Mission Architect sneak peek

Forsaken_Empire_EU · 01-20-2009 07:23 AM

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Oh I dunno......fun?

[/ QUOTE ]but my fun if having and good time and getting reward for it, to me it like telling a kid go play kick ball in the garden and you get a sweet but you play kick ball in the park you get nothing

Archie Gremlin · 01-20-2009 07:24 AM

I'm impressed by the publishing scheme. It's quite cunning really. It means that you can write as many good arcs as you like but only 3 bad ones per account. You can replace the bad ones by un-publishing them though and try again.

The only fly in this particular ointment is how to fix a bug in a successful arc? Imagine you've written an arc and it's really popular. Lots of people have given it the thumbs up. Now someone notices a typo or something. You could just un-publish, fix the typo and re-publish but that will lose all the thumbs up. Maybe you'll just have to ask a GM to fix it for you.

FloatingFatMan · 01-20-2009 07:24 AM

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I don't see how it could be a farmers paradise, since aside from selecting WHICH villan group you fight, you seem to have no control over what is spawned. So, for instance, if you are designing a mish to farm, say, Banished masks, since the MA decides what groups are spawned where you'll still only get the normal number of masks you would in any other Banished mission. Since we don't have control over what mobs are spawned, or where they are spawned, you can't load-up the mission with badge-granting baddies (or goodies for the villans).

G.

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Because having control over the faction DOES allow you to farm... You can guarantee there's going to be clones of old favourites like Dreck, but with no timer. So NC make doing that less attractive by removing drops, making them only good for farming XP or inf, which is far less of a problem.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Mercury_Angel · 01-20-2009 07:26 AM

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Oh I dunno......fun?

[/ QUOTE ]but my fun if having and good time and getting reward for it, to me it like telling a kid go play kick ball in the garden and you get a sweet but you play kick ball in the park you get nothing

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you get to kick the ball. Some people enjoy just kicking the ball.

G.

__________________________________________________
A New world Order?
Arc ID: 56881

Incursion
Arc ID: TBA

A Dark Future
Arc ID: TBA

Posters by Soul Storm

Forsaken_Empire_EU · 01-20-2009 07:26 AM

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The only fly in this particular ointment is how to fix a bug in a successful arc? Imagine you've written an arc and it's really popular. Lots of people have given it the thumbs up. Now someone notices a typo or something. You could just un-publish, fix the typo and re-publish but that will lose all the thumbs up. Maybe you'll just have to ask a GM to fix it for you.

[/ QUOTE ]well i think your going to need a gm to fix the typo if they rip it from your grasp and put it in the hall of fame as you won't be able to do anything to it then

FloatingFatMan · 01-20-2009 07:27 AM

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The only fly in this particular ointment is how to fix a bug in a successful arc? Imagine you've written an arc and it's really popular. Lots of people have given it the thumbs up. Now someone notices a typo or something. You could just un-publish, fix the typo and re-publish but that will lose all the thumbs up. Maybe you'll just have to ask a GM to fix it for you.

[/ QUOTE ]well i think your going to need a gm to fix the typo if they rip it from your grasp and put it in the hall of fame as you won't be able to do anything to it then

[/ QUOTE ]

I highly doubt any bugged MA arcs would get into the Hall of Fame. Not without those bugs being fixed first anyway.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Carnifax · 01-20-2009 07:27 AM

Do the published arcs give full rewards?

Mr_Marvellous · 01-20-2009 07:27 AM

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While in an Architect mission, players will NOT get: end mission bonus, salvage, recipies, or enhancements.

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I like the MA but not the above. The mission bonus and the enhancemnets I can live without but not getting the normal rate of salvage and recipies. Too bad and boring in my op.

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I kind of agree with you MajorPain. I do wonder why they haven't just averaged out salvage, enhancements and recipes so that you got them at the end depending how many mobs you kill. Some of the badges I can understand but I noticed the post said the Heal badge as well. How would that be abused.. I suppose it was easier to just 'turn off' all badge tracking in the missions.

I think it's a shame it won't run like a normal mission and I wonder if this will detract from it a little too much. Personally I will be using it though. I want to create my own arc I think a lot of people will probably have a good time using it too. It's just that with the restrictions I don't see how you will win around those who are currently thinking of it as a 'pointless' system.

LunaWisp · 01-20-2009 07:29 AM

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It is a shame that because some people will misuse the system

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Can't really see how. As Mercury_Angel pointed out, since we have no control of the number or placement of mobs or even how they act, it's a bit difficult to see how this could possibly be a farmers paradise. There's not even an end of mission bonus. Nah, I can't see them taking off unless the devs rethink the rewards.

Apart from the normal missions and arcs, we have:
Endless paper/scanner missions with full reward system in place.
Endless street hunts with full reward system in place.
Player created missions with er, a bit of 'fun' as your reward.

Since the devs have turned this game into a farming game where most people feel a need to gain as much inf as possible, the player created missions are going to have to be something really special to attract more than a tiny core of die hard fans.

Mercury_Angel · 01-20-2009 07:30 AM

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I don't see how it could be a farmers paradise, since aside from selecting WHICH villan group you fight, you seem to have no control over what is spawned. So, for instance, if you are designing a mish to farm, say, Banished masks, since the MA decides what groups are spawned where you'll still only get the normal number of masks you would in any other Banished mission. Since we don't have control over what mobs are spawned, or where they are spawned, you can't load-up the mission with badge-granting baddies (or goodies for the villans).

G.

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Because having control over the faction DOES allow you to farm... You can guarantee there's going to be clones of old favourites like Dreck, but with no timer. So NC make doing that less attractive by removing drops, making them only good for farming XP or inf, which is far less of a problem.

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Hmmm. I'm not convinced. Sure, you can choose which villan group, but then you can, to a greater or lesser extent, chose which villan group you want to focus on through radio/paper/contacts anyway. I'm not convinced this is as much of a problem as the Devs think it will be.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty stoked about the idea anyway.

G.

__________________________________________________
A New world Order?
Arc ID: 56881

Incursion
Arc ID: TBA

A Dark Future
Arc ID: TBA

Posters by Soul Storm

FloatingFatMan · 01-20-2009 07:31 AM

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Do the published arcs give full rewards?

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Not as far as I know... Or do you mean the ones promoted to the Hall of Fame? I believe I read somewhere than any promoted to that would probably get full rewards, as they'd become canon.

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Forsaken_Empire_EU · 01-20-2009 07:32 AM

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[ QUOTE ]
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The only fly in this particular ointment is how to fix a bug in a successful arc? Imagine you've written an arc and it's really popular. Lots of people have given it the thumbs up. Now someone notices a typo or something. You could just un-publish, fix the typo and re-publish but that will lose all the thumbs up. Maybe you'll just have to ask a GM to fix it for you.

[/ QUOTE ]well i think your going to need a gm to fix the typo if they rip it from your grasp and put it in the hall of fame as you won't be able to do anything to it then

[/ QUOTE ]

I highly doubt any bugged MA arcs would get into the Hall of Fame. Not without those bugs being fixed first anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]but i seen alot of typo in a few heroes task force saying something like "oh no it task force NAME", so i could see a few things might slip though net normaly does and is unnoticed at first

Archie Gremlin · 01-20-2009 07:34 AM

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Makes no sense to me to be honest. If the reward for doing these missions is so much less than even street hunting, what's the point? Unless you have a plethora of high level toons and don't need to level or gain inf, I can see no point in even looking at these missions.

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The only things you lose are inf from drops and badge contributions. You still level up at the normal rate.

You gain new stories. If you don't particularly care about the stories then MA won't help you. Just carry on with farming or TFs or whatever you enjoy most.

Some people love reading the stories and get very bored by doing the same, familiar missions again and again. MA is for them really. (... and the people who want to write the stories!)

Carnifax · 01-20-2009 07:35 AM

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Do the published arcs give full rewards?

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Not as far as I know... Or do you mean the ones promoted to the Hall of Fame? I believe I read somewhere than any promoted to that would probably get full rewards, as they'd become canon.

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Yep, sorry Hall of Fame ones I meant.

It's likely that if there is a Thumbs Up system where players decide what can go into the Hall of Fame there'll be Farming Arcs eventually anyway in that case, unless NC start getting heavy-handed and vetoing player voting.

Personally as long as there's XP for chopping things up, so I'm still progressing my toons I don't care too much about drops.

FloatingFatMan · 01-20-2009 07:38 AM

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Some people love reading the stories and get very bored by doing the same, familiar missions again and again. MA is for them really. (... and the people who want to write the stories!)

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Damn right! I'm just hoping what I want to do will be possible! From what we know of it so far, I think it should be. Probably going to need to use two arcs though.. Part 1 & Part 2!

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

LunaWisp · 01-20-2009 07:42 AM

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I'm not convinced this is as much of a problem as the Devs think it will be.

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It's like an obsession. Seems to be the in thing to penalise as many people as possible for the actions of a few. They all but killed off the GM's by reducing the reward to virtually nothing. They've made already tough missions timed to stop a tiny number of people people doing them over and over.

I do hope this mission architect thing takes off but I can see it going the way of the GM hunts if they are not very careful.

Archie Gremlin · 01-20-2009 07:48 AM

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I'm just hoping what I want to do will be possible! From what we know of it so far, I think it should be. Probably going to need to use two arcs though.. Part 1 & Part 2!

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It hope there's some mechanism that lets you chain arcs together so that when you finish playing one you can go straight into the part of the multi-arc story without having to search for it.

Forsaken_Empire_EU · 01-20-2009 07:48 AM

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I'm just hoping what I want to do will be possible! From what we know of it so far, I think it should be. Probably going to need to use two arcs though.. Part 1 & Part 2!

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It hope there's some mechanism that lets you chain arcs together so that when you finish playing one you can go straight into the part of the multi-arc story without having to search for it.

[/ QUOTE ]you can chosse your contact so just pin it on the same thing

i just going to pin mine on some phone thing in talso on the small islands and do some kind of spy contact though the phone

LunaWisp · 01-20-2009 07:52 AM

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You gain new stories. If you don't particularly care about the stories then MA won't help you. Just carry on with farming or TFs or whatever you enjoy most.

Some people love reading the stories and get very bored by doing the same, familiar missions again and again. MA is for them really. (... and the people who want to write the stories!)

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a fair comment, I guess we all play for different reasons. I get bored reading mission details and just want to get on with it and have something to show for my trouble at the end.

We'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out. There are frequently lots of changes between announcement and release and no doubt they'll be tweaking it as time goes on.

Mr_Marvellous · 01-20-2009 07:57 AM

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The only things you lose are inf from drops and badge contributions. You still level up at the normal rate.

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Sorry to be picky but without mission bonuses you don't level at the normal rate... but that is being very picky.

I think the problem is more one of perception. If it is perceived that these missions are the 'worst choice' for players then there are those who won't play them, no matter what the benefits of story.

Personally I don't think they have gone far enough with the whole 'player created content' thing yet. Maybe they will expand it in future though.

Shadowe · 01-20-2009 08:05 AM

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Personally I don't think they have gone far enough with the whole 'player created content' thing yet. Maybe they will expand it in future though.

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I sort of agree and disagree with this.

I agree, because it doesn't go far enough to satisfy the most rabidly story-obsessed of us. 3 arcs at 5 missions each? Come on! Okay, 4-5 missions is the length of the best modern TF's, but we won't have the same amount of flexibility that the devs do with the tools.

I disagree, because the thing to remember is that the main CoH development tool is basically the game itself (or so I understand, from what War Witch said at Omega Sektor). Now, to make it user-friendly, they have to create a lot of UI and new tools that the devs themselves haven't had while creating missions for the game - creating the MA is actually helping themselves as well, because they can use the new tools and the more advanced tech they have access to.

What I expect to see in the future is more advanced options, granting us more and more flexibility with the MA system, as the devs fine-tune the tools available. At some point we (the players) will be at the stage CoH was at when it was released, as far as the complexity of missions we can craft. But it's not going to be immediate.

The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.

; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise

; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*

Archie Gremlin · 01-20-2009 08:13 AM

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The only things you lose are inf from drops and badge contributions. You still level up at the normal rate.

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Sorry to be picky but without mission bonuses you don't level at the normal rate... but that is being very picky.

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True. Does anyone happen to know how significant these bonuses are for levelling?

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I think the problem is more one of perception. If it is perceived that these missions are the 'worst choice' for players then there are those who won't play them, no matter what the benefits of story.

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Good point. I have to say that the no drops thing makes me a bit sad.

Talking of perceptions, I was chatting to Grouchybeast and she suggested that the "anti-farming" limitations might improve the reputation of the MA by ensuring that the first raft of missions are stories not farms. Once the CoH culture has institutionalised this, it might be safe to slacken the restrictions.

The whole issue will be moot if arcs get moved to the Dev's Choice or Hall of Fame quite quickly. In that case, most people who play MA arcs will pick them from there and get perfectly normal drops.

Maybe we need to think of arcs that have been published but not moved to the Hall of Fame as "on probation".

PRAF68_EU · 01-20-2009 08:16 AM

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I'm not convinced this is as much of a problem as the Devs think it will be.

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It's not that the devs want to prevent farming. They just don't want the MA filled up with endless farm this badge/farm that badge missions. Why not? because they have a limited amount of memory available to store player created missions. Same reason as they are limiting the number of player created missions that can be uploaded at any one time.

As you say, if you want to farm, you already have all the tools you need.

The MA is created for those players who want to tell stories, and those who want to read stories. If that's not your thing, then this issue isn't aimed at you, in the same way that issues focusing on PvP or inventions or co-op content or whatever aren't going to be for eveyone.

I really should do something about this signature.

Judgement_Dave · 01-20-2009 09:05 AM

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Personally I don't think they have gone far enough with the whole 'player created content' thing yet. Maybe they will expand it in future though.

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Some people will have a great idea but it can't be fully realised as they imagine it in the initial MA. Sure that some of these will create good arcs as scaled back versions of their wunderarc and some will be so good that they get promoted to devs choice/Hall of Fame.

Bound to be some mild distress/weeping/wailing/gnashing of teeth when a later extension of MA allows new features and the originally imagined wunderarc can be created, but the already promoted arcs are found to be unchangeable.

Inevitable if the MA is to progress past it's initial launch version - but I can imagine the odd 'miffed designer' thread coming up after each update to MA...

By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)

Judgement_Dave · 01-20-2009 09:11 AM

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Do the published arcs give full rewards?

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Not as far as I know... Or do you mean the ones promoted to the Hall of Fame? I believe I read somewhere than any promoted to that would probably get full rewards, as they'd become canon.

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IIRC early dev-released info re: MA stated that MA missions would probably have no rewards, but ones upgraded to dev choice/Hall of Fame would have rewards.

Can't recall them stating that they'd have full rewards - though given that these have been looked at by some form of dev/mod it seems reasonable to assume full rewards.

Certainly can't recall them saying that they'd become canon - although it was assumed that canon-breaking missions would never make it to promotion.

All this may have changed since the plan is now to grant rewards for MA missions - just not full rewards. Though my personal guess would be that promoted missions would see full rewards.

By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)