Retrieve resources for Rais 1 feedback

[Hally]

There have been a big discussion today about this mission, drop rates, possible bugs/intereferrence with other missions, this thread is intended to collect the feedback, and i have merely offered to start it.

I have just started the mission today, and i picked the mission about picking parts and headed out, i did my 2 hours and have the following results, 0 drop from the 3 needed for mission, a total of 18 other parts distributed in 6 drops on 4 other kinds.

I have nothing but speculations and heresay, but that looks to be a very very long mission if this drop rate keeps up, others have reported 7 hours of constant shooting with uber gear to have a few drops, and we need 300 in total.

Others please pitch in with observations.

 

[Zerokewl]

Thank you for starting Hally. I'm not good at this but here we go...

I have done the picking for part mission almost every day and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day since the last VU 3 months ago.

except for the very first time ever doing the mission I had never gotten 0 broken parts during the 2 hour run. the first time it was explained that a relog was the issue and to tell new people to relog before accepting the mission and I have done so every day since just to be sure.

With that being said, during my 2 hour run yesterday I looted 0 broken parts even though I relogged before accepting the mission. The only difference from all the other times was that the cross planet mission was active.

since the cross planet mission started I have noticed, I'm able to pick up the parts mission a second time in less than 5 hours and 2 messages are popping up at the top of the screen when accepting. When 2 hours are complete 2 messages pop again but one says something about a mission being aborted. sorry I cant post screen shots at this time but I will the next time I'm able to do this mission if needed.

I totally get that the cross planet mission is supposed to take time but I think the game might be recognizing the cross plant mission over the normal picking for parts mission. this could explain why I can pick it up in less than 5 hours.

will abandoning or completing the cross plant mission make the picking for parts mission work like normal again?

I hope this helps, I'm not trying to complain but to go from many parts per mission to 0, I think something somewhere might not be correct.

 

[Hally]

Ive now done 2 hours without mission and did indeed get 1 drop from the mission, if this rate keeps up its gonna be around 200 hours of shooting, which is High but not that inreasonable, other with better gear might the able to cycle a lot fatster might even do it in 70 hours or so.

 

[sherwood]

I did the mission twice when DSEC was realised and I got 3 parts in total. I hunted all mobs and also mined, in the while, therefore they have been looted during very relaxed hunting sessions.
I did this mission again some days ago, after the VU and I got 13-14 pieces hunting nonstop OTIS Gen 01-03

 

[Synial]

I have personally been on DSEC since last Tuesday working on this mission and the only real point that has to be understood is that nobody knows what the reward is. Complaining about this at this point is rather fruitless and really only serves to discourage VS from trying to push the envelope with future content if the reaction is going to be cringeworthy.

The reward could be good. It could be bad. It could be completely subjective your taste. Most importantly, it’s literally your choice to go to DSEC to hunt. If you don’t have the drive, faith in the balancing, or ped on your card to sustain the grind for an unknown reward… wait for someone else to complete it and answer the “is it worth it?” question for you. Just because a mission exists doesn’t mean you are entitled to complete it easily, or at all. This mission’s existence could be indicative of why drops are the way they are... I doubt it was in production for one week before this VU... it’s probably been a long time coming.

Feedback on this mission chain is irrelevant without knowing the reward, imo.

There's plenty of critique to go around and questions that need to be answered about DSEC but that would be rather off-topic to this particular feedback thread (though I'm not sure if there's a reason for this thread to exist at this point for any reason other than to vent frustrations).

 

[Eleni Von Estlla]

I am no one to speak, since i have hardly been farming DSEC in any way, but this recalls a sour taste of the “jelly” episode on Toulan.

It seems to be the same song right after any VU, and, even though i hardly do any other forum, i happened to see something from the cyrene devs that drew my attention in their patchnotes, at the end :

Please give RNGesus some time to ensure all items reach their intended recipients and MindArk time to make sure that all missions are activated.

Also, uncommon/rare drops are doubtly working to ped cycled, but on long term, with items only distributed over a period of time, rather than a period of ped volume.

You can easily see this on rares hunting, like any UL, or more commonly, the Monria chapters.

I tend to think, like it has always been, that consistency primes over volume in a short time.

It is very little i am adding here, but since this post was open to observations, this is my contribution.

Hope this helps,
E~

 

[Truman]

I sometimes engage in less than friendly debates about looting specific items but I do agree that the arcade machine quest looks to take so long that I’m not particularly even interested in trying it over the fun content available on Toulan.

GL to all that are grinding this quest, though.

 

[Vizzanu]

Yay finally set up a forum account, go me

Will start with the good news, ram/flash drops seems to be back to normal last run was a little lower than norm but not far off.

I will list the last few days issues to say I did, however they appear to be mostly moot at this point.
* Parts mission would crash game a few kills after starting it, game client would then run an account integrity scan. This problem continued until last server maintenance.
* After server maintenance parts picking mission would stay open drooping 10 to 15 parts not in Rais mission and none from Rais mission, compared to the 60-90 parts I normally get from the same mobs in the same time with same equip. Rais parts would drop 3 to 4 in 10 hours of hard grind while not in parts picking mission. My issues had been with game stability once that was resolved, why the new mission was affecting drop rates on parts not related to it.

GL to all and TY to the Virtualsense team.

 

[Truman]

Nice, thanks for making an account!

 

[Truman]

Still working on Raees Quest Too

Just Finding Those Weird Tokens

I'll show myself the , sorry for joking in a serious thread.

I will get my arcade machine too, eventually

 

[Hally]

Gave it full go and cycled thru another repeat codex im now at 15/300, with the last drop being during the picker mission.
Wanting to have fresh go tomorrow before work and not being able to finnish all 2 hours on this mission i decided to abort mission, which crashed my game and send the client into veryfying all data mode…..

 

[Vizzanu]

Gave it full go and cycled thru another repeat codex im now at 15/300, with the last drop being during the picker mission.
Wanting to have fresh go tomorrow before work and not being able to finnish all 2 hours on this mission i decided to abort mission, which crashed my game and send the client into veryfying all data mode…..

Was doing that to me with or without abandoning it, as stated in post above have not had game crash or the scan for almost 2 days now...knock on wood. Way to scared to try abandoning it after the first day off issues, no clue if it would still do the same for me.

 

[Hally]

logged off with picking mission active yesterday, shortly after logging in today i got the message it was over, didnt retake it, and now spend 4 hours pumping like 1xk ped thru otis and havnt gotten a single part for rais mission, i dont get it.....

 

[Vizzanu]

Same went back to zero also crashing game again, and of course armor drops stopped all together soon update hit update hit... good times

 

[Vizzanu]

Abandon parts picking mission, leave DSEC while it is open, get booted from game and an account scan 100% of the time

Will also randomly happen while running mission. 2 hour timer also keeps running while logged out of game or not in DSEC now.

The affect on farming the tens of thousands of broken parts needed to make the hundreds of working parts needed for armor upgrade, a much bigger concern for myself and I would guess many others than the rais mission chain itself.
Regardless of what drop rate on rais mission parts are supposed to be. Why non rais mission parts greatly reduced when drooping at all I have no clue. I only know drops are highly inconsistent at best for rais and non rais parts. Working parts had been the only part of the armor upgrade mission a player could make any real progress on, or had a drop rate you could even estimate a timeline for progress. I try very hard to stay positive and not complain about drops like the armor or HDD drops, anyone who knows MA and loot at all knows eventually drop rates on HHD and armor itself will see many changes. The game crashes and parts drop inconsistency a whole lot different than just low drops.
I cant speak for all but I know for myself getting the standard "its not broke" "working as intended" "must be your gear or gameplay" or my new favorite "set up that way so to slow ubers down" finger pointing at the player, when we are just pointing out actual gameplay experience helps nothing. Blanket statement "we are looking into it" would be allot better than denial of the possible existence of an issue and finger pointing at the player.

 

[Synial]

I think everyone gets that crash when abandoning the mission or leaving DSEC - assuming it is because the mission itself is a modifier/multiplier of drop rates and switching area/servers causes a conflict on other areas/servers and files have to be verified. Hopefully fixed soon but it is a bandaid fix to the ability to put the mission in a permanent state until the server syncs like it was last VU.

I've been waiting until this VU to make a feedback post about DSEC (and at this point I'm waiting until completing the entire mission) but my only assumption at the moment is that a yet-to-be-implemented area within DSEC will not drop broken parts but have much higher drop rates of HDD and armor.

This missions existence is possibly the reason for the drop rates as-is. An area can't be "too good" or every player in the game would flock there... just like how Monria isn't dropping UL Armor parts AND chapters, it'd just be too good

The broken parts do drop though.. I think my worst dry streak without a part is around 7 hours.

 

[DarkMoonEnigma]

I cant speak for all but I know for myself getting the standard "its not broke" "working as intended" "must be your gear or gameplay" or my new favorite "set up that way so to slow ubers down" finger pointing at the player, when we are just pointing out actual gameplay experience helps nothing. Blanket statement "we are looking into it" would be allot better than denial of the possible existence of an issue and finger pointing at the player.

First, I get that what some of you are experiencing is real and that it's frustrating, I'm not dismissing that whatsoever. I'm sharing with you only what I know at this point in time, and may change after Ant looks into things which I clearly said in Saturday night's Monria chat channel when this discussion was going on as you can see below. Sharing your feedback in our chat channels is one thing, and when asked to post it at the forum so that Ant can see it is another, which is a good thing because it gives us an opportunity to evaluate it, but then to continue to complain in the chat channels does nothing to help the situation ... results and feedback have been noted.

Also, I wasn't finger pointing at players and never said anything about "must be your gear or gameplay" ... and based on what I know at this point in time (before any evaluating is done of the missions) is that the missions are not broken, especially when so many others have been doing them and not reporting any issues. The common theme is the drop rate, and I did mention that we designed the mission chains not to be easy or done quickly, because yes ... we don't want the ubers to come in and grind and spoil it for others who deserve to have an opportunity to work the mission chains as well. I'm sure you know the issue that happened on Cyrene that caused a stir. There are also other mission chains in the game that take quite a while to complete, it's not uncommon.

I also said that "Ant is looking at the dynamics of the missions" ... perhaps that part was missed, which is why I posted exactly what I said in Monria chat below so that's it's clear. There are also variables at play here that can't be discussed by a Planet Partner Team, but that is a given as it relates to the dynamics of development, not just missions.

We have worked together as a team almost 6 years now, and "Community First" has always been our mission. Now that we have full control over development at 2 of our 3 locations (Toulan/DSEC-9), we are able to do a lot more, and it is our intention to create content that is meant to appeal to all level players, and make the game-play fair.

That said, we have always from the beginning invited our community to post their feedback at the forum so that we know what's working and what's not to give us an opportunity to evaluate it and do what needs to be done to make it right. However, we need for the community to also be reasonable with regard to how quickly that gets done. We have time constraints when it comes to when and how we can fix or adjust things, such as a VU and/or a Patch, and even within those time-frames we have deadlines. Some things also require MA's attention, so there's that.

With regard to the crashing ... at this point, we literally don't know what's causing it for those who are experiencing it, but this is also something that should be reported to MA by submitting a support ticket. I've had crashes, but they are not related to working the missions or even being at DSEC-9 or Monria, and this was just recently. Something is going on because I too get the "Verify Data Files' notice and I never had that before. It's best to file a support ticket so that MA has a record of it and knows there's an issue. I actually thought I saw somewhere in a chat where someone was having the same issue but was at a different location other than one of ours.

Bottom-line is ... we make an effort to work in tandem with our community so that what we do content-wise has a real purpose, and are not just throwing content out there to have content. Ant is very measured with making sure that everything has a purpose, and that resources are used in one or more ways so that it boosts the economy. If something isn't working right based on feedback, then you can rest assured that we are looking into it, not ignoring it.

I will respectfully ask that everyone post feedback constructively, and then be reasonable with regard to giving us time and an opportunity to evaluate things to see what can be done. Thank You

Here is the portion of the Monria chat log from Saturday night (Sep 11th) with exactly what I said so that it is clear:

2021-09-11 23:20:48 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] we want everything to work properly too, which is why we invite the feedback and ask you to post it at the forum
2021-09-11 23:21:01 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] complaining in chat does absolutely nothing because I can't do anything
2021-09-11 23:21:08 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] Ant needs to see your feedback
2021-09-11 23:21:59 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] we've done nothing intentional to mess things up, and Ant is looking at the dynamics of the missions
2021-09-11 23:22:18 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] you guys just need to give us a chance to work with your feedback
2021-09-11 23:23:27 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] nothing happens overnight
2021-09-11 23:26:14 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] you know that we work with our community, we don't go silent, and we share what we can share
2021-09-11 23:29:01 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] we want it to be right
2021-09-11 23:29:17 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] we work hard at making it right, but sometimes it takes a bit to do the tweaking
2021-09-11 23:29:29 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] and we are limited with when we can do the tweaking too
2021-09-11 23:30:44 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] and several of you have already posted in your thread at the forum
2021-09-11 23:31:01 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] that was just a couple of days ago ... I've already been in discussions with Ant
2021-09-11 23:31:15 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] you have to be reasonable and give us half a chance to evaluate things
2021-09-11 23:31:20 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] it just doesn't happen overnight
2021-09-11 23:32:56 [#monria] [Virtualsense Official DME] the crashing is being looked into, but that too is a situation of working with MA

 

[Hally]

Not sure if anything changed and it might just be variance, but compared to yesterday, today after 1900 ingame time things has been way better balanced and I haven’t had a single crash. In fact compared to yesterday I’ve had a way better experience. It’s still Grindy and hard just not 9 hours and not a single item hard

 

[Truman]

I suspect drops for avatars on an individual level may be perceived to be fixed temporarily while everyone flocks to gold rush. Maybe even drops will stay pretty good since Arkadia is so far from DSEC-9, but we will see

 

[Eugenio Anhithe Wilde]

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to add your feedback here. I'd just like to add my 2 pec into the mix

On the loot stuff, we're quiet about these things for a couple of reasons. One reason is, that I can't talk about loot and some of the inner dynamics of EU. I also think its not fair if we share anything that may or may not be picked up by all players, some players put a lot of effort into working out their own game play to their advantage and its part of EU as a whole to figure these things out. It's not really fair if I share that the reason you aren't looting a particular part is that you should always be shooting east (not true). So this also extends to DME who as much as she will champion the community and always give me your feedback she is also not allowed to share anything loot related or any inner dynamics of game play. It's also more my area as I build the missions and game play so I just understand it better as I work directly with the platform. This is the reason you may get frustrated with blanket responses, it's really me giving direction that we can't share anything. I also don't want to give any false promises and state we're changing something that may not end up changing. I see that as a little dishonest and not my way, I would rather give players choices and accept that some may choose not to do certain things.

But saying that, I do read everything on the forum and we collect a lot of info from Discord, in-game chat etc and I check a lot of data points to get as clear a picture as I can. I'd be amazed if there's not plenty of you who have not noticed deliberate changes that are directly related to a post or chat comment. Some of this is really obvious like "an epic mission chain" some a little less obvious...

After we've implemented this stuff, I measure it against qualitative and quantitative data. By this I mean I read all the feedback and I look at all the data points. How many people did this, how many completed this mission, how popular is this mob, how available is this thing. I'll then adjust content going forward based on this feedback and then measure again.

So really long way of saying I am looking into it but I'm always looking at these things, from why have we still not received that figurine, to why has that limited armor part from 5 years ago not been discovered etc. Some of this I'll change because I can, some of this I won't because I can't and some of this I won't change because I believe it's not in our collective best interests. But I always read all the info I can and at least make the effort to do something about your feedback.

For the armor upgrade missions there's a few ways you can get parts both in missions and outside of missions for both mining and hunting.

The 'Picking parts for DEC shift' mission allows you to loot things that you wouldn't normally loot whilst the mission is active. We fixed a bug this last VU where players could abandon the mission and restart it, meaning you could have the chance to loot these damaged parts all the time by repeating this. It was never the intention for this to happen, it was just a scenario I hadn't considered. So the timer is supposed to be running down whilst logged in or out. You are supposed to be choosing to do your daily shift as you want a chance to loot the parts (or choosing not to because you'd rather loot other things). I think if you were abandoning the mission you may not have noticed this or it was a bug I wasn't aware of. You can then sell your damaged parts, swap them or save them up and hand them in for working parts that you can sell or keep/use etc.

You can also choose to do the Simon's Working Parts Deal where perhaps you feel you would rather mine certain ores/enmatters and hand them in targeting a specific RAM or Flash Drive part that you need or feel is in need. You can choose to do this whilst completing the new mining missions. You could even choose to exchange it for the mining ingredients from a non-miner and keep your own for yourself once you've completed the mission.

You can choose to exchange damaged parts for working parts and simply buy the damaged parts.

You can also choose not to do the missions and acquire the parts in the non-mission ways that they can be acquired. The hard drives and armor parts themselves are rare and you could choose to figure out the ways that these can be acquired and target those activities. You can even choose to use what you've learned to target things when others are or aren't doing them based on what you think best benefits you.

On top of this we have added the DEC Emissary mission which is our first crossover mission that is the start of missions that I would like to introduce across the locations (unless nobody does them and then I might re-think it ). They are designed to make use of certain things on both Toulan and DSEC-9. Different requirements at different stages. So now there's even more choices in the mix, do you complete the cross over missions and the daily picker or only focus on one? What stage are you at and what benefit is there to doing both, or is there none. Are you better off not doing the Picker mission while at a particular stage or is that just crazy talk. Is it better to be first to complete the stages or hang back?

Anyway, I could go on but these missions are designed to be challenging, and what I'm trying to do is to make choices matter. These are quite complex missions that took a lot of effort to design. It would be much easier for me to do fairly standard mission formats but I guess I'm trying to do what I can to make things a little different than what we already have and to create opportunity through scarcity and have choices matter.

Saying all that, there are game mechanics including loot behind all this and I am looking into it but I always am and will never talk about it for the above reasons. I just want everyone to understand my process a little and reassure everyone that I do my best to take everyone's feedback onboard.

On the game crashes, if you could raise support cases it would help, as it's proving difficult for me to recreate, but if you raise support cases they can gather more information from logs about the scenarios when it occurs.

Ant