In-Testing: Task / Strike Force and Trial Missions
By
1_800_Spines,
Posted on: 2008-02-26 15:44 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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So, would you rather have the Lady Gray TF or a revamped Positron?
I'd rather have a revamped Positron.
Old, broken content should be fixed or removed, not left out to fester where everyone can see it, no matter how much shiny new stuff is propped up next to it.
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/em raises hand.
At this point I would have to agree.
It gives a VERY bad impression to new players who exprience this. The difference between one end of the game and the other is starting to get glaring.
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Also, the LGTF is not a requirement for an accolade. Posi is. If you want the accolade, you have to go through that POS.
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didn't even think of that. LOL
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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Sure:
1. Get the villan population up: fix the glaring things that people have been clamoring for months and are the main cause of folks. PPPs, being one. PVP imbalances.
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I doubt that the PPP's and PvP imbalances are what's keeping the villain population low.
You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
PvP imbalances don't really show themselves unless you spend a heck of a lot of time PvPing. Not many people devote a ton of time to PvP before reaching 50.
I do agree with your other points, but that one just doesn't make sense to me.
So, what accolade is the Posi task fore needed for, besides the Task Commander? Or is that it?
Uber Talgrim - level 50 emp/dark defender
Uber Rod - level 50 dark melee/regen scrapper
Rod Valdr - level 50 invuln/SS tanker
Talgrim - level 50 ninja/dark mastermind
OMG!! Please add these costume designs now!
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I'm sure the Devs would rather have devoted the bug squashing team to something else, had that been an option. But this is what got greenlighted, or finished first out of however many things they are working on.
This currently being tested fix looks to be intended to be a more player-friendly compromise. Who knows whether it will go live? No harm in testing it while datamining to see if the Live fix is sufficient.
That's better than having the Devs ignore the player outcry against the Live fix, no?
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It intended to be a more player-friendly compromise, and I appreciate the attempt, but I believe that it's even worse than what's on live. And Lighthouse's explanations of the appropriate way to deal with it (if your connection is at all shakey, quit, if a teammate's connection is shakey, kick them) shows the problems.
There are three problems with what's on live now.
(1) People can't softload to get recipes anymore
(2) People can't solo or duo TFs anymore
(3) If people quit or disconnect and team size drops below minimum, the team has to deal with artificially large teams.
Well, (1) is deliberate. (2) has never been the focus of a task force. (3) only becomes a problem when the team size drops below the minimum, and can be greatly ameliorated by reducing minimum team sizes.
Reducing the minimums is very easy (presumably it's a table entry, but even if it's hard-coded, it's one line of code per tf to change where necessary). And it would even have the advantage of being BETTER for players than the pre-11.5 version in at least one respect.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
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People follow the rainbow because there is a pot of gold at the end.
This is Villain side
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Sure:
1. Get the villan population up: fix the glaring things that people have been clamoring for months and are the main cause of folks. PPPs, being one. PVP imbalances.
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I doubt that the PPP's and PvP imbalances are what's keeping the villain population low.
You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
PvP imbalances don't really show themselves unless you spend a heck of a lot of time PvPing. Not many people devote a ton of time to PvP before reaching 50.
I do agree with your other points, but that one just doesn't make sense to me.
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Actually you'd be surprised how many folks state those as exactly why they don't play villanside more.
But yeah the other points are more likely.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
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People follow the rainbow because there is a pot of gold at the end.
This is Villain side
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I LOL'd.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
Too bad they couldn't change PPP so you can get all the badges and then when you pick powers you get locked into whatever pool you picked from until respec.
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Some of those are debatable and subjective. However, I see your point but don't agree that this change in TF requirements in all the game-breaking.
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The thing is... The exploit wasn't game breaking either.
Like I said, NOBODY was being hurt by the Cap farms. There is most definitely going to be some hurt from changing it though.
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You're correct. Noone was being hurt and plenty were benifitting via the BM. I think it's funny. Doing 8 caps in an hour and a half wasn't an easy thing to organize with 8 non dual boxers.
I think Posi is just pissed the hero's werent smart enough to run Katie the same way. Got his boxer's all in a twist because villians are smarter.
You could have multied Katies as well with a little different organization.
Either way this kills the BM. Sure.. A couple of players have posted screenshots to attest to 22-24 min 4 player cap runs. All that does is substantiate the fact that the good people will keep going and the mediocre players will miss out..... AGAIN. In addition the people running Caps arent going to sell untill prices for uniques are jacked up to over 200 mill per unique because the additional recipes introduced in issue10 just further dilluted the pool C drop Pools ( I might be wrong on which issue but anyone reading my post knows wth I am talking about.)
The previous change and the currrent change do absolutely NOTHING to address the BM issue. In fact....... it makes the BM worse. 
Since the dev's all seem to be the " average Joe gamer" I'd seriously like to see them compile a team on test or in dev land and do an 8 man cap rotation. Let them organize the damn thing and solo and coordinate reassembly then get the Crap of the Hunter or Pacing of the turd at the end. Let them run it and see how long it takes to get a decent drop.
This change does not effect me in the least except as a minor inconvenience. In fact? I m not an RMT but I have enough villianside pool c's banked to be a billionaire in the game a few times over in the coming months.
I seriously question where these out of the blue changes originate and the motivation behind them.
Thanks for the compromise. Nice of you all Dev team. The bandaide won't work long though. You're gonna need a foogin tourniquet and an amputation to fix the BM following this change. Maybe a good idea is to sew on the leg of Wentworths to patch the one the BM just lost.
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You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
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People follow the rainbow because there is a pot of gold at the end.
This is Villain side
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I just have a hard time believing things that are said on the forums without checking it out myself.
The more I play villain side, the more I see that much of what is complained about, is exaggerated.
Except the thing where ambushes can see the stalker, something should really be done about that...
So of course the data in mid's with no other personal experience with PPP's, I say they are fine.
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Understandable and thanks for the feedback. However, I would have to advise you to better get to know the people you are grouping with. Simply put, if someone has a reputation for such, don't engage in a task / strike force or trial with them. You would be well advised to only take your most trusted allies with you to tackle such challenging and dangerous missions!
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You know what, normally I am very sympathetic to the devs POV but in this case I am in total disagreement.
Either you are telling me that I can't play this content with a PuG, unless I get lucky and no one in the PuG has an emergency, gets mad, has technical issues or is generally incompetent. I am sorry but having to restart a 4hr task force after 2.5hrs because someone looses internet connection or something comes up is ridiculous. I know you guys think hey its just common sense that if you have to leave that you should quite the Task Force. But not everyone is going to think of that. You really need to add a way to allow the team leader to kick an absent member of a Task Force.
The only other thing I can think of that you are telling me is that if I don't have the hook up in this game I will never get to reliably enjoy TF's. What if a person doesn't have any real life friends that play this game. What if you have a very small friends list. That would be me I only play with a couple of people regularly so TF's now are basically out of the question. I am not going to waste my time if there isn't a reasonable way to deal with trouble team members or people who perma DC during a TF.
The comment that you made sounds just a bit to role playerish for my liking. You are making it sound like TF's should only be enjoyed by the elite.
Its just a given that some one on a team my decide to go bonkers and get mad and logoff. Its gonna happen give us the tools to deal with it. Or should we just say "Sorry, I don't know you so you can't be on my TF!" Better add that to the notes when you start a TF then.
Finally what you are telling me is that its not OK for people to soft load a map to complete it to easily. You should redesign the maps so that isn't possible with keys, apparently you find that is a waste of your development time. But it OK for the Devs to allow us to waste our time by trying to complete a TF with a PuG. Thanks for reminding me that your time is more valuable than the players time.
I know I might seem spiteful, but your comment just twisted my bolts in the wrong way.
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On February 12th, we introduced a change to Task / Strike Force and Trial Missions whereby the monster spawns would not scale down below...
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I love this change. Lets us solo tougher task forces that are intentionally beefed up, and lets people solo them for recipes and such at a solo level. (Or duo, or trio)
Man, I *really* love this. *claps*
And it is far less exploitable (no more running it solo and having 8 people rejoin for the last mission).
As it was pointed out, it might be a bit rough on posi teams who lose a few people, but on the balance, I definitely prefer this over the live version.
Next up: let us, at the start, intentionally scale it higher. (ie, start with 1, scale to minimum of 4 - and I'd like that for oroborous missions als please)
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Posi TF isn't as great as others but it's also not a 400 lb rotting corpse left out in the streets of South Carolina during July.
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Yes, it is.
A lump of festering corruption and bile that greets newbies with large signs that read "ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER."
Fix it.
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So, would you rather have the Lady Gray TF or a revamped Positron?
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A revamped Positron. The Positron TF sucks so much that it hurts the game just to have it in there. Especially because it's the first task force in the game. What a horrible way to introduce new players to the joys of task forces.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
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People follow the rainbow because there is a pot of gold at the end.
This is Villain side
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I just have a hard time believing things that are said on the forums without checking it out myself.
The more I play villain side, the more I see that much of what is complained about, is exaggerated.
Except the thing where ambushes can see the stalker, something should really be done about that...
So of course the data in mid's with no other personal experience with PPP's, I say they are fine.
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What's a PPP??? Last time I checked hero's get pff, tf, etcetcetc.... What do villians get? A web grenade, electric shackles or a Mu..... big woooooooo! Like I said... whats a PPP ? 
Off topic and I apologize... carry on , folks. 
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Ok, so here is the problem with this change.
Synapse. 8 people. I know all of them and love them, 1 of them is my husband, 1 of them me.
About 30 minutes in, hubby and I start mapserving occasionally. Nothing big, haven't dropped, but we're getting a little annoyed.
2 hours in. We both drop - cable's out.
Now there's a team of 6 (Synapse requires 4). Because we went link-dead, we're still on the team. But the cable's out - who knows when it'll get back on, and hell, maybe we're so annoyed with the mapserving we say screw it, and rent a movie.
...
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If you understand it is your connection when you start dropping (like say resetting the cable modem fixes it), then realize you may hard drop and tell your friends you'll bow out rather than risk it (or at least discuss it with them to see what they want to do, maybe they think, given the team make up, they could brute force it even if you two do drop).
At least this way, their is your ability to control it. For an example, what if the Task Force was one with a 6 person minimum and you started it with 6. Under what's currently on live, you'd have no recourse and the team would be doing the mission with 4 people with spawns of 6. With the change, you can at least realize what is going on and preemptively quit and allow the spawn size to scale.
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But I don't want to go 5 hours on a TF to get my badge only to preemptively quit and then only to find out my cable wouldn't have gone out to begin with. I would take the chance and stay on the TF as I am sure many others would as well. Not everyone is as courteous as you are LH.
And don't forget many children play this game too and I doubt they would recognize the need to logout early to protect the TF. Some would not even inform us they are logging off for good (but not quitting).
Alien 51 - Emp/Energy/Energy Defender
Average Bob - Rifle/Devices/Munitions Blaster
Fusion Avatar - Triform Warshade
Grumpy - Nec/Poison/Mu Mastermind
Metallic Guy - Kat/Inv/Weapons Scrapper
This is an improvement, IMO. Thank you very much for listening and trying to make changes that will help with attrition on TF's.
I can see that kicking offline players could be used to grief, but it would be nice that if someone reneged on their agreement to participate and disappeared for a long period (long period being not just a few hours absence, but perhaps... 24/48 hours?), they could be kicked by the leader to ease the mob load on the remaining players that stuck with the TF.
It's still discouraging to think of losing so many hours of hard won battle all because someone couldn't follow through with the TF for whatever reason, but this is definately a change in the right direction.
Thanks again! (now maybe... reduce the needed numbers for starting TF's?)
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You have to get to lvl 41 before you can experience for yourself if PPP's suck. How would this stop new players from entering the rogue isles?
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People follow the rainbow because there is a pot of gold at the end.
This is Villain side
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Your Picture-fu is strong.
<QR>
Several pages back it was asked if the 8 simultaneous Cap runs were happening all that often - the answer is yes, quite frequently. It may not always have been 8, but you see groups forming and everyone logging except for the runner all the time. Of course, they weren't RMT people doing this, they were people trying to actually get Pool C recipes on villainside, since there is a paucity on the market (I got most of the ones I wanted, then afterwards just put everything up on the market or vendor - more often than not vendoring the "oh-so-rewarding" Pool C drop because I got more for it there than on the market - until the current patch on live).
If anything, this change promotes RMT as the prices on those recipes is going to skyrocket and people will either start farming Ouro arcs using the new methods this opens up themselves so they can afford the rare few that will show up on the market, or pay Chinese kids to do the farming for them if they have limited playing time.
But hey, Katie still puts out just as fast with multiple runs hourly, so don't anyone worry about Wentworth's. This seems almost exclusively targetted at soft-loading for MoSTF/MoLRSF badges and everything else is a casualty - it certainly wasn't an issue right after Issue 9 came out, and only became a priority now that we have shiny new badges for certain minimum-size-8-supposed-to-be-hard TF/SFs (think pre-Ouroboros Isolator if you missed it the first time).
The biggest casualty is the Virgil Tarikoss (Cap au Diable) SF; this was the one that was loaded at 8x8 and run so that people could sift through 8 recipes at a time to realize that they all go to the vendor instead of 1 at a time. The chain this starts will have some rather widespead effects on how many people are going to be able to build the way they would like their character, which can drive people either to heroside or just away from the game entirely.
I don't see the "exploit" as some huge problem. I agree it was most definately an exploit, and if my dm/nin stalker without Stamina could finish it solo in around 30 mins (with about 5 mins of that waiting for the rest of the people to log on while Infernal regenerated what Bat'zul did to him) then it's not exactly "challenging" to have the chance to get the Unspeakable Terror: 2% Chance for Disorient and Call of the Sandman: Chance for Self Heal when the only recipe that you care about in the entire Pool C list is Luck of the Gambler: +7.5% recharge increase because there aren't any for sale except a few at level 50 and you'd like to be able to use it while levelling your character. I do know that I should certainly have a lot more infamy if this was a productive practice for anything other than generating a lot of drops (my richest character has just under 45 mil...I can't even afford to buy a set of Crushing Impacts for that).
But hey, I got a Miracle and a Numi unique last week at level 35 and 36, respectively...I guess I can always wait for the market to dry up and prices on those to get to the 9- and 10-digit range, since they're extras for me and I'm still looking for more LotGs for a couple of other characters (the 5 I have currently are reserved), and then spend the rest of my time farming for purples (I've gotten 1 since they were put in).
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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If you believe we are blind to concerns or input about current TF/SF/Trial content I can assure you we are not. However, I would pose the argument of opportunity cost. In some cases, depending on the scope, you could get a whole new TF out of revamping an old one. So, would you rather have the Lady Gray TF or a revamped Positron?
As we continue to ramp things up, we will better be in the position where we can just do both. We appreciate your continued support and patronage to get us there.
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Just a Hypothetical here...just to be Mentally-Noted, not necessarily Responded to... but Can NcSoft itself through you it's Spokesman, ensure that this won't simply become a closed 'Technical' Issue as soon as this "compramise" patch inevitably goes Live just like the previous one did? We know you value feedback b/c it's your Job to, but the guy who really has to give a few inches here is Positron b/c at the heart of this is the REWARD. If this issue gets closed after this, then ALL the IO rewards are set to suffer for it in the future and the market becomes and even worse "CessPool" of price gouging, Flipping-PvP, and disparity.
As for the TF Missions... I don't think anyone expects a complete Overhaul. Cutting the actual Size of most of the 'in-between' maps in HALF would be a huge improvement though, especially all these dull BORING defeat-alls that look exactly like every other map in the game. If they're too short after that then make every named boss at the end of it an EB or even a Pair of EB's to spice it up. Either way you slice it, a LOT of these TF's just have boring [censored] Laboratories, Caves, and Warehouses that are simply too Large for a casual team and often have them spending 30-60 minutes per map clearing. Get the Worldbuilders to just Cut out whole sections of all the boring Maps until they take 15-20 mins tops.
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This currently being tested fix looks to be intended to be a more player-friendly compromise. Who knows whether it will go live? No harm in testing it while datamining to see if the Live fix is sufficient.
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I agree with you that this looks like it's intended to be a more player-friendly compromise, and I know several people have hailed it as such. The thing is that I question whether or not that's what it actually is.
I know this has been said before, but I think it bears reiteration. You can divide the cases where you lose someone on a TF, and the circumstances, into these four cases:
Case 1: Teammate quits the team, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns adjust
Case 2: Teammate quits the team, and the team is now below the minimum starting size
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns adjust
Case 3: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust
Case 4: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is now below the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust
In the first and last cases, there's nothing to choose between the two--they give the identical result. In the two middle cases, one is more hurtful with the live version, and one is more hurtful with the test version.
The first big question to me is: which of those two circumstances is more likely? I really don't know the answer to that. I haven't done loads of TF's, but I've seen both happen.
The next question that occurs to me is: which of these two is more under the players' control? That's where I think the live version comes out a little ahead.
If the TF has a minimum starting size of less than eight (or better, less then seven), it's possible to isulate yourself to some extent from the live change. Start the team with more than the minimum, and then if one or two people leave, you're still okay. With the test version, there's no way to do that. Your only choice is Lighthouse's suggestion:
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However, I would have to advise you to better get to know the people you are grouping with. Simply put, if someone has a reputation for such, don't engage in a task / strike force or trial with them. You would be well advised to only take your most trusted allies with you to tackle such challenging and dangerous missions!
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Am I the only person it's occurred to that this advice can be as easily applied to the current live situation? If you think a person is likely to quit the TF, then don't invite them?
In the current version, I have both of these options to mitigate the situation. I can try to assess my prospective teammates' reliability, and not invite them if I think they won't stay on the team. And I can invite some extra people, above the minimum, to give a cushion in case I'm wrong.
In the test version, I have two different options. I can try to assess my prospective teammates's reliability, and not invite them if I think they'll deliberately log off without quitting. And I can try to assess the reliability of their internet connection, and not invite them if I think it's not up to the job.
Here's the crux of this, to me. Quitting the team is always a deliberate action. If you quit, you had to have meant to quit. This is by no means to say that you might not have very good reaasons to do it, I know things happen in real life. But you can't have done it by accident. (Okay, yeah, it's possible by hitting the wrong button. But there's a confirmation dialog, isn't there? You 'd have had to have had a major brain fart.)
Being disconnected, OTOH, is something that can be beyond your control--I mean literally beyond your control. You didn't look at it and make a decision, it just happened.
I can be okay with filtering my teammates according to an assessment of their personal reliability. I'm far less comfortable with filtering my teammates according to an assessment of their ISP's reliability.
The first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw this was this situation. I've started a TF on a Saturday afternoon. Things looked great when I started, but an hour or so into it .... was that thunder? Uh oh, storm coming up. Not at all uncommon in the midwest, especially in late summer.
So now I have to make a decision. An unexpected power outage could definitely happen. It does, around here. So do I quit, or do I try to keep on?
My inclination would be to try to stay. This is not only for my own sake, but because losing a team member, even with adjusted spawns, is often hurtful to a PUG TF. If I end up losing power, well, that's too bad, but the team is no worse off than it would have been if I quit. And at least I can say I tried. If I don't end up losing power, then I complete the TF and was a help to the other members.
But now, that would be a bad decision. If I think an outage might happen, my team would be better off if I quit--even though it would be losing a member, which as I said is probably harmful in itself. If I lose power, then I made the right decison. If I don't? Then I quit the team, hurting myself and the rest of the team, for no purpose. That's going to be pretty frustrating.
Of the two proposed changes, this is the one that makes me more reluctant to join a TF team. Not so much because of what others might do, but because of the possibility of me accidentally griefing my team.
Oh, okay, I know: tl:dr, in an already tl:dr thread. I didn't mean for it to be quite so long. Let me try for an executive summary:
I appreciate the fact that they're trying for a compromise here. The problem is that I don't think the proposed change mitigates the situation for a casual team, it only shifts it to another area, and arguably makes it worse. I'm fine with the goal, and understand that one or the other of these things is probably here to stay. But if given a choice between the two of them, I think I prefer the current live version.
If anyone actually read all that, thanks for your time.
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I agree with you that this looks like it's intended to be a more player-friendly compromise, and I know several people have hailed it as such. The thing is that I question whether or not that's what it actually is.
I know this has been said before, but I think it bears reiteration. You can divide the cases where you lose someone on a TF, and the circumstances, into these four cases:
Case 1: Teammate quits the team, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns adjust
Case 2: Teammate quits the team, and the team is now below the minimum starting size
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns adjust
Case 3: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is still at or above the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust
Case 4: Teammate disconnects/logs without quitting, and the team is now below the minimum starting size.
Live version: spawns do not adjust
Test version: spawns do not adjust
In the first and last cases, there's nothing to choose between the two--they give the identical result. In the two middle cases, one is more hurtful with the live version, and one is more hurtful with the test version.
The first big question to me is: which of those two circumstances is more likely? I really don't know the answer to that. I haven't done loads of TF's, but I've seen both happen.
The next question that occurs to me is: which of these two is more under the players' control? That's where I think the live version comes out a little ahead.
If the TF has a minimum starting size of less than eight (or better, less then seven), it's possible to isulate yourself to some extent from the live change. Start the team with more than the minimum, and then if one or two people leave, you're still okay.
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Thank you for expressing this better than I could.
And I'll add one more thing...the only time when test is better is if someone quits and the team size drops below the minimum to start team. In my experience, with the exception of Positron, people want to run 8-person task forces (I can't speak for villainside, so I'm talking about hero task forces, but from what I hear on VirtueUnited it seems to be the same for strike forces). The only time people start with smaller teams is when they can't get 8 people. So if the minimum to start is 4 people, the team has to be really falling apart before this comes into play.
It's an issue when doing Shard TFs with minimum to start 8 people, it's an issue when doing Manticore with minimum to start 7 people. If those minimums were dropped to 4, it would be no real problem for those either. I know they want 8 for the LRSF and STF because of their epic nature, but most TFs don't need those numbers.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
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Guess I won't be doing ANY more TF/SF until THIS fix gets a FIX.
Farmers can STILL farm it, and casual players (me) get screwed even more.
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Wait. Before this fix if it was an 8 man TF then spawns would always be for 8 even if it dropped down to 2 players still logged on.
Now, for the same TF, if 6 players just log off, nothing has changed. It still spawns for 8. But, if 6 players quit, it spawns for 2.
You don't see what is on test as an improvement over what is live for a PUG? I didn't say perfect, I said an improvement.
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Guess I won't be doing ANY more TF/SF until THIS fix gets a FIX.
Farmers can STILL farm it, and casual players (me) get screwed even more.
[/ QUOTE ]Wait. Before this fix if it was an 8 man TF then spawns would always be for 8 even if it dropped down to 2 players still logged on.
Now, for the same TF, if 6 players just log off, nothing has changed. It still spawns for 8. But, if 6 players quit, it spawns for 2.
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8-man TFs aren't designed to be done by 2 people, and there aren't that many duos capable of beating the final foe in a TF (not including Quartermain, but you still need four for simultaneous clicks).
More often, you have 2 people leaving, maybe 3 if it's a rough night for connections. If the minimum to start number was 4, 2 or 3 people leaving an 8 person team wouldn't be an issue.
I sincerely hope the reason this tweak was chosen over lowering minimums wasn't for that tiny fraction of the players that want to duo 8-man TFs.
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So let me get this straight, this patch was done to prevent the RMT'ers, right? To me it doesnt seem like a logical activity for the RMT'ers to do considering all the crappy recipes that get dropped.
So what if the RMT'ers follow some of the guides on these forums on how to make money off the market and begin using the market to do their business? Are we going to get a "fix" to the market?
Lets be honest here and surpass the disguise of blaming things on RMT'ers. This is a band aid thrown on a much bigger problem. The pool C recipes have become the biggest problem in this game and have so far constituted some of the more recent changes. First the fast katies, now softloading, whats next?
Stop throwing bandaids at the problem and fix it all together. Reduce the amount of pool C drops and make them more easily available. You devs are officially screwing up this game or at least some of the more exciting parts of it, i.e. TF's and the Market.
I fail to see how this prevents influence farming either, start a TF and tell everyone to log off then you have multiple maps set to whatever size map you desire to go to town on. Then the team can log in and still get the recipe for the work of one. Its going to encourage more min/maxing by individuals (like thats not already done) and hurt the overall casual gamer. Wth the inception of purples please dont let anyone fool ya that some powerful characters cannot still solo these TFs. Sorry this is a lose lose situation DEVS. You're working assbackwards here.