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Serious concern about the upcoming Foundry Spotlight rewards

j4ck5p4rr0wj4ck5p4rr0w Member Posts: 103 Arc User
So the Devs have told us that soon the Foundry spotlight missions will be getting rewards. Sounds great, right? But here is the problem: a lot of those missions are very long.

If they award dilithium, you can already get 1440 dilithium from quite a few very short dailies. If they award fleet marks, you can already get a good amount of fleet marks from several relatively short missions.

So unless the rewards actually scale to the length of the mission, why would people play those instead of shorter missions that give the same or better rewards?
Post edited by j4ck5p4rr0w on

Comments

  • thecosmic1thecosmic1 Member Posts: 9,365 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    I play story-based Foundry Missions to enjoy the content, not to speed-grind Dilithium - or potential Marks. There's already Foundry Missions you can use to speed-grind.
    STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
  • j4ck5p4rr0wj4ck5p4rr0w Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    thecosmic1 wrote: »
    I play story-based Foundry Missions to enjoy the content, not to speed-grind Dilithium - or potential Marks. There's already Foundry Missions you can use to speed-grind.

    You may not care about the rewards, but the entire point of them adding rewards is for the people who DO care about them. And the question is, why would those people play these missions if they can get the same rewards or better from shorter missions? I'm guessing most wont. So that means that the rewards they are adding need to be worth the time it takes to play through the missions.
  • thecosmic1thecosmic1 Member Posts: 9,365 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    You may not care about the rewards, but the entire point of them adding rewards is for the people who DO care about them. And the question is, why would those people play these missions if they can get the same rewards or better from shorter missions? I'm guessing most wont. So that means that the rewards they are adding need to be worth the time it takes to play through the missions.
    As I suggested above, I think most people will play them because they are new Mission Content that is offering rewards beyond just what we get in the Foundry now: just Dilithium. The option to drop regular Loot is a good incentive in itself. And I never remember seeing any Dev stating they were offer Fleet Marks for these Missions.
    STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
  • jjumetleyjjumetley Member Posts: 281 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Then the rewards have to be unique. Giving out dilithium or marks is just too easy...
  • j4ck5p4rr0wj4ck5p4rr0w Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    thecosmic1 wrote: »
    As I suggested above, I think most people will play them because they are new Mission Content that is offering rewards beyond just what we get in the Foundry now: just Dilithium. The option to drop regular Loot is a good incentive in itself. And I never remember seeing any Dev stating they were offer Fleet Marks for these Missions.

    I understand what you *want* to believe that people will suddenly start to play the foundry missions just because they want new story content, but the simple fact of the matter is that the people who really want new story content are already playing the foundry missions. Those that arent prefer to spend their time playing content that grants a definite reward for a definite amount of time. And it is that latter group which is the "target audience" of adding rewards to the foundry spotlight mission.

    My question is, unless the foundry spotlight rewards actually scale to the length of the mission, why would this "target audience" choose to play long missions rather than short missions that award the same or better rewards for the amount of time invested? The answer is, they wont. So the entire point of this thread is to let the devs know that the rewards for the foundry spotlight missions will need to be proportionate to how long it takes to play them.
  • targpetz101targpetz101 Member Posts: 25 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    thecosmic1 wrote: »
    I play story-based Foundry Missions to enjoy the content, not to speed-grind Dilithium - or potential Marks. There's already Foundry Missions you can use to speed-grind.

    Edit: What he said^^

    I thought the foundry rewards were supposed to be for the mission creator thou, to reward them for their good works.
    [SIGPIC]This is not as good as it used to be...[/SIGPIC]
  • velktravelktra Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    I play spotlighted missions when I think they look interesting. Offering a reward won't change that for me. I am wondering what the reward will be though... if it's Fleet Marks, not everyone has a fleet. If it's dilithium, I already have ways to max out my daily dilithium limit (and quite easily too, given how many dailies and repeatable missions give out 1440 dilithium).

    Lobi crystals? Eh. I don't use the lobi store, but if I had a way to get enough crystals for some of the better stuff in there I might.
    Demons run when a good man goes to war.
  • thecosmic1thecosmic1 Member Posts: 9,365 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    I think there are literally tens-of-thousands of people who don't play Foundry Missions simply because they offer nothing but 480 Dilithium per Mission. Most of my Fleet refused to do Foundry Missions, even when I set-up Foundry Fleet Event nights. By turning them into regular Missions that offer regular Mission rewards that changes the incentive - and changes some of the stigma of it being "unofficial."
    STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
  • captainrevo1captainrevo1 Member Posts: 3,948 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    As i understand it, the devs spotlight the mission in question and assign a reward, so they will know exactly how long it takes to complete.

    the dilithium rewards remain on the mission wrapper for doing 3 stories of which you can pick any 3 of any length, but the spotlighted one (or more) will be picked by branflakes or one of the team and given its reward.
  • thecosmic1thecosmic1 Member Posts: 9,365 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Edit: What he said^^

    I thought the foundry rewards were supposed to be for the mission creator thou, to reward them for their good works.
    Cryptic is working on a system where they will convert some Foundry Missions into regular Holodeck-like Missions that offer similar rewards to doing a regular Mission like P'Jem or Doomsday Project.
    STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
  • skurfskurf Member Posts: 1,071 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    I wouldn't mind a random purple XI starship weapon/console.
  • kimmerakimmera Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Let me get this straight. They are going to add another way to get dilithium and/or fleet marks, but despite the fact it would be in addition to all other already existing sources, it isn't good enough because it isn't convenient enough for you?
  • j4ck5p4rr0wj4ck5p4rr0w Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    kimmera wrote: »
    Let me get this straight. They are going to add another way to get dilithium and/or fleet marks, but despite the fact it would be in addition to all other already existing sources, it isn't good enough because it isn't convenient enough for you?

    This is a fantastic example of completely missing the point. Convenience has absolutely nothing to do with it. Numbers do. If somebody can only log on for a few hours to play, are they more likely to play a long foundry mission that only grants a mediocre reward, or several short missions that grant better rewards? To actually attract people to play these missions they have to make sure the rewards they grant are worth the amount of time required to get them.
  • kimmerakimmera Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    This is a fantastic example of completely missing the point. Convenience has absolutely nothing to do with it. Numbers do. If somebody can only log on for a few hours to play, are they more likely to play a long foundry mission that only grants a mediocre reward, or several short missions that grant better rewards? To actually attract people to play these missions they have to make sure the rewards they grant are worth the amount of time required to get them.

    How is that not convenience? If someone doesn't have the time, it doesn't matter how big the reward is. They don't have the time.
  • reallydumbpwereallydumbpwe Member Posts: 60 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    I grind for dilithium by doing the "Push the button and collect" foundry missions. I do the others for entertainment... isn't that supposed to be the idea of a game? To have fun? Sometimes I think people forget that.

    I'm going to play those longer Foundry missions because there are so many great stories out there to explore. The fact that I may get an additional reward is a rather nice perk for playing an enjoyable mission.
  • j4ck5p4rr0wj4ck5p4rr0w Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    kimmera wrote: »
    How is that not convenience? If someone doesn't have the time, it doesn't matter how big the reward is. They don't have the time.

    I never said they dont have the time. I said if someone has a limited(key word) amount of time to play, and their choice is:

    A) long foundry mission with medicore rewards or

    B) several shorter missions that off the same or better rewards

    They are more likely to choose the latter. UNLESS the long foundry mission actually has better rewards because of its longer length. Which I think it should.
  • walshicuswalshicus Member Posts: 1,314 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    This is a fantastic example of completely missing the point. Convenience has absolutely nothing to do with it. Numbers do. If somebody can only log on for a few hours to play, are they more likely to play a long foundry mission that only grants a mediocre reward, or several short missions that grant better rewards? To actually attract people to play these missions they have to make sure the rewards they grant are worth the amount of time required to get them.

    I think you're completely missing the point too.

    The people you're talking about - those who absolutely will never play UGC missions unless they can earn more numerics from them than other content... they'll never be satisfied. They're already farming the Office Reports for 3 "scan the fountain" missions.

    Putting better rewards on UGC missions is geared towards the majority of players who *do* want to play well written story content and at the same time get a moderate reward.
    http://mmo-economics.com - analysing the economic interactions in MMOs.
  • cptvanorcptvanor Member Posts: 274 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    To actually attract people to play these missions they have to make sure the rewards they grant are worth the amount of time required to get them.

    There's effectively two kinds of content.

    Content you do because it's fun, and content you do for the reward. Quite often the fun content becomes reward content after you do it a couple times. People who are only interested in the reward are unlikely to ever do long and IMO the most interesting Foundry missions, because the reward/hour is better elsewhere.

    Scaling the reward for Spotlight stuff won't work because no matter what they give, there's almost always going to be a faster and easier way to get that same reward.
  • savnokasavnoka Member Posts: 176 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    So the Devs have told us that soon the Foundry spotlight missions will be getting rewards. Sounds great, right? But here is the problem: a lot of those missions are very long.

    If they award dilithium, you can already get 1440 dilithium from quite a few very short dailies. If they award fleet marks, you can already get a good amount of fleet marks from several relatively short missions.

    So unless the rewards actually scale to the length of the mission, why would people play those instead of shorter missions that give the same or better rewards?


    Not sure if trolling or just particularly missing the entire point.

    I guarantee you the target audience of rewards is NOT "people who won't play foundry content because it doesn't give equal rewards". You can go ahead and think that, but it is completely illogical.

    The point of rewards is to reward people who LIKE to play foundry missions, so that given a choice you get the same reward for playing bug-infested story missions or good foundry missions.

    Your argument fails on several points:

    - length of mission has nothing to do with difficulty or playability. You could (and probably would) have people make very long missions with zero actual fun content just to game the system

    - the concept that the rewards matter. If I play foundry missions, as others have said, I don't do it for the rewards -- the reward is in new and innovative game play and stories. You can claim all you want that people will only do what gives them the most rewards, and I suspect that for a certain type of player you are right, but said player will rarely if ever bother with complicated Foundry missions -- regardless of reward -- because it will be EASIER to just run shorter existing missions.

    -- offering a disproportionate award for Foundry missions (setting aside the fact that the rewards weren't designed for grinders, that such a thing would be abused, and that it would probably get ignored by grinders anyway) does not magically make the basic issue go away -- the need for grinding missions. Grinding foundry for marks or dilithium defeats the entire purpose of people putting hard work into something people will enjoy.

    I'm sure you're very convinced that this is a real issue that needs attention, but you should stop and read some of what other people in the thread have written.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • jkstocbrjkstocbr Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    So the Devs have told us that soon the Foundry spotlight missions will be getting rewards. Sounds great, right? But here is the problem: a lot of those missions are very long.

    If they award dilithium, you can already get 1440 dilithium from quite a few very short dailies. If they award fleet marks, you can already get a good amount of fleet marks from several relatively short missions.

    So unless the rewards actually scale to the length of the mission, why would people play those instead of shorter missions that give the same or better rewards?

    Special Rewards does not imply Dilithium.

    What they said was they would lock down the selected Foundry spotlight mission so the Author can not modify it further. Then they would assign a unique/special reward for completing the mission, similar to how Featured Episode missions currently work.
  • darren0kitlordarren0kitlor Member Posts: 36 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    thecosmic1 wrote: »
    I think there are literally tens-of-thousands of people who don't play Foundry Missions simply because they offer nothing but 480 Dilithium per Mission. Most of my Fleet refused to do Foundry Missions, even when I set-up Foundry Fleet Event nights. By turning them into regular Missions that offer regular Mission rewards that changes the incentive - and changes some of the stigma of it being "unofficial."
    This.

    I seriously doubt that the devs would assign dilithium alone for these missions, considering the daily fills that niche.

    Item rewards are much more interesting.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ryanevryanev Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited August 2012
    Maybe if the reward was something similar to an STF:
    Some Rare/Very Rare Weapon/Console + 1100 or 1400 Dilithium would be nice.

    The point isn't for them to be used for the daily grind, the point is to offer something just like the regular missions.

    Also it would be nice, if they eventually found a way for the missions to be implemented in the game, to add specific reward when the mission is featured. For example a Rare/Very Rare Doff with good traits, or a Purple MKXII weapon, or a rare MKXII console... something like that which should be, for example, account bound.
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