Ready for testing: Missions Phase 1

It'd be really awesome if missions were influenced by the attack and defense markers we can invest certs into placing...

A suggestion:

Create a mission locking button. Sometimes to push a certain territory you have to re-evaluate the offensive and that requires you to either go pull an aircraft or ground vehicle. This could possibly change your mission seeing as you might not always be able to spawn a given vehicle in the hex you are currently located. Also, sometimes you may need to go and get ammo and it is not safe to get ammo at the last hex you were at, a locking button would also solve this problem.

Create a popup (similar to squad invite) that will remind you that your mission is locked if you spend more then 5 minutes outside of the related mission's hex.

Tested it. Got a mission for Mani Biolab, but once i started driving into that direction it gave me another objective in a completely different base way far away from where i was. And when i reached that base, it switched to another objective far from that one.

Another thing to mention is the gigantic icon swirling on the base the mission is on, it would be great if it flashed for a few seconds then disappeared, but no you just had to make it permamently fill your screen with a big swirly Auraxium icon

The objective waypoint marker takes up too much real estate on the screen and blocks your view. Not sure if its such a good idea to have it, it works for the tutorial but in game I think its distracting.

The "waypoint" symbol for it could definitely be toned down while you're looking in the direction of where it's leading you. It'd also be nice if that part specifically could be toggled off.

The giant HUD icon needs to either go away after a few seconds or (preferably) be a HUD element you can turn off.

I have no complains... Push it to live because I see no problems with it.

I'll look into dimming it if you are looking near it (already does if you ADS).

Currently, if you're in a facility other than the one your mission has assigned you to, SCU and Control Node status won't display on your HUD. Hopefully that's not intentional

It is intentional. If you are solo and it's a capturable outpost or a friendly outpost being contested, you will have a mission there so it will show. If you are in a squad, then you only see it if you are in your squad mission's location (i.e. stay with your squad).

You can check capture, gen, and SCU status of any facility from the map without having to be there.

Hey Malorn,
I was on the test server a few mins ago to see how the missions work etc. and I noticed the it didnt care about being back capped when you already had a lattice link to it. (just saw your post above mine)

Would like to note about the below after reading ur post.

Eg. I was given a mission to go attack the crown and wasn't telling me to defend Crers Hydroponics because we already had a lattice to it from Zurvan Pump?

Also when a mission is active I wasn't able to tell how many minutes it was before (insert name of base) was being capped by (insert enemy empire)
Heres a pic to tell you what Im talking about, ( I did flip the A point back but it was being capped by vanu before and it wasn't telling me how many minutes until vanu capped it nor did it give me a mission about it)


I also did notice that the waypoint marker wasn't pointing in the direction where the missions was when your in an aircraft, Im guessing this also was not intended.

I brought it up because I spawned in a friendly facility and it bugged me on some level or another when I couldn't see certain things I was used to seeing. Thinking into it, if I was legitimately defending that base against attackers, there would be a mission for defending that base and I would be able to see that information.

On the other hand, it raises concerns about ghost cappers on empty lattice lines. Every now and then I like to participate in those 1-12 non-fights in smaller outposts just for fun. It would suck if I had to expand my mini-map every time I was in one of those to make sure that lone infiltator isn't capping A again because my mission is directing me to places with more action going on.

However, in the barren lands of the PTS, you never really see the game running on the scale that it does on live. There probably won't be enough different scenarios to properly observe the system until it hits live.

Definitely a bug there, it should have given you the Ceres Hydroponics defend mission (which would allow you to see the capture progress).

Edit: This is a bug we have fixed, the fix just hasn't made it to test yet. Should be resolved in an upcoming PTS update.

From a previous poster it looks like there is a bug that may not be giving proper defensive missions, which would cause that unpleasant experience you had with it.

It should always give you a defensive mission for the territory you are in if that territory is being contested. The one exception is if you are in a squad, in which case you will have your squad leader's mission, which may or may not be in that region depending on where your SL is.

Or you could actually make it so it doesn't show up at all

What defines whether or not a territory is being contested? So far, a lot of the game's systems equate it to a control node being contested and/or the base cap timer going up or down. In other words, the territory isn't technically being contested if you're locking down the building with the A point in a small outpost and the attackers simply haven't gotten up there yet.

My worry is that we could have a scenario where we're defending Subt. Nanite Analysis, the attackers could be working on both generators, and we could still have a mission to capture silver valley/xelas north, while the attackers are still in the process of kicking in our door.

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

This game already has too much clutter on the screen as it is. You actually discussed giving us an option to remove some of the clutter and you decided not to? Why? Instead you are adding even more clutter like this annoying mission waypoint.

Malorn pls.

It's actually smarter than that. Its set up to give you a defensive mission if the point is contested OR the enemy presence reaches a certain threshold. In your nanite sub example, if there are a significant number of enemy players in the facility area it will trigger a defensive mission.

It also works even after you resecure - so the defensive mission won't go away until after you have secured the base AND kicked out most of the bad guys from the facility area or significantly diminished their presence. There's some leeway there, so a couple guys hanging around won't cause the mission to linger forever. The goal is that defensive missions stay as long as you have something to do / bad guys to kill at the facility.

Unlike current defensive scoring, with this system you can have a defensive mission come and go without the enemy ever touching the capture point. However if they do touch the point that guarantees the defensive mission will be created.

We want to tune this first so we get the thresholds right and then we can move to better rewards that better reflect an actual defense and not just point flipping.

I answered why in the post you quoted.

Most of us experienced players don't need "direction". Especially not by shoving even more annoying things in our face.