Issue 15 Mission Architect Badge Changes
By
Ace_of_Hearts,
Posted on: 2009-05-21 20:26 in Mission Architect
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I am glad that they want to encourage non-farm type gameplay.
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Too late. The auction house has seen to that. As soon as you introduce tradable items and an ingame currency, you have farming. Like judgement day, it's inevitable.
One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that all those changes are being made in the context of the Mission Architect that wasn't indeed meant to become a farming tool. The MA is for people who want to create their own stories or experience other players' stories.
Farming in itself is not THE problem, various parts of the game are being used to "farm" rewards to a certain extent for those who enjoy doing that, but the Mission Architect should be for more creative purposes.
And Lady_Arete, Synapse will be posting a followup post after the weekend and it should answer some of your questions and others posed on these boards and on the North American boards.
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I am glad that they want to encourage non-farm type gameplay.
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Too late. The auction house has seen to that. As soon as you introduce tradable items and an ingame currency, you have farming. Like judgement day, it's inevitable.
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We had farming before in the sense of XP and Inf farming, certain badges like the lvl 5 damage taken badge are farmed.
What MA did however, was take farming and raise it to an unacceptable level throwing the risk/reward ratios so far off balance it nearly, and still could, doom the game.
Remember when you could still use Cimorean Medics in your custom groups, they were removed because people made groups out of nothing but them and just kept overpowering their self - heals.
Snake eggs were taken out at the beta stage because you could get free xp from them.
Prisioners, high level xp, one or two attacks.
And this is the stuff I can remember off the top of my head, what else have the devs removed because it was easy farm material? And what do they plan to remove?
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Ahhh then you'll want to adjust this badge too? Because I bet there will be farming in MA for it.
Leader Earn 2 billion Infamy to earn this badge.
Why are you not going to change that? 
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Inf earned in the MA doesn't count towards the Inf badge - I made a very careful check of that 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I am glad that they want to encourage non-farm type gameplay.
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Too late. The auction house has seen to that. As soon as you introduce tradable items and an ingame currency, you have farming. Like judgement day, it's inevitable.
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Yes, but avoiding farming completely is a quite different thing from encouraging non-farming. Mission Architect is a nice feature in that it can potentially be used extensively at any level and it does not have to be about farming/grinding at that point.
Consignment houses and inventions have certainly brought in more farming elements to the game, but they are not all about farming either.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
Wow, just checked the list. That's a LOT of badges going. LMAO!!!
IMHO, the badges need a need way of thinking completely. Why would any new player bother? The can never get near the top collectors and they don't get anything for the badges anyway (except a measly few accolade ones).
We could use more "perks" connected to badges.
And darn you, Avatea, Forcing me to log on to the blueside version of the forum! 
Also hope there's still som HoF/Devs choise reward, like a temp. in-game or at least forum title.
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The MA is for people who want to create their own stories or experience other players' stories.
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Well then, with all due respect, be done with the hypocrisy and just remove all rewards from it and make it the tool it's supposed to be. No inf, no XP, no Prestige, no badges, no inspirations, no recipes, no enhancements, no rewards. Oh, and no debt, of course. Make it the simulation environment it was meant to be in the first place. If it's just for telling stories and going through other people's stories you really don't need those.
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And Lady_Arete, Synapse will be posting a followup post after the weekend and it should answer some of your questions and others posed on these boards and on the North American boards.
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Oh great, another case of info dolled out in small unswallowable portions. Just like the 5th anniversary address by Positron, later much improved by War Witch.
*golfclap*
Wonder if there will be any amount of backpedaling... hope dies last they say.
Bah, don't mind me, I'm just a bitter old badger.
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
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Bah, don't mind me, I'm just a bitter old badger.
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*Hugs Rabbit*
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The MA is for people who want to create their own stories or experience other players' stories.
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Well then, with all due respect, be done with the hypocrisy and just remove all rewards from it and make it the tool it's supposed to be.
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To be fair, I think the devs have been pretty clear about what they want from the MA from the start:
1. For it to be a tool for users to create interesting stories for other people to enjoy, and not a tool for farming.
2. For people to be able to level their toons through the MA at equivalent speed and with equivalent reward to non-MA content, thereby providing long-term players with far more fresh content than the devs ever could.
Those are two goals which do naturally conflict with one another to some extent, as by providing rewards and flexibility they also provide the motivation and tools for abusive play. The fact that it's so hard to make the system flexible and reduce abuse is presumably why other MMOs don't have MA systems of their own. But, even though they may have made mistakes with their implementation, I do admire the CoX devs for coming up with such ambitious goals and for trying to get the system into a shape which supports them. I'd rather have devs who try for really innovative content, even if it's hard to do right, then devs who are happy to just keep cranking out stuff from pattern books.
Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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Also hope there's still som HoF/Devs choise reward, like a temp. in-game or at least forum title.
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They get a publishing slot back - not really an extra slot since the promoted arc becomes uneditable and is locked. They also get frontpage/above-the-fold exposure for their creations.
Reading some of the US thread re: the badge changes I get the impression that some wouldn't want a ingame/forum title so quickly as they get enough abuse/grief for having a Dev's Choice arc as it is. IIRC one mentioned that if they could return the Dev's choice honour then they would due to the abuse it's brought them.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
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Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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The MA is for people who want to create their own stories or experience other players' stories.
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Well then, with all due respect, be done with the hypocrisy and just remove all rewards from it and make it the tool it's supposed to be. No inf, no XP, no Prestige, no badges, no inspirations, no recipes, no enhancements, no rewards. Oh, and no debt, of course. Make it the simulation environment it was meant to be in the first place. If it's just for telling stories and going through other people's stories you really don't need those.
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Although the use of MA would plummet and would lead to one of the problems that the devs seem to be trying to address: Author disatisfaction at using the MA as intended but no-one plays their arcs as they're lost in the sea of farms.
Or: What's the point in writing an arc and telling your own story if no-one ever plays it?
I think that the devs were generally happy with the rewards, as Positron stated in the EU test server anniversary appearance:
04-28-2009 17:42:50 [Local] Positron: XP works and got a lot of people to play it who probably never would have touched it
04-28-2009 17:43:44 [Local] Positron: We are looking at the XP.
These were in response to player comments about the level of farming and suggesting that xp should be removed from MA or only on Dev Choices. (I'll ignore the wag who called out that a good solution would be to remove MA)
So it looks like Posi is pleased that full XP worked to get players interested in MA and playing MA arcs, but, with the second sentence, hedges his bets in case a reduction of xp rewards is neccesary in the future. (it would have been foolish of him to state that no xp reduction would ever happen, but he doesn't state that one will either - looking at XP could just imply that they're monitoring the rewards)
I suspect that badges worked for some players as well as XP did for others in tempting them into AE. I suspect that it's only because of some people's extreme behaviour creating too many pure badge farms (that hide what the devs consider proper MA arcs) and grief/cartel voting that any badges are being removed.
It's a shame that the automatic griefing/farming detection can't be used to identify offenders to be punished with the scalpel rather than blitzing the badges with a nuke. Why a nuke is being used rather than a scalpel is known only to the devs.
IIRC when MA was originally announced all early reports were that the MA would carry reduced or no xp - with the possible exception of Dev's Choices arcs which we were told would carry normal rewards. It was one of the biggest shocks of MA in beta to find that the devs had U-turned on this.
Presumably their early tests had told them that reduced XP/INF rewards were as much of a disincentive to using MA as no XP/INF would be. If not then I really wonder why they didn't introduce MA at a reduced but reasonably high level of XP/INF (maybe 80%) and then increase the rewards level if no problems were caused by the initial level.
This approach would have:
* Helped reduce any farming/PLing being done in MA;
* Seen a gentler introduction of MA, buying time to measure it's effects (as opposed to the frenzy that happened due to a easily farmable system complete with full rewards);
* Let the devs be seen as good guys when they increase the levels of reward.
The same could have been done with badges. Launch with 20 or so and add more later in a staggered fashion. That way the devs look like good guys giving us treats to earn, rather than the current image they give of taking away our treats (and because a few bad apples abused them).
Cynically I think it's possible that MA had to launch with full rewards and a host of badges even though it was apparent that some problems would be encountered because it was vitally important to get as many people using MA in the first few weeks after launch.
MA was being sold to the press as revolutionary, and NC rightly wanted to be able to say that it had been a massive success.
Having full rewards and a large range of badges ensured that it would be a success. Having slightly reduced rewards and very few badges would, IMO, have still let MA be a success, but it probably wouldn't have had such attention from PLers/farmers/badgers - so the number of published arcs and the number of people playing in MA wouldn't have been quite as impressive.
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)
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It's a shame that the automatic griefing/farming detection can't be used to identify offenders to be punished with the scalpel rather than blitzing the badges with a nuke.
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Can you suggest a griefing/farming detection algorithm that would never produce false positives?
I really should do something about this signature.
Well, to be fair, even playing a simulation will give you experience, know-how, skills, so not getting xp would be strange and of course most people would stay clear of the MA if they don't get anything at all.
Why, because most arcs are horribly bad and a waste of time. Getting SOMETHING out of them makes it bearable. If I didn't get something out of it I probably wouldn't play the game anymore since I've done all the real content repeatedly and find most of the archi-stuff.. you know...
This way I still get the occational good arcs and at least get something out of'em as well. If not, I might as well finish off GTA4, Chronicles of Riddick, Mass Effect, CoDmf, Force unleashed and the other really good, modern, fun games I've got stacked on top of a speaker.
And, lol, I suggest people that get a dev choise doesn't get credit for it in the ma, but get the title instead. Should kill most of the whiners and you still get something when you're "chosen". Or give us the option of being anonymous and bring back the e-mail feedback so we don't get all that "private tells" [censored] when we log in.
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It's a shame that the automatic griefing/farming detection can't be used to identify offenders to be punished with the scalpel rather than blitzing the badges with a nuke.
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Can you suggest a griefing/farming detection algorithm that would never produce false positives?
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Not at all - and if I could then publishing it here would only lead to it's downfall as farms/griefers move just outside the limits it checks.
But presumably if a false positive is thrown up the misidentified party can contact the GMs and have the situation addressed. It's unlikely, IMO, that those griefing or creating farms would appeal the decision since they would be in the wrong - the GM would look at the case and dismiss it.
So I imagine that most GM involvement would be for misidentifications, so the key is to not produce too many false positives.
And, in this case, as you can't have a system that will never produce a misidentification then it is far better to have a few false positives than false negatives.
IIRC the devs stated in pre-I14 interviews that automated routines would be used to detect griefing. Post release, they've used routines to detect farms (including some false positives). I'd have hoped that the devs have found a level of misidentification that they are happy with and that the GMs can cope with.
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)
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IMO, that those griefing or creating farms would appeal the decision since they would be in the wrong - the GM would look at the case and dismiss it.
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of course they would! You have seen how much they whine! If there was any chance of appealing to human authority the GMs would imidetely be snowed under any it would be back to checking everything manually.
The only way an automated sytem could work is if it was fully automated, and that would ineviably lead to the inocent being punished along with the guilty.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Not at all - and if I could then publishing it here would only lead to it's downfall as farms/griefers move just outside the limits it checks.
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And the challenge here for the developers would be to figure out a good algorithm. They probably made a first stab at it, but that also needs to be validated against real data to verify that it is working as intended. Verification would be a manual procedure and they would only see how many false positives they would get - not if they caught all of the culprits.
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But presumably if a false positive is thrown up the misidentified party can contact the GMs and have the situation addressed. It's unlikely, IMO, that those griefing or creating farms would appeal the decision since they would be in the wrong - the GM would look at the case and dismiss it.
So I imagine that most GM involvement would be for misidentifications, so the key is to not produce too many false positives.
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There is a flaw in that reasoning and that is that people would have a logical or reasonable behaviour. That would only work I think if there would be trouble for crying wolf too often.
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And, in this case, as you can't have a system that will never produce a misidentification then it is far better to have a few false positives than false negatives.
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There will always be false negatives, unless one can define in good detail exactly what is a culprit arc here.
I think they will need time before they would dare to turn on some automatic detection. More likely they have something running, but do manual checks on these first before actually taking any action.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
Another removal? At this rate we are going to end up back at i13 again.
Again as many have said before, I'm not much of a badger myself, to me badges are just titles under your name and nothing more but a removal is a removal. The idea behind issues is supposed to be to add content not take it away.
I can understand the reasoning behind it but surely it would have made more sense to just keep the badges and change what you get them for? It seems a very strange move.
meh, i wish they'd let us keep earned badges 
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meh, i wish they'd let us keep earned badges
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What difference will it make?
The people who've put the effort in to get the harder to acquire badges will still be ahead on badge count of the people who haven't.
Assuming that badge count is what floats your boat.
From the badge titles point of view, yes, it would be nice if getting the badge that's remaining unlocked a slew of alternative titles (from a drop down box on the badge list, maybe) from the badges that are being removed, but I really don't think that the technology for that is in the game. Which is a shame.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
This all comes down to punishing the badgers for what the farmers have largely done.
I enjoy badge-hunting, though I'm somewhat more mellowed out. I also like doing story-arcs. So this was a win-win situation. I was playing the un-played un-rated arcs around so that people don't feel they have completely wasted their time on creating them and indeed I discovered there was a truckload of farming missions around, though it's not hard to recognize them.
Removing most badges from MA will drop much off my interest in it. If more people out there are like me then there will be fewer arcs still played. While the farmers continue to milk the system. I believe that's not actually the situation we want to be working towards.
That's kind of my thoughts, they should actively work on the farmers if they want to get rid of the problems.
I badge on one of my toons - it's a horrible addiction that I can find no counselling for. I however largely agree with the MA badge removal, especially badges that rely on input from other players (who aren't on your team) - how did they not see that being abused prior to implementation?
<-- is NOT Kiss n Hell . . .
Thanks for listening 
@kisana
I'm a badger but also enjoy MA. I have to say I welcome the decision and honestly I wont mind if I loose some badges if it means that MA was used for what it was intended for - which I understand was to create storylines and not get someone from level 1 to 50 in less than three days. The obvious way to get round this would be to remove the xp, as previously suggested.
But the problem remains that if you remove XP from MA missions, few people would play it.
In addition, since MA came out the prices of common salvage at Wentworths has been rediculous to say the least! While I understand that paying upwards of 1m inf for rare salvage is acceptable, you should not have to pay 20-30,000 influence for a piece of common salvage - which is becoming more the norm. Even pieces like inert gas and military cybernetics (that used to retail for 100inf a piece) have gone up over the 1000's. The reason? Everyone farms MA which has no salvage drops and therefore salvage becomes rare and expensive.
So, if the devs removed or halfed XP in MA but allowed drops for both salvage and recipes (and made the drops more frequent than normal missions), they could potentially kill two birds with one stone. In addition it would prevent farming missions in MA.
You could even have rare tf recipe drops for completing three, four, or five mission storyarcs to encourage more people to play.
Its just a thought.
Life is one big practical joke that we as the human race have yet to see the punchline to. Once you work that out the rest is easy.
I think it's a mixed blessing...
The badges shouldn't have been there in the first place, same with some invention badges and the "epic" badges.
...But since they where, people have spent time getting them, and are - rightfully so - annoyed about loosing them.
Now, It's another dropped ball that swings the mood the wrong way, a no-win situation.
I am glad that they want to encourage non-farm type gameplay. They should have seen it happening before Mission Architect was released though. But it seems they did not - people make mistakes. I rather see that they do something to change that than keep supporting mistakes they have done.
To be entirely consistent that should also mean revisiting old badges, but I guess they might consider that a bit too risky to poke into at this point.
Never been a fan of grind-friendly badges/accomplishments, hopefully they will have this mindset considering future badges also that are not MA.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])