The mission system needs a complete overhaul - and it needs to be handled by the community.

(Harlot) #1

In the second iteration of the mission system, we see some good and some bad. We see the support mission - Waterboy - not become an auto-cancel, which is nice. However, now we have a mission to play in Competitive. This is bad for many reasons. First, you should NEVER attempt to force your player base to play competitive. All it does is piss everybody off. It alienates the casuals and then forces them into a game mode they may not care about, angering your competitive players. It also forces everybody into a game mode where there are far more hackers, while offering nothing to deter them.

This mission has to go. Period.

Second, we have a mission for secondary objective. Besides the number being far too high, it takes away from your actual game play. On multiple occasions I have seen players making deals to trade secondary objectives. “You repair it and I’ll destroy it. We’ll repeat this.” Now people aren’t focusing on the main objective, or not getting this mission done because some engineer is rushing to it and getting it before them. This mission is an auto-cancel for me.

Giving us missions to play with certain characters is a novel idea. You think it makes us try everybody. In reality, the majority of us just throw them in our third spot and never touch them. This should be changed. Instead we should have a smart system that detects what mercs you have in your squad and gives you appropriate missions for them, or missions that teach you the basics. Say you have Nader/Fragger/Proxy/Fletcher in your squad. You could get a mission that states “Kill 3/5/7 enemies with explosives.” A medic would be “Revive 3/5/7 downed players.” “Finish 3/5/7 downed players (with your knife)” would be a good general mission. “Complete 1/2/3 objectives (primary or secondary)” would be great if you have an engineer. “Resupply 3/5/7 players with ammunition” is good for a fire support merc, although you need to keep this low as some players avoid Kira’s ammo station, for whatever reason.

These missions should be somewhat easy to complete and shouldn’t force you to go out of your way, as that only damages overall game play for everybody. Instead reward players for playing their favorite characters and doing what they should be anyways. This is, after all, our only real source of consistent credits. We shouldn’t be miserable trying to achieve them.

(Backuplight) #2

Good post @Harlot. I don’t have huge issues with the current system, but your points are decent and the system would be nicer with changes.

(Harlot) #3

Thank you. I’m just frustrated with throwing mercs I don’t like/don’t own cards for in and never touching them or clearing certain missions and losing potential credits - making credit income far too random.

(D'@athi) #4

Yep, grinding non-min10-server, too, sometimes. Problem is, this changes, at least the secondary-objective came from the community, at least, I’ve seen it here as a proposal g.

Real problem imo is, a community-mission probably voted 100% @ reddit would be “log in to get 50k credits” ;-).

But yes, I guess they simply should take some average numbers beeing translated to average gametime (they say, the’ve got it), and calculate missions/xp per hour from it, for example do xyz kills or game-, support-, combat-xp. Don’t get me wrong, i really like the “take merc x with you”-missions, still most of the time, the merc is in my squad while i am doing the mission with some other one.
“Do 4,5k support with sparks”… Mhmm… So where is my ammo-"/(&(/&( ( i meant dropping) br16-skyhammer, because… those people always tap-out. And so on…

(Backuplight) #5

I think the only real way we can do this sort of thing is to have users suggest possible mission ideas, and the devs can pick the ones they agree with. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who have to decide what is best for the game as well as the players. Kinda balancing what the players “want” with what they should have.

(D'@athi) #6

I think the only real way we can do this sort of thing is to have users suggest possible mission ideas, and the devs can pick the ones they agree with. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who have to decide what is best for the game as well as the players. Kinda balancing what the players “want” with what they should have.[/quote]
Yeah, and give them some time to play their game or some freedom of speech by the way. But I guess, your point is the right way, doing the brainstorming for em, but letting them filter, what’s right for their purpose (while I still hope their purpose is the right one).

(L3thalGho5t) #7

THIS!

(5000_People) #8

So i agree so far as that the current secondary obj mission and competitive game ones are bad, but I think splash damage is right on with the merc specific ones. They are there to make players try mercs they don’t usually play, but not FORCE people to play them. There is also a secondary positive effect of the merc specific objectives. You are doing what is intended when you put it in your 3rd slot and don’t play it, because you know you don’t like it, and therefore it adds a small challenge (having only 2/3 mercs you want to play), for the reward of credits, the perfect player would not have this disadvantage, and would freely play any merc, and these objectives push you to be the jack of all trades. It also still incentivises different types of play (combat/obj/support) with the other two mercs.

(Harlot) #9

It’s not really a handicap though. My best merc is Kira. I can use her effectively in every situation better than I can any other merc. I only use the other two because I enjoy them. Taking a slot away is providing me no greater challenge and these quests aren’t there to challenge you in the first place. They’re here to provide income while either teaching you the basics or rewarding you for what you’re already doing - playing the game.

(Old Man) #10

People focus on missions, because this is the only way of making decent in-game income. I agree that some missions are counter productive and making them more general is a good solution.

Also I think players should have more control over what missions they take on. Why not add ability to chose 3 missions out of 9 instead of making us fully depend on the random mission engine? We shouldn’t be forced into playing mercs or game modes we don’t like.

(Fleshpound) #11

[quote=“Old Man;58088”]People focus on missions, because this is the only way of making decent in-game income. I agree that some missions are counter productive and making them more general is a good solution.

Also I think players should have more control over what missions they take on. Why not add ability to chose 3 missions out of 9 instead of making us fully depend on the random mission engine? We shouldn’t be forced into playing mercs or game modes we don’t like. [/quote]

I do have a suggestion(still on paper stage which is sad). You choose 3 out of 9 mission cards.

Since loadout cards are one of main icons of Dirty Bomb :innocent: . But no one likes that idea.

(Dirmagnos) #12

Gametype-based missions is a bad idea in general, hard to argue with that.
Players are forced to play game types that they have no interest in, meaning that in the future they are that much less likely to play those modes on their own. Due to the phantom slave collar hanging on their necks when they HAD to play them.
And whole situation with secondary missions is also rather confusing. While general idea is good, they simply dont work.
Be it coop between players from opposite teams, repair/destroy style in turns, that is also bannable(or at least should be, its one of the most despicable practices in gaming). That dosnt work btw, secondary mission points per secondary objective seem to be limited to 1 per each team, so multiple repairs/destroys will do nothing. Probably to prevent exactly that. But it also leaves any1 but first destroyer/repairer without points as result.
But main problem with this mission is lack of secondary objectives on pretty much every map, Underground is more-less friendly on that part, but rest… I half the cases, one of the teams cant score even 1 point unless opponents construct something first. Its one absurd situation. Constructable/destroyable ammo cashes and command posts for alternative spawn points or faster spawns could be a solution.
And players themselfs choosing missions… Not a good idea, since most players will always pick the same ones, stickign to the same routine. Either reroll option of randomly selected missions(as it is not), once per 3 hours, with result is also random, but from same category; or limited amount of choices to select missions from(9 is way 2 much, 5-6 at the most).

(cornJester) #13

[quote=“Old Man;58088”]People focus on missions, because this is the only way of making decent in-game income. I agree that some missions are counter productive and making them more general is a good solution.

Also I think players should have more control over what missions they take on. Why not add ability to chose 3 missions out of 9 instead of making us fully depend on the random mission engine? We shouldn’t be forced into playing mercs or game modes we don’t like. [/quote]
I agree with you but you’re never forced to play mercs you don’t like unless you like no support mercs for example. All you need to do is have them in your squad and then earn that type of exp with any merc of your choosing.

(frolicsomeCrane) #14

To be honest, I like your ideas but resupplying 3/5/7 players with ammo is too easy, most of these are TOO easy imo. I mean, you can resupply 7 players with ammo the using only the first and second time you spawn in an 8v8 game.

(Jostabeere) #15

Overhaul? Yes. By community? Hell no!

(Fleshpound) #16

To be honest,community will no handle the overhauls and balances alone.

(Sithas) #17

Get a friend to shoot 1 bullet>reload and you can even finish the mission in around 10 sec. Too easy indeed