Cooperative Away Missions

[Drexxus3d]

So lets say the USS Nimbus is cruising around space and, Oh Noes!, distress signal from planet Omicron Persei 8. USS Nimbus immediately changes course and arrives at Omicron Persei 8 to assist, only to find the USS Parallax is already in orbit there with it's captain and a few officers already planetside assisting in the situation.

So in this hypothetical situation, lets say both captains got the same "quest" to assist this planet. the USS Parallax got it a few minutes earlier, thus was already there helping.

Now assuming the quest has multiple objectives lets use for example objective 1: Meet the planet's head of state to determine the problem and assess the situation and courses of action, objective 2: Repair the hydrocarbon powerplant before it explodes, objective 3: deal with (kill or capture) all ferengi involved in sabotaging the powerplant.

Now I personally imagine scenarios kind of like this because I think the "quest chain" style of play is more interesting, like you start with one objective, which leads you to other objectives, which leads you to the conclusion ultimately.

So anyway back to the situation, lets say the captain of USS Nimbus wants to assist the captain of the USS Parallax in assisting the planet, but USS paralax has already completed the first few quests in the chain, if you will.

Now in a game like world of warcraft, if you want to do a quest chain with someone and they are ahead of you on it, you have to simply solo everything that they already completed until you're at the same level then continue together from there. I think this is really unimmersive and a pretty crappy mechanic. So i'm just wondering if the USS Nimbus and Parallax got together to solve the planetary crisis, would the Nimbus have to redo the first couple steps alone while parallax twiddled it's thumbs waiting? Or will this game actually take into consideration those objects were completed and don't need to be redone and allow the USS Nimbus' people to beam down to Parallax's people right away and auto-complete all former objectives even though they weren't there then allow both groups to finish the mission together?

Ahh the stuff I think about :P

[Tain]

Snip


All depends on whether multiple ships can get a distress call like that, or if its purely instanced/single ship content. I think this could be a cool way to implement "public quests" sorta like WAR had, just not as pointless. IE a large event occurs, a distress call is broadcast, and any ship in range that receives the call can respond/participate. May even be how the borg thing works.

[Blackheart]

I think from all the info I've heard that you will be able to have your friends along for any mission.

But I do not know if the second captain would get credit for the first part of the mission,if he came in half way...I do not think this has been talked about yet.

[Drexxus3d]

I feel pretty certain the content that takes place planetside will be instanced, but I don't think it would be necesarry to instance the "outside" of the planet such as ships in orbit.

Although it would be weird to goto a planet with a mission you just got and have like 30 ships orbitting it and then you beam down and are the only lifeforms down there cause each captain is in a different instance of the same planet :P

Rather extreme example, but I think the "occasional" bumping into another ship out in space then deciding to team up would be a fun dynamic to add. I mean afterall, when a ship or planet sends out a distress call it stands to reason multiple ships in the area would receive and respond to it.

[LordDave]

My guess is that they'd have to take the "game vs realism" approach and have you "catch up" to your fellow captain.

However, to go into the same instance, you'd have to be grouped from the start.

[Larky2k]

What they could do is you hale the other Captain and ask"Want any Assistance" if they say yes then you can beam down and help out at what ever position they are at but only get how much left to go XP instead of the fall amount but have it as a WAR style public quest that way you can redo it at the later date.

[knightofhyrule730]

youll be able to get other people to join you, but you will not have the situation where someone will beat you to a mission

[Messer_Macheath]

If I can skip parts of a mission simply by grouping with someone who has done them already, I could heavily exploit that. I could have my friend go on one mission, while I go on another. Then, when we are both on the last objective, group together, and finish them both, essentially cutting our completion time in half. I could expand this to 6 of my friends, and... well, you see where that is going.

I see it as being abusable. They would have to implement it so that you could only have one mission at a time, and would have to drop your current mission in order to join up with a group, taking the group's mission as your own. And even at that, there may be a way to abuse the system that I can't think of off the top of my head.

-Macheath.

[inXi]

I don't think you can jump between missions like that, isn't really Trek to me. I view missions as something you're dragged into rather than something that hangs in your quest log and you can activate at some point.

I would imagine it, at someone proposed, instanced-with-join-later. Fully instanced is sort of boring and limits people to meeting prior to missions, which I found cumbersome. On the other hand, if you insist on doing it alone, you have that ability.

[PigUp]

If I can skip parts of a mission simply by grouping with someone who has done them already, I could heavily exploit that. I could have my friend go on one mission, while I go on another. Then, when we are both on the last objective, group together, and finish them both, essentially cutting our completion time in half. I could expand this to 6 of my friends, and... well, you see where that is going.

I see it as being abusable. They would have to implement it so that you could only have one mission at a time, and would have to drop your current mission in order to join up with a group, taking the group's mission as your own. And even at that, there may be a way to abuse the system that I can't think of off the top of my head.

-Macheath.
I think the OP was referring to random missions whose only reward is XP/presitge. Obviously this type of drop in drop out system would not be available for missions whose reward is a BO or rare item. I guess you could include missions with those rewards but unless you started from the beginning, you will only get XP/prestige.