Please address the actual issues at hand and not stop nerfing the game for ALL players

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

Please stop breaking the missions for ALL players with fix/bug, fix/bug, fix/bug because some people like to exploit the mechanics by board hopping.

Suggestion: If you could just GUID the missions and have the current board time stamped and saved locally in an encrypted and hashed file, you could just pull the missions from the local file based on its time stamp and after ten minutes pull from the server. GUID would prevent the same mission from being accepted again (copy paste of the file) and even force a hard 10 minutes board refresh if the same GUID is found in the player save and local file to prevent tampering. Upon save & exit, also save into the players save file. I would much rather the occasional glitch and have to wait 10 minutes than for the entire mission mechanics to be broken because people board hop the whole time. You already encrypt and save locally the trade and visited system data.

The mission mechanics that you once had in place would be great again if not for the fact that they can be exploited through board hopping. They currently seem broken because you are not addressing the actual cause of the problem.

As for grade 5 material farming from healing lasers and AFK... either create excessive amounts of heat from the healing laser or dumb down its effects, don't simply cut off the supply of grade 5 mats for ALL players destroying large ships.

If you find that the majority of players are using these exploits then you know that there is a bigger problem that needs addressing, but if most players are enjoying the game as intended then please be sensible about fixing issues that only arise from exploits.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The mission mechanics that you once had in place would be great again if not for the fact that they can be exploited through board hopping. They currently seem broken because you are not addressing the actual cause of the problem.

Board flipping by mode-switching isn't really the problem.

If mission type A has reasonable pay on its own, but can give extremely high pay if you take five of them at once, then board flipping will make some stations which give out small numbers of these missions practical to get five from.

On the other hand, there are 20,000+ systems with multiple stations, so there's a good chance that *somewhere* there's a mission board giving out five or more of those missions anyway ... and they're all there right for the taking, rather than having to spend minutes at a time switching modes until something shows up, so it's even more efficient at earning money that way.

I saw quite a lot of this when Smeaton was the big thing for money earning - lots of people saying that it took them so long to board-flip to fill their ship that they only got about 50MCr/hour in the end (which is not a particularly high amount and can be beaten in several ways by earnings min-maxers [1]) ... while the people who'd found Smeaton-like places with better mission boards were making considerably more than that without needing to board-flip at all.

[1] Min-maxed Painite mining, which doesn't involve the missions boards at all as there's no such thing as a Painite mining mission, can earn more than that, for example.

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

It wouldn't require much code to limit what range of missions was on the board, even with the RNG... and if you did end up with 3 or 5 high paying missions to one location on one board, I don't see that as a problem. Then boarding hopping for another 1 and again and again and again until you stack 20 is an issue, especially when the mission mechanics get hit instead of the board hopping.

 

[Daish]

I would like to think at some point, Frontier would go down the road of stopping all progression and new content, to take two months or maybe three to fix everything in game, before continuing, creating new content that either effects or bugs older content, or being so busy with new content they forget about the older problems and fixes requested, in some cases months.!

Though I am not ranting here and I want the best for the game like 99% of us here, but I cant help feeling that either not enough team devs are there to fix issues, than there are to actually creating new content.

I think most players would agree to have the game at a point that all areas of the game are fixed, and bugs and issues are at a very low ratio, before having any new content or shiny wild paint job is created.

Only then can the devs move on to fresh new content with a clean bug fix free game where players would be enjoying the game for what it should be, plus gives the devs chance to catch up of bug fixes.

Surley this would make perfect sense, apart from players having to rough it a little while the new content is on hold. Just my opinion.

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

A quick question for FDev should they be reading this...

How long would it take to get a quick count of all the locations within 20ly grouped by faction? Generate a list of random missions based on system and faction states and then limit the quantity/value of missions to each destination should the total exceed a designated amount?... This would then restrict the number of missions given when the system is only close to a limited number of other systems, but not effect busier areas.

Edit: Alternatively... how much additional overhead/time would be required to limit the total quantity and value of missions to a given location, once the mission list had already been generated?

Edit2: And apply the calculation to the missions already in your mission list? (prevents too much board hoping, but could unfortunately affect those that stack from different locations and so I don't like this)

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

I also have a secondary suggestion... If FDev are happy to allow board hopping, then just accept that there will be exploits and leave the missions alone so that the rest of us can enjoy the game.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It wouldn't require much code to limit what range of missions was on the board, even with the RNG...

A typical mission board has 80 missions on it. Ensuring that they're all sufficiently distinct from each other is going to take some effort, for a situation that doesn't affect 99% of mission boards anyway.

and if you did end up with 3 or 5 high paying missions to one location on one board, I don't see that as a problem. Then boarding hopping for another 1 and again and again and again until you stack 20 is an issue, especially when the mission mechanics get hit instead of the board hopping.

Depending on the mission type, needing to stack the full 20 may not be necessary - cargo and passenger missions are limited more by ship size anyway, and the bigger wing missions you may only need to see one at a time provided you can reliably find another one in the time taken to do the first.

e.g for Palladium haul missions to outposts, you can get maybe 50-60MCr/hour from a station which reliably generates just one suitable mission each time. You can't physically fit a second mission into a Python (though you could fit a second smaller one in), and many places generate far more than just one mission on average, so any similar-mission restrictions are irrelevant.

Conversely, if you're spending 20 minutes hopping continuously to get a full stack of missions one at a time, you're likely being less efficient - in most cases - than you would be just taking 5 at a better location, spending those 20 minutes *doing* them, then getting another 5.

 

[space voyager]

I agree with Ian that board flipping is the least of the problems - if it is a problem at all. I take it as a larger mission board, which I don't mind. If you don't board flip, you can wait a few minutes and get basically the same result.

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

If it wasn't a problem, then FDev wouldn't continually keep nerfing the missions due to +100Mil / hour exploits only achievable through board hopping/flipping.

We are working with DB logic and it is very easy and efficient to run this logic, in fact if it took more than half a second to summarise the board after generation I would be very surprised. Excel could probably do 80 missions in 0.0 something of a second or faster.

 

[space voyager]

Most exploits have little to do with board flipping, it just makes them faster. Otherwise you'd need to wait three minutes...

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

ALL players?

Did they nerf exploration?

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

When you return to hand in your data, let's hope not.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

If it wasn't a problem, then FDev wouldn't continually keep nerfing the missions due to +100Mil / hour exploits only achievable through board hopping/flipping.

I'm having difficulty thinking of a recent well-publicised earning method that earns >100M/hour and actually required board-flipping. Which one(s) did you have in mind?

Sure, lots of people too lazy to find a good station *used* board-flipping to make a bad station adequate. If board-flipping wasn't available it would take a bit longer for these methods to be found and they'd be concentrated in fewer systems, that's all.

We are working with DB logic and it is very easy and efficient to run this logic, in fact if it took more than half a second to summarise the board after generation I would be very surprised. Excel could probably do 80 missions in 0.0 something of a second or faster.

The amount of time a desktop app takes to perform a calculation locally and the amount of time a distributed network app takes to perform thousands of copies of that calculation simultaneously are completely unrelated.

One big cost to doing post-generation comparisons: at the moment, the servers can generate the missions in parallel, send them to the client as they're prepared, and if an individual mission generation is slow for whatever reason, it doesn't delay the rest and can be ignored on timeout by the client without noticeably affecting the board. If you want to compare all 80 after the fact to make sure that none of them are identical, you have to wait for all 80 to generate, then do the comparison, then send all 80. That's *considerably* less efficient and increases the chances of the entire board timing out at busy times.

(It also wouldn't necessarily help - missions don't have to be *identical* to be practical to stack up)

 

[E-L-Y-S-I-U-M]

I'm guessing then that it isn't possible to do the calculation client side after getting the mission data?

That is really interesting to know about the mission servers as I thought that I was only ever connected to one at a time, thank you for sharing this.

Without me going to youtube and linking the 00's of board flipping videos that have existed over time... Isn't there some location with data delivery missions to 'grind' the fed rank, somewhere else with passenger missions for Imperial rank, skimmer missions all to one faction which can be dealt with all at the one planetary base, all completed with a little board flipping? I don't know if the current meta alloy delivery runs at 50mil per mission can be flipped faster or not, but I imagine people will be trying.

It is just a suggestion, but if it isn't technically possible then we might as well just close the thread already because no amount of discussion will change the fact that it can't be done... and I would rather the current method for mission delivery than a timeout.

 

[Misty_Dark]

the problem is where they generate the missions... according to a live stream, the mission where generated on the "login" servers.
Open/Private groups shares "login" servers and solo have their own set of "login" servers, so that is why board hopping between open/Private and Solo works so well. And when boardhopping at times when few plays, you end up on the same "login" server alot more often, than when many are playing and we have many "login" servers.


And they have also said that the generation of mission was CPU heavy (I think they have optimized this code a bit, as they now generate alot more mission than when they said it).


So board hopping by design cannot never be considered a cheat, as we are allowed to freely switch between modes...


And the design where they generate missions are opens up the use of board hopping to to try top get more of the "wanted" missions in a shorter time frame.


So there are a couple of different ways they can change the game to eliminate or make the game adapt to what we players do....


So creating missions, if they move the creation of missions from the "login" severs to lets say a backend function, that will do the generation on request by the login servers... today missions are cycled ever 10 or 15 minutes. So that means that if a player views missions, the login server checks if it has a generated mission board, if not it will generate a new mission board. But if now replace the generate mission with a backend function that has a shared "list" of missions, now regardless what "login" server asks for the mission board, we will give the same mission board for the entire 10 or 15 minutes.... in essence making board hopping useless.

Now a few issues with this suggestion,
* Rank up missions etc, still have to be generated at the "login" server, as these are CMDR specific regarding their current status. I would argue that a nice QoL to this would be that once the progress to have a rank up mission is entitled, the current mission board should ideally auto refresh with a rank up mission.

* This of course require some redesign and a new "pool" of missions servers etc toi be set up.




Then a bigger change to mission payouts etc could be a player driven change to availability and payout of missions...
If we get a very popular mission type, that many players go to do, then I would expect this to happen.
1. More of these missions is generated - so much easier to find these kind of missions.
2. Since we have many pilots seeking out todo these missions, the pay rate goes down.
3. Un-popular missions would get a boost to their pay rate. So they get more attractive, and the logic is, if you want something done, and no one is taking your offer, you have to pay more.... and eventually someone will most likely take the offer.
4. To avoid "oh crap I didn't think of this" problems, put in limits of each mission type of what the max (and lowest) payout can ever be. (to avoid the trillion payout debacle). And these can then be used to tune the system along with how many missions triggers the downward spiral of pay rate, etc, etc.





How I envision this to work is that this would be tracked per station. So the latest and greatest get money fast youtube video, would make this place spawn ALOT of low paying missions. But if you understand the premisses of the mission and why it appears to be so good payout, you will now go ELSEWHERE to find these missions.... as these pay rates is not influenced by the other much more popular station.
So this system would automatically, if implemented correctly, auto nerf popular player hotspots for a specific mission type.




These two changes have the potential to remove several aspects that have had FDEV act fast on nerfing/removing missions in game.

And we as players can now see that we have a local influence of missions...And make us figure out how to go and find our "own" spots in the bubble to do some missions.... Imagine if these hotspots have a trigger, that made galnet announced about Boom in Passengers missions in Rhea! (for all who remember this one), if enough CMDRs complete missions at a specific station, we announce it (as the game lowers the pay rate....) and this would be a great notice to go somewhere else for these kind of missions....

 

[TheMegaTurnip]

Fix the issues.

What like an outdated and not even semi functional P2P system instead of not very expensive dedicated servers so you can both monitor player activity on the client to prevent hacks, fix combat logging AND make PP PvP a workable system, not to mention having the systems feel populated as opposed to the game deciding that this time, you get your own instance away from everybody on a frequency of 6/10 occasions aye.

If I sound frustrated, It's because I am.

Alot of us have put a lot of time into this game, and played pretty devotedly for a while. At this point it feels like we only stay because you guys promise it'll get better.

Just like hearing a woman say that to oneself in a failing relationship, I am questioning my outs, and alternative options.

FO76 is on the horizon FDev. It would be prudent to fix the most pressing stuff prior to that getting a release or what I would imagine is a very large portion of the playerbase will most likely divert thier attention to that.

 

[Aaron T]

The best answer is mine, and that is to offer 5 pages of missions period.

If you have not filled the holds/cabins after browsing through the 5 pages too bad, just take what you have.

But it is highly likely that any ship can be filled in 5 pages.

 

[IVAN__V]

ALL players?

Did they nerf exploration?

Yes they did when ship and upgrades cost 1 Billion and we can't warp between planets !!!

 

[Misty_Dark]

Yes they did when ship and upgrades cost 1 Billion and we can't warp between planets !!!

What ship upgrades costs 1 billion?

The only time you reach that costs for a ship+upgrades gets close to 1 Billion is a when you fully upgrade a Corvette or a Cutter for COMBAT! Last time i checked, Combat is not Exploration....



So if you are unable to outfit a ship for exploration then this is on you....
And Cutter and Corvette is not great ships for exploration and they are also locked behind Imperial and Federation ranks... so if you want a large ship for exploration, then you have Anaconda, and a fully kitted Anaconda for Exploration is around 280 million. That is a far cry from your 1 billion... and if you go for an Asp Explorer (Another very common ship for exploration) then you get away with about 35 million credits, a real bargain compared to your 1 billion credits, and then we Diamondback Explorer, that are even cheaper...
and then just about any ships makes for a descent/good exploration ship..... where they lack are in internal slots (limiting options) or max jump range, which in most cases are a bit useless when exploring as exploring is about finding new places, it does not have to across the galaxy towards Beagle points, there are millions of interesting systems out there to find.






When did they remove the warp between planets? Have that EVER been an option in Elite?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Yes they did when ship and upgrades cost 1 Billion and we can't warp between planets !!!

My AspX cost 27M.
Teleporting around a map isn't my definition of exploration.