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Suggestion for a new form of hybrid PvE/PvP content: Distress Calls

Author
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#1 - 2013-05-23 03:44:18 UTC
This idea has grown out of something mentioned in another thread that was (probably wrongly) posted in Science and Industry. I thought it had potential and so am fleshing it out here. This is a K-space idea. I don't see how to generalise it to W-space, or even if that would be desireable. If you spend time in W-space and have opinions on this, by all means share them.



The premise is simple. At unpredictable times, an NPC in a capital ship calls for help and the call for help is broadcast throughout the entire region. They have been tackled by a hostile entity and are being whittled down by attackers. If capsuleers do not intervene, the capital ship will lose the fight.

Because these events would be unpredictable and uncommon (but not overly rare), they wouldn't really be farmable like Incursions are. Instead, they'd be a driver for ad-hoc fleet fights.

The distress signal includes information on the system, a warpin point (also visible in-system like a cynosural field), and the two factions involved. Example:

You receive a distress signal from a Federation Customs Moros-class Dreadnought.
'Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. We are under attack in Vylade. Send urgent help. Attackers are Serpentis pirates. Our coordinates are (warp-in point) and Federation Customs will offer significant rewards to anyone that assists us.

followed by
Capsuleers, Serpentis Corporation will handsomely reward anyone that participates in helping us destroy this Federation Customs Moros and its capsuleer escorts. We'll keep CONCORD off your back.

Players can then choose to fight on either the side of the capital ship or its subcap aggressors. In empire, players that help the capital ship can legally shoot players that help the aggressors, and vice versa, creating opportunities for fleet fights.

Neither NPC side will attack capsuleers until they perform an action that declares their loyalty (shooting, remote repair, EWAR, etc).



Crimewatch consequences:
All players that activate a module to support the capital ship (including shooting an attacker) will get a new Crimewatch flag, 'Defender', allowing them to assist any other 'Defender' without Crimewatch repercussions (e.g. you can provide remote reps to a suspect flagged person or war target with Defender, without inheriting the suspect flag).

'Defender' also makes it a Crimewatch red card offense to shoot a Defender or to assist someone with the 'Attacker' flag. In highsec this means CONCORDOOKEN.

Likewise players that assist the attackers will get an 'Attacker' flag which mirrors the 'Defender' one. These flags both persist until the capital ship warps away or is destroyed, at which point rewards are paid to all those on the winning side. (Note that it is possible for the attackers to be entirely destroyed but the capital to be tackled by players loyal to the attackers until it is destroyed, in which case players with the 'Attacker' flag will win.)

On warping out of the site or being podkilled, you lose the ability to legally shoot event participants until you are back on grid.


Rewards:
The more lucrative and unique the rewards, the more likely players are to fight over them. As these events will blow up a lot of player ships and can't really be farmed, they can offer some good stuff, IMO.

Requirements to get rewards:
- To qualify for rewards, you need to remain on-grid, uncloaked, with active modules that do not affect your own ship and an 'Attacker' or 'Defender' flag for at least 5 minutes or 10% of the duration of the fight, whichever is longer. If you lose a ship while it has targetted modules (guns, RR, EWAR, ReSeBo, Remote ECCM etc) active, the 5 min/10% requirement is waived.
- This is intended to stop people AFK cloaking for rewards, and to get them actually participating in the fights.
- As the attackers will win without capsuleer interference anyway, fighting for the attackers does not offer rewards unless at least twenty capsuleers fight for the defenders.

Some ideas:
- Minimal loot/salvage/bounties on the wrecks. Think more like Incursions on this front and less like anomolies - the focus should be on winning the strategic goals of the fight, not ninjalooting everything. Looting capsuleer wrecks will make you a suspect.
- An ISK payout, shared equally between the winning team, equal to 60% of the total losses suffered by capsuleers on the losing team.
- A substantial number of loyalty points with the winning faction, given to each capsuleer that participates, OR a faction-specific reward of fairly low value to each participant (perhaps 2000 units of faction ammo to 50% of players and a random meta 6 faction module to the other 50%). If LP, think 3-4x what you get for a level 5 security mission.
- BPCs for faction ships, given out to a percentage of participants, including at least two brand new ships you cannot get any other way (maybe a faction Hictor for helping attack, and a faction logistics cruiser for helping defend)
- Low/Null only: In lowsec and nullsec, the abiity of players to cyno in reinforcements and capital ships means the NPC ships on both sides of the encounter can and sometimes should be larger. In these larger encounters (which might feature NPC supercapitals) some more lucrative rewards could be considered - faction dreadnought BPCs, meta 10-13 modules and the like.

Impact on in-game economy:
- A slight ISK faucet if considered on its own (assuming 5b losses on each side and a defender win, the defenders would share 3b ISK 'generated from nowhere' plus minor bounties).
- Lots of ships going boom stimulating manufacturing/trade
- Many players that usually run bigger ISK faucets (missions, incursions, anomolies) will likely take a break from those activities, reducing the faucet effect.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#2 - 2013-05-23 03:44:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Sabriz Adoudel
On the 'why':

One major failure of Incursions, IMO, is that while they are competitive, at least in highsec where most of them are run, they encourage a form of competition that is not like EVE competitiveness.

The whole 'you can't legally attack your rivals, you need to out-DPS them' encourages people to massively bling out their boats with deadspace and even officer modules, a real push toward World of Warcraft style 'my character is all about my gear' gameplay that IMO does not belong in this game. (Some of you may disagree, you're welcome to, and if I find you I will do whatever I can to extract those shiny purple modules from the wreck of your favorite incursion/mission boat. Welcome to the sandbox).

Low/Null incursions are different animals but mostly come down to establishing absolute dominance over the system first, then doing the sites the same way as in high, perhaps with 300m modules replacing billion isk modules.

Because it is ad-hoc, my idea is about creating a driver for medium or even large fleet fights that can appeal to a variety of players, quite different to incursions:


The Newbie
- This sort of player has little or no PVP experience, has never seen a capital ship or been in a fleet fight.
- Their destroyer, frigate or cruiser can play a role, pointing a Dreadnought for the attackers, hunting down tacklers for the defenders, or providing web support and incidental DPS for either side.
- The rewards structure greatly favors them too, as even if they lose a cruiser (a big loss for a newbie), if their side wins their share of the 60% of the other side's losses should be significantly more.
- Don't knock the excitement of seeing a capital ship up close. I remember being a newbie and being shown the Caldari Prime Titan by a corpmate, and it was impressive.


The 'Curious Carebear'
- This is the sort of person that lives as a highsec carebear but is interested in getting into PVP but feels 'oh, lowsec is too dangerous for me'.
- They can get into a fleet fight without ever having to brave the highsec-lowsec gates or (worse) the lowsec-nullsec gates. If they lose a ship, they are then close to their permanent home base to get back into their main mission boat.
- These people will love the chance a faction Hictor or Logi boat BPC, just to sell it. These are, after all, the people that love highsec exploration sites because they remember that one big payoff.
- Some of these players will decide 'that was the most fun I've had in EVE in ages' and will start seeking out other PVP opportunities.
- Edit to add: These are the people who stand to lose the most out of participating, if they take a blinged mission boat. But that's a lesson everyone needs to learn eventually.


Lowsec permanent residents
- This is a real source of valuable loot for pirates and other lowsec dwellers, as lowsec will likely have the least capsuleers contesting these fights.
- However, there'd also be real opportunities for pirates to rob people that are flying to a distress call. Gatecampers will love this opportunity as much as the people that participate in the fight.
- If there's a 'minimum of one ship BPC award' rule implemented (this would need to be tested) then lowsec would have the most lucrative distress calls.


Nullsec dwellers
- Here's a real chance to shoot your friends without causing a diplomatic incident (especially if, unlike me, you see nullsec as a blue doughnut). Blues can shoot blues for the lulz and some rewards, and 30% of the overall losses are covered, 50% if most participants have bounties on them (60% of one side, assuming they account for half of losses that's 30% of the loss).
- If an NPC Titan puts out a distress call in a region where there are two nullsec entities hostile to each other, this is a great driver of fights. Especially if the prizes for winning include a possible faction Dreadnaught BPC.
- It's also a form of alliance income, if your alliance wins a valuable BPC that can be onsold.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#3 - 2013-05-23 03:44:38 UTC
Reserved.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Dreus Vihane
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2013-05-23 06:31:07 UTC
This is what incursions should be.
sabre906
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-05-23 06:36:24 UTC
Dreus Vihane wrote:
This is what incursions should be.


Go do null incursions.Roll
Matthias Vilmet
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#6 - 2013-05-23 18:02:46 UTC
I approve of this idea, (as it was mine in the science and industry forum).

I think that the distress signal should be scanned down as another type of anomaly. Like, 50% of all cool shows about space have been exploration shows... so we need more exploration in eve.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#7 - 2013-05-23 18:09:57 UTC
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#8 - 2013-05-23 23:17:39 UTC
sabre906 wrote:
Dreus Vihane wrote:
This is what incursions should be.


Go do null incursions.Roll


As far as I am aware, there has only ever been one fleet fight in a mothership incursion site. It was won by Rooks and Kings, who made a great video about it.

Most nullsec incursions happen in areas with secure sovereignty, making it difficult for anyone else but the sov holder to get there in incursion-fit fleets. You can run them in tech 1 hulls with tech 2 fits, but why bother? It's more efficient to run highsec ones in blinged hulls.

Plus, nullsec incursions offer only ISK. Why would you fight a null entity for their incursion when you could fight them for their Tech/Neo moon (or post Odyssey, fight for one of the new top tier moons)?



Matthias Vilmet wrote:
I approve of this idea, (as it was mine in the science and industry forum).

I think that the distress signal should be scanned down as another type of anomaly. Like, 50% of all cool shows about space have been exploration shows... so we need more exploration in eve.



Yeah I took your idea as inspiration, but I made it much more about driving player conflict and ad-hoc fleet fights than your original approach.

Your idea would lead to solo players or maybe small gangs scanning down the site and doing it - I'd rather see something driving larger fights.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Mole Guy
Bob's Bait and Tackle
#9 - 2013-05-24 10:42:44 UTC
awesome idea.
+1

buying a fit nado to do some lr sniping-120m
paying for a month of eve-550m
shooting my friends and/or corpies for lawlz because they joined the attacker side when i was on the defender side? priceless.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#10 - 2013-05-24 10:54:15 UTC
Good idea. This sort of hybrid PvE to PvP is badly needed. Signed.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.

ExAstra
Echoes of Silence
#11 - 2013-05-24 11:31:48 UTC
I would love this. Absolutely love it. I would totally go roaming to assist the Federation against their enemies in a way that was less of a mission grind like FW.

Save the drones!

LtauSTinpoWErs
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#12 - 2013-05-24 17:47:49 UTC
interesting idea...i like it +1
Dodger Roger
Doomheim
#13 - 2013-05-24 18:48:35 UTC
I really like the idea but fear corporations taking advantage of it. If a well organized corporation picks a side and has a proper fleet comp, the randoms and lone wolfs will have a very hard time trying to take them down.

IE a 50 man fleet picks the side of the attacker and kills anything that lands on grid to defend. They have 10 logi with them and any amount of unorganized fire they do take is easily repped up.

Not really sure how to fix it, or if it should be fix or if it falls into this is eve.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#14 - 2013-05-24 23:54:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Zappity
Dodger Roger wrote:
I really like the idea but fear corporations taking advantage of it. If a well organized corporation picks a side and has a proper fleet comp, the randoms and lone wolfs will have a very hard time trying to take them down.

IE a 50 man fleet picks the side of the attacker and kills anything that lands on grid to defend. They have 10 logi with them and any amount of unorganized fire they do take is easily repped up.

Not really sure how to fix it, or if it should be fix or if it falls into this is eve.


Still plenty of other sites for lone pilots to go after. The answer to your large fleet problem is another large fleet.

Edit: I fly solo so this is not self interest. I am keen on any concept which brings PvE pilots toward PvP. I have done both and think that PvP is where this game is great.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.

BlakPhoenix
Load Up Blast Everything
DARKNESS.
#15 - 2013-05-25 01:21:18 UTC
I like this!
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#16 - 2013-05-25 11:36:15 UTC
Dodger Roger wrote:
I really like the idea but fear corporations taking advantage of it. If a well organized corporation picks a side and has a proper fleet comp, the randoms and lone wolfs will have a very hard time trying to take them down.

IE a 50 man fleet picks the side of the attacker and kills anything that lands on grid to defend. They have 10 logi with them and any amount of unorganized fire they do take is easily repped up.

Not really sure how to fix it, or if it should be fix or if it falls into this is eve.


If the rewards are done right, that 50 person fleet might just be willing to take a newbie or ten along with them. But to be honest, this is EVE - where numbers are a trump card in any fight that is about achieving a strategic objective.

The random nature of the timing of these events would likely discourage huge fleets, unless the rewards are overtuned. It does after all take time to organise 100 people into a PUG fleet.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#17 - 2013-05-27 23:40:30 UTC
Couple minor changes to the earlier posts.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

Cesare Randor
#18 - 2013-05-28 06:17:48 UTC
Fantastic Idea. I would love to see this.
It's such a no-brainer. This should totally be implemented.
Dodger Roger
Doomheim
#19 - 2013-05-29 19:35:16 UTC
CCP please add this!
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#20 - 2013-06-11 11:39:58 UTC
Now that Odyssey is out and this forum is back to being about discussions of new ideas rather than refinement of CCP's existing ideas, I'm going to give this a little bump.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com

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