Job/mission Brainstorming

[Ryle [N7R]]

Floating some ideas in my head for content based out of the job terminal. Level specific as per the norm, with a lot of different concepts.


Assembly Missions. You would be tasked to gather the components or ores or whatever else for a consumable device. The mission should take some time to complete, with several unique components that will force you to actually go get them without hoarding them in a vault to sit and grind at the terminal. Say you might need a lensing component from arx magister, a fresh piece of scuttle dung from carpenter (like a unique timed drop that disappears out of your inventory on logout or after X hours so it cant be saved), and maybe some titanium. Makes a damage increase buff of 5% that lasts for 30-60 minutes, can be traded or stored. One item per job done. Any kinds of buffs really, useful stuff, would give traders/builders incentive to do jobs for them, maybe even to sell them. Experience divided to Trade and Combat.

Tour Missions. Remember the old tours of live? Go to net 7, pick up some newbies, and fly them around antares/cooper/aragoth system and get a few explore levels in the process. Under the explore tab you would pick up a mission to transport an NPC to say 12 different navs in sector X. You must avoid combat as taking too much damage will destroy the passenger, like a satellite. Experience divided to Explore and trade.

Defense Missions. Get a job to go to nav X in sector Y and defend an NPC there from being killed by mobs. If the NPC dies you forfeit the mission reward. NPC should be around your level with the attacking mobs (wave of 2 or 3 at a time, 1 or 2 waves, with maybe a slightly higher level boss?). Trade divides Combat and Explore

Infiltration Missions. Get a job to go to station X in sector Y and obtain some kind of item. Once you have the item you will flag to the defense or patrol mobs who will attempt to apprehend (kill) you as you try to escape. Maybe put the station in a grav well so it forces combat and no warping out. Successful return of item grants Combat XP.

Rare resource missions. The job wants you to collect 30 of ore X and return it to the originating station. The ore should be in a field not native to the sector the mission originated from. A cherry pickers dream. Grants Explore XP.

Supply missions. The job wants to build item X in a quantity. The item built would be something you should be able to map fairly easily, but like the assembly missions should have a degree of going to get it. Make 10-20 Model Y shields or whatnot, and sell to the vendor specified. Trade XP. Edited June 18, 2012 by Ryle

[wootage]

How about "Recover Tech" as a variant of the Rare Resource Mission? Have it send you out to a guarded hulk field for some specific thing.

[jrichards]

I like the mission ideas but I am not a fan of making these jobs. It would be cool to have different faction leaders/npcs give repeatable missions that a player could gain faction and xp from. Kind of another option to doing jobs.

[wootage]

More ideas:

I'd like to suggest adding guards to the mission objectives. Most of the non-combat missions have no challenge to them at all, and even the combat missions generally just have 1 mob at a clear point. Adding guards and a backstory for them, like "a Crystal Titan, identified as #1234, has been destroying research and navigational equipment in sector XX. Please put a stop to this dangerous predator's depradations", would make things much more interesting and encourage grouping for missions.

Speaking from the perspective of a JE, I support adding guards and other fun stuff to the roid clear missions too. I found one roid-clear mission in the job terminal that sends you to a heavily-guarded field, and it's my favorite mission so far. There's no way I can kill even one of the guardians, so it's a challenging ninja-style clear mission. Every time I do it, I feel like I earned my xps all the way

Also, in another thread we discussed poprocks and what could be done with them instead of just making them mines. Putting some of that together into a concept, let's say that bios use the roid fields as a home, for food, and for nesting, like crystals use crystal roids to hold their - eggs, I guess, and so on.

Make the mob-poprocks into the "nest" roids, and you have a reason why there'd by higher-level mins in a roid with a mob waiting to pop out of it. And now you can combine the mob-poprocks with "parent" guardians, and set up a combat mission to go kill them and clear the roid. This means you need both a fighting class AND a mining class to complete that mission, so grouping is encouraged.

Tweaks to that concept would include making the rock blow up and spawn the child on a trigger condition (say the parent was shot within a certain distance of the rock, so the parent would need to be pulled away first), putting a harmful environmental field around it so the initial actions take place under adverse conditions, and putting a timer on the rock so it pops the mob if you take too long finding it.

[Terrell [BT]]

[quote name='Crichton' timestamp='1340041325' post='59169']
I like the mission ideas but I am not a fan of making these jobs. It would be cool to have different faction leaders/npcs give repeatable missions that a player could gain faction and xp from. Kind of another option to doing jobs.
[/quote]

My thoughts are similar as well. I'd like to see NPCs that offer these missions, but otherwise I think these ideas are good.

[wootage]

^^ true for me too. I would like to get the job from the term, maybe with more of a "messagy" interface like the NPC's pic and name, and go turn in the completed job to the NPC where possible. Such a system can also set you up for concrete mission rewards and for NPC-specific faction. I know that's not part of the game atm but having the foundation is not a bad thing