Just here to add my voice to those who disagree with the exploration change. It is truly one of the worst ideas I have seen in some time. There is value in randomness and inequality. There are rewards for learning a craft. Now much of that is gone, along with virtually any chance of jumping into most null regions and happening across a system score the residents have been too busy fighting or turbocrabbing elsewhere to notice.
5 Likes
We are aware of the implications of this change and will monitor the effect on New Eden and the Exploration career, with the possibility of balancing and tweaking in the future.
We all know this is a piece of crap. Rarely features are changed after implementation.
8 Likes
Daily reminder ‘this will be iterated upon’ is ccp code for “haha ■■■■ you idiots”
9 Likes
In the Cosmic Signatures page, we will be making a big change to how Capsuleers will be exploring New Eden. The main change here is the visibility of the number of available signatures in all systems. For the system you are currently in, you will be able to view the signature IDs as normal. We are aware of the implications of this change and will monitor the effect on New Eden and the Exploration career, with the possibility of balancing and tweaking in the future.
Please don’t do this.
17 Likes
Played since 2012, and most of that has involved probes of some sort. I am against the change to making exploration sigs discoverable at range. It will have several effects:
1: No more pocket systems. There are quite a few where sigs pool up as they respawn, and they’re usually quiet, and profitable. This is now gone if the current system stays.
2: Due to visibility, more sites will be run, which will have a trickle down effect of lowering the price of everything using data/relic loot. Short list is: Upwell items, rigs, T2 items, and BPC items from exploration. That sounds okay at first, but it takes isk making out of the hands of newbros to a great extent. Me bouncing out sites at high speed in a Loki is one thing, but for a newbro in a Heron, his completion rate will be lower, profit will be less, and interest will be…waning.
3: It takes the charm out of exploration. Instead of “heres a ship, get rich or die trying” (aka GFYS), it becomes “do a fetch quest of flying here, hacking this, and hauling it to a trade hub.”
4: I have a dual scram Astero. I WILL be using this new system to find places to blow up newbros 1 jump out of HS. This map, and a knowledge of player psychology, will be guaranteed to make life hell on newbro explorers. While I love mowing down Herons, a lot of them won’t take the convo, and will get discouraged. How it’ll help retention is hit or miss really.
My thoughts. Please take them for what they’re worth.
28 Likes
Is this like the “we will monitor the effect of the ECM changes”
Then we will buff the stats of ECM ships so that they become low quality combat ships and do F##k all to fix ECM which was what we broke in the first place.
6 Likes
You can also watch sigs disappear and know someone is out running sites.
10 Likes
My feedback, note trying to remain as constructive as possible.
First impressions - Not great. I’m primarily a PvE player, so I guess the type of person who the agency is aimed at. I try to avoid the thing wherever possible not only does the UI lag my client out for 1-2 seconds whenever I open it, its replacement for the agent finder is feature-poor compared to the original it replaced. So now that I hear that development time has again been spent on it, I’m not over he moon frankly.
Anyway, initial rant over, onto the constructive feedback, seriously this time.
Rationale -
We think its purpose is incredibly important as the bridge connecting players with the various types of PVE systems and content added to EVE over the years.
I’m going to vehemently disagree with this statement. There is no bridge here, and the only ‘connection’ that has been forged here is that these players who have to use this interface can complain about it to each other. Gee I’m having a really hard time not ranting…
- Progressive Disclosure
I think this is actually an improvement over the old design. I log into game with a good idea of what I want to do today, and the current agency interface provides a ton of irrelevant information to me. Only issue I had with it is difficulty / annoyance in navigating to certain pages repeatedly, and you’ve already got that covered with bookmarks! Why only 6 though? UI space issues?
- Agents
Functionality returning to the agent search! Wohoo! I’m not going to give out a huge amount of points for it, since it should never have been removed in the first place. But this should make things so much easier for people looking for a new agent.
- Encounters
OK, a lot of these pages have little / no functionality and are only really glorified Evelopedia (rip) pages. If you want to implement an in-game knowledge base, why not do it properly and make it its own thing rather than throwing it in with a bunch of functional tools?
- Exploration
/ re engaging rant mode/
OK, lets first deal with the justification for this:
We feel that this increased transparency will encourage bewildered players to travel outside of their system if there are no anomalies present in the current system.
What in the name of the holy Amarr homeworlds is this abomination of a reason!? Why would the absence of anomalies in system stop people from moving outside it? That sounds like a perfect reason to… move around and explore.
This, along with the ability to spot signatures from outside systems takes a huge chunk of the fun out of exploration. In order to feel good about succeeding there needs to be a possibility of failure! I appreciate that this is an attempt to help new players, but that intel can be FAR better utilized by experienced players, hoovering up the valuable sites at high efficiency. With the current system, new players can hit upon an isolated ‘gold mine’ pocket and make remarkable amounts. Now this intel is broadcast to everyone and older players will get a huge advantage in harvesting these resources first.
The asteroid stuff is… fine I guess.
/rant mode disengaged/
- PI
Now this is a nice change! No negativity here! … wait
OK that about sums it up. I’m disappointed with the agency in general, but some of these changes have the potential to make it a considerably better system.
BUT the exploration change is only going to promote hyper-efficient farming and remove all sense of fun and adventure from the casual explorer. I implore you to re-think this change (now, not in 2 years time once you have ‘gathered enough data’).
Caterpil
13 Likes
I don’t like the exploration change.
Please revert it sooner as possible!
6 Likes
What are the CSM thoughts about explo change?
7 Likes
I like the new Agency, I really do… To see Agent finder back is a nice thing… But the Exploration changes are just terrible. This will just completely remove the “exploration” part from the activity. Maybe add some kind of limit? Only sigs within 1 jump? Or sth else, but for the love of god no more perfect intel.
8 Likes
Well I was going to write about how bad the idea of showing sigs outside your current system is but I think all the people above me have already done this.
I will comment on this
Wander the cosmos in search of Ice Belts no longer, as new scanner technology can tell you where they are!
I’m confused, does this mean that Ice Belts are now going to move around like ore anomailes (like they should from the start) or are you just trying to con people into thinking that?
6 Likes
i guess CCP employies really suck at exploration
you guys basicly made exsploration not exsploration and more a signature search tool
and for you guys said long time ago “hard the ■■■■ up” but its not really word you guys live by now its more soften the game up
4 Likes
We don’t want sigs showing up in agency for systems the character isn’t in
2 Likes
The Agency 3.0 is a slick and modern looking tool. In general I think it is a welcome addition to the game. However there are some long standing issues with it that have either been ignored or feedback has not been reviewed.
Loyalty points: These points are still in the Journal. You want the Agency to be good for new players yet there is no mention of loyalty points (per corporation) and how they work. Nor is there mention of where to find the loyalty points (Journal). The only LP displayed is for Sansha Incursions.
Story Line Agents: Since the first iteration of the Agency the ability to search for Story Line agents by corporation/system has been removed from the game. Why must I Google for this information? This is contrary to what is claimed to be helping new players and VETERANS like.
Exploration:
Googled definition - noun
" the action of traveling in or through an unfamiliar area in order to learn about it."
“voyages of exploration” Every system has been visited, planets and belts cataloged, moons surveyed and results published in many 3rd part websites. Now most those results are displayed in the Agency.
“thorough analysis of a subject or theme.”
First, scanner probes were consolidated. Then rats where removed from the hacking sites. Then the ship scanner (that had a 4AU range) was replayed with the Discovery Scanner (this showed ALL anomalies regardless of range throughout the entire solar system). New scanning assist modules where added. Finally the mini game was added to hacking (thank you for removing the loot spew).
So, what is so “thorough” about scanning and hacking today?
“an exploration of the religious dimensions of our lives”
I’ll leave this last one to the Amarr role players.
CCP definition of exploration: Use scanning equipment to find content that the Agency guides you to.
Now that CCP has made even this once niche profession (exploration) even more simple (new players are now complaining) I need to ask:
1: How does the Agency encourage new players become veterans
2: How does the Agency encourage veterans to stay playing the game
3: Will there ever be exploration in the game again?
13 Likes
Guess what? It makes nullsec safer, and botting easier …
4 Likes
where was that jita structure we could shoot again ?
7 Likes
I for one, welcome my new Agency overlords.
No to automatic exploration!
8 Likes
In really glad about this patch only for the fact that it makes everyone cry about “automatic” exploration. Lol
Why limit agents found to only 30 though?