Missions & Complexes

Don't forget that ship and plex prices is at least 100% higher than few years ago(3 as example), but mission rewards are still the same and many LP rewards are degraded into cheap thrash.
Thats why current missions are not only boring, but extremely frustrating. You sometimes think that "why the hell Iam even bother with this crap, when Incursions,WH and nullsec holds much much more profit". You can be doing 1 mission about 1 hour and rewards are crap. There is nothing to do solo in high sec that worth your time, and even rated complexes are bs with 1 of 10 chance of drops.

Its only partially true. People that enjoy challenging pve with ability to blow their ship must have ability to set Difficulty for themselves, like choosing proper missions or enabling "hard mode" or something. I bet CCP can choose right way for Difficulty, levels are just total crap. L4 to L5 difficulty range is utter nonsense.

Get rid of eve survival. Then watch the fun.

A lvl 4 mission high risk.
Where you get a warning first that it is most likely that you will loss your ship. And then. Random mission, random enemies and that.

Should be solo able for high SP characters, but they would need to first scout and then fit to counter the enemy.

The NPC would be. Look at this place. Depending on the spawn you have a different task.

I didn't mean that other factions should appear. Rather, that instead of knowing that there will be 2 BS and 1 BC and 4 cruisers in pocket 1, it might be 10 BS (extreme example). And as for spacing and layout, you might warp in on them at 10k or 50k. In other words, making Eve Survival obsolete.

There needs to be an infusion of Variety, Immersion and Risk. These are the three things that are completely absent from PvE right now. Introduce them, and you will have done wonders for the world of Eve PvE.

Variety:
Not knowing exactly how a mission will go before it even starts.

When I was a kid, my parents took me to Universal Studios, and I got to ride The Indiana Jones Adventure. The ride was pretty awesome stuff. You sat in a mine cart, and you went up a steep incline, like a typical roller coaster. BUT at the top of the incline, before you dropped into the adventure, you faced three large statue heads with open mouths. Each was identical, except for it being painted and illuminated in a different color. You don't know which head you're going to go through until the last second, and then *jolt!* your cart decides and into one of the mouths you go!

The first statue was Red, and it took you through a "Raiders of the Lost Arc" adventure, complete with bright beams of light, blowing hot winds and angry ghosts chasing you around the final few turns. The second statue was Green, and it was the wild jungle chase scene from "The Temple of Doom", complete with giant bolder chasing you at the end. There was a portion of that ride where you run in between two walls that shoot puffs of air at you, creating the illusion that real blow guns are being fired at you and are just barely missing. I was 8 and it scared the **** out of me. To get the final, Golden Door, I had to ride that damned ride 8 times. My poor father. This was "The Last Crusade," and it consisted mainly of a crazy car chase through Middle Eastern streets, climaxing with a Nazi fighter plane strafing just behind your cart at the end. Each version was amazing, and worth going on... and...

And it was all the Exact. Same. Ride. Every single turn was the same. Every dip and dash. The walls of several rooms simply rotated to reveal blowguns, or market stalls. The lighting changed from dark and green to bright and golden. The musical score changed and the projector screen on the ceiling behind your cart at the end played a different climatic danger behind you in the closing seconds of each version. Using 95% of the same resources, Universal Studios turned the exact same ride into the three distinct experiences that kept me willingly in line all day. This same variety needs to be injected into missions!

A mission might have the same name, and essentially the same structure, but enough factors should be altered within that they feel different. There might be four rooms every time, but there may be many frigates that spawn directly on top of you, or several groups of battleships at a distance. The mission might have heavier DPS or there may be lots of ECM. These factors could be randomized, though partially guided by the ship type you warp through the first gate with.

Variety is important, because it forces you to adapt (when combined with reasonable risk, but I'll get to that) to the situation at hand, rather than simply "Ctrl+Click; F1" through an entire mission. You must recognize the "strategy" that that rats are using against you, and adapt to it. And you won't know what it is until you get there. However, variety also keeps you wondering what will happen the next time you run the mission.

I understand that the coding behind much of this will be a hard. Taking enough variables to create the illusion of variety, and keeping their interaction balanced, will be tough. But I believe in you guys. If Universal Studios can do it with wood boards, a projector screen and some air cannons, you guys can do it too!

Immersion:
Creating the illusion that what you do is real, and that what you do matters.

There is a three part Level IV mission series that revolves around trying to save the crew of a ship stranded in an anomaly. In the final moments of the final mission you are presented with a choice: Deliver a scientist to the ship, so that he may use his last moments to destroy it and give them peace; or drop him on a drone structure, which he will self destruct to close the anomaly and prevent this from reoccurring. The mission pays poorly, and is mostly forgettable, but those closing moments are some of the most immersive PvE I've experienced in Eve. Choice is an important tool. Besides contributing greatly to Variety, it can also be tied to consequences that alter the remainder of that mission, or the rest of the missions in a sequence. CCP has partially shown their ability to do this with Epic Arcs. It needs to be expanded upon, and applied to as many missions as possible.

To compliment emotional immersion, sensory immersion also needs to be improved. I've played this game for almost six years, and it bothers me to this day that rat spawns in missions simply appear out of the ether. If you are mining in a belt, rats visibly warp into the belt. You can see them jump in from a distance. This mechanic should be applied to mission spawns as well. Choice, Consequence and a visual experience that doesn't jarringly break the fourth wall.

Combine this with Variety, and we have branching stories that completely change the course of missions: Ran Domguy needs to be rescued from a kidnapping cartel. Mission completes when one unit of Ran Domguy is delivered. During the course of the mission you choose whether to pay a ransom, whether or not to rescue other prisoners, and eventually you either end up rescuing an innocent Ran Domguy... or you might reveal that Ran Domguy was the ringleader of the cartel to begin with, and you return him to face penalty for his crimes. Music appropriately accents each twist and turn, revealed through dialogue boxes (NOT local chatter.)

sorry i broke up your post but i dig everything you said. especially the immersion aspect of it. make us wanna help these agents!

Yes, missions need a revamp.



It used to be that lvl 4 missions were an adrenaline junkies wet dream....sweaty palms and feet were the norm, the heart thumped so hard both kidneys hurt, the house could be burning down but one was so concentrated on not getting killed that an earthquake was a distant distraction and if one was not careful the chair cusion was in danger of being sucked into the body cavity by a sphincter no longer under central nervous system control. For example in the bonus room of the Angel Extravaganza there was an extra wave of fast elite cruisers doing a ton of dps that popped out of nowhere and another wave of bss doing the same, alas they were eliminated. Tengus with dual shield boosters could be lost in thebonus room of the Guristas extravaganza due to missile fire. All stasis towers used to work, here and there neuting towers were the norm and some structures would blow up if one got too close to them. Lvl 4s were hard but rewarding and if one had big [use your imagination here] lvl 5s could be done in high sec.



Then the loons took over the CSM. Nullbears through their CSM mouthpieces begam whining and bawling and writing threadnoughts about carebears making too much isk, started complaining that not enough carebears were asking to be pets by renting out nullsec space or becoming pew-pew foder and finally had the [use your imagination here] to say that PVP was the only way to play EVE. CCP in their wisdom listened to the nullbears and nerfed missions and nerfed them and nerfed them and nerfed them to where they are atm, a boring repetitive grind. Now they want to nerf marauders for PVE and useful for PVP but that is on another thread.



I understand that powercreep is a problem in any game but 100 million+ sp solo carebears that don't wanna PVP or run incursions, with a dozen or more bs hulls including faction, pirate and mauders strewn out in every mission system with billions in the bank, want challenges. Not killing Zor and saving the damsel for the 1,000 time.

Imo the only way to 'fix' missions is to have an aleatory mission engine where no 2 missiosn are the same. If CCP is willing to take on the challenge such and engine could be built, if I'm not mistaken there are several out there already. That way the nullberas will be happy breaking the kitchen sink over each others head and carebears will be happy doing the same with npcs.

Last but not least not everybody wants to swap body fluids with a partner while playing EVE, it might be apealing to some but not all. Please don't ban solo players in the revamp.

the risk must be reasonable, and this is not given in lv 5's for the average solo player. Staying in one lowsec spot for an hour or more with a ship worth billions is crap, and 100k LP (which have to be converted first) sounds like a good reward, but it isn't. Lowsec is by far the most dangerous space for a mission runner. Even the lv 3 epic arcs are more safe, just because you don't have to use a "I want to be ganked BS".

there's a reason why lv5's are "to be blitzed or gtfo" for most players since unscannable ships are a tale of the past.

I like you, you're funny.