some policing eventually.
To be honest, one would think that a program/script designed to filter out zero min playtime quests would have been made by now given how old the game is.
They should have a set of rules to allow a foundry to be published and that shouldnt be that hard to do if they set their mind onto it.
I'm not talking about those harder-to-detect ones like those using timers to artificially make a quest 15min long, despite there being no objectives or no significant amount of objectives (ie pull-the-lever) at all. I can understand that those are harder to detect, since like eldarth has mentioned, they require being played through to be detected. I have only found 1 of those and that was some time back.
I'm not talking about 15min farm quests either. Those are controversial but, in my opinion, they are still legitimate quests since the player actually do things in them, unless they are those where you kill off 1 easy mob and wait for timer (set to approx 15min) to activate the end quest objective. That's not to say that quests with 1 easy mob are exploits but the act of artificially lengthening quest duration is an exploit.
I'm talking about those blatant 1s.
Those that clearly state that they are there just to give people free achievements/rewards for no effort other than clicking the "Accept" buttion and those generally, if not all, have 0min average playtime. I can easily find 6 to 7 of those in less than a min just glancing through the first few pages of the "Best" list. After playing and flagging them all while writing a little for each of their reports, it took around 5 min or so, and I wasn't even really trying hard.
I know it is possible that legitimate quests can just be pure text/story quests and those are perfectly fine. However, the likelihood of a legitimate quest, like those pure text/story quests, having 0min average playtime is rather unlikely and highly suspicious. I'm sure speed-reading isn't that difficult for most people but a pure text/story quest with 0min playtime is clearly being exploited even if the author did not intended for it. However, I'm not really addressing those either, though I admit that should a script be made to remove all 0min playtime quests from the lists, those may become unfortunate victims but I do not believe there are many such quests (legitimate quests with 0min playtime) and if there are, I do not believe they are not being exploited (even if that is not the intention of the author). A good way to detect who is exploiting a legitimate pure text/story quest would be to show the playtimes of each and everyone who played the quest, regardless of whether a review is left, on the quest data. It will be clear as day if the same name appears with 0min completion timings multiple times and the legitimate author can flag off the behaviour of the particular player, but that would be some work for the developers.
Yeah. I did and I hope more will take your advice on reporting them.
However, the ones I'm addressing are just so painfully obvious that I feel it's really hard to believe that they are not already known to the developers, since this game isn't exactly new.
It's really hard to not know they are exploits when they even blatantly tell you that they are free-achievement-giving quests in their quest journal texts, even if we were to ignore the 0min average playtime hint.
I just feel that it is very unfair that these quests are getting so many plays and so much attention while there are so many legitimate authors out there trading reviews like it's a job, joining guilds to find even more authors just to trade reviews, and literally have to beg people to play their quests.
It also feels really bad when so many of these quests are on the "Best" list and clearly raking in huge amounts of astral diamonds for their authors. I'm not talking about many pages down the "Best" list, just maybe 1 or 2 clicks and you can find many of them.
priceless
Mel is absolutely correct here. If you see a Foundry mission that violates the Foundry guidelines, PLEASE report it. While I do pride myself on giving our Foundry users the attention they deserve, I always appreciate a little help now and again.
The point is both author and reviewer gets achievements. You could say they are not worth anything but they r required for title, a fashion cloak AND the imp companion.
What most players do not probably realise is, that such "authors" are on top of it milking the playerbase for AD. (and thats the term i heard from such "authors": it's a milking quest).
Well, I'm sure they aren't doing it for the exp.
Rewards-wise, if you sell all the greens you get which can be quite a number, since these quests are chained in campaigns of 15 and the average playtime of these campaigns is 0 min. So, at least 15 greens in less than 1 min. Sell them for some money and accumulate then buy something people will want and sell on auction house for astral diamonds.
I still think they are doing it for achievements. Unfortunately, every single time someone tips these quests or review them, is 1 less review and possible tip for a legitimate quest. There is after all a limit of 3 tips per day.
That's for the players.
Now, for the authors, it's pretty obvious. They are just doing it for free astral diamonds and easy way to get all the foundry achievements done. Just look through them, lots of 5 stars and lots of plays, and they even tell people to tip them since tipping is part of the achievement requirement. I can't name the authors but if you look at their names, you can see that some of them are the same person. He/she is just making many such campaigns and possibly swimming in astral diamonds. I will admit that it is pretty tempting. After all, I can make the same type of campaign in less than 5 min and I will probably not have to do astral diamonds farming anymore, once it takes off.
wow... sry to burst your buble but is not how it works
first: is rly annoying to use the report tools: i am lazy and i dont rly feel like typing all the time, how about you guys work a little and put a button next to the foundry with a report near it.. u know like in the mail?!
second: sit at a table and think some solution to minimize the number of ways foundry can be exploited in the first place.
ps: pls stop giving such answers.. is not the players fault your company didnt do the job proper!
I did report them.
The reason why I feel they seem to be "allowed" is the fact that I don't believe I am the only one who has reported them.
Some of these quests are last edited in Feb. It's already April closing towards May.
Thus, there must have been people who reported them way before me.
They have an average rating of high 4 and are just sitting there on the "Best" list. If you just click the "More" button on the "Best" list once or twice, you will find tons of them blatantly telling you they are there to give people achievements and asking people to tip them since that's part of the achievement.
I'm sure most of the community understand that it takes time and effort to enforce the rules and remove such exploitation but such blatant 1s (0 min playtime and even tell you what they are in their quest journal texts) are just too obvious for most people to believe that they can actually manage to skip past screening by PWE employees.
Authors, in general, want plays (I mean why make quests if nobody plays them?). Even the desire for good reviews is also just so we can climb the really broken adjusted rating system and appear in players' searches easier to get plays (this requires at least a rating of 4 which is already hard as hell to get, given how hard plays are to get unless you trade tons of reviews with other authors or become featured/was featured). When we have such quests popping up and climbing up this broken system (while pushing legitmate quests down the list) easily with zero effort by making use of most players' desire for effortless achievement farming, it really eats away at the motivation of authors to make quests. Getting plays is hard enough (even more so for newer authors) and when we have such unfair competition using exploits, it really feels extremely insulting.
sry m8, i'm telling you: it is still your fault!!!
Isn't that why a new method to deal with them should be developed or at least thought of?
I mean this game isn't new, right?
Click "Load more" 2 or 3 times on the "Best" list and you can find these quests just sitting there with 4 something adjusted ratings. I just checked this earlier and I reported them a few days ago.
The method to report them works only if people do it but how many actually do?
If many did do as the sticky suggested, then why are these quests still on the "Best" list after months (look at their last edited date)?
So, then why are they "allowed" to continue to stay on the list?
Are we just gonna take a passive approach towards this and just hope these authors will stop and remove their own quests, when these quests are like an infinite fountain of astral diamonds for them? Even if these authors stop playing Neverwinter and moved on to other games, their quests are still gonna be there.
I stopped reporting them when nobody did anything about the reports. I posted on the forums about this, I reported a bunch of them, and they're all still there, with many of them clogging up the Best list. Nobody seems to want to do anything about them, and apparently there was some question as to whether or not this is actually against the guidelines.
Personally I don't care if they're against the guidelines or not, it's an issue, as you pointed out earlier, and frankly, I find it offensive that some "authors" are racking up achievements that I am working so hard to get, without doing any real work. It's an insult to real Foundry authors, and it needs to be stopped.
But yeah. Foundry is kinda of a lost cause. No love whatsoever. Not to mention that exploit quests are up in the best tab and the quest I've spent three months of planning and making isn't even searchable in any tag - and I have no authorities to turn to if I want that issue fixed
Frankly, no one really cares about Foundry.
We just have to live with that bitter pill, I guess, if you want to make suff and share it with others. It's just pity that no one but other authors seems to appreciate it.
Now featured!
'A wayward child' is currently taken down for upgrades
If I'm not wrong, from the wiki,
there are 26 foundry authoring achievements.
To get the book imp, you need 17.
To get the bear mount, you need 23.
To get the stone, you need all 26.
So, by exploiting this, anyone can easily get the bear mount and book imp along with an unlimited flow of astral diamonds for approximately 5 minutes work (need to type quest text and duplicate the quest 14 times), not counting the time needed to make alternate accounts and get a toon in them to level 15, of course, since that's to increase astral diamonds gain and not the achievements.
I kinda agree with you. It doesn't feel very good to make something that took so much time and effort, only for it to not be played/even known to exist, get 1-star bombed by trolls (1 1-star review will need 10 or so 5 stars review just to get back the fall in adjusted ratings - how broken is that?), have to beg for reviews and plays from other authors and some very small minority of non-authors, and still see these type of blatant exploits running rampant like nobody's business.
Currently, Foundry feels like a side project that has been cast aside. The developers have supposedly fixed some bugs in Mod 3 according to Eldarth's posts on other threads. However, making quests really is just a labour of love for most of us (particularly new authors and those who have never been featured).
Frankly speaking, the only reward for me is playing through my own quests the first few times and seeing them as I have envisioned them in my mind. Seeing others play it on video (Try asking a Youtuber to play your quests if you are confident about them, it really feels good to see it played by someone else) or reading reviews from people who like them feels pretty good too but to get a single play, I have to beg a different person each time. Haha..There definitely should be a "Reviews/Plays Beggar" achievement in the foundry authoring achievements.
However, that's a different story for another time/thread. The existence of these exploit quests is really a bad signal to newer authors who may think that since these quests have been around for so long, they must be "allowed".
As for the third question, there were authors who in the past took various active approaches.
Sorry, I mean no offense but I don't get your point.
I reported these quests as told, I never made any of these quests myself so, ask myself why?
I still see the same quests I have reported sitting at where they were. I'm asking why is it so?
Out of curiosity, what exactly did these authors do?
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
Ah, I see. No issues there=)
I do hope there will be more activity towards handling these exploits both from players/authors and the developers.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
Glad to help=)
I do hope that there will be some form of action in handling those quests soon.
Otherwise, it would really send the wrong message that such exploits are "allowed" as indicated by the number of such quests populating the "New" and "For Review" list.
But let's be objective here, doing foundry is kinda a chore.. Why? Because it's not rewarding.. giving <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> white n greens. Most people are about rewards more than the story itself, especially after some 30 min - 1 hour ++ quest run.. But to be later be rewarded with some junk? That's not right... if you wanna people to appreciate well-thought and made foundry quest, the devs gotta up the ante a little so people are even interested to even do it.
For me personally, i browse thru the 15 min avg playtime.. because 30+ mins - 1 hour ++ runs arent really worth my time.. esp when it's always giving junks.
To cure how the 'exploits' are really rooting in NW, you gotta take care of the root problem.. which is people not really interested in doing foundry because of the sucky reward. I wouldnt touch foundry at all If it werent for the book imp.. The 4x daily foundry run for 4000 RAD clearly isnt appealing enough.
Thanks=)
I do own and have played many many games (curse you, Steam sales!) but I only played 2, which have allowed me to make use of a user-friendly system to create quests. One is Age of Empires II and the other is Neverwinter.
I like creating stuff which is why I own games like Sims and Rust for their building features. However, they do not have the ability to create quests.
To be frank, the only draw for me when I first played Neverwinter was the Foundry. Otherwise, it really is just another generic MMO of which I have also played quite a number of.
I absolutely and strongly agree that the rewards for playing foundry quests are really quite non-existent.
Much of the reason for why there exists so many 15min farm quests and also exploits is because the "play 4 quests" requirement is just begging for exploitation.
There have been many many many suggestions on how to improve the reward system and how they can help reduce exploitation. They can be found and read in this forum but they are not the focus for my thread.
I believe the reason or at least one reason why the developers seem so against increasing the rewards is because of the number of exploits running rampant. This is why I believe the exploits issue should be tackled first before rewards and other issues can be handled.
I think one of the first steps to getting these combated is letting people who aren't on the forums know that they're against the rules and should be reported. I've been playing Neverwinter for a month or so now, but I'm antisocial (okay, I was too lazy to come on before now) so whilst I've been fiddling with the Foundry since I unlocked it I had no idea until I meandered over here that there was a way to report them.