I don’t think that they will deliver better ISK/hour than Level 4s, so in the long run they will just be ignored by serious PvErs. Even CCP Affinity has stated that these missions are seen as a way for new pilots to move elsewhere in the game. The old “highsec as a starter area” poltergeist never stops haunting Highsec… 
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I suspect most have migrated to the other forum dude.
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Highsec is a starter area. It’s where everyone starts. So the content needs to be accessible to people starting out, who don’t have friends already in low/null/j-space to get them hooked in out there. That doesn’t mean it can’t scale up to retain experienced players, just that all of the content has to have an element that lets new players hook into it, or they’ll get pissed off and quit. In this case, it’s the Level 1-2 sites, near as I can tell.
Yeah, it’s where people starts, but it’s not just some “starter area” which people must or should leave to enjoy advanced content. To many people highsec IS EVE. You can’t neglect them hoping that they’ll “get it” an leave the “starter area” and go play the “real game”. Because when they leave highsec, they leave EVE altogether, for no reason or gain. EVE losses as a whole when people ask “what else there is” and the answer is “group pvp in low/nul/wh motherfuker, grow a pair and play the real game!”
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I agree. I think the entire EVE ecosystem needs to be carefully curated and grown, but highsec’s got its own particular demands. Things like:
There needs to be a way for new players to access (or at least progress toward accessing) the content.
There needs to be a way for players to experiment with both solo and group content.
Between those two, there needs to be a path for players to find like-minded groups who can help them find the parts of the game they’ll enjoy, even if that’s ‘More Highsec’.
Highsec needs to be where people who have no idea what’s going on can learn everything they need to learn to start figuring out what parts of the game they want to learn more about. And if they want to stay solo, in HS, there needs to be stuff for them to do. If they want to do group stuff in HS, there needs to be a framework for that, too.
There’s no one ‘right’ way to play the game. But at the same time, that means no matter what CCP does, they’re walking a tightrope made of razor wire: one little slip, and there’s blood everywhere.
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It’s the same for players corps, “gota join one or your not going to be happy and stay playing” is consistently spouted out as advice by streamers and even CCP themselves, never a word on the benefits of forming relationships within your starter NPC corp.
CAS does things. We have a mining fleet, null sov held by the CASalt corp who where in the AT. Group access to null and WH’s, null pvp roams with free ships, high sec pve fleets, corp chat vets and trolls, gankers, mission runners, explorers etc etc… nothing ever promoted by CCP, the only chap I have ever seen even mention it was Jin in the excellent vid he did on Spheres of Influence
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Uhhhhm… not to point out a hole in your logic here, but what you phrase as ‘join one’ is ‘join or start’ one, and never expressed as ‘you’ve got to’… and uhm…
You mean a player-owned, player-founded corp? The very thing you’re arguing against? Sure, player corps grow out of groups of people who meet in NPC corps. Happens all the time. It’s one of the primary ways player corps form. Congratulations, you’ve hit on… exactly the mechanic CCP’s envisioned?
no, you misunderstand, there is no need to join the player owned alt corp, anyone in CAS may access this content should they wish.
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Right, but the sov is held by a player-owned corp, the WH infrastructure is held by a player-owned corp, etc.
Actually I think that a oficial version os corp-history would be something very interesting to show to any new player. It’s being very hard to follow all history and I personally just start to understand a very small part of the backstabing and some conflicts after I saw on youtube a vídeo made by @Jin_taan called spheres of influence, about corps and their location on map
Sometimes is this kind of information that might also bring more add-value to the all EVE’experience
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ofc, NPC corps can’t drop stuff outside of depots/MTU’s, the alt corp is required, but the point was in response to @Yiole_Gionglao in the context of misconceptions.
It’s also way off topic, I take full responsibility, you win. Let’s move on.
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Don’t wave your bizarre orange missile with green flame at the top around like… wait, that’s a carrot, isn’t it?
Huh.
Overall, though, my point was that CCP’s not trying force people to be social, they’re trying to give people new options, new ways they can be social. You don’t have to talk to anyone in the resource sites. Cruise in, drop combat drones, start mining, and ignore everyone around you if you want. Clearly, they’re not exactly industry leaders in ‘how to design engaging solo content’, but they’re working on it. The longer they work on it, the better they’ll get at it.
It is in fact a high yield double impact vitamin bomb…
…damn I’m doing it again…
For some reason @Jin_taan and others keep bringing up Cosmos Agents. I wonder just exactly how many people actually have experience with them and can give an informative opinion about Cosmos missions. Here is my experience and impression of Cosmos.
First of all I have completed almost all Empire Cosmos Agents for Amarr, Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar in both High and Low sec space. I only have 2 Agents left to complete (Amarr & Minmatar) which are the ‘End Game’ content for Empire Cosmos.
The reasons I haven’t done those 2 Agents yet is:
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They don’t offer any tangible reward like the other Cosmos Agents such as Storyline BPC, Modules, Munitions, Implants, etc.
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Their 8 to 10 part mission series consists mainly of destroying each others Faction NPC’s resulting in numerous Faction standing hits for ship kill.
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There’s nothing left to Cosmos after completing them.
All 4 Factions Cosmos have completely different story plots which I found very entertaining. Also those missions use to have excellent visual graphics that was rarely seen elsewhere in-game (CCP should definitely restore those asap). Besides ISK and Faction Standing increase, most of the missions also rewarded the player with Storyline BPC’s, Storyline Modules, Faction Munitions and Implants.
The missions themselves were engaging and actually very tough compared to the same level of regular missions. Basically the difficulty aspect of a level 1 Cosmos mission is equal to a level 2 regular mission, level 2 Cosmos = level 3 regular, level 3 Cosmos = level 4 regular, etc.
Back when I first started doing Cosmos missions, players could reject the very first mission offer from a Cosmos Agent and then later go back and get that offer again. For some reason CCP decided to change that and turned the rejection into a fail, thus cutting off any option for players to continue at a later more convenient time with that Agent as well as possibly cutting off access to other Cosmos Agents too. That game mechanic definitely needs to be removed.
Another bad aspect of Cosmos is they can only be completed once in the life of the character. That mechanic seriously needs to be changed and turned into something similar to Epic Arcs, maybe have Cosmos Agents become available again after 1 year of completion.
Most of the Storyline module stats are sub-par when compared to Tech 1 and Tech 2 modules. They need to have their stats buffed to bring them above Tech 2, be equal to Faction but still remain below Deadspace levels. Also the amount of materials required to manufacture Storyline BPC’s needs to be lowered or at the very least be more easily accessible to collect.
Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar Cosmos Agents can be done in progressive levels, meaning players can do all level 1 Agents and then progress to level 2, then level 3, etc. Some of these Agents are chained together but are still the same level making it easy to complete. Amarr Cosmos is the exception which has various Agent levels all chained together thus requiring players to have a fairly high amount of Amarr Faction standing just to start running them. That fact alone makes it much tougher for players to engage in that content.
In my opinion with a little bit of work CCP can easily make Cosmos Agents much more viable as PvE content. Implementing the changes I mentioned would ultimately entice more players to engage in that content.
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There are several problems with COSMOS, circle, and Data Center missions.
They’re not advertised. If I hadn’t read DMC’s Repair Plan I wouldn’t have known about the COSMOS missions to begin with. Back when the CQ was a thing I sure as heck knew about the SOE arc and all the Epic Arcs but there’s sod all pointing me at these. At least the new standings UI does hint at the epic arcs but IMO it’s now more obscure than the CQ ads.
COSMOS missions have a faction standings requirement. There are a few Caldari missions that you can start at 3.0. Amarr’s lowest is 4.0. The Epic Arcs let you use corporation standings as well as faction standings. Some players may find that much easier to bang out.
Some are broken. According to my research the Amarr circle agents haven’t given any standings boost since 2012. And before you ask, there are numerous claims of having reported this issue.
They’re one and done. That’s a levelling mission. Like it or not, there are people that demand repeatable PVE content as their end-game.
The way some of these are chained together if you decline one, that’s it you’re locked out of the rest of the arc. Not sure what happens if you have one on offer and you don’t get to it before it expires. When I ran some recently I made very sure to complete everything.
Their payout’s nothing to write home about. I can make more mining in high-sec on a per hour basis.
Finally, Standings. Derived standings are a neat mechanic… for a single player game (mmm, Torment). They’re a terrible MMO mechanic and even worse here it’s well enough hidden that the first hint many players get is when they’re popped by the faction police.
Fixing that can be insanely unfun and harm your ability to run L4’s in your normal missioning pocket.
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Yeah, those are nice concept art which will more than likely be viewed in various Mining sites.
I was referring to specific encounter sites that were exclusive to Cosmos which took some time to access, those special sites with visual eye candy made running Cosmos Missions even more special.
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I clicked the link, I remember some of that art, although my COSMOS experience is “incomplete” due to issues I noted in an earlier post. Rather than restoring the old, CCP tends to prefer to remove and replace. With something like those pictures. It just takes… years.
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Absolutely, problem is, at 42, I’m slowly running out of years.
Just wanted to add this info @Jin_taan about the Empire Cosmos Agents and their story plots.
Faction = Motif
Minmatar = War Refugee/Rebel
Gallente = Corporate/Black Market
Caldari = Frontier/Western
Amarr = Medieval/Feudal
There’s also more than just the 4 Empire Factions Cosmos. There’s Angel and Guristas Pirate Faction Cosmos, each with 7 Agents available as well as 3 or 4 Thukker Tribe Cosmos Agents too. I consider Thukker a separate group since all other Factions except Minmatar dislike them.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s also some Ammatar, Khanid, Ore and SoE Cosmos Agents too but they’re allied with the 4 main Empire Factions.
Guess I should also mention that some of the level 4 Epic Arcs can be completed to gain Pirate Faction standings too. For example : players can switch sides in the Amarr arc and complete it for Sansha. The same can be done with the Gallente arc and complete it for The Syndicate.
Cosmos content should be completed by adding more Agents for the rest of the Factions. Also along with the changes I mentioned earlier, definitely make Cosmos Agent missions repeatable.
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