Flipped Off :: Tales from the Mission Boards.

[philngraves]

I think that the server is going to be hated at first, but should allow them a far easier time of adjusting missions in the future. This way, they can just mimic the server and adjust values and use the test server to check for issues. Logically implemented it should streamline missions to have fewer issues of both 'goldrush' missions and entire mission types being worthless until next hotfix.

Here is to hoping.

 

[Loki TDD]

With regards to not being able to board flip, I play primarily on Xbox as when elite launched i didn't have a pc capable of running it, for some reason or other my xbox has a very tenuous relationship with the mission servers (passenger lounge, U.C, contacts &everything else work fine) to the extent that i can only reliably access the mission board in solo without getting a server error message. So I'm unable to board flip.

Since they announced upcoming changes to the mission board i decided to finish unlocking the corvette down in Sothis, it took me about a week from 20% Lt. to Rear Admiral, details here if you're interested. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/442122-Week-in-review?p=7035865&viewfull=1#post7035865

The TL;DR version is i made 480 million credits in the week and finished my last 20% towards Elite in Trade as well.

 

[EUS]

Somebody, somewhere, is eating a Toffee Crisp.

You misspelled Crispy Crunch.

 

[Strangepork]

Cool man how are you going to stop me from board flipping HASREZ sites? Same concept isn't it? Going to stop that to? What about Don's? Going to stop that also? What about Guardian Sites?

Why not fix the problems with missions instead of a short cut to over come peoples ability to progress?

I guess that would be instance Flipping, and would require a significant rewrite of the game.

 

[House0fDerp]

I am willing to forgive the team at FDev for not fully realizing the depths of stubborn stupidity that some gamers will plumb to avoid actually having to play a game. They didn't worry about it because they already understood that ships were not actually a straight power progression and those gamers who thought that they would skip to the "most powerful" ships would actually just end up being juicy targets. It was probably hilarious to watch the moron parade. You ruin your own gameplay experience and then blame the developers for your own bad choices. Talk about "logic"

Or maybe people can say what they mean and you're full of it and have no place putting words in their mouths.

Also my gameplay experience is fine, getting what I needed from the mission system so I could get away from it was the best use of it there could be for me.

 

[Starman 1966]

Currently each server you join via the different game modes serves up different missions.

That's not exactly true. Sometimes you'll happen to see all the same missions after a mode/board flip.

 

[GunnerBill]

I think you just bumped it to 2.9%. Shame!

If that’s the case could you tell me exactly how many Cmdrs there are?

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

If that’s the case could you tell me exactly how many Cmdrs there are?

There are exactly 100% cmdrs [up]

That's not exactly true. Sometimes you'll happen to see all the same missions after a mode/board flip.

As far from the feedback of a bug report i have read, this happens if you go to main menu without exiting the mission menu or the sttion menu.
Than the missions will be persistent to the next mode. However, i've never tryed to verify that myself

True but they can put them in private not solo means solo.

The problem here is, that the cmdrs on console have only solo mode available if they don't pay a monthly fee for premium console accounts. Now they wanna be able too to do some wing missions solo and they can't choose a group mode.
I guess that this is the reason, why solo missions appear also in solo mode.....so that ALL players have an equal choice for missions regardless if they are on pc or console, in solo/group or open

 

[Blackcompany]

I think they are putting a stop to board flipping in order to make the whole thing more of a chore.

Not much 'game' so make what there is even more time-consuming?

This has been their strategy all along: disguise the lack of game with soulless grind. That this is all their tech can manage is quite evident by now.

 

[Blackcompany]

Cool story! Why are wing missions in solo? Because the mission system is broken! Easy bro!

Go one better: why do Wing missions even exist? Why arent they just missions, with pay scaling for Wings?

Because the entire game is broken...or at incredibly flawed. At best.

 

[Strangepork]

Frontier changed the mission system because it's causing their universe servers to time out and is massively impacting on infrastructure, let alone player experience. They made a change because it was affecting them more than anything else.

This sort of pious righteous indignation is great, but is oblivious to Frontier's own statements on the matter. Load, m8. Load. Developer has had to sh*tcan the entire missions system to its own infrastructure because the current can't cope with it.

This has been incredibly obvious to anyone going anywhere near the missions system, for the best part of a year now.

Sure I think timeouts were an issue, but I genuinely think they wanted to stop board Flipping so they can more easily control cmdr earnings and gameplay.

 

[Strangepork]

Then why do their servers suck so much? You sound angry bro. 4 years now it is an issue?

Like any good server, FD servers both suck AND blow cmdr.

I guess they are costly and FD are at once walking the tightrope between cost and functionality/playability.

 

[babelfisch]

Go one better: why do Wing missions even exist? Why arent they just missions, with pay scaling for Wings?

Because the entire game is broken...or at incredibly flawed. At best.

Disagree with the broken part, agree with the flawed part. I think all missions should be available for wings and scale accordingly. If the current mission system can't do that they should work on a better mission system.

 

[Strangepork]

Disagree with the broken part, agree with the flawed part. I think all missions should be available for wings and scale accordingly. If the current mission system can't do that they should work on a better mission system.

My theory, we all know missions are Neanderthal in Elite, the reason for no progress, the code is so balked FD daren't touch it anymore. RE Spaghetti code.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

So it won't remove the need (or desire) to swap, just the ability to do so. OK got it +1.

So they will need to overhaul the mission boards then - big time, because there's going to be a lot of complaints.

Yes there will be a lot of complaints - but FDev have already stated they are not changing either the amount or types of missions offered - only the timer - which is going from a very very tedious 15 minutes refresh to a mere "very tedious" 10 minutes.

whoo hoo - I'll bet y'all be wondering if its christmas with the extra 5 minutes you save each refresh - except you'll be sitting there for an hour before anything you like turns up....

all because they don't like the extra server loads of flipping - and they don't want to spend the money increasing thier capacity.

this will be fun to watch.

 

[Strangepork]

Yes there will be a lot of complaints - but FDev have already stated they are not changing either the amount or types of missions offered - only the timer - which is going from a very very tedious 15 minutes refresh to a mere "very tedious" 10 minutes.

whoo hoo - I'll bet y'all be wondering if its christmas with the extra 5 minutes you save each refresh - except you'll be sitting there for an hour before anything you like turns up....

all because they don't like the extra server loads of flipping - and they don't want to spend the money increasing thier capacity.

this will be fun to watch.

Surely the bigger issue is missions are tedious and repetitive, sad even?

 

[Rafe Zetter]

All of that is a direct effect of the board flippers. They overloaded the servers by using hundreds of times more resources than a player using the system normally. Everytime I waited for the mission boards to load, I didn't blame Frontier. I blamed the chuckleheads sitting in a station hammering the servers.

How about you DO blame Frontier - for not spending the money to either make a better mission board system OR make a more robust system so board flipping load isn't an issue - you know like adding more server resources with the substantial profits they have made, hmm?

Board flipping is the symptom of the problem, NOT the problem itself, and their idea to "fix" it, is to offload the problem onto the players.

Anyone who thinks it's cool to make players wait 15 minutes for a board refresh to get a mission that meets thier playtime criteria is a delusional fool who needs to re-examine thier grasp on human society and behaviours.

Anyone who thinks it's cool to make players wait 10 minutes for a board refresh to get a mission that meets thier playtime criteria is a delusional fool who needs to re-examine thier grasp on human society and behaviours.

no the second one is not a repeat - read it again.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Surely the bigger issue is missions are tedious and repetitive, sad even?

Sure that's an issue all right - one some of us have been begging them to do something about - create mission chains, or missions that emerge from events you encounter, but right now the worst of the tedious missions can be bypassed by flipping, soon you won't even be able to do that.

This is going to be another car crash event like Gnosis, except instead of just 11,000 players affected it'll be everyone.

Unless they change the refresh rate from the proposed 10 minutes down to say 5 and double or even triple the amount of missions that are offered per refresh those players with little time to play will just stop if they think a large portion of thier time will be taken with just waiting for that mission board to refresh.

FDev might think people will just fly from system to system, station to station looking for a mission they like - and they might - for the first few times, but once it becomes clear that even travelling to different systems isn't really giving them what they are looking for, they will just log off.

Will they come back to play "mission board roulette" again? No idea, but FDev will have that data soon enough.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Nah. Now I get to say I told ya so and it feels great, man.

If the only way you can progress is by resetting instances and mode flipping mission boards, you must be really terrible at this game.

Or they don't have 5 hours to play each night and want to actually GET SH.. DONE in the time they do have.

But please - keep blaming the pleyers for FDev not having servers worth a damn and a mission board system that requires flipping to help people get the missions they prefer, that suits the ships(s) they fly - it makes it far easier for us to decide which camp you are in.

Not everyone has a fleet of ships all modified differently so they can take a range of missions - it might suprise you to be told that there are players who have just one ship and can only do a few of the missions that might get offered, except now they will have to wait 10 minutes to see if the next refresh gives them one they like - or another 10 minutes, then another....

I think they are called... "new players", and for them board flipping means they can progress to bigger ships or buying another ship in days instead of weeks.

It's easy for you to say "L2P bro - git gud" - when you've been playing and flipping yourself (and don't insult us by saying you never have - because we won't beleive you).

PS l33t names are childish.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

And i bet most people don't play in wings though.

Thats not a bet - that's a sure thing.