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PVE - Agents and Missions
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Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#1 - 2017-03-23 18:44:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Danger Russ
PVE

PVE in EVE doesnt fit in with the game, this is not a game where you are the hero, yet you can kill endless NPCs with ease. Its a player driven sandbox yet, what you do in PVE has little effect on others.

PVE doesnt fit in from a Lore point of view either. Why do NPC pirates keep attacking the same Lvl 4 mission hubs over and over. Why can my corp rent an office in a station but other npc agent corps cant

My idea

1. Agents should move around based on player interaction.
Eg, If lots of players are doing mining missions (lvl 1/2) then that agent is making lots of profit and would attract more/better agents (lvl 3/4). This will create the need to transport ore/minerals and the need for a transport agent. If the mining and hauling agents are both doing well then better agents would be sent to the area. With the NPC corps having more activity in the area NPC pirates would have something to attack and then bring in security agents.

For balance if lots of players are defeating the pirates they will stop attacking, lowering the lvl of security agents needed. If players dont drive away the pirates the mining agents will move away as they are being attacked too often. this creates a loophole balance cap and stops just having 1 area with all the top agents.

For the top end security agents they would move around to quiet areas of space where large groups of pirates are more likely to be attacking. Clearing out the pirates will lower the quality of the agents but will then make space safer allowing mining agents to move into the area.

This would create mission hubs where lots of agents of all types are located but would be mostly lower lvl average agents, caused by the loophole balance cap. Mission hubs could grow and die based on the players. Gives a good reason for PVE players to work together more.

If agents could rent offices in stations other than their own corp this would fit in with the new structures and we could have agent missions in citadels. Then the number of NPC stations can be reduced and more focus be put on the new Structures

***Expanded***
This would then mean having a much wider range of agents in EvE, with agents being able to rent offices from other corps and structures lots more new agents would be needed. so popular mission hubs would contain many more agents than they do currently. this would expand the range of gameplay more as players would still be able to run mission as they do now, moving from 1 agent to the next as they gain access to better agents and finding a place to call home and setting up base in a good mission hub. but would also allow players to setup where they want and work to bring agents to their area of space, and for players wanting to run missions for the top agents and best payout they would have to travel around and follow those agents (much like incursions)
****

2. Combat PVE
Remove the hero aspect, no more 1 v all. Burners were good but the complete opposite extreme.
Bring PVE closer to the rest of EVE and PVP combat, and remove the big difference. Make PVE more diverse.

No more missions with 20-30 NPCs, make NPCs stronger, fighting more than 3-5 ships solo shouldnt be easy in EVE. With fewer NPCs on the field EWAR and other combat tactics would be more possible.

**Expanded**
PVE should be randomly generated so new and fresh content can be easily added, below is just a small example based on making PVE fit in with the feel the rest of the game has, EVE is a harsh game, you are not the hero, you cant kill everyone. But the number of NPCs in missions ruins this. also this change is a big step away from how missions are run now and many other things would be changed to make this work. having fewer NPCs on field will allow for better piloting techniques more likely to be helpful in PVP, bringing in different roles for NPCs means target calling tactics will be possible for different styles of play.

If you have DPS, Logi, Tackle, Ewar NPCs you have a choice. Take out the Tackle who is making you take more damage, take out the Ewar lowering your doing damage, take out the Logi lowering your damage, or blitz the mission by tanking through it all and killing the boss. If balanced right this shouldnt make missions any harder than they are now. I have not included any major balancing plans as that is too long and not for me to decide
******

Security missions could be a concord approved kill right on an NPC pirate arranged buy the NPC corp. Concord knows our location when we do wrong so would be able to provide you a warp in location.

EG
--The NPC pirate has a small random support fleet of 1-3 ships either logi/tackle/ewar/dps
--Lvl 1 - frig/destroyer boss, 1-2 frig
--Lvl 2 - destroyer/cruiser boss, 1-3 frig/destroyer
--Lvl 3 - cruiser/BC boss, 1-3 frig/destroyer/cruiser
--Lvl 4 - BC/BS boss, 1-2 frig/destroyer, 1-2 cruiser/BC
--Killing each support ship will cause another random escalation of another 0-2 ships

NPC "boss" should try to warp away if his support fleet is destroyed or is taking too much damage. Meaning you would have to contact concord for his new location if you cant point him. His support fleet would stay on field while he is alive as they are there to protect him.

This would give an infinate variety of missions and you would never do the same mission twice.
Difficulty will range from easy to impossible solo, bringing in alot more risk and the need to work with others. A wider range of tactics would be needed in target choice and more options would be available.

there is alot of balancing to make this work but i think this would bring PVE more into the feel of the rest of the game

****
Thanks for the responses will try to keep updating with any feedback, though more constructive feedback would be appreciated
***
Cade Windstalker
#2 - 2017-03-23 19:41:25 UTC
Just no.

First and foremost, lore exists to support and serve the gameplay, not the other way around. Lore can always be modified to support something that is good gameplay, bad gameplay cannot be justified by lore and this would *absolutely* be bad gameplay.

You're basically asking that the entire PvE system be upended because it doesn't fit your vision of the lore.

As to the idea itself:

Agents moving or changing has *huge* problems just as a basic concept.

First off, as a new player you can do at best Level 1 or maybe Level 2 agents. So if all the agents end up as Level 3 or 4 then you can't actually do missions anymore, so that's a problem. Even if you remove the standings requirements someone who can do Level 1 or 2 missions maybe can't actually do Level 3, so if their agent gets upgraded they have to move.

Moving is boring. It's not fun, or engaging, or anything like that. Unless you're stupid it's not even particularly risky, and the less risky you are the more time consuming and tedious it becomes.

So that's just a bad idea. It breaks existing game systems, would require massive changes to work, and creates bad gameplay conditions.

As for part 2, that just flat out doesn't work.

The only reason the Burners work as a concept is because they fit within very specific parameters and they require *very* high skills and specific ship fits to fight effectively. There's also a reason you can easily skip them without penalty, most players can't actually do them.

If you were to make all normal missions equivalent to those or anywhere close then low-skill players wouldn't actually be able to do them.

If you make it possible for a low-skill player to do the missions then you end up with a mission that higher skill players with blingy ships just coast through easily.

If you try to tune things based on skills and fittings then players will find the ideal middle ground and now there's no reason to upgrade your ship or risk more, since the NPCs just get stronger and it's better to stay at the plateau point.

Oh and fewer ships dealing more DPS is *way* harder to deal with, because a big thing in PvE is removing DPS before it breaks your tank. Most of the high end mission ships don't tank the full site, they fit enough tank to survive until their guns reduce the DPS down to a level they can deal with indefinitely. Putting that DPS into fewer ships makes it harder for newer players because they can already tank less and on top of that their DPS is lower, so it'll take them longer to get that first ship's worth of DPS off the field.

Oh and lastly, the big difference between PvP and PvE is that PvE *needs* to be consistently winnable, because PvE exists to make the player money. If you can't consistently win then you can't make money doing it and there's no point, especially for something as core to PvE as missions.

The Burners actually can't be consistently beaten by a lot of players, that's why they're entirely optional.

As for that dynamic mission idea, that would basically be impossible to balance the way you have it set up. There's too much variation between player skills, fittings, ect and you've included way too much randomness. There's reason there's a limited number of spawn configurations in the dynamic PvE content that does exist in the game, it's because too much variation means the difficulty swings too much and the mission becomes impossible for most players.

So yeah, when you say "a lot of balancing" you're basically talking about rewriting Eve PvE from the ground up, and several of your base conditions are *still* actively fighting against an actually functional PvE system.
Bjorn Tyrson
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2017-03-23 20:58:22 UTC
I'm of two minds on this, Cade makes a lot of really good points, but at the same time I do like the idea of "dynamic" mission hubs. yes moving things around can be boring, but getting out and exploring new areas of space can also be exciting. I spent way too much time sitting in a single system (ossoggur) mining till my eyes bled, breaking up the monotony can be a good thing as well.

sometimes taking a days break from doing one activity to do ANYTHING else, even if its a boring something, can make the game as a whole more rewarding. I do think the game needs to be more dynamic, and incentivise people to move around more rather than just stick to the same one or two systems till the end of time.

Incursions fill that role nicely, although they are higher end content. so maybe something thats a mix of the two.

Have mobile DED agents (can be agents in space) or thukker or hell, to make things interesting, pirate agents, that will show up in a particular constellation for say a week offering missions, they would range from lvl 1-5 (are lvl 5 agents still a thing?)
and be slightly more difficult than the regular versions, but have appropriately boosted payouts. +lp

after a week they would despawn and show up somewhere else a few days later. could have them spread throughout high-low-null just like incursions are. I would especially like to see the pirate agents added as a feature that only spawns in low-null, would mix things up a little bit and give players a chance to actually gain some lp without needing to go all the way out to null (and hey extra low content is good and needed)
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#4 - 2017-03-23 23:05:55 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Just no.




No im not asking to change PVE because it doesnt fit my version of lore. Im suggest some well needed changes to the PVE system we have now and used a few lore examples of why it doesnt fit now. It doesnt fit in with CCPs description of EVE whic is more important and the lore.

but to your concerns

All agents cant end up as lvl 3 or 4, agents dont level up they swap places, so there will always be lvl 1 & 2 agents.

Moving is your choice, if you want the best agents you should have some work for it, like with incursions, they move!!

There is nothing to say any of this would make you have to move out of your area

There would have to be lot of new agents added but this would also be to allow agent offices in structures

I used Burners as an example of how they have just gone to the opposite extreme with the same idea (making PVE fights more like PVP)

No all missions would stay the same difficulty as they are now, just different numbers. Some missions are currently harder than others with quite a wide range.

fewer ships is harder to balance but would have little effect on the player, its just larger/fewer increments, would still want the same damage over time as now, so the same tanking tactics would be used. but with the change to more specialized NPC (logi/ewar) its not just tank v damage, your piloting skills matter more.

PVE isnt all consistently winnable though, EVE is not meant to be consistently winnable either, you should loose ships now and then.

If missions had these random spawns and made things a bit unbalanced and made the odd mission too hard to complete solo. Just like how burner mission are distributed now. penalties for not completing a mission could be change to accommodate this. you can freely skip a burner mission, you can skip a mission without penalty ever 4 hours, how about being able to return to the agent and escalate the mission saying its too hard and is above your pay grade and allowing players to do that ever 4 hours or so.

The Randomness is only set within the range you set for it so with % chances for things to happen, much like missions are built now. recreating the same range of mission difficulty as now should not be that difficult, especially if you allow the fact that every so often a mission will be too hard.

Yes i would like PVE rewriting from the ground up, as has been hinted may happen at some point and started with Burner missions which are completely different from anything before.
Also player structures have just been completely rewritten, and SOV not so long ago so not sure why that is a problem. EVE is an old game and PVE has been long overdue a big update

but thanks for your input

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#5 - 2017-03-24 01:09:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
My concern with moving agents is that groups often set up their homes around mission agents. Me being one. Imagine the massive pita salvaging becomes when you have to haul your loot further and further to get it back to base. And before you tell me i have to be nomadic in order to run missions, i have something like 5bil in misc loot and salvage. Not including minerals. So no.

If you want mobile group pve there is already plenty on offer. you have incursions. And you can run anoms in low and null. You can day trip in wh's. I think we should get new agents centred around group pve and i think burners should be part of their mission pool.



Making pve more like pvp is a def yes from me though. Resist profiles are unintuitive, npc's are weak. Few npc's are specialised making them uninteresting. Their stats are based on how powerful ships were years ago and completely different to capsuleers ships today. Missions could (should) be procedurally generated which is apparently one of ccp's plans.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Cade Windstalker
#6 - 2017-03-24 01:55:51 UTC
Danger Russ wrote:
No im not asking to change PVE because it doesnt fit my version of lore. Im suggest some well needed changes to the PVE system we have now and used a few lore examples of why it doesnt fit now. It doesnt fit in with CCPs description of EVE whic is more important and the lore.


This still isn't a reason to substitute good (or at least better) gameplay for flat out bad gameplay.

There is nothing in your OP about agents swapping. You talk about agents upgrading and moving around, but nothing anywhere about swapping places.

And yes, you would be forcing people to move, because the ships that can do Level 4 missions are not the same ships that can do Level 1 and 2 missions. Not only are Battleships just not that great at swatting Frigates, but they physically can't even enter some of the sites.

On top of that you're talking about an exponential change in rewards here, not a small one. You're forcing people to move, no butts about it here. If you just wanted to incentivize moving you could have suggested some kind of small change akin to the change in rewards between a .5 and a .6 system that we already have. Level 1 through 4 missions basically change in rewards by almost an order of magnitude at every step.

The idea that you'll only move a few jumps literally runs counter to what you proposed there, with high mission activity in a constellation pushing rats out.

Oh, and on top of that agents in Upwell structures, not to mention agents moving at all, breaks the corp/station association, which is based on Old Code and probably a pain to change, so that's another point against this.

Danger Russ wrote:
No all missions would stay the same difficulty as they are now, just different numbers. Some missions are currently harder than others with quite a wide range.

fewer ships is harder to balance but would have little effect on the player, its just larger/fewer increments, would still want the same damage over time as now, so the same tanking tactics would be used. but with the change to more specialized NPC (logi/ewar) its not just tank v damage, your piloting skills matter more.


Both of these things are factually inaccurate.

The current swing in mission difficulty vs rewards is actually pretty small. Any Level 4 can be completed in a T1 Battleship with T2 fittings. There are a few where you might need to warp out and back in, or not kill everything (bonus pocket in AE for example) but everything can be done in a T1 Battleship. The only thing a better ship with better fittings gets you is faster times. The actual range of applied DPS between missions, especially ones where you *need* to kill everything, is pretty small with all of them having more or less the same sort of max on peak DPS.

It's also just flatly incorrect that fewer ships dealing more damage would have little effect on the player. If there's 10 battleships doing 100 DPS each, then I've got 1000 DPS to deal with, but every time I kill a Battleship it drops by 100. If you take that same DPS and EHP and pack it into two battleships then I need to do 400% more damage before any of that incoming DPS is removed, meaning as a new player I need to be able to tank the peak DPS of the site for longer before I can remove any of it.

On top of that it makes damage more 'spikey' which reduces the effectiveness of passive tanked shield fits since it makes the incoming DPS more likely to burst past peak recharge. These fits are a staple of low level mission running thanks to how cheap and easy to fly they are.

Danger Russ wrote:
PVE isnt all consistently winnable though, EVE is not meant to be consistently winnable either, you should loose ships now and then.


Consistently doesn't mean always. People have been losing ships to Level 4 missions since they first arrived in Eve. Consistently means that you're very very unlikely to lose a ship to one. It's why very few ships in missions Scram and actively keep you on grid.

Incursions are higher risk but higher reward, but you're not talking about adding something new here, you're talking about completely reworking the most basic PvE in the game.

You'll note that CCP has never added the new AI to mission rats, even though they could have, because it would hurt mission running.

Danger Russ wrote:
The Randomness is only set within the range you set for it so with % chances for things to happen, much like missions are built now. recreating the same range of mission difficulty as now should not be that difficult, especially if you allow the fact that every so often a mission will be too hard.

Yes i would like PVE rewriting from the ground up, as has been hinted may happen at some point and started with Burner missions which are completely different from anything before.
Also player structures have just been completely rewritten, and SOV not so long ago so not sure why that is a problem. EVE is an old game and PVE has been long overdue a big update


The sort of random mechanics you're talking about have too much swing to them. That's a bad use of randomness. You're essentially setting the maximum bar on the mission very very high, which is absolutely not what current missions do. As I said, any Level 4 mission in the game right now can be done in a T2 fit T1 Battleship without losing the ship.

Your expectations for a PvE rework are unrealistic. The basic PvE in the game will never be as challenging as PvP. I certainly hope they add in more options, but missions need to stay fairly easy because players need a basic and very consistent way to make money early on or solo. Whatever they do with PvE in the future it won't be this.
Max Deveron
Deveron Shipyards and Technology
Citizen's Star Republic
#7 - 2017-03-24 03:20:31 UTC
hmmm, it seems i have finally noticed Cade's specialty in EvE.

I can not do much but agree with him on many points.

But yes to change the missions, they would have to be completely re-done from the ground up. Each mission was coded seperately from each other and is an individual thing by itself per mission. Which one you get is determined by a database list assinged to an NPC corp, type of agent, then level and RNG.

There may be other factors, but my point is the PVE missioning as in missions themselves can not be changed without a complete re-write of a said mission.
It is easier most likely for CCP to introduce new missions than to change the current ones.

Maybe one day CCP will finally create a random mission generator fro their use only to give us better dynamic missions, but until then dont hold your breath.

As to agents moving around, holy crap i never finished learning how to determine agent type and so on from before the change to current occured. There were hundreds of them back then, changing locations will have no positive value.
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#8 - 2017-03-24 11:23:57 UTC
Max, yes missions would have to be redone from scratch but that is a good thing its OLD OLD code and a random mission generator would be much better as missions can be tweaked without much effort

Daichi, for mission runners making a home and using the agents you would not have to move. agent moving would be based on players so popular mission hubs would still be a thing.

Cade you make alot of good points about how not to implement this idea properly and im gonna change a few things in the op to make things more clear, some finer details on balancing have been left out due to me not wanting it to be too long.

Infact agents should do all these things, Move around to new places, Swap with other agents, up/downgrade levels.

You are currently forced to move when you move from one level agent to the next or if you want to run missions for a different corp

There would be alot more agents in EvE with this idea so these problems about moving players wouldnt exist

I dont know what exponential change in rewards would be here, mission pay outs would be changed to reflect the new missions

What is your problem with removing old code from the game, yes its a pain to change but CCP have said they want to update the code, all the new features recently are replacing the old code we new shiney code

No the swing in lvl 4 mission difficulty / time is massive some missions are a few ships and can be run in 5min other mission can take 30min. the swing in time v reward is small. with my example and its only an example of a way to run randomly generated missions which apparently CCP already wants to do anyway

Obviously when you use those numbers you can make it look bad. Obviously the numbers would be balanced to allow the same difficulty. so no need to have 400% more damage now your just being silly

Adding the new AI to mission rats IS already coming SOON™ when they can get it right

Shouldnt a random mechanic have a lot of swing, isnt that the point?

yes most missions can be done if you dont hit the wrong triggers, but everyone knows them now so its boring, and you lose all those missions that are actually meant to be difficult and risky

But 95% of these missions would fall in exactly with how missions are now except you wont already know what is going to happen
elitatwo
Zansha Expansion
#9 - 2017-03-24 12:56:22 UTC
Danger Russ wrote:
...Adding the new AI to mission rats IS already coming SOON™ when they can get it right...


They already have that AI.

And you are mistaken. Missions is for making isk. Level 4 missions used to be more difficult but they were nerfed when level 5 missions came along.
People used to run level 4's in small groups but you can do them by yourself now - even without a marauder.

Your proposal is bad for eve and if you don't like to do them, don't.

Eve Minions is recruiting.

This is the law of ship progression!

Aura sound-clips: Aura forever
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#10 - 2017-03-24 13:26:01 UTC
elitatwo wrote:
Danger Russ wrote:
...Adding the new AI to mission rats IS already coming SOON™ when they can get it right...


They already have that AI.

And you are mistaken. Missions is for making isk. Level 4 missions used to be more difficult but they were nerfed when level 5 missions came along.
People used to run level 4's in small groups but you can do them by yourself now - even without a marauder.

Your proposal is bad for eve and if you don't like to do them, don't.


Have they already been given the same AI as burners? is it just a very toned back version?

yes missions are for making isk and still would be? yes i remember running lvl4s in groups but dont know what tht has to do with it.

Why exactly is it bad for EvE? I did like missions when i started the game but ive done them all thousands of times.

As for making missions more varied and creating a mission generator which would help CCP manage missions much easier, i dont see why you have a problem with that. Reducing the number of NPCs you fight in a mission also cant see why that would be bad.
With the introduction of Burners and new AI things are already going in this direction, CCP have said they want to update all the old code and gameplay. They want more sand in the sandbox and want players to have more control over the game they play. This would put mission hubs in the control of players much like market hubs are. With the new structures we are moving to a more player controlled game and having agents move into the new structures would strengthen that.

Im not suggesting anything massively game breaking, just more agents controlled by player behavior and fewer NPCs in missions
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#11 - 2017-03-24 14:28:44 UTC
Let me be brief. No to all of this crap.

Agents moving is not going to force players to move around EvE they will simply find another agent in the area they are comfortable in. Yet there is noting about the current system that prevents other players from moving around when / if they choose so why force all players to move because you are to lazy to pack your stuff and move?

Agents moving up in difficulty is a really bad idea as well.
I can see how this one would gop.
Level 1 agents would quickly be driven up to level 2 by the newbs, alpha and trial account players, in the same time period most of the level 4 agents would be driven up to level 5. So we end up with a situation where there are no level 1 agents and no level 4 agents. The new players would not be able to jump immediately into the level 2's and even if they did it would quickly drive those agents up to level 3 where the vets desperate to have something to do to make ISK / LP would quickly drive those agents up to level 5. Long term we end up with a game that has nothing but level 5 agents located in low sec.

Just face the simple fact that PvE content in EvE is going to be boring and there is really nothing that can be done about it.
The general consensus about the frigate and cruiser burner missions and Incursions was finally something that will be a challenge for me, and now those activities are just as boring and repetitive as all of the missions we run.
Cade Windstalker
#12 - 2017-03-24 15:52:06 UTC
Max Deveron wrote:
hmmm, it seems i have finally noticed Cade's specialty in EvE.

I can not do much but agree with him on many points.


I haven't actually done a Level 4 mission in.... jeez, 2-3 years now, at least? I just spent a lot of my early days doing missions in a T1 BS, and teaching other newbies to do the same, and missions haven't changed much since then, nor has their role.

I think our views on what gameplay here should look like just happened to align. In a few of the other threads I was bringing a somewhat unpopular view to the party. As always I have my own viewpoint on changes in Eve, sometimes it's popular sometimes it's not, it's almost always at least a little newbie and overall design biased.

Danger Russ wrote:
Infact agents should do all these things, Move around to new places, Swap with other agents, up/downgrade levels.


You're basically assuming this, from what I can tell. You've provided little to no justification for why this is a good thing, you just take it as given and run with that assumption. Find some gameplay or 'fun' justification that isn't based on "I want this and think it would be cool and am assuming that a majority of people agree with me."

Danger Russ wrote:
You are currently forced to move when you move from one level agent to the next or if you want to run missions for a different corp

There would be alot more agents in EvE with this idea so these problems about moving players wouldnt exist

I dont know what exponential change in rewards would be here, mission pay outs would be changed to reflect the new missions


You are not, in any way, *forced* to move here. You are required to move if you choose to change where you mission but that is not the same thing as having every agent you can use move away from you, that is forced.

If there are so many agents that I will never have to move because every agent I can use or have ships for moves away from me then there's no point in having them move in the first place beyond 'lore' and see my previous answer for how I feel about Lore vs Gameplay. Even having one Level 4 agent replaced with another would have repercussions though, since each Agent has standings and you can get early access to Level 4s by running missions with another player who has access to that agent to get your standings up enough to run for that agent only. Then the corp standings follow.

If you're changing rewards then what you're proposing here is no longer "missions" you're changing every aspect of it in every meaningful way, and breaking tons of existing gameplay in the process. It really feels like you honestly have no idea what all this would impact and how much stuff it would break.

Danger Russ wrote:
What is your problem with removing old code from the game, yes its a pain to change but CCP have said they want to update the code, all the new features recently are replacing the old code we new shiney code

No the swing in lvl 4 mission difficulty / time is massive some missions are a few ships and can be run in 5min other mission can take 30min. the swing in time v reward is small. with my example and its only an example of a way to run randomly generated missions which apparently CCP already wants to do anyway

Obviously when you use those numbers you can make it look bad. Obviously the numbers would be balanced to allow the same difficulty. so no need to have 400% more damage now your just being silly


Then let me put this another way, the swing in what is *required* to complete a mission is small. As I said, a T1 Battleship with T2 fittings will get you through any Level 4 mission, no exceptions. Sure, more rewarding missions take more time but that's natural. The general DPS you deal with is still tankable by a T1 BS with T2 tank.

To clarify something, I have no problem with replacing old code. What I have an issue with here is the massive *functional* changes you're proposing. Code changes do not necessitate that core aspects of gameplay be changed, and in this case you're actually changing the accessibility of a feature, which is a *horrible* idea for something as basic and intrinsic, especially for new players, as Missions.

I didn't say anything about 400% more damage, I was giving a *basic* example of what happens when you consolidate HP and leave DPS the same, something you specifically said you wanted to do. This sort of difficulty increase applies no matter what, I was using those numbers to make the concept easy to illustrate.

Danger Russ wrote:
Adding the new AI to mission rats IS already coming SOON™ when they can get it right

Shouldnt a random mechanic have a lot of swing, isnt that the point?

yes most missions can be done if you dont hit the wrong triggers, but everyone knows them now so its boring, and you lose all those missions that are actually meant to be difficult and risky

But 95% of these missions would fall in exactly with how missions are now except you wont already know what is going to happen


No, random mechanics should not have lots of swing, and that is not the point. Go watch this video on randomness in games, it explains it better and quicker than I can in text on a forum.

CCP has never indicated that they have any sort of immediate plans to add the new AI to missions. The only thing we've ever heard, at least that I've seen, is notes that 'no we're not changing your missions, your drones will be fine' or something similar.

Any PvE that serves the purpose of PvE, which is to be a consistent source of income, will become boring with repetition. Even Incursions, which have serious risk of losing your ship to yours or another pilot's error, and random spawns, are boring to anyone who's done them for a while.

Randomness is not inherently fun, especially wildly swinging randomness.
Cade Windstalker
#13 - 2017-03-24 15:55:06 UTC
To be absolutely clear here OP, I am not opposed to new forms of PvE, or to old code getting messed with.

I think that your suggestions for missions would be massively disruptive, not fun for a lot of people especially new players, and are way way more work than they're worth.

I'm all for an incremental revamp of missions. This is not that, this is taking the game board labeled "Missions" and chucking it across the room before starting from scratch. If you want a more dynamic form of PvE with more risk and harder rats, great, propose that. Emphasis on "new form of PvE".
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#14 - 2017-03-24 16:02:33 UTC
Donnachadh wrote:
Let me be brief. No to all of this crap.
.


Your first comment is actually backwards from my view.

Agents moving is not designed to force people to move around. But the current system is forcing people to move around when they unlock better agents. you are forced to go to the fixed locations agents are based at. with this idea you could actually make agents come to you. No im not too lazy to move, i decided where i wanted to live based on what was there and settled with what i had.

There would be lots more agents than there are currently, and agents would move to where people are running missions. so busy mission hubs would always be mission hubs, not top pay out mission but a steady reliable source of missions. and things would remain how they are now but with more new options. traveling and following agents for better pay, getting a group of players to work together to bring agents to an area of your choice.

and no agents wouldnt just move up in difficulty as then all missions would end up as high as they could go and that would just be broken as i mentioned the "loophole balace cap" to stop things getting out of hand like that. and could only happen if every single player in eve only ran lvl4 missions in 1 system but then if every single player did that why couldnt it happen? the whole system is balanced so that players get mission agents where players are running missions

Yes the burners were a good start but only added a couple of individual missions and not a random generator capable of producing unlimited different mission so it doesnt get repetitive and boring. and they are abit extreme if you dont have the right ship and fit, they need to be completable by a wider player base
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#15 - 2017-03-24 16:06:38 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
To be absolutely clear here OP, I am not opposed to new forms of PvE, or to old code getting messed with.

I think that your suggestions for missions would be massively disruptive, not fun for a lot of people especially new players, and are way way more work than they're worth.

I'm all for an incremental revamp of missions. This is not that, this is taking the game board labeled "Missions" and chucking it across the room before starting from scratch. If you want a more dynamic form of PvE with more risk and harder rats, great, propose that. Emphasis on "new form of PvE".



oh yes this could be implemented along side current missions much like other recent features POS/Structures

with a new service module for agent offices and new agents with new missions being added first just in structures then added to NPC stations later
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#16 - 2017-03-24 16:48:28 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
.


ok yes lore isnt the main reason to change this it was just an added fact which would be nice

EvE is player driven, Markets are player controlled, Null sec is player controlled, FW is player controlled, this would make missions more player controlled. you running missions in your home system matters BUTTERFLY EFFECT

As for gameplay this adds more options for mission runners, aswell as it being similar to how it is now. find your mission hub and good agents and stay there.

You get the added nomad missioner who follows the top agents around for better payouts
You get the added group gameplay needed to build your own mission hub by getting lots of people to run missions in the area

Also keeping things dynamic and changing is good for the game in many way. SOV / FW

NO it shouldnt ever happen that all available agents move away from you. that would be bad. you may have to change which agent corp you run missions for or change to a different agent. but is that a bad thing as you now have more styles of gameplay more choice. Run any lvl 4 mission in your home station/system, Run lvl 3 or for missions for your chosen corp, move slightly to follow 1 corps lvl 4 agents. or travel further to pick at the best agents available

No change in rewards either mission pay outs would remain how they currently are still making the same isk/hr with the same skills and ships so shouldnt break anything

Missions would be just as completable as they are now (with the whole getting triggers wrong effect brought back) DPS and Tank should stay at the same requirements as they are now

Your example of 400% damage was based on consolidating current DPS and HP this is not what i said should happen. But they should be recalculated to provide similar numbers and gameplay as they do now. you cant have half the NPCs with twice the HP/DPS but something like half the NPCs with 1.5x HP/DPS should make it closer to how it works now. not exact math but....

no they havent said anything is gonna happen immediately but they have said they would like to move things in that direction in the future or soon™

ok its not totally random there is some control. it would be some kind of algorithm then which would enable an endless supply of different scenarios. but would provide mission from 5min easy jobs to 30min warp out a few times missions and on extreme occasions it could give a very hard mission
Maria Dragoon
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#17 - 2017-03-24 16:53:21 UTC
While I personally wouldn't mind PVE contant to be more in line with PVP combat (Ships having variations, and deviation from the normal)

You also have to remember that you need an anchor as well, as while most missions can easily be run by vets, new players tend to depend on missions for starting cash, so you need some Anchored missions that don't change much as to provide a way for new-bros to get some starting cash, so every mission agent suddenly becoming level fours, can result in a lot of new-bros suddenly finding themselves out of profit because these new fangled missions are suddenly super Fing hard.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

"A man who talks to people who aren't real is crazy. A man who talks to people who aren't real and writes down what they say is an author."
Cade Windstalker
#18 - 2017-03-24 18:08:51 UTC
Danger Russ wrote:
oh yes this could be implemented along side current missions much like other recent features POS/Structures

with a new service module for agent offices and new agents with new missions being added first just in structures then added to NPC stations later


It really couldn't. Several core pieces of your idea here are replacements or direct changes to the existing mission structure.

There are some pieces that could maybe be turned into a new PvE system, but they're just that, disjointed pieces, not a coherent idea. Just vague concepts like "more randomness" and "move people around more" that already exist elsewhere in other forms of PvE.

Mission Agents in structures is a poor idea in general. There are no limits on structures in space, structures can be closed off from access to others, and anything that lets you place tons of agents together screws with the reward curve for agents by making blitzing L4s *much* easier and more profitable.

Never mind that agent corp is based on structure, LP is a large chunk of the mission rewards, and Upwell structures have no corp affiliation.

Danger Russ wrote:
Agents moving is not designed to force people to move around. But the current system is forcing people to move around when they unlock better agents. you are forced to go to the fixed locations agents are based at. with this idea you could actually make agents come to you. No im not too lazy to move, i decided where i wanted to live based on what was there and settled with what i had.


This isn't a significant concern for most people.

First off, agents are part of the features of an area and for a mission runner they're often one of the most important ones. Areas with multiple Level 4 agents thus see a lot more traffic than ones with worse agent distributions.

For a newer player you simply have less stuff, and upgrading from Level 1 to 2, and 2 to 3, is a fairly quick process. 3 to 4 takes a little longer but by that point you *still* probably don't have very much stuff and may not even have the SP or ISK for your first Battleship that can actually run L4s. By the time a new player can run L4s their choice of mission hub is going to be in large part dictated by the agents in the area and possibly proximity to a trade hub.

For a more experienced player this is even less of a concern. The loot for a lower level mission isn't worth collecting, especially if you're blowing through missions for standings, so you're generating little to no stuff you need to haul around beyond ammo and a missioning ship. This holds for level 1 through 3 missions fairly well, and a well fit T2 or Pirate Frigate will see you up through Level 1s and 2s in short order, and can even do most Level 3s. At worst you need to fly your zippy little Frigate back to base, swap to or buy a Cruiser, and blitz your way through Level 3s for whatever group you're now doing agents for.

At that point, for an experienced player, you can either leave a mission ship with a corp's Level 4 agent(s) or haul the thing around. The only way this is at all an issue is if you're either *really* poor, in which case why do you need to be doing different agents anyway, or you're making a choice to actively move around. In which case that's your choice and it has consequences, mostly a lot of gate jumps.

Danger Russ wrote:
There would be lots more agents than there are currently, and agents would move to where people are running missions. so busy mission hubs would always be mission hubs, not top pay out mission but a steady reliable source of missions. and things would remain how they are now but with more new options. traveling and following agents for better pay, getting a group of players to work together to bring agents to an area of your choice.


You *literally* said the exact opposite of this in your OP:

Danger Russ wrote:
For balance if lots of players are defeating the pirates they will stop attacking, lowering the lvl of security agents needed. If players dont drive away the pirates the mining agents will move away as they are being attacked too often. this creates a loophole balance cap and stops just having 1 area with all the top agents.


Any possibly reasonable interpretation of that statement runs exactly counter to what you just said.
Cade Windstalker
#19 - 2017-03-24 18:09:54 UTC
Danger Russ wrote:
ok yes lore isnt the main reason to change this it was just an added fact which would be nice

EvE is player driven, Markets are player controlled, Null sec is player controlled, FW is player controlled, this would make missions more player controlled. you running missions in your home system matters BUTTERFLY EFFECT


But you aren't actually looking at the impact this would have! You're going "this fits my gameplay, so I want it!" and ignoring the *massive* consequences on game systems this would bring, never mind all the blatant flaws or conflicts with other systems like LP.

Just going "but player impact! BUTTERFLY EFFECT" isn't some magic Wand of Justification +5 that actually makes this idea good, your idea creates bad gameplay in all the ways it impacts other players. It makes the game harder and more frustrating for others for basically no reason or benefit, and doesn't actually create any kind of useful or good gameplay, just a lot of moving around or a massive nerf to missions, neither of which is good for the game.

Danger Russ wrote:
As for gameplay this adds more options for mission runners, aswell as it being similar to how it is now. find your mission hub and good agents and stay there.

You get the added nomad missioner who follows the top agents around for better payouts
You get the added group gameplay needed to build your own mission hub by getting lots of people to run missions in the area

Also keeping things dynamic and changing is good for the game in many way. SOV / FW


Again, as stated previously, your example flatly refutes the idea that you can build a mission hub. Most people run Combat missions, combat mission payouts get nerfed the more of them you run. That is the *exact* opposite of being able to build up anything.

Moving around is not fun. It's not engaging. It's boring and tedious.

The only times people want to move around are when they're hunting or when the incentive is good enough. Even Incursions aren't enough of an incentive for people to move some weeks, and they pay consistently better than missions for a lower skilled pilot in a T2 fitted T1 BS.

Pointing at a generic mechanical *idea* (not even a mechanic, just a general idea) and saying it worked somewhere else so it'll be good here is just... no. That isn't even anything resembling evidence or a justification. It's like me trying to stuff you into a howitzer and saying that the shell was fine so you'll shoot out of the cannon just fine too. It doesn't make sense, not even remotely!

Danger Russ wrote:
NO it shouldnt ever happen that all available agents move away from you. that would be bad. you may have to change which agent corp you run missions for or change to a different agent. but is that a bad thing as you now have more styles of gameplay more choice. Run any lvl 4 mission in your home station/system, Run lvl 3 or for missions for your chosen corp, move slightly to follow 1 corps lvl 4 agents. or travel further to pick at the best agents available

No change in rewards either mission pay outs would remain how they currently are still making the same isk/hr with the same skills and ships so shouldnt break anything

Missions would be just as completable as they are now (with the whole getting triggers wrong effect brought back) DPS and Tank should stay at the same requirements as they are now

Your example of 400% damage was based on consolidating current DPS and HP this is not what i said should happen. But they should be recalculated to provide similar numbers and gameplay as they do now. you cant have half the NPCs with twice the HP/DPS but something like half the NPCs with 1.5x HP/DPS should make it closer to how it works now. not exact math but....


To be blunt this makes me wonder if you even know how missions work. This stuff about payouts is literally impossible if you have agent levels changing.

It's also literally impossible for agents to move around while guaranteeing that you'll maintain access to an agent in your current station of the appropriate level so that you can actually run missions for them with the ship you have. Both of those things are *literally* impossible under anything resembling the current access mechanics.

And please don't just say 'well we'll change those too' because A. that's a terrible idea and runs contrary to what you just said about payouts, and B. doesn't solve the ship problem. You can't do Level 1s in a Battleship, you can't do 4s in a Frigate.

Danger Russ wrote:
no they havent said anything is gonna happen immediately but they have said they would like to move things in that direction in the future or soon™

ok its not totally random there is some control. it would be some kind of algorithm then which would enable an endless supply of different scenarios. but would provide mission from 5min easy jobs to 30min warp out a few times missions and on extreme occasions it could give a very hard mission


No, they've said they'd like to iterate on Missions and PvE in general, you seem to have taken that and run off with it in a direction you think is cool.

As to your idea here, you'll find that that's basically impossible. You can have infinite variety or you can have balance, not both, because there is a *very* finite number of combinations of ships that can be balanced. The best any game has been able to do is create blocks of content and then build a system that glues them together into various combinations dynamically, but each block of content takes a lot of time and work to create, and you end up sacrificing anything resembling story to glue them together.

That's without factoring in the huge variety of skills and ships people can come into with a mission, because as I said before you're basically capped on what can be done by a T2 fitted T1 BS. Otherwise you've just priced and skilled every newbie in the game out of Level 4 missions.
Danger Russ
Overproof Industries Outernational
#20 - 2017-03-24 18:12:56 UTC
Maria Dragoon wrote:
While I personally wouldn't mind PVE contant to be more in line with PVP combat (Ships having variations, and deviation from the normal)

You also have to remember that you need an anchor as well, as while most missions can easily be run by vets, new players tend to depend on missions for starting cash, so you need some Anchored missions that don't change much as to provide a way for new-bros to get some starting cash, so every mission agent suddenly becoming level fours, can result in a lot of new-bros suddenly finding themselves out of profit because these new fangled missions are suddenly super Fing hard.



agents wouldnt ever be able to all become lvl 4 unless everybody just did only lvl 4 missions that should never happen but something should be put in place to stop things going too far just incase

and new players in starter areas would only be able to complete lvl1 missions meaning mainly only lvl1 agents would go there, but they would have a good choice of lvl 1 agents and a few lvl 2 agents who would move in every so often but be too difficult for stating players so would move out

Popular mission hubs would have a much larger choice of agents of all levels, for example in a system where lots of players are running mostly lvl3 missions there could be 4 lvl3 agent and 2 lvl2 agents and 2 lvl4 agents for various corps, depending on which corps players are running missions for and if they change to running lvl4 missions instead agents will move around. if this change to some people doing more lvl 4s this might change to 1 lvl 2 agent, 4 lvl 3 and 3 lvl 4. the agents and corp you are running missions for might change but then you have the choice of doing the same lvl mission for a different corp or changing the lvl mission for the same corp

yes the difference in vets and new players is the hardest part which is why i thought the random escalations would be a good thing, this will mean there is a bigger separation between levels. and brings in more danger to the game.
eg
a new player starts doing lvl 1 missions he can do 20% of mission easily 40% without too much trouble 20% with a few warp outs and 20% should not be possible solo. But for a fully skilled pilot 60% would be very easy 30% would be easy and 10% would actually be a challenge

a new player rushing into lvl 2 missions would find 20% without too much trouble 20% very hard and 60% impossible solo
a decent skilled pilot would be able to do 20% easy 40% ok 20% hard 20% impossible solo
fully skilled pilot would be 60% easy 20% ok 20% hard

this is a big change having missions players have to run away from but why not, EVE is a dangerous game, you dont always win, but could make PVE more exciting and creating a more gradual change between agent levels
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