...and the whole system seems contrived, unnecessary, and like it was only created because a patch needed a marketing bullet point. However, I know that general negativity without focus doesn't help, so I'll try to get into some more detail. NPE: Missions were sold as part of the NPE, as a way to help new players catch up by giving them certs faster than our current vets got them back in the day. While it could technically accomplish this, it's probably the least efficient way to do it. This game already has an avalanche of things that new players need to learn. Remembering to activate missions is just yet another thing that new players have to remember to do. Even if only for 20 seconds, it's still a jarring break from the game play, and something that is going to annoy them when they realize that they forgot to activate missions an hour into a play session, and probably have already accomplished some of these objectives by now, but forgot to activate the mission. It may only add an inch to the learning cliff, but it is raising the cliff. If you really want to help new players catch up faster, you need to do it in a way that new players don't need to remember to activate. Either make double exp the new normal, or hand out more gear for free at start. For one, give everything that only costs 1 cert out for free to save some pointless clicking. After that, give level one of a bunch of vehicle upgrades out for free. For example, on the Lightning, give rank one fire suppression, proximity radar, and rival combat chassis for free. This way they might not get C4ed as often, have some panic pocket HP, and can reverse out of a bad situation faster. All up my point is that improving the NPE is a good goal to have, this is not the way to do it. Some of the objectives are tedious and force inefficient play: For example, the light assault has to do damage while airborne. In order to achieve this I was flying around at times when it made no sense to fly. I had accomplished all other objectives of the mission except for scoring damage while airborne. To get this done I equipped drifters, lined up sights before jumping, then went flying around trying to gank people in a comically dumb way. Needless to say, my KDR went for a ****e, and after collecting the rewards I decided never to take that mission again. Another example is the heavy assault's damage credit with launchers. You have to hit the same target 2 or even 3 times to get this to register. The trouble is that they often die before I can do this. I end up getting angry because I accidentally killed an enemy vehicle too quickly, or a team mate finished it off before I could get a second rocket in. This mission is causing me to get angry at success. Vehicle kills and assists need to be credited with this objective. Also, on the inefficient play note, I'll see enemy sunderers parked in really exposed locations, and rather than drawing an AP Lightning from one base back and wrapping this up in less than a minute, I end up driving out in flash after flash trying to get heavy rockets into this sundy because MISSION! Again, forcing inefficient play. What the missions do and don't credit is weird: Soldier and Shepherd doesn't clearly explain what is going to qualify for its goal. Sometimes I'll get it done in no time, other times I have it up all night without finishing it. Front line spawns only counts sunderer spawns. If I place a good beacon that sees a lot of use (and doesn't get overridden by a scrub) I don't get any credit for spawn supporting my squad. Router carriers get no credit, and if a PMB is built in a good location, resulting in an honest to goodness platoon battle at the PMB, the builder doesn't get credited for use of the Elysium spawn tube. All forms of spawns should count for front line spawns. The qualifier should be that they spawn into a contested territory, not that they be sunderer spawns. The tier 2 cortium run needs another look. Any fool can grab this mission, slap a silo down in a contested territory, fill it and walk away with the rewards. This leaves abandoned silos which block other builders from starting bases. This one should be tweaked to require the player to add cortium to a silo they don't own. At the end of the day, the missions are jenky, force players to play inefficiently or in ways they just might not want to, add more steps to the NPE rather than improving it, and are all around just an inefficient way to add exp gain to the game. I know that someone somewhere has an attitude that every patch must include new content regardless of quality, but that attitude is going to grind this game down to a halt and kill it eventually. It's not just a question of what's already here, but what else is to come. Eventually this game is going to have so many careless afterthought features tacked onto it which were never properly scrutinized, tested or ironed out, but rather thrown on and moved on that the whole game is going to resemble a Lovecraftian horror.
What bothers me the most with these daily missions is the clutter they add. It becomes an ordeal navigating through missions, directives and the campaign, who thought of adding these 3 in the same tab?! Also I don't get why you can't pin both directives and missions to your hud? And the rewards and missions need to be more in line with what the game and the individual player needs. For example offering 200 a7 to a br17 isn't really cool.
Unfortunately and that is recurring pattern, the idea is good but the implementation is bad. A way more efficient and reliable and useful way to make certs (that's what new players need: certs, certs and even more certs. ISO comes from certs and A7 is useless ad there is nothing really valuable to buy) is simply to play Engineer or Medic and join a mobile force. Gain certs, support your team-mates and get combat experience at the same time. Beats collecting carrots any day of the week.
I believe the class-specific missions would be fine if they replaced the annoying parts. Like the "deal damage airborne" or "shoot vehicles with the rocket launcher", or even "heal allies" (they mostly die, very few people can actually be healed in comparison to being revived, but out of the bunch it is still the least annoying). LA could get "kill enemies from above". This can mean from the air, but also from elevated positions you flew up to. NOt sure if that is possible, though. Game would need to track comparative height. Medic might get "get 1 Saviour kill", seeing as that is part of their directive as well, and usually happens by itself sooner rather than later. HA could get "soak 2000 damage with your overshield", although while I am typing this I get a feeling that is already in. Either way, the rocket launcher one can simply be changed to mean "deal X damage with the rocket launcher". No need to shoot the same target multiple times, just hammer away at what you can.
Yep, the only one which I ever do is the sundy spawn mission because it's about the only mission without an annoying extra task tacked on to it. Daily bonuses were way better than this mission system. Imho the whole system needs a rework so missions only include natural things, For example the LA rework would only be "kill X enemies as a LA" and "earn vehicle/max kiill/assist X times as a LA" So you'd get it just by playing LA naturally Also all of the missions will be active and tracked as you play, no need to take specific missions. The daily mission limits are still in place (though probably best if they reset at a specific time (like 4am wherever the server is) With these changes you could just log on and play the game and passively complete missions just by playing naturally. If you pull a sundy and people are rezzing there you complete the sundy spawn mission, Play infil and get some kills while your motion spotter is also ticking away recon xp, complete the infil mission This will just happen until you reach the daily mission limit. No more "fly around shooting at things like an idiot" for LA, or "deliberately take damage when you don't need to" as a defector, Just play the game naturally, get rewards, done. k Wrel, I've fixed it for you, now where is my bonus cheque?
Agreed. Bounty hunter mission is fine as well. But the other stuff is just ridiculous. Who thought getting people to babysit drills in remote locations and transporting 2 passengers across the map 10k km was a good idea. I can't believe it, but the daily ribbons made more sense and were way better. At least you just logged on, did something and were rewarded for a few mini tasks completed every day. Now it's an ordeal to even accept a mission, that's if you're "lucky" and find a decent one. The rewards aren't anything spectacular either, especially for the "new" players who need it most.
This sux I asked for squad lead in a platoon n they were cool enough to let me do it for the ticks I set up crucial sundy spawns, ran rep and ammo sundy with the armor column for 3 huge battles, ran repair engi for max pushes .. Nothing I ended up looking like a total donkey that didnt contribute to the team at all Turns out the only thing that gave me squad exp was reviving a squad mate Not only did I not have fun doing attempting that mission, but I also missed out on the fun I could of had
I'm probably in the minority, but I like missions. They give me free EXP and some guns when youre sub br15, and occaisionally some after, as well as filling out my implant collection. They've been rather helpful since I came back to the game and made non-TR alts. But other than that (and my very biased experience), Missions are dumb. The Drill mission is easy to get buggered by a random enemy ESF that also wants the drill, and if the drill spawns in enemy territory, don't bother. The Valkyrie/Galaxy kill assists is long, dumb, and effectively requires a squad to achieve in any time. 50 assists at highest level?! The class missions are mostly awkward, and require a fair few kills, which a bad player (i.e. me) wouldn't necessarily be able to do in their short playtime. NSX Eval is ****. It can give you a weapon you don't have, in which case you either buy it or pray you can get the needed kills in a 30 minute trial. And some of those required kill numbers are dumb. 30?! Are you serious. The Soldier and Shepherd ones require you to lead a squad or platoon, and that already puts off more than a few people. Missions like Message Delivery and the 3 Antenna one are far too much effort for pretty **** rewards. Cortium run is a piece of piss. New tank mission wants you to kill 5 MBTs and do X damage, which is a fair bit of work and reliant on enemy armour and securing last hit Sunderer of Service is easy as pie. Just own ammo dispenser and go hug a zerg. Does have to be squad exp for uncommon version. The galaxy version is worse, as the only reliable way to do it is to get lucky and hug an allied Lib or ESF, or go hover near a ground zerg, which is asking to get shot. Skyfire requires you to do ESF to ESF combat - hard enough for a new player, not worth picking up unless you know how to fly. At least its only damage. Damaging air targets. Haven't done this one. Not sure if you just need to do any damage or get damage xp. If its the latter, its ****, if its the former, not terrible. Defector mission is easy so long as you have seraph shield. Front line spawns is also easy, so long as you can find a spot for your sundy. Bounty Hunter is easy. Operational Flexibility is cool. Most of it is passive, and the vehicle parts require only 3 damage xp or one kill on anything. The longest parts imo are 50 resupply or the heal experience. Could be better but it isnt terrible. So yeah. These missions... they need a look into. If the NPE is their next target, get on this ****. More guns from missions, make it easier and more rewarding, and end the oppression of the elysium mining drill!
