Hello guys, this is something I've discussed with many people in the many Discord servers I'm active in and basically everybody agreed on this fact: missions are simply not satisfying, and main lore in the game is something almost intangible for the majority of players which maybe are not part of the awesome organized groups which follow these different aspects of the game.
I do not want to talk about bugs or inconsistencies, I'm trying to do a more "conceptual" post about what missions currently are and what I think they should be, so I ask to people reading this to leave outside of this topic the all well known problems we already know about them, trying to focus on, again, the very concept of how this part of the gameplay should work.
First things first: missions are the foundation of gameplay. I know that many people do not go for many missions anymore, but a new player will look inevitably for "something to do", so missions are extremly important.
Second: missions should offer a wide range of activities in the game, or opportunities to exploit the many different activities we already have (hauling, mining, fighting, exploring, surface related gameplay etc).
Third: missions should have more context, because of immersion and game longevity.
But: missions can't always be very complicated, the player should be able to chose between more linear tasks and a more complex (and more rewarding) mission, with a reasonable risk of failure.
And here is my first practical proposals: a distinction between jobs and missions.
Jobs should be something like our current missions, but they should have as many different contacts as the activities offered by a particular station, for a different contact I mean what's already present with the passenger missions, which have their very own contact. In the menu we should have a "Jobs" option selectable with a sub-menu with different contacts like
- trade contact (proposing hauling missions)
- mining contact (if the economy is compatible)
- science/research contact
- tourism/transport contact
- rescue contact
- security contact
- spec-ops/criminal contact
- military contact
And this is just an example. Every contact should be procedurally generated, basically a physical person from that faction we're interacting with. All of these jobs should be linear missions, making you engage in a single game activity (or a couple of them at most). The rewards should be just a little bit higher than the respective gameplay action (let's say no more than 50% higher, for example if my target for an assassination mission has a bounty of 500,000 credits and it's by himself, the payout shouldn't be more than 750,000 credits, same goes for the effects on the faction itself, the maximum for INF or REP shouldn't be more than +3, imho, this is to avoid mission stacking and grinding, which is terrible for longevity). Another mandatory thing is that all of these jobs should be highly scripted, the game has so many interesting USS scenarios which are NEVER used for missions, and that's a real shame. Jobs should be generated accordingly to the CMDR ratings.
Missions on the other hand should be something completely different, they should be something like little inside stories, with the possibility to chose your path basically every time, to be able to progress inside the mission itself with different loadouts and gamestyles, the possibility of failure should be real and consistent, and an epic failure (or a betrayal) could jeopardize your relations with a minor faction or, maybe, a superpower as a whole.
Technically I'm talking about a sequence of chained missions, with the possibility for the player to have alternatives and many escape routes from the mission itself, with different effects, and the possibility to complete them in different days, giving them the possibility to chose how to progress in the story. But to do so it's mandatory to manage them with a little bit of "art", let's make an example.
We start with our regular data mission delivery. Your contact maybe is doing some negotiations to strike a better bargain with a buyer, and send you to deliver a top-secret contract. But during the flight you are intercepted by a competitor, asking you to drop and proposing a different deal, or maybe to deliver an hacked version of the data you are hauling, the possibilities are basically infinite. Let's say we decide to be the good guys and we deliver the data, then we're asked to go back to our contact with the reply, the reply is good and now there's a huge amount of commodities to haul. If we have an hauling ship we can basically chose to do the job by ourselves (or maybe being helped my some wingmates or people from you very own squadron, but that's another topic
) or maybe we simply do not like to haul, so we decide for another path, looking for some other faction which can do the job for us, the income will be maybe lower, but at least we can avoid to haul. So: mission finished? Hell no, it's not: it's Elite DANGEROUS and pirates (or other factions' saboteurs) will probably try to jeopardize the operation; the path you chose is (again) a combat one, and while the faction you have contacted will deal with the transport, you'll be sent to deal a decisive strike against that pirate gang you know will try to steal the cargo, or maybe you'll be asked to escort a ship safely to the station, again so many possibilities. Or, let's say you are an hauler, at this point you can chose to take the risk and deal with pirates in supercruise, or you'll have the possibility to go looking for another faction (or more of them) paying them for protection, lowering the possibility of being interdicted.
The one above is just an example, and if you pay attention they are all game mechanics which are already present in the game, with a little bit more of context and a little bit of creativity to spice things up.
Same goes for the (maybe) upcoming powerplay missions, for example.
And what about lore?
I think that with higher ranks (combat, exploration) and higher local reputation, you should have Missions (or even Jobs) asking you to interact with specific targets important for the game. Now, we don't know anything about Codex and it's only speculation, but I think that Codex will be something like a compendium with all your discoveries of the secrets and interesting things inside the game, Thargoids, Guardians, Generation Ships, misteries from the past etc. It would be cool if, sometimes, missions should be generated accordingly to the soon-to-be Codex, making you visit a particular Guardian Ruin, or a Thargoid Structure, or a Generation Ship, to interact withthose structures to complete the mission, gather data, bring them back to your contact and add a little piece for your Codex completion.
What's the ratio in this? Easy to say: factions want for sure understand and use the secrets of alien civilizations, to gain a personal advantage (or simply to not being left behind in the run for technology progress). Or we should have some scientists asking for data or materials for their research. Or an archeologist. Or a scholar. Anything is possible, again, the keyword is "creativity".
About that: we have engineers. Engineers should be able to offer special missions related to the game for a limited time before they become available anywhere else.
I really hope that any of these (very confused) ideas could be of any help (or inspiration) for the devs, this game is awesome and the fact we're all stuck with it's proof of that, but the contextualization of game activities is very bad, and it's a problem for longevity and to keep people around here. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to hear your ideas about this.
I do not want to talk about bugs or inconsistencies, I'm trying to do a more "conceptual" post about what missions currently are and what I think they should be, so I ask to people reading this to leave outside of this topic the all well known problems we already know about them, trying to focus on, again, the very concept of how this part of the gameplay should work.
First things first: missions are the foundation of gameplay. I know that many people do not go for many missions anymore, but a new player will look inevitably for "something to do", so missions are extremly important.
Second: missions should offer a wide range of activities in the game, or opportunities to exploit the many different activities we already have (hauling, mining, fighting, exploring, surface related gameplay etc).
Third: missions should have more context, because of immersion and game longevity.
But: missions can't always be very complicated, the player should be able to chose between more linear tasks and a more complex (and more rewarding) mission, with a reasonable risk of failure.
And here is my first practical proposals: a distinction between jobs and missions.
Jobs should be something like our current missions, but they should have as many different contacts as the activities offered by a particular station, for a different contact I mean what's already present with the passenger missions, which have their very own contact. In the menu we should have a "Jobs" option selectable with a sub-menu with different contacts like
- trade contact (proposing hauling missions)
- mining contact (if the economy is compatible)
- science/research contact
- tourism/transport contact
- rescue contact
- security contact
- spec-ops/criminal contact
- military contact
And this is just an example. Every contact should be procedurally generated, basically a physical person from that faction we're interacting with. All of these jobs should be linear missions, making you engage in a single game activity (or a couple of them at most). The rewards should be just a little bit higher than the respective gameplay action (let's say no more than 50% higher, for example if my target for an assassination mission has a bounty of 500,000 credits and it's by himself, the payout shouldn't be more than 750,000 credits, same goes for the effects on the faction itself, the maximum for INF or REP shouldn't be more than +3, imho, this is to avoid mission stacking and grinding, which is terrible for longevity). Another mandatory thing is that all of these jobs should be highly scripted, the game has so many interesting USS scenarios which are NEVER used for missions, and that's a real shame. Jobs should be generated accordingly to the CMDR ratings.
Missions on the other hand should be something completely different, they should be something like little inside stories, with the possibility to chose your path basically every time, to be able to progress inside the mission itself with different loadouts and gamestyles, the possibility of failure should be real and consistent, and an epic failure (or a betrayal) could jeopardize your relations with a minor faction or, maybe, a superpower as a whole.
Technically I'm talking about a sequence of chained missions, with the possibility for the player to have alternatives and many escape routes from the mission itself, with different effects, and the possibility to complete them in different days, giving them the possibility to chose how to progress in the story. But to do so it's mandatory to manage them with a little bit of "art", let's make an example.
We start with our regular data mission delivery. Your contact maybe is doing some negotiations to strike a better bargain with a buyer, and send you to deliver a top-secret contract. But during the flight you are intercepted by a competitor, asking you to drop and proposing a different deal, or maybe to deliver an hacked version of the data you are hauling, the possibilities are basically infinite. Let's say we decide to be the good guys and we deliver the data, then we're asked to go back to our contact with the reply, the reply is good and now there's a huge amount of commodities to haul. If we have an hauling ship we can basically chose to do the job by ourselves (or maybe being helped my some wingmates or people from you very own squadron, but that's another topic
) or maybe we simply do not like to haul, so we decide for another path, looking for some other faction which can do the job for us, the income will be maybe lower, but at least we can avoid to haul. So: mission finished? Hell no, it's not: it's Elite DANGEROUS and pirates (or other factions' saboteurs) will probably try to jeopardize the operation; the path you chose is (again) a combat one, and while the faction you have contacted will deal with the transport, you'll be sent to deal a decisive strike against that pirate gang you know will try to steal the cargo, or maybe you'll be asked to escort a ship safely to the station, again so many possibilities. Or, let's say you are an hauler, at this point you can chose to take the risk and deal with pirates in supercruise, or you'll have the possibility to go looking for another faction (or more of them) paying them for protection, lowering the possibility of being interdicted.The one above is just an example, and if you pay attention they are all game mechanics which are already present in the game, with a little bit more of context and a little bit of creativity to spice things up.
Same goes for the (maybe) upcoming powerplay missions, for example.
And what about lore?
I think that with higher ranks (combat, exploration) and higher local reputation, you should have Missions (or even Jobs) asking you to interact with specific targets important for the game. Now, we don't know anything about Codex and it's only speculation, but I think that Codex will be something like a compendium with all your discoveries of the secrets and interesting things inside the game, Thargoids, Guardians, Generation Ships, misteries from the past etc. It would be cool if, sometimes, missions should be generated accordingly to the soon-to-be Codex, making you visit a particular Guardian Ruin, or a Thargoid Structure, or a Generation Ship, to interact withthose structures to complete the mission, gather data, bring them back to your contact and add a little piece for your Codex completion.
What's the ratio in this? Easy to say: factions want for sure understand and use the secrets of alien civilizations, to gain a personal advantage (or simply to not being left behind in the run for technology progress). Or we should have some scientists asking for data or materials for their research. Or an archeologist. Or a scholar. Anything is possible, again, the keyword is "creativity".
About that: we have engineers. Engineers should be able to offer special missions related to the game for a limited time before they become available anywhere else.
I really hope that any of these (very confused) ideas could be of any help (or inspiration) for the devs, this game is awesome and the fact we're all stuck with it's proof of that, but the contextualization of game activities is very bad, and it's a problem for longevity and to keep people around here. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to hear your ideas about this.
Last edited:
