Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well see, it USED to be that way you're looking for. The interface was a bit wonky, and your probes didn't form themselves up nicely/scale their ranges at the click of a button. It could take a noob several minutes to scan down a site, while a talented player could pull it off in a minute or so. I realize that there was a degree of making it easier for noobs to handle scanning. But it used to be a real player skill to quickly scan thigns down.

We also had Deep Space Scanner Probes, which I forget their original intention, but they were great for tracking down and ignoring large swathes of... I'll say, unwanted, sites (sometimes your in a WH, and you don't want to find the WHs, you're just looking for something else)

Humorously I find a lot of peopel claim that "the new system is better" though I know for a fact that WHers are having mixed feelings about it. Especially the lack of requirement to probe out mining spots anymore. And since WHers used to generally be the quickest at scanning, their superiority in that field has been cut down significantly, mainly due to the fact that their possible threats used to be much slower at hunting.

Mixed feelings here too. I never had a problem with having to probe down sites and it taking skill or time. The issues with the older system I had were usability issues and dislike for DSPs, since they allowed instant system coverage and easymode cherry picking of sites. I also wanted mini-profession sites to act as proper professions, instead of just activating a module and just waiting.

In the new system CCP moved in the proper direction with the mini-profession sites for the most part. The hacking mini-game in archeology doesn't make much sense though, but for data sites it is fine. Where I see them failing was turning exploration from exploration towards catering to then non-explorers. They turned the horrible system wide probe, that you had to invest SP to unlock, to a free tool for every player. As bad as those probes were they required some specialization in exploration to get and the player to be sensible enough to take advantage off. By giving the same info for free CCP removed almost all sense of exploration from their game in one fell swoop. As a bonus it doesn't make much sense, that these hidden sites are not only immediately visible to every ship out there, but you even know their general location without putting any effort in to it. I can't even remember when was the last time I used an exploration probe with a scan range larger then 8AU, since the larger ranges are almost useless for exploration in the new system.

I'm not even upset that they made content available in this form to give non-explorers a nice easy way to get in to the profession. I hate that they reduced all exploration to that. They took a waist deep pool and instead of deepening it and creating a shallower entrance area for newcomers to dip their toes in, they reduced it all to a slightly shallower pool. It showed CCP's vision for exploration was not to make it deeper and more interesting or rewarding. It was to just dumb it down and casualize it to the point masses of new players could dip in it without any effort or skill. It is if they view the actual exploration and probing part of exploring as something distasteful that needs to be minimized and see exploration content more as public mission dungeons like a special sub-category of anomalies.

On the positive side, the whole exploration system is now so easy, that there is no way to go but up. The down side is, that since we just got an exploration "expansion", there is little hope of meaningful improvements for at least a few years.

Becuase it makes finding poorly created dungeons, sorry I mean "exploring" easier.

That's not the point. Scanning shouldn't be a hassle, people should be able to do it quickly and efficiently. However, it should also be something that requires some skill. Right now, it's too easy to be a good prober, because the system has been simplified to its extreme. A "casual prober" with little experience shouldn't be able to be almost as efficient as an experienced wh resident who probes stuff daily.

The recent changes to the scanning interface / system has pretty much flattened the learning curve of probing techniques. Probing should still be as quick as it is now, but it should be harder to reach that kind of efficiency.

As a casual player, I agree with the above. I feel no need to improve probing skills beyond 3s as I can scan sites down in a covops ships in 30s on avg. Hunting someone? Usually one or 2 cycles after d-scan localization. With 3s! Not even good skills.

Can effectively run prof sites with 4s. Minor problems on really tough cans. But still huge payout sites are almost un failable.

It's just too easy. With mid range skills. I make more in a 30m fit covops ship exploring then in my old almost perfectly skilled 1.5b marauding bs running soe missions. I understand making thins more approachable but this is killing it. At least some sense of progression, or the best sites need much better skills+bonused ships. also maybe a delivery on the old hinted exploration cruisers. There are only tech 3 and stratios. Just saying.

The old system wasn't so dumbed down though.
Old system: Newer player with less experience and bad skills has to scan down all signatures. Older player: Launches 1 Deep Space probe (which needed astrometrics V), does 1 cycle with that, and instantly knows which sigs can be WHs, Gas etc. ;)

I spent ages getting deepscan probes, got 1 month of use out of them, (during which time, I logged in maybe 15 times...)
I thoroughly approve of the reduction in clicking, dragging etc, with the use of the shift key, but I DID enjoy having to scan to try to find the signatures (except the one time I forgot to scan near the outer planet and got dropped....)

Anariasis wrote:

"Try living in a WH for some time and then tell me you wish scanning to take longer ;)"


I used to live in whs for long months and I was actually considered to be good prober/scanner. this is not some kind of personal desire to change things just because I had some joy to find things quicker than others. I consider it as broken mechanic in the game.

New players that has no skill and no experience should'nt be able to find things same as vets or people who invested in their characters much more time and isk. Space needs exploration and exploration needs effort/skill/knowledge if you know what I mean. I see most of people here are actually agree just not CCPmaybe :). Anyone I talked about this has exactly same opionion.

I understand that the way we are launching probes now is the way everyone likes but we need to find a solution to make it more meaningfull. Perhaps make it more skill intensive and add more skills that take long months to train. Also finding smallest signatures should be difficult even with maxed skills and rigs/modules/implants ect.... Btw please take the smallest out of the Sensor Overlay. Keep only the "cheap" sites and stuff in there. Some sites should be hidden definitelly and some even impossible (you could only use directional scanner to pinpoint it after probes failed so it would take time, effort and bit of knowledge to actually get the reward that is far, far from any planet.....). Scanning has a potential for a great minigame and it already look nice.

Yeah 6yr olds now knows that there is something in space...a flashy thing in space maybe !?

Simple really:

Premise 1: The best way to increase CCP cash flow comes from noobs as vets tend to use ISK to PLEX or already have long term subs.
Premise 2: Noobs do not like challenges and want everything handed to them on a platter.
Premise 3: Dumbing down exploration will not adversely effect the rest of EVE the way dumbing down missions or mining would.

Conclusion: Dumbing down exploration should = more CASH


Clearly not a valid argument but it seems to have been the logic used.