What's the point of the meaningless deadlines on assassination missions?

Andovar

Andovar
Seems all assassination missions have a 24 hour deadline when you pick them up.
Yet if you don't get to the pirate in the 1-2 hour "they should be here" window that's specified in the description, the missions fail.

Ok, maybe the pirate has moved on after that time window, but he's still wanted, right? Let's go track him and find out where he is now. C'mon now, you gave me 24 hours to complete this task.

I'm guessing the 24 hour pseudo-deadline is there because deadlines are hard-coded into the mission templates and can't be removed or excluded.
Still don't like it though.
...at least i know for next time not to stack too many assassination missions at once. :(
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Andovar said:
I'm guessing the 24 hour pseudo-deadline is there because deadlines are hard-coded into the mission templates and can't be removed or excluded.
Still don't like it though.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this...

The 24 hour mission timer is irrelevant (and misleading). You have to complete the mission before the window of opportunity expires, although you can actually do it before the window starts, as the mission USS will spawn any time once you have accepted the contract.
 

Andovar

Andovar
Honestly, I feel like one of the two "minor" Beyond updates could be fully dedicated to the mission system.
It really could use quite a bit of work.
 

GG7

G
These use to give you less than an hour to complete. The new versions are a vast improvement.

Most of them now offer over 2 hours for you to complete the mission. Frankly, complaining about not having enough time even with the new versions falls once again into the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" camp of entitled gamers.

The solution to your beef is a simple one... If you can't complete the mission in 2.5 hours, DON'T TAKE IT!

Its not rocket science.
 

Ulaidian

Ulaidian
GG7 said:
These use to give you less than an hour to complete. The new versions are a vast improvement.

Most of them now offer over 2 hours for you to complete the mission. Frankly, complaining about not having enough time even with the new versions falls once again into the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" camp of entitled gamers.

The solution to your beef is a simple one... If you can't complete the mission in 2.5 hours, DON'T TAKE IT!

Its not rocket science.
Click to expand...

It said there were 24 hrs to complete it, hence why I took it. If it said 2 hours, I wouldn't have.. Did you even read the post?
 

Lily from anim.o.v.e

Lily from anim.o.v.e
If the yonly could make missions "inagme time" instead RL time. that would amke things a lot more reasonable for all those palyers with true Lifes interruptions and low amount of play times.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Also, before anybody says it, the mission-timer stops after you make the kill.

I've completed assassination missions and then cleared-off to Merope for a month and then successfully handed them in when I got back.
 

Maka Gucci

Maka Gucci
These are my favourite missions to do, testing out my small ship builds against a Deadly Vet etc.
The timer thing doesn't make any sene, and I agree it would be great if we could try and at least track them down after that 2 hour period or maybe they pop again in another 2 hours.

The other thing is when you scan a nav beacon and are told to go and meet a contact, you do just to be sent back to the same system to scan the same beacon again to find your targets location. Sometimes if the location is between two planets that are close together, it will just never appear, leaving you waiting in SC, circling a ball wondering how much longer to keep trying..

The sad things that make them just so much slower and less viable a way to make credits per hour.. unless I use my big ship, throw a discovery scanner on there and then just blast each one away, which is boring (to me) but slightly more viable.
 
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GG7

G
Ulaidian said:
It said there were 24 hrs to complete it, hence why I took it. If it said 2 hours, I wouldn't have.. Did you even read the post?
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I did. You must be new. The 24 hour limit is a default limit placed on ALL missions. They are more often than not overridden by a time specific indicator in the mission description itself.

This is the case with Assassination Missions and always has been. Your deadline is the TIMES LISTED within the Mission Description. From **:** to **:** is the window. The 24 Hour thing is a misnomer. You will fail the mission if you miss the time deadline listed to the right of the start time.

Like I said.... Not rocket science. ;)
 
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jjaguar

jjaguar
The way it should work is that after the two-hour window is up, you get a message saying "you missed the window of opportunity, meet with our informant to find out where they went." Then the target spawns at a new location. Only after the 24 hours are up will you get "Well, we missed them. Mission failed."
 

Lily from anim.o.v.e

Lily from anim.o.v.e
They could also make some "urgent" assassination missions.

Where a ship has a plotted course and you need to interdict and kill it within time, where time is "arrival before station X"

Like in a system having elections and you have to assassinate a specific politician. the game coudl tell you that his last speech was at station X and (s)he is heading to station Y and you need to intercept him/her.
 

GG7

G
Maka Gucci said:
These are my favourite missions to do, testing out my small ship builds against a Deadly Vet etc.
The timer thing doesn't make any sene, and I agree it would be great if we could try and at least track them down after that 2 hour period or maybe they pop again in another 2 hours.
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It actually does make sense. These are criminals. You can't expect them to hang around one system indefinitely. You have a 2.5 ish hour window to follow the intelligence provided and track them down. If you procrastinate and fail to get there in the wide window provided you fail the mission.

As well you should. :)

Not a good idea to stack a dozen of these at once since all their completion times will be within 15 minutes of each other.

Again... Not rocket science.
 
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GG7

G
jjaguar said:
The way it should work is that after the two-hour window is up, you get a message saying "you missed the window of opportunity, meet with our informant to find out where they went." Then the target spawns at a new location. Only after the 24 hours are up will you get "Well, we missed them. Mission failed."
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A variant like this would be a nice "additional" option I guess. But speaking as someone who has completed over 1000 of these specific missions since they were first introduced, I have never had a problem completing them on time.

Then again... I never take any on unless I have enough time in my session to complete them all. I am also careful not to stack too many at the same time, as to not create basically identical start and end times which can result in an impossible to complete collection.

(Don't forget that some of these missions can take you out to "B" Stars with 250,000+ Ls travel distances. - Thats 30-40 minutes real time to get out there) :)
 
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jjaguar

jjaguar
True, I've also completed tons of these and have never failed on time. The issue isn't that the missions are too short, it's that the mission board gives you two different, inconsistent deadlines. That's probably just an artifact of how the mission generator works. You just have to know to go with the timeline in the description and ignore the other deadline.
 
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GG7

G
jjaguar said:
The issue isn't that the missions are too short, it's that the mission board gives you two different, inconsistent deadlines. That's probably just an artifact of how the mission generator works. You just have to know to go with the timeline in the description and ignore the other deadline.
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That more or less sums it up nicely. :)

I guess those of us who were playing ED before this mission type came out were already well aware of the 24 Hour time listing on all missions that did not have a deadline longer than 24 hours. Any that do will superceed this default time with their own like the Planetary Scan Missions for example that have deadlines based in DAYS instead of hours.
 

Andovar

Andovar
GG7 said:
This is the case with Assassination Missions and always has been. Your deadline is the TIMES LISTED within the Mission Description. From **:** to **:** is the window. The 24 Hour thing is a misnomer. You will fail the mission if you miss the time deadline listed to the right of the start time.
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No, it's not a misnomer, it's simply incorrect and conflicting information presented by the game.
 

GG7

G
Andovar said:
No, it's not a misnomer, it's simply incorrect and conflicting information presented by the game.
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Its a core part of the current mission generation system that preceded the introduction of these timer based missions.

Would you prefer they pull the Assassination Missions over that? Or do you think you can stretch things a bit and actually pay attention to the mission description of missions you accept?

Those are your choices.

It would appear that the majority of ED players are fine with the way these work. Especially after they extended the time window by over 100%.
 
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