Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Why is this change needed

In the fanfest New Player Experience Vision presentation, we were shown what CCP plans to do to improve the new player experience. Contextual infromation, tooltips, moving away from tutorial missions for a less linear introduction to the game. All things that help new players to learn to EVE faster. After all according to the presentation 50% of subbed pleyars leave after a few months and another 40% take the solo missioning route with only 10% coming involved with the community.

While the changes shown in the presentation would without doubt help new players play and enjoy EVE more, the presentation didn't include something. The MOST crucial thing requred to get new players involved in the community. A reason interact, to form groups, to fleet up for objectives that doesn't involve PvP. What EVE is sorely lacking is any low-to-mid level PvE activity that rewards group effort. Sure there are Incrursions and high end wormholes, but they are a high level PvE activity. And there are low end wormholes, but they pay more as high end solo activity.

This problem caught my eye while I was reading Gelvon's blog post about it. Reading it to me felt like those moments when you're wondering where you'r phone is while talking to it, looking for your glasses while wearing them, or panicking that your keys are not in your pocket when they are in your hand. The problem is so oviuous. Acting as a group in low-to-mid level PvE is only not incentivised, but actively disincentivised. Why would you want to form a group, act as agroup when you can achieve more while going solo? The answer is you wouldn't. In fact the only things a PvE oriented low-to-mid level group can offer to it's members are knowledge. a chat window, possibility of awoxers and a bull's eye for war deccers. Why would you group up?


"What do I know about PvE groups. I'm PvPer?"

The truly funny thing is, that on my old toon I used to be a CO-CEO to a just such a PvE corporation. Recruit noobs and teach them the basics. Move from missions to Provi ratting to WH site running. In the end two thirds of the people we recruited stopped logging in, and the rest of us merged with a 0.0 sov PvP corp. The only former members that are still active are all in PvP corporations. Conclusion is simple: There absolutely has to be low-to-mid level cooperative PvE activity to keep people active.


The solution

Simple. The statement not the implementation. Change the primary high sec PvE activity to incetivise groups over solo activit.

A total missioning overhaul.


Details, details, details.

The current missioning system offers us missions that from level 1 to level 4 (let's ignore the low sec L5s for now). They increase in difficulty and require you to bring more and more powerful ships to complete them, but doing them in larger groups offers very little in return. In fact it's often more efficent for group members to run similtaneous missions separately. The bounties, the mission pay out and the LP reward are all halved for completing the mission with someone else. This is the problem.

In Incursions the reward is not split from the same isk/LP pool and distributed evenly with everyone in the group. Insted everyone gets the same ammount of isk and LP regardless of the number of people in the fleet as long as the fleet size is between the recommended margins. Too large or too smal a fleet and members get a reduced reward. More members means faster completion times which translates to more isk per hour.

In high end wormhole anoms bringing in a capital ship will cause a capital escalation. More Sleepers will arrive increasing the difficulty of the site and also increasing the ammount of salvage and loot the fleet gets from the field. More capitals equals more potential reward.

Both of these mechanics should be implemented for security missions. When you request a mission from an agent, insted of getting an offer for a mission, you'd get to choose from three separate missions. One aimed for 1-2 players, another for 3-5 players and the last for 6-10 palyers. The LP and the isk rewarded for completeing the mission wouldn't come from a shared pool, but would be rewarded fully to all members of the fleet as long as the fleet numbers were within the margins. the larger the group required for completion, the higher the standings gain and the LP and isk rewards. Warping more then the minimum ammount of ships within the margin to the mission would spawn additional ships up to the upper end of the margin. More rat bounty for using larger groups, everyone gets the full isk and LP reward for completeing the mission. As well as full standings boost.

Ofcourse on the other end of the spectrum, solo missioning would possibly need to be nerfed a bit to balance out the increased income form forming a group.

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Personally I don't care about NPE but I believe that more cooperative gameplay PVE will serve everybody including newbies.

Have some missions that require the player to be in a two-man+ fleet and have the gate only warp when all fleet members are present in the pocket.

Furthemore, rewards should be offered based on the composition (i.e numbers) and activity of the fleet members, with the total sum of the reward distributed to the most active members in the same proportions of activity. Another mechanic, which relies on probability, would be to introduce competitive PvEvP elements, so one team is trying to get the highest (damage given) score over another team who're in the same pocket during the same mission. For the lower sec missions, have big rat fleets proactively spawn in various locations and wreak havoc on a system and be offered to a fleet commander via a mail when they're in a system that has this feature enabled, these would be at a level classed as the highest one the fleet commander or boss can partake in for any alliance.

I'd be happy with PVE aslong as they give us the option to turn off the ******* dust particles and gas which makes my FPS remind me of a old man going to a kiosk right around the corner...

Working on the pve in eve and offering more group related choices is one of what I think will be the best bang for you buck things for eve very soon, yes eve has a large fucus on pvp but making all areas of the game interesting gives people a reason to unduck, to log in, and to continue to play the game. It could also bring in new players that would enjoy the pve and learn to pvp as a resault.

Hm...

I have a character in a popular NPC 00 PVE area, doing his occasional mission running alone, because I want to do it alone and don't want to join one of the local alliances for various reasons. Why should I not be able to run missions alone and make good money from them?

I don't mind group activities, as long as I am not forced to do them. What I read in this post, however, and against all otherwise reassurance, goes very much in that direction of forcing people to do things in groups.

You are already rewarded better if you do missions and plexes/anoms (certain 8/10s and 10/10s or escalations, for instance, or most of the Sleeper sites) in groups and in some cases it's not even possible to do them alone. Further expanding that into mandatory group activities is in my opinion not desirable.

In my opinion, it's not the fault of the missions that players isolate themselves in them; it's more the nature of the game which drives people into isolation in order to protect their achievements from mischievous players. Nothing against this type of players, but you should not be surprised if less and less people opt for cooperation in an environment where a "friend" from an hour ago clears your hangars and wallets in the next instant.

Forcing people into that environment against their will is not going to achieve what the OP apparently wants to achieve.
Players need to voluntarily opt for cooperation, and there is maybe a need for improvements on the rewards for group activities (without cutting back the rewards for solo activities even further, like the industry changes are about to do), but mostly there needs to be a whole lot better and easier to apply and understand ways to manage risk when cooperating. Not assigning any roles and titles out of fear you could have made a mistake or someone tried to outwit you, when s/he explained you how the system works and which roles someone needs, is certainly not a good basis for cooperation, let alone is not going to make cooperation happen more often.

No.

You base your argument wrongly: Instead of trying to prevent multi-boxing, make missions in groups more exciting all around. Those who opt for MBing have their way, and those who do it with actual other other players have a better experience. Forcing people to bring other players or not allow more than one active client open is the wrong approach.

There is always people in games who bruteforce their way through the mechanics. Trying to prevent that just makes them unhappy. Instead ignore them and make the experience better with actual group activity in mind, not with the goal to prevent solo player activity with brute force.

As I said above, CCP won't do it... because while they're happy to disable Trials, the fact is they likely make just as much if not more from Alt accounts as they do Main Accounts.

Still if you're only reason for not considering it is "It would make Multi-Box players unhappy" ... I'm sorry but that's not a valid reason, who cares if they're happy; they're exploiting the game mechanics for their own benefit. The only reason CCP turns a blind eye to this behaviour is because they make a subscription cost out of them; usually it isn't even that player paying the damn subscription though ... they're using PLEX that someone else bought, CCP gets their money but basically twice someone else is getting dicked over by someone multi-boxing.

Yet the thing is, this is all damaging to the economy, balance and eco-system of the game as a whole.
It ties CCPs hands in terms of design as they always have to take in to account the Multi-Boxing Farmers; who regardless of what they do will ALWAYS game the system.

More over while I'm fine with letting players enjoy Eve either as a Solo or Group experience; that is why players chose the content they do. Incursions for example are GROUP and intended to be Social content, why shouldn't the game FORCE people to actually have groups rather than 2-3 Computers and Solo it?

Look like it or not the reason Eve has lasted so long isn't because it has some ground breaking game that is always on the bleeding-edge of technology and mechanics ... it's because of the Community itself, both in-game and out of game.
If someone wants to remain isolated in their own little pocket of space forever alone, that is entirely up to them; but frankly I think the game should more than encourage Teamwork and becoming part of the social aspect.

I guarantee you there will still be players who will do nothing but grind out Level 1 - 2 Missions that they can Solo; because that's just who they are... but if you enforce a system where players end up having to work both together and against each other - show them there is actually MORE to Eve than simply grinding out ISK and getting the most rare gear available that in other games would make them untouchable, most will see exactly what the top 10% have seen Eve to be for the past decade+

And frankly those people aren't going to actively want to get involved in their own, so they NEED a push in the right direction.
It's like having a friend who bitches all day he doesn't have a girlfriend but then what you go out to social events all they do is sit in the corner like a lemon ignoring everyone ... sometimes you've just got to bring over a girl and give them a push for them to realise what the hell they've been missing.

The mission experience does need a serious overhaul.
I like the OP's concept for incentivising pve, it's a decent approach to it.
The npc's themselves would also need to be reviewed and altered from current models of behaviour.

The loot tables and applied damage tables need to be changed to fit the ship the npc is in.
no more npc in a kestrel firing a laser, a rail-gun and missiles ... it's a kestrel it only shoots missiles ... fix it CCP

so vital change one
Make NPC's combat abilities consistent with the hull they are flying

spawn mechanics need to be randomised from a pool of possible options
single large group
multiple small groups (1-5 groups)
single small group

randomised quantity of reinforcement waves : 0 - 5 waves

NPC group reinforcement mechanics
fixed NPC trigger target
random NPC trigger target
on complete group destruction
timed event after PC entry

#trigger target
shield reduced to #_value
armour reduced to #_value
hull reduced to #_value
on NPC destruction


NPC ship distribution
Tech 1 ship model - 70%
Faction ship model - 20%
Tech 2 ship model - 10%

Level 1 mission
Frigate - 25-50%
Destroyer 50-75%

Level 2 Mission
Frigate 15-25%
Destroyer 25-45%
Cruiser 40-65%

etc. etc. for L3/4 missions