News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Arguendo]

Hi Adam.

Thanks for taking the time to answer questions here. It is much appreciated.
Now, concerning this:

How will this effect missions based around state changes (i.e. massacre missions) where the state may have changed in one instance (War) but not another?

This is an avenue we’re exploring but have no confirmed changes at this current time. It’s our goal to make the missions that spawn in each state make sense, but not overwhelm the entire board. As with a lot of mission development, it’s an ongoing iterative process.

In my experience, the state of the faction completely overrules the system economy for the individual faction. That means a faction in war will be bombarding you with massacre missions, and nothing else.
It's ok that they are in war, but surely they would need more things than just "kill opponents" to support that effort. Source and Return, or Courier missions would make a lot of sense for those factions. And although they are in war, their day-to-day life continues, so the odd regular freight/mining missions should be there as well. They hardly ever are for those faction. This means that for anyone to support their faction in war, they have to come with a combat ship, and for those just trying to make a buck in a cargo-style ship, that faction is completely useless.

Additionally, I don't really see that the mission types change that much in general depending on the system economy. Tourist economy should be littered with Sightseeing passengers, while refinery/extraction systems should have more workers going back and forth imo. At the moment, even though I know it isn't, it feels completely random, because of the RNG. I can go to an extraction economy system and see people wanting to go sightseeing en mass, while I can go to a tourist system and find an equal number of tourists and people just wanting transport somewhere. It feels constructed and not alive tbh.

So, my question is; are you looking into balancing the system economy influence on missions? Or is it intentional the way it is?

Thanks again.

 

[StuartGT]

Well it's not, because it doesn't really explain it does it? Or answer the confusion people had with this figure.

The above could still be taking a single day and looking how many users board flipped, which would not represent the number of board flippers.

It explains it fine to me, which is why I thanked Will. I already know that FDev look at long-term data and trends as opposed to singular days.

People tinfoiling possible reasons why any stated data is not correct isn't going to change my opinion, nor affect FDev's decision making on features. Feedback here, Reddit, etc, from the small section of the playerbase that actually gives feedback is what can possibly change FDev's decisions on feature specifics.

 

[The Lawful]

Just to mention the Sensitive Supply missions for people living in Shinrarta seem to be gone again. Won't write a support ticket for them, as FDev have enough other things to do, but still. Otherwise, the update works great for me (and the Guardian fighters in VR are top!)

O7,
[noob]

 

[who?]

(Just my 2c worth, but: )

Not every station should have lots of every type of mission. You'd have no reason to travel in the game were that the case, and if you did you'd find all stations are much the same. It'd kill the game for me, if there were no variety.

If your goal is making money/rep, you SHOULD travel. There's no point in having any kind of economic BGS if you have infinite demand wherever you want it. It'd be great if the supply and demand were even more dynamic, and you could exhaust demand at a station, and you'd have to keep tuned to Galnet for news of demand in new systems (great reason to tune in) to stay ahead of the curve.

If your goal is boosting a given faction, it's probably a bit more complex. I still don't think you should have infinite demand at any given location, or a refresh button, or even a 'design your own mission and reward'. But there should always be a way of contributing to a faction, even if it's just lots of low-level missions to start with. Once you're repped up with a faction, why not allow a way to request work, via the Inbox? You could even do that when out-of-station.

 

[Whitehair]

Well it's not, because it doesn't really explain it does it? Or answer the confusion people had with this figure.

The above could still be taking a single day and looking how many users board flipped, which would not represent the number of board flippers.

Will can you please define "daily active players", is this literally a sample of a day and the active players during that day?

I'll give you a 10/10 for tenacity.
Other marks for intelligent use of time, relevance of question (amongst others) are I'm afraid 0/10.

 

[Darkminded]

+1. My favourite mission type and for some reason they got pulled.

+1 for me to, escaping the chasers was insanely fun, this is the kind o mission people could get by querying a faction for a high pay mission!

 

[operant]

Well it's not, because it doesn't really explain it does it? Or answer the confusion people had with this figure.

The above could still be taking a single day and looking how many users board flipped, which would not represent the number of board flippers.

Will can you please define "daily active players", is this literally a sample of a day and the active players during that day?

Yes it is still a sloppy definition.
But assuming it is around 3% then as is said the change is nothing to with board-flipping per se, which it would appear neither bothers FD too much nor is a significant (or major) component of server instability.

 

[bitstorm]

It explains it fine to me, which is why I thanked Will. I already know that FDev look at long-term data and trends as opposed to singular days.

People tinfoiling possible reasons why any stated data is not correct isn't going to change my opinion, nor affect FDev's decision making on features. Feedback here, Reddit, etc, from the small section of the playerbase that actually gives feedback is what can possibly change FDev's decisions on feature specifics.

It's not tinfoiling, can you say what the sample size was, one day, one month, because it really does make a whole lot of difference.

If they're looking at dailies (as it seems) the 2.8% really isn't that useful a figure.

I am not trying to change anything here, I think what they've done is positive. (as a good starting point)

But I would just like to know some details around the figure because that figure keeps getting thrown around in arguments and misinterpreted to mean things it (probably) doesn't, that's what's so frustrating about it.

More so that it began with the communications team, the subsequent clarification didn't address the confusion, and folk like yourself are now even praising it for being clear!

 

[Mengy]

Thanks for communicating with us Adam and Will.

But:

To reiterate, the implementation of a dedicated mission server is not to remedy "board flipping", but to bring about much greater server stability and reduce crashes, and the removal "board flipping" is a side effect of these improvements.

I understand the performance benefits of removing board flipping, however you also must recognize how this will negatively impact players who are looking for specific mission types in the live game today. Board flipping is a way of getting access to a wider variety of missions, and it's nigh mandatory simply because the current mission boards are too crowded with a plethora of different missions which the player is not interested in.

The current in game filter is not effective, as its only useful to show the current selection of specific missions on the board, it does NOT create a wider selection of said mission types. THIS is why board flipping was so commonly used.

I'm all for removing board flipping, but you absolutely have to also then address the problem with board crowding. Frontier needs to somehow allow a greater number of specific mission types to be generated for players, because if you don't then many players will just stop flying missions altogether out of the frustration of not being able to find what they want. Board flipping was a workaround which alleviated that, and now it is going away but the problem will still exist.

Ways to solve the problem:

• Add a mission type selector before generating the boards, allowing players to "request" a mission category they want to fly.
• Generate a much greater number of missions per board, thereby increasing the amount of missions to choose from.
• Seperate the mission board into more sub boards for types of missions, similar to how passenger missions now have their own board. Possible board categories might be Combat, Salvage, Mining, Trade, etc.

Please seriously consider this Frontier, as removing the workaround without fixing the original problem will only serve to make the game experience far worse for a lot of players.

 

[Red Anders]

Efficiency isn't always fun. So what if the income is smaller.

However fun is always subjective.

So how about we all stop telling each other what we should find fun and accept that if a player says something isn't fun for them, they are expressing their own entirely valid opinion. I'm pretty sure that in terms of value to FDev as feedback, a player's opinion is worth a great deal more than another player's opinion of the first player's opinion.

 

[bitstorm]

I have the feeling that no matter how clear of an explanation Frontier gives us, some people will still just say "I don't believe you" because it wouldn't fit their narrative.

It's so clear that only 8 posts after Will's clarification, a poster (presumably) inadvertently takes it and misinterprets it to means something that Will did not say.

 

[wstephenson]

Not every station should have lots of every type of mission. You'd have no reason to travel in the game were that the case, and if you did you'd find all stations are much the same. It'd kill the game for me, if there were no variety.

Just for clarification, in asking for 'please sir, I want some more [missions]' I wasn't asking for an infinite supply of all types of missions at any location; just a good range of types appropriate to the local state, economy, pop size and faction balance of power. I strongly believe FD should also be working to create more 'clumpy' and distinctive human geography across the bubble.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

However fun is always subjective.

Agreed

So how about we all stop telling each other what we should find fun and accept that if a player says something isn't fun for them, they are expressing their own entirely valid opinion. I'm pretty sure that in terms of value to FDev, a player's opinion is worth a great deal more than another player's opinion of the first player's opinion.

As I haven't done that, I am not sure what the issue is. I have never told anyone what they should call fun. I just pointed out that efficiency isn't always fun, which it true. I never told them how to play.

 

[wstephenson]

Frontier needs to somehow allow a greater number of specific mission types to be generated for players, because if you don't then many players will just stop flying missions altogether out of the frustration of not being able to find what they want.

We dream the same dream, we want the same things.

+1 for me to, escaping the chasers was insanely fun, this is the kind o mission people could get by querying a faction for a high pay mission!

May I suggest you hook up with an online buddy and simulate this kind of mission yourself, with a 'runner' and a 'chaser' role and a goal of shipping X tonnes of some commodity over 5-8 jumps? Make sure they are friends with you so they can see where you are on the map, and make sure you have roughly equivalent jump range ships. It is mind-meltingly fun with someone who will have a bit of banter with you.

 

[Evoflash]

...if you don't then many players will just stop flying missions altogether out of the frustration of not being able to find what they want.

Yep, already wearing that t-shirt.

 

[Evoflash]

May I suggest you hook up with an online buddy and simulate this kind of mission yourself.

Reckless assumption that we all have online buddies. [haha][where is it]

 

[Genus]

I wanted to clarify the mention of 2.8% percent of daily online players "board flipping" in the OP. The vast majority of our daily active players are using the mission board, and of those, it is only a small number who are actually "board flipping" (2.8%). This figure is based on daily active users using the mission board specifically.

As always, we welcome your feedback on the mission system in general and how it can be improved in future.

Always happy to provide feedback, Will.

Based on this announcement, I'd offer that it might be prudent to fix your data analytics. Maybe then you might be able to break the cycle of making bad decisions, based on bad information?

I mean seriously, are you trying to fool yourselves or other people with this 2.8% number? Or are you holding the spreadsheet upside down?

The first part of defining any solution, is realising you have a problem. You guys have a huge amount of thinking to do on this, if you're going to stop being silly about it all and try to evolve this game.

 

[Whitehair]

Always happy to provide feedback, Will.

Based on this announcement, I'd offer that it might be prudent to fix your data analytics. Maybe then you might be able to break the cycle of making bad decisions, based on bad information?

Why don't you just post a picture of a middle finger?

 

[Genus]

Why don't you just post a picture of a middle finger?

You talking to me or FD?

If you're talking to me, I'd rather use an air horn to wake up Uncle Fluffy, so he can do something about the kids having set fire to the kitchen.

 

[Whitehair]

You talking to me or FD?

You.