Board flipping=exploit, how stupid, read on...

[Stealthie]

Exactly, if FD cared about this, or if it was the vevil exploit folks are calling it it would have been fixed long ago. Their refusal to fix it to me is a clear go ahead and use it from FD, if it wasn't a clear go ahead it would have been removed long ago.

So, we started off with "But I want to be able to do A-B-A missions".
Then we had "But, I don't have time to do the things other people do".
And then it was "But, I want to do missions that allow me to watch netflix"

And now it's just "I don't care and I'm gonna keep doing it until they fix it so nyah-nyah"

I guess that's progress, of a sort. [ugh]

 

[asphaltpilot]

First off, I don't need the money. Let's get that straight first.

I don't board flip it if I have to, but I have flipped the boards from time-to-time. One reason is because I don't want to partake in measly missions which would take almost two dozen hours just to pay for my insurance.

Another reason is to find a particular mission I have in mind.

The third reason is for immersion. Do you know how dumb it is have a huge Beluga and only fill it with 3 people to go somewhere? This is a cruise liner not a taxi cab. So until FDev makes a few changes or bars flipping, I will board flip just to get a full compliment of guests regardless of how many stops it will take just so it feel more REAL to me.

 

[rekurzion]

Learn the bgs. It's how and why missions do what they do.

 

[Dbrn47]

Exactly, if FD cared about this, or if it was the vevil exploit folks are calling it it would have been fixed long ago. Their refusal to fix it to me is a clear go ahead and use it from FD, if it wasn't a clear go ahead it would have been removed long ago.

They said early on that they wouldn't punish for it, it's not ideal, but they won't stop it. I'd say that's a go ahead.

 

[Dbrn47]

Learn the bgs. It's how and why missions do what they do.

The BGS doesn't explain why it intermittently generates one mission over the other during a state where both should be available. Like in my last example, a none state preferring base assaults over smuggling where both are available with no state to interfere. Flip the board and suddenly smuggling missions are available. It's RNG at it's finest, sometimes this, sometimes that. Now when it's a Boom state and suddenly boom trade and courier deliveries override both assaults and smuggling, I get it, time to switch systems if I don't want those, but that isn't always the case.

 

[NCFCpaul]

I loathe jumping scooping and honking way too much to do something like go out that far.

Ah, what I like to do is stop and scan stuff and then sometimes look at it and even land and drive around in my beach buggy thingy.... That's proper gameplay that is right there

 

[rhiz]

Is there any technical reason why they couldn’t generate a large surplus of each mission type, present a mixture at first but add filters to allow players to achieve a board full of the type of mission that they want?

When it comes to the Beluga/tourist missions, I think that we should be able to construct our own tourist routes and have customers bid for places (interest/profit being generated by the quality of the route, established by a number of factors like the variety of sites etc). At the very least, there should be established tourist runs already in the game that allow you to ferry large numbers of people to the same destinations. Perhaps you could even have dedicated passenger stations akin to airports/ports.

 

[rhiz]

Learn the bgs. It's how and why missions do what they do.

Could you expand on this a little?

 

[Dbrn47]

Is there any technical reason why they couldn’t generate a large surplus of each mission type, present a mixture at first but add filters to allow players to achieve a board full of the type of mission that they want?

Yes. They can't just have endless missions generating, they had an issue when they tried to increase the available cap because people were still mass flipping. Give more and people take more, it's a problem, but it might be solved by just lowering the cap of the mission log to 10 instead of 20 or whatever suitable number.

It has been suggested to allow us to maybe 'pick a mission career' (doing missions, getting more of those mission because you do them) of sorts a few times though. Of course, that would likely generate it's own set of problems too. What probably could happen is have different agents, not unlike Eve, where you go directly to a person known to give missions you are interested in. Visit the Station Sergeant for military contracts, visit a Shady Dealer for Smuggling missions, visit the Logistics Officer for Trade/Fetch missions and so on. No real dialogue has been opened up about something like that, so either they can't do it or aren't interested.

 

[Stealthie]

Is there any technical reason why they couldn’t generate a large surplus of each mission type, present a mixture at first but add filters to allow players to achieve a board full of the type of mission that they want?

That's not going to work.

If you generate 1000 missions, all that's going to happen is that the good ones will be cherry-picked and you're back to square 1.
Even if you manage to generate sufficient "good" missions, people are just going to cherry-pick the best "good" missions and then have all the same moans anyway.

Besides, let's face it, there's a reason why the mission-board generates the missions it does.
It's intended to provide a variety of missions from the mundane and worthless to rare and valuable.
What people are doing is using board-flipping to cherry-pick the rare and valuable missions.

It's like panning for gold and then, when you find a gold-nugget, being able to hit a "reset button" so you can just keep finding a gold nugget over and over.

The dev's can't prevent people from doing this so they let it happen.
That doesn't mean they should pander to it though.
Do that and you might as well just fill every mission board at every station with "Smeaton runs".

 

[Dbrn47]

Besides, let's face it, there's a reason why the mission-board generates the missions it does.
It's intended to provide a variety of missions from the mundane and worthless to rare and valuable.
What people are doing is using board-flipping to cherry-pick the rare and valuable missions.

It's like panning for gold and then, when you find a gold-nugget, being able to hit a "reset button" so you can just keep finding a gold nugget over and over.

That's the unfortunate part for me. Often times, I'm just looking for X mission, not just X mission that offers 10 times the pay. Heck, I used to just want to fill my mission log with X mission, but I've given up on that concept. Makes the issue even more complicated I think.

 

[jonesskill]

I'ts not much simple have a decent passenger lounge, where you can set your destination (based on range from the current SHIP) and then the passenger generation system just generate/show up missions to that system? `

Like this, im in SOL with my Beluga - I will enter on passenger lounge and then set my destination to Hutton Orbital - That the mission board will generate Passenger missions over ticks, systems with more population will generate more ticks.

So in the first tick i get 10-20 missions to hutton orbital per faction, all mixed between tourists, bulk and VIP transport, so i can choose the passenger i want.

 

[Surprised Brony]

We can't take the term "exploit" so literally when it comes to gaming. This issue is very much on the fence, but many here use the term in much too literal of a fashion. In gaming, that's not all that an exploit is.

I don't know why people get so offended or up in arms over this. Frontier have said flipping boards isn't something they intended, but they obviously don't label it an exploit or it'd be a punishable offense. It's certainly not an exploit in the same vein as old Robigo or the G5 for price of G1 engineering fiasco.

It's like saying animation canceling in ESO is an exploit. (A method of increasing abilities cast/second) The devs didn't intend it, but they haven't found a satisfactory fix for it since day-one so the game is more or less balanced around it, sadly. It has become a part of the game at this point. They still investigate the possibility of squashing it one day, just as I hope Frontier want to fix Board Flipping, but it's in for now and we just have to buckle in wait.

You know, in the end it's just...I'm sorry to say it, but it's not productive to be complaining that others flip boards. I flip boards too, but the real problem is that it isn't fixed. That's what all our complaints should be. But no, everyone points to others' credit balances first, THEN ask for a fix. Should be the other way around.

 

[El_Hefe]

I really dont get people still banging on about board flipping.

FDev said there not fixing it,they have pretty much baked into their design/balance now.

Flogging dead horses sounds like to me...

 

[Renown]

It's not an exploit, it's no different to losing your connection or quitting and then reconnecting 10 minutes later and generating a new random mission board. It's easier on the servers than having 1000 missions and better than having to scroll through all of them.

The word Exploit is used here in an "I haven't used it because I think it gives me unfair advantage therefore it's an exploit" way. So I could say the Guardian give you an unfair advantage and I haven't used them yet, therefore the Guardians are an exploit, so remove them too. But they aren't.

Use it, don't use it, but don't moan about it and don't call it an exploit.

 

[rekurzion]

The BGS doesn't explain why it intermittently generates one mission over the other during a state where both should be available. Like in my last example, a none state preferring base assaults over smuggling where both are available with no state to interfere. Flip the board and suddenly smuggling missions are available. It's RNG at it's finest, sometimes this, sometimes that. Now when it's a Boom state and suddenly boom trade and courier deliveries override both assaults and smuggling, I get it, time to switch systems if I don't want those, but that isn't always the case.

of course the bgs 'explains' why. and you just described it:

to generate a subset of missions from a list available given the current state of a minor faction.

developers obviously had a discussion about whether to list all available missions or only a set. i can tell you the second is a common practice to give the 'illusion' of variety and movement and availability. it's a trick sure, but all artists use trickery to tell their stories.


there is also the other side of how missions are generated which is dependent on the states of minor factions within a 20ly radius.

when minor factions are in a none state they spawn missions which are inward focused: go get us some goods so we can produce stuff (fetch missions), go kill these pirates who are attacking our traders in systems where we are sending them to fetch stuffs (massacre and assassination missions), perform some corporate espionage on this corp over there to get our economy going (surface scan and skimmers kills).

when a minor faction enters a boom the missions are now outward facing and become dependent on the states of other minor factions around them. boom state minor factions will generate food runs to famine factions, guns to warring factions, doctors and aid workers to outbreak factions, political assassinations to factions in election along with protestors, cops and drugs to civil unrest factions.

but the well runs a little dry if all the surrounding factions are in none states.



so yes, work the bgs.

 

[Bacalao]

Really wish they would offer enough variety on the board so that there were missions for commanders of all ranks, interests and ship classes. The game works really well if you're flying a cobra 3, but if you move up you're pretty much wasting 50-90% of your ships capability without finding a workaround like board flipping. Frontier is of course aware of this so they keep board flipping intact even though it would be INSANELY easy for them to curtail or completely stop it.

 

[verminstar]

Heres a really cool tip...board flipping is only a problem when ye start caring how others judge ye to play the game. Personally speaking, I couldnt care less if someone doesnt like me board flipping...thats why Im quite happily playing the game while my middle finger is pointed in the direction of anyone who thinks Im having fun wrong.

And in the years Ive been here, Ive yet to see an argument to convince me I should care...its why Im too chilled out to sit and try and justify how I play the game...why the hell would I do that if I couldnt care less if they liked it or not? Ye really should try it sometime ^

 

[WR3ND]

Heres a really cool tip...board flipping is only a problem when ye start caring how others judge ye to play the game. Personally speaking, I couldnt care less if someone doesnt like me board flipping...thats why Im quite happily playing the game while my middle finger is pointed in the direction of anyone who thinks Im having fun wrong.

And in the years Ive been here, Ive yet to see an argument to convince me I should care...its why Im too chilled out to sit and try and justify how I play the game...why the hell would I do that if I couldnt care less if they liked it or not? Ye really should try it sometime ^

Do you think people care that much about what you specifically do in the game? Well, maybe some do. It's difficult to say these days. My preferences regarding this issue are much more selfish than that. I just want the game to be a compelling, immersive, and engaging experience.

Whether or not this issue of unintended and nonsensical meta gameplay is an "exploit" or not is largely a moot tangent for me and a debate for the sake of debating the minutia. To me at least, it comes across as more of a straw-man, fighting the good fight for "freedom" against a fictitious enemy.

YMMV

 

[rekurzion]

Do you think people care that much about what you specifically do in the game?

https://www.youtube.com/user/ObsidianAnt
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYamiks
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL0qebEnZSMy3i514MO9gaA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3QI9rHzPgvR7KTKSCtPHg
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUvdCr9lvqspoTqKe47ACaA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOUDzSklGdoK3lvl6Z8wdtA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5bXl3JoudpCUdMGT4fAYTA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_8QbBLzUa9ceFNvEAuO7iw
https://www.youtube.com/user/Zm4rc0

yes.