If u would ask me i would probably say i rarely play foundries "because its not worth the time regardless of the story" as well. But there is one big but: If i would want only a story i would pick a book or listen to some tales. This is video game and a story is only one part of good game and, quite often, one not rly essential.
Especially in dungeons and dragons i expect challenge and strategy not only when dealing with mobs but when dealing with the dungeon itself. That means deadly traps, brainstorming puzzles, unwith commander or even a skeleton warrior which scares me on sight just because its strong or a mindflayer which can make me helpless for a good time, required ability score checks etc etc - thats game for me. I dont mind such things not being in the main content but, at least, let foundry fans do it. Players will get then frustrated coz they cant beat it with their current equip and pay for better instead of being frustrated with overall game/foundry state (and since its non-free software its up to Cryptic).
Not only we dont have any of these, every author (with a very rare exceptions) never even tried to do a proper level design (cant blame anyone its a hell of work trying to do so). And unless foundry gets its developer any discussion is as pointless as it was since sharandar (which was only real upgrade to the foundry, with two exceptions: invert vis. IFs and stacking items which were merely bug fixes).
As rewards for players and profitability for Cryptic go, there were s-loads of ideas or even full examples already during past two years. Its Cryptics fault they advertise something thats actually unsupported. And no, i dont think the expenses are any close to the current gain.
One single capable person dedicated to foundry maintaining/developing (and NW is not only game using it). Unless that shall be its epitaph.
A bit nosy NW-DKG7E99X6
"Hardcore" exploration journey and dungeon crawl. Read its description prior to trying it.
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
Flexibility. We like the ability to create a variety of different era quests/campaigns. The Foundry allows limitless content creation without in-depth programming or engine knowledge.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
We feel that The Foundry would benefit greatly by allowing multi-user content creation. Allowing teams to create more ambitious collaborative projects.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Southern Utah University Computer Science and Information Systems CAPSTONE Class is working on a Proof of Concept project for US History using The Foundry. The class is currently building a "Old West" mining town. Players of the modules when completed will be able to answer US History Core Curriculum questions. The project represents a multi-discipline/multi-school effort to demonstrate game theory for education.
A special CS/IS Computer lab has been established for content creation and testing/playing.
Students/faculty have become more aware of Neverwinter offerings and tools. Phase II is envisioned to utilize more Universities and High Schools.
You can argue all you like but it's not. And it has nothing to do with action combat, MMO or RPG or anything else.
It has to do with perspective and options.
Now if you are playing a solo game with no rewards just for a story...that's all that is to the game.
If you are playing an online game with minimum content a lot of people, like myself, will do all the quests once just because there's time to kill and stories are fun anyway.
When you are talking about thousands of quests with no incentives to play at all other than story...when you look at the rest of the game giving tens digits time better return on time investment...it's not.
It's very much like saying you can eat candy for one dollar per hour or eat ice cream for ten dollars and hour. I'll be eating the ice cream. And every time I think about eating candy I am going to look at that one and turn around and go back to the ice cream.
This is not a single player game. The time you play ends up meaning something and if time is not adequately rewarded it's no longer fun to all but a very, very, very exponentially almost impossible to find select few people.
It doesn't have to be more rewarding but it does have to be comparably rewarding. No MMO content is ever fun enough to say "you get nothing for your time." In fact it's a dang flaw to ever think content should be rewarded less because it's more enjoyable. It's not a job and only becomes one when you can't opt to play enjoyable things to progress.
Yes. Exactly that. You are explaining exactly the reason why story isn’t very relevant in action rpgs. In action rpgs it’s all about getting the shinies in a pavlovian click, click, click, shiny pattern. This is why action rpgs Torchlight 1 and 2 (which are PWE owned games, so I feel free to use them as examples) drew rave reviews; due to them hitting the sweet spot of action rpg click-> shiny. Torchlight does not draw rave reviews because of it’s story. I own both Torchlight 1 and 2, I recommend them highly, they are very fun games. Torchlight is also a single player based game, so there isn’t a competitive to other human aspect to it’s click->shiny attractiveness.
That doesn’t mean an action rpg can’t have a good story, just that story is not the base attraction for the genre. The base attraction is the click->shiny response. This is why there are the regular threads of “I want more hotbars/buttons to press”, these people are articulating that the click->shiny balance is not to their preference. They want the click->shiny more frequently (in this case the shiny is some visual effect on screen rather than loot).
Now once we get to mmo multiplayer, you are competing with everyone else… Wait, that’s not true at all, in Neverwinter you are competing with no one except yourself (unless you pvp of course) because it’s a pve based game. If you have shinier shinies than me, that does not actually affect me at all. Except that it generally does via human psychology. You (the generic you, not you specifically) are driven to get shinier shinies not because they inherently matter to your character, but because you are human carrying out part of human nature. A person could have a 500k GS and it doesn’t actually have any effect on my foundry story playing character.
The authors who are complaining because people won’t play their great stories are missing the point that this is a genre where the story is not a driving factor for the vast majority of players. Foundry tokens won’t make people play great stories either. Foundry tokens are a shiny, and action rpg is about shinies. Foundry tokens won’t make people play story foundries, foundry tokens will make people play foundries in the most efficient way to get the shiny of the token.
So the story doesn’t really matter in action rpgs, the pavlovian click->shiny response is the base motivational factor in action rpgs, and human psychology to a lesser extent for multiplayer/mmo action rpgs. A story is a bonus in an action rpg. In puzzle games the base motivational factor is mastering the puzzle mechanics, and the player is encouraged to continue by the feeling of mastery they get for completing a puzzle. Bullet heck shooters have mastery of pattern recognition as the base. Bejewelled and Candy Crush exploit human desire to organize. Is that inherently bad? No. I do suppose people may find it insulting on some level that the genre is about manipulating their human nature in order to get them to produce a pleasurable response for themselves (the chemicals in the brain from getting the shiny), thus all the responses.
But here’s the thing, it’s a game, something made for our enjoyment, it should be getting us to enjoy ourselves. If we don’t enjoy it, it’s not a very good game. Pulling back the curtain to realize how and why it makes you enjoy it shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment, just like knowing the magician isn’t really sawing the apprentice in half shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment of the magic show.
Tl;DR
I will never play anything "just for fun" in any MMO. I spent 5 hours running in circles playing the Stanley Parable this morning having fun. It's pure story. It has no goals really and is purely for the enjoyable experience.
Exactly. Why did you play Stanley Parable when you could have been playing Foundry? You would begetting a basically equivalent story enjoyment experience (the exact game you played is irrelevant, you enjoyed it and you can find the same enjoyment in Foundry stories) PLUS shinies. However, human psychology doesn't work that way, you have somewhere in the brain an expectation that you want x number of shinies/hour, and Foundry doesn't provide X number shinies/hour. That creates a cognitive dissonance which reduces your enjoyment of Foundry.
So even though you get (numbers are relative, only for greater/lesser comparative purposes)
Stanley Parable = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story.
Foundry reality = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, PLUS 2 units of shinies/hour
But your brain's cognitive dissonance over expected rate of shinies per hour makes it
Foundry to your brain = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, MINUS 2 units of Ambi happiness because of cognitive dissonance over shinys/hour. The 2 units of shinies can't make up for the minus 2 units of cognitive dissonance happyness
End result, Stanley Parable wins and you play Stanley Parable over Foundry when you are interested in story, even though they both give the same units of Ambi happiness for story.
That's why story isn't really important in action rpgs. the units of Ambi happiness in action rpgs come mostly from achieving x number of shinies/hour.
If an npc gave every BiS gear, all boons, and a billion AD as soon as they entered Neverwinter, what would happen? People would be absolutely furious. But why? After all that would be maximum shinies/hour. The answer is that people who play action rpgs want to experience progression at a certain rate, they like it. The infinite shinies/hour experience of being handed BiS gear is way way above that certain rate, leading to the fury. It's Nightmare Thursday, with all the free epic mounts! (Remember how fun the forums were then?). By the same token, when the shiny progression rate is perceived as too slow, people don't like it (see any number of "WHY DID THEY NERF DROPS!!!!!" threads) even though they are still making progress in their number of shinies. People have an optimum shiny/hour preference for their enjoyment.
Which brings me back to Torchlight 1 and 2, action rpg's to their core, lauded (and rightfully so) for getting the shinies/hour equation right for many, many people. Many people enjoyed those games very much, and love to play them. Me too. But they are not playing them for the story, they are playing because achieving x number of shinies/hour produces a lot of units of personal happiness, the players are getting more units of happyness from shiny progression than they get from a story. The right amount of progression gives action rpg players a lot more personal happiness units than story does. The action rpg is about shinies/hour (you admit as much yourself when saying you don't play Foundry because Foundry doesn't give sufficient shinies/hour to play it), the audience is self selected, people that like action rpgs because the shinys/hour mechanism gives them a lot of happiness.
That's not bad, that doesn't make the action rpg fan inferior to the "story above all" people. It makes them different from the "story above all" people. The action rpg fan is the audience of Neverwinter Online, it's self described as an action rpg. Those people, me and you included, are driven by shinies/hour, not story. That's what so many Foundry authors get wrong when they bemoan the lack of plays and adulation for their great stories. Those authors are under the impression that Neverwinter Online's audience should care more about story, like the authors do. They are mistaking their audience, Neverwinter Online is an action rpg, and the audience for action rpg's doesn't really care about story, it's the shinys/hour factor that makes the audience most happy.
I wasted five million AD promoting the Foundry.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2015
What you aren't getting is that it is not because stories can't exist...
It's because the context and comparison's cause the problem.
There are plenty of great story content people play and enjoy in MMO's but they still have to have some form of reasonably comparable experience to the rest of the game. Plain and simple, your scoring system is off.
It's more in line with what maegmaag described.
Ambi happiness in Stanley Parable = Story Quality and Engagement (SP is pure story)
Ambi happiness in an MMO = the Average of Story Quality + Reward Quality - Comparable Options
While the enjoyment points for story could theoretically remain 10, the Stanley Parable would tell me I enjoyed a 10 experience while the goose egg and -10 score from the foundry rewards and other comparable gameplay options within NW result in a big fat goose egg on the enjoyment scale in the Foundry. It's because there are other options that can be directly compared to that causes this. Apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.
In a game like Stanley parable it's completely for my own personal enjoyment and it's a completely different game with no comparable relation to NW outside of the fact it's a video game and has the basic elements like story. Playing Game A does not make you think "Wow game B gives better rewards" because they are in fact different games and not different actions within a game.
So with an online game where you have different gameplay options to choose from it's very much like asking "Do I want to play 8 Ball or 9 Ball Billiards?" They are both enjoyable in their own right and are directly comparable to each other because they are fundamentally two different styles of the exact same game. Two options of Billiards Gameplay.
With Billiards both are equally rewarded by default and are simply preferences which are often switched up even if just once in a while to stir the pot. The rewards for winning or losing within the game rules are no different.
The issue with foundry content is it's apples to apples. I can choose to spend my time eating Granny Smith Apples and feeling rewarded or I can eat Red Delicious and deal with that horrible mush and bland aftertaste. It's the same as adding external (mandatory) points to any billiards game being played (even in your basement, the horror) and setting up the scoring system in a manner which completely discourages the gameplay of 9 ball. Let's say you are the best pool shark player in the world but you can't advance because some person in a coat decided to make playing 8 ball the only way to achieve status, ranking and rewards in the Pool Shark Point System even though you enjoy 9 ball more.
This is the foundry...you can choose to sacrifice everything to occassionally have a better end user experience with absolutely no rewards or play the same content over and over again to progress at all. In the mean time I don't dislike doing dungeons, PvP or the other options so it's not like the choice is do something I enjoy for no rewards or do something I hate for tons of rewards...
So Ambi happiness in NW is:
Dungeons: Story and Gameplay - 8, Rewards - 8, Comparable options - -0 Toral Score: 8 PvP: Story and Gameplay - 7, Rewards - 5, comparable options - -1 Total Score: 6.5 Foundry: Story and Gameplay - 10, Rewards ZERO, Comparable options - -10 Total Score: 0
The Foundry isn't a unique game. It's part of a whole game feature. It doesn't matter if it's a single player RPG, Action Combat MMO or anything else really...if the game does not give comparable incentives to participate in activities those activities will be unplayed. However with single player games it simply means you stop playing the game...in MMO's and multi-player games you end up with dead content.
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2015
Zeb and others have cited other games which have amazing stories in MMO's. The only difference is that the content within those MMO's were adequately rewarded as to not dissuade players from playing it and the content was not limitless.
There's no do every Foundry Mission just for the experience of it incentive which is the main driving factor in replaying or continuing past the logical point of conclusion of the main story or progression in any game whether it is single player or multi-player. People go back and play side missions even after they "beat the game" because they can still enjoy other content from the developers and check everything off the list once.
There is no chance of that in the Foundry. Just as there was no chance of it in NWN. The difference: NWN Persistance worlds had their own story, progression and reward curbs to encourage gameplay while NW has...soggy mush apples compared to the crisp granny smith apples of the official content. Not a hard choice.
Yes. Exactly that. You are explaining exactly the reason why story isn’t very relevant in action rpgs. In action rpgs it’s all about getting the shinies in a pavlovian click, click, click, shiny pattern. This is why action rpgs Torchlight 1 and 2 (which are PWE owned games, so I feel free to use them as examples) drew rave reviews; due to them hitting the sweet spot of action rpg click-> shiny. Torchlight does not draw rave reviews because of it’s story. I own both Torchlight 1 and 2, I recommend them highly, they are very fun games. Torchlight is also a single player based game, so there isn’t a competitive to other human aspect to it’s click->shiny attractiveness.
That doesn’t mean an action rpg can’t have a good story, just that story is not the base attraction for the genre. The base attraction is the click->shiny response. This is why there are the regular threads of “I want more hotbars/buttons to press”, these people are articulating that the click->shiny balance is not to their preference. They want the click->shiny more frequently (in this case the shiny is some visual effect on screen rather than loot).
Now once we get to mmo multiplayer, you are competing with everyone else… Wait, that’s not true at all, in Neverwinter you are competing with no one except yourself (unless you pvp of course) because it’s a pve based game. If you have shinier shinies than me, that does not actually affect me at all. Except that it generally does via human psychology. You (the generic you, not you specifically) are driven to get shinier shinies not because they inherently matter to your character, but because you are human carrying out part of human nature. A person could have a 500k GS and it doesn’t actually have any effect on my foundry story playing character.
The authors who are complaining because people won’t play their great stories are missing the point that this is a genre where the story is not a driving factor for the vast majority of players. Foundry tokens won’t make people play great stories either. Foundry tokens are a shiny, and action rpg is about shinies. Foundry tokens won’t make people play story foundries, foundry tokens will make people play foundries in the most efficient way to get the shiny of the token.
So the story doesn’t really matter in action rpgs, the pavlovian click->shiny response is the base motivational factor in action rpgs, and human psychology to a lesser extent for multiplayer/mmo action rpgs. A story is a bonus in an action rpg. In puzzle games the base motivational factor is mastering the puzzle mechanics, and the player is encouraged to continue by the feeling of mastery they get for completing a puzzle. Bullet heck shooters have mastery of pattern recognition as the base. Bejewelled and Candy Crush exploit human desire to organize. Is that inherently bad? No. I do suppose people may find it insulting on some level that the genre is about manipulating their human nature in order to get them to produce a pleasurable response for themselves (the chemicals in the brain from getting the shiny), thus all the responses.
But here’s the thing, it’s a game, something made for our enjoyment, it should be getting us to enjoy ourselves. If we don’t enjoy it, it’s not a very good game. Pulling back the curtain to realize how and why it makes you enjoy it shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment, just like knowing the magician isn’t really sawing the apprentice in half shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment of the magic show.
Exactly. Why did you play Stanley Parable when you could have been playing Foundry? You would begetting a basically equivalent story enjoyment experience (the exact game you played is irrelevant, you enjoyed it and you can find the same enjoyment in Foundry stories) PLUS shinies. However, human psychology doesn't work that way, you have somewhere in the brain an expectation that you want x number of shinies/hour, and Foundry doesn't provide X number shinies/hour. That creates a cognitive dissonance which reduces your enjoyment of Foundry.
So even though you get (numbers are relative, only for greater/lesser comparative purposes)
Stanley Parable = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story.
Foundry reality = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, PLUS 2 units of shinies/hour
But your brain's cognitive dissonance over expected rate of shinies per hour makes it
Foundry to your brain = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, MINUS 2 units of Ambi happiness because of cognitive dissonance over shinys/hour. The 2 units of shinies can't make up for the minus 2 units of cognitive dissonance happyness
End result, Stanley Parable wins and you play Stanley Parable over Foundry when you are interested in story, even though they both give the same units of Ambi happiness for story.
That's why story isn't really important in action rpgs. the units of Ambi happiness in action rpgs come mostly from achieving x number of shinies/hour.
If an npc gave every BiS gear, all boons, and a billion AD as soon as they entered Neverwinter, what would happen? People would be absolutely furious. But why? After all that would be maximum shinies/hour. The answer is that people who play action rpgs want to experience progression at a certain rate, they like it. The infinite shinies/hour experience of being handed BiS gear is way way above that certain rate, leading to the fury. It's Nightmare Thursday, with all the free epic mounts! (Remember how fun the forums were then?). By the same token, when the shiny progression rate is perceived as too slow, people don't like it (see any number of "WHY DID THEY NERF DROPS!!!!!" threads) even though they are still making progress in their number of shinies. People have an optimum shiny/hour preference for their enjoyment.
Which brings me back to Torchlight 1 and 2, action rpg's to their core, lauded (and rightfully so) for getting the shinies/hour equation right for many, many people. Many people enjoyed those games very much, and love to play them. Me too. But they are not playing them for the story, they are playing because achieving x number of shinies/hour produces a lot of units of personal happiness, the players are getting more units of happyness from shiny progression than they get from a story. The right amount of progression gives action rpg players a lot more personal happiness units than story does. The action rpg is about shinies/hour (you admit as much yourself when saying you don't play Foundry because Foundry doesn't give sufficient shinies/hour to play it), the audience is self selected, people that like action rpgs because the shinys/hour mechanism gives them a lot of happiness.
That's not bad, that doesn't make the action rpg fan inferior to the "story above all" people. It makes them different from the "story above all" people. The action rpg fan is the audience of Neverwinter Online, it's self described as an action rpg. Those people, me and you included, are driven by shinies/hour, not story. That's what so many Foundry authors get wrong when they bemoan the lack of plays and adulation for their great stories. Those authors are under the impression that Neverwinter Online's audience should care more about story, like the authors do. They are mistaking their audience, Neverwinter Online is an action rpg, and the audience for action rpg's doesn't really care about story, it's the shinys/hour factor that makes the audience most happy.
uh... what? That made absolutely no sense at all. So basically you're saying that people playing Neverwinter should basically expect the same type of game experience as in playing asteroids or missile command. Did I understand you correctly?
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
edited January 2015
I'll admit, I like shinies.
However, I don't even like them enough to slog through T2 dungeons for the off chance of getting one.
Why? Been there, done that. I played the quest, I enjoyed the story, and now I want to MOVE ON. I don't want to have to go through the same story over and over to get my shinies, even if that's the only way to get them.
I'm not grinding dailies either. Boring, boring, boring.
What keeps me here isn't the shinies. It's the facts that:
1) It's a D&D game,
2) I can play with other people who like D&D games, and
3) It's got Foundry.
That's it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
That said, I absolutely agree that we should have a way to get foundry quests to give similar levels of shinies for the effort that the regular game does. Not the same shinies, just something of comparable level. Someone who spends 100 hours grinding the same dungeon over and over and someone who spends 100 hours playing different foundry quests are both spending 100 hours in the game. Why should one be "rewarded" with shinies and the other not?
Put in something that gives one Foundry token for every 15 minutes of average duration of a foundry quest.
Make it so that you can exchange high numbers of these tokens for decent gear, in the Seal/T1 range, or green-level mounts or companions not available elsewhere, or cosmetic items not available elsewhere.
Give a +50% bonus if it was the first time you ever played that quest.
Have the tokens be found in the end chest, so that at least something good is in that thing.
Presto. Problem solved.
Sure, the minmaxers and power gamers still won't play Foundry, because it doesn't give the top gear or anything the can sell for a gajillion ADs. But then, they're pretty much not going to play Foundry no matter what we do, unless we unbalance the game in Foundry's direction, which is not going to happen. So, let's make it shinier to the average player. We can experience unending new content, get rewarded for it, and not break the game.
Ambi happiness in Stanley Parable = Story Quality and Engagement (SP is pure story)
Ambi happiness in an MMO = the Average of Story Quality + Reward Quality - Comparable Options
Exactly.
Here's the thing: Your time in Foundry quests is single player time, not MMO time. Foundry time is the same as your time in Stanley Parable, except for one thing, any progress, no matter how small, achieved in Foundry directly transfers to the MMO, without having to spend any MMO time. You get something in the MMO for nothing in MMO time.
The "+ reward quality" section is always going to be better in Neverwinter Online than from Stanley Parable (which is pure story and has no reward). This number is essentially always a positive in Neverwinter Online, the game doesn't take anything from your rewards (there's a penalty for dying, but it's very small).
Here's the trick:
The "- comparable options" is not a real number, but your brain treats it as one. You are always getting positive absolute MMO rewards (previous paragraph). This number is your brain taking the perception that you should be getting x shinies/hour, but are not. Your brain is not getting what it wants, it sees this as a negative even though you are getting absolute positive rewards.
If I offer you an ice cream, but you think you should be getting two ice creams, you are unhappy even though you previously had zero ice creams. This is "- Comparable Options" even though you have an ice cream when previously you did not. Your brain is unhappy over a positive reward. Your brain sees the glass as half empty and subtracts happiness, even though the previously empty glass is half full.
uh... what? That made absolutely no sense at all. So basically you're saying that people playing Neverwinter should basically expect the same type of game experience as in playing asteroids or missile command. Did I understand you correctly?
No. You did not understand me. Different genres of games make our brains happy for different reasons, and different people get different happiness for the same inputs. That's why there are hardcore puzzle game fans, hardcore action rpg fans etc.
For instance Candy Crush, Tetris and the like go after things like our organizational impulses. Those games are (essentially) story free. For a group of people, being able to organize gives their brains a lot of happiness units. That group likes those games, they are fans of that genre. They may not get action rpgs at all, because action rpgs don't focus on organizational impulses (you do see organization impulses included, it's in things like companion collections), to them action rpgs don't give them a lot of happiness units. On the other hand, Candy Crush gives them lots of happiness, so they play Candy Crush over Neverwinter Online, it makes their brains a lot happier to play candy Crush than Neverwinter Online.
The platformer genre, things like Super Mario Brothers, they go after things like the concept of competence. You have to learn the moves, master the moves and patterns. As you play, you get introduced to fancier moves (you've reached world 2-1, now you can do a double jump!) and more complicated patterns to master. The people whose brains respond to this, they get lots of happiness units from it, they are fans of that genre.
The brain of the action rpg fan responds highly to the stimulation of the action rpg, you (generic you) play because it give you lots of happiness units, more than a game focused on organization. Action rpgs stimulate with click->shiny progress, your brain gets a little jolt of dopamine from getting the shiny. And you (generic you again) derive maximum happiness units when the progress is at a certain rate. This is why the forums are furious when shinies are too easy, and furious when shinies are too hard. See my post to ambi above explaining how happiness in action rpgs gets maximized at a certain rate of shiny progress.
Asteroids and Missile Command use different means to make the brain happy than Neverwinter Online. For a fan of Missile Command and a fan of Neverwinter Online, the end result is the same, the player gets maximized happiness units. But the path the game takes to produce those happiness units is different, and not all people respond equally to input along the different paths. Some people love to organize and play Candy Crush, some people hate to organize and avoid Candy Crush.
I wasted five million AD promoting the Foundry.
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ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2015
Whether it is "single player" time or not doesn't matter.
In a single player game if something is not adaquately rewarded then it is no longer played after it ceases to aid progression. It's not because the Stanley Parable is a single player game which makes it completely fine to do something with no progression. It's because the whole game has no progression.
Any single player game which has options for progression will invariably cause other options to not get played after the first play through, which as I said before doesn't apply to Foundry Quests because the only thing which causes non-progression aspects to be played in a single player game is a check-box.
For instance in the game Banjo Kazooi the goal was to collect Puzzle Pieces and Music Notes to further progress in the game. Let's say there was 100 Puzzle Pieces and 500 music notes total in the game. You only needed 80/100 Puzzle Pieces and 400/500 music notes to beat the game but after the game was beaten you could still try to collect the remaining puzzle pieces and notes to complete the check boxes.
However that incentive would go away completely if the max number was an infinite amount of puzzle pieces and music notes. At that point there would have been no purpose to just keep running around because you would never actually be able to complete the check boxes. That's what the foundry is. So at the point you complete all the official content in NW you only have gear and wealth progression remaining and the foundry doesn't assist those at all so no matter how "fun" it is I won't be playing it just as I don't play Banjo Kazooi anymore because I finished collecting all those puzzle pieces and music notes twenty years ago.
At this point you're just derailing the thread though. If you don't care or don't mind the state of the foundry that is perfectly fine but there's no need to argue with the majority of people who quite clearly do. It's not productive and completely circular.
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
ambisinisterrMember, Neverwinter ModeratorPosts: 10,462Community Moderator
edited January 2015
The issue is, Eldarth, the author issues originate from the player issues.
Authors such as you could get everything they want in the world and still be unhappy when they realize no matter what they do people still don't play the content. Remember, I am a developer and author myself...
As well known as it is...they could do absolutely nothing for the foundry authors. Not a single line of code...and make the foundry better for the players...and it would help the authors as much as spending thousands of hours coding the author tools and search features you want.
The issue is, Eldarth, the author issues originate from the player issues.
Authors such as you could get everything they want in the world and still be unhappy when they realize no matter what they do people still don't play the content. Remember, I am a developer and author myself...
As well known as it is...they could do absolutely nothing for the foundry authors. Not a single line of code...and make the foundry better for the players...and it would help the authors as much as spending thousands of hours coding the author tools and search features you want.
Of course, that's why the authors number one (if not #2) priority is "better rewards."
So that would absolutely help both authors and players immensely and immediately.
It seems to me there is some dispute as to why the foundry is not being played by the general population of players... In my opinion, this only works if the player can experience foundry missions and keep the same standards as found in the rest of the game. In other words, the user-generated environments and adventures should be on par with the core material... in both technical features (props, quest paths, decorative backgrounds, game mechanics like timers, etc..) and rewards (treasure). Without these two elements the foundry falls flat. The authors must have the ability to build plot lines and environments with the same elements that the developers of this game do. In addition, the player must receive comparable rewards for the adventures. Both of these aspects need to be handled by the developers in order to make the foundry successful. Many of the technical aspects and problems have been dealt with and there are many more ( timers, bosses, 'or' logic, ect... ) that still need to be addressed. BUT .. the problem of comparable rewards has never been addressed at all, with the exception of nerfing the whole reward system early in the beta release. It's time to fix the reward system for the foundry and bring it on par with the rest of the game. This should, by all logic, give the general player a reason to try a few foundry creations.
This is just my humble opinion.
Thank you...
Guitarzan
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imaginaerum1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 378Arc User
...
it would help the authors as much as spending thousands of hours coding the author tools and search features you want.
While a major revamp of tools would be great, and some modification definitely needs to be made to search to filter out the exploits and farms, a huge boost from the author side of things could be made with a lot less than "thousands of hours coding". If one single person were to spend one hour a week adding details already in the game to the Asset Library, it would be a huge improvement. Because right now, there are hundreds of simple details already in the game that aren't available to us.
I'm talking about basics, like a wooden floor tile, the door frames that go with the doors we've been given, windows other than the fancy-stained-glass ones, etc. There's a whole thread dedicated to screenshots of details already in the game that Foundry authors have requested be added to the Asset Library, and to date the number that have is miniscule at best.
I agree that a rewards system that makes people actually want to play our quests is the #1 priority, but it would be very nice if they would just throw us a bone every now and then in the form of a handful of new details that aren't linked to whatever new release they're pushing, rather than leaving us to slowly starve.
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zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
edited January 2015
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Of course, that's why the authors number one (if not #2) priority is "better rewards."
So that would absolutely help both authors and players immensely and immediately.
Yep. I've been relevant to Spirals core questions even though ambi and zeb disagree. I'm addressing the core question "What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation?" The answer of course, is Foundry players. No matter how many features Cryptic adds to Foundry authoring, Ambi isn't going to play Foundries because as he said, the rewards are not there for him.
There will be more authors and more content creation when more people play Foundry. Authors want an audience, that's why there's been so many frustration threads over "why won't people play my awesome quest". It's human nature for the authors to want an audience. What can be done to make people play Foundry?
Foundy playing is a single player game that happens to be located inside an mmo and use the same rules as the mmo. It's the same as if Cryptic had implemented a tetris minigame, or fishing (which they have in Winter Solstice). No one would argue that Tetris inside NWO would not be a single player experience. The fact Foundry playing uses the same rules and pc as the MMO confuses people's brains. Since Foundry is a single player game, rewards should be judged by the player as if it's a single player game, but they are not because of human psychology.
You can add as many features as you want to Foundry authoring, but if no one plays author's stuff it won't matter, you won't attract authors and incentivize content creation. So the question is why won't people play Foundry. It's the human psychology factor as personified by Ambi's example that's the reason no one plays Foundry.
Can't you have up to 5 people in a foundry quest? Sure *I* always play it single player, but I think you CAN play it multiplayer. Of course, I rarely party up with other people in any part of the game, because I don't have any friends who play this game, and PUGs are unreliable, and people can be jerks if you aren't an expert speed runner.
Can't you have up to 5 people in a foundry quest? Sure *I* always play it single player, but I think you CAN play it multiplayer. Of course, I rarely party up with other people in any part of the game, because I don't have any friends who play this game, and PUGs are unreliable, and people can be jerks if you aren't an expert speed runner.
You can do Foundry with a party, but the Foundry does not scale to the party size (or GS). It's a co-op multiplayer experience vs an MMO experience. It's fundamentally not an MMO experience, I suppose until things like scaling and such were added. If you want a challenge for a five person party, you need to look for Foundries specifically made for five person parties.
You can do Foundry with a party, but the Foundry does not scale to the party size (or GS). It's a co-op multiplayer experience vs an MMO experience. It's fundamentally not an MMO experience, I suppose until things like scaling and such were added. If you want a challenge for a five person party, you need to look for Foundries specifically made for five person parties.
Well even if foundry is made for 5 people, then you have a really high gs, most mobs will be killed in less than 3 sec in an aoe ... unless you make them a number which the foundry will lag ...
Well time to make my answer, i've made a whole week to think about it and i'm pretty sure i'll be forgetting some idea ... And sorry if i tell the same thing as other, but i haven't read most of it, i don't even have time to make all my daylies every days ...
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
The Foundry give the possibilities to play other quests than daylies and some haves greats idea ... Well in fact i don't plays lots of foundrys because i feel the lack of lots of thing (and i'd love to make more foundrys but for the same problem i don't do a lots (well also because of limited time))
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter? What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
For what it is short and what i would add for attracting mode player and authors is more or less the same for me :
_Some tools usefull :
__Resize object tool (50%~150% of the default size for not having issues making it dependant of the item) because, then you try to made a door fit, you'll need some objects to fill the gap or making it clip througt the wall ...
__Boss Tool and Sub boss tool (1 and 2 per quest) because having a quest without a boss and sub boss don't feel like a quest ... And the thing this tool can make, is make the boss bigger, uncontrollable and changing attack patern as life goes down ... Or something like that ...
__Group Scaling difficulties encounter tool, for making the encounter you made scale more or less on the group playing the foundry OR a difficulty slider then you choose the foundry making mobs more powerfull ... OR then a full party enter, make the mob become dungeon mob (more life and hit harder like the one in dungeon) and make them possibly become T1 and even T2 mobs for level 60 player ... Well something for making more challenge for level 60 player if wanted ...
__Custom cluster saving, then you have made a whole bunch of objects, align them and more and then you want to copy paste it and everything is not aligned anymore ...
_Non linear quests, making some objectives optional, or requiring an item for them to appear, making multiple choice less a pain to make, for not having bad review of your foundry because you try to make a class different path at some point who don't have a quest marker ...
_Timer, for making a Survive X time, or Waiting a ritual to be made or it could be usefull for making complex visual effect, or it could help for lots of thing ... (but making a limitation for mobs killed by timer which make them fall to their death ... I know some people will always find exploit about pretty much anything anyways ...)
_Land changing, because the base maps have somes problems (floating tree, rocks and other) and then you try to see if the map could be good, you won't use it ... And using a flat one is not always nice ... And also because after some time you'll play mostly in the same maps it could add lots of possibilities ...
_For Author : Make invisible wall visible in 3D mode, because trying to align them is time consumming and you always forget 1 or 2 location and then a player is stuck in them ...
That is pretty much all i can think of now ... if i think of something else i'll edit this post under this phrase
Edit 1 : (Thanks to Reiwulf for talking about it xD it helped me think about what i forgot)
_Better rewards, making a small point count as how much hp mobs had and mobs difficulties for having at least more blues item and maybe rank 4 enchants and as a little percentage better items ... Because playing 15 min for some <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> green item isn't worth it ... I don't know make even some special item/companion found only in foundry, per exemple if 80% of mobs in the foundry is some kind of mob like spider, then why not having like 0,1% chance to have a new white spider companion who add deflect per exemple ? it's not game breaking (as there are other companions with same effect) and make them BoA and in a collection, i know some people who try to have a maximum of the collections so they should play foundry for having it ...
_Change of featured foundrys, Still make featured quest copy of original but with the same rating for the 2 (the 2 are considered the same for votes) and make them updatable, then you try to update them they enter the same procedure as normally (i don't know hos it's done, if it's a long thing then maybe make a difference view) <= for not making a 20 min quest doable in 1 min and be featured (i think the actual featured method is because of this ...) | You may ask why making them updatable, i've made a quest for an event, some time after there was an update of the foundry and some ellement becames broken but i couldn't fix it so my rating wouldn't go higher (well anyways this quest was too long)
_An estimated play time & free mount for author char (50% at least 110% should be better as most of 60 now have one ...) Because trying to make 15 min quest in exterior can be dependant of mount speed ...
_A Class selection in addition to the skill thing, Because a gwf and a gf don't have the same dps and making a choice of path only based on exploration is not good enough ... (SW and CW can work more or less actually but then theire will be new class ...)
_A real 'IF ... THEN ...', '... AND ...' & '... OR ...' Well it may enter in the non linear quest scenario but ...
This should be more optional :
_More or less making any kind of normal quest made in game possible to recreate in the foundry, and making the foundry chart clearly saying that if an idea is really good that the dev want to implement it, the original author would have a graditude mark, or a little something (Like a free skin item specially made for him (ranging at other already item but with special color per exemple (nice for weapon) or custom image for cloak ...) for all char at the intendant of the city (where you take the other class artifact and all account unlocked items)) Well something visually special (or making a new mode item slot for it like an aura who will always be seen, in mode or normal armor)
End of edit 1 !
Edit 2 :
_Custom quest path Because too much are passing through wall ...
_Scryed stone (don't know if it's the exact name) for exterior map (1 per map) Could be usefull for non pathed quests to show some interesting point to player (it could become useless with custom quest path ...)
_More customizable costume I've tryed to make 2 of my chars in a foundry, just not enought options to customisation, we should be able to implement more or less all armor and mode at the disposition of the players on live to npc in foundry (my courtisan dress + cat ear can't be made so i've made another customisation who don't even seem like my char ...)
_More 'player class' npc Allies and ennemies, using some more of the skills the player can use, making all playable class being a possible ally or foe should be possible ...
End of edit 2 ! Edit 3 :
_More variable like the [Nickname] but for classes, or other players choices who can be usefull like future oath paladin, knowing which parangon path choosed, it can help make some more interactive possibilities ...
End of edit 3 !
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Don't see other multiplayer with great UGC, the only one are Solo player and don't need to bother about the same limitations about exp, objects and other thing in the same regards to multiplayers ... And for Solo player i'd say Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 or TES IV and V editor waren't bad (then you see the number of mods created and even now some players still play at this games even if they have some years ...)
Sry for bad english i'm not english so i may have made some error in the spelling and grammar ...
And sorry for the long phrases i may have typed, i let my though run wild as i wrote so it may not be very well writen ...
I wholeheartedly agree with deadshadow86.
I was thinking about the rewards, how to make something specific to the foundry that wouldn't affect the rest of the game and unbalance things in pvp for instance.
What about foundry specific items/equipment? things that could only be used in foundry quests, and BoA so it can't be farmed and then sold to gain easy AD.
Cosmetics are also a plus, and companions/mounts green or blue wouldn't unbalance things (unless they put in some stupid overpowered effect on a companion like the cockatrice)
Cosmetics are also a plus, and companions/mounts green or blue wouldn't unbalance things (unless they put in some stupid overpowered effect on a companion like the cockatrice)
This.
I'd play Foundry quests like crazy if they were to put Fear and Weapon Transmutes into the chests. Not just one or the other, but something to transmute everything, especially gear like helms, armor and the rest - and especially if the designs were only available through Foundry Quests and nowhere else.
Of course this is just one idea. The point being players need real incentive to play the Foundry; Featured or not.
This.
I'd play Foundry quests like crazy if they were to put Fear and Weapon Transmutes into the chests. Not just one or the other, but something to transmute everything, especially gear like helms, armor and the rest - and especially if the designs were only available through Foundry Quests and nowhere else.
Of course this is just one idea. The point being players need real incentive to play the Foundry; Featured or not.
I wouldn't put them as a random drop in the end chest. That only reinforces the "15-minutes-and-not-one-second-more" attitude, because the chance is 1 per quest.
Put in the Foundry Tokens, and make them available for a large number of tokens. Make the tokens drop in the end chest based on average duration of the quest, linear progression so it neither favors nor penalizes either shorter or longer quests. Give a +50% bonus on completion of a quest you've never played before to encourage people to play new quests and not the same on over and over again.
Put in a Foundry Token Vendor, who, among other things, sells cosmetics, transmutes, and green-level mounts and companions that you can only get from that vendor. Put him somewhere public so people can browse through and see what they don't have yet.
This would have pretty much ZERO impact on game balance. Cosmetics and transmutes do nothing but make the player feel good. Green level companions and mounts are pretty much worthless except as a "hey look what I've got" thing. Yet people would grind away at those tokens like crazy to get them. Just look how many people are willing to play a CTA 100+ times just to get one not very useful green companion.
I agree, there's TONS of cosmetic items you could add for foundry players. And if there's more people playing them and more interest then when there's a way to monetize it, more people would pay for it too. (maybe an item to get 2x the foundry tokens for a few quests?)
To get a good reward on foundry (at least on same lvl or near as playing the normal content) you need to have a strick control on foundry's content. Why, because there isn't actually a perfect way to avoid any form of exploit. Getting the reward after a time ? you can sit with macro on a same timed content and get chest. Brain foundry ? well once it solved you get easy reward. Also a bis gear player wil ldo any fight way better than a fresh l60
That why i came with the idea a Foundry flag (like pvp flag). with equipment or eventually some reinforcement bonus that only work with foundry. You can also give lower or medium epic gear
Of course foundry that offer those reward should be limited. (And control can be made with for exemple you can only get a chance for reward on weekly foundry, (maybe the last 4 foundry's that was weekly selected can loot things)
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
edited January 2015
As a player, I really like Foundry quests. Unfortunately, I usually have time constraints, so I wind up picking the shorter quests, but on the rare occasion that I have a few hours to sit on my computer, I'll take a nice long Foundry and really explore it. I like seeing what fellow players come up with (all very much in the spirit of classic tabletop D&D).
As a fledgling Foundry author (I' got three quests that I haven't published yet.. still working out the bugs and tweaking stuff), the biggest immediate handicap that I've come across are side quests. I understand that in order to keep things as bug-free as possible that the simplest programming is required, hence the need for linear quests (for all intents and purposes, everything is linear), but to have the option to put in side quests would be awesome. As it is, I'm burning up 4 or 5 NPCs in my budget (to have the same effect as a single NPC in the storyline) per side quest in order to flesh out the storyline and craft Foundries that old-school D&Ders like myself would really enjoy playing.
It's kind of a small thing. First world problems, really.
I enjoy building quests, and I hope that once I do start publishing them that players will enjoy them. Like anything else, I suppose, it's a matter of learning the rules and limitations of the universe, then being able to shape my stories to those rules and limitations.
To get a good reward on foundry (at least on same lvl or near as playing the normal content) you need to have a strick control on foundry's content. Why, because there isn't actually a perfect way to avoid any form of exploit. Getting the reward after a time ? you can sit with macro on a same timed content and get chest.
Maximum XP/time and Maximum Loot-Value/time. Done. No more exploits.
They have the statistics and measurements from thousands and thousands of PvE players, so just set the XP to time ratio, and a loot to time ratio. If they've "gained" more XP than the maximum they get capped. i.e. if during PvE, players average 100xp-times-level per minute, then if they are 10th level and play a foundry for 10 minutes, they get the lesser of their combat XP or 10,000xp (100xp * 10th * 10min).
Same with loot -- they know how much loot PvE players earn based on their statistics - so just set a maximum loot value. If the foundry produces more than the maximum loot value, let the player "drop" items from a foundry loot sack containing ALL items dropped (including end chest) until their calculated loot sack value is below the calculated maximum loot value.
And as far as using macros to "farm" over time -- macros are already illegal in PvE and it is up to Cryptic to "detect" such things and deal with the user. If the foundry xp and loot is capped at whatever average PvE ratio Cryptic sets, it is no different than exploiting PvE.
And it would also give them an extremely easy way for promoting new foundry play by offering a 5% bonus xp/loot for "For Review" foundries, and a 5% bonus for unplayed previously foundries, etc.
What if foundry difficulty was scaled by gear score instead of level? This would allow the quests to continue to be challenging after lvl 60 when players start getting epic gear. If it factored in the TOTAL gearscore of a party it would even go some way towards making it scaled for a group.
The only potential issue is that players could keep around a set of inferior gear so they could play it at high level but low gear to get an advantage over the mobs. Though since they'd be getting inferior loot, I don't know how much of an issue that would be.
Calculating experience based on time might be tricky. How do you stop someone from going AFK or jumping around for X amount of minutes to earn the highest reward upon completion? I'm all for the loot bags, Foundry coins/tokens ideas. People have to have a reason for participating in Foundry Quests, seems to be the recurring theme. I have several uncompleted maps to tinker with, but no plans to release anything until rewards for players improve. Right now we're all sitting in quest purgatory.
"I don't know, I'm making it up as I go..." Featured Foundry Quest:Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5
Comments
Especially in dungeons and dragons i expect challenge and strategy not only when dealing with mobs but when dealing with the dungeon itself. That means deadly traps, brainstorming puzzles, unwith commander or even a skeleton warrior which scares me on sight just because its strong or a mindflayer which can make me helpless for a good time, required ability score checks etc etc - thats game for me. I dont mind such things not being in the main content but, at least, let foundry fans do it. Players will get then frustrated coz they cant beat it with their current equip and pay for better instead of being frustrated with overall game/foundry state (and since its non-free software its up to Cryptic).
Not only we dont have any of these, every author (with a very rare exceptions) never even tried to do a proper level design (cant blame anyone its a hell of work trying to do so). And unless foundry gets its developer any discussion is as pointless as it was since sharandar (which was only real upgrade to the foundry, with two exceptions: invert vis. IFs and stacking items which were merely bug fixes).
As rewards for players and profitability for Cryptic go, there were s-loads of ideas or even full examples already during past two years. Its Cryptics fault they advertise something thats actually unsupported. And no, i dont think the expenses are any close to the current gain.
One single capable person dedicated to foundry maintaining/developing (and NW is not only game using it). Unless that shall be its epitaph.
Flexibility. We like the ability to create a variety of different era quests/campaigns. The Foundry allows limitless content creation without in-depth programming or engine knowledge.
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
We feel that The Foundry would benefit greatly by allowing multi-user content creation. Allowing teams to create more ambitious collaborative projects.
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
Southern Utah University Computer Science and Information Systems CAPSTONE Class is working on a Proof of Concept project for US History using The Foundry. The class is currently building a "Old West" mining town. Players of the modules when completed will be able to answer US History Core Curriculum questions. The project represents a multi-discipline/multi-school effort to demonstrate game theory for education.
A special CS/IS Computer lab has been established for content creation and testing/playing.
Students/faculty have become more aware of Neverwinter offerings and tools. Phase II is envisioned to utilize more Universities and High Schools.
You can follow the progress of this exiting project at https://www.facebook.com/groups/770319829700097/ or just look for the Facebook Group HistoryMMO
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
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history professor
(Un)Academic Field Work Foundry Campaign: NWS-DAPZB2CTZ
That doesn’t mean an action rpg can’t have a good story, just that story is not the base attraction for the genre. The base attraction is the click->shiny response. This is why there are the regular threads of “I want more hotbars/buttons to press”, these people are articulating that the click->shiny balance is not to their preference. They want the click->shiny more frequently (in this case the shiny is some visual effect on screen rather than loot).
Now once we get to mmo multiplayer, you are competing with everyone else… Wait, that’s not true at all, in Neverwinter you are competing with no one except yourself (unless you pvp of course) because it’s a pve based game. If you have shinier shinies than me, that does not actually affect me at all. Except that it generally does via human psychology. You (the generic you, not you specifically) are driven to get shinier shinies not because they inherently matter to your character, but because you are human carrying out part of human nature. A person could have a 500k GS and it doesn’t actually have any effect on my foundry story playing character.
The authors who are complaining because people won’t play their great stories are missing the point that this is a genre where the story is not a driving factor for the vast majority of players. Foundry tokens won’t make people play great stories either. Foundry tokens are a shiny, and action rpg is about shinies. Foundry tokens won’t make people play story foundries, foundry tokens will make people play foundries in the most efficient way to get the shiny of the token.
So the story doesn’t really matter in action rpgs, the pavlovian click->shiny response is the base motivational factor in action rpgs, and human psychology to a lesser extent for multiplayer/mmo action rpgs. A story is a bonus in an action rpg. In puzzle games the base motivational factor is mastering the puzzle mechanics, and the player is encouraged to continue by the feeling of mastery they get for completing a puzzle. Bullet heck shooters have mastery of pattern recognition as the base. Bejewelled and Candy Crush exploit human desire to organize. Is that inherently bad? No. I do suppose people may find it insulting on some level that the genre is about manipulating their human nature in order to get them to produce a pleasurable response for themselves (the chemicals in the brain from getting the shiny), thus all the responses.
But here’s the thing, it’s a game, something made for our enjoyment, it should be getting us to enjoy ourselves. If we don’t enjoy it, it’s not a very good game. Pulling back the curtain to realize how and why it makes you enjoy it shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment, just like knowing the magician isn’t really sawing the apprentice in half shouldn’t lessen your enjoyment of the magic show.
Exactly. Why did you play Stanley Parable when you could have been playing Foundry? You would begetting a basically equivalent story enjoyment experience (the exact game you played is irrelevant, you enjoyed it and you can find the same enjoyment in Foundry stories) PLUS shinies. However, human psychology doesn't work that way, you have somewhere in the brain an expectation that you want x number of shinies/hour, and Foundry doesn't provide X number shinies/hour. That creates a cognitive dissonance which reduces your enjoyment of Foundry.
So even though you get (numbers are relative, only for greater/lesser comparative purposes)
Stanley Parable = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story.
Foundry reality = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, PLUS 2 units of shinies/hour
But your brain's cognitive dissonance over expected rate of shinies per hour makes it
Foundry to your brain = 10 units of Ambi happiness from story, MINUS 2 units of Ambi happiness because of cognitive dissonance over shinys/hour. The 2 units of shinies can't make up for the minus 2 units of cognitive dissonance happyness
End result, Stanley Parable wins and you play Stanley Parable over Foundry when you are interested in story, even though they both give the same units of Ambi happiness for story.
That's why story isn't really important in action rpgs. the units of Ambi happiness in action rpgs come mostly from achieving x number of shinies/hour.
If an npc gave every BiS gear, all boons, and a billion AD as soon as they entered Neverwinter, what would happen? People would be absolutely furious. But why? After all that would be maximum shinies/hour. The answer is that people who play action rpgs want to experience progression at a certain rate, they like it. The infinite shinies/hour experience of being handed BiS gear is way way above that certain rate, leading to the fury. It's Nightmare Thursday, with all the free epic mounts! (Remember how fun the forums were then?). By the same token, when the shiny progression rate is perceived as too slow, people don't like it (see any number of "WHY DID THEY NERF DROPS!!!!!" threads) even though they are still making progress in their number of shinies. People have an optimum shiny/hour preference for their enjoyment.
Which brings me back to Torchlight 1 and 2, action rpg's to their core, lauded (and rightfully so) for getting the shinies/hour equation right for many, many people. Many people enjoyed those games very much, and love to play them. Me too. But they are not playing them for the story, they are playing because achieving x number of shinies/hour produces a lot of units of personal happiness, the players are getting more units of happyness from shiny progression than they get from a story. The right amount of progression gives action rpg players a lot more personal happiness units than story does. The action rpg is about shinies/hour (you admit as much yourself when saying you don't play Foundry because Foundry doesn't give sufficient shinies/hour to play it), the audience is self selected, people that like action rpgs because the shinys/hour mechanism gives them a lot of happiness.
That's not bad, that doesn't make the action rpg fan inferior to the "story above all" people. It makes them different from the "story above all" people. The action rpg fan is the audience of Neverwinter Online, it's self described as an action rpg. Those people, me and you included, are driven by shinies/hour, not story. That's what so many Foundry authors get wrong when they bemoan the lack of plays and adulation for their great stories. Those authors are under the impression that Neverwinter Online's audience should care more about story, like the authors do. They are mistaking their audience, Neverwinter Online is an action rpg, and the audience for action rpg's doesn't really care about story, it's the shinys/hour factor that makes the audience most happy.
It's because the context and comparison's cause the problem.
There are plenty of great story content people play and enjoy in MMO's but they still have to have some form of reasonably comparable experience to the rest of the game. Plain and simple, your scoring system is off.
It's more in line with what maegmaag described.
Ambi happiness in Stanley Parable = Story Quality and Engagement (SP is pure story)
Ambi happiness in an MMO = the Average of Story Quality + Reward Quality - Comparable Options
While the enjoyment points for story could theoretically remain 10, the Stanley Parable would tell me I enjoyed a 10 experience while the goose egg and -10 score from the foundry rewards and other comparable gameplay options within NW result in a big fat goose egg on the enjoyment scale in the Foundry. It's because there are other options that can be directly compared to that causes this. Apples to apples instead of apples to oranges.
In a game like Stanley parable it's completely for my own personal enjoyment and it's a completely different game with no comparable relation to NW outside of the fact it's a video game and has the basic elements like story. Playing Game A does not make you think "Wow game B gives better rewards" because they are in fact different games and not different actions within a game.
So with an online game where you have different gameplay options to choose from it's very much like asking "Do I want to play 8 Ball or 9 Ball Billiards?" They are both enjoyable in their own right and are directly comparable to each other because they are fundamentally two different styles of the exact same game. Two options of Billiards Gameplay.
With Billiards both are equally rewarded by default and are simply preferences which are often switched up even if just once in a while to stir the pot. The rewards for winning or losing within the game rules are no different.
The issue with foundry content is it's apples to apples. I can choose to spend my time eating Granny Smith Apples and feeling rewarded or I can eat Red Delicious and deal with that horrible mush and bland aftertaste. It's the same as adding external (mandatory) points to any billiards game being played (even in your basement, the horror) and setting up the scoring system in a manner which completely discourages the gameplay of 9 ball. Let's say you are the best pool shark player in the world but you can't advance because some person in a coat decided to make playing 8 ball the only way to achieve status, ranking and rewards in the Pool Shark Point System even though you enjoy 9 ball more.
This is the foundry...you can choose to sacrifice everything to occassionally have a better end user experience with absolutely no rewards or play the same content over and over again to progress at all. In the mean time I don't dislike doing dungeons, PvP or the other options so it's not like the choice is do something I enjoy for no rewards or do something I hate for tons of rewards...
So Ambi happiness in NW is:
Dungeons: Story and Gameplay - 8, Rewards - 8, Comparable options - -0 Toral Score: 8
PvP: Story and Gameplay - 7, Rewards - 5, comparable options - -1 Total Score: 6.5
Foundry: Story and Gameplay - 10, Rewards ZERO, Comparable options - -10 Total Score: 0
The Foundry isn't a unique game. It's part of a whole game feature. It doesn't matter if it's a single player RPG, Action Combat MMO or anything else really...if the game does not give comparable incentives to participate in activities those activities will be unplayed. However with single player games it simply means you stop playing the game...in MMO's and multi-player games you end up with dead content.
There's no do every Foundry Mission just for the experience of it incentive which is the main driving factor in replaying or continuing past the logical point of conclusion of the main story or progression in any game whether it is single player or multi-player. People go back and play side missions even after they "beat the game" because they can still enjoy other content from the developers and check everything off the list once.
There is no chance of that in the Foundry. Just as there was no chance of it in NWN. The difference: NWN Persistance worlds had their own story, progression and reward curbs to encourage gameplay while NW has...soggy mush apples compared to the crisp granny smith apples of the official content. Not a hard choice.
uh... what? That made absolutely no sense at all. So basically you're saying that people playing Neverwinter should basically expect the same type of game experience as in playing asteroids or missile command. Did I understand you correctly?
However, I don't even like them enough to slog through T2 dungeons for the off chance of getting one.
Why? Been there, done that. I played the quest, I enjoyed the story, and now I want to MOVE ON. I don't want to have to go through the same story over and over to get my shinies, even if that's the only way to get them.
I'm not grinding dailies either. Boring, boring, boring.
What keeps me here isn't the shinies. It's the facts that:
1) It's a D&D game,
2) I can play with other people who like D&D games, and
3) It's got Foundry.
That's it.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.
That said, I absolutely agree that we should have a way to get foundry quests to give similar levels of shinies for the effort that the regular game does. Not the same shinies, just something of comparable level. Someone who spends 100 hours grinding the same dungeon over and over and someone who spends 100 hours playing different foundry quests are both spending 100 hours in the game. Why should one be "rewarded" with shinies and the other not?
Put in something that gives one Foundry token for every 15 minutes of average duration of a foundry quest.
Make it so that you can exchange high numbers of these tokens for decent gear, in the Seal/T1 range, or green-level mounts or companions not available elsewhere, or cosmetic items not available elsewhere.
Give a +50% bonus if it was the first time you ever played that quest.
Have the tokens be found in the end chest, so that at least something good is in that thing.
Presto. Problem solved.
Sure, the minmaxers and power gamers still won't play Foundry, because it doesn't give the top gear or anything the can sell for a gajillion ADs. But then, they're pretty much not going to play Foundry no matter what we do, unless we unbalance the game in Foundry's direction, which is not going to happen. So, let's make it shinier to the average player. We can experience unending new content, get rewarded for it, and not break the game.
Here's the thing: Your time in Foundry quests is single player time, not MMO time. Foundry time is the same as your time in Stanley Parable, except for one thing, any progress, no matter how small, achieved in Foundry directly transfers to the MMO, without having to spend any MMO time. You get something in the MMO for nothing in MMO time.
The "+ reward quality" section is always going to be better in Neverwinter Online than from Stanley Parable (which is pure story and has no reward). This number is essentially always a positive in Neverwinter Online, the game doesn't take anything from your rewards (there's a penalty for dying, but it's very small).
Here's the trick:
The "- comparable options" is not a real number, but your brain treats it as one. You are always getting positive absolute MMO rewards (previous paragraph). This number is your brain taking the perception that you should be getting x shinies/hour, but are not. Your brain is not getting what it wants, it sees this as a negative even though you are getting absolute positive rewards.
If I offer you an ice cream, but you think you should be getting two ice creams, you are unhappy even though you previously had zero ice creams. This is "- Comparable Options" even though you have an ice cream when previously you did not. Your brain is unhappy over a positive reward. Your brain sees the glass as half empty and subtracts happiness, even though the previously empty glass is half full.
For instance Candy Crush, Tetris and the like go after things like our organizational impulses. Those games are (essentially) story free. For a group of people, being able to organize gives their brains a lot of happiness units. That group likes those games, they are fans of that genre. They may not get action rpgs at all, because action rpgs don't focus on organizational impulses (you do see organization impulses included, it's in things like companion collections), to them action rpgs don't give them a lot of happiness units. On the other hand, Candy Crush gives them lots of happiness, so they play Candy Crush over Neverwinter Online, it makes their brains a lot happier to play candy Crush than Neverwinter Online.
The platformer genre, things like Super Mario Brothers, they go after things like the concept of competence. You have to learn the moves, master the moves and patterns. As you play, you get introduced to fancier moves (you've reached world 2-1, now you can do a double jump!) and more complicated patterns to master. The people whose brains respond to this, they get lots of happiness units from it, they are fans of that genre.
The brain of the action rpg fan responds highly to the stimulation of the action rpg, you (generic you) play because it give you lots of happiness units, more than a game focused on organization. Action rpgs stimulate with click->shiny progress, your brain gets a little jolt of dopamine from getting the shiny. And you (generic you again) derive maximum happiness units when the progress is at a certain rate. This is why the forums are furious when shinies are too easy, and furious when shinies are too hard. See my post to ambi above explaining how happiness in action rpgs gets maximized at a certain rate of shiny progress.
Asteroids and Missile Command use different means to make the brain happy than Neverwinter Online. For a fan of Missile Command and a fan of Neverwinter Online, the end result is the same, the player gets maximized happiness units. But the path the game takes to produce those happiness units is different, and not all people respond equally to input along the different paths. Some people love to organize and play Candy Crush, some people hate to organize and avoid Candy Crush.
In a single player game if something is not adaquately rewarded then it is no longer played after it ceases to aid progression. It's not because the Stanley Parable is a single player game which makes it completely fine to do something with no progression. It's because the whole game has no progression.
Any single player game which has options for progression will invariably cause other options to not get played after the first play through, which as I said before doesn't apply to Foundry Quests because the only thing which causes non-progression aspects to be played in a single player game is a check-box.
For instance in the game Banjo Kazooi the goal was to collect Puzzle Pieces and Music Notes to further progress in the game. Let's say there was 100 Puzzle Pieces and 500 music notes total in the game. You only needed 80/100 Puzzle Pieces and 400/500 music notes to beat the game but after the game was beaten you could still try to collect the remaining puzzle pieces and notes to complete the check boxes.
However that incentive would go away completely if the max number was an infinite amount of puzzle pieces and music notes. At that point there would have been no purpose to just keep running around because you would never actually be able to complete the check boxes. That's what the foundry is. So at the point you complete all the official content in NW you only have gear and wealth progression remaining and the foundry doesn't assist those at all so no matter how "fun" it is I won't be playing it just as I don't play Banjo Kazooi anymore because I finished collecting all those puzzle pieces and music notes twenty years ago.
At this point you're just derailing the thread though. If you don't care or don't mind the state of the foundry that is perfectly fine but there's no need to argue with the majority of people who quite clearly do. It's not productive and completely circular.
Exploits of which can completely, easily be fixed...
Completely Preventing Foundry Exploitation implementation
Let's try to keep to spirals999's core questions:
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
Authors such as you could get everything they want in the world and still be unhappy when they realize no matter what they do people still don't play the content. Remember, I am a developer and author myself...
As well known as it is...they could do absolutely nothing for the foundry authors. Not a single line of code...and make the foundry better for the players...and it would help the authors as much as spending thousands of hours coding the author tools and search features you want.
Of course, that's why the authors number one (if not #2) priority is "better rewards."
So that would absolutely help both authors and players immensely and immediately.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
This is just my humble opinion.
Thank you...
Guitarzan
While a major revamp of tools would be great, and some modification definitely needs to be made to search to filter out the exploits and farms, a huge boost from the author side of things could be made with a lot less than "thousands of hours coding". If one single person were to spend one hour a week adding details already in the game to the Asset Library, it would be a huge improvement. Because right now, there are hundreds of simple details already in the game that aren't available to us.
I'm talking about basics, like a wooden floor tile, the door frames that go with the doors we've been given, windows other than the fancy-stained-glass ones, etc. There's a whole thread dedicated to screenshots of details already in the game that Foundry authors have requested be added to the Asset Library, and to date the number that have is miniscule at best.
I agree that a rewards system that makes people actually want to play our quests is the #1 priority, but it would be very nice if they would just throw us a bone every now and then in the form of a handful of new details that aren't linked to whatever new release they're pushing, rather than leaving us to slowly starve.
Folks, we're loosing sight of the Topic. Please re-read the OP of this thread and stick to the topic before replying again. There's no need to argue about other people's opinions. Further off topic and argumentative replies will be removed and may even result in warnings.
Please stay on topic and stick to answering the questions asked in the OP. Thanks!
Safe travels,
Archmage Zebular of Mystryl
PWE Community Moderator
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Yep. I've been relevant to Spirals core questions even though ambi and zeb disagree. I'm addressing the core question "What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation?" The answer of course, is Foundry players. No matter how many features Cryptic adds to Foundry authoring, Ambi isn't going to play Foundries because as he said, the rewards are not there for him.
There will be more authors and more content creation when more people play Foundry. Authors want an audience, that's why there's been so many frustration threads over "why won't people play my awesome quest". It's human nature for the authors to want an audience. What can be done to make people play Foundry?
Foundy playing is a single player game that happens to be located inside an mmo and use the same rules as the mmo. It's the same as if Cryptic had implemented a tetris minigame, or fishing (which they have in Winter Solstice). No one would argue that Tetris inside NWO would not be a single player experience. The fact Foundry playing uses the same rules and pc as the MMO confuses people's brains. Since Foundry is a single player game, rewards should be judged by the player as if it's a single player game, but they are not because of human psychology.
You can add as many features as you want to Foundry authoring, but if no one plays author's stuff it won't matter, you won't attract authors and incentivize content creation. So the question is why won't people play Foundry. It's the human psychology factor as personified by Ambi's example that's the reason no one plays Foundry.
Well even if foundry is made for 5 people, then you have a really high gs, most mobs will be killed in less than 3 sec in an aoe ... unless you make them a number which the foundry will lag ...
Well time to make my answer, i've made a whole week to think about it and i'm pretty sure i'll be forgetting some idea ... And sorry if i tell the same thing as other, but i haven't read most of it, i don't even have time to make all my daylies every days ...
What do you feel The Foundry does right? What feels good to you and what do you have fun doing? Why are you glad The Foundry was implemented in Neverwinter?
The Foundry give the possibilities to play other quests than daylies and some haves greats idea ... Well in fact i don't plays lots of foundrys because i feel the lack of lots of thing (and i'd love to make more foundrys but for the same problem i don't do a lots (well also because of limited time))
How do you feel The Foundry fell short? What do you absolutely hate doing in The Foundry? What are elements of The Foundry that make you wish it was never implemented in Neverwinter?
What would you add to The Foundry to attract more authors and incentivize content creation? How would you like to see The Foundry implemented?
For what it is short and what i would add for attracting mode player and authors is more or less the same for me :
_Some tools usefull :
__Resize object tool (50%~150% of the default size for not having issues making it dependant of the item) because, then you try to made a door fit, you'll need some objects to fill the gap or making it clip througt the wall ...
__Boss Tool and Sub boss tool (1 and 2 per quest) because having a quest without a boss and sub boss don't feel like a quest ... And the thing this tool can make, is make the boss bigger, uncontrollable and changing attack patern as life goes down ... Or something like that ...
__Group Scaling difficulties encounter tool, for making the encounter you made scale more or less on the group playing the foundry OR a difficulty slider then you choose the foundry making mobs more powerfull ... OR then a full party enter, make the mob become dungeon mob (more life and hit harder like the one in dungeon) and make them possibly become T1 and even T2 mobs for level 60 player ... Well something for making more challenge for level 60 player if wanted ...
__Custom cluster saving, then you have made a whole bunch of objects, align them and more and then you want to copy paste it and everything is not aligned anymore ...
_Non linear quests, making some objectives optional, or requiring an item for them to appear, making multiple choice less a pain to make, for not having bad review of your foundry because you try to make a class different path at some point who don't have a quest marker ...
_Timer, for making a Survive X time, or Waiting a ritual to be made or it could be usefull for making complex visual effect, or it could help for lots of thing ... (but making a limitation for mobs killed by timer which make them fall to their death ... I know some people will always find exploit about pretty much anything anyways ...)
_Land changing, because the base maps have somes problems (floating tree, rocks and other) and then you try to see if the map could be good, you won't use it ... And using a flat one is not always nice ... And also because after some time you'll play mostly in the same maps it could add lots of possibilities ...
_For Author : Make invisible wall visible in 3D mode, because trying to align them is time consumming and you always forget 1 or 2 location and then a player is stuck in them ...
That is pretty much all i can think of now ... if i think of something else i'll edit this post under this phrase
Edit 1 : (Thanks to Reiwulf for talking about it xD it helped me think about what i forgot)
_Better rewards, making a small point count as how much hp mobs had and mobs difficulties for having at least more blues item and maybe rank 4 enchants and as a little percentage better items ... Because playing 15 min for some <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> green item isn't worth it ... I don't know make even some special item/companion found only in foundry, per exemple if 80% of mobs in the foundry is some kind of mob like spider, then why not having like 0,1% chance to have a new white spider companion who add deflect per exemple ? it's not game breaking (as there are other companions with same effect) and make them BoA and in a collection, i know some people who try to have a maximum of the collections so they should play foundry for having it ...
_Change of featured foundrys, Still make featured quest copy of original but with the same rating for the 2 (the 2 are considered the same for votes) and make them updatable, then you try to update them they enter the same procedure as normally (i don't know hos it's done, if it's a long thing then maybe make a difference view) <= for not making a 20 min quest doable in 1 min and be featured (i think the actual featured method is because of this ...) | You may ask why making them updatable, i've made a quest for an event, some time after there was an update of the foundry and some ellement becames broken but i couldn't fix it so my rating wouldn't go higher (well anyways this quest was too long)
_An estimated play time & free mount for author char (50% at least 110% should be better as most of 60 now have one ...) Because trying to make 15 min quest in exterior can be dependant of mount speed ...
_A Class selection in addition to the skill thing, Because a gwf and a gf don't have the same dps and making a choice of path only based on exploration is not good enough ... (SW and CW can work more or less actually but then theire will be new class ...)
_A real 'IF ... THEN ...', '... AND ...' & '... OR ...' Well it may enter in the non linear quest scenario but ...
This should be more optional :
_More or less making any kind of normal quest made in game possible to recreate in the foundry, and making the foundry chart clearly saying that if an idea is really good that the dev want to implement it, the original author would have a graditude mark, or a little something (Like a free skin item specially made for him (ranging at other already item but with special color per exemple (nice for weapon) or custom image for cloak ...) for all char at the intendant of the city (where you take the other class artifact and all account unlocked items)) Well something visually special (or making a new mode item slot for it like an aura who will always be seen, in mode or normal armor)
End of edit 1 !
Edit 2 :
_Custom quest path Because too much are passing through wall ...
_Scryed stone (don't know if it's the exact name) for exterior map (1 per map) Could be usefull for non pathed quests to show some interesting point to player (it could become useless with custom quest path ...)
_More customizable costume I've tryed to make 2 of my chars in a foundry, just not enought options to customisation, we should be able to implement more or less all armor and mode at the disposition of the players on live to npc in foundry (my courtisan dress + cat ear can't be made so i've made another customisation who don't even seem like my char ...)
_More 'player class' npc Allies and ennemies, using some more of the skills the player can use, making all playable class being a possible ally or foe should be possible ...
End of edit 2 !
Edit 3 :
_More variable like the [Nickname] but for classes, or other players choices who can be usefull like future oath paladin, knowing which parangon path choosed, it can help make some more interactive possibilities ...
End of edit 3 !
What are some other games you feel got UGC implementation right? What can Cryptic Studios learn from the UGC tools of these other games?
Don't see other multiplayer with great UGC, the only one are Solo player and don't need to bother about the same limitations about exp, objects and other thing in the same regards to multiplayers ... And for Solo player i'd say Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 or TES IV and V editor waren't bad (then you see the number of mods created and even now some players still play at this games even if they have some years ...)
Sry for bad english i'm not english so i may have made some error in the spelling and grammar ...
And sorry for the long phrases i may have typed, i let my though run wild as i wrote so it may not be very well writen ...
I was thinking about the rewards, how to make something specific to the foundry that wouldn't affect the rest of the game and unbalance things in pvp for instance.
What about foundry specific items/equipment? things that could only be used in foundry quests, and BoA so it can't be farmed and then sold to gain easy AD.
Cosmetics are also a plus, and companions/mounts green or blue wouldn't unbalance things (unless they put in some stupid overpowered effect on a companion like the cockatrice)
This.
I'd play Foundry quests like crazy if they were to put Fear and Weapon Transmutes into the chests. Not just one or the other, but something to transmute everything, especially gear like helms, armor and the rest - and especially if the designs were only available through Foundry Quests and nowhere else.
Of course this is just one idea. The point being players need real incentive to play the Foundry; Featured or not.
I wouldn't put them as a random drop in the end chest. That only reinforces the "15-minutes-and-not-one-second-more" attitude, because the chance is 1 per quest.
Put in the Foundry Tokens, and make them available for a large number of tokens. Make the tokens drop in the end chest based on average duration of the quest, linear progression so it neither favors nor penalizes either shorter or longer quests. Give a +50% bonus on completion of a quest you've never played before to encourage people to play new quests and not the same on over and over again.
Put in a Foundry Token Vendor, who, among other things, sells cosmetics, transmutes, and green-level mounts and companions that you can only get from that vendor. Put him somewhere public so people can browse through and see what they don't have yet.
This would have pretty much ZERO impact on game balance. Cosmetics and transmutes do nothing but make the player feel good. Green level companions and mounts are pretty much worthless except as a "hey look what I've got" thing. Yet people would grind away at those tokens like crazy to get them. Just look how many people are willing to play a CTA 100+ times just to get one not very useful green companion.
That why i came with the idea a Foundry flag (like pvp flag). with equipment or eventually some reinforcement bonus that only work with foundry. You can also give lower or medium epic gear
Of course foundry that offer those reward should be limited. (And control can be made with for exemple you can only get a chance for reward on weekly foundry, (maybe the last 4 foundry's that was weekly selected can loot things)
As a fledgling Foundry author (I' got three quests that I haven't published yet.. still working out the bugs and tweaking stuff), the biggest immediate handicap that I've come across are side quests. I understand that in order to keep things as bug-free as possible that the simplest programming is required, hence the need for linear quests (for all intents and purposes, everything is linear), but to have the option to put in side quests would be awesome. As it is, I'm burning up 4 or 5 NPCs in my budget (to have the same effect as a single NPC in the storyline) per side quest in order to flesh out the storyline and craft Foundries that old-school D&Ders like myself would really enjoy playing.
It's kind of a small thing. First world problems, really.
I enjoy building quests, and I hope that once I do start publishing them that players will enjoy them. Like anything else, I suppose, it's a matter of learning the rules and limitations of the universe, then being able to shape my stories to those rules and limitations.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Maximum XP/time and Maximum Loot-Value/time. Done. No more exploits.
They have the statistics and measurements from thousands and thousands of PvE players, so just set the XP to time ratio, and a loot to time ratio. If they've "gained" more XP than the maximum they get capped. i.e. if during PvE, players average 100xp-times-level per minute, then if they are 10th level and play a foundry for 10 minutes, they get the lesser of their combat XP or 10,000xp (100xp * 10th * 10min).
Same with loot -- they know how much loot PvE players earn based on their statistics - so just set a maximum loot value. If the foundry produces more than the maximum loot value, let the player "drop" items from a foundry loot sack containing ALL items dropped (including end chest) until their calculated loot sack value is below the calculated maximum loot value.
And as far as using macros to "farm" over time -- macros are already illegal in PvE and it is up to Cryptic to "detect" such things and deal with the user. If the foundry xp and loot is capped at whatever average PvE ratio Cryptic sets, it is no different than exploiting PvE.
And it would also give them an extremely easy way for promoting new foundry play by offering a 5% bonus xp/loot for "For Review" foundries, and a 5% bonus for unplayed previously foundries, etc.
Encounter Matrix | Advanced Foundry Topics
The only potential issue is that players could keep around a set of inferior gear so they could play it at high level but low gear to get an advantage over the mobs. Though since they'd be getting inferior loot, I don't know how much of an issue that would be.
Featured Foundry Quest: Whispers of an Ancient Evil [v3] - NW-DQ4WKW6ZG
Foundry Quest: Harper Chronicles: Blacklake - NW-DCPA4W2Q5