If You're Playing Lots of Foundry Missions for the First Time...

kirksplat · December 2012

Since this week's change, many players are now playing Foundry missions to earn 960 dilithium, 50 FMs, and random drops of fairly good loot (per mission), using the new Officer Reports mission. I'd really like to hear from some of you folks.

Both good and bad... what are your impressions of these missions? What are you enjoying and not enjoying? Will you continue to play user-generated-content after this weekend? Why or why not?

Thanks for the feedback both good and bad.

ps. If you are not one of these people, please don't turn this thread into a debate about why you won't play Foundry, etc. If you prefer to earn your stuff by other means, so be it. I'd just like to hear from the folks who are playing Foundry missions (kind of) for the first time.

thratch1 · December 2012

I've been playing Foundry missions for a while. Some are a bit long-winded, but a lot of those top-rated missions are there for a reason. Most of them also break away from Cryptic's typical three-act structure of Space, Ground, Space, and really do interesting things.

One sticks out in my mind that I played a long time ago. Can't remember the name of the mission for the life of me, but basically your ship was repeatedly destroyed by Klingon forces as you were stuck in a temporal loop -- a common, boring tool used in the TV show, but actually very interesting when it's happening to you.

The foundry definitely provides some of the best story content the game has to offer.

thepantsparty · December 2012

thratch1 wrote: »

One sticks out in my mind that I played a long time ago. Can't remember the name of the mission for the life of me, but basically your ship was repeatedly destroyed by Klingon forces as you were stuck in a temporal loop -- a common, boring tool used in the TV show, but actually very interesting when it's happening to you.

First Cause, Then Effect, most likely. I tried that one last night at the recommendation of a fleetmate - it was the first time I'd done any foundry content - and thought it was very well done.

I'll probably check out missions that get spotlighted as actually being good whenever that feature gets fixed, but I don't really have the patience to try out missions that no one has tested and might end up being completely terrible.

nagorak · December 2012

thepantsparty wrote: »

First Cause, Then Effect, most likely. I tried that one last night at the recommendation of a fleetmate - it was the first time I'd done any foundry content - and thought it was very well done.

I'll probably check out missions that get spotlighted as actually being good whenever that feature gets fixed, but I don't really have the patience to try out missions that no one has tested and might end up being completely terrible.

You don't really need to worry about playing missions that no one has tested. If you just start going down the list, any mission with more than probably 3.5 stars is going to have been played and tested. Missions don't appear on the main list until they've gotten 5 reviews, so generally a broken mission will have a very low average rating by that point.

If you're really worried about wasting your time just make sure a mission has at least 20 or so plays, by which point the rating should be pretty accurate.

th3xr34p3r · December 2012

The foundry missions are really well made and with the new repeatable gives me more reason to run them (been running them since foundry came online thou). Only gripe is the rewards for the mission need to be dynamic to the played mission time:

20-30min - what its now
30-40min - 1.5x
40-50min - 2x
50-60min - 2.5x
60min+ - 3x

This would add more reason to play the longer missions for those that enjoy them and reward the time spent for playing them in a fair manner.

I myself prefer the 20min-30min range for missions; not too short that you feel like your not getting the story but not too long that you start skipping through dialogue to get through it. On that note aswell I wish there was an option to increase the font size of the test in the dialogue boxes as sometimes I can barely read the text on my screen with how I have my UI scale setup >.>

kiralyn · December 2012

I haven't played a great many (I keep meaning to, but I haven't done all the regular storyline missions yet, either. Plus, distracted by the holiday stuff), but the one thing that's bugged me so far is numerous scene changes...... not for any plot reasons, but solely because the game engine takes so loooooong to load things. Just like with the random "Explore Unknown System" missions.

(some of the missions I've played have been quite interesting, but it's kind of annoying to spend 30 minutes on a mission, with ten minutes of it being loading screens because you keep bouncing back between your bridge, space, a station, space, your bridge, space, other space, a station, space, your bridge....... :P)

Is there any way to improve this, or is it just inherent to STO's engine?

kirksplat · December 2012

kiralyn wrote: »

I haven't played a great many (I keep meaning to, but I haven't done all the regular storyline missions yet, either. Plus, distracted by the holiday stuff), but the one thing that's bugged me so far is numerous scene changes...... not for any plot reasons, but solely because the game engine takes so loooooong to load things. Just like with the random "Explore Unknown System" missions.

(some of the missions I've played have been quite interesting, but it's kind of annoying to spend 30 minutes on a mission, with ten minutes of it being loading screens because you keep bouncing back between your bridge, space, a station, space, your bridge, space, other space, a station, space, your bridge....... :P)

Is there any way to improve this, or is it just inherent to STO's engine?

There has definitely been an increase in loading time for map transitions. We have no idea why and it's not something we (Foundry authors) can control. Hopefully, someone at Cryptic knows why Foundry load times are stretching into the unreasonable.

zahinder · December 2012

I'm back after a long absence, and love the idea of Foundry. The new reward scheme definitely encourages me to try it.

My one ... not concern, so much as eyebrow raise, is that sometimes missions seem awfully easy.

I assume this is due to the limited scaling Cryptic's system can do, considering I'm 50 with purple gear.

(It's noticeable after, say, playing the New Romulus Warehouse mission and getting killed several times, then breezing through the 'doom dangerous' stuff in a Foundry mission)

kirksplat · December 2012

zahinder wrote: »

I'm back after a long absence, and love the idea of Foundry. The new reward scheme definitely encourages me to try it.

My one ... not concern, so much as eyebrow raise, is that sometimes missions seem awfully easy.

I assume this is due to the limited scaling Cryptic's system can do, considering I'm 50 with purple gear.

(It's noticeable after, say, playing the New Romulus Warehouse mission and getting killed several times, then breezing through the 'doom dangerous' stuff in a Foundry mission)

We can't really test it, whether it's hard or easy. For example, my own mission in my sig... well, I can't even complete it myself, but I'm getting reviews that it is far too easy for you guys and gals with all your gear.

We just sort of have to aim at the average player or else we'll get one-stars for being way too hard.

hippiejon · December 2012

zahinder wrote: »

I'm back after a long absence, and love the idea of Foundry. The new reward scheme definitely encourages me to try it.

My one ... not concern, so much as eyebrow raise, is that sometimes missions seem awfully easy.

I assume this is due to the limited scaling Cryptic's system can do, considering I'm 50 with purple gear.

(It's noticeable after, say, playing the New Romulus Warehouse mission and getting killed several times, then breezing through the 'doom dangerous' stuff in a Foundry mission)

I have noted that when designing a mission, a lot of authors tend to design toward the player without the leet skills and great gear, often times making it almost too easy for someone with good gear and skills.

My inclination is to go the other way with it and make combats difficult where I can.
I want to force you to respawn ... at least once.
I want getting through my fights without respawning to mean that you are indeed a bad mother f'er.
I can't handle my own fights sometimes.

I do think that overall designing for the player who doesn't have the best stuffs is probably better than my approach, I'm just a jerk

Play with that respawn button, ya babies

zahinder · December 2012

Now I'm worried I'll make missions that will make folks hate me. Hrm

Ah well!

reginamala78 · December 2012

Something I've run into too often and think it may need saying: small corridors. Yes they look nicer and a heck of a lot more accurate for small ship interiors and claustrophobic caves and such. However when you have your boffs with you, their pathfinding AI just doesn't deal well with small areas. Small hallways they run between rooms trying to 'form up' and aggro everything or get lost. Small bridges they fall off the sides and loop around. Small doors they can't seem to figure out how to go through. And on and on and on. If the captain is all alone, tight spaces work fine, but it otherwise it seems like some mission designers get so focused on aesthetics they forget about the game's mechanics.

bareel · December 2012

On the difficulty thing that will be impossible to please everyone.

Keep in mind the average PuG takes nearly 15 minutes to do ISE, the easiest of the space stfs. The really good groups can do CSE in under 5 minutes the fomerly most difficult one.

The disparity between a good build as far as boffs and equipment choices go and a bad build is so large it is unreal. Then take into account the extra 10-20 % effectiveness gear can give you and yeah.

twg042370 · December 2012

My experiences so far?

Two "Take that, Cryptic!" missions starting off turned me off for a while. But soon I found a bunch of missions that push the engine to its limits. And a lot if short, imaginative missions that don't read like I'm playing someone else's character.

The interactive novels are a bore, but they're not common enough to matter.

75% good so far.

mimey2 · December 2012

I suppose I might tend to be on the fence about it.

Back in season 6 I did the clickies, true, I did the occasional mission for a change.

When season 7 hit, I stopped doing Foundry completely, not because of the exploit being taken out, but because the time involved wasn't worth the reward, and, most importantly:

You had to do THREE missions for it.

That was the biggest turn off to me. Not so much the time needed, but just the fact that I had to do three of em, when I didn't always want to do 3 anyways.

Now though, I can do one mission for 20-30 minutes, get a reward, and move on. If I wanna do more, than ok, I can do more.

I'm not a fan of the super-long missions. Not so much that I haven't done em, but the fact that after an hour of the same mission, one tends to get sick of it. That for me, goes for anything in the game, not just Foundry. So if it only needs to be about 30 minutes, than alright, I don't mind doing that for some dil and FMs.

erei1 · December 2012

I haven't done a lot of Foundry missions, and I'm more about creation than playing them.
However, I don't like when I see the Foundry limits. For example when I have a pop up saying "designed for your captain only, leave your away team behind", or see someone famous with another face (Q comes to mind). I understand that's the editor limits, and not really the creator fault, but I don't like it. Doesn't mean the mission is bad, but it break the immersion for me.
In time Cryptic will probably add what's lacking, but for now, that's what I dislike.

litchy74 · December 2012

Well done to the devs, this change is great and my fed toons love playing a little rescue mission called 'The Corsiars'. Great mission with space combat and a great little story, a neat twist in one encounter as well. Can't remember the author but better than a lot of the patrol mission.:)

arcademaster · December 2012

kirksplat wrote: »

There has definitely been an increase in loading time for map transitions. We have no idea why and it's not something we (Foundry authors) can control. Hopefully, someone at Cryptic knows why Foundry load times are stretching into the unreasonable.

This is just a guess on my end, but I think everytime someone opens a new foundry instance the map has to be loaded on the STO server as well. And as more and more people try foundry missions because of the good reward, the server is really hurting under that load. Could be wrong, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

I've just started with foundry missions, so I'm not ready to say much about specific missions yet. But this IS the kind of reward I was waiting for to dig into the foundry content. Great job Cryptic, now I'm just praying that people won't grind too many 15 minute missions so Cryptic pulls the plug on those rewards again.

beerstickman · December 2012

We can't really test it, whether it's hard or easy. For example, my own mission in my sig... well, I can't even complete it myself, but I'm getting reviews that it is far too easy for you guys and gals with all your gear.

We just sort of have to aim at the average player or else we'll get one-stars for being way too hard.

Thats a good way to be actually, aim for the average player. They can always up their difficulty level for a mission if they find it too easy. Ive been playing a mission called battleship royal lately, where at the end the author asks us to post how many times we died. Having done the mission on normal first, i thought, well i hadnt died at all, come to think of it, my sheilds were hardly scratched. So i did advanced, had to shield heal a few times, still no deaths..So i tried Elite, Still no deaths but had to heal alot. Of course im flying a fleet excelsior with fleet weapons, and all purple consoles. So for me, i can see a significant change in a mission just by raising the difficulty. Of course i find i like using Elite setting best, as its more of a challenge.

And to give Kirksplat a plug here, ive played his missions. He is one of the better authors in the foundry. I recommend his missions to everyone. Of course his shuttle mission, that he has trouble beating, i can do solo on elite in a runabout with purple gear.

oldlordskull73 · December 2012

Alas, my three-hour long mission will never be played for one of the officer reports.

I'm just glad I've had over 200 people play it...it's not easy convincing someone in this game to give up three hours of their life!

koyeja · December 2012

[QUOTE

Well done to the devs, this change is great and my fed toons love playing a little rescue mission called 'The Corsiars'. Great mission with space combat and a great little story, a neat twist in one encounter as well. Can't remember the author but better than a lot of the patrol mission..[/QUOTE]

For some strange reason this missions does not qualify any more.

Maybe someone at Cryptic could clarify the criteria used to to make a mission qualify and another similar not.

Finding "space combat" missions of 20 - 30 min length (don't like ground) that count for the Investigate O. R. is getting very difficult, specially on the KDF side.

yakumosmith · December 2012

Re corsairs - It doesn't count because people were completing it too quickly.

At least one of the triggers for a mission to count is duration. If a mission counts and you like to use it for the officer reports, it's in your interest to slow down so it doesn't complete in under 15m.

I've seen tons of missions that where counting switch to "not counting" as soon as they got out into the wild as a "easy/quick" mission.

Re missions in general, i'm open to playing more content that is in the 15-30m group. At the end of the day, if I'm purposely stalling completing a mission so it takes over 15m, it's not really any different to me playing one taking 15m.

I'm not a fan of hybrid missions. I prefer either all space or all ground

doubleohnine · December 2012

Kirkfat

Your Orion avatar is very ugly looking. Am I supposed to just stare at her TRIBBLE and forget about the rest of whats going on in the pic, like a certain Vulcan girl we know?

zahinder · December 2012

Stupid question, but if you leave a mission halfway through, does any progress get saved?

That's been my biggest reluctance toward doing multihour missions. (I have no problem otherwise -- again, my love of Foundry is for _STORY_, not phat lewt)

doubleohnine · December 2012

hippiejon wrote: »

I have noted that when designing a mission, a lot of authors tend to design toward the player without the leet skills and great gear, often times making it almost too easy for someone with good gear and skills.

My inclination is to go the other way with it and make combats difficult where I can.
I want to force you to respawn ... at least once.
I want getting through my fights without respawning to mean that you are indeed a bad mother f'er.
I can't handle my own fights sometimes.

I do think that overall designing for the player who doesn't have the best stuffs is probably better than my approach, I'm just a jerk
Play with that respawn button, ya babies

DISAGREE. Dont be like Cryptic. i dont like Foundry missions that force even one respawn with my average gear. The very premise of dying too easily in STO has angered me, dont be like the idiot devs that think thats funny. I want a challenge yes, but I dont need Foundry NPCs gang TRIBBLE me either just to make it harder. If a foundry author wants to dev their mission like Cryptic, then put a gear warning label in its description so I can stay away from it. Nothing makes me forget a good foundry story like respawning 2+ times in that mission.

xantris · December 2012

I think some folks might want to go back and break their 30+ min missions up into multiple parts if they want a lot of people to play them. I'm just not going to play a single mission for that long, but I'll happily play it if you break it up to be long enough to reward the turnins but not longer than the cooldown timer.

xantris · December 2012

doubleohnine wrote: »

DISAGREE. Dont be like Cryptic. i dont like Foundry missions that force even one respawn with my average gear. The very premise of dying too easily in STO has angered me, dont be like the idiot devs that think thats funny. I want a challenge yes, but I dont need Foundry NPCs gang TRIBBLE me either just to make it harder. If a foundry author wants to dev their mission like Cryptic, then put a gear warning label in its description so I can stay away from it. Nothing makes me forget a good foundry story like respawning 2+ times in that mission.

Maybe you should read books instead of playing video games.

hippiejon · December 2012

doubleohnine wrote: »

DISAGREE. Dont be like Cryptic. i dont like Foundry missions that force even one respawn with my average gear. The very premise of dying too easily in STO has angered me, dont be like the idiot devs that think thats funny. I want a challenge yes, but I dont need Foundry NPCs gang TRIBBLE me either just to make it harder. If a foundry author wants to dev their mission like Cryptic, then put a gear warning label in its description so I can stay away from it. Nothing makes me forget a good foundry story like respawning 2+ times in that mission.

I'm actually not trying to make people respawn.
I typed that with tongue firmly in cheek.
It is very difficult to find the right combat balance, and I simply often err on the side of making a combat challenging enough that you might have to think about it some, which for some people ends up meaning a respawn.

Combat is incredibly difficult to balance with the tools we have available.
It's as simple as that.

tiekosora · December 2012

I played a mission last night, do not remember the name but it was by P-A-T-H-F-I-N-D-E-R. My feed back was not to change the mission (I died upon loading in due to the arrangement of the bad guys) but instead to add to his mission briefing/snippet to bring friends.

I have played a couple missions by kirksplat, and they are indeed good. I have some ideas for missions, if I can't figure out how to make them work in the Foundry, I will write them up and send them to one of the notable Foundry authors, and see if they will do it.

defcon1776 · December 2012

It appears that some missions have been 'loot nerfed'. Several missions that were dropping pretty good loot now drop nothing.

If You're Playing Lots of Foundry Missions for the First Time...

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