[Proposed] Better Mission System

HansGoddius · 2013-02-08, 05:05 PM

Currently the proposal for the daily quest mission system was shut down by most people as it should have. We do not need daily missions for kill count or certain specific stats. This is not a stats based game! This is a gigantic war where stats do not matter so much.

So how can we make this idea better? Should we just throw it out? I actually don't think so. This achievement system can become incredibly useful if handled properly. IMO they should lead into 3 categories: Exploratory/Fun Achievements, Training Achievements (this will be better than a video tutorial), and Gameflow achievements (Gameflow is my least favorite but I think there is a good way to do it.)

1. Training Achievements
This is not override the VR training idea which we def need but this could be extremely helpful to new players. You give them missions (one time achievement - no daily) that help them understand the game.
- 1. Deploy from a Sunderer or Base
- 2. Deploy a Sunderer
- 3. Take down a Generator (show Gen icon here)
- 4. Use a teleporter
- 5. Join an outfit
- 6. Join a squad
- 7. Lock your vehicle from others
- 8. Deconstruct your vehicle
This by far is not limited but could be an excellent tool for those who wish to learn the game.

Exploratory/Fun Achievements
These are fun little achievements that can only be won once. These are for when you need to take a break from your serious outfit duties. From all the shooting.
- Landing your ESF on the very tip of a biolab
- Deploy a sunderer on top of a Tower (It’s possible on Indar near the very southeast gate)
- Suicide ram your ESF into a Galaxy.
- One achievement per territory you fight on (Like an explorer achievement)
- Fall X amount of feet and survive
- Land on a libby while it is airborne and C4 it
There are many more ideas but by far this idea in terms of programming is probably incredibly tricky or a nightmare.

Lastly,
Gameflow Achievements
What I mean by this is have daily achievements that don't direct anyone to a specific place but rather direct people away from zergs.
- Capture a point with less than a platoon of friendlies in the territory the entire time.
- Fully defend a point from 50% with less than a platoon of friendlies in the territory the entire time.

I don't think PS2 should direct ppl anywhere. Its a sandbox war. Let strategies flow on their own. This will potentially move people away from some zergs for a short while while not truly curing it.

What are your thoughts on this?

bpostal · 2013-02-08, 05:12 PM

I would be hesitant to call these 'achievements', milestones maybe?
I agree that having a little pop up for blowing up your first AMS or taking out your first lib would help solidify in peoples minds what is expected of them. Really, what I would think of as ideal would be a recurrence of the merit system.

As to a mission system itself, I'm still hoping we'll get a robust tool that allows CR5s to implement different types of missions (create/maintain air superiority over XXX area, Squad/Platoon needed at YYY base, Forward AMS required at ZZZ position, etc) but the fact is that these need to be PLAYER driven events, not automatic.

HansGoddius · 2013-02-08, 05:20 PM

Isn't an achievement a milestone?

I know about the player based mission system and I do agree it should be implemented but they don't help in give a tutorial to new players. This is a separate idea from it.

bpostal · 2013-02-08, 05:26 PM

I suppose achievement = milestone, but achievement makes me think of xbox, which makes me think of setting kittens and puppies on fire. Semantics.

Adding in a system such as this alongside the mission system could absolutely be a benefit to the players, especially the newer ones who are still trying to figure what the game is all about, but one thing it would absolutely require would be the 'reason' you got the cert points or merit so that players know why they're being rewarded and encouraged to keep up the good work.

Palerion · 2013-02-08, 05:52 PM

I think acheivements should have decent cert rewards.

For instance, have the starter missions build the player up to 250 certs once they are all complete.

Just a thought.

HansGoddius · 2013-02-08, 05:55 PM

Lol I never pay attention to the Xbox achievement system.

I could see the Achievement/Mission/Milestone system working like a set of tabs. One tab has the Tutorial Achievements, another tab has the fun/skill achievements, and another one has the Battle Flow achievements. Maybe the final one has the Player Driven Missions. Something like that.
It should show the list of things you need to accomplish and explain how to do it.
When you accomplish an achievement it should show you what you accomplished and a checkbox to that achievement.

HansGoddius · 2013-02-08, 05:58 PM

@palerion I would agree with that. I don't think its too much of a problem as they already do that with Weapons Medals.

bpostal · 2013-02-08, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by Palerion

I think acheivements should have decent cert rewards.

For instance, have the starter missions build the player up to 250 certs once they are all complete.

Just a thought.

If SOE starts to see a power imbalance between newer and older players, particularly in vehicle combat, this could be an excellent way to focus on getting some 'quick' cert points to allow for the purchase of flares, IR smoke, etc.

Rolfski · 2013-02-09, 04:00 AM

The main problem with the road map idea of daily achievements is the word "daily".

If you're one kill away from your daily "kill 10 Maxes with C4" achievement that will grant you 100 certs, what are you going to do? C4 that Max of course, outfit orders can wait. Which is exactly the reason they should kill any temporarily achievements and put more intelligence into the permanent, "one off"ones.

Achievements can be a good thing if SOE put some decent thought into it, which they clearly didn't with the road map version of this idea.

bpostal · 2013-02-09, 10:18 AM

Exactly right. Changing it from a one time deal to a daily grind...Just bleh.

HansGoddius · 2013-02-09, 12:33 PM

Exactly how I see it.
I think the only daily "missions" that should be around are ones created by other players which could result in very interesting strategies though the reward system should be carefully looked into or my my 3rd idea since that would thin the zerg and spread people out a bit.

The biggest potential i could see is to use these one off achievements to teach new players how the game functions.