Incompetency thy name is Cryptic.

botc76 · March 2017

Remember when the Investigative Officer mission for the foundry was removed by Cryptic, because it was unfair that people smart enough to take it would get better rewards than those to dumb to do it? (Hint: People, this is sarcasm. You did not have to be smart to take the mission, that was kind of the reason why the removal seemed so pointless, Cryptic basically stated back then (in the forums, after people kept asking about where the mission had gone) they removed the mission because not everyone playing foundry missions took it and it was unfair to those who didn't).

Back then they weren't exactly generous with that information which led to curiosity in the zone chat the first few days after the update and to the following exchange between me and cryptic support.
I've removed the name of the game master I conversed with.
You have to start from the bottom and work yourself to the top again.
I just thought of this because I had another great exchange, this time with a Neverwinter Game Master, which led me to be amazed about the general unhelpfulness of what cryptic and perfectworld call support.

[Private correspondence removed]

risian4 · March 2017

Yeah you really needed to be very smart to do that mission.

I've got a question for you and possible others who are reading this, since we're already calling others 'incompetent' and so on: if you are really impressed with the intelligence of someone who was able to do the Investigate Officer Reports mission, what does that make you, OP?

gaevsman · March 2017

That mission was removed a long time ago, you just pick a foundry mission and thats all, if you miss the extra Dil, well, you can play the Borg Red Alert, that gives you a lot of Dil and experience... and is quite fasu, unless you are on a bad Pug, but definetly thats not incompetence from Cryptics part...

ashstorm1 · March 2017

I'm really happy to be part of the Smart Few who used to do that mission on a daily basis.

It truly required a lot of smartness and intelligence to be able to select it from the Available tab and click the "Accept" button. Not all people were capable of doing so, because they were so dumb and blatantly incompetent.

risian4 · March 2017

ashstorm1 wrote: »

I'm really happy to be part of the Smart Few who used to do that mission on a daily basis.

It truly required a lot of smartness and intelligence to be able to select it from the Available tab and click the "Accept" button. Not all people were capable of doing so, because they were so dumb and blatantly incompetent.

I know right?

I hate to be the cynical one, but at least some people make good arguments when complaining about something - something I'm willing to admit even if I don't agree with those arguments.

This one though... let's just say that the message of the OP is not as convincing as it could have been.

botc76 · March 2017

Guys, you really don't get sarcasm, do you?
Of course you needn't be smart or competent to accept the mission, that was kind of the point why I thought the whole removal of the repeatable mission thing was pointless.

And back when that exchange happened, I was just curious because the mission had simply vanished, it definitely wasn't listed in the patch changes that it had been removed.

botc76 · March 2017

And I know this was a long time ago, I just had another exchange with Cryptic Support that went about the same way, which reminded me of that incident and I even wrote that in the OP.
The point of my little anecdote was that they aren't even trying.
THEY REMOVED THE MISSION AND STILL TOLD ME IT WAS A BUG AND I SHOULD REPORT IT.
And yesterday in Neverwinter some part of my reward pack didn't drop and they told me I must have already gotten it, when i insisted I didn't, that I would have noticed if I'd gotten it, they again told me it was a bug and I should report it.
Is it really that hard to see that this is not the way support in a game is supposed to work?

jorantomalak · March 2017

duncanidaho11 · March 2017

botc76 wrote: »

Guys, you really don't get sarcasm, do you?
Of course you needn't be smart or competent to accept the mission, that was kind of the point why I thought the whole removal of the repeatable mission thing was pointless.

And back when that exchange happened, I was just curious because the mission had simply vanished, it definitely wasn't listed in the patch changes that it had been removed.

There was some dev talk around here and in the Foundry Community. It wasn't a big decision, ie. one that requires trumpeting angels to descend from on high.

The basic thing is this: you had to know about the Foundry mission wrapper in order to benefit most from Foundry missions. That's too obtuse for good game design. So they removed it with the intention of replacing it later.

That's as far as the official word goes. We still haven't heard anything back about the replacement system (because Peter Molyneux.) But we can still try to play connect the dots. A little while ago, Cryptic had some dev time slated to the Foundry. But that got eaten up (as tends to happen) by higher priority tasks presumably dealing with the main game. It could have been a new rewards system. It could just as well have been a working Epohh-catapult asset (we don't have any info) but for the sake of this thread we can assume that Cryptic had plans when they removed the rewards system and those plans have changed in some way.

It's not a huge deal (for non-grinders, which could be why Cryptic felt comfortable getting rid of the mission wrapper first, replacement later) but it would be nice to get a well defined Foundry rewards system back (though NOT what we had before.)

jonsills · March 2017

Speaking personally, I'd rather have that epohh catapult. And maybe a tribble-firing slingshot, too.

davefenestrator · March 2017

The foundry was created to let people create and share stories, not as a loot exploit.

100 zen buys 20,000 - 40,000 dil. Problem solved. Support the game instead of being an entitled REDACTED.

risian4 · March 2017

davefenestrator wrote: »

The foundry was created to let people create and share stories, not as a loot exploit.

100 zen buys 20,000 - 40,000 dil. Problem solved. Support the game instead of being an entitled REDACTED.

This is what I always tell those who are complaining when an exploit gets fixed. I was only surprised that they let the Foundry be an EC exploit for so long, not that they partly fixed it eventually.

As for the whole 'it was sarcasm!' thing. Yeah, right. Nice excuse, but far from believable.

markhawkman · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

botc76 wrote: »

Guys, you really don't get sarcasm, do you?
Of course you needn't be smart or competent to accept the mission, that was kind of the point why I thought the whole removal of the repeatable mission thing was pointless.

And back when that exchange happened, I was just curious because the mission had simply vanished, it definitely wasn't listed in the patch changes that it had been removed.

There was some dev talk around here and in the Foundry Community. It wasn't a big decision, ie. one that requires trumpeting angels to descend from on high. The basic thing is this: you had to know about the Foundry mission wrapper in order to benefit most from Foundry missions. That's too obtuse for good game design. So they removed it with the intention of replacing it later.

That's as far as the official word goes. We still haven't heard anything back about the replacement system (because Peter Molyneux.) But we can still try to play connect the dots. A little while ago, Cryptic had some dev time slated to the Foundry. But that got eaten up (as tends to happen) by higher priority tasks presumably dealing with the main game. It could have been a new rewards system. It could just as well have been a working Epohh-catapult asset (we don't have any info) but for the sake of this thread we can assume that Cryptic had plans when they removed the rewards system and those plans have changed in some way.

It's not a huge deal (for non-grinders, which could be why Cryptic felt comfortable getting rid of the mission wrapper first, replacement later) but it would be nice to get a well defined Foundry rewards system back (though NOT what we had before.)

I personally suspect it was meant to be similar to the NW reward system. IE dil based on play time and also an item as loot.

warpangel · March 2017

What missing "replacement" are you talking about? They removed the wrapper mission when they made rewards drop from the Foundry missions themselves, automatically. It works fine I just tried it myself.

gaevsman · March 2017

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

botc76 wrote: »

Guys, you really don't get sarcasm, do you?
Of course you needn't be smart or competent to accept the mission, that was kind of the point why I thought the whole removal of the repeatable mission thing was pointless.

And back when that exchange happened, I was just curious because the mission had simply vanished, it definitely wasn't listed in the patch changes that it had been removed.

There was some dev talk around here and in the Foundry Community. It wasn't a big decision, ie. one that requires trumpeting angels to descend from on high. The basic thing is this: you had to know about the Foundry mission wrapper in order to benefit most from Foundry missions. That's too obtuse for good game design. So they removed it with the intention of replacing it later.

That's as far as the official word goes. We still haven't heard anything back about the replacement system (because Peter Molyneux.) But we can still try to play connect the dots. A little while ago, Cryptic had some dev time slated to the Foundry. But that got eaten up (as tends to happen) by higher priority tasks presumably dealing with the main game. It could have been a new rewards system. It could just as well have been a working Epohh-catapult asset (we don't have any info) but for the sake of this thread we can assume that Cryptic had plans when they removed the rewards system and those plans have changed in some way.

It's not a huge deal (for non-grinders, which could be why Cryptic felt comfortable getting rid of the mission wrapper first, replacement later) but it would be nice to get a well defined Foundry rewards system back (though NOT what we had before.)

Great. now i want a Epohh Catapult and i will not have it, thank you very much for breaking my dreams!

lopequil · March 2017

repetitiveepic wrote: »

Did the OP make sense to anyone?

Nope, I was either too dumb or just plain disinterested to have ever heard of this one. In fact, I haven't touched the Foundry at all since the featured missions stopped being rotated (hint, hint). It used to be a nice little dil reward and a chance to enjoy some user content but I've played and played and played the featured ones to death now.

discojer · March 2017

This is basically what happened to the City of Heroes mission creator. Although meant to let players make their own stories/missions, it was simply exploited.

And what's worst, instead of players being content to make their own "farm" (as the missions where called), people would make several of them own, flooding the mission database and making it difficult to find real missions.

rattler2 · March 2017

We need a return of the foundry spotlight we used to have a couple of CMs back. It really showcased some VERY well done Foundry missions.

tempus64 · March 2017

botc76 wrote: »

Remember when the Investigative Officer mission for the foundry was removed by Cryptic, because it was unfair that people smart enough to take it would get better rewards than those to dumb to do it?

Let me set you straight. Investigative Reports was removed because, no matter how many times they tried, Cryptic could never fix it in a way that the botters couldn't figure out a new way to exploit it and make boatloads of Dil. Of course they give some alternate "official" reason, no company is going to talk openly about those sorts of exploits. Just look at the timeline of when all this sort of stuff went down. I think there was even something on reddit about it shortly afterwards.

theanothername · March 2017

Just thought about that thread again.
Everything is bound to change sometimes; so wohoo, you caught a GM being confused with not a bug but
removed content. If you want to get riled up look for bugs in
Klingon content; that will give you a lot to report.

admrenlarreck · March 2017

I just find it funny that people still think CS are GM's Support people have nothing to do with in game stuff which is why they tell you to file a bug report. Not that GM's in STO are anygood anyway. (That is if there are any, I have never seen one in game.)

talonxv · March 2017

jodarkrider · March 2017

Please refrain from posting private correspondence, OP. Closing this.
/Closed

Incompetency thy name is Cryptic.

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