Why are piracy missions SO BAD!?!??!

[Harley001]

OH. MY. GOD. I just made the mistake of taking 2 missions to recollect some stolen cargo for a minor faction. Basically a "hey that guy took our stuff. PLz bring our stuff back!"

ALIGHT COOL. NO PROBLEM. Got a anaconda. Got hatch breakers. Got collector limpets. Les do dis. I drop into the system, find the mission way-point's. Go to them. See the bad guy. Shoot his . hatch breaker limpet. Cargo dropped. Done? NO, NOT DONE. OUT OF ALL THE CARGO, ONLY TWO OF IT WAS THE BAG'S I NEEDED. I needed get these bags. Ok so maybe a glitch? I jump out, and drop back into the mission area. He respawns. SAME ROUTINE. TWO MORE BAGS. Ok this is tedious and dumb as hell. Who thought this was a good way to run the mission?

Whatever nothing TOO frustrating. I only 6 per mission. Ok ANOTHER ONE... No bags. None. Just a bunch of bio waste and trade data, . Ok, AGAIN. ONCE AGAIN NO BAGS. !? Alight I think maybe I am doing something wrong. Next time, jump in DISABLE HIS FSD. Cool now let me scan his carg-*RAMMING SPEED* ...he just rammed himself into an anaconda while in a diamond back and brought himself down to 10% hull AND THAN HE DOES IT AGAIN AND DIES!

well . Good thing I have two mission targets of the same cargo. Go over to the other. Asp. Repeat the process of just shoving hatchbreakers on it. get two bags. Ok going to have to jump out and jump ba- "TIME IS RUNNING OUT COMMANDER!" ...i jump out. The mission marker is GONE. because the target for some strange reason only hangs out here certain times of the day.

Both missions failed. What. THE.

After spending an hour and a half on these here is a list of EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THESE MISSIONS.

1. The target NEEDS AND SHOULD drop ALL the mission cargo on the first time. There is zero challenge and purpose to making us have to redo the routine. It also makes NO SENSE? Does the enemy ship just magically regain cargo after each run?

2. The system authorities should NOT show up if I disable report crimes against me. ARE YOU REALLY TELLING ME A WANTED SHIP IS CALLING THE COPS, ON A UNWANTED SHIP!?" None of "It's part of the mission" excuses either, just because it's meant to happen does not mean it makes or helps the mission. The authority's will just kill your target and ruin everything.

3. STOP LETTING THE AI CHEAT! Seriously, no more having mods that never go down unless they reach 0% or letting them magically teleport away from the fight instantly. I don't care that their not players. They NEED TO follow the same rules as the players in terms of the way ships handle. Because when we're trying to disable a ship, having said ship function differently than our's is a SERIOUS problem.

4. Remove the stupid time limits. If It says I have 24 hours to do the mission than it should be that. I shouldn't need to worry about the target magically vanishing.

Sorry for some of the all caps and rants in this post but I don't think having missions this terrible is acceptable at this stage. I was on my discord server and said this was basically told "oh yeah those suck, no one does them." But just because no one is doing those missions, does not mean they should be in such a terrible broken almost unplayable state. It also makes frontier look REALLY BAD because its blindingly obvious that they never tested the missions properly. They never had anyone sit down and do a couple and than say "...yup this feel's good."

 

[Yure]

While I've gotten better at these missions to the point I can pirate low temp diamonds. The OP is absolutely correct.

One time limit confusion needs fixed... Do I have 24 hours or just that 30 min window?

Ships with a crap load of other cargo dropping everything except what you need. Really annoying. You bring someone to 10% hull they should be jettisoning all, or at least mission cargo.

Instead one is forced to shield tank standing still while limpets do their job.

 

[Kokuryu]

GOOD threat! REALLY! Pls post it again in the BUG report section and open a ticket! No one of the frontier team will read the forums! EVER!

 

[Ouberos]

Yaaaarrrr! Welcome aboard Pirate.

I see you've discovered a Pirates life isn't a bed of roses. The coffee is awful, the pay is (on average) rubbish, the hours are long, the ship choice limited (yes you can pirate in a T6 but why would you want to?), EVERYONE hates you, (Traders, miners, bounty hunters, other Pirates and especially FD) and the game mechanics don't support your play style (Which is ironic because Diamond piracy used to be one of the only activities you could do effectively using only in game tools), the bugs are endless and persistent across seasons. The missions are a joke.

We do get Raider rat look ships and costumes though. (Which aren't much use to a refined, sensitive, guyliner wearing Commander like myself.)

So make yourself comfy and settle in.

Oh and as a rule you get more cargo per hatchbreaker the lower the targets health. However, that doesn't help with suicidal NPC's.

Yohoho.

 

[Auronio]

Yaaaarrrr! Welcome aboard Pirate.

I see you've discovered a Pirates life isn't a bed of roses. The coffee is awful, the pay is (on average) rubbish, the hours are long, the ship choice limited (yes you can pirate in a T6 but why would you want to?), EVERYONE hates you, (Traders, miners, bounty hunters, other Pirates and especially FD) and the game mechanics don't support your play style (Which is ironic because Diamond piracy used to be one of the only activities you could do effectively using only in game tools), the bugs are endless and persistent across seasons. The missions are a joke.

We do get Raider rat look ships and costumes though. (Which aren't much use to a refined, sensitive, guyliner wearing Commander like myself.)

So make yourself comfy and settle in.

Oh and as a rule you get more cargo per hatchbreaker the lower the targets health. However, that doesn't help with suicidal NPC's.

Yohoho.

Haha, I like that one!

 

[uliando]

Welcome to the Swiss Cheese gameplay. So many holes but still can taste good sometimes.

 

[CMDR Jayce MacLeod]

I agree with the OP... I wanted to do a similar mission (hostage rescue). I've never done missions like these so I thought I'd give it a go! Let's save some people! I got to my target hatch broke and collected... it spewed tea and cloth and all sorts of stuff. Finally a single hostage... yet I needed 8. System security rolled up on the scene and attacked. He flew on outta there and I gave chase. Found him again and after all that work of hatch breaking etc. Another single hostage pops out. I still had six to go.

In my roleplaying mind I contacted the ship I've been attempting to hack into to save the hostages. I said to him "look bro, this is far too much silliness to bother with and such small payout, I'm giving you back these two hostages I liberated from you, just treat them well, will ya?" I then walked over to the hostage pods and looked and them in their sealed tubes and shrugged, mouthing "Sorry" and jettisoned them both right in front of the hostage takers ship.

Needless to say, I think pirating/hostage rescue missions might need a bit of a revamp.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Yaaaarrrr! Welcome aboard Pirate.

I see you've discovered a Pirates life isn't a bed of roses. The coffee is awful, the pay is (on average) rubbish, the hours are long, the ship choice limited (yes you can pirate in a T6 but why would you want to?), EVERYONE hates you, (Traders, miners, bounty hunters, other Pirates and especially FD) and the game mechanics don't support your play style (Which is ironic because Diamond piracy used to be one of the only activities you could do effectively using only in game tools), the bugs are endless and persistent across seasons. The missions are a joke.

We do get Raider rat look ships and costumes though. (Which aren't much use to a refined, sensitive, guyliner wearing Commander like myself.)

So make yourself comfy and settle in.

Oh and as a rule you get more cargo per hatchbreaker the lower the targets health. However, that doesn't help with suicidal NPC's.

Yohoho.

I'm legit' listening to Alestorm whilst reading this.

OP, welcome to the club.

To quote aforementioned band, "Piracy's a crime and crime doesn't pay, and we go home poor at the end of the day. But I'd rather live my life in rags than be taped to a desk with a wife as a hag!" ~ "Drink", Alestorm.

 

[Pville_Piper]

I see you've discovered a Pirates life isn't a bed of roses. The coffee is awful,

I don't know... I cleaned the pot on the Krait really good and mine works pretty well. I prefer Any Na Coffee, stay away from the generic stuff you get at the average ELW... CD-75 Kitten Brand Coffee is great I hear but I won't touch that stuff, you might like to pick your beans out of cat poo I don't need to drink it!

There are other brands and some ELWs have good stuff that will do in a pinch if you know where to look but Any Na with a spot of Eranin Pearl Whisky and a touch of fresh Azure Milk really hits the spot!

 

[sidereal6]

Does anyone here agree with my opinion that a lot of the gameplay in Elite is too fast-paced?

Because I agree that piracy missions are not currently much fun. I just think that a big source of the problem with them is that the core game mechanics make the encounters go too quickly. If you're breaking the law, the police show up in under a minute. If your target runs, the cargo they dump is scattered over dozens of kilometers (and ends up despawning). If you target jumps, they're gone in a blink.

...of course, if you tried to fix any of this, it would make getting interdicted by an NPC a real pain. But currently, getting interdicted by an NPC is nothing but annoying - you can jump before the NPC even finishes his dialog.

I don't know how to balance these issues, but I can tell you one thing: there's no point in implementing space legs to be used onboard your ship in the game's current state. There is no room in the game, given how fast and hectic every encounter is, for getting out of your chair and going to another part of the ship to actually do anything.

I think that a lot of us imagine this:

[video=youtube;c8deRYotdng]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8deRYotdng#t=1m14s[/video]

Han and Chewy trying to repair a ship while it's under attack. But the mechanics of Elite make that absolutely impossible.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

Does anyone here agree with my opinion that a lot of the gameplay in Elite is too fast-paced?

Because I agree that piracy missions are not currently much fun. I just think that a big source of the problem with them is that the core game mechanics make the encounters go too quickly. If you're breaking the law, the police show up in under a minute. If your target runs, the cargo they dump is scattered over dozens of kilometers (and ends up despawning). If you target jumps, they're gone in a blink.

...of course, if you tried to fix any of this, it would make getting interdicted by an NPC a real pain. But currently, getting interdicted by an NPC is nothing but annoying - you can jump before the NPC even finishes his dialog.

I don't know how to balance these issues, but I can tell you one thing: there's no point in implementing space legs to be used onboard your ship in the game's current state. There is no room in the game, given how fast and hectic every encounter is, for getting out of your chair and going to another part of the ship to actually do anything.

I think that a lot of us imagine this:



Han and Chewy trying to repair a ship while it's under attack. But the mechanics of Elite make that absolutely impossible.

Repped for the Empire Strikes Back scene. I enjoyed watching that again.