Why bother writing new missions for the Foundry?

newplayerguy7

I mean seriously, why bother?

With the way the current inteface works, only 50 missions will ever show - and those 50 missions are now set in stone with the idiotic 'weighting' system in place - setting up a classic Catch 22 scenario: How do I get my mission on the shown 50 list? Get lots of plays. How do I get lots of plays? Have your mission on the shown 50 list.:rolleyes:

The missions currently listed will get 'heavier' and 'heavier' in the weighting system because for the vast majority of players out there, these are the only missions they find in the Foundry. Those 1000's and 1000's of plays will (and has!) guaranteed that they will NEVER move off the list.

So again, why bother with any more missions in the Foundry?

We have what we have - and that is all we will ever have at this point.

It's so sad that there are litterally 1000's of missions rotting away because of the way the 'gateway' to them is so badly put together...and then on top of that, additionally crippled with the 'weighting' system.

The old listing method was far from perfect, but at least it gave new missions a chance at life.

With the way things stand now, they might as well just shut down mission making altogether - as apparently we are supposed to be happy with just 50 missions - and the same 50 missions - to play until the game shuts down many years from now.

:(:(

drogyn1701

You have to ask yourself this question: "Why do I make missions?" That's something each person is going to have to answer for themselves.

Mine is: because I enjoy it. I don't really care if my mission has 1 play or 1,000, as long as I liked making it, whether anyone likes playing it is icing on the cake.

That's just me though. If you care about getting plays, well then you're really going to have to go barnstorming to get people to go searching for it. Here's the thing people often forget, for a lot of us it has never exactly been easy to get plays. You can't just publish a mission and expect it to get plays just by virtue of being there. Authors have always had to put in effort to get the word out on their mission to get plays since the beginning of the Foundry.

kirksplat

I do care whether I get 1 or 1000 plays. It's not fun being a storyteller without an audience, even if the audience is a small dive bar.

I agree that it has become debilitating. We need a next button to browse what else is out there.

And, honestly, "barnstorming" has become rather ineffective when the UI is what it is. I've said it before, because it's true: Shatner himself could tweet about my mission. I'd get far more plays if players could simply see it by browsing without a custom search for my name or the name of my mission.

I don't agree that it will always be this way and that it is what it is. But, right now, it's very difficult to feel motivated to make another mission.

drogyn1701

If there was a "next" button, would people use it? In the old days how many people scrolled down past the first 50 missions on the list?

kirksplat

drogyn1701 wrote: »

If there was a "next" button, would people use it? In the old days how many people scrolled down past the first 50 missions on the list?

I feel like that's sort of like asking, "How many people click page 2 of Google search results? How many people view more than the top 3 advertised spots?

I know that I do. I'm pretty sure that a lot of folks do also. Of course, I lack the evidence to support that assumption.

Browsing has always been about page-turning, leafing through, and scanning a full issue of something.

drogyn1701

Sure, and I don't have numbers either. I agree we should have one, but a next button isn't going to magically solve the "how do I get plays" problem that has existed since the beginning of the Foundry. It has always been difficult to stand out from the crowd of missions, and I agree it is probably more difficult now. There is no silver bullet that will suddenly get 1,000 plays for every story mission.

lincolninspace

I have 2 projects in construction right now. My published mission has a bug that makes it difficult to qualify for rewards. After I finish those 2 mission I may not bother making another.

My point is we as authors already have enough hurdles getting our missions played including bugs.

kirksplat

drogyn1701 wrote: »

Sure, and I don't have numbers either. I agree we should have one, but a next button isn't going to magically solve the "how do I get plays" problem that has existed since the beginning of the Foundry. It has always been difficult to stand out from the crowd of missions, and I agree it is probably more difficult now. There is no silver bullet that will suddenly get 1,000 plays for every story mission.

I agree that it's always an uphill challenge. The slope of the hill matters a lot. Right now, I look at the hill and see a vertical brick wall.

So, the question of "Is it worth it to try?" seems relevant. It has gotten to the point where all of us are standing and staring at the wall, when occasionally a contest offers a chance for a gatekeeper to open the door for one person to pass through. We scramble like a mob fighting for a scrap of bread and the chance to get to the other side.

I feel like there is a difference between trying to be positive about the realities of an uphill battle, in which there is some degree of reasonable upward mobility and trying to be positive about a system designed in a way that completely hinders upward mobility and anything resembling a middle strata.

This design is debilitating, restrictive, and disheartening. There is no silver bullet, but taking a sledge hammer to that wall is pretty tempting.

drogyn1701

So hypothetically redesign it then. What's the perfect system that allows every mission to get the plays it deserves? Not being sarcastic. I'm really asking. Let's brainstorm.

For instance I've always maintained that the Foundry needs to be more integrated into the larger game world. One thing I'd like to see a system where anytime you pull up to a star system, there's a button that you can click on that says "Foundry" and it comes up with a list of every mission that starts at that star system that you can then browse through if you so choose.

zorbane

I have two ideas I was gonna write about when I had the time.

1. Additional reward for playing a new Foundry mission (the mission must also qualify for rewards)

2. Having a button in Sector Space where you can "hail" someone who gives you a random selection of foundry missions in that Sector Block. This can also be added to specific social maps and integrate point 1 too (new missions only checkbox?). It's similar to Drogyn's idea about it being integrated but mostly stealing from Neverwinter (which is good because you can steal their tech.)

kirksplat

There is no perfect system of course. But I think common sense would support a few principles:

1. Players should be able to randomly browse Foundry content without a keyword search. If there are 3 pages of new missions, then the UI needs to give a player the ability to browse all three pages of new missions. If there are 5000 missions from best to worst rating, then I should be able to patiently and diligently scroll through what is out there.

2. Custom search features should not be hidden in the UI. I wonder how many players don't even know that they can do a custom search, let alone a custom search for average star ratings, playtime, etc.

3. The ability to subscribe to an author. Yes, always talked about, and may be implemented, if they didn't just trash it when it turned out to be buggy.

4. More integration into the game. I don't think it will ever happen, but your suggestion is good, as far as being in a specific place and being able to browse what missions start in that system.

5. A "more missions by this author" button in the review box. If I'm impressed by a mission that I just played, then it should be a one-click process to see what that author has also published.

6. A weighting system that doesn't baffle everyone involved. I won't pretend to understand the complex probability equations, etc. It just seems like everyone hates it and doesn't understand why their mission with an average score of 4.2 is much lower than one with lesser plays, with an avg score of 3.9.

Those are a few suggestions that might help, but the bottom line for me: Give players a way to browse what is out there without a custom search.

drogyn1701

See now we're talking

zorbane

kirksplat wrote: »

...

3. The ability to subscribe to an author. Yes, always talked about, and may be implemented, if they didn't just trash it when it turned out to be buggy.
...

What happened to this?

jodarkrider

drogyn1701 wrote: »

If there was a "next" button, would people use it? In the old days how many people scrolled down past the first 50 missions on the list?

I would use it. As someone, who enjoys playing Foundry missions, I would love to check some of the less exposed ones, so next button would be great.

kirksplat

zorbane wrote: »

What happened to this?

In the Stoked radio Geko interview, Geko said something like "the ability to follow an author was part of S8, but it was removed for some reasons." I don't know if that meant it's in there but just not ready or if it went the way of the dodo like other stuff that got yanked simply because it would be too much work to polish it.

catstarsto

What about an author search, One where you can bring down a list of all of the authors that have submitted something? Alphabetized!

Message to the Devs: i will have this cat speak in native tongue to tell you how I feel on the subject... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSA6kxlUn64

drogyn1701

jodarkrider wrote: »

I would use it. As someone, who enjoys playing Foundry missions, I would love to check some of the less exposed ones, so next button would be great.

Then you, sir, are exactly the kind of person we need playing missions. I wish there were 100,000 more just like you, cause I don't think there are that many now.

If I remember correctly, Geko said follow author wasn't working correctly and thus didn't make it in for Season 8 launch. He did not say that it would never get in.

Author search is available. If you go to custom search there's a field where you can search by author name.

jellico1

Foundry missions should support the game

dozens of new sectors should be added with systems and planets to explore

and foundry missions of exploration defense colonu buildingRescue so on and so forth added to each system and in sector space

Rewards verses time added to each mission equal to the STFs

Cryptic should make (( tools available )) so authors can make the planets in these new systems

and the citys
and the space stations and everything else

Then cryptic reviews it and publishs it

Cryptic shoots its own foot every day it doesnt do this

zorbane

catstarsto wrote: »

What about an author search, One where you can bring down a list of all of the authors that have submitted something? Alphabetized!

Message to the Devs: i will have this cat speak in native tongue to tell you how I feel on the subject... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSA6kxlUn64

There is an author search. You can either type the author's full name into the main "Title" search box or open the custom filter and type in a partial name in author to search for it

zorbane

jellico1 wrote: »

...

Then cryptic reviews it and publishs it

Cryptic shoots its own foot every day it doesnt do this

Good ideas but Cryptic doesn't have the resources to review every foundry mission

crypticarmsman

drogyn1701 wrote: »

You have to ask yourself this question: "Why do I make missions?" That's something each person is going to have to answer for themselves.

Mine is: because I enjoy it. I don't really care if my mission has 1 play or 1,000, as long as I liked making it, whether anyone likes playing it is icing on the cake.

That's just me though. If you care about getting plays, well then you're really going to have to go barnstorming to get people to go searching for it. Here's the thing people often forget, for a lot of us it has never exactly been easy to get plays. You can't just publish a mission and expect it to get plays just by virtue of being there. Authors have always had to put in effort to get the word out on their mission to get plays since the beginning of the Foundry.

QFT for me. Before all the reward changes, the spotlights, the 'new' arbitrarily 'weighted' star system (that displays a lower overall star rating based on the total amount of playthroughs - SUPPOSEDLY designed to keep 'grind' missions from getting 5 stars automatically and rising to the top <--- Yeah, that worked well as they get the most plays and are at the top; and let me be clear I'm NOT against 'grinders', but more the poorly thought out and implemented systems that hurt more then help ANY Foundry author.

When it was just the days of the Foundry wrapper missions ( 3 for 1440 Dil) both missions I've done rated around 4 stars and got minimum 2 to 3 plays a week. Now a days, I'm lucky if I see one or two plays a month.

novapolaris

zorbane wrote: »

Good ideas but Cryptic doesn't have the resources to review every foundry mission

Wouldn't it work better if players reviewed and voted, then the top voted ones get reviewed by Cryptic for use?

drogyn1701

crypticarmsman wrote: »

SUPPOSEDLY designed to keep 'grind' missions from getting 5 stars automatically and rising to the top

As I understand it, the system was put in to prevent missions with one five-star rating from being catapulted to the top ahead of missions that have vetted by hundreds/thousands of players.

confedinblue

I haven't yet messed around with creating a Foundry mission, but I am looking forward to it once they get it working again.

One simple solution would be to be able to sort by newest missions, much like looking at newest posts on this forum.

I know that if I were playing a lot of Foundry missions, it would be a great way to stumble onto something new all the time--and that could be a way for new Foundry missions to get the exposure to end up in the top 50.

Yeah, the current mechanism kinda sucks. On Youtube, you can get a video go viral and get a million hits in short order--but with the current mechanism for the Foundry, a spectacular mission will never see the light of day because the older missions are already established and have been weighted to stay up front.

Not that it's bad that these are easily accessible--sometimes it's good to make the old favorites easy to get to. But that occasional new winner should be accessible, too, to keep the mission list fresh. A button to pull up the latest additions would definitely help with that.

zorbane

There's a "new mission" drop down that only shows you new ones (what the definition of a new mission is I don't know)

The fact that people who post here don't know that there's alternate ways to search for missions gives me little hope that the average player will know how to use the tagging system.

crypticarmsman

zorbane wrote: »

There's a "new mission" drop down that only shows you new ones (what the definition of a new mission is I don't know)

The fact that people who post here don't know that there's alternate ways to search for missions gives me little hope that the average player will know how to use the tagging system.

Oh, I'm aware that there are indeed alternate methods of searching - but for non-authors, and rank and file players just searching for content, the majority will just go with what they see on the first list that pops up (in fact they're more conditioned to do just that by the wat the base STO PvE queuing system works.

Pretty much, if your Foundry mission isn't a know good 'grinder' for XP/rewards or hasn't been spotlighted by PWE_Branflakes <--- The single, last and final arbiter of whAt is 'best' with regard to a Foundry mission, you WON'T see your mission played much, period. (With a few exceptions of course, those being the authors who did manage to work hard, and do stuff the STO community did like, effectively making a 'name' for themselves as good Foundry authors; but in general, I do think my point stands.)

borrowedtune

You guys are coming at this all wrong. If you want to get Cryptic's attention, then your solutions should be about monetizing the Foundry. Paid ingame advertisements. Unlocking assets with zen. Ways to increase the overall grind. Stuff like that.

lincolninspace

zorbane wrote: »

There's a "new mission" drop down that only shows you new ones (what the definition of a new mission is I don't know)

The fact that people who post here don't know that there's alternate ways to search for missions gives me little hope that the average player will know how to use the tagging system.

Yup. Until I put on my hairshirt and joined the foundry community I did not know how to use the foundry interface to the full. It is not as intuitive as google. It would help the community if all foundry players and authors checked the box and became reviewers. I find story content is easier to find in the review listings.


Sadly borrowedtune is right. The player base have weighed in. The majority only play foundry for exploits and grinders so there is little money to be made in the foundry. That is why so little salaried time is devoted to working on the foundry.

Unknown

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markhawkman

drogyn1701 wrote: »

So hypothetically redesign it then. What's the perfect system that allows every mission to get the plays it deserves? Not being sarcastic. I'm really asking. Let's brainstorm.

For instance I've always maintained that the Foundry needs to be more integrated into the larger game world. One thing I'd like to see a system where anytime you pull up to a star system, there's a button that you can click on that says "Foundry" and it comes up with a list of every mission that starts at that star system that you can then browse through if you so choose.

Yeah, the most annoying thing about finding foundry missions is how you have to search the database. Neverwinter makes finding missions a LOT easier!

zorbane

markhawkman wrote: »

Yeah, the most annoying thing about finding foundry missions is how you have to search the database. Neverwinter makes finding missions a LOT easier!

How is it different there?