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New Foundry Rewards: Are They Incentives?
kirksplat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
OK, so the wrapper isn't new, but you now may have to actually play 3 Foundry missions. The Foundry spotlight rewards are new.
So, would the following new incentives compel you to play Foundry missions?
Daily Wrapper: Spend at least an hour and a half (probably more like 2 to 3 hours) playing 3 real missions for 1440 Dilithium (and perhaps 50 FMs). Maybe this could be shorter if missions like the Nagus dailies count. Let's assume not. And maybe, if you are a ninja, you can complete all three in one hour during the event, thus earning you a bonus.
Edit: A dev later in this thread says it's a minimum of 20 minutes, so you should be able to do it in a little over an hour if you find 3 missions that take exactly 20 minutes to play (plus sector space travel).
Foundry spotlight rewards: Spend 30-45 minutes playing 1 featured mission to earn:
Edit: the spotlight cannot be combined with the officer daily.
Edit Edit: Wait, no that is a bug, so you should be able to get both rewards playing 3 missions.
Are these rewards compelling? Would you take a break from farming or fleet mark grinding, etc.? How do they compare to other rewards, given the time investment of 2 to 4 hours?
This isn't a debate about the clickies or nerfing or any of that stuff. I'd simply like to know what you think about these rewards v. the time you have to invest to get them.
If you think that 1440 dil, 50 FMs, and a random blue or better drop is not worth 2 to 4 hours of your time, then what kind of rewards would be worth 2 to 4 hours of your time, via Foundry missions?
So, would the following new incentives compel you to play Foundry missions?
Daily Wrapper: Spend at least an hour and a half (probably more like 2 to 3 hours) playing 3 real missions for 1440 Dilithium (and perhaps 50 FMs). Maybe this could be shorter if missions like the Nagus dailies count. Let's assume not. And maybe, if you are a ninja, you can complete all three in one hour during the event, thus earning you a bonus.
Edit: A dev later in this thread says it's a minimum of 20 minutes, so you should be able to do it in a little over an hour if you find 3 missions that take exactly 20 minutes to play (plus sector space travel).
Foundry spotlight rewards: Spend 30-45 minutes playing 1 featured mission to earn:
The reward is random. You could get blue or better gear or a special Duty Officer mini pack. Something like that, kind of like what you get on Nukara.
Edit: the spotlight cannot be combined with the officer daily.
Edit Edit: Wait, no that is a bug, so you should be able to get both rewards playing 3 missions.
Are these rewards compelling? Would you take a break from farming or fleet mark grinding, etc.? How do they compare to other rewards, given the time investment of 2 to 4 hours?
This isn't a debate about the clickies or nerfing or any of that stuff. I'd simply like to know what you think about these rewards v. the time you have to invest to get them.
If you think that 1440 dil, 50 FMs, and a random blue or better drop is not worth 2 to 4 hours of your time, then what kind of rewards would be worth 2 to 4 hours of your time, via Foundry missions?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by kirksplat on
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Or maybe if they could at least guarantee one mini pack for doing all three I think I would consider that...least for days I have plenty of free time.
Foundry Missions are something that I do when I'm bored and just want to see something anything that I haven't seen before in STO - I play one maybe every couple of months or so. Even then, I prefer them to be short and concise with a similar play time to the Featured Episodes - maybe 30-45 mins.
These new 'incentives' won't change that.
*Edit* and if you really wanted to entice me into playing a two-hour Foundry mission, I'd need to get 8000 Dilithium as the reward since that's time I could've spent elsewhere in the game earning that.
An alternate might be unique Doffs, space and ground gear sets etc. I'd much rather play a two-hour mission to be guaranteed the Mk XI Reman Deflector than PuG the vault for the datalogs...
No reasonable incentive will get me to play content that I may not enjoy for an hour.
I don't mind wasting 5 or 10 minutes on something to realize I don't like it. I don't even really mind 20 minutes. But an hour at risk each time I play? No.
My character Tsin'xing
Second, randomization is only good if the average prize is decent or exchangable and if there are genuinely good rewards in there.
I would like to see a Foundry rep system and see the systems design team handed the task of designing rewards based on popular missions and authors, possibly including special BOs, consoles, and ships taken from the plots of Foundry missions.
The obvious perks are possibly things like a Holo-duplicate of Barclay's daughter or purple, upgraded Helna DO, but I think it would make the spotlight missions have more impact if they were reflected in rewards tied to a rep system.
What I think the Foundry needs, aside from updates to assets like costumes, and some mechanical enhancements are unique rewards that can only be had via the Foundry.
Obviously, they could be with a few tweaks. People have to grind or spend a ton of ECs on Romulan ale. It would be good for the foundry if one of those commodities only dropped as a random spotlight reward. Even if the player doesn't need it for their own stuff, it would grab a pretty penny on the exchange.
I doubt there will be integration though.
With Dilithium, if they could scale it somehow where the if you are in a short 15 minute Foundry mission, you get lets say 480 Dilithium, but long 2 hour missions, you get 4000 Dilithium. And to prevent exploitation, perhaps somekind of checkpoint system that adds as you progress in the storyline so you can at least get some reward if you had to leave early. But there is also a timer involved so you can't put all these checkpoints and turn it into a clickfest.
Every one and then i will play a mission or two, taking 40 minutes of my time for reading all the text.. So let's assume these missions do not need to be played at once, but i can play one mission a day or something like that, on the third day get the rewards..
i am fine.. ! and i don't feel i am missing something not clicking on the consoles with all of my chars..
btw - nagus daily were nice!
Even creating an own mission right now, but i miss the turrets!
If the devs decide that the Nagus dailies do not count, I will simply not bother to play anything in the foundry.
As others have said, 1440 Dilithium and some random drop is no where near enough to warrant playing 3 foundry missions that could take upwards of 2 hours to complete.
Change the reward to 6-8000 Dilithium for officer reports and it would be worthwhile and forget about the random drop.
I do not gamble in real life so I refuse to gamble on virtual random drops and lockboxes....
Nope. Liked it the way it was before. I have neither the time Nor the inclination to play longer than 15 minutes on any Foundry mission. Forcing me to spend three hours on your mission because the console clicker foundry mission makes were smarter in getting people to play their content does not make me like y'alls content more.
*sigh*
Hear, hear.
Clickers are just for the daily dilithium and fleet marks.
More intricate missions, those with good story and development are, or maybe should be, their own reward. The only problem is finding them. Even some of the recommended missions are a hit or miss.
In my opinion, forcing anyone to play longer missions just to be able to get the rewards, as they are now or as suggested, is missing the point.
I understand your points here, and I think they are good. But, honestly, my goal for wanting to see it get lootified (if that's a word) is that I'm expecting a few things:
A. Folks are getting burnt out on grinding. After Starbases come new systems, with new costs, with endless routines to maximize some thing that gets collected. This kind of repetitive gameplay can only go on so long before you look at a new Tier requirement and just give up. Everything you did for those plants by a window, etc. etc.
B. I really think that if a large portion of grinders and small fleets didn't feel like they were wasting time, then they'd play a few of spotlights, at least.
C. At that point, I would expect that a lot Trek fans who have just been grinding and grinding and grinding would really enjoy themselves. Granted, Foundry missions are never perfect, and some are really awful. But others that I've played...
I suddenly remember that game is about Star Trek. Or, I remember what it's like to play a story in STO instead of walking around scanning rocks or transwarping to SFA to trade in my slaves. I often feel immersed in the universe of Star Trek. The game suddenly feels less like a MMO, in a very good way.
Other folks are still going to need their stuffz and marks and the other 184 currencies in this game. But, to get some of it while experiencing Star Trek and stories would be a good thing, especially for what this game has become.
The foundry makes this game more than a mind-numbing MMO where the goal is to collect stuff until you have nothing left to do with your stuff except to look at it. If this game has a "heart" left, it's in the Foundry, not the dil exchange.
Cryptic has long abandoned stories, beyond the most superficial of reasons to make you grind.
Yeah, you may be right. Judging from our first grinder's reaction on a different forum, maybe I don't want these folks playing my missions for the wrong reasons. But at least those who play it for the right reasons get something.
Maybe it's a good thing that the rewards are still not worth the time. It rewards those who care with a little something extra, while the grinders stay away.
But I do think that you're onto something. We're basically making stories for a different star trek game at this point. It's like a slot machine that tries to stop you from pulling the lever by giving you a short story to read between pumping quarters into the machine.
Really depends on what ends up rewarded.
If it was unique STO items, people would go for the loot than the stories. But if you don't offer something for people's time, then that leaves a small minority playing the Foundry for the sake of storytelling.
And the Daily supposed to encourage that play, but it was abused.
All MMOs is loot centric, it's just that STO's is extremely limited compared to other MMOs that offer varoius ways to use drops. Crafting of various types, skill improvement, item improvement, lore, and of course mission related items.
So in STO, drops are just equipable items to be worn or sold. That's it.
The problem is, Cryptic in their infinite wisdom, made the drop random that also gives out Mk10 gear.
I do not know how they ever thought that would be acceptable for playing a spot light mission that takes upwards of an hour or so, maybe less.
The minimum rewards a VA should be getting if that is what they want to reward, is Mk12 or Mk11 Very Rare!
Or, like the officer reports, should give you the choice between 1440 dilithium or a random drop....
Yeah, but folks would probably just play one mission once, and then start zooming through it, skipping every dialogue to get the purple 12 gear.
The mission that I played today takes well over an hour to read and enjoy. I was just curious about the reward so I "f"ed through the whole thing (since I knew where to go). That took about 20 minutes.
Without a timer, all of it will just be abused.
Keep in mind this is not the Foundry author's doing at all. Sure, they complained that the clickes were hogging up the top spots all the time, but I think we all know that's not why Cryptic wants to pull them.
I think Kirkfat is simply trying to figure out what kind of reward would entice a player to run the daily officer reports. If anything, I would say Kirkfat is doing more for the foundry trying to figure this out than Cryptic is!
At that is the exact problem right there. Let me rephrase this entire argument/discussion going on real quick.
Everyone is asking "What do I have to GIVE you to make you want to partake in this activity". If its an activity I don't want to partake in then that will never work within the context of this game. I don't understand why that is so difficult to understand.
Instead ask yourself what a player who is already partaking in the activity would want.
Look, if there is content that the players are not using it is typically because they don't like that content, or they do not know that they would like that content. You can lower the barriers of entry so to speak, you can add incentives. But you cannot make an FPS appeal to a hardcore RTS fan no matter how you dress it up.
And I do applaud those who put time and effort into the foundry. But if your going to create something and not get paid for it, do it because you enjoy it.
You're right. The Foundry just wasn't designed to be part of the grind STO has become. Its a shame its all becoming a time vs. reward check, and a hostile one at that too. As it is I think the daily should simply be taken out completely. I don't want Foundry authors to feel limited by a mission timer on top of everything else.
I disagree, it was nerfed specifically because the foundry authors wanted it in a vain attempt to force people to play their stuff. As such I call for a boycott of Foundry missions as revenge for harming the larger playerbase.
Considering Season 7 and I have no idea what reward tables look like
Someone spends 2 Hours playing Romulan Missions and STFs , etc. Whatever it is that THEY enjoy, doing the same (NO STORY) missions. They get ...
(1) Some Dilithium , not as much as they used to, but some.
(2) Reputation Marks of some kind to be spent on eventual cool stuff (gear, whatever)
(3) Skill Points/Expertise
(4) (Fleet Actions) Chance at a random item dependent on how well you do in the action.)
(5) Potentially Fleet Marks
Spend 2 Hours in the Foundry, playing a story rich (maybe to your taste, maybe not) mission, often in the spirit of Trek more than yet another look Enemy X, let's shoot it daily mission, and you get ...
(1) A miniscule amount of Diplomacy CXP if it's a non-combat mission.
(2) Whatever Skill/Expertise you get from anything you have to kill
(3) Apparently a Skill Point/Expertise reward at the end.
AND NOW ...
(Only if it's a Spotlighted Feature)
(4) A Random Item Drop which might be anything from a Mk X Blue Random Gear to a Mini Doff Pack.
You can add a 1440 Dilith to that 2 hours, I guess, if you say you play 3 , 40 minutes missions in that time for Investigate Officer Reports.
From my perspective it's not about incentivizing people like you, Bareel, who don't enjoy the Foundry, to play the Foundry. Dude, keep on playing your STFs , your Fleet Missions, Your rep Builders whatever. If that is how you enjoy the game, do that.
It's about bringing some degree of fairness to the various ways people enjoy playing the game. We all have limited time to play. Some more than others. If you like playing STFs you should be able to play STFs in the time you have to play, and get rewards. If I would rather spend my time, playing a Foundry mission by a favored author, I should get similar, not identical rewards. If Joe Bob Dan over there enjoys PvP , he should get equivalent and similar rewards for spending his time PvPing.
I don't care if you play my stories. Honestly, with your attitude toward the Foundry, I'd rather you not ever play another Foundry mission, and instead do things you enjoy and have fun playing the game.
So, for me, that's where the question "What rewards seem fair to you, or will incentivize you to play some Foundry missions?" comes from.
The question isn't addressed to people who don't like the Foundry.
The question is addressed to people who DO like the Foundry and would play more if it was a little worth their while.
As to the question of whether the new rewards are incentives ?
EH, better than a sharp stick in the eye, I guess. It's something. Something is better than nothing.
BUT
It's a very weak something.
I feel like they could have done better.
Just my Two Latinums Worth
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!
Snort !
giggle !
No seriously, give me a second, then I'll reply.
laugh !
snort !
*Read statement again*
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!
Won't argue about it. You obviously *snicker* feel very strongly about this.
So, please, you ... and anyone like you, with your kind of attuitude ... Yes, please, I think it would be great if you never play another Foundry mission again.
Anyone who would follow your "boycott" can go right along with you.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!
I don't want even want to play 1 foundry mission per day. Especially if it is always the same.
So the only solution I can think of is:
Weekly Foundry Mission - 8000 Dilithium.
Every week there is a new features foundry mission. You play it on the weeksend, or if you have time during the weeks, you play it during the week. Every week new content. And good 8000 Dilithium as a reward. I would do that.
If the foundry daily required that I had to actually do foundry, then I would just stop doing it. I hate the foundry. Nothing is worth doing 2-4 hours of foundry.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Academy quiz (480, 1 minute)
Daily report (1440, 1 minute)
Explore B'TRan, Strange New World (2880, maybe 30 minutes)
Eridani mission x3 (1440, barely 15 minutes for the 3)
And then maybe an Elit STF, or just Turn over contraband, plus any DOFF assignments you had running, and you are done.
In facts its a bit boring, because even if you WANT to grind, you are artificially limited and have to roll Alts to get more. But the fact is that a lot of players (not all of them, plenty of people do not even know about the console clickers, or the Eridani missions, etc) are expecting this return.
Now, if we look at Foundry missions, what do we find? 2 things: super quick missions designed to complete the Daily as fast as possible, and complex, long, story-driven missions designed to tell a story and (hopefully) entertain.
Why do we play? To get the next thing: a gun, a ship, a costume, etc. Why would I spend time doing stuff in a game which do not give me any appreciable reward? You just don't.
So, how to make people run those mission? Adding more reward is one way. But in any other MMO, quest never give you "worthwhile" gear. Its normally stuff you will vendor, or maybe use a day or two while you grind for the next cool thing.
People are talking about immersion, about proper rewards, and are wondering how to get people to play their scenarios.
Problem 1: Foundry mission are all Fan-Fiction, and I'm sorry but there is a reason why its a job to be a writer. Lots of Foundry dialoque is just terrible, the stories are often badly constructed, etc. There are gems in there, but you have to weed out the TRIBBLE.
Solution: give bonus Dilitium to reviewers. Lets reward people to find the really good missions in there.
Problem 2: Immersion. So, the new Romulus zone, pretty nifty, hey? Well, imagine if Foundry mission were set in places you know? What if Cryptic designed a few more maps, so we could just EXPLORE. Vulcan and Bajor are a good example of a good-sized map that are fun to run around. Now put some anomalies I can scan in there, random mobs I can kill, and let the mission take place there.
BUT!
Instead of a list of mission, why not "anchor" the mission to a physical point on a map? So, lets say you go to Risa. There is a cave somewhere south of the maps. You see it and you go, and there, after looking around, you find an object you can interact with! OH MY, this is a mission! OF course you could also have a listing of the missions, some reviews, etc. but it would encourage you to go around and look for stuff, so people would explore every nooks and crany of every maps just to find those famous, hard to find, and very cool missions.
Problem 3: Reward. This one is easy, really. Have the mission give about 480 Dil per 15 minutes of play, but also add random TRIBBLE, MOSTLY ENERGY CREDITS, but also scan-able anomalies! I want to loot ALL the mobs! Now you kill 12 bad guys and find a small hypo, its just sad. Why not 10-50 EC per guys, PLUS what we have right now. This way, if I want to spend all day doing Foundry missions, I will end up Dilitium capped, richer by a few thousands more EC, and have a bag full of data samples, at least.
Finally, give cosmetic rewards. In a set up where missions are linked to places, you could get, for example, a bathing suit if you complete 10 missions on Risa, or a Vulcan robe if you do them on Vulcan, etc. Those are not game breaking at all, and people love them, plus the models already exist.
Then, add a Very Rare DOFF to each zone, and make it an achievement to get it ( lets say play 25 missions to get, or something)
We are all having a nerd day here, I donno, maybe this an interesting place to go to with the Foundry.
TL:DR: Anchor the mission to existing maps, time the reward to 480 Dil per 15 minutes of play, give me more drops, reward reviewers.