[IDEA] Merc Mastery Missions

(hawkeyeguy99) #1

So I was thinking of a simple way to extend the end game for veterans and newbies alike and I think adding Merc Mastery Missions (hence referred to as MMM) would be a killer feature to add to DB. Heres what I’m talking about:
Have basic missions that are the same among all mercs within the same class (get x amount of kills, revives, repairs, etc.). For each mission you complete you get a prize, be that credits, credit boosters, cases, or other items. The harder the mission, the greater the reward.

But here’s where I think the system would shine. Add Merc specific missions that can ONLY be completed by playing that Merc. Eg. Kill an enemy mid-air with an airstrike marker, or kill 3 enemies at once with 1 stickie explosion, or revive 5 teammates in 10 seconds using the revive gun, etc.

There would be a wealth of these Merc specific missions for each Merc in the game, each getting harder and each giving better rewards such as a case to get a certain rarity skin for that Merc only. Once all missions for that Merc have been completed I would love to see the reward being an exclusive skin that only is for that Merc along with a trinket of that Merc. This would provide swag and motivation to try to master every merc in the game and from my limited programming knowledge wouldn’t take a ton of effort on SD’s part to implement. This would encourage players to try every merc in the game and get better at all of them while still learning game basics to get those sweet sweet rewards. What do you all think/do you have ideas for missions that would fit in this category?

(GatoCommodore) #2

Skyhammer: give 1000 rounds to teammates
Aura: Revive 10 times under 30 sec
Sparks: 10 direct small medpack hit to teammate without a miss

(DrRageQuit) #3

10/10 Like this idea.

Similar concept to the Planetside 2 Directives system right? Different tiered rewards for classes, weapons,abilities etc.

Proxy: Send 10 people crying to the forums “NERF PROXY” :smile:
Thunder: Cause severe vision damage to 6 players in a match
Skyhammer: Play 10 games without giving ammo to a single teammate
Fragger: Get forgiven for gibbing three teammates in 5 minutes while playing ranked mode

Okay so best leave missions themselves up to other people.

Now whos attention is needed to make this a reality? @stayfreshshoe :wink:

(Terminal_6) #4

As a certified progression whore I support this.

(SnakekillerX) #5

The idea is fine, but completing them could be easily abuse-able with a couple friends in the same server.

@GatoCommodore said:
Sparks: 10 direct small medpack hit to teammate without a miss

While some of the missions like this one seem like they would be highly skill based with some luck, you could easily just play with a friend and have them keep running back to you after being purposely shot by the enemy team then stand still, so you can’t possibly miss and get the reward no problem.

So in the end, what seems like a fun thing that can prove your worth with that merc, just ends up a bunch of people farming missions so they can get easy rewards.

I’d say, either take the reward system out of it or come up with some other type of missions that can’t be as easily farmed with a friend.

Sparks: Kill 3 different enemies each with your Revivr, Primary, Seconday, Knife without dying and in one match. (this would be one of the end tier ones for example)

(DB Genome editor) #6

In my opinion any sort of mission that rely on a streak of some sort or a very specific set of circumstances is bad because people will focus on their mission at the expense of what is good for the team. For instance:

Sparks: Kill 3 different enemies each with your Revivr, Primary, Seconday, Knife without dying and in one match. (this would be one of the end tier ones for example)

If I got the Revivr, Primary and Secondary kills already in one life, I’m likely to go hunting for that Knife kill while at the same time playing it super safe so I don’t die. So now I’m a useless Sparks hiding in corners waiting to ambush someone… :confused:

(Your worst knifemare.) #7

As long as those missions encourage mercs to use their role correctly.

There can also be missions that continue between matches
Vassili/Aimee/Redeye: Spot x amount of enemies.
Phantom: Disable x health or ammo stations.
Rhino: Take 1000 damage in one life and live to tell the tale.
Sparks: Save a teamate from a long distance.

(GatoCommodore) #8

@SnakekillerX said:
The idea is fine, but completing them could be easily abuse-able with a couple friends in the same server.

@GatoCommodore said:
Sparks: 10 direct small medpack hit to teammate without a miss

While some of the missions like this one seem like they would be highly skill based with some luck, you could easily just play with a friend and have them keep running back to you after being purposely shot by the enemy team then stand still, so you can’t possibly miss and get the reward no problem.

So in the end, what seems like a fun thing that can prove your worth with that merc, just ends up a bunch of people farming missions so they can get easy rewards.

I’d say, either take the reward system out of it or come up with some other type of missions that can’t be as easily farmed with a friend.

Sparks: Kill 3 different enemies each with your Revivr, Primary, Seconday, Knife without dying and in one match. (this would be one of the end tier ones for example)

you mean easy “virtual” rewards?

i just care for stuff to do tho

(AlbinMatt) #9

Hey, rather than making absurd and possibly detrimental feats for missions, how about we reward players for those badges? They feel non-intrusive, easy to get, and can be done without forcing players to perform some obtuse task. Say a 2:1 XP:Credit ratio for every badge/ Maybe even double the Credits rewarded for Gold badges.

If the artists at SD are willing to sacrifice some of their humanity to make “ultimate” Merc skins as rewards, then tracking heals, repairs, and kills would be sufficient. No need for those “Kill 3 enemies with the Stilleto in under 5 seconds as Sparks” nonsense.

(Aazhyd) #10

These missions should be separate from the daily missions.

(SnakekillerX) #11

@Djiesse said:
In my opinion any sort of mission that rely on a streak of some sort or a very specific set of circumstances is bad because people will focus on their mission at the expense of what is good for the team. For instance:

Sparks: Kill 3 different enemies each with your Revivr, Primary, Seconday, Knife without dying and in one match. (this would be one of the end tier ones for example)

If I got the Revivr, Primary and Secondary kills already in one life, I’m likely to go hunting for that Knife kill while at the same time playing it super safe so I don’t die. So now I’m a useless Sparks hiding in corners waiting to ambush someone… :confused:

Pretty true in that case, lol.

I feel like you have to make them interesting at least. My example might have gone overboard (doesn’t have to be all in 1 life) but I feel at least it shows you have combat skill with that character. Of course there would be non-combat related ones too.

This is the nature of any of these reward missions/systems though. People will focus them too much to the point where it messes with your gameplay.

If you make them too easy, then there is no point in the mission/challenge.
If you make them all farmable via “toss out ammo, toss out health/revives” then they aren’t any fun, because that is already what you are suppose to be doing.

In the end though all people seem to be wanting is some sort of special skin or reward for the merc, and many people would probably never be able to achieve highest tier missions anyway unless made too easy, in which case the whole system is pointless.

(DrRageQuit) #12

Theres some pretty valid points here when it comes to people focusing missions instead of gameplay. When Wargaming introduced personal missions into WoT it did have a negative effect on gameplay for a time while everybody tried farming damage/blocked/assists etc, but it settled down pretty rapidly once people had reached a point where they had unlocked a few missions and decided to actually start winning games again.

Of course there will always be that one guy who decides he absolutely must only score kills with the Revivr, despite not being able to hit the broad side of a barn with it. But thats no different to playing pubs now.

And disabling the missions for ranked play is an absolute must do.

(TitaniumRapture) #13

Well you can always make the missions to fit the class role, healing missions for medics and killstreaks for assaults, etc. So it could possibly motivate people to actually do what they are supposed to do.

(TitaniumRapture) #14

@DrRageQuit said:

And disabling the missions for ranked play is an absolute must do.

So even less to ppl to play ranked (i dont mind i dont play ranked)? :stuck_out_tongue:

(DrRageQuit) #15

@TitaniumRapture said:

@DrRageQuit said:

And disabling the missions for ranked play is an absolute must do.

So even less to ppl to play ranked (i dont mind i dont play ranked)? ::pensive:

I’d prefer sitting in queue for 20 minutes than getting matched up with some of the mouth breathers i’ve been unlucky enough to get this season.

(TheStrangerous) #16

I’d love to have each merc having it’s own XP progress bar and rewards, for leveling up (much like in Paladins), but that would be too pro consumer, I suppose.

(SnakekillerX) #17

@DrRageQuit said:
And disabling the missions for ranked play is an absolute must do.

Agreed, disabling the missions on ranked is pretty well a must.

Some of the missions wouldn’t fit with ranked at all anyway and would likely cause you loses by having people try to kill 2 birds with one stone by grinding out ranked points for skins and completing missions instead of playing ranked to have an actual competitive game.

I’m in favor of having a little something extra for people to work towards, but a system that revolves around rewards doesn’t seem like it would have a better impact on gameplay.

(Nail) #18

@TheStrangerous said:
I’d love to have each merc having it’s own XP progress bar and rewards, for leveling up (much like in Paladins), but that would be too pro consumer, I suppose.

a long time ago in a land far away, that may have been possible

(bgyoshi) #19

@hawkeyeguy99 said:
Have basic missions that are the same among all mercs within the same class (get x amount of kills, revives, repairs, etc.). For each mission you complete you get a prize, be that credits, credit boosters, cases, or other items. The harder the mission, the greater the reward.

Add Merc specific missions that can ONLY be completed by playing that Merc.

Once all missions for that Merc have been completed I would love to see the reward being an exclusive skin that only is for that Merc along with a trinket of that Merc.
…and from my limited programming knowledge wouldn’t take a ton of effort on SD’s part to implement.

Keep the workload in perspective. SD would realistically need to:

A. R&D Tasks - Gather player interest in the system. Reconcile existing badge rewards. Study Ranked and Pub matches to decide possible mastery rewards specific to each class, possibly require metric gathering to determine how often/rare a specific event is, viability for specific mercs, etc. Build a chart of tutorial tasks (like toss 10 ammo packs) to ‘difficult’ tasks (like 10 mid-air headshot kills in 3 minutes). Identify UI changes or additional artistic requirements (like new badges that appear on screen).

B. Proof of Concept - Presentation of findings as well as workload estimates, cost analysis, and timeline to present to investors and bosses

C. Project Management - Determine employees to assign to the project and said employees’ current workload. Determine available employees to offload existing work to, if possible, and present project to employees.

D. Begin development

Once development begins, it has its own cycle of building the assets, programming the changes and all the new bugs that come with re-programming, testing the new system, presenting it to the players, then assigning a team to fix errors and make changes as time progresses. Not to mention they would need to constantly come up with new and different tasks and rewards so that missions don’t get stale.

So… remember, “not a ton of effort” in this case is probably close to 6 - 12 months if they began NOW.

(TepidJesus) #20

What about if they put them as “Ranked Only” missions. This would completely kill the low bronze ranks due to mission farming, but it should be fine at high bronze and above due to people at higher ranks caring less about doing them over sinking the game.

Making the missions ranked only would remove the issue if farming missions with friend in a pub server, but could mess up the gameplay at low ranks, but lets face it, if you are so bad that you are stuck at bronze recruit due to your lack of skill then you really shouldn’t be playing racked yet.