Assembly Hall

I represent a community of the best explorers in one of the only exploration corps in eve, along with all our friends. Many of us are old regulars in the Exploration chat channel and now hang out in the Booty Tiki Bar post Odyssey. I get to hear the same issues brought up over and over.

The elephant in the room: Odyssey did NOT make exploration more interesting, profitable, or more fun. The hacking mini-game and pinata style scatter container mechanic in profession sites is both hated and enjoyed, but ultimately these mechanics do not have much of an effect on the game.

The greatest changes in Odyssey that effect exploration the most are:
A. Scanning is MUCH easier and the trained skills for scanning are far less relevant
and
B. The removal of NPC rats from profession sites (data and relic) in all space with the exception of wormhole space and drone regions.

Profession Sites
Odyssey saw a flood of new explorers running profession sites for about three weeks. This caused all the materials from those sites to crash on the market and continue to crash months later. Finally some of those items have begun to level off in price, but since so many people are sitting on the items until prices go back up, it is unlikely they will ever be restored with the current state of the game.
This means that where explorers previously were able to get 5-20 mil from a highsec radar site pre-Odyssey, are now lucky to get 2 million from said site in highsec. Comparatively in lowsec magnetometric sites (now called relic sites) used to occasionally give 50 to 100 million isk, but those items have crashed as well.

In this 6-month price history chart is a typical decryptor found in data sites - notice the alarming crash starting in June:
[IMG]http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad276/Gugeyealter/decryptor1_zpsb4f45392.jpg[/IMG]

And here is an item found in lowsec or nullsec relic sites:
[IMG]http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad276/Gugeyealter/capconsole_zpsb7f6fae3.jpg[/IMG]

Now that the rush is over, there are far less explorers even bothering with profession sites except for the newest of the noobs or the bored-est of the bored. So experienced explorers have turned to combat sites; lacking that fallback of profession site isk that explorers (especially those who lived in lowsec) used to enjoy.

Possible Solutions:
1. Put rats back into profession sites, or make them spawn when a hack has failed. This would force hackers to be more skillful, or have some actual DPS for self-defense.
2. Make only the least valuable items available in highsec where there are a minimum (or no) NPC rats, and move the more valuable items into lowsec and nullsec.

Combat Sites
The impact on combat sites is not as severe, but there has been a steady slope over the last 6 months. We need to keep in mind that most explorers are in highsec; with a good bit in low (before Odyssey); this is where the efforts should be focused.
Caldari Highsec is still the most crowded exploration area of the map. It is no secret that Guristas give the best drops for the least amount of effort. Shield modules are still the most coveted in eve. We accept that Caldari space will probably always be more crowded than anywhere else.

So, lets take a look at the most valuable module that can be found in highsec exploration:
[IMG]http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad276/Gugeyealter/ctypeinvul_zpse0d8d041.jpg[/IMG]
So here is what is happening...You can see that the price of this shield booster has been dropping since retribution. The reason for this is because armor tanking has become a real competitor to shield tanking with all the armor tweaks in Retribution. The above module was leveling out, healing, right before Odyssey, and then crashed again. Why?
We believe it is due to the ever increasing ease of scanning down these Deadspace sites. And now with odyssey 1.1 it is even easier.

Now if we take a look at the armor end of things:
[IMG]http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad276/Gugeyealter/ctyperep_zps05bd87ba.jpg[/IMG]
With the above item found in parts of Amarr space - STILL much less valuable and there is no slope to the price of this item. If CCP intends to diversify exploration it hasn't quite happened yet. And it wont until shield invuls have an armor module equivalant. Items from lowsec and nullsec combat sites have held steady on the market.

Possible Solutions:
1. Stop making scanning easier, or introduce some kind of mechanic that makes scanning more dynamic.
2. Tweak the DED and some other combat sites to make them much harder to pinpoint.

Finally...

Drone Combat Sites
EVERY time a new patch comes out we explorers whisper to each other about possible items of real value that will finally materialize in drone sites so that we don't have to keep ignoring them in areas were most people actually live (NOT the Drone Regions). Perhaps some pirate faction drones and drone BPC's could be introduced, or drone damage amplifiers, any number of valuable drone modules. It makes no sense for drones to drop not much other than Overseers Personal Effects...

So hopefully this CSM is still lively, and I would love to talk to any of you CSM guys personally. (We can teach you how to explore). Please join us in the Booty Tiki Bar or even Exploration chat and you will find that the above points will be resoundingly echoed again and again.

+1 These are very positive proposals that would greatly enhance exploration. Sorry CCP but what you created was a detriment to exploring and needs to be changed.

This has come up when we come across a completely new player who wants to get into exploration. And it is hard for them to do anything other than profession sites which no longer pay what they used to (mining could pay more now). They have to 'wait' a pretty good while to competently run the ded 3/10's and 4/10's; no complaints about that when profession sites were worth running until they could get their combat skills up, but now it isn't the case.

+1 /signed. OP & Tzu summed up my corp rants almost to the point.

If CCP intends to make exploration in general an important part of the game, then they should act that way. It should be challenging and rewarding. I don't mind the hacking minigame per se or the spawn hunt that follows, but it is a bit annoying. It might be fun for new players.

What I really mind, and why I give an enthusiastic +1 to Max's suggetions regarding rewards, is that the rewards seem to have been heavily nerfed. Spawns from all the combat sites are meh after the patch (highsec). They are barely interesting to even new players, unless one spends an inordinate amount of time scanning and running sites.

If exploration drops are a way of controlling the economy, allowing CCP to adjust cash flow into the economy, why not come out and admit it? If not, why not give exploration its due?

Exploration should be a legitimate EvE profession with high rewards for training skills and developing strategies. If CCP agrees with this, it should act that way. If it does not, then please let them say so and we can get on with our gaming knowing exploration is, at best, a sidelight.

Thanks again to Max for his time, and I hope CCP, through the Council's input, responds appropriately and with due diligence.

[quote=Mnemosyne Gloob _every_ person now sees signatures.[/quote]

If this were simply skill based it would solve a lot of problems as well - for example astrometrics trained to level 5 to have the ability to see cosmis signatures in a maximum radius of oh - 64 without launching probes. Or simply bring back a probe that can cover the entire system (like the deep space scanner probe) but require astrometrics to level 5 to be able to use it.

Funny how the scanning bug lately (where you cannot see the red globes when looking at solar system map) gave the more skilled explorers a temporary break from competition. Last night one of my friends found 6 4/10's with no competition. He rgiped about the scanning bug at first and I said 'Oh youll get used to it just fine!"

Scanning has gotten too easy.

My thoughts:
Leave Highsec alone
Iincrease the loot amount for lowsec
Add a scan array module (upgradeable module i-hub) for null sec to increase the amount of sites.

It's true, I am contemplating just unsubbing. The problem is that I feel pigeonholed into doing combat sites; in a game that emphasizes player freedom and choice this is a death sentence. I was loving exploration before - I built up my scanning skills and worked towards an Arbi that could scan down and clear radar/mag sites in mostly low-sec; I am just not willing to risk low-sec now because the payoff is questionable at best.

The 'Mini-game' is something I can get used to and I even like the idea of adding some challenge to the sites themselves, although the 'mini-game' feels highly dependant on pure luck - the loot pinata mechanic is just...a strange choice, I just don't understand what that is about; "Oh no they got past our firewalls! EXPLODE ALL LOOT!".

Now it feels like that build I was using is just worthless and the scanning skills I built up are inconsequential. I am a new player, I don't have any brilliant ideas for making exploration better, like those helpful players above me, but I can offer up my feelings on the state of exploration in the hopes that it can be improved.

-Withey