Dev blog: Introducing Resource Wars

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Here is the thing, people will have a way to get in those sites, now the problem that you present there, claiming it is a safe haven when the methods of entering there are unclear (at least to me), is that these miners will eventually have to warp back out of there, if these miners have no guardians then all that Corp B needs to do is sit at the stations and shoot on sight! Some gankers do that in Jita in Tornadoes, trying to lock down transport ships swiftly to shoot at before they can dock, so what keeps Corp B from sitting and waiting for Corp A to arrive for them to shoot?

Let us not forget that these High Sec sites are only good for LP, the resources you mine are unusable by players, their sole purpose is to drop them in an NPC hauler and done, a reward of LP. I am fairly certain that Corps that want a proper investment of their time will only run these sites to learn how to run operations while being rewarded for it if these same corps do not bother running L5 missions. And even if they do bother grinding up this resource wars sites, what, they’re getting a skin? A ship? We still have no clue what will be available by mining and fending off some rats in a matter of minutes.

And again, if the sites last only a couple of minutes before blowing up (as said by CCP Affinity they will be “on a very short timer”) I doubt that the site will be there for long to protect them, which does not stop Corp B from the possibility of using Combat Probes and immediately warp there once it disappears, that is, if they ever discover the system they are in and wish to basically camp the system to lock them from ever leaving or something… And I heavily believe that CCP Affinity already stated that there are ways of getting in.

Now here is a question or two, if these sites are locked in number of players, how come people complain even without knowing how many people it needs to be full? Will Corp A really bother in filling up a site to protect their members just to acquire some LP in a matter of Minutes?

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What you’re asking for is completely fair and would include revamping bounties, bounty hunting and high sec crime which is something everyone wants and so ccp has absolutely no interest in it and will ignore your post lol.

If dust 514 were still around piracy would even include ship boarding like star citizen hopefully will if it doesn’t implode.

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Black Pedro
As I directly addressed above no one will do this. It is far too much effort to grind standing on gank alts just to shoot some random miner. Maybe some joker will pop a Venture in a low-tier site once in a while, but the top-tier sites that require hours and hours of grinding to just get into will be left alone by gankers or wardeccers. Anyone hunting someone in one of those will find it much more time- and cost- effective to try to catch them entering or leaving the site. And even if you did try to grind standings and gank as part of the fleet, you would quickly find that the other people in the site will warp off when you roll up with multiple “friendlies” in gank ships with active killrights and bounties on them.

For someone who spent time doing nothing but ganking, you seem to have little to no idea about the people who do it. Even lees on the lengths some will go to achieve a goal.

“As I directly addressed above no one will do this”

So you’re the expert? You can speak for the entire player base? Good to know.

Why is the "effort " to get the standing seen as a drawback - Do you really think some people wouldn’t put in the time to gank some shiny shite in a lvl 5 group event site? I’ve personally spent time grinding missions just to get a locator agent in a specific place. I don’t see any difference here, a bit of a grind to achieve a goal is what Eve is all about.
You may see time spent to achieve a goal as a waste of time, I just hope you are a minority because without the grind to achieve - There is a lot less reason to play Eve.

You think this content will be safe from any outside influence, I disagree. I’m not saying it will be common or even widespread but I’m also not prepared to accept it won’t happen, that would simply be narrow minded speculation and very un-Eve.

I’m yet to see anything that says this content is focused on new players. From what I have read it is an attempt by Devs to get Highsec players to work together.

With 5 tiers, they are an ideal place for new players, veterans and everyone in between to work together.

Pretty much disspels the - this is for noobs concept

I find it amusing when people who have clearly never committed a criminal act or hunted another player run around screaming that the sky is falling

What i find amusing is someone who assumes to know anything about someone via an unsubbed forum alt.
Anyone can assume or presume what they like - Like I assume Pedro is a forum alt because going by the available history on the character the owner has very little knowledge of Eve, except on maybe how to kill MTU’s, pos’s belonging to inactive corps along with a short stint a while back ganking with CODE.

FOB’s in highsec can’t be used as conflict drivers unless they restrict NPC corp members from participating, which pretty much defeats the purpose of any highsec content. They will be just as safe or unsafe as Resource Wars.

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So - how badly will this ‘sensible amount’ screw over logistics ships that will be contributing neither mining nor damage but still providing a function that will potentially make or break a site’s success?

Also, how will that be balanced against lazy people like myself warping in to the site, doing the bare minimum to get on the payout list, and then carrying on watching netflix?

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The Porpoise, the Orca and Logistics drones that all barges can carry would like to say hello.

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More of technical question: what crystal would have to be used with strip miners in those sites?

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lol yes the one-cycling optimzation starts

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If they are like the mining missions they are standard crystals but are a ‘worthless’ variant of the respective crystals which doesn’t refine into any materials.

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Crystals are tied with specific ores, that sites will have new ones.

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They won’t. Not when the site only lasts ten minutes or so. No one is going to spend dozens of hours running mindless PvE just to have a chance to gank some billion ISK boat in the site, not when they can just try to catch them undocking, on the gate or when the site expires. The opportunity cost is just too high.

I don’t see this as a major problem though. I don’t know why you insist on claiming it will happen or who you think you know that would waste their time on such a project. This isn’t an issue though. There should be a safer space for group PvE in this game and this is some of that class of PvE. Working as intended.

It’s in the CSM minutes (p.7):

CCP Affinity started off by presenting a new feature that Genesis was working on for the Winter Expansion: Resource Wars. This would be a new PVE activity. CCP Affinity explained that there was some disconnect when they were looking at the career agents, as players would graduate but then had to go “back to school”. Resource Wars was created partly as an alternative that could still provide some content for veteran players.

They are a replacement/expansion/alternative for career agents. Sure, RW are intended to also give something for veterans to do, but they are primarily an attempt to get new players interacting with other players and serve as an alternative learning environment than the career agents. It’s why one of their primary rewards will be ships pre-fitted with modules to help newer players learn the art of kitting out a ship.

Of course they can. They could, and probably will be like the Crimson Harvest where players race/compete for a reward. This is what is known as a ‘conflict driver’ and gives reasons for players to interact with, compete with and maybe even shoot each other. A valuable and exclusive reward would provide an incentive to declare a war or even gank the opposite side, or at the very least bring numbers or ships to out-compete the other side. They will likely not be as safe as Resource Wars which feature sites locked behind acceleration gates unless they too are placed in deadspace behind acceleration gates that restrict entry based on numbers and standings with NPCs.

No point on speculating about this though until we see the devblog. It seems though you are just being argumentative at this point, grabbing at straws and throwing out unfounded speculation (and personal insults). Perhaps we can continue the discussion on the other new PvE at a later time.

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@CCP_Affinity

I’ve been thinking a bit about this new content and IMO it haves some serious chances to fail.

Being random spawns with a short lifespan triggered by anyone entering them, the most effective way to run them is in a pre-formed fleet with a wide intel network to find the sites and hoping that no silly bumbler just goes into the site alone and trigger/spoils it while the fleet moves in from x jumps away.

Now if you put yourself in the shoes of a player young enough to be interested, and assuming that you even know that the sites exist and how to run them (not a small issue), what are the chances of them impacting you in a meaningful manner?

In order to enjoy the content, you the novice player must a) be in the right place and b) not doing anyhing else, at c) the right time with d) the right people accidentally around (miners and DPS) and e) hope nobody leroyjenkins it just for the lulz. And once the site is run, either you’d be warned of where has spawned the next one (which would be sensible, but not !!CCP!!) or you just need to find another one by chance.

IMO, these are too many loops to jump through for the content to be fun or engaging, compared to just getting a mission from an Agent right where and when and as you want it. Instanced PvE will always mop the floor with random spawns.

Unless, as I said, the player becomes a part of a dedicated fleet with a organized intel network for a payout of SKINs and T1 ships… that is, join an Alliance and find people interested to do that. Then the random spawns become a daily grind, woo hoo!

I understand the design goal, but as with many features from the past, I doubt it is really achievable within EVE’s frame. This could work great as a queued quest (people join a queue and once the queue is filled, the quest is instanced for the group and they perform it), but that’s not very EVE. The EVE way is “cruise 40 systems for an hour, find no sites, good night and come back tomorrow for another slight chance of being late to the site, or find no fleet, or get ganked/leroyjenkinsed or, wow, earn SKINs!”.

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they might want to - but is that hello a ‘sensible amount’ of contribution to the conversation?

also if i’m going to have to spend the entire site micro-managing drones, i may as well just take a drone boat to the site and resign myself to the fact that CCP has failed to create a co-operative group pve environment as really you’re doing nothing but solo pve on the same grid as a few other people.

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Man, talk about risk / effort aversion carebears. It’s bad enough ganker / awox players already have plenty of targets currently available to choose from within the games regular space content, now they want the ability to easily acquire targets in these sites so they can basically ‘Shoot Fish In A Barrel’.

If that does start happening, it’ll more than likely ‘sour’ the event for solo players, both new and old. It might even incite some players to quit. As for older more experienced solo players, all that will do is just reinforce their belief that being a solo player is better. At the very least most players will stop running these sites as well as ignore future events, basically turning all the work done by Dev’s into a big waste of time and resources resulting in another nail being driven into Eve’s coffin.

All Military Branches in real life send their new recruits to ‘Boot Camp’ where they receive training in working together as a team before being placed into active duty. I think the idea behind this event is similar to that.

From my understanding this event is like the first step towards encouraging and introducing solo players, both new and old, into working together as a fleet. Since most won’t have experience doing that, this event is basically a training exercise based in high sec against NPC’s.

I believe CCP said future events will incorporate more opportunities for PvP engagements. Now if all the so called PvP players can’t refrain from disrupting this event, then in the future you only have yourselves to blame for not being able to find PvP engagements.

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Actually that’s exactly the impression you and all the other gank / awox oriented players keep portraying, you want the ability to easily disrupt and attack players who have very limited to no experience at working in a fleet.

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So… The Dev blog description of this is totally wrong.
Personally, I take what CCP Affinity said as a brief and vague description. If this is indeed focused primarily on new players, it is likely to be a very long time before Devs begin to see results for their efforts - 1. Training into higher level ships to run higher level sites is not something many rookies can or will do over the course of a few days. * 10 minutes per sites - X amount of time to level up - No rookies to run higher levels until training is completed - Many have moved on to something else, or as they do now, just quit logging in…
Draw the content out for too long - short site times but lots needed to level up, you lose a lot of players - CCP is trying to cater to the “instant gratification” crowd, which they won’t do if the rewards are too spread out.
Devs need established players for this content to succeed - Whether CCP affinity agrees or not is irrelevant.

Sites will only last 10 minutes, awesome that shortens the grind time considerably. There is little major content going on right now, doing something for an hour a day to get a nice KM at the end - why the fuk not, it’s better than ship spinning or shooting MTU’s…

I’m not sure if you actually had anything to do with Crimson Harvest but the last thing it was in highsec was a conflict driver - Stealing off others in highsec doesn’t create content or conflict - It allows thieves to prosper at the expense of others.
Lowsec however saw a nice increase in content - guy warps in to steal the reward you worked for, you can at least attempt to kill him, as a conflict driver in highsec this type of content had no effect, it simply doesn’t work when you can’t agress the person doing the stealing.
And for me, anything put into the game needs to have balanced rewards - If I’m running in a fleet with others to achieve a goal, everyone who participates in that fleet should equally share the rewards - Something FOB’s will not do unless the end reward (the big payout for the guy who loots the can) is removed…

Content drivers need to create conflict, IE; PVP, not freebies for thieves. (Sorry but again your narrow minded view of Eve shines through here - As a “less risk is better” style player the idea of stealing with no repercussions would of course appeal.)

Having sat and watched 2 BR Sotiyo’s die in nulsec, the idea of X amount of players teaming up so ONE can get a reward at the end, really does not appeal…

Having read a bit further than you obviously did in the CSM minutes, I’d suggest you go back and read the whole section. It is interesting that CCP states "there are still opportunities for people to gank those ships…
As I have said over and over, I don’t think ganking will be widespread but to say it “Won’t Happen” is just wrong. Especially when CCP themselves can see opportunities for it…

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Porpoise & Orca both have bonuses to Shield reps, and mine with drones so fitting shield reps in their highs isn’t going to meaningfully impact their mining ability. So yes that hello is a sensible amount of contribution.
I.E. You don’t need 100% dedicated logistics boats to have logi in site.
If the DPS gets to that kind of level then you also look into using mining drones on the logi if there is a minimum mining amount. Or just make sure you bring a spider tanking orca fleet for the top end sites, but I really doubt it will get to the kind of level you need dedicated T2 logi ships.
And shield drones from the barges with room helps supplement reps a reasonable amount assuming people have trained them.

And if putting drones onto the current DPS target is ‘micromanaging’ well… you have my sympathies for having to actively play?

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Ok let me be very clear here.

I’m not posting saying i will be out there looking to gank “fish in a barrel”. I am saying it is possible for it to be done. Where Pedro seems fixed on the idea this will be “the safest PvE sites in the game”. I’m trying to show it isn’t, as i said above, CCP themselves have stated gankers will have opportunities. Whether that be a good thing or bad doesn’t matter - It can be done…

My issues with the limited information we have;
The simple fact these fleets will be open to the public opens the door for miscreants to join them.
They will be run by NPC FC’s - Which in simple terms = A bunch of solo players working in the same site. I’m sorry but there is much more to working together in a fleet other than being warped to X, complete objective, warp out, rinse and repeat.
I doubt very much if an NPC FC will call targets when the miners come under attack from NPC’s.
I doubt the FC will coordinate Logi (I imagine with tougher opponents higher level sites will need it).
I doubt very much if the primary thing required for efficient fleet work will be available; communication is key to any fleet without it all you have is a bunch of solo players together in one place… (while voice comms is available via in game settings it leaves a lot to be desired in practical use. You also have to get people to use it)
One of the issues I see is lack of relevant communication, one thing that will turn off a new player from running group content is not knowing what is going on and Devs answer of popups (now shoot this, like in the NPE) is not going to generate confidence in solo players.
So, those participating in this content with no experience in working as part of a fleet are quite likely to come away - Not wanting to work in a fleet.

My next question is the reward system.
These sites pay LP and ISK, which can then be used to purchase items from the new LP stores to enable a player to participate in the next level. This to me sounds very much like, the rewards are limited to making enough to do the next level. I do a bit of PVE here and there (mainly due to boredom or a specific goal). I would be hard pressed to run sites simply to earn enough to be able to “unlock” the next level. I’d need to see something other than a skin and ship (which will cost more than if you purchase off the market) + modules to get to the next level.
What happens if a player reaches lvl 3 as a miner then loses his ship to NPC’s or a Player? You need the rewards from the lower level to be able to buy the box to complete the next. Does this mean having to go back and do lvl 2 again to get the rewards to buy the package to complete lvl 3?
Is there a level at which one can just buy a ship and fittings off the open market and participate, or is it all dependant on completing the previous level?

This is pure speculation as Devs are being very tight lipped as to how this content is expected to work, even at the very basic level. On one hand they are saying it is group content, yet one person can make up a fleet as long as they are fit to do combat and mining.

We need a lot more information about Resource Wars before any conclusions can be made (including whether it will be worth participating). What we have so far is very little that makes even less sense.

I don’t expect to get any feedback from Devs, keeping relevant information secret until just before release has always been CCP’s way.

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The NPC FC idea seems to have crept in somewhere, it’s not listed in the Dev blog that it actually works like that. And I can’t find a quote by CCP saying anything about that.
I read it as the NPC’s are working in a fleet, and the players warp into the site via the gate and then assist the NPC fleet, with whatever organisation the players happen to bring with them. I could of course be wrong, but the only mentions I can find of NPC FC’s are players making assumptions that way.

As for the crates, given the blog specifically talks about ‘purchasing the same ship from the market’ I think it’s fair to say that players will be able to buy on the open market if they want. Sure it’s not 100% confirmed, but the blog does 99% confirm that.

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I agree with you on all aspects.

The FC would hopefully be an older higher skill level player with Fleet Support skills trained. Granted that player may or may not have experience as an FC in actual PvP engagements but those Fleet Support skills should still provide a bonus to fleet members. Since these event sites require players to start off at level 1 and earn Corp standing in order to advance to the next level, hopefully that will allow the inexperienced some time to gain experience as an FC.

Hell, I mainly do PvE content solo in this game and don’t have much experience working in fleet. However in the past I have fleeted with other DPS ships to do PvE content. It was mainly exploration sites and expeditions as well as some regular and Cosmos level 4 missions. A few times my DPS ship was even fleeted with Logistic ships. I remember it was actually fun and more importantly, there wasn’t any hassle or confusion about calling out targets and working together.

In fact my character has the following Fleet Support skills trained:

Armored Command - Level 5
Information Command - Level 5
Shield Command - Level 5
Skirmish Command - Level 5
Wing Command - Level 5
Mining Foreman - Level 5
Leadership - Level 5
Fleet Command - Level 4
Command Burst Specialist - Level 4
Mining Director - Level 4

Obviously these event sites are not set up like Incursion sites and according to CCP, they have a short life span. I don’t envision the fleets running these sites needing to be heavily dependent on Logistics or worrying about being swamped by massive spawns doing excessive Ewar by shooting the wrong NPC.

Course nobody knows what CCP has planned for these sites.

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Fair enough, but I assure you that from what we know so far, these new site have my 100% highsec antagonist seal of approval. :medal_military:

These sites, even if very safe, last a very short time and will therefore have people moving about in regular space. If fact, it seems like those running them will have to spend more time finding them and travelling to them than being protected inside completing the content so there will definitely be opportunities to interact with them.

That’s the yardstick. Players running these will be properly vulnerable to other players as befits a PvP sandbox game like Eve and thus this content has a place in the game. However, if that wasn’t the case I, and many other people, would be shouting loudly that instanced PvE has no place in the game we signed up to play. It’s not about making it “easy” to attack new players. It’s about being able to interact with all players, especially veterans who will exploit any safety as a place to hole up and AFK or turbocharge their farming to the detriment of the larger economic game. Shooting new players isn’t especially fun or lucrative although It can be a good way to engage with a newer player and get them engaged with the game.

I like these sites as even though they are very safe, they are also very dynamic and will require players to interact with each other, and actively play the game. As long as the rewards and difficulty aren’t balanced such they are grossly exploited by multi-boxing veterans, I see them as a great addition to the game. And given there are windows of opportunity to explode said multi-boxing veterans, especially the ones that get above their station and fit too much bling to their ship, I am not especially worried about the high amount of safety in the sites themselves.