Live Events Discussion

We honestly were expected to be hot dropped in that event and were surprised one never came. Every event we've run prior in that area has led to us being hot dropped.

As for the DPS, I actually believe apart from the carrier I was flying which got stuck in Triage right as 3 separate fleets were shooting at it (including a Welpcane fleet with plenty of neuts to cap me out), our capitals were surviving mostly fine.

That being said, that Welpcane fleet landed right as we were about to pull out and declare the event a "Win" for the Serpentis. As it stood, it was still a win, albeit not quite as good of one, because they achieved their objectives. Players should be prepared to not be the victors in every event we run, and the Serpentis one was a good test case for that.

Live events aren't "shoot a dev", that will be the Dev Caravan that they mentioned will be done in december.

I have to echo this.

Live Events are not meant to be a "shoot a dev" kind of deal, some of them are also completely devoid of PvP and are designed totally to either set storyline or allow the people who don't PvP so much to get involved.

Players also need to be aware that when we come to these events we do so with the full intention of fighting to the death, and you should be expecting the same if you go out looking for a fight in general.

That said, the Dev Caravan, and Live Events are two very different things.

evaulon was pretty great, we were on a frig roam when i saw the tweet, turned around and tried to catch some stuff

sadly we only brought frigs and no one had a scanner, we could have killed so much more :(

also our FC died as one of the first and we had nobody who wanted to take over.

nice surprise when you guys dropped the NPCs on our head

That is my current issue with how the new set of live events are being run. Especially this current one. I myself have had TZ conflicts so only been able to get in post action to all the new stories, but being a former runner from the sansha ones, there are issues that myself, and many of the old vets from those fights have been discussing.

First, the live events are more attractive to the new player and highsec crowd. Those already living in null/low probably have things they are interested in, and dont have desire/possibility of traveling. When I was out in null, I wouldn't have been able to get to, nor have the desire to, do all the traveling to get to an event. Now it can be good for some random pew pew, for myself hopping in a T1 and loling about would be great and have ships ready to go should anything actually happen while I am online. Now lets look at why the current live events are too niche and really don't mean much to eve.

The battlefield

Sansha events: Massive large scale fights with zero reward, and everybody wanted in on them because it was straight up fun, but very risky as well with all the warp scram on. Person could fleet up any ship, and just enjoy themselves>

Current events: Border 0.4s etc common with pie traffic. People form up to quickly get jumped by pies or most often hotdropped.

Duration of events

Sansha events: would sometimes run for hours with fleets getting together, just being able to move around and join in/leave at will.

Current events: hotdrop=over gotta get in at startish to move anywhere safely.

Fleets

Sansha events: Bring whatever you want. Work with a good fc and join any random, you will have fun!

Current events: Pirates already have organized pvp fleets while the defenders unless already a pvp corp are a not very functional mishmash that dies fast.

Community Involvement

Sansha events: Uhh, we broke 2000 man in an engagement (Yulai) with randoms and very little warning. Also that was with node lockouts.

Current events: What, maybe 100 and more of them being pirates than go defenders? (It took reinforcement timers and the biggest alliances to match those numbers in pvp)

PvP

Sansha events: Fleets in highsec would move into lowsec for their events, but not in high numbers. Without traps planned, it tore down that barrier for new people entering into lowsec.

Current events: Short small fights, mediocre for any actual new access.

What this all means:

Sansha events had a storyline that broke all records for player involvement. They were fun, engaging and got a whole community of new players involved. Everybody from brand new people in cheap frigates (I replaced many ships out of my pocket for people that lost ships in my fleets) to top end faction battleships and T3.

Current events. Barriers restrict it to pvp veterans mostly. Myself, I don't want to waste time bringing randoms I don't know into a one sided battle nor will I get enough interested people into the fight to make effective numbers. Should I somehow do so, odds are will get blobbed by bored alliances and done. Is why our corp isn't in null/low anymore.

Combine them all, while those of us veterans who enjoyed the live events of the sansha for what they were and spent over a year devoting time to it for no reward, these current ones seem nothing more than chum trying to get people into pvp and doing it wrong. If there is some reward, it will only go to some pvp group and really excludes the rest of eve. Live events should be about being engaging, not some potential final reward.

Look at the numbers for involvement, and compare to back then.

Wait a minut...

The biggest feedback I can give is, do more of them and keep doing them. Haven't been able to participate in as many of these as I did before due to real life but I live events are always a fun and awesome way to spend time in EVE.

I can only echo people when it comes to having diverse events. Spacebattles are loads of fun but not everyone enjoys them as much.

• We already have battles between Empire and Pirate factions, more events similar to those will always be welcome.


• Events where we might need to pool resources together within time limits to prevent some disaster or help someone. Success or failure of which might make the next event more or less difficult to accomplish successfully.


• Spying on Empire factions to uncover certain secret Black Projects they are involved in. Information that then later might be used as leverage over a faction to force or prevent them from intervening in subsequent events. For example another Pirate incursion where one can delay or call in some Empire Navy forces by holding the information over a certain Admiral.


• Scavenger hunts across New Eden where Capsuleers need to solve puzzles and riddles or steal certain rare goods from factions in order to figure out some stellar event. For example a Spatial rift that opens and threatens a region of space and the scientific minds of New Eden need help in assembling a device to close/repair/contain it.

As for rewards, while some small rewards or loot drops for some events would be a nice bonus I think that for a lot of people the chance of leaving some (small) mark on EVE's history is enough reward in of itself. Having certain monuments in game as result of events would also be nice. Something akin to the Sansha wormhole in Promised Land. I know stuff like that takes up resources that can be better spend elsewhere but something at some point being added would be nice. Say at the conclusion of a year long storyline event before moving on to the next chain.

Oh and please make sure there is a clear document of planned storyline events somewhere so that someone can pick up where others left off in case something happens and there can't be any LE's for a while. It wouldn't be the first time things abruptly end leaving loose ends behind. *cough*Arek'Jaalan*cough*

Haven't had a chance to join in any yet, but it's great to see Blue and Yellow names in chat again :)

I hope your programmers have plans to fix this general issue. It'd be great if we could actually help event actors out.

Well here is something interesting. I missed these low security ones, but is it possible to align the agression of the NPCs with that of the actors? In previous events, the spawned npcs were always red. With the new mechanics, is it possible to remove that and make yourself friendly with the pirates. So if you have say a negative security status, and above -5 standing with the pirates, they wont agress? That could help with the low security stuff. High security still has issues for actor support, but that is more pve crowd so probably less relevant and beneficial.