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Questions for CCP Devs dealing with Exploration Sites

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Ishtanchuk Fazmarai
#21 - 2013-10-24 07:54:22 UTC
Solstice Project wrote:
Ishtanchuk Fazmarai wrote:
The loot scattering mechanic maybe wasn't that bad as a concept, but its replayable value is zill and I don't think that nobody is going to miss seeing it elsewhere.

Is it really that bad?
I have yet to play it once...


For a better experience, dim your monitor and wear sunglasses, so you notice how it feels like to pick those tiny tick boxes and read the diminutive, dim signs on them in case that you're slightly visually impaired. It's funny as hell because also there is no sound backup about wether you clicked the damned tick box or don't. Ugh

And, this reminds me that I shall look where to ask for so the highlighted stargate at the overview is highlighted by something else than a dim yellow hue; just yesterday I jumped through the wrong gate for the nth time in 5 years & had to slowboat back to the previous system and go to the right gate (determined by putting my face 15 centimetres away from the screen).

Roses are red / Violets are blue / I am an Alpha / And so it's you
Random Woman
Very Professional Corporation
#22 - 2013-10-24 08:40:30 UTC
Jennifer Maxwell wrote:
Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
The mini game is ****, I hope it dies in a fire. I certainly don't want it expanded to other parts of the game as it spoiled exploration for me.

The way ccp are going they wont be happy until they've simplified every aspect of the game and replaced character skills with player skills and dumbed down the game to the point we can play it on a console with a game pad with our 'spaceship piloting' skill.

"CCP is dumbing down Eve!"

Complains about a minigame that takes actual active player skill and strategy where it used to be just passive chance based and was completely fire-and-forget.



The problem ist the game tends to be rather trail and error in the higher end sites (WHs). There is no strategy that gets your through 3 restauration nodes in a row. All you can do is retry until you dont run into that restauration node madness, or are lucky to get some powerups that help you to kill those without loosing to much HP.

Id rather have a fire and forget button that maybe keeps me immobile that to waste my time clicking like a madmen.

I think minigames and quicktime events are the confession of failure when it comes to game design. All they do is trying to distract you form real gameplay.
CCP Bayesian
#23 - 2013-10-24 09:13:23 UTC
Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
CCP Bayesian thanks very much for replying in this thread, I hope you are still monitoring it. As you know in my previous post I was highly critical of the hacking mini game and I remain so, but I hope to respectfully explain why I feel so strongly about what is ultimately just a game mechanic.

For me the mini-game feels artificial, it feels like it's layered on top of eve and not actually a part of it, that may be because it's different in terms of styling to other UI elements, also I find it irritating because when I play eve I actually want to play eve, not a browser based game within eve. It's like logging in to the captains quarters to watch Net Flicks on the big screen. It's immersion breaking and as such it's like hitting a brick wall within the game when you are travelling at 100 miles an hour of immersion and here's why.

In eve we all have character skills whilst we the players direct our characters to perform actions for us in the eve universe, so we don't plot courses our characters do, we direct PI operations and deploy extractors, our characters do the drilling and manage the supply chain with the immense power of their post human cybernetically enhanced minds. I the player do not work out firing solutions for my character's guns, neither do I the player decide when my missiles detonate, my character does all of that for me in the world of eve.

With the mini game suddenly I the player am presented with something that my character could easily do and should be doing which is why the mini game is very un-eve... Capsuleers can manage spaceship command with the power of their minds, the mind gives orders and the capsule interface streams those orders into commands for the crew to follow whilst ship subroutines take care of the more mundane stuff allowing us capsuleers to concentrate on the big picture. With a mind as hierarchically organised as this, the eve thing to do would be to hack the cans with the power of thought, simply expressing a desire to hack a can whilst sitting back as our capsuler/ship interface streams those thoughts into hacking algorithms that combined with some slave AI would be more than enough to crack the hacking interface of most things encountered in the depths of space. This means that we should either be able to hack the can or not dependent on our level of skill vs some random chance. That's how other mechanics work in eve and it works well.

In summary it breeches the player/character divide and that's why I don't like it and would lose interest in a game that has more of this. What's the point of training character skills if I the player have to do all of the work.

That's not to say that in some situations it could be entertaining to have a mini game such as walking in stations and visiting a casino and trying to win some isk by playing games of chance and skill but the context of a character in a sci fi universe having some downtime well away from the capsule/ship interface would support immersion, not break it.

Anyhow I do appreciate the hard work that you guys put into a game like eve which is why I felt it was fair to give you this wall of text with some honest feedback.


Thanks for the feedback and giving us such a detailed rationale.

To me your complaint is a very subjective one about where the line between "good" management and "bad" micro-management lies. You'd rather feel like you are directing than doing. Frankly I think this is an argument you can make about a lot of EVE systems (and extends into the metagame) and the line is different for individuals. Someone might only want to set a general plan and budget for their PI infrastructure rather than getting into the nitty-gritty. Tactical decision making should probably be passed out to an AI who can best position and utilise the ship or fleets weapons in the age of self-driving cars it's not a leap to see this as possible in a technologically magic universe. The problem with more abstraction is that it makes for less decision making, less ability for people to specialise and a less rich universe.

With the hacking specifically you could, as a narrative conceit, see the abstract presentation as you marshalling the limited resources of the slave AI in order that it best utilised, giving you the greatest chance of success.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Solkara Starlock
Circle of Mystery
#24 - 2013-10-24 09:20:50 UTC
The hacking minigame is not gamebreakingly fun, but it is better than click and wait.
If they want to create a new market for the hacking utilities, a lot of things need to be fixed because the whole exploration market crashed after Odyssey.

Just a few suggestions.

1) Make the data and relic sites hard to find again. Now you enter a system and see immediately if you need to scan the system down. That is too easy. Will the new Ghost sites be visible as well?

2) Increase the difficulty of the minigame, also in high sec. Feed the need for the utilities.

3) Make more things hackable! It's nice to hear you are acually working on that! Thanks.


If you are really going all the way with hacking, couldn't you guys replace the Archeology minigame with something else? Now it's 2 skills and 2 modules for essentially doing the same thing.

Are the new Ghost sites going to have the minigame as well?

And get rid of the loot scattering mechanic. Please! It sucks! Big time! Nobody is doing exploration in teams what was the original idea behind it! Reduce the loot per site and get rid of loot scattering (and carbon and other crap you dump into space)
Atlantis Fuanan
Wormhole Research Inc.
#25 - 2013-10-24 09:22:25 UTC
Danger Game as Sessions-based minigame on station.
Some activity beside Ship-Spinning :(

[u]Things that would make EVE better:[/u] NRDS - Remove Local - Balance Cloak - Sov-Mechanic Changes - Less QQ
CCP Bayesian
#26 - 2013-10-24 09:27:52 UTC
Random Woman wrote:
The problem ist the game tends to be rather trail and error in the higher end sites (WHs). There is no strategy that gets your through 3 restauration nodes in a row. All you can do is retry until you dont run into that restauration node madness, or are lucky to get some powerups that help you to kill those without loosing to much HP.


This sort of thing is definitely something that needs to be addressed. You're always going to end up in hopeless situations but I'd prefer that was due to poor decision making than the luck of the draw in terms of what Utilities are available in the network. We intended to ultimately have the Utilities as player built resource that would be fitted to the module so you have more agency in that regard.

Random Woman wrote:
I think minigames and quicktime events are the confession of failure when it comes to game design. All they do is trying to distract you form real gameplay.


I think quicktime events are just plain bad gameplay often used to hide the fact that the 'game' is really just an interactive narrative. Although they have had some good moments, reloading in Gears of War for example and the whole rhythm action genre. Minigames on the other hand are just bits of gameplay that are only found in small sections of a game with different core mechanics so I'd disagree they are inherently bad. EVE is also full of them from PI through Industry pretty much any action that isn't flying a spaceship and shooting lasers could be argued to be a minigame (even if doing it feels more like a chore). I certainly think that hacking with a deeper gameplay and more connection to the economy and other game systems would be substantially better though.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
CCP Bayesian
#27 - 2013-10-24 09:30:29 UTC
Solkara Starlock wrote:
Are the new Ghost sites going to have the minigame as well?


Yes but no loot scattering.

Most of your other points are around game balance in EVE which isn't really my area to comment on. :)


EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Solkara Starlock
Circle of Mystery
#28 - 2013-10-24 10:07:46 UTC
Thanks for your reply!

I really appreciate the effort to immerse hacking more into the gameplay of EVE. I truly believe it will make the EVE universe an even more dangerous and therefore better place to game in.
It makes perfect sense that in a universe with so many electronics and computers that hacking can become a real nuisance and a powerful weapon.
Cheng Musana
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#29 - 2013-10-24 10:36:17 UTC
More depth in hacking? As i understand it you want to add MORE clicking to it as it allready has. Dont get me wrong i allmost allways can successfully hack even the hardest sites in the game (covert ops+T2 modules ftw) but it still requires tons of clicking and on top the loot mechanic. It doesnt need more, it needs less. Any plans to increase the amounts of clicks to hack a container is a really bad idea.
CCP Bayesian
#30 - 2013-10-24 10:38:05 UTC
More depth as in more thinking not necessarily more clicking.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
CCP Phantom
C C P
C C P Alliance
#31 - 2013-10-24 11:14:25 UTC
Spam, off topic and troll posts were removed. Please stay on topic, constructive and polite, thank you!

CCP Phantom - Senior Community Developer
Spankijs Omaristos
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#32 - 2013-10-24 11:18:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Spankijs Omaristos
Orakkus wrote:

  • Question 3: Are there plans to developing the previously concieved games for use in some of Eve Online's current (or future) activities. For example, I see an opportunity for the mini-game when setting up the Siphon on a POS.
    • [/list]



    Im here to play Eve, not some browser based games like Tetris in Eve client.
    CCP, please, come to your senses and remove your mini games.

    Yes, It was fun and enjoyable for few weeks but thats it. Now its just annoying thing you have to do and waste your actual EVE game time on BS mini games...(I wont even start on Loot spew..)

    Thank you o/
    Lipbite
    Express Hauler
    #33 - 2013-10-24 11:21:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Lipbite
    CCP Bayesian wrote:
    Solkara Starlock wrote:
    Are the new Ghost sites going to have the minigame as well?


    Yes but no loot scattering.

    No probe scanning mini-game, no loot scattering mini game - these new sites will be extremely popular.
    Edward Olmops
    Gunboat Commando
    #34 - 2013-10-24 12:56:32 UTC
    For all who complain that exploration is bad because the market has chrashed:

    Your argument is void.
    If Relic sites would be harder to complete or rarer, the stuff inside would be more expensive, but you would have to work harder for it. I even daresay the profit from exploration would not change at all, because there is just a number of ISK per hour for that people are willing to to this. If it has a higher payout, more people will do it and market prices will go down.

    So, if you foolow this argument, the low price of certain materials is a measure of success for the hacking game. If people still do this for a few ISKies, it MUST be fun for all of them (else they would be doing something more interesting or profitable!).

    As a side effect, since certain materials have become ridiculously cheap, you can either get rich very easily or use a great number of certain cool items that were way too expensive before. ;-)
    (if you did not get the hint, T2 Rigs can now be produced at a reasonable price. That's like 250 items that were used very rarely and have now suddenly become viable for very broad application. A great change for the game if you ask me)
    Batelle
    Federal Navy Academy
    #35 - 2013-10-24 14:50:30 UTC
    CCP Bayesian wrote:
    Solkara Starlock wrote:
    Are the new Ghost sites going to have the minigame as well?


    Yes but no loot scattering.


    I understand that CCP might not be open to removing loot scattering from data/relic sites entirely. In recognition of that, I think there are several small improvements that could be made to improving the player experience.

    In the current state of the game, the optimal choice of "which can to tractor first" is based ENTIRELY on the type of can. I'm not making a value judgement here, I'm just stating an obvious principle of the current game and understanding this principle should inform the design of UI and other parts of the game. So, if the ONE thing the player needs to know is the can type, then WHY OH WHY is the only way to tell which cans are data/parts is by mousing over EACH of the 15 or more identical floating boxes? And then once they do, why is it only displayed by teeny-tiny text?

    Color-code the cans by type. Or by Shape. Or by something. This alone will take about 80% of the frustration and anger out of the loot-scatter system. Right now it feels like the game is intentionally obfuscating information that is both simple and vital. Honestly stuff like the name of a can is the kind of thing that we're used to seeing on the overview if we want, without requiring a mouse over.

    Other small things would be increasing tractor beam range so ship agility is less of an issue, and making the loot spew always happen in the direction of the hacking ship, so the structure itself doesn't get in our way.

    Oh yeah, and expecting loot spew to encourage people to bring friends to hacking sites is probably the dumbest non-starter of an idea to ever come out of CCP.

    "**CCP is changing policy, and has asked that we discontinue the bonus credit program after November 7th. So until then, enjoy a super-bonus of 1B Blink Credit for each 60-day GTC you buy!"**

    Never forget.
    Vol Arm'OOO
    Central Co-Prosperity Union
    #36 - 2013-10-24 15:08:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Vol Arm'OOO
    CCP Bayesian wrote:
    Orakkus wrote:
    I have some questions regarding the mini-game used in the Relic/Data sites under the new exploration mechanics released in Odyssey. I am rather curious to see if there is a on-going effort to provide more of these games, or if this was a "try once and forget" idea:

    • Question 1: Who (which group) developed the mini-game we currently have for Relic and Data sites?

    • Question 2: How many different types of games were concieved and partially developed before deciding on the current one?

    • Question 3: Are there plans to developing the previously concieved games for use in some of Eve Online's current (or future) activities. For example, I see an opportunity for the mini-game when setting up the Siphon on a POS.


    Thank you to whoever answers this.


    1. The whole thing came onto Team Prototyping Rocks when we were just three developers with a very limited amount of time before the Odyssey release. We were basically tasked by CCP Seagull to create new content in the exploration sites. I concepted and developed the Hacking minigame. CCP Prime (who has since left to pastures new) took the scattering mechanic we had in some mining prototypes and bought it into EVE. Later we were joined by CCP Soundwave, CCP Affinity, CCP Arrow and CCP Optimal.

    2. I worked collaboratively with a few other people on the concepting (CCP RedDawn, CCP Tallest, CCP SoniClover) the general ideas we had were similar and we created most of the prototypes as card games.

    3. There is definitely desire to move the Hacking, sans the Scattering mechanic into new places and to deepen the gameplay involved in Hacking. I and other people have a whole bunch of stuff we want to implement further but it's a case of us not being the people who decide project priorities. As part of that in this release I've made it possible for content creators to make most in game entities hackable.

    We also have a bunch of ideas on how to make mining more interactive for people that want it to be more interesting and I spoke about them at the last Fanfest:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qmUIDlMmQE


    G-d pls no....
    The Minigame is downright unfun. Its simply a no-skill repetitive click fest. Worse, its anti-immersion; it removes you from the eve environment (watching the system for other players, etc. . .), and forces you to engage in a single player game that couldn't fetch 99 cents in any app store. The act of Exploration pre-minigame was not exactly riveting, but it at least kept you in the eve-world.

    I don't play, I just fourm warrior.
    Vol Arm'OOO
    Central Co-Prosperity Union
    #37 - 2013-10-24 15:17:51 UTC
    Jennifer Maxwell wrote:
    Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
    The mini game is ****, I hope it dies in a fire. I certainly don't want it expanded to other parts of the game as it spoiled exploration for me.

    The way ccp are going they wont be happy until they've simplified every aspect of the game and replaced character skills with player skills and dumbed down the game to the point we can play it on a console with a game pad with our 'spaceship piloting' skill.

    "CCP is dumbing down Eve!"

    Complains about a minigame that takes actual active player skill and strategy where it used to be just passive chance based and was completely fire-and-forget.


    What exactly are you smoking? There is no player skill in the mini-game - its simply a click fest with success premised upon the skill lvl of your character and luck. As for what hacking was like pre-minigame - well sure it was simply hit a button and sit back - it was as basic as it could get - but there was a meta game built around it (at least in low/null) - you needed a combat ship to deal with the rats; this gave a decent target for folk to shoot at; which also allowed other folk to use hacking sites for baiting. Now what do we got? Instead of player driven content with ships asspolding - we got a minigame. (I acknowledge that there are t1 frigs being blown up now - but really is that an acceptable replacement for the combat that used to happen at these sites? IMO shooting an unarmed t1 frig is hardly even worth the sec hit).

    I don't play, I just fourm warrior.
    Lucas Irvam
    The Anodyne Consortium
    #38 - 2013-10-24 15:30:35 UTC
    Edward Olmops wrote:
    For all who complain that exploration is bad because the market has chrashed:

    Your argument is void.
    If Relic sites would be harder to complete or rarer, the stuff inside would be more expensive, but you would have to work harder for it. I even daresay the profit from exploration would not change at all, because there is just a number of ISK per hour for that people are willing to to this. If it has a higher payout, more people will do it and market prices will go down.

    So, if you foolow this argument, the low price of certain materials is a measure of success for the hacking game. If people still do this for a few ISKies, it MUST be fun for all of them (else they would be doing something more interesting or profitable!).

    As a side effect, since certain materials have become ridiculously cheap, you can either get rich very easily or use a great number of certain cool items that were way too expensive before. ;-)
    (if you did not get the hint, T2 Rigs can now be produced at a reasonable price. That's like 250 items that were used very rarely and have now suddenly become viable for very broad application. A great change for the game if you ask me)


    You're right to say that if CCP addressed the crashing salvage/decryptor markets by reducing the drops, it wouldn't affect the ISK/hr, but those of us that explored prior to Odyssey weren't really asking for that kind of fix.

    The problem isn't that T2 salvage needs to be 'rarer', it's that the barrier of entry into the profession sites was all but removed. Every change implemented in Odyssey was designed to do this: cosmic sigs 'pinging' on your scan when you jump to a new system, rats removed from all exploration sites, less skills necessary to lock sigs, and so on. This is a point that's been made over and over as far back as the original 80-page thread that was going when the scanning/hacking changes were being tested.

    Imagine that CCP replaced the sleeper rats in WH combat sites with hackable cans that dropped nanoribbons. Even if the ribbons dropped at roughly the same rate that you would have gotten them by clearing the sleepers, the market would be obliterated, since any joker in a T1 frig would become a nanoribbon tycoon overnight. Sure, you could say that hey, the nanoribbon supply skyrocketed because it's such a popular feature/change, but how would you feel if you were a WH dweller prior to that change?

    I also get that the upside is that the lower T2 salv/decryptor costs means more manufacturing/invention options, but Odyssey wasn't marketed as an industry expansion.
    Arduemont
    Rotten Legion
    #39 - 2013-10-24 15:34:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Arduemont
    CCP Bayesian wrote:
    Responses


    This guy is awesome. It's nice to hear development plans and perspectives even if they're not necessarily in line with what the big wigs at the top are likely to authorize.

    I don't like the scattering mechanic myself. The hacking mini-game is too easy and just feels like a click fest, but I appreciate that it's better than sitting and waiting. It would be nice if the hacking mini-game were more in-depth, but without being less intuitive.

    "In the age of information, ignorance is a choice." www.stateofwar.co.nf
    Orakkus
    ImperiaI Federation
    Goonswarm Federation
    #40 - 2013-10-24 15:47:31 UTC
    Vol Arm'OOO wrote:

    What exactly are you smoking? There is no player skill in the mini-game - its simply a click fest with success premised upon the skill lvl of your character and luck. As for what hacking was like pre-minigame - well sure it was simply hit a button and sit back - it was as basic as it could get - but there was a meta game built around it (at least in low/null) - you needed a combat ship to deal with the rats; this gave a decent target for folk to shoot at; which also allowed other folk to use hacking sites for baiting. Now what do we got? Instead of player driven content with ships asspolding - we got a minigame. (I acknowledge that there are t1 frigs being blown up now - but really is that an acceptable replacement for the combat that used to happen at these sites? IMO shooting an unarmed t1 frig is hardly even worth the sec hit).


    The fact that while I have perfect exploration skills, I still don't always successfully navigate the mini-game, as well as the loss to two Cov Ops, counters your claims. So instead of a combat ship to deal with the rats, I now need a very expensive cov-ops ship and spend considerable time and risk travelling through enemy territory, even risking multiple wormhole trips. Sometimes I can strike deals with other local explorers for certain sections of space, other times I'm stuck avoiding random gate camps, or discerning if a particular relic or data site is the one where a local might be staging a trap, or perhaps I go through a WH where the WH residents are actively trying to collapse the hole after I go through it.

    So no, there still exists a very strong meta-game element to exploration, it is just different than what you are used to.

    He's not just famous, he's "IN" famous. - Ned Nederlander
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