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Try our new hacking/archaeology sites!

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M'aak'han
C-7
#441 - 2013-05-27 12:24:04 UTC
CCP Soundwave wrote:
I'm finding it a bit too easy atm across all tiers! The one I had the most difficulty with was tier 3 actually.


What do you refers as tiers? Hi/low/null sites, or is it the type of container (rubble/debris/remains...) ?
Killua Zoldyeck
Lucidus Ordo
Pandemic Legion
#442 - 2013-05-27 12:30:48 UTC
Blue Binary wrote:
Anabella Rella wrote:
Blue Binary wrote:
Killua Zoldyeck wrote:
I'm not sure how can you take down a Cruiser with an unarmed Covert Ops? Care to share your fit/ship?

With a Buzzard I can't fit a Light Missile Luncher but even If I could do that, I'm not very convinced that 12 dps will kill the cruiser before it kills me with no tank.

Let's say I train for the Helios that has the single drone. That will be 29 dps (can't fit a gun or I wouldn't be able to fit a Probe Launcher and Covert Ops Cloak, so that's the best it can do).

In my eyes a single cruiser means I have to leave the site forever (I'm talking about low sec roaming so it's not really an option to switch to a combat ship. Also, switching to a combat ship it's not what an explorer should do in the expansion that promises to remove NPCs because "exploration is not about shooting at red crosses").
Definitely doable in a Helios with a Hobgoblin II, Helios has a bonus for a thermal drone, also rat was a Serpentis. Takes about 15 minutes to kill it.

Cap stable with MWD on, orbit rat at 20km, need a drone damage amp II, sit back and wait. Downside is both your MWD and drone MWD sig will make you easy to scan down.

I recorded the session if you would like me to upload it. Not really exciting though. [:Ugh]
You're not really suggesting that as a viable tactic I hope? Sitting around for 15 minutes watching damage notifications while that solo drone slowly chews through a cruiser sounds like all kinds of fun. Cry

Better hope there are no elite cruisers in those sites.

Seriously, trying to take down anything other than a drone with a cov ops' anemic DPS would be a painful experience.

Yes, it is boring waiting for the cruiser to die. Not the most efficient tactic, but it is doable if you don't want to give the site up. Just me being stubborn I guess.

NPC's are being removed from k-space relic/hack sites, so it's a moot point.


Indeed, with no NPC spawns this problem has been solved. But thanks anyway for the tips :)
Johan Toralen
IIIJIIIITIIII
#443 - 2013-05-27 12:46:07 UTC
CCP Soundwave wrote:
I'm finding it a bit too easy atm across all tiers! The one I had the most difficulty with was tier 3 actually.


How can literaly unsolvable minigames (which seems to happen now in about 50% of cases) be too easy? Or are you talking about something else? It's not really clear from your post.
CCP Soundwave
C C P
C C P Alliance
#444 - 2013-05-27 14:20:48 UTC
Johan Toralen wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
I'm finding it a bit too easy atm across all tiers! The one I had the most difficulty with was tier 3 actually.


How can literaly unsolvable minigames (which seems to happen now in about 50% of cases) be too easy? Or are you talking about something else? It's not really clear from your post.


My failure rate across all tiers is less than 30%, with the highest being tier 3.
Lady Manus
Lumen et Umbra
#445 - 2013-05-27 14:39:40 UTC
CCP why u don't try this:

Successfull hacking: one 1- max 2 containers PER PERSON IN FLEET ON GRID slowly moving outwards, reasonable time to grab then and good loot table

Unsuccessull hack: 4-5 containers overall fast moving with only one containing good loot

IN this way bringing more ppl is ok and less clinging furiosuly

My 2 cents, LM
sebnaje
Corsaires d'Elalan
#446 - 2013-05-27 15:05:47 UTC
1. Like it but didn't hack enough sites to appreciate loot table
2. Like the mini game but it´s too much dependant of skills and hazard
3. Loot mechanic ...I don't like it at all. Very frustrating to be punished even if you succed the game at first attempt...
Karsa Egivand
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#447 - 2013-05-27 15:20:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Karsa Egivand
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Jalequin wrote:
I propose that we always know where the core is located. This mini-game is just random clicks and hope that you don't click the wrong way into suppressors. If we know from the start where the core is then we can work to get to it while strategically avoiding the bad clicks.

We should find some way of negating the random clicking.


Agreed there, just to reiterate something I posted a few pages back our intention is to keep working on improving hacking both as an experience in it's own right and where you can do it in EVE. One of the main problems is that the limited amount of Utilities and your inability to equip any up front means you are eternally at the mercy of the contents of the system you are hacking. Our original plan was to let you equip Utilities prior to a hacking attempt and have them retrievable and tradable but that got pushed back to a later iteration in favor of having a stable minimum implementation we can build on. This is the first thing we'll be implementing once Odyssey is out on TQ.

Second to the above is increasing the scope of Utilities that are available to include those that give hackers the ability to glean some information but not perfect information about what the makeup of the system is. Plus adding in some more interesting Defense Subsystems so that we can do things like altering the contents of systems depending on their theme so you will have some idea in advance what kind of Defense you might come up against.

Third would be providing larger areas for more complex systems and more variety, not necessarily for hacking in sites but to better support hacking elsewhere. The game system itself is completely independent of the object you are hacking so could literally be applied to anything in EVE if a team as interested in implementing it there.

P.S. Whoever coined the term Treasure Hunting to describe the Exploration content is a genius because that is an exact description of what the content actually is.


Please do work on it. Don't fall back into old CCP habits and throw in a half-finished system and then leave it there for years. I'll give you credit for doing it better the last few cycles, so keep on doing that. Only leave the system behind when it is in a truly good state.
Johan Toralen
IIIJIIIITIIII
#448 - 2013-05-27 15:31:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Johan Toralen
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Johan Toralen wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
I'm finding it a bit too easy atm across all tiers! The one I had the most difficulty with was tier 3 actually.


How can literaly unsolvable minigames (which seems to happen now in about 50% of cases) be too easy? Or are you talking about something else? It's not really clear from your post.


My failure rate across all tiers is less than 30%, with the highest being tier 3.


If the answer to the game being "too easy" is to make it so hard that it's literaly impossible to solve in certain percentage of cases that's a bad approach imo. Say we are supposed to lose 50% of containers, then 50% of cans. Even if we win by what you devs consider adequate it always feels like losing and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. That's a pretty big design flaw in my opinion.

I'm aware it's a tough challenge to balance the sites to make them hard but still feel fair and like accomplishing something. The answer to that can only be to make the minigame less random and more strategic. Must be possible to still hack a tough minigame by using the wits. The trade off is that you spent more time in the site as a sitting duck while figuring it out instead of just quickly clicking through the minigame because all the nodes are completely random anyway and doing it quickly makes no difference anyway.

Not sure what else can be done to make the sites more challenging without adding rats. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground between the sites being no challenge/easy farmable and unfairly hard/frustrating right now.

That said i don't think the sites really have to be super hard/challenging as a design goal. It's just one way to do PvE for income. Mining is easy, mission running is easy, 4/10 in hisec is easy, plexing+mission running in FW is easy mechanic wise. So why does the exploration mechanic have to be different. It's a challenge in itself to do it in hostile space without getting popped and get the loot back safely. The risk/reward could be balanced by giving players incentives to do the low and null sites in more expensive ships via bonuses. And perhaps some deadspace analyzers, being able to fit two t2 rigs on certain ships etc. Have players spent more isk beforehand to gain an edge on the sites.
Nose Todos
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#449 - 2013-05-27 15:57:02 UTC
maybe I am too stupid but those 'Decayed 'pirate faction' Mass Graves' are IMPOSSIBLE to get to the containers. I am always bouncing off at 8km and there is no way I can get closer.
should there be a trick please let me know otherwise please fix! :D Question
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#450 - 2013-05-27 16:22:31 UTC
Johan Toralen wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Johan Toralen wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
I'm finding it a bit too easy atm across all tiers! The one I had the most difficulty with was tier 3 actually.


How can literaly unsolvable minigames (which seems to happen now in about 50% of cases) be too easy? Or are you talking about something else? It's not really clear from your post.


My failure rate across all tiers is less than 30%, with the highest being tier 3.


*wall of text*


I agree! Soundwave, as far as I know there are no combat sites which just CAN'T be done even if you are fighting them with a hundred people in carriers. But designing a minigame which CAN NOT be solved every THIRD time you play it, is like programming FRUSTRATION on purpose. You don't design a 3% Chance of having your Capital Ship destroyed when you activate your jump drives, do you?

Johan Toralen is totally right, make the game hard, make it strategic, but make it solvable!
Compare it with a SUDOKU-Game. There are a lot of them, easy, medium, and hard ones. But here should be no Sudoku-Game which can't be solved. That would be really bad design.

I understand that you need some kind of randomness, so people won't have a guide for every minigame-possibility. But failing on purpose even with maxed out skills and the best ship is bad. I hope you will do better CCP! Blink
CCP Bayesian
#451 - 2013-05-27 16:26:15 UTC
You guys seem confused. Even if a game is completable it doesn't mean Soundwave will always complete it so there will be a base failure rate. Looking at things statistically there will be an average rate of failure, otherwise by definition everyone will have succeeded.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#452 - 2013-05-27 16:29:30 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
You guys seem confused. Even if a game is completable it doesn't mean Soundwave will always complete it so there will be a base failure rate. Looking at things statistically there will be an average rate of failure, otherwise by definition everyone will have succeeded.


What I want to know is: Are there possible minigame-scenarios because of the randomness which simply can not be solved with max skills and the best available ship and fitting? Like an labyrinth, where you want to get to the middle, but there is NO way to get there?
If no, we have misunderstood Soundwave.
Abrazzar
Vardaugas Family
#453 - 2013-05-27 16:44:27 UTC
Just posting to say (again) that hacking should be the group effort focused on and rewarded by and not the garbage collecting.

Sovereignty and Population

New Mining Mechanics
Manssell
OmiHyperMultiNationalDrunksConglomerate
#454 - 2013-05-27 16:51:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Manssell
O.K. tried it again. I'm getting about a 50% failure rate on the mini game in low sec now, I will try more latter tonight. All lvl 4 skills and a covert ops ship so no bonuses or rigs of the t1 ship (I'm trying to simulate how I actually do exploration). I think the most frustrating thing is the 50% I fail, there seems to be no way I could have won even mathematically. It just feels like I'm at war with some random number generator.

Add to this the fact that once I do "win" the min game rather than watching the loot blow up, I get to deal with he frustration of loot pinata (still bumping to structures!), so winning is just slightly less frustrating than loosing.

Also even though I've only played it a handful of times the mini game is already getting old. Also a rat spawned I thought they had been removed but not in this build perhaps?
damAErt
Beltalowda Inc
#455 - 2013-05-27 17:03:37 UTC  |  Edited by: damAErt
Hello there and dear CCP guys,

About the container spewing:
I´ve read through most of this thread and i it seems like the feedback on this topic is 98% negative and 2% neutral.
I think it can be sumed up as following:

The container spewing feels like a punishment.

So please dear devs, make it a punishment.
Right now, every explorer gets punished twice for his affords, once by spending time on the minigame and twice by the spew.
Not that the minigame is that bad and im really looking forward for it to be improved, but either the minigame or the spew would be enough for an explorer to handle. Please remember that exploration is a profession, players like to do it more than once or twice.

On a successful hack, the container should open as it used to do.
This would give you devs the freedom to make the minigame harder/more complex, as there is the ultimate goal for the player to avoid the container spewing. On a failed attempt, the container gets locked for 1-2 minutes before i can try another hacking, or i brute force it (see below).

I really appreciate your attempts on making exploration coop-able, but degrading my buddies to loot-clickers seems not the right way.
I would really love to have a "brute force button" on the interface that cracks the container, no matter what and than the loot gets spewed into space and NPCs are alerted by our forceful attempt. My buddies and me than try to catch the goodies while killing the off the rats.
To me this sounds like a rewarding possibility to satisfy both soloers and coop-players, by giving us decision to make and thats what the sandbox is all about!
CCP Bayesian
#456 - 2013-05-27 17:04:50 UTC
Manssell wrote:
O.K. tried it again. I'm getting about a 50% failure rate on the mini game in low sec now, I will try more latter tonight. All lvl 4 skills and a covert ops ship so no bonuses or rigs of the t1 ship (I'm trying to simulate how I actually do exploration). I think the most frustrating thing is the 50% I fail, there seems to be no way I could have won even mathematically. It just feels like I'm at war with some random number generator.

Add to this the fact that once I do "win" the min game rather than watching the loot blow up, I get to deal with he frustration of loot pinata (still bumping to structures!), so winning is just slightly less frustrating than loosing.

Also even though I've only played it a handful of times the mini game is already getting old. Also a rat spawned I thought they had been removed but not in this build perhaps?


Manssell, what are the starting stats of your module?

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Johan Toralen
IIIJIIIITIIII
#457 - 2013-05-27 17:12:57 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
You guys seem confused. Even if a game is completable it doesn't mean Soundwave will always complete it so there will be a base failure rate. Looking at things statistically there will be an average rate of failure, otherwise by definition everyone will have succeeded.


I'm not confused. The game right now is completely random. Click on the wrong nodes (which you can't avoid as its random) and you're screwed. You can't rebound when you've opened a bunch of antiviruses and the only way to continue with the game in hope to find some tools to destroy the antivirus is blocked by a firewall. This is now a standard scenario as these things spawn in large numbers and on every possible node.

So to make this less random and to be able to consider it an actual game there need to be a ruleset on which kind of nodes antivirus, firewalls, tools and the core can be expected. For instance firewalls could be expected on the connecting node between two "blobs" of nodes, antivirus on surrounded nodes, tools on inward and outward pointing corner nodes, the core somewhere on the far side from the starting point, perhaps on a surrounded node aswell so you risk opening a antivirus. The element of strategy comes into play due to the randomly created play grid. You have to take a good look at it, plan your way to collect tools, avoid sourrounded nodes, find the way with the least probable number off firewalls to the other side of the grid.

With such ruleset there will still probably some scenarios where the minigame isn't technicaly solvable due to the randomly created grid and other factors like your skills and tools used but at least you can use your brain cells to improve your success rate statistic. Which then in turn gives the player a sense of success and accomplishment.
CCP Bayesian
#458 - 2013-05-27 17:19:52 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Bayesian
Johan Toralen, these sorts of rules exist. None of the network topology generation, the layout or the percentage chance of finding different types of node is completely random.

The problem at the moment is that hackers start each attempt from scratch, you can't bring Utilities in with you and there are no utility elements that give you a peak at what might be where on the board. This limits the strategies that can be developed quite severely.

We've got plenty of statistics logging in place and we intend to bring out the next iteration reasonably quickly.

EVE Software Engineer Team Space Glitter
Johan Toralen
IIIJIIIITIIII
#459 - 2013-05-27 17:22:06 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Johan Toralen, these sorts of rules exist. None of the network topology generation, the layout or the percentage chance of finding different types of node is completely random.


Then better double check your code. It felt so last week, which was good. But yesterday the firewalls and antivirus were completely all over the place on the sites that i ran.
Manssell
OmiHyperMultiNationalDrunksConglomerate
#460 - 2013-05-27 17:24:35 UTC
CCP Bayesian wrote:
Manssell wrote:
O.K. tried it again. I'm getting about a 50% failure rate on the mini game in low sec now, I will try more latter tonight. All lvl 4 skills and a covert ops ship so no bonuses or rigs of the t1 ship (I'm trying to simulate how I actually do exploration). I think the most frustrating thing is the 50% I fail, there seems to be no way I could have won even mathematically. It just feels like I'm at war with some random number generator.

Add to this the fact that once I do "win" the min game rather than watching the loot blow up, I get to deal with he frustration of loot pinata (still bumping to structures!), so winning is just slightly less frustrating than loosing.

Also even though I've only played it a handful of times the mini game is already getting old. Also a rat spawned I thought they had been removed but not in this build perhaps?


Manssell, what are the starting stats of your module?



Lets see, Virus coherence 80, virus strength 20 access difficulty bonus 15. This was with the relic analyzer (which is what I used for my testing this morning). My Data analyzer is VC 90, VS 20, AD bonus 20. And now after looking into this it seems that my Archeology skill is at a 3 not 4.