Ideas on Claiming/Announcing Missions

[Sandman]

Hey guys, been some heartburn lately on the server due to our system of doing missions. While the requirement of "announcing participation once in position to shoot" has been with us for a very long time, it has not been without issues. Perhaps we need to take another look. A lot of other servers allow missions to be "claimed", and the claiming player either announces his intentions in chat and/or puts a mark of some kind on the map alerting the rest of the server to their plans.  This has benefits and drawbacks as well. Worst case scenario being that a player claims a mission from across the map, thereby excluding any other, possibly closer player, from engaging the mission even though the "claiming" player may be a very long time getting to the mission. I need ideas on how to make this work better.

The above poll is optional, but please list any ideas or opinions, (or possible alternative poll entries), below.

Thanks,

Sand

[Bloody]

Number 4 in the survey is still the best but with a caveat which I have been using for a while. Once the shooting starts, and a few of the AI have died, the original players can exclude late comers at their own discretion... But the mission can only be called as engaging not claiming until the AI have died. Because of the way this community generally plays it seems to work out well. A lot of server vets will let noobs join in and give up loot etc. Let the player decide how they want to roll. We can even say that once 30% (just an example) of the AI have been killed the mission can be closed at the players option. Just my thoughts.

[Sandman]

Closing the mission after a percentage of AI killed by a player is a damn good idea, Bloody. I like it.  Seems lately though, we have been having problems with getting players to announce the missions, either properly or at all. I think I am kinda leaning towards players maybe placing a map marker to indicate their intentions to attend the mission. This is not done to claim it, but just to let all know that they are on their way to the mission. We will probably have them still announce once in position but the marker will be an early warning of what is going on

The map markers would be more familiar to a lot of players coming from other servers and this might take a bit of the pressure off requiring the mission to be announced in a rigid manner that is a bit unusual to newer players and seems to have been causing some problems lately. It would also save players the frustration of gearing up and making the trip to the mission site only to have another player announce and engage on them just before they get there.

Lets keep the ideas and discussion going guys, let me know what you're thinking.

[Stormdelestat]

I like bloody's suggestion. Also I don't think you should be able to claim/call a mission from anywhere on the map but you should be able to when you are say 500m or less due too tanoa having some missions where you can not even get in the ready to shoot and call due to AI immediately engaging you. Also map markers would be very welcoming in my opinion. There has been more times then I can count I wondered on a mission someone was already doing when I logged in and they died and I would have to either disengage or share.

[Sandman]

Thanks for the input, Storm, and you do have a point. I, myself have experienced the issue with the AI firing on you as you are trying to announce in place. Requiring the player to announce from a reasonable distance instead of only in firing position would be a better option. Another factor to consider is that with the automatic group join we have, practically every player is able to see who is at the mission on the map. I would think this also would help relieve some of the conflict potential, and It just occurred  to me that it should be a server rule that only those that are in the main group will be allowed to engage a mission because of this.

In a perfect world, the server would be able to auto-announce when a player engages, and this would be a non-issue. Of course that's not possible as far as I know. If, however, we can get the mission calling system to a point where it becomes second nature, causes little conflict and requires little policing and admin interaction, I believe the server would be better off for it.

[beik]

I like announce when in range (not when ready to shoot), I don't like claiming because the clans always grab every mission up, i's hard for a small group of individuals to get mission time, I like locking the mission once a percentage has been killed but that gets difficult to judge / prove in the heat of battle.

Although, I only play on Epoch and only occasionally...

Brett 

[Del]

From what I've seen, the best remedies sound like a hybrid of the proposals. Here are some possibilities inspired by the thread:

1. Players could Announce Engagement for a mission in side and on the map once they are within 1km of mission center. If half (+1 for odd numbers) are already down by the time another player is actively participating (shooting as opposed to passively approaching), it should be at the discretion of the original mission taker to allow or deny more players access to the mission without any need for admin ruling. If the request to join is met with no response, the answered is assumed to be "No."

2. Players could Claim a mission in side and on the map once they are within 1km of mission center. If the number of AI exceeds some predetermined number (let's say 10 because I don't know what the spawn rates are and this is just an example goddangit!), then another player could choose to join, knowing that they are only entitled to an amount of loot commesurate with their kill contribution. We could also mix mission difficulty into this. For example: single chevron missions are able to be claimed exclusively regardless of AI count and it is assumed that another player cannot join without permission;  triple chevron missions and up allow for others to join as explained above.

[Del]

Also, PLEASE go to the following links and leave the server some love!  It would be pretty sad if the only one to leave something was the guy who made the page (me)!

TANOA
http://www.exilemod.com/servers/beatniks-tanoa-pve-r810/ 

ALTIS
http://www.exilemod.com/servers/beatniks-altis-pve-r811/

[kim jong il]

i agree with storm and bloody, we should only announce when we are near the missions (about 800 meters max) i believe if you're out of the 800 meters range, AIs won't be able to see you and you won't be able to see them either. i do suggest that putting a maker on the map if all players enaging the mission is dead. so that players that just logged into the server will know that there's players engaging the missions already. as we all know, it will take sometime for players to go back to the mission so players that just join after you died, won't know that you announced the mission.

[Mr. Fuzzy]

I like this claiming so far not many problems Ive seen so far the other server I played on use to make u claim it when u were a maximum of 1000m from mission

[TedBundy]

I like the Idea Bloody and Storm touched upon. I would suggest though that the range in which you can claim be dependent on the level of the mission as it is a lot harder to get close to an eagle level mission than it is to get close to a single striped mission.

[Horse]

I'm new here but thought I would weigh in on this.  I have not played on a server with this mission claiming/announcing system but am really liking it.  It saves a lot of needless travel to end up at a completed mission.

Using map markers to show intention of doing a mission is a great idea.  Then using side chat to claim it once within a certain range.  There have been various suggestion on this range but my personal opinion is ~1km.  It's an easy number and that distance is sometimes needed for flanking purposes, depending on where the mission is located and the terrain type.

Horse

[_Edge]

I think all you guys have great ideas. But even with that there are going to be trade-offs. The thing we need to keep in mind if we change the mission system is that it needs to be a system that works for all, from the new players to the seasoned vets, and is overall fun.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of claiming missions. I know we like to do things ourselves at times and we don't want anyone joining in because you won't gain as much Respect and poptabs. But I don't like the idea of deterring players from joining on a mission. I do agree with Bloody's idea of closing off a mission after an amount of AI have been eliminated, it makes sense to close off if you've done majority of the work. I know this is not so much of a problem for the vets since we're fairly well established in terms of Respect and poptabs, and we don't mind if a player wants to join in and earn their fair share of the loot. This could be a little problematic for newer players that want to gain as much Respect and tabs, and turn down other players that want to scavenge, grab better gear, etc.

What works great with the current system is that when a player wants to join in, they can. The loot they earn correlates to their contribution to the mission.

The addition of map markers is a good idea and a bad idea. I think they work out great to show a player has the intention to head over to that mission, but it's also a subtle way of claiming a mission. I think marking missions anywhere on the map should happen even though this would disadvantage me and some others. As long as marking a mission shows intention that a player is heading their way to the mission (not claiming), I'm fine with that.

Back on Altis, I headed to mission with my Taru and Van to a Car Robbery mission. I landed, was in a position to shoot and ready to announce. But I had a group of players (relatively new to the server) that were heading their way to the mission on ground and didn't realize I was there, I didn't realized they were heading to the mission either. They drove half way to realize that I was about to engage and said they weren't going to bother going for the mission anymore since I got there faster than them. I was going to let them have the mission, but they refused saying it was unfair that I was at a better advantage getting to missions. If they would have let me know that they had intentions heading to that mission, I would have let them have it. The addition of mission markers anywhere on the map is a great idea.

I think whatever option we do choose will disadvantage someone from wanting a mission to themselves and those that want to join in to progress their status.

[Sandman]

Thanks for the replies. This is some mighty good feedback fellas.   I'm kinda thinking the goal here, is to find the simplest, most natural method that prevents player fights over missions. Also, I would think that finding a system that newer players to the server can grasp and adapt to instinctively with the least amount corrective input as possible would help the server the most.

Right now, it seems that an amalgam of the best of the ideas you guys came up with are:

1. Mark map from any distance, not to claim, but to indicate intention only. (Or should we specify a distance?).
2. Announce participation in side chat when inside 1000m from mission. (Good even number).
3. Mission becomes "claimed" and property of the player once a percentage of the AI are killed. (Maybe 50% for simplicity's sake?).
4. Players are required to be in main server group to take on missions. (Makes map markers visible to other players).

These, aren't final and open discussion is encouraged. Please feel free to post your opinions, feedback and additional ideas on this system.

I must say that it is my hope that this system, once perfected, will basically implement itself as much as possible, and thereby effectively reduce stress on players new to our system and server staff alike. I 'm not sure if we should insist on the "exact" wording of the engagement announcement as much, as long as it doesn't directly cause actual conflict on the server. I would think that a reminder in chat from the other players or staff would be effective and would naturally come if a player makes a habit of trying to exclusively "claim" a mission without meeting the requirements. I would think said player would soon fall into the proper practice of their own accord.

Again, the whole purpose of announcing missions is to keep the stress factor low in the server, provide a hassle-free environment as possible, and thereby fostering the growth and harmony of the community. Unfortunately, though, it seems that most of the server heartburn from the missions, has not been from from players actually doing the missions and causing fights outright, but ironically, from the friction induced by trying to enforce what may be an unfamiliar and unnatural system for players new to the server.

[irfireman]

I love the last set. Claim intent, claim mission at 1k , close at 50% ai dead.