People are "playing" those grind missions and they will continue to do so.
I just played two of those grind missions to see how the exploit nerf worked.
One was an "E Z Monies! LOL!" mission. I can see why the fans of those are upset. The Timids don't just shoot back now, they shoot back hard. Must have been a shock to their systems. I know it was to mine. Regardless it was boring like the rest of them and a I quit early.
The other one was the famous Battleship Royal Rumble. This is actually good. Challenging. Fun. Weird in a way. All grinders should be like this and it's convinced me even more that having the UI improved and/or loot table voided for timid critters will go a long way to solving all of the current problems.
LOL I'd consider making a mission like this if it wouldn't get a million 1 stars because of people expecting EZ Lootz.
The story is already forming in my head. Meet a Klingon War Hero who has had enough of fighting and wants to retire on his farm, but the High Council needs his services one more time. Head to his farm and find out he raises Targs and slaughters them via hand to hand combat.
I know Jack. He's a great guy. Lot's of fun to hang out with.
Seriously though, you are correct. We have had no statement from the devs regarding what their intentions for the Foundry are, just last minute nerfs that could be construed to mean pretty much anything about what the goal of the of the devs are with the Foundry. Maybe they still don't know and are still forming and/or adjusting their opinion. Maybe there are a lot of discussions going on behind closed doors at Cryptic right now about how to handle the current crisis.
I've read various posts where someone says "Dev A said that this is the intent...", etc, but no supporting documentation. I wouldn't expect someone opposed to my viewpoint to just take my word for something, and vice versa.
Who knows, maybe there is already something coming down the pipe for Season 8 that will put all these issues to rest. I think even a short "we're working on it and will have something soon" from the dev's might help to at least affect a ceasefire.
Bottom line, though, as I've had to remind myself multiple times during the last week, this is just a game. It's not real life.
THERE IS ABSOLUTLY NO MOTIVATION FOR ANYONE TO BE IN THE LEAST BIT DISHONEST ABOUT WHAT CATEGORY THEIR MISSION FALLS UNDER. NONE.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Apparently you've never come across mistagged TRIBBLE. Hey THIS isnt what I wanted :eek: You are incredibly naive if you think people wont use the most popular tags to get eyes on their missions. Id imagine #TimeTravel would be the most popular tag to use. And saying the system would self correct itself, huh? If there were no rewards, then mistagging is just an annoyance. But with the reward system as it is now, if Cryptic gave us tagging, then the punks mistagging their missions would essentially bury the stuff you are looking for by playing 2-3 mislabeled missions before you got to a good one that really was a time travel mission. Mistagging cant be fixed, but with human reviewers, it could be stopped from getting real rewards.
And for those complaining about a holier than thou council, waiting for ONE man Brandon to spotlight your mission is a better idea? Brandon isnt Jesus either, theres no reason it should just be him determing what gets decent rewards. He's just a responsible Star Trek STO player. Im sure STO has at least 100 people who could be trusted and wouldnt abuse the power knowing Brandon could easily yank it and never give it back.
They could program it where if I was a reviewer, I could only activate rewards for one author every six months. So I couldnt just hook up one guy several times. I could have interest tags on my account, that says I like to play time travel and diplomacy missions, and players can try to get their missions in front of my eyes because I'll get around to playing their mission sooner. There can be a cap, maybe I can only activate rewards for 10 missions a month, and I get my dilithium reward for all 10, or maybe I only got around to activating one mission, and I got dilithium deposited into my account for one mission activated. Make sure Watchers couldnt farm the watcher system either. And if other watchers and players saw I was handing out reward activation to any ol sorry mission, I get reported to Brandon, he sees Im not taking my review job seriously, and he yanks my powers never to get them back and pass them on to someone else.
And remember, guys like Alimac dont have to wait for a reviewer for their missions to get rewards on it instantly. Those author accounts are privileged and trusted to activate rewards themselves, unless they are caught abusing that, and it gets yanked from them. The inflow of quality missions getting regular rewards and XP would be higher and in a few months, plenty to sift through if you needed extra content beyond what Cryptic can produce in the same amount of time. Then maybe anything Brandon anoints himself can be called Super Spotlighted, with a big MK XII reward given to it or something. Remember, all Im saying is player reviewers are activating foundry missions to act like their Cryptic counterparts in rewarding XP and loot based on rank.
Yeah, if I were a reviewer, Id be a tough grader. I wouldnt activate your mission if your spelling and grammar sucked. In real life, you dont submit crappy work to your English teacher, they dont make REALLY awful scripts into movies (usually). And so if 1 in 100 missions are reward activated, thats ok, because only the quality Foundry missions deserve to get rewards like real Cryptic missions. Theres a spotlighted mission I didnt care for, "A Splint in Time". It actually annoyed me as I played it. But, it was decently written and built. Maybe if I didnt want to use one of my 10 activations this month on it, Id pass it along to another reviewer to get a second opinion on it faster. Yeah, personal tastes would rule the "council" but thats ok, if only one guy likes it and another 9 dislike it, maybe it shouldnt get rewards and tell the author to make revisions. But its easier to program against council corruption by limiting the missions they activate rewards for a month and what author accounts they can do it for a month than it is to program against the exploit missions getting rewards the "council" is there to stop.
Ive got the perfect farming mission. Ambassador Picard had to take an unscheduled trip off planet. He needs you to go work his vineyards to get this years vintage of Chateau Picard to market. And you have to go press F 300 times by walking up to 300 different vines for each button press. :P Hey, no crazier than the snowpile grind I did to get my jackets. Actually, Im sure I pressed F WAY over 300 times just for four jackets for four toons. So make that 1000 vines a mission to drop 10 green food items
STO: @AGNT009 Since Dec 2010
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
If we had a statement from Cryptic about
(1) What the intention of the Foundry is ?
(2) What is the intention behind shifting IOR to a 30 minutes cooldown?
most importanty (3) What will be considered "exploits"?
If we knew this , we could stop arguing with each other about who is right and who is wrong, and instead come from a place where we all know what the intent is. We could more productively work together toward creating a solution that serves The Farmers, The Authors, and Cryptic.
So instead , what we have today is a group of "true foundry authors" who have huddled together and decided that they know what's best for the entire population of the game (as far as Foundry is concerned) , and decided to make their demands heard loudly ... , through postings , twitter , and a podcast or two .
What did they thus far managed to achieve ?
- Getting "clicky's" banned
- Halting many fleets progress
- Creating a divide -- no scratch that -- creating a chasm between Foundry users (those who create missions)
- Managed to become disliked by a great many players -- and doing so instead of the "one star bandit" now they face a "one star army" who act purely out of spite and at this rate will drown new high quality story missions .
- An let's not forget their latest accomplishment , the 'Timid creatures now fight back when attacked' bit .
Now at this point I could just re-tell my earlier stance (when the "clicky's war" raged ) that ppl need to learn to just butt out of other people's business , and live and let live , but at this point we are well under way to the hoards coming to pay a visit to the 300 Spartans who could just not live well enough alone .
(* but in our version , it was the self righteous Spartans who started it)
So let me put this in a simpler fashion :
The foundry had problems from lack "proper" of use before (simply because it was not attractive enough by itself as it was ) .
If those self righteous continue on their path to "justice" , they will ruin Foundry not only by their actions , but their lack of concern to the reactions and consequences of their actions .
Many a time has history proven that one tracked minded zealots caused more harm then good . I doubt this will be different .
And on their way to achieving this "pure story heaven" , these zelouts , some driven my their "interpretations of Dev/Foundry intent" will bury the "good" that was left in the Foundry community all the while singeing the general STO population time and time again (just as they have done in the past) .
Please do not attempt to bait people into further flaming and fighting.
This is about a community working together to try and solve an issue that affects us all.
If you have something to add.
maybe some comment about how something proposed earlier in the thread might work or not work, please add it. Absolutely all constructive ideas are welcome.
Baiting and Trolling are not.
If you read through the thread there are a good number of very good ideas being presented by people formerly on opposite sides of the argument.
This is not Us vs Them.
It is a game we all enjoy and would like to see be better.
More can be accomplished as a community than by fighting.
Again, I invite you to join the thread with constructive ideas.
Please do not attempt to bait people into further flaming and fighting.
This is about a community working together to try and solve an issue that affects us all.
If you have something to add.
maybe some comment about how something proposed earlier in the thread might work or not work, please add it. Absolutely all constructive ideas are welcome.
Baiting and Trolling are not.
If you read through the thread there are a good number of very good ideas being presented by people formerly on opposite sides of the argument.
This is not Us vs Them.
It is a game we all enjoy and would like to see be better.
More can be accomplished as a community than by fighting.
Again, I invite you to join the thread with constructive ideas.
Have a Great Day
- John
You have become quick to label others' well-intentioned suggestions and interpretations of events as trolling and have issued many warnings of your own of late. You are not sole judge of what is constructive. Please leave the warnings to moderators as it inhibits open discussion. Thank you.
You have become quick to label others' well-intentioned suggestions and interpretations of events as trolling and have issued many warnings of your own of late. You are not sole judge of what is constructive. Please leave the warnings to moderators as it inhibits open discussion. Thank you.
Oh give hima break, he's decided to put on the white hat after the last fewweeks of closedthreads and a generous amout of public warnings with no repercussion.
You have become quick to label others' well-intentioned suggestions and interpretations of events as trolling and have issued many warnings of your own of late. You are not sole judge of what is constructive. Please leave the warnings to moderators as it inhibits open discussion. Thank you.
You don't like me, I get it.
That doesn't mean that a constructive discussion cannot be had.
We are as I described above, as a community, in a position where many people who want to play and enjoy the game in different ways, do not have information from Cryptic as to the intended design of the tool called the Foundry.
Once we have that information , as a community, we can actually work together to craft solutions to the what is by now (to me at least) an obvious UI problem. We can work together to create the kinds of missions that everyone enjoys.
Posts like the one, I commented on above, that do nothing toward solving that problem, but continue with the name calling and assumptions about each other, do nothing toward building a community that can solve a problem.
I understand that people still have a need to do that. To continue to demonize each other.
All I am asking is that they go do it somewhere else.
I am done calling other people cheaters or exploiters or whatever.
We're all just players, and we should be focusing on how to help each other have the game we enjoy.
Perhaps I am just an idealistic old hippie, but I believe we can accomplish more together than we can continuing to fight.
I politely request again.
Please keep name calling and arguing away.
The more we stay focused on constructive discussion, the more we can accomplish.
Once again I more than welcome constructive ideas from everyone.
Posts like the one, I commented on above, that do nothing toward solving that problem
a) Stop calling ppl trolls . No one takes you seriously when you continue to do that .
b) I did give you advice .
You just either did not see it , or chose to ignore it .
(to me at least) this is an obvious UI problem
c) When you doggedly refuse to recognize the source(s) of your problems , do you really think you will arrive at a correct conclusion ?
You talk about "we the community" -- just who are you talking about here ?
Players in general or circles of the Foundry community , or
(group A) who believe that the Foundry has been "stolen" from them ?
(group who believe that Clicky's + previous 'timid objects' have been "stolen" from them by the other group ?
To me it seems that you fail to recognize , discuss and admit the failings of each group , and thus you fail to come close to my simple yet elegant solution :
Butt Out of the other players mission , mission making , mission style , mission length , mission award .
Don't be another players Daddy . He didn't ask you to be . No one did .
Consider another player's mission , another player's house . Don't mess with it or you will suffer . Badly .
That's easy enough to remember , right ?
After all , you remember it in RL ... , don't you ?
distilling from your post, it seems that your suggestion is simply that nothing change except that we all just leave each other alone, and ignore the idea of working together.
Yes, I would agree with almost all of this. Where I would differ is that I'm ok with Cryptic not taking a position on the foundry provided they don't just come in as bolts from the blue to tell us we're doing it wrong. One of the things that I love about this game is how, as one of my fleetmates put it "lawless" the game is. I realize I am probably in a minority here, as I seen no shortage of posts and ingame chat asking for certain skills to be nerfed, certain fleets to be banned etc. I don't know whether the devs tend to be so hands off because they too share my anarchist ideals or just because they are understaffed and can't devote time to things that aren't gamebreaking. Maybe a little of both? I would be happy with almost zero regulation of the game, and I applaud the devs for staying as hands off as they do.
This issue (can I call it a "saga" yet?) is really a case study in how when well meaning powers that be do get involved, they tend to make things worse, not through their own failings, but really because of the diverse nature of players in this game. It's why their handling of the foundry with something less then neutrality this last week disturbed me. Leave it be. We'll all be better in the long run. I genuinely believe that.
Because of the controversy these actions have created I doubt that's going to happen, I would expect another change or two as they try to find something that's a better fit for more players. So in the spirit of lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness, here's somethings I think might work better in the long term:
1. Go back to the 1,480 diliithium payout for IOR and give it a one hour cooldown. Change loot rates to be similar to STF's, 3-4 minor drops and one level appropriate item dropped on completion of the mission. Generally meaning you're gonna get a couple of batteries, one halfway decent console, and an blue-purple Engine/Deflector/Shield. Ya'll get the gist of what I'm talking about.
2. Take all fleet mark rewards out of IOR and put them in STF's. There's not really a logical ingame reason for them to be there in the first place, whereas they make more sense in an STF setting. If I could make as many Fleet Marks playing ISE as doing battleship royal rumble, I'd almost certainly never play grinders again, and be able to give all that time to the spotlit, narrative missions. I'm playing STF's anyway.
3. Change the rating system so that to leave any rating of any kind, you must also leave a small critique, some character limit of two sentences or more. People aren't likely to do this for grinders all the time, and allow them just to leave no rating at all. We'd then perhaps have a situation where the top rated missions and the most played are not mixed up as easily. It's not foolproof, but it might work better then the way it is now.
I think perhaps something like that would be painful at first, but perhaps in the long term it would work best. I just personally hate the idea of any tools being taken away or limited, for players or authors, in principle. Such measures ultimately stifle creativity. I do have the ambition to make a story mission of my own when I have time, I'm sympathetic to the concerns they have. I also realize that my weird psychedelic vision of star trek doesn't appeal to many (I'm much more Grant Morrison then Gene Roddenberry), and it certainly appeals less to the grind and dps order of this games present state. That's ok. I'd rather us all be able to do what we want then some of us lose out.
One last thing that I think deserves more attention - is I think the foundry makes a superb training tool. Crom knows the game needs better tutorials. When I first learned how to fly an escort I would go into one of the old romulan space accolade missions, where you summon wave after wave of those swine. And in doing so I learned how not to die, how to maneuver, etc so I didn't go stink up STF's for everyone. Even recently, when I got the new romulan hyper plasma torpedo of pyromaniac ecstasy, I took it in the foundry to test before equipping it in public. The foundry has been a constant tool for me to use in this way, i've spent untold hours testing out builds in there. I saw a few posts in an earlier thread of authors who were making STF tutorials in the foundry who had their missions broken by this change, and I think that's the worst offense in all this. I would like to see the foundry used more to make tutorials for new players, to explain the basics of stuff like shield tanking, using keybinds, etc. The current set of changes makes this extremely difficult.
Anyway, in the spirit of reconciliation I'm going to go back to playing the spotlit missions, a few days a week and just let the fleet slow a bit. I have a very small fleet, I'm the driving contributor to most of it, and losing momentum on it worries me in terms of other members. It'll all be ok in the end though.
I'm happy to see this discussion taking a more constructive direction. I apologize for my own negativity in my two previous posts in the other thread, it's not becoming of me or representative of my general demeanor. Tut tut and Cheerio.
Butt Out of the other players mission , mission making , mission style , mission length , mission award .
Don't be another players Daddy . He didn't ask you to be . No one did .
Consider another player's mission , another player's house . Don't mess with it or you will suffer . Badly .
I'm happy to see this discussion taking a more constructive direction. I apologize for my own negativity in my two previous posts in the other thread, it's not becoming of me or representative of my general demeanor. Tut tut and Cheerio.
1. Go back to the 1,480 diliithium payout for IOR and give it a one hour cooldown. Change loot rates to be similar to STF's, 3-4 minor drops and one level appropriate item dropped on completion of the mission. Generally meaning you're gonna get a couple of batteries, one halfway decent console, and an blue-purple Engine/Deflector/Shield. Ya'll get the gist of what I'm talking about.
I really like this idea.
I mean really like this idea.
2. Take all fleet mark rewards out of IOR and put them in STF's. There's not really a logical ingame reason for them to be there in the first place, whereas they make more sense in an STF setting. If I could make as many Fleet Marks playing ISE as doing battleship royal rumble, I'd almost certainly never play grinders again, and be able to give all that time to the spotlit, narrative missions. I'm playing STF's anyway.
3. Change the rating system so that to leave any rating of any kind, you must also leave a small critique, some character limit of two sentences or more. People aren't likely to do this for grinders all the time, and allow them just to leave no rating at all. We'd then perhaps have a situation where the top rated missions and the most played are not mixed up as easily. It's not foolproof, but it might work better then the way it is now.
The rating system has been substandard as an actual way of judging missions since long before the current issues. It has long been something that has needed addressing.
One last thing that I think deserves more attention - is I think the foundry makes a superb training tool. Crom knows the game needs better tutorials.
snip
I saw a few posts in an earlier thread of authors who were making STF tutorials in the foundry who had their missions broken by this change, and I think that's the worst offense in all this. I would like to see the foundry used more to make tutorials for new players, to explain the basics of stuff like shield tanking, using keybinds, etc. The current set of changes makes this extremely difficult.
In case you missed it.
In fact, one of the things I have been talking about with some others is the idea of using the Foundry to do exactly that, expanded tutorial and training missions. A lot of things are possible when people work together.
In this regard, we should get the STF community's input as to what sort of training missions would be helpful, etc etc.
Endless possibilities.
Anyway, in the spirit of reconciliation I'm going to go back to playing the spotlit missions, a few days a week and just let the fleet slow a bit. I have a very small fleet, I'm the driving contributor to most of it, and losing momentum on it worries me in terms of other members. It'll all be ok in the end though.
I'm happy to see this discussion taking a more constructive direction. I apologize for my own negativity in my two previous posts in the other thread, it's not becoming of me or representative of my general demeanor. Tut tut and Cheerio.
We've all been hot headed.
It's not been very becoming for any of us, nor I doubt representative of the sort of intelligent, thoughtful, passionate people we obviously all are.
TBH rewards of any kind should never have been a part of the foundry system as a way to funnel players into the content(see where that got us). It should have just stayed fanfic. By adding rewards of any kind to it instead of actually looking at the various sinks within the game and how they inter-relate was imho short sighted.
Instead Devs should take a good close hard look at the barrier for entry for a new non fleeted lvl 50 and adjust reasonably obtainable rewards to compensate.
What we have now:
Massive dill sinks - check
S6 &7 doing its best to destroy small/medium fleets - check
Time gated/dill gated item sets that used to be rewarded for just playing - check
Exchange speculators driving prices well beyond the price range of a new non-twinked 50 - check
Fleets actively selling the "privlage" of access so the they can pay again for what digital wigit they need - check
Taken seperately each is surmountable; taken as a whole for someone just getting in the game, its an exccelent recipe for an F-this I'll go play *insert*. As STO pursues a f2p model the challenge for Devs will be enticing players to stay (and maby drop $), make a profit and avoid newer players having to stare at seemingly insurmountable walls. Im sure some, not all, of the pushback/grief alot of authors recieved recently stemmed in part from those guys that feel the game is stacked against them and from shear frustration.
I had no real problems with the grinders/clickies largely because it helped imho newer players get within shouting distance of more established toons, and maybe just maybe increase the playerbase. But now that this whole kerfluffle has blown up in everyones faces it might be a good time for the DEVS to actually take a systematic look at what a new player faces. Mmos are cyclic if you cant retain at least some new players as part of the normal churn, you might as well turn the servers off now.
Instead Devs should take a good close hard look at the barrier for entry for a new non fleeted lvl 50 and adjust reasonably obtainable rewards to compensate.
What we have now:
Massive dill sinks - check
S6 &7 doing its best to destroy small/medium fleets - check
Time gated/dill gated item sets that used to be rewarded for just playing - check
Exchange speculators driving prices well beyond the price range of a new non-twinked 50 - check
Fleets actively selling the "privlage" of access so the they can pay again for what digital wigit they need - check
Taken seperately each is surmountable; taken as a whole for someone just getting in the game, its an exccelent recipe for an F-this I'll go play *insert*. As STO pursues a f2p model the challenge for Devs will be enticing players to stay (and maby drop $), make a profit and avoid newer players having to stare at seemingly insurmountable walls. Im sure some, not all, of the pushback/grief alot of authors recieved recently stemmed in part from those guys that feel the game is stacked against them and from shear frustration.
Thank you. The discussion about the grinding is IMO a discussion about the symptoms and not the cause.
2. Take all fleet mark rewards out of IOR and put them in STF's.
No good idea. There are alread so many AFKers in fleet events and STFs. This would encourage them even more.
And it is merely shifting the problem from one area to another.
TBH rewards of any kind should never have been a part of the foundry system as a way to funnel players into the content(see where that got us). It should have just stayed fanfic. By adding rewards of any kind to it instead of actually looking at the various sinks within the game and how they inter-relate was imho short sighted.
Or think of it like this: In order to justify spending money on Foundry programming and graphics, it need to hit certain traffic levels. If it remains the toyfor a few, no devlepment $, no patches -- just left in maintenance mode, maybe few updates. WIth many playing, then it is legitimate to spend budget money on it -- it gets updates and features added.
Which is preferred? Exclusive club or continued support and updates?
Or think of it like this: In order to justify spending money on Foundry programming and graphics, it need to hit certain traffic levels. If it remains the toyfor a few, no devlepment $, no patches -- just left in maintenance mode, maybe few updates. WIth many playing, then it is legitimate to spend budget money on it -- it gets updates and features added.
Which is preferred? Exclusive club or continued support and updates?
So in other words dont do foundries for the story, do them for the rewards...erm..howd that work out?
You cannot force a market, if there is a market for foundry story missions it will get player support. If there is not a market forcing(or coercing-EDIT) an audience will not get you what you want.
Thank you. The discussion about the grinding is IMO a discussion about the symptoms and not the cause.
No good idea. There are alread so many AFKers in fleet events and STFs. This would encourage them even more.
And it is merely shifting the problem from one area to another.
I also think some of the anger voiced at foundry authors who complained really is misplaced. Some folks are mad at us because the grind is too demanding without cheats and exploits. They need the stuff and they lost an easy way to get it for no effort. They don't feel like they're progressing at a reasonable rate.
If the Foundry is the best place to grind, they go there and the Foundry turns into one big grinder with stories buried underneath tons of qrinders. If, however, these players could get the same rewards in exactly 14 minutes doing something different that was repeatable, they'd go there instantly.
The folks who AFK a fleet action obviously don't care about the play experience of the rest of the team. I think they same is true for how much they care about what the AFK missions are doing to Foundry listings.
They care about stuffz and they'll do anything they can to get MOOORE!
You cannot force a market, if there is a market for foundry story missions it will get player support. If there is not a market forcing(or coercing-EDIT) an audience will not get you what you want.
That is something I've been feeling for a while now. Cryptic had a chance to turn STO into an unlimited content story oriented game with a more or less living universe by merging the foundry into the main game. Instead they buried the foundry under clunky and obscure interface and turned the game into G.R.I.N.D. big time! Talking about a wasted opportunity.
The timid creature missions were not "cheating" no one TRIBBLE into the servers and changed the code.
The Authors saw a way to give the player base what they needed and wanted. Quick foundry mission to complete the IOR and get some good EC from it as well.
They only way they were exploiting anything was they found a way around the previous nerf and gave the playerbase the missions they needed to quickly complete IOR with out having to click through pages and pages of text or hunt for simple missions that qualified.
I believe that even if there were seperate listings in the UI to seperate grinders from story, the story Authors still would have been crying for a nurf just due to the majority of players doing the grinders instead and giving 5 stars and DIL tips to people other than them.
I have been following these posts from the start and have seen post over and over from the same 3-4 Authors that started all this saying "A mission that took 10 min to make and has no content should not have 5 stars and be the number one played mission, I spent 3 months on my mission and no one ever plays it, this is unfair"
It seem like the real reason behind all of this was not about a assumed cheat or exploit, it was about certian people didnt like that a grinder was more popluar and had more playes than any mission they ever made.
And so they blackmaled cryptic into Nerfing them. And I say Blackmaled beacuse there were also posts from these authors saying that they would pull thier missions and never contribute again as long as the "exploit" was open.
So now after they have gotten their way. The AFK mission appear and they have a whole other crusade to go after now. It is starting to look like the only missions they want on the Foundry are ones that they approve of and nothing else.
And so they blackmaled cryptic into Nerfing them. And I say Blackmaled beacuse there were also posts from these authors saying that they would pull thier missions and never contribute again as long as the "exploit" was open.
This is the funniest post of the thread. Yeah, we're SO incredibly influential. We've only been screaming for 2 years about needing a transporter pad prop so we don't have to build one out of random junk.
We been screaming for 2 years about needing carpets and ceilings.
But dang, all it takes is threatening to unpublish our missions!
I'm with everyone else, I think there should simply be some type of filtering or sorting so that Story missions can co-exist with Farming missions. If Farming doesn't work for IOR, so be it, though honestly back when the "click the console" quickie existed, I used to do that daily just to get the dilithium out of the way and the daily counter started then I was free to play Story missions in the Foundry and just enjoy them at my own pace when I wanted to. I can understand having a drop limit, as unlimited EC will just further TRIBBLE up the economy. But honestly, the game is turning into so much of a grind to get all the dilithium, the Omega and Romulan marks it takes several hours per day on my main -- there's no way I'm going to do that with an alt now! I have a job and a life, I can't sit here 20hrs a day like some do so I'm totally in favor of having the option to just click a console or spend a couple minutes blowing up timid ships to get a little extra EC or maybe dilithium to toss into my (very small) fleet's starbase.
Along with the Story/Farm sorting, I also think the missions should be sortable for which ones are solo-only, which ones work in a team, and so forth...
I usually agree with everything you say, twg, but I just don't think it's designed well, if the player is given this choice:
"Hey you want 12 cookies? Go play a foundry mission that is at least 15 minutes long. No, you will not get more cookies for playing one of the story missions. They will take you an hour and you will get 12 cookies."
It privileges the shorter combat missions, many of which are slapped together in one evening over the missions that took months to create.
I definitely agree that players will choose the shortest path to the reward as this is what the game has become. Story takes a backseat to the need for resources to get anywhere in the game architecture.
Although this may hurt to hear, most who play the game could care less how much time and effort a person spends making a mission except for maybe those authors. I have dabbled with the foundry but wont wast my time making anything. I really do not care how much time anyone spends designing their missions and probably the majority of players who don't design missions don't care either. This isn't going to change by changing any reward structure and until the game decreases the resource requirements I don't really have time to play hour long missions.
If the foundry rewards change... I'm not going to play longer missions, I'm just going to find some other options in the game to get what I need. If the game gets too labor intensive to obtain the resources needed, I'll just find a new game to play that doesn't leave me frustrated at the end of the day. People want to feel like they are making progress on their starbase, embassy, rep, etc.... when you don't feel like your getting anywhere it takes the joy out of playing which to me is a much bigger problem than the foundry issues going on.
Gold Sub since March 2010
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
If they nerf the foundry like paragon nerfed the architect in coh/v which made about 219 people I know quit, well we all know how that turned out for them.
This is the funniest post of the thread. Yeah, we're SO incredibly influential. We've only been screaming for 2 years about needing a transporter pad prop so we don't have to build one out of random junk.
We been screaming for 2 years about needing carpets and ceilings.
But dang, all it takes it was threatening to unpublish our missions!
This is exactly what you'd want us to think if you weren't secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes. But we're on to you and the tinfoil will protect us from your Satan Rays!
MMO's should work on more then one level. There are more then one type of gamer. Am I a trekky, but with the game going grind (eg Rep systems, accolades, Star Bases) this was one of the only way to get stuff done.
I am in fleet but we rarely have people giving to projects apart from the founding members. We want the stuff and were working full time to get stuff. Why should we be reward for the time and effort we put in?
but let face it, its human nature to want something for free, or to get alot of something that no one else gets. Its power, its rewarding and the meaning we give it, is its value. EC was hard to come by in the game, apart form this way. Took me 6 months to get 20 EC, compared to 40 mill in 3 weeks. Which one would you like more?
I'd be fine with them adding more reward for longer missions. I'd just as happy if authors would put estimated play times in their descriptions so I could decide myself if it was worth my click.
I'd love both at the same time.
This is one of my proposed fixes. Give people a reason to play the longer missions.
I think the use of Foundry for grinding needs to be nipped in the bud entirely. By that I want to be clear that grinders and people who enjoy combat missions are not the same thing.
People who enjoy combat missions are those who like to use those missions to test their builds, or who just enjoy fighting enemies. That actually is a fairly enjoyable part of the game and one of the first things that drew me to it, long before the Foundry existed. So, I fully consider combat missions to be legitimate missions, and people who enjoy them are completely welcome in the Foundry.
A grinder, however, doesn't like combat missions. They don't care about mission types at all. Grinders are only motivated by getting rewards at the fastest rate possible. They don't give a damn about the type of mission they are playing, and will play any sort of mission, provided it gives the best rewards in the shortest amount of time. Tomorrow if STFs or Tau Dewa provided better rewards than Foundry combat missions, they would leave the Foundry and never look back. If longer missions provided better rewards they'd play those instead, have no doubt about it.
That sort of person should not be encouraged to come to the Foundry, and in that regard Foundry rewards need to be toned down. The Foundry can't afford to ever be the best way to grind, because it encourages abuse. And with a UGC system there is always room for abuse. As long as the Foundry is the best way to get fleet marks or dilithium or anything else, we're going to have a situation where there is a huge incentive to abuse the system, and it will be.
The result is going to be a never ending series of nerfs. We've already lost Timid Creatures due to this. Next it can be having friendly groups assist you in fighting enemies. Then it can be invisible walls because it allows you to have two enemy groups fight each other, without the player being involved. While we're at it, Romulans and Klingons and other factions will be nerfed so they don't fight each other-- everything will either be friendly or enemy faction, so forget having a three way battle or anything else. We'll quickly be back to just the player's ship and his boffs against everything. I'm sure there are a whole lot of other possibilities that haven't occurred to me. The Foundry can and will be nerfed right into the ground by following this path.
The better solution is to make it so the Foundry is not the best way to get rewards. It needs to be slightly inferior so that the incentive to try to abuse the system is reduced. It will never be removed entirely, but as long as the Foundry is sub-optimal for grinding, any exploits, or borderline exploits will be more tolerable. Even if we change to rewards based on mission length, if someone wants to sit AFK for 2 hours in a mission, at least they shouldn't be getting resources at a faster rate than through some other means.
I firmly believe this is necessary for the long term good of the Foundry tool. If we stay on the cutting edge of grind, I see no reason why we're not going to eventually losing a lot of the functionality we currently have, simply because in some rare instances it can be abused.
It's either that or Cryptic is going to have to devote someone full time to policing the Foundry, and I'm certain they don't want to do that.
Comments
I just played two of those grind missions to see how the exploit nerf worked.
One was an "E Z Monies! LOL!" mission. I can see why the fans of those are upset. The Timids don't just shoot back now, they shoot back hard. Must have been a shock to their systems. I know it was to mine. Regardless it was boring like the rest of them and a I quit early.
The other one was the famous Battleship Royal Rumble. This is actually good. Challenging. Fun. Weird in a way. All grinders should be like this and it's convinced me even more that having the UI improved and/or loot table voided for timid critters will go a long way to solving all of the current problems.
I'd play it.
I know Jack. He's a great guy. Lot's of fun to hang out with.
Seriously though, you are correct. We have had no statement from the devs regarding what their intentions for the Foundry are, just last minute nerfs that could be construed to mean pretty much anything about what the goal of the of the devs are with the Foundry. Maybe they still don't know and are still forming and/or adjusting their opinion. Maybe there are a lot of discussions going on behind closed doors at Cryptic right now about how to handle the current crisis.
I've read various posts where someone says "Dev A said that this is the intent...", etc, but no supporting documentation. I wouldn't expect someone opposed to my viewpoint to just take my word for something, and vice versa.
Who knows, maybe there is already something coming down the pipe for Season 8 that will put all these issues to rest. I think even a short "we're working on it and will have something soon" from the dev's might help to at least affect a ceasefire.
Bottom line, though, as I've had to remind myself multiple times during the last week, this is just a game. It's not real life.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Apparently you've never come across mistagged TRIBBLE. Hey THIS isnt what I wanted :eek: You are incredibly naive if you think people wont use the most popular tags to get eyes on their missions. Id imagine #TimeTravel would be the most popular tag to use. And saying the system would self correct itself, huh? If there were no rewards, then mistagging is just an annoyance. But with the reward system as it is now, if Cryptic gave us tagging, then the punks mistagging their missions would essentially bury the stuff you are looking for by playing 2-3 mislabeled missions before you got to a good one that really was a time travel mission. Mistagging cant be fixed, but with human reviewers, it could be stopped from getting real rewards.
And for those complaining about a holier than thou council, waiting for ONE man Brandon to spotlight your mission is a better idea? Brandon isnt Jesus either, theres no reason it should just be him determing what gets decent rewards. He's just a responsible Star Trek STO player. Im sure STO has at least 100 people who could be trusted and wouldnt abuse the power knowing Brandon could easily yank it and never give it back.
They could program it where if I was a reviewer, I could only activate rewards for one author every six months. So I couldnt just hook up one guy several times. I could have interest tags on my account, that says I like to play time travel and diplomacy missions, and players can try to get their missions in front of my eyes because I'll get around to playing their mission sooner. There can be a cap, maybe I can only activate rewards for 10 missions a month, and I get my dilithium reward for all 10, or maybe I only got around to activating one mission, and I got dilithium deposited into my account for one mission activated. Make sure Watchers couldnt farm the watcher system either. And if other watchers and players saw I was handing out reward activation to any ol sorry mission, I get reported to Brandon, he sees Im not taking my review job seriously, and he yanks my powers never to get them back and pass them on to someone else.
And remember, guys like Alimac dont have to wait for a reviewer for their missions to get rewards on it instantly. Those author accounts are privileged and trusted to activate rewards themselves, unless they are caught abusing that, and it gets yanked from them. The inflow of quality missions getting regular rewards and XP would be higher and in a few months, plenty to sift through if you needed extra content beyond what Cryptic can produce in the same amount of time. Then maybe anything Brandon anoints himself can be called Super Spotlighted, with a big MK XII reward given to it or something. Remember, all Im saying is player reviewers are activating foundry missions to act like their Cryptic counterparts in rewarding XP and loot based on rank.
Yeah, if I were a reviewer, Id be a tough grader. I wouldnt activate your mission if your spelling and grammar sucked. In real life, you dont submit crappy work to your English teacher, they dont make REALLY awful scripts into movies (usually). And so if 1 in 100 missions are reward activated, thats ok, because only the quality Foundry missions deserve to get rewards like real Cryptic missions. Theres a spotlighted mission I didnt care for, "A Splint in Time". It actually annoyed me as I played it. But, it was decently written and built. Maybe if I didnt want to use one of my 10 activations this month on it, Id pass it along to another reviewer to get a second opinion on it faster. Yeah, personal tastes would rule the "council" but thats ok, if only one guy likes it and another 9 dislike it, maybe it shouldnt get rewards and tell the author to make revisions. But its easier to program against council corruption by limiting the missions they activate rewards for a month and what author accounts they can do it for a month than it is to program against the exploit missions getting rewards the "council" is there to stop.
Ive got the perfect farming mission. Ambassador Picard had to take an unscheduled trip off planet. He needs you to go work his vineyards to get this years vintage of Chateau Picard to market. And you have to go press F 300 times by walking up to 300 different vines for each button press. :P Hey, no crazier than the snowpile grind I did to get my jackets. Actually, Im sure I pressed F WAY over 300 times just for four jackets for four toons. So make that 1000 vines a mission to drop 10 green food items
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
So instead , what we have today is a group of "true foundry authors" who have huddled together and decided that they know what's best for the entire population of the game (as far as Foundry is concerned) , and decided to make their demands heard loudly ... , through postings , twitter , and a podcast or two .
What did they thus far managed to achieve ?
- Getting "clicky's" banned
- Halting many fleets progress
- Creating a divide -- no scratch that -- creating a chasm between Foundry users (those who create missions)
- Managed to become disliked by a great many players -- and doing so instead of the "one star bandit" now they face a "one star army" who act purely out of spite and at this rate will drown new high quality story missions .
- An let's not forget their latest accomplishment , the 'Timid creatures now fight back when attacked' bit .
Now at this point I could just re-tell my earlier stance (when the "clicky's war" raged ) that ppl need to learn to just butt out of other people's business , and live and let live , but at this point we are well under way to the hoards coming to pay a visit to the 300 Spartans who could just not live well enough alone .
(* but in our version , it was the self righteous Spartans who started it)
So let me put this in a simpler fashion :
The foundry had problems from lack "proper" of use before (simply because it was not attractive enough by itself as it was ) .
If those self righteous continue on their path to "justice" , they will ruin Foundry not only by their actions , but their lack of concern to the reactions and consequences of their actions .
Many a time has history proven that one tracked minded zealots caused more harm then good . I doubt this will be different .
And on their way to achieving this "pure story heaven" , these zelouts , some driven my their "interpretations of Dev/Foundry intent" will bury the "good" that was left in the Foundry community all the while singeing the general STO population time and time again (just as they have done in the past) .
Please do not attempt to bait people into further flaming and fighting.
This is about a community working together to try and solve an issue that affects us all.
If you have something to add.
maybe some comment about how something proposed earlier in the thread might work or not work, please add it. Absolutely all constructive ideas are welcome.
Baiting and Trolling are not.
If you read through the thread there are a good number of very good ideas being presented by people formerly on opposite sides of the argument.
This is not Us vs Them.
It is a game we all enjoy and would like to see be better.
More can be accomplished as a community than by fighting.
Again, I invite you to join the thread with constructive ideas.
Have a Great Day
- John
You have become quick to label others' well-intentioned suggestions and interpretations of events as trolling and have issued many warnings of your own of late. You are not sole judge of what is constructive. Please leave the warnings to moderators as it inhibits open discussion. Thank you.
Oh give hima break, he's decided to put on the white hat after the last fewweeks of closedthreads and a generous amout of public warnings with no repercussion.
You don't like me, I get it.
That doesn't mean that a constructive discussion cannot be had.
We are as I described above, as a community, in a position where many people who want to play and enjoy the game in different ways, do not have information from Cryptic as to the intended design of the tool called the Foundry.
Once we have that information , as a community, we can actually work together to craft solutions to the what is by now (to me at least) an obvious UI problem. We can work together to create the kinds of missions that everyone enjoys.
Posts like the one, I commented on above, that do nothing toward solving that problem, but continue with the name calling and assumptions about each other, do nothing toward building a community that can solve a problem.
I understand that people still have a need to do that. To continue to demonize each other.
All I am asking is that they go do it somewhere else.
I am done calling other people cheaters or exploiters or whatever.
We're all just players, and we should be focusing on how to help each other have the game we enjoy.
Perhaps I am just an idealistic old hippie, but I believe we can accomplish more together than we can continuing to fight.
I politely request again.
Please keep name calling and arguing away.
The more we stay focused on constructive discussion, the more we can accomplish.
Once again I more than welcome constructive ideas from everyone.
Have A Great Day
a) Stop calling ppl trolls . No one takes you seriously when you continue to do that .
b) I did give you advice .
You just either did not see it , or chose to ignore it .
c) When you doggedly refuse to recognize the source(s) of your problems , do you really think you will arrive at a correct conclusion ?
You talk about "we the community" -- just who are you talking about here ?
Players in general or circles of the Foundry community , or
(group A) who believe that the Foundry has been "stolen" from them ?
(group
To me it seems that you fail to recognize , discuss and admit the failings of each group , and thus you fail to come close to my simple yet elegant solution :
Butt Out of the other players mission , mission making , mission style , mission length , mission award .
Don't be another players Daddy . He didn't ask you to be . No one did .
Consider another player's mission , another player's house . Don't mess with it or you will suffer . Badly .
That's easy enough to remember , right ?
After all , you remember it in RL ... , don't you ?
distilling from your post, it seems that your suggestion is simply that nothing change except that we all just leave each other alone, and ignore the idea of working together.
Thank you for your suggestion.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~BranFlakes
Yes, I would agree with almost all of this. Where I would differ is that I'm ok with Cryptic not taking a position on the foundry provided they don't just come in as bolts from the blue to tell us we're doing it wrong. One of the things that I love about this game is how, as one of my fleetmates put it "lawless" the game is. I realize I am probably in a minority here, as I seen no shortage of posts and ingame chat asking for certain skills to be nerfed, certain fleets to be banned etc. I don't know whether the devs tend to be so hands off because they too share my anarchist ideals or just because they are understaffed and can't devote time to things that aren't gamebreaking. Maybe a little of both? I would be happy with almost zero regulation of the game, and I applaud the devs for staying as hands off as they do.
This issue (can I call it a "saga" yet?) is really a case study in how when well meaning powers that be do get involved, they tend to make things worse, not through their own failings, but really because of the diverse nature of players in this game. It's why their handling of the foundry with something less then neutrality this last week disturbed me. Leave it be. We'll all be better in the long run. I genuinely believe that.
Because of the controversy these actions have created I doubt that's going to happen, I would expect another change or two as they try to find something that's a better fit for more players. So in the spirit of lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness, here's somethings I think might work better in the long term:
1. Go back to the 1,480 diliithium payout for IOR and give it a one hour cooldown. Change loot rates to be similar to STF's, 3-4 minor drops and one level appropriate item dropped on completion of the mission. Generally meaning you're gonna get a couple of batteries, one halfway decent console, and an blue-purple Engine/Deflector/Shield. Ya'll get the gist of what I'm talking about.
2. Take all fleet mark rewards out of IOR and put them in STF's. There's not really a logical ingame reason for them to be there in the first place, whereas they make more sense in an STF setting. If I could make as many Fleet Marks playing ISE as doing battleship royal rumble, I'd almost certainly never play grinders again, and be able to give all that time to the spotlit, narrative missions. I'm playing STF's anyway.
3. Change the rating system so that to leave any rating of any kind, you must also leave a small critique, some character limit of two sentences or more. People aren't likely to do this for grinders all the time, and allow them just to leave no rating at all. We'd then perhaps have a situation where the top rated missions and the most played are not mixed up as easily. It's not foolproof, but it might work better then the way it is now.
I think perhaps something like that would be painful at first, but perhaps in the long term it would work best. I just personally hate the idea of any tools being taken away or limited, for players or authors, in principle. Such measures ultimately stifle creativity. I do have the ambition to make a story mission of my own when I have time, I'm sympathetic to the concerns they have. I also realize that my weird psychedelic vision of star trek doesn't appeal to many (I'm much more Grant Morrison then Gene Roddenberry), and it certainly appeals less to the grind and dps order of this games present state. That's ok. I'd rather us all be able to do what we want then some of us lose out.
One last thing that I think deserves more attention - is I think the foundry makes a superb training tool. Crom knows the game needs better tutorials. When I first learned how to fly an escort I would go into one of the old romulan space accolade missions, where you summon wave after wave of those swine. And in doing so I learned how not to die, how to maneuver, etc so I didn't go stink up STF's for everyone. Even recently, when I got the new romulan hyper plasma torpedo of pyromaniac ecstasy, I took it in the foundry to test before equipping it in public. The foundry has been a constant tool for me to use in this way, i've spent untold hours testing out builds in there. I saw a few posts in an earlier thread of authors who were making STF tutorials in the foundry who had their missions broken by this change, and I think that's the worst offense in all this. I would like to see the foundry used more to make tutorials for new players, to explain the basics of stuff like shield tanking, using keybinds, etc. The current set of changes makes this extremely difficult.
Anyway, in the spirit of reconciliation I'm going to go back to playing the spotlit missions, a few days a week and just let the fleet slow a bit. I have a very small fleet, I'm the driving contributor to most of it, and losing momentum on it worries me in terms of other members. It'll all be ok in the end though.
I'm happy to see this discussion taking a more constructive direction. I apologize for my own negativity in my two previous posts in the other thread, it's not becoming of me or representative of my general demeanor. Tut tut and Cheerio.
^ this x10
Nerfing loot is a total and complete non-starter.
We can all agree on UI changes.
I really like this idea.
I mean really like this idea.
This makes tons of sense.
The rating system has been substandard as an actual way of judging missions since long before the current issues. It has long been something that has needed addressing.
That's kind of the idea here.
More voices, more ideas, better solutions.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=7865141&postcount=4
In case you missed it.
In fact, one of the things I have been talking about with some others is the idea of using the Foundry to do exactly that, expanded tutorial and training missions. A lot of things are possible when people work together.
In this regard, we should get the STF community's input as to what sort of training missions would be helpful, etc etc.
Endless possibilities.
We've all been hot headed.
It's not been very becoming for any of us, nor I doubt representative of the sort of intelligent, thoughtful, passionate people we obviously all are.
Thank you.
Cheerio back at cha.
Instead Devs should take a good close hard look at the barrier for entry for a new non fleeted lvl 50 and adjust reasonably obtainable rewards to compensate.
What we have now:
Massive dill sinks - check
S6 &7 doing its best to destroy small/medium fleets - check
Time gated/dill gated item sets that used to be rewarded for just playing - check
Exchange speculators driving prices well beyond the price range of a new non-twinked 50 - check
Fleets actively selling the "privlage" of access so the they can pay again for what digital wigit they need - check
Taken seperately each is surmountable; taken as a whole for someone just getting in the game, its an exccelent recipe for an F-this I'll go play *insert*. As STO pursues a f2p model the challenge for Devs will be enticing players to stay (and maby drop $), make a profit and avoid newer players having to stare at seemingly insurmountable walls. Im sure some, not all, of the pushback/grief alot of authors recieved recently stemmed in part from those guys that feel the game is stacked against them and from shear frustration.
I had no real problems with the grinders/clickies largely because it helped imho newer players get within shouting distance of more established toons, and maybe just maybe increase the playerbase. But now that this whole kerfluffle has blown up in everyones faces it might be a good time for the DEVS to actually take a systematic look at what a new player faces. Mmos are cyclic if you cant retain at least some new players as part of the normal churn, you might as well turn the servers off now.
Thank you. The discussion about the grinding is IMO a discussion about the symptoms and not the cause.
No good idea. There are alread so many AFKers in fleet events and STFs. This would encourage them even more.
And it is merely shifting the problem from one area to another.
Or think of it like this: In order to justify spending money on Foundry programming and graphics, it need to hit certain traffic levels. If it remains the toyfor a few, no devlepment $, no patches -- just left in maintenance mode, maybe few updates. WIth many playing, then it is legitimate to spend budget money on it -- it gets updates and features added.
Which is preferred? Exclusive club or continued support and updates?
So in other words dont do foundries for the story, do them for the rewards...erm..howd that work out?
You cannot force a market, if there is a market for foundry story missions it will get player support. If there is not a market forcing(or coercing-EDIT) an audience will not get you what you want.
I also think some of the anger voiced at foundry authors who complained really is misplaced. Some folks are mad at us because the grind is too demanding without cheats and exploits. They need the stuff and they lost an easy way to get it for no effort. They don't feel like they're progressing at a reasonable rate.
If the Foundry is the best place to grind, they go there and the Foundry turns into one big grinder with stories buried underneath tons of qrinders. If, however, these players could get the same rewards in exactly 14 minutes doing something different that was repeatable, they'd go there instantly.
The folks who AFK a fleet action obviously don't care about the play experience of the rest of the team. I think they same is true for how much they care about what the AFK missions are doing to Foundry listings.
They care about stuffz and they'll do anything they can to get MOOORE!
That is something I've been feeling for a while now. Cryptic had a chance to turn STO into an unlimited content story oriented game with a more or less living universe by merging the foundry into the main game. Instead they buried the foundry under clunky and obscure interface and turned the game into G.R.I.N.D. big time! Talking about a wasted opportunity.
The Authors saw a way to give the player base what they needed and wanted. Quick foundry mission to complete the IOR and get some good EC from it as well.
They only way they were exploiting anything was they found a way around the previous nerf and gave the playerbase the missions they needed to quickly complete IOR with out having to click through pages and pages of text or hunt for simple missions that qualified.
I believe that even if there were seperate listings in the UI to seperate grinders from story, the story Authors still would have been crying for a nurf just due to the majority of players doing the grinders instead and giving 5 stars and DIL tips to people other than them.
I have been following these posts from the start and have seen post over and over from the same 3-4 Authors that started all this saying "A mission that took 10 min to make and has no content should not have 5 stars and be the number one played mission, I spent 3 months on my mission and no one ever plays it, this is unfair"
It seem like the real reason behind all of this was not about a assumed cheat or exploit, it was about certian people didnt like that a grinder was more popluar and had more playes than any mission they ever made.
And so they blackmaled cryptic into Nerfing them. And I say Blackmaled beacuse there were also posts from these authors saying that they would pull thier missions and never contribute again as long as the "exploit" was open.
So now after they have gotten their way. The AFK mission appear and they have a whole other crusade to go after now. It is starting to look like the only missions they want on the Foundry are ones that they approve of and nothing else.
This is the funniest post of the thread. Yeah, we're SO incredibly influential. We've only been screaming for 2 years about needing a transporter pad prop so we don't have to build one out of random junk.
We been screaming for 2 years about needing carpets and ceilings.
But dang, all it takes is threatening to unpublish our missions!
Along with the Story/Farm sorting, I also think the missions should be sortable for which ones are solo-only, which ones work in a team, and so forth...
I definitely agree that players will choose the shortest path to the reward as this is what the game has become. Story takes a backseat to the need for resources to get anywhere in the game architecture.
Although this may hurt to hear, most who play the game could care less how much time and effort a person spends making a mission except for maybe those authors. I have dabbled with the foundry but wont wast my time making anything. I really do not care how much time anyone spends designing their missions and probably the majority of players who don't design missions don't care either. This isn't going to change by changing any reward structure and until the game decreases the resource requirements I don't really have time to play hour long missions.
If the foundry rewards change... I'm not going to play longer missions, I'm just going to find some other options in the game to get what I need. If the game gets too labor intensive to obtain the resources needed, I'll just find a new game to play that doesn't leave me frustrated at the end of the day. People want to feel like they are making progress on their starbase, embassy, rep, etc.... when you don't feel like your getting anywhere it takes the joy out of playing which to me is a much bigger problem than the foundry issues going on.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
This is exactly what you'd want us to think if you weren't secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes. But we're on to you and the tinfoil will protect us from your Satan Rays!
I am in fleet but we rarely have people giving to projects apart from the founding members. We want the stuff and were working full time to get stuff. Why should we be reward for the time and effort we put in?
but let face it, its human nature to want something for free, or to get alot of something that no one else gets. Its power, its rewarding and the meaning we give it, is its value. EC was hard to come by in the game, apart form this way. Took me 6 months to get 20 EC, compared to 40 mill in 3 weeks. Which one would you like more?
My character Tsin'xing
People who enjoy combat missions are those who like to use those missions to test their builds, or who just enjoy fighting enemies. That actually is a fairly enjoyable part of the game and one of the first things that drew me to it, long before the Foundry existed. So, I fully consider combat missions to be legitimate missions, and people who enjoy them are completely welcome in the Foundry.
A grinder, however, doesn't like combat missions. They don't care about mission types at all. Grinders are only motivated by getting rewards at the fastest rate possible. They don't give a damn about the type of mission they are playing, and will play any sort of mission, provided it gives the best rewards in the shortest amount of time. Tomorrow if STFs or Tau Dewa provided better rewards than Foundry combat missions, they would leave the Foundry and never look back. If longer missions provided better rewards they'd play those instead, have no doubt about it.
That sort of person should not be encouraged to come to the Foundry, and in that regard Foundry rewards need to be toned down. The Foundry can't afford to ever be the best way to grind, because it encourages abuse. And with a UGC system there is always room for abuse. As long as the Foundry is the best way to get fleet marks or dilithium or anything else, we're going to have a situation where there is a huge incentive to abuse the system, and it will be.
The result is going to be a never ending series of nerfs. We've already lost Timid Creatures due to this. Next it can be having friendly groups assist you in fighting enemies. Then it can be invisible walls because it allows you to have two enemy groups fight each other, without the player being involved. While we're at it, Romulans and Klingons and other factions will be nerfed so they don't fight each other-- everything will either be friendly or enemy faction, so forget having a three way battle or anything else. We'll quickly be back to just the player's ship and his boffs against everything. I'm sure there are a whole lot of other possibilities that haven't occurred to me. The Foundry can and will be nerfed right into the ground by following this path.
The better solution is to make it so the Foundry is not the best way to get rewards. It needs to be slightly inferior so that the incentive to try to abuse the system is reduced. It will never be removed entirely, but as long as the Foundry is sub-optimal for grinding, any exploits, or borderline exploits will be more tolerable. Even if we change to rewards based on mission length, if someone wants to sit AFK for 2 hours in a mission, at least they shouldn't be getting resources at a faster rate than through some other means.
I firmly believe this is necessary for the long term good of the Foundry tool. If we stay on the cutting edge of grind, I see no reason why we're not going to eventually losing a lot of the functionality we currently have, simply because in some rare instances it can be abused.
It's either that or Cryptic is going to have to devote someone full time to policing the Foundry, and I'm certain they don't want to do that.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.