You’re forgetting bounties - also an isk faucet, and a significant component of for-profit mission running income planning.
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Bounties have nothing to do with mission rewards and can be completely decoupled from income. You don’t need to have 30 BS in a mission with high difficulty rating.
Not to mention that most security missions do not even pay high bounties overall as you do not need to destroy a large number of pirates to begin with.
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You can’t ignore the bounties when looking at the total mission reward if you are measuring income from a security mission. Risk vs Reward includes all components of the reward structure, not just the agent reward. Otherwise you end up with horrible balance issues.
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I never said they don’t need attention - but just bumping up the mission agent rewards without balancing the missions overall isn’t the solution. And CCP has said they are not going to be able to significantly edit existing mission structures without a major overhaul of spaghetti code to prevent breaking missions entirely.
As it is, L4 security missions can be used for Ok income as a solo PvE player with minimal PvP risk (you don’t need a blinged out ship to be effective running L4s). They aren’t the best income source, but they also don’t have a dramatic PvE risk level, either, so in current state they are well balanced for a high sec activity given their cost to engage and their low risk level.
There are more efficient activities if you are interested in fleet play, or comfortable with more PvP or PvE risks while flying solo. But the point of risk vs reward balancing is that not all activities are the same and everyone can find something to enjoy.
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Why are we debating mission payouts here? This should be a discussion about epeen and who has done the most PvE.
You can have strong NPC in the missions in small numbers so that bounties are not the issue. At all. That is why we have this stupid Diamond A or Incursion AI or Incursion/Trig/Diamond NPC level NPC stats. Bounties can and should be ignored if the mission is setup correctly. You are barking at the wrong tree and try to make it look as if creating more missions with more rewards was any issue while it is absolutely not.
Even current missions are not an issue in terms of bounties. I run null sec missions and the best income I got from them with my setup was 100M in 1.5 hours in Republic Fleet tags. No high sec mission pays that well at all.
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I never said creating new missions with new rewards is an issue. You are incorrectly stating my argument - and that of the OP. The OP said it would be nice if missions paid more - not ‘it would be nice if there were new missions added that pay more than current missions’.
Current high sec missions have balanced risk vs reward mechanics. Before increasing their rewards, the risks would need to be recalibrated accordingly. Comparing high sec mission income to null sec mission income is a false equivalence, as they have entirely different risk profiles.
The OP specifically wants new missions and that they and other missions pay more:
Your argument is that this is not feasible because the risk vs reward would have to be tuned anew, which is a non-argument. Mission rewards balance themselves on how many missions are being run. The fewer missions of a type are being run, the more rewards you get. This also means that they usually are more dangerous or more complex to run and fewer people see the point in them, which opens up more rewards for people who do run them. Missions sort out the risk vs reward just fine on their own after the initial setup. As for the actual risk inducing factors like NPC in missions, we have a number of new AIs that can be used in those missions to give a huge challenge with minimal NPC presence. That would also invalidate your other argument that bounties needed to be paid attention as they were a big ISK faucet (which they are not, even in the biggest pirate missions like Sansha Blockades or Blood Raider Invasions).
All in all, there are no reasons whatsoever against new missions or ramping up LP and mission reward/bonus rewards on existing missions.
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I think I actually had 5.5 once then I did a few runs with Spectre fleet in lowsec and broke it. Blasted Spectre Fleet!!! (shakes fist)
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I agree with the OP, mission rewards and NPC bounties need to be increased. I’ve been playing this game for over 12 years and they’ve never been increased. However during that time tax has been levied on NPC bounties and loot drops have been consistently nerfed while the cost for ships, modules, etc has gone up.
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I remember years ago that level IV missions paid decently. Now, they barely pay for the ammo.
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I am the some people. 5.6 Null Spacer
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For the most part, I stopped doing missions specifically due to poor payouts. Mission payouts and bounties have not kept up with inflation, loot values have plummeted. For missions lower than level 4, even salvage isn’t worth the time it takes. This is true if the loot is refined or sold. Faction standings gained from missioning have declined in value. Datacores have declined in value (standings are gained from missioning). Not that long ago, the loot was worth considerably more than the mission reward. Yes, there are many ways to do missions. None of them pay well. LP return on value are down. In my opinion, there isn’t a lot of incentive to do them. Not to mention, doing the wrong ones in a corp can really hurt faction corp standings.
The only real reason to have a blinged ship is time in mission to maximize income. That to me is not enjoyable. After about an hour, I am bored to death. Equal to circling an anomaly in Null. Kudos to those who can endure the endless grind and limited return.
you know you can blitz missions without using a blingy ship right? We have people blitzing missions using a 800m ship.
I guess its good that soon they are removing all bounties and mission isk rewards in exchange for 2% increased LP per mission.
^^ Rumor mongering.
Missions do need some attention. There are missions that have been bugged for like a decade. Sometimes it seems like you’re doing the same 5 missions over and over. And there isn’t a ton of variety between those. Missions aren’t the most exciting thing, but they are a core mechanic. IMO they should be regularly updated. Add 10 new missions into the pool every couple months. Think about whether the rewards are still right, and fix the bugged missions, periodically.
I’d also support mixing a bit of missioning into newer content as well. E.g., maybe wormholes occasionally, rarely, get an anomaly with a mission agent at it. WH life could use a bit more variety.
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They really do. The text hasn’t changed in a decade…at least.
Are missions really that bad? Level 4 missions even counting looting and salvaging time average about 50 million isk/hr without even trying very hard. How many isk/hr should we be getting?
Yes, of course and for a lot less than 800 m. I was just pointing out that is why people tend to use bling fits. I use the cheapest fit that allowed me to get the job done.