Casual Player Penalties FD Should Reconsider

[GammaZ]

I'm not personally attacking anyone. It's a generalization of how bad these forums are.

I'm not sure what that means showing us that link. I'm not a big WoW player so I'll just take that link as completely legit.

Try to read what I wrote again and not get your feelings hurt this time. You are not making any ground here.

And i see nothing wrong with this forums, like i see no need in "generalization" here. There is nothing wrong with such discussions.

You said 99.9% being wrong, i showed you link to community-maintained site with quest descriptions where you can filter things to see how much have timers. I have not played wow for ages now, but yes, i still remember this link.

If something on some forum could really hurt my feelings i would not be reading this... also, i am not trying to "make any ground" or something. I am just expressing my opinion.

 

[Vyrsai]

And i see nothing wrong with this forums, like i see no need in "generalization" here. There is nothing wrong with such discussions.

You said 99.9% being wrong, i showed you link to community-maintained site with quest descriptions where you can filter things to see how much have timers. I have not played wow for ages now, but yes, i still remember this link.

If something on some forum could really hurt my feelings i would not be reading this... also, i am not trying to "make any ground" or something. I am just expressing my opinion.

it's not 99.9% anyway

And that was just WoW, I cited others. The fact is many MMOs use timers on quests. I'm not sure if other MMO/Sim games use that model for their quest/mission systems. (using timer exclusively)

The idea of removing or pausing timers because they are a pain to some players not only possibly ruins others immersion and enjoyment, but also is a slippery slope. If a precedent is set for changing (nerfing) an in game system due to it being hard or a pain, next we might have people wanting fuel use to be removed or nerfed in some way because a player doesn't have enough time to scoop or stop and fill up in their limited schedule etc.

 

[Kristov]

Can you please give few examples of MMO's which have such missions?
Also, in elite all mission-related stuff spawn so obviously upon player entering the system, that talking about some "living galaxy" is somewhat funny...

Ok, i'l try to explain...
Sure, wow has few time limited missions. So do some other MMO-s like SWTOR. They are usually some sort of storyline missions which player can complete only once. You will run into such missions just few times during the whole time you play game, but 99.9% of the time you will have no time limits.
Then we look at elite, where every single mission have a time limit. No matter what, if you take a mission you are now forced to complete it right now, or you will fail it. The question was, are there another MMO with time limits attached to every single mission.
One of such MMO-s is eve online, but there time limit only changes whether you receive additional bonus reward or not, mission itself has no time limit.
Can anyone give another examples of such games?

Pssst, the goalposts, they don't get moved to suit, anymore than the game gets rearranged to fit your personal schedule, just saying....

 

[Momoka Azuka]

I for the most part don't mind most of these because I have the time to play mostly whenever. But the reputation decay does get on my nerves. for two reasons.

1) losing rep with people I've worked for 90 percent of the time because my PC's GPU decided it wanted to explode and take my PSU with it doesn't seem like it's 1, nothing more than a time sink and 2, means these people I've been trying to help wouldn't remember my name if it was tattooed on my forehead.

2) This is more a personal thing and it was a big part of my roleplaying, I was hostile with the federation for awhile and was in love with the idea that if the feds saw me in their airspace they'd shoot me on sight. That same thing rang true with the Sun of Icarus player faction in He Bo and I really wanted to wear that as a badge of honor for going to war with that faction for a long month of senseless murder until it lead to He Bo returning to the Alliance. But my PC died and now all that's gone. It meant nothing to them that happened and that's sad. So sad I don't want to go back to He Bo now.

So yeah. I hate the reputation decay and nothing's not gonna change my mind that it's not a stupid thing in the game. (More stupid than the Cobra MK IV: Yes I'm never letting that one go FD. That ship sucks)

 

[Kristov]

I for the most part don't mind most of these because I have the time to play mostly whenever. But the reputation decay does get on my nerves. for two reasons.

1) losing rep with people I've worked for 90 percent of the time because my PC's GPU decided it wanted to explode and take my PSU with it doesn't seem like it's 1, nothing more than a time sink and 2, means these people I've been trying to help wouldn't remember my name if it was tattooed on my forehead.

2) This is more a personal thing and it was a big part of my roleplaying, I was hostile with the federation for awhile and was in love with the idea that if the feds saw me in their airspace they'd shoot me on sight. That same thing rang true with the Sun of Icarus player faction in He Bo and I really wanted to wear that as a badge of honor for going to war with that faction for a long month of senseless murder until it lead to He Bo returning to the Alliance. But my PC died and now all that's gone. It meant nothing to them that happened and that's sad. So sad I don't want to go back to He Bo now.

So yeah. I hate the reputation decay and nothing's not gonna change my mind that it's not a stupid thing in the game. (More stupid than the Cobra MK IV: Yes I'm never letting that one go FD. That ship sucks)

I...uh...ok.....

*slides into the shadows...*

 

[GammaZ]

And that was just WoW, I cited others. The fact is many MMOs use timers on quests. I'm not sure if other MMO/Sim games use that model for their quest/mission systems. (using timer exclusively)

The idea of removing or pausing timers because they are a pain to some players not only possibly ruins others immersion and enjoyment, but also is a slippery slope. If a precedent is set for changing (nerfing) an in game system due to it being hard or a pain, next we might have people wanting fuel use to be removed or nerfed in some way because a player doesn't have enough time to scoop or stop and fill up in their limited schedule etc.

Yes, but games like LOTRO or SWTOR are basically wow-clones, while i did not play them enough to be 100% sure, but from what i have seen - they are just like wow...
...
The thing is - hard and/or complex mechanics are good, i agree. But this timers are not hard or something, they are completely pointless if you do missions in a single session. And they are, as you say, "pain" if you do not have long enough real time intervals you can spend on game. This is a bad thing IMO. If you think about it, in terms of being hard/challenging game-time timers can be even better. Because they can be set to values low enough to be actually challenging, unlike current ones. Somewhat like it was in X3 - most of the times delivery missions had hard enough time limits to require actually fast ship or other shortcuts like jump drive to be able to complete them. It would be fun to have something like this in elite, but it will not happen with real-time timers.

And fuel is another thing - it is not consumed when offline, and because of it does not interfere with out-of-game time. So you can log-off at any time, and scoop later if you wish. And yes, if one would follow those "living galaxy which is always running" logic it should be... just imagine how that would work...

 

[Vyrsai]

Yes, but games like LOTRO or SWTOR are basically wow-clones, while i did not play them enough to be 100% sure, but from what i have seen - they are just like wow...
...
The thing is - hard and/or complex mechanics are good, i agree. But this timers are not hard or something, they are completely pointless if you do missions in a single session. And they are, as you say, "pain" if you do not have long enough real time intervals you can spend on game. This is a bad thing IMO. If you think about it, in terms of being hard/challenging game-time timers can be even better. Because they can be set to values low enough to be actually challenging, unlike current ones. Somewhat like it was in X3 - most of the times delivery missions had hard enough time limits to require actually fast ship or other shortcuts like jump drive to be able to complete them. It would be fun to have something like this in elite, but it will not happen with real-time timers.

And fuel is another thing - it is not consumed when offline, and because of it does not interfere with out-of-game time. So you can log-off at any time, and scoop later if you wish. And yes, if one would follow those "living galaxy which is always running" logic it should be... just imagine how that would work...

I'd love it if we needed to be docked or put our ship into some sort of stasis sleep to make our fuel not be consumed, so don't ask me! I do however realize I like difficulty and not everyone else does.

 

[Kristov]

I'd love it if we needed to be docked or put our ship into some sort of stasis sleep to make our fuel not be consumed, so don't ask me! I do however realize I like difficulty and not everyone else does.

What he said, some people don't log out, they leave the game running, and their ship running, me, I left my game running and my ship hauling in supercruise for 16 hours while I was gone, I've got the fuel for that, everyone would if it worked that way, not an issue for me at all, nor many others.

It's a VIDEO GAME, remember? I play it when I have time, when I don't, I don't, and if I've only got a short time, well, dumbass me, I don't take missions that I can't do in that time, especially timed ones that start after I'll be logging out, I know, how stupid of me right? If I happen to take some missions I do have time for and something comes up and I don't have time, well, I'll probably fail them, it's happened plenty of times already, pretty sure it'll happen in the future..grandkids want to go do something suddenly, my dog realizes he shouldn't have eaten that whateverthehell he found in the yard all over my bed, whatever, life is life, this is a video game and has no meaning or standing whatsoever in the hierarchy of what does and doesn't matter.

The game runs 24/7 regardless of if you are there or not, that is how it's designed to be, that is what makes it the game it is, and your time is your problem, just like every other MMO style game out there with a persistent world. You matter as little to the game as it should matter to you, and unlike you, the video game has it's priorities straight in that regard.

 

[Vyrsai]

+ Virtual rep Kris. Perfectly sums up this thread.

 

[kofeyh]

One small thing. The universe, and everything in it, doesn't stop, just because we'd like to it to take a potty break, or do anything else.

The in game clock doesn't stop; even during maintenance, the clock technically is elapsing and continues on. Indeed this is why they can actually have an in game date and time. This affects everything from missions, to community goals, to any other event. So no, stopping the clock on missions and so on when one is logged out, isn't really possible.

Think of it that your CMDR is simply off the clock; either getting some sack time, getting hammered in a bar somewhere; spending time trying to make sure partner a, doesn't know about partner c (or d; it's complicated) - or at a poker table wagering the security pass to their cobra.

This is by design, because that's how our universe (mostly) functions. It adds a real world aspect to a simulation of it. I quite like it. It gives a sense of finite, to a game that has a pretty infinite feel in scale.

 

[GammaZ]

I think a lot of people hugely overestimate the complexity of things.
There was a video from frontier, in which they discussed how some technical aspects of the game work.
Basically all those "living galaxy which always continue to run, etc..." is represented by some amount of scheduled tasks running throug data and modifying it as required.
What continues to change while you are offline and what not is just a matter of decision. Here mission timers and fuel are good examples. Why the clock suddenly stop for you ship and not for missions? Just design decidion, nothing more.
And those ingame time... most likely just a fixed value added to current time.

 

[Zelos1983]

Then we look at elite, where every single mission have a time limit. No matter what, if you take a mission you are now forced to complete it right now, or you will fail it. The question was, are there another MMO with time limits attached to every single mission.

Missions in E are rather short. As a casual player, you can very well take on such missions if you only play a limited time per week. The timer isn't an issue, because if it would stop, it would be adjusted to be much less. You are not "forced" to play more now, because you should only take on those missions that you can complete. That's part of time management, a skill you need for all other stuff in live as well.

As I said: only reputation decay and PP decay are ingame-issues and the biggest issue are the servers.

 

[WR3ND]

Yeah, they should charge people who don't play enough more money for the game... if they play at all. This way us non-casuals can mock all their complaints on the forums with even more ease.

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

Just play X:Rebirth until Elite has content. There was a 4.0 update and so far i havent ran into any bugs of any kind. Even with 10+ mods running.

 

[Iain L]

I'm very much hoping that as part of the ship-launched fighters update thing, we'll get the opportunity to buy a big hauler that can cart at least small-medium ships from one port to another, even if we can't actually launch them in-transit.

 

[SentineI]

Missions timers make sense.

They depend of the state of the system and they can affect the state of the system.

Being able to stack them then do them later when the system has changed it's state would unbalance the BGS.

There are TWO obvious solutions to this problem:

1. Rather than having mission timers running entirely in "galaxy time", allow them to be paused when the player if offline... BUT ONLY FOR 1 DAY. If they are off-line for more than 1 day (in total), then allow the mission timer to continue running down.

I'm still waiting to hear why this solution would not be viable...

 

[Cynaqq]

I'm still waiting to hear why this solution would not be viable...

It would lead to confusion, being a somewhat arbitrary and unintuitive rule. You'll have to be explained, somehow, that while offline, the missions pause but up to a day. Will it count in that day if you are in game? Will it support multiple disconnects? Will it start at mission accepted and count a continuous 24 hours? Will it start counting when you go offline? A lot of complications.

The current method is straightforward with nothing to lead to confusion. This mission should be done in 8 real hours. Take it or leave it.

The essence of this game is a series of blunt, in your face, simple and straightforward choices. No sugarcoating, no second opinions. Think about insurance. No tiers to choose from. %5 of your total assets in that ship. Simple. You don't have the money, you lose the ship. Straightforward.

Arbitrarily injecting layers upon layers of rules goes against the spirit of the game in my opinion.

 

[Mephane]

Missions in E are rather short. As a casual player, you can very well take on such missions if you only play a limited time per week. The timer isn't an issue, because if it would stop, it would be adjusted to be much less. You are not "forced" to play more now, because you should only take on those missions that you can complete. That's part of time management, a skill you need for all other stuff in live as well.

Did you even read the OP? There were specific examples how you can be interrupted unexpectedly, not because of "bad time management skills". Also, managing when you can play and when you have real life responsibilities is not a skill within the game, because from the very first principles what happens outside the game is not part of the game.

Imagine you were playing, say, a Streetfighter style game with a friend online, and their door bells, and he quickly goes to answer it, then he comes back and in the meantime you have defeated him while he was afk. You can't then just claim "l2p, git gud", because the happening of a real-life event is not a measure of the skill at the game.

 

[madbilly]

I agree with your points timers for randomly generated mission timers that continue when logged off, this is very irritating. Reputation decay when logged off is also irritating, until I read your post I didn't realise that I'll never have the time to progress in this part of the game. Off topic - I'm beginning to realise why so many people wanted a fully single-player game (take it at your own pace, no griefing etc...obviously miss out on player interaction but then that's a choice we all have to make with all games single vs multiplayer).

 

[Noddie]

I thought it was just me.

Basically. If you're in the unfortunate position of most of your gaming happening in the spare 30 minutes before finishing your tasks for the day and the need to sleep, Elite is a difficult game to play.

You basically have time to pick a mission/cargo leave the station/jump to another station and.... you've got 10 minutes to do whatever it is and jump back. You can play CQC (if that's your thing) or you can do one-or-two trades a night - but there are only a few things you can reliably fit into 30 minute chunks. And it's really annoying to have to fail some missions because the real world intercedes on your playtime. Forget taking most kinds of missions as you don't know how long it will take you to find stuff.

I don't know what the answer is, though. I've love to have the option to invest my capital in stations/missions etc so that I can make at least a little money during the week whilst I'm not able to play much. Maybe have a website where I can manage my trades without needing to log into the game? - could be an whole new dimension to the game, couldn't it?