News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Six6VI]

I was under the impression that you were talking about something like:

- Generate me 20 cargo delivery missions, all to the same system, 5 million Cr minimum and BANG! you get 20 missions.

Hmm...

No, no and again (in case you missed it) NO!

Did I mention leaping to ludicrous extremes? I did, in this very thread, but I guess you missed that? Do you have a magic admin search filter for "wall of text" posts? Cos I spent many hours trying to explain exactly NOT that!

If just ONE cargo mission was TAILORED to your cargo capacity, that's exactly enough, no? I even suggested cutting the stack from 20 to 10 so there's half as much incentive to flip the board to try and fill all the slots.

In one word, RELEVANCE.

Don't offer me stuff the ship I'm sitting in CANNOT do!

Cargo racks = zero
thus
cargo mission = pointless

The new commodity filter on the galaxy map encourages us to collect market data, so I started scanning nav beacons everywhere I go. I'd prefer a relatively painless way to dock and pick up a mission or two for the whole A-B-C-D-E-F trip but to be frank, it's a total waste of time at the altar of RNGsus!

Filter:
Target system (Galmap "next system in route" (keybind))
Cargo = legal + best fit hold (single destination only Y/N)
Data = Best fit stack (of 10) (above destination only Y/N)

If I'm in the middle of nowhere, and they only have one data mission going my way, fine. If they only have two small cargo drops, fine. If I'm passing through Jameson Memorial and they can give me one Elite mission that fills my entire hold with Platinum and nine Elite data missions to Lave Station, with some exciting mission wrinkles and an interdiction or two, SPACE AWESOME!

It's absolutely not a blank cheque from the bank of Zaonce, it's just a lo-grind way to engage with the wonderful simulation FDev built, enjoy some flavour and make a few extra credits on a trip you were making anyway.

Minmaxers are going to abuse the system no matter what FDev do to try and stop them, which punishes everyone else. There must be a happy medium where the grinders can't hurt themselves and the truckers can avoid needless traffic jams, maybe?

If you happen to have any hypnotic admin powers over the folks at FDev, please help them correct their paradigm before an icesteroid tears a hole in their paintjobs

 

[Riverside]

If only the 2.8% of the daily active users can stress out those crappy servers so much to be a problem, then i can only laugh on that. But makes sense because, when in a CG system, the system can melt down with only the presence of 2.8% of the max cmdrs allowed in a single instance lol.
In multi crew, the game can be stable for the 2.8% of your play session and many times even less.

Maybe this is one of the things that will help stuff like your issues with multi-crew.

tbh I've not used multi-crew much, but when I have it's been with people I have already been instanced with (ie I invite specific players) and it's been stable as far as the actual connection is concerned. Had a couple of issues with them not being able to select a role that were solved by them disconnecting & reconnecting but only at their end, so nothing concrete enough that I could raise a bug report about (they could I suppose).

 

[Screemonster]

I love how this has turned into 81 pages now about board-flipping, when fixing flipping wasn't even a deliberate part of the changes and just an incidental side-effect of moving to a dedicated server

 

[CMDR _BigJay_]

I love how this has turned into 81 pages now about board-flipping, when fixing flipping wasn't even a deliberate part of the changes and just an incidental side-effect of moving to a dedicated server

There's a lot of argument over the 2.8% number... which is crazy because we don't know the methodology used to reach that number so it's worthless. I like numbers and I would LOVE to be able to have a look at all of the behind-the-scenes stats for the game, but that isn't something that FD should release. Since we can't see all of the numbers we can either take their word for it, which many have, or be skeptical of it, which many are. This isn't going to change, further discussion is pointless.

What I am REALLY happy to see is the number of people who understand that board flipping is not just about min/maxing credits per hour. There are legitimate problems with the mission system and the "home-brew" fix was board flipping. Even FD recommends or used to recommend board flipping to get naval ascensions missions to show up.

 

[SciTrekker]

I love how this has turned into 81 pages now about board-flipping, when fixing flipping wasn't even a deliberate part of the changes and just an incidental side-effect of moving to a dedicated server

It is interesting how the things a dedicated mission server is going to remedy(?) is not what these forums are concerned about - and awwwkwaaard. [big grin]

 

[Six6VI]

I love how this has turned into 81 pages now about board-flipping, when fixing flipping wasn't even a deliberate part of the changes and just an incidental side-effect of moving to a dedicated server

It has presented an opportunity for enhancement(s) on a more robust platform, for a more versatile mission system. Since they're moving it anyway it seems to me the most logical time to address the issues that encourage mission services exploitation while at the same time putting an end to it so the system can also be rebalanced.

Could be a win for everyone, including FDev.

 

[Six6VI]

Mass hysteria is very vital on these forums.

Mass hysteria has become the mainstay of 21st century survival.

!

 

[Genus]

Mass hysteria has become the mainstay of 21st century survival.

This statement makes me nervous.

 

[EUS]

I think it's a shame that even with a new server the mission count will not increase.
A boom system with a couple billion people, and there are 60 missions spread out over 7 different small groups. 2 groups invariably fighting each other so expect only massacre missions.
I'd love to see an increase of missions by a factor of 10 to the boards, and a bit more intelligence within it, like no wing missions if I'm not in a wing.
Let me filter through 1000 missions.
Please fix the broken ones, and bring back smuggling missions too.

 

[Mack Winston]

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.

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.

It's quite easy to make everyone happy: now you've got a better, more stable server system (and hopefully a more robust communication protocol between the server and client too, which is currently a weak spot), just simply increase the number of missions on a board by a factor of 3 (i.e. the equivalent of one round of board flipping). While only a small percentage of people will board flip on a given day, it's going to be incredibly frustrating to go to a station and find your ship is not suitable for any of the missions on offer and not be able to go for a round of flipping to find at least one.

 

[Mack Winston]

like no wing missions if I'm not in a wing.

Wing missions are wing suggested, not wing required missions. I've soloed plenty of wing missions. The combat wing missions are good fun and challenging to solo.

 

[100.rub]

Oh well, this change will kill the only few ways to earn credits/materials at a decent rate. Don't get me wrong, as a software engineer I understand the idea behind the change. But from player's perspective this will be a nightmare. Didn't expect to have to tell how to make a game to FDev but listen here: players don't want to waste time doing useless crap. Absolute majority of the missions in the game are not worth it doing, and are only barely worth it when stacked. This is bearable when it come to credits, because you at least get some, but as players progress and begin to look for increasingly specific mission types and rewards, things become ugly. You want some MEF, Biotech Conductors or maybe Modular Terminals? Sod off, you get limpets, go fly between dozens of stations, or sit on one and watch youtube, while checking the board once every 10-15 minutes. Very exciting gameplay here FDev. I dread to think about any new player who will need to unlock engineers or grind rep/rank/materials.

Currently we use the board-flipping to circumvent the incredibly badly made mission system, with which we are required to interact to progress. Any supposed problems solved by this change, I am yet to encounter in my 2000 hours of playtime. As it is said, "Benefits are unclear, harm is obvious".

I also want to add that that 2.8% justifications is very dishonest. Yes obviously not 100% of the daily playerbase grinds each and every day, some of them don't even know about board-flipping, so they take whatever is thrown at them and continue on. What I really want FDev to post is what % of the entire (active) playerbase ever used board-flipping. From the limited polls various people conducted, it looks like this figure is around 60-70%. Any active player only board-flips when he needs to get credits/rep/mats fast. I, on average do it once every two months, but I cannot imagine the boredom of trying to engineer a new ship without it.

There are numerous ways to solve this problem, but in any case FDev needs to do something substantial in addition to removing board-flipping. Increasing rewards by 10% is just a slap in the face. The bare minimum increase should be 40%, and even then, it wont fix the material grind. I am not sure developers understand what creates gold-rushes, and why they are so popular. If they don't, that's incompetence, if they do and still don't fix the system, its greed. Take your pick.

 

[SciTrekker]

I think it's a shame that even with a new server the mission count will not increase.
A boom system with a couple billion people, and there are 60 missions spread out over 7 different small groups. 2 groups invariably fighting each other so expect only massacre missions.
I'd love to see an increase of missions by a factor of 10 to the boards, and a bit more intelligence within it, like no wing missions if I'm not in a wing.
Let me filter through 1000 missions.
Please fix the broken ones, and bring back smuggling missions too.

I see massacre missions for every MF even when their state is not war or civil war. One NPC MF in particular is feudal government and they always have massacre missions on their board - even during a boom. I've also seen boom missions when the state isn't boom. Not sure if their government type does that or something else.

I'm fine with all missions types available all the time, but I know that would mess up immersion. I think missions are supposed to be based on MF's state. If so, I'd like to see that improved in a future update.

 

[Screemonster]

Wing missions are wing suggested, not wing required missions. I've soloed plenty of wing missions. The combat wing missions are good fun and challenging to solo.

Yep. 1200t source mission? That's two trips in a T9, and can be pretty lucrative depending on the commodity. Wing assassinations?

... am I the only one feeling that wing assassinations became easier recently? When they first came out I'd expect to be put up against an engineered cutter, conda or 'vette, with a supporting wing of a FDL, two asp/vultures and two eagle/cobra/vipers. Sure the escorts were unengineered but a six-on-one fight was a fun challenge, especially when it came to keeping less-engineered wingmen alive when they insist on "helping" with something I can handle solo, then decide that pulling all the aggro is the perfect way to help rather than letting the person that can survive facing off with the boss do so while they mop up the escorts. Can you tell I tend to play tank/healer in co-op games? ARGH.
Now, though? When I take on a wing assassination they all seem to be "two vultures and a fer-de-lance" type arrangements. I rarely lose a fighter to them, never mind a wingmate.

 

[deanom59]

Agreed

So you don't want to play the BGS. Cool. I have no problem with that.

But don't go around telling some of the most active players in the game, who play daily, and do much to make this galaxy alive, are playing wrong, and should have their toys taken away, or leave the game.

It makes no sense to streamline the process of becoming a player minor faction and then nerf the only workaround that makes it bearable to promote that faction. There are some really good suggestions for improving the missions system to make board-hopping irrelevant and improve the gaming experience in this thread. I guess I'll have to wait and see if this change results in an improvement to my gaming experience or makes it more of a chore.

 

[Rick Bravo]

That's utter rubbish. They did briefly double the number of missions, & some people still were clearly board flipping, which exarcerbated a pre existing slowdown. Moving the missions to a dedicated server will allow for an increase in the total number of missions *without* the slowdown it currently causes.

Also, no I don't want the missions to scale to rank.....because sometimes I am not in the mood for a rank 6 mission. Some nights all I want to do is half a dozen rank 3 missions. Why are you trying to dictate my play-style?

So not only are you clueless, you are also a hypocrite. You don't want anyone to dictate your play style but are happy dictate the playstyle of others. There is ZERO chance that moving the missions to a dedicated server will result in more missions. NO more missions are being added and different missions on other boards will no longer be an option. I realize you are poor in math but that is less missions available not more.

Furthermore, Fdev has publicly stated this change is for stability (in this thread), and was not done to stop board flipping but that the elimination of mission on other boards will be a side effect. Decide for yourself if you believe them but that is their official stance. They have also said board flipping was not an exploit and was working as intended in the past so based on this, someone at Fdev realized that there were not enough missions or not enough variety on the mission board and thus said board flipping was fine. Now that it is being eliminated, Fdev need to dramatically increase the number of mission offered or no one will get what they want, and this includes YOU, even if you are a little slow and don't understand what is happening.

 

[mamsa]

Killing boardflipping is a bad move. Increasing payout will not help in the least. Seems to be the consensus. And I agree. Can't think of a worse 'solution'.

What I am curious about is, if I accepted a mission, say, to kill 50 ships of a certain faction and the mission server goes down. Will I even be able to turn that mission in or will that 'data' and therefor mission, be deleted? If the state of the mission is saved serverside, we could be screwed when it goes down.

 

[Riverside]

Killing boardflipping is a bad move. Increasing payout will not help in the least. Seems to be the consensus. And I agree. Can't think of a worse 'solution'.

What I am curious about is, if I accepted a mission, say, to kill 50 ships of a certain faction and the mission server goes down. Will I even be able to turn that mission in or will that 'data' and therefor mission, be deleted? If the state of the mission is saved serverside, we could be screwed when it goes down.

The reason why you can currently board flip is that you connect to different servers each time you switch between open/group & solo. So yes, your mission will still work. The change is intended to make the mission board more reliable.

 

[tactical bacon]

Please fix the broken ones, and bring back smuggling missions too.

my player factions mission board is full of smuggling and liberate missions and pretty much nothing else, i dont mind that but what bugs me is they are all +++ to +++++ rep missions when myself and the whole player faction are fully allied so rep is some what useless for us to grow as a player faction we need to start seeing influence rewards above 1+

the faction that is our biggest threat for taking system control offers nothing but high influence rewards.

hopefully this new server balances the rewards and not just the cash reward

 

[wstephenson]

hopefully this new server balances the rewards and not just the cash reward

It won't, it's an almost purely operational change, as has been described already. Perhaps having the mission server external to the game server will enable more changes to missions, but not in 3.3.