Why don't FDev just limit the number of active missions to 5-6?

[Madrax573]

So with the last couple of cash cow 'grey area exploits' being all about stacking large numbers of missions through board hopping etc

Why don't they just put a trigger to limit the number of active missions to say 5-6. once you have 5-6 missions, of any type, the board simply closes and tells you to "free up your workload" or some such drivel. This is a simply variable trigger.

This would then allow the actual missions themselves to be balance in terms or reward/risk/time take structure rather than mode switching to be a thing.

 

[rhiz]

If I recall, I have 9 cabins in my Beluga.

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

I think the limit is 20. Or it used to be. 6 missions only would never be enough.

 

[Bdragon4]

6 would far too few, especially for passenger and cargo missions.

 

[Gomorragh]

a bus with 100 seats would not pass by just because its half full (it shouldnt but ... certain bus companies .... )

make the game recognise what systems are generated in the boards and maybe have 1 or 2 missions for that system, on relog have it check existing mission locations before populating, in all this have wing missions excluded so that the wing can have multiples of stuff in one location.

 

[Madrax573]

If I recall, I have 9 cabins in my Beluga.

I think the limit is 20. Or it used to be. 6 missions only would never be enough.

6 would far too few, especially for passenger and cargo missions.

So rather than having a system of balanced missions based on a proper risk/work required/reward structure you'd rather just be able to farm lots of little missions eh?

If the missions numbers were small then the variety of missions for the 'larger' cargo/passenger run could be incorporated into the mission generation algorithm. pretty simply system really...

 

[Arkadi]

I would like to have many different missions = Variety.

Different missions naturally don't stack.

I would like to have some few missions among the many simpel and generic missions that are very good paying AND are difficult.

With difficult I don't necessarly mean that they involve a huge number of cargo to be moved, or passagners need to be transferred a huge distance, or a huge number of targets have to be shot.

No, what I mean with diffcult is a mission that would need some thought, the use of different game mechanics, being illegal, or they need some flying skill.

High paying missions should be smuggling of highliy illegal cargo - with a working smuggling mechanic, where smuggling actually would be risky.

High paying missions could be special-ops missions against targets with big ships + escorts that follow a good AI script and are really hard to beat, maybe even requiring to work together with anonther commander to win.

High paying missions could involve follwing clues throughout the galaxy to scan some rare hidden alien ruin somwhere. Mixing chained missions with exploration gameplay, hello!

High paying missions could involve making a delivery or trade run into highly dangerous anarchy system while being followed by dangeros NPC.

TLDR:
Quality over quantity. High risk high reward.

 

[Madrax573]

a bus with 100 seats would not pass by just because its half full (it shouldnt but ... certain bus companies .... )

make the game recognise what systems are generated in the boards and maybe have 1 or 2 missions for that system, on relog have it check existing mission locations before populating, in all this have wing missions excluded so that the wing can have multiples of stuff in one location.

The whole reload/relog is part of the underlying issues with the whole cash cow grabathons that have happened in the past.

Would it not be better to learn from them rather than plan to have them again....

 

[MickyG1982]

So with the last couple of cash cow 'grey area exploits' being all about stacking large numbers of missions through board hopping etc

Why don't they just put a trigger to limit the number of active missions to say 5-6. once you have 5-6 missions, of any type, the board simply closes and tells you to "free up your workload" or some such drivel. This is a simply variable trigger.

This would then allow the actual missions themselves to be balance in terms or reward/risk/time take structure rather than mode switching to be a thing.

They are more likely to limit the stack of skimmer missions to just a few (1 or 2) which would be the simplest solution to people board flipping to get 20 of the most ideal skimmer missions.

Just as they have in the past.

The only real solution is to have a persistent mission board shared by the entire player base across all modes, it would be difficult to make this work in high turnover stations however.

 

[Stealthie]

"Thy ruined my fun so they should ruin everybody else's too"

[mad][mad][mad]

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

5-6 wouldnt really work for me with the way the current mission mission system works. I usually pick up a slew of varied missions from a station. Its not uncommon for me to have some delivery missions, some passengers a salvage mission and then maybe some fetch requests all from the first station. Then I pick up more from places I visit along the way while completing the first. Basically I try to plan several stops and tasks so I hit the 20 limit very often.
I would like them to revamp the whole mission board though so board hopping isnt a thing anymore and its a bit easier to find the mission content you want to play. Until them I'd be against reducing the 20 limit

 

[rhiz]

So rather than having a system of balanced missions based on a proper risk/work required/reward structure you'd rather just be able to farm lots of little missions eh?

If the missions numbers were small then the variety of missions for the 'larger' cargo/passenger run could be incorporated into the mission generation algorithm. pretty simply system really...

No offence, but it’s just a silly and drastic suggestion when you have ships in the game designed to take a certain number of specific mission types. If I want to transport 9 rich VIPs in my Beluga, why shouldn’t I?

I’m just playing devil's advocate here, but perhaps a better way of doing it would be to exponentially decrease the chances of the most recently accepted mission type spawning for a player according to the number of logins within a given time period. That’s a few stored variables for each player. That way, it wouldn’t penalise anyone who needs to log out to go to the loo or who’s kids are burning the house down, or indeed adversely impact the broader player base in any way, but the chances would rapidly approach zero for anyone with an “excessive” number of logins within a short period. It also wouldn’t require an overhaul of the current server setup.


I’m not particularly pious when it comes to board-flipping though and I doubt that it’s a technical issue anyway – perhaps it’s just so widespread among the player base that they couldn’t do it without impacting the bottom line.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

It shouldn't ever be a question of artificial limits like "number of missions". It should be a question of appropriate reward for the mission.

And FDev could easily balance it - but there is a huge problem:

Thousands of players have billions of credits, and FDev need to attract new players to the game.

I am really starting to believe that FDev allow loopholes to happen regularly as a way for noobs to catch up. And frankly if that was their plan - I am absolutely fine with that. Then FDev wait till the predictable mock outrage reaches its peak on the forums and they nerf the loophole. This balances up the player community. The only alternative is to reset the whole galaxy and start again from scratch.

Another loophole will appear shortly...

[This conspiracy theory was brought to you without salt]

 

[JohnRoberts]

There already is a 20 mission limit, and in general, reducing this would not be good.

Skimmer missions that pay 6MCr for firing 4 missiles into the ground, and take 10 minutes all in? People are going to grind those even if you limit them to one at a time. That's 36MCr/hr, risk free and can be done in Viper or a Cobra. That's your problem, right there.

 

[Captain Willard]

Oh wait. I can't remember.

 

[Gomorragh]

fixed returns needed, pirates in massacre missions have thier own bounty, a per ship bonus of say 10k per ship because its faction specific, then yes maybe, so in the same line of thought then maybe just maybe skimmers have a fixed price of 2k per skimmer, 3k per specialised skimmer, and maybe make more skimmer types designed to assault ships specifically, or make skimmers immune to blast radius damage. these missions are there to entice people into srv's, if it needs an srv then make it so that the mission doesnt complete unless you actually use an srv, and it doesnt count as a mission target until you use an srv, therefore it being innocent and giving you a fine until srv is used.

The problem (same with power generator missions) is that an essential part of the proposed mission can be totally ignored, also, maybe putting a disclaimer that means you must return with mission completion data intact rather than self destructing and going back to any base with all data intact .... you dont keep your exploration data if you die, why should you keep your completed missions

 

[gooddoc]

Iv said it before & I'll say it again....

Why are some players obsessed with what other players are doing?

I personnally don't give a furry crack of a rat's behind, what other players are doing on the mission boards.

Iv never done one single skimmer mission since starting playing Elite on day 1. If other players want to mode flick flip to stack certin mission types then so what!
I mission stacked well over a year ago on data delivery missions, to boost my ranks with the Empire & then the Federation. I did that because I wanted to & the game allowed it. It is no one else's business but mine what I do in this game - along as I'm not overriding ED's game mechanics, that is exploiting the game.

So what if other players have billions more than I have.....I DON'T SMEGGING CARE!
Get over it guys! It's not that with those credits players can start buying up planets, is it!

 

[rhiz]

Iv said it before & I'll say it again....

Why are some players obsessed with what other players are doing?

I personnally don't give a furry crack of a rat's behind, what other players are doing on the mission boards.

Iv never done one single skimmer mission since starting playing Elite on day 1. If other players want to mode flick flip to stack certin mission types then so what!
I mission stacked well over a year ago on data delivery missions, to boost my ranks with the Empire & then the Federation. I did that because I wanted to & the game allowed it. It is no one else's business but mine what I do in this game - along as I'm not overriding ED's game mechanics, that is exploiting the game.

So what if other players have billions more than I have.....I DON'T SMEGGING CARE!
Get over it guys! It's not that with those credits players can start buying up planets, is it!

I’m with you in spirit, but I think it’s hard to argue that flipping isn’t overriding the intended game mechanics. There’s also the question of excessive server-load and the impact of thousands of players suddenly flocking to the same system. But yes, I couldn't care less what other players are earning.

 

[Stealthie]

I’m with you in spirit, but I think it’s hard to argue that flipping isn’t overriding the intended game mechanics. There’s also the question of excessive server-load and the impact of thousands of players suddenly flocking to the same system. But yes, I couldn't care less what other players are earning.

Pretty much hit every target.

You can't say "I don't care about mode-switching as long as people aren't overriding EDs game mechanics" when the entire point of mode-switching is to do exactly that.

The game offers you one mission with an exceptional reward among many average ones.
But that's not enough, so ima mode-switch until I've stacked 20 of those missions.
And that's not overriding ED's game emchanics?

And, beyond that, mode-switching, in particular, directly screws up other people's games because it kills the mission generator and forces the dev's to throttle the number of missions that are available.

By all means, take advantage of any opportunity that the game offers but don't adopt an absurdly extreme position by suggesting that mode-flipping doesn't matter.

 

[gooddoc]

I’m with you in spirit, but I think it’s hard to argue that flipping isn’t overriding the intended game mechanics. There’s also the question of excessive server-load and the impact of thousands of players suddenly flocking to the same system. But yes, I couldn't care less what other players are earning.

Yes, those are the things that ED should be monitoring, not looking into it because players are jealous of what others are doing/earning.

I thought that ED had resolved this last year, by only allowing 3 mission of the same type to be taken. As my main game style is Exploration, I haven't really delved much into missions apart from ranking up data delivery the odd delivery & the Ram Tah mission, never taken one single pewpew mission.