Fighting inflation: Missions for everyone!

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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So I prefer the whole missioning thing to ratting. I like that you talk to an agent, he tells you to do X, and then you go and do it and he gives you ISK and LP. This gave me an idea: what if there were missions available in all sov null systems?

So first, we nerf the null anom spawn. This pushes players toward missions. Agents will spawn in space (at least one per system) and offer missions to capsuleers that talk to them. Their corps will tend towards the faction space they spawn in, e.g. any space with Caldari stargates would be more likely to have Caldari State and Guristas agents. I’d consider a limited number of missions per hour, to keep them from being too farmable.

There won’t be an even distribution of agents. Some corps will be rarer than others, so their LP will be more valuable. This could help drive conflict over them, since alliances will want to control them more. People might ignore the level 1 Caldari Navy agent, but a level 4 ORE or some other rare corp will be prized. The most valuable agents will be found in NPC nullsec, to ensure it keeps some value. Agents can also be an effective place to set up camp and gank ratters. LP will also be able to be taxed by corporations, and will flow into a corp account to be spent by any character with the proper roles.

Inflation will be reduced because a significant portion of ratting bounties is now paid out in LP, which is an ISK sink when traded in at LP stores. At the same time, the wallets of ratters won’t be hit as hard.

For this major alteration of the importance of faction/corp standing, I would consider offering a one-time standings reset for all existing characters. This would set their standings with all corps and factions to 0, so the guy who’s been happily Guristas ratting away can actually take missions from Guristas now. You won’t get to pick and choose what standings get wiped, so you can decide if it’s worth it to keep your current standings or go for a blank slate. Alternatively, nullsec agents could simply not affect/care about corp/faction standings, although I’d prefer the first option. The first option also helps fight bots since they now spin up more slowly due to the standings grind, or have to contend with less anoms as normal.

Boom. Inflation reduced, conflict increased, bots frustrated. Share your thoughts.

TL;DR: In-space mission agents for all nullsec systems to reduce inflation, cause more fighting, and annoy bots.

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There are missions in NPC Nullsec but there are no stations in sovereign Nullsec where agents could be located. Maybe someday you’ll find agents in player owned structures but - don’t hold your breath!

One consequence of the sovereignty model is that an iHub “attracts” anomalies to a system where it is active so high value sites like havens and sanctums spawn regularly instead of randomly - creating a tremendous ISK faucet and there are no equivalent sinks to counterbalance this. The content is completely predictable, making it easy to multibox or bot and result is a huge increase in the money supply and inflation against any “scarce” commodity like PLEX that can’t be farmed in-game.

I don’t think CCP needs to replace anomalies with missions - it would be a lot easier and just as effective to change the anomalies so they are more difficult to farm:

  • adjust the payout so most of the value is material - loot & salvage - rather than ISK.
  • give anoms the abyssal makeover - weather, effects, procedural generation, advanced AI. They should require skill and situational awareness.
  • Get rid of aggressive mode for drones! You should need to select targets same as other weapon systems.
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That is a terrible idea if you account that Rorq fleets already overmine resources (and thus EvE has 2 problems - overproduction and high inflation rate).
CCP deliberately nerfed “scrap metal” refining to combat “gun mining”. Null Drones lost their alloys as well for that same reason.

Agree.

Then why not address this very mechanic instead? The more you farm anomalies (both combat and mining) in a system - the less and lower quality of them spawns, and make iHub upgrades slow down “depletion” rate and/or increase the speed of replenishing when there is not much activity in the system… If anything this system would entice players to move around for resources which means large alliances would need more space to sustain their level of production - more potential for conflicts.

CCP tried to limit spawn rate artificially in several recent updates with a blanket changes, but i think making them depend on activity rate would have made more sense.

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It’s always baffled me that increasing your control over a system via sovereignty increases the activity of hostile NPCs in the area. If you’re really establishing control over the area, should hostile NPC activity decrease?

I say we flip the sovereignty system on its head: decrease the spawn rate and value of combat sites as your sovereignty level increases. There are plenty of infrastructure benefits to sovereignty, essentially free ISK shouldn’t be one of them.

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It was made like that when null wasn’t so populated and the only real resources was the random spawns that did not spawn back quickly and moon goo. Now it’s gone to much the other way.

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Material rewards do not contribute to inflation because they do not increase the money supply. If anything they are deflationary - pushing prices down.

For a healthy economy, we want to increase the “velocity” of ISK {the number of times each ISK changes hands) not the amount of ISK.

It’s important to have income generating activities for players. The question is whether that activity should create new ISK (bounties) or if it should create stuff that can be exchanged for ISK that is already in the game. Newer PVE content is taking the second approach and I believe it would be healthier for the game if CCP applied those techniques to combat anomalies.

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I like these Ideas, I think it would be cool if corporations could assign missions to their members. It would be a way for players in different time zones to contribute to their cause and get alot done. Which brings me to my next point. Missions in their current state seem stale and repetitive. It would be awesome if completing a series of missions gave the player a pvp abyssal arena style mission. One room only one escapes with epic loot. Let’s say you could align your Corp with 1 of 2 factions. The Triglavians and The society of conscience thought. One mission series geared towards solo omegas the other series geared towards small gang alphas. Imagine missions turning into a mechanism to encourage small gang pvp. Give alphas the ability to produce the sunesis via bpc to keep them in the fight. Let only alpha pilots form the jovian collective. I think alpha exclusive content could be spicy.

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Since killing NPC is introducing so muck isk, the best way to fight inflation would be to kill ratters and mission runners.

Just sayin ::skull_and_crossbones:

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Ratters yes, but I don’t know about mission runners. Remember that the LP store is an ISK sink.

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We could try it for like six months :sunny:

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you can mission run and not spend your LPs.

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LPs are deflationary for two reasons: one because in a lot of cases when you trade them you sink ISKs in the mix.
But you also have to consider the LPs as materials, products. When production do not meet equivalent monetary creation, you have deflation.

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