Misson Overhaul - Same Old in New Package?

[eqinox]

What worried me was the low payouts. Let's hope they scale up nicely once you get more trusted, 50k is pretty damn low if you have 10 mill assets like the CMDR in the picture

This! The mission payouts in the screenshot seemed to be same as before. But hopefully this isn't the whole story.

Personally, I was hoping for scaling up the rewards both based on rank and trust.

 

[woodhouse]

Actually, throw in chained missions, & it doesn't have to be "the old boring mission".

We already have chained missions in ED!?

I took a few of these, and don't like them at all. The first thing in the chain looks pretty normal, and then after you've done what they ask, the next question is invariantly one that requires you to do something illegal that will make you wanted.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

Forming opinions on the new missions based on a couple of screenshots.

Just another day on the Elite forum.

No, I don't think that most people here are expressing opinions at the moment, but concerns. We do that in the hope that for once FD might listen and, if the missions are really fundamentally unchanged at the moment, reconsider. There is still time to improve things until final release of 2.1

 

[Abil Midena]

i've already had two of that type appear, in the current game version - both times i was on my way home to log off when a little blue box suddenly appeared in the comms tab with an urgent mission that needed doing. i did them both more out of guilt and fear than anything - i.e. who will do it if i don't? and what happens to my rep if i don't?

I have over 2000 hours in the game and have NEVER had this happen. The only thing I've seen are the alt mission givers. Can you tell us what might have triggered the mission you got?

there seemed to be an undercurrent of "we don't want players buying Anacondas too easily or too early"...

there are of course those who say "it's not about the credits!" - which is of course, pure rubbish...

i have over 3,000 hours of game time in ED - stop feeding me crumbs, i want a slice of pie.

How much money one needs in game, and life I suppose, before they stop caring about it is different for everyone. You seem to have a really high threshold Myself, I stopped caring about money from missions a long time ago, mostly because there's nothing else I can do with it (already have all the ships I want, kitted out, blah, blah, blah..). I also discovered the BGS. I do missions for influence for the faction I'm supporting, not for the cash. Working the BGS is 10x more interesting and rewarding *for me* than grinding for more credits I don't need.

Considering how stupidly easy it is now to get credits in so many different ways, I don't think missions really need a money buff (also considering what I use missions for), but if FD wants to pay out more...*shrug*

 

[Soliluna]

We already have chained missions in ED!?

I took a few of these, and don't like them at all. The first thing in the chain looks pretty normal, and then after you've done what they ask, the next question is invariantly one that requires you to do something illegal that will make you wanted.

Jurisdictions are so important when considering legality even today. I have broken soooo many laws of other countries - just today, but not in my own country. You could use a bit of handwavium and apply that to the game - if I haven't broken a law in my "own" system then I haven't broken a law!

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No, I don't think that most people here are expressing opinions at the moment, but concerns. We do that in the hope that for once FD might listen and, if the missions are really fundamentally unchanged at the moment, reconsider. There is still time to improve things until final release of 2.1

It's the loot & crafting update, not the mission update. They are making progress on missions, fixing bugs, while providing new content, this is good.

 

[NMS]

No, I don't think that most people here are expressing opinions at the moment, but concerns. We do that in the hope that for once FD might listen and, if the missions are really fundamentally unchanged at the moment, reconsider. There is still time to improve things until final release of 2.1

+1

And it would be great to hear something about the content, type and variety of new missions. Or they will not be new?

 

[GG7]

Just looked at the newsletter. Maybe it is just me or the way that they presented the changes, but so far I just see the same old missions in a shiny new packaging. I hope that this is not the case, as it would be a major disappointment.

I was kind of wondering about that myself, but I am going to remain positive at this point since we don't have all the details.

there are of course those who say "it's not about the credits!" - which is of course, pure rubbish. if it wasn't about the credits, you'd earn each ship directly as a reward for service to a particular entity, instead of waltzing into a shop and buying it with cash as we do in ED. therefore credits matter, and to a large extent they determine what your next move will be

i have over 3,000 hours of game time in ED - stop feeding me crumbs, i want a slice of pie.

Exactly!

Like so many other players out there trying to earn a decent wage in the game, the one major issue with the current mission system for me is the totally out of balance payout system! Having recently come over to Horizons on PC from the XB1 version and being forced to start from scratch, the current low payouts are having a very NEGATIVE impact on my gameplay and my desire to continue engaging in what can only be described as a text book example of A GRIND!

Having played the XB1 version since day one of the GPP I have learned all the tricks for earning money such as Rare Item trading etc. But if I was truly a noob to the game and assumed that my path to earning $$ was via the Bulletin Board, I would definitely be scratching my head and wondering if I was missing something.

As I mentioned in another thread a few days ago, if you want to see just how ridiculously LOW and unbalanced some mission payouts can be these days, you need to start the game fresh as a brand new player. I was recently offered a "Reliable Agents Required for Sensitive Delivery Work" mission with a payout of 212 CR! :O We have all seen the BB mission payouts plummet over the last few months and I thought I had seen some insultingly low paying missions of late, but I never imagined these could fall to something as ridiculously low as 212 credits!

Fortunately, I still had all my notes from my early days on the XB1 version which contained all of my Rare Item Trade loops, so I totally abandoned the BB mission system and focused on running Rares for the last week, and I am just now beginning to have enough CR to upgrade from the original Sidewinder to a Cobra and yesterday I finally was able to purchase an Asp Explorer. Now I am not asking for FD to swing the payouts in the completely opposite direction and bring back the insanity of Cubeo, but something in the middle of these two extremes would be most welcome!

Those who say there doesn't need to be a money buff seriously need to start the game over from scratch and see how fun it is with the current pay system.

After reading through this thread I can see that I am not alone in my opinions on the current BB Mission System payscales, and as much as I look forward to the new look and feel, I am even more interested in seeing some serious attention paid to THE PAY!

 

[Seonid]

And it would be great to hear something about the content, type and variety of new missions. Or they will not be new?

It's well known that FD always play their cards close to their chest on new features and as we haven't even seen the Beta yet, much could be subject to change now, in the Beta and before it goes live. You can also 100% guarantee that any feature mentioned now that isn't exactly the same in Live, will result in a swarm of angry self-entitled posts by the thousands of professional game developers with centuries of experience that have an authoritative opinion on everything.

 

[Soliluna]

+1

And it would be great to hear something about the content, type and variety of new missions. Or they will not be new?

Never saw them say anything about new missions, although some were added in Horizons and some have been fixed. It's entirely possible there are new ones.

 

[Sandmann]

Just looked at the newsletter. Maybe it is just me or the way that they presented the changes, but so far I just see the same old missions in a shiny new packaging. I hope that this is not the case, as it would be a major disappointment.

They don't appear to.be replacing missions with something better, rather than incrementally building on what we've already got... which also decribes the whole game of ED as being a series of incremental improvements on the original 1984 Elite really. Thing is, improvements are great and wonderful, but they seem to be unwilling to look back at and improve the (sometimes flawed) basics upon which they are building.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

We already have chained missions in ED!?

I took a few of these, and don't like them at all. The first thing in the chain looks pretty normal, and then after you've done what they ask, the next question is invariantly one that requires you to do something illegal that will make you wanted.

They're not *fully* chained missions though. Michael Brookes said at the end of the year that the Chained Missions we currently have are just a "proof of concept"-which is why each mission type is the same. Fully chained missions is where you can have multiple linked missions, but with each mission type being completely different. Which is hopefully what we will see in 2.1