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
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
For a TF that requires 8 people, this change is clearly an improvement. For a TF with a lower minimum, it's far from clear.
What if I started the Positron TF with 8 people? Either before or after the change, if 5 people quit, no problem--spawns adjust for 3.
Before the change, if 5 people log off without quitting, no problem--spawns adjust for 3. After the change, if 5 people log off without quitting, it still spawns for 8.
It's not that clear-cut, and it probably depends on which TF's you're focusing on.
Edit:
There's something bugging me about this, so I had to come back to it. I want to point out that I don't consider either of our examples to be particularly realistic for a normal team. I know mine certainly wasn't meant to be. I wouldn't expect that to happen unless the team was purposely soft-loading, and I don't have any problem with stopping that.
What's a lot more likely: You start Positron with 8 and lose 3. If at least one of those three left by logging or disconnecting rather than by quitting team, the team is now set up for a problem--a problem which would not exist on the live server as it stands now.
The main thing is that I want people to realize that this "fix" isn't a straightforward compromise or an obvious improvement. It's a trade-off, better in some situations and worse in others. As long as that's acknowledged, I don't have any particular problem with someone reaching the opposite conclusion from me about which is better.
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
Wait, is this a serious question? Is it a poll? I vote for revamped Positron.
From my point of view, it's cost/benefit. Every one of my characters could do a Positron TF. Okay, maybe not every one of them right at this moment, I might have a level 6 or two that I've forgotten about. But virtually all of them could do it, and even the forgotten level 6's could be brought up to that level in a snap.
OTOH, I have two--count 'em, two--characters that are currently high enough for Lady Grey. Getting another one up there will take a little time and effort, even with the new XP curve making it easier.
Beyond that, Positron is the first TF available. It's going to be most players' first impression of the entire TF mechanic. It shouldn't be one of the longest, hardest, and most tedious to do. If anything, it should be shorter and more streamlined than other TF's, to serve as a good introduction. First impressions count. A lot.
Yeah, I know it wasn't really a poll. But the question was asked, so there you go.
I like this change a lot better. If you have a team there can be no softloading. If real life happens and people DC but come back there can be no softloading. The only issue I can possibly see is if they DC for an extended period of time but don't quit...but that happened yesterday to me on Citadel and we still finished fine.
Oh and yeah streamline the Posi TF since it is kinda long.........
Been trying to think of a way to express how great this explanation is without simply quoting it and saying "Devs, please read this".
I fail. I'm going to just quote it because it's perfectly stated. Devs, please read this.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
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:
[ QUOTE ]
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!
[/ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
am I obligated to end with "QFT"?
I guess this change, prompted by actions of the loot-chasers, means that the Invention System is not totally ignorable any more. (Never had this problem when TFs awarded just enhancements and badges.)
--NT
They all laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian.
But I showed them, and nobody's laughing at me now!
If I became a red name, I would be all "and what would you mere mortals like to entertain me with today, mu hu ha ha ha!" ~Arcanaville
[ QUOTE ]
I guess this change, prompted by actions of the loot-chasers, means that the Invention System is not totally ignorable any more. (Never had this problem when TFs awarded just enhancements and badges.)
--NT
[/ QUOTE ]
Is it the fault of the loot chasers or those that initiated loot into the game and did not provide an adequate supply of pool c's to cover the demand? Any thing that cuts down on the number of tfs has a direct affect on the number of pool c's. Would they consider adding pool c's as part of another reward? not eliminating them as tf rewards, just adding them some other place.
Making a market and ensuring an insufficient supply of recipes is much worse than having no market at all.
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
[ QUOTE ]
8 people start a Task Force.
7 people log off and allow the 1 character that's a strong solo build to solo to the end.
The 7 other people log on just before the finish.
Complete the mission and 8 people obtain Pool C rewards for the work of 1 person.
The above behavior is something that we are not allowing to continue.
[/ QUOTE ]
Why does the above (and hence, this proposed change) apply to a Respec trial?
"Just before the finish" for a Respec means at least 50% of the final mission, and the final mission is pretty much the entire Respec. Logging out of a hunt and a quick door mission isn't that big a deal.
However, the Respec final missions are severely adjusted based on team size.
Is there really a farming of Pool D as well as C?
The amount of Pool C getting into Players hands could be anywhere from right on to double what was intended. I'm not sure you could say it's 'insufficient' so much as 'disproportionate'.
Then again, without the numbers to look at, there could be a proportionate number of Pool C Recipes red side, and people are just using them rather than marketing them.
All we really know is that people want there to be more (until they get more, then they will complain about the prices dropping).
Looking at TF design, you should go around 4 hours of gameplay between pool C drops. If you are in the market for 1/10 of the items in the pool, then it should take 40 hours worth of TF running, or 10 TFs, to get one of those drops.
Thus, if you run 2 TFs per day, you should go a week or more between drops you actually want, by design. THAT would be 'sufficient', and that's not counting buying them from players who didn't want the thing you wanted.
Is that about the rate you are desiring or experiencing?
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This change and the previous one is bad because it still allows for some teammates to grief your team should they choose to log off and not quit. I have had it to happen twice since the first change on a few tfs I have done. Once on Katie hannon and once Sara Moore TFs. We need a way to be able to kick people from the team that are not currently logged in. Secondly neither of these changes have done anything to address the reason why this softloading of tf/sfs happens in the first place. If the recipes that people can actually use were more readily accessable we would not be going thru this now in the first place. Either address the issue with the drop pools or you are doing all this for nothing and all it is doing is punishing the rest of the playerbase instead of farmers.
[/ QUOTE ]
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!
[/ QUOTE ]
You have no idea how your own game works, do you?
So you recommend people check the resumes of everyone they group with? Group with SG mates only? You've got content that requires 8 people to sign up...you really think people are going to know the history of everyone? And since the game treats disconnects like logoffs, are people supposed to get a crystal ball to know if people are going to have technical problems?
HOW ABOUT YOU STOP TRYING TO FIX "EXPLOITS" AND START TRYING TO FIX THE REASON PEOPLE ARE EXPLOITING, LIKE THE LACK OF CONTENT IN THIS GAME?
I swear. Do you even play this thing?
[ QUOTE ]
HOW ABOUT YOU STOP TRYING TO FIX "EXPLOITS" AND START TRYING TO FIX THE REASON PEOPLE ARE EXPLOITING, LIKE THE LACK OF CONTENT IN THIS GAME?
[/ QUOTE ]
You overlook the simple fact that some people will ALWAYS exploit. Recipes could be raining down like mana from Heaven and they would still be looking for shortcuts and ways to get more than anyone else.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
<sigh> Much adoo about nothing. People have been able to quit out of a TF/SF for years and ruin them. Heck, had it happen to me in the second Shadow Shard TF once. A bunch of PowerLevellers were trying to run it and did great against the Nemesis. They hit the Rularuu and, two teamwipes later, left me and a couple of others standing in the mission without a word. Yeah - three of us vs Ruludak - I don't think so.
<Zloth showers kudos on Hellguard and Milk_Weasel>
[ QUOTE ]
The amount of Pool C getting into Players hands could be anywhere from right on to double what was intended. I'm not sure you could say it's 'insufficient' so much as 'disproportionate'.
Then again, without the numbers to look at, there could be a proportionate number of Pool C Recipes red side, and people are just using them rather than marketing them.
All we really know is that people want there to be more (until they get more, then they will complain about the prices dropping).
Looking at TF design, you should go around 4 hours of gameplay between pool C drops. If you are in the market for 1/10 of the items in the pool, then it should take 40 hours worth of TF running, or 10 TFs, to get one of those drops.
Thus, if you run 2 TFs per day, you should go a week or more between drops you actually want, by design. THAT would be 'sufficient', and that's not counting buying them from players who didn't want the thing you wanted.
Is that about the rate you are desiring or experiencing?
[/ QUOTE ]
No, I have had a drop rate much lower than that. Attempting to give players an incentive to do tf's an then deciding they are not doing them properly when you wont even clearly state what you want is not a coherent action. If the devs want pool c to be ultra rare, they should say so. This bs of leaving us guessing and then slapping us as "exploiters" is driving players away. The mysterious dev silence may be ego enhancing for them, but is bad business. They need to decide if they want cooperation from us or not. Recipes are labeled rare but are all over the place for 500inf. Others cant be found for any amount of money. They have the same rarity, but arent as common. More and more of the new content is intended to be very rare or elite. This is a bad trend.
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
I think it's evident from the design what they want. Grab your SG, your long time friends from your friends list, R buddies and do a TF.
You can do one with a PuG? Bonus!
You can solo it? Fine, but if you have 8 people in the TF, you are soloing 8 people spawns. You want to solo it for 2 person spawns? That's fine, too, just have the extras quit.
TFs are not the only content in the game, you can level to 50 without collecting 88 rare IOs.
Common = 1 or more per mission (20+ per day)
Uncommon = roughly 1 per 10 missions. (3 per day + commons)
Rare = 1 per TF/Trial. (2 per day+ uncommons and commons)
Seems pretty straightforward.
If you think from (what I presume to be) a designer's point of view it all makes sense.
It's not like they took the TF or the rewards away; they just made it tougher IF you have people drop out and not quit and not return.
Sure, red side needs more TFs. And more players. But making it somewhat tougher to soft load TFs in PuGs (while not disallowing the practice entirely) is not the be all and end all of that problem.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
[ QUOTE ]
<sigh> Much adoo about nothing. People have been able to quit out of a TF/SF for years and ruin them. Heck, had it happen to me in the second Shadow Shard TF once. A bunch of PowerLevellers were trying to run it and did great against the Nemesis. They hit the Rularuu and, two teamwipes later, left me and a couple of others standing in the mission without a word. Yeah - three of us vs Ruludak - I don't think so.
<Zloth showers kudos on Hellguard and Milk_Weasel>
[/ QUOTE ]
The funny thing is, given my monster post yesterday, I more or less agree with you. Whatever happens here, it's not the end of the world.
I'm on record somewhere--in one of the big threads discussing the current implementation--that it really wasn't a big deal to me. My argument there was with the people that hated it, and what I was saying was basically, "Yes, this will have some affect on a casual team, but it's not that bad."
I didn't argue all that much though, and now I guess I'm wishing I'd done it a little more. From my point of view, this new version is a little worse that the one it's succeeding--a little bit bigger of a deal.
What bugs me is that I stood by and didn't say anything while a bunch of other people screamed, convincing the devs to change something that I really didn't mind into something that I do, at least a little, mind.
It probably wouldn't have really changed anything if I'd said more, I know that. There's no reason anyone would have paid attention. But it still bugs me, I can't help it.
Anyway, I'll get over it. It's still not the end of the world.
[ QUOTE ]
We considered that option along with others, but given our timeline for Issue 12 we didn't go that route. It involved a lot of risky coding in our current development cycle where we are trying to close this live branch and shift to Issue 12. We felt this was a good compromise to address immediate concerns.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you.
I may not always agree with NCSoft's decisions, but I really appreciate your coming here and posting. If you guys make a change or a nerf that I don't agree with it's much easier for me to deal with when I understand the thought process that went into said change.
Giving your company a name like Cryptic = cool. Being cryptic with your paying customers = not cool.
So I really appreciate your coming here and posting not just the what, but also the why.
I do think that cutting some of the crap out of Pool C would go a long ways toward settling some of the ruffled feathers in this thread though. Assuming NCSoft cares about doing that.
As for the concerns about disconnects ruining Task Forces... well stuff happens. I for one don't expect the coding of the game to reflect every single possibility. No one can do that. Ok, disconnects happen for a number of various reasons. This new change means that sometimes you'll be able to complete a Task Force, and sometimes you won't be able to complete it. Committing to a Task Force means you're taking a risk. What's wrong with that?
Oh noes! I won't be assured of winning 100% of the time! Waaaaaaah.
What do you mean I'll actually have to come out of my cave and deal with my fellow human beings in order to do a Task Force?? That's not fair! Some of us are so completely disfunctional and socially inept that we can't stand to speak to other human beings! Waaaaaah!
This is an MMO. You want to solo 100% of the time? Fine. Go buy one of those games that you can play all alone on your computer.
[ QUOTE ]
As for the concerns about disconnects ruining Task Forces... well stuff happens. I for one don't expect the coding of the game to reflect every single possibility. No one can do that. Ok, disconnects happen for a number of various reasons. This new change means that sometimes you'll be able to complete a Task Force, and sometimes you won't be able to complete it. Committing to a Task Force means you're taking a risk. What's wrong with that?
Oh noes! I won't be assured of winning 100% of the time! Waaaaaaah.
What do you mean I'll actually have to come out of my cave and deal with my fellow human beings in order to do a Task Force?? That's not fair! Some of us are so completely disfunctional and socially inept that we can't stand to speak to other human beings! Waaaaaah!
This is an MMO. You want to solo 100% of the time? Fine. Go buy one of those games that you can play all alone on your computer.
[/ QUOTE ]
But this latest change makes it EASIER to solo a TF. Start with minimum, have all but one other person quit and that other person log off, and you're dealing with two person spawns (and if you can solo the AV, you can deal with two person spawns). And that's what this latest change seems to be aimed at, based on Lighthouse's statements. In my experience, most people who quit TFs do so at the start, either "we need 7 to start and can only get six, can someone join us just so we can start" or to allow people to solo a TF.
And yes, I do intend that every TF I do will succeed,if the people playing at the end are able to defeat the final foe. To fail because the we're being penalizing for taking real human beings whose life DOESN'T solely revolve around the game and sometimes have to leave for a while or doesn't have the perfect internet connection. Lighthouse's solutions seem to be less accepting of what real human beings are like. "Bad connection, kick him. He has to go afk for an emergency, kick him. Oh, but do it in a way that there aren't hard feelings."
It's clear this is going to go live. It's clear we're going to be stuck with this desperately flawed system for months at best. And based on what Lighthouse has said and other rednames have said...I think that the problems with this "fix" will be one more problem in TFs that will be allowed to fester for years because "well, if we're going to do new content, old content and old problems can't be addressed."
And it has me hoping that someone from Cryptic is taking notes.
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
[ QUOTE ]
And it has me hoping that someone from Cryptic is taking notes.
[/ QUOTE ]
I so totally agree with you on this. I am so tired of the bugs. So tired that I'm probably going to not renew my account.
It seriously aggravates me that there are so many bugs in this game. And there they remain for years while the devs blithely ignore them and continue to work on new stuff.
For example, anything about this game that you name, I guarantee you I can name at least one known bug with it. UI, team window, zones, missions, bases, powersets, costumes, contacts, SGs, Trains, IOs, what am I forgetting here? I know I'm forgetting something. Anyway, my point was that there isn't a single thing that exists in this game that is bug-free. Not one thing. Not one!
I'm so sick of having to explain bugs to people all the time. Either my friends who are trying the game out, or to newbies on PuGs.
*sigh* I just want the damn thing to work right. Is that too much to ask?
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure how I feel about this change: it might be a better compromise, but I don't run TFs often enough to know for sure.
But Lighthouse's recommended solution just rubs me the wrong way. The notion that players should be expected to throw themselves on their swords the instant their computer/internet connection/schedule becomes the least bit suspect is ridiculous. The notion that team leaders should effectively be penalized for NOT booting teamates early and often is even worse. This just seems likely to emphasize the sort of cutthroat attitude that makes teaming in online games much less fun.
I'd rather the devs just learned to live with soft-loading and stopped wasting their time trying to fix it, but obviously that never happens. Still, if this is the best recommendation for dealing with the problems the newest change creates, count me out.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And it has me hoping that someone from Cryptic is taking notes.
[/ QUOTE ]
I so totally agree with you on this. I am so tired of the bugs. So tired that I'm probably going to not renew my account.
It seriously aggravates me that there are so many bugs in this game. And there they remain for years while the devs blithely ignore them and continue to work on new stuff.
For example, anything about this game that you name, I guarantee you I can name at least one known bug with it. UI, team window, zones, missions, bases, powersets, costumes, contacts, SGs, Trains, IOs, what am I forgetting here? I know I'm forgetting something. Anyway, my point was that there isn't a single thing that exists in this game that is bug-free. Not one thing. Not one!
I'm so sick of having to explain bugs to people all the time. Either my friends who are trying the game out, or to newbies on PuGs.
*sigh* I just want the damn thing to work right. Is that too much to ask?
[/ QUOTE ]
so quoted, so correct. so noted. I'd be embarassed if I were the coding this game. I'd want to fix some of them.
a lot of these bugs make me not even want to play. I didn't pvp while that blaster bug was around, and I haven't even done it since the fix. It's such a turnoff that the devs simply do not care about all of them. There are bugs that are years old that are still ignored.
Hmmm, maybe its me but I hardly notice any bugs when I'm too busy enjoying the game. I guess if I only saw problems with something I paid for, I would quit too. Take care and be sure to let me know if "i can haz ur stuf."
There are two simple fixes for people creating small teams because missions without boss level NPCs are faster.
Make every mission except the last one spawn derivative mobs so the 8 person mob is exactly 8 times the 1 person spawn. This would allow an organized team to finish faster than the people who solo because a good team > a good soloist . So if the one man spawn is Lt and 2 minions then an 8 man team gets 8 LTs and 16 minions. So if the farmers want to solo TFs they can spend an hour or two more than team players.
Make spawns progressive . So if a mission would have 16 bosses for an eight man team then somone soloing the same mission would get two bosses. and a 3 man team would have to defeat 6 bosses. If the TF Farmers of the world had to fight Ruin Mages in Postron you would be amazed how fast they would become team players . So for a solo player every 8th mob may be just a Boss NPC which is a much tougher fight than the typical solo mob.
Either change levels out the risk/reward playing field.
[ QUOTE ]
*sigh* I just want the damn thing to work right. Is that too much to ask?
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. There's a hard and fast unbreakable rule in any kind of engineering, including software: "Fast. Cheap. Good. PICK TWO." And way back in 1986, customers chose Fast and Cheap in vast and unambiguous numbers. Ticked me off at the time, too. You want Cheap and Good, go run Linux. And while you're there, note that all of the Free and Open Source Software MMOs are running even farther behind schedule than Tabula Rasa did.
Other games manage to function without the massive bugfests this game has, with similar size teams, and more released content.
I don't think we're asking too much for a game that works when we expect it to.
I'm not sure I understand since my game works fine.
[ QUOTE ]
One question, is there a method for the team leader to remove a player that DC'ed or logged off? If not, that might be nice QoL addition.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think this will have to adressed. I have been a member of very acitve groups for a long time. I think there has only been one time in which I was on a tf with 8 sg mates. Tf's just won't get done, if you expect them to be accomplished using only "friends"
Maybe is someone exits CoX, their character name still stays in the team list. But displays their current location as "logged off"
I'm a nucular engineerer, not an Anglish Proffesseur. I don't have to no how to spell.