Player-Designed Missions

[Foos]

So Elite's missions can be pretty entertaining, but mostly end up feeling repetitive and shallow.

Why not change the way missions are handled to make them dynamic for players by making them a kind of "Choose Your Own Adventure" mission style?

You get mission "elements" and stack them into a mission package (limited by your Ranks: Elite members can add more elements than harmless folk). The more elements, the bigger the reward and the danger. You take a planetary scan mission as your "base" mission. The game them offers you a couple more options to add onto it (depending upon your standing, perhaps) that allow you to add other elements to the mission. Like: 1) Steal Materials at Site 2) Destroy Skimmers 3) Hack and Reset Station Power-grid. THEN maybe you get another group of choices (depending on your Rank and choice); so you choose to Steal Materials and have a high enough rank, now you get the option to add on: 1) Deliver materials to Contact 2) Deliver materials to Station 3) Smuggle Materials onto rival's black market. You choose 1 and deliver them to a Contact in another system. The game, depending on the mission, creates an adversary for you - perhaps a pirate, perhaps a rival trying to do the same thing, perhaps system authorities? Each one shifts the dynamic a little bit. The combinations make each mission more interesting, more of a narrative than a fetch quest. And the players get to employ choices to tailor them to their gameplay interests, and the more complex, again, the better the reward and more dangerous.

 

[wetwire]

So your saying using the chain mission mechanic the game currently has .
example you complete a mission then back at the original station you are offered another. (which normally has little to do with the first mission)
But your saying expand that to give three or so options after you complete the job to continue with the "story"
and your rank determines how many times you are offered to continue the branching mission.
each adding to your total reward for each branching objective complete.

I could get behind that, just make sure you have the option to decline branching more and collect the rewards. For the sake of limited play time or similar situation that prevents a player from sticking through the multi mission chain.

Adding the flavor text of each mission and its branch relate to each other would go a long way into make the mission chain feel more natural then completely unrelated task the game currently tries to sneak in.

 

[Foos]

... just make sure you have the option to decline branching more and collect the rewards. For the sake of limited play time or similar situation that prevents a player from sticking through the multi mission chain.

Adding the flavor text of each mission and its branch relate to each other would go a long way into make the mission chain feel more natural then completely unrelated task the game currently tries to sneak in.

Yeah, have each mission "segment" be totally optional so you don't get in over your head/comfort-zone. It would change nothing for those of us who are fine with the way missions work, but would expand missions into something more like a story for those of us who crave that.

What the game desperately needs are micro-narratives to flesh out the universe between the overarching segments revolving around Powerplay and Thargoids. A microcosm of small stories that chain procedural elements into stories that commanders can share over comms. Bonus points if these missions can be shared by commanders in a wing to coordinate efforts to achieve a grander goal. Like power down 3 outposts on the same planet near-simultaneously in order to draw system authority ships there to gain a delay in their response to your attempts to hack and pilfer a megaship with mission-critical cargo.