mission server - the death of ED

[Bionic Bytes]

There will be some mission fixes along this step (Wing vs. solo missions have been mentioned). As for being restrictive or not paying enough - it is highly subjective, but overall after this step balancing will make way more sense.

And in the meantime, whilst we are waiting for fdev to 'balance' the missions, we'll just have to put up with the broken missions with a reduced choice of them to pick from. That's a good thing....rather than have the dev team fix the missions AND implement the mission server.

Secondly...'balance'. Unless the mission templates are re-balanced to make massacre missions reflect their danger (risk/reward) and pirate kill count reduced so that the mission can be completed in 10 mins rather than the hours it takes now, there is no balance compared to ferry Passengers to a single destination for 4x the reward.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

And in the meantime, whilst we are waiting for fdev to 'balance' the missions, we'll just have to put up with the broken missions with a reduced choice of them to pick from. That's a good thing....rather than have the dev team fix the missions AND implement the mission server.

As I said some of fixes for missions will come in Q4. Not all of them and most likely not all of them are seen by devs as broken.

Secondly...'balance'. Unless the mission templates are re-balanced to make massacre missions reflect their danger (risk/reward) and pirate kill count reduced so that the mission can be completed in 10 mins rather than the hours it takes now, there is no balance compared to ferry Passengers to a single destination for 4x the reward.

Balance is always matter of subjectivity, however now when boards will be consistent across all modes, it is worth to invest more development time to improve it, as there won't be way to abuse it (as it has happened in the past, with distance bonus for example).

 

[Stealthie]

i don't know, missing the figures we can only speculate. i've read get-rich guides which involved an hour flipping and 20 minutes actually playing. it was just an example to illustrate that abusive (not meant in a bad way) behavior by (proporionally) few can still have huge impact.

i've only flipped occasionally, and not done it for a while, but a year or so ago you could refresh instantly just by switching modes. this might have changed, but from frontier's announcement i assumed this was indeed an issue for them. server overload is always a problem as it hurts game experience, but if this produces abnormal situations that need to be handled by the support team then the cost becomes prohibitve pretty soon and something must be done. that's the motivation behind this i think.

I guess it's one of those "hope for the best but plan for the worst" situations.

Clearly, we HAVE have had plenty of occasions where the mission-generator has fallen over in the last 12 months so it's daft to say "But, it's only 2.8%!!!!".
We know that, in-extremis, the mission-generator can't handle the loads placed upon it.

What we don't know is how near to capacity it's running the rest of the time.
I mean, if it's running at 80% capacity most of the time that might explain why mission choice is limited.
If you have a "pool" of 100 missions, do you provide 10 missions of 10 different types, thus making them all "rare" thus, possibly, encouraging more board-flipping and exacerbating the problem or do you provide 30 missions of 3 different types and hope that people will accept that's all they're gonna get and not bother board-flipping to find different ones?

Fundamentally, it seems like this is about easing the load on the server, which might mean a larger variety of missions can be provided and should also mean that mission-spawns and payments can be tweaked without having to worry that changes can be exploited disproportionately by the 2.8%.

 

[znôrt]

Fundamentally, it seems like this is about easing the load on the server, which might mean a larger variety of missions can be provided and should also mean that mission-spawns and payments can be tweaked without having to worry that changes can be exploited disproportionately by the 2.8%.

that's for sure! i can't imagine that board flipping was initially intended gameplay, and i don't really like it, so this is a welcome change. there will probably be consequences, much forum entertainment and some more balancing (shudder) will be necessary, but it's definitely the way to go.

now, i don't really care that much about missions. they are ok for me and not my primary gameplay. but if (as jasonbarron suggested above) they would try to do the right thing also about combat ... that would be something! that's why i found the pp-open-only suggestion so appealing: i saw it was going to create a lot of problems highlighting several current shortcomings of the architecture ... prompting them to be addressed aswell. you need to crack some eggs to make an ommelette (suggestions of vegan alternatives of this phrase appreciated!).

 

[Lightspeed]

I wonder if Dav's Hope will be put on the same server: there was always a lot of board flipping there. If so, they could offer "specials" such as five mats per scoop for regular customers

 

[Speedcuffs]

I wonder if Dav's Hope will be put on the same server: there was always a lot of board flipping there. If so, they could offer "specials" such as five mats per scoop for regular customers

Noooooooooo![haha]

 

[znôrt]

I wonder if Dav's Hope will be put on the same server: there was always a lot of board flipping there. If so, they could offer "specials" such as five mats per scoop for regular customers

quick and straight to the jugular. i like your style!

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

You PvE nerds are something else.

 

[Julio Montega]

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

Again, sorry i do not understand why that is an issue NOW.
4 years with the same architecture and NOW it is an issue crashing the game?
Wasn't that clear before? Why do they pay their tech division anything at all,
if they need 4 years to find a simple error?

Lame excuse.
I don't swallow that.
First shady statistics involving no info on how data is gathered resulting in 2.8% forum breakdowns,
and they stick with this, too?

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.

Result forecast:
6 months to 1 year mission debacle, with hardly fixing and just another broken part of the game.

Even today, not all mission types are equalized, and we even see the timers in some missions,
which were removed in the "more popular" missions.
Constant mission improvement is promised, but there is hardly a step forward
when you look at the whole of it.

 

[znôrt]

Again, sorry i do not understand why that is an issue NOW.

can happen. priorities and such. also, game population has increased in those 4 years. my guess is they didn't react until the support team really shouted out they were swamped with just this.

Lame excuse.
I don't swallow that.

so what's your theory?

 

[Julio Montega]

can happen. priorities and such. also, game population has increased in those 4 years. my guess is they didn't react until the support team really shouted out they were swamped with just this.



so what's your theory?

Given devs statement of "solely implementing" what we now have as "C&P",
to fulfill the role of "deterring mass murdering bgs influence" and
"not to deterr PVP", this is the next step of deterring
"mass influence of the BGS, via missions".

Nothing else.
No looking at the root of the problem, no creative thinking,
just oldschool duct tape, a board and fix decision
including an oversized hammer.

Carrying around a technical problem that is the reason for SERVER CRASHES
for 4 years, that is not only unprofessional, but also plain ignorant.
Other stuff in the game causing crashes get fixed asap,
this not?

 

[Hellfire85]

You PvE nerds are something else.

^^^^This

 

[rp198419]

You PvE nerds are something else.

?

Explain please.

 

[znôrt]

this is the next step of deterring "mass influence of the BGS, via missions".

thanks for clarifying. could be! i'm not sure that would be per-se something bad, but i take you would prefer a more ground-up approach. me too.

Carrying around a technical problem that is the reason for SERVER CRASHES
for 4 years, that is not only unprofessional, but also plain ignorant.
Other stuff in the game causing crashes get fixed asap,
this not?

we've seen worse

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Again, sorry i do not understand why that is an issue NOW.
4 years with the same architecture and NOW it is an issue crashing the game?
Wasn't that clear before? Why do they pay their tech division anything at all,
if they need 4 years to find a simple error?

Lame excuse.
I don't swallow that.
First shady statistics involving no info on how data is gathered resulting in 2.8% forum breakdowns,
and they stick with this, too?



Result forecast:
6 months to 1 year mission debacle, with hardly fixing and just another broken part of the game.

Even today, not all mission types are equalized, and we even see the timers in some missions,
which were removed in the "more popular" missions.
Constant mission improvement is promised, but there is hardly a step forward
when you look at the whole of it.

This is FD. They don't exactly move quickly do they.

Yup, the 2nd part is speculative but I can see why it hasn't worked up to now with mission spamming available.

 

[Julio Montega]

thanks for clarifying. could be! i'm not sure that would be per-se something bad, but i take you would prefer a more ground-up approach. me too.

You are welcome!

we've seen worse

Doesn't mean it is normal,
and we have to accept every
bull-dropping FD produces.

 

[leeG]

Missions? I’ve only run just enough missions to get the Sol permit. Other than that I ignore the mission board. I don’t see how this one feature could be the death of the game. Ignoring missions hasn’t kept me from acquiring an AspX for exploring, a Krait for mining, and a Python and Type 9 for trading. Plus the touring Cobra and Type 6.

 

[jonesskill]

That is no benefit, that is the problem.

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.

The way you talk just remind me about a FSD booster, 6 months to fix that and he comes with the same bug after all.
Iluded people that think that this server will alow any type of improvement - i can bet that even the loading times will not be improved.

 

[thistle]

Again, sorry i do not understand why that is an issue NOW.
4 years with the same architecture and NOW it is an issue crashing the game?
Wasn't that clear before? Why do they pay their tech division anything at all,
if they need 4 years to find a simple error?

Lame excuse.
I don't swallow that.
First shady statistics involving no info on how data is gathered resulting in 2.8% forum breakdowns,
and they stick with this, too?

Yes. They are out to get you.

YOU.

The horror.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Given devs statement of "solely implementing" what we now have as "C&P",
to fulfill the role of "deterring mass murdering bgs influence" and
"not to deterr PVP", this is the next step of deterring
"mass influence of the BGS, via missions".
…

That could be the reason behind that move, BGS gameplay would certainly be the play style most affected by moving the broken mission system to a single mission server for all players.

Or FDev simply now had the time to fix the long existing problem with their mission server architecture. And those responsible for the server architecture probably aren't aware how this might affect the players beside eliminating gold rushes (a good thing in my opinion).

Personally I think it's the later. I prefer to think FDev tried to do the right thing unaware how this might affect players who are not very vocal or represented by a triple Elite player group.