The reason for changing the Daily to 20 minute repeatable is to try to bolster the flagging dilithium economy and help with the FM sinks which they royally screwed in S7.
They increased Foundry rewards to try to encourage you to play Foundry missions. If the goal was something different, then there a million other places that they could have put fleet marks... like fleet actions.
They increased Foundry rewards to try to encourage you to play Foundry missions. If the goal was something different, then there a million other places that they could have put fleet marks... like fleet actions.
That was never their true intention, I know that as well as you do, if they really wanted to encourage people to play story missions they'd give added bonuses for playing the spotlights. Or they actually employ someone to review the Foundry Missions properly and give actual story missions rewards.
That was never their true intention, I know that as well as you do, if they really wanted to encourage people to play story missions they'd give added bonuses for playing the spotlights. Or they actually employ someone to review the Foundry Missions properly and give actual story missions rewards.
They've been trying to add unique spotlight rewards for about two months, but there is a bug with it. It was on tribble. I tested it and got a doff pack for playing the spotlight.
Please don't tell me what I do or don't know. And please don't presume to know the "true intentions" of Cryptic. Maybe instead, read what they tell us.
They've always been clear. Foundry rewards are rewards for playing Foundry missions. STF rewards are rewards for playing STFs. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
1] It's not an exploit, if this is an exploit so is running "Spin the Wheel" every 20 minutes. You know what maybe I should just write a spin the wheel clone... except of course it wouldn't take 15 minutes to complete. That is the point none of these passive enemy missions are illegitimate according to the current measurement of what and what is not acceptable for the daily reward, the stipulation is based essentially, with the added proviso that one must kill and enemy (once again Spin the Wheel would fall foul of this). Until Cryptic decide it's illegitimate it is not an exploit.
2] It is improving Cryptics economy. As it stands the economy was in free-fall, that is the reason why they changed it from 20 hours to 20 minutes to get people to grind it, to help stabilize dilithium and offer a much need source of Fleet Marks. They wanted this to happen, indeed what else would they expect to happen?
3] There is no difference between a 15 minute Story Mission, a 15 Minute Active Enemy Grinder Mission and a 15 minute Passive Grinder Mission, they are all the same in terms of effort and time invested as they all take as long. No one is getting "something for nothing" because everyone has to spend on average 15 minutes in either type mission to get the rewards it's that simple.
I was going to respond to this, but I sort of wore myself out trying to follow the reasoning. I'll let somebody else digest this post.
They've always been clear. Foundry rewards are rewards for playing Foundry missions. STF rewards are rewards for playing STFs. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
What Cryptic say and what they actually do and why they actually do what they do are all very different things. Do you know of any developer that has been entirely honest 100% of the time to it's user base as to why they do something?
What Cryptic say and what they actually do and why they actually do what they do are all very different things. Do you know of any developer that has been entirely honest 100% of the time to it's user base as to why they do something?
It depends on the company's culture. The other MMO I play has a pretty honest, communicative staff. Cryptic has a reputation of being... rather cryptic. Which does put some of the more honest devs who do try to communicate honestly to players in a bit of a spot.
It depends on the company's culture. The other MMO I play has a pretty honest, communicative staff. Cryptic has a reputation of being... rather cryptic. Which does put some of the more honest devs who do try to communicate honestly to players in a bit of a spot.
This is true, to be honest the Dev that deals with Foundry stuff is pretty honest but if she's told to say something I doubt she has much choice in how she says it.
Either way this is all getting very flamey and non-constructive until the developers address this properly it's best to leave things as they are but I would still assert, that these grinding missions are not exploits at the moment and until Cryptic say otherwise that's the current reality.
This is true, to be honest the Dev that deals with Foundry stuff is pretty honest but if she's told to say something I doubt she has much choice in how she says it.
Either way this is all getting very flamey and non-constructive until the developers address this properly it's best to leave things as they are but I would still assert, that these grinding missions are not exploits at the moment and until Cryptic say otherwise that's the current reality.
Agreed. As I said in the other thread, we're just going to argue in circles. There's really not much more to say than has been said until we hear from Cryptic. I'm all for dropping it for now.
And the amount of them grows on a daily basis, since they take only 30 minutes to make.
This is perhaps the most salient issue. Grinders are so fast and easy to make that they are flooding the search screen, making it very difficult to find the story missions.
This is a legitimate concern for Foundry authors and story players. It's not elitism, it's not really a "my stuff is better than yours" issue (although posters from both sides fall prey to making these types of comments sometimes), it's an issue of glut and making searching tedious. It can and does turn some players away who are interested in playing Foundry missions.
Admittedly, I don't understand the need for so many grinders that do essentially the same thing. Wouldn't a relative handful accomplish the same purpose (perhaps covering a variety of aspects important to those who run them)? This is primarily with regard to grinders with enemies that don't shoot back, not actual combat grinders. I can see wanting to run different combat scenarios for variety.
(This question is not an effort to be a jerk, but truly one of curiosity.)
This is true, to be honest the Dev that deals with Foundry stuff is pretty honest but if she's told to say something I doubt she has much choice in how she says it.
Either way this is all getting very flamey and non-constructive until the developers address this properly it's best to leave things as they are but I would still assert, that these grinding missions are not exploits at the moment and until Cryptic say otherwise that's the current reality.
This is true. There are posters on both sides trying to be constructive, and posters on both sides who seem stuck in snark and attack mode.
It would be nice if a dev would speak about this. Perhaps they are waiting until they have something concrete from Neverwinter Foundry development before they say anything. I just hope too much damage isn't done in the meantime. The bickering in CoH lead to negative consequences for the MA (which was a system I enjoyed thoroughly, yet did not have the depth of story-crafting capability the Foundry has).
I'll pull out a suggestion I made a few days ago (modified a little): Perhaps story authors should include [story] in their title or description, and grinder designers should include [grinder] likewise (some do include the word grinder already). The brackets would act as a flag for the search.
Then we could search on those terms and more readily find content we like until a more efficient method can be added to the UI. This would only benefit those who know about it, but it's better than nothing.
I'll state this again, since "Foundry authors" are now being accused of a unified attempt to destroy grinders.
There is a place for legitimate grinders in the lists. I made one of my own. Cryptic's official "missions" added to the game the past two years... almost all of it is story-lite arcade shoot em ups. I may respect grind missions less, kind of like a play-do pancake that took 2 seconds to smash compared to a sculpture that took months to carve.
In the context of the game, it's like comparing the Devidian arc to "No Win Scenario."
I can even accept it if those types of missions are preferred by the players and rated at the top.
But just look at the list. It's not dominated by grinders, per say. It's dominated by exploits and Boff grinders. And the amount of them grows on a daily basis, since they take only 30 minutes to make.
Cryptic needs to fix that. It's bad for their economy and it's bad for Foundry authors who spent weeks or months crafting their stories. It's only good for the people that enjoy using an exploit.
Maybe we can hope for UI changes somewhere down the line. But for the meantime, they need squash easy money missions.
Only then will we really know how story and real grinders compete in the listings.
If players want the loot of 25 boss battles, they need to fight 25 bosses. If you disagree with that statement, then it's because you feel entitled to get something for doing nothing.
Again (and as a Foundry Author myself); I don't think the main issue is the Grinders dominating the list. Why? In the old days the '1-click Console' did the same thing.
The issue honestly is that the Foundry interface now deposits a player right into a short list of 'spotlight missions' -- and if a player is new to using the Foundry -- he/she is going to pick/play a mission from that list because he/she may not notice (or care) that there are other tabs in the interface that will allow them to view/find/use other Foundry content (be it a Grinder, or not.)
^^^
(IMO) That's one of the main causes of other non-spotlighted mission content not getting as many plays as before. Prior to this interface change - someone first playing tenhb Foundry was presented with the whole long list of any mission out of review. It's possible they played a 1-Console clicker or two; and then one of three things happened:
- They decided they liked farming 1-Console clickers and stuck with it -- decided the Foundry wasn't a good content source -- OR they decided they wanted to try some of the other actual story content and either asked in game for help searching, or maybe for a list somewhere of 'good story-based' missions -- and for some that may have also been their in to to using off-line non-in-game resources to get STO game related info.
So, in the end, the Foundry interface change that places player right on a short list of already vetted content, means new to the Foundry players will (most likely) play that more than anything else; and also won't see the need to learn to use the other Foundry tabs/search/non-in-game info sources to find other Foundry content. The old interface setup was what forced that a bit more. Players will always take a path of least resistence 99 times out of 100.
And, the thing is, I can't think of a good solution as it's true that the Spotlighted/player-vetted content should be at the top of tehn list and the easiest for a Foundry player to find (and I say that as an Author WITHOUT any missions on the Spotlighted list myself.)
The Foundry users now farming the 'Ginders' are the same ones who lived by the 1-Console-Clickers. Nothing another Author (or Cryptic) does, short of limiting rewards to the point they don't consider farming the Foundry worth it will change that; and if Cryptic does re-align the Foundry reward structure to that point, those folks just won't use the Foundry anymore. (A side effect would also most likely be that it would cause even some who play story-based missions now, to stop playing Foundry content - or play it a lot less -- which in the long run does nothing to help the situation we're all discussing.)
As has been said by others in this thread (To the Foundry Authors that feel Cryptic can do a Foundry system change to drive players to playing story content over Grinders): You can't force players to play the Foundry the way you want. People are going to use the game the way they want -and if you make something too attractive - someone will find a way to maximize or exploit it; and if you make it too unattractive, players will just not make use of it in appreciable numbers, period.
TL;DR version:
-- Those that play only for tangible loot/rewards will continue to do so
-- Those that play for the enjoyment of a good story will continue to do so.
But, with the Foundry interface as it's configured now, new players to the Foundry will most likely just play the spotlighted stuff; and will not have as much incentive as they did under the old configuration, to learn to search and find other Foundry content.
^^^
That's the issue more than anything else for non-spotlighted Foundry Authors who want to see their story-based missions get more plays/reviews.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Admittedly, I don't understand the need for so many grinders that do essentially the same thing. Wouldn't a relative handful accomplish the same purpose (perhaps covering a variety of aspects important to those who run them)? This is primarily with regard to grinders with enemies that don't shoot back, not actual combat grinders. I can see wanting to run different combat scenarios for variety.
(This question is not an effort to be a jerk, but truly one of curiosity.)
Tips, probably. I wonder how big my dilithium jar would be right now if I could slap together a mission day and get them listed high at the top of the list.
I remember seeing a lot of clickies in the "hot" list, but the "top rated" was dominated by some long-standing authors.
Maybe you are right though. I do think that without the exploits, the current list would look different. Nearly every one of those grinders at the top is a nebula effect with 25 ships set to explode and instant drop greens and blues.
I hated the notion of grinders initially. And I had ignored them too. It was only until DJ Gir Aiynd appeared that I got curious enough to go see what's the fuss about. The mission was Battleship Royale, one that I hear being tossed about as the next big thing of the Foundry. So I fire it up. Immediately I was thrown face to face with a "WWF ring lady" and warped into a dense 3-way fight which was dissolved by a DPB3 + tric mine salvo in the middle. Each wave after that I just wrecked with the same strategy and using cannons to mop up any survivors.
There was loots, but it was a terrible mission. I thot at that time that there was no immersion, the dialogue broke the 4th wall, and why on earth was there a ringlady?! I cleared it, rated it a 1-star, and gave the author a piece of my mind in the reviews section. So much for curiosity.
Then I turned in IOR and realized I had cleared the mission under 15 mins. That was where the hare-brain of mine started ticking and I started running Royale over and over, trying to best my earlier timing. I got up to 8min on my third run, but I also noticed that replaying the same mission merely opened up my last review and rating, not allowing me to submit a new one. That's when I ran to the forums asking for more lightning grinders. Based on the threads I read, I thot I was doing the community a service!
So I went back into the game and ground me some STFs.
Later, a fleetmate was asking for more to do Royale, and that he was going to do it on elite. Thinking it would be a good idea to clear it fast and disqualify it quicker, I agreed.
I really didn't know what I got myself into. Dropping the mines didn't 1-shot the melee, and instead I had very angry npcs blasting through my shields and half my FTER hull while I was turning to make a 2nd attack run at half impulse. eSTF serious mode engaged, blew cooldowns and I scrambled back to the others for heals. We had vent too, and another fleetie had just got shredded by a torp spread, so there were cries of wtf all over subspace.
The rest of the game went by freaking hilariously. 5 endgame experienced and geared STF grinders from the fleet were present and yet the mission was putting up quite the fight. I saw ships I never encountered before. And they were HUGE compared to the FTER so it felt epic just weaving through the mess of beams, frigates and exploding torps to get to the sweet spot to drop my payload. And I got one-shot by Tholian Stasis Cannon over and over like in the Red Alert.
It was so crazy we were actually having fun.
We did Royale 2 more times, and then I discovered the daily loot limit. In total I made about 400k from vendored trash and put a couple of rare XIs on the exchange. In the face of 80million EC starships, 400k is but a river emptying into the ocean. Looks like there was a economic safety put in place.
So, on hindsight, I realized that not all grinders were dumb exploits. Those that actually involved playing the game made you earn your keep, but rewarded you handsomely for effort. Sure, I still hate that ringlady, and the wall-breaking dialogue, but I also realize that Investigate Officer Reports has me playing through holodeck simulations. That means we could easily put grinders under the metafictional category of Tactical Simulations for captains to learn/refresh themselves about potential threats to the Federation. Playing it with the right people and the right difficulty makes a good grinder fun. And because of the effort needed, its not an exploit. Because, on hindsight, what's the difference between grinding official content on a 15min timer and 1h cooldown, and grinding UGC on a 30min cooldown?
I still think DJ Gir Aiynd was a terrible mission along with the other afk boff grinders present. I wish there was a way to differentiate between afk and non-afk grinders as well as between grinders and story missions. But I must confess that on hindsight, not all grinders are evil. It was another scatter-brained moment I had on the level of suggesting that the dil limit be halved to fix the economy (yeah I said that once too.)
The folly of generalization... is a trap.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Tips, probably. I wonder how big my dilithium jar would be right now if I could slap together a mission day and get them listed high at the top of the list.
That makes sense. I hadn't considered tips.
By the way, as a sidenote to you personally: Thanks for putting together your video tutorials. I'm learning quite a bit and will hopefully find time to dive in to Foundry authoring myself. I have a couple of PnP scenarios that I think might transfer well to the Foundry. I'll probably start with something simple, though, just to get used to things.
By the way, as a sidenote to you personally: Thanks for putting together your video tutorials. I'm learning quite a bit and will hopefully find time to dive in to Foundry authoring myself. I have a couple of PnP scenarios that I think might transfer well to the Foundry. I'll probably start with something simple, though, just to get used to things.
Thanks a lot. There is a new Primetime UGC back to basics set that is almost complete. It should really help people get started. It's definitely worth discovering what you can and cannot do before you really get going with a story.
I remember seeing a lot of clickies in the "hot" list, but the "top rated" was dominated by some long-standing authors.
Maybe you are right though. I do think that without the exploits, the current list would look different. Nearly every one of those grinders at the top is a nebula effect with 25 ships set to explode and instant drop greens and blues.
Yep, no doubt. Thing is though, remember that they said (prior to this last Foundry UI pass) - the New and Hot lists never worked/displayed right due to how the Foundry database was working after each Cryptic forced auto-republish; or even when an Author did a manual re-publish.
I do think having a separate tab in the Foundry mission interface (with a less pejorative term than 'Grinder' - make no mistake, I'm not a fan of these but until/if Cryptic decides otherwise they are valid Foundry content and deserve good treatment as well) would help in some respects; but I don't know if Cryptic would want to make it known in such a public and up front way that they see a certain type of Foundry content differently.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
By the way, as a sidenote to you personally: Thanks for putting together your video tutorials. I'm learning quite a bit and will hopefully find time to dive in to Foundry authoring myself. I have a couple of PnP scenarios that I think might transfer well to the Foundry. I'll probably start with something simple, though, just to get used to things.
I wouldn't consider them either as no one in reality tips for a grinder mission, I know the person who made Chaos Battleground Royal Rumble and he received about 600 dilith in total.
I think people make them in the hopes of getting tips. Which may well be pointless because if Kirksplat is right that people want something for nothing they are hardly the paying type are they?
Not to me. Part of the reward is the enjoyment I get from a good story mission. I like the added dilithium and fleet marks because I use them and don't particularly enjoy a lot of the content that generally rewards them. Running the same Fleet events repeatedly is monotonous, and I'm not fond of STFs in general.
With the wrapper I still receive dilithium and fleet marks, albeit at a much slower pace, from doing content that I enjoy.
what I was getting at was the idea of scaling the reward based on the time you spend enjoying the story. As-is you get twice as much from doing 2 15 minute missions as 1 30 min mission. 30 is still in the low end for actual story missions though. Some are well over an hour. My proposal was simply to make the reward scale to time spent.
If players want the loot of 25 boss battles, they need to fight 25 bosses. If you disagree with that statement, then it's because you feel entitled to get something for doing nothing.
This is perhaps the most salient issue. Grinders are so fast and easy to make that they are flooding the search screen, making it very difficult to find the story missions.
This is a legitimate concern for Foundry authors and story players. It's not elitism, it's not really a "my stuff is better than yours" issue (although posters from both sides fall prey to making these types of comments sometimes), it's an issue of glut and making searching tedious. It can and does turn some players away who are interested in playing Foundry missions.
Admittedly, I don't understand the need for so many grinders that do essentially the same thing. Wouldn't a relative handful accomplish the same purpose (perhaps covering a variety of aspects important to those who run them)? This is primarily with regard to grinders with enemies that don't shoot back, not actual combat grinders. I can see wanting to run different combat scenarios for variety.
(This question is not an effort to be a jerk, but truly one of curiosity.)
If they're by different authors, then it's possible the authors want to try getting dil from tips...
I wouldn't consider them either as no one in reality tips for a grinder mission, I know the person who made Chaos Battleground Royal Rumble and he received about 600 dilith in total.
I think people make them in the hopes of getting tips. Which may well be pointless because if Kirksplat is right that people want something for nothing they are hardly the paying type are they?
My piece of trash grinder to prove a point was up for less than 20 hours and people tipped more than 2000 dilithium in that time. Your argument doesn't hold up in my experience.
My piece of trash grinder to prove a point was up for less than 20 hours and people tipped more than 2000 dilithium in that time. Your argument doesn't hold up in my experience.
You know, what's sad is that both my missions have, between them, netted me that much in Dilithium tips to this day; but they've both been up since before the Tip System was instituted
(That said, I appreciate every tip, and have continued to receive a little here and there - and that's still saying something with the demand Dilithium is in these days.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
My piece of trash grinder to prove a point was up for less than 20 hours and people tipped more than 2000 dilithium in that time. Your argument doesn't hold up in my experience.
In which case people clearly aren't getting something for nothing they are paying for it.
Though I could see how this could be easily engineered by other foundry authors noting you're trying to prove a point and tipping you on purpose.
Unfortunately your experiment is not up to rigor you'd need to have several unknown users create grinders and monitor how much they make in order to even get a half way validated piece of empirical data.
In which case people clearly aren't getting something for nothing they are paying for it.
You are just grasping for any possible argument here. That's like saying, "The waitress gave me free food and some $$$ from the cash register. I didn't have to pay my bill. But, I left her a nice tip, so that means that I was paying for it."
Please answer this question: Why should you be allowed to instakill 25 boss mobs, fill your inventory with blues and greens, and go sell the stuff for 500k ECs.... when you did virtually nothing to earn those ECs?
You are just grasping for any possible argument here. That's like saying, "The waitress gave me free food and some $$$ from the cash register. I didn't have to pay my bill. But, I left her a nice tip, so that means that I was paying for it."
Please answer this question: Why should you be allowed to instakill 25 boss mobs, fill your inventory with blues and greens, and go sell the stuff for 500k ECs.... when you did virtually nothing to earn those ECs?
Why not is my answer to your question, is there any rule in EULA or from Cryptics official communication that this is not allowed?. At the moment the reality and fact is you are allowed and people are doing it. The reason why they are doing it is an economic pressure to do so and is in no way connected to the success or failure of any story foundry mission you make.
Furthermore even if they removed the loot drops people would still run them, if they removed the wrapper people would go elsewhere.
But above all those people would still not play your story missions. You seem to assume that like most record companies do that everyone who is currently not buying your product will if you cut off their alternative. This is simply not the case.
No matter what vendetta you have against passive grinder or clickies or whatever else you will not see an increase in users playing your stories by removing them. Can you honestly say you saw an increase in people who previously used clikies playing your stories after the clickies were removed?
What i see here is misdirected rage and frustration, so answer me a question or two... In what way are these passive grinder missions doing any damage to story missions? and if you believe they are.. In what way are they doing more damage than active grinder missions that you are fine with?
With regards to an exploit, it is only such if the development group that make the software announce it as such. Have they done so?
So if there is a place in a video game where a player can use a bug, glitch, or design flaw to skip a level, get free gear, and save the princess, it's not really an exploit if the devs of the game don't announce: "Hey, you're not supposed to to do that!"
I'm pretty certain the timid creature grinders will be going away soon. If so, it will be clear it was an exploit. If they're still here 2-3 months from now, then I guess we can consider them fair game.
I do agree that scaling mission rewards would do a lot to help this problem. One two hour mission should provide rewards equal to four 30 minute missions, and so on.
The current reward system was designed in a way that this was bound to happen. The short grind missions were the obvious replacement for the clickies under the new rules. There are enough people who just want to gather resources as quickly as possible, that they'll always default to whatever comes easiest. The only good thing about the clickies is that people at least had the decency not to rate them up, probably because they were pretty clearly an exploit and having them at the top of the list would just bring more attention to them.
At this point I'd say we don't even know whether people really want grind more than story, because it's not a level playing field. The reward/time is stacked so much more in favor of shorter missions, that they'll dominate simply based on that.
That being said, I think that different categories is still necessary so it's easier for people to find what they want. The whole search tool is not enough. There is too much inertia involved in people using the search. You need a quick list that draws them in, and once they feel there is worthwhile content for them, then they'll eventually learn how to use the search.
Also, if the Foundry really is about story, something needs to be done to encourage that. In addition to the featured missions, which are pretty rare as only one is added per week, maybe when Branflakes plays through missions to see if they qualify for the feature, he can also tag them as being "story qualified" (whether good or bad), which means they would qualify for an extra reward. Even if that's kind of subjective, at least it would help try to throw a bone to story authors. If that's really what the Foundry is supposed to be about, then I don't see why it's unreasonable.
Comments
They increased Foundry rewards to try to encourage you to play Foundry missions. If the goal was something different, then there a million other places that they could have put fleet marks... like fleet actions.
That was never their true intention, I know that as well as you do, if they really wanted to encourage people to play story missions they'd give added bonuses for playing the spotlights. Or they actually employ someone to review the Foundry Missions properly and give actual story missions rewards.
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They've been trying to add unique spotlight rewards for about two months, but there is a bug with it. It was on tribble. I tested it and got a doff pack for playing the spotlight.
Please don't tell me what I do or don't know. And please don't presume to know the "true intentions" of Cryptic. Maybe instead, read what they tell us.
They've always been clear. Foundry rewards are rewards for playing Foundry missions. STF rewards are rewards for playing STFs. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
I was going to respond to this, but I sort of wore myself out trying to follow the reasoning. I'll let somebody else digest this post.
Lol like 99% of Foundry missions in testing there were a few words missing, it should read better now.:D
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What Cryptic say and what they actually do and why they actually do what they do are all very different things. Do you know of any developer that has been entirely honest 100% of the time to it's user base as to why they do something?
#2311#2700#2316#2500
It depends on the company's culture. The other MMO I play has a pretty honest, communicative staff. Cryptic has a reputation of being... rather cryptic. Which does put some of the more honest devs who do try to communicate honestly to players in a bit of a spot.
This is true, to be honest the Dev that deals with Foundry stuff is pretty honest but if she's told to say something I doubt she has much choice in how she says it.
Either way this is all getting very flamey and non-constructive until the developers address this properly it's best to leave things as they are but I would still assert, that these grinding missions are not exploits at the moment and until Cryptic say otherwise that's the current reality.
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Agreed. As I said in the other thread, we're just going to argue in circles. There's really not much more to say than has been said until we hear from Cryptic. I'm all for dropping it for now.
This is perhaps the most salient issue. Grinders are so fast and easy to make that they are flooding the search screen, making it very difficult to find the story missions.
This is a legitimate concern for Foundry authors and story players. It's not elitism, it's not really a "my stuff is better than yours" issue (although posters from both sides fall prey to making these types of comments sometimes), it's an issue of glut and making searching tedious. It can and does turn some players away who are interested in playing Foundry missions.
Admittedly, I don't understand the need for so many grinders that do essentially the same thing. Wouldn't a relative handful accomplish the same purpose (perhaps covering a variety of aspects important to those who run them)? This is primarily with regard to grinders with enemies that don't shoot back, not actual combat grinders. I can see wanting to run different combat scenarios for variety.
(This question is not an effort to be a jerk, but truly one of curiosity.)
This is true. There are posters on both sides trying to be constructive, and posters on both sides who seem stuck in snark and attack mode.
It would be nice if a dev would speak about this. Perhaps they are waiting until they have something concrete from Neverwinter Foundry development before they say anything. I just hope too much damage isn't done in the meantime. The bickering in CoH lead to negative consequences for the MA (which was a system I enjoyed thoroughly, yet did not have the depth of story-crafting capability the Foundry has).
I'll pull out a suggestion I made a few days ago (modified a little): Perhaps story authors should include [story] in their title or description, and grinder designers should include [grinder] likewise (some do include the word grinder already). The brackets would act as a flag for the search.
Then we could search on those terms and more readily find content we like until a more efficient method can be added to the UI. This would only benefit those who know about it, but it's better than nothing.
Again (and as a Foundry Author myself); I don't think the main issue is the Grinders dominating the list. Why? In the old days the '1-click Console' did the same thing.
The issue honestly is that the Foundry interface now deposits a player right into a short list of 'spotlight missions' -- and if a player is new to using the Foundry -- he/she is going to pick/play a mission from that list because he/she may not notice (or care) that there are other tabs in the interface that will allow them to view/find/use other Foundry content (be it a Grinder, or not.)
^^^
(IMO) That's one of the main causes of other non-spotlighted mission content not getting as many plays as before. Prior to this interface change - someone first playing tenhb Foundry was presented with the whole long list of any mission out of review. It's possible they played a 1-Console clicker or two; and then one of three things happened:
- They decided they liked farming 1-Console clickers and stuck with it -- decided the Foundry wasn't a good content source -- OR they decided they wanted to try some of the other actual story content and either asked in game for help searching, or maybe for a list somewhere of 'good story-based' missions -- and for some that may have also been their in to to using off-line non-in-game resources to get STO game related info.
So, in the end, the Foundry interface change that places player right on a short list of already vetted content, means new to the Foundry players will (most likely) play that more than anything else; and also won't see the need to learn to use the other Foundry tabs/search/non-in-game info sources to find other Foundry content. The old interface setup was what forced that a bit more. Players will always take a path of least resistence 99 times out of 100.
And, the thing is, I can't think of a good solution as it's true that the Spotlighted/player-vetted content should be at the top of tehn list and the easiest for a Foundry player to find (and I say that as an Author WITHOUT any missions on the Spotlighted list myself.)
The Foundry users now farming the 'Ginders' are the same ones who lived by the 1-Console-Clickers. Nothing another Author (or Cryptic) does, short of limiting rewards to the point they don't consider farming the Foundry worth it will change that; and if Cryptic does re-align the Foundry reward structure to that point, those folks just won't use the Foundry anymore. (A side effect would also most likely be that it would cause even some who play story-based missions now, to stop playing Foundry content - or play it a lot less -- which in the long run does nothing to help the situation we're all discussing.)
As has been said by others in this thread (To the Foundry Authors that feel Cryptic can do a Foundry system change to drive players to playing story content over Grinders): You can't force players to play the Foundry the way you want. People are going to use the game the way they want -and if you make something too attractive - someone will find a way to maximize or exploit it; and if you make it too unattractive, players will just not make use of it in appreciable numbers, period.
TL;DR version:
-- Those that play only for tangible loot/rewards will continue to do so
-- Those that play for the enjoyment of a good story will continue to do so.
But, with the Foundry interface as it's configured now, new players to the Foundry will most likely just play the spotlighted stuff; and will not have as much incentive as they did under the old configuration, to learn to search and find other Foundry content.
^^^
That's the issue more than anything else for non-spotlighted Foundry Authors who want to see their story-based missions get more plays/reviews.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Tips, probably. I wonder how big my dilithium jar would be right now if I could slap together a mission day and get them listed high at the top of the list.
I remember seeing a lot of clickies in the "hot" list, but the "top rated" was dominated by some long-standing authors.
Maybe you are right though. I do think that without the exploits, the current list would look different. Nearly every one of those grinders at the top is a nebula effect with 25 ships set to explode and instant drop greens and blues.
The folly of generalization... is a trap.
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That makes sense. I hadn't considered tips.
By the way, as a sidenote to you personally: Thanks for putting together your video tutorials. I'm learning quite a bit and will hopefully find time to dive in to Foundry authoring myself. I have a couple of PnP scenarios that I think might transfer well to the Foundry. I'll probably start with something simple, though, just to get used to things.
Thanks a lot. There is a new Primetime UGC back to basics set that is almost complete. It should really help people get started. It's definitely worth discovering what you can and cannot do before you really get going with a story.
Yep, no doubt. Thing is though, remember that they said (prior to this last Foundry UI pass) - the New and Hot lists never worked/displayed right due to how the Foundry database was working after each Cryptic forced auto-republish; or even when an Author did a manual re-publish.
I do think having a separate tab in the Foundry mission interface (with a less pejorative term than 'Grinder' - make no mistake, I'm not a fan of these but until/if Cryptic decides otherwise they are valid Foundry content and deserve good treatment as well) would help in some respects; but I don't know if Cryptic would want to make it known in such a public and up front way that they see a certain type of Foundry content differently.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I wouldn't consider them either as no one in reality tips for a grinder mission, I know the person who made Chaos Battleground Royal Rumble and he received about 600 dilith in total.
I think people make them in the hopes of getting tips. Which may well be pointless because if Kirksplat is right that people want something for nothing they are hardly the paying type are they?
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My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
My piece of trash grinder to prove a point was up for less than 20 hours and people tipped more than 2000 dilithium in that time. Your argument doesn't hold up in my experience.
You know, what's sad is that both my missions have, between them, netted me that much in Dilithium tips to this day; but they've both been up since before the Tip System was instituted
(That said, I appreciate every tip, and have continued to receive a little here and there - and that's still saying something with the demand Dilithium is in these days.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
In which case people clearly aren't getting something for nothing they are paying for it.
Though I could see how this could be easily engineered by other foundry authors noting you're trying to prove a point and tipping you on purpose.
Unfortunately your experiment is not up to rigor you'd need to have several unknown users create grinders and monitor how much they make in order to even get a half way validated piece of empirical data.
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You are just grasping for any possible argument here. That's like saying, "The waitress gave me free food and some $$$ from the cash register. I didn't have to pay my bill. But, I left her a nice tip, so that means that I was paying for it."
Please answer this question: Why should you be allowed to instakill 25 boss mobs, fill your inventory with blues and greens, and go sell the stuff for 500k ECs.... when you did virtually nothing to earn those ECs?
Why not is my answer to your question, is there any rule in EULA or from Cryptics official communication that this is not allowed?. At the moment the reality and fact is you are allowed and people are doing it. The reason why they are doing it is an economic pressure to do so and is in no way connected to the success or failure of any story foundry mission you make.
Furthermore even if they removed the loot drops people would still run them, if they removed the wrapper people would go elsewhere.
But above all those people would still not play your story missions. You seem to assume that like most record companies do that everyone who is currently not buying your product will if you cut off their alternative. This is simply not the case.
No matter what vendetta you have against passive grinder or clickies or whatever else you will not see an increase in users playing your stories by removing them. Can you honestly say you saw an increase in people who previously used clikies playing your stories after the clickies were removed?
What i see here is misdirected rage and frustration, so answer me a question or two... In what way are these passive grinder missions doing any damage to story missions? and if you believe they are.. In what way are they doing more damage than active grinder missions that you are fine with?
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So you're saying an exploit is not an exploit because it's possible to do it. What is your definition of an exploit?
Please re-read the post I added to it.
With regards to an exploit, it is only such if the development group that make the software announce it as such. Have they done so?
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So if there is a place in a video game where a player can use a bug, glitch, or design flaw to skip a level, get free gear, and save the princess, it's not really an exploit if the devs of the game don't announce: "Hey, you're not supposed to to do that!"
This is really what you are saying?
I do agree that scaling mission rewards would do a lot to help this problem. One two hour mission should provide rewards equal to four 30 minute missions, and so on.
The current reward system was designed in a way that this was bound to happen. The short grind missions were the obvious replacement for the clickies under the new rules. There are enough people who just want to gather resources as quickly as possible, that they'll always default to whatever comes easiest. The only good thing about the clickies is that people at least had the decency not to rate them up, probably because they were pretty clearly an exploit and having them at the top of the list would just bring more attention to them.
At this point I'd say we don't even know whether people really want grind more than story, because it's not a level playing field. The reward/time is stacked so much more in favor of shorter missions, that they'll dominate simply based on that.
That being said, I think that different categories is still necessary so it's easier for people to find what they want. The whole search tool is not enough. There is too much inertia involved in people using the search. You need a quick list that draws them in, and once they feel there is worthwhile content for them, then they'll eventually learn how to use the search.
Also, if the Foundry really is about story, something needs to be done to encourage that. In addition to the featured missions, which are pretty rare as only one is added per week, maybe when Branflakes plays through missions to see if they qualify for the feature, he can also tag them as being "story qualified" (whether good or bad), which means they would qualify for an extra reward. Even if that's kind of subjective, at least it would help try to throw a bone to story authors. If that's really what the Foundry is supposed to be about, then I don't see why it's unreasonable.
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