Why the 2.1 Mission Revamp Will Disappoint Me

[Kylby36]

So just to get rid of any confusion, because some of you enjoy twisting words to make it sound better for yourselves, this is the summary of my post.


ED is taking in the step in the right direction, but there is a lot that can still be done to improve the missions. In this thread, I am only talking about a SMALL part of 2.1, which is the mission "revamp". Everything else is a great addition to the game and I love it. Based on the amount of work it takes to create good missions with procedural generation, I can almost guarantee missions will not be up to expectations that will be met in the future with some time. There will be more variety in missions, but we'll have to wait and see how exactly they turn out. Hopefully it won't be bring x amount to this station, or kill x amount of people and come back to the station. So will I be disappointed with the missions in 2.1? Yes. Personally I will be. If you guys aren't that's fine, whatever. But again, a good step in the right direction with lots of room to improve the actual content of the missions.

And just to be clear, I'm basing this information off of what WE CURRENTLY KNOW. I will update the thread or take anything back that I said if what I experience from the beta is different than what I said. But for now I'm sticking to it until I see otherwise.

 

[Michael Brookes]

So just to get rid of any confusion, because some of you enjoy twisting words to make it sound better for yourselves, this is the summary of my post.


ED is taking in the step in the right direction, but there is a lot that can still be done to improve the missions. In this thread, I am only talking about a SMALL part of 2.1, which is the mission "revamp". Everything else is a great addition to the game and I love it. Based on the amount of work it takes to create good missions with procedural generation, I can almost guarantee missions will not be up to expectations that will be met in the future with some time. So will I be disappointed with the missions in 2.1? Yes. Personally I will be. If you guys aren't that's fine, whatever. But again, a good step in the right direction with lots of room to improve the actual content of the missions.

And just to be clear, I'm basing this information off of what WE CURRENTLY KNOW.

Personally I hope you're not disappointed 2.1 The Engineers does bring a massive amount of changes to missions, but it isn't the end! Missions are one of the core components that will keep evolving as the game does.

Michael

 

[Iskariot]

I can't argue with people who think that every thread that is posted that criticizes an update is "whining". I'm sorry you don't have logic?

Logic? Says the one who is criticizing an update that has not been released yet.

I don't believe I was asking for a large campaign with a story driven purpose. If you would have read my first post instead of just looking at the title, you would know that a story driven campaign is FAR from what I even suggested.

You are right. I exaggerated. When I wrote that I was also thinking about some other similar complaints in other threads.
I just wanted to emphasize that it is wrong to expect certain things of a PG mission system.

Also, telling someone to go play a different game just because you don't agree? Really? Let's be adults please.

If expectations can't be fulfilled what else can you do?
I stop playing games all the time myself when they disappoint me.
Nothing wrong with that.

And I CAN assume that from the past, FD will most likely follow that exact path because PG is part of the game. I'll be disappointed. However, regardless of PG it can still be improved in time. Like I said before, there's a lot of work to be done before the missions are considered fun, but it is a step in the right direction.

I do agree that it can be improved, but perhaps not in the time we think it should be.
And as FD is the developer and not we... they might have completely different ideas about where the mission system is going.
In the end it is their game. There's very little we can do about that.
I think we are very lucky that they are as responsive as they are.
I also think they will do whatever they can to make this the best Elite game ever. As far as I am concerned it already is now.

I just felt that it was a bit premature to complain about an unreleased update.

 

[ZenZak]

@OP why don't you wait and see before judging ,you might be pleasantly surprised-)

 

[Soopyyy]

Personally I hope you're not disappointed 2.1 The Engineers does bring a massive amount of changes to missions, but it isn't the end! Missions are one of the core components that will keep evolving as the game does.

Michael

Mr.Brookes, will we ever be able to actually enlist within the active military so that we can receive a wage so long as we follow the orders they give us?

 

[Kylby36]

Personally I hope you're not disappointed 2.1 The Engineers does bring a massive amount of changes to missions, but it isn't the end! Missions are one of the core components that will keep evolving as the game does.

Michael

Yeah like I said, the rest of 2.1 I'm 100% confident that I'll enjoy. Particularly the new looks to rings around planets with the addition of ice mining, as well as the customization on ships. Never disappointed me when it comes to completely new content being introduced to the game.

Glad to hear that missions are definitely important to you guys though. Regardless of how the missions actually turn out in 2.1, it is absolutely a great step in the right direction.



Thank you for the reply!

 

[Michael Brookes]

Mr.Brookes, will we ever be able to actually enlist within the active military so that we can receive a wage so long as we follow the orders they give us?

As I've mentioned before, having proper military careers is something I'd love to see added. When that will happen I don't know yet, but it's on the list.

Michael

 

[Michael Brookes]

Yeah like I said, the rest of 2.1 I'm 100% confident that I'll enjoy. Particularly the new looks to rings around planets with the addition of ice mining, as well as the customization on ships. Never disappointed me when it comes to completely new content being introduced to the game.

Glad to hear that missions are definitely important to you guys though. Regardless of how the missions actually turn out in 2.1, it is absolutely a great step in the right direction.



Thank you for the reply!

It's worth bearing in mind that these things happen in stages. We've had a few mission system upgrades since release, and each one brings new things to the table that we can then build upon. That process will continue.

Michael

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Truth to be told, what I want from 2.1 is more like system revamp, not new missions. We have support for chained ones, we have "hey I have interesting proposal for you" interruptions, etc. I mean mechanics are clearly there. What I want is to work it all together in more expected manner. Also I want more and better chained missions - those in 2.0 were interesting from technical stand point, but less from story telling. There are lot of mechanics in place to flesh it out more and more. We won't be rescuing princesses any time soon, but new type of missions, new ways to interact will come I am sure of it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

As I've mentioned before, having proper military careers is something I'd love to see added. When that will happen I don't know yet, but it's on the list.

Michael

Michael, some clarification needed - so regarding player interaction with minor faction, it seems now your standing with opposite major/minor faction comes into play too right? So it kinda mimics what we will see with military, right?

 

[dannysquid]

Truth to be told, what I want from 2.1 is more like system revamp, not new missions. We have support for chained ones, we have "hey I have interesting proposal for you" interruptions, etc. I mean mechanics are clearly there. What I want is to work it all together in more expected manner. Also I want more and better chained missions - those in 2.0 were interesting from technical stand point, but less from story telling. There are lot of mechanics in place to flesh it out more and more. We won't be rescuing princesses any time soon, but new type of missions, new ways to interact will come I am sure of it.

Making the missions feel like "storytelling" is extremely difficult though. They could write lots of in-depth, characterful stuff, but ELITE chews up content like nothing else. You'd need hundreds of thousands of such scripts before it didn't start feeling repetitive. Procedurally generating meaningful story feels like the way to go, but this sort of thing is a lot easier to ponder in the bath (I say this as somebody who occasionally noodles around with his own game involving procedural storytelling) than it is to actually implement. And add in persistent multi-player complexities and it all starts getting crazy.

 

[Roberto]

As I've mentioned before, having proper military careers is something I'd love to see added. When that will happen I don't know yet, but it's on the list.

Michael

Awesome! I hope one day we'll have campaign medals, and maybe high-end undercover or "joint task force" missions as a more realistic way of obtaining permits from "the other side" than ranking up in two navies simultaneously. Oh, and some kind of ranking system for the Alliance Navy.

But yes – patience

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Making the missions feel like "storytelling" is extremely difficult though. They could write lots of in-depth, characterful stuff, but ELITE chews up content like nothing else. You'd need hundreds of thousands of such scripts before it didn't start feeling repetitive. Procedurally generating meaningful story feels like the way to go, but this sort of thing is a lot easier to ponder in the bath (I say this as somebody who occasionally noodles around with his own game involving procedural storytelling) than it is to actually implement. And add in persistent multi-player complexities and it all starts getting crazy.

I know. That's why I have always felt a bit down when I hear people bashing missions, because I understand what FD tries to achieve here. It's never done before and it is huge task to get this going. I understand they don't see missions as I do - I basically see them as interactions of players with minor factions. I hope adding avatars and better descriptions will help a great deal. In nutshell I am very happy where this is all going. I just hope other players will see this too (because FD made extra effort in 2.1 for them).

 

[Soliluna]

I know. That's why I have always felt a bit down when I hear people bashing missions, because I understand what FD tries to achieve here. It's never done before and it is huge task to get this going. I understand they don't see missions as I do - I basically see them as interactions of players with minor factions. I hope adding avatars and better descriptions will help a great deal. In nutshell I am very happy where this is all going. I just hope other players will see this too (because FD made extra effort in 2.1 for them).

I think what you will get - once you have enough missions, enough persistent NPCs, enough factions, enough assets and the ability for things like stations to be built automatically by the game - and also destroyed, damage, blockaded etc - will be the "story" element for most and it will be dynamic and continuous.

The problem for many at the moment is the lack of tangible effect beyond progress bars and that isn't soon going to change. All the changes in line for 2.1 are a great step, I can't wait to see what comes in the future.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

[h=2]

Why the 2.1 Mission Revamp Will Disappoint Me[/h]

Just to be clear, 2.1 will bring some really nice features to ED that are indeed long overdue. They will be a great addition to ED, and will certainly add some permanent patches to some holes that were desperate to be filled. However, the missions will disappoint me for these reasons.


According to the most recent newsletter from Frontier Developments, it won't be the actual missions that are being revamped. It's the BGS that happens before and after you complete a mission, or the reward you get for doing it that will be getting revamped. We will still see the same boring and bland missions, or an addition of boring and bland missions. The link to this newsletter is here: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...a&e=080f30b4f7


If you scroll down to the info about the missions, they don't actually mention anything about changing the content in the missions, just changing how the missions are projected to you, and that there will be persistent NPCs. Okay, great... Not bad.


However, just because I'm understanding why I'm doing a mission, it doesn't make it fun. Just because I'm slowly making good relations with a small faction, it doesn't make it fun. I don't think the idea of killing x amount of enemies to get this reward, or find x amount of cargo and bring it back to the station is fun. Until something is released about the actual mission while you're doing it, then I will continue to expect to be disappointed.


Now that being said... One way to improve the missions is to have a change of scenery. Since there are instances in the game, it could maybe be possible to randomly generate a small base in the middle of an asteroid field, or on the surface of a planet... So let's say you're hunting someone who is on the top 10 wanted list of the system. They are going to rich, and they are going to have a good ship. You have to lure the criminal out of his base by destroying the base's shields/life support. This shouldn't be very hard to implement considering we have the ability to destroy power generators on surface bases. (You could even have his pirate buddies protecting the base with ships when you assault it) He is then forced to come out of hiding, hop in his ship and confront you. Something as simple as a change in scenery like that would make a mission more satisfying. I grow tired of fighting NPCs in empty space.



For the record FD, what was suggested in the news letter isn't a mission revamp. What was suggested would be an addition to the already boring missions that currently exist.


TLDR:

FD is incorrectly marketing the "mission revamp" feature in 2.1 because they aren't actually doing a revamp of the missions, they are just enhancing the missions by adding reason to do the missions. The actual missions themselves will remain the same.
​

​

I suspect that FD's long term goal is pretty much exactly what you are getting at, but it takes time to make this stuff work, and a step at a time is pretty much it.

We all want the creative stories, and especially if they can be generated "on the fly", and stay cohesive. I suspect that takes a lot more effort than people may realise. ALso, I think it's a bit early to all negative on why one may be disappointed in a feature before even trying it.

I'm lucky enough to have Beta access, and I am quit elooking forward to messing around with the new missions and see how the engineers thing goes - especially seeing as my ship is currently over 50k LY from the bubble, as a good beta showing would motivate me to cut my trip short to get into the into the new content.

Anyway, we shall see, I'm am hopeful that this will be a worthy update.

Z...

Consider this.

Those Scenarious worked out here can only work with persistent NPCs. Otherwise it will come to be grindy again as this base spawn every 10 minutes on the missions board. And after killing 35th of these bases its boring again.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[xondk]

Right but in the past, their terms of variety are the missions we currently have. WHAT makes them more of a variety, ya know?

See, this is an issue, yes, however there are a lot of things you can do, a lot of variety in missions purely objectively compared to other games mission types, the problem is, there is none you find interesting.

And honestly, I don't think this is frontier's fault, I think it is a fault in us as people.

Like when you can have 200+ games in your steam library and still go "I got nothing to play" sort of problem. Which yeah, I don't know how to solve in itself, the solution generally used is 'buy new game' which in Elite translates to 'want more mission types'

I can't argue with people who think that every thread that is posted that criticizes an update is "whining". I'm sorry you don't have logic?.

Personally I don't see it as whining, but it does get rather frustrating because a large amount of posts go "I want 'something better'" yet people themselves rarely elaborate on what would be better, what they feel would be a better type of mission, and many when they do forget that the 'you are the hero' mission types don't really work well in mmo style games like Elite. Generally they become pointless because everyone is doing the same 'epic' missions, and frustrating because when everyone is the hero no one is.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

As I've mentioned before, having proper military careers is something I'd love to see added. When that will happen I don't know yet, but it's on the list.

Michael

Maybe it would help people understand development if there was a sort of, planning/progress board available on the elite site, basically like a development map, but of course made a bit cleaner and simpler, showing players where you as devs are in what you plan, with what is planned for near future, far future and such, basically a summary of dev plans? with an indicator of where in those dev plans you are? wouldn't need to be 'too' detailed I think just broad strokes, and then maybe have links to some of the dev related video's already released? I think a hub for that for past/present/future information would help some frustrations out there, for people that for example haven't seen early video's or specific video's that inform certain things, a place they could find all that easily instead of having to search themselves?

 

[Drink!]

I made the thread based off of info they gave us in the newsletter. I even provided a link to the page I pulled my facts from. Sorry if you didn't read it. I'm not sure what to tell ya.

Have you read it? Because you seem to think that that is all the information that will be given. Its like complaining that a movie is only 2 mins long and has no story based on the trailer.

The information they gave us is not complete. They said they will piece it out over a few weeks. As far as I know, they have yet to "talk" about the missions and specifically say how its changed and whats new. At least wait until beta to hate 2.1.

Now that being said... One way to improve the missions is to have a change of scenery. Since there are instances in the game, it could maybe be possible to randomly generate a small base in the middle of an asteroid field, or on the surface of a planet... So let's say you're hunting someone who is on the top 10 wanted list of the system. They are going to rich, and they are going to have a good ship. You have to lure the criminal out of his base by destroying the base's shields/life support. This shouldn't be very hard to implement considering we have the ability to destroy power generators on surface bases. (You could even have his pirate buddies protecting the base with ships when you assault it) He is then forced to come out of hiding, hop in his ship and confront you. Something as simple as a change in scenery like that would make a mission more satisfying. I grow tired of fighting NPCs in empty space.

It seems like your issue is more with what it takes to complete the mission, not the missions itself. Based on your example, that sound like a normal assassination mission. But instead of flyng to point X and waiting, you want something more involved. That idea sound like a boss fight in most other game. I do think some elements like that would be awesome.

 

[Leo Sagan]

If you scroll down to the info about the missions, they don't actually mention anything about changing the content in the missions

They don't actually mention anything about *not* changing the content in the missions either. For instance, we know that several surface missions were not activated dur to bugs. At least those should be available (I'd like to see "Prison break").

M. Brookes also said that assassination missions would work differently (not just flying randomly unti the target spawns but hunting down your target and querying the nav beacon). This could become interesting.

As for me, I'll wait and see before saying this is not a revamp (which is subjective anyway), even if I have to admit that we've heard that before with very little results IMHO.

 

[xondk]

They don't actually mention anything about *not* changing the content in the missions either. For instance, we know that several surface missions were not activated dur to bugs. At least those should be available (I'd like to see "Prison break").

M. Brookes also said that assassination missions would work differently (not just flying randomly unti the target spawns but hunting down your target and querying the nav beacon). This could become interesting.

As for me, I'll wait and see before saying this is not a revamp (which is subjective anyway), even if I have to admit that we've heard that before with very little results IMHO.

This, I got the general impression that there was a lot more mission types in beta, then release, disabled due to issues?

 

[serialsid]

2.1 looks like its going to be a great update and I can't wait for June!!! What I'm most looking forward to is the mission revamp, I'm hoping they are going to be more challenging. I can see the OP's point of view, but will wait and see how it plays out first.

I reckon there are plenty of variations in the missions, what they need is to be more dynamic whilst your in them!!! I don't want to save the galaxy or the princess, I'd just like it if things went wrong in them, or your orders get changed on the fly. Basically so it would feel like your more in a living breathing universe where things happen!!! I think the mechanism is in the game for this now and maybe it will be. June can't come soon enough ��

 

[Duane Dibbley]

Just simply explaining that FD is incorrectly marketing for the 2.1 update. It's not a mission revamp. It's a mission enhancement. They're just adding on to what they already have. In no way are they changing the actual mission itself.

Revamp is quite a vague term; can cover 'freshen up' to 'total overhaul'..so it's just a question of semantics - definitely not worth arguing over, especially with a lack of 'prima facie' evidence!