Thank you for the Wolf Mission Timer

Wow, that's the most disingenuine post I've ever seen you make, Nozy. You really outdid yourself. Not only did you fabricate context out of whole cloth, misrepresenting what Statesman said, you try to reply to your own constructs with illogical responses.

Nowhere has States said he added a timer to make the mission more fun. Furthermore he says people are naturally bound to disagree on what is fun, yet you claim he's deeming powerlevelling unfun for everyone. He says RIGHT THERE not everyone is going to agree with him.

LOL!

For someone who claims to have no problem with what he's done, you've gone to a lot of trouble to a) misrepresent him and b) insult him.

Statesman, I understand that, as a developer, you want us doing the fun stuff. However, can you please explain how you're qualified to tell me what I consider "fun?"

Do you care about people bypassing the interesting content? Or just the part about gaining levels quickly? There is absolutely nothing you can ever do about the latter. It's built-in to the deepest part of the powergamer psyche. Rather than forcing them to do the "more interesting content," how about giving them a good enough reason to?

I'd bet dollars to donuts that you've noticed a trend regarding "unfun" missions and the reason why people do them. I'm just a nobody in the grand scheme of things, but, perhaps people are doing the wolf mission because the "more interesting content" isn't rewarding enough. Just a passing thought.

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For all the ppl saying the 1 hour timer for this mission will make it too hard because of the AV really need to try the mission. I'm a lvl 48 with my mission diff maxed and I still had over 30 mins to spare when I was done. I had 3 other ppl wiht me when I did the mission so you don't need a real big team. The glowies are all real easy to find so it's not like you have to really look for them or anything. Will you be able to solo this mission in an hour? Probably not but the devs don't think we should be able to solo an AV anyway so they killed 2 birds with one stone.

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Well to be fair, because of all the rampant powerlevelling, it's taken me 20-30 minutes to form an AV team. That's just too close for my comfort. It's not like with any of my characters I can just solo an AV. I have to group with all of them to beat one. That's why I suggest 3 hours. Give us a token hour to recruit, and a bonus hour for contingencies/emergencies and an hour to really work on an AV. I think that's a fair trade for an AV mission that formerly had no time limit whatsoever.

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If the devs took the time to make the game fun at all levels then I believe that most people would play the game instead of PL.

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Actually I have found the game to be quite fun at all levls, even the lower levevls. At least with the first 10 or 15 alts I made. I can only handle doing the same "Defeat all Skulls at the Rave" or "Save the Painting" mission so many times before I simply have had enough.

Now if the game were bursting with content and I could make 50 alts without doing the same 5 missions over and over again, then there would be no reason to PL since I'm a mission/badge/souvenir junkie.

Unfortunately this isn't currently the case, and I know they are always working to add more content, it doesn't grow on trees, till then though I'll continue to PL my alts past that phase of the game.

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SkunkWerks7: The flaw in this reasoning is that the whole philsophy of PLing is that the player doing it cares little for anyhting else but levels.

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This isn't quite true either. In fact my latest alt is a controller that I PL'ed through the lower content (and amazingly enough not a single wolf was invovled ) for the specific purpose of exploring the newly added Striga Isle content.

The reason I PL'ed through the lower levels is as stated above, been there done that before.

And huge props to the devs for Striga. The zone itself, the missions, the stories, all some of my favorite in the game.

The puppy mission was actually a good deal of fun to mess around with, though I don't really think it was quick xp in any real sense.

My issue with this sort of mentality is....level 39 is hell. It's hell because even with the mission difficulty maxed and a large team you run out of missions. Everyone knows it's hellish, but as far as I know there's no real way aruond it.


Is there any way we could get Kora-type (unlimited spawn) missions that are -not- in a hazard zone that locks out anyone under 40? Since your team cannot get xp from street sweeping misssions and it's trivial to run out of missions -available- at that level...well, you often run into situations where you simply cannot get another mission. Sure, you can take a mission from the 2nd highest and work your way down, but what if it's just you and a sked lowbie?

Yes, I have a level 50, and yes, I did do some puppy herding. I've also completed every single mission possible for him that I can access- short of Shard missions (though I've done all 3 TFs, some more than once), and every once in a while it'd be kind of fun to play missions on my highest. There simply aren't enough door missions- which I adore- at the high end of the game. LEveling is horribly slow even with the 'powerleveling' options at the higher levels, and it'd be a blast to be able to run doors without worrying about running -out- of them.


I just...I do wish that the devs would do some new data mining and see exactly how long it would take a player doing only door/sweep/ect msisions to hit 50, assuming -zero- debt, and a very heavy mission difficulty slider. I do mean a full team, quick moving, ect. I think the way the xp moves and leveling is done is very nicely balanced and gradiated till the upper 30s...when it seems to snag a bit (maybe more than a bit) to 39, the 40-44ish is fun and smooth, then a brick wall beyond that.

I'm not suggesting making it trivial to hit 50- not that it will ever be hard with some builds and creative sidekicking/powerleveling- but what exactly is wrong with making it easier than it is now?

For myself, I'm going to play my charecters untill they stop being fun, and roll up new ones till I get bored. I'd just like to not have to worry if I'm going to run out of things to do without resorting to sweeping- and I simply don't like that.

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For someone who claims to have no problem with what he's done, you've gone to a lot of trouble to a) misrepresent him and b) insult him.

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No trouble at all really. What other reason is there to adjust the mission other than the fact that people were leveling alts faster than he (or maybe the accountants) cared for. As you said, he stated himself that not everyone finds the same things fun. Is it okay that people don't find the same things fun as long as he finds it fun?

You don't think it is a bit hypocritical to say "No two people find the same thing fun" and then say "I'm changing this because it's not fun"?

So either he being a hypocrite (I do not think this is the case) or he is trying to sugar coat the real reason behind it (people leveling too fast for his taste).

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SkunkWerks7: The flaw in this reasoning is that the whole philsophy of PLing is that the player doing it cares little for anyhting else but levels.

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This isn't quite true either. In fact my latest alt is a controller that I PL'ed through the lower content (and amazingly enough not a single wolf was invovled ) for the specific purpose of exploring the newly added Striga Isle content.

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I think I may have said this before, but I consider the die-hard PLer to be a mindset rather than determined by it's symptoms: the locating of potential exploits, determining the most efficient way to make use of them, and then, of course, implementing that in a repeatable fashion.

And all to gain levels of course. If you're PLing to get to a specific spot to experience content, in my mind, it doesn't mkae you much of a diehard PLer.

But they exist and believe me, no content-carrot is going to dissuade them from doing what they do- because, in essence, they don't give a damn about content in the first place or they wouldn't be incessantly finding exploits and figuring out how to use them to towards the greatest XP payoff.

For the die hard PLer, the whole act of...

1) finding a suitably repeatble and high-reward exploit
2) finding a way to use that exploit most efficiently
3) using that exploit to the best advantage, then repeating the process again...

...is the thrill of playing for these folks. You're using it as a tool to achieve an end. For the real PLer, the act itself is the end.

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So uh..doing the same wolf mission again and again is heroic then?

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Well that all depends on your definition of heroic. I don't really use that one much in this game. After ignoring muggings on the street in Atlas Park, I didnt feel all that heroic. Oh sure, when I first started playing, I would stop them, even though it was no xp, but as my time is limited playing the game, I really couldnt justify it anymore. But thats to everyones indvidual call. My point is that Statesman is off to direct us to the fun he is created, not stopping us from gaining levels, and I think that putting a timer on the mission will hurt some people, while not directing others to what he wants to do.

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For the die hard PLer, the whole act of...

1) finding a suitably repeatble and high-reward exploit
2) finding a way to use that exploit most efficiently
3) using that exploit to the best advantage, then repeating the process again...

...is the thrill of playing for these folks. You're using it as a tool to achieve an end. For the real PLer, the act itself is the end.

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I see what you are saying. Though I don't know if the word "exploit" would go hand in hand with PL'er. And on that matter, is reseting the wolf mission an exploit?

I seem to remember a red name in beta responding to this question. Is resetting a mission and repeating it an exploit? The answer was......No. It was even encouraged as a way to avoid street hunting and kill stealing.

So is herding the real exploit they were trying to fix here? Again I would say no. Adding a timer does nothing to stop the herding. And I don't think rounding up mobs would be considered an exploit anyway.

Now, combine that with the mobs stacking issues and you are starting to get something that resembles an exploit. By confusing the AI and taking advantage of geometery and lack of collision detection a playter is able to stack an unlimited amount of mobs into a tight space making ALL of them susceptible to AoE's. But of course again a timer does absolutely nothing to address this.

I really don't see why they even bothered. They didn't end the practice of mission resetting (a practice that was even endorsed at one point), they didn't address heding, or make fixes to a poor game mechanic. All they really did was give in to the Wolf Mission whiners, lol.

Maybe that was the real goal, Statesman was simply trying to get the whiners to quit PM'ing him about wolf exploits.

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And on that matter, is reseting the wolf mission an exploit?

I seem to remember a red name in beta responding to this question. Is resetting a mission and repeating it an exploit? The answer was......No. It was even encouraged as a way to avoid street hunting and kill stealing.

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Well, this is why, again, I prefer to define a PLer by intention rather than by action- the action's the symptom, not the cause.

The cause is a drive to poke at something to find it's weak points, then explot that to the greatest advantage. It's a mentality common to hackers. This timer thing and other curbing attempts are seen as a challenge.

And so the game of...

...exploit
countermeasure
circumvention
countermeasure
circumvention...

...will continue. People suggesting here that PLer's be given a reason not to PL are getting close to the point, and yet missing its most crucial feature: PLer's want the thrill of besting the system, and not necessarily that AV they happen to be fighting.

What it really comes down to is how these people choose to play, and frankly since the game has little to offer these folks beyond the potential for "cheating" (for lack of a better word) at it, there's not much that States here can offer to discourage them by way of encouraging them to do something else that is "fun".

So you stick a timer on the wolf mission instead... see my earlier post to Statesman, but I'll also sum it up here:

The real important thing is, in dealing with this minority in the population deemed to be a problem, are you harming the "fun" of the other (majority) of the players?

Since he and the other developers will be laying down circumventions like this one for the forseeable duration of this MMO, I think this is the golden rule to proceed by.

And right now it's a bit early to tell what the answer to that question is, I think. What you're seeing right now is some dire-prognostications in absence of any large longitudinal body of observation, and a whole lot of reactionary preemptive response.

I say give it a few weeks, myself. It's the only way to know.

But Nozy it's not going to stop. The only wolf missions that are timed are ones taken from this point on, all the people that are already using it will just keep it.

By them adding a timer, it did absolutely nothing. Come on States, at least justify the timer for the mish...what's the reasoning behind the timer? Is SH going to blow up the earth if he's not stopped in a certain amount of time now? Or was it just added for the sole purpose to stop herding in that particular mish? If it was the latter you are sadly mistaken thinking that'll stop anything.

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But Nozy it's not going to stop.

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Heh, exactly my point.

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This really reminds me of drug and alcohol prohibition. The law makes changes, people figure a way around them, and still do what they want to do.
There always has been, always will be drugs, guns crime, and prostitution. No matter what the establishment does to try and stop these things, they will never eradicate them completely. Same as PLing. People do what they want to do, regardless of how loud the mewling PL whiners cry their eyes out. Time the missions people use, I'll herd another mission. Hell, I don't even need them to stack to herd and kill mass mobs.
The devs have made a bad decision here. Minus 5 stars for their short-sightedness.
I wonder if they ever thought that the reason people PL is because the game is a tough grind at 30+. Maybe if the rewards for playing "the way we say!" were more substantial, the PLing will go down.
TomTrompinski, I have a prediction too:
We will PL, we will find a way, and the only reason it "hurts" other players is because the whiners whine, and voila! A timed AV mission.
Maybe if the busy bodies would play their own game instead of mine, no one would feel the hammerfist of the devs on their game.
Whiners, you brought any failer of this mission due to time constraints on yourselves. Maybe I won't herd the wolf mission, ok! I'll herd another.
I can't wait to see the PL crybabies whine when they miss an accolade because of a situation they completely are responsible for.

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Whiners? Someone get this baby a bottle. The people have spoken, and they told you to STHU. Of course you won't, you'll cry like a stuck pig. But that's ok, really.

The fact that you bring up legalized drinking and prohibition just shows that you're so far from a clue, the light from clue won't reach you for 100 years.

Enjoy!

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Bah!

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For all the ppl saying the 1 hour timer for this mission will make it too hard because of the AV really need to try the mission. I'm a lvl 48 with my mission diff maxed and I still had over 30 mins to spare when I was done. I had 3 other ppl wiht me when I did the mission so you don't need a real big team. The glowies are all real easy to find so it's not like you have to really look for them or anything. Will you be able to solo this mission in an hour? Probably not but the devs don't think we should be able to solo an AV anyway so they killed 2 birds with one stone.

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Well to be fair, because of all the rampant powerlevelling, it's taken me 20-30 minutes to form an AV team. That's just too close for my comfort. It's not like with any of my characters I can just solo an AV. I have to group with all of them to beat one. That's why I suggest 3 hours. Give us a token hour to recruit, and a bonus hour for contingencies/emergencies and an hour to really work on an AV. I think that's a fair trade for an AV mission that formerly had no time limit whatsoever.

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I see what you are saying, I was already on a team that was running through AV missions when I got it.

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But Nozy it's not going to stop. The only wolf missions that are timed are ones taken from this point on, all the people that are already using it will just keep it.

By them adding a timer, it did absolutely nothing. Come on States, at least justify the timer for the mish...what's the reasoning behind the timer? Is SH going to blow up the earth if he's not stopped in a certain amount of time now? Or was it just added for the sole purpose to stop herding in that particular mish? If it was the latter you are sadly mistaken thinking that'll stop anything.

[/ QUOTE ] In the case of the latter, how could the missions be farmed with the new timer?
Edit: mind's not thinking correctly...grammar point.

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The real important thing is, in dealing with this minority in the population deemed to be a problem, are you harming the "fun" of the other (majority) of the players?

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Yep, again I agree with you. As even RR said himself it can be difficult to put an AV team together at times, then you actually have to defeat the AV, and the wolves, and click the glowies.

The time constraint is, as has been pointed out, not going to do a thing to curb PL'ing and only puts undue constraints on those who are just trying to finish a mission.

I really don't see what the devs were trying to accomplish here. If anything, they need to remove Shadowhunter from the mission to give people a shot beating him fairly and not miss out on a badge because of the timer. It is silly really.

There are different missions to farm and herd on. Trust me on that. My kinetics defender just started getting tells for a few of them.

You want to know what is silly? Complaining about lack of content when you bypass it to sell these [censored] powerleved alts on ebay.

Guess what people powerlevel to sell characters.

If you go through the same mission five times stop playing the damn game or making alts and concentrate on a game.

If you don't want to play the content which is the missions, tfs, trials then don't play the game.

Getting tells asking for powerleveling or not being able to get a team to fight AVs is why powerleveling gets fixed.

Explotiting a mission or anything in a game is wrong and is a violation of the EULA.

People who powerlevel are not in the game for the long term. Most of them went to EQ and WOW and powerleveled their then slowly are coming back here.

True gamers don't care about getting levels. You level fast enough as it is in this game.

And how the hell can you run out of missions nowadays?

Tons of people who don't powerlevel at all find they have several contacts each level bracket that are still empty on the contact bar.

Who the hell gives a damn if you got six level 50s?

Go to another game if you get bored. Powerleveling or additional content won't solve your boredom.

And herding is the most boring thing ever. It is not exciting at all for anyone.

Every tank I played and every tank I have ever seen fell asleep herding.

Fighting an AV at least you have a chance of dying. Herding wolves not so.

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What other reason is there to adjust the mission?
You don't think it is a bit hypocritical to say "No two people find the same thing fun" and then say "I'm changing this because it's not fun"? I think he is trying to sugar coat the real reason behind it (people leveling too fast for his taste).


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Though some people did find herding this one mission fun (specifically some of the tankers doing the herding, though many were bored with it), *many* people were doing it exclusively and finding it un-fun, but a *faster* way to level so they were doing it anyway. Whether out of a sense of racing to be first or keeping up with friends... or whatever.

Since more people were doing it and finding it un-fun, and there are plenty other things tankers can herd and have fun with (as people keep posting), they made it timed. Not only that, too many people were constantly being nagged "do you have the wolf mission" over and over - this is decidedly not fun.

I do think an hour is too short. A reasonable amount of time that the mission would take should be taken into consideration. But as for getting a group together - get the group ready *then* take the mission, doesn't everyone do that on timed missions? It's not a surprise timed mission now is it? I should hope not.

As to what another poster said, there *are* specific really cool things you can only do at certain levels. Special missions at every level with new graphics or badges, story arcs that you actually get exp for, task forces, trials, temporary powers. There are scads of these. Just off the top of my head - EMP glove mission with clockwork, flashbang grenade mission, Pwnz mission, superadine lab mission, sands of mu CoT mission, Synapse taskforce, Lou's Garage, Manticore taskforce, Sister Psyche taskforce, Moonfire taskforce, Ernesto Hess taskforce, Transcendence trial, 3 respec trials, Striga missions, Frostfire mission in the hollows, Bastion taskforce, Positron taskforce, wheel of destruction mission with scary tsoo idols, Tobias Hansen one-way vampire mission, sewer trials, Plague Stopper mission, ice armor mission, freakshow disguise chameleon suit mission... ok you get the idea. If you want to solo those of the above that are soloable, missions or storylines mentioned above, you have to do it at the given level. Also task forces are MUCH more fun if you aren't exemplared... being exemplared into a task force is a frustrating thing, as mostly you or your lower level helper will be disconnected at some point and you'll be out of the task force before its conclusion.

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Statesman, I understand that, as a developer, you want us doing the fun stuff. However, can you please explain how you're qualified to tell me what I consider "fun?"

Do you care about people bypassing the interesting content? Or just the part about gaining levels quickly? There is absolutely nothing you can ever do about the latter. It's built-in to the deepest part of the powergamer psyche. Rather than forcing them to do the "more interesting content," how about giving them a good enough reason to?

I'd bet dollars to donuts that you've noticed a trend regarding "unfun" missions and the reason why people do them. I'm just a nobody in the grand scheme of things, but, perhaps people are doing the wolf mission because the "more interesting content" isn't rewarding enough. Just a passing thought.

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I'm gonna go with that feeling you get after finishing a game too quickly that makes you go "meh, it's ok - but I don't wanna play anymore". On the other hand, if it is hard to PL, then PL'ing is worth something and you wanna stay in it to share with your friend. That's from a Power Gamer's point of view.

Content is cool too. The Praetorian Arcs are totally worth the price of admission if you ask me.

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There are different missions to farm and herd on. Trust me on that. My kinetics defender just started getting tells for a few of them.

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Best way to tune a game. Find the points the PLers are using. Tune them. Repeat.

Use the ones "breaking" the system to point out where to fix things. Of course, making sure the fix is better than the break is the tough part.

Thanks for what? Runing what many many people enjoyed doing? Yes, let's give thanks for pissing off lots f people.

On a side note, WWs have been outdated for awhile. There are other, better missions to farm. Unless timers are tossed on every lvl 40ish+ train and portal mission, herding/PLing will never stop.

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There are different missions to farm and herd on. Trust me on that. My kinetics defender just started getting tells for a few of them.

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Best way to tune a game. Find the points the PLers are using. Tune them. Repeat.

Use the ones "breaking" the system to point out where to fix things. Of course, making sure the fix is better than the break is the tough part.

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Herding is just boring. I've been saying "no" to wolf missions for months.

You might as well have that April Fools artifact from D&D that would crush a skeleton for you for XP.

Still here, even after all this time!

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Since we are the ones paying to play this game and you, hypothetically speaking, work for us, please give us a better reason for changing something like this.

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Addiction stems from challenge, risk and reward. When there is no challenge, ultimately boredom occurs, and you lose a player. The constant rapid increase in the level number is entertaining for a while. but ultimately does grow stale (see the 'more content for level 50' thread if you don't believe this to be true).

Make no mistake about it, it is the job of a game designer to keep people addicted to playing.

"…playing a videogame could be considered a non-financial form of gambling…a non-substance form of addiction." [Ferguson, 1998, p. 5]

Basic game design theory. You do not allow godmode or too-rapid advancement in a game where you wish to maintain a long term paying customer base.

It is also a basic of game design theory that some players will always be at odds with the system, and do their best to find a way to work around it...and that these players ultimately make themselves dissatisfied with the product. They will grow bored with the repetitive nature of earning levels with little or no effort, and move on to another game (likely repeating the cycle there).

It's a developer's job to abort exploitive behavoirs, bulletproof the code against extremist leveling.

And that's really all there is to it.

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I think people misunderstand why developers interfere and make changes. I could care less how fast someone earns influence. But I am concerned when someone is doing something "unfun" in order to gain levels quickly and there by bypassing other, more interesting content. Admittedly, "fun" and "unfun" are completely subjective, so people can disagree.

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I hate to say it, especially since I HATE p'lvling Noobs........BUT I have near 3 lvl 50 toons right now and have experienced the game content 3x over, and I mean ALL the game content. Now what is a person in my shoes supposed to do to lvl fast in a "fun" manner?