Player Features and Ideas Discussion

TL;DR Concept

Mission Objectives changed from specific bookmark locations to general objectives such as:
- Loot X and Return to Station
- Kill Y (or multiple types of targets) in a given quantity
- Locate an anomaly and return valuable cargo (Missions driven by exploration in other words)
- Kill Capsuleer(s) in a given quantity

Currently, the only mission types that follow this open-ended format are trade missions that leave it up to you on how to acquire the requested good and mining missions (for the same reason). These open-ended missions allow greater latitude in player decision as well as heightens the chance of player interaction (be it PvP or cooperation towards similar goals). Combat Missions would cease to be (or be significantly reduced) bookmarked locations that require exploration to find the capsuleer undertaking the mission. Likewise, the capsuleer taking the mission has the option to finish the objective through multiple locations.

In Depth Explanation

Missions are boring - this is not new - but missions are often the primary lens a new player sees eve online until they either have the gumption to join a corporation that won't scare them off or they become mindless miners/missioners that never realize those activities can fund many other activities (notably pew pew).

It's common for gamers to bash 'fetch quest' design, yet it works surprisingly well. In EvE, the only truly open-ended mission types are trade and mining, in which a player is given an objective and can complete it however they see fit - buy the materials, transport/contract transport, or personally harvest/collect the requested materials. Now, it isn't a secret that these missions are less than exciting, but the basis of their design has many advantages:

1) Player Choice - the defining characteristic of eve, choice (particularly in terms of risk/reward) is at the heart of how eve players interact with the environment and each other.

2) Multiple Options - A spin-off from choice, multiple options allows the imagination to work (even if just a little) which inherently drives player engagement and satisfaction. The ORE line of ships embodies this ideal with the variations in mining barges but also in the Venture series: covert mining for high risk/reward vs. cheap and replaceable to offset anticipated losses.

3) Player Exposure - the real gold nugget for eve, anything that results in player conflict or cooperation is considered a positive. Open-ended design drives player exposure:
- Mechanically: objectives that must be completed in space at sites that can be found via the overview (be it a gate, a belt, or a combat site) for any player allow other players to interact with that capsuleer.
- Psychologically: Given the knowledge of the mechanics, capsuleers seeking conflict/cooperation will be drawn to sites that are known to or are likely to be associated with mission objectives...much like DED sites in lowsec, incursions, or sleeper sites in WH.

A note on #3: (Dons flame-proof gear) WoW, as ridiculed as it is in many other games, uses open-ended objectives to drive player interaction. Guilds are often formed or grown by virtue of a combination of veterans and/or new players interacting in an open space. While the objective "Kill 10 rats" isn't anything earth shattering, if all the rats are in specific locations then new players will inevitably collide and veterans seeking new players (for good or ill) will also know to look in such locations. This 'collecting' effect can be applied in any game, including eve.

EX: The Serpentis Corporation has deployed satellites designed to interfere with the star in the system, with the goal of creating catastrophic solar flares to disintegrate a nearby research outpost.
- Destroy (at least) Five Satellites at the star
- Warp to the research outpost and eliminate 10 Serpentis Ships
- Bonus objective: Locate a site where the Serpentis are deploying the satellites and eliminate all enemy ships and structures (Requires Exploration)

Stars in eve are really big, allowing for thousands if not tens of thousands of satellites to be placed perpetually in the system(s) this mission exists. That said, capsuleers seeking these satellites can be found and helped/hindered by other capsuleers easily (scanning not entirely necessary). The research outpost represents a single point of contact that could utilize a respawn timer of ten to fifteen minutes. Since kills are driven by just landing a shot, trolling might extend mission time but not by any substantial amount. More importantly, it represents a single, guaranteed location for players to interact - much like an FW site in lowsec. The bonus objective is optional, but allows players to further flex their skills (or incentivize them to get those skills - which could lead to heightened interest in WH, praise Bob!) as well as the opportunity to ambush other players or, as a veteran, identify a player that has a basic grasp of exploration and will likely have a higher chance of joining a corporation that offers them the chance to expand that skillset (not just sp, but actual pilot skill).

What about the old missions?

Many of the old missions can be converted to this format of open-ended, viewable on the overview instead of using generated bookmarks and deadspace. Elite rats, for example, could prove very exciting - rather than being a mission but a hourly or daily announcement in system of their presence, resulting in a manhunt that will inevitably draw capsuleers together - to cooperate or conquer. Some missions are built around deadspace (bonanza) and would need to remain as such.

The biggest problem PvP missions face is being taken advantage of.

"You kill me 10 times and I'll Kill you 10 times"

Objectives that are ship-based could drive players in a system to fly specific ships, increasing exposure to the variety of ships in eve. EX: Using an e-war frigate, earn five kills on other capsuleers. While this sounds good on paper, the problem still applies of collusion...undermining the mission design and rendering the rewards either a pointless isk faucet...or just pointless, because it didn't drive increased player interaction.

If the objectives could be tied to value destroyed, like bounties or insurance, this can be partially dealt with. FW is able to use the layer of 'target must be associated with the opposing factions', though even this can be abused.

The solution may be to change the PvP awards from something physically valuable (LP, isk) to instead intrinsically - leaderboards, or bragging rights of some kind. In this, competition would drive ship destruction beyond abuse - it wouldn't be 'worth it' to blow up your own battlecruisers hundreds of times just to be on the top of the leaderboard.

The idea is simple: whatever is destroyed needs to be more valuable than the mission objective reward. If the objective is to blow up five frigates, the reward can't exceed but about 500k isk to ensure abuse serves no purpose but to maybe increase faction reputation.

There are a lot of problems with this sort of approach to missions, but I'll start with the major issue I have with the whole concept.

Changing missions from a "go to this instance of a thing and do stuff" model to a "bring me ten wolf pelts pirate peglegs" model is not going to make them more interesting. We've seen PvE content like this in the form of the Scope bounties from the Shadows of the Serpent event and they weren't great. Trying to find sites and the things you needed to kill was frustrating, unreliable, and unrewarding. It was fun for about two hours and then it got boring, repetitive, and then frustrating when you can't find the rats you need when you need them.

So, some more specific problems...



So, first off, Trade missions have a *major* problem, and there's a reason people basically only do them for standings. They rarely pay out as much as the thing they ask you to bring them is worth. They're basically only done for quick standings and nothing else, and even then the value is questionable. Mining missions have a similar problem.

If you increase the value to match what players will pay for the items then the missions are now competing with the player economy, which is bad for the economy and for anyone looking to buy those items.

Missions that have you actively hunting targets don't mesh well with Eve's existing PvE and rewards structure. Games which have these sorts of quests have a limited server population and very fast and predictable monster spawns. Eve has neither of these things. This means a common mission hub will have far too many people competing for a limited supply of rats. Since there are a limited number of agents in the game for any given corp that has a good chance of leaving players unable to actually do missions compared to the current system.

As for exploration most mission ships don't have room for a probe launcher, and making missions require scanning down targets severely limits which ships can be used to do these missions, especially compared to now. On top of that we already have exploration as a form of PvE. There's no need for Missions to try and become Exploration.

As for PvP as missions this is just asking to be abused. Get an alt and blow him up a bunch in the cheapest thing the mission will allow, profit. That's without even getting into the problems with enforced PvP as a PvE objective. You're either handing out free kill rights, or asking players (potentially quite new ones) to do something for which CONCORD will punish them. That's without factoring in that a newer player is unlikely to be able to kill most players he runs into on his own, so he's going to be hard pressed to make a profit doing a "PvP mission" without cheesing it.

On top of *all of that* this would be a pretty big nerf to income by any measure, since all of this decreases the consistency of income massively because the player now has to spend time hunting around to get their reward. PvE, among all other things, must be rewarding because it's how people make money. If you're losing money doing PvP something has gone hilariously wrong.

Overall I just don't think this idea works.

I agree.

This NEW idea is called ratting and it makes mission running seem absolutely exhilarating by comparison.