Originally Posted by Hamma
This hasn't been discussed a ton on the forums and I was curious what people think of the Missions system that has been mentioned?
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I'm excited to see it in action, and give it a whirl.
I've long advocated a similar system for encouraging big-picture cooperation between more discrete units like outfits or squads, though I suppose I kind of was suggesting it in reverse (where you could "claim" a portion of the front to manage/assault).
Frankly, I like the notion they've got better.
Hopefully, there will be enough of a carrot to encourage people to use it. Bonus BEP/training speed while making progress towards an active mission, etc., without allowing a commander to designate easy/safe missions for his buddies to farm.
I like the idea of commanders getting the ability to shape/manipulate/control which missions are active and where, and I hope there's some flexibility and granularity to it. I'd hope that missions will "lock out" when some group accepts them, so that you don't get the entire empire flocking to the same mission. I'd also hope that commanders, while choosing and assigning missions to be handed out, can designate what strength of force they'd like to fulfil the orders (1 squad, 5 squads, etc.), so they can both prioritize and manipulate the concentration of force in their empire.
I'm pretty sure missions will only work if they're voluntary (at least at the empire level), and several from which to choose are presented to the player/squad leader when he goes to accept a mission.
Outfit officers and squad leaders should also have access to missions on a smaller scale. I'd love to see squad leaders able to designate zones for individual players to cover (and for these two levels of command, assigning them directly would be okay), say having 3 players assigned to guard an entrance or whatnot.
I'm hoping the mission objectives available will include defensive missions, and reward people pursuing them diligently fairly (and yet, non-exploitably, which is, of course, the rub) whether the target they're defending is an active hotspot or not. Of course, this goes back to my criticism of PS1, where defending something essentially consisted of setting up some spitfires, mines, and tank traps, making sure the automated base defenses were functional and the base had power, and then *leaving* to go join the zerg. Which is a failure in gameplay, to me, because then, when the enemy does get around to assaulting it, there's nobody there anymore.
Other mission types I hope to see include recon missions and resource extraction missions. Recon missions could be something like "I, the commander, suspect there's an enemy AMS supporting their push in this region. I can drop a big bubble on a map at the mission assignment window/terminal, and create a mission to search this area to expose and signal a location (automatically?) of this hidden AMS." Recon missions could also consist of overflying a region (or otherwise getting a good look at everything in there), and data about what you see (considering line of sight, cloaking fields, and your paths through the area) update friendly commanders' information on enemy disposition and strength. Like, they could pull up an overlay that will superimpose a heat map of enemy concentrations, and mousing over specific hexes that have had recon information recently transmitted back will display percentages of the force that are armored, infantry, and air or whatnot. Recon information could also be gained about enemy base defenses and the like.
Better yet, instead of just doing line of sight, make the recon mission completer take "pictures"!
Anyways, lots of exciting things that could be done, here. I'm looking forward to something that offers the troops on the ground a little more choice than, say, Allegiance (where a single commander per match gives orders and assigns targets and missions to individual players on his team), but still allows a (relatively) small group of players the ability to influence the actions of their empiremates while providing rewards for everybody involved in addition to teamwork and cooperation for the empire. A good mission system will allow individual commanders to add a few missions each without stepping on each others' toes while also not requiring constant contact between the commanders to coordinate who gives what mission where (so it should be easy for commanders to either look at a glance at what other commanders are assigning and infer the plans of others to aid in cooperation with new missions vs. existing ones). Finally a good missions system will "fill in the gaps" with some modicum of intelligence when there are no commanders on, offering basic missions in productive places.
2011-07-13, 07:42 PM
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