Should Massacre Mission Stacking be Nerfed?

[drkaii]

After posting my video about How I made 1 billion in 1 week, a bit of controversy rose. It seems the majority of people think it's fine, not an exploit, and Frontier haven't really made a statement either way (which could imply that they think it's fine, seeing as they HAVE made statements about other mission related exploits). Others are strongly against it

I've made a video summarising my position and I encourage everyone to have a say. I'm tempted to make a poll but I feel that this is an issue that mostly people who are against it will vote, because the rest are too busy doing it

Here's the video:

[video=youtube;SRpwMDLh64U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpwMDLh64U[/video]


Key Points:

• No it should not be nerfed. I am wholly against exploits, but I am 100% of the opinion that this is not an exploit.
• It is HARD - don't think this is an "easy" money making scheme like Sothis or Robigo
• Most people won't have the time to do a billion in a week, or even a quarter of that given the way it works
• Mission stacking can make perfect sense in terms of lore, if you imagine that various interested parties within a faction raise funds to motivate mercenaries to come and help them win their war (the analogy of teaching 10 kids one lesson is just as fair as an analogy of buying one drink for 10 people, so no analogies please!)
• The game is already in "lockdown" against making money, with arbitrary nerfing, arbitrary grinding and timesinks, it doesn't need to go any more that way, especially with this, which is very hard and requires lots of effort that most people can't give
• I do not condone skimmers counting towards these missions and am glad frontier are removing that exploit
• I believe effort and capital should scale with reward, and this seems completely balanced given how hard it is
• I do agree with the idea that it shouldn't be easy to earn lots of money, and am not against grinding in principle
• I believe the mission system in general is flawed in many ways and could use work in many areas, quite possibly also this, so long as the difficulty still scales with the reward to the same degree.

Please do not discuss board flipping, I have never stated any position on that and we already know Frontier's position on it. Same goes for skimmer missions.

FRONTIER: Please don't arbitrarily nerf this based on the vocal minority of people complaining about it until you properly take into account how hard it is and how much effort and struggle is involved in pulling it off. At the end of the day, it is your decision, but please make it in a position of knowledge.

 

[bootsam]

nerf nerfing

 

[jasonbarron]

My vote is "Eff no they shouldn't be nerfed." Can we stack that vote now, please?

Seriously, Massacre Missions are fine. They require the player to move around looking for the appropriate systems, and either the correct conditions within those systems or the knowledge of how to create the correct conditions themselves. They need a high degree of patience to cultivate the factions to the point where the high payouts exist, and they can dry up without warning, leaving the player completely holding the bag with a ton of time wasted with precious little to show for it. They require a high degree of combat skill to solo, and a good ship. In short, they're probably the closest thing to compelling missions and gameplay the game has on its own once you set aside the multiplayer created content.

I strongly urge Fdev to ignore the players who've chosen the "professionally poverty stricken" career path and just leave these missions alone. Unlike Sothis and Ceos, they actually involve challenging, fun gameplay.

 

[A. C. Dobro VI]

No, because it actually requires a modicum of skill unlike hauling biowaste.

Besides, you can only stack 20 missions now. It's already nerfed. If a bunch of factions want some other faction to take a hit, would they really care if it's separate? Pooling together resources provides a pilot more incentive to complete the task.

Plus, I bet you could make 1 bil in a week with passengers which actually requires less skill and more endurance.

If anything, buff skimmers.

 

[Haramir]

Hi,

In my opinion it's an exploit and has to nerfed.
You really find it hard to browse some systems in the web. MUAH. You are kidding right.
If you want to know what FDEV wants us to earn with mission just have a look on the mission bord.
Sorry you are not serious with this thread , aren't you ?

 

[bitstorm]

Mod this out if need be but, but sorry I don't think board flipping is irrelevant.

The theoretic answer here is of course, no massacre missions should not be nerfed, but in practice board flipping is key and so we can't take things in isolation this way.

The whole thing is a mess, Frontier are having to nerf things that should not be nerfed due to what in theory is an unrelated issue but in practice isn't.

 

[Xerx]

From Update #4 patchnotes

"Fixed an incorrectly set boolean preventing multiple rewards from a single success point"

That sounds like they "fixed" massacre stacking from working. Cant have fun while also making tons of money.

 

[drkaii]

Mod this out if need be but, but sorry I don't think board flipping is irrelevant.

The theoretic answer here is of course, no massacre missions should not be nerfed, but in practice board flipping is key and so we can't take things in isolation this way.

The whole thing is a mess, Frontier are having to nerf things that should not be nerfed due to what in theory is an unrelated issue but in practice isn't.

Not going to mod it out. If you don't board flip, you can still make a billion in a week. Stack the missions over the day, as the board refreshes itself every 10 or 15 minutes.

 

[Julio Montega]

I would generally welcome a sensible change to missions overall.
To be fair missions are pretty much cardboard cut outs,
and CMDRs everywhere look to maximize their cr/hour gain.

Why does it have to be this way?
Why stacking of same mission types (excluding assassinations, as they specify individual targets) anyway?

Make missions a dynamic experience, that allows the mission to mission playstyle.
Make 'em evolving, like a cg, allowing for cumulating bonus rewards to up the credits if you stay with a faction,
by doing missions and create on accomplished missions follow ups, that allow a scheme.

Make wars and civil wars into campaigns, like the community wrote at lugh,
with shadow strikes and guerilla warfare, etc.
Missions like in Tie-Fighter or X-wing that'd be optimal,
interesting and involving. (Primary/secondary/tertiary and bonus goals for additional rep and cr).

Stacking is hell.

Allow only one kill x mission,
and evolve from there per CMDR.

 

[bitstorm]

Hmm also the OP may be a bit misleading.

You are not talking about mission stacking, you are talking about missions can be completed in parallel?

 

[A. C. Dobro VI]

Not going to mod it out. If you don't board flip, you can still make a billion in a week. Stack the missions over the day, as the board refreshes itself every 10 or 15 minutes.

Heck, FDev could solve "board flipping" by just updating the mission board more often. [wacko]

 

[drkaii]

Hmm also the OP may be a bit misleading.

You are not talking about mission stacking, you are talking about missions can be completed in parallel?

Talking about the whole idea really as the point of stacking is the parallelism

 

[jasonbarron]

I'll start supporting the whole idea of having a problem with mission stacking about the time we sort out mode switching to avoid PvP

 

[Kyokushin]

Reloging and stacking are exploit. Period.

 

[Trinity Star]

Because the last time they nerfed missions turned out so well..........

 

[A. C. Dobro VI]

I'll start supporting the whole idea of having a problem with mission stacking about the time we sort out mode switching to avoid PvP

Reloging and stacking are exploit. Period.

There isn't a problem with mission stacking. Why have to dock each and every time for every mission? That's extremely time consuming. I always stack missions when hauling cargo, I just don't bother to refresh the board. What's wrong with that?

 

[thorn-]

Frontier haven't really made a statement either way

From Update #4 patchnotes

"Fixed an incorrectly set boolean preventing multiple rewards from a single success point"

Sounds like Frontier is making a statement.

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

It is odd that the same person would offer you multiple payouts to kill the same ship(s). If they were on offer from different contacts then this is in line with the BGS but why would one contact pay you more than once for one kill? I don't see how this can make sense from a lore point of view. However, I think it is fine from a game play point of view as long as skimmer kills are not counted.

 

[drkaii]

It is odd that the same person would offer you multiple payouts to kill the same ship(s). If they were on offer from different contacts then this is in line with the BGS but why would one contact pay you more than once for one kill? I don't see how this can make sense from a lore point of view. However, I think it is fine from a game play point of view as long as skimmer kills are not counted.

It's not the same person offering the missions, it's the same representative passing on missions from others. Otherwise that argument applies in many many situations. Why does one guy control all missions?

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

I say no. Combat is a high risk activity. High risk should pay high rewards.

The fact that people could haul poop 400 lightyears for tens of millions was absurd. That nerf was justified. Combat though? That's work, man. I think the big payouts are totally worth the amount of time involved.