I really hate to start this again, but it needs to be said. The changes to the missions made in 1.0.9 have made things worse. Although we now have a
"choice" in doing combat missions, it has become even MORE boring and tedious than before. Yes, a list of 8 bots to kill, choose 4. Great. I have not
yet been able to find these damned bots without going two or three systems
away from the previous one, and some I haven't heard of before and cannot
find yet. I'm REALLY beginning to have regrets about that $36 pre-order.

[Moved to Suggestions]

Playtesting! Don't regret, suggest!

In nation aligned systems the bots in each sector are listed. I think only a few of the Very high level bots are not in the nation systems, and If you're at that high a level, it shouldn't be easy, you'll just have to explore.

The new design of the combat missions seems much better to me. The rewards are higher, you don't have to constantly jump from sector to sector to get other types of bots, and if one of the bot choices is giving you trouble you can try taking on another.

That said...
Everyone seems to be in such a huge rush to gain levels that they fail to take time to enjoy the other aspects of the game.
The leveling system is designed to give you enough ships/weapons early on to be competitive in the universe, once you're finished the basic combat mission you have a lot of great equipment at your disposal, equipment that some of the veteran players continue to use even at higher levels.

I myself spent almost all day trying to kill the Serco convoy and I had a blast, I didn't get much experience towards levels and I think I lost about 400k credits buying ships and ammo, but everyone had a good time killing each other and stealing cargo.

As FM has suggested, a complaint does not help progress the game, If you have an idea to make the missions better by all means post it.

-Cam-

also see
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6619
same theme.

ummmm, you can kill the same bot on the list more than once.

bug? I just assumed when it said "kill 5 bots from this list" it meant kill 5 bots, valid targets are shown on this list.

Since the list updates after each kill and still shows the bot you just killed, i think you were doing the list wrong.

FM and Cam: I know that it is a "touchie-feelie, "warm and fuzzy," politically
correct world, but I'm not. A complaint is still a complaint even if it is phrased
in the most eloquent prose or the most politically correct fashion. I choose to
to state things straight out. It takes less time. And since you are about to jump
feet-first into the world of pay 2 play, you had best prepare yourselves to get
REAL complaints.

Hey Spellcast: What you pointed out is great. Is that the way it's intended? Anyone know? That illustrates one of my weaknesses: I take things too literally.
I read it and took it at face value. I didn't poke and prod it. Oh well. Live and
(hopefully) learn. Thanx.

Hehe, ok, so the problem here is that it's not clear that you can kill anything on the list as many times as you want? Yes, that's the way it was intended, and I'll look at rewording it to make it more clear. I have no problem with outright complaints, but offering solutions with your complaints is even more helpful.

So, does that negate your gripe? Or does the mission still suck? :)

<And since you are about to jump
feet-first into the world of pay 2 play, you had best prepare yourselves to get
REAL complaints.>

-It's not a matter of being unable to handle complaints, it's a matter of giving your complain validity. Nobody takes a habitual whiner seriously, so florid prose to cover up being an incorrigable whiner helps. :D

well technically Vlad the missions still suck cause there are only like 5 single and like 2 group. but I personally think the new way the advanced combat is setup is waaaay better and on the right track so I won't feel bad about pre-ordering because I like the direction the game is heading in

Hmmm, just posted a reply to this thread, and when I clicked "post" it all went away. Vanished.

Thanx Vlad. Yes, this somewhat "negates the gripe" but does not deal directly with the well known "levelling treadmill." I understand the purpose for levelling,
which is training. But once one learns to deal with the more difficult bots, why is
it necessary to kill them over and over again for 2 or 3 weeks to level-up?? Since
the start of levelling, I once achieved level 10 in a few things, and then we
got "wiped." Never had a chance to test actually "playing the game." Right now,
it seems there IS no "game"... only levelling. The amount of time required to level
needs to be dramatically reduced.

Hey Magus, yes...It IS a fine old whine. :-p

"The amount of time required to level needs to be dramatically reduced."

I would have to strongly disagree. It's relatively easy to get to the upper eschalons of equipment as things are setup right now, almost too easy. If you get the best ship in the game within a week, what is there left to look forward to?

While I agree that there should be fun things to do at all levels and you shouldn't have to grind mobs for months before having a viable character, I think there should always be something to work toward.

On a related note, I can't say for certain but it seems like with the rebalanced economy a 3500 credit reward for four bot kills is a tad high.

enjoy the bus, the wraith, atlas, and what have you... before you get that perfect setup you've always wanted (and will stick to for a long time). makes playing more interesting eh?

Leveling needs to be shorter?

This again stresses the point that everyone is just trying to rush things.
As Phaserlight said: What's the point of force leveling to get everything in the game?

It's not that leveling needs to be sped up, it's that it needs to come more naturally in the game. Leveling should happen at a reasonable rate without noticing. Players should be too engulfed in the missions or story line to care, maybe sometimes force leveling in order to gain an advantage for the next mission in the tree.

All that's needed is a reason for the botting, even a small one.
I think the Spy/Recon mission tree is a great example of how leveling could work. The missions are interesting, they have a specific goal, and they give a good amount of experience for the time they consume. Maybe some more generalized missions with goals could help.

Defend Base missions were always fun, have a bunch of pirate bots invade a station sector, and you have to kill all of them to finish the mission and get a nice reward, they higher your level, the harder the bots. (the only problem could be with the no-fire zone, maybe it's possible that attacks on "pirate" nation ships don't count towards the no-fire rule)

Patrol missions within a system would be the same basic thing but you have to fly to 3-4 different sectors (station/wormhole sectors preferably) and you may or may not encounter pirates along the way.

There's a lot to be said about an ending. The combat missions right now don't have an end, they just keep going, and while for leveling that's great, it's not very rewarding mentally. I think generally most people like to accomplish goals, and the successful completion of a mission with good experience and monetary rewards could help dissolve the repetitiveness of the leveling treadmill.

-Cam-

The current missions are fun, I can spend an hour killing DenTek assault's (okay, 2 repairs) and grab 10k cash for each wave of five of them. Rewarding and juicy. Feels really good to be botting again, since its not just "go find something" missions anymore.

Looking forwards to spend some time hunting down A-3's to see just how uber they are, since they -are- at the end of the list.

The fact that you get different rewards based on what you kill is quite nice, but a bit off, since the defenders are slower kills than the assaults are, so you can't be quite as effective...

(Neither is really "hard" though... ;)

One thing I am concerned about is that it's far easier to make cash by doing the combat missions than it is by trading.

Shash, not true when you have to kill 6 of the bloody bots to get a reward.

Earning 10k on trade is a piece of pie, really. Especially now that a cargo ship can take what, 38+ units?

Yeah, the new combat mission is way easier. I'm not sure what the complaint is about finding them. You should be able to find at LEAST one of the bots on the list as short as two systems from your nation's home system... and you can kill the bot over and over and over while using the local stations to repair and reload.

Even with the boosted rewards, leveling will take some time, but it's far less frustrating.

The Valent A-3 assaults are hardly worth killing. DenTek assaults give more weapons experience and have weapons that hit less hard. Maybe this should be tweaked:
Valent A-3 give 210, DenTek give 600 points.

On a side note: it's easy to fool the bots and get little to no damage. If you know how to distract bots, you can get yourself a window (1k distance to your pursuers), then shoot a stream of tachyons or w/e at a hapless single bot. With two tachyons that gets him about to 30%, after that it's short work, and off to the next bot.

I agree with cam's last post, a variety of types of bot missions with different rewards, difficulties and maybe some plot would go a long way to take out some of the repeating nature of the game. Maybe if instead of "kill 6 bots type from the following list" style missions u could have it so they need to kill 'this type' of bot from 'that' sector for 'this' reason. then fill it with some story line and maybe some humor.. it will still be the same task but a bit more goal orientated. I (personally) like it when I come up to the mission lists and have lots of choices of things to try.

I never had a problem with the Apu-17's missions before 1.09 patch and did noticed how much easier it was to level after the fact. I totally think Vlad was on the right path with the changes that he made but I think it needs to go a bit further.. but that is just my humble opinion

Pen (9/10/10/8 over +700 faction Itani/UIT/Corvus/TPG/Serco all in 17 days)

OooooH, sending players to certain death by assigning them sectors. That's a neat idea and I think you're on track with the storyline tie in.