Discussion: Changes to Task/Strike Force Missions
By
Acid_Reign,
Posted on: 2008-02-14 15:00 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Except they threw that out of whack with the stf.
The stf can be completed in less time than the posi tf.
That right there says right now the way tfs are viewed by the dev team is basically borked. I don't think tfs are hardcore at all.
Just some being ridiculously and unnecssarily tedious.
And I'm sorry but tediousness for tediousnes sake is NOT challange as far as I'm concerned.
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I know Positron has said that they aren't happy with the Positron TF and I think the other Freedom Phalanx TFs have turned out, there was a discussion about it, the issue is finding the time to redo it. I do think that the devs think that the goal should be more like the Hess or Lady Grey TF, they just haven't been able to redo the old content.
Maybe that's a good way to bring the new hires up to speed on the system...revamping the old content.
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Put simply - the winners are:
Infamy farmers
Powerful characters who can take on huge mobs alone
RMTers
People who sell rare recipes for huge prices
and the losers are:
People who want xp (from big team farms)
People who like running SFs
Pool C/D recipes and those that want them
Now um...doesn't that seem like the reverse of the intention?
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Put that way, it does. Which would mean that there may be more changes coming.
Regardless, the change in and of itself is a good one, and I don't think it goes far enough: if all TFs required a full team to start, fewer people would start them with the minimum players and then be stymied because one person dropped out.
Unfortunately, there is no way to reward casual play while locking out the minmaxed RMT farmers, so the only alternative is to have NO hardcore or difficult content, which then dissuades the people who like that sort of thing.
As it is, people can level to 50 fine solo with almost any build at reasonable risk if they play smart. IOs and HOs and Badges and Raids are not needed to play the game, and in any case are available from the market for just hours (granted, possibly dozens of hours) of play, or you can get them faster by taking the time to organize a good team.
That sounds like the kind of MMO I want to play right there.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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How is arranging a large block of uninterrupted time a challenege? It's like the challenge of "earning $X a year" or "living in North Dakota." Those are things that, while malleable, are usually thought of as beyond the scope of a game.
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All challenges in the game require you to make a minimum amount of money, live in one of several locations, and invest a minimum amount of time. It's just a matter of degree.
I do agree that the TFs should not be long just to be long. But any content that is designed for teams, is by definition designed for people with a certain amount of organizational skills. The longer the team has to stay together, the better those skills (and the better knowledge of the participants) has to be.
Some % of challenges are not intended for PUGs. I beleive that some TFs should be PUG friendly, and that some should not be. Ideally, they'd also be labeled that way.
All of the content should be fun and part of an engaging story. But part and parcel of the TF concept as realized in this game is "you must have x people to start, and y people to be able to finish it".
It also follows logically that any mission that requires you to defeat an AV should requre a minimum of 6 people, since AVs are designed to be a challenge for 6 people. Except when they're not.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
QR to NcSoft
All this change does is allow my brute to finally have an Arcane Farm mission set to a good spawn size with unlimited resets.
The changes don't affect me a whole lot since our SG has reliable folk who don't bail on TFs/SFs.
I am only miffed at the poor communication from NcSoft and its staff. They knew the players figured out the (or at least some) changes on the 12th after the patch was live but the developers/community reps failed to "find" any patch notes nor comment for two days (exluding LH's deleted comment).
I don't much care for conspiracies and such, I just like honesty and accountability from the providers of a service I pay to enjoy.
I just have one simple question...Why did it take two days to find the patch notes and to comment on this situation?
Please answer my question. I have no animosity to the Devs or Community reps, just a question.
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I just have one simple question...Why did it take two days to find the patch notes and to comment on this situation?
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because they were shopping for wedding gifts for Drama Queen.
"Sorry bucko, but CoH and CoV are the same game." -BackAlleyBrawler
"Silly villain, CoX is for Heroes!" -Saicho
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Why did it take them two days to "find" the patch notes or to comment?
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Office chaos. LH clearly wasn't in the loop, as his now-deleted comments about it being a bug reveal.
Now, is anyone actually going to answer my question? If you're going to make conspiracy theories, then the person(s) doing the conspiring have to have something to gain by it.
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Why did it take them two days to "find" the patch notes or to comment?
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Office chaos. LH clearly wasn't in the loop, as his now-deleted comments about it being a bug reveal.
Now, is anyone actually going to answer my question? If you're going to make conspiracy theories, then the person(s) doing the conspiring have to have something to gain by it.
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The Devs hate villains! ... *and* heroes!!!
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It prevented discussion during testing.
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They aren't honour-bound to listen to discussion during testing anyway. If they want to make a change, especially where 'exploits' are concerned, they will.
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It prevented warning players that the huge change was coming. It prevented feedback, and finally prevented players from quickly farming faster TFs/SFs to grab as many recipes as possible before the change hit live.
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Er, all of that addresses why the change wasn't in the TEST patch notes. The discussion is about why the change wasn't in the LIVE patch notes.
It wasn't in the test patch notes because it was about addressing exploitative (from the Devs' PoV) behaviour. It didn't get added to the live patch notes because of communication snarlups. If people think that it was left off the live patch notes because the Devs deliberately left it off, then let them come up with some sane reason why it would have been advantageous to the Devs to do that.
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The Devs hate villains! ... *and* heroes!!!
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and puppies!
If they haven't already, the Devs may want to consider setting up a server that is constantly under NDA just to test/discuss exploit fixes.
Of course the problem with that is that the people you would trust with an NDA are not the people who would be best at finding a way around exploit fixes. Hmmm...
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
QR
Boy I should've known something was in the works when the spawn sizes were messed up in test. they were working on this in secret why else would the spawns sizes be screwed up during testing? To say they lost this piece of information is horseshit
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Why did it take them two days to "find" the patch notes or to comment?
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Office chaos. LH clearly wasn't in the loop, as his now-deleted comments about it being a bug reveal.
Now, is anyone actually going to answer my question? If you're going to make conspiracy theories, then the person(s) doing the conspiring have to have something to gain by it.
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I don't believe in consipracy theories and I don't know what there is to gain. If you were to re-read my post you would understand this.
I just can't see how it's possible to take TWO DAYS to find patch notes when the players have already figured out the changes. It's not like the patch notes are hidden in a secret catacomb that the devs must face in order to obtain the correct list.
Not a conspiracy but a legitmate reason the rednames didn't comment:
The knew this fixed an exploit (softloading) and they knew many many players would become upset. They chose to let the players find the changes once live. They knew there would be a big ado so they stayed quiet as to not add fuel to the fire. Once they felt the fire are subsided some, they posted their official response.
No conspiracies just common sense. Two days to find patch notes? C'mon...
Not to mention the fact that the only rednamed person posting in this thread...is Lighthouse...c'mon. Its been 3 days...and no offical "rednames" have even addressed this. It isn't as if they aren't reading the boards either, check the dev digest, they are alive and well in other threads.
Thanks, NC Soft, for closing my favorite game ever without warning and with plenty of life still left in it, and thus relieving me of the burden of EVER wanting to buy, try or even hear about another game from your company. Will my decision make a dent, or persuade them in anyway, shape or form? Nope, obviously not. Don't care. NC Soft is dead to me. ~ PsyFox
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Why did it take them two days to "find" the patch notes or to comment?
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Office chaos. LH clearly wasn't in the loop, as his now-deleted comments about it being a bug reveal.
Now, is anyone actually going to answer my question? If you're going to make conspiracy theories, then the person(s) doing the conspiring have to have something to gain by it.
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I don't believe in consipracy theories and I don't know what there is to gain. If you were to re-read my post you would understand this.
I just can't see how it's possible to take TWO DAYS to find patch notes when the players have already figured out the changes. It's not like the patch notes are hidden in a secret catacomb that the devs must face in order to obtain the correct list.
Not a conspiracy but a legitmate reason the rednames didn't comment:
The knew this fixed an exploit (softloading) and they knew many many players would become upset. They chose to let the players find the changes once live. They knew there would be a big ado so they stayed quiet as to not add fuel to the fire. Once they felt the fire are subsided some, they posted their official response.
No conspiracies just common sense. Two days to find patch notes? C'mon...
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That just shows how poor their patching documentation is.
EDIT: To be clear I'm not annoyed that they made the change, I'm just wishing it would have come with a revamping of TFs which was mentioned FIRST a while ago. Also the fact that this actually favors even MORE farming shows it might have not been the best way to do it.
Also, more importantly, I'd like them to fix their patching noting process.
3 patchnotes left off the notes in so many days is a problem.
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Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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How is arranging a large block of uninterrupted time a challenege? It's like the challenge of "earning $X a year" or "living in North Dakota." Those are things that, while malleable, are usually thought of as beyond the scope of a game.
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All challenges in the game require you to make a minimum amount of money, live in one of several locations, and invest a minimum amount of time. It's just a matter of degree.
I do agree that the TFs should not be long just to be long. But any content that is designed for teams, is by definition designed for people with a certain amount of organizational skills. The longer the team has to stay together, the better those skills (and the better knowledge of the participants) has to be.
Some % of challenges are not intended for PUGs. I beleive that some TFs should be PUG friendly, and that some should not be. Ideally, they'd also be labeled that way.
All of the content should be fun and part of an engaging story. But part and parcel of the TF concept as realized in this game is "you must have x people to start, and y people to be able to finish it".
It also follows logically that any mission that requires you to defeat an AV should requre a minimum of 6 people, since AVs are designed to be a challenge for 6 people. Except when they're not.
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Except that there isn't much consistency in some of the things you stated.
Prime example: Some AVs are most certainly NOT a challenge at all for 6 people. Others most certainly are.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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No conspiracies just common sense. Two days to find patch notes? C'mon...
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I think you guys are being way too literal in your interpretation of the word 'lost' here. Look at what LH says:
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We know that finding out about this change after the patch is already live is not the ideal way to go about it. It was never our intent to hide or stealth this change out, it was simply lost in the volume of other changes spanning many months.
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He doesn't mean the patch notes were literally lost, as in, written down and then left on a bus. He obviously means they were forgotten about / dropped by the wayside / were on someone's to do list that they then left in their other pants / were something that someone was going to do 'when they got around to it' and so on.
I should clarify that I don't actually LIKE this change, but chaos is only chaos and not malice.
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Since this is being done because of an exploit could we not change the spawn sizes so that it can tell the difference between people that are logged off and people that have quit?
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Good idea, but still slightly vulnerable to griefing. Instead of quitting to screw the TF over, a griefer would logout. Adding the ability to kick logged out players would help.
Heh, What are they going to say, besides, "What Lighthouse said."
Not that anyone with a tinfoil hat would beleive them if they did.
I'm not particularly concerned that it took them two days to organize the info. My concern is that their patch notes process is still not fixed. Keep an eye out for other oversights, for both their and our benefit.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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If they haven't already, the Devs may want to consider setting up a server that is constantly under NDA just to test/discuss exploit fixes.
Of course the problem with that is that the people you would trust with an NDA are not the people who would be best at finding a way around exploit fixes. Hmmm...
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They have known about the last 3 big "exploits" on test server well before they ever hit live. Im talking about eggs, portals and Van Guard. All 3 were reported to them on the test server by multiple people. THEY chose to release the "exploits". If they'de correct that issue there wouldn't be exploits for them to "fix". I am of the opinion that they are fully aware of exploits released from test to live 9 times out of 10.
Sorry to thread jack .
On with tf//sf discussion. 
As a disenchanted 45'er most recently on the red side, I don't even know what a "Cap Run" is, but am confident that it involves resolutions to the Cathedral of Pain, disparity between TF's and SF's, etc.
What?
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Min = Max = 8 man isn't onerous? Losing one person puts you at a 87.5% effectiveness and there's nothing you can do to avoid that. Other than enforced raid attendance. I'm sorry, did that sound like World of Warcraft terminology?
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New for issue 12: Logging out or quitting a Task Force, Flashback, Raid, or Trial will incur.
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Both games use the same servers, there is no hero only or villain only accounts unless you bought the games seperate after NCSoft bought City of Heroes/Villains from cryptic studios. You will find very few places that still sell them seperate.
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The fact is that server populations are 1/3 villain and 2/3 hero at BEST, regardless of what time of day or server you look at. Quite often it is more along the lines of 1/4 to 3/4 in favor of heroes. The prices on the hero auction house are very low in comparison to what villains have to cough up for the same recipe, salvage, or enhancement. What was just done only helps ruin the villain economy further.
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I think you guys are being way too literal in your interpretation of the word 'lost' here.
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That's why I quoted "find."
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Some AVs are most certainly NOT a challenge at all for 6 people. Others most certainly are.
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While this is true, a more pertinent issue here is that an AV that is a challenge for:
- a SS/Inv Tanker, a fire/fire Blaster, an empathy/dark defender, an illusion/storm controller, an BS/Regen Scrapper and a Human Form Warshade
May or may not be a challenge at all for
- 4 Rad/Dark Defenders and 2 Fire/Kin Controllers.
But I don't think the tech is in place to dynamically build a mission based on current team makeup. If it were, that might solve the 'causal vs minmax' issue right there. 
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
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That was indeed the stated intent at the time.
I that TFs have been getting shorter, and that that's a good thing. But there's a limit. They are only supposed to get So short, So easy. And where ever that line is drawn short of getting rid of TFs completely, there are people who will want them to want less commitment and time.
This is as good a place to draw the line as any.
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I think most of us are arguing that this is, in fact, not a good place to draw the line. The notion that the devs are going to re-assert the original intent of TFs, after years of giving players TFs that they prefered to that model, should be a non-starter.
If the devs want to give us new TFs tailored to the hardcore gamers that would be one thing (though I'd argue their time could be better spent on more universal content). But just switching every TF in the game (though some more than others) towards a model that was abandoned in Issue 3? No, that just seems like poor thinking.
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There are many forms of challenge in a game, and 'time spent' is as legitimate a challenge for a goal as 'sufficiently minmaxed', 'can team', or 'is level x'.
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How is arranging a large block of uninterrupted time a challenege? It's like the challenge of "earning $X a year" or "living in North Dakota." Those are things that, while malleable, are usually thought of as beyond the scope of a game.
-D
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