Job Terminal Tweaking

[Suricata79[IS]]

Howdy all.

I've been back for about a week now and started doing job runs a few days ago. I have noted that currently the jobs ar far to easy for gaining XP for the time involved to do them, thus I propose a couple of changes:-

• No more than 6 jobs should able to be taken at a time, the XP gain from 12 jobs is too much, also it makes getting jobs from terminals very difficult when there are more than 2 players there as they can take so many.
  
• Jobs should be further away from the terminals, the lvl 50 jobs are only 1 jump away from Net 7 and the lvl 75 ones are 2 (with 1 jump not really been that great a distance). I'd recommend moving the distance to atleast 1 more jump. The best way would be to actually time the time it takes to do a mission with an average engine equipped, preferably aiming at 10 minutes to get to the location and back again (so thats 5 minutes for a Satalite mission).
  

Currently, trade runs are defunct once you can do jobs due to the high XP gain from them, also, its worth pointing out that peopel are doing trade and explore jobs to level out there combat, now I'm aware this was a valid option when the game was live, however, you have to ask yourself, would you earn as much Trade or Exploration XP doing Combat (at CL 50) as you do Combat XP doing Trade and exploration jobs (at TL 50 & EL 50). Those numbers have to be fairly close for time taken to keep the speed XP is earnt balanced. I'm pretty sure that limiting the number of jobs you can take (I belive live only let you take 2 every few minutes to a maximum of 6) as well as putting some jobs to further locations would help slow down the XP gain.

I'm pretty sure some people will hate the suggestions, since it is nerfing XP gain from job runs, but I genuinely feel that it is currently too easy to lvl, I gained 20 levels yesterday doing lvl 75 jobs runsm which although awesome, was a tad too much since I am skipping item upgrades from not needing them.

Please leave feedback on this these ideas and this is a pretty core part of the leveling process.

[Riia [LDEV]]

Hi

You are correct.

In live you could take two jobs every 5 mins up to a max of 5 jobs total.

Job terminals have just been added and when a tool has been created to edit them I'm sure we will tweak jobs to be more like live.

Riia

[Suricata79[IS]]

Hi

You are correct.

In live you could take two jobs every 5 mins up to a max of 5 jobs total.

Job terminals have just been added and when a tool has been created to edit them I'm sure we will tweak jobs to be more like live.

Riia

Cool, just wanted to make sure you were aware that they needed twaeking, including the time taken to complete some of them

[Evoz]

Just a thought...does this version of the game (once it goes live) have to be EXACTLY the same as the original? Surely not, and surely it already is VERY different.

My point is, that whilst a limit on the number of jobs able to be held at any one time (5 instead of 12) would probably balance the XP gain (a good thing), i think that the time limit of 2 jobs per 5 minutes is absolute rubbish and should not be introduced. To me that sounds like a grind mechanism put in by EA to increase time spent playing (ie. more money, hi blizzard).

That would mean you would have to stand at the terminal for 15 minutes just to get a full load, and that's assuming that no one else picks up the jobs you are waiting for. I would suggest that once the tools for job tweaking are in place, that a limit of 6 jobs but NO time limit would be more than fair and balanced

[Terrell [BT]]

Just a thought...does this version of the game (once it goes live) have to be EXACTLY the same as the original? Surely not, and surely it already is VERY different.

My point is, that whilst a limit on the number of jobs able to be held at any one time (5 instead of 12) would probably balance the XP gain (a good thing), i think that the time limit of 2 jobs per 5 minutes is absolute rubbish and should not be introduced. To me that sounds like a grind mechanism put in by EA to increase time spent playing (ie. more money, hi blizzard).

That would mean you would have to stand at the terminal for 15 minutes just to get a full load, and that's assuming that no one else picks up the jobs you are waiting for. I would suggest that once the tools for job tweaking are in place, that a limit of 6 jobs but NO time limit would be more than fair and balanced

This is pretty much what I think as well. Have a max number of jobs you can have at one time 6 or 7 sounds reasonable to me, but please do NOT bring back the timers from live. Not to mention, in Live Trade jobs required you to carry multiple items in your hold, so cargo hold size also limited how many jobs you could take at once. I think it was 3 or 4 passengers at once per job, plus or minus 1.

[Tienbau]

This is pretty much what I think as well. Have a max number of jobs you can have at one time 6 or 7 sounds reasonable to me, but please do NOT bring back the timers from live. Not to mention, in Live Trade jobs required you to carry multiple items in your hold, so cargo hold size also limited how many jobs you could take at once. I think it was 3 or 4 passengers at once per job, plus or minus 1.

ah that's a good point about the multiple trade cargoes, same with diplomats and prisoners yeah?

I'll implement it so you have a max of 6 jobs, with no time limits and see how that works out for everyone.

[Terrell [BT]]

ah that's a good point about the multiple trade cargoes, same with diplomats and prisoners yeah?

I'll implement it so you have a max of 6 jobs, with no time limits and see how that works out for everyone.

Yes, there were at least 3 or 4 maybe 5 whether it was diplomats, passengers, supplies, or any of the other things that were Trade Jobs.

[Suricata79[IS]]

Its all about the rate of xp gain. Sure you can have 10 missions, but then their xp needs reducing. At the end of the day it Doesn't matter if you have 1 job or 10, as long as the xp gain per time spent is the same. I have a few idea's for job distribution to help remove the grind feeling, I'll get them written up, but basically the idea revolves around the timer and limited jobs, but encourages players to keep moving, rather than doing the same route back and forth.

[seekeronos]

Less jobs, longer distances, but otherwise same xp per job at the appropriate levels seems suitable to me.

No timers as in Live please. That was purely a grind mechanism designed to make EA money by extending the leveling grind as long as possible.

[seekeronos]

Consider also making trade jobs that have to be done along multiple points (in a particular order) -

For example:

TRADE JOB from Prasad Station -----

Deliver 8 passengers to Mercury Station Glory's Orbit; receive from (%some_NPC%) an order of 5 units of Weapons Technology to be delivered to Arx Ymir (%another_NPC%) who will want you to deliver 10 sets of Progen Battle Armour to the %Grissom_Space_Patrol_Agent% on Orsini Mining Platform.

Trade XP: 12,500

Explore XP: 7,500

(or whatever the previous settings for these values were for the L135 jobs)

[ghent96]

Imo, in Live, the 2job acceptance limit, probably combined with a slow refresh rate for jobs, led to terminal camping problems. Many job terminals had huge crowds of players camping around them all hours of the day & night. We must take measures to avoid that in the emulator.

[Suricata79[IS]]

Consider also making trade jobs that have to be done along multiple points (in a particular order) -

For example:

TRADE JOB from Prasad Station -----

Deliver 8 passengers to Mercury Station Glory's Orbit; receive from (%some_NPC%) an order of 5 units of Weapons Technology to be delivered to Arx Ymir (%another_NPC%) who will want you to deliver 10 sets of Progen Battle Armour to the %Grissom_Space_Patrol_Agent% on Orsini Mining Platform.

Trade XP: 12,500

Explore XP: 7,500

(or whatever the previous settings for these values were for the L135 jobs)

That could be a possability actually, making trade jobs that require multiple stops. That would certianly keep people moving and give people teh choice between doing short runs for small XP (but at a faster rate) or long runs for more XP (but at a slower rate).

Also, I'm pretty sure that just reducing the number of missions you can take to 6 will fix the XP rate gain atm to a more reasonable level.

[Terrell [BT]]

Imo, in Live, the 2job acceptance limit, probably combined with a slow refresh rate for jobs, led to terminal camping problems. Many job terminals had huge crowds of players camping around them all hours of the day & night. We must take measures to avoid that in the emulator.

Agreed, and one of the worst camped terminals was the one at Aragoth Station, due to it's L100 Jobs with destinations close to the JE's wormholes. N7 had similiar camping problems.

[Allia]

For the most part I'm fine with how jobs are working atm. I'd be ok with lowering down to 6 jobs max, as this would prevent to much terminal wait time. 2 jobs every so many min max seems counter productive to that idea and if anything would just turn people off jobs completely. I don't how it that would really stop terminal camping, it would just mean people would stick around waiting becuase frankly, 2 jobs isn't even worth landing on the station for. I mean I remember 'dreading' having to do job terminal stuff in live, but I'm highly enjoying it now in emu and I'd like to keep it that way. Lets try what Tienbau will do for a bit and see how it works. I feel that will help balance 'job exp' without making it such a turn off to players.

Some other things that could use modification:

- All jobs used to have some money reward. It wasn't much but it was 'something' to compensate for player time/ammo. I think I remember ~10k for lv75, ~15k for lv100s, ~25k 150s. Considering how much that can be gotten from a job's counterpart activity (killing, mining, trade run) these amounts really aren't much. My numbers are probably off, I'm sure someone with a better memory will correct me.

- All jobs need to stay after logging. I'm not sure if it was this way in live (I believe it was), but in Emu a server crash or restart can easily wipe out 15-20 min job work (waiting and traveling to pickups but not getting to drop offs). At least until things become more stable they should be made to stay. Then once things stabilize can reconsider if they should be.

- Trade jobs need to indicate not only pickup location, but drop off location. This helps people plan their trips or pick up and drop off.

- Combat jobs need to wait until player has arrived at designated nav point to spawn mob. This prevents turrets/other mobs/players from accidentally taking the mob out as it wanders away from the point. This will be majorly important in combat jobs requiring more than 2-3 gate jumps.

- Explore jobs trash runs I believe also did multiple cargo runs like trade jobs did (2-3 crates of trash). I seem to remember higher lv of job of coarse gave more cargo to dump. Of coarse the number is stated in the job description.

And just as a minor suggestion, but would like to see some lv10 jobs added into the game for the newbie sectors. This would allow players to get into the whole 'job' thing and give them an advantage that currently only TT gets to enjoy....repeatable quests for xp.

[Jamosite]

I can understand lowering the number of jobs from 12 to six. but if you make it too much like work most people will want to go to work vs play the game.

Answer me this, whats the big deal of enjoying running jobs? I have not had the chance to grab more then 7-8 jobs but when I do and you travel out to complete them, its a good feeling.

as far as trade jobs, if they were tweaked so you know were you are heading vs picking up the person and finding out I bet you people will run them vs. trade runs.

also, if your nerfing jobs can you fix the problem on when you are kicked offline the jobs go bye bye? I think this would sit well with players, if your limit is six and you are knocked off line , return and you can complete your jobs. most people end up gating to Megan at least once a day

also.... add more terminals, most stations have them and they are non working... if you aren't going to add more terminal locations, remove the terminal from those stations.

Thanks for reading my rant / suggestions

~ We speak to be heard ~

~ We also hear what is spoken ~

Edited June 1, 2010 by Jamosite

[Allia]

Oh btw, the wait to pick up a job from a terminal wasn't so much of an EA grind tool so much as it was a faster/slower internet balance tool. Remember...people used to play this on dial up~? For them without the wait by the time it refreshed the job list...they where gone. I'm not really seeing this as an issue with emu's current player base.

Plus the number of jobs in terminal is still nothing like it was in live (sometimes 3-4 pages of jobs refreshed per go). So we can always up the number of jobs to meet the demand yet before we reach live numbers so to speak. It would be actually interesting to have demand as part of the job terminal logic...if there seems to be a lot of people doing explore jobs vs the other two, terminal would spend refresh with more explore jobs. Then if someone started doing combat jobs, it'd balance the refresh between combat and explore and so on depending what the players where most picking up.