Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As a long time Pirate - Explorer who made over 40 Bil ISK in lowsec exploration in last 2 years I have to say I don't like new Exploration system.

CCP changed all things in the subject:

- spawning system,
- type of sites that spawn,
- spawn rates.

Now how new system works?

- New sites spawn in realtime, not after 2 hours like before.

There is total max ammount of sites that can spawn in constellation. How big is this number?
I dont know, but once site is done by player, new one spawn immediately in random system in same constelation, so you can probe the whole system and have a few new sites a few minutes later cuz someone did a few sites elsewere.

- type of sites.

Here is a big nerf CCP did on purpose:

Before Odyssey lowsec was a gold mine when it comes to ISK making from Exploration.

System was fair. If you had balls to risk your pimped ship you were able to make 1-2 Bills every week with relatively small effort by running 4/10 and 5/10 DED plexes and Radar sites when there was nothing better. Average radar were worth 20 - 30 mil ISK each after all.
DED plexes were common thing. I did 2-3 every week just in my area.

Exploration after Odyssey.

Now there is plenty of Data and Relic sites in each lowsec system. When I say plenty I mean 3 to 5 sites of that type in every system you will pass through. Might sounds good but it isn't. Really.

Data sites are crappy. Running them takes a lot more time and rewards are joke. Maybe 3 to 5m ISK each.
Relic sites seems to be better. They have far better rewards, but are a bit harder to scan too. 10 - 30m ISK on average.

DED plexes becomes very rare now in general with some exeptions.

3/10 - they quite common, but only in Drone version. Thing is Drone version of this plex has NO REWARDS AT ALL. At least i never found anything faction on them.

4/10 seems to spawn very rarely in lowsec but quite offten in hisec. Best plex ever. If you found one - its like 300m ISK will land in your wallet in next 10 minutes - at least, more often is 500-600m as the drop rate was very good!
After Odyssey this plex is like Yeti on Sahara. If you found one you dang lucky guy.

5/10 - I always called them BIg Lottery plex.
Its has 3 or more pockets, Heavy DPS and webs. Its time consuming to run and can be hard but rewards can be also huge. Most I have found were faction loot worth ~1.6 Bill ISK on a single site.
Drop ratios are terribad on it. You can run 6 plexes in a row and find nothing or it can make you a billionare in 30 minutes.

- spawn rates

All changed in this compared to pre Odyssey.

- Data, Relics are very common. There is at least a few of them in every lowsec system. Rewards are poor, not worth the time IMO. I use them only to hunt ppl who come to run them.

- DED plexes became very rare.
Before Odyssey I was doing at least 3 of 4/10 or 5/10 plexes per week.
After Odyssey Im able to find 1 plex in 2 weeks...


Summary.

New Exploration system is designed for new players. However low skills entry point translates directly to low rewards that can be gained from it.
While it can be OK for Hisec exploration - low risk, low ISK, it's definitly not right for lowec exploration where risk is always high.
For now Odyssey is a big nerf for lowsec inhabitants IMO. While there is alot more opportunities to find a fight, ISK making is dead or near.

Clarification:
All above is written from my point of view. Like I said on start exploration in lowsec made me a multi billionare in relatively short time. While you can think 20m ISK is a good profit for you for 20 minutes of work, for me its 100m+ or I wont touch it even with a stick.

I heard nullsec income nerf, lowsec and hisec incursions too. Also heard wspace income nerf too. We are all getting nerfed, so, it's really a nerf?

Pre 'thread moved' ridicule.



Fixed.

Of course it's not possible that since exploration was the focus of Odyssey, that more people are out running exploration sites, and thus you are seeing less of the DED's? TBH your numbers are quite off and likely comes from a very small time spent trying to actually find the sites. On a good day I'll find 5 or more good DED's 4/10 + in a small 5-8 jump loop, and about double that in Data/Relic sites, which is pretty much exactly as it was before they released Odyssey. On a bad day, I'll see only one or two DED's and a few hacking sites, but I know that if I come back in a few hours that in all likelihood there will be new ones for me to run.

TL;DR stop whining, it's fine.

Moved to a better forum this this kind of feedback and suggestions.

I would like to think it wasn't designed this way, as with more risk in null there should be better rewards.
I work with a blue corp in null and since the DEDs have been reduced, many of our members are experiencing a drop in isk which is needed to buy ships, etc to survive in null. We do DED's as groups so this issue is not just a 'solo farmer' issue.

The spawn contents and timers need to be adjusted accordingly.

More risk as in going through almost completely empty space in your interdictor bubble proof covert ops tengu snapping up billions without seeing anyone?

This **** about nullsec being more valuable than low sec is dumb, often times the risk is greater in low sec.

Low sec should be balanced around small groups of players and null sec should be balanced around large groups.

my theory is that CCP intentionally increased the data/relic site spawn rate for the expansion since they where afraid of threadnaughts of people trying to test new game content but they find none.... so i expect that they will scale it down soon since the gold rush is already over.

why would they? spawn rates are all undocumented. Its exploration after all.