Limit Missions

[Puchu]

So as far as i understand it, the missions are there for people that dont have much time, to find quick fights, so they dont have to waste the few time they have to find the fight, and can just hop into a mission, have a quick fight and then logg off again. 

 

To do one mission, depending on the missionrank you choose compared to yours, doing a mission will take you, including sailing, from 20mins-1h (if you do it solo)

 

So if you do the 3 Missions you get from 1 port solo, it would take you around 2h to complete them on all difficulty levels, if you do it solo. (Numbers are rough, dependent on player skill, ship setup and spawnluck ofc.) 

 

For Someone who doesnt have much time to play, 2h of content per day is more than enough. 

 

I would suggest to limit the Missions to 1of each difficulty per day.

 

The reason is, that right now. Everyone is just missionhopping and it takes away most of what the game is really about, the os hunt and the fleet pvp. If, after 2h of gaming, you would have to go out and find fleets, or go out and find players to attack, people might be happier to get into pvp fights, because it's a good way to gain exp. instead of being like: "you a..., stopping me from missiongrinding"

[Cmdr Thrudd]

I don't think you'll get much support for a limit but I'd also prefer open seas hunting to be improved so its the better option.

Rather than limiting missions I think they should look at why everyone is mission hopping and fix that. In my opinion it's currently pretty hit and miss as to how long you'll need to sail to find a rank equivalent target or decent fleet for your current group makeup. On top of this the longer you sail looking for targets the harder it is for friends to catch up and join you as you've got further and further from port. Missions are just easy pick up and play content where you have at least some guarantee of some action in a reasonable time frame.

[Macjimm]

Puchu,

I understand that you are entusiastic about reasonably balanced PVP. Sounds like you are pretty skilled at it and your posts have tweaked my interest in some battles with other players. I'm willing to give it a try. Open minded.

Perhaps missions are for people that want missions, regardless of how much time they have.

Some players may not be in a hurry. They may be content to play a few missions for a few hours a couple times per week. Or play a bunch of mission for the whole afternoon once a week. After a year or so of this they might get bored and seek something more challenging.

If we force people into specific gamemodes they may be turned off because of the limited choice and freedom. There are a lot of reasons to enjoy NA and imposing more restrictions is less likely to push people into PVP and more likely to make them just avoid playing. Taking away more of the game elements that players enjoy is not likely to guide them towards other styles of play. But it may frustrate them.

If people are having fun in there own way don't be too sure that if you take the fun away they will stay and participate in a forced mode.

Perhaps look for ways to entice people positively. Post up a date, time and location for some scheduled PVP. If it's successful it might generate interest. Heck I'll show up and have at it.

[Dalriaden]

No one I know is mission hopping, it's much faster and easier to grind fleets.

[Puchu]

Dalriaden, Fleetgrinding is only faster at a very specific level.

[Ruthless4u]

Puchu,

I understand that you are entusiastic about reasonably balanced PVP. Sounds like you are pretty skilled at it and your posts have tweaked my interest in some battles with other players. I'm willing to give it a try. Open minded.

Perhaps missions are for people that want missions, regardless of how much time they have.

Some players may not be in a hurry. They may be content to play a few missions for a few hours a couple times per week. Or play a bunch of mission for the whole afternoon once a week. After a year or so of this they might get bored and seek something more challenging.

If we force people into specific gamemodes they may be turned off because of the limited choice and freedom. There are a lot of reasons to enjoy NA and imposing more restrictions is less likely to push people into PVP and more likely to make them just avoid playing. Taking away more of the game elements that players enjoy is not likely to guide them towards other styles of play. But it may frustrate them.

If people are having fun in there own way don't be too sure that if you take the fun away they will stay and participate in a forced mode.

Perhaps look for ways to entice people positively. Post up a date, time and location for some scheduled PVP. If it's successful it might generate interest. Heck I'll show up and have at it.

Right now it almost feels like on a PVP server players are forced to do missions to get by. There needs to be more incentive to pvp on the pvp servers.

[Jacob van Heemskerck]

I'm that guy that do missions hops.

The reason for this is Simple, like the OP said, i work the whole week mon-fri (i think the most of us do) and most weekends and they are long shifts. So i have a 2, 3 or 4 hour window to play a game depends on things i'll have to do at home.

Now when i play i must do it as efficient as possible, and this is how i do it! (I like crafting so it's based upon this)

As of today;

I start the game, i try to use all my labour hours, i always start in my crafting port [(^^) craft xp/ (^) craft level / (v)]

Then when i used up all my labour hours or resources, i set up 2 admiralty missions and sail towards them [(vv) time)

If i catch a trader while on my way towards my mission(s) i'll take the oppertunity to catch them [(vv) time / (^) gold (^) xp a little bit (^^) resources]

Most of the time i have to sail back with captured resources with trader to my crafting port [(vv) time]

Switch back to my battle ship and sail back to my mission(s) [(vv) time]

Catching traders get the highest priority for me as a crafter so if i see one, the same as above.

If i don't catch any traders, sail towards my mission(s) [(vv) time]

And doing the mission(s) [(vv) time / (^^) xp (^^) gold]

Then i must gather resources to craft when i can't catch them with capturing traders [(vvv) time (vvv) gold]

And when i'm going PvP it takes a lot of time to get me to the PvP area (1,5 hour sailing) and when i'm there i need searh a Enemy PvP fleet to battle with could be 15 min but it could also be 1,5 to 2 hours, by that time i must log off. So no xp no gold and a lot time lost.

What i'm trying to say here is the current way to earn XP is fine by me and i think alot others who have not much time and want to rank up, its not fast and not slow. But the PvE missions are getting a bit dull, PvP is much more fun.

So max 3 missions a time is fine by me, it gives me the oppertunity to rank up a bit to sail those 3rd rates properly in PB.

[Musuko42]

I'd support a mission limit of some kind only when there's more content added into the game. As it is, there's only a few things to do (missions, fleet farming, trader-hunting, crafting, trading, fleet battles, PVP), so putting a limitation on one of them would put a big reduction on what you can do in the game.

[Guest]

I would be quite happy if the distances to reach the missions could be shortened. Some missions are so far out and depending on the wind (which in OW is hitting you most of the time right into the face) it takes you so much time to get there.

 

Just my 2 Cents.

[Capt Jubal Early]

Rubbish idea OP. More diverse missions need to be created before anyone discusses limiting whats currently in place.

[Pigafetta]

I had the opposite idea in another forum.. to expand missions. Check it out because many players added very interesting ideas...

 

A small suggestions for the devs.

Why not to open the battles available for Missions? Honestly sometimes I have no time to play and I would simply like to get some experience in fighting (aiming especially and manual sailing in a battle). So why not to open the Mission battles limit? Maybe add one extra level up and down (so we will have five Missions total). Of course, if one selects a low level battle, the XP and gold should be heavily reduced. I am proposing this modification (1) so players will be able to refine their fighting skills (2) if you have not a lot of time you can be able to fight one battle which will not last long (3) maybe it will help the new players to get more comfortable with the battle mechanics. 

What do you think?

 

[Puchu]

It's easy to just call an idea rubbish and not give a gameplay related reason.

 

Let me rephrase and tell you again why i would want to limit the missions: 

 

If there are less missions, people will fight on the os more. That, thus will create more opportunities for people to fight other players, which is ultimately helping the game, since fighting other players, for most, is more fun, than punching ai in missions.

 

To get comfortable with the game mechanics you can do many many things. To be honest, running missions will not teach you many important aspects of the game. e.g. fighting for wind on the os, handling the wind advantage, beam defence, and many more.

 

So what im trying to say is: by limiting the missions, you actually give room for more interesting fights which dont need a button to be pressed. which are alrdy in the game.

[maturin]

+1000

 

 

Half a dozen missions per day is enough. It will slow down the progression speed of power gamers, while pushing everyone else to 'do their duty,' and then go enjoy the far better content of OW hunting and PvP.

 

If anyone here tells you that missions are their preferred form of content, they are either lying or need to be protected from themselves.

[Capt Jubal Early]

It's easy to just call an idea rubbish and not give a gameplay related reason.

 

Let me rephrase and tell you again why i would want to limit the missions: 

 

If there are less missions, people will fight on the os more. That, thus will create more opportunities for people to fight other players, which is ultimately helping the game, since fighting other players, for most, is more fun, than punching ai in missions.

 

To get comfortable with the game mechanics you can do many many things. To be honest, running missions will not teach you many important aspects of the game. e.g. fighting for wind on the os, handling the wind advantage, beam defence, and many more.

 

So what im trying to say is: by limiting the missions, you actually give room for more interesting fights which dont need a button to be pressed. which are alrdy in the game.

I beileve there is already a lack of ways to gain experience in this game in its current form. Limiting the main source of most new players experience is not a good idea it will just turn new players away from the game as they will have no way to level to new ships with ease. The answer to get more people playing PVP is not in limiting PVE. PVP needs a jazzing up to get players more involved. 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Capt Jubal Early

[Tennessee88]

I can see no logical reason as to why such a thing should be implemented. 

[Macjimm]

Half a dozen missions per day is enough. It will slow down the progression speed of power gamers, while pushing everyone else to 'do their duty,' and then go enjoy the far better content of OW hunting and PvP.

 

If anyone here tells you that missions are their preferred form of content, they are either lying or need to be protected from themselves.

 

I'll defer to your experience with MMOs that we may need to limit power gamers.  I probably underestimate the motivation of some players to "level up" or pursue success.  The idea of greed driving decision making in a computer game must be much larger that I had imagined.

 

I can't be the only player that enjoys NA just for the experience of immersion and attractive graphics.  I have no aspiration to become a power gamer.  It's a pleasure to sail around and look at the sights, do a little trading and navigating.  It's exciting to escape possible capture or destruction, ... and exchanging cannon balls occasionally is jolly good.

 

For the preferred method of combat it seems that missions or ambushing traders or OW NPC/PVP fights are pretty much all the same to me.  I'm not attached to one over the other.  That's not a lie and it a little insulting to openly tell me I need to be protected from myself.  

 

If I was funneled down a path that required me to fight continuously I would not want to play the game often.  I think I would be bored quite quickly and I'd be unhappy that I was not allowed to enjoy the game in a manner that really didn't directly hurt anyone.

 

There are lots of people here that understand competitive gaming and MMOs with much more depth than I.  And if limiting the number battles is very important I'm not confident to dispute the impact that the reduction will have on the playerbase.  I would hope that NA can be large enough and diverse enough to allow all sorts of players to engage in the style of play that they prefer.

 

Intuitively it seems that improving the quality of play would be best achieved by adding or creating content  rather than removing or restricting it.