It was a rhetorical question, but apparently you think they do. Fair enough.
Cheers.
Board flipping=exploit, how stupid, read on...
- Thread starter Aaron T
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It was a rhetorical question, but apparently you think they do. Fair enough.
Cheers.
An exploit is anything that gives you a unintended advantage.
Board flipping is clearly an exploit. The mission board generates a limited set of missions, some of them good some of them merely okay, the idea being that in ED you are supposed to make do with the hand you are given. Because of some tehnical limitation, you are able to bypass this by connecting to a different server to cherry-pick only the good missions. If you take advantage of it, you are clearly exploiting, also known as cheating.
That Frontier are unable to do anything about it doesn't change much to what you're doing. Combat logging is also an exploit they are apparently unable to do anything about, doesn't make it any more legit.
The guardians were added by design. Board flipping is not by design. It is enabled by the current implementation, but that is far from being the same by design.
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Board flipping isn't exploiting, and I don't care if it's unintended gameplay according to FD, you can play games smartly, using your brain or you can play stupidly due to "reason" I consider that just meta gameplay...I mean one of the main strategy in gaming is finding these so called unintended ways to progress or get ahead and to find ways to lessen the grind.
IF companies have a problem with that they just need to stop putting arbitrary, stupid, irritating grinds in their games just to stretch things out and hide the lack of content or actual gameplay.
I mean seriously board flipping is the only way we have to get around the crappy "mission" system they have implemented at present, it's not like people are hacking or glitching bosses for easy/free kills etc etc.
TLDR: board flipping isn't exploiting IMO it's a quality of life benefit from a badly implemented system.
IF companies have a problem with that they just need to stop putting arbitrary, stupid, irritating grinds in their games just to stretch things out and hide the lack of content or actual gameplay.
I mean seriously board flipping is the only way we have to get around the crappy "mission" system they have implemented at present, it's not like people are hacking or glitching bosses for easy/free kills etc etc.
TLDR: board flipping isn't exploiting IMO it's a quality of life benefit from a badly implemented system.
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Then normalize pay based on rep/rank and allow me to choose mission type.
You missed the math in there... an hour spent flipping boards for a 5-minute flight where you could have made 12 of those same 5-minute flights in the same time. It reminds me of the people who put in 40+ hours a week writing scam e-mails or spamware in the hopes they might just rustle up $10, when they could have worked a minimum wage job and made just a little more money in 2 hours.
What? Lol, no, combat logging is one thing, board flipping could be solved as easily as putting a 5min CD on mission board access after you logout, or 10 minutes, or wiping missions when you log into a different mode or clearing missions when you log off or reducing mission timers to about 2x the time it takes to complete, etc. They have a multitude of tools. Players aren't using board flipping as much for making gobs of cash as they are of finding something, anything to do in the game, because obviously 10Bn people would only need like 10 things done.
Do you realize when you voice a blind opinion the way you do you move the game backwards, you send a message to the devs that the broken systems that aren't working, are and don't need to be changed, so they don't change them.
Yeah but I can flip the board and watch netflix, in effect, I can do something I want to do (watch netflix) and then do the other thing I want to do (play elite) and have something worthwhile to do because my 700 ton cargo hold is now full with 8 missions worth of cargo, instead of staring at 0:06 over and over to move 50-80 tons at a time. So I get all the benefits of playing elite, with a minimum of the eye bleeding boredom.
I've been suggesting this for a really long time.
Just add a refresh button to the mission terminals.
It happens. Intended or not isn't really the point.
Player wants to generate funds, so they go to the terminal and cherry pick what they want to do based on the payout they want to get.
If Player X wants to spend X time generating Y funds by running missions just let them. It's not "game breaking" especially at this point in Elite's life cycle.
Is it boring? Yeah, probably. Does everyone want to do it? Probably not. Most will do it long enough to get what they want, then they'll get burnt out or bored and log off forever. Either way you're going to end up with the same result only a bit quicker. Those who play because they have 1 goal will disappear anyway. Those that are here for the long haul will grind to get the ship they want, get geared the way they want, then engage with others. It's like daily quests in the older MMO's. You run them to get the stuff you need to go run raids or whatever with your buddies.
Meh, just my 2 credits. My opinion is no more valid than anyone elses.
Fly Dangerous!
Just add a refresh button to the mission terminals.
It happens. Intended or not isn't really the point.
Player wants to generate funds, so they go to the terminal and cherry pick what they want to do based on the payout they want to get.
If Player X wants to spend X time generating Y funds by running missions just let them. It's not "game breaking" especially at this point in Elite's life cycle.
Is it boring? Yeah, probably. Does everyone want to do it? Probably not. Most will do it long enough to get what they want, then they'll get burnt out or bored and log off forever. Either way you're going to end up with the same result only a bit quicker. Those who play because they have 1 goal will disappear anyway. Those that are here for the long haul will grind to get the ship they want, get geared the way they want, then engage with others. It's like daily quests in the older MMO's. You run them to get the stuff you need to go run raids or whatever with your buddies.
Meh, just my 2 credits. My opinion is no more valid than anyone elses.
Fly Dangerous!
Or just categorize mission choices by type, rank, superpower, distance, etc and increase the number per category by 10-50 times. Then let players choose, players rarely complain about choice, I mean there are a few outliers but the majority of us like choice.
wasn't trying to make a jab. people care what others do. that's not something to despise. its human nature. people in communities like to gossip, compete and copy.
I think of board flipping as thus:
ED is not set in the normal space as we know it, but in a multi-verse. Nearly identical galaxies reside on top of each other. The number of these multi-verses varies with the player but at minimum there are three: One where you are the only living person (Solo), one were there are some 'real' people but you might never encounter them (PG) and of course, the multi-verse 0 were everyone originally resided (Open). These multi-verses are nearly identical to each other, just the time frame in each is a little skewered. In most cases, jumping between each doesn't change anything, in fact most would be hard pressed to identify which multi-verse they are in. The only difference is when the person encounters something that is time based, like a mission board and certain actions like Guardian activations.
See, simples
ED is not set in the normal space as we know it, but in a multi-verse. Nearly identical galaxies reside on top of each other. The number of these multi-verses varies with the player but at minimum there are three: One where you are the only living person (Solo), one were there are some 'real' people but you might never encounter them (PG) and of course, the multi-verse 0 were everyone originally resided (Open). These multi-verses are nearly identical to each other, just the time frame in each is a little skewered. In most cases, jumping between each doesn't change anything, in fact most would be hard pressed to identify which multi-verse they are in. The only difference is when the person encounters something that is time based, like a mission board and certain actions like Guardian activations.
See, simples
Except those who want the entire game to be Open-only. Oops. was that my "out loud" voice?
Board flipping is consequent of the RNG nature of missions. If Frontier didn't want it to happen, they shouldn't have made them RNG to begin with.
They need to add a Refresh button and be done with this whole mess.
Agreed, but just think if FD did add a refresh button. All that would happen is some numpty would continuously click the damn thing in the forlorn hope he/she/it would finally get that 100m C mission to haul exactly the amount they can carry one jump to the destination. Why, because some other numpty jumped on the forum to brag about having just completed said mission. The strain on the mission server would be massive. Maybe if there was a time limit of lets say 5 minutes before you can refresh, hmm that would work for most but some here expect everything to be immediately available to them at all times, they can't wait, their time is too precious, they are too important for trivial things like that.
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FD would fix it if they could, but they can't. One of the devs described how the mission generation system works and for whatever reason the Open and Solo boards are generated separately. If they had some way of eliminating the issue they would obviously do so since mode-switching can't possibly be an intended gameplay mechanic. Since they have no fix however and since the mission generation system is still not working properly they have to "allow" mode-switching simply as a workaround for their broken mission generation system.
That's why they need to re-implement rank requirements, balance payouts, and make payouts commensurate to rank, too. Perhaps turn the "tip off" missions into the equivalent of a "gold rush" every now and then. (with increased risk, of course)
Unless they do a complete mission system overhaul, debating over the nature of board flipping is quite moot. Everyone resorting to torches and pitchforks in the forums isn't going to change a damned thing unless Frontier does something to improve the reason it exists to begin with. So either they add a Refresh button (thereby acknowledging the RNG nature) or they revamp the whole thing. There's really no other way to go about it, and all the whinging in the world isn't going to change the fact that it exists. How many years has this been going on now? Whack-a-mole doesn't work anymore.
The best solution continues to be serving missions to the player based on a selection of categories defined by the user. These categories are:
- Faction; and
- Mission Type
Faction is self explanatory, Mission Type can be as broad as "Combat, Trade, Passenger, VIP Passenger, Salvage, Crime" or as narrow as individual mission templates, honestly, I don't care much, however the *available* mission types will be restricted based on Faction Government Type, Economy and State. Details of missions will still be procedurally generated (destination, cargo etc), so couple this with a reputation penalty if you refuse all the missions offered and request a new set, and you have a robust system that *still* allows mission stacking without board flipping, and still offers plenty of diversity, and fixes *so many issues*.
- Luxury Cabins are finally fixed, because you can have a request category for luxury passengers
- Casual players who don't want to refit their ship entirely just to do a couple missions of a certain type of mission they want to do, and it's readily available
- Random people are satisfied because they can *still* take whatever they like
- BGS runners are satisfied because they can reliably get missions from their faction (1)
- Mission stackers are satisfied because the mission type they want is reliably available
- The mission server is satisfied because it can deliver a smaller amount of missions that are *much closer* to what the player wants (currently, 80-95% of the mission server's effort is wasted. Simplest case is that most boards generate ~ 100 missions... you can only accept a maximum of 20.
- You can add a category for wing missions/long range etc. to remove the "spam" that these types of missions can generate if you can't/won't do these; and most importantly
- FD CAN CREATE NEW MISSION TEMPLATES, because now we can filter what we like, rather than lying prostrate before the altar of RNG.
I've harped on about this in many other threads... so I know based on the above description you can pick some holes, but I'll take a moment to assure you I've thought of those holes. It's simply a more sensible approach, generate 20 missions an order of magnitude faster that the player has asked for, rather than 100 missions the player may have no interest in.
- Faction; and
- Mission Type
Faction is self explanatory, Mission Type can be as broad as "Combat, Trade, Passenger, VIP Passenger, Salvage, Crime" or as narrow as individual mission templates, honestly, I don't care much, however the *available* mission types will be restricted based on Faction Government Type, Economy and State. Details of missions will still be procedurally generated (destination, cargo etc), so couple this with a reputation penalty if you refuse all the missions offered and request a new set, and you have a robust system that *still* allows mission stacking without board flipping, and still offers plenty of diversity, and fixes *so many issues*.
- Luxury Cabins are finally fixed, because you can have a request category for luxury passengers
- Casual players who don't want to refit their ship entirely just to do a couple missions of a certain type of mission they want to do, and it's readily available
- Random people are satisfied because they can *still* take whatever they like
- BGS runners are satisfied because they can reliably get missions from their faction (1)
- Mission stackers are satisfied because the mission type they want is reliably available
- The mission server is satisfied because it can deliver a smaller amount of missions that are *much closer* to what the player wants (currently, 80-95% of the mission server's effort is wasted. Simplest case is that most boards generate ~ 100 missions... you can only accept a maximum of 20.
- You can add a category for wing missions/long range etc. to remove the "spam" that these types of missions can generate if you can't/won't do these; and most importantly
- FD CAN CREATE NEW MISSION TEMPLATES, because now we can filter what we like, rather than lying prostrate before the altar of RNG.
I've harped on about this in many other threads... so I know based on the above description you can pick some holes, but I'll take a moment to assure you I've thought of those holes. It's simply a more sensible approach, generate 20 missions an order of magnitude faster that the player has asked for, rather than 100 missions the player may have no interest in.
This would indeed be a truly robust system compared to the simplistic RNG one we have now- IF Frontier revamps the system.
The sad fact is that if FD did somehow manage to ban board flipping there would be a massive outcry and most of those stamping their feet and threatening to tell their Mother how mean FD is wouldn't be concerned with the mission board. Board flipping is just logging out of whatever mode you are in and logging back in under a different mode - right? Isn't that what 99% of the players do when they are farming the Guardian tech. Can you imagine the angst if they actually had to leave the planet each time - oh the humanity, the horror of it all!
The thing is there are a lot of ED players that are inherently greedy and lazy. They would shudder at the though of having just one empty cabin on their Beluga, they would lie awake all night gnashing their teeth at how unfair it was that they missed out on that extra passenger. They would inundate the forums, threatening to leave the game because they can't be guaranteed a full, high paying load each and every time. Sad but true ….
