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Myth of careers? (Distribution issues)
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Thomas Builder
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#41 - 2013-11-07 16:40:39 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
Also making distribution storylines isnt that easy, how are faction standing gains and drops calculated into it.
What??? What? That comment makes no sense at all.

It is easy to make distribution storylines and half of storyline missions are distribution missions.
Faction drops are calculated as they always are - they are derived from the gain and the standing between the factions.
Linna Baresi
#42 - 2013-11-07 17:00:53 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
Linna Baresi wrote:
I find the entire PVE mission system incongruous. I have two 5 month old toons, one for combat, one for science/industry/mining. Seemed like a good idea at the time, SP being slow and all, and wanting to explore different avenues of the game.

My combat toon does 16 security missions and consistently gets distribution storyline missions. No sweat, she can fly a Nereus (Gallente industrial from the tutorial), and that's all she really needs for that. Combat missions wouldn't be a problem either, of course...heck, that's what she was made for.
My non-combat toon does 16 distribution missions and gets combat storyline missions...which she is simply unable to do. Training her to do combat missions would defeat the purpose of even creating this toon.

How is this logical or fair? Why should one style of game play be favored over another? And that IS what is happening here, whichever way you look at it, especially for newer players.

Isn't this game a sandbox, where you're supposed to be able to follow any career path without being forced into anything? This sounds pretty forced to me though. Are the devs afraid people will just endlessly do missions/storyline rinse and repeat? Then by all means build in a timer, saying only X amount of storyline missions alowed per Y time periods.

I see the argument about MMO being about grouping rearing its head again, incidentally... and I reject that notion completely. MMO means you have the OPTION of interacting with other players. Interaction, however, should not be mandatory, and no one should dictate what form that interaction should take. Different strokes for different folk.

Apart from which... how tolerant would the friends you found be if you kept calling for help with missions, day after day, making them drop whatever they were doing, travel to wherever the mission is? How long until they tell you to just drop the thing already?



I think one of the main issues with storylines is that they are based on the EVE lore. Which means you will likely have to fight another entity. Also making distribution storylines isnt that easy, how are faction standing gains and drops calculated into it. As if you only gain faction standing (cause you dont fight another faction) it would be too OP as people will just farm faction standings with all 4 factions in no time.


The storytelling part of the storyline missions leaves me underwelmed thus far. Apart from one interesting 10-parter, my combat alt pretty much always gets the story line mission to haul omber for the war effort (5x so far). There REALLY is a lot more that you can do with that. The combat missions I've seen on my other toon didn't really offer much story either. Kill pirates... kill more pirates. From what I've seen so far, the SOE epic arc offers a lot more in that respect.

And as to faction standings/drops... well, I have a good baseline comparison there, since I got both my toons to SOE 8+ recently, one through distribution and the other through security missions. I did not see a real difference in total time spent. And for their lack of risk (outside the occasional missions leading to lowsec) the distribution missions give a LOT less LP and cash reward. Personally, I find them excruciatingly boring to boot. The only possible issue is the potential of being able to get storyline-derived implants without running the same risk... which could simply be solved by a timer, or making the chance to actually get the good stuff smaller for distribution story line missions. Apart from the cash (mission/loot/salvage adds up), the end result was similar. Upon reaching 8, both toons had roughly the same amount of LP. Also, both toons had to repair Caldari faction due to the side-effect Galente gain.

Member of since 2003 fated.europefreeforum.com
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#43 - 2013-11-07 17:20:52 UTC  |  Edited by: J'Poll
Linna Baresi wrote:
J'Poll wrote:
Linna Baresi wrote:
I find the entire PVE mission system incongruous. I have two 5 month old toons, one for combat, one for science/industry/mining. Seemed like a good idea at the time, SP being slow and all, and wanting to explore different avenues of the game.

My combat toon does 16 security missions and consistently gets distribution storyline missions. No sweat, she can fly a Nereus (Gallente industrial from the tutorial), and that's all she really needs for that. Combat missions wouldn't be a problem either, of course...heck, that's what she was made for.
My non-combat toon does 16 distribution missions and gets combat storyline missions...which she is simply unable to do. Training her to do combat missions would defeat the purpose of even creating this toon.

How is this logical or fair? Why should one style of game play be favored over another? And that IS what is happening here, whichever way you look at it, especially for newer players.

Isn't this game a sandbox, where you're supposed to be able to follow any career path without being forced into anything? This sounds pretty forced to me though. Are the devs afraid people will just endlessly do missions/storyline rinse and repeat? Then by all means build in a timer, saying only X amount of storyline missions alowed per Y time periods.

I see the argument about MMO being about grouping rearing its head again, incidentally... and I reject that notion completely. MMO means you have the OPTION of interacting with other players. Interaction, however, should not be mandatory, and no one should dictate what form that interaction should take. Different strokes for different folk.

Apart from which... how tolerant would the friends you found be if you kept calling for help with missions, day after day, making them drop whatever they were doing, travel to wherever the mission is? How long until they tell you to just drop the thing already?



I think one of the main issues with storylines is that they are based on the EVE lore. Which means you will likely have to fight another entity. Also making distribution storylines isnt that easy, how are faction standing gains and drops calculated into it. As if you only gain faction standing (cause you dont fight another faction) it would be too OP as people will just farm faction standings with all 4 factions in no time.


The storytelling part of the storyline missions leaves me underwelmed thus far. Apart from one interesting 10-parter, my combat alt pretty much always gets the story line mission to haul omber for the war effort (5x so far). There REALLY is a lot more that you can do with that. The combat missions I've seen on my other toon didn't really offer much story either. Kill pirates... kill more pirates. From what I've seen so far, the SOE epic arc offers a lot more in that respect.

And as to faction standings/drops... well, I have a good baseline comparison there, since I got both my toons to SOE 8+ recently, one through distribution and the other through security missions. I did not see a real difference in total time spent. And for their lack of risk (outside the occasional missions leading to lowsec) the distribution missions give a LOT less LP and cash reward. Personally, I find them excruciatingly boring to boot. The only possible issue is the potential of being able to get storyline-derived implants without running the same risk... which could simply be solved by a timer, or making the chance to actually get the good stuff smaller for distribution story line missions. Apart from the cash (mission/loot/salvage adds up), the end result was similar. Upon reaching 8, both toons had roughly the same amount of LP. Also, both toons had to repair Caldari faction due to the side-effect Galente gain.



It's not really a story in the storyline. But they are build upon the lore between the different factions and how factions love/hate each other and how gaining standings for one, ruins the standing for the opposite one.

I can see if they made storyline hauling that involve HIGH LOADS (as in a freighter is needed or multiple trips with an industrial) over a long distance.

So that means you will have to spent a lot of time in the mission, to counter act the relative ease of doing it compared to combat storyline missions (so instead of risk of losing ship, you have to spent more time doing the mission).



EDIT:

http://www.newedenlibrary.net/eon/faction_standings.shtml

This is what I mean, it shows how the relations are between all factions/races in EVE. Who they like and dislike.

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Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#44 - 2013-11-08 02:57:39 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
http://www.newedenlibrary.net/eon/faction_standings.shtml

This is what I mean, it shows how the relations are between all factions/races in EVE. Who they like and dislike.


That table is incorrect, notice the standings between the Minmatar Republic and Thukker Tribe. During the events of Empyrean Age, the Thukkers were accepted back into the mainstream Minmatar society.

There used to be a decent table here: http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Standings#Standing_Relationships

But today Cloudflare is telling me that none of the pages on that wiki exist anymore.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Linna Baresi
#45 - 2013-11-08 14:12:35 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
Linna Baresi wrote:
J'Poll wrote:
Linna Baresi wrote:
I find the entire PVE mission system incongruous. I have two 5 month old toons, one for combat, one for science/industry/mining. Seemed like a good idea at the time, SP being slow and all, and wanting to explore different avenues of the game.

My combat toon does 16 security missions and consistently gets distribution storyline missions. No sweat, she can fly a Nereus (Gallente industrial from the tutorial), and that's all she really needs for that. Combat missions wouldn't be a problem either, of course...heck, that's what she was made for.
My non-combat toon does 16 distribution missions and gets combat storyline missions...which she is simply unable to do. Training her to do combat missions would defeat the purpose of even creating this toon.

How is this logical or fair? Why should one style of game play be favored over another? And that IS what is happening here, whichever way you look at it, especially for newer players.

Isn't this game a sandbox, where you're supposed to be able to follow any career path without being forced into anything? This sounds pretty forced to me though. Are the devs afraid people will just endlessly do missions/storyline rinse and repeat? Then by all means build in a timer, saying only X amount of storyline missions alowed per Y time periods.

I see the argument about MMO being about grouping rearing its head again, incidentally... and I reject that notion completely. MMO means you have the OPTION of interacting with other players. Interaction, however, should not be mandatory, and no one should dictate what form that interaction should take. Different strokes for different folk.

Apart from which... how tolerant would the friends you found be if you kept calling for help with missions, day after day, making them drop whatever they were doing, travel to wherever the mission is? How long until they tell you to just drop the thing already?



I think one of the main issues with storylines is that they are based on the EVE lore. Which means you will likely have to fight another entity. Also making distribution storylines isnt that easy, how are faction standing gains and drops calculated into it. As if you only gain faction standing (cause you dont fight another faction) it would be too OP as people will just farm faction standings with all 4 factions in no time.


The storytelling part of the storyline missions leaves me underwelmed thus far. Apart from one interesting 10-parter, my combat alt pretty much always gets the story line mission to haul omber for the war effort (5x so far). There REALLY is a lot more that you can do with that. The combat missions I've seen on my other toon didn't really offer much story either. Kill pirates... kill more pirates. From what I've seen so far, the SOE epic arc offers a lot more in that respect.

And as to faction standings/drops... well, I have a good baseline comparison there, since I got both my toons to SOE 8+ recently, one through distribution and the other through security missions. I did not see a real difference in total time spent. And for their lack of risk (outside the occasional missions leading to lowsec) the distribution missions give a LOT less LP and cash reward. Personally, I find them excruciatingly boring to boot. The only possible issue is the potential of being able to get storyline-derived implants without running the same risk... which could simply be solved by a timer, or making the chance to actually get the good stuff smaller for distribution story line missions. Apart from the cash (mission/loot/salvage adds up), the end result was similar. Upon reaching 8, both toons had roughly the same amount of LP. Also, both toons had to repair Caldari faction due to the side-effect Galente gain.



It's not really a story in the storyline. But they are build upon the lore between the different factions and how factions love/hate each other and how gaining standings for one, ruins the standing for the opposite one.

I can see if they made storyline hauling that involve HIGH LOADS (as in a freighter is needed or multiple trips with an industrial) over a long distance.

So that means you will have to spent a lot of time in the mission, to counter act the relative ease of doing it compared to combat storyline missions (so instead of risk of losing ship, you have to spent more time doing the mission).



EDIT:

http://www.newedenlibrary.net/eon/faction_standings.shtml

This is what I mean, it shows how the relations are between all factions/races in EVE. Who they like and dislike.


Actually, you have to do WAY more distribution missions than security missions to reach the same standing. Like I already mentioned, mission payout for distribution is lower, and this goes for cash, for LP AND for standing gain (resulting in same time spent, as security missions usually take a bit longer, for the same end rewards). I think that part is actually nicely balanced.

And all this still doesn't explain why they felt the need to give distribution story line missions to people who do security missions, and combat story line missions to people who do distribution missions. There really isn't much of a technical barrier to making sure combat begets combat and distribution begets distribution.


Member of since 2003 fated.europefreeforum.com
DeMichael Crimson
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#46 - 2013-11-08 23:26:46 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
J'Poll wrote:
http://www.newedenlibrary.net/eon/faction_standings.shtml

This is what I mean, it shows how the relations are between all factions/races in EVE. Who they like and dislike.


That table is incorrect, notice the standings between the Minmatar Republic and Thukker Tribe. During the events of Empyrean Age, the Thukkers were accepted back into the mainstream Minmatar society.

There used to be a decent table here: http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Standings#Standing_Relationships

But today Cloudflare is telling me that none of the pages on that wiki exist anymore.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130310042624/http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Standings#Standing_Relationships

Not sure what is happening with the site but the graph is still available via The Wayback Machine.


DMC

'The Plan' | California Eve Players | Proposal - The Endless Battle
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#47 - 2013-11-09 02:18:32 UTC
Linna Baresi wrote:
And all this still doesn't explain why they felt the need to give distribution story line missions to people who do security missions, and combat story line missions to people who do distribution missions. There really isn't much of a technical barrier to making sure combat begets combat and distribution begets distribution.


The barrier is the number of storyline missions actually available. For L4 story lines there is a selection of missions that isn't much larger than:

  • Transaction Data Delivery (courier)
  • Materials for War Preparation (trade)
  • A Special Delivery 40k m3 (courier)
  • Shipyard Theft (combat)


Since each storyline agent has a specific division, I would imagine that they would end up offering missions specifically from that division, if CCP were to add a sufficient pool of storyline missions. They'd need to add a dozen Security missions of the same difficulty as Shipyard Theft, a dozen Distribution missions the same difficulty as A Special Delivery, and a few Mining missions to balance the books.

One day this might happen.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Lord Khagrim
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#48 - 2013-11-09 15:58:52 UTC
Don't know if someone already said this, but:
This is MMO, team up with other people, there's plenty of indy cors out there
Snagletooth Johnson
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#49 - 2013-11-11 05:46:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Snagletooth Johnson
The idea of a career path is becoming mute in Eve, as they seem hell bent on destroying all the various careers and driving it all into the typical MMO style of only 4 paths: Tank, Healer, Combat, Production.

As far as storylines go, and it never fails me, security agents give you distribution missions and distribution agents give you security missions. Everytime. When I grind for CAS, I always use Foves. The nearest storyline agent is Security and always gives me distribution. I tried Lereblompes for a long time. The nearest agent is Distribution and always gave me security. Even when I free roam, it's the same course.


Edit: This is Eve, where MMO stands for Massive Multiboxing Online. This game isn't about playing with others, it's about playing with yourself in front of others.
Erma Mernher
Doomheim
#50 - 2013-11-11 16:06:17 UTC
Snagletooth Johnson wrote:
Edit: This is Eve, where MMO stands for Massive Multiboxing Online. This game isn't about playing with others, it's about playing with yourself in front of others.


You receive +1 like for the carefully constructed double entendre. Good day sir.
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