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Railjack: post-mission is an all-around bummer because there's no voting or countdown timers


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When a Railjack mission's objective is complete, any player can use the Navigation console to — without any sort of vote, warning, or consent — pull all the other players out of their current environment and into a new mission (or to the Dry Dock). I think this needs a change because not only does it Feels Bad, but it's also the only mission type in the entire game where another player can instantly decide when your mission starts or ends.  In addition, it's worth noting that more than any other content in the game, Railjack nearly demands that it be played with a group; because of this, there's not really the option to play solo if you want to avoid these kinds of conflicts, so the game flow and interface need to take on the responsibility of making sure all players can get what they want at the end of a mission.

When a Railjack mission objective is complete, here are a few things that can happen:

  • Imagine killing 90 Fighters and 6 Crew Ships, then wanting to farm resources, but someone else pulls you out of the mission (into a new mission or to the Dry Dock).
    • Contrast: In the Plains or the Vallis, you would be given a countdown warning before this happened, so you could leave the squad and continue to farm, but that option doesn't exist in Railjack.
  • Someone starts a new mission, but I want to go back to the Dry Dock.  Load times on PS4 take between 1 and 2 minutes, which is a reasonable enough time to wait to do the content you want, but is an incredibly frustrating amount of time to be forced to wait and load into a mission you don't want to do, just so you can then quit and do that same load again.
    • Contrast: When a new mission is initiated from the Orbiter, there is a vote.  Even if someone "forces" the mission to start by skipping the vote, there is a countdown timer before this transition, allowing players who don't want to do the mission to leave the squad.  This option doesn't exist in Railjack.
  • I want to either go back to the Dry Dock or start a new mission.  I know that the first person to use the navigation console gets to choose what the group does next.  Do I want to assume that all 3 of my teammates are going to be polite and wait?  Or should entirely remove my chances of being inconvenienced by doing something that might inconvenience them?  Hopefully it's clear that this is a bad situation to put your players in, one that brews conflict where none needs to exist.
    • Contrast: There's nothing to contrast this with, because there's no situation in the rest of the game where I need to shoot my teammates first to avoid potentially being shot.

For the purpose of this post, I'm assuming that all players have the best intentions.  On PS4, communication between players tends to be minimal because few players use headsets and even fewer have access to keyboards; because of this, it makes sense that players often do not communicate with each other before making decisions that could impact the group, because they don't have an efficient way to do this.  In addition, all other content in the game has trained them that this kind of communication is not necessary, because in all of the other content there are warnings before mission transitions that allow players to the time to leave the squad.  In other words, in all other content, the game's interface takes care of these kinds of negotiations proactively.  Railjack does not.

My proposed solution:

  • Make returning to the Dry Dock or starting a new mission have the same mechanics as starting a new mission in the Orbiter.
    • Starts with a vote.
    • If a player wants to "force" a countdown timer, other players have the option to drop, which allows them to stay in the mission for looting (like in open world areas).

Thanks for taking the time to consider my feedback!

 

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