It was mostly just to see who gets in trouble for what, how severe, and what sort of things are viewed as OK and not OK. I do believe that if they turned down foundry XP, or made them not gain XP after a certain time, foundry creators would suffer. The thing is... players aren't getting any of the good equipment. They get greens, I've never even seen a blue drop on them. Foundry is mostly just for fun, or for the randomness that you can get. You can get told a story, or you can fly through the game, either at the start of your journey, or just to level an alt.
I'm pretty sure quest XP cuts off after 4 hours played per 24 hours. I've done a full day in Foundry missions and gotten no rewards after a certain point for finishing. The mobs always give XP. However, this isn't sizeable, even for bosses.
As far as item rewards, I got my first blue drop yesterday from a Foundry mission. I was testing one of these "massive levels!" missions, and honestly, the time it took to kill all of those critters, I could have leveled up doing three quests. Took about 30 minutes to kill them all on a DC. So I'm not seeing the benefits above normal questing. Had the foes caught me, I would have been dead to the hundreds of opponents which were spawned, so it wasn't without risk.
I can easily agree to the not fighting back thing, however. The idea is to learn your class, and to get better at it. Even fighting Ogres one at a time can do this, as long as they can fight back and you have to dodge. But even so, I was confused if players who play on these maps would be punished just as much as the authors who create them, though it sounds like you get the freedom of a single run to twice run just to see if the content is truly a violation, then report it. I appreciate you telling me how to report them, and will begin doing so as I find them.
I'm not entirely certain this was an exploit. I'm clarifying that now, just so I have an idea. Since I've already been edited for saying something, I'll just use the term "without risk". From my understanding, Foundry missions without risk were the problem. I personally don't see the mission you describe above as "exploitive", just boring as heck (and yes, you can learn to use your abilities from such a scenario). But again, we're waiting back on official word from Cryptic as to which missions they deemed "exploitive".
Honestly, the best thing about this game is the Foundry. It lets you play the game however the heck you want it. Sadly, there are people that seek to abuse the system... but they exist in every corner of gaming. They just need to be weeded out. Hopefully we won't see any big lines drawn in the sand, and will continue to see the freedom so the majority can enjoy the game, rather than the minority <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> the entire game up for everyone.
If the exploit being discussed is the exploit I'm thinking, this shouldn't be an issue. If someone wants to do a foundry quest with 50,000 kobolds, just having them come one at a time, I'm not sure there is any way to prevent that. It's no different than a dungeon crawl of 50 levels with bunches of kobolds. And just as boring. But if someone wants a gauntlet-style game, I say let them enjoy it.
The problem and exploit I see is the Foundry quests where there is no chance of dying. Where you can kill 5,000 enemies without risk. That, to me, is breaking the game.
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zebularMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 15,270Community Moderator
EDIT: Due to exploit details removed, it looks like I am saying that the quests which allow leveling via said exploit are okay. This is not the case. If there is no risk, then it is an exploit..
. . . . . My apologies, I did not intend to do that. I can assure everyone, this user's original post in no way condoned exploiting and in fact the user outright agreed it is wrong. Again my apologies, Lanessar.
So basicly what i am getting from the community manager is as long as the mobs fight back it is legit.
. . . . . Monster's AI cannot be hindered by player design in the slightest. If it is, one is exploiting. If one is using such maps, one is exploiting.
It's funny my comment was edited for exploit details. It's not rocket science. Pretty sure a monkey could figure out that exploit details removed.
. . . . . It doesn't matter how obvious or inane it may seem, posting the details of an exploit is explicitly against the Terms of Service, which is far worse to break than the RoC. I'm being very lenient here though, more so than I need to be, by editing these things out because I know many just don't realize this. So, I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt for first time offenders.
There is no "spoiler" thingy on these forums? So bad :<
. . . . . What a lot of us do is manuall surround the spoiler in
tags and then we higlight everything in it and change the font color to black, so people have to highlight to see the spoiler, unless they have manual font color settings on their browser. That is also similar to how I make my indents in paragraphs, I turn 5 periods into black periods.
. . . . . Monster's AI cannot be hindered by player design in the slightest. If it is, one is exploiting. If one is using such maps, one is exploiting.
So let me give an example lets say there are 20 mobs in an open area and you can engage the groups 1 at a time. Would that be exploiting?
I have two things to say:
1 - Some Foundry quests represent alot of creativity, patience and effort converted into hours of work.
If a Foundry Quest is just as hard or even harder than a Normal Quest, then by all means its reward should reflect that.
If a Foundry Quest is harder than a Dungeon, its reward should reflect that too.
2 - Cryptic needs to improve the way they MEASURE how much XP/AD a player deserves to earn for a given task, because players are constantly trying to find a way to maximize gains and minimize effort.
A quick explanation on a major flaw of the current XP rewards:
Assume we have Bob with 100 HP, Stun for 1 sec every 10 sec & 5 DPS.
Assume that fighting Bob x1 = 10 XP
So far it's quite simple and fair.
Currently, fighting Bob x2 = 20 XP.
This is less simple, and often unfair.
If you fight Bob x2, one at a time, then it might make sense that you get 20 XP, depending on how much rest you get between them.
Here you suffer 5 DPS and 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take 100 HP out of the first Bob, then the same for the 2nd Bob.
But if you fight Bob x2, simultaneously, then you deserve closer to 30 XP, because it's significantly harder than fighting Bob x2, one at a time.
Here you suffer 2x 5 DPS and 2x 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take 100 HP, then 5 DPS and 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take another 100 HP.
The difficulty is closer to fighting Bob x3, one at a time.
Comments
I'm pretty sure quest XP cuts off after 4 hours played per 24 hours. I've done a full day in Foundry missions and gotten no rewards after a certain point for finishing. The mobs always give XP. However, this isn't sizeable, even for bosses.
As far as item rewards, I got my first blue drop yesterday from a Foundry mission. I was testing one of these "massive levels!" missions, and honestly, the time it took to kill all of those critters, I could have leveled up doing three quests. Took about 30 minutes to kill them all on a DC. So I'm not seeing the benefits above normal questing. Had the foes caught me, I would have been dead to the hundreds of opponents which were spawned, so it wasn't without risk.
I'm not entirely certain this was an exploit. I'm clarifying that now, just so I have an idea. Since I've already been edited for saying something, I'll just use the term "without risk". From my understanding, Foundry missions without risk were the problem. I personally don't see the mission you describe above as "exploitive", just boring as heck (and yes, you can learn to use your abilities from such a scenario). But again, we're waiting back on official word from Cryptic as to which missions they deemed "exploitive".
If the exploit being discussed is the exploit I'm thinking, this shouldn't be an issue. If someone wants to do a foundry quest with 50,000 kobolds, just having them come one at a time, I'm not sure there is any way to prevent that. It's no different than a dungeon crawl of 50 levels with bunches of kobolds. And just as boring. But if someone wants a gauntlet-style game, I say let them enjoy it.
The problem and exploit I see is the Foundry quests where there is no chance of dying. Where you can kill 5,000 enemies without risk. That, to me, is breaking the game.
. . . . . My apologies, I did not intend to do that. I can assure everyone, this user's original post in no way condoned exploiting and in fact the user outright agreed it is wrong. Again my apologies, Lanessar.
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
. . . . . Monster's AI cannot be hindered by player design in the slightest. If it is, one is exploiting. If one is using such maps, one is exploiting.
. . . . . It doesn't matter how obvious or inane it may seem, posting the details of an exploit is explicitly against the Terms of Service, which is far worse to break than the RoC. I'm being very lenient here though, more so than I need to be, by editing these things out because I know many just don't realize this. So, I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt for first time offenders.
*the mage chuckles madley*
. . . . . I thought the exact same thing as I was editing it all out and just knew someone would post that! Thanks for the good chuckle!
. . . . . What a lot of us do is manuall surround the spoiler in tags and then we higlight everything in it and change the font color to black, so people have to highlight to see the spoiler, unless they have manual font color settings on their browser. That is also similar to how I make my indents in paragraphs, I turn 5 periods into black periods.
Example of Spoiler in use:
[ Support Center • Rules & Policies and Guidelines • ARC ToS • Guild Recruitment Guidelines | FR DM Since 1993 ]
So let me give an example lets say there are 20 mobs in an open area and you can engage the groups 1 at a time. Would that be exploiting?
1 - Some Foundry quests represent alot of creativity, patience and effort converted into hours of work.
If a Foundry Quest is just as hard or even harder than a Normal Quest, then by all means its reward should reflect that.
If a Foundry Quest is harder than a Dungeon, its reward should reflect that too.
2 - Cryptic needs to improve the way they MEASURE how much XP/AD a player deserves to earn for a given task, because players are constantly trying to find a way to maximize gains and minimize effort.
A quick explanation on a major flaw of the current XP rewards:
Assume we have Bob with 100 HP, Stun for 1 sec every 10 sec & 5 DPS.
Assume that fighting Bob x1 = 10 XP
So far it's quite simple and fair.
Currently, fighting Bob x2 = 20 XP.
This is less simple, and often unfair.
If you fight Bob x2, one at a time, then it might make sense that you get 20 XP, depending on how much rest you get between them.
Here you suffer 5 DPS and 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take 100 HP out of the first Bob, then the same for the 2nd Bob.
But if you fight Bob x2, simultaneously, then you deserve closer to 30 XP, because it's significantly harder than fighting Bob x2, one at a time.
Here you suffer 2x 5 DPS and 2x 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take 100 HP, then 5 DPS and 1 sec Stun every 10 sec until you take another 100 HP.
The difficulty is closer to fighting Bob x3, one at a time.