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Another option to make the loot spew less ridiculously reflex based and more consistent would be to disappear all of the spew containers after a set number are collected by each person and eliminate or significantly increase the timer-based despawn.

This would also help work around some of the collision problems people are having while trying to fly within range of the stuff.

It's already listed as a known issue in the OP that completed cans don't despawn at the moment. They do despawn when you fail at hacking too often.

So i just did a data and a relic site in hisec. Got 5.8m decryptor from the data site and nothing of value from the relic site.

In the relic site it so happend that the cans wern't in sync. Color change and name display was delayed and harder to grab the right can then normal. I guess lag. Tell you what this is really gonna **** me off when it happens on Tranquilty in a lowsec or nullsec site.

Have you played it after Sisi was deployed today? We've doubled the loot in each site (to account for cans you don't get), added new types (the faction towers are back in) and cut the number of cans in half. This should be in much better shape now (if it's not, we'll continue making changes of course).
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SWEET! the prices may really drop for the first time since i started playing!

One possible improvement I would like to see

It would be great if each time you destroyed a system core, you were given the choice to go a level deeper into the system, or to jettison the accessed cargo. Each time you enter a deeper level it becomes more complex and difficult, yet the potential rewards become greater. Of course the risk of failure should also escalate with every additional level.

For example.
Three levels down you accidentally activate the hacking sites defense systems causing the the site to webify your ship. You also get a notification that a broadband emergency signal has been activated. Maybe you trigger the sites destruction sequence.

Just some possibilities

I am hoping to see archaeology as PvE--basically all the analyzer sites now--and hacking be made into a PvP activity.

The archaeology part I don't really see how much further one can get beside putting sites around the world and handing out loot. If they can encourage people to move around the world and pick up on more of "the scene" in low and null then I think we can call it a success.

Hacking, on the other hand can be expanded into a more dynamic play field, by having players operate the virus as well as the anti-virus. The anti-virus can be operated real-time, as in RTS games, or pre-made. If it's pre-made by players, it will basically function as a strategy level-design game. Tie in the anti-virus modules into invention, and we'll have "optimal" layouts be cost-ineffective to maintain, and create an always changing environment for hacking.

The loot spew encourages bringing people who don't mind being bored. You do the exploring, they just wait around. You do the hacking, they just wait around. Then you tell them, "wake up and double-click teensy little moving things in the space window!"

That's not fun.

What would be fun is if the hacking part of the game was the coop/competitive part. Thus you would have multiple people facing the same hacking grid, and each time you complete a level you have the option of either (a) completing the hack to spew containers or (b) hacking deeper to give better loot, and slower/fewer spew containers.

This idea was raised by Abrazzar earlier in this thread: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3082437#post3082437

I added my two bits worth: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3083444#post3083444

If you were competitively hacking, you could attempt to shut down another player's hacking trail, install your own firewalls and antiviruses, or aim for faster completion on your own.

My two main complaints about the new hacking system are: it's exclusionary, it invents a new magical ability for spaceships (i.e.: everyone gets a tractor beam that works only on spew containers), and it pretends to encourage cooperative play by relegating your friends to loot-vacuuming minions. My friends are not loot-vacuuming minions. They are smart people who deserve a game play experience every bit as entertaining for them as it is for me.

In my opinion any multiplayer activity should be more interesting than two people doing the same activity independently. That is: having a team helping me with the hacking site should be more interesting for each member than discovering and hacking their own sites by themselves.

Allowing for cooperative/competitive hacking with better rewards for a completed coop hack means that when I stumble upon another explorer I have a complex decision to make: do I shoot them, help them, competitively hack and ruin their day, or stay cloaked and warp away? More options makes for a richer environment. Biasing the option towards cooperation (because like the prisoners dilemma, if I cooperate we both get better rewards) will encourage community building.

My apologies to the designer responsible for this feature for my being such a cranky old fart. You've shown that you can think outside the box, and that is great. I love the basic concept of hacking, and I do honestly find the intention of the loot spew to be worthwhile: that intention being to encourage multiplayer cooperation. I just have the opinion that putting the cooperative part of hacking into the loot gathering is very confusing.

In conclusion, I have posted more thoughts on this matter — in which I attempt to apply CCP Soundwaves "principles of game design" — over at my blog: http://mararinn.blogspot.com/2013/05/odyssey-exploration-hacking-is-broken.html

1. How do you like the look and feel of the new sites? We put in new containers and moved things around.
In all honesty, the containers look exceptionally derpy. The ones I saw were these kilometre-long spinny-ring arrangements that were jammed halfway into a Guristas station. Frankly it looked sort of preposterous.

2. How do you like the hacking challenge? What were the results? (what was your strength and coherency, did you win the challenges etc)
The hacking challenge itself seems like it could be fun, but I won all the challenges in the hi-sec site I found without even a hint of difficulty. Because the system doesn't really make it clear what's actually going on I don't really have a feel for the stakes. I'm going to try a low-sec site and see what's up there.

3. How do you like the new looting mechanic?
This tons-of-tiny-cans thing is awful. Rounding them all up before their far-too-short expiry date given how widely they scatter is postively torturous, and severely messes with my enjoyment of the entire minigame. Please, please reconsider. In addition, the amount of loot in these sites is atrocious. I made only 5 million ISK off an entire low-sec site.

The cosmetics of the sites seem alright. There are still a few sites where the spew containers are within a structure that make it impossible to get with 6km of the containers.

Learning the hacking challenge was enjoyable. Did take me a few sites to get a decent understanding of the mechanics and memorizing the icons. However, once you have that understanding then the mini game becomes trivial and is just an exercise of your hand and mouse. The range in difficulty of the puzzles does make things slightly interesting but I still found there are very few puzzles generated that will produce a failed attempt.

Picking up the cans themselves is not too big of an issue most of the time. However, there are occasions where a few spew containers seems put bigger rocket boosters on the cans. There is not a consistent velocity to the cans and when I run into those spew containers that throw things at a much faster rate then I do get annoyed. Overall though it is decent. Now when it comes to the loot itself there seems to be a lot to be desired. Please correct me if I am wrong but it seems like half the cans have very little value, parts and components, and just serve as a device to cuter the screen and make you get more fatigue by forcing you to hover over all the cans to find the ones worth scooping. Of the can that do seem to have some value, materials and data, it is quite annoying that the majority of those cans are empty or just have the near zero isl value item in them.

What is the expected completion time for these sites? I got to the point where I was finishing a null sec 6 can site in about 13 minutes. However, no matter how well I did it didn't seem to have any impact on the value of the site. I was managing to scoop almost every data and material can and my rewards where quite disappointing.

Average relic site usually consisted of something like: 24 test reports, 2 mil in t1 salvage, 14 mil in t2 salvage, and maybe a tuner bpc for 6 mil.

Typical data site was working out to something like: 18 data sheets, and 15-30 mil in decryptors.

However, there were also occasions where I got several 'dickish' puzzles in a site and it ended up taking 20-25 minutes to do and the reward ended up being less than five million isk. Then I have also had the sites that took 13 minutes and ended up being 40-50 million. Quite honestly that is what has always annoyed me about professional sites, the loot variance. Spending 10-20 minutes on a site to get next to nothing is very discouraging and then having to pray for a 40-50 million site to hope for a decent average payout to make the time spent 'worthwhile' is not very appealing. I would much prefer a higher floor value per site, say 15 million, and a lower ceiling say 30 million instead of this 0-50 range I have experienced thus far.

It does make me wonder what is the expected average value per site. The variance was too high for me to bother with the professional sites now and it seems like that variance will still be so significant I won't bother with the new sites. So this puts me in a position where my play habits wont change. My current game play habits consist of ignoring the professional sites. If I am going to gamble on rewards, it would be much better for me to gamble on DEDs than it does for relic and data sites.

On the plus side of things I really do enjoy the fact the relics and data sites do take quite a bit of time to do. For not having to kill any npcs and still being committed to the site for 10-20 minutes may prove to be quite interesting for pvp opportunities.

PS: Just wanted to add that I love the fact that new ideas are being put in EVE. I'm not complaining about the additions, I'm simply saying that it's a good base start, and because everyone loves puzzles, more mechanics would be welcomed.

TL;DR : Both minigames seem to need more mechanics that factor a player skill - which would improve over time - into the outcome. Right now, both minigames seems to simply act as mechanics to replace one time wasting mechanic for another, and to specifically encourage rewards for group exploration.

My first impressions on the mechanics:

* Hacking:

Seems to be missing a "thinking/skill" element. Unlike say, the hacking minigame in Deus Ex Human Revolution. In here, we can frantically click on nodes and fluke a way out. The minigame really needs to be expanded so we are rewarded for carefully weaving our way through, and penalized more for rushing it, or failure.

If the concept of the minigame is to mainly turn the "time wasting" of running the scan cycles into "time wasting" while doing some actual clicking, then I would love to have cans that have to be taken back to station and hacked there for example. Hard ones could take a VERY long time and/or many attempts, so really we are WORKING hard for our loot, and this concept is something that also could NOT be done faster with more people or ALT's, so it balances out.

* The loot spew:

Feels generally "wrong". If the mechanic is to make "solo" work a lot harder because even a player who is multiboxing still only has 2 hands to click on flying cans, the process could still be archived by much slower flying cans, allowing us to pick and choose better, and a slower click-to-retrieve system, and a more variable time-to-evaporate on cans, allowing us some more control on can choices, and still stopping us from getting everything.

Right now it feels like frantic clicking for the sake of clicking, just like a game of whack-a-mole. Again, needs more controlled mechanics that give a sense that we are more in control of the outcome, when we choose to be more focused on the job.

If 40 cans spew out, and a single player can only grab ten, then a solo player clicking randomly should only get 25% of the ISK worth in loot, while a careful player that's been methodical, and selective, and paying attention should be able to get 30% or more of the worth in ISK, because they are taking their time AND maybe because when they did a "full clear, 100% hack" in the previous minigame, some cans (or all cans) get labels on them while flying through space ... just saying