News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Adam Bourke-Waite]

Is this with the same four 'slots' as currently, or increasing that to 6 so that the oldest slot's missions still stay available for up to an hour ?

Currently that is with the same 4 slots. But it's something we will continue to evaluate as we move forward and receive feedback.

 

[mant3z]

This is total crap, where is FUN in this solution?
Time needed to earn some money without using glitches will be terrible huge to earn for PvP ships and I do not think about Larg ships.
Instead of re-logs I'll have to wait 10min for new missions and hope that will be for one exact system, if not then wait more more and more.

Why the they do not listen that this whole mission give you small income and after few month they are equal boring to damn grinding.

I think I bought wrong game or just wait for another glitch to get cash and then turn in to Ganker side, seems like it's only one right side which gives you hell a lot of fun.

 

[Genus]

Thanks once again for the feedback and keep it coming!

So essentially, after 50 pages of pretty clear feedback on why everything you just said is a bad thing, Adam...your bosses are happy with telling you to say thanks, but no thanks?!

Why should we bother, when you guys aren't?

Everybody's goin' to be grindin the grindy grind!

Same ****, different server.

Responses were pretty much as expected.

Indeed.

Great decision! This will make things better.

Who are you, and what have they done with Rootstrat?

 

[Knightshark]

Hi everyone, thank you so much for the feedback you have provided thus far. I wanted to jump in and answer a few questions and discussion points raised:


Will we be increasing the amount of mission options so that players have more choice?

We won’t be increasing the amount of missions spawned initially. We will however be reducing the time it takes for a mission board to spawn new missions from 15 to 10 minutes. This means that players should overall see more variety and it won’t take as long for new missions to appear on the board.


Is there a possibility of adding a ‘refresh’ button if all available missions aren’t suitable?

We won’t be adding a refresh button at this time. It’s important to note that missions are shared between players so it could be frustrating if another player refreshed the mission board just as another player spotted one they wanted.


Will this see the return of the large cargo transport missions with high payouts?

Could you clarify which missions you mean? But this change does not impact the functionality of the missions themselves.


Can we get filters to find the type of missions we want to do?

You can filter the list currently. If you mean will it be possible to have a mission board spawn a specific type of mission based on player input (for example, choosing to spawn only cargo delivery missions), this is not currently planned.


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.


Is it possible to separate wing and solo missions into different categories?

We are not separating Wing Missions into a different category at this time, but in the next update (3.3), you should see fewer Wing Missions spawning per board. We are trying to balance the right amount for all player types, and as said before, it’s an ongoing process.


Worried we’re focusing on the symptom of board flipping, not the cause (Not a great enough of interesting mission options rather than payouts)

We are trying to address all of the reasons players felt they need to use “board flipping”. As we said in the original post however, this is a small percentage of the player-base. We are listening to your feedback and trying our best to provide players with missions that suit their playstyle wherever possible.


Thanks once again for the feedback and keep it coming!

To be honest that's a bit discouraging. Whether it's 15 or 10 minutes doesn't change much. It simply means that if you want to fill a large passenger ship with passengers (with few shared destinations) you just have to wait. So how will this work? Go to menu and take all missions, go do the chores or watch TV or surf online or write rant post on forums, return after 10 minutes and hope new missions with the same destinations spawned. That's not fun. And filling a large ship with cargo or passengers is a real problem.

In a way, all you said was you remove board flipping and do nothing else that matters.

 

[mant3z]

If you're reducing the board refresh timer from 15 to 10 minutes, a refresh button should not be needed.

LoL what?! What do you do when you are filling economy class to one place, just wait more and more and who knows how long?
What do you do when you get your friends on the same time to play 3~4hrs and do Wing transport missions worth 30+mln, you waste half of that time on waiting
Great! We need to be sooo happy about this fantastic solution.

 

[bitstorm]

Hi everyone, thank you so much for the feedback you have provided thus far. I wanted to jump in and answer a few questions and discussion points raised:


Will we be increasing the amount of mission options so that players have more choice?

We won’t be increasing the amount of missions spawned initially. We will however be reducing the time it takes for a mission board to spawn new missions from 15 to 10 minutes.

Crazy.

I didn't realise, so the cycle of mission board generation is literally how long it takes to create missions. [woah]

 

[zimms]

I said as expected, because they seem almost obvious if you think about the change they announced and what that means exactly.

Of course some people read "mission server" and expected unicorns. Adam took the time to tell us that those unicorns won't be part of this change.

 

[AndyJ]

@Adam, if you are still here - please can I ask you what the status is of the "Founder or Elite" missions that used to appear at Jameson's Memorial?

There used to be around half a dozen or so which were more narrative based and they first disappeared in 1.5 when a fix went into stop them appearing elsewhere.

They then didn't reappear in 2.0 either and I asked you about them when the boards were reworked for 2.1, and you said there hadn't been time to include them only a pair of missions that were based on standard templates but with a higher payout - and that the team hoped to come back to them later.
(links: [question] [answer])

Please can we get some update on this, as it's been a long time now and I've tried multiple avenues to get some clarity.


It would be great to hear that they'll be in chapter 4 but if not, then please can you escalate this to the appropriate management and try to get us (the kickstarters) an answer?

Thanks.


(To explain to other commanders - on the one hand these are 'end' game missions for all Elite-players to try, but they were also content that some of us kickstarters paid quite a lot extra to get early access too - so it's not good that they've been removed and no-one has been prepared to discuss it.)

 

[Knightshark]

Great decision! This will make things better.

How will this make anything better. Whether I have to wait 10 or 15 minutes doesn't matter. In both cases I have to look for something else to do. I am not going to stare at the screen for 10 minutes.

Who are you, and what have they done with Rootstrat?

Exactly!

 

[Martind Forlon]

This is total crap, where is FUN in this solution?
Time needed to earn some money without using glitches will be terrible huge to earn for PvP ships and I do not think about Larg ships.
Instead of re-logs I'll have to wait 10min for new missions and hope that will be for one exact system, if not then wait more more and more.

Why the they do not listen that this whole mission give you small income and after few month they are equal boring to damn grinding.

I think I bought wrong game or just wait for another glitch to get cash and then turn in to Ganker side, seems like it's only one right side which gives you hell a lot of fun.

And why you should want go to one "EXACT" system if income is your main aim? Maybe it need learn few more things about ED before calling changes which really looks promising a "crap" ... doing relogs is imo the biggest grind which player can do, it actually is imo about not playing this game

.. If there will be shortened time for board refresh (as Adam wrote), it will give a player much more missions for choice. What could help even more is adding the same logic, like have now delivery missions (aka mission depot, I really love this one change unless times when I forget load cargo ) for a much larger range of missions including passenger transports (such change would be a real blast).

 

[Athan]

Crazy.

I didn't realise, so the cycle of mission board generation is literally how long it takes to create missions. [woah]

Whilst perhaps badly worded, I don't think that's what Adam meant. The current system is an initial four 'slots' of missions generated when the server spins up. Then every 15 minutes it generate a new slot and drops the 'oldest' slot of missions, rinse and repeat. Adam's "reducing the time it takes for a mission board to spawn new missions" should be read as "reducing the time before mission slots are rotated".

 

[rootsrat]

To be honest that's a bit discouraging. Whether it's 15 or 10 minutes doesn't change much. It simply means that if you want to fill a large passenger ship with passengers (with few shared destinations) you just have to wait. So how will this work? Go to menu and take all missions, go do the chores or watch TV or surf online or write rant post on forums, return after 10 minutes and hope new missions with the same destinations spawned. That's not fun. And filling a large ship with cargo or passengers is a real problem.

In a way, all you said was you remove board flipping and do nothing else that matters.

LoL what?! What do you do when you are filling economy class to one place, just wait more and more and who knows how long?
What do you do when you get your friends on the same time to play 3~4hrs and do Wing transport missions worth 30+mln, you waste half of that time on waiting
Great! We need to be sooo happy about this fantastic solution.

How will this make anything better. Whether I have to wait 10 or 15 minutes doesn't matter. In both cases I have to look for something else to do. I am not going to stare at the screen for 10 minutes.

Exactly!

You can go to a different station in the system and take the missions from there. I'm perfectly fine for that and the 10 minute timer will ensure that even if there are only 2 stations in the system you can circle between them and there will be new missions every time you dock.

I'm actually a fan of realism in games, so I do like that there is no artificial "generate new set of missions" refresh button or "generate only missions that are I want". This does not trump the fun for me personally, because I never board flipped. It was a little annoying that the timer was 15 minutes, as it mean that I had to find a system with 3 stations, not 2 to look for contracts efficiently. So from my POV this change is enough to keep things varied.

Saying that, the number of generated mission could be higher to provide even more variety - that I wouldn't mind at all. But from I understood they are not looking at this aspect yet, which means it will be looked at in the future.

Look, I'm all up for criticising FDEV, but I am not going to jump on a bandwagon of "Let's now criticise them for every single thing! Boo!". I am - as always - just expressing my opinion. As shocking as it may be - it will be different to yours sometimes

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

To be honest that's a bit discouraging. Whether it's 15 or 10 minutes doesn't change much. It simply means that if you want to fill a large passenger ship with passengers (with few shared destinations) you just have to wait. So how will this work? Go to menu and take all missions, go do the chores or watch TV or surf online or write rant post on forums, return after 10 minutes and hope new missions with the same destinations spawned. That's not fun. And filling a large ship with cargo or passengers is a real problem.

In a way, all you said was you remove board flipping and do nothing else that matters.

There is a problem that passanger missions have that trade missions don't have. With trade missions you can fill up using the commodities market, with passangers there is no passanger boards. Hence the reason why I would get rid of economy passanger missions and replace them with a passanger board. On this board you would get a certain amount of people wanting to go to different destinations within a certian LY range which you can fill up on (there will be 1000's of passangers in this section but the payment is low. The passanger missions should then only be for first class, business class and luxury class passangers, and other special cases such as prisoner/troop transport and refugee transport.. This should give the passanger ships more chance of getting luxuary passangers as they seem to be rather rare.

It would also make more sense too. Economy passangers would be treated like cargo when the first class, business class and luxury class would have more needs.

Hopefully when NPC crew come in they will have a place for cabin crew that are there to look after your passangers.

 

[mant3z]

And why you should want go to one "EXACT" system if income is your main aim? Maybe it need learn few more things about ED before calling changes which really looks promising a "crap" ... doing relogs is imo the biggest grind which player can do, it actually is imo about not playing this game

... If there will be shortened time for board refresh (as Adam wrote), it in real will give a player much more missions for choice. What could help even more is using the same logic like have now delivery missions (aka mission depot, I really love this one change (unless forgot load cargo )) for much bigger range of missions including passengers transports.

OMG it's simple, you chose system with station away 150 000 LY from main start, load full buss with economy class and fly there to get some nice credits.
If I load full buss with system nearby I'll spend 10x more time flying from one station to another and earn less becaus usualy stations are quite close to main start so income is way smaller.

Looks like you need to learn some things.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

OMG it's simple, you chose system with station away 150 000 LY from main start, load full buss with economy class and fly there to get some nice credits.
If I load full buss with system nearby I'll spend 10x more time flying from one station to another and earn less becaus usualy stations are quite close to main start so income is way smaller.

Looks like you need to learn some things.

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

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Will we be increasing the amount of mission options so that players have more choice?

We won’t be increasing the amount of missions spawned initially. We will however be reducing the time it takes for a mission board to spawn new missions from 15 to 10 minutes. This means that players should overall see more variety and it won’t take as long for new missions to appear on the board.

Adam, if I can make a suggestion here for later development - to make the mission board refresh cumulative rather than just replacing what's there with a new set, perhaps with a 24hr expiry period if a mission isn't taken.
And to include some notion of population and wealth into the calculation of how many missions get generated.

This would result in a number of effects:
- The mission board should be a reflection of the system - e.g. populous core systems as hives of activity, frontier systems kind of quiet.
- The availability of missions would be affected by player activity - i.e. unpopular systems might accumulate missions faster than they get used.
- Gold rush effects - the generation of lucrative missions would attract players but they would start taking them faster than they generate.

 

[ferus]

I am not very happy with this decision. Especially when so many players here voiced their opinion and concerns.
Anyway, I will see how it plays out for real but if I will have to spend even more time waiting in this game then I am done.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Can we get filters to find the type of missions we want to do?

You can filter the list currently. If you mean will it be possible to have a mission board spawn a specific type of mission based on player input (for example, choosing to spawn only cargo delivery missions), this is not currently planned.

Hi Adam and thanks for the info. Are there plans to add filters to the Passenger Lounge (for example, VIP/Bulk, Long/Short distance etc?). Also, any chance of a filter for Wing/non-Wing?

 

[Knightshark]

There is a problem that passanger missions have that trade missions don't have. With trade missions you can fill up using the commodities market, with passangers there is no passanger boards. Hence the reason why I would get rid of economy passanger missions and replace them with a passanger board. On this board you would get a certain amount of people wanting to go to different destinations within a certian LY range which you can fill up on (there will be 1000's of passangers in this section but the payment is low. The passanger missions should then only be for first class, business class and luxury class passangers, and other special cases such as prisoner/troop transport and refugee transport.. This should give the passanger ships more chance of getting luxuary passangers as they seem to be rather rare.

It would also make more sense too. Economy passangers would be treated like cargo when the first class, business class and luxury class would have more needs.

Hopefully when NPC crew come in they will have a place for cabin crew that are there to look after your passangers.

Round them up like cattle!!

Sry, couldn't resist. Yeah, what I would like to see is a system that has efficiency in mind. At the moment doing anything mission related, especially passenger missions, becomes more tedious the larger the ship. I don't want I win buttons or guaranteed gold mines. I just know that using a conda for passengers instead of a python was rarely worth it without board flipping. Because I didn't like board flipping I didn't like doing missions in my conda.

 

[surfin'bird]

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.

... I just dropped a bug report and got lectured about bug guidelines. Pointing me at this thread would have given me an explanation why

- we can't work BGS reliably for days now
- we often don't see missions for hours or a day
- so much in missions is bugged

I understand the Elite is a constant project, I got no issues with that.

Your "art of communication" is abysmal, though.