Yes. See above.
Mission Timers - Reopening an old wound with what we know now
- Thread starter spacejumbofudge
- Start date
Yes. See above.
This one winds me up.
There is pretty much no reason for mission timers to tick down while you are offline - you still have the same in game time to complete the mission and you still take the hit in game if you fail.
Timers continuing while offline only hurts players who have less time to play and/or suffer from a higher likelihood of interruption.
In situations where the mission can become invalid due to changing background simulation I suggest the mission fails safe. You don't take a reputation hit but you also can't complete for the reward. If you are hauling cargo then I guess either mark it as stolen or simply remove it. These situations should be pretty rare, stations aren't exactly changing hands every five minutes so trying to benefit from this (if possible at all) would take a very long time and require a significant degree of planning or luck.
For situations where a mission is contingent on other players directly then, fine, yes, having a timer that ticks down offline makes sense. But _currently_ we don't really have anything like that and I really don't think it would prove a problem to manage...
Anyway, as I say, this winds me up.
I find I very seldom have time to play in large contiguous chunks of time so simply miss out on many missions - great.
I'm still enjoying a spot of bounty hunting (non mission based) and some light trading but, you know, this has reduced the game for me which is a tad depressing.
I'll now grit my teeth and try not to get in to an argument about it.. Again..
They could make the timer dependent on the player. You take a mission and you have say, 8 hours to do it in and the countdown starts. When u log off, the counter stops.
Since these missions are entirely random and have no impact on other players then there's no reason to have a timer other than to make you complete the mission - all the missions are centered on the player with absolutely no input from any other source so who gives a stuff about them. There's no reason to keep the timer ticking when you're offline and the first time I took a mission which I had literally hours to complete I didn't realise the time ticked. I logged off, didn't come back for a day and when I logged in was presented with a "your mission expired but you can still do it if you want to" message.
don't you love being penalised for not being able to play a game?
The non existent background simulation.
It was a dumb reason then, it's an even dumber reason now that we understand how meaningless the simulation is. It's a simulation of a simulation lol, it just looks the part.
Even if it was dynamic, unless a system was changing factions during your quest (which is rare), it wouldn't matter. So missions that could be finished 99% of the time fail. How come don't they only fail when appropriate? Bad game design.
There is no good reason what so ever to have the timer. It's a leftover from a time when they thought the universe was going to be more dynamic than it really is. People still defend it because they are biased or not smart, that's it really.
And clearly they have too much time available to play. Sometimes factors outside of the game mean I accept a mission and subsequently have to log-off.
Are there any ramifications to missions expiring (rep. loss)?
So you're in control of FD's random generator now ? You know that in 3h you'll have 8 toxic waste canisters in your cargo hold instead of seen wedding barges and mineral magpie 300 times ? Please ...
And you'll still have the rush since the timer continues to tick while you are playing ! I still don't see a point. To be honest I'd prefer shorter timers but on actual game time, not real time.
This. A minor faction doesn't need you to hunt pirates in three or four months time when you get around to coming online / being bothered. It needs it fairly immediately. Despite comments from some other forum members, the background sim is real and works in approximate real time.
.
There is an argument that certain missions should have longer timers associated with them (because they aren't urgent) - but that's not quite the topic at hand.
How does the background sim work?
That's a really, really weak argument. Let's count how many players will take a mission, log off, stay offline for a month (or even a week), then come back online. Yeah - that won't happen much, when you stop to think about it does it?
Since timers still run when online you will literally have to not play the game at all for this to happen - rare and NOT a problem. Maybe slightly immersion breaking for the player that does go on a month vacation abroad and come back to find the mission still there, but - I repeat - NOT a problem for the game, the "background simulation" or other players.
You're taking my "three or four months" too literally (although I was using hyperbole to emphasis my point, so I'll re-clarify). My point is that at least some of the missions are generated in accordance with a need which is generated by a live system which works in approximate real time. That's why mission timers don't (and shouldn't) stop when you go offline.
Has anyone stating that there would be no background simulation even looked at the minor faction sub panel I mentioned earlier? You can see it all there, current state, pending state and type of faction. The missions and their influence are based on that, you can see that in the statistics after completing them.
That's regarding factions, not missions or anything else. Don't you know yourself then?
A possible solution ?
Mission times out whilst still online = mission fail
Mission times out when offline = mission annulled (no repercussions)
To the simulation and to other player the results would be the same
Mission times out whilst still online = mission fail
Mission times out when offline = mission annulled (no repercussions)
To the simulation and to other player the results would be the same
As far as I know, they're intertwined. Factions issue at least some of their missions according to their needs (faction state) - and that certainly fits with my own experience of the game.
I personally don't care how it impacts the background simulation, I stopped accepting missions because I generally get ten to twenty minutes here and there over the course of an evening to play. Being an adult with responsibilities sucks.
I either do a bit of bounty hunting, a bit of exploration, or do a few trade loops.
I say stop mission countdown while offline. For the typical USS/delivery mission, if the mission reward/objective is no longer valid when the player completes the mission give them whatever monetary reward was expected but ignore any reputation gain/loss.
I don't mind if truly IMPORTANT missions have real-time timers, most MMOs have these timed missions, but for the vast majority of piddling little crap I can't see the point.
I either do a bit of bounty hunting, a bit of exploration, or do a few trade loops.
I say stop mission countdown while offline. For the typical USS/delivery mission, if the mission reward/objective is no longer valid when the player completes the mission give them whatever monetary reward was expected but ignore any reputation gain/loss.
I don't mind if truly IMPORTANT missions have real-time timers, most MMOs have these timed missions, but for the vast majority of piddling little crap I can't see the point.
Second, a faction doesn’t need me to kill 3 pirates now or ever, the mission generators make no sense. The reasons behind them make no sense. While the effects of them seem to make a bit of sense on the local faction, the mission you did makes none. I just pick whatever is giving me money, who cares what faction it is.
Kill 3 traders? Fetch 4 tons of grain? Deliver a message? Only it does in increase or decreas faction influence and system stability. When you have thousands of systems who cares when one goes civil war? They’re all the same anyeay.
I took a kill 5 pirates mission last night. I killed about 15 because I still had ammo left. Pirates kept coming, flying up to me and saying ‘what cargo do you carry’ in their little shieldless Eagles. And they would have kept coming if I had stayed there. These missions are nothing but fluff.
Having the timer continue when you are offline only punishes players who don’t have time to have long playing sessions or have other things in their life they that are a priority over this stupid ‘backround simulation’.
To have the timer stop when you log off punishes no one but you get these people trying to argue against it because of ‘immersion’ or something ridiculous. Another terrible design decision in a terrible execution of an online only game.
And if these somewhat nebulous numbers and states were (a) able to make a meaningful difference to the game, and (b) able to do so without direct manual intervention by one of the dev team, then maybe you might have an argument that a rudimentary background simulation might possibly exist