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Random Foundry Mission Option?
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I'm not sure if this has been talked about before as I don't use Foundry on Tribble (I will be using it when it hits Holodeck), but even if it was, i feel its quite an important issue that needs to be raised.
So I was watching an episode of STOked about a week ago, and they raised a very important issue about the Foundry, most of the community will only play the top ten or so highest rated missions, meaning that a lot of people's projects will not get fair recognition, and highest rated doesn't necessarily mean you'll like it (it could have very well been given high ratings by the authors friends despite it being a load of Targ excrement).
So how do we avoid this problem, do we pour over lower rated missions? No, we'll still be selective and only look at ones that seem to appeal to us, and because something seems like its good when you pick up the mission doesn't necessarily mean it'll be fun to play, and the same is true vice-versa.
I've taken the week to think about this, and so far the best thing I can come up with is an option where a mission they are eligible for is chosen at random, the idea being that if someone doesn't know what to choose or simply can't be bothered to pour over 200+ Foundry missions, they can click on a button and a mission will be chosen for them.
Now obviously, there are certain things to consider, mainly that random chance tends to be...well...random chance, there is always the risk that you could end up with the same mission as before, and that can be annoying, so some kind of measure needs to be implemented to make sure that a person does not end up with the same mission he doesn't like three times in a row.
The most obvious option is to allow the player to click the random choice multiple times in the space of a day lets say once every 30 mins for now). this can help lessen the problem as you are bound to get a different mission eventually. However, this does not eliminate the problem entirely.
Another option is to make it so that whenever a player searches a mission and plays it, that mission will be omitted from that player's random choices for a set amount of searches, this may seem a bit more difficult to implement, but it completely eliminates the problem of getting the same mission multiple times in a row.
A third option is quite simple, use both of the aforementioned methods in conjunction with each other, with this you get the best of both worlds, but it would possibly be the most time consuming to implement. However, I'd be willing to wait a while for this to be implemented and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
That is my two Tribbles, pease leave comments below, constructive criticism is welcomed, flaming will be fervently ignored so don't do it, ask any questions and I will do my best to answer them (though you'll get a better chance of being answered if you PM me in-game as I cannot answer every question on here). If you have any ideas for different systems or improvements to this then please tell me and I will take note of everything I can.
So I was watching an episode of STOked about a week ago, and they raised a very important issue about the Foundry, most of the community will only play the top ten or so highest rated missions, meaning that a lot of people's projects will not get fair recognition, and highest rated doesn't necessarily mean you'll like it (it could have very well been given high ratings by the authors friends despite it being a load of Targ excrement).
So how do we avoid this problem, do we pour over lower rated missions? No, we'll still be selective and only look at ones that seem to appeal to us, and because something seems like its good when you pick up the mission doesn't necessarily mean it'll be fun to play, and the same is true vice-versa.
I've taken the week to think about this, and so far the best thing I can come up with is an option where a mission they are eligible for is chosen at random, the idea being that if someone doesn't know what to choose or simply can't be bothered to pour over 200+ Foundry missions, they can click on a button and a mission will be chosen for them.
Now obviously, there are certain things to consider, mainly that random chance tends to be...well...random chance, there is always the risk that you could end up with the same mission as before, and that can be annoying, so some kind of measure needs to be implemented to make sure that a person does not end up with the same mission he doesn't like three times in a row.
The most obvious option is to allow the player to click the random choice multiple times in the space of a day lets say once every 30 mins for now). this can help lessen the problem as you are bound to get a different mission eventually. However, this does not eliminate the problem entirely.
Another option is to make it so that whenever a player searches a mission and plays it, that mission will be omitted from that player's random choices for a set amount of searches, this may seem a bit more difficult to implement, but it completely eliminates the problem of getting the same mission multiple times in a row.
A third option is quite simple, use both of the aforementioned methods in conjunction with each other, with this you get the best of both worlds, but it would possibly be the most time consuming to implement. However, I'd be willing to wait a while for this to be implemented and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
That is my two Tribbles, pease leave comments below, constructive criticism is welcomed, flaming will be fervently ignored so don't do it, ask any questions and I will do my best to answer them (though you'll get a better chance of being answered if you PM me in-game as I cannot answer every question on here). If you have any ideas for different systems or improvements to this then please tell me and I will take note of everything I can.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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I just wanna point out real quick, that this is (theoretically) a self-policing situation. If a group of 20 people up-vote a terrible mission into the top slots, it'll get played by probably hundreds of people who end up hating it and down-vote it. Problem solves itself, over the long run. But in the mean time, hundreds of players had their time wasted by a terribad mission. No real way to avoid that, though. Just wanted to point out the long-term balance.
To address your primary point, I really love the idea of a Random Foundry Mission fetcher. For my purposes, it'd be a lifesaver.
The idea of a random mission option will reduce the chances of seeing the terribad missions, and will give some lesser played missions a fair chance, I know for a fact that working hard on a community project and then finding out no-one even looks at it is soul crushing, so this way a lot of people are saved the disappointment.
I've been trying out missions with zero ratings, and when I found a good one I posted it here and now it's in the top 10. So that's one way the community can make a difference. Also there's recommendations from podcasts like when STOked featured RachelGarrett, AdmiralMurphy and Fewzz / and Priority One Podcast's Spotlight on the Foundry where they mention two missions each episode.
Maybe you should check out some of the missions people have made, even though you're not going to use the tools yourself on Tribble, you might as well check out the kind of things that are possible in missions, as there are limitations (you can't yet do a lot of the stuff they have in regular Cryptic missions) so you can get used to what you might have to adapt to in case you have something too ambitious in mind to make.
As formy missions, I've seen some bits and pieces of the Foundry, so I have a basic idea of what you can or can't do, and my first mission will very much be a "point and shoot" type space mission, I don't want to reveal too much in case someone decides to steal the idea, but I am gonna say that it is going to be called "Tainted Logic".
Anyway we're drifting from the point of this thread, I'd like to hear more discussion on the idea of a random mission option, possible improvements to the system or some alternatives.
It pretty much shows all the missions in the search in a big list. If you want something at random, you could just scroll down with your eyes closed and click on something.
There are search filters, where it displays Top Rated missions - that shows every mission in order of star rating from highest to lowest.
Then there's the New search filter, which just shows missions that are relatively new - so that would be one you'd probably look at to see what the random new missions you could check out.
There's also custom searching, where you can type a word into the search filter and it would bring up a list of missions featuring that word in either the title or the description.