Wing missions.... Ouch, seriously FD?

[conceit]

So, I finally convinced a buddy to buy ED, of course for teaming up and doing some missions together. After he learned the basics and got into a Viper MKIII, I wanted to take out a pirate lord with him. As I had read before, it should be possible by synchronized mission boards.

So, now the reality:
- Missions boards are, well, somehow similar, but not sync'd. I had a few missions that he didn't have on the list and vice versa.
- Even missions looking very similar had different destinations (e.g. different bases in the same target system).
- This required us to go thru the list mission by mission and compare over voice comms.
- We found a pirate assassination mission that we both accepted. Flew to the target system's nav beacon and got completely different mission updates.
- We were now supposed to do different things to find our target.

Appearantly, missions and wings did not work well for us, and I must say we were really disappointed. While I'm somewhat experienced with ED, I led my newbie wingman through the process, without actively being able to participate. E.g., he had to rendez-vous a guy in another system to get information about the target - which of course was in the system we just came from, as always. And he had to tell me all the things standing in the mission updates over voice comms.

What I really don't understand: When you developer guys once upon a time thought about "wings", what were your plans about game mechanics? I mean, there must have been a plan, sort of, right? Some ideas. Anything. What happened? We cannot share trade benefits (escorting), we cannot share mining benefits (guardian), we can only explore or bounty hunt together. Is that really all?

Edit:

First, there seems to be a 5% share for trade profits. While, if this is true (source of information?), this is a worthy information, it doesn't change the complaint very much. 5% doesn't seem very attractive to me.

Second: Please read my post, then again. I exactly said that only the non-mission tasks are fun for wings, but my complaint is about the missions. Please don't turn this around as you like just to find some line of argumentation that just repeats what I say, while calling me sort of uninformed.

 

[Chris Simon]

Since when do we not share trading benefits? Of course we do. Escort gets 5% net profit per ship in the wing. (If you're escorting three traders/smugglers/ miners you get 15% of their net profit.
And as for bounties, wing shares are 50:50

You can literally do everything in the wing and profit from it. EXCEPT missions. So to nitpick the one and only thing you can't do to show the mechanic is faulty is kinda cheap.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

All profits from bounties and trade get shared in wings.

Wing missions are coming and they will be more tailored towards multiple players doing multiple roles.

 

[Ian Skippy]

So, I finally convinced a buddy to buy ED, of course for teaming up and doing some missions together. After he learned the basics and got into a Viper MKIII, I wanted to take out a pirate lord with him. As I had read before, it should be possible by synchronized mission boards.

So, now the reality:
- Missions boards are, well, somehow similar, but not sync'd. I had a few missions that he didn't have on the list and vice versa.
- Even missions looking very similar had different destinations (e.g. different bases in the same target system).
- This required us to go thru the list mission by mission and compare over voice comms.
- We found a pirate assassination mission that we both accepted. Flew to the target system's nav beacon and got completely different mission updates.
- We were now supposed to do different things to find our target.

Appearantly, missions and wings did not work well for us, and I must say we were really disappointed. While I'm somewhat experienced with ED, I led my newbie wingman through the process, without actively being able to participate. E.g., he had to rendez-vous a guy in another system to get information about the target - which of course was in the system we just came from, as always. And he had to tell me all the things standing in the mission updates over voice comms.

What I really don't understand: When you developer guys once upon a time thought about "wings", what were your plans about game mechanics? I mean, there must have been a plan, sort of, right? Some ideas. Anything. What happened? We cannot share trade benefits (escorting), we cannot share mining benefits (guardian), we can only explore or bounty hunt together. Is that really all?

1) Trade benefits do exist, you only need to be in the wing and instance when he sells and you'll get a 5% cut (actually on top of his own profit).
2) Wing missions are coming in Beyond, they were announced few weeks ago.
3) If you have a mission to kill someone with the same name, you can help him kill his target and it'll close your mission as well. Or you can find you target and he can drop out at your beacon.
4) Not mentioned above, but explo is possible too: when in a wing first discoveries are shared and you both get your name on them ("First discovered by X and Y").

 

[Chris Simon]

Really? I didn't know about the exploration. That's cool!

 

[Ian Skippy]

Really? I didn't know about the exploration. That's cool!

Yeah, its pretty neat. I've never actually seen anyone else do it though, but still. Could be useful on those expeditions where people can share findings.

 

[Dale Emasiri]

Indeed, as others have already said, wing missions were announced not too long ago. With the core improvements that we're doing in the next year, it was one of the areas that we wanted to revisit and improve overall. It's a heavily-requested feature from the community (myself included) so the design team are going to be doing work on that.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yeah, its pretty neat. I've never actually seen anyone else do it though, but still. Could be useful on those expeditions where people can share findings.

Yeah, I tend to explore on my on as well. But it's definitely an awesome feature for expeditions.

 

[Crank Larson]

What I really don't understand: When you developer guys once upon a time thought about "wings", what were your plans about game mechanics? I mean, there must have been a plan, sort of, right? Some ideas. Anything. What happened? We cannot share trade benefits (escorting), we cannot share mining benefits (guardian), we can only explore or bounty hunt together. Is that really all?

Wing missions haven't been implemented yet. However, you can take a mission yourself and complete it in a wing. I believe bounties, etc. would be shared (this usually happens in wings by default, as far as I've noticed). Why would you expect to be able to take the same mission from a board? They are randomised on the client as far as I am aware (Dom has said as much), so you will always see slight differences.

While I certainly agree that more features can be added, I can't really see that your complaints are legitimate. They look more like a slight misunderstanding of the system.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

the isse with wing missions is more or less - that its TWO YEARS between wings implementation, and the first try to do real wings missions.

and because wing missions do not exist yet, mutlicrew does not get a thing from missions.

 

[Vingtetun]

Wing missions was probably the one thing that really stood out for me from the announcements. As Hutton is all about PwP gaming, any mechanic that promotes cooperative gameplay is a great one fornyour pilots. can't come soon enough so BRING IT ON!

 

[Viper2kUK]

For the Solo players out there (myself included) will there / could there be NPC wings that players could hook up with to complete a specific mission available on the board?

V2k.

 

[Ian Skippy]

the isse with wing missions is more or less - that its TWO YEARS between wings implementation, and the first try to do real wings missions.

Thats the drawback of iterative work. As they cannot magically do more in less time, the only real alternative is to not have wings at all until all related features such as missions are also complete. I personally wouldn't like it though.

For the Solo players out there (myself included) will there / could there be NPC wings that players could hook up with to complete a specific mission available on the board?

V2k.

Not mentioned at all for Beyond, and earlier only mentioned as 'would be fun, maybe, some day, possibly'.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Hopefully some major stability fixes for Wings is in the works too - If I hear my engines roaring, my wing mates talking, and see nothing by an inactive black screen one more time....

 

[conceit]

Since when do we not share trading benefits? Of course we do. Escort gets 5% net profit per ship in the wing. (If you're escorting three traders/smugglers/ miners you get 15% of their net profit.
And as for bounties, wing shares are 50:50

You can literally do everything in the wing and profit from it. EXCEPT missions. So to nitpick the one and only thing you can't do to show the mechanic is faulty is kinda cheap.

Well, apart from 5% trade share (which I actually didn't know and which doesn't make escorting any attractive to me), that's exactly what I said. Please read my post.

Wing missions haven't been implemented yet. However, you can take a mission yourself and complete it in a wing. I believe bounties, etc. would be shared (this usually happens in wings by default, as far as I've noticed). Why would you expect to be able to take the same mission from a board? They are randomised on the client as far as I am aware (Dom has said as much), so you will always see slight differences.

While I certainly agree that more features can be added, I can't really see that your complaints are legitimate. They look more like a slight misunderstanding of the system.

Again. That's exactly what I said. The complaint is perfectly legit, as I am complaining that missions (with their rewards, but also with their storyline and selection) do not work for wings, neither do mining profits share, or maybe by 5% like trade? Who knows it? Where is this communicated? How's that attractive?

Also, to call the bounties or exploration rewards "shared" seems also a bit odd. Basically, all wing members simply get the same bounty as if they fought solo I believe. But, players in open not being part of the wing with the most (or last) hits to a target don't get a bounty voucher at all! I recently entered a HazRes, where a player Anaconda was hunting. We asked to wing up, but that was not possible, as the conda was in multi-crew. No share for us, we had to find our very own Hazres. That's the opposite of share. That's a cut!

For exploration, as far as I was told, and maybe it's wrong: Every wing member has to do the scans to get cash. That's also not a share. It is double the work done together. Maybe there's again a 5% share when filing in the scans. But, again, 5% for escorting some 20000lys exploration isn't attractive.

And here we come to another complaint, a new one: I got all my knowledge from this forum or personal experience, as I didn't find a very better source of information. That's because I expected to be able to select the same mission. That's how other players communicated it on this exact forum, probably just because they also didn't know better and made a guess. Or things changed somewhere in the past.

You see, my "slight misunderstanding of the system" is maybe your misunderstanding of the system. Give me a reliable source of information, otherwise.

Edit: Typos

 

[Chris Simon]

Well, apart from 5% trade share (which I actually didn't know and which doesn't make escorting any attractive to me), that's exactly what I said. Please read my post.

Sorry if I misunderstood something. Well, 5% is and isn't attractive depending on the situation. If you escort two friends in Cutters or T9s, they will make 1.5-2MCr per hop. Let's say combined it will be at least 3MCr. That's 300k per hop for you, plus bounties from all the pirates that try to interdict them. All in all, you are looking at about 2MCr/hour (sometimes much more) for doing basically nothing.

Is it the most efficient way to make money? No. But you are collaborating with friends. RES farming together might be more action packed, but not all people enjoy it all that much.

 

[conceit]

Indeed, as others have already said, wing missions were announced not too long ago. With the core improvements that we're doing in the next year, it was one of the areas that we wanted to revisit and improve overall. It's a heavily-requested feature from the community (myself included) so the design team are going to be doing work on that.

Dale, thanks for pointing this out. I saw the Expo on youtube some days ago and was aware of this. The thing actually is, I, as a solo player reading the forums, was really believing the game would already be in quite a better shape. Basically, I had the -- call it naive -- believe, that FDEV had more than just thoughts about the really basic infrastructure for missions in wings quite from the very start. I was enjoying to hear that there are now *dedicated* multiplayer missions. I was totally unaware, that flying missions in a wing only is possible by random and fortune incidents on the mission board at all.

So now, after all the time wings are available in ED, experiencing myself that this concept is so very very shallow -- we are talking about a multiplayer game, right? -- well, that was very disappointing and a bit of embarrassing after I fancied a friend into buying the game. And waiting another year for features that really belong to base gameplay, in my very humble opinion, is sort of even more disappointing. It shows that FD had an attitude towards the game.

 

[conceit]

Sorry if I misunderstood something. Well, 5% is and isn't attractive depending on the situation. If you escort two friends in Cutters or T9s, they will make 1.5-2MCr per hop. Let's say combined it will be at least 3MCr. That's 300k per hop for you, plus bounties from all the pirates that try to interdict them. All in all, you are looking at about 2MCr/hour (sometimes much more) for doing basically nothing.

Is it the most efficient way to make money? No. But you are collaborating with friends. RES farming together might be more action packed, but not all people enjoy it all that much.

Chris, thanks for showing me some numbers, as I'm not a very active trader. I don't understand the calculation. 300kCr per hop as 5% share would be more like 6MCr trade income. Per hop. That sounds a bit over the top to me. Even if we assume 3MCr (that means a T9 makes 1.5MCr per hop). Anyhow, 2MCr per hour as escort would actually be an income. To be honest, I have some problems believing that I'd actually get so much by escorting. Even if. Why should I when I can get 20x as much just by piloting the other ship?

 

[Crank Larson]

Again. That's exactly what I said. The complaint is perfectly legit, as I am complaining that missions (with their rewards, but also with their storyline and selection) do not work for wings, neither do mining profits share, or maybe by 5% like trade? Who knows it? Where is this communicated? How's that attractive?

Yes, but you're complaining about something that we know isn't in the game yet, and is on the roadmap to be included. So, until it has actually been implemented, it seems a little early to complain...

 

[Chris Simon]

Chris, thanks for showing me some numbers, as I'm not a very active trader. I don't understand the calculation. 300kCr per hop as 5% share would be more like 6MCr trade income. Per hop. That sounds a bit over the top to me. Even if we assume 3MCr (that means a T9 makes 1.5MCr per hop). Anyhow, 2MCr per hour as escort would actually be an income. To be honest, I have some problems believing that I'd actually get so much by escorting. Even if. Why should I when I can get 20x as much just by piloting the other ship?

Yeah, sorry. A small mistake. You get 5% from each, so 150k from two traders making 1.5M each. Then it's 100-200k per hop in pirate bounties if you're lucky.
It is possible to reach 2M/h on a good short trade route (I've done it)

And yes, of course, if you just jumped into a third trading ship, you would be making more, but my point was - if there is a wing, and one person likes shooting and others don't, they have stuff to do and the chance to be useful to one another. Life isn't just about Credits per hour. People who fall into this trap usually end really soon.
I've got over 3000 hours in the game and I've managed to not get bored by doing what's fun to me at the moment (that varies over time) and never focused on the money. For a month I was a scavenger/smuggler in a stealth Cobra. I was making 60-200kCr per hour but actually had the most exciting adventures.
That's what counts in Elite. At least for me.