I'm going to repeat something I said in another thread because I want to be sure that Cryptic, and the folks responsible for Foundry Development, see it.
We have to be able to design "Team Only" missions. This makes sense for Fleets and it makes even more sense for Neverwinter.
Authors need to be able to design missions specifically meant to be played by two or more players and tagged as such. Foundry missions tagged as "Team Only" should not be able to be started except by a team.
Rewards for "Team Only" missions should include Fleet Marks in STO, and these rewards should scale according to the number of players playing it and the time each of them spent playing it. This would help to prevent starting as a team and then everybody dropping out.
This kind of a thing would make a lot of people happy and solve a lot of issues with one "simple" change. (As in, one solution to multiple issues, not simple to implement)
Players could grind FM's by playing unique content instead of the same thing over and over.
STO gets more replay value.
Starbases can continue to develop without stalling out.
Authors could target their missions for team play instead of worrying about how it will play for people trying to solo them.
An additional way to search for missions in the Foundry. By guiding players into the kinds of missions they want to play, player expectations should be more reasonable and ratings more likely to be fair.
Cryptic can target some Foundry enhancements on team-based gameplay and not worry about causing issues for solo players.
Team-scaling rewards could be used in other areas, not just the Foundry.
Fleets would be encouraged to design their own missions, meant to be played by fleet teams.
Team-based Foundry missions might have to be subject to some additional qualifications. Minimum time might have to be longer, or might have to include a certain number of combat objectives. If this is the case, then the Foundry will also need to implement some way of notifying an author what those requirements are and when they are met. I would also say that if additional requirements are imposed, that the rewards should be greater as well.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I've been following the debate over the Foundry rewards and it seems the latest solution is going to prove just as controversial as the previous IOR 'fixes'.
We won't know until the server comes back up what Cryptic has planned but I've been thinking about what would encourage me to play some of the longer, story-driven missions in terms of rewards and I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
Make Foundry missions reward only XP and ECs
Many players (particularly new ones) are looking for ways to make large amounts of ECs and XP - currently if you run Royal Rumble (or similar), you can make around a million ECs in an hour and I think that should be the reward for an hour-long Foundry mission.
Tour the Universe as a comparison can award slightly more than that (if you're really fast/know the tricks) but that only comes around once a day.
This won't imbalance the EC economy (any more than it is) since currently you can get the same EC rewards for the same length of play in the 'grinder' missions.
Regarding XP, the biggest XP generator in the game, the Mirror Universe event is again, daily, not always at a great time but rewards approximately 112500 XP for an hour's worth of play - a one-hour Foundry mission should do the same.
And let's face it, who really cares about XP? It's already stupid-fast to level-up to 50 so it's not going to mess anything up for Cryptic, what it will do is give new players, who are probably short on XP for the Rep system and Starbase projects an alternative source of large amounts of XP to the Mirror Event or just grinding.
No loot drops in Foundry missions
If you're getting a one million EC payout for running a one-hour Foundry mission, there's simply no need for loot drops - especially since all the loot is vendor-trash anyway.
Rewards scaled on a curve
Like the radiation-scan mini-game, perhaps these rewards should be on a curve so the longer the mission takes the bigger the reward (capping at the aforementioned 1 million EC and 112500 XP).
if the mission takes longer than an hour you don't get anything extra - I think that's a positive since (hopefully) it'll mean Foundry authors are a little more time-concious in creating their missions and break them up into 45min-to-1hour 'episodes'.
But if the mission is really short (5 mins or so) the rewards will be minimal since you're at the bottom of the curve - I think that's fair.
Spotlighted Missions
These should be on a daily wrapper and rotated weekly. Through the wrapper, extra rewards can be given - these should be a choice of Dilithium or Fleet Marks (a sensible amount - maybe 1920 Dil or 100 Fleet Marks. As an added incentive to play the spotlight mission, it should also reward 1 Lobi Crystal.
Those are my thoughts - something like this could really cut down on the 'grinder' missions but reward players a similar amount of XP/EC/Dil/FM for the time invested (which wouldn't be more than they'd spend grinding).
There is a current thread discussing Foundry rewards in the Foundry Discussion sub-forum. Please keep discussion of rewards in the active, existing topic.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
There is a current thread discussing Foundry rewards in the Foundry Discussion sub-forum. Please keep discussion of rewards in the active, existing topic.
You'll notice that I'm "eating my own dog food" and putting my own carefully considered suggestions in the large, existing thread on the topic of rewards because it's the rule that we don't "duplicate" active topics.
I have to add that one reason for the rule is that no one person's suggestions deserve to be singled out and treated any differently than other people's suggestions. The topic (rewards) is still the same.
Topic duplication makes it harder for the Devs to gather feedback, which is another reason for the rule.
I should point out that BranFlakes told us that he and Dan Stahl would be watching this particular thread, so your suggestions are actually more likely to be debated and considered than if they ended up buried in a thread nobody is watching.
~Bluegeek
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I understand your reasoning, and of course, my opinions aren't any more (or less) valid than anyone else's.
I was however, trying to start a debate about stripping away all the 'significant' rewards and replacing them with incentives that help players that may need something other than Dilithium and Fleet Marks - sadly I think that point will get lost in here.
Personally I don't think they're very good suggestions. Grinding Foundry for Lobi? Um... yeah right...
Did you miss the part about that being a daily Spotlight reward? You can hardly 'grind' it - it's an additional incentive that isn't available anywhere else in STO (other than the FE re-runs).
Even if you ran it every day you'd only end up with 365 Lobi (bound-to-character) at the end of a year - more likely players would run it weekly for 52 Lobi a year - it's a little something extra, nothing more.
As for my other suggestions, why not say why they wouldn't work rather than just saying they're not good?
From my perspective, they're incentives that would get me to actually play 1-hour story missions rather than grinding stuff like Royal Rumble for an hour (I'd prefer it in fact).
Case in point: I'm a F2P'er with several newly lvl 50 characters - I'm trying to work my way through the rep system but finding myself constantly short of XP - I have to run the Mirror Event to get XP for things like the MACO Mk XII (64000 Expertise per piece) - STFs such as KAGE award around 4250 Expertise and a full 20 Doff missions can net me 10000.
Having a large source of XP (other than the Mirror Event) would be great for newer players such as myself - it may not ring the bells of the veterans who have millions of XP but for them, there's always the spotlighted stuff (or the million EC reward).
I understand your reasoning, and of course, my opinions aren't any more (or less) valid than anyone else's.
I was however, trying to start a debate about stripping away all the 'significant' rewards and replacing them with incentives that help players that may need something other than Dilithium and Fleet Marks - sadly I think that point will get lost in here.
Did you miss the part about that being a daily Spotlight reward? You can hardly 'grind' it - it's an additional incentive that isn't available anywhere else in STO (other than the FE re-runs).
Even if you ran it every day you'd only end up with 365 Lobi (bound-to-character) at the end of a year - more likely players would run it weekly for 52 Lobi a year - it's a little something extra, nothing more.
As for my other suggestions, why not say why they wouldn't work rather than just saying they're not good?
From my perspective, they're incentives that would get me to actually play 1-hour story missions rather than grinding stuff like Royal Rumble for an hour (I'd prefer it in fact).
Case in point: I'm a F2P'er with several newly lvl 50 characters - I'm trying to work my way through the rep system but finding myself constantly short of XP - I have to run the Mirror Event to get XP for things like the MACO Mk XII (64000 Expertise) - STFs such as KAGE award around 4250 Expertise and a full 20 Doff missions can net me 10000.
Having a large source of XP (other than the Mirror Event) would be great for newer players such as myself - it may not ring the bells of the veterans who have millions of XP but for them, there's always the spotlighted stuff (or the million EC reward).
365.... per character. Dailies can be done once a day per character.
Truthfully my opinion is irrelevent, but since you asked.....
Removing drops does more than just change how much EC people get. SOME items that get dropped actually get used. Replacing drops with a flat amount of EC is.... backwards. It doesn't greatly change how much EC people get but it would eventually drive prices up by (somewhat) reducing supply. 1M is a LOT of EC anyways. MORE than people get for things like Royal Rumble.
Also 112K Exp? Um... overkill much? The point to Foundry rewards is for people to get something out of Foundry missions. Making it the BEST source of anything is how we got to this debate in the first place...
Your daily wrapper idea is a major increase to the rewards offered previously. Also... Cryptic made the wrapper as a temporary stand-in for scaled rewards. They were never planning to keep it.
Guess I'll be off the game for awhile until they fix the fix. I'm not going to play long foundry missions for dilithium and nobody cares about EC or XP... You can play other missions and sell your purple loot and get more EC. I played the foundry for FM and since that is gone I really have no need to play foundry missions at all. Dilithium is easily obtained through STF, PVP, and dailies that are shorter than foundry missions. I guess the story writers got what they wanted... nobody playing the foundry... I would love to know the numbers post patch of who will bother playing with the foundry solution this time. There were lots of suggestions posed in this thread that could have been some middle ground but once again Cryptic chooses the extreme until everyone rages and then dumbs it down again.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
365.... per character. Dailies can be done once a day per character.
Yes. And a skirt or a console costs 200 Lobi - a ship 800 - you'd have to do the dailies every day for 2-and-a-half years to get a free ship - you honestly think that's an excessive reward?
Removing drops does more than just change how much EC people get. SOME items that get dropped actually get used. Replacing drops with a flat amount of EC is.... backwards. It doesn't greatly change how much EC people get but it would eventually drive prices up by (somewhat) reducing supply. 1M is a LOT of EC anyways. MORE than people get for things like Royal Rumble.
Well, I ran Fed/KDF Battleship Bashing (which qualified as an IOR daily) - each time I ran it I'd get 400,000-500,000 worth of loot (sold at 50%) and I could run it twice before the loot stopped dropping - one hour of play, 1 million ECs.
The idea behind getting rid of loot drops is to stop these shooting galleries that are there purely for people to farm loot. Nothing I've ever picked up on those missions has ever ended up on the Exchange - it's all vendor-trash and besides, perfectly good weapons/shields/whatever are available from Cryptic's missions.
Also 112K Exp? Um... overkill much? The point to Foundry rewards is for people to get something out of Foundry missions. Making it the BEST source of anything is how we got to this debate in the first place...
Well something I should have made clearer is that these rewards should be at VA level - they ought to be scaled for lower levels so that it's sensible but still a good incentive to play an hour's worth of Foundry content.
These figures are based on what's available (or was available) in-game now - albeit once every 24 or so hours for the Mirror Event.
Your daily wrapper idea is a major increase to the rewards offered previously. Also... Cryptic made the wrapper as a temporary stand-in for scaled rewards. They were never planning to keep it.
But less than the system they've just taken away - it's a bit more Dilithium, or double the Fleet Marks plus a bonus Lobi Crystal once a day - I really don't think that's excessive.
I'm curious as to what the devs expect players to do with the unreasonable fleet mark requirements for starbase projects, now that the Foundry has been removed as a FM source.
I'll admit I haven't played many story missions, and the ones I did play I didn't enjoy enough to warrant further searching. The farms were tedious, but they did provide a much needed commodity and a bonus of EC and dilithium as well.
Now that fleet marks are gone, I doubt I'll be touching Foundry missions again anytime soon. Dilithium and energy credits can be gained elsewhere, likely at a quicker pace, without being spoon fed any dailies or spotlights.
I'm curious as to what the devs expect players to do with the unreasonable fleet mark requirements for starbase projects, now that the Foundry has been removed as a FM source.
They expect it will take you YEARS to build up your fleet base, and be too busy grinding at it to notice the lack of new content in the interim.
The only reason people were using the foundry to farm was because all other means of getting fleet mark are pathetic, you do the Romulan level and you get maybe at most 16 fleet marks, hardly worth the effort.
you going to take away the means to upgrade or fleets and you will lose people because they will get bored and leave, you mess to much with criteria of the game and people will stop paying.
a word from the wise STOP MUCKING AROUND WITH THE GAME AND LET US PLAY!!!!
What i can't understand is, that you want to force people into playing your missions.
If players are looking for a long story heavy wet-dream then they'll look for one, ie. spotlight missions.
Some players are progressing their fleets, so would find a way to efficiently farm fleet marks, these players would look for missions that would satisfy the officer reports missions...
But no... you had to get your knickers in a twist didn't you?
I'm the guy that uses unconventional builds, and don't fall to the normal. I also don't believe in "No-BS" TRIBBLE, it's in the game, it's ready to be used. Think Clint Eastwood in Heartbreak Ridge.
What i can't understand is, that you want to force people into playing your missions.
I don't think any of the Foundry authors want to force people into playing their missions.
The Foundry as a tool was introduced to allow players to tell their own stories, the rewards were added as an encouragement to spend time playing these stories - something a lot of players were reluctant to do as (in a game that emphasises grind) it was seen as a waste of time.
The rules and the rewards that Cryptic put in place allowed people to exploit the system and Cryptic want to fix that whilst still offering some incentive for players to take a look at user-generated content.
Well, I'm just hoping that this means Cryptic will add Elite versions of the Romulan and Fleet events (similar to Elite STFs) -- add a bit more danger, add injuries/ship damage, and scale up the rewards like Elite STFs, then nobody will miss the Foundry grinding missions.
-- I will do what I must to aid my family, friends, and fleet, in that order; no matter how many things, laws... or people... I have to break in order to do so. --
Guess I'll be off the game for awhile until they fix the fix. I'm not going to play long foundry missions for dilithium and nobody cares about EC or XP... You can play other missions and sell your purple loot and get more EC. I played the foundry for FM and since that is gone I really have no need to play foundry missions at all. Dilithium is easily obtained through STF, PVP, and dailies that are shorter than foundry missions. I guess the story writers got what they wanted... nobody playing the foundry... I would love to know the numbers post patch of who will bother playing with the foundry solution this time. There were lots of suggestions posed in this thread that could have been some middle ground but once again Cryptic chooses the extreme until everyone rages and then dumbs it down again.
Well here's one. I have to wait for another way to get the Fleet Marks elsewhere as the Fleet Alerts overwhelm my computer.
Well, I'm just hoping that this means Cryptic will add Elite versions of the Romulan and Fleet events (similar to Elite STFs) -- add a bit more danger, add injuries/ship damage, and scale up the rewards like Elite STFs, then nobody will miss the Foundry grinding missions.
No I would. Because I don't live and die for bleeding hard ultra challenging end game events. I liked some of the foundry stories and getting the reward was great. Now playing them is inefficient because I would lose out on something else I could be grinding for. It made contributing to my fleet doable and for a while I was the only one contributing to my fleet. Now there are more people working, but this just made my job painful.
Worse yet I just started telling people about this by word of mouth as there were some who didn't even know.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
First they screwed up the foundry and took it totally away. Then they made it possible to get 24 hours then changed it to every 30 mins and now they took it away again. My lord what else are they going to TRIBBLE up the dilithium system all screwed up. It so screwed up it not even worth buying zen for dilithium.That might be the next thing they take away cause they do not have a clue on what they are doing. I think I am going on a zen purchase strike til they get there heads out of there....
Here's my 2 cents on the foundry after grinding out another classic excursion into the Battleship Royal Rumble. Loot seems about the same. About 300k vendor trash and a blue mkxi disruptor turret for the exchange. I haven't had much to complain about with the loot even after the infamous timid patch. From just my own experience the loot dropped from maybe 400-500k per run down to 250-400k average after that patch, but this is just my own eyeball test running a few per day every day. I can't fuss about that, just an economic tweak, and I'm not going to plant the flag demanding to be able to blow up a graveyard to fill up my inventory. Next, I got 673 dil, down from the previous 960. A drop that will be missed but I can understand adjusting dil for time. Not worth complaining about in my book. What I will complain about is the fleet marks dropping to 0. Really? OK I realize that a solo foundry mission is not fleet related so maybe you think it shouldn't generate fleet marks and if that's the case why on earth did you ever put fleet marks into the foundry in the first place? But there they were and people get used to the foundry as a reliable source for them and then you take them away. Who was being harmed by having this source of fleet marks? Tweaking the EC and dilithium economies I understand because they are dynamic systems but fleet marks are static commodities that can't be traded and only serve one purpose, to build starbases. Last time I checked no one was complaining that starbases were too easy to build and not enough of a grind but I guess they just wanted to make it a bit more difficult, to give your starbase that nutty, piquant flavor that only comes from incessantly grinding. OK I'll stop before this rant gets too ridiculous. I love this game, great job overall guys but this one I don't understand.
One further idea: how about a choice between fleet marks or dilithium if you thought both as a reward was too much?
Yes. And a skirt or a console costs 200 Lobi - a ship 800 - you'd have to do the dailies every day for 2-and-a-half years to get a free ship - you honestly think that's an excessive reward?
~snip~
The idea behind getting rid of loot drops is to stop these shooting galleries that are there purely for people to farm loot. Nothing I've ever picked up on those missions has ever ended up on the Exchange - it's all vendor-trash and besides, perfectly good weapons/shields/whatever are available from Cryptic's missions.
`snip`
The big difference here is that all of the methods Cryptic has put in for free Lobi are one-ofs. ALL of them. The best they would do is 1 free Lobi IF you've never played that particular spotlight before. (I'm not opposed to your idea I just think it's unreasonable to expect them to do that)
I do junk MOST item drops. But some blues and purples sell decently(IE at face value or better). Weapons; mostly MK11 beam arrays, turrets, and DHC. Consoles; energy damage type consoles, some resist consoles(especially neut).
my apologies, but as I see it there is no reason for me to play the foundry missions anymore. wont rant or flame, just wont play them. the rewards r now not enough to make me want to anymore.
my apologies, but as I see it there is no reason for me to play the foundry missions anymore. wont rant or flame, just wont play them. the rewards r now not enough to make me want to anymore.
IMO this attitude is fine. I personally don't play some of the ground STFs because I don't find them fun or worth my time either.
If you have that little time to play each day.... Why are you playing an MMO? I mean really.... MMOs are giant sinks for player time.
Hey that's right "hawkman". I should just work, work, work, all the time. I mean somebody has to pay those taxes for the people who have all that GIANT TIME SINK on their hands.
Maybe because I LOVE Star Trek. Maybe because I've watched every series and movie the genre's ever put out. Maybe because it is one of the few pleasures this hardworking man has in his life. What an absolutely asinine response!!!!
Hey that's right "hawkman". I should just work, work, work, all the time. I mean somebody has to pay those taxes for the people who have all that GIANT TIME SINK on their hands.
Maybe because I LOVE Star Trek. Maybe because I've watched every series and movie the genre's ever put out. Maybe because it is one of the few pleasures this hardworking man has in his life. What an absolutely asinine response!!!!
Just wondering, if time is short have you tried focusing what time you have to upgrading your duty officers and maxing out the commendation levels so you can trade the extra CXP for fleet marks? There are usually enough 20h to 1 day+ length missions within a sector block or three that you can just set them once a day and spend what remaining time you have doing what you wish. It's not as fast as doing the IOR but it can still net you a decent chunk of Marks every week.
I really wish they'd get doff mission assignments added into the the Gateway. It would make it easier for the casual players to make more CXP and therefore Fleet Marks.
Still not sure why they decided to make this change without adding in another source to balance it, considering how much complaining there has been regarding a shortage of marks (and yes I KNOW that has been coming mostly from fleets that are well under the 25 member average the projects are balanced for, but still its an issue that should have been addressed.)
Play Star Trek: Allegiance - my first series in the Foundry
Maybe because I LOVE Star Trek. Maybe because I've watched every series and movie the genre's ever put out. Maybe because it is one of the few pleasures this hardworking man has in his life.
I'm sure at some point one of your beer-drinking, salt of the earth, hard-working buddies must have warned you to never fall in love with a stripper, right? Trek has always been a product to be sold. Always. They let fan culture think it's something more than that because this makes fan culture a reliable source of money.
I wish I could play from work though. Man it'd be great. Sadly I have to focus all of my slacking off on surfing the web on my iPhone that I saved up a few months to buy after I paid my taxes. I really envy you, you hardworking pillar of society, you.
Still not sure why they decided to make this change without adding in another source to balance it, considering how much complaining there has been regarding a shortage of marks (and yes I KNOW that has been coming mostly from fleets that are well under the 25 member average the projects are balanced for, but still its an issue that should have been addressed.)
I completely agree. And I wish the tantrum-throwers would get focused on this instead of trying to ferret out the Shadowy Cabal of Foundry Authors (SCoFA tm)that secretly pull the strings.
Comments
We have to be able to design "Team Only" missions. This makes sense for Fleets and it makes even more sense for Neverwinter.
Authors need to be able to design missions specifically meant to be played by two or more players and tagged as such. Foundry missions tagged as "Team Only" should not be able to be started except by a team.
Rewards for "Team Only" missions should include Fleet Marks in STO, and these rewards should scale according to the number of players playing it and the time each of them spent playing it. This would help to prevent starting as a team and then everybody dropping out.
This kind of a thing would make a lot of people happy and solve a lot of issues with one "simple" change. (As in, one solution to multiple issues, not simple to implement)
Team-based Foundry missions might have to be subject to some additional qualifications. Minimum time might have to be longer, or might have to include a certain number of combat objectives. If this is the case, then the Foundry will also need to implement some way of notifying an author what those requirements are and when they are met. I would also say that if additional requirements are imposed, that the rewards should be greater as well.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I've been following the debate over the Foundry rewards and it seems the latest solution is going to prove just as controversial as the previous IOR 'fixes'.
We won't know until the server comes back up what Cryptic has planned but I've been thinking about what would encourage me to play some of the longer, story-driven missions in terms of rewards and I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
Make Foundry missions reward only XP and ECs
Many players (particularly new ones) are looking for ways to make large amounts of ECs and XP - currently if you run Royal Rumble (or similar), you can make around a million ECs in an hour and I think that should be the reward for an hour-long Foundry mission.
Tour the Universe as a comparison can award slightly more than that (if you're really fast/know the tricks) but that only comes around once a day.
This won't imbalance the EC economy (any more than it is) since currently you can get the same EC rewards for the same length of play in the 'grinder' missions.
Regarding XP, the biggest XP generator in the game, the Mirror Universe event is again, daily, not always at a great time but rewards approximately 112500 XP for an hour's worth of play - a one-hour Foundry mission should do the same.
And let's face it, who really cares about XP? It's already stupid-fast to level-up to 50 so it's not going to mess anything up for Cryptic, what it will do is give new players, who are probably short on XP for the Rep system and Starbase projects an alternative source of large amounts of XP to the Mirror Event or just grinding.
No loot drops in Foundry missions
If you're getting a one million EC payout for running a one-hour Foundry mission, there's simply no need for loot drops - especially since all the loot is vendor-trash anyway.
Rewards scaled on a curve
Like the radiation-scan mini-game, perhaps these rewards should be on a curve so the longer the mission takes the bigger the reward (capping at the aforementioned 1 million EC and 112500 XP).
if the mission takes longer than an hour you don't get anything extra - I think that's a positive since (hopefully) it'll mean Foundry authors are a little more time-concious in creating their missions and break them up into 45min-to-1hour 'episodes'.
But if the mission is really short (5 mins or so) the rewards will be minimal since you're at the bottom of the curve - I think that's fair.
Spotlighted Missions
These should be on a daily wrapper and rotated weekly. Through the wrapper, extra rewards can be given - these should be a choice of Dilithium or Fleet Marks (a sensible amount - maybe 1920 Dil or 100 Fleet Marks. As an added incentive to play the spotlight mission, it should also reward 1 Lobi Crystal.
Those are my thoughts - something like this could really cut down on the 'grinder' missions but reward players a similar amount of XP/EC/Dil/FM for the time invested (which wouldn't be more than they'd spend grinding).
What do you think?
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Way to bury some carefully considered suggestions
My character Tsin'xing
Off-Topic...
You'll notice that I'm "eating my own dog food" and putting my own carefully considered suggestions in the large, existing thread on the topic of rewards because it's the rule that we don't "duplicate" active topics.
I have to add that one reason for the rule is that no one person's suggestions deserve to be singled out and treated any differently than other people's suggestions. The topic (rewards) is still the same.
Topic duplication makes it harder for the Devs to gather feedback, which is another reason for the rule.
I should point out that BranFlakes told us that he and Dan Stahl would be watching this particular thread, so your suggestions are actually more likely to be debated and considered than if they ended up buried in a thread nobody is watching.
~Bluegeek
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I understand your reasoning, and of course, my opinions aren't any more (or less) valid than anyone else's.
I was however, trying to start a debate about stripping away all the 'significant' rewards and replacing them with incentives that help players that may need something other than Dilithium and Fleet Marks - sadly I think that point will get lost in here.
Did you miss the part about that being a daily Spotlight reward? You can hardly 'grind' it - it's an additional incentive that isn't available anywhere else in STO (other than the FE re-runs).
Even if you ran it every day you'd only end up with 365 Lobi (bound-to-character) at the end of a year - more likely players would run it weekly for 52 Lobi a year - it's a little something extra, nothing more.
As for my other suggestions, why not say why they wouldn't work rather than just saying they're not good?
From my perspective, they're incentives that would get me to actually play 1-hour story missions rather than grinding stuff like Royal Rumble for an hour (I'd prefer it in fact).
Case in point: I'm a F2P'er with several newly lvl 50 characters - I'm trying to work my way through the rep system but finding myself constantly short of XP - I have to run the Mirror Event to get XP for things like the MACO Mk XII (64000 Expertise per piece) - STFs such as KAGE award around 4250 Expertise and a full 20 Doff missions can net me 10000.
Having a large source of XP (other than the Mirror Event) would be great for newer players such as myself - it may not ring the bells of the veterans who have millions of XP but for them, there's always the spotlighted stuff (or the million EC reward).
Truthfully my opinion is irrelevent, but since you asked.....
Removing drops does more than just change how much EC people get. SOME items that get dropped actually get used. Replacing drops with a flat amount of EC is.... backwards. It doesn't greatly change how much EC people get but it would eventually drive prices up by (somewhat) reducing supply. 1M is a LOT of EC anyways. MORE than people get for things like Royal Rumble.
Also 112K Exp? Um... overkill much? The point to Foundry rewards is for people to get something out of Foundry missions. Making it the BEST source of anything is how we got to this debate in the first place...
Your daily wrapper idea is a major increase to the rewards offered previously. Also... Cryptic made the wrapper as a temporary stand-in for scaled rewards. They were never planning to keep it.
My character Tsin'xing
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Yes. And a skirt or a console costs 200 Lobi - a ship 800 - you'd have to do the dailies every day for 2-and-a-half years to get a free ship - you honestly think that's an excessive reward?
It's as valid as anyone's including mine which is why I asked.
Well, I ran Fed/KDF Battleship Bashing (which qualified as an IOR daily) - each time I ran it I'd get 400,000-500,000 worth of loot (sold at 50%) and I could run it twice before the loot stopped dropping - one hour of play, 1 million ECs.
The idea behind getting rid of loot drops is to stop these shooting galleries that are there purely for people to farm loot. Nothing I've ever picked up on those missions has ever ended up on the Exchange - it's all vendor-trash and besides, perfectly good weapons/shields/whatever are available from Cryptic's missions.
Well something I should have made clearer is that these rewards should be at VA level - they ought to be scaled for lower levels so that it's sensible but still a good incentive to play an hour's worth of Foundry content.
These figures are based on what's available (or was available) in-game now - albeit once every 24 or so hours for the Mirror Event.
But less than the system they've just taken away - it's a bit more Dilithium, or double the Fleet Marks plus a bonus Lobi Crystal once a day - I really don't think that's excessive.
Thank you for the feedback!
I'll admit I haven't played many story missions, and the ones I did play I didn't enjoy enough to warrant further searching. The farms were tedious, but they did provide a much needed commodity and a bonus of EC and dilithium as well.
Now that fleet marks are gone, I doubt I'll be touching Foundry missions again anytime soon. Dilithium and energy credits can be gained elsewhere, likely at a quicker pace, without being spoon fed any dailies or spotlights.
They expect it will take you YEARS to build up your fleet base, and be too busy grinding at it to notice the lack of new content in the interim.
you going to take away the means to upgrade or fleets and you will lose people because they will get bored and leave, you mess to much with criteria of the game and people will stop paying.
a word from the wise STOP MUCKING AROUND WITH THE GAME AND LET US PLAY!!!!
You couldn't leave the foundry be could you?
What i can't understand is, that you want to force people into playing your missions.
If players are looking for a long story heavy wet-dream then they'll look for one, ie. spotlight missions.
Some players are progressing their fleets, so would find a way to efficiently farm fleet marks, these players would look for missions that would satisfy the officer reports missions...
But no... you had to get your knickers in a twist didn't you?
I don't think any of the Foundry authors want to force people into playing their missions.
The Foundry as a tool was introduced to allow players to tell their own stories, the rewards were added as an encouragement to spend time playing these stories - something a lot of players were reluctant to do as (in a game that emphasises grind) it was seen as a waste of time.
The rules and the rewards that Cryptic put in place allowed people to exploit the system and Cryptic want to fix that whilst still offering some incentive for players to take a look at user-generated content.
Unfortunately Cryptic's just no good at this.
No I would. Because I don't live and die for bleeding hard ultra challenging end game events. I liked some of the foundry stories and getting the reward was great. Now playing them is inefficient because I would lose out on something else I could be grinding for. It made contributing to my fleet doable and for a while I was the only one contributing to my fleet. Now there are more people working, but this just made my job painful.
Worse yet I just started telling people about this by word of mouth as there were some who didn't even know.
One further idea: how about a choice between fleet marks or dilithium if you thought both as a reward was too much?
I
My character Tsin'xing
I do junk MOST item drops. But some blues and purples sell decently(IE at face value or better). Weapons; mostly MK11 beam arrays, turrets, and DHC. Consoles; energy damage type consoles, some resist consoles(especially neut).
My character Tsin'xing
IMO this attitude is fine. I personally don't play some of the ground STFs because I don't find them fun or worth my time either.
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
My character Tsin'xing
why are you being adversarial? He was just expressing his opinions towards Cryptic.
btw, who's your fleet leader? are you recruiting still or do all these changes make you wanna just stop?
Hey that's right "hawkman". I should just work, work, work, all the time. I mean somebody has to pay those taxes for the people who have all that GIANT TIME SINK on their hands.
Maybe because I LOVE Star Trek. Maybe because I've watched every series and movie the genre's ever put out. Maybe because it is one of the few pleasures this hardworking man has in his life. What an absolutely asinine response!!!!
Just wondering, if time is short have you tried focusing what time you have to upgrading your duty officers and maxing out the commendation levels so you can trade the extra CXP for fleet marks? There are usually enough 20h to 1 day+ length missions within a sector block or three that you can just set them once a day and spend what remaining time you have doing what you wish. It's not as fast as doing the IOR but it can still net you a decent chunk of Marks every week.
I really wish they'd get doff mission assignments added into the the Gateway. It would make it easier for the casual players to make more CXP and therefore Fleet Marks.
Still not sure why they decided to make this change without adding in another source to balance it, considering how much complaining there has been regarding a shortage of marks (and yes I KNOW that has been coming mostly from fleets that are well under the 25 member average the projects are balanced for, but still its an issue that should have been addressed.)
I'm sure at some point one of your beer-drinking, salt of the earth, hard-working buddies must have warned you to never fall in love with a stripper, right? Trek has always been a product to be sold. Always. They let fan culture think it's something more than that because this makes fan culture a reliable source of money.
I wish I could play from work though. Man it'd be great. Sadly I have to focus all of my slacking off on surfing the web on my iPhone that I saved up a few months to buy after I paid my taxes. I really envy you, you hardworking pillar of society, you.
I completely agree. And I wish the tantrum-throwers would get focused on this instead of trying to ferret out the Shadowy Cabal of Foundry Authors (SCoFA tm)that secretly pull the strings.