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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Kind of like the "play my way, aka the right / real / intended way!" people before this patch went live.
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What gives you the impression that everyone should get to play exactly the way they want to? You know there are power-levelers in this game, should everyone be given the ability to click a button and instantly have a level 50 character? Because, you know, if you deny the power-levelers the right to have instant 50's, you're just insisting that they play the "right" way as you define it.
Or maybe there should be a glowing chest in the middle of Atlas Park that, when you click on it, will pop up a box and ask how much influence you want and just give it to you. Because, you know, making people earn influence is just making them play the "right" way, and you don't want to impose your will on someone else, do you? (And incidentally, that would pretty much extinguish the RMT influence trade also.)
How about this. Give us a power that, when activated, instantly defeats any enemy you're battling, because forcing people to use their other abilities is just making them play the "right" way, and apparently, there is no "right" way, and anyone should be able to do anything they want, right?
Of course, if you want to grind through all those levels to get to 50, or earn the influence the hard way, or actually use your other powers to fight enemies, that's okay too, you're free to do so, thus proving that those changes won't affect you at all.
Hopefully by now, you realize how silly it is to justify something with the argument that "x is okay because you can still do it the hard way." There is no particularly "right" way to play, but there sure as hell are wrong ways to play.
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But unless you speak on behalf of the devs, your opinion doesn't necessarily convey the true, intended way of playing.
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I don't have to speak on behalf of the devs, they have spoken on their own behalf. Over in this thread, Positron said, "We saw a desire for a group of friends to get together and do some hard, lengthy content for good rewards." He is 100% correct, and as evidenced by people still running task forces, people do want this content. As it was, nothing like what he is describing was in the game before. Are task forces perfect now? Of course not, what ever is? But they are closer to being what they were designed to be, as the developers themselves have described it in-game and now here in several posts.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I don't know what more you want from the devs for them to show you what they have in mind for fask forces. In response to massive exploiting going on (i.e. playing the wrong way), they added a timer, they nerfed the Katie Hannon task force, and now they've rolled out this change and posted messages explicitly describing what they had in mind. The manual, the in-game text, and now the devs' posts here all describe task forces as a series of difficult missions that require a certain number of committed teammates to successfully complete. If you want to continue dismissing that as just my "opinion," I don't know what else can be done to convince you.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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Its really funny sometimes when i recall people crying for end game content and crafting and suchfor so long. And when they get it the first thing they do is work on figuring out how to exploit the system instead of play within it.
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First, most TF's aren't end game content.
Second, if any content, end game or otherwise, is being played primarily for the reward by a significant number of players rather than for the content itself then where does the fault lie?
Thorizdin
Lords of the Dead
Old School Legends
The system of "exploits" you are describing is one that, on hero side, has become much rarer, setting aside things like well-coordinated speEden trials. The reason? They patched Katie TFs. There isn't mass-farmage of any one TF hero-side, at least not to the point of completely consuming all players' gameplay like quick Katie TFs did. That solution dealt with the issue at hand, and though a lot of us reacted in the first 5-10 minutes with "omg I want my fast recipes QQ," we were quick to accept it because it was obviously disrupting gameplay on a large scale, and the fix for it was non-intrusive to other TFs.
I can assure you that "farming TFs" is evaluated more on absolute criteria than comparative criteria. The vast majority of people won't just move to the next fastest TF if that next TF still takes (for instance) at least 40 minutes to complete. That is, unless you're disagreeing with me and saying that hero-side TF "farming" hasn't diminished overall since Katie TFs were patched, in which case I'm afraid you're mistaken.
Anyhow, the point isn't some crusade for "sticking it to farmers" (which this patch clearly does not do, for many reasons I've listed before, not that "sticking it to farmers" should be an important effect anyway IMO) and it isn't a crusade for "play TFs the way me and my SG have always played them, aka the real way by our definition!!" The catalysts for this patch were the soft-spawning of Cap SFs and the STF/RSF. The appropriate fix for that is examining each TF individually to create a specific solution to the "problem," as opposed to wreaking havoc to the entire Task Force system.
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There is no particularly "right" way to play, but there sure as hell are wrong ways to play.
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In your own subjective opinion, which the devs have no obligation to cater to.
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I don't know what else can be done to convince you.
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Right, 'cause I'm going to be convinced that restrictive gameplay is the way to go. Clearly you understand Task Forces better than the rest of us, and we should all just man up and be true heroes.
No, there shouldn't be "free Lv50s and free influence." This isn't about letting players do whatever the hell they want, it's about letting players do whatever the hell they want provided it's not intensely disruptive to gameplay as usual. Before the Katie patch, yeah, you could find Croatoa with hundreds of players. Before the Intro to Vanguard patch, Freedom was sending some players to Ouroboros 3. That's a pretty significant part of the gaming population consumed by a fast farm, and I can understand the devs wanting to change that. However, such was not the case with, say, the Task Force Commander TFs or the Shadow Shard TFs. They weren't causing any problems or disruption to business as usual, unless you're just bitter that "wahhh, so and so just duo'd the Positron TF in half the time that it took my 6-player team," in which case I'd recommend (cough) manning up and being a true hero.
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Hello. I am a horrible teammate to do a TF/SF with, or team with.
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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. And forget me getting in on any TFs once players find out that, yes, I -will- likely need to go away for up to half an hour at times. 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?
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First of all, please don't write yourself off as a "horrible teammate" because you have to afk sometimes. I've been on a lot of PuG's by this point, and you know what? In many, perhaps most of them, someone ends up going afk for a period at some point, to attend to a spouse, child, or pet, to take a phone call, because Mom called them to dinner, etc. and etc. It's not a big deal, and I've never seen anyone make a big deal out of it. Those who can't deal with their teammates doing that sort of thing usually don't do PuG's--from what I've seen anyway. The only time I've seen it be any problem at all is if someone leaves for more than around 20 minutes without telling the team they're going to do so. And even then, we don't get mad--they may be kicked, especially if they're inside a mission so another one can't be set, but it's no hard feelings, and if they want to come back, they can if the spot hasn't been filled.
Yes, this goes for TF's too. I've done all of the Phalanx TF's, plus a few others, on PuG's, some of them more than once. It's rare that the TF team chat log doesn't include something along the lines of "I need to go afk for a while to [insert real life issue here]. Do you want me to log off?" Happens all the time. They'll be asked to either afk outside the mission or to log off, that's all, so the team can go on to the next mission without them if necessary.
As far as this change, I don't see it changing your situation to any great extent, at least not for most TF's. The only way it would make any difference is if your absence put the team below the minimum starting number for the TF. If the team size is greater than or equal to that, then the spawns will still adjust. For Positron, that'd mean that the team only consisted of two other people besides you. For Synapse, three other people besides you. For Sister Psyche, four other people besides you.
Edit: I'd originally snipped this part out, and shouldn't have:
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Even with my stumbling blocks toward participation in teams in this game, I'd manage to get in a TF or so a month. Sometimes we'd finish with everyone who started, sometimes we wouldn't, but we would finish, and usually there'd be more than three or four of us.
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As long as there are more than three or four of you, this change makes no difference with your afk periods, for any TF that doesn't require more than four or five people. And I don't know about you, but on the PUG TF's I've done (or tried to do), once the team size gets smaller than that the team will usually decide to give it up anyway. So I don't anticipate this changing my TF experience that much--and yes, I'm a more casual player (playtime-wise, at least) as well.
Will it make teams more reluctant to invite you? I guess that's possible. But if you made it clear that you are committed to the TF as much as you can be, and that you definitely intend to finish it if you can even if you need to be afk for part of it, then I can't see any reasonable person turning you down. After all, that's more of a commitment than you get from some team members.
You might think I'm being too optimistic here, but this is from my experience--less than some, because my casual style of play precludes me from doing TF's all that often (mainly because I don't want to be up too late on a work night, it's self-imposed because I'm old and need my beauty sleep). But it seems to me that anyone who does PuGs either learns to deal with people having RL issues, or they stop doing PuGs--or at least they should. I honestly would have no problem having you on my team, as long as we had more than the minimum number on the team to start out with.
One thing I would like to see, and I'm glad Positron said it's on their radar, is for the starting requirements for some of the TF's to be looked at. I think there does need to be a little wiggle room in case someone on the team needs to leave for some reason. For something like the Positron TF, it's no problem, because you only need to start your team off with, say, 5 or 6 people. If two or three quit, you're still okay. But if the TF requires 7 or 8 people to start, that's not possible. I could see keeping the 8-person requirement for the Statesman TF and maybe Lady Grey, because from my understanding they're supposed to be little more hardcore, but others could be lowered. I hope they will do that. Ideally, I'd like to see the minimum spawn sizes be set to no more than 4 or 5 people for most TF's, 6 at the outside. If they did that, I'd have no problem with this whatsoever.
Having spawn sizes adjust to changes in team size (similar to the vines do in the cov respec trial) might stop the soft loading issue. Using the same time requirement for a reward/badge on task forces that you have on normal missions might also solve the issue of players getting rewards they did not 'earn' (ie. "you were not on the mission long enough to receive a reward")
And both of these may avoid any real or perceived penalty for teams with members who have to leave for real life emergencies.
I wonder if they would be reacted to the same way as the current 'fix' has been.
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(O.o )
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This change that what one could call a "nerf" to the TFs, is basically going to make the prices for the already rare recipes to sky rocket. The market system is inevitably going to kill this game.
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Kind of like the "play my way, aka the right / real / intended way!" people before this patch went live.
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What gives you the impression that everyone should get to play exactly the way they want to? You know there are power-levelers in this game, should everyone be given the ability to click a button and instantly have a level 50 character? Because, you know, if you deny the power-levelers the right to have instant 50's, you're just insisting that they play the "right" way as you define it.
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Strawman argument Tony.
There is a big difference between the devs taking developement time and money for coding things to give everyone what they want (instant 50 button) and zero development time being needed for people using the existing code to do what they want.
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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.
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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*
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Unfortunately they cant do that because the very same players that spend all there time farming this or that, would simply then move onto the next most profitable TF v. Time invest to farm. Then the devs would spend more time "fixing" that TF to have the mobs move onto the next one, and the next. Setting a simple, and fully fair set of rules to ALL the TF/SF creates consistancy of the expectations for the system and becomes predictable for players instead of having rules that apply to this one or that one but not others. And saves the Devs time to created wanted new features rather then having to fix TF after TF as players migrate to the new Fast Cap experience.
And if i was Posi i would not be reading any PM that delt with this issue either. Its a fair change, to make a system work "as intended". Im sure the devs never intended you to be able to run 4-5 TFs in a one hour period for the rewards. Multiply that by people running 3-4 accounts in the same TFs with no one at the helm simply just there to get more loot, both the minimum spawn levels and the soft loading changes seem more then fair IMO. They really effect no one that wasnt looking for the easy way to exploit the recipie drop system to begin with.
Its really funny sometimes when i recall people crying for end game content and crafting and suchfor so long. And when they get it the first thing they do is work on figuring out how to exploit the system instead of play within it.
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Are they playing within the system or exploiting? The devs put pool c as the reward for tf's. Pool c contains some really nice recipes. Did they really think that people wouldnt go towards the nice(possibly) rewards? There are more tf's being run than ever before. Why is this a problem? Was this tactic harming anything? Dont tell me that it hurts the market, lack of availability hurts my characters abilities, the use of which is more the point of the game than silly market manipulation. It is easy to use the "Joe Mccarthy" method and call it an exploit. "i have a list of known exploiters on freedom server!!". But was it harming the game. be honest. At some point you have to ask is the cure worse than the disease.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
The changes made dont really do what seems to be the intent. As others have posted here, soft loading is still possible, and for some desirable. The changes dont affect me, I am only likely to run TF/SF with my super/villain group on a regularly scheduled day and time.
I would like, however, to present an idea for you, my fellow players, and the developers if they are still reading this thread how to make sure, absolutely sure, that a TF/SF are run as a team only and no soft loading is possible. You can file this under it could be worse.
A group is gathered for a TF (in this case lets say Synapse). The minimum is 4, but we have six to start. This sets the number of spawns (for the indoor missions at least) to a 6-man team. We are a few missions into the TF when someone drops connection or logs off. Oops, the next time we get to a door mission no one can enter and text is burped at us stating, All members of the Task Force must be logged on to complete the Task Force. Please note, the person is still a part of the TF but not logged on, we also havent dropped to the minimum for this TF either. Now lets say that two of the members on the team get disgusted with this text and quit the team. We are now down to four players, one of which is not present, but the spawns will now adjust for the new team number of four. Mr. Bad Connection logs back in and apologizes and asks innocently What happened to the others? This drives one other person on the team away and he quits, since we are now below the minimum for the TF, the TF team dissolves, and the guy that started the whole thing must try to round up others if he really wants that badge and recipe.
To summarize, all members of a TF/SF must be logged on for the TF/SF to continue. Spawn size is adjusted upward to match team size from the minimum. A team that drops below the minimum dissolves as a team, since they cannot be expected to compete against the minimum spawn size.
All in all, Id rather live with the changes actually made than what I proposed here.
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Before the Intro to Vanguard patch, Freedom was sending some players to Ouroboros 3.
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During the last day of the double xp weekend, Triumph was getting RWZ3, and I was crashing zoning to either Ouroboros or the RWZ.
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
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Before the Intro to Vanguard patch, Freedom was sending some players to Ouroboros 3.
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During the last day of the double xp weekend, Triumph was getting RWZ3, and I was crashing zoning to either Ouroboros or the RWZ.
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Right. Which is precisely why that arc was patched. Notice: the devs didn't remove talk-to-contact mission bonuses from all Ouroboros arcs -- just the problematic arc, the same way they shouldn't make sweeping changes to all Task Forces simply because soft-spawning to Cap SFs and the STF/RSF are having debatably undesirable consequences.
Okay, I give up. I can't think of anything to say that hasn't already been said. You're not going to change my mind, and I doubt I'm going to change yours. I like it, some people hate it, most people fall in between somewhere or just plain don't care (which is perfectly valid, considering how minor the change is).
All I ask is that anyone who reads this thread to pretty much completely ignore it and judge for yourself how good or bad the change is by going into the game and trying it out. In the end that's the only thing that matters. Be sure to try again in a few weeks, after everything has kind of normalized to the change being out there.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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I like it, some people hate it, most people fall in between somewhere or just plain don't care (which is perfectly valid, considering how minor the change is).
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The true underrepresented viewpoint on the forums--on pretty much any topic. The people who hear/read about it, say, "Oh. Huh," and then just go on with their lives because they really just don't care enough about it to make a fuss either way.
I'm pretty close to being in the "don't care" category myself. This doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. Task forces are an extremely limited part of the game to me. I long ago came to terms with the fact that if I don't choose to play more, that there are certain things in the game that I won't be able to fully participate in. Shadow Shard TF's, for one. Really rare invention sets, for another. I can live with it. There's enough in the game that I can participate in to have kept me well entertained for quite some time now.
So why am I even here in this thread? Well, honestly, it's mostly because most of the time the way people on the forums scream and carry on about every little thing amuses me. I know, it's a weakness, but there it is.
[Edit: No disrespect to Morvani. I understand you have a serious concern, I just don't think it will be as bad as you think it will. I'm thinking more of some other posts.]
But then every now and then the hyperbole starts to get on my nerves. I don't want to overstate my case, and act like this will have no affect at all on a casual player. It will have an affect. It constitutes another barrier to entry to task forces. It will probably make it a little harder for someone with RL issues that make it hard for them to complete a TF without AFK time to get onto a TF team.
A little harder.
It does not mean that if you can't sit at your computer uninterrupted for eight hours at a time, that you'll never be able to do a TF again.
I do hope they lower the team requirements for some of these TF's, though.
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I like it, some people hate it, most people fall in between somewhere or just plain don't care (which is perfectly valid, considering how minor the change is).
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The true underrepresented viewpoint on the forums--on pretty much any topic. The people who hear/read about it, say, "Oh. Huh," and then just go on with their lives because they really just don't care enough about it to make a fuss either way.
I'm pretty close to being in the "don't care" category myself. This doesn't seem like a huge deal to me. Task forces are an extremely limited part of the game to me. I long ago came to terms with the fact that if I don't choose to play more, that there are certain things in the game that I won't be able to fully participate in. Shadow Shard TF's, for one. Really rare invention sets, for another. I can live with it. There's enough in the game that I can participate in to have kept me well entertained for quite some time now.
So why am I even here in this thread? Well, honestly, it's mostly because most of the time the way people on the forums scream and carry on about every little thing amuses me. I know, it's a weakness, but there it is.
[Edit: No disrespect to Morvani. I understand you have a serious concern, I just don't think it will be as bad as you think it will. I'm thinking more of some other posts.]
But then every now and then the hyperbole starts to get on my nerves. I don't want to overstate my case, and act like this will have no affect at all on a casual player. It will have an affect. It constitutes another barrier to entry to task forces. It will probably make it a little harder for someone with RL issues that make it hard for them to complete a TF without AFK time to get onto a TF team.
A little harder.
It does not mean that if you can't sit at your computer uninterrupted for eight hours at a time, that you'll never be able to do a TF again.
I do hope they lower the team requirements for some of these TF's, though.
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The biggest effect for me will be that while i like doing shard tf's, i will have a hard time finding 7 other people that do.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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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.
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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*
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Unfortunately they cant do that because the very same players that spend all there time farming this or that, would simply then move onto the next most profitable TF v. Time invest to farm. Then the devs would spend more time "fixing" that TF to have the mobs move onto the next one, and the next. Setting a simple, and fully fair set of rules to ALL the TF/SF creates consistancy of the expectations for the system and becomes predictable for players instead of having rules that apply to this one or that one but not others. And saves the Devs time to created wanted new features rather then having to fix TF after TF as players migrate to the new Fast Cap experience.
And if i was Posi i would not be reading any PM that delt with this issue either. Its a fair change, to make a system work "as intended". Im sure the devs never intended you to be able to run 4-5 TFs in a one hour period for the rewards. Multiply that by people running 3-4 accounts in the same TFs with no one at the helm simply just there to get more loot, both the minimum spawn levels and the soft loading changes seem more then fair IMO. They really effect no one that wasnt looking for the easy way to exploit the recipie drop system to begin with.
Its really funny sometimes when i recall people crying for end game content and crafting and suchfor so long. And when they get it the first thing they do is work on figuring out how to exploit the system instead of play within it.
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Kind of like when people reminisce about the Hami bud exploit and nuking?
On to the other topic of not reading PMs. I'm a paying customer and so if I send someone a polite, well thought out pm, then I actually do expect them to take five mins to read it. My 75 bucks a month does somehow contribute to salaries so....(albeit a little itty bitty part of it....but I deserve that courtesy). Ex reads PMs and responds, there's no reason Posi can't.
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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On to the other topic of not reading PMs. I'm a paying customer and so if I send someone a polite, well thought out pm, then I actually do expect them to take five mins to read it. My 75 bucks a month does somehow contribute to salaries so....(albeit a little itty bitty part of it....but I deserve that courtesy). Ex reads PMs and responds, there's no reason Posi can't.
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He didn't read or respond to my PM about this issue either. I'm sure the content of my PM was opposite of yours.
As far as I'm concerned anything he could say in a PM was said in the thread with the explianations. Don't kid yourself into thinking that but if he only read my PM it may change his mind.
This change is here to stay. That is clear to me from what I read in that other thread. The question is wether or not minimum starting numbers for certian TFs are going to be reduced.
~MR
AE Arc: 305214 Blood Diamonds (Villainous)
Unleashed/Unchained/B.O.S.S.
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On to the other topic of not reading PMs. I'm a paying customer and so if I send someone a polite, well thought out pm, then I actually do expect them to take five mins to read it. My 75 bucks a month does somehow contribute to salaries so....(albeit a little itty bitty part of it....but I deserve that courtesy). Ex reads PMs and responds, there's no reason Posi can't.
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He didn't read or respond to my PM about this issue either. I'm sure the content of my PM was opposite of yours.
As far as I'm concerned anything he could say in a PM was said in the thread with the explianations. Don't kid yourself into thinking that but if he only read my PM it may change his mind.
This change is here to stay. That is clear to me from what I read in that other thread. The question is wether or not minimum starting numbers for certian TFs are going to be reduced.
~MR
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I got a read receipt. No reply yet, but here's hoping. And I'm sure your pm is the exact opposite of mine, your a paying customer too and are entitled to your opinion just as I'm entitled to mine, even if you don't like it. 
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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Its really funny sometimes when i recall people crying for end game content and crafting and suchfor so long. And when they get it the first thing they do is work on figuring out how to exploit the system instead of play within it.
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First, most TF's aren't end game content.
Second, if any content, end game or otherwise, is being played primarily for the reward by a significant number of players rather than for the content itself then where does the fault lie?
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First off TF/SF ARE end game content, why they created the Auto-expemt feature for them when before you actually had to find a player to exempt you. Sure you can do them before end game, but they were specificly altered to allow ease fo use for end game play as well.
And secondly i dont say that its wrong for people to want to do a TF for a reward. If you want the reward, find some friends, run the TF have a good time. Unfortunately that is not what was being done. Players were taking Mutliple accounts into a TF, Stacking the Team with up to 8 characters, starting 3-4 TFs with different toons from the accounts. Then each player runs 1 tf to the final mission, then they only play the actaul final mission in mass, after soft loading the mission to assure that its a easy win. So in the matter of the hour and half - two hours it would have normally taken to run one full TF they are getting 3-4 rewards, maybe even up to 8 or so if they have multiple toons in the same TFs.
That is exploiting the system by any definition. All these changes did was stop, or atleast make that more difficult. I fail to see how this is a doom change to anyone that was not exploiting this for personal gain to begin with.
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Before the Intro to Vanguard patch, Freedom was sending some players to Ouroboros 3.
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During the last day of the double xp weekend, Triumph was getting RWZ3, and I was crashing zoning to either Ouroboros or the RWZ.
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Right. Which is precisely why that arc was patched. Notice: the devs didn't remove talk-to-contact mission bonuses from all Ouroboros arcs -- just the problematic arc, the same way they shouldn't make sweeping changes to all Task Forces simply because soft-spawning to Cap SFs and the STF/RSF are having debatably undesirable consequences.
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Accept if dealing with Soft Spawning, it wasnt just the Farming of the Cap TFs that used it. I have to this day not found a Respec team for villians that didnt require everyone to log out before the thorn tree mission to lower the number of vines needed to kill. And i think they even fixed that didnt they? Yet still the general consensus is "Log out and make it easier". And since have had people do the same thing on Positron, Snapse, the hero respec to make less mobs in the find key rooms etc.
Its not just a farming issue it a apain in the [censored] issue as far as im concerned. I used to play with someone that used to run 3 accounts. She would log them all in to start a TF and either log them out or keep one going on follow to farm xp and drops. Those are rewards that others should have been earning, or had better chance of earning if she wasnt running multiple toons cause she could require the soft loading of tough missions to make up for the fact we were really running 2 men short due to her extra bagage.
So im sorry, im for any change that actually gets people wanting to play the game for the fun of a team, rather then the rewards it might earn them. The rewards are nice, dont get me wrong, but if people actually have to get REAL players involved in the team again, and cant inflate there chances to 3/8 of getting the best rewards running useless toons through a TF im all for it.
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Just another TF experience to report. A LGTF fell apart due to a domino effect. First mission took long than expected to complete, one blaster got impatient and quit. Down to seven. Second mission took even longer to complete, another blaster started feeling sick and quit. Down to six. Then everyone got sleepy and quit after the third mission, which was successful but took for-EV-er.
So I guess, as casual pickup task forces fall lower and lower below the minimum -- even by one -- chances increase that more players will drop out. How steeply do they increase? I guess we'll need lots of data to find out. So far I'm 1 for 3 on pickup TFs falling below the minimum: one succeeded, one was hopeless even without the minimum spawn sizes, and one failed that would have still succeeded before this change.
Personally there needs to be a redesign of a lot of the hero side TFs and Villain SFs. Streamline the missions, knock them down to five or six missions that take a bit longer, lower the number of people needed...whatever but there are just some TFs I won't do because I don't have that much time to get at them...even with Softloading.
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Just another TF experience to report. A LGTF fell apart due to a domino effect.
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I'll add one to the list too. Last night, Taxibot Belle ran a task force that required eight people from around 11:00pm until a little after 3:00am. No one left, the task force was successful, every seemed pretty happy, and she's been telling me that she's really glad she met some new friends who she hopes to work with again sometime.
She knew two of the people from some of the Hamidon raids. The rest were complete strangers to her. It wasn't exactly a pick-up team, but it's not like they were part of her supergroup or otherwise people she's worked on missions with before. She just happened to be standing around and was asked if she wanted to come.
Do you really think that tit-for-tat task force succeeded/task force failed bickering will really solve anything or convince anyone one way or another?
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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Before the Intro to Vanguard patch, Freedom was sending some players to Ouroboros 3.
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During the last day of the double xp weekend, Triumph was getting RWZ3, and I was crashing zoning to either Ouroboros or the RWZ.
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Right. Which is precisely why that arc was patched. Notice: the devs didn't remove talk-to-contact mission bonuses from all Ouroboros arcs -- just the problematic arc, the same way they shouldn't make sweeping changes to all Task Forces simply because soft-spawning to Cap SFs and the STF/RSF are having debatably undesirable consequences.
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Accept if dealing with Soft Spawning, it wasnt just the Farming of the Cap TFs that used it. I have to this day not found a Respec team for villians that didnt require everyone to log out before the thorn tree mission to lower the number of vines needed to kill. And i think they even fixed that didnt they? Yet still the general consensus is "Log out and make it easier". And since have had people do the same thing on Positron, Snapse, the hero respec to make less mobs in the find key rooms etc.
Its not just a farming issue it a apain in the [censored] issue as far as im concerned. I used to play with someone that used to run 3 accounts. She would log them all in to start a TF and either log them out or keep one going on follow to farm xp and drops. Those are rewards that others should have been earning, or had better chance of earning if she wasnt running multiple toons cause she could require the soft loading of tough missions to make up for the fact we were really running 2 men short due to her extra bagage.
So im sorry, im for any change that actually gets people wanting to play the game for the fun of a team, rather then the rewards it might earn them. The rewards are nice, dont get me wrong, but if people actually have to get REAL players involved in the team again, and cant inflate there chances to 3/8 of getting the best rewards running useless toons through a TF im all for it.
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If the Pool C drops were looked at and possibly revised a long time ago, people might not have been "soft loading" in the first place. People are TIRED of spending 4.5 hours doing a LGTF and getting "sting of the manticore" or "crap of the hunter". They want something worth a little more or hell even slottable.
So yeah I'm still going to run tfs with a duo and stack the team to our favor, because I want some rare recipes - I want stuff (in proportionate amount to the time I spent taskforcing...I don't consider a crap of the hunter anywhere near worth the effort of doing a tf) I can sell FOR A PROFIT or I want stuff I can slot on the next toon I want to IO out. Oh and the argument that you don't have to IO out your toon yada yada. Well, I like IOing out my toons, that to me is FUN. So yeah...this change, while irksome to me, is not the be all end all for ME, it is however for casual players that want to do a tf just like you do - with a bunch of people and taking their chance on getting a crappy recipe.
And the really good news is...I can afford to buy the Pool C rares that people are going to sell for 80 mil...100 mil now. Can you?
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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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.
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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*
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Unfortunately they cant do that because the very same players that spend all there time farming this or that, would simply then move onto the next most profitable TF v. Time invest to farm. Then the devs would spend more time "fixing" that TF to have the mobs move onto the next one, and the next. Setting a simple, and fully fair set of rules to ALL the TF/SF creates consistancy of the expectations for the system and becomes predictable for players instead of having rules that apply to this one or that one but not others. And saves the Devs time to created wanted new features rather then having to fix TF after TF as players migrate to the new Fast Cap experience.
And if i was Posi i would not be reading any PM that delt with this issue either. Its a fair change, to make a system work "as intended". Im sure the devs never intended you to be able to run 4-5 TFs in a one hour period for the rewards. Multiply that by people running 3-4 accounts in the same TFs with no one at the helm simply just there to get more loot, both the minimum spawn levels and the soft loading changes seem more then fair IMO. They really effect no one that wasnt looking for the easy way to exploit the recipie drop system to begin with.
Its really funny sometimes when i recall people crying for end game content and crafting and suchfor so long. And when they get it the first thing they do is work on figuring out how to exploit the system instead of play within it.