There's no carrot at the end of the stick...

wuhsin

In other words, there's no motivation for players to actually run Foundry quests. The Daily Bonus is more of a discouragement than an encouragement for about three out of four quests. You know, those quests that are under or way over fifteen minutes. Getting plays can be really tough, as I'm sure most of you have already discovered. I don't think it's a fair solution to expect us Foundry authors to all produce the exact same kind of content. The devs could give us a more enticing carrot, but that would mess up their gear treadmill that they're so worried about. I for one am sick of being marginalized for the sake of OCD WOW-gen MMO grinders. What about you guys?

maerwin

I believe that people who play quests for the experience (not talking about XP now) and fun don't really care about the reward. And those who play it jut to get fast shinies couldn't care less about the actual quest, they just need quick 15min hack n' slash. What do you think would be a reasonable reward for an hour long quest? Double items from the chest? Triple? Quadruple? Come on, if you wanted a player from second group to play an hour long quest, you'd have to give him a carrot on par with running t1/t2 dungeon.

wuhsin

maerwin wrote: »

I believe that people who play quests for the experience (not talking about XP now) and fun don't really care about the reward. And those who play it jut to get fast shinies couldn't care less about the actual quest, they just need quick 15min hack n' slash. If you wanted the player from second group to play an hour long quest, you'd have to give him a carrot on par with running t1/t2 dungeon.

I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of carrot. Or even why we can't have baby carrots, which of course is a metaphor for a smaller reward for shorter quests. As of now we get medium carrots for regular quests. Short quests? No carrots. Know any horses that are gonna plow your field for no carrots? Even if it's just a one acre field that would take ten minutes. Why bother? No carrot? NEIGH!!! Now how about those farmers who need twenty acres plowed? Just one medium carrot? NEIGH!!!

wuhsin

maerwin wrote: »

What do you think would be a reasonable reward for an hour long quest? Double items from the chest? Triple? Quadruple?

I say scale an AD reward according to the average duration of a quest. If a fifteen minute one gives 500 AD for example, an hour long quest should give 2000. Or if an hour long gives 1000, a 30 minute one should give 500. Something like that.

redneckronin

Introduce an AD Reward for play X number of DIFFERENT Foundry Quests.

Play 10 different FQs and get 250AD.
Play 20 get 500 AD.
Play 50 get 1500AD and a Title....

and so on.

Almost everyone I know runs Bill's Tavern for one of their Dailies.

Now, I'm not slagging Bill's Tavern, its a great quest in many ways.

Or make it so an Account can only use a specific Quest as part of its Foundry Dailies a limited number of times (I thin 20 would be reasonable).

There's many, many ways the Devs could encourage players to play different Foundry Conent without opening the Pandora's Box of letting Authors set loot.

All The Best

zahinder

I'd be playing Foundry if there was no daily.
It's fun, it's new, it's different.

The more rewarding you make Foundry, the higher the motivation to exploit, and I'd rather keep those fleas far away.

wuhsin

redneckronin wrote: »

Introduce an AD Reward for play X number of DIFFERENT Foundry Quests.

Play 10 different FQs and get 250AD.
Play 20 get 500 AD.
Play 50 get 1500AD and a Title....

and so on.

Almost everyone I know runs Bill's Tavern for one of their Dailies.

Now, I'm not slagging Bill's Tavern, its a great quest in many ways.

Or make it so an Account can only use a specific Quest as part of its Foundry Dailies a limited number of times (I thin 20 would be reasonable).

There's many, many ways the Devs could encourage players to play different Foundry Conent without opening the Pandora's Box of letting Authors set loot.

All The Best

Dzogen is a great author. But yeah, there are many other ways the devs could encourage players to try out new UGC.

zahinder

It WOULD be nice to have an extra reward for trying new missions, yeah.

Not a lot, but... mmm.

And despite my earlier comment, it would be nice to introduce a time element, so that an hour-long (or two hour-long) mission is rewarded more than 15 mins. Maybe introduce some sort of token system -- every ~15 min chunk of average time is worth a token, and you can turn in 4 tokens for a 'daily.'

wuhsin

zahinder wrote: »

I'd be playing Foundry if there was no daily.
It's fun, it's new, it's different.

The more rewarding you make Foundry, the higher the motivation to exploit, and I'd rather keep those fleas far away.

You have a valid point, but I already see exploit maps on the list, and people are exploiting to qualify for the daily.

wuhsin

zahinder wrote: »

It WOULD be nice to have an extra reward for trying new missions, yeah.

Not a lot, but... mmm.

And despite my earlier comment, it would be nice to introduce a time element, so that an hour-long (or two hour-long) mission is rewarded more than 15 mins. Maybe introduce some sort of token system -- every ~15 min chunk of average time is worth a token, and you can turn in 4 tokens for a 'daily.'

The timed rewards will have to be implemented if we ever wish to see much diversity and innovation in Foundry quests. Why make 100 different subplots in a quest if no one plays quests over 16 minutes long? I want to see people make actual dungeons, and even WORLDS, not just small villages/taverns/sewers full of kobolds.

zahinder

Exploits are like burglary -- yeah, a sufficiently motivated and skilled burglar can probably get into any home, but it's still worth locking your door to keep out most of them.


I still think it's worth making missions shorter and episodic, the problem is that it's VERY hard to control length. It's an added burden trying to make a mission that will be reasonable length for someone who takes time and enjoys your mission vs. someone who blitzes through it.

My second mission, for example, is averaging about 60 minutes. However, I'm pretty sure if you do it right you can get through the mission in about 15-20 minutes.

Of course, adjusting by time might not help -- you then run into the problem where the average time (from all the blitzers) hits 20 minutes and all the people who play normally find themselves at 60 minutes going WTF.


Other than a 'novelty' reward for new missions, I think the present system is a good compromise between different exploitable situations.

wuhsin

zahinder wrote: »

Exploits are like burglary -- yeah, a sufficiently motivated and skilled burglar can probably get into any home, but it's still worth locking your door to keep out most of them.


I still think it's worth making missions shorter and episodic, the problem is that it's VERY hard to control length. It's an added burden trying to make a mission that will be reasonable length for someone who takes time and enjoys your mission vs. someone who blitzes through it.

My second mission, for example, is averaging about 60 minutes. However, I'm pretty sure if you do it right you can get through the mission in about 15-20 minutes.

Of course, adjusting by time might not help -- you then run into the problem where the average time (from all the blitzers) hits 20 minutes and all the people who play normally find themselves at 60 minutes going WTF.


Other than a 'novelty' reward for new missions, I think the present system is a good compromise between different exploitable situations.

You're right about how it adds a burden to the Foundry authors. I'm not happy with the present system though. I think it should be made to accommodate the needs of the author. As of now the author has to accommodate the needs of the system.

raphaeldisanto

Personally, I'd like to remove the carrots from the system. That way, you know that the people who are playing your quests are playing them because they want to play them, because they're fun, not because of some ethereal meaningless digital 'reward'.

I appreciate this isn't a very common opinion

riqita

wuhsin wrote: »

I don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of carrot. Or even why we can't have baby carrots, which of course is a metaphor for a smaller reward for shorter quests. As of now we get medium carrots for regular quests. Short quests? No carrots. Know any horses that are gonna plow your field for no carrots? Even if it's just a one acre field that would take ten minutes. Why bother? No carrot? NEIGH!!! Now how about those farmers who need twenty acres plowed? Just one medium carrot? NEIGH!!!

The carrot would be a quest with a compelling story and compelling content.
Rewards are low on the totem pole, IMO.
Build Foundry quests because you enjoy making great dungeons - that's the carrot for the designers.

raphaeldisanto

Must be time for my F. Scott Fitzgerald quote again....

(I agree with riqita, of course)

wuhsin

raphaeldisanto wrote: »

Personally, I'd like to remove the carrots from the system. That way, you know that the people who are playing your quests are playing them because they want to play them, because they're fun, not because of some ethereal meaningless digital 'reward'.

I appreciate this isn't a very common opinion

I'll take this over the carrot that only applies to certain quests any day.

ovaltine74

There needs to be a weekly with a longer quest length requirement. Also needs to be one for group quests. The criteria for a quest to qualify for that availability should be different than for the daily. I would support something like that. I think these quests would have to be hand selected by Cryptic to ensure they are not exploit quests. Maybe add 10 a month to the list.

wuhsin

riqita wrote: »

The carrot would be a quest with a compelling story and compelling content.
Rewards are low on the totem pole, IMO.
Build Foundry quests because you enjoy making great dungeons - that's the carrot for the designers.

I wish this was true. Unfortunately, people won't even give your story/content a chance if they get a better reward for trying out someone else's story/content. I just played an hour long Foundry quest by Zahinder that is awesome, but most people won't bother because it is so long, and requires a lot of walking. They'd rather play a mediocre 15-16 minute quest and get their daily AD. That's why I would prefer Raphael's suggestion of having no rewards at all to just having rewards for quests that meet certain criteria, and then those rewards being underwhelming for anything above the bare minimum requirement.

redneckronin

wuhsin wrote: »

I just played an hour long Foundry quest by Zahinder that is awesome, but most people won't bother because it is so long, and requires a lot of walking.

And it is totally awesome, anyone who hasn't tried it should, it is brilliantly envisioned and executed. In review terms its a solid 5/5 all day long. Totally fantastic.

All The Best

angrysprite

A quest that takes longer than thirty minutes is a poorly designed and implemented quest. Seriously, folks, if your quest takes THAT long to play and complete you ned to rethink what you're doing and split it up into multiple "chapters" of a campaign. After three years of Foundry creation I've discovered the sweet spot is about 20-minutes (reported average play-time).

People don't like to "experiment" with playing Foundry quests and it's unfortunate most are sub-par in terms of real entertainment (for many reasons: bad story-telling skill, not the type the player enjoys, whatever) - and so while browsing the library people are looking very closely at that "average play time" stat. And if the average play time is 15-minutes, add 50% to that (in this case: 20-25 minutes) because a lot of people just ram-rod their way through quests.

Even the current (as of this writing) "Featured" foundry quest is an absolute joke in terms of high quality. It's not a bad one. It's a playable one with minimal story. Essentially a lightweight hack-n-slash (which is apparently what Sominator and Devs like most). However, it does meet the criteria of a "well-design" quest in terms of it's relative simplicity and quick play time. And THIS is the key to getting your quests played.

Think of the criteria most people will likely use to decide whether to play your quest. I suspect the deciding factors are in this order:

1. Play time (preferably 20 minutes or less average)
2. Star ratings
3. Description of type (combat/story/puzzle/exploration, etc.)
4. then finally: the actual description

Place your quest design priorities in this order I'll pay hard cash if you don't see a lot more plays.

wuhsin

angrysprite wrote: »

A quest that takes longer than thirty minutes is a poorly designed and implemented quest. Seriously, folks, if your quest takes THAT long to play and complete you ned to rethink what you're doing and split it up into multiple "chapters" of a campaign. After three years of Foundry creation I've discovered the sweet spot is about 20-minutes (reported average play-time).

People don't like to "experiment" with playing Foundry quests and it's unfortunate most are sub-par in terms of real entertainment (for many reasons: bad story-telling skill, not the type the player enjoys, whatever) - and so while browsing the library people are looking very closely at that "average play time" stat. And if the average play time is 15-minutes, add 50% to that (in this case: 20-25 minutes) because a lot of people just ram-rod their way through quests.

Even the current (as of this writing) "Featured" foundry quest is an absolute joke in terms of high quality. It's not a bad one. It's a playable one with minimal story. Essentially a lightweight hack-n-slash (which is apparently what Sominator and Devs like most). However, it does meet the criteria of a "well-design" quest in terms of it's relative simplicity and quick play time. And THIS is the key to getting your quests played.

Think of the criteria most people will likely use to decide whether to play your quest. I suspect the deciding factors are in this order:

1. Play time (preferably 20 minutes or less average)
2. Star ratings
3. Description of type (combat/story/puzzle/exploration, etc.)
4. then finally: the actual description

Place your quest design priorities in this order I'll pay hard cash if you don't see a lot more plays.

True, people don't like to "experiment" with new quests, but it doesn't have as much to do with play time as your post suggests. Judging from how difficult it is to get people to play quests under fifteen minutes, whether they be two minutes or ten, I would say you need to replace play time with rewards. If people just wanted shorter quests, they wouldn't fuss so much when a quest's duration is 13-14 minutes. It's clearly all about the daily.

meedacthunist

Less entitled whining about "but people don't want to play MY quests" and more actual questmaking. One of the most praised quests recently published, "Echoes of the Crown Wars", isn't at any rate a short quest. Neither an easy one, yet people are playing it. Because it has nice characters, nice story and fun gameplay.

In the long run rewards are insignificant, if quest is good enough it stands for itself.

But no wonder if people don't want to play 2h long wastes of time or 2 min long pointless clickies. Not a problem with rewards, I'm afraid...

Also, I'm tired with this elitist whining about how 15-min long hack and slash quests are supposedly worse than other quests. This is nothing more than showing total lack of tolerance and utter contempt for players with different tastes. I prefer story oriented quests but it doesn't mean that my tastes are superior to tastes of people liking more hack and slash stuff. Only different. This kind of entitled elitist thinking should finally end.
Not every Foundry author has this way of thinking about other players. Thankfully.

wuhsin

meedacthunist wrote: »

Less entitled whining about "but people don't want to play MY quests" and more actual questmaking. One of the most praised quests recently published, "Echoes of the Crown Wars", isn't at any rate a short quest. Neither an easy one, yet people are playing it. Because it has nice characters, nice story and fun gameplay.

In the long run rewards are insignificant, if quest is good enough it stands for itself.

But no wonder if people don't want to play 2h long wastes of time or 2 min long pointless clickies. Not a problem with rewards, I'm afraid...

Also, I'm tired with this elitist whining about how 15-min long hack and slash quests are supposedly worse than other quests. This is nothing more than showing total lack of tolerance and utter contempt for players with different tastes. I prefer story oriented quests but it doesn't mean that my tastes are superior to tastes of people liking more hack and slash stuff. Only different. This kind of entitled elitist thinking should finally end.
Not every Foundry author has this way of thinking about other players. Thankfully.

What I'm hearing is "My way of thinking is better than yours because you think your way of thinking is better."

raphaeldisanto

angrysprite wrote: »

A quest that takes longer than thirty minutes is a poorly designed and implemented quest. Seriously, folks, if your quest takes THAT long to play and complete you ned to rethink what you're doing and split it up into multiple "chapters" of a campaign. After three years of Foundry creation I've discovered the sweet spot is about 20-minutes (reported average play-time).

People don't like to "experiment" with playing Foundry quests and it's unfortunate most are sub-par in terms of real entertainment (for many reasons: bad story-telling skill, not the type the player enjoys, whatever) - and so while browsing the library people are looking very closely at that "average play time" stat. And if the average play time is 15-minutes, add 50% to that (in this case: 20-25 minutes) because a lot of people just ram-rod their way through quests.

Even the current (as of this writing) "Featured" foundry quest is an absolute joke in terms of high quality. It's not a bad one. It's a playable one with minimal story. Essentially a lightweight hack-n-slash (which is apparently what Sominator and Devs like most). However, it does meet the criteria of a "well-design" quest in terms of it's relative simplicity and quick play time. And THIS is the key to getting your quests played.

Think of the criteria most people will likely use to decide whether to play your quest. I suspect the deciding factors are in this order:

1. Play time (preferably 20 minutes or less average)
2. Star ratings
3. Description of type (combat/story/puzzle/exploration, etc.)
4. then finally: the actual description

Place your quest design priorities in this order I'll pay hard cash if you don't see a lot more plays.

There's a difference between making a quest that will get a lot of plays and "A quest that takes longer than thirty minutes is a poorly designed and implemented quest."

Going on that very blanket statement, all those single player RPGs that take 40 hours to complete are poorly designed and implemented.

A quest that takes longer than 30 minutes to complete probably isn't going to get the lion's share of plays. I completely agree with that. People want their dailies, because people (in general, and gamers in the specific) are pavlovian button pressers, always wanting the next pellet as fast as they can get it.

But to call -ALL- quests that take that much time poorly designed is disingenuous and narrow-minded at best and insulting at worst.

Some of the authors here aren't in this for the plays or the reviews. Some of us are just here to see the stories we have in our heads brought to life within the game.

guitarzan698

I agree with most of what has been said already. Let's try to remember what WE do here.. this is the foundry forum. WE are here because WE design and build adventures with this cool foundry tool. We are the Dungeon Masters. We are trying to build exciting adventures with amazing plots and cool stuff for the masses to explore. I don't care about no stinking rewards for myself.... I just want to come up with cool stuff in my dungeons. It's a little like a puzzle. Once you have everything lined up.. it all falls into place. We know we are successful when the players enjoy our content. Just and idea.. imho.

zahinder

There are a nest of factors that feed off one another.

If you have 0 reward, you are essentially punishing folks, mechanically, from spending their time playing Foundry rather than, oh, a skirmish/dungeon/pvp.

On the other hand, having a minimum 15 mins adds a distortion effect.


Tilt42 made a mission that takes, normally, about 15-20 mins. But people putting it on farm status can run it in about 10 mins by blitzing through. Average time drops below 15 mins and the mission is tanked, because now people don't get credit for it.

So then you have something like my second mission (thanks for the comments!), where I considered splitting it into two missions. Except at that point the same thing would happen -- I'd have two missions that take normal people 30 mins each, but farmers would blitz through in 10 minutes and remove them from eligibility.

(Also, people would go through and wonder 'it says 20 minutes but I'm 40 mins in and not nearly done! What the heck??')

lltsnwn

wuhsin wrote: »

In other words, there's no motivation for players to actually run Foundry quests. The Daily Bonus is more of a discouragement than an encouragement for about three out of four quests. You know, those quests that are under or way over fifteen minutes. Getting plays can be really tough, as I'm sure most of you have already discovered. I don't think it's a fair solution to expect us Foundry authors to all produce the exact same kind of content. The devs could give us a more enticing carrot, but that would mess up their gear treadmill that they're so worried about. I for one am sick of being marginalized for the sake of OCD WOW-gen MMO grinders. What about you guys?

At present I would advise you to create foundry quests that are as close to 15 minutes as possible to be eligible for the daily foundry bonus because there is no other reason to run them other then the story elements.

antovaras

For me the carrot is the adventure...

vuelhering

For me the carrot is telling a good story and receiving praise for the implementation. I realize that sounds vain, but I'm pretty sure that's the real carrot for most creators.

I did not even think about getting tips. Not once.

wuhsin

vuelhering wrote: »

For me the carrot is telling a good story and receiving praise for the implementation. I realize that sounds vain, but I'm pretty sure that's the real carrot for most creators.

I did not even think about getting tips. Not once.

I mirror this sentiment. I've gotten high tips from a lot of players, and while I appreciate their generosity, I did not ask for tips. I just want other people to enjoy my work.

kingstears

angrysprite wrote: »

((Edited for space)) "A quest that takes longer than thirty minutes is a poorly designed and implemented quest... split it up into multiple "chapters" of a campaign."

"Think of the criteria most people will likely use to decide whether to play your quest. I suspect the deciding factors are in this order:
1. Play time (preferably 20 minutes or less average)
2. Star ratings
3. Description of type (combat/story/puzzle/exploration, etc.)
4. then finally: the actual description"

I agree that Foundry quests feel marginalized, but the thread seems to start with the premise that Neverwinter should be focused on the Foundry. I disagree; I enjoy the variety this game/platform offer *and* I deeply appreciate that my first love, Fantasy storytelling gaming, has a potential outlet within this platform that I can take advantage of. So, onto my thoughts about carrots/rewards and the draw of players to the Foundry.


The listed criteria that people use to pick the quests are pretty much dead-on. IF this discussion about carrots is to elicit more play(er)s, then writing for this platform is more important than trying to buy them with rewards.

I disagree that a long quest is a poor one. But, spitting a long quest into appropriate chapters is a really, really good idea for this platform, and quite possibly a serious improvement in creating better rewards for your players.

Splitting up a long quest into 20 minute chapters allows players to collect their daily rewards to compensate them for the time they put into your story. Quests can be in succession with a "continue to the next quest" check box, so you don’t loose immersion if your player has the time to continue on. Take advantage in this feature and allow your player to get his daily reward after playing for an hour and a half with you. Aiding your players with an obvious game goal is good DMing.

Also, shorter quest times allow players to fit the Foundry quest in with their other play goals. Allow your players to take advantage of other features of the game; don’t shackle them to your story.