It's about time to talk about the mission/ClickSaver problem...

[coldwarkid]

Originally posted by Metafistics
Soyuz, nowhere in his posts did I see anything about picking "guns" as a category. If I have mischaracterized his position, then I apologize. But my impression is that K doesn't think you SHOULD be able to specify your item reward, rather that a credit reward is the way to go.

The following is from Kuroshio's first post on this thread:

Originally posted by Kuroshio
For example, a mission in a nanocrystal manufacturing plant would be a hint that the mobs would carry items related to nanocrystals and their manufacturing. A mission in a high energy weapons facility would mean stuff related to energy weapons. Medical facility = health related stuff, ect.

This isn't the same thing as specifying an item reward, but it's pretty close. I much prefer the idea of having to search for the item I want, as long as I have some idea where to find it. Instant gratification never really was my thing either, you know.

Cheers,

~R~

[______________Orchid]

[color=sky blue]The premise isnt instant gratification, the idea is that in our society on Rubi Ka,
either OT is too disorganized to offer a profession-specific reward, or the game was lazily designed.
Remember, the mission terminal calls you by your name AND profession.

So you would think to entice you to take a mission, yuo would be offered something you can use. It's basic practicality and suggestive selling.[/color]

[coldwarkid]

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression that Kuroshio's suggested system is a form of instant gratification. Rather that under the current system, you have a choice between an essentially random reward for your mission, or the instant gratification that Clicksaver allows (see MORB's post at the top of the thread). Kuroshio's suggestion walks the middle ground between these two extremes, allowing you some control over the general type of reward without specifying it exactly.

I do agree that it would be nice if the mission reward (from bosses, chests or whatever) was skewed towards the profession of the character doing the mission. I'd shy away from tailoring it too specifically, but a degree of skew would help I think.

Cheers,

~R~

[______________Rogoff]

This isn't the same thing as specifying an item reward, but it's pretty close

I do see where you're coming from, but I think there is enough ambiguity that only Kuroshio can really clarify his position.

Back to the original topic, I agree that the current mission system essentially offers random rewards. I'm not sure that you could classify CS as instant gratification, howerver. Let me give you an example:

I really wanted my new Anima, so I fired up a CS session. After searching thru perhaps 500 missions, Clicksaver located an Anima in Aegean.

Aegean is a *highly* dangerous for me. I have run three missions there, I was killed en route twice. But I really, really want that Anima. I am presented with a dilemma, but I have all the information I need to make an informed decision.

The prospect of getting the items I need will make me visit areas I would*never* go to otherwise. It will make me leave my "comfort zone" and take some actual risks.

Anything that promotes THAT is a good game design element.

Contrast this with the scenario where I see a mission to a "nano factory" in Aegean. No way am I making that run just to end up with an Enforcer nano.

Since the number of mission "categories" must be far less than the number of possible rewards, each category will appear fairly often. I will just wait until I see a "nano factory" mission in Rome Green.

In point of fact, when I am taking missions purely for XP, I always pick the closest, safest zone. I'm sure most people do.

In my opinion, instant gratification would be what happens if the buyer/seller loop becomes really really efficient - but I think we are in agreement on that point.

[ethernal3]

Originally posted by Kuroshio



But I suspect you know this. Megabio is better at what you appear to be attempting.

Thanks so much, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
~Chris

[_______________Flope]

Big applause to morb and the 2nd post.

!!

[Darkbane]

another idea - posted seperately since this thread is getting a bit big...

[_____________Borrace]

ok...missions. yes, they are flawed. yes, they are repetative and boring. yes, they are pointless.

missions have absolutely nothing to do with advancing a plot, or developing a character, or anything else that would require the designers to have an imagination.

all missions do is provide a somewhat lag-free area to fight mobs of a lev of YOUR chosing, and provide a means of getting exp and items.

if you read the AO box...it says that missions are supposed to be directly affected by the 4 year storyline. but, i guess we'd need a storyline in order for that to be true.

all missions are is filler. this whole game is filler. all filler, no content. adding new dungeons or new mobs or new items isn't adding content...adding an interactive plot is adding content. adding a system of player interaction either through a decent combat system, or decent trade system, or decent mission system is adding content.

as it is now, missions are just like the rest of this game...a vague resemblance of an advertizement written on the side of a box, and written on a pre-release web page.

where are the player generated missions? where are the missions that would have an affect on "the storyline?"

for those who still play AO...missions are just a method of getting items. and clicksaver suits that purpose fine.

[Thyrra]

indeed this game is just filler. it had a promise to be great and let us be part of a set of events that while we might not directly take part in, we could know about and see direct consequences.

FC has failed to deliver on that promise. when you take a step back and look at the time you've been spending on the game it is hard to find the real substance aside from friends.

clicksaver is not hurting the game. the lack of substance is hurting the game. we can all put up with a lot of problems if the rewards are worth it. clicksaver is saving the players some of those problems and saving FC resources it would otherwise need to spend on a workable mission interface.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Metafistics
Kuroshio,

In EQ, if I want a Shroud of Nature, I know where to get it. But I have to camp it, and I have to fight for it.

In DAOC, If I want a Triumvirate Shard, I know where to get it. But I have to camp it, and I have to fight for it.

In AO, If I want QL29 Bau Cyber Sleeves, I know where to get them. But I have to camp them, and I have to fight for them.

Removing items from the mission term would mean that AO becomes the only game where everyone walks around in patchwork gear. There would be no customization of your character, because you'd have to use whatever you could scrounge up.

The player economy can not help. In EQ, I can sit and wait for someone to advertise a Widget of Uberness. Ok, fine. We haggle, I buy it.

In AO, it's a bit different. I have to wait for someone to advertise a QL30-33 Widget of Uberness. The other 197 QLs of this item are useless to me, because they are lower than what I have, or higher than I can equip.

Now, granted, SOMEONE on Rubi-Ka probably has a QL30 Widget they are not using. If mission items rewards go away, *very few* people have one, but someone surely does.

They probably put it on the shopping channel for 10 minutes (more than I can stand) at some outrageous price, then gave it to a guildie or sold it to a merchant. I will never see that Widget, so I am stuck with whatver I can scrounge up.

Yuk. I'd hate to see AO become the game with the LEAST customization in town. Removing mission items would do that.

The other thing to remember is that, while AO IS a social game, socializing can occur in many contexts - guildchat, team missions, etc. To require trading is not synonymous with requiring player interaction. It just means that AO requires trading, is all.

Again, that would be another negative first for the game.

Heh...Okay, I did suggest removing removing the item listing from the mission terminals completely and just offering straight credits as a reward. But the mission terminal system would be further tweaked to hint at the types of items that would be found in the mission by it's description. So if your mission was in a nanobot manufacturing plant, you'd find items related to nanobots and with their manufacturing process. A raid on a bandit group's outpost would likely yeild stolen or 'illegal' items. A mission to repair the malfunctioning cpu in a armor storage facility would have mobs carrying items related armor. This would let people target what they were looking for in a general sense without providing them enough information to camp the terminals looking for exactly what they wanted.

But this would also require FC to implement a workable shopping system. You said you don't like to wait for someone to advertise that they have a QL 30-33 Widget of Uberness. And I agree this is highly ineffective. So I also suggested using a portion of the player created mission system so you could advertise your desire to buy a QL 30-33 Widget of Uberness and the people that have them from their mission runs could supply it easily. The player mission system allowed a player to create a 'Return Item' mission for an item within a QL range they specified for a credit and/or item reward the creator specified.

Given what I saw when the player mission system was working ingame, I can easily guess why it's not currently implemented . But that doesn't mean the system has no value for another purpose. That portion of the player mission system would allow people to create 'orders' to be filled. What's left at that point is creating a means to advertise the 'orders' and let other players fill them immediately. It's simple Supply vs Demand. The problem in AO is there is a huge Supply getting wasted because the means for advertising and filling the Demand is nonexistant. So instead of doing what everyone has tried before (creating places to distribute the supply with player owned stores, stores with 'real' inventories, ect), why not create something to advertise and fill the demand?

[Whitesand]

Only a short idea:

There are ten random items in mission as reward but after you did the mission you can only choose one of them. So you don't need clicksaver to find the items you need - you will find them without clicksaver now.

[Sean-Roach]

This is at least the third time someone different, (myself included), has suggested making the mission reward a random item from a visible subset of the total table.

I suggested 3. Someone else suggested 5 (I think). Whitesand here has suggested 10. The basic idea, however, of presenting a LIST of possible rewards, and then letting the person select from the list at the end of the mission, has been presented no less than three times.

How about it?

P.S. I'm assuming, Whitesand, that this is what you meant too. That the ten items would be visible in the mission window.

[cryos1999]

Wow. FC already dislikes clicksaver and refuses to support it.

What most of the people on here have stated is more or less chosing your misson and loot. Unles FC suppoerts clicksaver or creates a better mission term GUI then this will never happen. As it stands all clicksaver does is intercepts existing data it really doesn't communicate with the AO servers. If it did and it could chose missions, and it was "unsuported by FC" then that would be hacking and right now thats not a very good thing. Hense in my opinion thats why it continues on.

[thresholdrpg]

Originally posted by Trendor
Dont you guys get it? hehe

This is a social game. You arnt supposed to get everything your heart desires from a mission!

Its all part of the game. Dont try to take it away.

My extensive nano list
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=33892

Don't YOU get it? It is a game. Some people want to be able to find things they need themselves. They enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from being SELF-SUFFICIENT.

Maybe a bunch of morons in Scandinavia don't understand that self sufficiency is a pretty common personality trait in the US. With most Scandinavian countries being borderline communist, perhaps they don't quite grasp the concept of accomplishing things for oneself.

People want to be able to obtain items they need through their own effort. They don't want to have to spend 10 hours spamming a shopping channel.

Trendor, I looked at your thread. I saw a bunch of people post "I tried to find you online but I couldn't. When are you on?" Your system, blows, frankly. It is very inconvenient and is nothing but a disgusting hassle.

I applaud your efforts, but it is a truly hideous system that is not enjoyable for anyone.

And all the crap being dropped as boss loot only is an outrage.

CS exists because people got sick of useless rewards. Funcom's piss poor attempts to break it make the game worse, not better.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Cindrax


Don't YOU get it? It is a game. Some people want to be able to find things they need themselves. They enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from being SELF-SUFFICIENT.

Maybe a bunch of morons in Scandinavia don't understand that self sufficiency is a pretty common personality trait in the US. With most Scandinavian countries being borderline communist, perhaps they don't quite grasp the concept of accomplishing things for oneself.

People want to be able to obtain items they need through their own effort. They don't want to have to spend 10 hours spamming a shopping channel.

Trendor, I looked at your thread. I saw a bunch of people post "I tried to find you online but I couldn't. When are you on?" Your system, blows, frankly. It is very inconvenient and is nothing but a disgusting hassle.

I applaud your efforts, but it is a truly hideous system that is not enjoyable for anyone.

And all the crap being dropped as boss loot only is an outrage.

CS exists because people got sick of useless rewards. Funcom's piss poor attempts to break it make the game worse, not better.

If FC was ever serious about shutting down Clicksaver, they could probably do so without blinking. The statements that they don't support it at all is to cover themselves in case MORB goes lunatic one day and puts a trojan in it, so they don't have to worry about not only how well the client runs on Win98/Win98SE/Win2k/WinXP/WinXP Pro but also Clicksaver as well, and a host of other issues.

And there is a difference between self-sufficiency and being a spoiled brat, the latter of which is still mostly disrespected in the US. Few people here like anyone that gets handed everything on a silver platter and that's where the distinction of what's wrong comes in. Clicksaver will hand you everything you want on a silver platter so long as 1) it's a valid reward and 2) you have the credits to keep rerolling. Anyone saying that doing the mission is a challenge is fooling themselves. Only a fool would set the mission difficulty higher than a mission they could handle and tell Clicksaver to shop with those settings.

[_____________Borrace]

clicksaver doesn't hand you EVERYTHING...

at lev 87 i was able to get into lev 134 armor, but there was no way i could do missions for 134 armor...

click saver only gets you items that are a bit more useful than the typical junk you find in missions. i'm sure everyone would love to spend 3 hours completing a mission and then be rewarded with a map of newland (NOT!).

clicksaver lets you find items that are useful, nothing else. you still can't get the mob boss loot in team missions from clicksaver, and you still can't get the really good items from clicksaver. clicksaver simply saves your hand and your mouse from being damaged.

randomizing reward items is not a good idea at all...

picture it:

Guy walks up to you and says "hey....go over here and kill this guy and in exchange i'll give you a mystery item that has a 90% chance of being useless"

who would take that mission? no one.

clicksaver makes the game more playable because it allows players to set goals for themselves, get equipment to achieve those goals, and does it in a nice and easy package.

if funcom did something to make this game more enjoyable, then clicksaver may not be necessary....heck, missions might not even be necessary.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Borrace
clicksaver doesn't hand you EVERYTHING...

at lev 87 i was able to get into lev 134 armor, but there was no way i could do missions for 134 armor...

click saver only gets you items that are a bit more useful than the typical junk you find in missions. i'm sure everyone would love to spend 3 hours completing a mission and then be rewarded with a map of newland (NOT!).

clicksaver lets you find items that are useful, nothing else. you still can't get the mob boss loot in team missions from clicksaver, and you still can't get the really good items from clicksaver. clicksaver simply saves your hand and your mouse from being damaged.

randomizing reward items is not a good idea at all...

picture it:

Guy walks up to you and says "hey....go over here and kill this guy and in exchange i'll give you a mystery item that has a 90% chance of being useless"

who would take that mission? no one.

clicksaver makes the game more playable because it allows players to set goals for themselves, get equipment to achieve those goals, and does it in a nice and easy package.

if funcom did something to make this game more enjoyable, then clicksaver may not be necessary....heck, missions might not even be necessary.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that ClickSaver was at least part of the reason Tank Armor prices got slashed. Because using ClickSaver/AOMD, you would get handed suits of Tank Armor essentially.

And what I said was remove item rewards completely and make missions reward credits only. And implement an easy to use system for people to sell the items they find in missions to people that want those items.

And to answer your question, I don't barter anything IRL period. Cash and cash only.

[Sean-Roach]

Check out Anarchy Online Bulletin Board > Future Anarchy > Suggestions > Tradeskills: Engineers Vs. Traders , I suggested a better sale system for the use of traders, (as a bone so that engineers could have some improvements to tradeskills), that'd make traders the master of the trade channel.

As far as mission reward, I'm for telling you at the start of the mission that upon completion you can choose your choice of These (Three/Five/Ten) Items. Let you see all of them, and at the end of the mission, let you choose one of them. If you just happened to find your first choice in a chest, or on a mob...well, that's why the reward choice should be at the end of the mission.

Heck, there should be a compound list that took into account items, cash, and exp. You complete, you might choose the listing that's ALL cash, or the one that has a piddling amount of cash, but includes an item that's worth (I'd say) 1.5 times the difference. OR. If you're just THAT CLOSE TO DINGING, not a cent, and no item either.

[thresholdrpg]

If a mission is going to give an item reward, then the reward should be something useful to the person who does the mission.

If you are hired for a job, you'll only do it if you get something that makes it worthwhile.

[XtroXtreme]

Originally posted by Cindrax


Don't YOU get it? It is a game. Some people want to be able to find things they need themselves. They enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from being SELF-SUFFICIENT.

Maybe a bunch of morons in Scandinavia don't understand that self sufficiency is a pretty common personality trait in the US. With most Scandinavian countries being borderline communist, perhaps they don't quite grasp the concept of accomplishing things for oneself.

Can Mr from borderland dictatorship that don´t give a damn about any other peoples rights shot the **** up and think before saying that others are communists?

And yeah we do know what it means to be able to be self-supporting. It is a bit of a basis from the farming-society that our culture have evolved from, but we are willing to pay taxes to give those that fall between the cracks in society a new chance.
Are you sure you didn´t mean self-centered in the post.