Its better than nothing and certainly better than nothing until the devs develop one. Word of mouth is the way these things get around and it works. I saw a friends arc go from 8 plays to more than 80 this week due to tags. YMMV.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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it wouldn't hurt for the devs to interact with the playerbase and let them know that the devs know the difference between people and missions that pursue XP and those that break the rules.
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Yeah, it would. Because everyone who currently thinks they can't tell the difference, or believe if the devs act in a way contrary to their desires it must be due to lack of understanding, won't be convinced by anything the devs say. But it will open them to the additional charge that silence equals acquiesence or agreement with whoever calls them out.
Which is why calling them out is explicitly against the forum rules, by the way. To ensure dev silence cannot be interpreted as anything other than nothing.
I don't need the devs to tell me they are aware of the difference between extended play and reward exploit any more than I need them to notify me on a regular basis they are aware of the day of the week or the color of the sky. Perhaps my willingness to skip the stupid questions allows me to get the smarter ones answered at a higher rate than average.
I doubt the devs are going to pull the plug on XP in the MA any time soon. That decision was not made trivially in the first place. But even if they did, it would not be due to their lack of understanding of the facts, but rather a disagreement over their significance.
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Wow - I am so disappointed in you Arcanaville - not saying this because you care what I think, only because I am so floored because I normally find your posts so wise and intelligent. Wow.
I am chalking this up to the fact that even the person with the most to offer can have one inexplicable skeleton in their closet - like Einstein, being an awesome scientist, and yet still refusing to believe in Quantum Physics because it conflicted with his religious beliefs.
Wow.
For Great Justice!
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Here you go, direct from Positron:
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I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for easy leveling or badging or farming. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didnt want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someones story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
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This Mission Architect primary purpose is for telling stories. We do not want people to spend days making a great story only to find it shuffled into a list of missions with titles like "Get your Rikti Monkey badge here", "10 badges in 5 minutes", "Down on the AV Farm", etc. etc.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
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The reason we need further guidance is precisely because that is not clear enough.
Let me try to be VERY clear and VERY simple:
Among the ways missions can be examined is how rewarding the mission is. There are THREE broad categories of mission with this regard:
1) Missions that require more effort to gain a certain reward
2) Missions that require less effort to gain a certain reward, BUT not so MUCH less as to run afoul of the rules.
3) Missions that run afoul of the rules.
What devs have NOT done is clearly defined the difference between Category #2, which is clearly fine, and Category #3, which is clearly not. The blurb you quoted does NOTHING to shed ANY light on this.
I can, if I want, create a very aesthetically pleasing story-based mission, which ALSO happens to be very rewarding. As far as I can see, from the devs mouths themselves, its not whether or not the mission has a story that breaks the rules - for example, the devs do NOT CARE if you make a lame and superficial mission, if that mission has poor rewards.
Missions with poor stories, as far as I know, do not break the rules and have not been removed - I know because I see so many on MA.
Missions with greater rewards than the devs like seem to be what the devs are going after. However, until they give use much more specific guidance, neither they nor anyone else can be sure where that line is drawn.
We need to be explicitly told. The only ones who would disagree are just the people who are RP snobs and don't like people playing this as a game in the first place.
For Great Justice!
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Here you go, direct from Positron:
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I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for easy leveling or badging or farming. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didnt want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someones story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
[ QUOTE ]
This Mission Architect primary purpose is for telling stories. We do not want people to spend days making a great story only to find it shuffled into a list of missions with titles like "Get your Rikti Monkey badge here", "10 badges in 5 minutes", "Down on the AV Farm", etc. etc.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
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[/ QUOTE ]
The reason we need further guidance is precisely because that is not clear enough.
Let me try to be VERY clear and VERY simple:
Among the ways missions can be examined is how rewarding the mission is. There are THREE broad categories of mission with this regard:
1) Missions that require more effort to gain a certain reward
2) Missions that require less effort to gain a certain reward, BUT not so MUCH less as to run afoul of the rules.
3) Missions that run afoul of the rules.
What devs have NOT done is clearly defined the difference between Category #2, which is clearly fine, and Category #3, which is clearly not. The blurb you quoted does NOTHING to shed ANY light on this.
I can, if I want, create a very aesthetically pleasing story-based mission, which ALSO happens to be very rewarding. As far as I can see, from the devs mouths themselves, its not whether or not the mission has a story that breaks the rules - for example, the devs do NOT CARE if you make a lame and superficial mission, if that mission has poor rewards.
Missions with poor stories, as far as I know, do not break the rules and have not been removed - I know because I see so many on MA.
Missions with greater rewards than the devs like seem to be what the devs are going after. However, until they give use much more specific guidance, neither they nor anyone else can be sure where that line is drawn.
We need to be explicitly told. The only ones who would disagree are just the people who are RP snobs and don't like people playing this as a game in the first place.
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The problem with explicitly telling the people what is unacceptable is that you've also just told them all the things they are allowed to do. As long as what they're doing isn't exactly like what was said, they'll scream "I'm doing what you said I shouldn't be doing, how dare you try to stop me."
It's why lawyers make so much money. Laws explicitly state what you can and can't do, so there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of them to cover more and more scenarios.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
Specific guidelines on this will only lead to rules lawyering. You know what an exploit farm is and so do they. Nobody "accidentally" makes an exploit farm.
EDIT: I see Barata beat me to it.
Dec out.
Ah, you both are making the common fallacy of "I know it when I see it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which the user attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly-defined parameters. This phrase is best known as a description of a threshold of obscenity, no longer used, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Exhibition of obscene material may be a criminal offense. The phrase notably appeared in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), decided by the United States Supreme Court.
But this isn't really about that. Its about expecting people to follow rules, but since you never tell them exactly what the rules are, they have no way to ensure they are doing so.
This is no different than when some ISP (was it Comcast?) declared they would terminate your internet service for exceeding their bandwidth cap - BUT they refused to tell us what that cap was.
You can understand WHY they wanted to keep it secret, but it's still wrongity wrong to do that.
Having secret rules people are punished for breaking is WRONG.
I can't be more clear than that.
For Great Justice!
See? You're rules lawyering already, even without the rules being explicit.
Dec out.
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See? You're rules lawyering already, even without the rules being explicit.
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Do you have nothing more to say than that?
I guess you surrender the high ground, and I have made my point.
For Great Justice!
Sorry, but I see you making these arguments but all I'm hearing is "I'd like to make as close to a farm as I possibly can without getting in trouble."
But then, I'm old and my hearing isn't that great. Maybe you're just championing a principle, which I can understand. Bottom line, I think "know it when you see it" actually works here, and you don't. Guess we just disagree.
Dec out.
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Ah, you both are making the common fallacy of "I know it when I see it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which the user attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly-defined parameters. This phrase is best known as a description of a threshold of obscenity, no longer used, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Exhibition of obscene material may be a criminal offense. The phrase notably appeared in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), decided by the United States Supreme Court.
But this isn't really about that. Its about expecting people to follow rules, but since you never tell them exactly what the rules are, they have no way to ensure they are doing so.
This is no different than when some ISP (was it Comcast?) declared they would terminate your internet service for exceeding their bandwidth cap - BUT they refused to tell us what that cap was.
You can understand WHY they wanted to keep it secret, but it's still wrongity wrong to do that.
Having secret rules people are punished for breaking is WRONG.
I can't be more clear than that.
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But people aren't really being punished. Someone puts up an exploitative farm mission, and it just gets removed. Certain mechanics are proving to be good for farming and are giving more rewards than they should for the difficulty level? Those mechanics are changed.
Really, nobody is "punished" unless they've done something extreme, and then only after they've been warned and they continue to do it.
Arc ID#30821, A Clean Break
The only problem with defeating the Tsoo is that an hour later, you want to defeat them again!
"Life is just better boosted!" -- LadyMage
"I'm a big believer in Personal Force Field on a blaster. ... It's your happy place." -- Fulmens
This argument is kind of old..and incredibly silly. However, if you slow down and think about it, farmers or farming, isn't specifically mentioned in the EULA. And so far the only missions that have been removed or altered have been those that took advantage of exploits, which is in the EULA.
Also, farmers have their place in the game too, and probably do wonders for CoH's marketing and growth stats. They have multiple accounts, play long hours, and form large teams.
Last, I really dislike the use of the term "Devs" the way its used on the boards. A "dev" is a Developer meaning he or she writes code, they don't usually deal with company policy. If we do hear about this issue it will be from the lead designer Positron, or the current Community Lead. And it will probably be a general notification.
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi
Sadly, "exploit farming" and "farming" as terms seem to have collided (and I've been trying not to do it myself, but I see I slipped up a couple of times up there). Yes, I'm fully in favor of people farming if they want, but the exploits will get your arc pulled if they're there.
And I do believe we have heard from Posi, before I14 was even released (see Barata's post above), plus the Release notes staying exploit arcs will be pulled.
Dec out.
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I expected a completely different word at the end of the subject line when I was going to click this link...
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Court is the new mouth.
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Sadly, "exploit farming" and "farming" as terms seem to have collided (and I've been trying not to do it myself, but I see I slipped up a couple of times up there). Yes, I'm fully in favor of people farming if they want, but the exploits will get your arc pulled if they're there.
And I do believe we have heard from Posi, before I14 was even released (see Barata's post above), plus the Release notes staying exploit arcs will be pulled.
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I agree with you 100% and you're right Positron has spoken about the sate of the game, and it looks like MA is win for CoX. Again, I don't farm, and I think if somethings ruled an exploit,then it should be fixed. Which from all appearances IS happening.
My level 50 Dominators:
Madame Mindbender 50 Mind/Energy
Fly Agaric 50 Plant/Thorn
Nate Nitro 50 Fire/Psi
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We need to be explicitly told. The only ones who would disagree are just the people who are RP snobs and don't like people playing this as a game in the first place.
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In other words, "If you don't agree with my position, you're just a {fill-in-the-blank} and people should pay no attention to what you say." Typical debate tactic of someone who knows they are on the losing side of an argument.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
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Ah, you both are making the common fallacy of "I know it when I see it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which the user attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly-defined parameters. This phrase is best known as a description of a threshold of obscenity, no longer used, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Exhibition of obscene material may be a criminal offense. The phrase notably appeared in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), decided by the United States Supreme Court.
But this isn't really about that. Its about expecting people to follow rules, but since you never tell them exactly what the rules are, they have no way to ensure they are doing so.
This is no different than when some ISP (was it Comcast?) declared they would terminate your internet service for exceeding their bandwidth cap - BUT they refused to tell us what that cap was.
You can understand WHY they wanted to keep it secret, but it's still wrongity wrong to do that.
Having secret rules people are punished for breaking is WRONG.
I can't be more clear than that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, gee. The thing is I do "know it when I see it." Why"?
Becasue the exploitive farm missions (the ones that need to be reported and pulled) use pretty much the same tactic. They use one of two methods when making a custom group and then use one of two maps. Whenever I see that one of those maps is loading, the mission turns out to be an attempt to create an axploitive farm mission.
I say attempt becasue some of them have been so badly designed that they could actually slow the player down when compared to a non-farm mission. Nobody said that farmers were brilliant, and given some of the farm missions I've seen and the blatant advertising of exploitive behaviour I'd have to say the majority of people making these farm missions fall on the other end of the spectrum.
If Brevity is the Soul of Wit, Why are You Reading This?
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I read it as: Okay, devs' balls in your court
God I need to get my mind out of the gutter.
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If your mind leaves, what will mine do for company?
CoH Codex : Demo Models/FX/MOVs : Demo Info
Arc 111022: "Doctor Geist and the Scientific Method"
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Here you go, direct from Positron:
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I should probably take this moment to talk about what the Mission Architect is not meant for. It is not meant for easy leveling or badging or farming. Those are things that we specifically wanted the Mission Architect NOT to do. This may be a disappointment to some, I know. The goal was to give creative minds an outlet to tell the stories they have in their heads. We didnt want the system clogged with Farm missions, so actually finding someones story that they lovingly crafted became more a chore than it was worth.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
[ QUOTE ]
This Mission Architect primary purpose is for telling stories. We do not want people to spend days making a great story only to find it shuffled into a list of missions with titles like "Get your Rikti Monkey badge here", "10 badges in 5 minutes", "Down on the AV Farm", etc. etc.
[/ QUOTE ] - Original Post
[/ QUOTE ]
[/ QUOTE ]
The reason we need further guidance is precisely because that is not clear enough.
Let me try to be VERY clear and VERY simple:
Among the ways missions can be examined is how rewarding the mission is. There are THREE broad categories of mission with this regard:
1) Missions that require more effort to gain a certain reward
2) Missions that require less effort to gain a certain reward, BUT not so MUCH less as to run afoul of the rules.
3) Missions that run afoul of the rules.
What devs have NOT done is clearly defined the difference between Category #2, which is clearly fine, and Category #3, which is clearly not. The blurb you quoted does NOTHING to shed ANY light on this.
I can, if I want, create a very aesthetically pleasing story-based mission, which ALSO happens to be very rewarding. As far as I can see, from the devs mouths themselves, its not whether or not the mission has a story that breaks the rules - for example, the devs do NOT CARE if you make a lame and superficial mission, if that mission has poor rewards.
Missions with poor stories, as far as I know, do not break the rules and have not been removed - I know because I see so many on MA.
Missions with greater rewards than the devs like seem to be what the devs are going after. However, until they give use much more specific guidance, neither they nor anyone else can be sure where that line is drawn.
We need to be explicitly told. The only ones who would disagree are just the people who are RP snobs and don't like people playing this as a game in the first place.
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You know, I have nothing personal against farmers.
But I find it absolutely hilarious when they act as though me typing out dialogue in mish like my toon is a real superhero trying to deal with fighting criminals is any less valid a playstyle than forgetting to actually fix dimensional tears in reality because obviously fighting the same swarm of council empire over and over is far more interesting.
Want comedy and lighthearted action? Between levels 1-14? Try Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force!
Arc ID 58363!
In what reality did Street Farming get elliminated because of player complaints? I remember distinctly it was DEV complaints and they never nerfed street mobs they (effectively) depowered mission mobs making them more desirable. Only difference was that you got full debt outside. If you aren't dieing there is no difference in experience from when CoH went live.
Devs wanted players to play a story not just button mash street thugs. In CoV they didn't even set up zones to do street hunting like in CoH.
The same goes for the mission players were abusing. It wasn't due to player complaints but due to DEV complaints. Best example was that Power Diversification and Fire tank nerfs were announce after someone told Statesman to stop attacking mobs in a mission that he was just slowing down the Fire Tank. He apparently took a dim view of being told to guard the door.
The Devs play this game and if you team with random people you may well be playing with one. They have a vision of how the game should be played and will enforce it regardless of what "whiney" players say.
In ALL the cases the OP listed there was a LOT more whining by players after the change than before it. After the announcement of Power Diversification the wailing was crazy bad. For good or bad, if they were just going by posters complaints the game wouldn't look anything like it does.
Before you complain about whiners make sure you aren't one.
MA needs some tweeks. To say otherwise is unrealistic. Hopefully they won't go overboard with the fixes but so far the Devs have been very open to rethinking and rebalancing.
----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.
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We need to be explicitly told. The only ones who would disagree are just the people who are RP snobs and don't like people playing this as a game in the first place.
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And people who believe there are no such complete set of explicit rules, and publishing an incomplete one would only increase the justification in gaming those rules.
Whether a mission is outside the realm of "reasonable levels of rewards[/i] is a judgement call. And while there are a lot of people around here who believe that the job of a good game developer is to be a robotic decision emitter, all actual game designers would disagree. And I use the word "all" specifically, because I believe a game designer that actually stated that a reward system could be managed without the exercise of judgement would be lying. That would fall under the category of "I'd like to see them try it."
The only rule I can think of that actually encapsulates the devs' intends fairly accurately is an impossible to precisely enforce one: missions in which one of the intents of the author was to generate a higher level of rewards for some controllable set of circumstances outside the range of the normal statistical range of rewards defined for the dev-created game, or missions which do not meet that requirement but by happenstance have a design that is exploitable and being exploited by players to provide the same statistical advantage are subject to removal.
Now, if you're looking for actual numbers, you aren't getting them. Very likely, ever. The devs would be brain-dead to publicize them.
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This whole game is farming. Doesn't matter what you are doing. AFK - farming for time logged on. Logged out - farming for dayjobs/patrol badge. Getting XP - FARMING!
What people should realize is it's all farming. Some farmers just farm less variety, farming same missions, compared to other farmers, those who want to experience more variety.
The point is some people dont really enjoy how old and boring the game can be, playing the same low level things over and over again for minimal rewards.
Some do not like how stupid the AI can get. Some people just want to squish critters in mass numbers to relax. If AE was only meant to tell a story, then why do we always have to kill. Does every story have to include someone dieing or stealing something? Why can't we ever just go into a mission and talk. Oh because talking doesn't give XP. If it did, it would be too easy and that's why we always have to go kill.
In the end it's all falls on what people enjoy. So you can farm a variety of products, run into several you dont like then cry about it, or just farm ones which are enjoyable to you.
This is an interesting subject, Arcanaville:
One might think that some time prior to this game becoming 5 years old, the Devs might have developed some maximum number of, say, xp/hour that they are willing to allow. Maybe they had some number in mind during the design phase.
I think they have some idea of how many gameplay hours it should take a player to level to 50: 50 hours is probably too fast. There is also some similar number for how long it should take a player to 'purple out', etc. There is certainly some number above which they will take action.
I don't see any harm with them saying, "50 hours (whatever that xp/hour works out to, it would probably scale based on level) is too fast. If your mission is generating these numbers, watch out; we will probably take action. There are other criteria, but there is your speed number."
For that matter, they could probably monitor each and every pleyer's rewards per hour (Herostats can), and pop up a message: "Slow down!" if they wanted to.
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!
I'm not sure what qualifies as exploit missions, but the MA has been a godsend for leveling. Those of us who joined the CoH party late and missed the glut of players leveling to 50 for the first or second time have had a hard time of it.
Level 40 was a brick wall where most people would go sit in Peregrine and beg for a farm team. Trying to find a legit team was impossible. Now at least with MA I can play and level my character myself.
MA is not bypassing content. That content was dead before MA came out. Leveling was cycling radio missions and hoping for Freaks. At least MA adds some spice.
Instead they allow the user to turn off "their" xp gains if they feel they are leveling too fast. The devs don't make any provisions for those players that want to control "others" xp gains, since the devs themselves have that covered just fine.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
Thanks Doc! I almost responded exactly the same to that, but had a heck of a time finding the posts and "Posi already said" seemed a bit weak without the citation.
Dec out.
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