Wing Assassination missions are a blast. You can solo them if you fight smart, but they're way fun with friends, working together as a team to overcome a powerful, numerous enemy force. Some more variety in the scenarios would be nice in terms of the enemy force and threat levels, but they are a great example of co-op play done right.
Wing Massacre and Hauling missions, not so much. All those really do are take existing missions and add a x10 or x20 multiplier to the workload. Forget payout for a moment - there are a ton of threads on balancing the rewards for these missions. I'm talking about the lack of challenge these missions offer, unlike the Assassination missions. Assassination missions create meaningful co-op experiences that justify flying in a wing in a way that Haulage and Massacre missions don't.
For example, you can take a massacre mission to kill 25 pirates, or a wing massacre to kill 250, but you're still killing the same exact pirates in the same way, winged or not. The challenge level is no different whether you are alone or in a wing of four. All you're doing is setting yourself up to do the same activity 10x longer. Same as a CZ massacre mission - you just increase the threshold of a counter.
Wing Haulage missions can benefit from little bit of planning and with a functional nav lock, coordination between pilots means you can move a lot of cargo in a short amount of time, but fundamentally you're just doing the same thing you'd be doing if you each took the same mission to deliver the same cargo to the same destination, just more times in a row. Being in a wing doesn't provide any inherent advantage or any really new gameplay.
In both cases, Wing Haulage and Wing Massacre missions would greatly benefit from the additional challenge presented by Wing Assassination missions. The mission givers should warn CMDRs that the opposition is lining up against them and the Wing Mission is going to pay well because whoever attempts it just might get their afts kicked. They're paying top credit, though, because the job needs to be done in spite of the risk.
Accepting a Wing Massacre mission should cause enemies to spawn in wings in hazrezes and compromised nav beacons, with swarms of sidewinders and eagles where CMDR wings need to work to swat them down before they're chewed apart. Wing Haulage missions should result in interdictions where instead of that series of four differently named Dangerous Anaconda or Fer-de-Lance or FAS come at you one at a time, you get jumped by a Wing Assassination level assault force coming to take your tasty cargo, or just to prevent you completing a mission to a rival faction.
Wing missions are a good attempt to add meaningful co-op content to a game that has been crying for it since Wings were introduced way back in 1.2, but they could (and should) represent a challenge that has to be overcome with planning and teamwork, with rewards to match the increased risk.
As a side benefit, adjusting wing missions difficulty with challenge instead of quantity of targets/tonnage would solve a some of the balance issues and cries of NERRRRRF as the devs try to keep single mission payments in line with the ones that are just x10 and x20 volume missions. Adjusting the payout to the challenge of a wing mission rather than how far a tonnage/target counter must be advanced is the way to go.
All IMO, of course.
Wing Massacre and Hauling missions, not so much. All those really do are take existing missions and add a x10 or x20 multiplier to the workload. Forget payout for a moment - there are a ton of threads on balancing the rewards for these missions. I'm talking about the lack of challenge these missions offer, unlike the Assassination missions. Assassination missions create meaningful co-op experiences that justify flying in a wing in a way that Haulage and Massacre missions don't.
For example, you can take a massacre mission to kill 25 pirates, or a wing massacre to kill 250, but you're still killing the same exact pirates in the same way, winged or not. The challenge level is no different whether you are alone or in a wing of four. All you're doing is setting yourself up to do the same activity 10x longer. Same as a CZ massacre mission - you just increase the threshold of a counter.
Wing Haulage missions can benefit from little bit of planning and with a functional nav lock, coordination between pilots means you can move a lot of cargo in a short amount of time, but fundamentally you're just doing the same thing you'd be doing if you each took the same mission to deliver the same cargo to the same destination, just more times in a row. Being in a wing doesn't provide any inherent advantage or any really new gameplay.
In both cases, Wing Haulage and Wing Massacre missions would greatly benefit from the additional challenge presented by Wing Assassination missions. The mission givers should warn CMDRs that the opposition is lining up against them and the Wing Mission is going to pay well because whoever attempts it just might get their afts kicked. They're paying top credit, though, because the job needs to be done in spite of the risk.
Accepting a Wing Massacre mission should cause enemies to spawn in wings in hazrezes and compromised nav beacons, with swarms of sidewinders and eagles where CMDR wings need to work to swat them down before they're chewed apart. Wing Haulage missions should result in interdictions where instead of that series of four differently named Dangerous Anaconda or Fer-de-Lance or FAS come at you one at a time, you get jumped by a Wing Assassination level assault force coming to take your tasty cargo, or just to prevent you completing a mission to a rival faction.
Wing missions are a good attempt to add meaningful co-op content to a game that has been crying for it since Wings were introduced way back in 1.2, but they could (and should) represent a challenge that has to be overcome with planning and teamwork, with rewards to match the increased risk.
As a side benefit, adjusting wing missions difficulty with challenge instead of quantity of targets/tonnage would solve a some of the balance issues and cries of NERRRRRF as the devs try to keep single mission payments in line with the ones that are just x10 and x20 volume missions. Adjusting the payout to the challenge of a wing mission rather than how far a tonnage/target counter must be advanced is the way to go.
All IMO, of course.
