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Missions should be a minor bonus on top of what you get from just playing the game, not the sole reason for playing in the first place.
Mission filter "before" fetching missions
- Thread starter lemny
- Start date
Even without board flipping it was trivial to land on the surface station and load up missions.
Do that 2 times and any ship was full of exactly what one was looking for. So, no, board flipping is not the issue.
Board flipping is a symptom :
- Filling a big ship with a single mission type is a PITA.
- Passenger mission mess is all about payout. If mission payouts had a well tested hard cap, these things would happen with a lower regularity.
- There are two crutches to sidestep the mission board RNJesus : board flipping, station hopping.
One of the prime factor for choosing our player faction system was : at least 3 large stations to be able to pile up missions ez-pz with hopping+flipping.
To be clear, I don't thing you are trolling. Just mixing up symptoms and root causes (IMO). You have my apologies for that.
@
Some days I like just plain ol trucking, I don't care what the profit is, I just want to load up and fly somewhere and do it again with as few hassles as I can. The other day, I had a good time hunting missions, maximizing profit and I didn't mind jumping around to a lot of different systems. Lately, I've been working a new area, doing passenger missions and enjoying running missions between systems as I slowly pickup the long haul, high profit missions. It's fun, but why should my style of play be somebody else's?
One of the biggest issues with the forums is that so many people think that any way to play other than they way they do it is "game breaking".
Stealthie - So why not give them more of what they want so they won't keep pinging the mission servers? Really, the thing is that credits are meaningless to someone with a T-9, Cutter or Anaconda, they just want to fly haulage missions. It might become an issue when squadron ships become a thing depending on how much they cost but by the time you've A rated the above ships, credits become meaningless. Some people like the running around trying to find missions/fill up their holds, others just want to fly. Who is playing the game the wrong way?Some days I like just plain ol trucking, I don't care what the profit is, I just want to load up and fly somewhere and do it again with as few hassles as I can. The other day, I had a good time hunting missions, maximizing profit and I didn't mind jumping around to a lot of different systems. Lately, I've been working a new area, doing passenger missions and enjoying running missions between systems as I slowly pickup the long haul, high profit missions. It's fun, but why should my style of play be somebody else's?
One of the biggest issues with the forums is that so many people think that any way to play other than they way they do it is "game breaking".
Why not give somebody playing Space Invaders infinite lives and infinite shields?
There comes a point where a "QoL improvement" is undermining the fundamental basis of the game.
In a game that's all about flying around in a spaceship to do stuff, a "QoL improvement" that means you no longer have to fly around in a spaceship to do stuff qualifies as "game-breaking" IMO.
YMMV. [up]
Are you seriously arguing that reducing the need to board flip is the equivalent of infinite lives in space invaders? I'll just politely call that a false equivalency.
Time spent board flipping is time spent NOT flying your spaceship. The whole point of the game is to fly your spaceship right?
I was providing an example of how a thing which is a "QoL improvement" can also fundamentally undermine the basis of a game.
I prefer to let people play the way they find fun, but hey, that's just me!
But you still haven't described how making it easier to find the mission types pilots are interested in flying "undermines the basis of a game"?
Yes, my mileage does vary from yours... Don't get me wrong, I see what you say, but if the basis of what the OP says were true that just getting trade type missions could speed up the process, I'd be for it. The size/ship filtering, no. That would be step too far. I don't think that it's game breaking, but it removes some of the challenge from the game.
I'd just like to see a better system that was more responsive to the size of the ship. I used to do a lot of missions from Tun to LHS 535 and these paid great. I get to LHS 535 and you were lucky to find a decent haulage mission. Fly around to the different systems, all in boom and most every decent mission was to a medium pad outpost. I finally parked the Anaconda and went back to the Python because the only way to make decent money in the Annie was to load up in Tun (very easy to do), fly to LHS 535 and then dead head back to Tun. Not very engaging to say the least. I rarely filled up the Python after leaving Tun, but I could find a lot of missions to a lot of places.
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I did.
I guess you just skipped over it.
If a system currently doesn't provide a lot of, say, passenger missions, it's silly to expect it to suddenly start simply because you rock up in a Beluga.
If there's no tourist industry in, say, an agricultural economy, go find an economy that does have one.
If you can just jump into any ship and be provided with suitable missions, nobody would have to actually fly around the galaxy to earn credits.
You could just pick a group of systems that had the physical parameters to support the missions you want and then take the appropriate ships there and never leave.
verminstar
Banned
I feel yer pain OP and I flip the boards several times a day to fill up...I make no apology fer doing so, some will agree, others wont...I care little either way and just do me own thing regardless. I used to do it the old school way, but flying to 3 different stations and finding zero missions worth doing? It tests the patience somewhat and gets tiresome when its regular and ye spend more time chasing decent missions down than it takes to actually do them.
Ive seen meself flipping the boards to find the mission selection even worse, in which case its logout fer half an hour, go empty the dogs bladder have a cuppa whatever...cos theres really not a snowballs chance in hell of me zipping around here there and everybloodywhere looking to make some decent coin.
Im all fer ideas to try and sort the boards out...cos they really are a joke sometimes but not in a funny way
Ive seen meself flipping the boards to find the mission selection even worse, in which case its logout fer half an hour, go empty the dogs bladder have a cuppa whatever...cos theres really not a snowballs chance in hell of me zipping around here there and everybloodywhere looking to make some decent coin.
Im all fer ideas to try and sort the boards out...cos they really are a joke sometimes but not in a funny way
Now wait a minute, let me be clear, I am NOT advocating for all missions being available everywhere! Nor am I honestly for the mission board automatically generating to suit the players ship setup.
I'm in favor of a filter selection option before mission board generation which allows the pilot to choose a mission type, and then that type is what the board generator uses. It might very well come back empty if no missions of that type are being generated at the station! The BGS would still be in full effect.
Just because a player chooses a mission type would NOT necessarily mean the system has any missions of that type to offer!
I'd just like to see the mission generation be streamlined by allowing players to sift through the content easier. Basically like if a pilot went up to the mission givers and asked "Hey, I'm looking to do some surface salvaging, what have you got?". The answer could very well be "I ain't got nothin!" The actual game itself wouldn't change, just the way the player interfaces with it, with the intent being it's easier to find the jobs you are interested in without having to sift through dozens of jobs you could care less about.
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But, if you're looking for a way to deter mode-flipping, that is what you're going to have to provide.
Using a more sensible scenario, you show up at a station and there's 3 or 4 desirable missions.
If you're of a mind to, you're probably going to mode-flip until you've stacked 20 similar missions and then head off to complete them.
The only way any kind of "pre-selection" system is going to deter mode-flipping is if it offers you 20 suitable missions.
Even if it offers you 10, you're still going to mode-flip to get another 10.
And then, you might even mode-flip more times to ensure you get the best 20 possible missions.
As I said, in 2.40 there were 50-odd passenger missions available at a time but people just spammed the mode-flipping at Rhea until the servers melted, thus requiring FDev to reduce the number of available missions again to create a reliable "reservoir" of missions to send to the boards.
I'm not saying that everybody will do that.
Point is, those who don't won't need any kind of "pre-selection" at all.
Those who do will continue to do it to maximise their opportunities.
I've got nothing against the idea of hiding missions that a player isn't interested in.
Providing extra missions of a preferred type, though, is just providing an "I Win" button for those who flog this stuff mercilessly.
And, let's face it, as long as mode-flipping is still possible, people who do it will always do it as long as there's some benefit to it.
It's not about "hiding" the missions a player isn't interested in, it's about not generating them at all in the first place. This would save a lot of server load time and it would greatly cut down on mode flipping for those that bother to do it.
And by simply not choosing a filter at all you could still very easily get the randomly generated mission board, so it's not like that would go away.
I still don't get how providing more missions of a certain category can be seen as an "I win button". I'm simply not understanding your point there Stealthie as I've certainly not "won" yet despite flying hundreds of passenger sightseeing missions via the passenger only mission boards...
What do they "win"? How does a player who has a billion in the bank win? This isn't like Monopoly where you buy all the squares and put hotels on them thereby bankrupting the other players out of the game. Credits mean nothing to someone with the largest ship in the game that's fully "A" rated and 20 rebuys in the bank. Again, how is this a "I WIN" button and why are you so concerned that another player plays differently than you?
The issues here, I think, is that you tied money to gameplay when it means nothing. You take someone who has made that kind of money in the game and they are either looking to play space trucker or the want gameplay, either way, money isn't a goal, it's just a way of measuring progress. Flying the missions is what they want to do.
It's like when I buy a ship, outfitting isn't gameplay. I know what I want to do so I know how I want to build the ship. I don't want to fly around looking for parts just so I can fly my ship the way I want to. I want to build a ship. Why should I want to mine and have to run around looking for the modules I want to complete that builds. I should be able to go to a Boom extraction/refinery with a large station and they should be in stock. Instead, I wonder around looking for these modules because said system didn't even have any modules related to mining. NONE. That makes no sense. Why should I fly to a system like a industrial system in a state of boom and find no haulage missions? The mission and outfitting makes no sense. If you like solving puzzles you have to have clues that make logical sense.
Yep. It would be a QoL change in the sense that players are already playing this way anyway by using work arounds like board flipping in order to find the jobs they want to fly. Implementing a mission type selector prior to board generation is simply reducing the need to board flip at all. Sure some will still do it but most players wouldn't ever have to board flip again.
Forcing players to wade through random missions they aren't interested in isn't helping the game in any way, in fact it's hurting it by increasing server load and wasting players time. There is a much better way to offer missions to the player, and it involves asking the player what they are interested in flying and then providing them with a focused selection of missions to choose from. Just like the passenger boards already do now.
Ah, but someone working the BGS just might.One point could be improved directly without any patch.
Frontier could start to optimize the missions right now by simply not providing low ranked missions to Elite Commanders.
I don't want to fly 4t of biowaste 5ly to an outpost if I played this otherwise gem of a game for 2k hours.
You see the game doesn't know what you are trying to achieve. And why should it?
I hope this year the mission board is going to get some QoL improvements. Like, for instance:
- Get rid of commodity rewards (offer materials instead). None of them are useful in the least, with the sole exception of Modular Terminals (and even those are needed in a very limited period only). Quent should ask for something else.
- Please don't display missions that we are absolutely unable to accept due to the lack of reputation. It makes no sense whatsoever. Gaining reputation takes time, missions don't seem to be willing to stay in the board forever, and RNGsus is highly unlikely to bless us with just enough donation missions for the required instant level-up.
- The lack of sufficient free cargo space shouldn't make me unable to accept cargo missions that won't actually use that cargo space at the very moment I press the 'accept' button. It's okay that I cannot accept the 'transport these X tons of goods somewhere' if I don't have the free space for the haulage in my hold, but why on Earth am I not allowed to pick up 'source and return' or 'black box salvage' missions without a cargo rack? They can give me a week to accomplish the mission but cannot give me a day to get a wretched cargo rack somewhere?
- A little bit more complex mission filter would come in handy (e.g.: hide all missions with no material reward).
...
- Get rid of commodity rewards (offer materials instead). None of them are useful in the least, with the sole exception of Modular Terminals (and even those are needed in a very limited period only). Quent should ask for something else.
- Please don't display missions that we are absolutely unable to accept due to the lack of reputation. It makes no sense whatsoever. Gaining reputation takes time, missions don't seem to be willing to stay in the board forever, and RNGsus is highly unlikely to bless us with just enough donation missions for the required instant level-up.
- The lack of sufficient free cargo space shouldn't make me unable to accept cargo missions that won't actually use that cargo space at the very moment I press the 'accept' button. It's okay that I cannot accept the 'transport these X tons of goods somewhere' if I don't have the free space for the haulage in my hold, but why on Earth am I not allowed to pick up 'source and return' or 'black box salvage' missions without a cargo rack? They can give me a week to accomplish the mission but cannot give me a day to get a wretched cargo rack somewhere?
- A little bit more complex mission filter would come in handy (e.g.: hide all missions with no material reward).
...
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AFAIR in 3.0 you can always choose between credits only, mix of cargo/cr or mat/cr.