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
Perhaps coming back to this later I can better sum up how I feel.
This proposed change will alter soft-loading, and will have an impact on people who intend to be absent for all but the end of a TF. This change will also have a negative impact on people who are teaming up and simply running a TF with no intention to exploit anything.
I do not feel the gain aganst exploiters is worth the collateral damage to non-exploiting teams who suffer a disconnect or quit-via-logging.
A major reason I feel that way is because I can see better solutions to hurt soft-loaders and absent TF runners. For example, continue to count logged out players for only 5 minutes, that makes it really annoying to soft-load, but will shortly correct itself for a normal team that loses a member. Also, for people farming multiple rewards from a small active team, alter the reward system so that you don't get a reward if a player was logged out for all but the last mission - count the number of rewards they miss and deny them a recipe if they were offline too much of the TF.
Further, this change removes an improvement that was brought with the current Live setup - on Live the TF design as a challenge for X people is reinforced.
so it's not that this is a bad idea from the Devs, but it's a horribly short-sighted implementation of that idea.
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Do we know that the Ouroboros Task Forces and Flashback weren't affected by the old change, and thus aren't affected by the new change?
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Good point on the minimum team size of 1 thing. I guess I was going off the fact that we actually got a "preview" of the current Live version on Test via Flashback when Flashback missions would spawn for large teams even while solo. Looking back, it seemed that the TF changes had accidentally spilled over to Flashback. They fixed that bug before the patch went Live (which makes it even more remarkable that the change missed the patch notes, really... having to fix a bug that spawned a few threads on the Training Room forum might have made them think about the underlying change that caused it, but I digress).
Since they took steps to exclude Flashback missions from exhibiting the behavior of the "real" TF change, I guess I assumed they wouldn't exhibit the behavior of the current one in testing. It'd be easy enough to check, though.
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I'm for how it is on Live. I'm not for this setup under test.
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I still don't understand why people are so opposed to this change. With either the Live version or the current one in testing, you have the problem with people logging off but not quitting the TF. The new version at least gives you some allowance for team attrition in lots of situations. And for the situations that it won't (someone logs off without quitting), well, it's *already* like that on Live. The things that people are worried about already happen under the current system.
I can see the new system being a problem for TFs that require fewer people but get started with a full team. The current version is obviously better there (Live version of Positron with 3 online teammates and 5 offline ones = mobs for 3; Test version of Posi with the same setup = mobs for 8). So I think that the new change will encourage people to run more TFs with just the minimum number necessary, or to recruit players to just make the minimum and then quit shortly thereafter.
But again, running TFs with the minimum required number, this new version is clearly better than the Live version. The problems that exist with the new version are already inherent in the Live version, where there's absolutely nothing you can do about team attrition.
To repeat what many others have asked for, the minimum requirements for starting TFs needs to be looked at. Most of the 8-person TFs don't really require 8 people. Lower the minimum required to start most TFs (even Positron said it was something that needed looked at) and either version of this would be much better.
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For example, continue to count logged out players for only 5 minutes, that makes it really annoying to soft-load, but will shortly correct itself for a normal team that loses a member. Also, for people farming multiple rewards from a small active team, alter the reward system so that you don't get a reward if a player was logged out for all but the last mission - count the number of rewards they miss and deny them a recipe if they were offline too much of the TF.
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Despite the fact that I think the new version is better (in most cases) than the current one, I think I like this idea even more. Especially the part about rewarding people who are active for most of the TF. It always kind of bothered me that you really only had to be in the last mission of an hours-long TF to get the badge and other rewards. Even just that part of what you're proposing would go a long way towards stopping people from easily farming recipes.
Of course, you'd need the first part of your idea there to discourage people from just softloading maps by spawning them while people are logged off, but I really really like the second part of your idea. It balances the risk/reward (or effort/reward) equation pretty nicely.
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I still don't understand why people are so opposed to this change. With either the Live version or the current one in testing, you have the problem with people logging off but not quitting the TF.
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Only in the case where the team size before the logout was at or below the starting minimum.
Let's consider a TF that takes 6. You start with 8.
2 log/crash/whatever. On Live, your team re-adjusts. On Test, your team continues to be for 8.
2 more log/crash/whatever. On Live, your team continues to be set for 6. On Test, it continues to be set for 8.
Seems Live is better there.
Let's instead take 2 quits and 2 disconnects.
You had 8, 2 quit. On Live, your team adjusts to 6. On Test, your team adjusts to 6.
2 more log/crash. On both Live and Test, your team is going to remain set for the 6 you still have.
Seems equal.
Do you see in both setups where it's hurting the Live team who has an uncontrolled disconnect?
OK, what if all are quits?
Well, we can get to a challenge set for 6 either way.
2 more quit. On Live, nothing happens. On Test, the team's challenge adjusts.
but SHOULD IT? This was a challenge for 6+ people. Why is the system going to adjust it for 4? This is reinforcing the wrong behavior. thus, again Live is better, since it's a better design for the actual content.
Let's take this from the point of view of non-exploiters setting out to do a TF, intending to have everyone who starts the TF stay on and participate. For them, this change can only be a detriment if unexpected factors alter who's online. On Live you can at least prepare for that with a buffer, starting the TF with more than the minimum.
The end result will probably be a team not taking a risk on additional members. If there's a chance that pickup teammate will disconnect (intentionally or otherwise) then it would have been better to never bring them in the first place. Adding 1 more member to a TF will at best even out (they pull their own weight) and at worst make things more difficult for everyone else. That is a bad design for a multiplayer game! This should be about GAIN, not about MINIMIZING LOSS!
In general this setup is too damaging to non-exploitive teams. Find a way to fix the exploit without making normal teams have problems!
Let me sum it up this way:
I do not exploit TFs. What does this change do for me?
What it seems to do is bring risk. There's a risk that the person on the TF will not be there to contribute, but will continue to add to the TF's challenge.
I do not understand why, as someone who does not exploit TFs, this patch should bring me that increased risk. This is a negative change from my point of view.
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Let me sum it up this way:
I do not exploit TFs. What does this change do for me?
What it seems to do is bring risk. There's a risk that the person on the TF will not be there to contribute, but will continue to add to the TF's challenge.
I do not understand why, as someone who does not exploit TFs, this patch should bring me that increased risk. This is a negative change from my point of view.
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Seconded.
In fact ran a SF just yesterday with 4 people, and one DC'd right before second-to-last mission.
Not spawning for 3 because of connection instability? That dont taste right, chef. I can see people getting a lot of anger directed toward them because all they did is....well they did nothing wrong- their connection is experiencing a hiccup, or are in a storm, or their kid hurt him/herself, etc.
The whole thing seems silly to me.
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In general this setup is too damaging to non-exploitive teams. Find a way to fix the exploit without making normal teams have problems!
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I can see that I've been a bit too narrow-minded about this change. I think it comes from the fact that I don't do as many TFs as a lot of people and when I do one I tend to favor starting with the minimum number or less with people I generally know already. So in my specific case, the new version is better, but I don't think I'm the norm.
I'm for scrapping both versions (the Live and Test one), reducing minimum starting requirements for most TFs (especially hero side, where most of them take 6 or more to start but rarely actually need that many), and implementing your idea on truly rewarding folks for being active throughout the entire TF (or at least the majority of it). No idea how possible that last one is, but the more I think about it the more I like it.
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In fact ran a SF just yesterday with 4 people, and one DC'd right before second-to-last mission.
Not spawning for 3 because of connection instability?
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Live version or test version, it would spawn for 4 in this case.
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Meh.
This is a lot of work for something that wasn't an issue when you devs have more important [censored] to be doing.
How about ACTUALLY FIXING IMPORTANT THINGS instead of making changes to the game that only piss players off?
Seriously, where are you guys' priorities?
There are bugs and much larger issues on live and instead of focusing on them and tackling them first, you guys decide to go make changes to things that aren't broken (ie. screwing with TF's in the first place).
I don't even trust what you say anymore Lighthouse. Not since your first thread about the TF change when you attempted to lie to the forum goers about the change being because of RMT'ers (how quickly everyone forgets). Then Posi comes on and tells us the truth and totally discredits what you say. Even the devs can't get their stories straight. Epic fail indeed.
I still thinks they should Hybrid this a bit...since the system can determine if a team mate quit or logged off why not have quitters always reduce spawn size and log offs only reduce if you are > min.
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I for one prefer the way Task Forces operate on the live servers. However I am not going to complain. Instead I want to say thank you to the Devs.
Why is that?
Because they actually listened to their customers and implemented a change that was suggested by said customers and made good sense. So even though it isn't the change I'd prefer it was one that shows that they're actually listening to us. And I for one understand that "listening to your customers" is not the same as "doing what I want and ignoring everyone else."
I mean this change was suggested by us here on the forum. The devs listened to us and made this change even though they might not agree with it. All I can say is, what more can you expect than that? I guess you really can't please some people ever.
Thank you for listening to us.
My two cents:
Obviously this is a middle ground between "how it used to be" and "how it is now on Live." Despite a substantial amount of rational arguments in favor of scrapping the change altogether and reverting back to the old system, the rednames seem adamant on shaking things up for god knows what reason, and this seems like the lesser of two evils (and probably "the best" we're going to get). On the bright side, I also don't have to eat my words for the 1000 or so times I've told people over the past week that eventually "what's on Live" would be rolled back at least to some extent, in the face of some extremely negative reaction from the playerbase (though of course, some people supported that initial change, but every change has its share of supporters). Thank you for listening to the players, even if this doesn't completely scale back the changes to "how it used to be."
It is in that sense that I like this change, at least by comparison to what's on Live. Is there an ETA for how long it will take to test this feature and patch it over to Live servers?
One side note -- I'm not sure of the intention of both the original change to TFs and this one, but if it's to hurt farmers (who by and large are farming influence, ultra rare drops and salvage far more than they're running TFs), this change still fails to some extent, by comparison to "how it used to be." Granted, a solo farmer would need 5 teammates to stay onboard, but now virtually any TF mission can be permanently spawned for the magic solo-farming number of 6, provided that 5 teamamtes (fellow farmers playing on rarely-played toons?) keep a toon on the TF team, including but not limited to STF missions chock full of Lv52s dropping magic salvage and ultra rares.
I'm glad they listened to us on this.
HOWEVER, I would prefer if they didn't do ANYTHING AT ALL to tfs till they could get the minimum number of players down to 4 for all of them (except maybe the LRSF and STF) AND trimmed/retooled some of the older craptastic ones. (*cough* Positron *cough*)
But that's just me.
EDIT: But folks by now know I'm from the do it right or don't do it at all camp. Also I'm not understanding the logic of doing something this game-wide affecting with "imbetween" patches. To me ANY changes to TFs this should have been part an ISSUE Closed Beta and NOT released to live until everything for it (including the stuff I listed above) was repaired.
To me, this is like if they had tried to retool Hamdion after issue 8, with rushed "inbetween" patches.
EDIT2: And before anyone tries to say, sorry but "well they had to fix an exploit" is not really acceptable especially now that they've rolled out THIS change. The best thing to do would be to do all the changes AT ONCE (thus my suggestion for this being part of an ISSUE closed beta--also giving the opportunity to vet out any potential bugs [it affecting flashback for example]) and get it right based on ALL player feedback. Especially after the suggestions to trim the older stf mission junk have been up on these fourms for a looooooooooong time.
Again, I'm glad they listened to us, BUT it just feels they are trying to do the old "just throw it up there and see what sticks" method for retooling tfs because they don't have time to go through every tf and "fix them correctly". Not a good thing. 
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I'm for how it is on Live. I'm not for this setup under test.
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I still don't understand why people are so opposed to this change. With either the Live version or the current one in testing, you have the problem with people logging off but not quitting the TF. The new version at least gives you some allowance for team attrition in lots of situations. And for the situations that it won't (someone logs off without quitting), well, it's *already* like that on Live. The things that people are worried about already happen under the current system.
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Not correct. On live, if someone logs off and the team size is at least the minimum to start, the spawns decrease. Minimum to start for TF is four, start with eight, two people log off, you get spawns designed for the six people logged in.
For those not seeking to solo or duo TFs, the biggest problem with the new rules on live is that the minimums are unrealistically high. None of the Shard TFs justify an 8 person team, at least two of them really only need four. Manticore doesn't need 7, I've completed it with four (before the change currently on live). If their quick fix had been "we're reducing all minimums to 4 except for Positron (which is already 3) and LRSF and STF", that would solve the problems. Or the fix proposed earlier, where if team size (logged in or not) is less than minimum to start, you get team size, otherwise you get the lesser of logged in people or minimum to start.
If it had been my experience that almost all of the people leaving a TF early did so by quitting, this would be a good change. But I've done a lot of TFs in the past near-four years, and people who leave in the middle have usually been by people logging off/disconnecting and not returning. And in those cases, the majority in my experience, either this change does nothing or makes it worse.
I said earlier the only problem this issue solves is people who want to solo or duo a TF. I misspoke, it also solves the devs problems of once again being able to ignore the ridiculously high minimums for a lot of TFs, because people can still get others to join to start and then quit. I hope this change wasn't done in part to "solve" the latter, because it's no solution.
And I really hope the devs are listening to the other issues with TFs and SFs that these changes shined the light on. In the discussion on the change live, the issue of rewards came up, and a redname (I forgot who) said "well, this discussion is switching to the rewards for TFs and that's not the issue here." While not the specific subject of the thread, there were problems with TFs/SFs BEFORE the first change, this is all just highlighting them. TFs CAN be one of the best parts of the game. The Lady Grey TF is a work of art. But so many of the older TFs don't measure up, and there are aspects of the mechanics of task forces that hurt even the best TF content.
Even if they can find a solution that satisfies everyone on this issue of sizing spawns, if the devs say "well, we've fixed the problems with TFs" and move on, they'll have missed a huge opportunity.
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I for one prefer the way Task Forces operate on the live servers. However I am not going to complain. Instead I want to say thank you to the Devs.
Why is that?
Because they actually listened to their customers and implemented a change that was suggested by said customers and made good sense. So even though it isn't the change I'd prefer it was one that shows that they're actually listening to us. And I for one understand that "listening to your customers" is not the same as "doing what I want and ignoring everyone else."
I mean this change was suggested by us here on the forum. The devs listened to us and made this change even though they might not agree with it. All I can say is, what more can you expect than that? I guess you really can't please some people ever.
Thank you for listening to us.
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Unfortunately, the nature of such a forum does not lend itself to large threads of "HOORAY for the status quo!!"
There were a large number of people applauding the current Live system. However, you'll always see more complaining than cheering for the current setup. You don't see threads such a "I love the Hess TF, don't ever change it!" or "The placement of pillboxes in RV is absolutely perfect!" or "Wow, this badge is awarded at exactly the right time, it should be the model for all other badges!" No, the negative posts always dominate. Don't let that skew the impression the community has of this change - the Live system is not universally hated.
The people who have supported the Live system are not being listened to, what do you have to say about the Devs with regard to that?
Outliers don't count. Anything the average player can solo probably shouldn't be worth a C drop.
The average player is irrelevant. The average player isn't responsible for the volume of C drops entering the market. Farmers are.
Ideally a way can be found to stop the farmers without impacting the average players, but if not, well, sometimes collateral damage is unavoidable.
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I find it interesting that there's even a comparison to Live in this discussion.
We've had the Live system about a week, we've had TF exploits since at least the time I9 released. and the Live system is getting rolled back, as if it never existed in the first place. so this is really a new, different attempt to fix the original system, not a change to last week's patch.
Let's compare the original TF system to this new proposed Test system. The Test system says this:
TF spawns will no longer reduce in size if players log out.
Taken in THOSE TERMS, I would hope the issue is clear. This system is terribly unforgiving of a normal non-exploitive disconnect. THAT by itself is a Bad Idea - the "experiment" they put on Live last week that they're rolling back is irrelevant to that evaluation.
Personally neither change will effect me at all. When I run task forces I usually run them with my sg and everyone knows up front how long its going to take and what to expect.
I have run a few random trials and task forces with pugs and as long as everyone knows what to expect there is rarely an issue with it.
most of the people complaining about these changes are the exact people who this change was meant to effect. No one who ran task forces the way they were supposed to be run has been effected by this in any way.
This a good change, the only ones complaining about it are the FARMERS, even tho they clam themselves to be "the avg player". LOL
I wonder if/how flashbacks would be affected....
OK 1st off I thnk the devs deserve a big thank you for listening to what people have been saying. That being said while I am happier with this version I still think overall the changes are going to hurt the casual player more than the farmers.
I am sure there are already other ways being used to skip large parts if not most of a TF/SF (ghosting for example) and while it may take a couple mins more than softloading did the basic behavior that the devs were trying to stop (skipping most of the SF/TF) will still go on.
Hopefully this is only the 1st of several changes to come to address the various issues brought up with the TF/SF system in general.
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most of the people complaining about these changes are the exact people who this change was meant to effect. No one who ran task forces the way they were supposed to be run has been effected by this in any way.
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False. Since this change went live, I've been on TFs where some people were forced by real life to log off temporarily and also some cases where people disconnected and couldn't make it back for a while (sometimes not before we were done).
In most cases, we were above the minimums for the TF, so the spawns decreased. If this new change had been in effect, we'd have gotten the spawns.
Maybe you and FragYou are able to play with people who have no life and therefore never have any emergencies that call you away and have perfect connections and never have power outages or internet connections go down. That's not the case with the people I play with.
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Let's compare the original TF system to this new proposed Test system. The Test system says this:
TF spawns will no longer reduce in size if players log out.
Taken in THOSE TERMS, I would hope the issue is clear. This system is terribly unforgiving of a normal non-exploitive disconnect. THAT by itself is a Bad Idea - the "experiment" they put on Live last week that they're rolling back is irrelevant to that evaluation.
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You're absolutely correct in this, but I think you've gotta compare it to the current Live version. If this new version doesn't work out, or creates more complaints than the Live version, I highly doubt they'll revert it back to the way it used to be. It's either gonna be this new version or leave it the way it is on Live now, or maybe they'll try something else.
Comparing the new version to the way it used to be is pointless. Is this new version better than the way it used to be? Absolutely not -- the way it used to be penalized no one, casual players or exploiters (unless you count the farmers getting a lot more Pool C recipes than the casual players). Both the Live version and the Test version can penalize both casual players and exploiters/farmers. In some situations, the Test version is better, and in other situations, the Live version is better. The question that's important is which version (the current Live one or the Test one) impacts the non-exploiters/casual players the least.
It doesn't matter how it used to be, unless you think there's a chance that the Devs can be convinced to go back to it, at least until they can work out a solution that's better than they've got so far.
I'm for how it is on Live. I'm not for this setup under test.
Thank you,