[S]How To Make Missions "dynamic" Without It Really Being So (Tl;dr;dr)

[smithf]

How to make missions "dynamic" without it really being so (tl;dr;dr)

One of the problem when playing with the fixed missions, is complaint about grinding and it being static.
After some thought, I came up with the possible reason: the missions do not really have global consequences. It's like an ride attraction at an amusement park. You get to ride in it, you get thrilled, but after that the ride resets for the next person and you walk away with the experience while the whole park remains largely unchanged.

While the events we have just experienced is some sort of break into the normal static grinding, it is a human-introduced change and is only time limited. We can't have that every week without putting huge strain on DE, not to mention having to deal with all the tras... eh.. I mean posts with low information value.

So I sort of asked myself, how could I introduce some sort of "dynamics" into the static missions, without them being really dynamic(true dynamic stuff will easily spin out of control) or require a lot of resources to implement?

The possible solutions goes back to the principle cause: there are no global consequences.
So, why don't we try to make even the static missions have some sort of global consequence (aka mini event)?

Below are some of my ideas, feel free to addon/improve/criticize.

1) Missions that affects the accessibility (locked/unlocked status) of other missions

E.g. We can't access certain missions (like Boss missions) unless other missions are "unlocked" to a certain extent.
Illustrative example:
Suppose we are doing missions in System X, where there is a path of missions that leads from the entrance of the system to the place where the boss is. However, each stage in the mission is not simply unlocked by having completed that mission or the mission directly before it. Instead, there is some sort of a "completion rate" which keeps track how many people have completed a mission in the last Y time. As long as the rate is above a threshold level, the next mission(s) which are linked from the current mission will be accessible. But if the rate drops below the threshold (due to the "last Y time" part, if nobody completes the mission, the completion rate will slowly decay over time), the originally linked missions will become unaccessible. This means that in order to make those (boss) missions at the end of each systems available, Tennos have to work together to keep the completion rate of the chain of missions that leads up to it above the threshold at all time. In other words, when you do a Raid or Sabotage, you aren't just doing a mission with no consequence. You are doing your part in "keeping the way open" to higher goals for your fellow Tenno. In a way, these dependent missions are like "alerts" which operates on static conditions.

2) Missions affecting Difficulty/Enemy type/number of other missions

Using similar "completion rate" idea as first point, but instead of influencing the availability of linked missions, this one affects the general difficulty of the level.
For example, if the completion rate for the last mission in the chain just before the boss mission is high, it will reduce number of mobs that people will encounter on the Boss missions (which translates to faster mission and can reserve more ammo for boss, which can be useful for repeated boss-farming).
On the other hand, if the completion rate of the mission before the boss mission is low, it may greatly increase the enemy presence, which will make it harder to reach the boss (and even so, uses up more ammo).
This kind of consequence can be global (meaning that in general, completion rate of a mission will affect linked mission) or can be specific (e.g. a mission that sabotages military supplies, or grineer barracks/cloning facilities will affect the difficulty of certain other missions, or all missions in the system).

Other examples can be:
Attack on Osprey/MOA factories in Corpus System -> reduction in chance to encounter Osprey/MOA in other missions.
Attack on Infested Containment facility -> increased chance that during a Corpus/Grineer mission, infested will appear to troll and start fight with the original enemies.

Note: to be fair, defence type missions may need to be exempted from this type of relation so that it always feel the "same" (a sandbox for gaining xp and mining materials/mods)


3) Missions affecting Yield rate of materials or other missions

This is an idea to link completion rate of certain missions to drop rate.
E.g. sabotaging certain facilities will increase either the chance and/or the amount/pickup for some materials.
Illustrative example: say we find Rubedo at a rate X% in average amount A. By keeping the completion rate of certain missions above a certain threshold, (e.g. sabotaging factories to stop materials from being produced into Grineer weapons, or upload virus to mess up the general goods transportation) it will increase either the Rubedo drop rate to Y% (where Y>X) and/or the average amount found to B (where B>A).  This can be combined with (1) for certain "chained missions". E.g. After discrupting the transport (via Deception/Sabotage missions), certain "Warehouse Raid" missions will become unlocked (they will only be unlocked if the earlier missions completion rates stay above a certain threshold). These missions will be the only missions with increased yield instead of the drop rate buff being applied to all missions in the system.

One possibilty that may require careful thinking (if it ever get seriously considered) will be: missions that influences the drop rate of specific things... like blueprints.... e.g. If Spy missions A,B,C are all kept above a threshold, then it will increase the chance that a certain blueprint will drop from the system's boss mission (or could even be that without keeping the missions A,B,C above their thresholds, there will be NO chance that the associated BP will drop from the boss mission). (For those who are already having hard time farming a blueprint, don't flame. it's just an idea. And remember that there can be bonus instead of nerf to the chance as well).

4) Missions affecting the chance of specific types of random Alerts (in the system)

i.e. Keeping completion rate of certain mission (group) above certain threshold will increase the chances of alert missions that will award a certain kind of reward.

e.g. want the glaive that you missed? Start doing the Spy missions that are supposed to contain information concerning whereabouts of the Glaive blueprint. As long as the missions are kept above their thresholds, Lotus will have a higher chance of do her thing with the boxes with light-bulbs, and discovers the place where the blueprint is hidden, which will translate to higher chance(and overall occurences/time) that an alert will appear with teh Glaive as reward.

To be fair, this should be additive chance. i.e. increasing the chance of one type of alert does not decrease the chance for another type of alert. If chances for multiple types of alert is increased, it just means there are more random alerts overall. This will prevent the case where players will undermined each other's effort when they do missions that increases the chance of different alerts.

 

[Tetsmeha]

Ideas like this were originally going to be features using the alert system and such. They just didn't have time to flesh it out and fully design and implement it.

[Withinfinite]

Ideas seem a bit exploitable for easy farm.

 

I like the ideas and in a global events would be good but in general gameplay they would just break the economy.