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Grinders: The Future of the Foundry
kirksplat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
So, I'm sitting here looking at the "top rated," browsing a list of what has essentially become:
Short, repeatable, and storyless missions, aimed to help players fill their buckets.
Now I take a look at Cryptic's old and new "content" via the FvE queue:
Short, repeatable, and storyless missions, aimed to help players fill their buckets.
Can we really complain about "rumbles" and "accolade hunts" and "farming," when those types of missions essentially match the dev content of the last two seasons? Is it any wonder that players downgrade our missions for making them read or think? They are here to blow stuff up, collect their tokens, and ask no questions. They are here to get quick rewards, not for reading or feeling immersed in the universe of Star Trek. They are playing Star Trek Online, where the goals are stuffz. Collect your stuffz to trade in for stuffz. That is the game.
Can we also complain about the quality of design, when "No Win Scenario" is now played far more often than "Everything Old is New"? Seems to me that it's the exact same case for a slapped together grinder trumping a mission that took 80 hours or longer to make.
If we're sad that these types of missions are dominating the listings, then we're sort of mourning for what the game used to be at launch, when players looked for story, played story, enjoyed story, and felt rewarded from story (as terrible as the stories were most of the time).
That is no longer the case in STO. Players get to max level before even leaving the Romulan front. No incentive really to keep going in story, unless they need a special item.
So, yeah, these grinders may be the future of the Foundry, because of what this game has become. It's not necessarily about exploits.
The players are meant to play the game this way in general. That is why the "top rated" is what it is.
Short, repeatable, and storyless missions, aimed to help players fill their buckets.
Now I take a look at Cryptic's old and new "content" via the FvE queue:
Short, repeatable, and storyless missions, aimed to help players fill their buckets.
Can we really complain about "rumbles" and "accolade hunts" and "farming," when those types of missions essentially match the dev content of the last two seasons? Is it any wonder that players downgrade our missions for making them read or think? They are here to blow stuff up, collect their tokens, and ask no questions. They are here to get quick rewards, not for reading or feeling immersed in the universe of Star Trek. They are playing Star Trek Online, where the goals are stuffz. Collect your stuffz to trade in for stuffz. That is the game.
Can we also complain about the quality of design, when "No Win Scenario" is now played far more often than "Everything Old is New"? Seems to me that it's the exact same case for a slapped together grinder trumping a mission that took 80 hours or longer to make.
If we're sad that these types of missions are dominating the listings, then we're sort of mourning for what the game used to be at launch, when players looked for story, played story, enjoyed story, and felt rewarded from story (as terrible as the stories were most of the time).
That is no longer the case in STO. Players get to max level before even leaving the Romulan front. No incentive really to keep going in story, unless they need a special item.
So, yeah, these grinders may be the future of the Foundry, because of what this game has become. It's not necessarily about exploits.
The players are meant to play the game this way in general. That is why the "top rated" is what it is.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Not sure what to do about the "popularity" of the grinder dailies ... maybe "play" them just to give them the lowest rating possible, and those lower their overall rating.
Starting a rating war would not be prudent. And stupid, since every player created mission is judged by the entire playerbase -- whose opinion is modified by Cryptic's game design. The nerfs of Season 7 did you no favors.
Still I think we need to draw Cryptic's attention to this - because as we know they rarely pay attention to this forum. Believe it or not KF, it's even worse if you look in the under five reviews section. So so so many grinders and rumbles and whatever clever name they apply to their attempt to get ahead in the laziest way possible, all struggling to get out of purgatory.
So, I think we need to start tweet spamming every Cryptic @handle with images of the "hot list" all full of grinders and use the hashtag #IsThisWhatYouWanted
It is, in a way, what you guys wanted. Cryptic fixed the "clickers" but all it did was shift to another solution to Cryptics bad designs.
And Cryptic may fix "grinders" but that only means something else will be designed to alleviate the material pressures of all the grinds they keep introducing.
Perhaps all this is like Ferris Bueller's sister, who spent an entire day fuming about how much fun her brother was having and how unfair it was, that she forgot to have fun doing her own thing and not worrying about her popular brother.
- No real end game content
- No real end game gear sets
- No real game economy
So, as the game has grown/progressed, Cryptic has focused on more end-game content, and added other content that requires commodities and other stuff, stimulating an in game economy, etc; but again, make no mistake, those that play just for the story (be it Cryptic's or the stuff in the Foundry) were few then - and still are now.
The removal/reworking of the console clickers to no longer reward anything had little effect, as those who used to just use them for the quick 1440 Dilithium have sswitched to the farming missions. They never played the Foundry for story, so were never a factor.
What's really hurt non-spotlighted missions in the end (IMO) are:
- Spotlighted mission now give better rewards overall for time spent; and they've also been vetted by the community - meaning that if you play one, it's because a lot of players (and Cryptic) thought it was good enough to BE spotlighted; thus, less chance of being bugged out, having horrible grammar/spelling, or having badly done NPC encounters, etc.
- 'The "Investigate Officer Reports" wrapper now has a 30 minute cooldown; rewards more Dilithium per single play through (you used to have to play 3 to complete it - and then wait 20 hours before it rewarded again.)
The result? There's now MORE incentive to farm the Foundry for Dilithium and drops (until you reach the drop limit); and I think because of the faster cooldown and more temping rewards, some (not all but a few) who used to just say (I'm going to just do 3 mission today for the 1440 dilithium) are more temped to farm; and after one or two 'Battleship Royal Rumble' runs, want to do something not Foundry relatated.
Lastly, there's the fact that new 'in review' missions no longer count for the Investigate Officer Reports' - so others that were willing to go in and give these a try have virtually ZERO incentive to do so (and honestly this can't be changed because if these missions did give rewards off the bat for the first play though, it opens the Foundry up to the 'exploit' they're trying to fix - and would just lead to Foundry AKF farming - IE sit for 20 minutes, leave, profit.) Thus it makes it WAY harder for any new perspective Foundry author to get a new mission out there unless he has in game friends/fleetmates willing to do no reward reviews to get the mission qualified.
Now, some might say - "Hey missions have been spotlighted for over a year now, why would they really garner more plays or pull players away from the 'rank and file' Foundry missions?"
My answer: Before Season 7, Foundry Missions were spotlighted on the main STO site and other STO gaming sites. And although many won't believe this is the case - the majority of the STO players (or any MMO playerbase) don't bother with the official site after signing up, or go to 'fan' sites. They just play STO. Thus, because the Foundry interface has been changed to default to the 'spotlighted missions' tab; more likely then not, that type of player will pick something from that list first.
(And I'm NOT trying to say 'that's unfair' or 'it shouldn't be that way' because honestly, what Cryptic considers 'the best' should be shoved in a player's face first. [And no, I don't have a spotlighted mission on the list, so no personal bias on my part in saying this.])
But again, the overall end result (especially as the list of spotlighted missions grows); it'll end up that the regular rank and file stuff will see an order of magnitude drop in plays overall. The current overall rewards setup of the Foundry (IMO) has really shifted to promote farming over story by making the 'Investigate Officer Reports' mission a 1 run for reward/30 minute cooldown; AND adding all the new dilithium sinks (Fleet Starbases and Rep system, etc.) <--- which will only increase as the game moves forward.
The fact is; there is so much needed in game to advance various things; that those who really didn't plan to farm/or know about 'farming', are slowly drawn into it as they see other players with endgame gear and ask, "Hey, how do I get that?" -- and before they realize it, they're now farming (in various ways, not just using the Foundry) to advance. Thus, in the end, even those that started playing the Foundry to find 'a good story', start to use it more as just another advancement tool - and maxing 'reward' for time spent becomes the goal.
Unfortunately, I don't see things getting better for non-spotlighted Foundry authors; or Foundry Authors that haven't already gotten an in game rep for producing good missions; and overall that's sad, as I think it means they'll be less and less players interested in really trying to make good, story driven Foundry content as time goes forward.
To do something good in the Foundry does take a large mount of time, effort, and attention to detail; and it's always nice when you see a person, who played, and enjoyed your mission enough to take the time to write a comment (or enough to leave a Dilithium tip, especially these days in STO). <---- Unfortunately I think that will be happening less and less for non-sptlighted/non-farming Foundry missions as STO goes forward.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Have a separate flag/filter for grind missions. I don't mind that they exist -- I DO mind that they push everything else off the listings.
I also mind that the current system means I can't get anyone to look at my missions.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Tweet the heck outta every Dev you can.
Facebook them.
Bug report them.
And then.
Go back and do it again the next day until something is done about these.
The truth of the matter is that these grinder missions are actually economy breaking, and not just for the value of ec either.
These are something that needs to be addressed by the people at Cryptic, if they have any sense toward the long term survivability of the game's economy , on multiple levels.
Annoy the TRIBBLE out of them with tweets about it.
Send Report after report through all available channels. In and Out of Game.
This current trend is actually worse than the One Stop shop of the clickies.
That's not saying I want those back.
Just saying that Cryptic designers REALLY need to take a look at what the long term effects of these missions are going to be.
Heh, not what I wanted at all.
I hate to say I told you so, but well, nobody really hates that, it's a silly saying. I predicted a lot of this would happen when this whole minimum time thing appeared on tribble, and low and behold. I agree completely its shifted the problem, not solved it, and it may have made it worse. Honestly the clickies were pretty unobtrusive compared this grinder TRIBBLE we got now.
Heck, I never wanted the Foundry to have rewards at all, I knew it would result in things like this. I'd go back and find my posts on it, but it's so far in the past its all Archived Post now and would be impossible to find. My predictions were not 100 percent of course. Nostradamus, I ain't, but I said it then and I'm saying it now that adding rewards has done more harm than good.
The grinder 'content' being made, and rewarded with rave reviews, mirrors exactly what Cryptic has been pushing. Story-lite activities. Things like lockboxes, starbase tiers, dilithium mining, etc.
Unfortunately, STO got a bad start when it was forced to rush to be completed after the whole Perpetual disaster, and has never really recovered from that "Just do the bare minimum necessary, and get it out!" mentality. There never seems to be enough time to do anything in depth. And this is only compounded by the bean counters at Perfect World stipulating EVERYTHING must be directly connected in some way to churning out profit.
Who has time for the gold nuggets content-wise - the Featured Episodes, New Romulus' underlying story, True-to-Trek Foundry missions, that, OMG!, actually require more that 15 minutes to complete and actually require some active thinking on a players part - instead of mindless button mashing and blasting through stuff NOW! in order to maximize dil/marks gain.
The whole mechanic does disservice to the Trek legacy. To quote one of my favorite lines - from none other than one of Kirkfat's missions - "Didn't we used to be explorers?"
Sadly, this (the grind) won't change. It's here to stay. My only hope is that the dev team, sometime in the future, will at least give content-heavy missions a more equal footing by baseing rewards on average time to complete. Maybe then folks will say, "You know, I actually enjoyed the last two hours 'grinding' this mission - what a great story!"
arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1203368/pve-content-a-list-of-gamewide-polishing-pass-suggestions
Speaking of basing rewards on playtime, Neverwinter already has a system in place in its Foundry to do just that. For all missions, not just the ones that are featured. Shame we didn't get to have that here.
You can't just base the reward on the average time needed to complete a mission. If you would think about one of those BOFF-Grinder-Arenas - where you leave your BOFFs in a position to deal with all the enemies that will spawn -, then you've got to think about another mechanics to base rewards on.
But how do you want to measure "reading" in another way then time needed? You won't be able to do that by counting how often a key is pressed. That would lead to dialogs of one word per page and players using the "press-f-scripts" that were famous during the winter-event.
I think, the rewards should be time-based, but not on afk-time.
If you think of pure combat-simulations, you could determine the average-difficulty by measuring the incoming- and outgoing-damages. But how do you want to measure debuffs applied?!?
I know, the "Rumble"-Missions are not so famous around here, but they are needed for training (at least my mission is some kind of survival-training).
There was allready a Foundry-Mission that told you just to stay 15 minutes on the Starfleet-Academy map, do Doffing, banking, search the exchange... That mission wasn't combat and it wasn't dialog-heavy, if people wouldn't have ignored the description - that told you to stay 15 minutes on that mission - , then that mission would still qualify for the IOR-wrapper.
So, you've got to find something else to base the reward on, not just time, not just total key-press-count and not number of dialog-popups. If you leave a way open to exploit the system, then it will be used.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
My whole philosophy behind my own UGC is that if a parent with a thirty minute break on a work night can't complete my mission then I've outstayed my welcome.
Not that I don't admire incredibly long and intricate missions--just that personal preference can account for things too.
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I feel that part of what happened is this: Back say a year ago, pre-F2P having a rating around 4.5 stars was good. Then F2P came, and a lot of the new players didn't bother selecting a rating, resulting in default 3s, so there was a slow erosion in ratings across the board. Eventually it was impressive to have anything over about 4 stars.
Now with the change so you actually have to select a rating, it appears to me like the average rating has increased again. The problem is, with a mission with several thousand reviews, your rating is very much baked in the cake. It's hard to get your rating back up, with the exception of maybe pulling your mission and republishing a duplicate.
This is compounded by the fact that once you've slipped down the list, you get fewer plays, so it's even harder to work off your lower average rating.
I really think that a solution would be for the average star rating to only reflect the last 100 or so ratings. Albeit that could make missions more prone to being attacked by 1 star reviewers, but it would prevent older missions from being on worse footing in the face of changes to ratings or the Foundry in general.
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I want to make it clear that this isn't about ego or anything like that, but simply a matter of logic. To justify the time I spend, I feel I absolutely need to get at least five hundred plays on my missions-- and that's borderline, at least a thousand would be better.
I do enjoy making my missions, but the fact is, I'm not getting paid for it, and I'm not getting any notoriety in real life or anything like that. There are other creative pursuits I can devote my time to, which arguably would be more worthwhile. So, just as a simple matter of fact, if the grinders dominating the list mean my next mission struggles to get plays, I will have to seriously reconsider whether I should devote any more time to the Foundry.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
then you can select the tab you want. people who only want grind missions go play them, people who actually want to find a story mission can.
its not technically any different to what it is now, you just have an easier job of finding what you want.
I have 2 story-based missions, 3 which are a mix of story and combat, and i noticed something interesting. While the combat ones get more plays and reviews, my story heavy-missions get a better average rating. I guess that's enough and even if most people just like to blow stuff up, it doesn't mean that story heavy missions aren't legitimate and get no attention. It's not the same audience.
If you want a comparison, it's not because most people listen to pop music instead of classical music that it's unfair for the latter. Again it's not the same audience, and TBH i'm happy about the current state of things in this case. It's not because you don't attract large crowds that you did TRIBBLE.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
I like this idea. Cryptic has always made dailies. Dailies equal grind. Who didnt grind the Breen dailies back in the day? So yes, I think an entirely separate section would be great.
You can replay story-based content (story-missions and also story-missions from the foundry), you just don't want to redo the whole stories again and again.
Just because a mission hasn't got a huge background-story doesn't mean that it doesn't require much testing and balancing. A stupid Boff-grinder can also be balanced, so that you can test your Boffs: Have they got good gear, have they got a good mix of abilites/traits?
My "Rumble"-Mission didn't need experimental game-mechanics, it's quite stupid, but that doesn't mean that it required no thinking and testing to get things working the way I wanted them to. I'd be also happy about a fair amount of tips.
We are discussing the way how players should be rewarded for doing foundry-missions, but what is about the way we should be rewarded for creating Foundry-Missions? We can't ask Cryptic to give us 10 Dilithium-Ore per run on a Mission, if we want to get stupid grind-/minimum-missions out of the lists.
A reward (for the author) based on type and average time would be fair. Maybe per run:
100 Dilithium-Ore for storyline-missions (avg. time 20 to 30 minutes),
10 Dilithium-Ore for "Rumbles" (avg. time 20 to 30 minutes) and
1 Dilithium-Ore for self-completing Boff-grinders (with avg. time up to 20 minutes - this would require just a semi-automated test from Cryptic).
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
There needs to be a way to divide the missions by type. That would allow everyone to look for what they want.
But I don't want grinders to drown story -- when I actually have time to sit down and enjoy a good story mission, I am very happy.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Well, then you'll fail. The simplest, shortest and easiest Foundry-Mission will NEVER qualify for the IOR. You might have wanted to say, you will do those BOFF-grinders a lot, but do you want to reward those authors more then those, who actually try to give you a challenge (I don't say reading and thinking is not a challenge, but a Rumble - a combat-scenario can be also a challenge)?
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
This is perhaps the biggest flaw with the storyline missions in the Foundry right now. I love storyline missions; they are the primary reason I play any game.
However, my playtime is often limited, so when I see "estimated playtime 2-3 hours" I often avoid those missions. I can't guarantee that much time in a single sitting.
Now, a mission *arc* that takes two or three hours is great! But a single mission, not so much. There's a reason why even the better storyline missions in dev content are broken up into 30-60 minute episodes. It gives players far more freedom in how they consume the content (one large block of time to play the whole arc or breaking the story into smaller chunks as time allows).
I've played a number of Foundry missions where the author treats it like a novel and tries to cram in a ton of backstory with a lot of narrative in multiple screens of scrolling text. The problem is, while that level of backstory may work in a novel, it's usually interspersed throughout a given book instead of handed to the reader all at once. In Foundry missions, we don't have that luxury, so it gets shoveled at the player in one huge gulp. This can bog down the story even for those of use who want indepth storylines.
Why? Because story players want to be engaged. They want to *participate* in the story, not just read it. MMO stories need to engage the player with *both* text and activity. A lot of text does not in itself make a good story in a game. It's a combination of text and activities (not just fighting) that does the trick.
The players need to feel like they are an integral part of the story, not just a spectator.
Why? I repeat more story missions than so-called "repeatable" missions all the time. They're more immersive and fun than just running around blowing stuff up (although that can be fun on occasion as well; depends on time and mood
Slapping the term "repeatable" on a grindy, light content mission does not make it so. That's just PR and marketing.
New Romulus is touted as an "Adventure Zone" with repeatable content. You know what? When I played those missions, I played them. They were done. From a content standpoint there is nothing to differentiate them from "one and done" missions -- except perhaps the reward structure. The same is true for all the dailies. I've played them. They're pretty much like all other missions. There is no content reason to do them more than once, any more than the deeper storyline missions. It's just the reward that is attached to them that is different.
If they would attach dilithium and marks to the main storyline missions, I think they would see a lot more play. But then, that's probably what they're afraid of.
Currently, I do play some of the dailies and New Romulus, just like I include exploration missions and so forth in the mix. Variety is good and these are good change of pace activities. But they don't hold up as primary content.
Thats the thing, when we had clickies the clickies took so very little of the players time so you could still enjoy a proper foundry mission but grinders take more time
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
I guess it's a matter of perspective and why you develop the missions. When I wrote missions for the Mission Architect in CoH, I never received a lot of reviews compared to the major authors. This was in part because I didn't advertise them on the forums, nor was I a part of an Architect site or group.
For the most part, I wrote content I wanted to play, often with my wife and daughter. Family and friends played my missions quite often (but of course could only rate once). If others played and enjoyed them, that was icing on the cake.
The same will be true when I take the plunge Foundry authoring, except that I will most likely participate more in the forums. The toolset is more complex, so tips and tricks will be appreciated, and the storytelling capability in Foundry far outstrips the MA. Feedback will be welcome.
:rolleyes:
Thanks, but I know full well which ones qualify. I've been doing this a long time.
My present "challenge" is the coveted Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit, and I will grind whatever most efficiently serves that goal. If you want me to play the foundry missions that take more time and effort, I'll require extra fleet mark rewards in proportion to the time. Divide them into 20/40/60 minute categories, and give 50/75/100 marks as rewards. Something like that.
Cryptic needs to come up with the solution, and I haven't seen any movement toward any changes.