Mission Running Changes

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Hello Readers,

Today I would like to take the time to talk about mission running inside of eve online. It is one of the common activities that both new and old players enjoy, and its one of the more unique variations of combat inside of eve for PvE. Additionally missions have the added benefit of reputation based rewards. All those however does not mention the main issues that are mission running in New-Eden.

Common Issues In Mission Running

Among these issues are underpaid rates for level one and level two missions, Optimization for credits to Loyalty Point (LP) rewards, and a rather noncompetitive selection in rewards for LP (in terms of players not really needing or being overly excited about some of the items).

As developers we understand that player base are efficient little ants that always look for the fastest way to acquire their completion of their goals, and that is part of our job to deal with but we should never allow a system in a game to fall to the point of becoming used for something it was not intended to be used for. If the LP system has moved to this type of usage by the player base and the development team does not want to look into ways to fix this, the LP system should be removed from eve.

LP Based Problems

In short the LP system serves nothing more then a means to make more credits (for most players). While there are some highly desirable rewards in the LP System (like battleships), a lot of the other stuff in there really does not serve to benefit the player much. It also does not really seem to provide anymore immersive value.

As a developer, I am not really a big fan of the whole way the 600,000 LP cost thing works, mainly because big numbers have a psychological effect on player base that is really powerful and often underestimated.

While the LP System is interesting, I really do not find it to be very engaging to the player experience either. The entire progression of missions, grinding reputation, repeating similar actions over and over is stale, much like a lot of eve’s content.

Unnecessary Progression Gating

A lot of the progression of missions seems to be gated behind a reputation system when its really not needed. I believe that the development team should look at changing the mission system in a few fundamental ways, of them is to remove the need for reputation to access higher level missions.

I would move to say that reputation should effect the outcome of a mission but it should look something like 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 Providing a 20%, 25%, and 30% Bonus to completed missions credit value.

To be clear, players should be able to start the game and start level 3 missions the moment they want to and not be required to grind reputation levels to gain access to higher level missions. It may be interesting to gate specific types of agents behind specific reputation values as a way to make the progression of missions more exciting, but it should not limit credit making values.

Mission Income Rates

[1] The truth is the rates of income for missions at level 1 and 2 are utterly and unconditionally absurd. These values need to be changed ASAP and this is a dire problem for eve. I cannot fault the development team for more then laziness on this topic as this is likely a result of the inflation of eve (which their directly encourage and allow to happen).

I believe that all base level income rates of eve should be around 20 million an hour for high security space, with the exception of things that require significant amounts of Skill points (specifically incursions). This would mean that a few things in high security space need to be adjusted (either up or down) in this regards.

[1] Note: I have to think about this a little more but i actually find that level 1 and 2 missions are not needed and the development team should look at removing them outright from the game and starting the player base at level 3 missions with their current level of difficulty, and around twice its current pay (4–5 million credits per a mission).

Null Security Missions

One of the greatest things that Missions have going for itself is the potential it has to add an immense amount of immersion and depth to eve. I personally believe that the massive amounts of space that npc bodies have are destructive to the game. I would advocate a reduction in npc space to a cluster of 10–15 systems for all cases spread out in eve. The reason for this is because 1. it ties up area’s of null security space, and 2. It destroys the immersive value of having small, specialized “Faction based” area’s in eve.

I would advocate even to the point of the npc pirates in a system being change out from a region standard to the owning faction of those systems in ways to help improve the immersive value of the game, while adding missions around that.

With some improvements to the LP Items and system, and changing reputation-mission interactions to bonus credits, and making the missions more about side- story-line progression (even with voice overs) the mission based system would look more interesting and a lot more exciting.

2

NPC space is at most 1/7th of all available systems in EVE. The rest is deserted wasteland with some exploiting activity beacons here and there. You sure you know what you are talking about?

If anything we need more NPC space with good income opportunities and things to fight over. I have spend a lot of time in Syndicate and Curse over y years in EVE and never ever before and after had I more fun and varied content than there. CCP destroyed that fun, though, by boosting sov null sec way too much and by forcing people to actually join sov null sec in order to “achieve great things”, aka shitty tidi lag fests.

Speaking of immersion: Once you spent some time in sov null sec, you will very quickly lose the sense of “immersion”. :wink:

1 Like
3

Eve Space Breakdown is not in any way validating your argument or even being talked about here.

By the way, No alliance fights over npc space. Its more dead and void then other area’s of the game. In the early days of eve stain and syndicate use to be fought over, but out side of that and the occasional visit to the northern area’s by tri, no one gives crap out npc space then, and definitely not now. In fact that is my entire argument. Reducing it would help improve its value, and turn some of that useless unused void of space into something useful.

Out side of these periods in eve, the npc space has only ever been disputed by alliances that are to stupid or to drama filled to compete in real null activity.

By the way, if you dident know sov = way more money then npc space. so you lose that argument also. unless you want to divert the topic from the "improving mission running " to " “im right” discussion.

4

What a load of crap.

Since your a developer, start your own game with your mission ideas and compete with EVE and we’ll see how you do.

On top of that Rivr is right, there should be more NPC null space, not less. A lot of sov null is a bot filled wasteland and is a useless waste of space.

You have no idea what your talking about and I’ve just lost 20 minutes of my life reading and replying to this stupid idea.

2 Likes
5

Testing is open to public in 3 months.

6

Is that so? I can earn upwards to 100M/hour with lazy L4 mission running in NPC null sec. That’s just shy of carrier ratting. Even a VNI can earn more money with NPC null missions than in sov null sec. And high and low sec missions have the benefits that you do not need to buckle up to some rando dictator muppet that wants your taxes and your throwaway body for some unappealing “fights”. You do not even need to improve missions to get that. Plus, in contrast to sov null sec missions offer a huge variety of activities and experiences. Its not just 500 Sanctums every day.

Thank you for being condescending, but I do not believe that my old alliance NOWAY was in anyway stupid or to[sic] drama filled. We had lots of fun fighting over moons in Syndicate with other like minded alliances from within and outside the region, as well as camping gates, roaming around the region and beyond without having to fear that someone will be able to completely kick over our lovely sand castle. That allowed us to be cocky and bold in our activities because we always had a base to return to after a fun day. And we had a base from which we could defend ourselves and which meant we could not be completely obliterated at all by some random huge bored null blob. That was a very reassuring feeling.

And that is wholly CCP’s and the CSM’s fault for forcing Capitals Online and now Capitals and Structures Online onto the player base. Back then, when we were in Syndicate and Curse, many people gave a “crap” about these regions and we had lots of activity there from all sorts of groups. All that vanished with the advent of forced capital power to achieve anything. Besides, even today there are many people who live and thrive in NPC null sec and low sec and cause sov null sec muppets significant headaches.

What value? Sov null sec is emptier than any other space. The opposite would happen: You reduce valuable space with more varied activity potential in favor of dull, boring, tidi lag fest ridden space that no one uses because it is worthless thanks to low security level. Congratulations, you do exactly what CCP has done with that capital only focus: You ruined EVE a bit more. You are the perfect match for a CCP developer position.

7

Please continue to do so. however, 150k per 10-15minutes of work is not worth the time for level 1, or 2s. Additionally the LP system should not be a means to “optimize to get more money”.

Regular carriers can rat upwards of 220m/hr

No one is disputing level 5s earning capability in null or high sec. In fact the opposite i am saying that level 1-2 are basically useless and the lp system should be changed so that rewards have more value (and potentially each faction has less lp rewards to offer ro clean up the spam-ish nature of it).

This topic is not about what your alliance did in syndicate. Stay on topic or ill flag the replies. Much like eastern parts of stain, and various southern and eastern area’s, the nullsec npc sov regions/area’s are really not beneficial to eve. If anything they actually kill alliances in their creation process. A lot of drama and abuse of newer entities exist in these area’s and the game should be changed in ways to help “Stepping” into null to be more supportive, i would advocate in a way similar to the recent changes to “war eligibility” by making 5 systems be required to challenge another alliances sov, however more space would be needed for such changes and the “highly undesirable” npc space would be the best option as systems in eve are hand crafted by the development team (which is why new regions have not been added).

This is a highly important point, we both agree upon. however, it is not a product of npc space existing or not existing, but a product of the “alliance” system and the “power blocks” that come with it. The only way to fix this is to hardcap system count for an alliance.

8

Those are not normal carriers. Those are highly optimized carriers running anoms with spawning luck and no interruption. That is not normal, that is exceptional.

There are no L5s in either. I am talking about L4s.

Have you been to sov null sec? :rofl: New, small alliances can’t even get in there, let alone thrive.

And how do you want to get these 5 systems if all the systems are already held by sov entities? Reducing NPC null sec only frees up so many systems, and it’s a minuscule amount compared to existing sov space. Do you think sov null holders won’t scoop up these systems because they want more competition? Even if someone managed to grab 5 systems after the initial change, they would get thrown out very quickly if that space was in any way desirable or strategically important or just necessary to prevent neutral incursions. And then what? How is someone ever able again to contest existing sov if you do not have 5 systems?

You are laughable. That idea is just as flawed as most CCP changes lately. Besides, what does that even have to do with missions?

Then you will have space split up between several blue alliances. Congratulations, that has been suggested before as “solution” to many problems and was quickly debunked as inadequate.

1 Like
9

Lies, you just suck.

no one is disputing l4s either, try again.

Your kidding right? no, never been there. Whats it like?

uh huh… it free’s up “some space” probably around 75-100 systems. Thats actually a lot of area that is not used.

That is another problem. You do not make one change to the entire game that solves all problems, other wise we’d not have multiple balance patches to the game.

Another problem fixed later with a reword to alliance/corps.

10

You cannot fix something that isn’t done in-game. There is no in-game way to do coalitions, yet they are there.

11

Summed up the whole thread tyvm.

12

This is not true, but since you do not likely have design experience (or have a bad concept on game design theory) i will explain in detail why this is not actually the case.

There is a pressing need to create coalitions, Why? the reason is because people obtain security as a result of it. If eve was broken down into many smaller, 1000 man alliances, would there be attempts at coalitions? the answer is yes. What do we learn about this? we learn that we are a social species that by nature inclines to social interaction for mutual benefit and progression, Thus we have things like tribe, nations, coalitions and so forth.

The fact that these alliance to alliance relationships exist is not a bad thing and we should not try to stop them from existing. This being said however, what we do need to stop is large amounts of the already limited player base engaging in massive coalitions.

This can easily be done with many mechanical changes to the game. For example, if you take corporation and alliance tickers out of the overview, out side of color there is no way to distinguish against enemies on the battlefield, so having large battles will be significantly difficult and are likely to lead to “friendly fire”, but there are even more simplistic ways of dealing with this like instanced pvp.

A great many of mechanical changes can be made to end the massive blogs and power blocks, that is really not a big issue. What is, is if that change will be of benefit or not to eve.

13

There is absolutely no way you can design the game to break down big blocks that people wouldn’t be able to subvert by doing it out of game. No matter how you limit it in-game, players will find a way to do it out of the game. That is what happened with alliances first and what is now happening with coalitions. You can set whatever arbitrary limitations you want, but there is no way for you or the devs to limit what players agree out of the game.

14

you are not supposed to do them for long. Once you can, do L3 and L4s. You can skip the L1s if you have the correct skills already.

Why is that an issue ?
Players do L4s do acquire resources to trade. LPs are just one resource, and they exchange it for other resources. It gives players a reason to make missions for different corporations, so different agents, so different systems. It also make players able to choose how they exchange their LP and where, since the value of assets in Eve depends on where those assets are and the time you are willing to wait to sell them.

If you remove the LP system, only a few agents will be worth playing for (typically lanngisi in HS). That would just remove the interest of doing missions, and in the end you would have one or two mission hubs.

The reputation system allows two things :

  • you need to have made enough missions of L1 and L2 before doing L3s, so you learnt how to play your toon AND you have a few isks to avoid losing everything
  • there is a cost to changing corporation/faction so you rather keep working with one agent rather than change agent as the LP market evolves. This in turn brings stability in the LP market worth : someone can’t do L5s for an agent, then switch agent as he wishes.

So no, players should NOT be able to switch agents without a cost. The lowest cost I know of is the epic soe 's 4h time to gain underived faction standing.

Why ? Then just give people 20M per day .
Eve is based on : if you invest time/resources, you can perform better. doing L3 and L4s require to invest time.

WTF is that even supposed to mean ?

15

Its actually not quiet that simple. Yes mining and similar things are contributing to it, but the major issue is actually related to diplomacy and corporations and alliances.

If players are using the lp system for isk optimization the system should have lp gutted, and then the credit values buffed. when we (developers) create systems like this is to help enrich the reward system make things less “stale”, however optimization of isk out of this does just that, makes it stale. LP system should probably randomly assign a reward on completion sort of like obtaining an item after beating a quest and set up the levels to assign specific drops (like l5s giving RNI or VNI) (chance based) or maybe a choice between two or three things? something that needs to be talked about.

This will allow players to earn isk like they should for missions and doing missions is about isk but one of the fun things that comes from it is the rando rewards. much like mining provides social interaction as one of its “by products”.

16

Why ?

Whatever you change, players will use the system for isk optimization.
Hate the gamers, not the game.

17

Actually its our fail as developers by creating system and not updating them to keep players from using them in unintended ways. CCP has been on “content spam” mode for a while, which is why the “systems” in eve are in bad shape. LP systems are a smaller issue but should none the les be stream lined to help resolve this. The lp system should probably reward something that cannot be traded, like account bound clothing, or bonus sp. maybe missions can be changed to give “100 sp-500 sp” per mission (based on level)

18

They are NOT an issue.

You don’t like it, then don’t use it.

Then this reward would be useless and people would STILL optimize isk/h

read this carefully :
THE LP SYSTEM IS NOT AN ISSUE
PLAYER OPTIMIZING THE ISK/H IS NOT AN ISSUE.

1 Like
20

The scary thought you might be a dev brings me to my only request, quit your job. Alternately CCP can help you quit your job, either way is fine.

2 Likes
21

Despite the hate I actually agree with you. In my mind missioning needs to be the core newbie experience. I do feel that the rewards for L1’s and 2’s should be boosted. I have my own ideas on that. But taking out the need for standings to run higher level missions, well I don’t so much agree on that. Newbro’s need the L1’s and 2’s because the best they can fly right away is a frig. Try running L2’s in a T1 frig with T1 modules. Good luck.

I agree with your points on LP. Honestly, as a mission runner, you shouldn’t even get LP. What you should get instead are random loot drop that drop things like BPC’s or high value modules/implants. There needs to be a little faction stuff going on here within the mission system, to help new players get a little extra edge they need by running the mission system. I have many ideas on how the mission system could be improved, and should be, by God, it should be. The mission system should be the backbone of the player experience, with the option of going for PVP or null sec/WH life. That’s where the real end game content is and should remain. But the game should push new players into the mission system where they find themselves a good PVE corp to run with for a while, and maybe even learn some PVP ropes.