mission server - the death of ED

[Ethaidan]

FDev apparently doesn't even realize how much the mission generating system is broken. They have no intention to fix it on launch of the single mission server system.

The result will probably be months of waiting for FDev to realize the problem and fix it - if they fix it. Time in which players have to deal with the broken system.

Or, being the game designer and producer, they are very famiar with the global technical/balance issues surrounding the mission system & are well aware of the common player grievances (the din is truly deafening some days), and possibly even have a number of ideas/changes already in the pipeline, but are doing the proper thing, as a developer, and after switching servers will be letting the new system bed in and undergo some play-testing before introducing further coding changes on top of a significant structural change.

Or, they have no clue, no intention to make changes, are making it up as they go, and the game is dead.

 

[Bionic Bytes]

And FDev clearly stated that they won't address the secondary issue you mentioned when they change to the persistent single mission server.

It would indeed be no problem if FDev did both at the same time, but they won't.

Exactly, fdev are forging ahead with an architecture change which will impact the current set of players in various ways, and have clearly stated that they won't be addressing the underlying issues with the missions themselves. This is the nub of the problem.

 

[znôrt]

but are doing the proper thing, as a developer, and after switching servers will be letting the new system bed in and undergo some play-testing before introducing further coding changes on top of a significant structural change.

you are new here, right?
or is it cynicism?

 

[Lobstris]

Missions are the core activity of the game.

To me, *THIS* is the problem. Missions should be a side activity in the game, rather than the core. I would have thought that, in a "space trading" game, trading would have been a lot higher priority. See previous two Elites for details.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

To me, *THIS* is the problem. Missions should be a side activity in the game, rather than the core. I would have thought that, in a "space trading" game, trading would have been a lot higher priority. See previous two Elites for details.

Let's correct this. Missions are core money making / mats gathering activity of the game. Because other type of activities are seen of not paying enough.

 

[Lobstris]

Let's correct this. Missions are core money making / mats gathering activity of the game. Because other type of activities are seen of not paying enough.

Yes. And I've said plenty of times on these forums that I'd like to see mission rewards, as well as ship and module costs, reduced. Ain't going to happen though.

 

[the100thmonkey]

And the prize for hyperbolic thread of the week goes to...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

So let's get this straight:

People are saying ED will be dead because FD is fixing one big issue after another (mission server, exploration honk) because people are used to stuff and won't let it go?

I think you underestimate how people adapt to these changes. We complain a lot. Complains doesn't mean people will leave game. If evidence, it means they will stick around AND keep complaining if they won't be able to get used to changes.

Also it really depends what kind of death you talk about. Is it death of ED as arcade shooter? Then yes, I really, really hope so. And before "these players pay bills you know with their MT payments", you know most of MT payments goes towards servers right? And less people playing means less server costs?

Sometimes things change, and people fall out because of these changes. That's life. Some people won't be able to get past that they can't get money in ED that fast anymore. Good. Maybe credits will finally start to mean something. Doesn't mean it is a bad change.

Also do you really think developers would lie to themselves about statistics? Or it is just hard to accept that maybe, just maybe min maxing ISN'T staple of regular gamer? And it is something people justify beause they just can't be bothered with flow of the game?

You decide.

 

[bitstorm]

The trouble being it will be a death by a thousand cuts, as so much of ED needs attention. This situation is made much worse by ED being in its mid life stage, and that a lot of players have become accustomed to how things go in their underdeveloped state.

That's what I worry about.

This will be another instance where the player *wants* to do something in game, but they are forced to wait (or wait longer).

The exploration mechanic changes, while positive, risk the same, potentially another barrier to gameplay for the player.

The drip drip of changes that prevent players actually playing the game is my concern, yes the same as your thousand cuts.


If the change could also increases the number of missions on the board for a faction (by 25%, ideally more) then I think it all starts to balance out, please do this.

I see the benefit to Frontier with the infrastructure changes, but without further improvements around missions then this is change for the (slightly) worse for the player.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

I don't share your optomism here. If after four years missions are still unbalanced and (imho) lacking reward for large ships, then this suggests a problem other than the server archicture.

This decision by FDev seems to me to be addressing a symptom rather than the underlying cause.

Perhaps, but I see it as a chicken and egg situation.

Mission spamming has created a situation where people can stack as many of their favourite (most lucrative) mission as they want pretty much anywhere and everywhere.

That makes it pretty much impossible to balance missions at all in terms of either being state-driven, their relative rarity, or their reward.
Stopping the spamming is a prerequisite for doing it.

Will FD do it? Who knows, but until they stop the spamming, their efforts are pretty much wasted.

 

[Chrystoph]

The secondary benefit is that once mission spamming doesn't really work, FD can finally get to grips with mission balancing, both in terms of how many of various types of mission get generated under various circumstances, but also balance the rewards relative to each other and to other game activities.

Given that this is a primarily PvE environment, the use of "balance" in the above statement is a Red Herring. You are not in competition with anyone for position on the leader boards, there are no level based areas such as the various regions in World of Warcraft where the NPCs will either be too challenging or not challenging enough based on your relative wealth, and, because of character longevity, on average, the more clock a player has accumulated, the wealthier they are. As a result of that, people clump up at the top of the game when it comes to ship acquisition.

The quoted material in the OP will not bring balance, it will only make mission running less desirable as a progress method. It can be argued that, since the missions will be in common (extremely lazy programming), you cannot balance them because a player in a Sidewinder and a player in a Python will not have the same mission needs.

 

[bitstorm]

Given that this is a primarily PvE environment, the use of "balance" in the above statement is a Red Herring. You are not in competition with anyone for position on the leader boards, there are no level based areas such as the various regions in World of Warcraft where the NPCs will either be too challenging or not challenging enough based on your relative wealth, and, because of character longevity, on average, the more clock a player has accumulated, the wealthier they are. As a result of that, people clump up at the top of the game when it comes to ship acquisition.

The quoted material in the OP will not bring balance, it will only make mission running less desirable as a progress method. It can be argued that, since the missions will be in common (extremely lazy programming), you cannot balance them because a player in a Sidewinder and a player in a Python will not have the same mission needs.

I think this assumes Frontier don't peg mission rewards at a level according to any criteria. Which may be true, but we know rewards have been tweaked and changed many times.

I think they'll have an expected earning for missions, one flip can double the income rate for some mission types, this is a big difference.

 

[babelfisch]

The game is dead, long live the game!

 

[operant]

Not sure I follow your logic, there.

It seems, to me, like all the current issues are the result of the current system.

The primary issue being that heavy server loads (the result of board-flipping) cause meltdowns of the mission generation system and disconnects from the game.
.

Still trying to understand this if it is only 2.8% of players.
Do you have any evidence of the '(the results of board-flipping) cause meltdowns... and disconnects'.
(I read the above sentence to establish the causal chain: board flipping (by 2.8%) causes heavy server loads that cause meltdown of the mission generation system and disconnects.).
Perhaps you are connected with FD in some way and have inside information. Or I missed where FD published this causal link.
Would be interesting to have facts rather than speculation.

 

[Bionic Bytes]

People are saying ED will be dead because FD is fixing one big issue after another (mission server, exploration honk) because people are used to stuff and won't let it go?

No, I'm saying that I will find it very frustrating to be forced to either accept the current crop of missions or wait 10 mins for another set. I'm sure others may agree.
At some point I'm going to abort the game to play something else ... which is a shame for me as I love this game and the changes being made to it. However, if the missions aren't fixed and the board static for 10 mins at a time, I'm not going to like it. So.... I'll probably spend my few hours per week doing something else that I do enjoy and play Elite a lot less than before.

I think you underestimate how people adapt to these changes.

Nope. I've seen a lot of changes and welcome them.
However, none have had a direct impact on the mission board and the ability to pick an activity which pays accordingly. Now it seems that the choice we have is being diminished.

Also it really depends what kind of death you talk about. Is it death of ED as arcade shooter?

Dear Lord, help me. Are you kidding. You know what I mean. People will play less and less over time because the missions aren't fixed and we have less choice than before. This doesn't mean an insta-death of the game, more of a starvation by attrition.

Sometimes things change, and people fall out because of these changes. That's life. Some people won't be able to get past that they can't get money in ED that fast anymore. Good. Maybe credits will finally start to mean something. Doesn't mean it is a bad change.

You are missing the point. I never mentioned its all about money. It's about picking the mission you want to play. A board full of kill 96+ pirates is hardly useful to anyone.

Also do you really think developers would lie to themselves about statistics?

So you can logically explain the 2.8% can you. Go on then.. explain.

 

[bitstorm]

No, I'm saying that I will find it very frustrating to be forced to either accept the current crop of missions or wait 10 mins for another set. I'm sure others may agree.

I do agree, maybe not as strongly as you.

People can complain about board flipping, but at the end of the day it increases mission choice and it's an avenue for the player to actually engage with the game to get new missions. The player is actually doing something, as opposed to sitting passively for 10-15 mins.

At the end of the day "as it stands" the change is a step back from the player's perspective.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Given that this is a primarily PvE environment, the use of "balance" in the above statement is a Red Herring. You are not in competition with anyone for position on the leader boards, there are no level based areas such as the various regions in World of Warcraft where the NPCs will either be too challenging or not challenging enough based on your relative wealth, and, because of character longevity, on average, the more clock a player has accumulated, the wealthier they are. As a result of that, people clump up at the top of the game when it comes to ship acquisition.

The quoted material in the OP will not bring balance, it will only make mission running less desirable as a progress method. It can be argued that, since the missions will be in common (extremely lazy programming), you cannot balance them because a player in a Sidewinder and a player in a Python will not have the same mission needs.

The balance here is not about competition, it's about effort/risk v reward in the mission system itself.

An assassination is arguably more effort than a delivery - it should likely pay more, but probably be less common.

Having stackable milk runs that pay out small fortunes, has damaged the mission system as a whole.
That damage is already done, as we can see by the whining about the long overdue fix.

 

[Kubicide]

As someone who is part of the 97.8% who don't flip missions boards and additionally own all the ships in game I doubt ED will die.

… and likely benefited from the days of crazy high paying missions, and/or the many money makers that have since been nerfed, and/or have 80+ hours a weeks to grind away in this game to get all these ships and stuff. Really need to add the proper context to these silly replies.


This mission server change is likely being driven solely for cost savings purposes perhaps related to freeing up resources for paint transactions, etc. We don't know. But we do know there wasn't wide spread reports of players having severe problems with mission stability - look at the forums here for the history. There may have been stability issues causing high levels of maintenance cost on their end. But this change is not intended to benefit players with any significance.

Back to the OP's point FDev missed an opportunity to fix the core issue (whatever it is) and introduce a benefit to players but they chose not to. More evidence of being in maintenance mode doing only the minimal work that needs to be done to sustain the game "as is".

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

So you can logically explain the 2.8% can you. Go on then.. explain.

What's there to be explained? 2.8% of active players who access boards during their sessions flip them switching between modes.

Never board will have all things you want to have. You have to move around. You have to do something else. Boards aren't there to serve your whims. They are window to BGS.

 

[bitstorm]

What's there to be explained? 2.8% of active players who access boards during their sessions flip them switching between modes.

I don't think that's correct.

It's during a given day, 2.8% of players who accessed the board mission flipped. This might be an average or a single day's sample.