Who does the foundry cater to? What is it for?

grayimpact · June 2013

I've been playing the game for a while now, having leveled 3 characters to 60, and one of them entirely geared in Tier 2, i still find it hard to accept the foundry as anything more then a gimmick.

So far the Foundry quests I've done seem mostly generic, talk to X, kill X, Collect X, It's all the exact same as the content the original game and the developers provide you with, unless a map has a really really compelling story It seems to just not be worth playing.

There are exceptions with Minigames like "Jumping Quests" where you jump through a parkour of obstacles, but besides this i just can't see why I'd play any foundry quests at all?

Besides bugs/glitches I enjoy neverwinter a great deal, and genuinely hope it'll be around for a while and that the cash shop will stay within acceptable limits, and i feel that foundry "COULD" be the thing that keeps the game going.

Let me say that i Apologize if I've simply not looked enough and there are plenty of unique foundry quests out there, if you have the codes or names for them i will try them out.

Thanks for reading,
-Gray

shorlong · June 2013

There is a lot of great content out there, unfortunately, you have to wade through some pretty intense stuff to get to it. You have lots of hack-n-slash maps, but there are a lot fo maps with great stories, exciting combat, unique environments, lots of new ideas.

I think the Foundry caters to the authors, and the authors are going to cater to different people.

You have some authors who want to cater to the power gamers who want to level quickly, you have authors who want to cater to the guys who want a huge map and a couple hours to kill, you have authors who cater to RP'ers and have tons of dialogue and little combat, you have mazes, puzzles, jumping courses, funny stories...the list goes on!

At the top of this page is a thread stickied that has a list of UGC authors and quests...check that out. Look for the style that fits your gaming personality, and try a few authors. I, personally, am a huge fan of @ellindar, @drakedge2, @tilt42 and @Apocrs1980

quorforged · June 2013

You're assessment is correct. It's mostly a storytelling tool. It's not really capable of novel, interesting game mechanics (those jumping puzzles are the closest I've seen), and obviously the rewards are very limited.

Now there is a segment of MMO players that are really into story, but they're a niche. It won't be a thing that keeps the game going, a real draw for long-term play, unless the capabilities are vastly increased. But I'm not sure that's even possible without opening the door to a ton of abuse.

kamaliicious · June 2013

grayimpact wrote: »

So far the Foundry quests I've done seem mostly generic

Have you tried the featured quests?

nolrac · June 2013

The things you can make in a foundry are basically kill these, go here and there, talk to this guy, fetch something, etc. Mostly it's these things.

I guess what would make the foundry worthwhile is if people would make quests with really good dialogue and story.

eldarth · June 2013

Some authors have started hash-tagging their quests, so you may want to search based on what kind of play interests you.
For instance, #Story, #Puzzle, #Jumps, etc.

yospeck · June 2013

The problem is that people score the crappy quests too highly, people see a 4 or 5 star meaning "didn't hate it" and anything less meaning it was terrible. What this means is that the ones that do break the mold, aren't generic, and are actually fun and different just get absolutely buried.

The community is responsible for making it harder for themselves to find good quests.

sanguined · June 2013

It's basically just a 'gimmick' yes, for people not from the official dev team to make their own questlines and maps. Most are pretty generic, but there are a few gems in there as well. It's just a side thing, and that's all it needs to be to me as well. A nice break from the basic questlines in the game, so you don't have to do the same thing with every new character you make.

chinspinner · June 2013

It can be quite a powerful tool if used correctly. I just wish that the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> would get removed so the gems could shine through.

nokturnel · June 2013

Well seeing as the rewards are pretty bad compared to normal solo content, I'd have to say that it's pretty much only used for people to do their dailies for the most part. Hence why I design my quests to look good, not be too hard (cause we can't reward challenge at all) and be good to run for dailies. I also try to add as much replay-ability to them as possible. (Which can be hard since they try to force a linear quest down our throats by not allowing map transitions that aren't tied into a linear story)

It can be a good story telling mechanic if you enjoy story but I personally like story better when I'm properly rewarded for it. Which can't be done because Cryptic doesn't want Foundry content to be exploitable. Maybe, just maybe if they ever allow us to add hard bosses to our quests they'll allow them to actually drop blues at least on the regular, but until then, the "best" reward from doing Foundry quests is just the astral diamonds you get from doing the dailies. They should also be able to trust a small amount of authors to be able to place tradeskill nodes and chests with loot in them. We can't really reward exploration without those besides giving players a few easter eggs to laugh/enjoy.

Since I started playing though, the Foundry updates have been very pathetic and I'm not holding out much hope for Cryptic fixing the Foundry to be able to reach it's full potential. Seems right now all their focusing on is the bugs/exploits, probably working on new content for the regular game as well. (Still need more classes/paragons, more lvl 60 content, etc) They haven't really even touched on how unbalanced the classes are. It's going to be awhile before they fix the Foundry to be more rewarding for players.

Funny thing is if Cryptic actually gave authors more resources at their disposal, we could probably design better high level dungeons and content than they could. Maybe that's why they limited us so much as well, so we don't make them look bad lol.

Who does the foundry cater to? What is it for?

Comments