New Bank Initiative will probably result in nerfing wing missions

[Muzz UK]

I've said since day one that Wing missions should require a minimum 5% contribution from every wing member.

I have a friend start playing a few months ago and he was in a Conda in a week because of wing missions. To be fair we didn't cheat we made sure he did a journey/run on each mission from Sidewinder to Type 6 he did barely nothing where as me in a Type 9 and friend in Python did most of the work. Once he got that Type 6 he was doing over 90 units and on a 700-800 unit delivery mission was playing his part.

Its open to abuse and boosting easily. This friend basically made the money in one week another friend took a year of playing to make.

You can literally log in with a Sidewinder sit in dock join a wing click a few buttons and bang 20 million credits and rep increase. I don't think you should be paid based on rep just have to contribute 5% on all wing missions.

5% on a 1100 mission would mean a Sidey pilot would have to do more than one trip and therefore has done some work.

 

[Aashenfox]

I feel like this is going to be a very short lived thing. I hope those guys make hay while the sun shines.

Because almost every other game is engineered in such a way that you cannot share in mission spoils unless you actually participated. This is easily achieved by having the 'mission objective complete' variable exist separately for each player and if you weren't in the instance when the objective was completed you don't have the completion flag and cannot hand in. This has absolutely nothing to do with the payouts for wing missions, it's a simple coding matter, but they are due a huge overhaul anyway.

Very minor issue easily fixed.

 

[GunnerBill]

This is easily achieved by having the 'mission objective complete' variable exist separately for each player and if you weren't in the instance when the objective was completed you don't have the completion flag and cannot hand in.

I agree with the sentiment but that wouldn't work. The mission boards are prone to break if you all try to log in on completion and quite frequently it requires at least one player to log out and back in, sometimes not in the wing, to be able to access the board.

Even with the current system I and others in our group have lost out on payouts even though we share the heavy lifting.


Surely this could just be linked to how much you have delivered to that mission. But tbh that doesn't even work as quite often as a group we share wing missions, complete only our own but the effect is the same as sharing the work across missions.

Man this is complicated!

 

[Factabulous]

As others have said - it's not a bank, it's philanthropy by the look of it.

As long as they're using Wing Missions and not abusing them - good luck to 'em! Other groups like Fuel Rats and Operation Ida do things in-game for basic / little pay, so why not Wing Missions - if you're doing them anyway for BGS purposed might as well make use of the spare CR. If it does become an issue for FDev there are ways to tweak the missions, but it doesn't sound like they're doing anything other than providing a matchmaking service, so not inherently a bad thing.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Back off topic Anyone who can make sense of Ralph's "for fun" (I think) thread - please be my guest:
Commander-The-Time-Has-Come-Execute-Order-Sixty-Six
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...der-The-Time-Has-Come-Execute-Order-Sixty-Six

Mostly for fun. Another reason is too see who "gets it".

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I've said since day one that Wing missions should require a minimum 5% contribution from every wing member.

There are mission types where that would be extremely difficult to quantify.

For example, the bulk haulage missions - if two T-9s and a FDL take a bulk haulage mission, and the FDL blows up 6 NPC pirates attacking the freighters, and the freighters haul 2200t each, what's the % contribution from the FDL?

Or on the wing assassination missions? If one player keeps the NPC's escorts busy while the other player goes for the main target, what's the contribution rate?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If this encourages FD to fix wing missions, such as by making the rewards shared rather than multiplied, then it's all good.

Well, except that the current payouts for wing hauling missions assume that the rewards will be copied to a wing of four (otherwise solo hauling missions are *far* more profitable).

So if they moved to a "shared out" model they'd need to make the base payouts significantly bigger ... which would make absolutely no difference to its usability as a cash transfer scheme.

It also introduces the likelihood that unscrupulous people would invite others to wing missions, let them do 3/4 of the work, then leave the wing - as the mission owner - complete the last little bit of the mission, and keep the full reward for themselves.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Because almost every other game is engineered in such a way that you cannot share in mission spoils unless you actually participated. This is easily achieved by having the 'mission objective complete' variable exist separately for each player and if you weren't in the instance when the objective was completed you don't have the completion flag and cannot hand in.

How would this work for a wing massacre mission? The efficient way to complete these is probably for all four wing members to drop into separate target signal sources, wipe out the contents, and move on. Giving the mission reward only to whoever was lucky enough to get the last kill - or requiring everyone to regroup before getting the last few - isn't good.

Similarly if you've got multiple wing haulage missions on the go at once. Having everyone wait in dock for the last one to come in, rather than getting started on the next mission, is not great. And doesn't stop the use for cash transfer at all, since the beneficiary just has to sit in a specific dock.

 

[GunnerBill]

There are mission types where that would be extremely difficult to quantify.

For example, the bulk haulage missions - if two T-9s and a FDL take a bulk haulage mission, and the FDL blows up 6 NPC pirates attacking the freighters, and the freighters haul 2200t each, what's the % contribution from the FDL?

Or on the wing assassination missions? If one player keeps the NPC's escorts busy while the other player goes for the main target, what's the contribution rate?

From my point of view an escort would be irrelevant. I do most of my bulk haulage in a Cutter or Python. If I get interdicted I just submit, boost away then straight back to SC.

Of course in other cargo ships (T9 etc) this may be important.

It'd be intersting if the combat escort could be assigned a mission % 5, 10, 15% etc by the mission giver. Of course the combat pilot keeps the bounties.

 

[Dagwit]

On the question of this service being offered in the future for real-world money, Elite Dangerous's EULA has something to say:

10. Limitation of Liability; Remedies
10.1 We only supply the Game (including the Online Features) for domestic and private use. You agree not to use the Game for any commercial, business or resale purposes and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of information, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity arising out of the use of or inability to use the Game, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

 

[DaveB]

For as long as there are folks stupid enough to buy in-game "status symbols" rather than getting them as the rewards for gameplay, there will be gold-farming parasites willing to take their money.

 

[Factabulous]

It will be interesting if it survives - the main people who will want this are those who are bad at PvP (so need to fund lots of rebuys) and new players wanting to buy big ships before they can afford them.

I can't see either group leading to fun gameplay for the philanthropists, but stand ready to be proved wrong

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Just seen Obsidian Ants video, where he mentions again the IBIFI-thing.

Basically it is advertised as a bank where you can request money and it’s paid to you.

Following the link to the Discord group they host and it explains that how they do it is via the use of the Source-Return missions that the “banker” stacks up and then shares with Wing mates who are invited to their wing.

They add some sort of rules about if you already have lots of money you will probably only get a smaller payout and vice versa for if you are poor, probably to try and show some level of control.

I think that if this takes off, then all FDev will do is nerf these type of Wing missions so the payouts become pitiful to try and disssuade players from doing this.

Advertising this get rich scheme and offering payouts from between 20 - 500 million will only result in nerf hammering in game rewards.

Its a a pity that they decided to industrialise the benefits of Wing mission payment method and advertise it, as it will all end in tears.

am i being thick (probably) but is this not a horribly convoluted way?.
surely either standard KISS rules and split the pay between members of the wing equally
or KISS number 2 option of payment based on percentage amount of "work" done.

and then bonus points if to either of the above the initially mission taker was able to over ride this if everyone agreed to tweak payouts - to for instance help an inexperienced player if they chose???

I am glad they are looking at it however, so there is that... i really dislike the current magic multiplier.

 

[Rob At Work]

I have had a motto since 2008 "never trust a banker" - they is not as think as clever they are!

Also since 14 Dec 2014 - "If a Dev says it's gonna happen, then it aint"

 

[Drelthar]

I think you are right that FD will just nerf it, but what would have been better, would be a system that actually checks what you did towards the wing mission, and divides the total reward based on that between the wing members.

It's a fairly lazy implementation, but I get why they did it.

 

[pzykozomatik]

For some it is. I havent jumped on any gold rushes, i have played bit under 800 hours and still my total assets are under 500 mil.

Don't need gold rushes for anything. It's your prerogative to just ignore the abundance of lucrative options and play the game as you like; but don't pretend you are poor because earning money is hard. It isn't.

 

[iFred]

One of the things I mentioned before. Things should be thought out until the end. Otherwise we get patchwork-solutions, like we have now.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Support credit trading then

Why though?

 

[Snowymonk]

Our faction has been doing this since Wing missions were introduced.

Not source and return missions but assassination missions.
It gave / gives the Commanders a bit more of a challenge.

Once complete, the message then goes out in faction chat if anyone wants to share the rewards.

I don't take part because I feel that it is cheating / not in the spirit but it helps the newer members of the faction, to whom credits are needed in order to progress

 

[Kaocraft]

There's no possible way that Frontier didn't see this coming. This was one of the first things people were discussing when Wing missions and the multiplier payouts were first announced, before it was even released. The fact that they went ahead and released wing missions with the multiplier effect still intact, ought to serve as a strong indication that they're OK with what is happening now.

Personally I'd much prefer a more intuitive system where all missions can be shared and the spoils *divided* rather than multiplied, but it seems clear that this is the path Frontier are locked into. I doubt that people have anything to worry about here.