Everything I try lets me down.

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

So, piracy hasn't had much love, and as such I decided to try bounty hunting. Hey, it did get a huge buff in 1.2, and missions got a buff in 1.3, so why not?

I bought a decent FdL (D/C grade, four gimballed pulse, C3 fixed cannon), and decided to test the waters with a novice assassination mission. I flew to the target system and found my target. He was "mostly harmless", but flew with an elite's skill and equipment, and had a wing with a dangerous Vulture, and a Viper.

You call that a novice mission!?

I could not, for the life of me, complete it in one go. I decided to bunker down and solve this, use intuition. I decided that I would kill the Vulture first, repair, kill the Viper, repair, and then kill the Python. Nope!

After killing the Vulture, I left with about 33% hull left. I repaired at the nearby outpost, and when back into supercruise to find the rest of them. Guess who had used the damned dragon balls! The Vulture!

I dove in again, deciding that with my months of combat experience (including many an assassination), powerful ship and bravery, I should be able to get past this. I just fled again with 19% hull, no kills, and 5 ships chasing me (2 police Vipers appeared). This is ridiculous. A month and a half after 1.3 releases, and a gargantuan issue like this is left untouched!?

I want to trip my hair out! This game had such direction! How is it going to recover? People are leaving left and right, and I might just join them. I'm sickened.


EDIT: So, tried it one last time, the Python had actually lost the Vulture magically, as if the servers took ages to update, and I was able to kill both it and the Viper. Then, i went back to the station where I picked it up, turned it in, and accepted a "Truth will out!" assassination. It was rated mostly harmless.

I traveled to the target system, and it was another Python, guarded by an Eagle and Sidewinder. I easily ignored the Eagle/Sidey, and the Python was actually an easy-ish kill. I don't think an Eagle pilot would be able to do it (probably what most "mostly harmless" pilots fly). He'd probably still get obliterated. Why aren't Harmless/Mostly Harmless mission against Vipers, Cobras, and DBS's? new players won't be able to do that.

EDIT: I'll just keep it a a tiny bit positive. I like what SJA's done with combat.

 

[Lord Momo]

Yeah I am still having fun with ED but that is only because I took a couple months break and now the combat is fresh and fun again to me at least, though to anyone that has played this game since release, I would say will start to agree with you, the game is starting to deviate from the intended emergent galaxy, and with the next big patch dedicated to a console pew pew mini game and ignoring the glaring lack of content, profession fixes and bugs, I hope Fdev gets back on track soon.

 

[Jason S]

Oh sounds bad, try another mission ?

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

Oh sounds bad, try another mission ?

I tested other assassination missions in 1.3 beta, specifically harmless ones, and they were just as bad.

 

[drhay53]

I would definitely kill the Viper first, if possible, but it sounds like you need shields and SCB? I don't know. I've had a D rated python with mostly turrets and I've never had any problems with the assassination missions.

I'm not trying to put you down. Just saying, with low-rated gear sometimes turrets maximize your time-on-target; and I always kill the easiest to kill ships first. The vulture is the hardest to kill among the three you listed. That means the whole time you're trying to kill them, the other 2 are just beating on you. So I'd go Viper/Python Vulture, but the Python is your target, so the Vulture might even run after that.

 

[Asp Explorer]

I'm sickened.

Would you be sickened if the mission had instead asked you to "Blow up five complete n00bs in beginner Sidewinders - and you get extra points for lulzramming"?

 

[RafeZetter]

People are leaving left and right, and I might just join them.

I know of quite a few now that will not play again mainly because they find it hard to team up, and as for me well I never expected much from the game except boredom and frustration but like the original Elite.. but we all got a bonus with the fantastic graphics and for me that's what keeps me here.
However, Elite Dangerous IMO is not should not try to be a multiplayer game and if it was not for the exploration side I too might have left.

Like you said the missions are not good and even when to complete one it means nothing but more credits, the game needs more missions that give you more to look forward too like ship addon's that you can't buy in the shop and maybe the discovery of new things like wormholes unaccessible until you complete the mission etc.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

Would you be sickened if the mission had instead asked you to "Blow up five complete n00bs in beginner Sidewinders - and you get extra points for lulzramming"?

I, err, don't get the sarcasm (I've been awake for far too long, ), but yes.

 

[Asp Explorer]

I, err, don't get the sarcasm (I've been awake for far too long, ), but yes.

So NPC battles are at a level where the deployed ships, equipment, and their AI is at a challenging level above that of complete n00bs in beginner Sidewinders? I'd call that a good thing

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

I know of quite a few now that will not play again mainly because they find it hard to team up, and as for me well I never expected much from the game except boredom and frustration but like the original Elite.. but we all got a bonus with the fantastic graphics and for me that's what keeps me here.
However, Elite Dangerous IMO is not should not try to be a multiplayer game and if it was not for the exploration side I too might have left.

Like you said the missions are not good and even when to complete one it means nothing but more credits, the game needs more missions that give you more to look forward too like ship addon's that you can't buy in the shop and maybe the discovery of new things like wormholes unaccessible until you complete the mission etc.

I'd like branching missions. Missions where I can, say, join a wing of NPC pirates and stop that special T7 that's passing through the system at 0500 hours, and if I complete the mission with enough tonnes scooped, or a good survivability rating, then I could contact those pirates again, and start to form a network of contatcs. Oh wait, did i just talk about the DDF? That old thing?

We were told that FD had been working on the new missions system since launch, and I was so immensely excited for it, and what did we get?

More groundwork. More foundation.

- - - Updated - - -

So NPC battles are at a level where the deployed ships, equipment, and their AI is at a challenging level above that of complete n00bs in beginner Sidewinders? I'd call that a good thing

It's not simply above that of a n00bs, it's above that of a player in a powerful ship with nearly of year of experience. I would understand that mission 1000% if it was a Dangerous mission or better, but someone could be handing that out to a Viper pilot. That's just evil.

Plus, it's broken. Magically respawning hulls and wingmates after reinstancing.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Plus, it's broken. Magically respawning hulls and wingmates after reinstancing.

Instances are only persistant if there are consistent players in that same instance to allow others to re-join it. Leaving and re-entering an instance on your own gives you a brand-new instance - at least as far as my tests show. I don't play with wings though, so maybe their results are different.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

Instances are only persistant if there are consistent players in that same instance to allow others to re-join it. Leaving and re-entering an instance on your own gives you a brand-new instance - at least as far as my tests show. I don't play with wings though, so maybe their results are different.

No, that is what I said, you're right. The problem is, the NPCs aren't persistent. If I outright murdered his wingmate, he shouldn't come back to life, you'd need an Ouija board to even contact him. But yet, he's there.

In the space of time it took me to land at the outpost about 0.16 Ls away, rearm, repair and refuel, he would still be en route to his destination, and thus couldn't have repaired his craft.

But he did.

 

[Darrett]

This is one of the parts of the mission system that needs a lot of work. Missions need to be balanced for combat ranking, flagged if they're intended for wings, and give an indication of the ship type the enemy flies prior to taking it.

Missions really should be a full time job for some folks at FD for a while.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

This is one of the parts of the mission system that needs a lot of work. Missions need to be balanced for combat ranking, flagged if they're intended for wings, and give an indication of the ship type the enemy flies prior to taking it.

Missions really should be a full time job for some folks at FD for a while.

Agreed. About wing missions, AFAIK they don't exist. If there could be wing-specific missions as well, that would be awesome. Each person would need X combat rank, and the reward would be equally split.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Did you report it as a bug then? Because it certainly sounds like a bug.

I keep meaning to profile some of the exporation missions because i think there are bugs there as well... for example: Exploration misison. Rank required: Elite. Reward: 20,000. Erm... right. Someone doesn't appreciate elite explorers much then.

The new mission system does seem like it needs work in some areas with regards to scaling, so more people who submit reports of wonky missions will help raise the profile of the problem.

 

[Darrett]

Agreed. About wing missions, AFAIK they don't exist. If there could be wing-specific missions as well, that would be awesome. Each person would need X combat rank, and the reward would be equally split.

I've always assumed that the missions where the target has multiple wingmen are intended for wings. Could be in just not skilled enough, though, or it expects me to have a ship bigger than a Scout at Master rank.

 

[Steve72]

These harmless missions have another thread. Someone also thought to tough for being harmless. Are the lower paid. Ie under 50k missions more suited.

Load out appears to be everything in fdl. Boosters and shield cells def help due to poor firepower of fdl. As said in different thread. Stick a large laser on huge point and this may help. The first time I took one of these in fdl like you I struggled untill changed load out.

Want to do missions easier? Get a python. That is easy mode even with 3large pulse and 2cannons.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yep, I think the issue is the FDL. The huge hardpoint sounds good but it's so hard to use in combat - you end up relying on the 4 mediums and those don't add up to 1 large IMO. You would've probably aced it in a Vulture.

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

Problem with this game is its in space.

FD havent gotten around to putting anything in between the stars, planets, and stations other than some containers. This means that unless you somehow get your targets to spawn in or around an asteroid belts... You'll meet your targets in the middle of nothing. You cant take cover behind nothing and they also havent got around to NPC wingmen.

 

[Faded Glory]

[snip]

I bought a decent FdL (D/C grade, four gimballed pulse, C3 fixed cannon), and decided to test the waters with a novice assassination mission. I flew to the target system and found my target. He was "mostly harmless", but flew with an elite's skill and equipment, and had a wing with a dangerous Vulture, and a Viper.

You call that a novice mission!?

.

It's certainly true that even the lower rank NPCs, especially in the bigger ships, seem to punch above their weight. I think SJA is still balancing that, we'll have to wait and see.

Assassination missions certainly aren't pushovers, especially if you have to take down a target with a wing. I think a lot of the time, we've got used to being one of a number of ships attacking a target, at a RES or a nav beacon, and now the boot is on the other foot, we're the solo guy, having to take on multiple enemies, it's a different game.

One thing about your build, I think you are using class 2 pulses? I know that if I take on a large ship, especially an Anaconda in my Courier, it is almost impossible for me to defeat that ship as the class 2 weapons don't do that much damage to a larger ship, so I get into my Vulture, and my single class 3 beam and C3 cannon do significantly more damage, and usually let me get the better of the large ship before my shields go down.

The issue with NPC non persistence is of course frustrating, but will presumably be addressed in time. I even had one instance where I had to retreat and go back later only to find my target was actually a different rank. Nonetheless, the fact that you can often find your target in SC is a big improvement, and certainly less gamey than having to drop into every USS you come across.

Time was, not long ago that NPCs were derided, now we have to think a bit about them, and maybe they won't be a pushover. I guess people are getting what they asked for.