Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Mission running has always been part of my Eve activities since I joined back in 2003 and it's an activity that many pilots enjoy and gear for. Now I've just returned from a long break and started mission running again and bumped into a "burner" mission, not knowing any better I took my assault frigate into the mission and promptly got rekt.
So as I completed a little war dance in my room I realised that it was my own fault of course for not reading up on changes to the game since I last played and not really reading the mission blurb.

But I also realised that the concept of the "burner" missions was genius but that it could be expanded and built upon to improve the experience of mission running for those pilots who might prefer to fly other ships than battleships or high tier cruisers.
Right now in general a pilot needs to get bigger and bigger ships to complete higher level missions.
How about expanding the agent mission system to add missions offered by ship class and locking access to them using the existing system of ship restriction?

This would mean adding new mission designed around each of the major ship classes so that when talking to an agent of a given level the agent will offer the pilot a selection of missions one or more for each category of ship.

For example;

Frigate

Destroyer

Cruiser

Battle Cruiser

Heavy Cruiser

Battleship

Completion of a mission will improve faction standing as normal and level progression for that particular class of ship mission. Or in other words if a pilot completes a destroyer level 2 mission they will gain progression towards unlocking destroyer level 3 missions but not progression for battleship missions.

Obviously the rewards for these missions will reflect and scale for the ship class they are intended for so that if a pilot chooses to focus exclusively on level 4 destroyer mission then they will be rewarded relatively higher rewards than a level 1 destroyer mission but less than what a level 4 battleship mission would provide.

The core of this concept requires that new missions be created for each ship class will include elements that reflect the ships role in battle, for example destroyers are intended to escort larger ships and protect them from frigates/drones, battleships on the other end of the spectrum are intended to be the main force of power and the "battle line" in combat and will be looking to deploy their might against their opposite number on the enemy side and so on.

An example mission;

Destroyer level 1
Escort the miner. (1/3)
The pilot is tasked to remain within xxKM of the mining vessel as it completes it's scanning mission in a local asteroid field.
Several waves of weak and cheerful pirate frigates attempt to destroy the mining vessel.
Completion of the missions requires that the miner ship warp out safely after completing it's scan, which it can only do after a set period of time in which the escorting pilot has stayed within escort range and of course it must not be destroyed by the pirates.

Escort the miner (2/3)
The mining scan turned up an anomalous scan return indicating one of the asteroids contains a large amount of refined metals, indicating a habitation or base of some kind, which could explain the pirate attack as they may have been trying to drive away the miner before it discovered the base.
Return to the asteroid field with the mining ship, allow it to wander out of escort range of xx KM and wait to see if the pirates take the bait to attack in force then cover the mining ship and eliminate the majority of the bases defence ships.
Completion of the mission requires the mining bait ship survives and at least half the attacking frigates are destroyed before they disengage. (xx minutes)

Escort the miner (3/3)
With the majority of the pirate ships destroyed it is now time to move against the base itself.
Escort the troop ships as they travel to the base and eliminate the base turrets to allow the troopships to land the soldiers.
Completion of the mission requires the base is captured (achieved over time, which is quicker the more troop ships get through)
Ambush! The pirate force launches an all out assault in a desperate defence of their base, many frigates and maybe some destroyers warp in and attack the pilot and the troop ships.

The motivation behind all of this lies in the fact that the missions as they are do not really cater to those pilots who focus on flying other ship classes, what I propose would allow mission runners more options in what ships they can use whilst still having a sense of progression, not to mention expanding the types of mission.

Not at all.

More missions designed to fit particular ship class roles, the logic being to allow those who focus other ships than battleships to enjoy mission running in their preferred ship class whilst still allowing progression up the mission and agent levels.

No need for sarcasm, if you do not understand whats being said just ask for more information :)

Also you obviously ignore the substance of the posted idea and instead focused on the mission example, well duh lol.

Look if mission running isn't your thing that is fine but please keep your comments relevant to the concept :)

While your idea could be better presented, at its core it is not bad. The idea that you have missions which require a specific ship class to accomplish a specific goal (rather than simply "go kill eleventy billion red things that used to be crosses") has been floating around for years.

My understanding is that CCP is currently rebuilding the tools to allow them to create new PVE content.

I like the idea.
Add missions that match the ship type and make it a constant 'experience learning curve'.

If there would be a more dynamic mission generating system relying on the pilots favourites, it'll be great.
Not saying we need everything overhauled, adjust and improve them. Although I imagine it would be a huge and long term buisness programming this, gathering ideas and put bit and bytes together.
But here the OP has set one idea.

CCP you should create a task, a big change after you have finished ship/modules rebalancing. And please stop deploying new unbalanced problems, called new ships ... and it never stops. Fix old bugs and old issues first or at least 'by-the-way'. (I'm guessing I am the 1001 person that tells you CCP.)


I'm also an older player and already experienced the force to train other ships (high tier or always battleships) than I wanted to fly and focus on.
The problem there are the skills. New players tend to fly BS over anything else because they tank better against the rats while having to wait until skills are high enough to do it in smaller ships, which also is because of new players lack on experience how to do missions or don't know about eve-survival. Upon completion doing missions in BS's it leads to a boredom or boldness and some of the newbs just quit EVE or others changed to PVP in Null/Low.
Other players tend to 'fight it through' and as soon they have the required skills, it's good and they start to experiemet with odd but challenging adventures like doing lvl4's in frigs.


Then since wardeccing in high-sec and ganking is popular, it's gotten even worse to hold newbs in game. It's a matter of fact and I don't care if those big-ballish people call that whining or not.
It's an issue for passioned older players to hold newbs in game and at least for CCP to generate new fresh players who really want and love to fly a specific ship. These new people could become very specialized pilots, but that is something the KM-hunters or annoying gankers don't care - no wonder. And this is not the future of EVE and as far I recall this was not the declared goal of CCP. It was to make new pilots specialized. Unfortunately that failed. Period.

I want to add something here.
I agree with the OP's idea and I don't agree with the guy that posted 'we need new players to have the same skills like older players' because it wouldn't work. Never has been --> see rl.
December Release - Issues / Workaround. But I agree there have to be a huge cut to the current game mechanics, which is obvious. CCP can't continue with cosmetics while letting others contantly kill(-off game) newbs.



I recall times when newbies always trained up to Battleships to be able to run and finish level 4 missions. And you as an older player couldn't season them to do it right - because the easiest way looks always the best.
That's most of the part because the loot and salvage is just not worth doing them, not to mention the reward of 50k ISK for a lvl2 mission - compared to the new career agents missions or the lvl1 Sisters Epic-arc . Especially if you have a rl and go online for a short daily timeframe to generate ISK for a new skillbook or module you want or need for your new ship.
Then after grinding standings with careeragents and the epic-arc combined with a clever skill management you can do lvl3 missions, which are just overkill compared to the previous missions. And they don't give you much standings when you grind them, which can lead to boredom - there I can agree previous post.


I think this whole thing is worth a general discussion anyway.



People need to pay for the game because it gives them what they want in their free time -even if it's 'just (maybe) "anti-social" missioning', it should be constant and people should have confidence in what they do, not because there are new items in the store.
You can't force new people to come to Low or Null if they don't want that.
Also if you balance ships by removing slots ... it's good in general and I love it, but you forget your mission-runner and new players who really want that type of game, want to be a part of the ongoing storyline of the empires. That is in my opinion something which attracts new people to try EVE-Online. Although Null or Low are and have a role that is unique, but you need something else to get new people to subscribe.

Also if you can be ganked in a mission ... or someone can steal your mission item, it's wrong, except in Null or Low probably.

But again, I'm not talking for myself, just sympathising with the feedback of people who have already left EVE. And that were people who also aimed to join Null or Low ... when they feel they're ready for it. If CCP mix stuff like they do, it gets a problem.

Humans tend to stick in things or change occasional or change completely because they need something new. That's the way to go. Not to break things unexpectedly.


Summary: I like the idea! Thanks for this. +1

An interesting thought, my concern is with the payouts you would get.

If those payouts scale to ship class then a level 4 for the frigate class would would pay out somewhere around the current level 2's. If the payouts were dropped that low then you can achieve your goal currently by taking that frigate and using it in level 2 or level 3 missions. Looking at the level 4 missions since that is likely the main target for the OP would it be wise for these missions to pay out at the same level as the standard level 4's? And yet if they do not what would be the reason to run them over the standard level 4's?

Lol adding more PVE will surely fix this game.

We got drifter or whatever incursions are called, guess what, nobody really cares.

What EVE needs is new points of conflict.
As much as you might hate it this game is still centered about PVP.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday over Christmas, I'm back home now and looking for more interest in this idea to expand mission running options, I'm aware that it's not "war and peace" but I assume that people are more interested in good ideas that winning literary awards here :P

So looking for feed back that is relative to the subject matter.

Don't you get it? Missions are points of conflict. If the effort to probe them is too much for you, well I don't know what to say.

Again the point of the idea is to expand the world of mission runners, my idea expands the advancement trees down multiple paths using the existing agents.

To my mind it would be preferential for the agent to offer a pilot in one conversation a full battery of missions, one for each role and the pilot selects the one they want to do.

Not at all, it works exactly the same way as it does now, you are offered one mission and you take or reject it and if you reject to many in short order you get a standing penalty just the same way.

All this idea does is offer you missions based on ship roles, so obviously if you fly all ships you will be equipped to choose which one you want, but whats wrong with that?