Having been testing it (and reading around other forum topics), it has become clear that missions do not count for progress if you are not in them the entire way through - joining part way through (although what counts as “part way” is unclear - but I suspect it may mean if you’re not there for the initial disembark cutscene, even if matchmaking throws you into a game before combat starts), as well as any crash during a mission also invalidating it.
However, it’s also clear that going down in any mission that’s been invalidated by any above reason completely resets your progress.
For those of us who are having considerable stability problems with your game (while I occasionally have periods of stability, I had three games in a row last night where I crashed twice in each of them), this in practice means that achieving the penance requires not 10 or 15 consecutive games (depending on whether you want just the achievement, or the full penance) where you don’t mess up, but quite possibly twice that or more.
While obviously I’d prefer a completely stable game, that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming any time soon, so I would implore you to address this either such that players can still count the mission if they reconnect, or make it such that if a mission is or becomes invalid for progressing penance progress, it should also be invalid for resetting penance progress.
(I also frankly wouldn’t mind a way to pause penance progress entirely, so I can take a break from trying to grind out a chain of Malice missions).
This would mean that you could cheese the penance by disconnecting and reconnecting a bunch, effectively only being there for a fraction of the mission, without facing any actual danger of dying.
Probably not something that a lot of players would do, but still something worth considering.
This sounds like a good solution to me.
A disconnect should only invalidate what happens afterwards. No retroactive invalidation.
If you die while the mission is valid for penance progression, that should count as dying and reset the penance progress, even if you disconnect afterwards.
This way, you can only lose progress as long as you are able to make progress, but you can not “reset” your fail by disconnecting purposely after already having died.
It could be achieved this way: Enable the penance when loading into a new mission (opening cinematic plays). Disable the penance when loading into an ongoing mission (reconnecting or joining later).
There should also be a remark in the description of the penance, telling you about it.
I think almost any implementation is going to have some way to cheese it. Even currently I suspect that “Oh no, I’m about to die, Alt-F4 to the rescue!” and then refusing to reconnect would be a way to avoid losing your progress.
There’s already “% of the mission time” mechanics in place for things like the Zealot’s speed-run penance, so it should be possible to implement it so that one has to be playing for a high percentage of the mission time. (90 or 95%, perhaps, which gives a minute or two’s leeway on joining existing missions, for a game crash or a brief connectivity issue).
Right now, the current implementation is slightly toxic, as it discourages reconnecting to a game in progress if you’re trying to complete the penance - that’s just time in which you’re going to risk blowing your progress, with no chance of progressing it.
This way, you can only lose progress as long as you are able to make progress
Well, it’s still not entirely fair, as there’s still going to be a load of missions where you could blow your entire progress, but were never going to be able to count because it crashes three quarters of the way through…
… but it’s less unfair. (Particularly as failure rates are generally going to be higher in the later portions of a mission)
It could be achieved this way: Enable the penance when loading into a new mission (opening cinematic plays). Disable the penance when loading into an ongoing mission (reconnecting or joining later).
There should also be a remark in the description of the penance, telling you about it.
That’s a relatively simple implementation, and it would generally be better than it currently is.
Yes. And that will probably always be possible.
However, this still requires you to finish 15 missions in their entirety, without dying.
At least it is not possible to just constantly dc and reconnect throughout the mission and then walk into the elevator/ship to get progress towards the penance.
