Forcing players to have missions is a bad idea

We need to be able to disable this.

Also, the on-screen mission marker is completey obtrusive and far too big.

Agree. GIVE US AN OPTION TO TURN IT ON AND OFF.

I don't see how that can be difficult.

Mission indicator is obnoxious but its a starting point for a larger system bear in mind, toggleable option is I think a must or at the very least it shouldn't replace local base info when in a squad if you're separated from the squad leader.

I'm highly suspicious of the whole thing for another reason, the marker is a little floating object in a very familiar shade of teal,

Is clearly Vanu spy infiltrating my HUD!

I should've known better, but I honestly didn't expect anyone to be so stupid as to complain about this implementation of the mission system. It's a free 15% xp boost which applies to most situations I would be in anyway.

Hopefully the mission system won't be so disliked when it's able to do things like notice you're in a skyguard and tell you where there are aircraft to kill. I must admit I'm tending to tune it out completely, as a member of an outfit and a longtime player I've learned how to find fights (etc etc) so I don't really need that extra helping hand provided by the first iteration of the missions system... Doesn't automatically make it a bad thing if it's not specifically targeted at me though.

I suspect the devs are hesitating at letting us turn it off because they want to give it a chance to develop instead of most of us turning it off day 1 and never giving it a thought even when it gets to the point where it has real value to veterans as well as newer players.

That one random Vanu upgraded and made its way into my HUD! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

That makes sense. And if this is honestly the case, I'll deal with it for now. Last night I was leading a squad and I kept placing squad waypoints before the mission marker changed to another base, so I basically didn't care about its presence.

Oddly enough, last night the mission seemed to change based on where our squad marker was. May have been purely coincidental, but ultimately it orients to whichever conflict area you happen to be closer to.

OT:
Its the start of a new system (As others have pointed out) that could be quite useful for manipulating zergs and creating more structured and potentially rewarding gameplay for those who want it. I'm not treading any new ground here, but my primary concern is some kind of tangible reward for completing a mission.

I actually didn't find it a pain last night except for 1 time where I was told it blocked the countdown timer for a squad mate.

When I was SLing last night, the mission objective pointed toward where we were actually going next.. If the rewards had been implemented we would've reaped them!

NO ONE is forcing you to follow the missions, like most things (the "Upgrade Now" trollers and not the ad bug that was popping up), just ignore it if you don't like it as it HAS NOTHING to do with game play currently. If for some reason it interferes with your game play in some way that will make K/D ratios go down (for those who actually care about those) then gather some data and present it to SOE.

I do agree you should be able to toggle it, but this is step 1 of the mission system. Hopefully they will polish it when the rewards get added based on actual feedback and not a lot of forumside drama.

I like the idea and understand this is only the base implementation of the system.

Seems there is some situations not taken into account or addressed during the design of this mission system.
We had a platoon last night and if any squad leads left the region we were currently focused on then we'd see all sorts of erroneous mission data in the HUD. We have reasons for SL's and Platoon Leads to not always be at the objective: Grabbing a Gal, Sundy, Tanks or what ever...but by them moving about within other regions we at the "real" objective loose status of the current point flip/Cap progress.

In most cases the majority of us simply laughed it off but...we run open platoons and on several occasions entire swaths of pugs would be lead away from the current objective because they saw the bright shinny mission waypoint off in the distance. God forbid if the platoon lead doesn't get an updated PLT waypoint up in short order after taking a base....hordes of pugs simply wonder off towards to closest shinny mission waypoint.

All in all I think it's a good idea and maybe we just need some ways to manipulate it's out put when in squads or platoons...hell even solo for that matter.

I like the mission idea, but agree should be able to at least disable it from showing on the HUD if the player wants.

Maybe have it show up on the Notifications board or something.

What about the passive mission system is forced?

Your mission is to attack or defend whatever territory your squad leader is in. Since you should already be in the same territory as your SL, what exactly is being forced on you, besides 15% more xp?

This should get addressed, but platoons are pretty rare on the PTS so uncharacteristically I will give SOE a chance to fix this before I complain about it.

It happens when the base you are in is not finished capping and the squad leader changes the waypoint to a few hexes away and then moves there, you are left in an uncapped base with a HUD indicator telling you to go somewhere and not showing you the actual base progress you are in at the moment.

Okay thanks! Hope they fix this, because when I Squad Lead, I tend to not stay for cap when I know where my next objective is from Platoon. Or I'll just set a Personal WP until after the base is capped, if it is dependent on the squad way point.

No one forces you to use them, but you don't get cap timers if not at your mission, which is a pain.

Agree completely - not seeing cap timers unless you're where Higby deigns you should be is... ugly.
It's passive agressive blackmail, that's what it is. "I won't show you what you're doing unless you're doing exactly what I tell you to."
This nanites should go, immediately. Missions as such are ok by me, but they should be toggleable or, at the very least, cap timer should ALWAYS be visible.

I see your tinfoil hat is no longer working, maybe try aluminum foil for the next one.

It's your squad leaders position deciding where the mission is.

There's a bug I'm looking into where sometimes Defend missions don't get completed when they should, which causes the case where you have a bogus mission to defend a facility that isn't even contestable. You can work around this easily by continuing on to a place you can attack, and we should have a fix for that in an upcoming update.

The cap timer thing is not a bug; it's a feature. It was decided because we didn't want to confuse players by saying "Capture Freyr" and then under that have the capture points and progress for Eisa if the player happened to be in Eisa. That player might not realize that he isn't where he's supposed to be or think he is contributing to the mission when he isn't. In effect the capture indicators are now part of the mission information for consistency.

For solo players, the closest mission to the current location is always the one it chooses, so this semantic change should not affect solo players at all.


The situations where this is noticeable is with squad members due to squad mission delegation. There's basically two groups of players affected by this.

1) The players who join a squad and intentionally (or unintentionally) go other places than the squad is in. In most cases not being with the squad is a bad thing as it weakens the squad and reduces its chance of success. The squad portion of the mission system & squad leader delegation is intended to help improve this and keep a squad together more where you will benefit from more XP, teamwork, and bonuses for that teamwork. It also empowers the Squad Leader a stronger statement of "here's where I want you to be". It is intended to be a tool for squad leaders to reduce dead weight. If a player really doesn't want to be with the squad, its their choice to leave the squad, join a different squad, or start a new squad with what they do want to do. Nothing is being forced here, the player is still free to choose to ignore the mission and free to leave the squad.

2) More organized squads that send 1-2 guys from a squad to scout a capture or defense to see how it is doing to determine if the entire squad/platoon needs to be relocated. The system is not intending to hinder this, but it is certainly less convenient than before. You still do see control point status on the HUD & minimap, and the maps hows capture progress. It is less convenient and I'll look into a better solution to this if possible, but our primary goal is to encourage squad cohesion.


There's also the case where a squad leader goes to grab a Skywhale or is flying around, and we already have plans in a future missions update address that and make it more squad friendly.

We will be building a lot more onto this system, so turning it off is not really a practical option. We would rather address the issues players are having with it so it works for them. Some folks will always hate any and all change though, so we understand we can't please everyone.

Definitely need to be able to turn it off. It just adds more clutter to an already cluttered screen. Please don't go down the BF3/4 route where no matter you turn there are obnoxious icons obscuring your view.

Red Orchestra 2 is how FPS huds should be done: very minimalistic.

In all due respect,

1.we didn't ask for this
2, its really not wanted or required
3. Why not test it first before bringing out another bugged idea, it loses credibility.
4. Thank you for commenting on the thread, its always good to hear from a Dev and your points of view, even if I or we don't agree.