Dev Notes #20 - Mission System

I fully understand the complaints of why the iron missions need to be removed and that they can't be converted (my point still stands that they can't be converted, not even by a roughly averaged compensation value or multiplier or whatever you want to call it). However, that discussion was finished last year.

Let's look at it from another angle:

  • MA announced that iron missions will be removed in one month
  • at this very point in time alarm bells should have rung in each and everyone's ears, that something will be removed and something needs to be done by everyone who calls himself/herself a player interested in Entropia Universe
  • outcry of community
  • MA extended that period to (roughly) a year (fixed date or not)
  • continuing with the bold part above: everyone's obligation was to answer these questions:
    • how important is the avatar in Entropia Universe to me? (as in: does that ruin everything and I want to quit?)
    • how much time per week will I be having for the next year? (undoubtedly the toughest question as nobody can predict the future, but it can be done in a range)
    • which iron missions do I have running?
    • what's my progress on them? (absolute and relative)
    • what's the reward for the missions?
    • which of those rewards are most important to me as far as my goals in EU are concerned?
    • which of those missions have important rewards, but are too hard/costly/time taking compared to others?
  • now order the missions from most important to least important
  • try to set dates as milestones where you want to be with the missions at certain dates
  • get going and work on them one by one. Don't fool around here, you do know what's at stake.
  • regularly check your progress in your planned progress
I'm with messi on this. I don't want to sound rude, but if you start to complain a handful of weeks before the iron missions are removed (fixed date or not), you certainly have done something wrong for an entire year. In those last days before they are removed you should be working on less important missions that are just nice to have.

I finished what I wanted to finish and I have no iron missions running any more.

I totally agree and I did exactly what you did but with so many 10k Kill or 60k KP, Bronce and Silver open I had already sorted out all missions I had below 10% and concentrated on the ones giving Attributes like Stamina and gained more than 12 level in them.
But im still pissed of they I could not finish the 10k Evis or the 60k Trooper or the Feffox or the Kreltin .... many thousands of kills I made and cant earn the once envisoned skill gains.

But as Evey said the good thing is you once again can concentrate on the mobs MA meant you to hunt and not the ones you needed to finish the mission and the incentive to deposit went down exponenctially because there is no more need to rush and finish irons befor removal of said missions.
 
So if he would have my EL list would you act differently?

PS: How can you know that from EL, as they only list Globals and there are many mobs hunted from low-midlevel players that do not give many globals you will see on EL?


If I had any EL list I would have focused on what matters, on the actual game progression, on avatar progression. If I would care about peoples interest I would be happy with the removal of the old Irons as they are misleading, they make you loose a lot on them for a very little gain. If I were... anybody starting or ar mid level, I would never do those silly Irons, I would only go for MU mobs and just take the irons as small bonuses, I would try to go for endgame without deposing, I would try to get to the highest level, in profit, without the need to ATH or even t HOF.
I would also have tried my best to know as much as possible about my profession, trying to know everything and everyone, because there's a lot of my work at stake.... I would follow every release note, and content VU, ask around smarter people than me and I would try to avoid going full stubborn and autistic about this game, that's what I did since I came back late 2015, as a noob with 45 highest prof level. It wasn't the Irons that got me to 172 and 83 looter, it was fully ignoring them and going for the real stuff that helped my avatar's growth for free at start then in profit..


But if you are DESPERATE about these irons, wouldn't you at least do one in your life? Especially in the past year with double rewards?? Like for real... grabbing the mission from the terminal dos not represent a contract between you and MA that MA owes you that skill, you actually gotta put in some work to FINISH it.
 
First thanks for correcting the members of the discord. Maybe we are in different channels or I'm doing something wrong. I just added up "members" of which there 350 and I just estimated the mods, vets (46), and others to make an extra 100.

AGAIN please do no count me in your list of people you hold as an example for future complaints about any of those things you list. I already said I'm fine with it - as much as anyone can be. I hope when I read "you still would have.." that it doesn't refer to me and ask not to be judged on how I would or would not act. I don't understand the prerogative about holding this thread and that seems more negative than any complaints I've read. That's your choice however.

I'm not fine with the communication from MA on this whole change - period.
I play a lot of other games. I guess I'm spoiled with WEEKLY updates, release notes, roadmaps, etc.
I will try hard to make this my last comment in this thread.

Please next time MA let us know a specific date when any big change is happening more than 1 week ahead. Please try. Even if that's the best you can do, then explain. I'm very understanding and think most of the player base is too.
GL out there with those codex!

These are the official numbers from the admins.

I am not Santa (dirty Santa maybe), I don't have a good list and bad list. No worries. My point was that people are complaining about two sides of the coin. They are trying to have it both ways.

You get no argument from me about the odd way of Mindark communicating. It reeks of non-priority and fragmentation. Like a hobby, not a company. This is a side project they get to once in a while and not trying to get and retain customers. I have been very consistent with that criticism. When Mindark pulls down $100K/week in revenue at a minimum, you think they could at least raise the bar a bit. Even an intern at $800/week could massively outperform and those are at US salaries.

As for specific dates, they just cannot do that nor would any other company for that matter. Especially when it comes to planning and this company's track record. One year was a fairly good heads up that many people heeded. Many didn't and you'll find them the most vocal here. We need to keep our expectations in check. To your point though, nice product vision and things that we could look forward to would be nice. But we do also have to realize that they cannot reveal too much because then people will buy and hold certain things speculating on rise of their value to try to profit - this being the primary reason why many things cannot be divulged. It does not give them a pass on communicating though.
 
Tbh, sometines I am guilty of loving this game and its wild community too much. I believe both always were and always will be unique, in the only ways we know how around here :)
And It is frustrating sometimes for me as it seems, as Atomic referred to, like this game has been left running on some friends extra PC in their basement in terms of love, attention to detail, communication, deadlines etc.

Evey, what you wrote about finding good mu% is good advice. Since the mission changes the first time around those many years ago, i have spent most of my time on other planets...
And this is also very true:
: How can you know that from EL, as they only list Globals and there are many mobs hunted from low-midlevel players that do not give many globals you will see on EL?
At the time, i was (still am) the proud owner of the highest tiered unlimited riker UL2. It wasnt much, but at the time it had competitive eco and was very effective on other planets. I cannot fathom how many globals of mine were missed on etracker erm elife or are too small to register (i have completed ultimate noobchallenge 15k kills on cyrene lmao, but there was good mu% ;)) But yeah i burned out a bit after the first major push to rush and complete missions... (I do have 17 stamina lol)
 
My observation is that most people perceive as "I love my avatar in the context of this game and I need the game to change based on my perception because I love it"
No response needed its just food for thought.
It is actually a good observation and would certainly apply to at least some segment of our community.

For me the love runs deep:
I studied psychology in college and am a professional high end bartender:
I absolutely love all the personalities and viewpoints and stories from people all around the world. We have had some very interesting flavors come through these forums through the years. I have learned and witnessed alot here.

Im a gamer:
Lifelong gamer, from coleco vision on up, i especially love sandbox games and sci fi. And i know a unique game when i see it.

Im a musician:
I appreciate the art, music passion and creativity put into creating this beautiful universe in ways that may be hard to describe if your not an artist

I follow the stock market:
I dabble in trading stocks for a hobby since my early 20's, and always was interested in investing so the unique RCE here is very special.

The love is real for me ?
 
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You answered to Stefan 008 Bond:

For the love of... please stop acting as if you were sensitive to others interest; EL.com says you haven't actually worked on any iron since 2012, .....

And your answer to me:

If I had any EL list I would have focused on what matters,...


Maybe you can decide if you have access to EL and looked up globals of the ones you write against or you do not have access to EL and you write crap.
It cant be both can it?

Maybe it is me, not native english speaking person, who does not understand that you write once you have access to EL and some posts later that you do not have access to EL.

Please can you explain to me how you loose when you open up iron missions and hunt the same way you hunted without iron missions.

MA forced the grinding of iron missions on us as they canceled them. Whitout this cancelation the iron missions would not cost anything because you can hunt the same way as if you do not have the iron missions and take the Skills you get now and then as a little present. With the deadline MA introduced we had to finish a Iron Mission befor the end date to get the Reward and so MA forced the grinding on, as you stated, unprofitable mobs on us as we could not wait for the time the ressources of that certain mob are of good value and looked for by crafters etc.
 
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You answered to Stefan 008 Bond:

And your answer to me:

Maybe you can decide if you have access to EL and looked up globals of the ones you write against or you do not have access to EL and you write crap.
It cant be both can it?

Maybe it is me, not native english speaking person, who does not understand that you write once you have access to EL and some posts later that you do not have access to EL.

I'm not a native English speaker either and yes, you missed my point. What I wanted to say was that no matter how active you are in hunting, focusing on the wrong stuff can lead you to bankruptcy fast.
I'm done with the subject.
 
I'm not a native English speaker either and yes, you missed my point. What I wanted to say was that no matter how active you are in hunting, focusing on the wrong stuff can lead you to bankruptcy fast.
I'm done with the subject.

So you do not comment on the do not have EL and I use EL to write against Stefan 008 Bond as he is not globaling so he is not doing Irons?

So I loose if I have opened a Iron Mission and hunt profitable mobs? How does open up a iron mission make me loose money? Can you explan this to me because I never had to pay a fee when I opened a Iron mission.

The loosing starts is when you have to finish irons because suddenly you have a time you have to finish them and you have f.x. 1200 Eviscerators from 10000 killed. So you have to kill 8800 if you do not want to loose the 250 Attributes and 45.44 ped of Combat Reflex or 109.5 ped CR Skills. Without the end date to iron missions you can kill the Evicerators or what other mob you have opened a iron mission when you have good loots, high MU, on that mob. So hunting of bad loot mobs was also forced on us by MA's removal of iron missions because when you have instead of 1200 kills on Evis f.x. 8000 kills you would loose the skills and attributes when you not hunt them because atm they have a bad MU for their loot.
 
So you do not comment on the do not have EL and I use EL to write against Stefan 008 Bond as he is not globaling so he is not doing Irons?
That's what I just did.
For the last time: by saying " If I had any EL list" - I mean no matter how my global list would look like.
And you're wrong, I didn't use EL to post against Stefan. I just made an observation: in reality (in game) Stefan had 0 interest in any iron mission since 2012 while on forum he is having a huge mental distress about it.
Please stop asking for explanations, it's a matter of perspective in the end, loosing a reward from iron mission is if you've completed and forgot to pick it from NPC. Period.
 
For the love of... please stop acting as if you were sensitive to others interest; EL.com says you haven't actually worked on any iron since 2012, ....


That's what I just did.
For the last time: by saying " If I had any EL list" - I mean no matter how my global list would look like.
And you're wrong, I didn't use EL to post against Stefan. I just made an observation: in reality (in game) Stefan had 0 interest in any iron mission since 2012 while on forum he is having a huge mental distress about it.
Please stop asking for explanations, it's a matter of perspective in the end, loosing a reward from iron mission is if you've completed and forgot to pick it from NPC. Period.

AHA when you say " EL.com says you haven't actually worked on any iron since 2012 " means I do not use EL to have a argument against Stefan?

So you did not understand what I wrote in the first place. Because I wrote the following:

So if he would have my EL list would you act differently?

So it never was about your list of globals as you now start to write as I clearly wrote, see original message or quote above, it was about the fact that you diminished the Argument of Stefan with EL's global list as argument against his credibility. When I then asked if more globals listed on EL, see quote from my post above, if he would have more credibility whit his posts in your eyes. You say you do not have a EL list with globals I assume you mean with that. So you have a list when you argument against Stafan but then you have'nt a list when you argue with me?

If I had any EL list....

It seams to me strange that you have EL and you do not have EL at the same time. You do not use EL List of globals to argue against Stefan but you have clearly done it in the quoted post.
 
Guys, I would invite you to drop your exchanges at this point. The right time to talk about mission removal and transition was a year ago. The release is clearly stuck at a critical point and we might not have a functional game for a long time, let alone pesky iron missions.
 
So hunting of bad loot mobs was also forced on us by MA's removal of iron missions because when you have instead of 1200 kills on Evis f.x. 8000 kills you would loose the skills and attributes when you not hunt them because atm they have a bad MU for their loot.
That's what I meant with planning ahead and focusing on certain missions. You may lose PEDs or you may lose skills, either way it's a loss somehow. If you aren't happy with hunting something (maybe because of exactly that) then it surely shouldn't have been a high priority for you as far as finishing iron missions were concerned. But, I fully agree that it still would have been nice to finish all missions as we wished.

Which actually puts another fact on the table: doing everything at once and starting new stuff all the time isn't the best idea. I mean it's tempting to shoot that mob ahead of you or hunt something new because of whichever reason. However, it leaves you with a lot of small projects that all would need to be finished at one point. Well, so MA defined "one point" for a decent lot of such small projects. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not hunting everything and I skip some dailies because of that and I know that I miss part of the fun.

But hey, let our fun in EU not be taken away by that :) Ah, I've got to do some ironing... (speaking of clothes here :D )
 
I prob get flamed but to me this is just terrible move. When MA announces it with a 1 year grace i tried my best to clear as many hard ones including ambus and prots and atroxes, but i still have some mind numbing stuff to kill, 5000 merps, 4000 feffoids,e.t.c e.t.c. Furthermore killing monsters in this game is not free. I consider myself at best, mid level. I don't have the deep pockets of ubers who can afford to kill 10000 araneatrox and the likes of those. Gaining a few points here and there would not even have any bragging rights that ubers have strived for, given how far i am behind. Every time i finished a mission, i have to consider how many peds i can afford to lose. So when MA decides to announce 1 year notice they dont even give refunds for the money we spent on missions that we already on it, not even a concern for the people who support your game and spent money doing missions, Fyi, i have spent at least mid 4 figures, ask any MMO player to consider even 100 dollars and they will scream p2w and expensive. My former disciple who graduated is even faring far worse off, he told me he has like 6k /10k atrox done, now i even feel bigger regret that i got him playing this game and losing money.


This is not a very good year with covid 19. On a more personal note months after this mission announcement my dad passed on and i had months to recover from jaw surgery. I know there could be other fellow entropians with far worse situation then me, but point is the last thing people need is to dedicate their lives to do some mindless click and shoot in an online game on a 1 year notice. I also got lazy, but guess what? this game don't even have autohunting to clear missions whereas crafter can just do some EP nonsense and gain ridiculous skills overnight. Last icing on the cake i just read the thread, news announced to some random community channel but nothing on the official webpage and then boom! 4-5 days notice with a roadmap from a company that is as stable as Kim Jong Un's mood.
But i guess i will not understand MA, cos maybe this game is only for rich people, but MA can't just openly say it. :x

#rantover
 
That's what I meant with planning ahead and focusing on certain missions. You may lose PEDs or you may lose skills, either way it's a loss somehow. If you aren't happy with hunting something (maybe because of exactly that) then it surely shouldn't have been a high priority for you as far as finishing iron missions were concerned. But, I fully agree that it still would have been nice to finish all missions as we wished.

Which actually puts another fact on the table: doing everything at once and starting new stuff all the time isn't the best idea. I mean it's tempting to shoot that mob ahead of you or hunt something new because of whichever reason. However, it leaves you with a lot of small projects that all would need to be finished at one point. Well, so MA defined "one point" for a decent lot of such small projects. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not hunting everything and I skip some dailies because of that and I know that I miss part of the fun.

But hey, let our fun in EU not be taken away by that :) Ah, I've got to do some ironing... (speaking of clothes here :D )


Yes but to open up all missions there where had the positive effect that when you stumbel over a mob you do not regularly hunt it still counted to that mission and somwhere in the distant future you still would get the reward. Or if the value of the loot for one mob went down and you concentrated on another mob you still had the kills for mob A on your list and maybe later when the Markup for the loot from that mob was valued higher you could continue that mission. All this is now gone and replaced with Codex.
 
Yes but to open up all missions there where had the positive effect that when you stumbel over a mob you do not regularly hunt it still counted to that mission and somwhere in the distant future you still would get the reward. Or if the value of the loot for one mob went down and you concentrated on another mob you still had the kills for mob A on your list and maybe later when the Markup for the loot from that mob was valued higher you could continue that mission. All this is now gone and replaced with Codex.

Did you ever tried Codex? All you write here why the irons were good is also works with codex.
All mobs at the same time, and all caly mobs, not just irons, so you get reward after everything now, not just iron mobs.
All different version count, like puny, prototype mobs, even beacon or gauntlet instance mobs counts for codex, not counted for irons.
You dont even need to kill them, healer also get the progress after his cost, while not for iron.
Shared progress, not for iron.
Codex also dont forget your progress if you change mob.
Much better choices for rewards.

Codex is superior to iron in every aspect.
 
Did you ever tried Codex? All you write here why the irons were good is also works with codex.
All mobs at the same time, and all caly mobs, not just irons, so you get reward after everything now, not just iron mobs.
All different version count, like puny, prototype mobs, even beacon or gauntlet instance mobs counts for codex, not counted for irons.
You dont even need to kill them, healer also get the progress after his cost, while not for iron.
Shared progress, not for iron.
Codex also dont forget your progress if you change mob.
Much better choices for rewards.

Codex is superior to iron in every aspect.

I did not complain about CODEX, I only answered to endermigne stating that we all had so many iron missions open for the reason that when I kill a mob it will count torwards that iron mission even though I did not plan to finish that mission at the moment. And that is the reason so man users of this service had a lot of iron missions with maybe 10% done and not really wanting to finish them during the next year but where now forced, with the end date after 49 weeks to rush and hunt them even though their loot was atm not searched for and without removal of iron missions they would not have hunted them.

If a mob gives f.x. Thyroid oil and another one mainly Adrenal it certainly atm is better to hunt the mob that gives the stuff with higher MU. But when you have 1 month and maybe need another 10'000 Kill Points to finish the 60k KP Mission on a mob that dishes Thyroid but you get a lets say 50 Ped Courage chip you may also would decide to kill 1500 of that Mob to get the 50 Ped Courage chip.
 
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... but where now forced
This strange perception many have of feeling forced to complete tasks in a video game is what I meant with the unhealthy aspect above. I have no explanation why the Codex doesn't seem to have the same effect on people but if it works I'm all for it.
 
This strange perception many have of feeling forced to complete tasks in a video game is what I meant with the unhealthy aspect above. I have no explanation why the Codex doesn't seem to have the same effect on people but if it works I'm all for it.
I find it strange that the concept that we were forced is confusing to you.
Quite simply: we were forced to make a choice; dedicate time (and money) this past year (in 2020 of all years!) to finish up missions or have them deleted. Or as MA put it "forfeited". When that kind of time limit parameter didnt exist before.

Entropia Universe used to have a great advertising slogan "Online for decades to come!" Im not sure how many of you remember that, but it was powerful, exciting and set a stage for long term planning in here. And so far so good as we are on decade #2 ?. MA should get back to that pitch and back to that vision imo.

The comments you made about codex not having the same effect on players is actually a little concerning and I hope we dont have a problem down the road. A closer look would see yeah, no attributes, no trophy heads, no big fat skill payout at end.. even though things may be more fair, you do want players to feel that drive and payout in one way or another. I have not been critical of the codex because i view it as not totally implemented yet, but it does need some work.
 
I'm not going to complain about irons disappearing, but the main reason stated for it, lag reduction, does not seem to have changed. I still had the same lag spikes hunting last night as before.
 
...no big fat skill payout at end..
Did you actually compare them? There are the payouts, just the steps (stages) are more, therefore closer together and the amounts individually smaller, maybe less impressive at first sight. But sum them all up for a complete chain, divide by the effort required (have to estimate by hp for the old system, for the new one we have accurate ped amounts), and see how you fare. I'm not going to look at further replies that show one hasn't ever bothered to do any real calculations.
 
Did you actually compare them? There are the payouts, just the steps (stages) are more, therefore closer together and the amounts individually smaller, maybe less impressive at first sight. But sum them all up for a complete chain, divide by the effort required (have to estimate by hp for the old system, for the new one we have accurate ped amounts), and see how you fare. I'm not going to look at further replies that show one hasn't ever bothered to do any real calculations.

San is very far and away correct here. Not only that, but given choice and a repeatable.
 
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Did you actually compare them? There are the payouts, just the steps (stages) are more, therefore closer together and the amounts individually smaller, maybe less impressive at first sight. But sum them all up for a complete chain, divide by the effort required (have to estimate by hp for the old system, for the new one we have accurate ped amounts), and see how you fare. I'm not going to look at further replies that show one hasn't ever bothered to do any real calculations.
Why do you assume anyone hasn't done any calculations? Everyone is aware the skill tradeoff between iron and codex is equal if not much better.
I wrote "even though things seem more fair" about the codex and I have not really been critical of it.
I was speaking on your observations of the codex not giving players the same drive that the irons did was all. There is game theory involved in good design...
They wanted to do the new codex great! Im all for progress, i have posted up text walls of new ideas for MA to consider in the past as have many others. They just should have taken the effort to convert over iron mission kills one way or the other.
Nobody needed that kick in the nuts, not this year.
 
I'm not going to complain about irons disappearing, but the main reason stated for it, lag reduction, does not seem to have changed. I still had the same lag spikes hunting last night as before.

It might be because the system itself is not truly gone, and thus is still updating as it used to be?

Either way, im experiencing the same lag aswell so ?‍♂️ MA logic applies? But hey we got new space stuff! Totally affects everyone's gameplay to the max :D
 
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