News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

Will Flanagan

Product Manager
Frontier
Greetings Commanders,

In the next chapter of Beyond (3.3), we will be implementing and migrating mission data to a new separate server. While this mainly affects the back-end of the game, you will see some changes to missions in-game.

As it currently stands, missions are on a shared server with other elements of the game. This has the risk of problems with missions causing outages and stability issues for the rest of the game if there are technical hiccups.

So, what benefits will we see by moving missions to their own separate server?

  • Any issue (generated by missions) which can cause a server outage or stability problems will no longer result in players disconnecting. Instead the missions will be unavailable for a period of time.
  • If such issues do occur, the previous servers will be able to act as a back-up, offering better opportunities to recover game content as quickly as possible.
  • We may see a slight decrease in mission board loading times.
  • Missions will now be consistent across game modes (Solo/Open/Private Group).
It's also worth noting that, as a result of a dedicated 'mission server', there will be a removal/significant reduction of the method of refreshing mission boards by logging in and out of the game ("board flipping"). While we understand that this is a practice utilised by some* players, this was never the intended use of the mission system.

Even though there is a small number of players doing this, we will increase the credit payout of missions (by 10%) across the board so all players using the mission boards as intended will see a net profit. As a result of this, some mission reward choices will see boosted influence, reputation and rank gains. As always when it comes to missions, we will continually review and balance them where needed.

Ultimately, this is a healthy step for our overall servers and game experience.

If you have any questions or would like to share your feedback with us, please post below!

*we found that only 2.8% of daily online players were using the mission system in this way. Clarification: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ssion-server?p=7005234&viewfull=1#post7005234
 

Camulus

Camulus
Will this mean that missions can be 'tweaked' easier too? For instance, if certain type of missions are flooding the game in your faction?
 
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NeilF

NeilF
Will Flanagan said:
Missions will now be consistent across game modes (Solo/Open/Private Group).
Click to expand...
Excellent!

Suspect it will create some issue with 4yrs of history of mode swapping to "work" certain aspects of the game, and no doubt some missions will need to be adjusted accordingly.

But it's got to be a move in the right direction!
 

CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE

CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE
Excellent news.

yoda.jpg
 

Shadowdancer

Shadowdancer
Are you moving the mission servers to use TCP for retrieval in the process, thus hopefully eliminating the current issues on lossy connections?
 

Jaguar

Jaguar
Surprised that it’s only 2.8%. I expect there to be a vocal dissatisfaction with the change, but it does appear to be a smaller minority than I thought. I’m in favour of the change (I’m sure you are relieved) and a 10% increase in payout is a nice step towards lessoning the impact.

I wonder if a next step is to do something similar for material gathering sites? I feel that would have a much bigger impact, and needs careful balance...
 

Mangal Oemie

Mangal Oemie
Will you change the mission generation to one where I can choose the faction I want to support and the type of missions I want to run, for the BGS? Or massively increase the number of missions so I can filter by type (that filter now is a cruel joke)

Board flipping happens/ed so that you could actually find missions for your chosen faction. If this means there is essentially only one mission board, and the mission generation doesn't change otherwise, I fear you're significantly nerfing missions as an option for targeted BGS play.

EDIT: to add - nobody likes to board flip. It is a necessary evil because of the way the mission board works. We've suggested for a long time that it should be a "query": select target faction, select mission type, generate missions.

Should the new mission server work that way, then this is all good. However, if this just means we'll have a single mission board, missions for BGS becomes far less effective than other activities.

So, after the explo nerf (the last remaining BGS mechanic that actually rewards owning a station) and now this incoming likely mission nerf for influence... are you finally going to do something about the OP murder? Or is BGS really just going to get reduced to who can shoot the other side's system authority the quickest?
 
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SubitusNex

SubitusNex
Will Flanagan said:
Greetings Commanders,

In the next chapter of Beyond (3.3), we will be implementing and migrating mission data to a new separate server. While this mainly affects the back-end of the game, you will see some changes to missions in-game.

As it currently stands, missions are on a shared server with other elements of the game. This has the risk of problems with missions causing outages and stability issues for the rest of the game if there are technical hiccups.

So, what benefits will we see by moving missions to their own separate server?

  • Any issue (generated by missions) which can cause a server outage or stability problems will no longer result in players disconnecting. Instead the missions will be unavailable for a period of time.
  • If such issues do occur, the previous servers will be able to act as a back-up, offering better opportunities to recover game content as quickly as possible.
  • We may see a slight decrease in mission board loading times.
  • Missions will now be consistent across game modes (Solo/Open/Private Group).
It's also worth noting that, as a result of a dedicated 'mission server', there will be a removal/significant reduction of the method of refreshing mission boards by logging in and out of the game ("board flipping"). While we understand that this is a practice utilised by some* players, this was never the intended use of the mission system.

Even though there is a small number of players doing this, we will increase the credit payout of missions (by 10%) across the board so all players using the mission boards as intended will see a net profit. As a result of this, some mission reward choices will see boosted influence, reputation and rank gains. As always when it comes to missions, we will continually review and balance them where needed.

Ultimately, this is a healthy step for our overall servers and game experience.

If you have any questions or would like to share your feedback with us, please post below!

*we found that only 2.8% of daily online players were using the mission system in this way.
Click to expand...

Ok, positive changes all around. Since this clears mode-hopping (a positive thing) will you, besides augmenting rewards, be increasing the amount of available missions as well?
After all it's mission availability that's always been the problem that led to mode-hopping. Otherwise you're just going to have another unhappy community. Think about the consequences. Hope you are reading this.

EDIT: Can you also please not give Wing Missions to people in SOLO mode?
 
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