Player Features and Ideas Discussion

interesting concept but you have to take REALLY good care to keep people from abusing it. i'm thinking 100 smartbombing battleships oneshotting whole waves no matter how many spawns, and other similar exploits...

But this is what I like about it. As I imagine it the difficulty rises more or less exponentially. Take example of what Wolf Kraft wrote: each wave is double numbers of the previous one. Which means no matter how many ships do you bring with you, you *will* be beaten at certain moment (or EVE server implodes, but let's put hardware considerations aside). Roughly estimating, in that scenario for each tenfold ships more you are able to survive three more waves. Isn't it beautiful?

As for abuse, farmville, etc. again, the way exponential functions behave means that if the payout is directly proportional to difficulty you make most of your profit on latest waves, those which almost kill you. Though here I'd invoke law of diminishing returns and scale the payout linearly (quadratically, to be more precise).

An example (not proposition of actual balance, just an illustration of the principle).
- each wave is twice as numerous and dangerous as the previous
- each wave pays 1 million more than earlier; here I assume the payout is split like in missions, not paid individually like in incursions
- starting conditions are such that 4th wave is still doable solo by regular T2 fitted T1 battleship with good skills, next wave can be maybe done but takes long time (or requires warping out, if it's applicable)
- with perfect skills, pimped marauder or pirate battleship takes solo one wave more

Some consequences:
- typical solo mission runner will go to 4th or 5th wave and GTFO
- mission runner can go with friend and go to one wave more
- blitzers, if they ever go here, will finish earlier, at 3 or 4 because that will be the last one done in reasonable comfort
- ditto farmers
- because payout is split, you get less when you do it in fleet, but you go farther (bragging)

Generally, the way to avoid abuse is by careful reward vs. risk balancing. Which is when problems begin, IMO. Difficulty is multidimensional and it would be hell of a job getting it right. Though I have firm belief in exponential functions. In worst case even if just doubling number of ships in each wave does not make it exactly twice as difficult, it definitely won't make it any easier.

As for smartbombs, last time I checked they take cap. Quite lots of. And have quite limited range. Nobody said all waves start clustered on top of your head. Add some neuting to the mix and you're in trouble. Add some scramming stuff and you're screwed.

@Nick, BTW, unless I missed something there's one thing which haven't been considered so far, wave triggers. Obvious three are:
- killing or attacking a trigger ship: could be a bit too nasty. Maybe save it for later iterations.
- killing whole wave: I'd start with this one. Self-pacing and gives some breathing room. Maybe it turns out it gives it too much but again, this can be tweaked.
- timed: this is interesting, in some twisted way. You not only have to deal with the wave, but you have to do it quick enough not to get overwhelmed. Probably it would mean than in typical conditions typically one wave less would be completed, as compared to other options.

Some thoughts, would the waves come after a certain time period of after the last rat of the current wave was destroyed?
If the next wave comes after the last rat of the current wave is destroyed should there be a "cleanup" time?

+1 This is a great idea!

The only problem I envisage is that it might still be possible, using extraordinarily elite gear and implants to turn MASSIVE profits with ease because the system assumes that most people "by this point" are dead or warped (the percentage improvements over t2 possible with boosters, links, high-grades and officer mods are huge after all)

What do you think?

Yes, I do. By no means I'm saying that what had been proposed in this thread is 100% bulletproof. But the exploint you mentioned is relating to implementation details. Yeah, those where devil is hidden but still details and at this very moment we're discussing only rough idea.

Yet not leaving an opportunity to fuel discussion unchallenged I'd like to observe that in order to exploit smartbombing tactics you have to be close to those guys. Which means couple of things:

1. You have to be where they spawn. Counter: different spawn points; spawns can be spread.
2. Or you have to reach them very fast. Counter: same as above; add some stasis towers for good measure.
3. Your fleet have to stay together. If you can instabomb an NPC battleship, there's chance the same can happen to your ship too. Unless there is something I don't know about smartbombs, it should naturally limit your fleet size.

No, there is no reason not to do it. I thought about integrating it with regular missions (bonus room) but incursions are as good.

If you made these a modular type of 'dungeon' you could have different waves trigger in different ways which would increase the the difficulty through lack of knowledge of the next spawn and/or trigger.

I like what I'm seeing here as an idea. A horde mode/survival mode mission.

For those who consider this to be a potential loot/bounty farm, I have some ideas that would make it much more difficult to park and win:

- The site is present for a certain time (maybe a pirate mining/salvage/invasion fleet?) at the end of the time, all NPCs and wrecks on the grid disappear
- The difficulty rapidly increases as ships are destroyed, starting with average belt rats for the system ramping up to high level WH NPCs.
- NPCs coordinate to take out threatening targets, responding with what's present. Have a spider tank? lots of neuts and jams show up. Sitting at long range? Stealth Bombers unload on you. Parking with disco ships? Snipers warp at long range and blow you away.
- NPCs bring in ships that directly counter player ships. Got a fleet of frigates? NPCs use destroyers. Bring in a supercarrier? NPCs use HICs and dreads.

My thoughts behind this are not that capsuleers can win, merely disrupt the event. The more you disrupt, the harder it is to stay in the site. Unlike level 4 missions or incursions where players are (usually) confident that given enough time, they'll complete the mission, players should have the same mindset that if they don't get out now, they won't get out at all, even in the lowest rank spawn in the safest 1.0 highsec system.


There was a recent bug with AI in the missions where everything would aggro immediately on landing on a grid. Half of the corp joined in to take out the first room as the 40 some battleships ate through almost everything in seconds. We only completed it because there were no new spawns. That was easily the most fun I had doing a mission in a really long time. Building it into the game would be awesome.

this is a very risky concept. how can you judge if the players are slow because they have bad gear, are holding back on purpose or are just plain incompetent?
it may be better to counter bling with random damage spikes. that way, a smart playerwill never fly anything too expensive and take random losses in stride. still not a very good idea but less exploitable to be sure.

can you put that in numbers? i have trouble understanding what exactly you mean here.