Discussion: Changes to Task/Strike Force Missions
By
Acid_Reign,
Posted on: 2008-02-14 15:00 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
You know what ,Solitair? Hero's could do the same thing with Katie. They just aren't typically " out of the box" thinkers or as diabolical as villians!!!
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This seems like a poor solution to me, more likely to punish PUGs that lose members over the course of a long TF than it is to really clamp down Pool C recipe farming. Additionally, it seems like allowing a single character to set himself up with an infinitely repeatable group mission could only be a boon to influence farmers.
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It's because they Devs tend to go for the quick fix without thinking of the consequences, just to get it out there. They should be taking their time, analyzing it and looking at it from the player's point of view rather than just the Dev "vision".
This change in SF/TFs would have never happened had they put any thought into it beyond "stop recipe farming".
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Congratulations on killing the Shard TFs, not that anyone actually did them.
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Ouch. I hadn't even thought of that one. They take so long that I've never been on one where some of the members didn't leave before the end.
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Such missions have always been intended to be group activities, hence the reason for the minimum group size requirement to start them. We feel that the group size requirements are certainly not onerous
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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.
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Hmmm. That's the solution.
They didn't go far enough. They need to code it so the quit TF button is disabled and the log off buttons are disabled until the TF is completed. Then they need to make it so if your character is AFK for more than 20 minutes or doesn't exit a mission within 5 minutes of completion 1 level gets deleted from every alt on the account every 5 minutes until the player stops being AFK or exits the mission. It also starts deleting 5% of the influence from every alt every 5 minutes, deletes one recipe and deletes one piece of salvage every 5 minutes (starting with the rarest and working backwards).
That would give them their "vision" of what a TF should be. 
If we can not soft spawn the first mission in the rsf. They have got to at least fix the damn mission.
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The thing is that TFs/SFs have fallen victim to skewed player perspective.
They have never been intended to be easy or fast, or for the average PUG. They are content for hardcore players willing and able to run for 4-8 hours at once, or to reorganize on a regular basis: content for teams of RL friends or SGs.
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I don't think it's skewed player perspective when that has been the perspective since day one. They make this change 45 months later. If this change was their original vision it wouldn't have taken them 45 months to address it.
Player perspective is exactly where it is because of the game design over the last 45 months. There is no skewing.
I disagree.
- Just look at the number of missions in the typical TF: hours of content for the average player.
- Just look at the fact that there is a minimum number to start it.
- Just look at the fact that you can't use normal contacts during it.
- Just look at the fact that they typically end with AVs.
This is obviously not content that was intended for the average PUG.
As I said before, the Devs may want TFs to change to be intended for average PUGs. If so, THAT would be a change, and a lot more than soft spawning would need to change to accomodate that.
That does not meed that there does not also need to be hardcore content.
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Having poinged around the Shadow Shard checking, all the TFs in there still require 8.
I'm not opposed to this change, as long as the maximum for everything that's not Statesman or Lord Recluse comes down to 4.
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....and STILL no comments from rednames other than "we're sorry it didn't get into the patch notes" "it's to prevent RMT'ers" (which I doubt RMT'ers were even using TF's before, but they sure will now!) and "most tf's are for 4 people" which VERY QUICKLY got debunked.
Now I might buy that PER statistics most people RUN the TF's that require 4 the most....?? Kinda doubt it tho.
Seriously....this is a MAJOR ball drop here, and the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes".
Can we PLEASE have a better response that what we've been given?
So far, it's been stealthed, called a bug, admitted to, blamed on RMT'ers (subsequently disproven), given false info (promptly debunked), and now? We're getting the silent treatment.
I'm sorry, I'm a proponent of PUG's myself, but even I was very sketchy about PUG TF's.
Example: On one of the last PUG TF's I ran (Synapse) I have a person tell us he "had to go" All of us spoke up. We told him "This is a TF, when you sign on you need to finish it". We THEN had to explain to him what a task force IS. After all that he said, "Oh well, sorry, I have to go now". No reason given other than "I have to go"
Seriously, emergencies happen (to the person who asked how hard is it to set aside a dedicated time slot, I have one word for you: KIDS) and also it's virtually impossible to NOT wind up with at least 1 idiot in the group.
"Risk vs Reward". The risk of TF's just became to great for the reward you get, in most cases. I'm glad I already got Task Force Commander on the scrapper who is going to be my first "all IO" build. It would've been a pain to get now. As a matter of fact, unless it's a Katie, STF, or LGTF, I probably won't even do any TF's now.
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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.
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QFT. I'm not even reading the posts any more, it's the same very valid and accurate criticisms of this change over and over (though that doesn't mean people should stop posting, the more the merrier)... I'm just scanning the posters for a red name.
EDIT: My gut feeling is that it'd be pretty hard for a redname to rebut all the criticisms listed here, on the basis of their validity as well as sheer quantity.
By the way, a friend of mine has already taken my advice, and he's solo-farming STF mission #3 for influence, magic salvage, and recipes. He likes being able to log out and back in to get a new map full of CoT spawned for eight players. Guess this patch really hurt farmers, huh?
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Seriously....this is a MAJOR ball drop here, and the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes".
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So what sinister truth do you think They are trying to keep from you?
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I disagree.
- Just look at the number of missions in the typical TF: hours of content for the average player.
- Just look at the fact that there is a minimum number to start it.
- Just look at the fact that you can't use normal contacts during it.
- Just look at the fact that they typically end with AVs.
This is obviously not content that was intended for the average PUG.
As I said before, the Devs may want TFs to change to be intended for average PUGs. If so, THAT would be a change, and a lot more than soft spawning would need to change to accomodate that.
That does not meed that there does not also need to be hardcore content.
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And I disagree with you.
Newer TFs break out of the design box used for the ones that shipped with CoH back in 2004. The devs simply haven't modified *all* aspects of TFs to fit the revised way of designing them. At one time one of the golden rules of TFs was "if you outlevel it, tough cookies", then they added auto-exemplaring.
Also note the devs have stated TFs were originally meant to be supergroup content. However, they made no alterations to the structure of TFs before shipping the game to better reflect that they were now open to PuGs. We're dealing with a cobbled-together design.
Really, Kitsune, you seem to be arguing for a vision long since past and I'm not sure why you would when the reality of the game and the way it has been played for *years* is very different. Trying to force players to play in a way they clearly don't want to simply doesn't work.
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Seriously....this is a MAJOR ball drop here, and the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes".
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So what sinister truth do you think They are trying to keep from you?
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Please re-read my post. I clearly outlined why I think things happened the way they did.
I believe it was one of my posts you snipped the first line from and disregarded the rest.
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Please re-read my post.
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I did. It still says
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the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes"
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Why do you think anyone would pull wool over your eyes? What do you think they're trying to cover up?
The only way that I could support this idea is if they created the story arc recipe pool again (which make sense as Oroborous allows people to do story arcs), and placed the majority of the not-so-very-good recipes in it.
I have always liked the idea of a TF/SF being something that is an event, but it is exceptionally discouraging to spend so much time on something to receive a reward, which most of the item, makes me feel like I wasted my time. And to those who feel that doing the TF/SF should be its own reward- where that true, there would be no recipe given out at completion.
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Seriously....this is a MAJOR ball drop here, and the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes".
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So what sinister truth do you think They are trying to keep from you?
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Sinister? Nah....I'm simply asking for THE TRUTH. We've been told this has been to prevent RMT'ers. That's NOT the truth. We've been told the average TF is for 4 people. That's NOT the truth.
All I'm asking for the THE TRUTH. Honest or Sinister, I really don't care.
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Please re-read my post.
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I did. It still says
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the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes"
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Why do you think anyone would pull wool over your eyes? What do you think they're trying to cover up?
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I didn't say that Lady, you quoted someone else.
Here, I'll make it easier for you:
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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.
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Seriously....this is a MAJOR ball drop here, and the "official" comments so far have been nothing but an attempt to "pull wool over our eyes".
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So what sinister truth do you think They are trying to keep from you?
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Is there something useful to be gained by constantly chasing after people suggesting conspiracy theories in this thread? You've made your point, there's no need to repeat it over and over. It just becomes noise.
I'd rather we discuss the meat of the issue -- the actual changes made to TFs.
The team requirements to some TFs/SFs should be decreased to an acceptable level.
That is the only change I see happening or something the devs would even consider to change at this point.
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For an average player, the Cap, Sky Raider, Leviathan and Ice Mistral SFs, and the Respec Trials; already require 4 people to complete successfully since they all feature final AVs that you don't have much chance defeating if there are only 3 villains or fewer on the team.
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I just completed the Leviathan SF two days ago with only 3. 2 Brutes and a corruptor. (I'm energy/energy) Are you calling me an above average player? Thanks!
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For an average player, the Cap, Sky Raider, Leviathan and Ice Mistral SFs, and the Respec Trials; already require 4 people to complete successfully since they all feature final AVs that you don't have much chance defeating if there are only 3 villains or fewer on the team.
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I just completed the Leviathan SF two days ago with only 3. 2 Brutes and a corruptor. (I'm energy/energy) Are you calling me an above average player? Thanks!
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SadysCHICK 497 badges
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Nobody with that many badges can make any claim to being a casual or average player.
@Mindshadow
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For an average player, the Cap, Sky Raider, Leviathan and Ice Mistral SFs, and the Respec Trials; already require 4 people to complete successfully since they all feature final AVs that you don't have much chance defeating if there are only 3 villains or fewer on the team.
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I just completed the Leviathan SF two days ago with only 3. 2 Brutes and a corruptor. (I'm energy/energy) Are you calling me an above average player? Thanks!
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SadysCHICK 497 badges
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Nobody with that many badges can make any claim to being a casual or average player.
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Cool. Again, thanks. Honestly, we really weren't thinking that much of it. We needed four to start, and one person joined just so we could get it started, and quit.
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I'm not arging that they should stay with the original design. I'm just saying that since the current statement by the devs states that they are not intended to be casual content, that the design supports that statement as it currently exists.
I am in favor of casual TFs existing as well as hardcore ones.
The ones we have now (with the possible exception of the most recent ones as you have pointed out) are more hardcore. Having there be 'softcore' TFs in addition would itself be a change.
Maybe even a change they have already moved towards. And that's fine.
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Okay. I have actually just finished reading all of the posts up to this point and this is flaring into ED discussion territory with regards to overall negative response outcry. Conversely I, like all players have a responsibility to speak as well in the hope (vain it may be) that the devs will see some sense in our outcry and perhaps rework their decision.
I am a co-leader of a supergroup on Freedom that has, since its inception in mid 2004, openly spoken out against powerleveling and farming. On the surface, this decision seems like something my SG and I would support without question. However the flaws in its implementation I feel need to be addressed in order to smooth out this generally good game change.
The immutable facts that cannot be gotten around are what cloud this. The introduction of a loot system to the game IS irreversible. Conversely this loot system created a farming market that will never be gotten rid of. So the trick is to find ways to slow down or compartmentalize farming. That is what the devs stated is the reason and weather of not they intended to stealth this fix in or not is irrelevant. The posters in this thread who are yapping about that need to step away from the computer, stop watching HD versions of Loose Change on YouTube and realize that in general there are no grand conspiracies. You people are doing nothing but clouding the more rational debates and solution proposals that more stable people are posting.
The core TRUTH is that Task Forces/Strike Forces were meant to be CHALLENGING and a TEAM evolution. They were not meant to be Solod. EVER! Are players able to solo them, sure, some AT builds can solo several TFs/SFs. This fix puts a serious damper on people soloing a TF/SF. And yes there are builds that can solo a mission as if there were 4 team members, but those are the exception rather than the norm. But the bottom line, weather you like it or not is that it requires you to TEAM on a TF/SF. I can only support that as that was the design of the TF/SF system in the first place.
Yes, it sucks to lose people throughout a TF/SF due to DC or just attention span and there is the REAL problem with this. As has been pointed out by multiple posters, this may be all well and good for a TF/SF that requires 5 or less to start and you start with 8 and lose some to attrition. Gone are the days when an exemplared player who DCd cannot get back in. But the ones that require 8 to start, well that is a different kettle of fish. Again, some of the more reasonable posters in this thread point out that the STF and LRSF are supposed to be the pinnacle endgame challenge. I agree. But some of the other TFs/SFs that require 8 or 7 members is the problem. The amount of missions (and in many cases, senseless repetitive missions) in several TFs (example, the Shard, Numina) expands the chance of player loss. Not everyone has 4 or more hours to commit to the game in a sitting. But on those, if you lose even 2 players, you have not shifted from challenging to FRUSTRATED.
So here are two solutions to this problem to ease this fix.
SOLUTION - Standardize all Task Forces/Strike Forces to have a Minimum Team Size requirement of 5. The LSRF and STF being the exception as they are supposed to be the pinnacle of challenge. This means that those farmers that try to roll in and farm one solo are going to face a super serious challenge. They may be able to handle mob spawn sizes of 4 but 5 I hazard to guess will thin that herd a lot more, making them a negligible minority.
SOLUTION Revamp the older TFs by reducing the number of pointless missions that are nothing more than padding. There is no real necessity to hunt this and hunt that and click this and click that. The Shard TFs are overly crowded with this sort of crap and their presence adds no real value to the TF. The Villain side has that figured out pretty good.
Now that doesnt solve all of the poison that many feel is being ingested by this patch. The next problem is that of Pool C Recipe availability. So many of the people who have posted in this thread are complaining that the Cap SF is the only reason that there are any Pool Cs on the Black Market. Well I dont want to burst anyones bubble, these recipes were supposed to be hard to get. Their availability as it stands now is due to farming the vulnerability of an SF/TF. People softloading was taking advantage of a design vulnerability. That is an exploit! That is against the game rules. Plugging that hole is the exact thing we players are constantly crying for. We are always yelling at the devs for not fixing this and not fixing that. Now they fix one, a BIG one and many people are crying no fair. It was a vulnerability that players (farmer or not, RMTer or not) were using to speed up the time in which they completed a TF/SF to maximize their gains and minimize their risk. That is a categorical definition of Exploiting a Game Mechanic. It is cheating, regardless of weather your intent was sincere (i.e. you actually wanted to do the TF for the badge and the team fun) or not (meaning you just wanted the rare recipe). This patch resolves that, and on that front I can do nothing but applaud and endorse the decision.
And to be blunt, everyone says these recipes are going to get even more expensive. Well that is a fair and true statement. But then again, the implementation of a market system and loot means that it is how it is supposed to be. Hard to find items are SUPPOSED to be hard to find and if you do find them, there is supposed to be a premium on them. A 57 Chevy is supposed to be hard to find and if you find one, you sure as heck arent going to get it for the original sticker price. The only real flaw here is with the Group C Pool itself. Many of the recipes in this group are for lack of a better term, worthless. A Luck of the Gambler (7.5% Recharge) is rare and going for 40 million (heroside), while a Pacing of the Turtle (END/RECH/SLOW) is going for around 500K. Both are Pool C drops. The fact is, Pool C is littered with crap recipes. By crap I mean not meriting being considered a Rare Recipe reward for the completion of a TF.
SOLUTION Move many of the Recipes currently in Pool C into Pool A or B, make it so that Pool C is where all of your Procs or special types come from, like + Stealth (Freebird), or + Recovery (Miracle). This also means moving some of those specials from Pool A or B like Chance for Res (Achilles Heel) or Chance for +Rech (Force Feedback) into Pool C. This would make the chances of getting one of the coveted, uber loot Recipes greater for TF/SF completion. Its win/win there. The people who claim the market will totally dry up can be placated because with more chances of the good stuff dropping, the more likely they will show up on the market, even though farming of certain TFs may be down due to the patch. At the same time you are not devaluing the good stuff by requiring it to be truly worked for in a TF/SF that now has its challenge set to where its supposed to be. Plus you arent killing the market because the high value loot is still having a high premium paid to it.
But with all of that said, the core problem I see here, once the market smoke and the conspiracy smoke is removed is the fact that this really does not slow or impeded the RMTers and farmers. It benefits them more than it impedes them. As has been stated by numerous posters in this thread, now all they have to do is start the TF/SF and then they dont have to maintain the full TF membership to maintain spawn size. It does impede lone or small group farmers who dont have the ability to adequately maintain the ability to overcome superior enemy numbers.
Regardless of weather it will stop farmers or RMTers, the patch is designed to reaffirm the fact that TFs/SFs are supposed to be a challenge and supposed to be accomplished with a team. Any other benefits are just extra to me.
So I will support this patch and hope that the devs take onboard some of this feedback from me and others that might at least make this a more palatable implementation.
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This was to address CAP RUNS.
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You believe they changed every single TF and SF in the game just to address Cap runs?
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Yes, I for one DO believe that they changed every single TF and SF in the game just to nerf the ability of villains to run Caps.
I've been playing since the original hero beta...and we've been soft spawning missions for YEARS now. Why did this change suddenly get made? Because running Caps has become virtually the only way that type C recipes ever find their way into villain hands. I ran the RSF 2-3 times a NIGHT for months with a steady group, we soft spawned the first mission every time.....no nerf for that. I don't think I've ever been involved in a villain Respec TF that didn't soft spawn the vine room. No nerf for that either. What changed? The fact that people villainside found an efficient method of doing Cap runs.....
Sad thing is....I can totally see how this will make farming for drops so much easier......
Too bad the Devs can never think things through before they screw with the game.