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How important is the foundry to you? POLL.

mattjohnsonvamattjohnsonva Member Posts: 4,974 Arc User
We foundry writers are always going on about how amazing the Foundry is and how incredible it could be given the support we think it deserves. So I thought it could be interesting to find out what the general population thinks. I want to keep this simple and so have made this basically a simple yes or no poll.

If you think the foundry is important to Star Trek Online, either as a creative device for you personally that helps keep you coming back to play, or as a player that enjoys the foundry content but may not be interested in actually creating missions in the foundry then please select the "Yes" option.

If you think the foundry is not an important part of Star Trek Online then please click the "No" option.

Thanks for taking part.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on

How important is the foundry to you? POLL. 85 votes

Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
75%
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No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
24%
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Comments

  • lordsteve1lordsteve1 Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    There are some very well done missions out there so i'd absolutely say yes.
    Always fun to find a real gem and slip into a well written story when in that void between Cryptic releasing story missions themselves.

    Plus it comes in handy for some of the endeavor missions which can be tricky to complete via the base game alone.
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  • vendoodvendood Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I think the Foundry is a highly important tool to the success of STO. The problem being that it does not integrate well with the many things Cryptic has invented to keep people clicking madly away in STO. That plus the 'how to separate the wheat from the chaff' issue.

    Cryptic has added DOffs, Admiraly, RTFOs, Endeavours, Reps, events, Featured Episodes (or whatever the new name is)… it seems I rarely log on that I don't have 4 things popping up in front of me saying "Do this now!".

    That, plus the grind needed for reputations, fleet holdings, ship XP unlocks, and events - means that any time I am online I am struggling to get my 'current tasks' done before my gaming time is through.

    I often look at Foundry names as I fly past planets and think "that looks interesting, I should stop and try that sometime!"... but if I am flying past a planet it means I am on my way to location X to complete goal Y, and I don't have time to stop and try out a random adventure.

    As usual, when the game has this many things to do, and the resource/grind walls are so high (truly massive amounts of Dil/EC/fleet creds/fleet inputs needed for many goals) - people will tend to focus on the things that they know will pay X reward in minimal time while also letting them blast some things to smithereens.

    Foundry offers potentially infinite content, which is constantly distracted away from because the game design puts multiple unlocks/goals in front of you all the time. Back when you had a daily mission to do a Foundry that rewarded dilithium you at least had that going for it, although of course many people then opted for the simplest and fastest mission they could find that paid the daily.

    It might be worthwhile to consider adding the Foundry daily back in, but scaling the reward payout to the length of time/effort the mission takes, as well as perhaps only rewarding it for Foundry missions you haven't played before. Or, like Endeavours, selecting one of 3 'daily' Foundries to run for the reward, which is chosen from among those with a rating higher than X (that have been played at least 100 times).

    Something like that would encourage players to make Foundry exploration a part of their routine, rather than something they keep putting off "until I have more time".
  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited January 2019
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    In this day and age of event after event after event....my time is eaten up by them. I try Foundry missions when I can, but hard pressed to find time to finish regular missions much less Foundry missions, along with the million other side quests going on.

    Not to mention, the constant stream of ships and gear to play with. I can not find time. Not even for testing.

    This is completely about the time for me.
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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    Honest question: is this poll for your own personal curiosity, or are you hoping to try to motivate the devs in some way?

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  • knochengeigerknochengeiger Member Posts: 89 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    Some foundry missions are where STO has the most star trek feeling, unlike the repetitive pew-pew in most story missions.
    And i definately enjoy them more then endless grinding or TFO's. The foundry is the true "endgame" content for me.
    Thanks to all the creative heads for hours of fun.
    We want to keep the foundry.
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited January 2019
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    Honest question: is this poll for your own personal curiosity, or are you hoping to try to motivate the devs in some way?

    I hope it is the latter and even though I never spend any time in the foundry I add my vote to the *is* important choice so only out of sympathy for the cause. :)
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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    > @mattjohnsonva said:
    > Both, but the latter would somewhat depend on the response level.

    Right. Well then, I will tell you that I love the foundry, but I also know that Cryptic/PW has decided to stop actively developing it (as far as new features, not just adding new assets) for actual business reasons (return on investment) that no forum poll can actually change.

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  • where2r1where2r1 Member Posts: 6,054 Arc User
    edited January 2019
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I hope it is the latter and even though I never spend any time in the foundry I add my vote to the *is* important choice so only out of sympathy for the cause. :)

    In business, it is only "important" if it is attracting customers and making money.

    Not saying how important the Foundry actually is for your game play with your vote, doesn't give anyone true results from this poll. So, everyone may as well fake it to look like the "good guy". LOL!

    None of which will work because Cryptic has the solid numbers on how often the Foundry is used. And by whom.

    I am assuming, mostly folks in a couple of Fleets who have heavily invested a lot of time and have sequestered themselves unto themselves and become echo chambers for Foundry.

    @mattjohnsonva Did you try this poll over on the main STO Reddit? Or did you just poll everyone on some Foundry related Reddit?
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  • vendoodvendood Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I get that 'actual business reasons' is an issue: if something takes X development time and stats show it only gets played by N% of the players, then it looks clear that further development is not profitable.

    That said, for the reasons mentioned in my earlier post, the Foundry is simply not utilized because playing it is not integrated with other primary game features. It's more of a "you can't say there isn't enough content because Foundry" stopgap than it is an integral game feature.

    That said, every single day I see comments in game about "not enough new content; whens the next thing; this expansion is no good because X I want Y; there is no end-game" etc. etc. Proper Foundry integration would help with a lot of these issues.

    It is probably accurate to say 'the Foundry, as is, is not a profit generator'. That does mean that a few tweaks on how it is presented to people wouldn't make it a viable generator of player content. For instance, using "play one of these three Foundry missions" as a 'default' event (between other events) or a bonus daily personal Endeavour reward would go a long way towards generating interest in it and exposing players to a ton of content.
  • lazarus51166lazarus51166 Member Posts: 646 Arc User
    > @mattjohnsonva said:
    > Both, but the latter would somewhat depend on the response level.

    Right. Well then, I will tell you that I love the foundry, but I also know that Cryptic/PW has decided to stop actively developing it (as far as new features, not just adding new assets) for actual business reasons (return on investment) that no forum poll can actually change.

    Actually that is incorrect. Mike Fatum, the community manager, has been given training on adding new assets and maps to the foundry, it was a problem during this training that caused the foundry to go down for so long after AoD was launched, when some critical files were deleted by accident. If you have a source to back up your claim that they have decided to actively stop developing it then please post it below.

    Uh.....What? You literally just reiterated what the nagus said as if it were some kind of refute to his points.

    In case you missed what he was trying to say, what he said is that cryptic is not actively intent on expanding features and development of the foundry, they are just updating it with new assets and whatnot as they become available. Which is what you yourself said

    Adding assets and maps is not active development or expansion. Its maintaining the status quo

    That said, the foundry is and always was a waste of development time and resources. They're better off dumping it entirely
  • centaurianalphacentaurianalpha Member Posts: 1,150 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    Considering that there is more content in the Foundry than STO itself, the Dev's ought to be leveraging this as a marketing tool, and an end-game feature! It wouldn't be so hard to make it easier to access the Foundry archives, and probably even recruit a few Foundry authors to cull broken/obsolete/poor quality missions so that Cryptic doesn't have to spend any hard cash to keep it up...
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  • thegrandnagus1thegrandnagus1 Member Posts: 5,165 Arc User
    > @mattjohnsonva said:
    > Both, but the latter would somewhat depend on the response level.

    Right. Well then, I will tell you that I love the foundry, but I also know that Cryptic/PW has decided to stop actively developing it (as far as new features, not just adding new assets) for actual business reasons (return on investment) that no forum poll can actually change.

    Actually that is incorrect. Mike Fatum, the community manager, has been given training on adding new assets and maps to the foundry, it was a problem during this training that caused the foundry to go down for so long after AoD was launched, when some critical files were deleted by accident. If you have a source to back up your claim that they have decided to actively stop developing it then please post it below.

    Yeah, you misunderstood what I said. To repeat the point: the foundry is no longer being developed, it is being maintained. They are not adding any new features or functionality, only new assets (maps and NPCs). The proof of what I am saying is the fact that in both games that have it (STO and NW) neither game's foundry has actually received development/features in literally years now. The "team" that was devoted to the foundry some time ago is apparently doing other things now.
    where2r1 wrote: »
    I hope it is the latter and even though I never spend any time in the foundry I add my vote to the *is* important choice so only out of sympathy for the cause. :)

    In business, it is only "important" if it is attracting customers and making money.

    Not saying how important the Foundry actually is for your game play with your vote, doesn't give anyone true results from this poll. So, everyone may as well fake it to look like the "good guy". LOL!

    None of which will work because Cryptic has the solid numbers on how often the Foundry is used. And by whom.

    I am assuming, mostly folks in a couple of Fleets who have heavily invested a lot of time and have sequestered themselves unto themselves and become echo chambers for Foundry.

    @mattjohnsonva Did you try this poll over on the main STO Reddit? Or did you just poll everyone on some Foundry related Reddit?

    Right. Since Cryptic has the "actual" numbers in game numbers, they base their decisions on those. Even if 100% of the people who voted in a forum poll said the foundry is very important, if Cryptic's numbers how them only 5% of the playerbase is using it they aren't going to devote resources to that.
    vendood wrote: »
    I get that 'actual business reasons' is an issue: if something takes X development time and stats show it only gets played by N% of the players, then it looks clear that further development is not profitable.

    That said, for the reasons mentioned in my earlier post, the Foundry is simply not utilized because playing it is not integrated with other primary game features. It's more of a "you can't say there isn't enough content because Foundry" stopgap than it is an integral game feature.

    That said, every single day I see comments in game about "not enough new content; whens the next thing; this expansion is no good because X I want Y; there is no end-game" etc. etc. Proper Foundry integration would help with a lot of these issues.

    It is probably accurate to say 'the Foundry, as is, is not a profit generator'. That does mean that a few tweaks on how it is presented to people wouldn't make it a viable generator of player content. For instance, using "play one of these three Foundry missions" as a 'default' event (between other events) or a bonus daily personal Endeavour reward would go a long way towards generating interest in it and exposing players to a ton of content.

    I agree with this.

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  • theboxisredtheboxisred Member Posts: 450 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I used to play the Foundry quite often. There are a couple of things that keep me out these days.

    1, The search function is absolute trash. At least it was the last time I tried to use it. That's too bead because there is some great work in the Foundry and it's also the only thing we have that is exploratory in the game apart from exploring the poorly explained game systems, which at least is being addressed. It would seem.

    B, Poor use of grammar in the writing. Though, to be fair, I've come off my high horse a bit on that so it is a little easier to tolerate. I mean even those who write dialog and so forth in the game are guilty. But I assure you my enjoyment is greatly diminished when I encounter a "Would of," or a "Based off of."

    The Foundry is important, though, and I'd like to see it get some TLC to at least smooth out the edges.
  • captainkoltarcaptainkoltar Member Posts: 895 Arc User
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    Do I regularly play it? Nope.
    Have I found some really great missions there on occasions, and had fun with them? Yep.
    Am I glad it exists? Yep.

    Do I think it's an important part of Star Trek Online? Nope.

    I think most people log on to play the Cryptic created content, and to do the end game stuff. I don't think the Foundry is a major draw for most people sadly - which is why I answered as I did.
  • brian334brian334 Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    The Foundry is an untapped gold mine. I play it when I can, and I've been struggling to get a mission completed. (My stories tend to be less than linear, and I have trouble getting dialogue and the railroad mission format to integrate.)
  • spiritbornspiritborn Member Posts: 4,248 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I used to play the Foundry quite often. There are a couple of things that keep me out these days.

    1, The search function is absolute trash. At least it was the last time I tried to use it. That's too bead because there is some great work in the Foundry and it's also the only thing we have that is exploratory in the game apart from exploring the poorly explained game systems, which at least is being addressed. It would seem.

    B, Poor use of grammar in the writing. Though, to be fair, I've come off my high horse a bit on that so it is a little easier to tolerate. I mean even those who write dialog and so forth in the game are guilty. But I assure you my enjoyment is greatly diminished when I encounter a "Would of," or a "Based off of."

    The Foundry is important, though, and I'd like to see it get some TLC to at least smooth out the edges.
    Well poor grammar is a problem of the author's not the developers. We aren't professional writers after all (well some of us can be but not all, I ain't one for example).
  • bubblegirl2015bubblegirl2015 Member Posts: 830 Arc User
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I would suggest to revive the foundry they need more incentives. Probably was abused by some originally but time gates did help if they were to increase amount of Dilithium for rewards or bring back some EC/marks to it.

    Heck these days we are back to doing random PvEs which was despised 4 years ago. New management certainly should look for better ways to improve the foundry or it will be gone as PvP was.​​
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  • protoneousprotoneous Member Posts: 2,951 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    Almost a null vote due to wording. Question: HOW IMPORTANT IS THE FOUNDRY TO YOU? vs Answers: Yes/No I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online (with acknowledgement that poll wording can be difficult at best).

    How important is the foundry to me? I think it's importance may increase for me over time. I use it only very occasionally atm so no, it's not currently important to me.

    Is the foundry important to Star Trek Online? Yes.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    brian334 wrote: »
    The Foundry is an untapped gold mine. I play it when I can, and I've been struggling to get a mission completed. (My stories tend to be less than linear, and I have trouble getting dialogue and the railroad mission format to integrate.)
    Please tell me more. :D Or maybe start a new thread in the foundry forum..
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  • therumancer23therumancer23 Member Posts: 53 Arc User
    I rarely post and am just looking to get back into STO again after a bit of a hiatus. I wanted to respond to this, but neither "Yes or No" really covers my opinion of The Foundry.

    To keep it as simple as possible I think the idea of player-created content is wonderful, and done correctly it can address the biggest problems of an MMO: content drought. The problem is that no MMORPG that has attempted this, or something similar to it, has done it properly. Cryptic's spin on things for both STO and Neverwinter is sort of pointless because there is no way to really make foundry content, no matter how well designed, rewarding and worth the time. The rewards at the end of player content are random, trivial, and might make no thematic sense compared to what you play. The only way they came up with to maybe make the content worth playing is to reward your efforts due to the number of missions you play in a certain period, this encourages people to want to "rush through" foundry content and simply pick the quickest, easiest, missions to complete so they can get a certain number of them done. One can argue that playing a good player created mission should be it's own reward, but that attitude is impractical since most people want to advance their characters.

    Simply put to do player created content correctly a company has to allow it to be as inherently rewarding as other forms of content. There also needs to be quality control. This means that they need to hire extra people whose only job is to play, review, comment on, and balance foundry content. At the end of the day MMORPG companies do not want to actually pay professionals to oversee these aspects of the game, to them the whole point of this kind of system is to generate content that doesn't cost them anything and keeps the game going without any real investment on their part, which is an impractical attitude to say the least, which is why it never works. Done correctly however a professionally reviewed and balanced "Foundry" type system would still produce content far, far, quicker than the realities of having a professional team of builders create it. The extra paychecks a company would have to hand out would arguably be covered by the players being around longer and spending more money due to there being more content for them.... but as it is, nobody thinks like that, until thinking changes the current cycle will continue. There will be droughts between proper professionally created content that moves things forward, followed by cycles of players popping in like locusts to devour the new stuff before leaving and going somewhere else.

    Basically, I think it's a great idea, done right it could change everything about MMOs by helping to mitigate the biggest problem facing them: lack of content. As things stand now the idea is useless however, and to be frank if The Foundry and similar things were to suddenly disappear I'd barely even notice.... sad but true.


  • angrytargangrytarg Member Posts: 11,001 Arc User
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    I don't think the foundry is something that significantly carries STO. It was one of the selling points, like exploration, but is more or less a relic these days. I can't imagine it 'pulls' the game in any meaningful way.

    In no way my answer is meant to lessen the joy or dismissing the work authors and players get and put into it. But the way the question is phrased, no I don't think it's important to present day STO.
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  • theboxisredtheboxisred Member Posts: 450 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    spiritborn wrote: »
    I used to play the Foundry quite often. There are a couple of things that keep me out these days.

    1, The search function is absolute trash. At least it was the last time I tried to use it. That's too bead because there is some great work in the Foundry and it's also the only thing we have that is exploratory in the game apart from exploring the poorly explained game systems, which at least is being addressed. It would seem.

    B, Poor use of grammar in the writing. Though, to be fair, I've come off my high horse a bit on that so it is a little easier to tolerate. I mean even those who write dialog and so forth in the game are guilty. But I assure you my enjoyment is greatly diminished when I encounter a "Would of," or a "Based off of."

    The Foundry is important, though, and I'd like to see it get some TLC to at least smooth out the edges.
    Well poor grammar is a problem of the author's not the developers. We aren't professional writers after all (well some of us can be but not all, I ain't one for example).

    After re-reading my post I can see that I wasn't clear that I was making a distinction between those who write for STO and Foundry authors. I've seen such errors from both. Hey, at least I know that a significant part of the issue is in my head. It's jarring for me to look at a Starfleet officer, someone who is presumably a professional/expert in their field, and get the Bad Grammar Brain Twist (BGBT, patent pending...). But enough about that, I don't want to de-rail the thread.
  • salazarrazesalazarraze Member Posts: 3,794 Arc User
    No, I don't think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    The foundry is not important to me. I rarely use it but I think it's great that other people enjoy it.
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  • starswordcstarswordc Member Posts: 10,963 Arc User
    Yes, I think the Foundry is an important part of Star Trek Online
    spiritborn wrote: »
    I used to play the Foundry quite often. There are a couple of things that keep me out these days.

    1, The search function is absolute trash. At least it was the last time I tried to use it. That's too bead because there is some great work in the Foundry and it's also the only thing we have that is exploratory in the game apart from exploring the poorly explained game systems, which at least is being addressed. It would seem.

    B, Poor use of grammar in the writing. Though, to be fair, I've come off my high horse a bit on that so it is a little easier to tolerate. I mean even those who write dialog and so forth in the game are guilty. But I assure you my enjoyment is greatly diminished when I encounter a "Would of," or a "Based off of."

    The Foundry is important, though, and I'd like to see it get some TLC to at least smooth out the edges.
    Well poor grammar is a problem of the author's not the developers. We aren't professional writers after all (well some of us can be but not all, I ain't one for example).

    After re-reading my post I can see that I wasn't clear that I was making a distinction between those who write for STO and Foundry authors. I've seen such errors from both. Hey, at least I know that a significant part of the issue is in my head. It's jarring for me to look at a Starfleet officer, someone who is presumably a professional/expert in their field, and get the Bad Grammar Brain Twist (BGBT, patent pending...). But enough about that, I don't want to de-rail the thread.

    In all fairness, Cryptic's grammar and spelling in Klingon and Romulan really is awful. :tongue:
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