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Random mission generator
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King Rothgar
Deadly Solutions
#1 - 2012-01-18 18:45:52 UTC
The biggest problem with pve in eve is the utter predictability of it. I think we can all agree on that. It's a fundamental problem with hand crafted missions, you will repeat them and repeat them often. You simply can't create them as fast as people grow bored of them. The solution is to have a computer program generate them for you.

So rather than CCP somepoorbastard tediously creating these missions one at a time by hand, have him write a simple program to do it for him. The program would have parameters such as mission difficulty, mission type (combat, courier, radar...) and faction settings (who is it for? who could it potentially be against?).

Done like this, you would never get the same mission twice. In fact, this could be extended to tell the player less in the briefing. There is no reason to tell the player if he will be facing sansha, angels or republic fleet. Let him find out when he gets there. Exploration sites could very well use the same setup. Running anoms out in angel cartel space maybe slanted to heavily favor angel rats, but a few blood raiders and others should be thrown in for good measure. Just to mix it up.

There is no reason they wouldn't be present in limited numbers from an RP standpoint. In fact, that brings up another interesting possibility, multiple factions within a single site. Since guristas, sansha and blood raiders are allies, I see no reason why you shouldn't face a combination of all three in any given site/mission. Once again, it may heavily favor one group due to region, but that doesn't mean the other guys shouldn't be present at all.

Just a thought from someone who ran operation wyrmsbane 3x in a row today.Ugh

[u]Fireworks and snowballs are great, but what I really want is a corpse launcher.[/u]
Iris Bravemount
Golden Grinding Gears
#2 - 2012-01-18 19:14:33 UTC
King Rothgar wrote:
The biggest problem with pve in eve is the utter predictability of it. I think we can all agree on that. It's a fundamental problem with hand crafted missions, you will repeat them and repeat them often. You simply can't create them as fast as people grow bored of them. The solution is to have a computer program generate them for you.

So rather than CCP somepoorbastard tediously creating these missions one at a time by hand, have him write a simple program to do it for him. The program would have parameters such as mission difficulty, mission type (combat, courier, radar...) and faction settings (who is it for? who could it potentially be against?).


Using such methods to add randomness to existing missions would be more practical, since you still need a briefing text for a mission, and a script can't do that with a completely new generated mission, unless you are happy with an ugly standardized briefing text.

Quote:
Done like this, you would never get the same mission twice. In fact, this could be extended to tell the player less in the briefing. There is no reason to tell the player if he will be facing sansha, angels or republic fleet. Let him find out when he gets there. Exploration sites could very well use the same setup. Running anoms out in angel cartel space maybe slanted to heavily favor angel rats, but a few blood raiders and others should be thrown in for good measure. Just to mix it up.


This wouldn't be as fun as it sounds. It would only waste more time. A player would have to fly there, see what's there and come back to fit his ship accordingly, instead of arriving with appropriate ship. No fun added.

Quote:
There is no reason they wouldn't be present in limited numbers from an RP standpoint. In fact, that brings up another interesting possibility, multiple factions within a single site. Since guristas, sansha and blood raiders are allies, I see no reason why you shouldn't face a combination of all three in any given site/mission. Once again, it may heavily favor one group due to region, but that doesn't mean the other guys shouldn't be present at all.

Just a thought from someone who ran operation wyrmsbane 3x in a row today.Ugh


There already are missions with multiple factions in them (such as worlds collide, IIRC), and I recently encountered a few Sansha rats in a drone escalation site in 0.0. This adds resistance problems, but doesn't improve the fun, because you would still just... you know, fly there and kill them wave after wave.

So, while I am in favor a bit more of a randomizing of missions and complexes, there are better ideas on this forum to make PvE more fun and diversified in EvE.

"I will not hesitate when the test of Faith finds me, for only the strongest conviction will open the gates of paradise. My Faith in you is absolute; my sword is Yours, My God, and Your will guides me now and for all eternity." - Paladin's Creed
King Rothgar
Deadly Solutions
#3 - 2012-01-18 19:30:49 UTC
Iris Bravemount wrote:

Using such methods to add randomness to existing missions would be more practical, since you still need a briefing text for a mission, and a script can't do that with a completely new generated mission, unless you are happy with an ugly standardized briefing text.


Wait, people actually read the briefings? That's news to me. I have no problem with standardized briefings.

Iris Bravemount wrote:
This wouldn't be as fun as it sounds. It would only waste more time. A player would have to fly there, see what's there and come back to fit his ship accordingly, instead of arriving with appropriate ship. No fun added.


Why would you need to warp out and refit?

Iris Bravemount wrote:
There already are missions with multiple factions in them (such as worlds collide, IIRC), and I recently encountered a few Sansha rats in a drone escalation site in 0.0. This adds resistance problems, but doesn't improve the fun, because you would still just... you know, fly there and kill them wave after wave.

So, while I am in favor a bit more of a randomizing of missions and complexes, there are better ideas on this forum to make PvE more fun and diversified in EvE.


Same question as the last point, why would it pose fitting problems? You are aware of invulnerability fields and energized adaptive nano membranes are you not?

And no, I'm not suggesting having only kill wave after wave missions. A random generator is not limited to something so silly. I see no reason as to why you couldn't have logi missions where you have to RR an NPC fleet while it kills an enemy NPC fleet for example. In fact, there is a FW mission where you warp into the middle of your fleet fighting the other sides fleet and your goal is to blitz the enemy commander. The other factions wouldn't necessarily be hostile to you. You could be sent there to help them (or they could be hostile and you kill both groups).

I'm also not suggesting deleting the current hand made missions. They can certainly be sprinkled in via my proposed mission generator and should be.

[u]Fireworks and snowballs are great, but what I really want is a corpse launcher.[/u]
Iris Bravemount
Golden Grinding Gears
#4 - 2012-01-18 19:36:50 UTC
I know there are omni tank mods in the game, of course. But most of the time, you can't achieve as much with an omni tank fit as with a faction specific fit, and you know that too, so stop trolling please. Shocked

"I will not hesitate when the test of Faith finds me, for only the strongest conviction will open the gates of paradise. My Faith in you is absolute; my sword is Yours, My God, and Your will guides me now and for all eternity." - Paladin's Creed
Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#5 - 2012-01-18 23:02:56 UTC
Iris Bravemount wrote:
I know there are omni tank mods in the game, of course. But most of the time, you can't achieve as much with an omni tank fit as with a faction specific fit, and you know that too, so stop trolling please. Shocked


Psst. The mission briefing could tell you who you're fighting without telling you much else.

Just saying.
Nestara Aldent
Citimatics
#6 - 2012-01-18 23:45:08 UTC
Problem is random missions would just suck. I mean, have you tried to play the game which makes random dungeons such as NetHack? It just looks like a solution, but it isn't.
M'nu
Vard School of Cryo Cuisine
#7 - 2012-01-19 04:19:14 UTC  |  Edited by: M'nu
Nestara Aldent wrote:
Problem is random missions would just suck. I mean, have you tried to play the game which makes random dungeons such as NetHack? It just looks like a solution, but it isn't.



Have you ever tried playing Diablo? Or does your priest touch you when you do.

Sorry, NetHack, idk what that is. But what I do know is it isn't EvE. WoW has dungeons, and that game sucks, if you want the same nigerian **** over and over again, well, meme time


Problem is, non random missions give the same amount of pleasure as masturbation did after the first time you felt vaginal walls.

It may not be a solution, but least I can *** harder and not use a tissue.


Edit: Self sexual stimulation is wrong. 1950s witch hunt commiefuckers!
2nd edit: come
King Rothgar
Deadly Solutions
#8 - 2012-01-19 07:02:26 UTC  |  Edited by: King Rothgar
Iris Bravemount wrote:
I know there are omni tank mods in the game, of course. But most of the time, you can't achieve as much with an omni tank fit as with a faction specific fit, and you know that too, so stop trolling please. Shocked


And what is so wrong with expecting people to omni tank in missions? You still haven't answered my basic question. It isn't a troll, I for one do omni tank in missions because I can't be bothered to be switching those mods out all the time, especially if I pull multiple missions at once.

Edit: I play more than just eve, another favorite game of mine is Rise of Flight. It uses a random mission generator and it has one of the best single player campaigns of any game (not just flight sims) ever made because of it. Most of the other combat flight sims use the same method of course, but theirs is particularly good. So yeah, I've seen both good and bad mission generators. Obviously I'd like CCP to make a good one for eve.

[u]Fireworks and snowballs are great, but what I really want is a corpse launcher.[/u]
Skydell
Bad Girl Posse
#9 - 2012-01-23 05:15:57 UTC
"Here are 5 True Sansha Brass Tags"

Currency for a real mission. At that rate I have roughly enough for 8 "real missions". They could be storyline quality but without the 14 obligatory kill 10 sansha outings.
Grumpy Owly
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#10 - 2012-01-23 08:37:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Grumpy Owly
I was actually hoping that this thread would be about NPC characters approching you out of the blue to offer random missions as opposed to the current method of the player always having to "go to" an agent to broker a job. Nothing wrong with it, just be nice to have occasional missions that could be relatively rare to mix things up as a suprise.

I realise in story/research missions they contact you, but thats as a result of a predictable pattern of mission running or agent contacts.

Just thinking it would be nice for the NPC's to perhaps challenge you this way occasionally. Especilly if there is some ethical dilema associated with it. But thats for the RP enjoyment.

Practicalities of expectations of how interupting to player activities is not really in my thoughts in the design here. But more an optional extra to add life to the NPCs.

Bounty Hunting - Soon (™): Retribution (Winter 2012)

It's just criminal - Smuggling
Ocih
Space Mermaids
#11 - 2012-01-24 02:37:39 UTC
Right now there are no "random" missions. There are plenty of trigger missions. Expeditions are triggered through anomolies and they invariably end in low sec so they don't get done very often. Storyline are triggered by missions within an Empire.

Adding trigger missions promoted by rare items will deter farming said missions. While stuff like True Sansha tags are rare drop they are anything but rare. I'm sure everyone and thier dog has a bunch of those in a hangar somewhere. Once those stocks get used up such missions would be harder to come by but if they were viewed popular untill that happened everyone and thier dog would be turning in for such missions.
Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#12 - 2012-01-24 02:42:42 UTC
You have to author an entirely new mission system.

Think of it as a... tech 3 ship.

Part 1
Breifing breifing can feed intel as well and precusor the types of targets resistances and objects.

Part 2
Npcs make the types of npcs random and variably include threat score, isk value, and mission role.

Part 3
Rooms

Randomize rooms this includes spawns and various other decorations and pinantia containers.

Part 4
Rewards

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
Amaroq Dricaldari
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#13 - 2012-01-24 03:12:23 UTC
Supported.

It is a good idea, but it isn't perfect.

This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
King Rothgar
Deadly Solutions
#14 - 2012-01-24 12:34:45 UTC
I don't claim it to be perfect. You will have generic looking sites with generic briefings. But I think it's preferable to playing the same handful of missions over and over. It just isn't practical to have CCP create hundreds of new missions at every level. Ditto for exploration sites and incursions.

[u]Fireworks and snowballs are great, but what I really want is a corpse launcher.[/u]