Beyond 3.0 - C&P and Wing missions

[wstephenson]

Could we have a ubiquitous UI 'Share' function and an Android Intents-like system for handling shared objects?

On a mission? Share it. Either it will be a wing mission and handled by the recipient's Transaction tab as demoed last night, or it will end up in their Inbox, allowing them to see the destination of your mission (and open the Galaxy Map there).

Bookmark in the Galaxy Map? Share it. Recipient receives it in their inbox and can add it to their bookmarks.

On the surface somewhere? Share it. As above, creates a surface USS for the recipient to glide to.

Targetting a prospector limpet that has just struck gold? Share it with another miner (although this can be done with Wings).

Targetting a newbie-clubbing scumbag in Eravate? Share that target it to a buddy with a pimped Corvette.

 

[wstephenson]

My suggestion to you would be this: don't worry so much about "fine tuning" the range of skill levels, simply provide said range.

I think the difficulty arises when someone finds a corner case faction/location which outputs a reward at the top end of the range for very little risk, everyone jumps on it a la Sothis, and then rants and raves when the money tap is turned off.

 

[bigity]

Hi there,

So, if I've got this right, essentially what you're describing is shareable missions which aren't balanced towards wings and don't give out mission rewards to other members, but still employ the utilities of wing missions to guide non-mission-owner players towards the goals?

Thus if I were on an assassination mission and the dread pirate lord Barry Placeholder was too hard for me, I could invite my friend Bob in to help me and life would continue for him as if this were a wing mission except without the rewards?

Thanks,
Dom

What Mengy said below your post. I'm not even touching the rewards/scale of said missions at this point. I'm strictly saying the UI should facilitate the solo CMDR or a wing. Or even multicrew.

 

[bigity]

I think the difficulty arises when someone finds a corner case faction/location which outputs a reward at the top end of the range for very little risk, everyone jumps on it a la Sothis, and then rants and raves when the money tap is turned off.

And how does allowing a mission to be achievable by a wing (for no extra reward) change that at all?

It's unfortunate IMO that this is the stance of the design team - you'd think with most of Elite being fighting the mission board for worthwhile missions they'd be all in for making it an enjoyable process, usable by all types of players.

 

[ColonelPanicked]

Allo! There was a question posted by Dom along the lines of “what might you do with a wing mission that you couldn’t do with a solo mission,” I believe. This came up in a Reddit thread that links here, and I started jotting down 3-4 mission templates that I would love to see. I received positive feedback/upvotes on them from the community there.

FWIW, I think it is fine to distinguish wing missions not necessarily with unique mechanics — although, sure, go for it — but just using existing mechanics scaled to a co-op challenge. To wit, most of these don’t introduce new mechanics.

I’ll post the link directly to my comment here. I’ll warn you that the Reddit parent post is very negative; what else is new. If you’d rather abstain from Reddit but would like to see these ideas, I’ll copy-paste.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Elite_Dangerous/comments/7qy6x3/comment/dst4d1o?st=JCJ5D6WK&sh=492bf53b

Thanks for your time.

 

[ColonelPanicked]

For those not wanting to follow the link, I’ll post my favorite and then await replies, if any.

=====

Here’s another:

Steal Scientific Research

“One of our competitors has made a breakthrough discovery that will enable him to drastically cut his manufacturing costs. This would put us at a devastating competitive disadvantage. We cannot allow this to happen, and that is where you come in. We need you to steal a copy of his discovered data and bring it to us.

Our competitor does his research at the Indus class research vessel Baz, in orbit around Planet Z in the Qux system. The data is cached in communication satellites around the station for transmission back to his manufacturing facility. We want you to steal one and bring it to us. Naturally, he knows the value of his research and has hired mercenary protection around the facility.

In order to steal the satellite, you will need to equip a collection limpet controller that can operate at least three limpets. We will give you special modified limpet programming to recover this unique target. Target all three at the satellite and they will tow it into your cargo hold. You will need 6t of cargo capacity to accommodate the satellite.

The protection will undoubtedly try to destroy the limpets and hamper your collection, so the rest of your wing should have hard-hitting combat ships to neutralize or at least lure away his defenses. Don’t take too long, or backup may show and ruin the operation.

Lastly, expect a bounty on your ships. You will need to sneak back into this spaceport. Once you bring the satellite to us, we will take care of clearing your bounties.”

Reward: $60MM to wing + clear all present bounties
Victory condition: bring the 6t satellite to the mission giver

Imagine! Space heists!

 

[wstephenson]

Firstly, loved the stream last night. The Punishment changes sound 'right' and I look forward to testing them.

It was wonderful when Adam said he hoped that criminals being forced into Anarchies adding a bit of geography to the game. I've been hoping for this for years. My questions are, will the BGS be tweaked so as not to penalize Anarchy controlling factions for players doing Anarchy things in the system? Currently they lose influence when players sell via the black market, so Anarchies tend to extinguish themselves. If this was the other way rounds, if anarchies grew stronger by illicit activity, then their factions would tend to expand more often, and we would eventually get nice clusters and strings of Anarchy territory, making the geography more structured than the mostly uniform distribution we see now.

Secondly, regarding Wing missions. Any chance Design would like to share or discuss in a deep dive some of the metrics used to balance a mission? Perhaps some of the community would be able to help normalize the heuristics use to estimate the skill range of a solo player on to the aggregate effective skill range of a wing, allowing more missions to be wing-ified.

 

[bigity]

Firstly, loved the stream last night. The Punishment changes sound 'right' and I look forward to testing them.

It was wonderful when Adam said he hoped that criminals being forced into Anarchies adding a bit of geography to the game. I've been hoping for this for years. My questions are, will the BGS be tweaked so as not to penalize Anarchy controlling factions for players doing Anarchy things in the system? Currently they lose influence when players sell via the black market, so Anarchies tend to extinguish themselves. If this was the other way rounds, if anarchies grew stronger by illicit activity, then their factions would tend to expand more often, and we would eventually get nice clusters and strings of Anarchy territory, making the geography more structured than the mostly uniform distribution we see now.

Secondly, regarding Wing missions. Any chance Design would like to share or discuss in a deep dive some of the metrics used to balance a mission? Perhaps some of the community would be able to help normalize the heuristics use to estimate the skill range of a solo player on to the aggregate effective skill range of a wing, allowing more missions to be wing-ified.

Yup - I pledge to the Pirate Lord, but doing actual piracy hurts the cause - because anarchy factions are bad for everyone in PP.

 

[Imo]

The new crime and punishment system sounds interesting. Crappies Crappada or what their name was (the glorious griefer faction in the starter systems) will not be amused.

 

[Cosmo]

Wing missions - loving direction, because I hate 'special' wing content, but interface for mass delivery and potentially god like NPCs (similar to Thargoids) for Assassination wing missions sounds very nice direction. If mechanic works, it can be extended to lot of directions.

There should be special wing mission scenarios that require coordinated teamwork. If one player wants to do it then it should be possible, but extra hard.

 

[Adam Bourke-Waite]

Firstly, loved the stream last night. The Punishment changes sound 'right' and I look forward to testing them.

It was wonderful when Adam said he hoped that criminals being forced into Anarchies adding a bit of geography to the game. I've been hoping for this for years. My questions are, will the BGS be tweaked so as not to penalize Anarchy controlling factions for players doing Anarchy things in the system? Currently they lose influence when players sell via the black market, so Anarchies tend to extinguish themselves. If this was the other way rounds, if anarchies grew stronger by illicit activity, then their factions would tend to expand more often, and we would eventually get nice clusters and strings of Anarchy territory, making the geography more structured than the mostly uniform distribution we see now.

Secondly, regarding Wing missions. Any chance Design would like to share or discuss in a deep dive some of the metrics used to balance a mission? Perhaps some of the community would be able to help normalize the heuristics use to estimate the skill range of a solo player on to the aggregate effective skill range of a wing, allowing more missions to be wing-ified.

I have taken note of this and time permitting hope to look into it. No etas, no guarantees, but I wanted to let you know that I have seen your (and others) concerns about anarchies.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

There should be special wing mission scenarios that require coordinated teamwork. If one player wants to do it then it should be possible, but extra hard.

I fully support that. I think biggest issue there is lack of NPC crew and wing. If they would add NPC crew and give possibility to do same missions with your crew and wing...then might be possible.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I have taken note of this and time permitting hope to look into it. No etas, no guarantees, but I wanted to let you know that I have seen your (and others) concerns about anarchies.

Could you make it so that Archon Delaine benefits from these new super anarchy systems as well (him being the crime boss of them all?)

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I have taken note of this and time permitting hope to look into it. No etas, no guarantees, but I wanted to let you know that I have seen your (and others) concerns about anarchies.

+1, thanks Adam. This is exciting development. Let's make Anarchies great again!

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I have taken note of this and time permitting hope to look into it. No etas, no guarantees, but I wanted to let you know that I have seen your (and others) concerns about anarchies.

Or have something like this:-

Anarchy Systems
Anarchy systems should not have need for a black market as all items should be sellable on the commodities markets.

I also think that there should be higher commodity prices the lower the security to incentivise players to trade in the rougher parts of town, but have the risk of being pirated. Basically the higher the risk, the higher the reward for traders. Obviously demand will also play a part in commodity price.

Maybe have some Pirate systems that only have a number of rival pirate factions instead of the usual one, so these are alway anarchy systems.

 

[SpaceScania]

In regards to porting all missions over to the wing mission system, I don't want to do that because I want finer control. Someone suggested that low level wing missions spawn with low amounts that are suitable for solo players. However, it would actually need to cover the full range of player skill and then the full range of wing sizes and skill levels. Considering how difficult it is to balance a mission template (rewards, challange, branches etc) for just the skill range of a solo player I decided to split wing missions into their own templates that faces the challange of being balanced for either high level solo players or 2+ wingmates.

Also on a more practical standpoint it's a lot of work to port any mission over to being a wing mission, with a lot of new (and in some cases very difficult) questions needing answers. By making the wing missions new templates we allow ourselves the opportunity to solve these challenges while not impacting any of the normal missions we have in game. That way we add options for our player and don't risk taking away something players might already enjoy.

This seems reasonable to me. The fact you are including high level solo players in this balancing equation is something a lot of us will deeply appreciate. Thank you! I can't wait to try these large new haulage missions!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Or have something like this:-

Anarchy Systems
Anarchy systems should not have need for a black market as all items should be sellable on the commodities markets.

I also think that there should be higher commodity prices the lower the security to incentivise players to trade in the rougher parts of town, but have the risk of being pirated. Basically the higher the risk, the higher the reward for traders. Obviously demand will also play a part in commodity price.

Maybe have some Pirate systems that only have a number of rival pirate factions instead of the usual one, so these are alway anarchy systems.

I think having black markets having reverse effect in Anarchies might be more interesting. You could still have legit market - after all, there might be stations with non-anarchy factions at helm - but selling to black market would strengthen anarchy not weaken it. It would be thug of war between legal and illegal income.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think having black markets having reverse effect in Anarchies might be more interesting. You could still have legit market - after all, there might be stations with non-anarchy factions at helm - but selling to black market would strengthen anarchy not weaken it. It would be thug of war between legal and illegal income.

Maybe keep the black market for none anarchy stations. My idea could always be expanded upon. I also like the idea of pirate systems instead of just anarchy systems.

 

[ColonelPanicked]

There should be special wing mission scenarios that require coordinated teamwork. If one player wants to do it then it should be possible, but extra hard.

Yes! I posted some ideas like this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Elite_Dangerous/comments/7qy6x3/comment/dst4d1o?st=JCJ7A2OJ&sh=aaa6d24f

I did post these earlier and they seem to have been paved over by another discussion (that or resolutely ignored, I’m not sure). In either case, this is a single and final repost, I won’t spam you.

 

[Nerix]

First of all: the Wing mission board design looks great, very well done. It's very clear who has to do what and what the current status is (at least for the shown delivery mission).

But why you shouldn't be able to do a current SP mission in a wing? You are allowing high level solo players to play the Wing missions, so why won't you allow low level wings to do current solo missions? The reward is obviously smaller and for many players won't be worth it, but theres no damage in allowing that.

I very much support the idea of merging the missions, so that there is one system in place where the players can choose if they want to do a mission in a wing or not. You can still keep the wing symbol, when the missions are recommended/designed for being completed in a wing. In the long run, that would be the system with the most freedom for the players and I guess also with less headach for the developers.