mission server - the death of ED

[sqzbox1]

I don't board flip - can't be bothered - takes too long and interrupts my game. I'm not entitled to anything. If there are no missions on the board that I want to do then I go do something else. And this happens all the time. I like knocking off pirate lords - but solo. Sometimes I see nothing but wing missions. Sometimes there simply aren't any at all. So? I go do some bounty hunting or some mining or some trading or something. Gather some materials perhaps, check out some USS's, maybe explore a bit. There is no reason in the world why there should always be the mission I want on the board. In fact if there were then there is a real danger that I might get caught in the trap of never doing anything else.

And I don't care about the credits - much. Sure I use credits as a measure sometimes - only taking the big payout missions if I have a choice, and so on. But really, the game is not about credits is it? I really don't understand why people are complaining about this change. It seems to me that it is right in line with the developers vision and I see only positives coming from it.

 

[bitstorm]

I really don't understand why people are complaining about this change.

It's because it reduces mission choice, you get less choice in missions.

If you're actively trying to find something specific, the chance of finding what you want will be reduced.

 

[Stealthie]

Do you have any evidence of the '(the results of board-flipping) cause meltdowns... and disconnects'.

Yes.

One of the dev's said so in a thread related to a "gold rush", a few months ago.

I guess this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, really, given that they're now setting up a separate mission-server to alleviate this problem.

Presumably, the alleged 2.8% of people who regularly board-flip don't put a great deal of extra load on the server but when there's a "gold rush", and a helluva lot more than 2.8% of players are board-flipping to stack juicy missions, it can cause problems.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

It's because it reduces mission choice, you get less choice in missions.

If you're actively trying to find something specific, the chance of finding what you want will be reduced.

I think the key here is what the definition of 'actively' is.
If the expectation is to open up the board and see exactly the thing you want to do every time, then we'll likely be disappointed.

My expectation is that mission generation should take far more account of system types, wealth and population, etc., and be affected by rather than exclusively driven by faction states.

'Actively trying to find' should mean being in the right place because the right set of conditions apply to greatly favour the thing you want to do, not expecting to be able to do it anywhere at any time.

 

[racer1]

Game is doomed... again

 

[jasonbarron]

If only 2.8% of the playerbase indulges in mode switching to refresh boards, where's the motivation to address it at all? Of all the things they could "fix" this seems pretty far (using their own math) down the list of priorities.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Missing the big picture there.
The primary reason for the change is server stability - that's a no brainer.

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.

Tertiary Benefit is that this might allow them the resources/space they require to make missions more complex & interesting......at least that is my hope.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Yes.

One of the dev's said so in a thread related to a "gold rush", a few months ago.

I guess this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, really, given that they're now setting up a separate mission-server to alleviate this problem.

Presumably, the alleged 2.8% of people who regularly board-flip don't put a great deal of extra load on the server but when there's a "gold rush", and a helluva lot more than 2.8% of players are board-flipping to stack juicy missions, it can cause problems.

I can easily see that 2.8% of players driving 75% of the mission system workload - that's the issue.
The unexpected behaviour allowing mission regeneration, has caused the server load to exceed expectations.

Tertiary Benefit is that this might allow them the resources/space they require to make missions more complex & interesting......at least that is my hope.

I can see that too - the reduced workload and additional resources should allow for more complexity.

If only 2.8% of the playerbase indulges in mode switching to refresh boards, where's the motivation to address it at all? Of all the things they could "fix" this seems pretty far (using their own math) down the list of priorities.

See the previous comment - 2.8% of players generating significantly more than their share of the server workload.

 

[bitstorm]

If only 2.8% of the playerbase indulges in mode switching to refresh boards, where's the motivation to address it at all? Of all the things they could "fix" this seems pretty far (using their own math) down the list of priorities.

I think this has been mentioned enought but it''s not 2.8% of the playerbase is it.

It's 2.8% of daily unique players.

 

[znôrt]

If only 2.8% of the playerbase indulges in mode switching to refresh boards, where's the motivation to address it at all? Of all the things they could "fix" this seems pretty far (using their own math) down the list of priorities.

according to them, they are not addressing board flipping, but changing the architecture because of instability of the mission service. as a side effect (or maybe just 'now that we're at it') missions will be persistent (for a while) so flipping, while still possible, won't do anything.

 

[Stealthie]

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.

Hence:-

I don't doubt that things will end-up getting adjusted but at least this means (hopefully) FDev won't constantly have to think about board-flipping when setting mission spawn rates and payment levels.

When you're trying to fix a problem, you usually change ONE thing, evaluate the result, and then change something else until the problem gets fixed.

As I said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this change results in a heap of people moaning about mission-choice.
Hell, there's every chance I'll be right in among it, pitchfork in hand, if I think things could be better.

The undeniable fact, however, is that the new system will mean that FDev can - if they choose to - increase mission-spawns and increase mission payments without constantly having to worry that the changes will be exploited by the 2.8%.

I'm sure some people will only be happy when they can stack 20 "Smeaton runs" and those people are always likely to complain if they can't.
For those of us who have a slightly less "entitled" opinion of what's reasonable, there's a good chance we'll be satisfied.

 

[jasonbarron]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Good points.

 

[znôrt]

Tertiary Benefit is that this might allow them the resources/space they require to make missions more complex & interesting......at least that is my hope.

aw, cute ...

 

[Tarman]

Poor Elite. Caught in a neverending cycle of death and resurrection. Plus imagine the funeral costs for dying every week for almost 5 years!

 

[Marklar_]

So this isn't really a mission fix, it's a backend performance fix. So we'll still need to wait for fixes for mission variety, but as far as I can tell there are no promises on that. Is that about right?

I'm trying to be optimistic here, but the mission system has been a problem from the beginning and I've seen umpteen adjustments by now, and it's still a mess. I'm getting tired of waiting for a decent mission system

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

If only 2.8% of the playerbase indulges in mode switching to refresh boards, where's the motivation to address it at all? Of all the things they could "fix" this seems pretty far (using their own math) down the list of priorities.

If you read original announcement, https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ssion-server?p=6992975&viewfull=1#post6992975

As it currently stands, missions are on a shared server with other elements of the game. This has the risk of problems with missions causing outages and stability issues for the rest of the game if there are technical hiccups.

So, what benefits will we see by moving missions to their own separate server?

• Any issue (generated by missions) which can cause a server outage or stability problems will no longer result in players disconnecting. Instead the missions will be unavailable for a period of time.
• If such issues do occur, the previous servers will be able to act as a back-up, offering better opportunities to recover game content as quickly as possible.
• We may see a slight decrease in mission board loading times.
• Missions will now be consistent across game modes (Solo/Open/Private Group).

 

[Old Duck]

Putt simply: If you made the above changes, and that's it, it WILL be a MAJOR cause for the games death.

[video=youtube;KqftdKNmweA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqftdKNmweA[/video]

 

[Tifu]

according to them, they are not addressing board flipping, but changing the architecture because of instability of the mission service. as a side effect (or maybe just 'now that we're at it') missions will be persistent (for a while) so flipping, while still possible, won't do anything.

This makes a lot of sense to me. If a part of the game is causing a bottleneck then partition that part and shift the load to a dedicated server so scaling to meet increased demand is easier. Looks like this is inevitable if it's an architectural issue.

 

[Stealthie]

I can easily see that 2.8% of players driving 75% of the mission system workload - that's the issue.
The unexpected behaviour allowing mission regeneration, has caused the server load to exceed expectations.

Exactly.

I have no idea how valid a figure the magical 2.8% is but it's even less valid without examining how much board-flipping that 2.8% do.

The worst-case scenario, as happened at "Smeaton" was that players who understand how the mission-generator works were taking all the missions and then abandoning all the ones which weren't "Smeaton runs" in order to force the mission-generator to spawn even more missions - which they'd then also abandon unless they were yet another "Smeaton run".

You don't have to be a rocket-scientist to realise this is going to put a lot of strain on the mission-generator.

 

[jasonbarron]

If you read original announcement, https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ssion-server?p=6992975&viewfull=1#post6992975

Now if they just implement another separate server for combat encounters we could see an end to clogging!