Redeeming AE

[drdread]

Farming: Love it or hate it. Farming has changed the primary use of AE. But what if AE could be redeemed and transformed into what it was intended: shared end-user content?

 

What if we could migrate the best missions out of the AE and into the game proper. The AE becomes a BETA testing for potential future missions. A whole host of new missions, new taskforces, and new progression paths. We could have AE content contests: winner gets added to the game. Would this be worthwhile?

 

Sure, farmers would still farm. But the AE would no longer be defined (almost) solely by that.

 

To the DEVS: How hard is it to migrate missions from the AE to the game proper? I imagine there would be tweaks needed for contacts and mission doors.

[Frostbiter]

The only Story Arc I even know of that got Developer approved and moved to the Live game is the one by Troy Hickman: Smoke and Mirrors

[M3z]

Yeah I vote for Shawshank Redemption 4.5 to be added to the game proper

[Heraclea]

There is no necessary inconsistency between fire farming and narrative.  My most recent story Heaven and Hell is tuned for fire armor characters.  It doesn't have an overwhelming story, but I did try to think up a scenario where it made senae for the enemies to have fire based powers,  and add a bit of characterization to the NPCs friend and enemy. 

[tidge]

Can AE missions include the target/practice drones? I'd like to be able to do some testing using AoE powers and it would be convenient to set up known configurations of a specified number of multiple targets.

[macskull]

4 hours ago, drdread said:

Farming has changed the primary use of AE.

To be fair that's been its primary use since it was introduced so it hasn't really changed at all.

[Banni]

5 hours ago, drdread said:

What if we could migrate the best missions out of the AE and into the game proper. The AE becomes a BETA testing for potential future missions. A whole host of new missions, new taskforces, and new progression paths. We could have AE content contests: winner gets added to the game. Would this be worthwhile?

I like that idea!

[ShardWarrior]

5 hours ago, drdread said:

But what if AE could be redeemed and transformed into what it was intended: shared end-user content?

Correct me if I am wrong, but farm missions are created by individuals and played by others so does that not make them shared end-user content?  As to the general question, it would be great if missions could easily get ported over to the game outside of AE.  I seem to recall this is quite a lot of work to do though.  I could be wrong though.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I feel like the only ways to really redeem AE would be to add a lot of new features so AE authors who don't want to just make another farm can have the freedom to fully make the stories they want to. The AE content idea thread in suggestions and ideas has a lot that would improve the Architect system, but some simpler things that I think might help is, at the very least, increase EXP percentages per-custom power picks (so that way people running will still feel assured they're getting full rewards like they would on a real storyarc or farm instead of just running another damn farm) and updating the custom critter power options to include new stuff.

[drdread]

First, let me just make this clear: I am not against farming or farmers. Personally, I don't see much point it in, but many do. So let farmers farm, IMO.

 

2 hours ago, macskull said:

To be fair that's been its primary use since it was introduced so it hasn't really changed at all.

Well, I meant it changed from the original developers' concept of it. Cryptic even added clauses in the user agreements to avoid people from exploiting AE.

 

51 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but farm missions are created by individuals and played by others so does that not make them shared end-user content? 

True enough.

 

2 hours ago, Heraclea said:

There is no necessary inconsistency between fire farming and narrative.  My most recent story Heaven and Hell is tuned for fire armor characters.  It doesn't have an overwhelming story, but I did try to think up a scenario where it made senae for the enemies to have fire based powers,  and add a bit of characterization to the NPCs friend and enemy. 

True enough.

[Coyotedancer]

As far as I know, the real issue with porting AE stories out to the game world proper is that the formats are completely different. I remember reading somewhere that regular missions are built as something completely off the wall... Excel docs, maybe?... While AE uses something absolutely incompatible. 

[nightroarer]

I think what could help the AE most is a straightforward way to separate farm missions from story-focused missions in searches. I'm not interested in farms (and have nothing against those who are), but sifting through pages of farms to find the story missions can be tedious.

 

As much as I would love to be able to access AE missions in the city (similar to the way Star Trek Online handled the Foundry), it has never bothered me to go to the AE building. I have never treated AE missions as simulations; they are regular missions to me. 🙂

[Hyperstrike]

34 minutes ago, drdread said:

Well, I meant it changed from the original developers' concept of it. Cryptic even added clauses in the user agreements to avoid people from exploiting AE.

Let me just say, first.  I have all the respect in the world for the guys at Paragon.  I'm prepared to love them unconditionally for the rest of forever for giving us this game.

That being said...

If the devs didn't know, FROM THE OUTSET, that AE was going to be used for EXACTLY this, even with all their "safeguards", they were asleep at the wheel.
They approached it "creatively", rather than "mathematically".

And we had some DAMN fine mathematicians in the community who could calculate out maximum rewards for minimum effort.

And in the end when you're running regular content and you've got a few million saved up.
Meanwhile an AE Farmer farmer is running a farm with several TRILLION in the bank?

That kind of imbalance only persists for so long before people do the calculations themselves.

 

[MTeague]

I'm not sure "Redeemed" is really that good a word here.  

I don't enjoy farming. I don't farm. 

 

But i can't call farming a misuse of the AE system with a straight face.  The NCSoft Devs gave the tools to the players, the results were entirely predictable.  Some players will make missions with nothing but custom foes that they are perfectly tuned against, in the name of the Almighty Buck / Influence.

 

Farmers are using AE in a way I don't choose to use it.  But... it's not in a state that needs to be redeemed as such.

 

I DO wish there was a nice way for me to browse the AE list of missions that do NOT include the word "Farm".

There's options to search, but it's more "including" critiera than "excluding" criteria.

 

I DO like the idea of some missions being vetted and added into the full game as non-AE content.  Though to make people happy that might require ticking some checkbox that says "I approve any use of my mission as standard content" or something, when they submit it.  Esp since may require some tweaks / adjustments to who the contact is, where the mission was located, etc. in order to have it really work in standard zones.

 

But a farmer farming is just as valid as me soloing storylines, and just as valid as me joining a TF.

[MTeague]

38 minutes ago, nightroarer said:

I think what could help the AE most is a straightforward way to separate farm missions from story-focused missions in searches.

This.  Give me a some kind of search box with "Excluding the words..."  where i can enter "Farm" and shazam, suddenly I'll be able to quickly see only the content I care about.

[ShardWarrior]

17 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Meanwhile an AE Farmer farmer is running a farm with several TRILLION in the bank?

I think this is just a bit of an exaggeration.

[Nyghtmaire]

In defense of farming, it is an elegant solution following an analysis of game mechanics towards an identified goal. No difference from this play style (and discussion) and, for example, the Scrapper Pylon thread analyzing single target DPS and breaking down theoretical attack chains. Identify a problem/issue, work out the maths, and apply the tools of the game to address the issue. I understand the qualitative preference of a player determining they *like* farming or not, and these points are two wildly different things. @Hyperstrike, you hit the nail on the head that this development was foreseeable and utterly predictable. 
 

That said, all for a more robust search function for players to locate AE story content. And a big thanks to all the creators/authors of such content. I’ve seen some inspired missions that have been an utter joy to play. 
 

While I’m here, may I redeem one AE coupon for two signature story arcs? Is this the right number.... hello...hello? ....you’re breaking up.... Only between 8 and 4?....But it’s 8:30 now...mountain time?!? ... Is there a supervisor ...*you're* the supervisor?.... I wouldn’t expect a supervisor to use that sort of tone...yes.... uh huh....right.... Fine, I’ll hold *click*
 

 

[mechahamham]

SFMA - Story-focused Mission Architect. This is a tag that non-farm mission authors added and still add to their arcs to differentiate them from farms.

 

Simply searching for the SFMA tag breaks through the crust of farms into the liquid core of quality Mission Architect content. When you create a new, story-focused arc, add SFMA to it. Likewise, encourage farmers to add the 'FARM' tag to their arcs to make them more easily findable.

 

Farming exists. It's a thing. It's a human adaptation to the environment, so in any environment humans wind up in, game or RL, there will be those who want to farm it. In this case, intelligently using the tools given to us allows us to avoid a 'Tragedy of the Commons' situation where the interface is so clogged with farms it becomes unusable for anyone else.

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

I think this is just a bit of an exaggeration.

Not even a little.

I used to be one of the richer players in the game from marketeering.
And there were several people, prominent farmers as well as marketeers who could buy and sell me multiple times over.

[nightroarer]

3 hours ago, mechahamham said:

SFMA - Story-focused Mission Architect. This is a tag that non-farm mission authors added and still add to their arcs to differentiate them from farms.

 

Simply searching for the SFMA tag breaks through the crust of farms into the liquid core of quality Mission Architect content. When you create a new, story-focused arc, add SFMA to it. Likewise, encourage farmers to add the 'FARM' tag to their arcs to make them more easily findable.

 

Farming exists. It's a thing. It's a human adaptation to the environment, so in any environment humans wind up in, game or RL, there will be those who want to farm it. In this case, intelligently using the tools given to us allows us to avoid a 'Tragedy of the Commons' situation where the interface is so clogged with farms it becomes unusable for anyone else.

This is true; I use it in my searchs, and if I get a chance to write missions again, I will use it in my descriptions (I really wish I had saved my mission folder from my old PC).

 

However, I'm not sure everyone who uses the AE or writes AE missions knows about SFMA. It is a great stopgap, but putting in a filter native to the search tool would be better.

[Ukase]

Some interesting thoughts. 

I posted...sometime during this year that it would be good if we took better advantage of AE for story driven content, since the content we do have, other than those new vig/rogue arcs from...page 3, I think it was, are the only new content we've got, outside of AE. I even suggested a contest, promoted by the HC devs. 

I think one thing that would be more easily done is to simply make AE story driven content more rewarding in terms of XP/Inf, along the same lines as non-AE content. 

So, how to distinguish from the farms - let the devs make a ruling on every story that gets 50 votes with 5 stars, or something like that. I would think flagging a given AE arc as "standard reward amount" would be easier than porting the arc to some zone. 

[mechahamham]

10 minutes ago, Ukase said:

So, how to distinguish from the farms - let the devs make a ruling on every story that gets 50 votes with 5 stars, or something like that. I would think flagging a given AE arc as "standard reward amount" would be easier than porting the arc to some zone. 

One of the things that made me think that the star rating system was useless and tagging was the only way to deal with searching was seeing my first '3 stars. Not a farm.' type review back when MA first dropped. It was followed shortly by the 'I don't give anyone five stars' review in terms of 'Yeah, 'stars' ain't gonna work for this at all''.

[Eva Destruction]

The problem with the SFMA tag is that it's player-created and people who don't visit the forums don't know about it.  We need something similar baked into AE.  Every arc must be tagged Story, Farm, or Other (for challenge arcs, RP maps, or whatever) with "other" being the default, and tagging a farm as "story" being reportable as spam.  Yes, that last part is necessary because otherwise the "story" tag will fill up with farms and we'll be right back where we started.

 

Demoting the old Dev's Choice arcs when new Devs Choice arcs were selected was a bad idea, since Dev's Choice are the only stories that give full rewards.  Maybe demote them for a week or two, to bring attention to the new ones, but it's been a month and a half.

 

I do think it would be nice to have an way to have arcs flagged for full rewards without necessarily becoming Dev's Choice; something that doesn't comment on the quality of the arc, just "this is not a farm."  Dev's Choice is always going to be subjective, and there are a lot of arcs that don't line up with the tastes of whoever is making those selections, or just frankly aren't very good, but aren't tuned to give disproportionate rewards so ideally they wouldn't be punished because of farming.  But that's probably way beyond the scope of what a small volunteer team can do.

 

Star ratings are largely useless since first you need people to find and play your arc to rate it.  Going through the SFMA tag, there is less than a page of 5-star arcs with ratings in the double digits.

[Hyperstrike]

16 hours ago, mechahamham said:

One of the things that made me think that the star rating system was useless and tagging was the only way to deal with searching was seeing my first '3 stars. Not a farm.' type review back when MA first dropped. It was followed shortly by the 'I don't give anyone five stars' review in terms of 'Yeah, 'stars' ain't gonna work for this at all''.

Also, what's to stop people from up-voting a farm?
There's enough farmers out there that it's not a horrendous deal to get 50 people to upvote you.

[Coyotedancer]

Nothing to stop a badly-written arc from being upvoted by its creator's friends and SG-mates, either. A hot mess written by a well-known player with a large, supportive SG or an extensive friends-list would likely surpass the star totals of a good but obscure writer's arc faster than we could say "Popularity Contest".