Objective Has Been Completed, You Get Nothing

[CookieStorm]

I was playing with three of my friends but was disconnected part of the way through the mission.  I was pleasantly surprised when I rejoined that it had retained my challenge objective progress, so I thought maybe it would remember the couple of mods I had picked up too.  I'll never know though because a moment after we picked up the artifact, I got disconnected again and this time I couldn't rejoin because the objective has been completed.  I waited for them to complete the run, and their end of mission reward was the Banshee Chasis blueprint.

 

I know the "objective has been completed" thing was put in to stop people from joining at the very end just for the end of mission reward, but this situation really illustrates how that solution can hurt legitimate players even more.  It's clear that the game keeps track of who has been in the level since it remembered I had already made a kills toward my challenge objective, so why not allow the players on that stored list to rejoin the game regardless of the current state of the mission?

[Gestalt]

I think this is more of a problem of the game not saving progress until mission extraction.  It might remember your progress (I didn't know that; never rejoined a game I disconnected from), but all that is meaningless until you get to extraction.  

 

That said, if they could technically do this, I don't see why they wouldn't implement a measure to let players who disconnected after achieving mission objective to rejoin the game (this is Private setting I presume).  IF they can code this.  I have a feeling it might be sort of complicated for the game to tell if the player disconnected after or before the objective is completed, and the whole matter made more complicated if there's additional objective, or for assassination, if the player disconnects right before boss kill, should they be allowed to rejoin?

 

It's a lot of if's and's and but's and I would think DE would have a minor headache trying to code a system that differentiates all the different situations.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Gestalt

[Grabehn]

it happened to me on a public alert mission too. My computer restarted (damn windows updates), and when it booted up again and I logged in again and  joined the mission, my entire progress was there, don't know about mods thou but the rest was. I thought it was great since conection problems are a big issue.

 

But I'd like to have a "join whenever you want" If it's a private game, since you know who you're playing with and an included "if you were there" at the beginning of the mission.

[VER1]

 

I'd say the netcode is not setup to expect players to cut in and out of a session as of yet.

[rksk16it]

A very nice solution to this problem can be a feature which I have seen in many other multiplayer games (espcially MOBA).

 

What they do is, when you enter a match, the only way to exit a match is either win or lose. If you get DC, your game crashes or whatever, whenever you log back in, you will be IN THAT MATCH, you wont get to see main menu or any other things. Its right into match after pressing that little "login" button.

 

In warframe, an equivalent would be that, until a scenario is won, or failed (every1 died), all players in it are locked into it. If they try to unplug their modem cable and plug it again a minute later, they will be thrown right back where they were in the scenario. Of course, a minor side effect is, "abort mission" will now have to be some kind of voting based decision, ie if 3 out of 4 players want to abort, then it should count as mission failed, and everyone returned to lobby, but less than that, the mission will continue.

Edited May 11, 2013 by rksk16it

[Gestalt]

A very nice solution to this problem can be a feature which I have seen in many other multiplayer games (espcially MOBA).

 

What they do is, when you enter a match, the only way to exit a match is either win or lose. If you get DC, your game crashes or whatever, whenever you log back in, you will be IN THAT MATCH, you wont get to see main menu or any other things. Its right into match after pressing that little "login" button.

 

In warframe, an equivalent would be that, until a scenario is won, or failed (every1 died), all players in it are locked into it. If they try to unplug their modem cable and plug it again a minute later, they will be thrown right back where they were in the scenario. Of course, a minor side effect is, "abort mission" will now have to be some kind of voting based decision, ie if 3 out of 4 players want to abort, then it should count as mission failed, and everyone returned to lobby, but less than that, the mission will continue.

 

I can see some problems immediately out the door with this solution.  What if a player's computer crashed and it takes quite a while for the reboot and login?  What if the player disconnects and decided not to log back in?  Then the party is penalized for having a player slot taken by someone who is essentially not returning before the mission ends.  

 

And there's the issue of not allowing individuals to abort a mission also.  I thought that's doing fine as currently implemented, and not allowing people to quit mid-mission would just encourage afking, and that's already an issue as is.

[CookieStorm]

 

I'd say the netcode is not setup to expect players to cut in and out of a session as of yet.

 

Yay someone got the reference! 

 

The good thing about this being a beta is that it's still quite malleable.  Preventing people from joining a game after the primary objective (or first 5 waves of a defense mission) are completed was a poorly thought out clever scheme.  It could be removed entirely, or if they really want to keep it then before it tells someone "You can't come in here" first have it check the list of players who have been in the level.  If they're on that list then it should allow them back in.  Part of designing an online game is handling connection hiccups.