Remove client mission generation per station, make them global. Give us a mission finder.

[Iori]

Make the entire game generate missions in every station every 6 hours, but make them the same for everyone and limited (once someone accepts it, it becomes unavailable for the rest)

Include a mission finder that works this way:

Choose the reward you are looking for (specific material or commodity).
Include filters by faction (Imperial, Fed, Alliance, Independent), mission type, landing pad, rep needed, dificulty, etc...
The game will display all missions offering that reward in order of distance from your current location.
Clicking on the mission will trace a route in the star map to its station.
You go there and accept the mission, like you normally would.
Proceed as always.

----------------------------------------

What do you gain?

You actually go for what you are looking for instead of stumble around waiting for the RNG gods to favor you.
Refreshing mission board is not an option now.
Nor is mission stacking.
You can choose the play style you want because you select the type of mission.
You can always be sure that you picked a mission your ship is able to complete.
You choose what major faction to support.
Persistence
Server load reduction

Blaze your own trail, and don't waste your time in the process.

 

[Devari]

Make the entire game generate missions in every station every 6 hours, but make them the same for everyone and limited (once someone accepts it, it becomes unavailable for the rest)

I hate to break it to you, but there is no "entire game" that can do this for you. Elite is not run off of a massive central server that creates a persistent universe that is accessible to all players. It uses P2P connections to allow a local "instance" to be created when any individual player logs in. FDs servers will set certain parameters for this but the player's client process generates your personal "instance" when you do most activities and this will be different for each player. Everything from missions, to USSs to interdictions is flagged for your individual CMDR. There is no "persistent universe" as such, each player has their own personal "version" of the game running at any given time with only a few common variable like station location, system states, that are set as central parameters.

This is also why the mode-switching problems are something that FD can't fix easily, because you are creating a new "instance" with new timers and flags when you log into a new game mode. Those missions that you saw in Open do not exist once you log back in under Solo, and FD has no way to "fix" this as it is central to how the game operates.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Leaving how doable it where aside you do ask to remove the BGS as a Factor that generates local missions bases on states, which doesn't sound good to me at all.

 

[Iori]

Leaving how doable it where aside you do ask to remove the BGS as a Factor that generates local missions bases on states, which doesn't sound good to me at all.

How does it remove the BGS?

The BGS can still dictate to the database what missions are generated.
When you go to the mission finder you merely interface with that database.

 

[GodBlock]

Rather than remove some RNG that you mention, this only adds another "random" factor by taking away missions from you, that other players have taken

 

[Iori]

I hate to break it to you, but there is no "entire game" that can do this for you. Elite is not run off of a massive central server that creates a persistent universe that is accessible to all players. It uses P2P connections to allow a local "instance" to be created when any individual player logs in. FDs servers will set certain parameters for this but the player's client process generates your personal "instance" when you do most activities and this will be different for each player. Everything from missions, to USSs to interdictions is flagged for your individual CMDR. There is no "persistent universe" as such, each player has their own personal "version" of the game running at any given time with only a few common variable like station location, system states, that are set as central parameters.

This is also why the mode-switching problems are something that FD can't fix easily, because you are creating a new "instance" with new timers and flags when you log into a new game mode. Those missions that you saw in Open do not exist once you log back in under Solo, and FD has no way to "fix" this as it is central to how the game operates.

Right now when you open the board you are telling the server to generate missions for you, if the client generated them you wouldn't get all those server errors and delays when accessing the mission board. All those things they "can't fix" could be easily fixed by adding a central database for mission generation instead of asking it to generate a new one every time. Just because something works one way right now, doesn't mean it can't be changed.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Rather than remove some RNG that you mention, this only adds another "random" factor by taking away missions from you, that other players have taken

There are not that many players, but you can take that as a race if you want though.

 

[GodBlock]

The trouble is if the client generated them, it would be susceptible to client side modification..

However.. your suggestion of a centralised database is not bad at all, (though I suspect they are using some form of this through AWS, if they use AWS at all) maybe they could generate missions once every 24 hours, store them centrally, cache the result! send us these missions when we access the missions screen

 

[Iori]

The trouble is if the client generated them, it would be susceptible to client side modification..

I'm not asking for client side generation, I'm asking for the opposite. Just that in a global scale instead of a local one.

You connect to the database which previously generated the missions (server-side), and receive the mission list from it.

 

[Devari]

Right now when you open the board you are telling the server to generate missions for you, if the client generated them you wouldn't get all those server errors and delays when accessing the mission board.

Not exactly, you're getting "seed" information from the server to allow you to create those missions in your "instance" which then remains associated with your CMDR until you change modes. The client process is still involved in loading these parameters and setting flags for mission refresh time and they are lost upon a mode switch. It's essentially a procedural generation process that requires your client to function. The excessive load times you're seeing are not due to the time to "generate" the missions from the server, it's due to server connection issues that FD continues to experience frequently and also happens with other station interactions such as outfitting as well as loading system information from the universe/system maps. A good example of the difference here is how you will see FSD jump times that are excessive and we have the excessive "hang" time when dropping from orbital cruise into your local "instance". The parameters for FSD jump are fixed when you jump to a system but your local client is generating the instance for you based on basic parameters it receives from the server, i.e., your client generates all the local NPCs, USSs, etc., and it's the same with missions on the mission boards.

All those things they "can't fix" could be easily fixed by adding a central database for mission generation instead of asking it to generate a new one every time. Just because something works one way right now, doesn't mean it can't be changed.

That can't be changed without FD investing in a central server to generate and control those new features. They have stated they currently can't do this due to the nature of the P2P connections the game uses without investing in a dedicated central server. They would need to take many of the process that your client is doing and have that done centrally for ALL players which requires a set of powerful dedicated servers to run the game on their end. In fact they haven't even invested the necessary time required to optimize the P2P processes to make them work well which is MUCH easier than trying to run everything off a dedicated server. For example they could have easily designed the NPC spawns so they were linked to a timer that would mimic FSD cooldown times but they didn't even implement something this simple and basic which is why we have all the problems with insta-spawning NPCs, chain interdictions and NPCs who don't retain damage from prior combat encounters. Those servers are expensive and FD has indicated they have no interest in putting those kind of resources into the game if they can't do the minimum to optimize the P2P connections that run the game.

 

[Iori]

Not exactly, you're getting "seed" information from the server to allow you to create those missions in your "instance" which then remains associated with your CMDR until you change modes. The client process is still involved in loading these parameters and setting flags for mission refresh time and they are lost upon a mode switch. It's essentially a procedural generation process that requires your client to function. The excessive load times you're seeing are not due to the time to "generate" the missions from the server, it's due to server connection issues that FD continues to experience frequently and also happens with other station interactions such as outfitting as well as loading system information from the universe/system maps. A good example of the difference here is how you will see FSD jump times that are excessive and we have the excessive "hang" time when dropping from orbital cruise into your local "instance". The parameters for FSD jump are fixed when you jump to a system but your local client is generating the instance for you based on basic parameters it receives from the server, i.e., your client generates all the local NPCs, USSs, etc., and it's the same with missions on the mission boards.



That can't be changed without FD investing in a central server to generate and control those new features. They have stated they currently can't do this due to the nature of the P2P connections the game uses without investing in a dedicated central server. They would need to take many of the process that your client is doing and have that done centrally for ALL players which requires a set of powerful dedicated servers to run the game on their end. In fact they haven't even invested the necessary time required to optimize the P2P processes to make them work well which is MUCH easier than trying to run everything off a dedicated server. For example they could have easily designed the NPC spawns so they were linked to a timer that would mimic FSD cooldown times but they didn't even implement something this simple and basic which is why we have all the problems with insta-spawning NPCs, chain interdictions and NPCs who don't retain damage from prior combat encounters. Those servers are expensive and FD has indicated they have no interest in putting those kind of resources into the game if they can't do the minimum to optimize the P2P connections that run the game.

If they did it right, a server that simply acts as a database for mission generation wouldn't be more expensive than this very forum.

 

[TenakaFurey]

I don't think the game is set up in a manner which would easily facilitate that.

I'd prefer to see a greater variety of missions and mission text, with missions for wings and a certain number of "fixed" scripted missions for major events.

 

[jacozilla]

OP has number of points in his OP. I am ignoring all but one single aspect of it - the thought on giving us a non-locally placed 'mission finder'.

It may not even be what OP meant, but what I am interpreting it as - so will (re)explain here:

Mission Finder - allow players to dock anywhere, or at very least within regional areas (e.g. Empire space, Fed space, Alliance space) - and interact with a mission board/computer that allows you to search for and accept missions from more than just that one single station you are currently docked at.

e.g. Current model today is akin to primitive, physical bulletin board. Not BBS computer bulletin board, actual physical cork, wall mounted board with notices of possible jobs stuck on them. That is how we take missions today - we go to the specific local 'town', check the jobs available only in that town, and move on.

A Mission Finder would simply be the same hiring board as today's hotjobs, monster, linkedin, etc job boards. It's fairly odd to me that jobs can only be scanned and accepted at the physical location where pickup is needed.

Missions would not have to change; if the mission has mission cargo that is delivered on the spot, then fine - allow a contractor to accept that job, goto the station where pickup is done, then delivered to destination. But missions that are 'kill X at Y' is silly to demand you still need to physically visit the cork bulletin board to pickup the job notice rather than accept the job from 10 systems away and travel directly to the kill area.

Lot of other points OP brought out, people have already critiqued. But as far as just the mission finder concept is concerned, I'd love to be able to scan for and accept missions from regional basis at very least, and bubble wide in theory.

 

[Karlos Ploryman]

Well I do see where OP is coming from, but I am afraid that this kind of solution is impossible due to current E architecture...

I think, that a SIGNIFICANT (5 (or more) times more missions in general...) increase of the mission count would be good enough. It really feels weird, when there are no missions in a system with several milions people in it...


The general mission count could be affected by the bgs (factions in boom would generate more missions than factions in lockdown etc.)


Current state is not very good.

fly safe! Karlos

 

[Devari]

If they did it right, a server that simply acts as a database for mission generation wouldn't be more expensive than this very forum.

It's actually rather ironic to use a comparison to the forums as that is also something that FD refuses to make a basic investment in as well. You'll find that we can't actually post screenshots directly to the forums, we need to use a third-party image hosting site like Imgur, etc and use BB code links. In fact even my Inara licence in my signature can't be directly uploaded, it's also linked from Inara. There was a post a while back where FD disabled the feature to post screenshots because they claimed that something like 40 GB of tiny pictures were "overloading" their forum servers. Apparently their servers have less storage space than a typical smartphone because that is really not a lot of data at all for a sever to handle.

I think you're underestimating how cheaply FD is trying to run Elite and how they are putting the absolute minimum investment to keep running the game. It is quite simply a low-maintenance cash-cow for the company and they are a publically-traded company which means they want to maximize profits. Their shareholders would simply not be interested in choosing a more expensive option that cuts into profits, even if it would dramatically improve gameplay, so we're stuck with the P2P connections that cause massive game problems instead of a well-designed central server.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Many many issues with what you are suggesting OP here. I'd pick it apart, but others have raised some points.

Its not going to work though for many reasons.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It's actually rather ironic to use a comparison to the forums as that is also something that FD refuses to make a basic investment in as well. You'll find that we can't actually post screenshots directly to the forums, we need to use a third-party image hosting site like Imgur, etc and use BB code links. In fact even my Inara licence in my signature can't be directly uploaded, it's also linked from Inara. There was a post a while back where FD disabled the feature to post screenshots because they claimed that something like 40 GB of tiny pictures were "overloading" their forum servers. Apparently their servers have less storage space than a typical smartphone because that is really not a lot of data at all for a sever to handle.

I think you're underestimating how cheaply FD is trying to run Elite and how they are putting the absolute minimum investment to keep running the game. It is quite simply a low-maintenance cash-cow for the company and they are a publically-traded company which means they want to maximize profits. Their shareholders would simply not be interested in choosing a more expensive option that cuts into profits, even if it would dramatically improve gameplay, so we're stuck with the P2P connections that cause massive game problems instead of a well-designed central server.

LOL. How is ED a low maintenance cash cow. Just very funny reading your bull. Do you know what will be a cash cow for them. Planet Coaster. It will sell far more units then ED probably ever will.

Everything you say is just guess work. Why are you even on the forums. Why waste your time here if you hate FDev so much. Jeez don't have anything better to do with your life apart from trolling and accusing FDev of stuff which you have no evidence of.

 

[Devari]

LOL. How is ED a low maintenance cash cow. Just very funny reading your bull. Do you know what will be a cash cow for them. Planet Coaster. It will sell far more units then ED probably ever will.

Everything you say is just guess work. Why are you even on the forums. Why waste your time here if you hate FDev so much. Jeez don't have anything better to do with your life apart from trolling and accusing FDev of stuff which you have no evidence of.

Do you have anything productive to contribute to this thread other than vague personal attacks? You also seemed to be doing that quite a bit in another thread about beta testing where you accused me of "lying" without actually offering any details about why you thought anything I said was not true. It looks like it's become a pattern for you to simply criticize whatever I've posted with claims that I'm "lying" or similar nonsense but not actually contributing to the discussion itself.

 

[floozie]

I like the idea of the thread starter

 

[QUASAR-M]

LOL. How is ED a low maintenance cash cow. Just very funny reading your bull. Do you know what will be a cash cow for them. Planet Coaster. It will sell far more units then ED probably ever will.

Everything you say is just guess work. Why are you even on the forums. Why waste your time here if you hate FDev so much. Jeez don't have anything better to do with your life apart from trolling and accusing FDev of stuff which you have no evidence of.

Ok ok, calm down CMDRs. Every company is a cash-cow. We live in the age of rampant capitalism. Indeed this is a thing we should not speak of, because it sparks such arguments.

 

[Red Anders]

Ok ok, calm down CMDRs. Every company is a cash-cow. We live in the age of rampant capitalism. Indeed this is a thing we should not speak of, because it sparks such arguments.

It never ceases to amaze me that people are horrified when corporate entities have the audacity to make profits.