Player Features and Ideas Discussion

My proposal:
Strike Operations, missions that can be completed in 15 minutes or less. The aim of this is to bring in casual players who would like to play Eve, but don't have the time to commit to long missions or pvp roams, most of which require an hour or more to complete. The aim is for quick action missions to satisfy the pew-pew urge without resorting to playing other games, be they tank-related or not. There's plenty of challenging content in Eve that requires large investments of time (0.0, plexing, incursions, long-ass level 4 and 5 missions, epic arcs, pvp roaming in lowsec, wormholes etc). This is about providing something for those that don't have time, but do like internet spaceships. They're out there, CCP, and they want to give you their money.

In detail:
Current missions that meet this requirement would be moved across to Strike Ops agents, leaving longer missions
under the bailiwick of Security agents. I will henceforth refer to StrikeOps as quick missions, and Security as the longer missions.

e.g. 'Duo of Death' would qualify as a StrikeOps mission. 'The Score' would not.

• StrikeOps agents would provide level 1-5 missions, just like regular agents.
• Mission opponents would be far fewer (perhaps even only two or three very dangerous ships), but of higher quality per ship, including named NPC opponents, since you're basically doing a surgical strike to stave off a major conflict.
• StrikeOps would take place within 25km of the warp-in point, because traveling as part of a mission is long and boring.
• StrikeOps would always take place in the same system that the agent is in.
• Missions could be scalable depending on how many players are entering the mission with the aim of 15 minutes
maximum being followed. Either that, or some restrictions on the number of people allowed in at once. Big fleets can enjoy larger Security missions, StrikeOps are for 1-3 player max.

• Rewards for Strike missions should be less comparable to longer Security missions over the same span of time (10mil isk per hour for Security missions, and maybe 6-7mil/hr for StrikeOps in the same hour, because you want to reward people for dedicating their time to the longer missions).
• Much less in the way of salvage and loot drops as a result of fewer ships to destroy, and also you don't want to encourage the player to hang around and salvage. If you want salvage, do Security missions. StrikeOps are about hit-and-run tactics. Most of the reward would come through bounties and agent bonuses, or perhaps LP.

In conclusion
Splitting missions into two categories (quick, explosive duels in space, and massive fleet battles) gives more options for blowing things up. Catering to the casual gamer will bring in more players to Eve in general without detracting from the epic scope currently present, which embiggens the universe for us all and also brings in more money for CCP

I'm talking about the 'extravaganza' missions, or 'the assault'. I'd like to see you do those in a few minutes solo :P

And the agent doesn't give you much choice in what's presented. You might like to do a quick mission, but get stuck with something immense. This idea is about splitting the quick missions and the slow missions into separate agents.

And the player shouldn't have to be restricted to one or two ship types and level 3 missions. Say if one wishes to fight battleship(s) in a battleship, but not be all day about it.

Ultimately, if you want to run level 3's as they are now in a BC, nothing's stopping you from doing so. This is about more diversity and choice.

The 15 minute missions I speak of is a maximum, more than that and casual players are going to be dissuaded. Hell, if there's a bunch of missions that can be run in ten minutes or less (of any level), put 'em all under the new agent. Want to run quick missions? There you go.

but realistically when your skills grow far enough, you will switch to incursions as it's a way to earn much more isk/hour and is actually more fun

Incursions take time to get to, and then to run, far more than people with only 20 minutes to get some gaming in before having to pick the kids up from school, or snatch some game time while the spouse is out doing the shopping etc.

I should mention that the 15 minute deadline starts when you accept the mission and ends when you hand it in, so travel time is factored in. This is why these missions need to be in the same system as the agent, as even one jump over adds a few minutes to travel time that could be better spent exploding bad guys.

It's less about making money and more about compact, compressed action missions