News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Shadowdancer]

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.

Uh... yes, it's not the issue, and that means things being mostly the same but on a different technical backend won't make things worse.

I find it sadly hilarious that this "community" comes out with a knee-jerk "muh sploitz!", then turns around and starts with the continued misuse of the term "white knight" (like, seriously, get a grip on your semantics, you mean "bigot" but probably didn't know what that word does or maybe felt it would strike too close to home) to try and keep their niche intact somehow to the detriment of everyone.

 

[Red Anders]

I get that this is not about board flipping. It's about fixing an infrastructure bottleneck in the backend

Probably worth me saying that I get that too, really I do.

It's just that if the practical outcome of this is to remove the only way that people can attempt to address the issues of poor mission availability (however unintended it may be) without applying any kind of improvement to the underlying situation which causes them to do it in the first place, it doesn't really make any difference whether its an unintended consequence of a technical fix or a deliberate nerf, the outcome (and the impact on gameplay) is the same regardless.

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.

LOL yeah with the exception of passenger missions which seem to be quite deliberately set up so you'll hardly ever see two to the same destination on the same board, which changed oooohh roughly around the same time that the rewards for them got hammered.

 

[operant]

Uh... yes, it's not the issue, and that means things being mostly the same but on a different technical backend won't make things worse.

I find it sadly hilarious that this "community" comes out with a knee-jerk "muh sploitz!", then turns around and starts with the continued misuse of the term "white knight" (like, seriously, get a grip on your semantics, you mean "bigot" but probably didn't know what that word does or maybe felt it would strike too close to home) to try and keep their niche intact somehow to the detriment of everyone.

I would not defend my 'word power', but if I had meant bigot I would have used that word - for white knight bigots or 'black knight' bigots, so to speak.

 

[thistle]

What I would like to see is a MISSION BOARD that gives me the opportunity to SEARCH the MISSIONS BOARDS of all system in lets say 100 LY from my current location for WHAT I WANT TO DO RIGHT NOW

That's a great idea

 

[Han Zulu]

LOL yeah with the exception of passenger missions which seem to be quite deliberately set up so you'll hardly ever see two to the same destination on the same board, which changed oooohh roughly around the same time that the rewards for them got hammered.

Of course. Since you could make money doing them, they had to be nerfed hard. You're not supposed to make money in Elite. You're supposed to grind your own way.

 

[Chaparral]

So will there be a change in the way the BGS generates missions? If not, we can't really expect to see more variety in missions - right? We might see 20 Massacre missions and nothing else - still?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

So will there be a change in the way the BGS generates missions? If not, we can't really expect to see more variety in missions - right? We might see 20 Massacre missions and nothing else - still?

Check Adams responses - he says Wing missions will be less spammy. I suspect there will be other fixes and changes as well. Reminds to be seen.

 

[Knightshark]

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.

I was talking about the missions, you know the topic of this thread.

 

[CMDR IPL Victim]

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.

Adam, this is a strange comment. Why are solo missions ‘shared’? What contitutes ‘shared’? I’ve seen similar missions to similar places but with drastically different pay & quantities depending on affiliation reputation and rank. In what way is that ‘shared’?

The only thing I can guess is that different ranked commanders can take similar missions to the same place separately. This need for the missions to be shared should apply to wings for sure, but solo?

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.

This is incredibly frustrating. When in a wing, I am actively seeking wing missions. When I am not in a wing, I am not. Separate boards would facilitate gameplay instead of frustrating it further by reducing the rate they appear, yet still have them take away from the available non-wing missions.

This, on top of a comon bulletin board full of illegal activities, smuggling, murder, piracy, etc. mixed amogst the legal missions... and reducing the availability of the same...

I will focus on the ‘at this time’ and hope it means that we will see a meaningful QOL kmprovement in the mission process sooner rather than later. I hope that by moving it to a separate server that will allow greater agility with releasing mission changes.

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!

My use of board flipping was less about money, and more about being able to find missions the same or similar destinations. While I applaud the goal of increasing stability, I despair that finding sufficient missions to bother with, when not in a wing, will be that much more tedious for large ships.

For a related question: Since board flipping is going the way of the dodo bird, will the artificial limitation on the number of missions taken as a result of that practice likewise go away?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Adam, this is a strange comment. Why are solo missions ‘shared’? What contitutes ‘shared’? I’ve seen similar missions to similar places but with drastically different pay & quantities depending on affiliation reputation and rank. In what way is that ‘shared’?

The only thing I can guess is that different ranked commanders can take similar missions to the same place separately. This need for the missions to be shared should apply to wings for sure, but solo?

Mission pool is shared between commanders. If you see mission, and it is gone after several minutes, it is most likely not because new set of missions have appeared, but someone took it.

For now it was separate pool for solo/private group, and another one for Open. Now there will be single one for both.

 

[Factabulous]

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.

Called it

I see how this will go

This week : Well done FD, no2flipping
Next Week : OMG FD, I can't get missions u suck!

.. though I thought the poutrage would take a little longer to build

 

[CMDR IPL Victim]

If you see mission, and it is gone after several minutes, it is most likely not because new set of missions have appeared, but someone took it.

I cannot say that has happened to me. Prior to wing missions, the only way to feel like a wing was teaming up to haul cargo was to find and accept the ‘same/similar’ mission for the same faction, to the same destination, for the same commodity or activity, with different payout and quantities. My wingmates and I did this quite often. I cannot recall any instance where a mission disappeared after one of us took it that wasnt related to a server tick.

Not saying it could not have happened, but I do not recall it ever doing so.

 

[SentineI]

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.

Sorry, but this 'improvement' seems almost entirely useless. Why should I have to twiddle my thumbs for 10-15 minutes, just because the mission generation is rubbish? There's enough twiddling thumbs in SuperCruise (*), without enforcing more waiting at stations.

Just generate more missions in the first place, get rid of Wing missions where it doesn't make sense (Solo players or those not in a Wing/MC), and reduce the likelyhood of generating several missions of the same type.

(* rather than speeding-up SC, it would make more sense to add more interesting (but mostly optional) events to SC. Have made many suggestions about how to achieve this in the past.)

 

[SentineI]

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.

Mission generation is broken by design - trying to generate one set of missions that will please most people is not possible.

A partial work-around is generating more missions so that a few of most types will be offered (but may need combining with reducing chance of getting 10 identical missions from one minor faction).

 

[SentineI]

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.

There are 2 things wrong with what you say:

1. You never proved mission board flipping was used by a small percentage of players, because you never said what percentage of players used the mission boards.

2. Your data-driven approach is flawed, because it cannot measure the players who stopped playing Elite Dangerous (partly) because the mission generation sucked (and they either didn't know about board flipping or didn't like doing it).

While those who only play ED rarely, or avoid the missions, due to the poor mission generation, will also be greatly undervalued by your data-driven approach.

It's a bit like a bad restaurant asking their clients to rate their food - only those who like the bad food will keep coming, and so the food rating won't reflect reality very well.

 

[jonesskill]

Mission pool is shared between commanders. If you see mission, and it is gone after several minutes, it is most likely not because new set of missions have appeared, but someone took it.

For now it was separate pool for solo/private group, and another one for Open. Now there will be single one for both.

Yeah, but now when someone pick the good mission you can flip the board to TRY to refresh it and pick something at least decent too.
With this proposed changes, we will not be able to refresh/pick missions if someone already picked it - Some high traffic systems will have boards with 0 missions or even worse, systems with a full board of useless missions.

Important to the point;

The Yamiks pool reached 2700 Votes. (Record Votation on the Channel pools)

I use it and want it to stay! 53% (1.426 Votes.)
I use it , but want it gone! 15% (400 Votes.)
Don't use it and want it to stay! 5% (130 Votes)
Dont use it and want it gone! 4% (103 Votes)
Meh, don't care ether way! 24% 645 Votes)

Note the numbers are not exact, but i'ts a good representation about how much people will be "hurt" with this changes like they propose it now.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYamiks/community

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

There are 2 things wrong with what you say:

1. You never proved mission board flipping was used by a small percentage of players, because you never said what percentage of players used the mission boards.

They don't have to prove anything though. It seems they crunched numbers, made decision, and moved to make game better and more consistent.

2. Your data-driven approach is flawed, because it cannot measure the players who stopped playing Elite Dangerous (partly) because the mission generation sucked (and they either didn't know about board flipping or didn't like doing it).

Adams is not there to collect such feedback. That's task of design team. They didn't made decision based on validity or invalidity of issues. They wanted to make system more robust, less crash prone and more reliable. So they might, I don't know, increase number of missions so many people here want.

2.8% doesn't invalidate your criticism, nor bigger number would make it stronger.

 

[Factabulous]

Yeah, but now when someone pick the good mission you can flip the board to TRY to refresh it and pick something at least decent too.
With this proposed changes, we will not be able to refresh/pick missions if someone already picked it - Some high traffic systems will have boards with 0 missions or even worse, systems with a full board of useless missions.

Either you don't understand the board refresh or I don't (I could certainly be wrong ). As I understand missions are not removed from the boards when one person takes them, it's just that we can all choose from the same set of missions* every refresh.

* well, there is client filtering, but that just confuses the issue.

 

[Captain Hooch]

If you're fixing board flipping, then you need to buff mission rewards so that you just don't end up nerfing money making for late game players.

 

[jonesskill]

Either you don't understand the board refresh or I don't (I could certainly be wrong ). As I understand missions are not removed from the boards when one person takes them, it's just that we can all choose from the same set of missions* every refresh.

* well, there is client filtering, but that just confuses the issue.

To be honest, this information is new to me too, but this explain WHY the good missions gone from the board sometimes and why the another ones stay.
Sometimes you see a good mission, go and outfit your ship to pick the mission( Like a passanger mission when you are fitted for cargo) but when you open the longe the good mission is gone, but the bad ones remain... This explain why =D