Discussion: Changes to Task/Strike Force Missions

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.


[/ QUOTE ]
This part I am not buying even for a second. It has happened way too much since the begining of the game, it even happens after Jack left the game. Lighthouse this is a pretty huge change that we should have known about in the patch notes, there is absolutely no excuse that something this big gets missed in the patch notes. I can understand not posting a patch note due to the exploits like the Ouroboros powerlevel exploit but this isnt even on that level and should not have been missed period. This has been a constant thing with us the players having to figure it out whether it was a bug or "Working As Intended". You guys need to do better because this is inexcuseable due to the size of the change.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow overreact much?

First off, this was an exploit. In the same amount of time it would take a team to legit run a TF you could run 4 TFs and get 4 rewards, thats exploitive. TFs were ment to be team content, im willing to assume that due to the time involved in some the ability to have the missions scale as people joined or left was looked at as a favor to the player base. When Inventions got added, the ability to exploit this system was taken and run with to get more rewards and earn more money and recipies.

And to those that say the rewards wanted were recipies therefore not helping the RMT crowd, if a RMT player got a LOTG and earned 150million at the auction house for it, what exactly do you think was happening with that influence.....it became a new wave of tells to buy it for real cash of course.

Overall significant things left off patch notes are few and far between when you think of how many were exploits which they have always said they would not list in patch notes. Then figuring out how much was not, against 11 full issues, the addition of COV, and i dont have a clue how many weekday patches over the course of almost 4 years now, and this doesnt happen with near the frequency that you want to make it out to have happened.

When you think of what was added in this last patch with the real numbers system alone being a huge addition, plus the event info, etc. i dont think its unreasonable to think this may have just been overlooked.

So let me help you out and edit some comments to what it sounds to me like you really ment.
[ QUOTE ]
I can understand not posting a patch note due to the exploits like the Ouroboros powerlevel exploit but I should know if i am going to be unable to exploit the reward drop system and auction house, period.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You guys need to do better because this is inexcuseable to actually expect us players to play the game "as intended" for only the standard planned reward.




[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, if I take an AFK to feed him or take care of his bathroom needs, my TF team still has to pick up my mobs, even if I'm not online.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is not true, yet it's not the first time I've seen it bandied about.

The team will have to pick up any spawned enemies if you're not online. Otherwise, the team will only have to pick up your enemies if the team size falls below the minimum required for the task force.

If the task force requires five people and you start out with, say, seven, you and one other person can leave without it affecting the rest of the players at all with unspawned enemies. If three of the seven people leave the task force, I'd hardly place the mantle of "bad guy" on your shoulders alone. At that point, it's a collective team failure. (If it's a failure at all--it's entirely possible for four people to successfully complete missions designed for five people, as any team that runs normal missions on Tenacious can tell you.)

[ QUOTE ]
Considering all the other roadblocks to me just having a little fun, it makes me sad. And considering what I've learned about this actually helping out some of those it was supposed to deter, it leaves me a little angry and confused.

[/ QUOTE ]
Jeez, could you pour on the pathos just a little bit more? This is the kind of quote that turns me from sympathizing with you to being angry at you. You clearly don't like the change, I get it. But this is one small change that won't affect you on most of the task forces you might join, and task forces are just one small part of the game as a whole (once a month, you claimed). Yet here you are, acting like this is the only thing standing between you and a tiny shred of happiness. All of the other amazing things that are in this game that you do the other 30 days of the month? Well, those don't mean beans I guess.

If you're so unhappy because of your situation at home, then I'm sorry, but that's not my problem. What do you expect? For the game to be custom-tailored specifically for that tiny fraction of people in your situation? For us to cry because only 98% of the game is conducive to playing in your situation instead of a full 100%? Should we just open the doors wide to exploiters so that some other poor guy who's even worse off than you and can only play for 10 minutes a week can know the joys of everything there is to experience in the game?

[ QUOTE ]
I lay this right out at the start if, for some reason, I join a team that doesn't know me well. Honestly, how many of you reading this would want me on your team, knowing this?

[/ QUOTE ]
If I have enough people to keep the team going if you leave, I'd be happy to. Just this past weekend, I started a task force up in which not one but two of the people told me ahead of time that they were going to have to leave in the middle. We still would have had an extra person, so I agreed.

We succeeded, everyone had fun, and this change had literally zero impact on our team. So please don't feed me this "I can't do task forces now" line.

Edit: Here's another thing I'm really tired of hearing:

[ QUOTE ]
You are gonna be one of many people dealing with another decision based on a few vs. the masses of customers.

[/ QUOTE ]
This change will not affect the "masses of customers" at all. It will only affect the people who run task forces (which, believe it or not, a lot don't). Of those people, it will only affect them while they're running task forces, which for most people, is a very small percentage of their game time. Of that, it will only affect the people who are on teams in which players drop off, which a lot don't. Of that, it will only affect people who start task forces with the exact number of teammates needed to start the task force or who are on teams that have multiple people drop off. And even then, as pointed out, it will only cause failure if the team cannot defeat enemies spawned as if the missions were normal ones set to Tenacious instead of Heroic (which it's not unheard of for mid-to-high-level teams to run missions on Unyielding or Invincible). When all of these factors are accounted for, this is a small percentage of "the masses."

OK, I really don't see why people are complaining. Heck, in most PuG TFs I've ran, once you get down to three people only running it, the other two quit (me...I'm always up for giving the pain... )

Positron requires 3 or 4 people to start. Just did the TF tonight. 7 man team (ended with 6)...and I thought the xp curve made this TF a whole lot better. Whew. Didn't feel as long, cuz everyone was lvling so fast. Those 3 lvl 11's got to lvl 13 by the end of the second mission if I remember correctly.

Besides that TF tho (took us 4:36, think we could of gotten under 4, if it wasn't for the one buggy mission, and the AFKs)...what other TF takes that long?

I admit, I haven't done Statesman's yet and only 1 of the Shadow Shard ones (the one with ALOT of Defeat # of X's at this location).

Do that many people really solo TFs? I've soloed Positron. But that was because people left after a buggy mission (and the GM not showing up untill after everyone quit, and I finally logged out and right back in to reset the mission). And the only reason I solo'ed it, was because I didn't want to exemp for it later. :P

Another thing I notice...all these what I can only assume are villain only players and they're complaining about a nerfing of one of their TFs that according to one screenshot took 22mins to complete.

Why? I remember quite well the villain only players whining about Katies being so quick...now they want different treatment?

As for softloading...only done it twice...once heroside, and only because the team I ran with wanted to do it that way. :P

The other time was Villain Respec. Really, I think that just needs fixed abit myself. :P

Not to mention, how many time have we heard of people of different ATs and powerset combinations, that soloed 6-8man spawns anyways?

So...you do it on the regular basis anyways, why should the TF be any different?

Again, the only change I see needed, is to lower some of those 7-8 man member teams down to 4-6. I say 4 more just so it's even easier to get those TFs started.

If you tell your team (or at least the star holder) that you may have to go AFK/Log for extended amounts of times. Then they know what they're getting into before hand, and you've done nothing wrong to them.

Now, personally, you being gone that long, I'd personally ask that you logged (if it's that 30 min afk), just so the team doesn't want to kick you. :P

Which brings up another thought...

Even on heroic, with all minimum lvl people for the TF, I've seen the TFs always have the max lvl enemy for the TF.

Now, if a team of minimum lvl can beat a TF like that (that's usually what +4-5 mobs)...your telling me a few people who aren't that far off in lvl from the mobs, can't handle a few extra?)

Just today, when I ran the previously mentioned Positron, the tanker told me right off the bat, he'd only beable to play for 2 1/2 hours.

Positron...done that fast...not likely. Told him it was ok tho.

Of course, he ended up staying the whole TF, with a 10 min AFK (as well as another player), then there was the one who DC'ed or Logged (it never said quit TF).

So, we had one mission that had 4 players completing the mission, with 2 still online. I really can't see this change being all that bad.

I'm surprised to find myself in the minority on this one. I agree that this change wasn't handled as well as it could be, but I don't have a problem with it overall. Looking at the posts from Posi it seems he is aware of the problems and working to address them. He addressed the most common complaints in this thread. They are working to improve the way they handle patch notes, and he is looking at reducing the starting requirements for some of the TFs.

The people running 8x8 Caps, generating 64 recipes in under two hours had to know that was not intended behavior. Sure I want the top end recipes too, and I've been on my share of fast Caps. Still I was under no illusions about what I was doing and I'm not surprised it's been addressed. As many have pointed out, this SF can still be run fairly quickly, so it's not like any of us have been locked out.

As for the RSF problem, with any luck it will be addressed soon.

[ QUOTE ]
This change will not affect the "masses of customers" at all. It will only affect the people who run task forces (which, believe it or not, a lot don't). Of those people, it will only affect them while they're running task forces, which for most people, is a very small percentage of their game time. Of that, it will only affect the people who are on teams in which players drop off, which a lot don't. Of that, it will only affect people who start task forces with the exact number of teammates needed to start the task force or who are on teams that have multiple people drop off. And even then, as pointed out, it will only cause failure if the team cannot defeat enemies spawned as if the missions were normal ones set to Tenacious instead of Heroic (which it's not unheard of for mid-to-high-level teams to run missions on Unyielding or Invincible). When all of these factors are accounted for, this is a small percentage of "the masses."

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to provide numbers to back up your assertions of limited harm? Even more important, care to provide numbers on the impact this has to correct the problem of farming pool C drops? I can answer the second, not damn much. The first is something that I can't answer definitively but I think the negative is going to far outweigh the positive.

[ QUOTE ]
Besides that TF tho (took us 4:36, think we could of gotten under 4, if it wasn't for the one buggy mission, and the AFKs)...what other TF takes that long?

[/ QUOTE ]
Quarterfield (first shard tf, 40-44): With a full team (8 needed to start), I haven't heard of it being done in less than 7.5 hours with everyone being present for all 25 missions. The funny thing is that later in the task force at least 4 people have to be on, as there are multiple click 4 glowies at the same time missions. There is no AV, so there is no real need for more than 4 people to be on that task force.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You are gonna be one of many people dealing with another decision based on a few vs. the masses of customers.

[/ QUOTE ]
This change will not affect the "masses of customers" at all. It will only affect the people who run task forces (which, believe it or not, a lot don't). Of those people, it will only affect them while they're running task forces, which for most people, is a very small percentage of their game time. Of that, it will only affect the people who are on teams in which players drop off, which a lot don't. Of that, it will only affect people who start task forces with the exact number of teammates needed to start the task force or who are on teams that have multiple people drop off. And even then, as pointed out, it will only cause failure if the team cannot defeat enemies spawned as if the missions were normal ones set to Tenacious instead of Heroic (which it's not unheard of for mid-to-high-level teams to run missions on Unyielding or Invincible). When all of these factors are accounted for, this is a small percentage of "the masses."

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll grant that you're correct that not everyone runs TFs.

But while not everyone has as great or common reasons to go AFK as the person you quoted, life happens to everyone. The cat just tipped over a cabinet, I got an emergency call from a friend that needs to be picked up from the airport, my parent/spouse/child really needs my attention for a while.

And remember, task forces are based off the level of the TF, not the leader or the average level of the group or even the highest level. So while a team of people fairly close in level can romp through missions on tenacious, it's not unusual for half the people to be two or three levels below the mission level (and many spawns in TFs are designed to have extra bosses). So yeah, larger spawns can be a problem.

If one person has to leave, it's not an issue if the team is larger than the minimum (though of course there are a number of task forces with minimums far higher than the actual missions justify, some with a minimum of 8 that could be done easily by a team of four facing spawns for four). Even one below the minimum spawn isn't much of an issue. But the problem is that it isn't always just one. There can be two or three.

So if someone starts a TF saying "I may have to go AFK a bit", the leader is thinking "OK, and if real life hits others, we're screwed" and the only reasonable thing to do is to tell that person "Then you can't be in this team".

Again, nobody's justifying softloading (except for the mission with the tech in the LRSF). And as much as some would like it otherwise, it's clear that soloing of TFs won't happen either. And the idea of some minimum spawn isn't a bad idea. But the minimums imposed by this change are simply done. And doing it before addressing any of the other problems for task and strike forces was wrong.

[ QUOTE ]
Care to provide numbers to back up your assertions of limited harm? Even more important, care to provide numbers on the impact this has to correct the problem of farming pool C drops? I can answer the second, not damn much.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I can't. I wish I could, but I don't have the numbers. But NCsoft knows what the numbers are, and it's pretty obvious to me that what they were seeing is what brought us to this change. Will it effectively solve the problem they saw? Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'm willing to give them that chance, are you?

And I hate to state the obvious, but "not damn much" isn't a number.

[ QUOTE ]
There is no AV, so there is no real need for more than 4 people to be on that task force.

[/ QUOTE ]
Using this logic, I can think of offhand of only two task forces/trials that should have a requirement for more than two people: Quaterfield's and the Cavern of Transcendence.

The point of a minimum team requirement isn't to tell you how many people you need to accomplish the mechanical tasks of completing a mission. The point is that task forces with a higher team requirement are more epic. The bad guys are sending the varsity team at you, and they're not holding back.

[ QUOTE ]
This change will not affect the "masses of customers" at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

It still affects more players compared to the previous setup, which didn't restrict Task Force gameplay at all.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There is no AV, so there is no real need for more than 4 people to be on that task force.

[/ QUOTE ]
Using this logic, I can think of offhand of only two task forces/trials that should have a requirement for more than two people: Quaterfield's and the Cavern of Transcendence.

[/ QUOTE ]
I thought he just said that Quaterfield had no AV. Wouldn't his logic specifically exclude it?

[ QUOTE ]
The point of a minimum team requirement isn't to tell you how many people you need to accomplish the mechanical tasks of completing a mission. The point is that task forces with a higher team requirement are more epic. The bad guys are sending the varsity team at you, and they're not holding back.

[/ QUOTE ]
If that's the point of having a higher team requirement, then there are only 3 TF/SFs in the game that qualify - LRSF, STF, and LGTF. Those are pretty epic. For the rest of them (excepting perhaps the first mission of Katie Hannon), the "varsity team" that gets sent out could be efficiently dispatched by a reasonable team of 4.

For example, take Manticore's TF. The "varsity team" is Hopkins. If we were facing Hopkins + Countess Crey + a bodyguard retinue of 8 Spines PPs, then maybe requiring 7 people for the TF would be reasonable. But... Hopkins?

Look, I don't disagree with the change in principle. They want to do something like this, it's their game. But they should have adjusted minimum TF sizes BEFORE tossing down this sledge-hammer of a solution, especially since it (a) provides easy access to big spawns for farming and (b) does, in fact, exclude more casual members of the community who previously might be able to rarely participate in a TF, but now may be excluded from them altogether.

And yes - I read your response to the poster who's a full-time caregiver for someone else. I know that's "not your problem". It's technically not mine either, but I'd like the devs to think about everyone when they're making decisions, not just the farmers and RMT advertisers.

[ QUOTE ]
Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.

[/ QUOTE ]
Apparently so.

People like you and I are just too "casual" for task forces anymore. You, me, and anyone else who can't sit still for up to six to ten hours at a time without real life butting in.

I guess we could all follow Tony's advice and start a Task Force with more than the minimum. Never mind that, as anyone who's run a casual pick-up Positron knows, starting an 8-man Positron is a recipe for a different kind of disaster.

Unless Tony means to run Positron with 8, and softload every mish for 3. That's still very much doable, and may, in fact, become my preferred way to run Positron from now on. This change is, after all, not really about softloading, and more about forced teaming.

8-man Positron protects against people quitting below the 3-man spawn floor, and softloading keeps the difficulty from getting out of hand. Perfect! Who would've guessed this change would actually encourage more gaming of the system?

Oh yeah. Everyone did.

If the devs really want to encourage teaming, and I think they should, they should up recipe/salvage drops for teams. A get a LOT more drops solo than when I'm on a team, which sure doesn't encourage me to team. I think doing this would have been more effective to encourage teaming than upping tf spawns to discourage people from trying to solo TFs, especially those whose main motivation is to get recipe/salvage drops.

No.

[ QUOTE ]
Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.

I am a 24/7 caregiver to a wheelchair-confined man with multiple sclerosis. I often take unexpected AFKs, sometimes half an hour in length, to take care of his needs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. Stepfather has MS & diabetes, and is wheelchair confined. Thankfully, He is able to be alone for long periods (school) and has people come throughout the week to assist.

Suddenly running to the pharmacy to get a medication he just realized he ran out of, or going to the doctor due to sudden symptoms, ect. can cause me to have to leave quickly. Forcing me to abandon the thought of joining a lengthy SF/TF is utter nonsense. "Positron" (use your real name for once!) is truly deluded if the thinks a GAME is more important than real life.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.

I am a 24/7 caregiver to a wheelchair-confined man with multiple sclerosis. I often take unexpected AFKs, sometimes half an hour in length, to take care of his needs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. Stepfather has MS & diabetes, and is wheelchair confined. Thankfully, He is able to be alone for long periods (school) and has people come throughout the week to assist.

Suddenly running to the pharmacy to get a medication he just realized he ran out of, or going to the doctor due to sudden symptoms, ect. can cause me to have to leave quickly. Forcing me to abandon the thought of joining a lengthy SF/TF is utter nonsense. "Positron" (use your real name for once!) is truly deluded if the thinks a GAME is more important than real life.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that anyone is saying that a game is more important that real life. This is a fairly straitforward change to adress a problem that was people softloading some missions to plow through a couple of missions to get the reward in 20-30 minutes. Now there is a minimum spawn set. This really doesn't change anything for people who ran task forces the way they were supposed to.

If you didn't have the time to do a task force before then nothing has changed.

[ QUOTE ]
For example, take Manticore's TF. The "varsity team" is Hopkins.

[/ QUOTE ]
I wasn't referring to the AV at the end. By "epic," I mean that you're not going to just be facing a few guys hanging around in little tiny groups here and there like you do on missions for two or three heroes. Bad guys are going to be crawling out of the woodwork to come get you. When an ambush comes at you, it's not going to be your standard, "I'll just hold 'em" or "don't worry, the tank will taunt 'em," it will be more like, "holy crap, there's a huge group on its way!"

And again, most task forces don't require teams of this large size, only the ones you reach at the very end of the game. This is how it should be. The further you go in the game, the higher the action--and danger--escalates.

[ QUOTE ]
People like you and I are just too "casual" for task forces anymore. You, me, and anyone else who can't sit still for up to six to ten hours at a time without real life butting in.

I guess we could all follow Tony's advice and start a Task Force with more than the minimum. Never mind that, as anyone who's run a casual pick-up Positron knows, starting an 8-man Positron is a recipe for a different kind of disaster.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is totally bogus, and you know it. What happened to all of those nice integers between three and eight? You know, like four, and five, six, and seven?

This past weekend, I ran a Positron task force. We started out with six, two of whom I had never met. Two people (ones I do know) said they would have to leave at some point. At the start of the mission to defeat Rollister, we lost two. It was moderately difficult, but not impossible by any stretch of the imagination. After Rollister, we lost another, but then gained back one person shortly after. By the end, we had gained back one more and were up to five. One of the unknowns dropped out for a mission, but both were there for the vast majority of the time and at the end.

The whole thing took us under five hours. No exploits, no soft-loading, no impossible missions, no sitting still for six to ten hours (or even five hours, since we took a couple of bio breaks), no disasters, and no hard feelings for the person that left or the two that came and went during the task force. It was an extremely casual task force, about as casual as you can get, and everyone had a great time.

The more you post these gross exaggerations, the more credibility you lose, and the more you come off sounding like you're just bitter because you prefer using exploits to actually playing. If that's the case, then being too "casual" has nothing to do with why task forces aren't for you.

You can complain all you want, and it won't make a difference to me. It's not that I'm just that dense, it's because you keep telling me how impossible and difficult it is to do something that I have first-hand knowledge of not being that difficult. It's because you keep telling me how awful everyone thinks this change is when the topic of it hasn't even come up once in-game. It's because you keep predicting all of these awful things that are going to happen that have not come to pass. It's because my own experience is the exact opposite of what you keep describing. It's because you keep building up strawmen (e.g. Positron is really hard with eight, therefore you have to soft-load missions if you have more than three). I'm sorry, but I simply do not believe you.

Again, this change boils down to one extremely simple concept: When a task force contact says that you need a team of at least x people, they really do mean that you need a team of at least x people. Not one less, not two less, not whatever is personally convenient for you less. x people.

[ QUOTE ]
Again, this change boils down to one extremely simple concept: When a task force contact says that you need a team of at least x people, they really do mean that you need a team of at least x people. Not one less, not two less, not whatever is personally convenient for you less. x people.

[/ QUOTE ]
Simplicity is not correctness. We're not arguing whether this change happened. We're arguing whether it's right.

Positron says TFs are intended as casual content. If that's the design goal, then up to six to ten hours of forced-teamed content (as is the case with Dr. Q) is simply bad design. Casual content design must account for human factors. You might dismiss human factors as "personal convenience," but take my word for it: neglecting ergonomics and real life priorities is not a good thing.

Anyway, I'm glad if you've had only positive TF experiences since this change. But they do not negate anyone else's negative experiences. Not every casual player is feeling the chilling effect on TF attempts, but some are, and that needs to be noted.

[ QUOTE ]
the more you come off sounding like you're just bitter

[/ QUOTE ]

Kind of like the "play my way, aka the right / real / intended way!" people before this patch went live.

Nothing's restricting you from running your 8-man or 6-man or 6-dropped-down-to-4-man Positrons. Feel free to global ignore and shun anyone who claims they'd prefer to solo/duo it because they're "not playing the right way" in your own opinion. But unless you speak on behalf of the devs, your opinion doesn't necessarily convey the true, intended way of playing.

Not to mention, the issue at hand isn't the intended way to run Task Forces; the general consensus is that the concern is over Cap SFs and soft-spawning the STF/RSF. This is analogous to the concern over Katie TFs a good while back. Individual examination and modification of the Katie TF proved to be a solution that most of us ultimately accepted. Why not do the same here? There's no call for enacting sweeping changes to every TF. Clearly, things like the Positron TF and Quarterfield TF and most other TFs were not causing the issues that led to this patch, so there's no reason to catch them in the crossfire.

What about if they adjusted all the required team sizes for all T/SFs, and set the min spawn size equal to the number of people required -1 (so its still reasonable to do even if 1 person drops out).

OR

Change the TF system so that if the team size ever drops below the required number of people, the leader would be able to invite new people to fill the team back up to the required number.

So, if a team of 6 starts a TF that needs 5 people to start, and 3 people subsequently drop out, the leader can invite 2 new people to bring it back up to the 5 minimum
That way, you will never get stuck with not enough people to complete, since you can also grab someone else tohelp out.

Or, what if they individually examine the Task Forces they're having issues with (as was done with Katie TFs), and try not to let other Task Forces get caught in the crossfire?

EDIT: In a few words, "fix what's causing problems." Shocking suggestion, I'm sure.

[ QUOTE ]
Or, what if they individually examine the Task Forces they're having issues with (as was done with Katie TFs), and try not to let other Task Forces get caught in the crossfire?

EDIT: In a few words, "fix what's causing problems." Shocking suggestion, I'm sure.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT. Rather than taking a sledgehammer to a house to try and catch a mouse and wrecking the entire house...why not set a simple glue trap to catch him neatly and securely....

So how many people's pms to Posi still remain unread?

*raises hand*

[ QUOTE ]
*raises hand*

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Rather than taking a sledgehammer to a house to try and catch a mouse and wrecking the entire house...why not set a simple glue trap to catch him neatly and securely...

[/ QUOTE ]

Glue traps are inhumane... my brother once used one to try to catch a rat in his garage... one day he went to check the trap, and found two little rat-feet stuck to it... but no rat. Bet you can guess what happened, but for those that can't, the rat chewed its own feet off to escape.

Needless to say, my brother threw the trap away, and never bought another one... the rat would've been better off getting it's neck broken and getting a quick death by one of the old run-of-the-mill, spring-loaded traps than having to suffer through life without it's "hands", so to speak.

Oh yeah, and the Dev's still don't think their fixes through.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Again, this change boils down to one extremely simple concept: When a task force contact says that you need a team of at least x people, they really do mean that you need a team of at least x people. Not one less, not two less, not whatever is personally convenient for you less. x people.

[/ QUOTE ]
Simplicity is not correctness. We're not arguing whether this change happened. We're arguing whether it's right.

Positron says TFs are intended as casual content. If that's the design goal, then up to six to ten hours of forced-teamed content (as is the case with Dr. Q) is simply bad design. Casual content design must account for human factors. You might dismiss human factors as "personal convenience," but take my word for it: neglecting ergonomics and real life priorities is not a good thing.

Anyway, I'm glad if you've had only positive TF experiences since this change. But they do not negate anyone else's negative experiences. Not every casual player is feeling the chilling effect on TF attempts, but some are, and that needs to be noted.

[/ QUOTE ]

You didn't fully read his post.

He also said they didn't figure on them being popular with the PuGs (a mistake imo)...and that it would be a group of friends who would get on...play, and if so desired could all logout, and resume the TF at another planned time.

IE...play for an hour, and say let's pick it up tomarrow at 9am.

However, when it comes to most of the players who do the TFs imo...we want to finish what we started, especially sinse as PuG TFs go, you don't know if the others will show up on time or if at at all.