Task Force and Strike Force teams

[Spectre7878]

This may have been asked but is there any chance to make it possible to enroll players during a TF/SF. It sucks when some people leave mid way through and we can’t refill the spot. I have been on TF/SF with my buds and nothing is worse then when a friend signs in and they can’t join the group. Just a thought 

[Zeraphia]

On principle, I agree and understand your frustration. However, I have to disagree pragmatically. Someone who does half the work, or only up to one mission in a task force, should not get the same merit reward as someone who was there for the duration of a task force. There are prompts that warn the captain about the task force's locked-in nature. 

 

I must say no to this, though I understand your frustration. 

[0th Power]

/lfg last mission of synapse tf, 20 million inf, pst

 

I’d pay...

Edited July 19, 2020 by 0th Power

[Chance Jackson]

I'm fine with it, enough people drop & a sure bet TF can become impossible 

[Lines]

It would be good to find a way for the game to dosh out merits on all arcs for all participants based on their individual contribution.

 

Taskforces could share this system.

 

Would arcs and taskforces then become almost indistinct? Is that a bad thing?

[FrauleinMental]

57 minutes ago, Lines said:

It would be good to find a way for the game to dosh out merits on all arcs for all participants based on their individual contribution.

 

Taskforces could share this system.

It depends a lot on what's meant by "individual contribution".  Are we thinking damage, as is the current meta?  That's a good way to never recruit another support character, and I don't support that at all.

 

Or do you mean "individual participation", as in granting a certain number of merits per mission in the TF/arc?  I'm not even sure I'd agree with that, because everyone (should) know going in that the TF is a time commitment and backing out carries a consequence.  (On a similar line, I vaguely recall in WoW that backing out of a Group Finder dungeon barred you from the Group Finder for a short time.)

 

Also, most TFs have completion badges, which should definitely require participation in all of the missions in the TF.

[Lines]

Just now, FrauleinMental said:

It depends a lot on what's meant by "individual contribution".  Are we thinking damage, as is the current meta?  That's a good way to never recruit another support character, and I don't support that at all.

Yeah, I was literally just thinking how many missions they joined for. You're right, most other metrics would be impossibly unfair. Joining for 5 of 10 missions of an arc would award half the merits at the end of it, but how on earth you'd track this I wouldn't know. Especially if someone joined for like missions 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8.

 

You're right, participation is a better word. But I'd already used the word 'participant' and it felt wobbly to say both in quick succession.

 

This is through the lens of the OP's suggestion. I'm not sure I'd back the corner of recruiting people mid-TF, as it kinda goes against the grain of what they are. But if that were the case, I'm just considering how it could be fair.

[Razor Cure]

On 7/20/2020 at 1:23 AM, Chance Jackson said:

I'm fine with it, enough people drop & a sure bet TF can become impossible 

Only in later TFs like STF, RSF, Lady Grey and Cude/Reichsman.

Even those, have all been ( I think) solo'd, Anything under those few can be done with almost any AT (obviously better to have at least 2-4 people).

[Myrmidon]

On 7/19/2020 at 8:16 AM, Spectre7878 said:

This may have been asked but is there any chance to make it possible to enroll players during a TF/SF. It sucks when some people leave mid way through and we can’t refill the spot. I have been on TF/SF with my buds and nothing is worse then when a friend signs in and they can’t join the group. Just a thought 

I swear to you that I will never leave mid-way through at TF unless work commands   me to do so.

[Parabola]

The merit rewards could be broken down to award on each mission completion? There is already code that governs whether you were on a mission long enough to receive the end of mission xp bonus so it could be linked to that. How you'd then handle badges I've no idea though.

 

In general I'd love to see this kind of thing. Not even so much for tfs and trials but for running story arcs via flashback. A huge amount of content would be opened up if teams could casually run story arcs recruiting as they go.

[Razor Cure]

1 minute ago, parabola said:

The merit rewards could be broken down to award on each mission completion?

Still super unfair. The main point of doing Synapse is for TFC, and the merits are just there to make is sorta kinda not really (unless its WTF) worth running. I know I'd totally join Syn on the last mission, knowing I get the badge and minimum merits.

The solution to doing TFs with friends is better communication and planning.

[Parabola]

2 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Still super unfair. The main point of doing Synapse is for TFC, and the merits are just there to make is sorta kinda not really (unless its WTF) worth running. I know I'd totally join Syn on the last mission, knowing I get the badge and minimum merits.

The solution to doing TFs with friends is better communication and planning.

Well it's like I said, I don't know how you'd handle the badges. They would probably have to remain linked to a complete run. Breaking the merit rewards down wouldn't have to be unfair though, they could be weighted according to the type of mission etc.

 

But it's really the story arcs in flashback where I'd like to see changes. We have all this content sitting there that is largely unused because of the limitations of the rigid tf system. Seems such a waste.

[Razor Cure]

4 minutes ago, parabola said:

But it's really the story arcs in flashback where I'd like to see changes. We have all this content sitting there that is largely unused because of the limitations of the rigid tf system. Seems such a waste.

I see where you are coming from.

But..really?

If we could invite people mid 'flashback tf' that is just as open to exploiting. Invite someone at the end of Unai's god awful arc and get 60odd merits for no work? Or if they got min merits...WHY invite the friend at all? Better to just have them wait 10 mins and then team with you?

Also, would a change like this suddenly make all those people NOT doing flashback arcs (cause them are farming, ae, leveling the normal way etc), suddenly dive into flashbacks? I doubt it. Speaking for myself, I never farm, and do flashback tfs very rarely, and I I wanna do them with friends..well..I use a crazy technique called working out a time together, coming online..and doing said Flashback.

[Parabola]

39 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

I see where you are coming from.

But..really?

If we could invite people mid 'flashback tf' that is just as open to exploiting. Invite someone at the end of Unai's god awful arc and get 60odd merits for no work? Or if they got min merits...WHY invite the friend at all? Better to just have them wait 10 mins and then team with you?

Also, would a change like this suddenly make all those people NOT doing flashback arcs (cause them are farming, ae, leveling the normal way etc), suddenly dive into flashbacks? I doubt it. Speaking for myself, I never farm, and do flashback tfs very rarely, and I I wanna do them with friends..well..I use a crazy technique called working out a time together, coming online..and doing said Flashback.

My thought is as follows. I often lead pug teams and too often find that radios or tips are the only readily available content. Yes contacts can be arranged as you go but they can easily be outlevelled and can be a bit of a faff.

 

And also without wanting to drag a heated debate from elsewhere into this discussion I find the pre-incarnate teaming experience infinitely more fun than when incarnates are involved. Teaming drives off a cliff for me at lv45.

 

So the flashback system should be ideal for me. I should be able to run a team exemped to 40 or 35 doing the various story arcs available. But I can't really do that because it's not compatable with the rolling recruiting, drop in, drop out, nature of pugs.

 

The point of spreading the merit rewards out isn't so much about the rewards themselves but just splitting them up to avoid the last mission = full reward problem you mention. The goal is simply to casually team doing a wider variety of stuff, all rewards are incidental to that.

 

Actually a sort of solution to the badge problem has just occurred to me. Some badges are linked to a series of invisible behind the scenes badges, they only award when all the background ones have been collected. It might be possible to do the same for tfs; add an invisible badge to each mission and only award the main badge when they are all collected. Not a great solution for the obvious reasons of complexity but it might just about work!

[Lines]

39 minutes ago, parabola said:

Actually a sort of solution to the badge problem has just occurred to me. Some badges are linked to a series of invisible behind the scenes badges, they only award when all the background ones have been collected. It might be possible to do the same for tfs; add an invisible badge to each mission and only award the main badge when they are all collected. Not a great solution for the obvious reasons of complexity but it might just about work!

I was thinking something like this, if each arc had an invisible tracker for missions each character has completed (either of their own arc or someone else's). When you get them all you get the badge reward. Maybe the merit reward too?

 

(This is me hurling my brain at the forums, expect no coherence)

 

Arcs could award merits per mission, which would be the arc's reward divided by the number of missions. But then some missions would be worth more than other and that seems wrong. Like there might be a really quick mission at the start of an arc that's worth like 8 merits and it'd just get farmed. Unless you then bias longer missions like kill-alls with a higher proportion of rewards, but that would take a heck of a lot of testing.

 

I was wondering something like using that tracker to see who joined for the parts of the arc, and then when the arc is finished everyone gets awarded the proportion of merits for how much they joined... but I can immediately see that not working.

 

Maybe the arc holder has the option to share the arc, and everyone else on the team gets that progress. It would need to break the rules in two ways: one that lower levelled sidekicks aren't locked out and two that people can still undertake the arc themselves later if they want to - like it doesn't flag as complete for that character.

 

Eh, I got nothing. I don't see any of that really gelling well.

[ShardWarrior]

On 7/19/2020 at 9:32 AM, Zeraphia said:

On principle, I agree and understand your frustration. However, I have to disagree pragmatically. Someone who does half the work, or only up to one mission in a task force, should not get the same merit reward as someone who was there for the duration of a task force. There are prompts that warn the captain about the task force's locked-in nature. 

 

I must say no to this, though I understand your frustration. 

Not to mention there would certainly be those who would abuse this feature by kicking people before the last mission and then inviting friends. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

46 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Not to mention there would certainly be those who would abuse this feature by kicking people before the last mission and then inviting friends. 

Easily avoidable: Just solo the TFs. Granted... AV fights can add a huge chunk of time when you're running them on level appropriate characters.

[ShardWarrior]

27 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Easily avoidable: Just solo the TFs. Granted... AV fights can add a huge chunk of time when you're running them on level appropriate characters.

This is not an option for a lot of people and at least to me, defeats the purpose of teaming up for the task force.

[Bill Z Bubba]

57 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

This is not an option for a lot of people and at least to me, defeats the purpose of teaming up for the task force.

It's an option for everyone but I'll accept it's not an option for many powerset combos and builds.

And while I team a lot more since before the snap, I love having the ability to run all the TFs solo when my SG isn't around.

No drama, run at my own pace, no hassle, no fuss.

[Ukase]

Clearly, since someone can join an AE arc in the midst of a run, they have the ability to do this for TFs and Ouro. No question about it. 

As for Task Forces that give badges - no badge unless you were in each mission. Merits could be meted out in a slightly front heavy fashion to reward the commitment. 

For example - a 10 mission TF that gives 50 merits might give 7 merits for each of the first two, 5 merits for each of the next four, and the last mission gives zero or 1. 

It's a really good idea and should be considered.