News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I'd love to hear it from Dom Corner why the number of destination systems present on any given mission board is relatively low; it often feels like all say 30 missions on the board from 7 or 8 factions go to the same 5 or 6 locations, and all of them are within one jump for your average ship.

I am not sure but they seem to follow undisclosed interests of factions...it might be complete random but I doubt it.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

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!

I would highly advise that you increase the number of missions generated, otherwise you're going to get a lot of negative reception to this change.

If you can increase the number, then you really should do so immediately.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Try being demoted into the lower class, after a job loss due to funding cutbacks. Or any number of economic events, that are not your fault.

We need the money.

ED is not real life, so I don't treat it like real life, but play however you like.

 

[Emperor]

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.

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.

Which is it?

 

[Rob At Work]

Well that Gnosis episode got rid of a few. Mwah haha.

Yeah but them BGS types weren't affected, what can we do to clear a few of them out, cut their missions down, yeah that'll show em, Mwah haha....

 

[Six6VI]

I'd love to hear it from Dom Corner why the number of destination systems present on any given mission board is relatively low; it often feels like all say 30 missions on the board from 7 or 8 factions go to the same 5 or 6 locations, and all of them are within one jump for your average ship.

Only ship in my fleet with a sub 20LY range is the loan-winder, which doesn't technically count, cos I don't own it. Even in the FDL and Vette I can qualify for most mission destinations in a single jump and you're right, they're 'clumpy', but not in a way that suits my play style.

I figured hi-sec, hi-pop would be the busiest, but looking at the board it doesn't seem so. I see a lot to unexplored systems, which I'm not prepared to go to unless the ship I'm in has an ADS and DSS (OCD), and that assumes I want to put the time into scanning the entire system right now, then going far enough away to sell the data so I can't lose it.

When I am in that kind of mood however, or I need to pre-scan a lo-sec IF before starting the current CG, I'll take as big a delivery stack as possible, to any station or planet base in that system, since I've already committed myself to the (unknown) amount of time it's going to take to visit and scan every body before leaving. Sometimes I'll also take orbital and planetary salvage or scans, depending on legality, SRV and collector limpets fitted.

That activity is highly enjoyable, provided the hurry up wrinkles allow enough time to dawdle a bit here and there. It's really not that I don't enjoy doing the missions themselves, and that's what makes it worse.

I really like a lot of them, but I'd also like a lot more of them to integrate with my flight plans.

 

[Genus]

Which is it?

Lol. Why not both? (It won't be both)

Well that Gnosis episode got rid of a few. Mwah haha.

Yeah but them BGS types weren't affected, what can we do to clear a few of them out, cut their missions down, yeah that'll show em, Mwah haha....

1/. Copy and paste ship designs and then strap a spoiler to the back, for the other ship that's been awaited for since launch, make it look upside down
2/. Draw attention to quality issues by pushing back implementation of content people have been waiting for since 2015, to 2019 (maybe)
3/. Hijack a core activity for codex/canon/explorer types and make it about pew pew
4/. Force all remaining players to sit in front of their puters all night, in order to question their life choices

 

[Red Anders]

It appears people don't see as looking for good deals and missions as part of gameplay, because it is 'busywork', and everything will be crowdsourced anyway. I personally do find it very engaging part of gameplay which makes me to avoid grind and break gameplay sessions in more bearable pieces. Also there's good observation that ED doesn't serve gameplay where you just stick to one kind of job well.

As always there's biggest shism at play here - "why I have to look for modules", "why I have to look for goods", "why I can't just search for it", etc. etc. Yes, FD wants you to move a lot. They consider it very essential. You might not. But that doesn't mean they don't have good arguments to do so as for you not wanting to move around.

On the highlighted part, when trying to support a faction you can't really do too much in the way of looking for 'good' missions because in many cases there just aren't that many stations to look for them at.

For simply making credits yes, there are locations that will give you the chance to look at a lot of mission boards in a fairly short space of time without board flipping and yes, finding them is actually rewarding; I made a fortune from passenger missions by finding just such a system, which allowed me to do itwithout constant board flipping to fill my ship up.

Really though I wish this discussion would move away from people suggesting that it's all about credits because it isn't.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

On the highlighted part, when trying to support a faction you can't really do too much in the way of looking for 'good' missions because in many cases there just aren't that many stations to look for them at.

For simply making credits yes, there are locations that will give you the chance to look at a lot of mission boards in a fairly short space of time without board flipping and yes, finding them is actually rewarding; I made a fortune from passenger missions by finding just such a system, which allowed me to do itwithout constant board flipping to fill my ship up.

Really though I wish this discussion would move away from people suggesting that it's all about credits because it isn't.

Well, credits are part of conversation, but good deal is not only about credits, also about mats, etc.

Anyway, my point was - yes, more missions on boards, totally for it. I wish bigger systems have considerably more missions than smaller ones. However also my other point was it never will be 100% enough for lot of players. It will task them to adapt. Will they? I hope so.

As for Q4, I hope Adams might rethink increasing amount of missions after initial beta run. Because if thing works, why not.

 

[Six6VI]

4/. Force all remaining players to sit in front of their puters all night, in order to question their life choices

lol, it's days later and I've barely moved since logging in to find myself on the Wheelock Ring rescue vessel...

 

[Genus]

lol, it's days later and I've barely moved since logging in to find myself on the Wheelock Ring rescue vessel...

It's all a part of the plan.

 

[operant]

Focusing on board flipping is a convenient distraction. A smokescreen.
The issue is the mission system.
And the mission board system.
And the number of missions it provides.
And the choice it gives.

We could talk about that.
But you keep getting letting yourselves get distracted (mostly) by the white knights and their tactics to change the focus of the debate and personalise it, to stop illuminating peoples' real concern.
2.8% indicates it is not board-flipping that is the issue. And FD seem to agree.

 

[Genus]

Focusing on board flipping is a convenient distraction. A smokescreen.
The issue is the mission system.
And the mission board system.
And the number of missions it provides.
And the choice it gives.

We could talk about that.

We have been, for over 50 pages. I was late to the party and my first post in line with above was on page 32.

FD don't agree or disagree. It's just they're happy with siding with the believers, rather than those looking for improvement, as the latter requires moving resources and finance away from projects they have "prioritised".

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Focusing on board flipping is a convenient distraction. A smokescreen.
The issue is the mission system.
And the mission board system.
And the number of missions it provides.
And the choice it gives.

We could talk about that.
But you keep getting letting yourselves get distracted (mostly) by the white knights and their tactics to change the focus of the debate and personalise it, to stop illuminating peoples' real concern.
2.8% indicates it is not board-flipping that is the issue. And FD seem to agree.

Agreed. I have never flipped the board and never really needed to, but I would like to see much more choice. Hence the reason why I would like this:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...es-to-the-mission-board?p=7005393#post7005393

It would add far more missions. The mission generator server can roll up all those missions when you have jumped to a system and then download the ones that you look at when needed. I would have thought that would give less stress on the server and download bandwidth as you would be downloading less at one time, but have more choice of mission available as you get them from different places.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

We have been, for over 50 pages. I was late to the party and my first post in line with above was on page 32.

FD don't agree or disagree. It's just they're happy with siding with the believers, rather than those looking for improvement, as the latter requires moving resources and finance away from projects they have "prioritised".

What are believers?

 

[Han Zulu]

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.

Don't forget that passenger missions usually are time limited as well, like 1-2 hrs. I hope they can extend the passenger mission timeout with a few hours so there is a chance of actually staying at a station for 30-40 minutes to wait for passengers to fill up, without the first passenger rage-quitting.

 

[operant]

We have been, for over 50 pages. I was late to the party and my first post in line with above was on page 32.

FD don't agree or disagree. It's just they're happy with siding with the believers, rather than those looking for improvement, as the latter requires moving resources and finance away from projects they have "prioritised".

Yes it is a happy coincidence that fewer missions with a future single board will only affect those "2.8%" (bad, nasty, cheating) board flippers.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I wonder how this will go down. As an example, last night I was out defending the thargoid siege systems. Landing at the Acropilis I find that all but 1 mission is to source some bizarre goods. Not stuff for a war, just go source stuff. There was 1 to go kill thargoids. So the only choice is to board flip which turned not to help as the majority of the next wave of missions was source stuff with a few go kill scouts.

The overall game world doesn't care for the storyline in general, that's not something specific to the mission board I'd at least expect the superpower-aligned factions to reliably spawn some missions related to that dumpster fire, even if they're just "ferry this biowaste and beer down to Maia".

Maybe that kind of pointing to the fun is something to check out when mission generation has more resources?

 

[Genus]

Yes it is a happy coincidence that fewer missions with a future single board will only affect those "2.8%" (bad, nasty, cheating) board flippers.

When in reality, the vocal minority who claim never to have board flipped, are the only ones who fail to realise that 100% of everyone will be affected, if FD fail to complete a re-design pass before the dedicated server goes live.

In addition of course, to those whose job it is to realise that.

But it'll be fine, because...belief.

 

[fu9ar]

Min-Max efficiency isn't always fun, I agree. But there are shades of grey. Clear inefficient isn't fun either, and the current system becomes more inefficient the larger your ship.

I looked at the bulk trading options in EDDB last night, specifically with 500 cargo space and a million credits to spend, at <70 ly hops, and I can't wrap my head around how you think 2+ million per hop is "inefficient" for a ship with 500 cargo.