Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I know much of this has been proposed here, but that was in 2007, it is time it was revisited. http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=567610

NPC behaviour is such that pure PvE fits are encouraged for running, missions and anomolies. Pure PvE fits favour (for example) long range shield fits with all mids devoted to the tank and an AB which is adequate to keep range from the NPCs. No tackle is carried and defensive mids like TDs and Damps are useless because they can only defend from one ship at a time.

The problem this creates is that it encourages people to choose before they undock as to whether they are going to engage in PvP or PvE. If you choose to run a PvE site in a PvP ship you gimp yourself for that mission. But if you run it in a PvE ship you cannot compete against another player and in low / null sec your only option is to run when they appear on the scene.

I would like to suggest the following changes to NPC behaviour.

1. When damage to an NPC reaches 50% armor, it turns and flees directly away from the player doing most damage to it. Fleeing enemies will reset to full armour and shields if they take no damage for 1 minute and then turn back towards their attackers.
2. When damage to an NPC reaches 90% armor, it warp out (unless tackled). If they are already fleeing, it is assumed it is already aligned and goes straight to warp. Otherwise, standard align time prior to going to warp.
3. When an NPC warps out, all damage to it is reset to zero
4. One minute after warping out, the NPC warps back to the nearest NPC (from the highest damage dealing player) + upto 100 Km closer to the said player, representing warping from an in line point to a range from his NPC buddy. The restriction against warping into a deadspace area is not applied to the resident NPCs.
5. If there are no NPCs currently in the deadspace. Warped out NPCs will not come back unless there are additional deadspace rooms that still need to be run. In which case they will join the NPCs in any compulsory room that remains. If the last NPC warps out from the last room, combat ends, failing the mission if the objective is the NPC that warped out.
6. Significantly fewer NPCs, with shorter range, but individually faster, with higher tank, DPS and bounty.

Effects:
- PvE fits will have to carry tackle or have very high alpha.
- The distinqtion between PvPer and PvEer becomes blurred leading to crossover.
- Mission runners have the tools to defend themselves if attacked by other players.
- PvPers can run PvE sites while waiting for PvP opportunities.
- PvPers can bait run PvE sites without it being obvious.
- Solo ganking mission runners will be more challenging.
- Defensive mids for PvE become viable and experience in their use is gained.
- Group PvE becomes more likely
- Real skills for PvP are honed in PvE: Kiting, Divide and conquer, when to dive in to get tackle on, when to warp out, logi and tackle in group PvE.

I'm pretty sure this would do nothing but force every mission runner into a short ranged armour tanked boat with an MWD, booster and tackle in the mids.

Last time I checked, that wasn't a description of every PVP ship ever, it's one tiny fraction of them.

Better just to roll out a somewhat nerfed version of incursion art AI to everything. Reduce the numbers of rats and increase the power (and bounty) of those that remain, and probably tone down the drone shooting habit they have too. At least that way you still have some variety of fits and ships, not nothing but megas and typhoons.


Edit: Kagura, you do realise that officer rats require capitals dropped on them, right?

+1 to this for 2 reasons

1) you're not selling a pve change as a "imma pvp'er and pve'ers should have to do x".

2) I thought it would be funny if you had 666 likes.


Ultimately I'm with Nikon on this. Pve'ers are usually confused enough when beginning pve, even when starting 4s.

Plus I do enjoy the lols when you see the hardcore and tenured pvp'er decide to mission and fit buffer on their active tank

This. I have my anti falcon hml cerb fit for example. No tackle is fit. Gives more room for sebo. The idea that drove it....be beyond falcon ecm to either kill it or scare it off the field when its getting banged up too much.

Then I have my fun wolf fit I picked up from somewhere. MSE fit + prop mod (for op this means no more mids for tackle). Its a roam/fleet fit. I rely on others to tackle. Not being restricted to armour tank fit. I can gyro and te the crap out of it. Most times this worked out well enough and the target(s) did not chew through the buffer shield tank.


And not all pvp bs' are sr either. And even not all sr fleet fits run tackle. Game would quickly become a pita to play if level 4 mission runners log in and go dammit....no friends on to tackle. Guess I will go play mine craft or something. This would be why I'd like to try wormhole but don't as an aside. I play an odd time (oceanic/asia, hard to find strong wh presence here when I looked long ago) and have really odd working hours and rl schedules to boot. I'd be forever alone most of the time likely as even I don't know when the hell I can log in lol




And as I always say in these threads, op, you can run "pvp fits" in pve right now. Its player choice here. Most opt for the "pve fit" for the all mighty isk/hour. When I started eve and saw me suck ass on low sec fun roams I practiced tackling rats in empire missions on non-roam nights. Can't manual orbit a rat, humans won't make it better. So I practiced to at least not suck as bad on rats. No need to hand feed this when good old fashioned initiative can do the trick.

Stronger Mission NPCs but less would be nice, some Missions are simply ridiculous..