EVE General Discussion

Floating disappearing cans are good idea (can solo and with friends with the same income for everyone) - APPROVED if this will be one of many systems not only one

Minigame hmm meeh not sure about it, it can be easily boring and frustrating (especially in LS when You must keep eye on local/scan) - HALF APPROVED and only if this will be one of many systems not only one

Make some interesting, diverse hacking system. And make REAL exploring.

I'm afraid the most that we will get another one type mechanic for every exploration site...
What is exploration by players and CCP (damn by every person on this planet)?
Answer: Unpredictable, always something new!!!
That's the most important thing! When i go exploring i don't know what to expect, what i will need to do to get loot, or spawn some stuff etc, every site should be different, not: every hacking site is be the same minigame, same floating cans etc...

Most of this thread has focused on the minigames and loot pinata, but the real game changer is removing NPC rats from exploration sites, and I'm not sure how I feel about that part.

For one, I've spent several weeks now training up a second account to do the combat portion of harder low/null sites since having a ship that scans and opens containers and can handle the NPCs all at once is hard to do. Now that account will have almost no purpose for me, and unless I can split screen and grab more loot with two ships, I might just let that account expire.

No NPCs also mean that we will see both a lot of stabbed cloaky frigates doing exploration, at least initially, but I'm worried that exploration in low sec (where I am most active), will be completely taken over by the small-gang PvPers.

Before, there was no reason for explorers to cooperate with the PvP gangs. Explorers gained nothing from teaming up with PvPers because they could get all the loot themselves without any help, so why share if you don't have to. Now the reverse is true, there is no reason *not* to team up with PvP gangs because the explorers get added protection, help with chasing out other explorers, and the loot the PvPers get as payment s loot the scanners would have missed out on anyhow.

At the same time, the combat gangs only have to be present if there's someone to shoot (which they want to do anyhow) or when the loot is ready to pop. It's basically extra income for them for no extra effort while bypassing the majority of the unexciting non-PvP parts, so there's zero reason for them not to muscle in on exploration.

All this is as planned to get more fights for those who like PvP, but it will make solo exploring in low sec extremely difficult. I don't mind having to be more wary, but solo exploration is what I enjoy right now in EVE, and I don't want to see its viability completely vanish. I'm glad CCP is saying they don't want solo exploration to vanish, but I'd like to hear someone give reasons for why this won't happen.

I guess there is an analogy with fishing in the real world. One rod only gets you so much no matter how many fish you see swim by and there is satisfaction at getting better at fishing and netting more fish. Bringing a friend along means you can near enough always get more fish so long as there are enough to catch by spreading out to cover more river.

since this is eve we can safely say someone will end up with a fishhook in the eye

Well, it's sound like somthing interesting.

So it'll be better to do it with a covet ops ship?

Are we getting Diablo Style "Hold alt key Grab Everything Possible" type of looting now?

Now while the above is relevant, I do like that Exploration sites can now be teamed up with. Everybody gets something, and they have to be attentive and "There" to get it. You can potentially get MORE if you bring 2 or 3 people with you, rather than trying to max out profits by doing it solo (so you keep the cool shiny stuff).

Can the above be tweaked, I believe so. Good idea.

Assume people flying in a bazillion alts, or bringing a pair of catalysts with 8 tractor beams each to mass scoop stuff..

YES! Especially officer fit cov ops ships and you won't even have to do the hacking. Just wait at the can and grab the good bits when it pops out....the officer and faction mods will increase the chances of getting something good.

Why make exploration even more random than it currently is? Not only do you have to get a good drop, but now you have to get lucky and grab the right cans too?

Fereval Kondur, those are all good points. We definitely agree that the larger scale gameplay, particularly when it gets social is what defines EVE as a game. That doesn't mean the tasks that you can do and organise around shouldn't also be interesting in themselves. We have plenty of people working on "the Universe" but the details do need some love as well. I would absolutely love to tie this into EVE on a wider scale and we have some exciting ideas for future iterations that I'll go into in the devblog.

Things like success in the minigame affecting the scattering in a non-binary manner is most definitely on the table. For example at a basic level we could add in secondary objectives that if complete cause the scattered cans to be obviously distinguishable (in a context appropriate manner, like discovering the "cargo manifest"). We're also thinking of ways of tying some new items from the hacking into the market but that needs some more thinking so is unlikely to make the first release.

What happens depends on what we see the feature doing on TQ.

I am prepared to give the devs the benefit of the doubt here. My concerns are that people who have poor hand-eye coordination (such as me, with my DUST514 k/d ratio of about 0/30, and usually losing due to running out of clones) will suffer from these changes. CCP Bayesian has promised that they are trying to remove the "twitch" element from this mini game.

In terms of expected income I can see many pilots getting upset about the cans they didn't get, rather than excited about the cans they did get. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: you expect to get less loot, so you end up remembering how many cans you lost. I would highly recommend keeping records of what loot you score from every exploration site you run, this way you won't fall victim to selection bias or false memory.

Now can anyone tell me where to find these presentations on Twitch.tv? I come up empty looking for ccpgames, and there are far to many results for EVE Online :/