PVE Combat missions

[Anastasia Lavigny-Duval]

This has been stated over and over, including by many Elite Youtubers, how much underpaid combat missions are. Considering the risks and costs involved, Devs could reward substantially more this activity, which is one of the mosk risk loaded in the game. Even if it provides some fun, definitely the rewards are not on par with occasional repair costs, a stray shot and following consequences, and the risk of loosing your ship with the cost of insurance for larger ships. It's really a shame as I'd love to take out my corvette more often for hazardous resource zone bounty hunting, assassinations or even conflict zones. However and from my experience (and this is a personal point of view that seems to be commonly shared by some of the more eminent YouTubers), when compared to other activities like trading or mining, it feels really so unrewarding to the point that it has become for me a punctual activity (as a comparison, you get more funds nad less operation expenses just by beeing atatcked by the usual engineered Anacondas that the game throw at you, while on those cargo or sourcing missions).
I'd definitely like to see rewards for combat missions at least on parr with the other activities (ressource extraction, passenger and transport missions).
Just my two credits...

 

[Jmanis]

This has been stated over and over, including by many Elite Youtubers, how much underpaid combat missions are. Considering the risks and costs involved, Devs could reward substantially more this activity, which is one of the mosk risk loaded in the game. Even if it provides some fun, definitely the rewards are not on par with occasional repair costs, a stray shot and following consequences, and the risk of loosing your ship with the cost of insurance for larger ships. It's really a shame as I'd love to take out my corvette more often for hazardous resource zone bounty hunting, assassinations or even conflict zones. However and from my experience (and this is a personal point of view that seems to be commonly shared by some of the more eminent YouTubers), when compared to other activities like trading or mining, it feels really so unrewarding to the point that it has become for me a punctual activity (as a comparison, you get more funds nad less operation expenses just by beeing atatcked by the usual engineered Anacondas that the game throw at you, while on those cargo or sourcing missions).
I'd definitely like to see rewards for combat missions at least on parr with the other activities (ressource extraction, passenger and transport missions).
Just my two credits...

The biggest problem right now stacking massacre missions. Stacked typically[1], 30 kills will get you 100m (20m each stack, for 5 stacks), and stacked idealistically that ups to 400m (20m per stack for 20 stacks). That's over 10m per kill of, if you do the mission uss, mostly novice ships.

That's what gets held up as a "fair comparison". Meanwhile, killing ships in threat 5/6 pirate activity uss will be lucky to net you 300k. Of course, ramping up the pay of other things means ramping up that unreasonable comparison. That needs fixing first, but good luck getting a second pass on mission stacking... the first was already a tough sell.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'd really love to see scaled missions that escalate beyond what we have now- so for 20 million you'd be fighting a wing of NPC Corvettes, or for 10 get the old style pirate wing kill missions back.

I fall asleep with regular kill missions these days, they are far, far too easy. But once I stacked three pirate lord, a cargo mission and had a bounty. I had to drop into a nav to find some info and all of my targets popped in, I had pirates after my cargo, BH and cops over me like chilli sauce. It was fantastic, it was hard work and made me sweat with my ship being smashed up all over. I'd love for that to be a top end PvE mission for 20 million- tough even for G5 hulks.

 

[Jmanis]

I'd really love to see scaled missions that escalate beyond what we have now- so for 20 million you'd be fighting a wing of NPC Corvettes, or for 10 get the old style pirate wing kill missions back.

I fall asleep with regular kill missions these days, they are far, far too easy. But once I stacked three pirate lord, a cargo mission and had a bounty. I had to drop into a nav to find some info and all of my targets popped in, I had pirates after my cargo, BH and cops over me like chilli sauce. It was fantastic, it was hard work and made me sweat with my ship being smashed up all over. I'd love for that to be a top end PvE mission for 20 million- tough even for G5 hulks.

I know Wing Assassinations (at a rocking 2 mil reward -.-) kinda do this already, but I'd love to see, say, in a War state, "Destroy the Spec Ops Wing"... which can either be done in the CZ or a mission USS for a solid 10 mil.

In one of the systems where I stack assassinations, I love it when three corvettes drop in on me in short succession.... they're good fun.

While we're talking fun fights... in my "mission" ship I can usually tolerate a single activity at once... whether that's liberating hostages, doing a single assassination, or tanking pirates in a threat 4 salvage USS. On this occasion, I was wanted, had done a few hostage missions already, and was doing another hostage mission.

Dropped into the hostage USS, target was there with two escorts... fine... knock out the escorts, use a hatchbreaker... gets knocked by PDs, so start manouvering to get a clean line to the hatch. Suddenly, an FDL bounty hunter drops in after me. Huh, well that's annoying. Then a Wanted Anaconda also drops in, a tail for one of my previously-completed hostage missions. Bounty hunter gets distracted when the conda starts shooting him up, leaving me to focus on tanking the hostage-taker while I scoop up the hostages.

But yeah, NPCs fight with "Report Crimes" on... so the conda and bounty hunter fighting made three viper security vessels show up. One starts shooting the hostage taker (who still has hostages), another shoots me, and the third fights the conda with the FDL. It's a proper bunfight now... but somehow I manage to nab the 8 hostages... though also by that point two security condas have also rocked up, one targeting me. Got out, just, but damn, that was really fun.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I know Wing Assassinations (at a rocking 2 mil reward -.-) kinda do this already, but I'd love to see, say, in a War state, "Destroy the Spec Ops Wing"... which can either be done in the CZ or a mission USS for a solid 10 mil.

In one of the systems where I stack assassinations, I love it when three corvettes drop in on me in short succession.... they're good fun.

While we're talking fun fights... in my "mission" ship I can usually tolerate a single activity at once... whether that's liberating hostages, doing a single assassination, or tanking pirates in a threat 4 salvage USS. On this occasion, I was wanted, had done a few hostage missions already, and was doing another hostage mission.

Dropped into the hostage USS, target was there with two escorts... fine... knock out the escorts, use a hatchbreaker... gets knocked by PDs, so start manouvering to get a clean line to the hatch. Suddenly, an FDL bounty hunter drops in after me. Huh, well that's annoying. Then a Wanted Anaconda also drops in, a tail for one of my previously-completed hostage missions. Bounty hunter gets distracted when the conda starts shooting him up, leaving me to focus on tanking the hostage-taker while I scoop up the hostages.

But yeah, NPCs fight with "Report Crimes" on... so the conda and bounty hunter fighting made three viper security vessels show up. One starts shooting the hostage taker (who still has hostages), another shoots me, and the third fights the conda with the FDL. It's a proper bunfight now... but somehow I manage to nab the 8 hostages... though also by that point two security condas have also rocked up, one targeting me. Got out, just, but damn, that was really fun.

This is when ED shines, the unexpected. I've had CZs and refugee convoy POIs get mixed up, with real chaos as T-9s jump right through a crazed fight.

In some ways I'd love FD to expand the medium and high CZ objectives to be more like that, with cash rewards up front as well as a CZ point, combining both and pushing players (for the right reward).

 

[Jmanis]

This is when ED shines, the unexpected.

Coincidentally (and somewhat off-topic), we're just unearthing the fact you can quite happily get long-range (up to 250LY) delivery missions (long thought removed from the game) IF you happen to check the mission boards immediately after Powerplay downtime... they seem to generate in limited quantities (rather than time-bound), all but drying up within a few board refreshes.

Thing is; they pay quite well, they're fun and different, they make you get out of that 20Ly bubble and do a bit more mental planning... and they're probably almost certainly an unintended bug (though; one hopes it's a bug that they don't appear all the time, rather than the bug being they appear at all).

I remember there were missions that had more random interactions, people generally hated them though, because they made things more complex, for no reasonable additional reward or benefit. Likewise, Combat Missions could be more interesting and more rewarding.

tl;dr yeah, so true that the unexpected (and perhaps unintended) tends to be more fun.

 

[Khoraak]

What needs to be addressed first, in order for the game to be properly fair and for Fdev to achieve something without nerfing the damn game again until there's nothing left but a husk shell, is to look at what's missing from this bounty mission-stacking. I'm not against finding something that you can maximize by looking for weak points in a wealth-returning task. I'm pointing out something that if this was a real life scenario, the other mission givers will be looking to see if anyone else has a bounty on the same guy and then consolidating the reward into a sort of general Galaxy-wide bounty, knowing that the player is going to try to claim from the several mission givers simultaneously. The game would have to use an algorithm to search for already accepted missions for a generated mission, and then avoid producing duplicates while at the same time increasing the reward for the bounty- this would reflect a real-world scenario of bounty givers acknowledging that a target already has a bounty and they could just accept that there's no need to issue a further one, since it's already being dealt with in that way. They could perhaps all add to the bounty-pot for the same target, but you would only get ONE payout, because of the galactic-wide system keeping a record of a bounty already on a target.

Fdev could implement a diminished reward for claiming bounties for a kill you already completed elsewhere. The reason I say diminished and not 'removed' is because it should be allowed for you to claim more than one bounty for the same target- because yes, if two factions want the same guy dead and they're willing to pay, then you should get paid from both sources, HOWEVER.. players are using this to exploit the game <sigh> so as to "stack" up more money. They are only doing exclusively multiple bounties, which, in such an anarchistic universe as ED, that seems legit and profitable, but from the NPC's/game's point of view it is exploiting the fact that you are getting FULL pay off multiple sources for the same kill - which should really only grant ONE full pay for that kill, and then the subsequently attained bounty missions for that same target should check their computer, see that you picked up that same bounty elsewhere and then they will tell you that you already claimed "the bounty"!

Furthermore, what's to say another player or NPC can't go to the other guy and say "hey, that target is dead, see..I' killed him and I'm here to claim." then the bounty giver would have no choice but to pay out. Then you finally arrive, saying "Hey I'm here, finally to collect my bounty" And the giver says, "And I'm Santa Claus, GetTFOutta here. I already paid out."

After all, isnt the game offering multiple bounties for the same guy? This is what's being exploited; This wouldn't be correct- there should just be ONE Wide bounty for each target, which can be collected at a station that has the tech to utilise a database for this purpose. This helps to maintain realistic simulation, prevent the game being polluted- by other content being ignored, resulting in faction-based consequences shifting the soft-powerplay incorrectly and other integral factors that are alive in the game from being unfairly altered as a result of players exploiting one area of gameplay.

THEN.... combat rewards in general should be looked at. <phew!>

 

[Khoraak]

I remember there were missions that had more random interactions, people generally hated them though, because they made things more complex, for no reasonable additional reward or benefit.
tl;dr yeah, so true that the unexpected (and perhaps unintended) tends to be more fun.

Correction
People who exploit the game generally hated them, because they got in the way of their mindless grind. I don't really care for this [exploiting] in a game, because it prompts nerfing and Nerfing is Kryptonite to a game. = Exploiters are dirty game-polluters.