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Missions were poorly implemented, player missions can rarely compete with NPC missions.


Gottchar

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I would really like to set up missions to transport things more often, sadly, I can rarely use the mission system.

 

My missions will compete with the endless supply of NPC missions, meaning if I pay less than a player can get from an NPC mission, I don’t have to bother. NPC missions are 

-repeatable, can be done multiple times in one shipment with alts.

-the longer the mission, the better it pays, and the smaller the inconvenience of having to log into multiple accounts, or ask friends to come for the ride.

-the shorter/smaller the mission, the lower the collateral.

-no limit for litres

 

Due to this, the player missions are hard to sell:

 

Long range ore transport: Every ~5 days I ship 4ML from Sicari to Alioth. I would have to set the collateral to 200M for the whole amount (50 per litre), so no newer player can do it. And more established players, if interested in transport, will already do NPC mission which pay better and can be organized better with group or alts. Also, I would have to split the transport into 512kl chunks, and as only 3 missions can be set up at a time, I would need three EXL parcel containers, on both ends, to organize, pack, set up. I would also have to pay upper market cell cost for a heavier ship than mine, +actual reward. So I just do it myself.

 

Short range heavy transport: No warp cells involved, but still same problems as above. Also, these transports would likely be from the market to my base, which means I need to create the parcels inside the market container, which does not allow to split stacks. If I have more than 512kl of a single type of ore in the market container, it can no longer be used for a mission.

 

Long range light transport, like schematics: For a small job like just hopping with a warp shuttle to Talemai and back, I could set up a mission, but now the collateral is a huge deterrent. 3M quanta job, for 100M collateral, maybe somebody would still do that. Same job but for 500M or 2B collateral?

 

Short range light. I just pick it up next time I need to fly light anyway.

 

 

 

 

I wouldn’t mind outsourcing some work, but the tedium, high price (to compete with NPC missions) and restrictions mean I either ask a buddy to fly it (and I move from container to container via VR) or, in 99% of the cases, I just fly myself.

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Soooo having a hub would fix a lot of issues but really what we need is bigger parcels.

 

Other adjustments I'd like to see is, a better UI for creating missions (QoL to make it easier and faster), more mission slots, the NPC mission collateral is way to low, and we can't block players from taking a mission but that is more of a RDMS issue when using all 

 

New features... I'd like to see

 

The ability to order something, such as ore or a schematic without having a specific market.

 

Another big ask, add a bounty system which is tied into how many NPC missions are run. I would like to see a 1m bounty added per mission (1m less per reward). Obviously you would need to add a way to stop players from having their buddies kill one another so a faction system would be needed. Once a core is killed then the payout would go to the hunter, so the bounty system would also need to be tied to a specific construct.

 

Idk if this will age well, but hey, you haven't put up a real roadmap yet.

Edited by space_man
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you complain about mission system, yet i've never seen you post any missions up.

 

Unless you cheapen up, any missions even with high collaterals go really fast. Probably only downside right now is the 3 active missions limit. But that would not have been hard for NQ to remedy.

 

As for pay, don't expect to get a service if you pay 5 mil to truck 2 bil worth of goods.  If you pay at around 10% of your cargo's worth you won't have trouble finding service.

 

I believe i can speak for most of us space truckers out there, if we put our  200mil+ ships on a line we expect to compensated well for our  time and the risk we're taking. 

 

Pay up or haul your junk by yourself

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On 3/1/2022 at 2:47 PM, Gottchar said:

I wouldn’t mind outsourcing some work, but the tedium, high price (to compete with NPC missions) and restrictions mean I either ask a buddy to fly it (and I move from container to container via VR) or, in 99% of the cases, I just fly myself.

this so much!  i use it for smaller packages as i know they will be picked up and delivered into pvp zone but anything large i go myself there no point. anyone willing fly that much weight is afk doing aphelia missions.

 

while im here can we please implement elemt damage.

 

;)

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11 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

you complain about mission system, yet i've never seen you post any missions up.

 

correct, I complain the missions are so bad I can barely use them, and I barely use them.

 

11 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

Unless you cheapen up, any missions even with high collaterals go really fast.

I don’t know what the threshold for "cheap" is, but so far I did not get any takers for long distance hauling missions, unless I offer roughly twice the warp cell cost, in which case I pass and do it myself. I usually only do it for bringing some small stuff to the market.

 

11 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

As for pay, don't expect to get a service if you pay 5 mil to truck 2 bil worth of goods.

Which is an issue. If the 2B worth of goods are as easy to transport as 10M worth of goods, I essentially have to pay extra to compensate for the collateral, which is exactly what I am complaining about. I have a hard time competing with the super low collateral NPC missions.

 

11 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

if we put our  200mil+ ships on a line

If you can fly ships made of pure gold and bonsais, maybe I should pay less. I am also not sure how anybody has to put his super luxury yachts on the line for my safe zone or warpable missions.

 

11 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

Pay up or haul your junk by yourself

That is what I am doing already.

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if it's safe to safe warp haul, i typically take such at around 1.2x mean m6 warp cell price of the previous day (@gross weight of the ship). I consider those jobs be a different form of selling cells. If it's less than that might as well do something else while my cells sell away at m6 with no effort on my end. 

 

as for 200m ships, they are not made of bonsai and gold , but if you want 30kt+ "large hauls"  enigne walls are still a thing, you're smart guy, figure out how much it cost to build rares' engine wall.

 

as for safezone slowboats, it comes down to opportunity cost, if i can spend my time in more profitable/fun way  i'll do that ( i seldom if ever do npc hauls, too much time for too little quanta... i'd rather play with my voxels) .   

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An easy solution would be for the mission giver to be able to insure his package for say 10% of its value based on the market closest to the packager. The mission taker would then pay that 10% as collateral.

 

Should the parcel be intercepted, it wouldn’t be able to be unpacked, only traded to a black market NPC terminal for that same 10% (or whatever amount insurance costs) value.  
 

This should incentivize missions over taking risk yourself, since if the package and it’s contents are lost, you are reimbursed. It should also lower the cost for collateral, while eliminating exploits.

 

I admit, it’s less than ideal for pirates, but if you want people to brave open space AND avoid abuse of the system, it’s what is needed. However, I think a special black market currency (1:1 value) for pirates would reward and incentivize that kind of gameplay. Then, you can put exclusive resources and combat elements in the market, potentially tying those players a bit more closely with builders and industrialists.

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3 hours ago, Novidian Prime said:

An easy solution would be for the mission giver to be able to insure his package for say 10% of its value based on the market closest to the packager. The mission taker would then pay that 10% as collateral.

 

Should the parcel be intercepted, it wouldn’t be able to be unpacked, only traded to a black market NPC terminal for that same 10% (or whatever amount insurance costs) value.  
 

This should incentivize missions over taking risk yourself, since if the package and it’s contents are lost, you are reimbursed. It should also lower the cost for collateral, while eliminating exploits.

 

I admit, it’s less than ideal for pirates, but if you want people to brave open space AND avoid abuse of the system, it’s what is needed. However, I think a special black market currency (1:1 value) for pirates would reward and incentivize that kind of gameplay. Then, you can put exclusive resources and combat elements in the market, potentially tying those players a bit more closely with builders and industrialists.

 

that would have been terrible idea, i would be first one to exploit it, i would blow myself up with an alt, get the parcel back + sweet monies from insurance on the top

 

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2 hours ago, Bazzy_505 said:

 

that would have been terrible idea, i would be first one to exploit it, i would blow myself up with an alt, get the parcel back + sweet monies from insurance on the top

 

Nice of you to admit you’d willfully exploit the game, I guess? Honesty respected.
 

Insurance costs would increase and the returns decrease considerably the more claims are made by a player. A person’s reliability rating as a courier could also take major hits, resulting in them being locked out of taking missions for X amount of time. The diminishing returns would make it harder to fudge.

 

One thing you’re also not accounting for is that you lose your items that were in the parcel. That can’t be unpacked after looted, only sold for the insurance value to black market kiosks or other players for the set value at the time of creation.

 

You may get reimbursed for the contents full value once, plus the 10% from an alt, but at the end of the day that is only a 10% gain from the stolen parcel AND you have to replace the materials just to run the mission again, replace any busted elements/cores, and spend time transiting things to PvP space. I think there would be easier ways to make quanta, personally.
 

 

And I think it goes without saying that there could easily be a log tracking how many unique accounts/IPs  are interacting in a given time. It’s very easy to see who is looted and getting looted frequently by the same people in a short amount of time.

 

I would, as a developer, communicate very clearly that exploiting this system in any way can result in a lengthy lockout from the mission system or even a permanent game ban for repeat violations. Make it abundantly clear that using alts or farm groups to game the system is a serious nono, then drop the axe early and often for egregious offenses.

 

I stopped playing EvE over a decade ago, but I remember this being an issue back in the day. Not sure how they handled it, but I know exploiters eventually made insurance worthless (at least when I played). 

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