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(Odyssey) Exploration Site Mechanics

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Destoya
Habitual Euthanasia
Pandemic Legion
#261 - 2013-04-29 16:39:49 UTC
This isn't rewarding people who bring a friend, it's rewarding people with alts. Splitting isk with someone else is always a distasteful prospect for EVE players, and even losing personal profits as compared to doing it solo (you might both try to click on the same can, not as many slow-flying cans that are easy to grab) is just bad design. Even if you only manage to loot 50% as fast on your second account, that's still far greater isk/hr than looting at 75-90% of what you could do solo if you bring along a friend.

Given that most people are greedy and are all looking at that profit margin, I fail to see how this system does anything than force a gimmick clickfest minigame between several accounts/monitors
Vincent Gaines
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#262 - 2013-04-29 16:40:35 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
Vincent Gaines wrote:
This is 11 pages and I haven't caught everything, but can someone explain the purpose of the loot just spilling and floating away? It makes zero sense.


The purpose is to provide interaction through reaching out and touching, just like CCP Soundwave told us in his presentation about game design principles. So rather than sit there with modules cycling so we can simply open a can and take the loot, we are presented with a puzzle to solve: where do you sit yourself so that you can collect the greatest number of cans? If you have two people you theoretically double your chances since you can cover twice as much space. This is how teamwork/alts will be rewarded. It is like placing fielders in a game of cricket or baseball.



I swear there's a game on Facebook where the object of the game is to grab as many shiny things as possible in a limited amount of time.

And before the internet, or hell before the PC, I used to play jacks. None of these really seem to tie into exploration.

I do feel this is a step in the right direction. The only thing I have a question on is the way in which the rewards are presented. Is this really the best way that was devised?

Not a diplo. 

The above post was edited for spelling.
Mariner6
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#263 - 2013-04-29 16:44:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Mariner6
Reluctant to even participate in this discussion as so much is speculation but I certainly have to wonder about a few things:

1) What will make a null sec sites > low sec sites > high sec sites both harder and more rewarding? Obviously I understand that just being in null/low is more dangerous due to other players but by removing rats then any covops or T3 interdicted-nullified ships will just do any of these sites easily now. The difficulty of rats before made running these sites in a solo scanning ship by itself impossible in lower security systems. That seems all gone now. So while the loot rewards should scale as they do now in lower sec status systems how does that balance with difficulty to complete the site as it doesn't require the player to have higher skills (ie in a better ship/ships) to deal with the rats? There is just something with this that seems...well not quite right. Seems unbalanced.

2) So that said, is it then the mini-game that's harder in low sec and really hard in null sec? That sounds a bit....meh.
Plus if your encouraging group play...only one person can participate in the mini game?....the rest sit around and wait for you to finish the game...well that's boring. Yes I know they have other chores like looking out for enemy pilots but...they'll have to be sitting at the site to help grab cans so they are just sitting there scanning...so....they can't even be sitting in other systems watching gates or something. So their SOLE purpose of coming along is to grab cans and PvP as required I guess? Shooting red crosses is horribly boring...sitting around not even shooting red crosses while your buddy plays a mini game is worse.

3) Where is the progression? So if stuff in null sec can be done with a fairly low skilled covops character how do players benefit from investing in skill points and better ships to run harder sites? Null sec is surprisingly empty and safe but people flying their combat ships to complete the sites currently make for at least some fun opportunities. Now all there is a covops to run the sites? Bleh. It all seems way too easy. And frankly, making a hard mini-game sounds equally annoying.

Will certainly wait and see, hopefully all this will be addressed in the dev blog.
CCP Bayesian
#264 - 2013-04-29 16:44:34 UTC
Mara Rinn, something like kill mails but for exploration is something we talked about. Ditto for mining operations. Information that you can directly compare with your past performance and other peoples performance.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#265 - 2013-04-29 16:45:07 UTC
Vincent Gaines wrote:
Mara Rinn wrote:
Vincent Gaines wrote:
This is 11 pages and I haven't caught everything, but can someone explain the purpose of the loot just spilling and floating away? It makes zero sense.


The purpose is to provide interaction through reaching out and touching, just like CCP Soundwave told us in his presentation about game design principles. So rather than sit there with modules cycling so we can simply open a can and take the loot, we are presented with a puzzle to solve: where do you sit yourself so that you can collect the greatest number of cans? If you have two people you theoretically double your chances since you can cover twice as much space. This is how teamwork/alts will be rewarded. It is like placing fielders in a game of cricket or baseball.



I swear there's a game on Facebook where the object of the game is to grab as many shiny things as possible in a limited amount of time.

And before the internet, or hell before the PC, I used to play jacks. None of these really seem to tie into exploration.

I do feel this is a step in the right direction. The only thing I have a question on is the way in which the rewards are presented. Is this really the best way that was devised?

We can always try and figure out something better.

Know a Frozen fan? Check this out

Frozen fanfiction
Fereval Kondur
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#266 - 2013-04-29 16:46:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Fereval Kondur
Mara Rinn wrote:

Now can anyone tell me where to find these presentations on Twitch.tv? I come up empty looking for ccpgames, and there are far to many results for EVE Online :/

The EVE Keynote. (The exploration in-dev shown part starts near the 1.02 hour mark.)

Vote for CSM 11!
Moneta Curran
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#267 - 2013-04-29 16:47:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Moneta Curran
Mara Rinn wrote:
Vincent Gaines wrote:
This is 11 pages and I haven't caught everything, but can someone explain the purpose of the loot just spilling and floating away? It makes zero sense.


The purpose is to provide interaction through reaching out and touching, just like CCP Soundwave told us in his presentation about game design principles. So rather than sit there with modules cycling so we can simply open a can and take the loot, we are presented with a puzzle to solve: where do you sit yourself so that you can collect the greatest number of cans? If you have two people you theoretically double your chances since you can cover twice as much space. This is how teamwork/alts will be rewarded. It is like placing fielders in a game of cricket or baseball.


As it is it's already annoying to navigate around collidable objects and hope to be able to align out in time when someone warps in... (I'm looking at you, hollow asteroid). Exploration is challenging enough as it is in hostile space. Sites already despawn if you are forced out after activating a module on a can.

To present this new mechanic as a novel opportunity for emergent ganking is rather silly, exploration sites are already camped at present (I should know because I tend to do that).

While I can imagine that exploration must be absurdly boring in high sec, I figured the basic premise here was that explorers by their very nature will venture beyond the safety of empire space, where you would need no mini-game to be entertained as there are more elements at play than just you, your hacking skill and a floating can.
Lost True
Perkone
Caldari State
#268 - 2013-04-29 16:49:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Lost True
Destoya wrote:
This isn't rewarding people who bring a friend, it's rewarding people with alts. Splitting isk with someone else is always a distasteful prospect for EVE players, and even losing personal profits as compared to doing it solo (you might both try to click on the same can, not as many slow-flying cans that are easy to grab) is just bad design. Even if you only manage to loot 50% as fast on your second account, that's still far greater isk/hr than looting at 75-90% of what you could do solo if you bring along a friend.

Given that most people are greedy and are all looking at that profit margin, I fail to see how this system does anything than force a gimmick clickfest minigame between several accounts/monitors

Alts? I think the good thing about it is that it's hard to do it with alts...

I think it's a very healthy way to encourage the group play: when you can do it solo, and you're not losing anything by inviting someone else who just a good guy... Then why not to do it? Even for free... Or, if you want, for asking this person to do something for you in his "profession".

in 2007 i've thought it's a sci-fi simulator, not an "e-sports" game. I'm not a teenager, how would i like it much?
Vincent Gaines
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#269 - 2013-04-29 16:50:55 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Mara Rinn, something like kill mails but for exploration is something we talked about. Ditto for mining operations. Information that you can directly compare with your past performance and other peoples performance.



I'd like to see logi on killmails before anything else.

Not a diplo. 

The above post was edited for spelling.
Vincent Gaines
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#270 - 2013-04-29 16:52:26 UTC
Vincent Athena wrote:

We can always try and figure out something better.


I wonder if there's a thread in F&I.

Blink

Not a diplo. 

The above post was edited for spelling.
Xavier Quo
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#271 - 2013-04-29 16:55:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Xavier Quo
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Solkara Starlock wrote:
Even if the loot will be equal.

People will not care about the can they could catch, but be sorry about those they couldn't.
You'll probably have more players angry and disliking this part of the game.
I doubt they will be calling on their friends to go can hunting. They will call upon their friends to go ship hunting or so.

Somehow this feels like giving solo players a bad feeling about playing solo.
That's why it feels like forcing group play.


I guess there is an analogy with fishing in the real world. One rod only gets you so much no matter how many fish you see swim by and there is satisfaction at getting better at fishing and netting more fish. Bringing a friend along means you can near enough always get more fish so long as there are enough to catch by spreading out to cover more river.



hmm, not really. If some fish were hollow and some filled with gold you'd feel very differently about those missed fish. Even if you are wrong logically the psychology of failure is still there and it is a serious mistake to introduce such a thing into the game. And most of the time you can't see the fish in the river, certainly not all of them!

Also this encouraging or incentivising non-solo play is all well and good, but do you not realise the primary reason most people solo is because of time constraints? I have the option of waiting around for corpies and making a fleet etc, but I simply do not have the time. It turns an hour or two of play into longer, sometimes a lot longer, and most of it is dead time waiting around. Not fun and not why I play. No amount of incentive is going to change that.
Vincent Gaines
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#272 - 2013-04-29 16:57:35 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
]

I guess there is an analogy with fishing in the real world. One rod only gets you so much no matter how many fish you see swim by and there is satisfaction at getting better at fishing and netting more fish. Bringing a friend along means you can near enough always get more fish so long as there are enough to catch by spreading out to cover more river.


I would grab a stick of dynamite and kill all the fish. Then take my sweet time collecting each fish while smoking a cigar and finishing off a bottle of Jack.

Not a diplo. 

The above post was edited for spelling.
Mariner6
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#273 - 2013-04-29 17:01:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Mariner6
Lost True wrote:
[quote=Destoya]This isn't rewarding people who bring a friend, it's rewarding people with alts. Splitting isk with someone else is always a distasteful prospect for EVE players, and even losing personal profits as compared to doing it solo (you might both try to click on the same can, not as many slow-flying cans that are easy to grab) is just bad design. Even if you only manage to loot 50% as fast on your second account, that's still far greater isk/hr than looting at 75-90% of what you could do solo if you bring along a friend.

Given that most people are greedy and are all looking at that profit margin, I fail to see how this system does anything than force a gimmick clickfest minigame between several accounts/monitors


I think this is partially true but I think there is a bit more to it.

I tend to prefer to run exploration sites and such on my own not only for the pure profit of it, but I'm also smart enough to realize that I could do more sites, safer, and overall probably make more with 3-4 friends (and our alts) in anoms, sigs, etc BUT it is such a pain to then collect up all the loot, salvage, etc etc and then when the opportunity arises...JF the stuff from many exploration trips out to high sec to sell. Ideally you sell it on sell orders to maximize profits and then remember who ran what sites, which loot with which trip and then divvy it all up fairly. There are of course different techniques to do all this..but its all a HUGE pain regardless. Just easier to do it yourself and not have to keep track of it all.

You don't see anyone soloing Incursions do you with alts?(well, at least I don't think there are?) I submit a big part of the attraction of incursions is the very simple, fair, and effective pay out system that reduces annoying time spent on doing logistics/selling stuff. (yes, there are other reasons but I'm focusing on this aspect)

I hate to PVE but need isk to feed my PvP addiction....only reason why I do exploration. This system will retain the problem of cans going everywhere and the need to divvy up loot with a gang. You could say you keep the cans you get but that will really suck if you get the worthless Reactive Armor Hardener BPC and your bud gets the 10 intact armor plates.

If CCP wants to make exploration more of a good group activity address this issue I think. Indeed, now that I can run these sites anywhere with just a covops...I'll definitely do it solo. Why do it in groups as there are no rats. I'll spend more time divvying up loot and tracking all that than just accepting the loss of however many can's I can't grab between my main and alts.
Terrorfrodo
Interbus Universal
#274 - 2013-04-29 17:03:10 UTC
Moneta Curran wrote:
While I can imagine that exploration must be absurdly boring in high sec, I figured the basic premise here was that explorers by their very nature will venture beyond the safety of empire space, where you would need no mini-game to be entertained as there are more elements at play than just you, your hacking skill and a floating can.

That's wishful thinking at best. Sure, it happens that you are hunted and attacked while exploring or ratting, but if you would really log your activities you would quickly realize that for 90% or more of the time, you do it alone (or with your group) and without interference. And that is why game mechanics need to be fun in themselves, so EVE is also fun to play if no other players are about to help or kill you.

PvP in one form or another will always be the best thing in EVE, but that doesn't mean that the PvE part must not be enjoyable. Many people seem to think that fun PvE would harm PvP, but the opposite is the case. If PvE is more fun, then a lot of people will do it and expose themselves to PvP. (Although for that to really work the fun factor has to be higher outside of hisec.)

.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#275 - 2013-04-29 17:14:16 UTC
Moneta Curran wrote:
While I can imagine that exploration must be absurdly boring in high sec, I figured the basic premise here was that explorers by their very nature will venture beyond the safety of empire space, where you would need no mini-game to be entertained as there are more elements at play than just you, your hacking skill and a floating can.


That is my thinking on this matter too: exploration didn't need mini games to make it interesting. Hisec doesn't need to be more entertaining. The entertainment comes from other players: "Other players will always be more interesting, for longer, than designed experiences."

But let us look at all these principles of game design as elucidated to us by CCP Soundwave:

No game should be more complex than it absolutely needs to be to meet its goals. The hard part here is determining the goals. Was the goal of exploration mini games to make exploration more entertaining? That is a mistake: entertainment comes from interaction with other players. Was the goal to encourage interaction with other players? Let us assume that this is the goal since that is why we have been told. Will a number of "loot fountains" encourage interaction with others? Yes. Where some people will turn to alts, others will turn to other people.

A good feature can be based on positive or negative player interaction. This grab-the-cans feature fills this requirement: I can be in your site helping you gather, or collecting stuff for myself.

Other players will always be more interesting, for longer, than designed experiences. The modified hacking site means that other players might hang around when they see a hacking site is occupied. Hanging around is more likely to lead to interaction than running away. Do I communicate with you to arrange coordination and cooperation, or do I follow you around to steal your stuff?

Every system should affect, and be affected by, the wider world of the game. Now people will be hunting down explorers for the purpose of stealing cans. That is an alteration to previous behavior in the form of a new incentive,

Here are the tools, do something cool with them. More a new type of puzzle rather than a tool, but there are many ways to solve this puzzle. It is effectively a new tool.

The social experience is more important than practical system balance; the interaction between winners and losers is more interesting than mechanical equality. The mechanical equality of "you hack the can therefore you get the loot" leads to minimal interaction. In the current aystem you might bump me out of the way, pushing me out if hacking range while you complete the hack. In the new system you also have the opportunity to save time by letting me finish the hack.

Interactions should be about reaching and touching, more than reading numbers. This new looting system addresses this principle directly and literally.

Things in the world need to make sense. Let me think on this for a while. Having an ancient spaceship spew out interesting treasures when you crack open the door doesn't really make sense.

Players are not entitled to success. You can work harder/smarter to get more loot before the other guy.

In my case, I might solve the problem by dragging around a friend who is good at twitch games but doesn't have the hacking skills.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#276 - 2013-04-29 17:16:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Mara Rinn
Fereval Kondur wrote:
Mara Rinn wrote:

Now can anyone tell me where to find these presentations on Twitch.tv? I come up empty looking for ccpgames, and there are far to many results for EVE Online :/

The EVE Keynote. (The exploration in-dev shown part starts near the 1.02 hour mark.)


I was in the room for the keynote. I was thinking more about Round Table 3, 16:00 on Saturday, "Exploration" which I intended to go to but got bailed up by two new friends.

PS: twitch.tv doesn't use HTML5 video, it insists that I use that collection of vulnerabilities known as "Flash" to watch their videos on my iPad.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Lost True
Perkone
Caldari State
#277 - 2013-04-29 17:22:31 UTC
Mariner6 wrote:
Lost True wrote:
[quote=Destoya]This isn't rewarding people who bring a friend, it's rewarding people with alts. Splitting isk with someone else is always a distasteful prospect for EVE players, and even losing personal profits as compared to doing it solo (you might both try to click on the same can, not as many slow-flying cans that are easy to grab) is just bad design. Even if you only manage to loot 50% as fast on your second account, that's still far greater isk/hr than looting at 75-90% of what you could do solo if you bring along a friend.

Given that most people are greedy and are all looking at that profit margin, I fail to see how this system does anything than force a gimmick clickfest minigame between several accounts/monitors

You don't see anyone soloing Incursions do you with alts?(well, at least I don't think there are?) I submit a big part of the attraction of incursions is the very simple, fair, and effective pay out system that reduces annoying time spent on doing logistics/selling stuff. (yes, there are other reasons but I'm focusing on this aspect)

My former corp mate have lived solo in WH-6 and farmed anomalies :)
It's not the same things. Incursions and WH are not so much about speed, it's about an investment an tactics.
We don't know how exactly it'll be, but it's looks extreme to me to do those things with alts when you need to do it quickly with a single window - and i hope it will be so.

in 2007 i've thought it's a sci-fi simulator, not an "e-sports" game. I'm not a teenager, how would i like it much?
Vincent Gaines
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#278 - 2013-04-29 17:27:58 UTC
Terrorfrodo wrote:
Moneta Curran wrote:
While I can imagine that exploration must be absurdly boring in high sec, I figured the basic premise here was that explorers by their very nature will venture beyond the safety of empire space, where you would need no mini-game to be entertained as there are more elements at play than just you, your hacking skill and a floating can.

That's wishful thinking at best. Sure, it happens that you are hunted and attacked while exploring or ratting, but if you would really log your activities you would quickly realize that for 90% or more of the time, you do it alone (or with your group) and without interference. And that is why game mechanics need to be fun in themselves, so EVE is also fun to play if no other players are about to help or kill you.

PvP in one form or another will always be the best thing in EVE, but that doesn't mean that the PvE part must not be enjoyable. Many people seem to think that fun PvE would harm PvP, but the opposite is the case. If PvE is more fun, then a lot of people will do it and expose themselves to PvP. (Although for that to really work the fun factor has to be higher outside of hisec.)



When I log into Eve, I join TS with my alliance. We fly in fleets together, we hunt targets together. We run sites, we do logistics. We troll people together.

98% of what I do in Eve is in a group.

There's no reason I can't have that 1% of the time to play the game and do something myself without needing to branch away from everyone.

Not a diplo. 

The above post was edited for spelling.
Josef Djugashvilis
#279 - 2013-04-29 17:33:32 UTC
Some times the good folk in CCP have really silly ideas.

Hacking mini games and 'grab a can while you can' are examples of this.

Exploration is THE solo game-play in Eve.

Most of Eve is geared towards group play for better rewards. Leave exploration alone.

The problem is, that no matter how much folk laugh at the new exploration ideas, CCP will persist with them come hell or high water.

Will explorers now be known as 'twitchers'?

This is not a signature.
Georgina Parmala
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#280 - 2013-04-29 17:34:40 UTC
CCP Prime wrote:
As it stands, you have containers bursting out in groups along an axis in a random direction.

It's not much of a chase, but more of a decision what is the optimal way to position your ship to recover the most of the loot.
As for the assumption that this is twitched based gameplay, we'll see once it is on SISI and what the feedback will be.
In the state it was demoed you have to invest ~4 seconds to get one can, meaning that once you've clicked it, you have ~4 seconds to choose what can to take next.

Are you saying there is a minimum tractor time attached? Or is it simply time to tractor to 0m like it looked in the demo?

When I saw the demo, my initial thought was nano slasher flying through the cans in a pattern. Scrambling to pick up one can per server tick while adjusting camera to double click manually pilot to 0 on the next can, eliminating the tractor time. It also made me think "yeah 3 cans is good, 6 is the target, 7 is exceptional... players will get 10". This also potentially puts exploration in a cloaky dictor t3 at a disadvantage, relative to a covops due to speed/maneuverability.

This is where the "click fest" impression is coming from. If you simply want to prevent one player from getting it all, attach it to a module activation. Click mod, click 5 cans, those 5 get tractored, cycle time prevents more before the rest pop. That feels more "EvE-like". It's also less clunky than an arbitrary ~4 second tractor time regardless of range, which would eliminate need for excessive piloting (good thing).

CCP Bayesian wrote:

I guess there is an analogy with fishing in the real world. One rod only gets you so much no matter how many fish you see swim by and there is satisfaction at getting better at fishing and netting more fish. Bringing a friend along means you can near enough always get more fish so long as there are enough to catch by spreading out to cover more river.

And just like Fishing, it makes you go "Damn it, there were so many fish, wish Frank didn't have to work today". It makes the player feel like he did something wrong when he did it solo. Because unlike real fishing, if he waits for Frank to get off work the fish are still in the same spot. If he goes fishing, all the other fish run away from their spot before Frank gets home.

CCP Bayesian wrote:

It's something you can do solo but you aren't penalised for wanting to do it in a group. The containers in question aren't designed to last in open space so they degrade reasonably quickly and are destroyed along with their contents. You'll do good as a solo player but better with someone else, Garresh's comments about opportunity cost are dead on.

We're of course experimenting with values for all of these things internally and will be watching and adjusting things on an on-going basis as this hits Sisi and TQ.

I have no doubt the activity performed solo will result in solid isk/hr. I think just about everyone here gets that part. It's the above feeling of failure at the end that makes people cringe.

From a Co-op player standpoint if the site requires 3 people to get all the cans, I'll feel obliged to bookmark it and do something else for an hour while my buddies log in to optimize the opportunity the spawn presents for the corp.

Now that's not necessarily a bad thing either, it creates a conflict driver as I attempt to keep other people off the site in the mean time. But does it replace the rats in that respect? How long will the hacking game take? If the player spends a mere 2 minutes in the site, does that give ample time for conflict?

I would still rather see the hacking part take a significant amount of time. Bringing a second person along, to contribute in hacking, should then reduce that time by 75%. It should be better because you cover more territory and clear more content together than going after sites individually and in a safer manner. Not because the loot drops increase to scale with number of players. Especially from a hacking site, where you are essentially stealing secured information from a computer...from cans flying out an airlock.

Science and Trade Institute [STI] is an NPC entity and as such my views do not represent those of the entity or any of its members

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=276984&p=38