I seen a few threads regarding ability to bypass missions against other empires so player dosnt loose standing against them. Suggestions were made player should be able to decline any missions but that would lead to players constantly farming best missions. So here is my suggestion:
Make missions against Gallante, Minmatar, Caldari and Amarr like burner missions. So you can decline those particular missions without invoking the wrath of the corporation and agent.
If someone is focusing on missions it is very inpractical to make them go about in battleships looking for new agent forcing them to store salvadge and all different assets needed for smooth expirience everywhere.
I would suggest to completley do away with this missions but I know some poeple will still want to run those so please dont make it mandatory make it a choice so players can focus on doing what they like the most.
Let me know your suggestions in the comments below.
Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA] here. As an authority on this subject, Iām all too familiar with the standing hits involved with certain missions - how certain missions have massive mandatory hits, how certain missions have optional massive hits, and how double-declining missions you donāt like will give you agent/corp/faction and derived faction hits. On the latter point, the double-decline penalty honestly isnāt that bad, it really isnāt. Hits to agent/corp standings are easily recouped with a few missions, and hits to faction standings are negligible - a .001 hit to the faction (and friendly factions) is worth avoiding a 0.4 mandatory loss in certain missions, and such a minor loss is easily recouped several times over by a single storyline mission. Faction loss mechanics as part of PVE such as missions are not a bad thing, namely because - and Iāve proved this mathematically - it is possible to get all factions simultaneously positive via storylines, and it is easy to get six or more L4 storylines in one day (speaking from experience). I wrote a guide on how to do this on our website. While there are numerous improvements that absolutely should be done with regards to standings gains/losses from missions and standings mechanics overall, I find this specific mechanics change recommendation to be completely unnecessary and not effective at targeting the underlying faults that plague standings mechanics as a whole.
I still like the idea of separating agents for burners, factions and āfreelanceā.
It makes even more sense now to nerf burner payments. That way they can have their own agents,
Faction missions would be a quick way to boost standing at the expense of other empires. Not all missions would be against other factions but all missions would have larger standing increases/decreases.
Freelance would be the current mission pool without burner or faction missions.
Thank you for your input. I dont take the subject from analytical point of view however. Neither am I calling for complete system overhaul since it isnt my field to propose such an overhaul. My only bias here is purely small quality of life improvement. Not all players are expert such as your self. For those less fortunate such small change can make a big difference.
The problem with this lies with this making it far too easy for nullseccers to become gray and blue with diamond rats, and how they exploit their relationships with diamond rats in combat against other players (basically they serve as allies in battle, and they are EXTREMELY formidable in combat in the large quantities in which they spawn and operate). Since nullseccers pretty much live exclusively in one region of space and it is easy to maintain standings with the empires for the purpose of retaining access to tradehubs, the fact that other factions get tanked is irrelevant. For example, someone who lives in Delve, for example, really only going to care about Amarr, Caldari, and Blood Raider standings. I think mechanics should be revamped to make it easier than it is now, but not to the extent that would be enabled with the proposed change.
This is the first Iāve heard of nullseccers giving a damn about diamond rats. Itās already easy to get such standings, so if diamond rats are a genuine problem in null, theyād already be grinding to set them blue.
Hopefully we wonāt base the design of a primarily highsec content around the niggles of null sec anyways. Diamond rats in null donāt have to be tied to anything related to high-sec content. In fact it would probably be better to not let null use diamond rats as allies in ANY situation regardless. So set them perma-red to all.
Noā¦ not even closeā¦ have you heard of the -2.0 Deathlineā¢? It is one of the most dreaded mechanics in all of EVE. Once you drop below -2.0 faction standings, you are restricted to L1 agents for all corps in that faction even if you would normally have access to higher level agents via corp/agent standings. You could have a perfect 10.0 base standing with every corp and agent in that faction, but if your faction standing is below -2.0, you are stuck with L1 agents only no matter what. This implies you are stuck with L1 storylines for boosting faction standings until you rise above -2.0. You also wonāt have access to the epic arcs either. COSMOS are one-time only, so once those are done youāre looking at doing almost 200 missions (literally - I speak from experience) to rise above that -2.0 line before you regain access to higher level mission agents and being able to do L4 storylines.
How do I know this? Again, Iām the Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA]. I cannot possibly quantify how many nullseccers come to us in hopes of raising their faction standings for the purpose of getting gray/blue with diamond rats. The majority of these nullseccers arenāt willing to do 200x L1 missions, just to rise above -2.0 and then do several more to get gray/blue.
Iām also going to disagree with @DeMichael_Crimson, author of The Faction Standing Repair Plan and whose knowledge on this subject meets or exceeds my own, in his liking this simply because there is no good reason to suicide empire standings, whereas pretty much any other faction standings more readily expendableā¦ UNLESS you were to get a faction boost on completion, which is not the case with existing burners. So basically you would, for example, lower Caldari to raise Gallente - but for this to be sensible, youād have to raise by a lower %-toward-10 than you lose. (This tradeoff isnāt as bad as it sounds; I have mathematically determined it is possible to have all factions simultaneously positive and developed a protocol for achieving this using existing methods.)
@DeMichael_Crimson CCP did away with there being several categories of corps. Other than R&D corps being unique and epic arc corps being semi-semi-semi-unique, I donāt think there is any reason to reintroduce corp categories or giving corps special treatment in regards to āempire faction burnerā availability and standing boosts/penalties on completion based on the kind of corp they are. All L4 security agents should yield an equal probability of yielding burner - nice and simple.
OK, Iām not going to keep defending my viewpoints on various threads posted in this sub-forum. This sub-forum is a place where players can post basic ideas which, with the help of the community, can hopefully be turned into a proper proposal without being shot down right from the start.
After the idea has been turned into a proposal it should then be moved to Assembly Hall where it can be voted on and with enough support, hopefully be brought to CCPās attention by the CSM.
Thatās how the entire system was meant to operate.
Itās been a while since I did some serious mission running. However in my opinion there should be a big difference in types of missions received from Commercial, Industrial and Military Corporations. Agents from those Corporations should offer missions based on their type of Corp.
For example Security Agents:
Military Corps would mainly offer encounter missions against other Empire Factions.
Commercial Corps would mainly offer encounter missions against Pirate Factions.
Industrial Corps would offer an even mix of encounter missions against both Empire and Pirate Factions.
The same goes for Mining Missions from those types of Corps. Military Corp missions would have Empire Faction NPCās, Commercial Corp missions would have Pirate Faction NPCās and Industrial Corp missions would have an equal mix of both Empire and Pirate Faction NPCās.
Distribution missions would basically be the same, only for immersion just have the cargo represent those types of Corps. Military would courier war materials and supplies, Commercial would courier trade goods and supplies, Industrial would courier an equal mix of both.
Of course Mission reward and penalty should match the level of mission difficulty.
If itās that bad then why isnāt there a chorus about diamond rats from null sec players like there is every other issue with null sec?
And even if it was that bad, thereās nothing stopping us from from making diamond rats in null ignore standings since itās a dumb mechanic anyways.
My apologies, I do not mean to come off as argumentative or belligerent. I read a lot of your posts and agree with almost everything you say throughout the forums, and in this particular area we have something in common (intimate knowledge of standings-related mechanics), so I enjoy having a dialogue with you specifically. I brought this specific thing up precisely because Iād value your opinion on my counterpoint on standings-related matters. I enjoy debates, but it is was never my intention to turn them into an arm-wrestling match resulting in a winner and loser, but rather an expanded perspective.
(If you are referring to the EVE Gate thread, the entirety of my commentary was directed to OP, not to you. You raised points that I responded to with the intention of addressing them toward OPās direction for OPās consideration and response- my only commentary directed to you was that I was actually highly amenable to your version of OPās idea. And yes, I acknowledge that I have been belligerent toward OP in that thread because 1. I find that idea in general to be offensive, save for your version that I amenable to, and 2. I have been frustrated at OPās refusal to acknowledge any of the counterpoints raised by not just myself but others in that thread.)
Itās one of those bite-your-tongue things where it is discussed privately but you wonāt see it crop up on the forums often, but I can assure you it is a widespread concern. Keep in mind that most of these nullseccers tolerate abrasive gameplay mechanics to a greater extent than other players, so theyāre not likely to call for changes even though this very much should be improved upon. If the only thing they have to wipe their ass with is sandpaper, theyāll use it because it gets the job done - thatās the kind of āif itās not blatantly broken, donāt change itā mentality they have toward improving things. Once we had about 25 members of a major nullsec group (including a CSM member or two) simultaneously on our server asking to raise pirate factions standings - unfortunately we were not able to provide service to them because, with two highly impractical/inapplicable exceptions, gameplay mechanics do not permit others to raise faction standings for you, you have to do it yourself.
To my knowledge there has been no comprehensive, viable standings reform proposal raised for consideration by the community/CSM/CCP, and CCP is unlikely to change things without such a proposal. There is nothing to suggest that existing standings mechanics are so badly broken that theyāre ruining the game, so CCP isnāt going to act without community/CSM support. Iāll see if I can find the time to put together and submit a proposal; I already have some ideas Iāve thought of over the past several months running USIA.
They complained that bashing posā was boring before wand mechanics. Then whined they couldnāt kick the ā ā ā ā on comms with their mates or use their dreads during a bash after wand mechanics.
Passive moon mining is bad. Active moon mining is boring.
Sov mechanics favour the defender. Sov mechanics favour the attacker.
Capitals are too powerful. Donāt nerf my caps.
They whined when drifters appeared in fleets and shot their stuff.
Thereās a thread that has been going on for the better part of a decade dedicated to being a trash-can for the whinings of null-bearsā¦
They literally whine at every little thingā¦
Except grinding standings for diamond ratsā¦
For the scope of the idea, we donāt need to change standing mechanics, just change the standings boost of certain missions/agents. And then if weāre worried about people setting diamond rats blue too easily (lol) then we just set null sec diamond rats perma-red for everyone all the time, cause they should never have been blue in nullsec in the first place.
This is probably the best solution to this specific issue. Theyāre currently exploited by those who do in fact have gray/blue as ātrapsā, thereby having them serve as NPC mercenaries, which should under no circumstances exist, directly or indirectly, in the game.
Of course, those exploiting this mechanic will object, so Iāll need to have a secondary āif you insist on keeping thisā proposal to improve the situation in case they reject removing gray/blue diamond rats.
Hey no problem brother, itās just that this sub-forum is suppose to be a place where ideas are presented and then hopefully with help from the community, those ideas can be expanded and fine tuned into a viable proposal which, if it getās enough support, might be presented to CCP by a CSM member.
Thatās how the system use to work in the old forums, an idea was pitched and discussed at length so that any exploits or unbalanced game aspects of it were removed, then it was presented as a proposal for players to vote on and if the proposal got enough support, a CSM member would usually pick it up and present it to CCP for review.
The way I see it is not to dwell on every little aspect of the idea but just look at the the overall premise of it, the basic concept and then try to work that into viable game content, hopefully without breaking the various elements currently active in the game.
However when first reviewing the idea, if every little aspect of it is scrutinized and met with strict opposition, then the whole discourse of working it into a viable proposal getās shut down real quick which ultimately creates bad feelings and chases that player away.
Even if the initial idea doesnāt pan out into a viable proposal, at least the person who presented it is inspired to continue thinking about the game and possibly come up with viable ideas later on. Even if an idea turns into a viable proposal, it may not get picked up by a CSM member and never get presented to CCP. It may take years before it getās reviewed by CCP and if they like it, usually only parts of the proposal is used.
Anyway like I said. thatās how the system use to be. It just seems nowadays people are more apt to attack and destroy then to help and create. This sub-forum is suppose to be a place where ideas are presented to hopefully be jointly worked on and fine-tuned into a proposal.