Player Features and Ideas Discussion

From my pov the ability to warp away while doing the mission is completly wrong. This making missions too safe, secure, and layback style.

This should gone, you could only be able to warp away as soon as mission "completed".

this. sounds totally self entitled because he finds them easy doesn't mean someone who has just done a grind from lvl 3's finds level 4's too easy. if they are too easy and boring move on to something harder

Some of you mention a problem in which if missions become more random they become more difficult for newer players. I think the obvious countermeasure is to reduce the total incoming DPS from a mission to match with the expectation that fits going in will be less optimized for it. I'd like to still see the enemies being from a given faction that your agent notifies you about, and for them to mostly use that faction's primary weapon and defense types, but a little bit of other damage types mixed in would be a good thing. Perhaps what players should be doing to learn to fit better is getting the hang of what a given faction tends to bring to bear, and learning the attributes of specific NPCs.

Here is an example mission, level 4, designed to be completed with a battleship, that has randomness and varied incoming damage:

Guristas mission, level 4, battleship

Warp-in:

10km, surrounding player - 4-6x frigates: mixed Pithi Tackler and Pithi Jammer
20km - acceleration gate
30km - 1x battleship: Pith Gate Scrambler



Main pocket:
You get two groups at 25km and 35km, each being randomly one of the following, and both groups you get can be the same type:

1.) 3x battlecruisers: Pithatis Assassin, 1x battlecruiser: Dire Pithatis Flayer
2.) 3-4x destroyers: Pithior Guerilla, 1-2x cruisers: Pithum Shredder (5 total)
3.) 2x frigates: Pithi Jammer, 2x battleships: Pith Fortress

60km - 2x completely random Guristas cruisers/battlecruisers, 2x completely random Guristas battleships, 1x industrial: Guristas Transport

==========

Explanation:

When you warp in, you're surrounded by frigates and you have to move to the acceleration gate. The frigates may attempt to use ECM jammers, warp scramblers, or target painters but apply pretty minor DPS by themselves. Their jam strength isn't very high and so a battleship shouldn't be getting jammed much by them. The Pith Gate Scrambler must be destroyed before the gate can be activated, as its name suggests. This enemy has weak defenses and attacks with something similar to railguns fit with javelin ammo, dealing moderate damage even by itself.

In the main pocket, there are two groups of enemies not too far away, and a more distant group containing the industrial. The industrial drops the item your agent wants, but aggroing anything in its group will aggro the whole pocket. Attacking either of the satellite groups will only aggro that group. The agent explains this when you get the mission, at least by suggesting that you eliminate enemies on the outskirts before going directly for the industrials.

There are some Guristas ships here that already exist (you can look them up on Chruker), and some I made up:
Dire Pithatis Flayer: strong active shield defense, uses lasers with high thermal - Dire Pithum Inferno gave me the idea, although that ship does not even have any thermal damage
Pithum Shredder: strong EM/thermal resist, weak kinetic/explosive resist, uses autocannons with Titanium Sabot but will swap to Proton if the TS is ineffective for too long, or you kite them outside their range for too long
Pith Fortress: strong passive shield defense and high shield HP, best damage type thermal followed by kinetic, fires kinetic heavy missiles but will swap to EM (and lose 1/3rd of its DPS) if it determines that kinetic missiles are ineffective against you
Guristas Transport: similar to the actual ship Guristas Transport Ship, it's just a hauler that carries things -- it's loot is primarily junk cargo (a few thousand m3 of it) and some drugs, along with 1-3 meta modules, the mission item, and a small chance of an implant

So in each of the three possible types of satellite pocket, there is some mixed damage and thus while kinetic resistance is the most important for you to have, you will want to have some of the rest as well, especially EM which is usually weak on shield tanks. Perhaps the agent will tell you to prepare to receive kinetic damage first and EM second, or maybe that could be built-in as a new staple of the Guristas that you can always expect: they will sometimes swap to EM damage if kinetic isn't working.

This mission is also designed to be easier for a battleship:
* cruisers may struggle to destroy the gate scrambler while being jammed, and frigates may simply get killed by the tacklers/jammers, or by the battleship after getting target painted
* while most enemies in the main pocket are medium or small, the strongest opponents are the two Pith Fortress and a smaller ship may struggle to break their tank while still taking heavy damage from their missiles
But with enough skills and a good fit, you could probably beat it with a battlecruiser, HAC, or assault frigate pretty easily. The fit will still have to account for a variety of possibilities as you can never know exactly what you'll be up against no matter how familiar you are with the mission.

One final thing to reduce the tedium of running the mission: most of the important loot will be dropped from either of the two battleships in the main pocket or from the industrial. You can salvage everything else but they will primarily be loot-free and the metal scraps will be rolled in with their salvage instead of appearing on the wreck and making you think it has something for you.

I'd say the emphasis should be on random and challenging, not elitist and min-max-ist. So you shouldn't be able to uncover enough details on the internet to know exactly what fit to use to overtank the mission with three damage mods left over, and the exact range to max out your DPS dealt. All the info you need should be obtainable by a combination of learning the specific faction and reading the mission info, everything else should be randomized and not possible to prepare for by reading about it on the internet.

For example, a burner mission isn't challenging at all. Sure, you could challenge yourself to beat one without looking it up online, but almost everyone who actually succeeds at one either ran it several times unsuccessfully on Singularity or just looked up a fit that works. Then you just throw the money into the ship and you win. No challenge. Big barrier to entry. We need less barrier to entry and more challenge.

I can see the advantages here for the vets but I am still not seeing how this can be made to work for vets without overwhelming the new players and their first missions especially in level 4's.

Again it all comes back to skills or more appropriately lack of skills and the effects they have on a ship / fit.
I fly a Rattle with a T2 omni tank and never have any trouble with missions. A new player I have been working with over the last few months flys the exact same fit but he has to use mission specific hardeners even then he still has trouble with some of the missions due to low tanking abilities. Having random spawns in a mission that would require an omni tank and they would have to be reduced significantly in damage output to allow him to fly them. Not bad for him but again they become stupidly easy for me so what does this gain?

To me there is no way to make level 4 missions more challenging for veteran players that would not overwhelm the new / newer players in their first few months of running level 4's. What we need is a reshuffle of the missions and levels, current level 4 and below need to stay the same as they are since they do offer a reasonable progression for new players. Level 5's need to be moved to high sec and made into missions that essentially are the current level 4's with a dose of your random NPC and some other changes thrown in but with roughly the same pay / bonuses / lp as current. Then what we now have as level 5's become a level 6 mission.

There is such a wide range of player ability based on current skills that it might make sense to have a wider range of mission levels. I don't see much issue with a low-skilled player struggling to complete level 4s in a pirate ship though, even if a high-skilled player finds it a cakewalk. A high-skilled player should be able to run level 4s in a tech 1 ship with a T2 fit, and should only need a t2 ship for level 5 missions.

I wouldn't move level 4s out of highsec, I'd move level 5s into highsec but drastically alter the pay so that upper difficulty missions in highsec barely offer more pay. The lower missions should pay about the same in highsec as they currently do, and should have their payouts buffed at least a little in lowsec and nullsec. Here's an estimation of what I think missions should pay, including bounties--which should vary further by exact sec status:

High Sec:
Level 1: 250,000
Level 2: 750,000
Level 3: 2,000,000
Level 4: 2,500,000
Level 5: 3,000,000

Low Sec:
Level 1: 750,000
Level 2: 1,500,000
Level 3: 3,000,000
Level 4: 6,000,000
Level 5: 12,000,000

Null Sec:
Level 1: 1,250,000
Level 2: 2,000,000
Level 3: 3,750,000
Level 4: 7,500,000
Level 5: 15,000,000

disclaimer: I've never run a level 5, so I'm guessing on them based on level 1-4 progression.
second disclaimer: missions vary in pay a lot by length of mission, this chart is assuming a fairly average mission length by my own experience which may differ from yours.


So a few trends you may notice on this chart:
1.) Most missions pay a LOT more in lowsec and nullsec. I think this is important when you consider the incredible risks you take by bringing in a blingy expensive ship. Players will be completing these missions in cheaper ships and sometimes in groups, splitting the payout, and if they're completing it solo they'll be moving slower due to having a cheaper ship--but they'll lose ships to running them a lot more. And yes, some players will find relatively safe parts of lowsec or nullsec to run missions, and will make bank there. There's a ton of ways to make bank in the quiet parts of not-highsec. Missions should be closer to on par with that.

2.) Level 3 missions pay much more similarly in different sec statuses. This is the level where a high-skilled player can build a cheap fit on a cheap and fast ship, and be both optimized to run the mission as well as optimized to run through player gate camps. The way I see it, a lot of players will be running them quickly and safely, if the pay on these is increased too much you'll have the old faction warfare problem again: players running through lowsec in warp-stabbed frigates and cruisers to blitz level 3 missions for fast ISK and loyalty points.

3.) Nullsec missions pay more than lowsec. People differ a lot on where it's safer to be, where it's easier to run missions. At the end of the day you have to admit that the safety really depends a lot on both where in the galaxy you are, and how safe your friends make it. I have nullsec paying a bit higher in the chart because there are ways to snag mission-runners there that aren't available in lowsec, making lowsec getaways easier to pull off. But I make it a minor difference because there are many very safe places to PVE in nullsec and I feel lowsec should also be a place of abundant income.

4.) Level 4 missions are nerfed in pay, even level 5s don't measure up when you consider the extra effort required to beat them. I don't think highsec should be a place to earn fast cash. I think Incursion sites in highsec should have their pay cut by at least 75%. If you want to make ISK rapidly through PVE, you should be looking at opportunities in which you at least dip outside of highsec briefly every now and then. Staying in highsec and doing PVE should be for all the Chribbas and Mike Azariahs out there who just want to chill for a while, along with all the newer players who don't possess the skills to strike out on their own outside of highsec (or so they feel).

one would have thought that this thinking having been repeatedly proven to be absurdist would have died out of the gene pool by now.

Let me clarify, attempting to "drive" people out of high sec works.

However it drives them out of the game not into the loving arms of losec gate-camps.

Offer new interesting content, and SOME will come, but many lack the time and commitment to operate in spaces with an higher emphasis on PVP.

Trying to "socially engineer" them, results in a catastrophic reduction in subscribers. People know when they are being treated as victims and fodder. And not surprisingly respond as expected by any rational person.

Now, back to the advertised programme, how about making PVE more interesting?
A wide range of content is required in Hisec, If one wishes to retain customers as their skills and experience grows. NOT just harder or more dangerous for the sake of it.

Yet another of the idiotic ideas of move everything to low / nul and people will follow. When are you and the many others like you going to accept that there are people who play this game that want no part of the low or nul sec style of game play and there is nothing you can ever do to change that. Try to force it with the continuous stream of bad ideas like this and you simply force them out of the game. Good the game is better off without them you might say and that is an extremely short sighted attitude, one that would doom this game to the scrap heap of history. CCP needs cash money to pay it's bills and salaries for the devs etc and an active and viable high sec has a very large role to play in that. To be blunt you NEED an active and viable high sec even if you hate it and never go there because without it there would be no EvE, at least CCP understands this even if people like you cannot.
So in an effort to attract and hold onto long term players that will help pay the bills CCP needs to make changes that will keep high sec viable and interesting enough to hold the player group that prefers to call high sec home.

Going back to the level 5's I would ask you to go back and really read my post. I am not moving the actual "level 5 missions" from low to high I simply propose moving the "level 5" label to high sec as a new series of missions that are more difficult but do not pay more than the current level 4's. Your precious level 5's would stay in low sec they would simply be re-labeled and "level 6" missions.

The other question is why move any level of missions to nul sec only?
Surely you elite players that call nul sec home do not have any concerns or problems with going to low sec for missions.
If you do then how are you any less risk averse than those from high sec that do not want to run missions in low?
If you do not want to go to low for missions then you have no right to tell others that they should have to go to low to run missions.

where does it end though? you will get bored of lvl 5's when you have max efficiencied them, then want 10/10 ded's in highsec too, carriers and wh escalations?, pirate mission hubs, lets just take all the appeal of low nullsec and wh's out and just put it all into highsec, really what is the appeal of leaving highsec? why should people leave highsec if everything is available safely in highsec, the payout isnt the concern here its removing any appeal other space has to satisfy people not willing to travel and risk something.

you just have to look at incursions, they hardly get done in low and null because the payout difference between them and highsec and the risk doesnt encourage people enough to do them.

And no its not about getting people into lowsec its about an entitled lazy attitude of carebears to pull low and null features to highsec, if you want to live in highsec then thats your choice but dont try and ruin other space appeal because you are getting bored, plenty of people take the risk and do these missions in low/null/wh and enjoy it

CCP's AI is several orders of magnitude less complex than your average basic calculator. It makes flatworms look positively brilliant by comparison. I don't know if it's even fit to be called AI. It'd be nice to see some actual AI programmed in for once. It can't be that difficult.



It's a cool idea to have missions in which you repair or warp disrupt, or perform other tasks. One point, though: sieged dreadnoughts cannot be remote-repped. It gave me an idea for a mission, however:

Do you want to fly a dreadnought?

Greetings, pilot.

A short time ago we intercepted a message from a nearby Serpentis pirate base being built in secrecy. It would seem they plan to spy on us to discover weaknesses in our convoy defenses. They wish to steal supplies. We could have eliminated them quickly by sending in a proper military force, but it was deemed too expensive to match the threat these pirates pose.

That's where you come in.

There is a band of volunteer militia working to find inexpensive solutions to some of our, shall we say, neglected problems. These brilliant soldiers and engineers have designed what they claim is a working replica of a Moros dreadnought, although I've seen it and I can tell you it is little more than a giant heap of tritanium scrap metal. Nevertheless, they want to field test it but they need a capsuleer pilot to control it.

That's where you come in...oh wait I already said that.

Anyway, it's a fairly simple design setup despite its size, thus you won't need proper capital ship training to pilot the beast. Just fly your capsule to the coordinates I've put into your Neocom, and they will instruct you on how to proceed from there.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Pilot your capsule to the mission coordinates.

Once you arrive at the mission coordinates, you find yourself at a large shipyard with a Moros dreadnought nearby. You are instructed to board the ship. It requires nothing more than spaceship command I to pilot, and no skills are needed to activate any of the modules. The ship is not equipped with a proper warp drive or jump drive. Upon boarding, you will find it is equipped with a capital armor repairer, a siege module, three XL ion blasters, and a complete shiftfit in the rest of the slots, obviously put together by a moron.

They online a nearby acceleration gate (5-10km away from the Moros) and have you approach and activate it to warp into the next pocket. Upon arriving in the pocket, you find yourself about 60km away from a Serpentis hideout station with two large communications arrays nearby, a large defense field generator, and several field hardener modules of various types.

Your mission at this point is to destroy the hideout. Once it's down, mission is complete. It has a lot of hitpoints and, due to the defense field generator, everything here has high resistances. The easiest structures to destroy are the field hardeners. (Protip: destroy the kinetic and thermal hardeners.) Every time a structure is destroyed while either communications array is up, a group of Serpentis rats will spawn and begin attacking. These NPCs are virtually impervious to the Dreadnought's weaponry as it tracks far too slowly. After some time, your friendly militia will send in NPC ships to fight off the Serpentis, but not before you sustain a lot of fire. You simply need to watch how many NPCs you cause to spawn, and make sure you do not overwhelm yourself. Shooting the communications arrays first is the slow but chill way to do the mission. Also, you'll need to watch your optimal and falloff and switch to the best ammo while you slowly drift toward the station attempting to get into antimatter range.



This mission would give newer pilots a chance to see what it feels like to pilot a dreadnought, and perhaps give them a bit more love for their smaller, faster ships.