The title pretty much says it all, but I for one think the botting missions we have now get mind-numbingly boring after extended botting sessions. Part of this is the plain and simple fact that yes, grinding mobs is boring, but I think that the combat missions could be made a lot more interesting by giving them finite goals, limiting their scope, and adding a little blurb to give the mission some context.

Finite goals: how often do you hear a noob ask "How do I beat the combat mission?" and you find yourself sheepishly replying "Well, you never really *beat* it." I propose that combat missions auto-complete after a given number of bots are killed. Is it convenient to have a mission that never ends? Yes. Does it give the player a sense of accomplishment? Maybe for some, but I suspect when most people think "Mission" they think "Goal" which means you are working towards something finite.

Limited scope: Once you reach the advanced combat mission you can pretty much go out and kill any bot you want and get rewarded for it. I would like to see missions that send you to a *specific* sector, asteroid belt, or system to kill a *specific* type of bot(s). (e.g. Kill 8 Valent A-47 assaults and 8 Tycorp assaults in the gamma cluster of the Ukari asteroid belt) Again, the way missions are set up now make it super-convenient, which isn't always a good thing. The missions need more focus.

More story: writing a little two to three sentence blurb about the mission you are about to take would give it some more context and lend a little more depth to the universe:

"Rogue prosus assault bots have been disrupting mining efforts in Helios. Travel to the Helios system and kill 16 prosus assaults."

"Arklan guardians are a relatively recent addition to the Hive Queen's fleet; we want you to learn more about their behavior and combat capabilities. Dissassemble 10 rogue Arklan guardians and report back here with your findings."

"Long range scanners detect increased hive activity in Dau M-6, we need you to trim the population. Destroy 40 hive bots of any type in Dau M-6"

I could sit here all day and think of different interesting RP reasons to go botting. It may seem trivial, but I really think it would add a lot. When a player accepts a mission they want to know "Why am I doing this? What will it accomplish?"

I know there will be some people who will rail against this saying "Don't nerf the combat missions!" But let me ask you this; is ultra convenience with no attainable goal a good thing? Do you really want the universe handed to you on a silver platter? Focus the combat missions and give them finite goals!

Your completely right, there needs to be more finite goals for the combat mission, or just call it extended training or something, it's not really a "mission" at the moment at all, you never complete it, just get bored and switch to trading or go off and kill someone, or mine. No real accomplishment at all. No gratification once you leave the mission.

Though I think some of you are against scripted missions I think having some combat missions that had specific spawns would be interesting as well, other then take out x number of bots in this sector. More like, There has been transports being attacked in Latos XX, seek out the corvos vultures with X insignia and eliminate them. Then when you arrive in that sector your enemies spawn and you have to dispatch them. And by all means give them much better AI's then the bots that the Queens produce.

I most definitely like these ideas, there are no limits to the different specific types of mission you could do surrounding bot hunting. as long as these missions don't make the leveling process even SLOWER, they would make the game much more interesting.

I got a more complicated idea for a mission.

Mining Escort duty: you escort an npc mining ship to a certain sector (fairly reasonable bots, much more exp for higher level bots), and keep that ship safe as long as it takes to mine a certin ammount, and safely leave the sector. big cash payout and decent exp bonus would really make this mission rewarding.

or maybe "NPC Trader Joe Scmoe (of the same nation as the station) is currently ferrying cargo from point A to point B. Please escort Joe Schmoe for ten minutes."

Ideally, the mission would be able to direct you to one of the ambient traders, rather than creating one especially for that particular mission

I find escorting npc's to be totally boring, it's just another mini ctc mission without the cargo delivery. I want combat missions that involve combat that does not mean that I have to protect something, just blow it up. NPC never evade well enough or fly fast enough, and if it's going to be a solo mission I don't see it workiing well.

Phaserlight those are very good suggestions. Could they not also be extended to non-bot combat missions?

- UIT corps sending you to harrass/destroy against a rival corp.
- Itani sending you to engage some Serco, and vice-versa.
- Corvus sending you to blow up traders and bring their cargo back.

I agree, too, that escorting NPCs is dull. If we had real group mining and trade missions there'd be no need to involve NPCs.

I'd love to see more variety in combat missions like this. More group combat missions like this would be nice as well. A lot of these suggestions could easily work as group missions, too. Another one could be, if a system's Hive Queen has gone for more than a certain amount of time (say, 1 week) without being destroyed, the stations in that system would give a mission to hunt it down.

@johnhawl218: I agree, escort duty could easily become very boring, but I do think it would make a good mission to add some variety. No one would force you to do it, and those who would like it could take it.

*bump*