Applying the Penny Yin TF Template

[MsSmart]

Awesome, now we are talking and having progress... Thank you

[Rudra]

16 minutes ago, MsSmart said:

Awesome, now we are talking and having progress... Thank you

Dumb question: What makes the most recent comment progress but every other comment saying the same thing not?

[Psi-bolt]

On 9/20/2025 at 9:03 PM, Rudra said:

I can support reviewing and adjusting the longer TFs, but knocking them all down to 4 missions? You're going to lose a lot of story that way, not just filler. So, no, I don't support the OP.

 

You would lose NO story from Synapse.   Synapse has two goals, stop the plot to divert power to the Clockwork King and then defeat the King.  You absolutely could condense that to 4 missions.  

[Psi-bolt]

22 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Here's the thing with gamers in general.  They talk about "choice."  If there's a quick, easy road, and then a long road, gamers will 99.9% of the time pick the quick, easy road, but say that the long road is there for others who want to use it.  But then they'll start trying to force everyone to use the quick and easy road "because it respects my time" or some other such nonsense, and soon, if you want to play with others, there's no choice at all.

 

No thank you.

 

It's interesting, we have a real life example of this right now.  Positron and Sister Psyche are there on Ouro right now.  Certainly, the revamped Positron parts 1 and 2 and the Penny Yin TF are significantly more popular than the originals.   But the originals still get done.  There is a player named Blapparella on Excelsior who recruits for both quite regularly and has both TF down to a science.  She fills in a few minutes each time.   Nothing stops other players from doing them as well.   I have done so.

 

The thing about revamping all the old Freedom Phalanx sequence (although I don't think Manticore or Numina really need it) is that the originals would go into Ouroboros.  Thus creating MORE content for both team focused and solo players.   Sister Psyche for example allows you to fight Clamor as an EB and it's not a bad "prequel" to Penny Yin to do solo. 

 

So, while I would agree that if Citadel were revamped then the revamped TF would see much more use, it's just plainly incorrect to say that the choice would eventually be gone.  It wouldn't.  By any measure, options would increase. 

[Lunar Ronin]

9 hours ago, biostem said:

I'm not sure what exploit you are referring to, but I never used any such thing AFAIK.  You still seem to be making this about you - I see you haven't acknowledged any consideration for the time of your teammates.  If you join a "speed TF", and decide to impede things, then that's on you, no different than joining a "KM TF" and deciding to speed it on your own.  I also didn't see you mention how you were willing to step up and lead teams "the correct way", (or at least your interpretation of that).  For my part, I saw how others were running teams/TFs/farms, made mental notes, and have taken to running that content how I want to, being very clear about what I expect and what others should expect from me.  You think you've identified a problem, so take steps to remedy it!

 

What are you talking about?  If I join a speed TF, I speed.  If I join a kill most TF, I kill most.  But most of the time, I lead.  TFs, SFs, raids, trials...  You name it, and I've led it.

 

I'm speaking from years of experience.  During the base macro exploit era, when I led PUG teams, people assumed that I was a great big dumb dumb and must not know about the exploit because I refused to use it.  They would use the base macro and get to missions sometimes minutes before I could, and almost finish it.  Their time was more important than mine, even though I led.

 

Now, if I lead a kill most PUG TF/SF that is level 45+, odds are good that one or two people on the team will decide that respecting their time is more important than my and others' fun and zoom off even though I clearly labeled the TF/SF/Trial as a kill most before starting.  Again, they try to force convenience and speed on everyone else.  That is before they get kicked, anyhoo.

 

I used to lead Incarnate trials on Excelsior on occasion, years ago.  Not naming names, but there were a couple of other Incarnate trial leaders who used to have friends on the league go and break maps, and teleport the league around the map with Incandescence Destiny every couple of minutes to speed run it.  I stopped going to their trials because I didn't care for that.  No big deal.  But then a couple of people started demanding that I do the same thing with my Incarnate trials.  Again, trying to force speed.  That's when I left Excelsior and left Homecoming for over a year.

 

If you make speed and convenience an option, eventually (sooner than later), players will try to shove it down everyone else's throats, like it or not.  Team or league leader or not. 

[Rudra]

44 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

 

You would lose NO story from Synapse.   Synapse has two goals, stop the plot to divert power to the Clockwork King and then defeat the King.  You absolutely could condense that to 4 missions.  

By that logic we can condense all the TFs down to 1 mission each. Synapse: Go to Clockwork King and beat him up. Manticore: Got to Crey and beat up Countess Crey. The story is not the end objective of the TF. The story is how you get to it and what you uncover along the way.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Gerswin said:

Numina and Manti are pretty short already.  

Numina used to be much longer, back really early in the game when people would run the defeat [group] missions as a team, taking the whole team to the zone under the more-or-less mistaken premise that, as a group, you'd clear the defeat count faster -- which ignored the travel time. Of course, it did have the advantage of the old Faultline, so finding the Vahzilok there was enormously easier, but that's only one zone.

[MsSmart]

14 minutes ago, Rudra said:

By that logic we can condense all the TFs down to 1 mission each. Synapse: Go to Clockwork King and beat him up. Manticore: Got to Crey and beat up Countess Crey. The story is not the end objective of the TF. The story is how you get to it and what you uncover along the way.

Psi-bolt made a valuable point, showing that there are multiple views on the same thing, and you still refuse to make room. Then you really go out of your way with taking things out of proportion to justify that its your way or the highway attitude. Come on Rudra, you come across as a rather smart individual, why not open your mind to other ways of thinking playing, and enjoying the game?

[Rudra]

39 minutes ago, MsSmart said:

Psi-bolt made a valuable point, showing that there are multiple views on the same thing, and you still refuse to make room. Then you really go out of your way with taking things out of proportion to justify that its your way or the highway attitude. Come on Rudra, you come across as a rather smart individual, why not open your mind to other ways of thinking playing, and enjoying the game?

Let me restate this because you seem to either have missed the previous two times I stated it or are choosing to ignore it: I have no problems with the TFs being reviewed and adjusted. Want me to say it again? Maybe bold it, italicize it, and make it font size 72? I know there are TFs that have an excess of missions in them, like Synapse. (Even if Synapse is the shorter version of that arc.) I have no problems with filler missions being removed from TFs and SFs, and multiple TFs do have filler missions that were put in them to pad out the arc and try to make them feel more epic, but instead just make them feel overly long. I do have a problem with just willy nilly cutting all TFs and SFs down to just 4 missions. Because a large part of those stories is figuring out who is doing what and why, and then doing something about it. And to give a clear story that shows that, you are going to need enough missions to show it without making the entire story line for that TF feel truncated and cut off like most AE story arcs feel.

 

Edit: And no, the TF or SF contact just omnisciently knowing that you need to go to Location A and take down Villain B, then move to Location C and take down AV D, done, good job, here's your badge, is not a story. And MMORPGs are stories we play through.

 

Edited 17 hours ago by Rudra

[MsSmart]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Let me restate this because you seem to either have missed the previous two times I stated it or are choosing to ignore it: I have no problems with the TFs being reviewed and adjusted. Want me to say it again? Maybe bold it, italicize it, and make it font size 72? I know there are TFs that have an excess of missions in them, like Synapse. (Even if Synapse is the shorter version of that arc.) I have no problems with filler missions being removed from TFs and SFs, and multiple TFs do have filler missions that were put in them to pad out the arc and try to make them feel more epic, but instead just make them feel overly long. I do have a problem with just willy nilly cutting all TFs and SFs down to just 4 missions. Because a large part of those stories is figuring out who is doing what and why, and then doing something about it. And to give a clear story that shows that, you are going to need enough missions to show it without making the entire story line for that TF feel truncated and cut off like most AE story arcs feel.

 

Edit: And no, the TF or SF contact just omnisciently knowing that you need to go to Location A and take down Villain B, then move to Location C and take down AV D, done, good job, here's your badge, is not a story. And MMORPGs are stories we play through.

 

Thank you, appreciate the clarification. Once more, thank you

[MsSmart]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Let me restate this because you seem to either have missed the previous two times I stated it or are choosing to ignore it: I have no problems with the TFs being reviewed and adjusted. Want me to say it again? Maybe bold it, italicize it, and make it font size 72? I know there are TFs that have an excess of missions in them, like Synapse. (Even if Synapse is the shorter version of that arc.) I have no problems with filler missions being removed from TFs and SFs, and multiple TFs do have filler missions that were put in them to pad out the arc and try to make them feel more epic, but instead just make them feel overly long. I do have a problem with just willy nilly cutting all TFs and SFs down to just 4 missions. Because a large part of those stories is figuring out who is doing what and why, and then doing something about it. And to give a clear story that shows that, you are going to need enough missions to show it without making the entire story line for that TF feel truncated and cut off like most AE story arcs feel.

 

Edit: And no, the TF or SF contact just omnisciently knowing that you need to go to Location A and take down Villain B, then move to Location C and take down AV D, done, good job, here's your badge, is not a story. And MMORPGs are stories we play through.

 

Thank you, appreciate the clarification. Once more, thank you

[Psi-bolt]

12 hours ago, Rudra said:

By that logic we can condense all the TFs down to 1 mission each. Synapse: Go to Clockwork King and beat him up. Manticore: Got to Crey and beat up Countess Crey. The story is not the end objective of the TF. The story is how you get to it and what you uncover along the way.

 

As I stated, Synapse has two goals.   You could condense that without losing story.  That proposition is readily apparent to anyone who has read the story for Synapse so you decided to argue against another proposition (reducing everything down to 1 mission) that wasn't stated by me or anyone else. 

 

But just for laughs, let's play out your strawman.   Let's say you're right and we could condense Synapse down to one mission.   The story is so thin, that may not be the worst thing.  But you know, we already have an example of a very short snappy TF that people love and is run quite regularly.   The Apex TF.  Despite technically being two missions, the second mission is really just a boss fight.   The first mission is the meat of the TF in saving King's Row.   

 

What if Synapse were reduced to one big mission that has you moving through various parts of Steel Canyon like Apex.  Perhaps in the first area you stop a group of Clockwork who are attacking the University looking for something.  Next you enter a service door to the powerstation and stop them from diverting power to the King.  Finally, exiting the powerstation, you do a boss rush of Bertha, Long Tom, the Clockwork Lord, and the Clockwork King in a tunnel on the way to Skyway.  After exiting the TF Babbage attacks you.

 

There you go Rudra.  One mission.  Honestly, good idea.  I like the way you think! 😁 

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

 

As I stated, Synapse has two goals.   You could condense that without losing story.  That proposition is readily apparent to anyone who has read the story for Synapse so you decided to argue against another proposition (reducing everything down to 1 mission) that wasn't stated by me or anyone else. 

 

But just for laughs, let's play out your strawman.   Let's say you're right and we could condense Synapse down to one mission.   The story is so thin, that may not be the worst thing.  But you know, we already have an example of a very short snappy TF that people love and is run quite regularly.   The Apex TF.  Despite technically being two missions, the second mission is really just a boss fight.   The first mission is the meat of the TF in saving King's Row. 

 

Funny. Nowhere in my one mission comment did I say anyone said to condense TFs to one mission. What I said was that by the logic you gave, that Synapse only has 2 goals and we can condense the TF down to that, then we can simply condense every TF down to just their specific goal. It was exaggeration to make a point. I haven't done an Apex. So I have no idea what the story is there and how the missions present that story. But now I see I have to clarify my point to you too, so here we go.

 

A TF/SF is a specific story. Stories require multiple steps to develop and be understood. Video game stories are presented as series of missions. If you reduce those stories to just the goals, you lose the story or you truncate it into something that makes little to no sense.

 

3 hours ago, Psi-bolt said:

What if Synapse were reduced to one big mission that has you moving through various parts of Steel Canyon like Apex.  Perhaps in the first area you stop a group of Clockwork who are attacking the University looking for something.  Next you enter a service door to the powerstation and stop them from diverting power to the King.  Finally, exiting the powerstation, you do a boss rush of Bertha, Long Tom, the Clockwork Lord, and the Clockwork King in a tunnel on the way to Skyway.  After exiting the TF Babbage attacks you.

That completely takes away the story of that arc and condenses it to a few fights waiting for you. Sure, Synapse can send you to stop the Clockwork attacking the university. And now you just jumped straight to Synapse knows you need to stop the Clockwork from diverting power to the Clockwork King with nothing linking that to the previous attack. Followed by the happy coincidence of the Clockwork are just lined up in a tunnel to fight as guide straight to Skyway, Babbage waiting for you, and the Clockwork King fight. That isn't a story. That is an old school side scroller beat 'em up game. No one has to know anything or find anything out, nothing develops plot-wise, just a string of waiting enemies on the literal road to the stage's end boss: the Clockwork King.

[Psi-bolt]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

I haven't done an Apex. So I have no idea what the story is there and how the missions present that story. But now I see I have to clarify my point to you too, so here we go.

 

A TF/SF is a specific story. Stories require multiple steps to develop and be understood. Video game stories are presented as series of missions. If you reduce those stories to just the goals, you lose the story or you truncate it into something that makes little to no sense.

 

The story of the Apex task force is to repel the Praetorians attack on Kings Row and Steel Canyon.   It's a really cool TF that has you start in a section of Kings Row that is under attack by the Praetorians.  Next you move into the sewers to destroy some pylons.  Finally, in the first mission you end up by the Paragon Penny and repel the force attacking Kings Row.  In the next mission you're flown to Steel Canyon but your helicopter is felled by Battle Maiden's magical swords.  After defeating a few of them, you defeat Battle Maiden in the square where Valkyrie stands in Steel Canyon.

 

The point is to repel the Praetorians.  Apex's twin, the Tin Mage TF has you more or less doing the same thing but you start in the Rogue Isles.   They are simple goals, but both Task Forces have more story elements than the Synapse TF.   The story follows good creative writing in that it "shows it doesn't [just] tell" you what's going on.   When you log into Apex's TF a war is going on.  You're there to stop it.   You feel the emergency in a way that you don't on older TFs that send you to random maps.  If you haven't done it, it's worth doing.  

 

There's a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet that goes, "Brevity is the soul of wit."  You really see that in the later Task Forces, where the developers moved away from boring kill-all maps just to have an NPC tell you, "Here's a clue, go to the next map and beat up everyone there."   You're right that a TF is a story, but that story doesn't need 10 missions with 5 kill-all maps to tell that story.

 

Quote

That is an old school side scroller beat 'em up game. No one has to know anything or find anything out, nothing develops plot-wise, just a string of waiting enemies on the literal road to the stage's end boss: the Clockwork King.

 

Let's be honest here, the content that we're discussing might as well be this.  Some TF/SF (especially the red side ones) really are a story.   But many of the longest Task Forces are tied together with barely anything happening in most missions purely to pad out the runtime.   The length of the TF is not particularly correlated to whether the story is well developed.

 

Penny Yin's Task Force or the Imperious Task Force actually tell a more complex story than the Synapse TF in less than half the number of missions.  Like most of the later TFs these TFs use completely unique maps, with a the pathing being part of the story itself.  Penny Yin is a more engaging follow up to Sister Psyche because of the unique elements and lack of filler.  For example, in Sister Psyche you fight Clamor in a random sewer map, where with Penny it's in Terra Volta in a scripted fight.  

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

The story of the Apex task force is to repel the Praetorians attack on Kings Row and Steel Canyon.   It's a really cool TF that has you start in a section of Kings Row that is under attack by the Praetorians.  Next you move into the sewers to destroy some pylons.  Finally, in the first mission you end up by the Paragon Penny and repel the force attacking Kings Row.  In the next mission you're flown to Steel Canyon but your helicopter is felled by Battle Maiden's magical swords.  After defeating a few of them, you defeat Battle Maiden in the square where Valkyrie stands in Steel Canyon.

 

The point is to repel the Praetorians.  Apex's twin, the Tin Mage TF has you more or less doing the same thing but you start in the Rogue Isles.   They are simple goals, but both Task Forces have more story elements than the Synapse TF.   The story follows good creative writing in that it "shows it doesn't [just] tell" you what's going on.   When you log into Apex's TF a war is going on.  You're there to stop it.   You feel the emergency in a way that you don't on older TFs that send you to random maps.  If you haven't done it, it's worth doing.  

 

Okay, so the TF has you blunting an invasion's attack, not having to investigate why something is happening and then deal with it. So a few missions works perfectly well for that. Synapse isn't that nicely wrapped up because the Clockwork King isn't invading anything requiring direct force to stop, he is running his scheme that you need to uncover and stop.

 

37 minutes ago, Psi-bolt said:

Let's be honest here, the content that we're discussing might as well be this.  Some TF/SF (especially the red side ones) really are a story.   But many of the longest Task Forces are tied together with barely anything happening in most missions purely to pad out the runtime.   The length of the TF is not particularly correlated to whether the story is well developed.

Yes, the older TFs have a lot of filler there to pad them out. And for the umpteenth time, yes, I am good with removing the filler. Yes, I am good with reviewing and updating the TFs. Especially if it helps make the story clearer. What you are pitching though isn't cleaning up the story and removing excess padding. You seem dead set on reducing TFs to 4 missions per the OP and nothing else can be accepted. And you lose the story if you do that. Clean up TFs and remove unnecessary filler? Great, I support that. Make the TFs as short as possible so you can just pop in, be done, and walk off with the badge and to hell with the story like the OP presented? No. (And in case you decide to argue that is not what the OP said? It says ", but if you want a short and quick beat them up for fun or just need the badge...". It very specifically throws out the story.) (Edit: Longer quote: "choice at the mission giver to do the TF the regular way or have the Penny Yin way, this way if you are trying to level or feel more immersed on the story take the normal path, but if you want a short and quick beat them up for fun or just need the badge...". So literally the OP is asking to take away the story and just grab the badge.)

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Rudra

[Spectre7878]

I can see everyone’s opinion on this topic. Yin tf is by far the shortest and most streamlined tf. 
 

I for one would like a tf to stay in the zone it starts in. Some have you going all over the place. Which can be a pain in the butt. Like Posi 2 tf. Just be in faultline. 
 

One thing I would love to see changed would be the Numina tf hunts. I wish the full hunt list would pop up in the ui and the team can spread out and kill there targets all at the same time. 

[Psi-bolt]

58 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Okay, so the TF has you blunting an invasion's attack, not having to investigate why something is happening and then deal with it. So a few missions works perfectly well for that. Synapse isn't that nicely wrapped up because the Clockwork King isn't invading anything requiring direct force to stop, he is running his scheme that you need to uncover and stop.

 

Yes, the older TFs have a lot of filler there to pad them out. And for the umpteenth time, yes, I am good with removing the filler. Yes, I am good with reviewing and updating the TFs. Especially if it helps make the story clearer. What you are pitching though isn't cleaning up the story and removing excess padding. You seem dead set on reducing TFs to 4 missions per the OP and nothing else can be accepted. And you lose the story if you do that. Clean up TFs and remove unnecessary filler? Great, I support that. Make the TFs as short as possible so you can just pop in, be done, and walk off with the badge and to hell with the story like the OP presented? No. (And in case you decide to argue that is not what the OP said? It says ", but if you want a short and quick beat them up for fun or just need the badge...". It very specifically throws out the story.) (Edit: Longer quote: "choice at the mission giver to do the TF the regular way or have the Penny Yin way, this way if you are trying to level or feel more immersed on the story take the normal path, but if you want a short and quick beat them up for fun or just need the badge...". So literally the OP is asking to take away the story and just grab the badge.)

 

 

I never said anything about reducing all TFs to 4 missions.  Both Manticore and Numina have more than 4 missions, but I'm on record as saying that both are fine as they are.  Citing myself:

 

Quote

The thing about revamping all the old Freedom Phalanx sequence (although I don't think Manticore or Numina really need it) is that the originals would go into Ouroboros. 

 

But heck, 2 missions would be fine if the story can be told in that length.  I don't care about the number of missions.  It can be 6 or in certain cases more, if there's a story based reason for that.  But most of these long TFs don't even have enough of a story to worry about.

 

Now primarily, my concern is with two specific Task Forces in the game:  Synapse and Citadel.   There is absolutely no story based reason for either of those TFs to take 10 and 9 missions respectively.  I have noticed that you don't even argue that those can't be shortened.  You just keep saying that you would lose story.   I'll note that you didn't make this argument in the thread I started about reducing Synapse's filler even though you did post there.  I'm sorta guessing that this is just forum PvP for you, which is great because I prefer that this stay on the radar.  

Edited 38 minutes ago by Psi-bolt