Disable playing Foundry missions

zorbane · June 2013

Can we get playing foundry missions disabled? Right now a lot (most? the majority?) of missions are broken because reach markers and dialogs behind walls.

This is a problem for everyone.

First of all players are wasting time playing missions that they are destined to not be able to complete. Angry players/customers who wants that.

Secondly authors get their reputation tarnished cause now CaptainJim1701 can't finish EnterpriseFilms' missions and will avoid him from now on.

Third, and maybe most importantly, the reputation of the Foundry itself is tarnished 'cause after CaptainJim1701 plays two or three other missions and can't finish ANY of them he's not very likely to check back again, nor will he care for announcements that claim the foundry is fixed.

TL;DR: the foundry is broken and is going to chase away players, turn it off!

syberghost · June 2013

I don't like this CaptainJim1701 guy, he sounds high-maintenance.

crypticarmsman · June 2013

Both of the missions I made (and the second one is very involved with a number of reach makers both in space and on the ground), that work just fine. Nothing broken in either of them. So, the assertion that every mission in the Foundry is currently broken, unplayable just isn't accurate.

That said, they DO need to step up, fix the current issues with the Foundry that were caused by LoR's new code branch, fix the issue that is causing some missions that worked fine before to be broken, and re-enable editing ASAP.

kirksplat · June 2013

I pretty much agree. It's bad enough when it's very difficult for a player to find a story mission that isn't well-known. It's worse when just exploring the Foundry content often results in a mission that can't be completed. It gives the Foundry a bad rep. and it does nothing to encourage the player to keep exploring.

If anything, it shows that the most reliable missions are EC grinders with a fence, since there is nothing complex about the fish-in-a-barrel missions.

Anything more complex... the general feeling is "enter at your own risk."

markhawkman · June 2013

Well, I tested my mission B'Vat's Legacy, and the map marker for one objective was positioned wrong, but the actual objective could be completed if you knew where to go. It only had one, a rather easy one at that. When you're in the Gateway space map just fly directly from the spawn point towards the planet and you'll hit the trigger.

lincolninspace · June 2013

I dunno if the foundry missions were not playable then how would anyone know if they were broken?

claransa · June 2013

Yeah as a foundry player I've been chasing after waypoints that are off the map, or way of target lately. I still manage to complete most of them though, but I understood right away that this green arrow/green circle thing, being new and all, was mostly liked bugged (especially for the foundry). In a way it added a sense of exploration to the missions, there's one spot light mission out there where you're searching for a missing ship and yeah you really have to look for it

You can't just fly to the marker, though the marker does narrow it down some.

First time in, I thought it was a feature but by then reviews had been turned off so I couldn't congratulate the author.

markhawkman · June 2013

yeah, if you can somehow find the trigger, the missions work, but the map markers are sometimes in the wrong places.

kirksplat · June 2013

markhawkman wrote: »

yeah, if you can somehow find the trigger, the missions work, but the map markers are sometimes in the wrong places.

I have several missions where it's not just a hidden waypoint. The invisible objects are missing. So, there is no way to complete the mission, even if you know where the waypoints are meant to be.

zorbane · June 2013

markhawkman wrote: »

yeah, if you can somehow find the trigger, the missions work, but the map markers are sometimes in the wrong places.

to me that's broken, how do I know where to go especially if its a huge space or ground map. some people might have the patience to search for it but in the end its not working as intended.

there's also the "behind invisible wall" issue

crypticarmsman · June 2013

zorbane wrote: »

to me that's broken, how do I know where to go especially if its a huge space or ground map. some people might have the patience to search for it but in the end its not working as intended.

there's also the "behind invisible wall" issue

ship and ground scanning for the waypoints still works (and it's how players did it before the waypoint map indicators were added to. I've played other Foundry missions that I hadn't tried before and had no issues probably because I really don't use the mini-map or main map, in any mission (Cryptic made missions too) when I play them.

That said, the map waypoint display issue in the Foundry is one that needs to be fixed ASAP.

thedukeofrock · June 2013

kirksplat wrote: »

I have several missions where it's not just a hidden waypoint. The invisible objects are missing. So, there is no way to complete the mission, even if you know where the waypoints are meant to be.

Ditto that, I have invisible objects missing as well. Plus, it seems one of my series missions
(Spawn of Medusa IV) has been lost in oblivion, still is Missing in action.

Please do something Cryptic, this is turning some folks off to the story missions in the Foundry , and I have heard this directly from friends and fleetmates.
Please don't let one of the best parts of this experience be destroyed due to lack of action. :mad:

DoR

drogyn1701 · June 2013

I think it would be entirely reasonable to shut off playing while these bugs persist. However, when a fix is deployed we will need playing on so we can test and see if it works.

Branflakes did say they are deploying a patch tomorrow and it is not what just appeared on tribble yesterday, so... dare we hope?

markhawkman · June 2013

zorbane wrote: »

to me that's broken, how do I know where to go especially if its a huge space or ground map. some people might have the patience to search for it but in the end its not working as intended.

there's also the "behind invisible wall" issue

Obviously it's glitchy, and some things are unplayable, but some of the glitches are manageable.

commandermic · June 2013

thedukeofrock wrote: »

Ditto that, I have invisible objects missing as well.

are you sure they're missing? i've played many foundry missions since republishing has started, and never saw missing invisible object. i've even used some of these at my missions, which still work fine except the reach marker bug.
maybe you've put the invisible objekt behind a forcefield, window, or inside any object? that would cause that you can't interact with them at the moment.

thedukeofrock wrote: »

Plus, it seems one of my series missions
(Spawn of Medusa IV) has been lost in oblivion, still is Missing in action.

republish is still in progress, so don't worry, i think it will show again soon

finally, i don't think it's need to disable playing foundry missions, it's cryptics intention to give authors enough time to test their missions to find out new bugs. i think it's important, maybe a little warning message would be nice, so that any other players notice there are many bugs at the moment.

drogyn1701 wrote: »

Branflakes did say they are deploying a patch tomorrow and it is not what just appeared on tribble yesterday, so... dare we hope?

yes, i've just read it, the patch tomorrow will fix the interaction bug

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=747811

thanks cryptic for fixing that bug

drogyn1701 · June 2013

commandermic wrote: »

yes, i've just read it, the patch tomorrow will fix the interaction bug

http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=747811

thanks cryptic for fixing that bug

Ah they must have just posted that. Well, one down, 3-4 to go.

markhawkman · June 2013

commandermic wrote: »

are you sure they're missing? i've played many foundry missions since republishing has started, and never saw missing invisible object. i've even used some of these at my missions, which still work fine except the reach marker bug.
maybe you've put the invisible objekt behind a forcefield, window, or inside any object? that would cause that you can't interact with them at the moment.

this is a good point. The issue with invisible objects might be that the "center" is hidden from line of sight. thus it coukd be related to the bug with walls and forcefields.

kirksplat · June 2013

Hooray, one down but more needed.

Is it true that most reach markers are still in the correct spot, but the mini-map markers are incorrect?

zorbane · June 2013

kirksplat wrote: »

Hooray, one down but more needed.

Is it true that most reach markers are still in the correct spot, but the mini-map markers are incorrect?

I think that's the case

commandermic · June 2013

zorbane wrote: »

I think that's the case

that's true, i've testet it. reach markers still work if you know where they really are.

markhawkman wrote: »

this is a good point. The issue with invisible objects might be that the "center" is hidden from line of sight. thus it coukd be related to the bug with walls and forcefields.

tomorrow we will see if i am right at this

eugenesys · June 2013

syberghost wrote: »

I don't like this CaptainJim1701 guy, he sounds high-maintenance.

From a fellow moderator in another forum, your comment is extremely condescending.

Having said that with no malice intended, I do agree with the threadstarter in that the waypoints are off.

I have tried 3 foundry missions today( wasted 3 hours! )
Tried each multiple times to make sure its not my system or corrupted game files.
Rebooted...etc

Klingon
Both spotlight foundry missions had the waypoints broken

Federation
Conjoined was the third one i played and there is a good example.

When asked to scan asteroids, the waypoints were way behind the asteroid

After beaming back to space but before the test, when you have to attach the emitters, the wording mentioned " ..... aperture gate"

Then, there's the one about creating phase converters to attach to the transporter pad console. WTH will know you have to attach to the BOTTOM of the console and not on the console? A reasonable man, going by the wording along, will just waltz up to the console [ I am not sure if this part is intentional or bugged ]

From the lack of support ( or rather the length of time it takes to respond to an issue, i am guessing that they run with minimal crew to save costs, most probably skimping on customer support ), Cryptic probably does not have the resources to verify each submitted foundry mission. It would be good though, if CRYPTIC's employees, who are in charge of foundry submissions, can vet the missions beforehand ( similar to what software developers have to do, and submit to microsoft, beofre they get digitally signed ), before certifying each as a spotlight mission.

A community minded suggestion for each author would be to create a thread in the appropriate subforum, with the name of the thread being the name of the foundry mission, and post a cheatsheet ( walkthrough / guide / whatever ). It can be a as simple as pictures and a one liner of important events, informing the end user of what must be achieved to complete that point, or a complete walkthrough.

This way, if a patch is released and it somehow messes up the foundry missions, at least the end user will know what needs to be done.

kirksplat · June 2013

eugenesys wrote: »

It would be good though, if CRYPTIC's employees, who are in charge of foundry submissions, can vet the missions beforehand ( similar to what software developers have to do, and submit to microsoft, beofre they get digitally signed ), before certifying each as a spotlight mission.

BranFlakes does this vetting. All the spotlights are working before they are chosen as spotlights, although some have some odd bugs that are unpredictable. The recent update broke 2/3rds, if not more, or all Foundry missions. The spotlights are the most notable examples.

zorbane · June 2013

eugenesys wrote: »

From a fellow moderator in another forum, your comment is extremely condescending.

syberghost and I were joking about that outside the forums, no need to get riled up. It was an inside joke.

everything else that you said though shows exactly why playing missions should be disabled. I'd be extremely pissed off if I had wasted three hours playing broken missions, and like you would normally blame the mission author if I didn't know about the current issues.

And yes like KF says the missions are all checked by branflakes before set as the spotlight, but with the bugs a lot of them broke after the fact.

drogyn1701 · June 2013

The only problem I see with creating walkthroughs is I think there are a lot of people who play Foundry missions who never go to the forums, or never go to this section of the forums. There might be some who expend the effort to come looking, but I don't think a lot will.

kirksplat · June 2013

I tested 3 of my missions that were broken. They work now, although reach markers are still acting strangely at times. None of them were way off the mark for me.

Thanks devs.

Also, console prop costumes in dialogue pop-ups look better, as far as I can tell.

ktip09 · July 2013

No! turning the foundry off and walking away from it is NOT THE ANSWER! Sure, the foundry does have bugs,but what computer game or system doesn't have bugs? You can't have perfection in this world. Besides MANY people LOVE the foundry and I have yet to fully create my FIRST MISSION! INVOLVING A NEW RACE! DO NOT SPOIL IT FOR THE REST OF US! with your talk of "ugh...well the foundry is not working well,so it needs to be shut down permanently". That's what it sounds like you're saying. If ANYONE LOVES THE FOUNDRY AND WANTS IT STAY...STAND BEHIND ME IN AGREEMENT!!! FIXING THE FOUNDRY is the answer! not SHUTTING IT DOWN AND WALKING AWAY!

zorbane · July 2013

Uh this is an old thread, asking for the foundry to be shut down temporarily to get fixes in. This did happen and then fixes were implemented.

Then the Foundry was re-enabled.

Happy ending

ktip09 · July 2013

My apologies...I jumped to the conclusion that you wanted it shut down permanently due to increased frustration and things not getting fixed fast enough! I didn't look to see that yours was an old post, in which case I would not have given that reply of mine. I have experienced problems like waypoints not being where they should be and my away-team characters getting stuck in walls during game play. I'm just glad that we have a foundry to create our own missions!

zorbane · July 2013

ktip09 wrote: »

My apologies...I jumped to the conclusion that you wanted it shut down permanently due to increased frustration and things not getting fixed fast enough! I didn't look to see that yours was an old post, in which case I would not have given that reply of mine. I have experienced problems like waypoints not being where they should be and my away-team characters getting stuck in walls during game play. I'm just glad that we have a foundry to create our own missions!

No problem, its not the first time someone misinterpreted something on the internet :P

Most of the gameplay bugs are fixed now, and the Foundry itself is becoming more stable every patch so things are looking up!

Disable playing Foundry missions

Comments