I mean, if you are strapped for time, we could cut down the mission length as well, say, to one room and done? and, hey, the number of enemies is far too much, every mission should be low intensity.
;p
or ya know, fix the performance issues, and boost the size of the available map pool so you almost always get a map you are fine playing, and can actually find people to play it with instead of being forced to play solo.
I’m all in favor of more agency. I am not too afraid that more choice will “cancel” some maps, especially if quickplay is adjusted to be randomized. VT2 does a good job at that.
However VT2 is also relying on a player being host, while DT is on servers (which are not doing too well).
Won’t there will be be a cost to pay by increasing server capacity (additional charges for FS/TC) and/or additional server lag client side (insufficient capacity or matchmaking pairing players from far away)?
Proposing variable difficulty on a couple of maps seems to me like a decent compromise.
Good point i would scrap that contract or replace it with play Mission X at difficulty Y maybe, but then it needs to be able to change the difficulty level without costs and provide less or more rewards according to difficulty.
I think the main risk of giving too many options in mission selection is to split the player base so much that waiting time get too long for a full squad (especially with how bad the bots are).
Having a strong quickplay mode with an actual incentive to use it (like garanty 20% progress on one quest if the mission is complete in addition to what it can bring and some bonus plasteel and diamantine). Would bring every one together.
It’s not a popular opinion here but I agree. The biggest problem with the mission board now is there aren’t enough viable options for players. Currently there are points in time where there are literally zero viable missions for some people. If a player only has fun on 4’s and 5’s, but also wants to collect grims… 50/50 chance there’s no mission that will do it. IMHO it’s not the ‘random missions’ that’s to blame, it’s the lack of options, having more ‘random’ missions would fix the issue IF there are enough options and they’re procedural generated rather than true RNG. If the RNG didn’t get in the way like it does now I don’t think 95% of the player base would care that it is RNG.
First thing, decouple difficulty. When you choose a mission from the board, you choose the difficulty. So instead of 1-3 random missions at the difficulty you want, any mission is available at the difficulty you want so players have 10-15 missions to choose from.
Next, make sure all mission patterns are available. Multiple ways of doing it, but the end goal is to make sure there’s at least 2 missions with no mods, 2 with grims, 2 with scripts, and 2 that will qualify for each of the other types of weekly contracts. So no matter what a player wants to do, there’s at least 2 option, probably more.
I think that fixes 99% of the issues. For that last 1%, we do need a way to select exactly what we want when we want it. I remember one of the streamers I watch complain a few days after the first new map was released. They were complaining that after hours of trying they were unable to find the map as an option to make a video with. So we need a button off to the side or something that lets you choose exactly what you want too, but also incentivize players to play the RNG ones with boosted rates, etc.
More mission choice = more bots. You get bots when you don’t match with humans, and the more “buckets” of matchmaking there are (and you add a new bucket each time you add an additional selectable mission), the more solo missions will be run.
There’s an argument for a dynamic number of missions to be available based on the current player pool size. When player population is very high in a certain difficulty, you might be able to support tons of missions at that combo. But that’s the only time when more missions would work.
And then yeah…the OP is right about it making sense lore-wise too. But I’m appealing to the actual underlying reason to have the game work this way: matchmaking bucket sizes.
There is easy, revolutionary solutions for that: server browser like in Vermintide 2, DRG, TF2, Battlefield and many many more. Where you can see if there is already people playing map and difficulty you want and you can join in. Or even better: you can chose your map and difficulty and wait for people to join before starting a map.
I know, who would have thought about something like that.
To be fair it’s not like the variety was insane as it is.
I have close to 2k hours in VT2 so that’s not a problem for me, mind you, but having the choice of mission, modifiers and difficulty wouldn’t change anything to QP players and still allow people with map objectives or chasing a specific penance to actually play the game they want to play.
I might be repeating myself a bit too much by now but what keeps the game from becoming stale and repetitive are talents that change a class’s playstyle and an exhaustive crafting system that allows you to get the weapon you want - neither of which seem to be a complete success at the moment.
You know what else equals more bots ? Less players. Had they not had their abysmal supporting systems, perhaps the player counts would hover around upwards of 20k today.
I see your point and it’s an interesting idea from a story PoV. IF there was story. The whole entire story so far seems like the longest prologue in gaming history. The story from my PoV hasnt even begun. We just have random lore (nostalgia) from our random assortment of penal legion sacrifices.
If there was a fleshed-out boss or antagonist, collectables or lore hidden or random generated NPCs in missions, random fights and events, world events. If the difficulties were more unique and challenging, we wouldn’t be here.
Right now, the blanket (more mobs) difficulty isn’t enough to satisfy the player base when we’re Pigeon-holed to 2 maps on said preference. I have never felt this way while playing a game. Sitting and waiting, wanting to play but unable because of the map selection.
This is coming from someone who is more than happy to play the same map 100’s of times. Being forced to play diff 2 because of a weekly is so lame. I also think its adversely affecting new players.
I have never had this problem in V2, the transparency of a lobby browser means you can cherry pick a lobby. Being able to control difficulty is a must.
I do agree about the conditions. The conditions should be controlled by the devs (over arcing “story”) with its ebb and flow. But if you go private, there is no reason this all shouldn’t be experimental to whatever your group prefers.
Surely you’re going to suggest removing the dumb weeklies that require specific missions for it to work around the current payday2 mission map then right?
(Payday 2: What is CRIMENET? - YouTube)
I played day 1 payday2, is this not similar mission menu usage? RNG generated missions.
I’m not familiar with today’s PD2.