Player Features and Ideas Discussion

U mad!?

Just kidding... I can relate and actually woud like some of the stuff your discribed... problem is: This should actually be provided by the players... more stuff to do, I mean. With 40k players max, that is much free space in this universe...

But... correct me if I'm worng, NPCs aren't supposed to be capsuleers, are they? Most of them, atleast.

You are absolutely right by saying that npcs are too weak. It's also something I shouldve pointed out.

And one of the most important thing, that I forgot to mention, is the following:
You shouldn't be punished for doing pve with your friends. Because it's exactly what is happening. Split rewards and split loots ? It means that a lot of people with a perfectly fitted pve ship (such as a dps vargur) will be less likely to accept anyone in their mission runs. Because it slows them down as it reduces their isk/hour ratio.
Rewards should not be split or at least, not by the amount of players. Currently, 5 players will each one get 1/5 of the reward. They should scale it to 1/3. As long with a way of granting loots to all the players in the fleet.

Capsuleers are supposed to be better than regular pilots for a few reasons:

1 - Fear of Death
Capsuleers are effectivly Immortal, regular pilots are not. Capsuleers will take risks and use tactics that very, very few other pilots would be willing to even consider.

2 - What Does Not Kill Us
Capsuleers learn from their mistakes, (most of the time. Ok, sometimes. Well, occasionally.) For regular pilots, its kind of hard to learn if your dead.

3 - Fodder
Rats are basically the games fodder. In other games, when you **** up, you respawn and carry on. When you **** up in EvE, your ship, its fittings, its cargo, (and in some cases some several days worth of skill points,) are gone. Even in those other games, there is always fodder.

We need to be able to take on large groups of rats for a relativly steady income so we can afford to fly bigger, better ships to take on better rats/head into PvP/buy the shineys. Its all well and good saying that you want to take on harder rats and you want it to feel more like flying against a real person, but what happens to the risk/reward ratio? If you have a 50/50 chance of losing your ship going into a fight, logically you need a better payout than 50% of the ships cost or its not worth it. Lets say a T1 BS, worth 300 million isk with fittings, goes into a fight with a 30% chance of blowing up. Realistically, uless the payout for that fight is worth 100 million isk or more, its not worth doing.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a challenge and it is rewarding to feel like you had to work hard in a fight. But I aso need to make bank and New players need a learning curve that isn't going to tear the **** out of them for a simple mistake.

If you want more of a challenge, then I suggest Incursions or actual PvP. Don't bother running missions or belt ratting.

I haven't done incursions yet so I can't comment, but I have done WHs. Maybe change them to be more like sleepers?

I think 'Scaling' NPCS with a combination of AI and raw power could work. Level 1 missions would be as is scaling up to level 4s that have rr and more ewar.

one thing i noticed is CCP is trying to not make carebears cry to much, they already cried enough to not be able to be has much effective in missions with drones, non in the less drones are made to be close range form what i know even more slow Gallante drones, just get on top of them like what gallentes ships are made for.

Mate, even I can tell thats all from a bad translation app.

Hi.


First about Solutio Letum's post, and the responces his post got. *giggle*

I think he's trying to say that with Drones being less effective in PvE missions, aka you can no longer aggro everything, toss your Drones out, and sit back or do something else while the drones kill everything, CCP will be careful with making things even harder (though that's not making it harder, only making AFK missioning with Drones more difficult, if not impossible) for "carebears" or Empire players.
The way he's saying it isn't polite though, regardless of translation problems.


Next I'd like to add that what I see as the main reason a Capsuler is better in combat than an non-Capsuler is because they are hooked into the "nerve-system" of their ship, connected to it straight up and giving commands directly via thought and mind patterns.

Not fear of dying. Actually I must say it seems the NPC Rats are showing a LOT more gusto in that area than any Capsuler.
I know of very few Capsulers that when noticing they might lose their ship, and their clone with whatever implants, won't try get to safety in any possible way they can. Might not be fear of dying but rather fear of losing ISK but the sentiment stands. Only in PvP are Capsulers more prone to stand their ground and fight the battle to the end.
NPC Pirates, Empire Police, Empire rats, all NPC's basically, though almost invariably stay and fight to the bitter end even knowing that this means the True Death for them. Talk about non-fear of dying. *smile*

Some Rats, especially ones often seen in Missions, ARE Capsulers though. I've had, I seem to remember, several communiques and updates to missions when running then stating something along the lines of "just upgraded my clone with implants so you stand no chance". Now even these supposedly Capsular NPC's are no match for a PC Capsuler.


About splitting mission reward, well, it's all good the way it is already. If it increased the total ISK handed out because there were more in Fleet when handing the mission in it would be too easy to invite some 100 players (friends, corp/alliance mates) before handing the mission in so that the total ISK was greatly increased.
Besides in PvE missions most people that plan on remaining in Empire Space avoid missions against Empire Factions and thus mostly take missions against Pirate Factions. These have Bounties and that is where most of the direct ISK comes from, not the mission reward itself. In most cases the bounties exceed the loot/salvage "rewards" by a fair margin if looking at time spent at both killing and salvaging. (If anything salvaging should be made more lucrative while bounties should be reduced, keeping the balance of reward for missioning but tipping the scale on what gives what).
The part about more players taking away from one players ISK/hour is mostly true, but does not have to be.

2 people can kill a mission pocket in faster than "solo time / 2" if coordinating their efforts. 3 people can increase that even more, and so on, until you get to the point where the concerted ships involved take down any rat in one Alpha strike. More people after that slow the killing time down again.

Unfortunately very few coordinate that way so the total time not only stays at "solo time / 2" but goes above that as a varied amount of DPS gets "lost" due to various reasons (2 or more volleys where 1 was enough to kill a ship, torpedoes and other missiles being on the way when a ship is blown up and never get to deal their damage).

Consensus? Learn to talk and coordinate better, set roles for the fleet members so two or more members don't attack the same Frigate NPC, have several help with hardier ships UNTIL it's down to hull, after which one designated pilot takes care of the leftovers.
Then you'd massively increase your ISK/h in missions with a fleet of 2-5 people even if no more rewards were handed out. (and sell the Salvage/Loot rights to someone's corp mate or friend, they can even be in fleet for easier looting as the income isn't from Mission Reward but from Bounties).


And finally on to the OP's suggestion. YES, PLEASE to:
Hardier Rats. Not only bosses but at all. With increasing Mission Level an NPC ship should be equipped with better modules so a Frig in Lvl3 is tougher and deals more damage than a Frig in lvl2, which in turn deals more damage and is tougher than a Frig in lvl1.
Faster increase in Mission Levels OR add a few mission levels to keep the rate in between the same but having tougher missions available, even in High-Sec. Another option is adding Fleet Missions at every level, i.e. when talking to an Agent you get the option to request either a Solo or a Fleet Mission.

Though more and better loot isn't a necessity it might be preferable to simply increasing the Bounties. Reward from playing a game is not only from gain/time but also from challenge, social interaction, coordination, and plain old fun. Hardier NPC's though can very well have slightly better drops (as they can have slightly better modules) as loot/salvage does NOT add ISK to the game but only transfers existing ISK from one character to another and as such is not party yo inflation as much as Bounty rewards are. So even if hardier Rats the Bounties probably should only increase enough to cover any extra costs in Ammo required to take them down.

I would also prefer hardier rats to more rats though more possibilities to find rats would be welcome. More stationary complex sites, NPC rats engaging in fighting NPC cargo haulers, Escalations possible from anywhere rats converge, including from the most hardy rats in asteroid belts, and I'm sure there are lot of different ideas as to where rats can be. As long as it is not overdone and anyone and everyone is afraid to go anywhere as there'll be rats waiting...


Well, enough from me on this subject for now.

Cheers

The main issue i've had with pve is the total lack of interest. You get a long brief before any agent mission giving background etc, but i simply don't care. They are not engaging, the characters feel very made-up and no empathy is felt for the victims. The only point is for isk.

I know this may require a huge overhaul of the system but if the stories could be made more engaging. Maybe introducing audio/video briefings? Adding racial characters who will appear now and again at random? More bosses with better rewards?

Something to make me care about what im doing instead of just grind.

Another thought could be to implement a dynamic event system like in guild wars. Incursions are on the right line but we need more, smaller and easier to access.

the problem is not that pve is boring,

the problem is that you can hardly make a living via pvp