Greetings everybody,
the overhaul to mining inspired me to think about an easy probability of improvement to the main activity I’ve been doing since over a year now which is exploration.
I would like to enumerate some problems I see in the current state of exploration and then try to contribute some ideas, how these problems could be fixed. I will try to make the fixes as small as possible as I don’t think it is productive/necessary to try and totally overhaul the whole exploration experience.
Current problems to exploration as far as I am concerned:
- Data sites are not even close to the profit one can make with Relic sites (https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/af7536/the_ultimate_nullsec_faction_relicdata_sites/)
- Containers are being scanned with cargo scanners, and cherry picked, leaving the site on a much higher respawntimer (4 hours compared to immediate respawn after clearing a site), making runs for everybody less profitable and rewarding and resulting in the perceived high range of reward possibilities (going hours without a site or doing 100m in 10 Minutes).
Now I promised to contribute ideas as well. I think all the above problems are fixable with a game mechanic, already built into the game: Escalations
Yes, I would like to propose Escalations to exploration (data and relic sites). They would, if balanced properly, not only make data sites more valuable again without regulating the market too much (escalated sites just spawn more or rarer loot like rarer blueprints) but also create an incentive to players, to complete the sites even though there are no “high valuable” containers left.
The chance of an escalation would either make players clear sites off, resulting in a higher respawn rate of that side overall or, if people still choose to cherrypick, give the next player arriving after a quicker and easier chance to get an escalation. Maybe the chance of an escalation could also raise according to a timer that is started with the first container hacked within a site. If a timer gets implemented, that could create additional player interaction as some people might want to “grow” their sites before “harvesting” and other players could find those sites, trying to sneak in and get them or even fight each other for it.
An alternative to that idea, or maybe even an addition if balanced right, would be that sites actually “accumulate” value over time. So, sites which are not completed for a long period of time will have significantly higher loot than freshly respawned sites, increasing in a set interval (hourly? Daily?) which would additionally balance out relic and data sites as a side effect.
I would be most interested to hear your feedback to my stated problems and solutions. Maybe you want to add solutions or discuss additional problems you see in the current state of exploration, I’m looking forward to the discussion.
Best wishes
Khacia Fides