The Mission System

[hippieschuh]

I dont like auto-generated missions, I prefair that players give the commands....

But maybe it fits with the resource system.

[Tikuto]

I automatically accept this mission system to be a much appreciated feature to our PlanetSide experience, and so that's probably why I've said nothing - it's an awesome idea.

With this mission system and the weather system sparked a brilliant idea which elaborates a grand-scale addition to what this mission system may be.


Alien planet may be resource-raped and eternally contested to a point where we may think "what the hell is going on?". The planet may be more volatile than us recent human inhabitants had ignorantly hoped against, and so Auraxis may become a barren planet if not treated with respect.

[SAVE THE PLANET! (All Empire objectives shift to saving the world)]


...

[Gandhi]

Actually I'm looking forward to this feature the most. It'll bring a lot more strategy into the overall game and it should be great for players who like playing solo or in small groups. Say you just want to make an ANT run or provide a Lodestar, just check the missions and pick the one that says "OH GOD WE NEED A LODESTAR!" and you're off.

The only thing that concerns me was mentioned already; some kind of quality control on CR5's or whatever PS2's equivalent will be. Drawing the occasional penis on the battlemap is fine, but I don't want to see the mission system get spammed with "personal army" requests and things that aren't going to help your empire win the war. Like a pissing match between commanders who can't agree on a strategy, to the point where two sets of missions are basically undermining each others efforts.

[Hamma]

I have a feeling setting global empire wide missions will be quite a ways up the tree. I just hope there is no broadcast system this time around and if there is it's heavily limited.

[Lunarchild]

Originally Posted by hippieschuh

I dont like auto-generated missions, I prefair that players give the commands....

But maybe it fits with the resource system.

I think the point is: the system will generate missions when the players are not giving any commands

[Lunarchild]

Originally Posted by Hamma

I have a feeling setting global empire wide missions will be quite a ways up the tree. I just hope there is no broadcast system this time around and if there is it's heavily limited.

I actually don't mind a broadcast system. But yea, highly limited, and kept in check by GMs.

[Goku]

Originally Posted by 2coolforu

It sounds awesome, not many people listened to CR5's beyond "Fight is now at this continent, zerg there". With dynamic, player created missions we might see people actually being able to direct the correct amount of resources to the fights that need them so we will have less 'ghost hack an entire continent' and more 'Awesome rallying defences'

It may also give Planetside the direction that some people need, some newbies would be confused by the total lack of 'official' objectives and goals in Planetside but a mission system might give players the direction they desire.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that. When PS was back in its prime I remember many times where I help coordinated assaults on continents. Of course there is the general stuff like you mentioned. Calling primaries and telling people which base to attack. Though I often managed to pull people off bases that were going nowhere to better targets. Asking for more support in regards to pulling tanks/air or even back hacks, ant runs, or gen drops people would go. When players respect you and believe you know what you are saying they will often follow your /coms. Maybe this was the minority of CR5s that actually did this, but it allowed for those who made use of it for a more coordinated fight then just plain zerging.

[Tikuto]

It may be that there are numerous missions for the player-leaders to select as a command.

[basti]

Oh well, missions. I feared that someone would open such a thread before we have details on the system. Thanks hamma, i hate you. Now i have to post.

Okay, there we go:

Global Command!

The entire idea of leading other players is no new one, its pretty much as old as the first multiplayer games. Planetside requires this quite alot, otherwise fights turn into massive zerg fests, and players miss alot of oppurtunitys to break away and gain more ground. In fact, without someone shouting at them and getting stuff together, planetside would have been dead within the first few years. Planetsides system was far from perfect, but it gave us the pest possible tool we could have: Text. Plain and simple Text, the ability to chat with others. This allowed us to share ideas, give details, share intel etc, making the entire idea of leading in Planetside actually possible. Without /c and /comxy, it would have been impossible to lead.

The exact same rules apply to Planetside 2. A mission system is fine, changing the way you become a leader to be a real choise rather than something you get after a while of being number 1 in Squad is also a good thing, it propably prevents what we have these days in plantside: Half the players online at any give time being CR5s. Yet, chat is nessesary, both chat between leaders and to everyone. No matter how complex the mission system may be, the fastest and easiest way to tell someone what you plan is and how to execute that idea is text. Just as we used to have it all the time.

The mission system needs to be put ontop of the old system of /c and /comxy, as an optional component to execute plans. If it is the only way to lead a continent, it will most likley fail. In order to suceed with just the mission system i would need to be able to go into very deep details: WHere to form the max crash, when to form it, how to form it, when to start autorunning to the base, where to go, who to follow, where to go inside the base, what to do once you reached that spot. And thats just half of it. Once your in there and reached the first goal, you need to issue orders to the maxes again. What to do now. Where, when, how, etc. Its massive.

And thats not just for max crashes. Same for Armor collums, air raids, Gal drops, base attacks, base defense, EVERYTHING.

and that all is just for a commander issuing orders to the zerg. I didnt even cover intel yet. /c was useful for that for a long time, also /tell. How many people at that back hack? Need help retaking control? Anyone got a good idea how to break out of this stalemate or avoid being crushed by both enemy empires? /c was used for that, it still is often enough.






That covers the very basics of /comxy and /c. If i would start including outfits, platoons, /sl chat and the individual players of the zerg itself, i would propably end up writing a book, thats how goddam complex this topic really is.

But as hamma said in other words: allowing everyone to be come a leader and stay it caused issues. Having half the players being able to spam OSes is bad. Having 20 people in /c arguing and countergloballing each other is also bad. That needs to be looked at, and fixed. But those who really want to lead should have the old tools as well as new tools to be able to do the job right.



tl;dr: Mission system as addition to the old style /c and /comxy, but /c and /comxy with restrictions for only those who really want to lead opposed to todays "i am cr5 because of the OS/reveal/emp, and i can also spam lol".

[Tool]

Good post Basti and I think much of the problems of organizing or directing forces was a lack of real benefits or rewards. With this new resource system that may be a thing of the past but even in a persistant game world like Planetside, you could only capture so many bases before the novelty of territory control wore off.

Having a reason to fight in different areas, those tangible rewards for all players involved from direct combat to support players are a huge factor in getting players involved with the coordination and perhaps genuinely caring about the territories.

The idea of dissolving Command Rank into the skill system will be a great step in the seperation of the real leaders and commanders from like what you said, the players who just grinded CR for the sake of having the abilities. Without that trade-off of direct combat effectivness or leadership, everyone was a Patton.

A note about the communication, unknown how they'll have it setup but an interesting note is MAGs VOIP and how it has seperate channels for Squad/Platoon leaders to communicate with each other over their respective squad comms. Allowing squad/platoon leaders in Planetside 2 to communicate directly in real time would be a very nice touch.

[DviddLeff]

Here is how I would do the mission system, based on my Command Overhaul for PS1:

Squad Missions
Squad Leaders can now accept missions for their squads from platoon leaders to fill a variety of roles, including:
Offensive

• Hack Base/Tower/Bunker Control Console
• Destroy Base/Tower/Bunker Spawn Tubes
• Destroy Base Generator
• Assault enemy territory (10 kills within a specific enemy territory or have no enemies within it after 5 minutes)
• Assassinate 5 (unique) Enemy Leaders (Squad, Platoon or Company Leaders)

Once these Offensive missions are completed, the Squad Leader and members are rewarded with experience, depending on how much resistance is encountered. If the squad completes the mission then it is cancelled from the Squad Mission List automatically, and they, the platoon and company leaders are informed.

Defensive

• Defend Base/Tower/Bunker Control Console
• Defend Base/Tower/Bunker Spawn Room
• Defend Base Generator
• Defend territory (10 kills in a specific friendly territory, or have no enemies within it after 5 minutes)

For every five minutes defending in the area, the Squad Leader and squad are rewarded with experience depending on how much resistance is encountered. If the squad fails the mission, then it is removed from the Squad Mission List after five minutes, giving them a chance to secure the area.
Up to two missions can be accepted by any one squad at a time (if they want to split their squad into two teams, and the Squad Leader can cancel mission orders whenever he sees fit. Squad Leaders can also request missions from their commanders. Missions have a 30 minute time limit.

Platoon Missions
Platoons can be granted missions from their company leader however these are much broader than the squad missions, consisting of only totally capturing and defending specific bases or territories.

Both squad and platoon would be displayed on every soldiers HUD.

[wildcat140679]

Unable to recall from what or where, but I got the general idea that the "Load Balancing" is tied in to the mission system.

Even tho the developers say that thousands of players can play on one single map, I don't believe they can all be in the same battle location.
(I really hope I'm wrong and the devs are right )

I believe the mission system generate empire specific missions to get combat going, instead of players having to seek out the enemy them self`s.

When a battle is going and it`s becoming to big with to much players clustering at one area they might risk causing performance network lag issues for the server cluster or graphical lag on low end clients machines.

I'm pretty certain that the mission system will kick in to create new high priority mission targets to try and prevent to many players being in one place at the time. Hence Load balancing.

[krnasaur]

one thing I do not want is the game automating missions, maybe during beta when there is noone that high up the tree to give them, some of the GMs can. but other than that i want it to be from real players. not some computer

[Chufty]

I'm sure Higby said that the automated missions were just to get people started. One of PlanetSide's greatest strengths was that each and every battlefront, outfit, squad and soldier were real people.

I don't see them throwing that away.

[Haro]

I think the auto ones are a) very very basic, to get players oriented, and b) may not show up if there are player missions available. From the sound of the Q&A, auto missions sound like a backup.

I wonder if they'll award some type of bonus for completing missions. Maybe a buff, or xp, or something. Maybe they can also work assigning missions into leveling command.

I'd also like to see some improvement on command ui, like a better map that has more detail and such. I would LOVE to see one of the dynamic, top-down displays that BF2 had for its commanders. That was so awesome and practical.