Warfare & Tactics

Simyaldee, check my character age, I joined FW at a few weeks old, I'm still relatively low skilled, especially for the kind of ships to do missions with (I only just trained SB and can't use the covert ops cloak yet). I haven't built up standings for L4 missions yet either, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Even in themepark MMO's you don't expect to be doing the highest level content right away, so why do you expect it to be possible in EvE?

But keep posting, your tears are going really nicely with the plex farmer tears that have been so abundant since Kronos went live.

This is kind of the crux of it IMO.

You claim the first is the purpose of the missions, some of us claim the second. I haven't seen anything one way or the other that would definitively push things one way or the other.

I feel that L4 missions are intended as PvE for FW players. Thus I feel the ship and SP investment should be roughly comparable to regular L4 kill missions, taking into account the increased risk for operating in the warzone. I therefore want L4 mission difficulty increased to somewhere between Amarr and Gallente level currently.

Your position for everyone in bombers is reasonable given your take that FW missions = bring solo to the warzone. We just don't agree that you're right about the purpose of L4 missions.

And yes, L4 missions are relatively high end content. Just not to bittervets like us.

I'm all for discussing the lowsec ecosystem. Just better to bring our assumptions / goals out into the light instead of saying "nuh uh!" back and forth - so props to you.

First, I feel there's already plenty to incentivize lots of small soloable ships in low sec. FW plexes are still primarily run in frigates / AFs / destroyers solo, and the new Mordus rats has teams of guys in small fast ships out roaming around looking for them. The rebalance of the pirate faction ships - frigates and cruisers especially - has also led to a resurgence in solo / small gang use in lowsec.

At least, those are my anecdotal experiences.

To me, FW missions are designed to provide a purer PvE experience for FW pilots, in contrast to FW plexes - which IMO are designed more to incentivize PvP. If FW missions are designed to be FW PvE content to supplement the LP income from plexing, especially when at higher tiers where fewer systems are available to plex in, then IMNSHO they should be designed to follow the same progression (roughly) as regular L4 combat missions. That would mean requiring significant tank / DPS to complete - though given the higher exposure to PvP in lowsec, I fully agree that they should remain more assassination style.

Wouldn't they have fixed that in the 6+ years FW has been in existence then? I think you are reading too much into the game designers' intentions.

They just made the same missions for every race, counted up the dps of the rats to make it hard for a small ship to tank all that dps directly, and then filled the missions with race specific rats. The unintended consequence of their implementation is that ships can hit at range and can therefore easily tank the short range dps of the Amarr/Gallente rats, and td's (Amarr Rats) don't affect missile boats whereas ecm affects everybody.

This is incorrect as well. Missions were supposed to be another potential pvp type of experience where the player had to make multiple (at risk) jumps through low sec, warp to a beacon that is there for all to see, and then complete the objective.

The initial issue with missions was that if you failed one your standings would go all to heck - so nobody did them. Then they over buffed missions with the "pick your mission system" update where you could turn down as many missions as possible. Guys would ask for missions until they all ended up in Nennamaila (for example) where the Gallente Militia lived.

Then they nerfed that feature a bit to where we are today.

Unintended Consequences:
Cloaky ships: "afk cloak" makes it really easy for the mission runner to complete missions against all but the most determined opponent.

Picking up Several Missions at One Time: The original intent was that the player would pick up a mission, go run it, and then return to mission base to turn the mission in. By picking up several missions at once, it makes it really easy for the mission runner to simply move on to the next one if the current mission is camped.

Because of those two unintended consequences, Missions feel like "pure PvE" instead of the PvP/PvE mix they we

This is all my guess at what their intentions were - which is a much more informed guess than others in this thread. So take it for what it's worth.

The assumptions are that if they didn't want to make missions PvPish, 1) they wouldn't force the player to make 10+ (on average) jumps to get to the missions and 2) they wouldn't show the mission on a beacon in local for all to see.

wrt Stealth Bombers - Read into it what you want. I just told you how (I think) they designed the missions. The L4 missions were NOT designed with stealth bombers or other frigs in mind. They also designed the missions as "head shots" compared to regular L4 missions. More time travelling, less time in mission.

Yes the missions pop up on the overview and that does indeed indicate they want some pvp element. But that is not the question. I don't think they ever indicated they want them to be *more* pvp than they currently are. I think DJ FunkyBacon is right to call this pve and to ask the pve design team for some changes.

Like you said they are designed to be head shot quick missions so you can get in and out and avoid getting caught by other players. You don't sit there all day farming rats and therefore need to have a blob to seal off the system.

I have no reason to think missions are not currently working as intended. The fact that they have changed them several times and had a major revamp of faction war yet did not make them more difficult to do in stealth bombers strongly suggests I am right. If I recall, Hans didn't like that you could do them in stealth bombers so I assume he brought it up.


Anyway I happen to think the missions for the minmatar faction are fairly well designed, except the ones where you need to return with something. Those missiosn are just a waste. Like all pve in eve if i do too much of it I will eventually want to claw my eyes out, but they were fun for a bit.

And I although I haven't done missions for amarr in a very long time you could not do them solo in a stealthbomber. The target painters and missiles were too much. I did them in a drake.

edit:


Actually your comment tends to prove the opposite of what you hope.

CCP saw people using cloaks and stabs over the last year or 2 and took action to change it. CCP saw people running missions in stealth bombers for at least 4 years and never bothered to change it even though during that time they did a major revamp to faction war.


This tends to suggest that missions are working as intended as far as they are concerned.

I think getting decent skills to fly a stealth bomber to run fw missions is not really easier than the skills to run level 4s in high sec. You had to train the fairly useless electronic upgrades skill to levle 5, as well as the frigate skill to level five.
Torpedoes are a large weapon. And SBs aren't exactly easy to fit either.

I don't think getting into a navy raven to run level 4s in high sec takes much longer. I think I was running level 4 missions in about a month after I started eve. Back then I did the whole "learning skills" bit too.

It seems to me that to run faction war missions in a stealth bomber you have to train longer than you do to start running level 4 missions in high sec.

It's true then. CCP hates Gallente! Thanks for the verification.

And, as I pointed out earlier, it's not just training time - it's ship investment as well. Using 90-100m ganknados is more of an investment, and you're at a higher risk of loss, than bombers or AFs.

Using 250m Ravens to run L4s in Empire space for 50m/hour is a whole different prospect than using 40m SBs to make 600m/hour with similar risk of loss.