Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Good points all.

Which system is best depends on what new PvE content you are planning. As Zortarg and Indy Sector mention, assignments that actually require a squad to complete or require a squad to be completed in a timely fashion (perhaps for a time completion bonus!) would be an excellent addition. Such assignments could be done solo but with no chance of getting the bonus.

I like Zortarg's idea of sub groups within squads - call them say divisions, or platoons or regiments or something. Some useful PvP applications of such sub-divisions could exist in future too once the mechanics are in place.

How about applying the squad limit to the assignment rather than the squad? That way some indication of the difficulty of the assignment could be conveyed to the players and avoid piggy-backing, non-contributing "exploit".

27

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Gremrod wrote:
Merkle wrote:

It would seem to me...the simplest idea is usually the best way of doing things.

+1

+1.

Change the squad system to a fleet system where you can have up to 5 squads in a fleet and use option 1

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Re: Poll: Squad assignments

I already wanted to ask what actually is the "simplest idea", but I guess the perception of "simple" is different to everyone smile

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:

Of course reward sharing (or maybe splitting would be a more appropriate term here) proportional to the number of squad members will stay, this is also mentioned in the first post.

Yes but if you implement it with the current missions you have basically eliminated the factor of traveling time. Squad leader just sit in the station while others do the objectives.

That alone would make missions 5-10x more efficient yield that much more nic and tokens.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:

I already wanted to ask what actually is the "simplest idea", but I guess the perception of "simple" is different to everyone smile

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago

Ludlow Bursar wrote:

How about applying the squad limit to the assignment rather than the squad?

That's pretty simple.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Indiko wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Of course reward sharing (or maybe splitting would be a more appropriate term here) proportional to the number of squad members will stay, this is also mentioned in the first post.

Yes but if you implement it with the current missions you have basically eliminated the factor of traveling time. Squad leader just sit in the station while others do the objectives.

That alone would make missions 5-10x more efficient yield that much more nic and tokens.

But you can already do this in the game right now too, just the other way around. Someone takes a mission with the squad option and does it alone, and in the end splits the reward to anyone in the squad sitting in the terminal. Still, I don't see a huge nic influx happening due to this.

Granted, the one sitting in the terminal can take the same mission as well in the new system and let it finish it by the others, but that's the main reason why we have to put a limit on the member count.

32 (edited by Indiko 2012-12-06 18:14:00)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:
Indiko wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Of course reward sharing (or maybe splitting would be a more appropriate term here) proportional to the number of squad members will stay, this is also mentioned in the first post.

Yes but if you implement it with the current missions you have basically eliminated the factor of traveling time. Squad leader just sit in the station while others do the objectives.

That alone would make missions 5-10x more efficient yield that much more nic and tokens.

But you can already do this in the game right now too, just the other way around. Someone takes a mission with the squad option and does it alone, and in the end splits the reward to anyone in the squad sitting in the terminal. Still, I don't see a huge nic influx happening due to this.

Granted, the one sitting in the terminal can take the same mission as well in the new system and let it finish it by the others, but that's the main reason why we have to put a limit on the member count.

No it's not the same, unless I misunderstood the way you are going to implement it.

Right now yes, you share the rewards and standing but each person must travel to and from the objective.

With the new system you can have 1 person at station accepting missions and 1 or more at the objective completing it and never have to move around.

travel time is the most time consuming element in the higher end missions, usually it takes 2-3minute to kill or mine or whatever and 20 minute going back and forth.

Hope this clears it up.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Distribute relation and NIC rewards only to members of squad who complete one particular objective or objectives.

For example - only those members who enter Zone A or only those who mine/harvest at least x amount of stuff.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Ludlow Bursar wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

I already wanted to ask what actually is the "simplest idea", but I guess the perception of "simple" is different to everyone smile

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago

Ludlow Bursar wrote:

How about applying the squad limit to the assignment rather than the squad?

That's pretty simple.

Could be possible if we agree that the squad member count can never exceed the lowest assignment squad limit among the member's assignments, whether they're online or offline. Ie. no one could join a squad of 5 as long as any member has an assignment with a limit of 5, and if the culprit is not online, you have to do some kicking. If this is the leader, you have to form a new squad. Everything seems simple at first smile

35 (edited by Celebro 2012-12-06 18:27:22)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Ludlow Bursar wrote:

Distribute relation and NIC rewards only to members of squad who complete one particular objective or objectives.

For example - only those members who enter Zone A or only those who mine/harvest at least x amount of stuff.


I already mentioned that some where since this is a sandbox, I would prefer the most open to different choices and implement both.

Zoom is right there is no NIC faucet issue in any of the methods, rewards are shared/split just like we have now, if you want to grind for others fine by me. If it's for your 20 alts , well you are still paying for 20 alts who can also mine pretty well right now too.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Indiko wrote:

Right now yes, you share the rewards and standing but each person must travel to and from the objective.

I might be missing something here. Why do each of them have to travel there?

37 (edited by Indiko 2012-12-06 18:42:02)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

I'm not docked so can't see the exact numbers but

Let me give you an example:

mining x amount of material

Current: 3 minute to the site, 1 minute mining, 3 minute back- 7minute for 700k nic + tokens. with 2 characters it takes the same amount time for double the reward

Proposed: character 1 sit in the station, character 2 at the site, traveling time is a non factor now, so time to complete mission is down to 1 minute

Nic generated for 2 characters in 1 hour:
Current: 700k x 8 x 2 = 11.2m
Proposed: 700k x 60 =  42m

and this is only a modest example, there are a few missions I can think of that would yield much more.

38 (edited by Celebro 2012-12-06 18:56:40)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:
Indiko wrote:

Right now yes, you share the rewards and standing but each person must travel to and from the objective.

I might be missing something here. Why do each of them have to travel there?


You are not missing anything, right now only one can complete the mission, and helping out is nearly impossible as you can't complete the mission for anyone, and the one who has the assignment needs to tag the NPC's so others can help , which is tedious. Even once a squad member looted a key mission item that only dropped once, so I couldn't complete the objectives.

edit: He is talking about multiple characters accepting the same assignment, not sharing wink

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Indiko wrote:

I'm not docked so can't see the exact numbers but

Let me give you an example:

mining x amount of material

Current: 3 minute to the site, 1 minute mining, 3 minute back- 7minute for 700k nic + tokens. with 2 characters it takes the same amount time for double the reward

Proposed: character 1 sit in the station, character 2 at the site, traveling time is a non factor now, so time to complete mission is down to 1 minute

Nic generated for 2 characters in 1 hour:
Current: 700k x 8 x 2 = 11.2m
Proposed: 700k x 60 =  42m

and this is only a modest example, there are a few missions I can think of that would yield much more.

Ok, proposed changes makes a difference, That's why all rewards should be shared only by the agents contributing to the objective in some way.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:

Ie. no one could join a squad of 5 as long as any member has an assignment with a limit of 5, and if the culprit is not online, you have to do some kicking. If this is the leader, you have to form a new squad. Everything seems simple at first smile

1. You go offline whilst in an assignment squad
2. Whilst offline your assignment squad acquires members to replace you
3. You log in.
4. Your assignment squad limit would now exceed the maximum number so ...
5. You are auto-booted from squad and appropriate Message appears in dialog box to inform you of the fact.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Celebro wrote:

Ok, proposed changes makes a difference, That's why all rewards should be shared only by the agents contributing to the objective in some way.

If the full amount of the assignment is paid out upon completion it doesn't really matter to whom it is going to.

42 (edited by Celebro 2012-12-06 19:17:05)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Indiko wrote:
Celebro wrote:

Ok, proposed changes makes a difference, That's why all rewards should be shared only by the agents contributing to the objective in some way.

If the full amount of the assignment is paid out upon completion it doesn't really matter to whom it is going to.

No, the ones sitting in station or doing nothing don't get it. If they want to share it afterwards its not an exploit.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Simplest Idea Possible >

First a agent goes and gets a assignment.  They go and complete assignment and get reward.
(Lvl 1 Mission easy for one person)

Now they decide they want to complete higher assignments (Lvl 8 Missions (on alpha))  now said assignment is hard, very hard.  They want more people so they make a squad (works just the same as all the rest of the squads no difference).  Now there are 5 people in squad he can choose to complete it as a squad or for himself.

Simple, easy, not complex at all.  Its your mission so you complete it, if others have the mission they can DO the mission but it will be at a separate location.  (EI: The higher level Missions SPAWN, as in Eve they have there mission system down pat.)

The goal here is not to force a squad upon people but rather make missions extreamly hard so that they are favored for faster completion.  As it stands now missions are crazy easy, and there rewards (based on a time of completion) are imbalanced.

Simple Simple Simple.  One Mission One Person,  One Mission One Squad = The Choice to complete as a agent or a squad.


The main reason this has really came up is that most of the power blocks in the game us "standing squads" for defense, if you want to work around this a bit, improve squads so they have wings, commanders, squads with-in squads ect.  So that people can pair up into mission Wings, or squads, without leaving the Main grouping.

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Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Celebro wrote:

He is talking about multiple characters accepting the same assignment, not sharing wink

Ah yes, now I get it smile

However,

Indiko wrote:

Current: 3 minute to the site, 1 minute mining, 3 minute back- 7minute for 700k nic + tokens. with 2 characters it takes the same amount time for double the reward
Proposed: character 1 sit in the station, character 2 at the site, traveling time is a non factor now, so time to complete mission is down to 1 minute

Why does the time to complete a 7 minute mission suddenly go down to 1? At least ONE player still has to spend all the 7 minutes to do it, while the other guy sits in the terminal doing nothing during those 7 minutes.

Both mechanics yield the same reward, by your example, if the 700k is the full mission reward:

Current: 2x ((700k x 8) / 2) = 5.6m per hour (1 mission for both players, but halved rewards because of the reward split, both have to do it)

Proposed: 2x ((700k x 8) / 2) = 5.6m per hour (1 mission for both players, but halved rewards because of the reward split, only one of them has to actually do both missions at the same time)

Now in the latter example, IF both of them do the 2 missions at the same time, they actually have an advantage, eg. in killing and mining objectives, because kills/yield will count for each other's missions mutually, so they can theoretically do them twice as fast (in practice this will be lower). But I think this is an adequate incentive to do missions in a squad.

This is also the reason for the squad/assignment limit, but not because of the rewards, rather to prevent the missions getting steamrolled in 5 seconds.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Merkle wrote:

if others have the mission they can DO the mission but it will be at a separate location.


What separate location? This is not Eve, although your idea is sound, it might be a development problem, probably a overhaul on how assignments are done.

RIP PERPETUUM

46 (edited by Celebro 2012-12-06 19:51:24)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:

Why does the time to complete a 7 minute mission suddenly go down to 1?


No need to go back to station to accept another mission, as the one sitting on station can accept for the one actually doing it. What now, container mining is an exploit too as miner has no need to move?

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Celebro wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Why does the time to complete a 7 minute mission suddenly go down to 1?


No need to go back to station to accept another mission, as the one sitting on station can accept for the one actually doing it. What now, container mining is an exploit too as miner has no need to move?

Ok that's true, but then on the second turn they only do 1 mission since the ones on the field don't come back.

And sooner or later we'll switch over to random mission issuers where this won't be a problem. This overwhelming list of 200 missions was doomed from the start.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:

Ok that's true, but then on the second turn they only do 1 mission since the ones on the field don't come back.

Am I missing something? Was it 6 out of 10 missions? So 6 turns?

DEV Zoom wrote:

And sooner or later we'll switch over to random mission issuers where this won't be a problem. This overwhelming list of 200 missions was doomed from the start.

Aye, back to an Eve system I guess tongue
I know tried and tested never fails big_smile

RIP PERPETUUM

49 (edited by Indiko 2012-12-06 20:41:28)

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

DEV Zoom wrote:
Celebro wrote:
DEV Zoom wrote:

Why does the time to complete a 7 minute mission suddenly go down to 1?


No need to go back to station to accept another mission, as the one sitting on station can accept for the one actually doing it. What now, container mining is an exploit too as miner has no need to move?

Ok that's true, but then on the second turn they only do 1 mission since the ones on the field don't come back.

And sooner or later we'll switch over to random mission issuers where this won't be a problem. This overwhelming list of 200 missions was doomed from the start.

Yes, but 1 at a time with 1 minute completion time is way better than 2 at a time with 7 minute completion time. That's still 3.5x better.

having over 350% more nic being generated is going to end up badly for the economy.

I wouldn't  be opposed to this if it comes together in a patch with random missions though. or what Merkle suggested about harder missions. Either way this should not be deployed on current available missions.

Re: Poll: Squad assignments

Indiko: they can do it up until the 6/10 rule, but yeah I tend to agree with you on the same patch deployment.