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Missions & Complexes

 
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Do missions need a revamp?

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Anomaly One
Doomheim
#101 - 2013-09-07 10:09:03 UTC
How about this for an idea, negative faction standings affect empire and in a way pirates as well, what if we add more to this?

for instance having a negative faction standings with the angel cartel might cause them to pay you a visit in high sec in an unsespecting time, following this would create an event where group of players can join in to attack the pirates which will cause them to escalate and get random rewards doesn't have to be much but depends on some factors:

-the less the standing the more dangerous the attack will, it doesn't have to be a 12k alpha strike but it should be enough to cause participation, fun and a challenge.
-Let's say you have a -2 standing with angels you might a frigate or two harrassing you in high sec from them, but if you have -10 they might come with a strong force and they will web jam you etc. the NPC could even make a ransom option if the player doesn't want to fight at that time, depending on the standing the ransom might be quite high.
-REWARDS! lots and lots of rewards, not everything is isk but a reward helps gives you an even bigger incentive: for this you can something also depending on the kind of missions you run and who you kill:
Arrow let's say a player has done over 200 missions against the angel cartel, he has aquired a -7 standing to them, on doing a 100,200 mission or killing 350 agent members he will have an angel killer medal of some sort this can also be applied to PVP where if a person has killed a bunch of players of the same corporation he will have this tag as well "goon killer" so to speak, depends on how the eve community accepts this can be added to it

-most missions have you jump or warp in to a location, why? let's have some missions where you have to defend stations locations, maybe a random epic mission you get a warning saying this station is under attack by NPC pirates in high sec and you can help out, after completing it, you now have to explore/identify to find out the cause of this attack and put them in place, leading to a series of random events along a storyline, this can have you travel across the empire dealing with every aspect from high to wh space.

-add a new skill "missioning" which allows players to hand out missions from lvl 1-5 aka jobs! this can be like contracts ofc to allow a bit of scam for our talented scammers, it would be a custom mission ranging from anything the client wants us to do!.
-Making a difference: players want to feel that they make a difference whether it's by trading to crash the market or doing your simple missions they should have a chance/a choice to change the game around them, perhaps if enough players missioned against the angel cartel, fewer spawns of rats belonging to this faction would appear since well.. you killed them all.

-Have a TWO - player sort of mission, where one has an objective and the other it's counter sort of, if your mission is to assissante a mordus legion officer another player preferably doing missions for the mordus would be notified of this and the spawn location to DEFEND the officer and assassinate you.
Ravasta Helugo
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#102 - 2013-09-07 15:00:28 UTC
The idea of being harassed by some Angels in the middle of a Sansha mission is... Brilliant.

And the mechanics for player assigned missions: Killright selling and currior contracts, are already in game, but need to be taken out of their separate interfaces and placed in one central "mission creator" interaction.
Springjill
Von Neumann Industries
#103 - 2013-09-07 15:29:42 UTC
Problem was with "a draft is already present" which turned out to be an impediment to post. When I hit back, it ate the post. And since it was too late to be mentally sound, I postponed. I'll sum it up :P

Ciaphas Cyne wrote:
"rewards" in a game are there to keep you paying. what you see as a reward for doing something is actually just the release of a time sink so you dont get to the main content too fast.


This is certainly true for Everquest and world of warcraft - less for eve. The gate/key mechanic is lessened almost to non-existannce, and there's no "level" blocking you from accessing higher level content. If you spend a month just updating your queue and sell one plex, you can start your career in a T3.
Not that I find THAT a good idea, mind you.

What I challenge in your preceeding statement is "if you wouldn't do it without rewards, it has no place in the game" - then why do people mine, or manufacture - or trade? Without rewards, those are...what? Not even a rhythm game.

Most people play for progression - the sense of accomplishment you get by mastering a skill/game. To obtain that you need a metric to measure it. People have different goals - but in eve, there's only two currencies: killboard and ISK.
PVP supports itself - in fact the rewards for it are normally so low that people require something else to support their PVP habits (I certainly do, I lost more ships than the italian navy in WW2, and my killboard looks like the italian government's financial situation). It's also the only activity that pays in killboard.
Everything else pays in ISK. It's not the accumulation of wealth for wealth's sakes - it's the measurement of one's accomplishment.
It's that simple, in my opinion.

Quote:
we are all too used to putting up with "the grind" when it is, in fact, not needed. If the gameplay can stand on its own, like PvP can, then you dont need that imaginary carrot you seem to have so much fun chasing.


Don't get me wrong, I hate the grind, and I'm gonna chase CCP about the fact i need to grind missions with my industrial alt and trader to reduce taxes. WTF?
Epic arcs stand by themselves, mostly, but everything you do repeatedly for months on end is going to end up being a grind. Unless there's a player on the other side - but you can't turn everything into PVP.
Blurring the lines is ok - turning everything into an adrenalinic, top-notch activity is not: some of us don't play this game only to push ourselves to the limit, and sometimes you just need to cool down and let off some steam.

TL;DR: any activity we perform repeatedly eventually becomes a grind unless there's an actual intelligence opposing us; this is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you have choices; I disagree on the "if it doesn't work without rewards it has no place in the game".
stoicfaux
#104 - 2013-09-07 17:55:52 UTC
Wouldn't it suck if the agent's mission intel was slightly off to outright wrong...?

/ackbar

Pon Farr Memorial: once every 7 years, all the carebears in high-sec must PvP or they will be temp-banned.
dorenalia
US Space Force
D3ad End
#105 - 2013-09-07 20:12:46 UTC
gawd, your draft saving feature sucks. it deleted my entire reply im not gonna re-type that wall of text. CCP fix your god-damn buggy-ass forum!

cliffs: missions suck right now, we need new missions, faction missions blow ultra hard and need a major boost to pay so people will play them even if they dont need the standing boost, timers on skipping missions need to go bye-bye in favor of a cumulative ISK penalty for repeated skipping of missions. bruce lee fights stoke my ego, keep them.
Estella Osoka
Cranky Bitches Who PMS
#106 - 2013-09-07 20:35:59 UTC
1. If you want more challenging mission, go to lowsec or nullsec; or join FW.
2. Fix the mission payout scale in lowsec and nullsec.
3. Fix the random mission generator. It sucks and I can't count the number of times I get the same mission 5 times in a 2 hour period.
4. Incease tag drop rate or lower the number of tags needed for LP items.
5. COMOS missions were some of the best missions I have done in my EVE career. L4 missions like those would be most enjoyable.
Morrigan LeSante
Perkone
Caldari State
#107 - 2013-09-07 22:49:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Morrigan LeSante
The trouble with "dymanic missions", as I see it, is this:

People will simply move to omni-tankable selectable damage hulls....and it's rather back to square one after that inital period. Hell I already do this because I cant be arsed pissing about at the fitting screen every rotation.

In a game like EvE it never fails to aamaze me that people dislike a given part of the sandbox yet continue to play in it even though there are clearly better ways to excercise their time.

/shrug.
Springjill
Von Neumann Industries
#108 - 2013-09-08 10:25:42 UTC
Morrigan LeSante wrote:
In a game like EvE it never fails to aamaze me that people dislike a given part of the sandbox yet continue to play in it even though there are clearly better ways to excercise their time.


Most people I know in eve do a bit of everything. I think it's in the nature of the players eve caters too to be curious. This also brings us to want our experience throughout the game to be the best we can have.

I agree with those like Morrigan who say varying the damage type won't change much. It'll move fitting habits to omnitank and might slightly widen the ship selection - but also make T1 ships a lot harder to fit for L4 due to resistance holes and high incoming damage.

The best hint I've seen so far is reduce sheer numbers so that instead of a slaughter it becomes more of a dogfight; this leaves space for a bunch of different strategies - including ewar, focus on piloting skills, group tactics, as opposed to the currently dominant "massive tank, devote rest to DPS".
Interaction with NPC not limited to "kill everything that moves" can also help: neut, rep, boost link to some specific structure or enemy to get an advantage, or the like.

Station-based events are something I don't feel the need for: noobships, mining barges and freighters moving around might become unwilling casualties - who wants to undock a 2.4G whale in the middle of a battleship fight?
Oxide Ammar
#109 - 2013-09-08 11:57:27 UTC
My 2 cents regarding PVE (missions) in EVE:

1- Soloing missions is boring and tedious and you need either to increase the difficulty of level 4 missions or bring back level 5 agents to high sec.

2- one of the reasons people are soloing missions is the reward is barely enough or less for one player so you need to increase the reward ISK / LP to make it rewarding to finish mission.

3- AI of NPCs need to be enhanced much much better, for many reasons ( kill dual dual/triple boxing, prevent 10 billion fits to solo missions which will lead at end to destroy economy if people can solo missions)

4- you need to review level 1 to 3 missions reward.

5- you need to add epic missions with deep story behind it, something that may involve you in epic battles with other missioners against NPC pirates.

6- the concept of "activate gate and jump in blap everything and return back for reward needs to die", the most important thing you need to add for missions is to stop with the mentality of go kill this and that and come back.

First 2 PVE aspects of the game handed over to new players are missions and mining, yet none of them is introducing the rest of game aspects to them.

For example you need to add missions agents asking you to grab logi ship and assist caldari navy npc in their battle against guristas pirates.

Another example, mission agent inform you that we got tip of hidden pirate camp and they are preparing to assault something, grab stealth bomber and make successful bomb run against their fleet ( yes even in high sec bombing but for the sake of mission only )

Another example, mission agent ask you to grab mission carrier only handed to you to assist a great battle in the system against enemy faction fleet.

And so on ...

First example you are teaching/ enhancing the skills of players to be logi pilots in incursion / pvp
Second example you are teaching them how to align > bomb > warp in successful way to introduce players to stealth bombers.

These are only examples of how missions should be colorful with different variety to approach them, not everyone crawling to his multi billion BS and go blap everything while they are half asleep.

Lady Areola Fappington:  Solo PVP isn't dead!  You just need to make sure you have your booster, remote rep, cyno, and emergency Falcon alts logged in and ready before you do any solo PVPing.
Jenn aSide
Soul Machines
The Initiative.
#110 - 2013-09-08 14:59:05 UTC
Oxide Ammar wrote:


1- Soloing missions is boring and tedious and you need either to increase the difficulty of level 4 missions or bring back level 5 agents to high sec.


There have never, ever, not once been a regualr lvl 5 high sec agent. All lvl5 agents have always been in low sec stations and their mssions were meant to be low and null sec only. Lvl5s in high sec was a bug that ccp neglected to fix for 3 years despite some of us calling attention to it on the forums over and over again.
Fanatic Row
Neo T.E.C.H.
#111 - 2013-09-08 15:33:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Fanatic Row
I'm surprised at all the people suggesting to randomize NPCs in missions.

I honestly can't see how that would improve missions at all. It's also quite limited what you can do, unless you want certain factions to start using all kinds of ewar.

In my mind it will only lead to frustration, and result in even less variation in PVE as everyone gravitates towards passive omni-tanks and missile/sentry platforms.

The meta mechnics of EFT warrior'ing and min-max'ing IPH is what keeps missions floating for most people I reckon. Random and non-sensical ( faction-wise ) NPCs would hardly be seen as an improvement I think.

To me there's really only 2 hooks, unless missions as a game mechanic is completely revamped; the lore part, as in, increase the number of missions, and changing NPCs to behave more like players, meaning, a shift away from the PvE fits that blow up the moment someone in a PvP fit shows up next to you. The second part being more general ratting issue.
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#112 - 2013-09-08 15:49:16 UTC
dorenalia wrote:
gawd, your draft saving feature sucks. it deleted my entire reply im not gonna re-type that wall of text. CCP fix your god-damn buggy-ass forum!


For some reason if you take too long the forms will eat your message. The work around to this is before you click the post button copy all of your text. This way when the forum eats your post you can just paste it.
Ingwe Antollare
Betterment of Life
#113 - 2013-09-08 17:15:50 UTC
I'm a newer player, so take it for what it's worth, but I like the recommendation earlier in the thread that we just need to diversify missions a little bit.

I do missions mostly to make money and the thing that bothers me is that sometimes I have a very set period of time to play Eve. Say I have an hour before I have some real life obligation. That's usually enough to run/salvage a mission, make some ISK and some standings. But every once in awhile, I get one of those missions that just takes forever.

I think what I'd like is to divide what we currently call "Security" missions into two groups:

Group 1). Fairly predictable. You go in and grind. Get your ISK/standings and then go have RL dinner with your family. No surprises and no spectacular loot in the wrecks.

Group 2). More random. Sometimes they are just grindy, but sometimes they escalate into a mission where you have to warp out and repair your hull and buy ammo.....(and you eventually get some wrecks with cool salvage).

Anyway....just my two cents.
Mina Sebiestar
Minmatar Inner Space Conglomerate
#114 - 2013-09-08 17:30:06 UTC
Dynamic scalable engine to boot them

reward and difficulty shouldn't be the same if you enter with a single nightmare and do it solo or if you enter with say apoc but more importantly mission content it self shouldn't be the same if you bring your buddies with you NPC react to tactical situation and call in appropriate counter measures .

Make this happen and no one will ever again say missions are boring and or repetitive.

You choke behind a smile a fake behind the fear

Because >>I is too hard
FlinchingNinja Kishunuba
Crunchy Crunchy
#115 - 2013-09-08 17:33:13 UTC
I think people need to wake up to the fact that a lot of potential new casual players will first interact with Eve through mission, and that they are diabolical at the best.

Off the top of my head just to make some missions that are at least different.


  • Target painter mission where you have to paint ships to be hit by NPC support
  • Convoy protection where you have to escort ships through multiple jumps, with level progression to the point where you need to bring your own logi.
  • Cloaky/covops mission where you have to spy and not be detected at all by staying away from ships.
  • Emergency station repair where you must kill of drones and then play the hacking game to reactivate life support within a time limit.
  • Mini arcs where the performance on previous missions impacts the later, for example...
    • ---------> Provide x amount of minerals to build npc fleet, less mineral less support later.
    ---------> Recon (cloaky?) bases the earlier you are detected the less support later due to miscalculated strength of enemies.
    ---------> Failing to kill certain ships mean they come back in later missions with support.
  • Cyno lighting missions in low sec for npc fleet support.
  • Race event missions with waypoints and leader tables against other players.
  • Multi player missions driven by agents with waiting rooms, so players must work together.
  • Spec OPs missions where you must jam ships out, web/scram... etc.. to allow another ship to board and take over the ship.


I still don't understand why CCP don't see that the best way to pull people in to EVE is to entice them by emulating the "theme park" elements of other MMO and then gently introduce them to the player driven elements and depth of tactics and trades.

How can more players paying more money to CCP be a bad thing for EVE?
Tribekka
Doomheim
#116 - 2013-09-09 07:47:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Tribekka
Just my 2 cents...

I would love to see more missions with a "Epic Arc" Architecture, enableing the player to actually plan, move around eve and follow somewhat of a story. Only reason i say this is that it allows the player to either challenge himself on a solo basis or say on a weekend hit up multiple mission arcs with a few buddies. this hits to birds with one stone.

Now you may ask how this might be possible well heres how i would go at it.

Mr X says MR y has been tormenting Gallente Navy in Dodixie ----> your mission track him down and take him out.

currently this would be a security mission fly, fly in hit 4 rooms tank it all take him out get yoru bounties and your LP done in 30 mins.

I personally would like it as follows

Meet Mr x accept mission arc > track down locator in space > once located fight your way through some bandits to get to him > receive location document (location can be different each time) > once you have received this document you have to fly to somewhere else to re group with Mr X's team > change up your ship defense for another brand of bandits head to Mr Y > on arriving at said location you find a few bandits, and a can in the can is a document its says "catch me if you can" then the UI prompts you to locate a gate to the next room via scanning ( this opens up the PVE game to a varied playstyle and makes use of design features CCP have developed) once you have scanned it down you could go through a few rooms killing bandits, maybe even doing a bit of hacking or just full on explosions, my preference would be a mix of both anyway.. > once you have reached the final room there is a ui pop up "so close but just out of reach" .... Mr X says "he is heading toward "location"(system for final hand in) head there and take him out" this will be the final part of the mission arc, single room 3 waves then MISSION COMPLETE.

now im sure some will say that's long winded, but hell if im gonna pay money to play i would like something engaging, if im not going to PVP or Mine i want something that can challenge me that keeps me entertained that allows me to see parts of the game developed in a play style and aspect i enjoy.

Also keep in mind, along the way you are collecting loot, you are receiving bounties, you are moving around eve, and you are putting into practice skills you've learnt,

now some may agree some may not, but this has been a thought ive had for a while and just thought id put it out there and share. and keep in mind the possibilities and variations of said architecture are unlimited. You could have missions for mining where you have to collect certain ores from certain locations to help Mr X build a component which then you have to take to a Mr Z who will pay you for it but then he turns and you chase him down to kill him. Or you can have a mission where you have to take cargo to a location but you get ambushed and have to fight your way out, then track down the boss. i mean CCP coudl do so much with the PVE scene personally i dont care about the ISK i just want something worth getting my teeth in.

ps just an after thought as i drink my coffee.. security missions imply security.. so why not escort missions to escort NPC's or defense missions defending miners, or even you + multiple NPC friendlies taking over control posts? so many things could be done..
Gimme more Cynos
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#117 - 2013-09-09 09:48:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Gimme more Cynos
Jenn aSide wrote:
Oxide Ammar wrote:


1- Soloing missions is boring and tedious and you need either to increase the difficulty of level 4 missions or bring back level 5 agents to high sec.


There have never, ever, not once been a regualr lvl 5 high sec agent. All lvl5 agents have always been in low sec stations and their mssions were meant to be low and null sec only. Lvl5s in high sec was a bug that ccp neglected to fix for 3 years despite some of us calling attention to it on the forums over and over again.


Smart-assing arround? LV 5's in highsec would be lovely, and it would end the crying for "dropz more tagz pleazzzze".

Also:

Why do poeple think traveling arround (like the guy above with his locator-stuff) would be an improvement for missions? Traveling through highsec is the most boring activity in Eve...
dexington
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#118 - 2013-09-09 13:23:19 UTC
Level 4 missions needs a competitive element, eg. the same mission is given to more players and each individual profit is based on how efficiently each player completed the mission compared to the players he was competing against.

eg. 5 players get the same missions, and the rewards might be distributed 140%, 125%, 100%, 75%, and 60% to each player.

I'm a relatively respectable citizen. Multiple felon perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
Lumirinne
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#119 - 2013-09-09 13:39:38 UTC
Make them harder and more difficult!

Add surprise factors. More of the Anire Scarlet type of missions where you dont know what enemy you confront. More surprise ewar from NPC, so that you cannot be sure beforehands what they do to you. Greater variability in which ship trigger spawns and the number of ships that spawns.

Add a sleeperlike mission difficulty into hisec. One that makes pilots better geared towards PVP while PVE. Sure it doesnt remove the barrier to enter PVP but will make it lower. Yeah there are incusrions but those are very industrial. Pilots run them in rush without any chance to take it easy and study the enemy. (Im not critisicing Incursions, many love them and find great income!)

Maybe add a mission class that is substantially harder then lvl IV. One where even seasoned pilots may loose ships unless focused. The point here is to have a chance to learn much without going into lowsec where you will be killed instantly. So you loose a billion or two in a ship loss? With the lvl IV missions today you fix your wallet in a week.

I believe most pilots eventually find missions dull because they become pure harvesting without any danger at all.

The income in missions is insanely high. Its predictable and can fund anything you would want in eve. Therefore imo no income boost of any sort is needed.
IIshira
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#120 - 2013-09-09 16:57:57 UTC
Lumirinne wrote:

The income in missions is insanely high.

Oh yea it's just insane the amount of ISK you make. I buy Titans just to self destruct them for fun. . Blink