So I’ve messed around with this new Into the Abyss expansion on SiSi. It’s really fun so far as I can see but there’s a few issues I myself see that some may not have seen or may not agree with. 4th paragraph down I get to the Abyss.
This is the one thing that people hate hearing but: it’s not new player friendly.
I played as an Alpha for almost half a year exploring High sec and doing the first event that I found, Rouge Drones.
The Rouge Drone mission seemed perfect for me as a new player, I started with a little cash, used a Vexor until I had enough money saved to buy a Gnosis and then a Talos to blitz the sites. It was an easy way for a new player to be introduced to the game but it was a little easy seeing I was able to do it almost at the start. A new problem started to emerge after that event finished which would be unfriendly to the Alpha and solo play life.
For me the Lucky Clash event was perfect. Many people lost their ships to it, very accessible to the Alpha clones with the addition to being able to pilot Battleships and Battlecruisers, but was decently hard and required atleast some attention to the screen to be able to snatch up that reward. The next event was the Warzone Extraction, this was the first significant jump I’ve experienced in the level of difficulty in Events, first site I jumped into I targeted the first ship in a newly fitted Megathron and I was warp scrambled and killed almost immediately. Decided that event wasn’t for me so I waited for the next and it disappointed too. The most recent Conscious Interruption event was pretty difficult for the newer players but still possible with T2 weapons and a really fast ship with webs, not bad but it was better with a team.
Now to testing the Abyssal Dungeons on SiSi. So far have only done T1. I’ve fitted a Stratios and lost it the first time due to it being the first play I did with it, took too long and the timer didn’t show up but that’s a known bug anyway, not a big deal. I tried again with a Gila and done perfectly fine and got out with 4 minutes left without scooping up any loot. At the end I was very pleased with the results of Faction Cruisers but then I tried some T1’s. Best T1 ships I’ve found to do Tier 1 sites were the Maller and the Omen. I used quite expensive fits but nothing faction, deadspace, or officer. My fits were estimated to be around 130 mil each which is pretty expensive for my ISK hungry character. The best fits came around to be around 500-700 mil if you wanted to do the site with minimal risk. I haven’t tried the T2 cruisers yet but they seem like they would be able to do them easily, maybe not the T5’s though, those are wild.
Alright alright my bad for complaining so much.
My suggestions would be:
Instead of having 1 single timer counting down from 20 minutes, have a base of 10 minutes and small tasks inside the deadspace to increase the time maybe up to 25-30 minutes so we aren’t given too much time but are given a more flexible and survivable experience.
I haven’t tested a way to possibly get out of a deadspace pocket but a small bug could end someone’s expensive ship so maybe include a reward that gives you a free exit in case of emergency like a consumable item.
Maybe include more reward than risk if possible. Expensive ships will be lost left and right with little to no reward able to come out of it. It makes the sites undesirable to people willing to throw in the effort to run them.
The event is an amazing idea, something that could be added to the core game but it’s all in a test server right now so there’s going to be problems and parts that aren’t working and I completely understand that. I don’t write this message in hopes to ruin a dev’s day and make them feel bad about what they made. I mostly look towards the newer players when I write these articles in hopes to share insight on what it looks like from their perspective but this new event is very difficult with T1 cruisers which most Alphas will be able to fly but they’ll be left out yet again when they can’t go through a fun event. I hope for it to be good for all players in New Eden and a nice experience.
I apologize if I have made anyone angry with my opinions in ideas or even the complaining but I just wanted to give some feedback to this new event.