Dev Update (18/02/16)

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Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby smartroad » Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:08 pm

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthrea ... ost3583270

From the desk of Executive Producer, Michael Brookes

"Hi everyone,

This week’s dev update is the penultimate update on the changes to missions coming in the (2.1) release - The Engineers. The topic I’ll cover is the variety goal and next week I’ll cover the final goals of consequences and rewards.

Variety at its most simplistic is making sure that more missions (and variants) are available, but beyond that tweaking them to make them more accessible and having a better sense of predictability, so if you’re looking for a particular type of mission then you can determine the best places to find them.

We’re tackling variety with a host of changes – the first is ensuring that more missions are available at the neutral reputation stage. Developing your reputation will reveal more missions, but more importantly – more valuable missions. We’re also removing the rank requirement for missions. The rank will now be an indication of difficulty (and by association, rewards) and generally will generated around your relevant Pilots Federation rank. You can take on more difficult missions to try and grasp some big rewards, but there is a risk in doing so.

Missions will be generated by stricter criteria so that the majority of missions offered will make sense in the location that are offered. A three stage hierarchy will govern how the missions are created.

First by the state of the minor faction, so if they are in famine, or at war, or any other state missions to address that state are generated.

Secondly, the type of market for the port, so that they match the economic activity for that market. An obvious example is creating mining missions from extraction economies.

The third stage is determined by the government type and this reflects the character of the minor factions and the types of operation that they indulge in. For example dictatorships are more likely to indulge in overt assassinations and so send a visible message, while democracies will conduct their wet work through covert operations.

Within the offered mission there will be a description for why that mission has been generated and what effect it will have for the minor faction. This clearer communication of the interaction with the galactic simulation will make it easier for you to pick the relevant missions for your goals.

We’re also looking to reduce the barrier of inconvenience for some of the mission elements – my favourite here is not having to drop out of supercruise to listen to alternate offers. The time limits for missions as well as which elements make them easier, or more difficult are being reviewed and addressed.

Another exciting change is how missions and USSs interact with each other. USSs for missions will now generally be located at specific bodies within a system which have can be located using a discovery scanner, although the usual ranges apply. If the system has a nav beacon then these can now be scanned and the scan will reveal these mission locations as well as providing any exploration data for that system.

In conjunction with these changes the general distribution and generation of USSs is also being updated. There are now concepts of different parts of space within a system, like traffic lanes and hubs and different contents can be generated at each. They are also created spatially rather than by time range so you can no longer just sit and wait for one to appear, you will need to look for it.

One other significant change for USSs is that they can be scanned to reveal more information about them without having to drop out of supercruise.

There’s still a ton of details for changes of other aspects of the game coming after next week’s look at mission consequences and rewards.

Thanks,

Michael."
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby smartroad » Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:13 pm

The USS stuff looks interesting, making them less random and being able to scan them for more information. Will be interesting to see what information will be exposed.
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby de Carabas » Thu Feb 18, 2016 4:02 pm

smartroad wrote:The USS stuff looks interesting, making them less random and being able to scan them for more information. Will be interesting to see what information will be exposed.

Yes, this looks good. The only thing that occurred to me as I was reading through was around mission requirements. If the rank requirements is being removed then how does that sit with the promise to 'founders' of particular status and content? Aren't there currently 'founder or elite' missions?
Not that I'm in that boat as only got involved at Premium beta but it does feel like a lot of the 'special privilege' stuff for those that got this ball rolling is either not delivered or being eroded.
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby CMDR Abil Midena » Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:22 pm

I hope FD have a plan in place for the feeding frenzy seal clubbing that's going to take place at Nav beacons in Open.
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby Xebeth » Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:06 pm

de Carabas wrote:
smartroad wrote:The USS stuff looks interesting, making them less random and being able to scan them for more information. Will be interesting to see what information will be exposed.

Yes, this looks good. The only thing that occurred to me as I was reading through was around mission requirements. If the rank requirements is being removed then how does that sit with the promise to 'founders' of particular status and content? Aren't there currently 'founder or elite' missions?
Not that I'm in that boat as only got involved at Premium beta but it does feel like a lot of the 'special privilege' stuff for those that got this ball rolling is either not delivered or being eroded.


Well MB does say
and generally will generated around your relevant Pilots Federation rank
so it may well be a frequency this, so if you are say Dangerous you'll see a higher number of dangerous level missions and fewer Elite level ones, but when thee Elite ones pop up you can still choose to do them. This is quite good, once you a fare chunk into Dangerous getting to Elite is more about time than skill, so it'll open up some of the higher rewards to everyone.

That said, I've so far never seen an Elite mission that's anything particularly special.

Don't know about the founders stuff, but it may be the same, if you are a founder you'll see more of the Elite ones than someone else at the same Pilot Federation rank?

CMDR Abil Midena wrote:I hope FD have a plan in place for the feeding frenzy seal clubbing that's going to take place at Nav beacons in Open.


At least the beacons will have a reason beyond low level pirate farming :P
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby Schmobius » Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:13 am

CMDR Abil Midena wrote:I hope FD have a plan in place for the feeding frenzy seal clubbing that's going to take place at Nav beacons in Open.


I'm sure they plan to coddle the pirates even further than just that!
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby Falcon_D » Fri Feb 19, 2016 3:23 am

From the desk of Executive Producer, Michael Brookes
Variety at its most simplistic is making sure that more missions (and variants) are available, but beyond that tweaking them to make them more accessible and having a better sense of predictability, so if you’re looking for a particular type of mission then you can determine the best places to find them.

I like. Finally, no random dice roll, reason for systems to be democratic, feudal etc.

We’re also removing the rank requirement for missions. The rank will now be an indication of difficulty (and by association, rewards) and generally will generated around your relevant Pilots Federation rank. You can take on more difficult missions to try and grasp some big rewards, but there is a risk in doing so.

Risk vs reward is good. But I can just imagine new players taking on Elite missions cause the payout is great and then going onto the forums to complain how difficult these missions are and "please nerf". The rank requirement to make missions available was actually a good idea. It was just that these higher level missions weren't particularly that special. I do hope they fix the missions that state rank requirement as helpless and them make you go out and kill Deadly/Dangerous/Elite authority ships (that was my very first combat mission experience. Me in a sidey, trying to take out a wing of 2 Deadly Python authority ships. How was I to know the sidey could not take on a Python. The mission said "Rank: Helpless" ).

Missions will be generated by stricter criteria so that the majority of missions offered will make sense in the location that are offered. A three stage hierarchy will govern how the missions are created.

First by the state of the minor faction, so if they are in famine, or at war, or any other state missions to address that state are generated.

Secondly, the type of market for the port, so that they match the economic activity for that market. An obvious example is creating mining missions from extraction economies.

The third stage is determined by the government type and this reflects the character of the minor factions and the types of operation that they indulge in. For example dictatorships are more likely to indulge in overt assassinations and so send a visible message, while democracies will conduct their wet work through covert operations.

Within the offered mission there will be a description for why that mission has been generated and what effect it will have for the minor faction. This clearer communication of the interaction with the galactic simulation will make it easier for you to pick the relevant missions for your goals.


So hopefully, no more Order missions from Exioce to go kill authority ships in Azrael. :P
And no more minor factions giving out missions that adversely affect their influence.

We’re also looking to reduce the barrier of inconvenience for some of the mission elements – my favourite here is not having to drop out of supercruise to listen to alternate offers. The time limits for missions as well as which elements make them easier, or more difficult are being reviewed and addressed.

Another exciting change is how missions and USSs interact with each other. USSs for missions will now generally be located at specific bodies within a system which have can be located using a discovery scanner, although the usual ranges apply. If the system has a nav beacon then these can now be scanned and the scan will reveal these mission locations as well as providing any exploration data for that system.

In conjunction with these changes the general distribution and generation of USSs is also being updated. There are now concepts of different parts of space within a system, like traffic lanes and hubs and different contents can be generated at each. They are also created spatially rather than by time range so you can no longer just sit and wait for one to appear, you will need to look for it.

One other significant change for USSs is that they can be scanned to reveal more information about them without having to drop out of supercruise.


I really do like this. Makes more sense. But I can imagine players complaining about having only an hour to play and having to run around all over the place looking for a specific mission USS. Hopefully, if a exploration mission says go to system A to find stuff B, then you would actually need to go to system A to find object B, and you get some points in exploration rank.

I personally like some of the mission changes coming, although I don't really run missions anymore. Spend most of my time farming credits and kills now. But once the war in Exioce is over and since Lady Durga is pretty much fully equipped (she still needs at least reinforced armour, if not mil grade,) it's time to run missions with Lady Jayne.

Have fun, fly safe. o7
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby Nethaufer » Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:30 am

Falcon_D wrote:*snip*

I personally like some of the mission changes coming, although I don't really run missions anymore. Spend most of my time farming credits and kills now. But once the war in Exioce is over and since Lady Durga is pretty much fully equipped (she still needs at least reinforced armour, if not mil grade,) it's time to run missions with Lady Jayne.

Have fun, fly safe. o7


Yeah, that's kind of my problem with the missions in general. Since it isn't like an mmorpg where the 'missions' are actually quests that lend part to some larger story or pull you through the game in the process of completing them, and therefore the only reason for doing BB missions is (somewhat) easy money, many players stop doing them once they find more efficient ways of making money.
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Re: Dev Update (18/02/16)

Postby Falcon_D » Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:38 am

Nethaufer wrote:
Falcon_D wrote:*snip*

I personally like some of the mission changes coming, although I don't really run missions anymore. Spend most of my time farming credits and kills now. But once the war in Exioce is over and since Lady Durga is pretty much fully equipped (she still needs at least reinforced armour, if not mil grade,) it's time to run missions with Lady Jayne.

Have fun, fly safe. o7


Yeah, that's kind of my problem with the missions in general. Since it isn't like an mmorpg where the 'missions' are actually quests that lend part to some larger story or pull you through the game in the process of completing them, and therefore the only reason for doing BB missions is (somewhat) easy money, many players stop doing them once they find more efficient ways of making money.


My hope for ED missions is that they become a bit more like MMO quests. Not asking for them to be exactly like MMO story quests but maybe one or two minor faction missions could be a bit story based.
E.g. The Order of Mobius has decided to expand into Dvorsi. Commander we need you to deliver these goods to this outpost where you will receive further instructions.

Right now it's more like grinding missions for rep, influence, money or system permits.
E.g. Starter systems had missions that gently lead new players to discovering the features and game universe of ED.
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