(please take a moment to read it and support the thread so devs might notice such solution as an option)
There is an easy solution to all the Foundry problems.
Disable monsters drop loot and experience, and insetad
calculate minutes spent on completed quest while opening the reward chest at the quest completion.
So no matter what quest looked like, how good/bad was story, how much fighting there was or how easy the fights was (farming), the players on each quest will get
equalised amount of reward per minute spent on quest if they completes it... up to 20 minutes mark (after 20 minutes reward is no longer raising and will remain same as if quest would complete in 20 minutes).
Examples:
1. player chooses boring farm quest with cheap story and lots of killing, and finishes it in
7 minutes.
He gets:
7 x
equalised amount of experience per minute for all foundry quest
7 x
equalised amount of random loot per minute for all foundry quests
---
2. Player chooses quest with great story and spent
20 minutes in it, reading all dialogues and enjoying the story, and gets:
20 x
equalised amount of experience per minute for all foundry quest
20 x
equalised amount of random loot per minute for all foundry quests
---
3. player chooses boring ultra easy quest with nothing but go to close point A, go to close point B, go to close point C and its finished. Stays there for
7 hours. He gets:
20 x
equalised amount of experience per minute for all foundry quest
20 x
equalised amount of random loot per minute for all foundry quest
---
So no matter what quest player chooses, only difference of them will be how enjoyable time spent there will be, cause they all reward player with exp and drops by time spent on them.
Now we can go eve further with this model of rewarding players for doing foundry quests, by increasing the
equalised amount of rewards per minute for
quests with low amount of reviews, and increasing it even further for
quests with no reviews. And that would also make more incentive for reviewing new quests insetad of just going for the most popular ones.
Things you might be worried about and why you shoudlnt:
Doing nothing isn't always boring people would have a timer. go do something else and just level that way. instead of taking there time in a long and threat filled quest. Also what about the people that want to make something longer than 20 minutes there would be no need for doing or making those foundry mission because there wouldn't be any reward for something that can be done quicker.
For that is another remedy: Make an automatic
time tracker to track
shortest time objective is being completed by players in. If the
time of any player is lower than 5 minutes (so if its possible to do it quicker than 5 minutes), quest is being
banned from the foundry. This way if you would like to set your whole daily time around 20 minutes foundry afk reward you would in fact have to make it around 15 minutes clock and every 15 minutes to play 5 minutes speed-completion of a boring "quest". If that sounds attractive to you, then im sorry
But i truly believe such exceptions will be tiny minority. Becouse when player is so uninterested in actual gameplay of the game he is playing to "play it" while he is afk (and not truly afk, but on constant alert of 15 minutes interval when he have to do same thing over and over again), then he wont stay long playing it - it turns into a work for him.
As for the 2nd worry of yours: Authors can make campaigns that includes several chain quests. If they make 10 quests and link them as campaign they have 200 minutes to work on
(still if their story will be awesome, they may make it longer, and if players thinks its awesome they wont regret several "lost minutes" of income as a trade off for finishing that great story)
Comments
NW-DGYDZ7EAL - Khelgar's Treasure Cave
NW-DTULANXJC - Khelgar's Hideout
Thread with suggestions for Foundry
Your suggestion is different. In your thread you suggest that player should still get rewarded depending on what is on the map. Farming maps authors could still maximise the reward by manipulating the factors used for calculating reward. Mine eliminates the author's influence of the reward and bounds author ONLY to deliver enjoyable time killer.
In your suggestion I'd make a one empty room, press T and go to a cinema/sleep/work/anything, come back in few days and enjoy items and exp.
NW-DGYDZ7EAL - Khelgar's Treasure Cave
NW-DTULANXJC - Khelgar's Hideout
Thread with suggestions for Foundry
He can make a campaign containing several 20 minutes quests. Point is to not reward afkers sitting in single quest during the time they went to job, then returning and grabbing: 500 x equalised amount of rewards
You didnt read the part with 20 minutes mark at which rewards dont increases.
3. player chooses boring ultra easy quest with nothing but go to close point A, go to close point B, go to close point C and its finished. Stays there for 7 hours. He gets:
20 x equalised amount of experience per minute for all foundry quest
20 x equalised amount of random loot per minute for all foundry quest
---
People can believe your change is not any better without have a better idea themselves.
It really depends how much Cryptic wants to micromanage the "fairness" of the Foundry. If you start taking it too far the whole idea will fall apart with all the restrictions.
Yeah, you would just have to sit there. How long can one play a game that he just stands in one place and do nothing? I will risk a statement that players prefer to do SOMETHING while they play And if game gives you same reward for time spent in quest, why not take something fun instead of boring?
And, why would you care if someone is being rewarded just as you, for wasting 20 minutes of his life, while you have a blast in some nice quest?
Foundry quests are not meant to be chore, they are meant to be interesting and fun. That system would make it so, cause those 2 factors would be the only factors that would differ them from one another and make people choose which one to play.
Doing nothing isn't always boring people would have a timer. go do something else and just level that way. instead of taking there time in a long and threat filled quest. Also what about the people that want to make something longer than 20 minutes there would be no need for doing or making those foundry mission because there wouldn't be any reward for something that can be done quicker.
For that is another remedy: Make an automatic time tracker to track shortest time objective is being completed by players in. If the time of any player is lower than 5 minutes (so if its possible to do it quicker than 5 minutes), quest is being banned from the foundry. This way if you would like to set your whole daily time around 20 minutes foundry afk reward you would in fact have to make it around 15 minutes clock and every 15 minutes to play 5 minutes speed-completion of a boring "quest". If that sounds attractive to you, then im sorry But i truly believe such exceptions will be tiny minority. Becouse when player is so uninterested in actual gameplay of the game he is playing to "play it" while he is afk (and not truly afk, but on constant alert of 15 minutes interval when he have to do same thing over and over again), then he wont stay long playing it - it turns into a work for him.
As for the 2nd worry of yours: Authors can make campaigns that includes several chain quests. If they make 10 quests and link them as campaign they have 200 minutes to work on (still if their story will be awesome, they may make it longer, and if players thinks its awesome they wont regret several "lost minutes" of income as a trade off for finishing that great story)
I would look for ways to minimize the effect of people's different habits on other people rather than trying to get everyone to play the same way through penalties, bans, or more obscure incentives.
I think most people are operating on more of a "play if it's fun, quit if it's not" model.
They may believe what they want. Untill they point out logical flaws of my idea that makes it not able to deliver effects everyone but mindless farmers desires, they are no different than an angry children who wont talk to you becouse they wont.
Please define "too far" in this case. There is no relativity in here. All is about goal and the means to achieve it. As I understund the idea of Foundry, it is to provide constant stream of interesting and fun content for players to play, giving authors all the means to create great interactive stories. On top of that its about making people not loose interest in those fresh interactive stories by rewarding them like any other interactive story (quest) in the game. Follow-up goal arrises: Eliminate the situation where quests designed for biggest reward per time spent on them to be dominating any lists and become the only quests being played, created and reviewed and as result make story in quest an obsolete thing.
My idea doesnt negate any of those goals and achieves them all.
Thats good. And its natural. And with my idea authors are not limited anyhow to do what they please. And the only factor that will make quests good or bad will be a fun factor, cause material reward wont be linked directly to what author place on the map.
And if you meant that you play constant onslaught quests cause for you they are fun, then you will still be able to play them and have fun, and then at the end you will get same reward per minute as in any other quests others might see as fun.
However you might want to keep in mind that in mmorpgs some rules are as neccesary as textures are neccesary on the models to keep it a game. You just dont let authors place a box on theri map that upon opening grants 1000000000000000 experience and gold becouse for someone "its fun". If you dont understund why, then think about it for a minute and you should be able to understund it.
tip: mmorpgs are all about the journey - not the end of it. If by playing some quick map you would get everything game have to offer, and everyone could get it that way, noone will play it longer than 1 day.
Also: If you would play some other mmorpg and there would be cheater and hacker on every corner having everything the game has to offer you woudlnt play it, you would just quit it and call it broken exploitable piece of rubbish. or... you would join the cheaters and have fun as long as there would be some non-cheaters in game, cause when they are gone you have absolutely nothing to do.