thecainMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
ysil6969, you and the mass of people that keep screaming at the top of your lungs don't seem to get what the hell was the charm of the foundry. The foundry was supposed to be a 2nd way to play the game and get rewards. It was meant so you didn't have to do the same stuff over and over again, or could just do mission types you enjoyed. The ease of the foundry is what sold it. Unfortunately, they've all but torn out the use of the foundry. There are no items, no EXP, no rewards. All on a knee jerk response to people, gasp, leveling up quickly.
I admit that the exploit missions deserved to go down, but we already covered that missions for fast, quick EXP were alright... as long as the enemies could fight back. Unfortunately, entitled, whiny hardcore players that thought everyone should play their Marty Stu adventures where their story character is on a path to become a God, and is totally making it with every named babe and Goddess in D&D lore ruined it for everyone by screaming the loudest. They were heard, and the normal people just playing the game and enjoying it weren't.
They decided on a path of least resistance: Rather than actually working on enemy AI and breaking exploits so they couldn't be used, they simply chose to nerf the Foundry into the ground. Now the only way to decently EXP is to play the main story missions. I expected it, honestly. I just didn't expect it to come this quickly. Oh well, the game was fun while it lasted. I really doubt the people in control of this game will be able to pump out the content needed to keep the masses happy, and with no incentive to do any of it beyond the MMO style dungeoning/looting, the game's gonna fall right into mediocrity real quick.
I'm not too hurt though. I've played enough Cryptic games to know what these guys will do. I only dropped $10 on this game, so if they decide to break the game, no scratch off my back. They'll simply go down as ruining a really good game with a knee jerk reaction. It might even become the same sort of legend like Star Wars Galaxy and the NGE patch, though I doubt it, since some had already written this game off simply for being handled by PWE in the first place.
And 'you people' need to learn that we don't give a **** because to us its the same stupid thing. This is D&D. Go enjoy an adventure and quit trying to farm something that was meant to bring creative content to the game.
Sir, I have played a lot of D&D and I assure you nothing in this game resembles it. This game is nothing more than Guild Wars 2 with a D&D coat of paint. So much so in fact that they can't even be bothered to let stats actually contribute anything. Everything that makes D&D the game it is has been removed. Every mechanic, every choice, I mean for godssake.. Guardian Warrior and Great Weapon Warrior? What the actual F*CK. They couldn't even be bothered to use the actual base classes of Fighter and Barbarian? Which play nothing like these classes!
No sir, what you are actually saying is "this is my toy and if you don't play with it right I will go home" and frankly in the end all it means is EVERYONE loses the toy. When Cryptic realizes that the ONLY thing this game has that no other game has is the foundry and that they just destroyed it's usability to generate engaging and rewarding content you will see one of two things, a massive re-patch to remove all the xp tweaks due to "an over correction" or they will say it's working as intended and simply write off their primary revenue stream.
The idea that any modern game can afford to be picky about it's target audience to the extent of ostracizing everyone who isn't into lore based missions is so ludicrous as to be Nobel Idiot Prize worthy. The best part is that Cryptic has said on multiple occasions they have no issue with UGC used for farming so long as no exploits are used. Now in a knee jerk reaction due to these comments they have not only nerfed their primary source of gamer interest but also lost any credibility going forward.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
Sir, I have played a lot of D&D and I assure you nothing in this game resembles it. This game is nothing more than Guild Wars 2 with a D&D coat of paint. So much so in fact that they can't even be bothered to let stats actually contribute anything. Everything that makes D&D the game it is has been removed. Every mechanic, every choice, I mean for godssake.. Guardian Warrior and Great Weapon Warrior? What the actual F*CK. They couldn't even be bothered to use the actual base classes of Fighter and Barbarian? Which play nothing like these classes!
I think what you meant to say was "This isn't D&D 3E or AD&D", in which case you'd be right. It is D&D 4E though, and a pretty good approximation of it within the confines of an MMO. If you're not familiar with 4E though, I can see how this could feel like a splash of cold water. The system went through a rather large change with that edition.
I think what you meant to say was "This isn't D&D 3E or AD&D", in which case you'd be right. It is D&D 4E though, and a pretty good approximation of it within the confines of an MMO. If you're not familiar with 4E though, I can see how this could feel like a splash of cold water. The system went through a rather large change with that edition.
As always you like to assume you know more than others... I was a beta GM as well as a roll out GM for WOC's release of 4E. I have every book they've released and due to it being a significant part of my livelihood for the last decade or more learning 4E was fairly well mandatory. This game threw out every single mechanic from 4E. The at will powers have been replaced with "when i click the guy swings" ala Diablo. Encounter powers have been replaced by "cooldown specials" ala world of warcraft, and dailies are a joke. No, I could sit and pick out how every mechanic was removed and replaced and then given a snazzy D&D name but as with all other criticism of this game you will ignore it and choose instead to twist the words of others and attack their ability to "get it".
I stand by my statement, this game is not now nor has it been at any point a mechanical or spiritual representation of D&D. It is an MMO set in the city of Neverwinter, not even borrowing from the actual source material but rather inventing their own storyline apart from the current setting storyline for the same city. Yes, it has dungeons and it probably has a few dragons but this is no D&D.
Do you crave a good old fashioned dungeon crawl? One where the dungeon tells it's own story? The Dungeon Delves campaign is just for you! Start with my first release: NW-DQF4T7QYH Any cave can lead to adventure!
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luther8Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I have a feeling this is a temporary solution tell the real one is setup, so many people where abusing it that something had to be done quickly, but I'm glad they fixed the issue and lets hope they get a real solution in place soon.
The Adventures of Sherlock Colms
Quest I
The Mysteries at Fang Ridge!
Short code: NW-DGTN72HYL
And 'you people' need to learn that we don't give a **** because to us its the same stupid thing. This is D&D. Go enjoy an adventure and quit trying to farm something that was meant to bring creative content to the game.
As a long time DnD player I am saying you are talking out ur butt hole DnD had nothing to do with exploration its table top game
What are you a Pen and Paper Bear Grylls * This magical badgers <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> will make and excellent bag of holding { rolls a 6 gets bit in the butt by a Kobold } *
Cryptic should've changed it so that if you do too many Foundry quests in a row within a time period you would get diminishing returns on exp and items.
While I agree there should be *some* item drops from mobs in Foundry quests, if that is the ONLY reason people are playing then there are bigger problems. I play the Foundry quests for the stories and creativity of the authors and I will continue to play, drops or no drops.
All the modern "I ONLY PLAY FOR LOOTZ AND XP" players really just need to leave anyways. It sounds rough, yes but it is true. They refuse to understand the simple fact, the Foundry is a story telling tool that captures what the Pen and Paper element of D&D is and puts it into a digital media.
It is NOT some tool for power levelers/grindcore players that want an easy path to riches or max level.
I will say it time and time again. Who the hell are these players that come into a game based on Dungeons and Dragons, which is based on telling stories, and demand that the system be changed so they can benefit, without any of the story telling...I can probably name a thousand grindfest MMO's that offer EXACTLY what they want.
The sooner these types of players leave, the better for the rest of us. Yes, Neverwinter might fall to a more niche game, but D&D pretty much is too. Most players that say the Foundry sucks and want's it changed, would probably never touch a REAL D&D game if there life depended on it, so why are they trying to **** it up for those that want a D&D game?
They are going to reach max level anyways, and in a few months just jump ship for the next new game to come out...and they don't care that the game they are leaving behind and forced to change, is now worthless to the dedicated fans.
In the end Cryptic will be the biggest loser if they give in to these seasonal gamers.
All the modern "I ONLY PLAY FOR LOOTZ AND XP" players really just need to leave anyways. It sounds rough, yes but it is true. They refuse to understand the simple fact, the Foundry is a story telling tool that captures what the Pen and Paper element of D&D is and puts it into a digital media.
It is NOT some tool for power levelers/grindcore players that want an easy path to riches or max level.
I will say it time and time again. Who the hell are these players that come into a game based on Dungeons and Dragons, which is based on telling stories, and demand that the system be changed so they can benefit, without any of the story telling...I can probably name a thousand grindfest MMO's that offer EXACTLY what they want.
The sooner these types of players leave, the better for the rest of us. Yes, Neverwinter might fall to a more niche game, but D&D pretty much is too. Most players that say the Foundry sucks and want's it changed, would probably never touch a REAL D&D game if there life depended on it, so why are they trying to **** it up for those that want a D&D game?
They are going to reach max level anyways, and in a few months just jump ship for the next new game to come out...and they don't care that the game they are leaving behind and forced to change, is now worthless to the dedicated fans.
In the end Cryptic will be the biggest loser if they give in to these seasonal gamers.
Let me make this clear to you . You do not want this game to fall into a niche game. Have a good look at Champions Online. Have a look at how Cryptic treats a niche game.
Cryptic should've changed it so that if you do too many Foundry quests in a row within a time period you would get diminishing returns on exp and items.
I believe there's already something like that. According to early interviews, you only get rewards for the first 4 hours of Foundry content you do each day. Most players will never pass that limit, so it's not something that should cause any big problems.
All they nerfed was adding an exp cap per 5 minutes. You can only get like 8-12% of levels exp and full loot tables every 5 min. So once you stop getting items/exp wait exactly 5 minutes and kill again. Everything will be back to max. For ogre killing these is generally 3 ogres wait 5 min and repeat. They still give roughly 4% exp a kill so grinding is just slower and boring now, loot is fine too. Kind of sucks being limited to roughly an hour a level but, its very casual and lazy.
~The point is even with this general oversweeping nerf to foundry you can still get 1-60 in less than 60 hours. Instead of truly hurting the PLers they hurt the foundry as a whole in general. The only way they will actually fix this is by either: having mechanics that stop ranged killing by aesthetic design; having more specialized reviewing of foundry maps for exploits; and generally giving a **** about their game stop trying to milk the cash shop and these $$$ packs before the game crashes.
In the long run this game has the potential to be quite amazing, however without proper support and attention from the company it will fail.
I believe there's already something like that. According to early interviews, you only get rewards for the first 4 hours of Foundry content you do each day. Most players will never pass that limit, so it's not something that should cause any big problems.
And now you don't get any EXP or loot after you have killed 2 mobs, that's a pretty big change, from 4 hours to 1 minute.
That "fun" was never supposed to be there in the first place, so stop whining! The massive amounts of exploit quests were pushing the real (as in intended) quests off the lists. They were ruining our fun.
That "fun" was never supposed to be there in the first place, so stop whining! The massive amounts of exploit quests were pushing the real (as in intended) quests off the lists. They were ruining our fun.
Foundry quests only drop green items, and green items have no AH value. Doing even the easiest of the epic dungeons, Cloak Tower, takes about twenty minutes and yields 2-4 epic items and various blues, and Dungeon Delve awards another 5 (one for each player) blue or purple items. These flood the AH and prices are already very low.
Stuff that is sellable on the AH has never come from Foundry quests.
Actually I have gotten 2 Blue items from Foundry Quest
Actually I have gotten 2 Blue items from Foundry Quest
Yup, I've gotten blue drops too (before the nerf, mind you. They probably still drop just as often, but rare randomness is hard to test). They're not exactly common, which is exactly the same as for blue drops in the regular adventure zones.
Foundry's objective is not xp or money.To be honest , i did only 2 foundry missions because it was boosting my xp too much and i dont want to miss game content.This quests, or adventures are meant to be that, adventures with only maybe a chest at the end.
Xp should be minimun or zero for that matter because is not part of , lets say , "the normal leveling rate" for the game.They are side stories supouse to be created for the content itself and not the rewards.
IMO , now we wont see any more foundry missions with little to no content, zillions of mobs coming out of nowhere, and we will see more interesting and challenging (story wise).
A Hidden Blade and its sequel, are a perfect example of this.Lots to read, lots to think and investigate, and just a few encounters that fit perfectly in the story.
Finally had a chance to get in game and check out droprates. Truthfully, I noticed the xp difference, but was still getting what seemed a normal number of drops per fight. Granted, this was a mission I had not done before, so it may be different if I repeat.
I'm not sure if there's really less exp, but if there is I haven't noticed it. Other than that, i don't mind a drop in exp with foundry quests, since I actually enjoy playing other people's content, be it stories or w/e (which is pretty much why i like UGC focused engines), and i was fearing i was leveling too fast with these, but i was low level (started them since below 10, but still did/do some actual NWO quests in the meantime) so that might be why.
Only quests i never take are those that say "XP Farm" or "Monster Training" since i suppose those are the "kill a bunch of stuff, get a bunch of xp/loot" kind of quests.
Heh, you guys bring up a good point about the previous XP rate that I hadn't considered. My character is currently 8 levels above the zone he's adventuring in because I've been spending so much time in the Foundry.
Still, I'm not sure a reduction in XP for normal Foundry content is ideal. I guess time will tell. It could very well be that Foundry quests were rewarded too well in all cases.
There is. It's called buying Zen and purchasing Astral Diamonds and buying things on the Auction House.
Neverwinter is not P2W.... oh wait.
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lanessar13Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, SilverstarsPosts: 8Arc User
edited May 2013
I do Foundry to:
1. Gain XP and items through alternate means than official content.
2. Experience some good stories.
3. Do something other than the standard level grind.
I personally feel that a character should be able to experience foundry content of any sort, whether it is farming or just an alternate means to level up than "official" content. That is why UGC is there; to take strain off of the developers required to create content to keep players occupied.
I completed a short quest this morning (about 15-20 minutes), and received about 3 bubbles of experience. It wasn't a combat-heavy mission. I then did three quests in official content - the invocation quest, the broker quest and the auction house quest. These three "tutorial" tasks got me to 3/4ths of a level (about 6 bubbles?) in one quarter of the time (just talking to random NPCs).
I got 4 green drops (one useful, the rest vendor trash) and 2 potions.
THAT needs to be fixed. Mob killing en masse without any risk? Sure, nerf the heck out of that. But something happened to standard Foundry rewards, too, which was undocumented. If this isn't fixed, Foundry will be a ghost town - plenty of quests, not many playing them, since other content gives five times the return.
It's great to sit there on a high horse and be noble and say "I do it for the story", but news flash: Most players won't. You are the minority. This is coming from an old school white-box DnD player who has logged more hours in PnP or in NWN roleplaying worlds than any five of you combined (guaranteed).
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kamaliiciousMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 0Arc User
1. Gain XP and items through alternate means than official content.
2. Experience some good stories.
3. Do something other than the standard level grind.
I personally feel that a character should be able to experience foundry content of any sort, whether it is farming or just an alternate means to level up than "official" content. That is why UGC is there; to take strain off of the developers required to create content to keep players occupied.
I completed a short quest this morning (about 15-20 minutes), and received about 3 bubbles of experience. It wasn't a combat-heavy mission. I then did three quests in official content - the invocation quest, the broker quest and the auction house quest. These three "tutorial" tasks got me to 3/4ths of a level (about 6 bubbles?) in one quarter of the time (just talking to random NPCs).
I got 4 green drops (one useful, the rest vendor trash) and 2 potions.
THAT needs to be fixed. Mob killing en masse without any risk? Sure, nerf the heck out of that. But something happened to standard Foundry rewards, too, which was undocumented. If this isn't fixed, Foundry will be a ghost town - plenty of quests, not many playing them, since other content gives five times the return.
It's great to sit there on a high horse and be noble and say "I do it for the story", but news flash: Most players won't. You are the minority. This is coming from an old school white-box DnD player who has logged more hours in PnP or in NWN roleplaying worlds than any five of you combined (guaranteed).
Well, you know my nwn username, right? So I doubt that.
Anyway, we have it on good authority drops weren't nerfed...
I did 2x 15 min foundry quests during +50% XP bonus event and leveled from the beginning of 33 to 25% into 34. Is that too slow? I think it is pretty good xp still. 125% of a lvl in 30 mins.
Kirk, obviously there was no communication between the two, but since both games seem to go down at the same time, I asumed they worked in the same room together .
Anyhow... my playtests last night. I ran my own Blacklake Gold, a mission called Orc Slayer Version #.#, and The Arena. Please note that I did this DURING the Foundry xp hour. Maybe I did not notice before, but Foundry XP Hour only grants bonus XP to QUALIFYING missions now. I had not noticed this before and used this time to REALLY review and test new content. If this changed with the patch, that is a bad move.
Anyhow... not doing number, my lvl 28 CW went in with only two bars towards lvl 29.
BLG: Got three loot drops, one green, and a pittance of copper. Oh yeah... I think a potion dropped but I drank it.
Orc Slayer: Two green loot drops, two whites, anda pittance of copper. Maybe a scroll? Too many orcs to pay that close attention on stacking items, but I only remember maybe one scroll and one potion. This was not really a farming-type mission BTW.
The Arena: Two BLUE drops. Really? Amazing. Random dumb luck since that is all I got. This was halfway between a farming mission and a story-style arena. Could not use the blue drops too... go figure.
Experience: After three long and tiring missions, my main bag was half full of ill-gotten gains. My XP bar moved from 28.2 to 28.7... DURING the Foundry hour. The only mission that did not qualify for rewards was the Arena one, so no bonus XP there.
Bottom line: An enjoyable experience became tedious as rewards for effort were considerably diminished. Three fellow guildies were also testing and came to the same conclusion. I will not offer up hard numbers, just the truth of the overall experience.
This is bad business. Everyone is being punished for <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> exploiters did. Farming missions are not exploiting missions. I actually found them to be handy when my wife and I needed those two bars for the next level. Heck, there was one where I thin we died a total of 20 times because the waves of monsters were just SO overwhelming... but the challenge was amazing even though it was a very poor use of the Foundry.
I am a story writer, I have published 4 successful lore/story missions, and I see no problem with farming missions. They are inevitable, and even I saw them coming after having played Blood and Sand and Bar Fight in Alpha.
Once again: bad business for the Foundry.
Going to have to shelve my GWF that I was using to level to 60 on just Foundry content... to ensure people got their quests played and reviewed.
Comments
I admit that the exploit missions deserved to go down, but we already covered that missions for fast, quick EXP were alright... as long as the enemies could fight back. Unfortunately, entitled, whiny hardcore players that thought everyone should play their Marty Stu adventures where their story character is on a path to become a God, and is totally making it with every named babe and Goddess in D&D lore ruined it for everyone by screaming the loudest. They were heard, and the normal people just playing the game and enjoying it weren't.
They decided on a path of least resistance: Rather than actually working on enemy AI and breaking exploits so they couldn't be used, they simply chose to nerf the Foundry into the ground. Now the only way to decently EXP is to play the main story missions. I expected it, honestly. I just didn't expect it to come this quickly. Oh well, the game was fun while it lasted. I really doubt the people in control of this game will be able to pump out the content needed to keep the masses happy, and with no incentive to do any of it beyond the MMO style dungeoning/looting, the game's gonna fall right into mediocrity real quick.
I'm not too hurt though. I've played enough Cryptic games to know what these guys will do. I only dropped $10 on this game, so if they decide to break the game, no scratch off my back. They'll simply go down as ruining a really good game with a knee jerk reaction. It might even become the same sort of legend like Star Wars Galaxy and the NGE patch, though I doubt it, since some had already written this game off simply for being handled by PWE in the first place.
Sir, I have played a lot of D&D and I assure you nothing in this game resembles it. This game is nothing more than Guild Wars 2 with a D&D coat of paint. So much so in fact that they can't even be bothered to let stats actually contribute anything. Everything that makes D&D the game it is has been removed. Every mechanic, every choice, I mean for godssake.. Guardian Warrior and Great Weapon Warrior? What the actual F*CK. They couldn't even be bothered to use the actual base classes of Fighter and Barbarian? Which play nothing like these classes!
No sir, what you are actually saying is "this is my toy and if you don't play with it right I will go home" and frankly in the end all it means is EVERYONE loses the toy. When Cryptic realizes that the ONLY thing this game has that no other game has is the foundry and that they just destroyed it's usability to generate engaging and rewarding content you will see one of two things, a massive re-patch to remove all the xp tweaks due to "an over correction" or they will say it's working as intended and simply write off their primary revenue stream.
The idea that any modern game can afford to be picky about it's target audience to the extent of ostracizing everyone who isn't into lore based missions is so ludicrous as to be Nobel Idiot Prize worthy. The best part is that Cryptic has said on multiple occasions they have no issue with UGC used for farming so long as no exploits are used. Now in a knee jerk reaction due to these comments they have not only nerfed their primary source of gamer interest but also lost any credibility going forward.
I think what you meant to say was "This isn't D&D 3E or AD&D", in which case you'd be right. It is D&D 4E though, and a pretty good approximation of it within the confines of an MMO. If you're not familiar with 4E though, I can see how this could feel like a splash of cold water. The system went through a rather large change with that edition.
As always you like to assume you know more than others... I was a beta GM as well as a roll out GM for WOC's release of 4E. I have every book they've released and due to it being a significant part of my livelihood for the last decade or more learning 4E was fairly well mandatory. This game threw out every single mechanic from 4E. The at will powers have been replaced with "when i click the guy swings" ala Diablo. Encounter powers have been replaced by "cooldown specials" ala world of warcraft, and dailies are a joke. No, I could sit and pick out how every mechanic was removed and replaced and then given a snazzy D&D name but as with all other criticism of this game you will ignore it and choose instead to twist the words of others and attack their ability to "get it".
I stand by my statement, this game is not now nor has it been at any point a mechanical or spiritual representation of D&D. It is an MMO set in the city of Neverwinter, not even borrowing from the actual source material but rather inventing their own storyline apart from the current setting storyline for the same city. Yes, it has dungeons and it probably has a few dragons but this is no D&D.
Quest I
The Mysteries at Fang Ridge!
Short code: NW-DGTN72HYL
As a long time DnD player I am saying you are talking out ur butt hole DnD had nothing to do with exploration its table top game
What are you a Pen and Paper Bear Grylls * This magical badgers <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> will make and excellent bag of holding { rolls a 6 gets bit in the butt by a Kobold } *
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Clcy sup yah big disembodied floating Pac Man thingy \o/
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
All the modern "I ONLY PLAY FOR LOOTZ AND XP" players really just need to leave anyways. It sounds rough, yes but it is true. They refuse to understand the simple fact, the Foundry is a story telling tool that captures what the Pen and Paper element of D&D is and puts it into a digital media.
It is NOT some tool for power levelers/grindcore players that want an easy path to riches or max level.
I will say it time and time again. Who the hell are these players that come into a game based on Dungeons and Dragons, which is based on telling stories, and demand that the system be changed so they can benefit, without any of the story telling...I can probably name a thousand grindfest MMO's that offer EXACTLY what they want.
The sooner these types of players leave, the better for the rest of us. Yes, Neverwinter might fall to a more niche game, but D&D pretty much is too. Most players that say the Foundry sucks and want's it changed, would probably never touch a REAL D&D game if there life depended on it, so why are they trying to **** it up for those that want a D&D game?
They are going to reach max level anyways, and in a few months just jump ship for the next new game to come out...and they don't care that the game they are leaving behind and forced to change, is now worthless to the dedicated fans.
In the end Cryptic will be the biggest loser if they give in to these seasonal gamers.
Let me make this clear to you . You do not want this game to fall into a niche game. Have a good look at Champions Online. Have a look at how Cryptic treats a niche game.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
I believe there's already something like that. According to early interviews, you only get rewards for the first 4 hours of Foundry content you do each day. Most players will never pass that limit, so it's not something that should cause any big problems.
~The point is even with this general oversweeping nerf to foundry you can still get 1-60 in less than 60 hours. Instead of truly hurting the PLers they hurt the foundry as a whole in general. The only way they will actually fix this is by either: having mechanics that stop ranged killing by aesthetic design; having more specialized reviewing of foundry maps for exploits; and generally giving a **** about their game stop trying to milk the cash shop and these $$$ packs before the game crashes.
In the long run this game has the potential to be quite amazing, however without proper support and attention from the company it will fail.
And now you don't get any EXP or loot after you have killed 2 mobs, that's a pretty big change, from 4 hours to 1 minute.
That "fun" was never supposed to be there in the first place, so stop whining! The massive amounts of exploit quests were pushing the real (as in intended) quests off the lists. They were ruining our fun.
http://i.fra.bz/4bsg
Indeed one does not. One simply tosses them into one big pile indiscriminately.
Actually I have gotten 2 Blue items from Foundry Quest
Yup, I've gotten blue drops too (before the nerf, mind you. They probably still drop just as often, but rare randomness is hard to test). They're not exactly common, which is exactly the same as for blue drops in the regular adventure zones.
Xp should be minimun or zero for that matter because is not part of , lets say , "the normal leveling rate" for the game.They are side stories supouse to be created for the content itself and not the rewards.
IMO , now we wont see any more foundry missions with little to no content, zillions of mobs coming out of nowhere, and we will see more interesting and challenging (story wise).
A Hidden Blade and its sequel, are a perfect example of this.Lots to read, lots to think and investigate, and just a few encounters that fit perfectly in the story.
Only quests i never take are those that say "XP Farm" or "Monster Training" since i suppose those are the "kill a bunch of stuff, get a bunch of xp/loot" kind of quests.
Still, I'm not sure a reduction in XP for normal Foundry content is ideal. I guess time will tell. It could very well be that Foundry quests were rewarded too well in all cases.
1. Gain XP and items through alternate means than official content.
2. Experience some good stories.
3. Do something other than the standard level grind.
I personally feel that a character should be able to experience foundry content of any sort, whether it is farming or just an alternate means to level up than "official" content. That is why UGC is there; to take strain off of the developers required to create content to keep players occupied.
I completed a short quest this morning (about 15-20 minutes), and received about 3 bubbles of experience. It wasn't a combat-heavy mission. I then did three quests in official content - the invocation quest, the broker quest and the auction house quest. These three "tutorial" tasks got me to 3/4ths of a level (about 6 bubbles?) in one quarter of the time (just talking to random NPCs).
I got 4 green drops (one useful, the rest vendor trash) and 2 potions.
THAT needs to be fixed. Mob killing en masse without any risk? Sure, nerf the heck out of that. But something happened to standard Foundry rewards, too, which was undocumented. If this isn't fixed, Foundry will be a ghost town - plenty of quests, not many playing them, since other content gives five times the return.
It's great to sit there on a high horse and be noble and say "I do it for the story", but news flash: Most players won't. You are the minority. This is coming from an old school white-box DnD player who has logged more hours in PnP or in NWN roleplaying worlds than any five of you combined (guaranteed).
Anyway, we have it on good authority drops weren't nerfed...
Anyhow... my playtests last night. I ran my own Blacklake Gold, a mission called Orc Slayer Version #.#, and The Arena. Please note that I did this DURING the Foundry xp hour. Maybe I did not notice before, but Foundry XP Hour only grants bonus XP to QUALIFYING missions now. I had not noticed this before and used this time to REALLY review and test new content. If this changed with the patch, that is a bad move.
Anyhow... not doing number, my lvl 28 CW went in with only two bars towards lvl 29.
BLG: Got three loot drops, one green, and a pittance of copper. Oh yeah... I think a potion dropped but I drank it.
Orc Slayer: Two green loot drops, two whites, anda pittance of copper. Maybe a scroll? Too many orcs to pay that close attention on stacking items, but I only remember maybe one scroll and one potion. This was not really a farming-type mission BTW.
The Arena: Two BLUE drops. Really? Amazing. Random dumb luck since that is all I got. This was halfway between a farming mission and a story-style arena. Could not use the blue drops too... go figure.
Experience: After three long and tiring missions, my main bag was half full of ill-gotten gains. My XP bar moved from 28.2 to 28.7... DURING the Foundry hour. The only mission that did not qualify for rewards was the Arena one, so no bonus XP there.
Bottom line: An enjoyable experience became tedious as rewards for effort were considerably diminished. Three fellow guildies were also testing and came to the same conclusion. I will not offer up hard numbers, just the truth of the overall experience.
This is bad business. Everyone is being punished for <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> exploiters did. Farming missions are not exploiting missions. I actually found them to be handy when my wife and I needed those two bars for the next level. Heck, there was one where I thin we died a total of 20 times because the waves of monsters were just SO overwhelming... but the challenge was amazing even though it was a very poor use of the Foundry.
I am a story writer, I have published 4 successful lore/story missions, and I see no problem with farming missions. They are inevitable, and even I saw them coming after having played Blood and Sand and Bar Fight in Alpha.
Once again: bad business for the Foundry.
Going to have to shelve my GWF that I was using to level to 60 on just Foundry content... to ensure people got their quests played and reviewed.
@kmhknight
My campaign: The Madness Plague.
My quest: Blacklake Gold
My guild: "The Older" Age 30+, Casual