New Missions, Ultimate PvE Ships, and converting Alphas

PvE Gameplay Center Missions
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I understand that there are many ideas in these forums about re-creating the mission system, but as CCP is probably busy with their new 64-bit engine and other projects, modifications to missioning will be on the back burner for some time I’m guessing, and I figured I’d propose something that is within the current framework for now.

Current Security Missions Breakdown:

I believe security missions can be categorized as follows:

  • Farmable - missions that are worthwhile to keep open for the 6-7 days possible, at the expense of locking up that agent for the duration.
  • Blitzable - missions with an objective that can be completed quickly.
  • Empire Faction - missions that provide tags at the expense of standings.
  • Challenge - large missions that can kill off rushed or inexperienced players, but not worth blitzing or farming.
  • Fluff - missions not worth farming or blitzing, but some are worth doing for story or fun.

(I didn’t add burners cause they can be declined without penalty.)

Adding new missions to keep the content fresh:

For those of us that enjoy the content, we need new missions to retain subscribers and to convert the fence-sitting alphas to subs (more on that concept later). I can’t say whether we are a significant revenue stream, but even if a subber only plays in missions, it is bonus revenue, why throw it out?

However, missions are just the beginning in many players’ career. Eventually they move on to exploration, PvP, Null sec, etc… I’ve seen it happen many times, some just take longer than others. And often they return to missions for enjoyment and an income stream to fuel those other dangerous activities. Mission running is one of the significant reasons for staying in the game for some.

Keeping missions fresh may require maintaining the mission type ratio, categorized above, when adding new missions. As long as the mission type ratio can be maintained, I think there would be few complaints. I know some would like to alter the system to just feed them the missions they like. However, I personally haven’t minded when my agents get stingy by not giving me “good” missions, it just reminds me to try a different activity in EVE for a bit.

Now. if CCP does not currently have enough time or resources to add new missions, why not hand over a level design kit to the community? I’m sure there would be quite a few players willing to make new missions for free. Or make it a contest and give out prizes to select best missions. Then categorize the new missions and add according to ratio.

If somehow, someday, there are just too many missions, maybe add a mechanic to rotate out and back in missions by season. Like every three months, a block of categorized missions get pulled, only to be put back in another rotation.

The Ultimate PvE ships

Here’s the thing, for Lv4 security mission running in high sec, ultimate PvE ships already exist: marauders using bastion. (I bet some were expecting me to push for a brand new pwnmobile :rofl:) Now there’s people that are gonna huff about their favorite faction ship, and if their ship is so much better than a marauder, sure, I’ll take a buff for marauders. But in all seriousness, the one big advantage that a bastioned marauder has is that it is near immune to ewar.

Converting Alphas, and Spammin’ Jammin’

So here is where it all comes together: new missions, ultimate ship, converting alphas. Make the new missions have just an annoying amount of ewar. Not to where it’s game breaking for people, but maybe to where it takes like 25-50% longer without bastion. And the npc’s should switch to, and attack all players on the map with ewar, so that it can annoy even multiboxers. No need to lock out alphas from Lv4 securities. Just spam ewar at everyone until they sub and climb into a Marauder, which requires Omega. And at the same time, the new missions can help retain older subscribers. It’s win-win.

EDIT: Added header for conclusion.

For those that hate bastioning, there are threads/posts calling for changes to make the mechanic more fluid.

And for those that love their pirate ships, they are, in theory, designed for PvP. Marauders are the PvE specialists, so they should get all the missioning love, IMHO.

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Missions in eve are way to hard to script, so CCP wont rework them soon. We have bigger problems than adding more pockets to blitz.

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With over 4000 hard coded missions in the game, it’s unlikely any new PVE content will be produced the same way. It’s simply too labor intensive. Procedurally generated missions {and anomalies) are an option - there might be a few unique attributes for each mission, the rest could be generated on demand. I’m not sure this would be popular - a lot of people like the predictability and farmability of the existing content.

Meanwhile, I expect them to continue experimenting with the Abyss and event content to learn what works before making a huge investment renovating the old PVE content.

It would be nice if special mission chains like the Epic Arcs and Cosmos missions were rewritten to preserve the storyline.

The old rule of thumb was gank + tank > 1000 to run level 4 missions comfortably. In pyfa that’s recharge rate + firepower. This is easily achieved with a T2 fit Loki - no need for faction modules. It’s a different experience than running the missions in a battleship but no less entertaining! I don’t think we need any more specialized ships for PVE.

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Procedurally stuff has already proven to be even more difficult for CCP to do and it almost fried the servers. Drifter incursions, remember? CCP wasted nearly a year on that otherwise useless PVE content and other unused content like RW and FOBs. Hence, time is certainly not an issue for CCP in that regard. However, with good new missions they would actually improve the user experience instead of just wasting everyone’s time.

We need more new missions like Dread Pirate Scarlet. And there are ways to limit new missions to certain other PVE hot spots like Incursions or FOB systems so that only people there can run them as mix up of the usual mission diet.

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That is what concerned me, didn’t know whether CCP scripted their content or not. But from I read, CCP is rewriting 64-bit engine from ground up. So hopefully if they changed to industry standard and transfer all old missions to script they’ll keep everything true. And also, with new code, they should easily be able to make new missions themselves, and/or tools they can hand over to the community as I mentioned before.

Agree 100%

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imho all high sec missions should be antifiction or at the very least all missions that presently have bounty rats should have the option to be antifiction ships…

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Personally I would rather have more AByss style content over missions. If they do make more missions then those would be more for Lore purposes etc. kinda like the current ones which I thought were pretty cool. I actually read all the missions text and followed the stories.

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After taking a second look at Abyss, I found a renewed appreciation for it. Enough so that I bought Omega to at least put in my contribution to the artwork and gameplay that resides within. But I can’t say how long the Abyss will keep my interest.

That’s why I do hope there will be more new and interesting missions someday. I do think if (and big IF here) CCP were ever to turn over mission design tool kit over to the community, I think a lot of surprising and interesting missions/stories may come of it, fans can sometimes do the best work.

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There’s also a wide array of DED sites and escalations which can show you some challenge especially since some aren’t even well documented and can be considerably tougher than lvl 4 missions as they scale all the way to 10/10 and limit you to battleship at most with their gate limitations. There’s also hunting rare spawns like clone soldiers and mordus ships in lowsec and officer spawns and capital spawns in 0.0 .

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ccp has had the same missions for years and simply use any excuse no to make new ones we all know for a fact the only people ccp hates more than bot miners is us hard core mission runners. New missions should be a focus period bring lv 5s back to high sec . make missions that send your exploring, wh space or the abyss. make new mission givers that move around. i am not buying the sorry old excuse that its too hard. just bull plain bull

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I can’t say what CCP’s current vision for the game is, only they would know. I can say they did have some love for mission runners in the past, like when they first introduced Marauders. There was not really any other role for the Marauder back then, it was CCP’s gift to grinders for full clearing missions when there were no MTU’s, MD’s, or salvage drones.

I don’t know the full story behind why there has been no new mission content. It’s either the missions are hard coded into the game engine, or if you listen to the hyperbole/trollers then CCP is now anti-PvE, or it could be even staffing issues. But with the recent cash infusion CCP received, and news that they are updating their engine, maybe there is some hope. If there are coding issues, this would be a grand opportunity to bring the engine up to industry standards, especially decoupling components to make generating new content and features much faster and easier.

As for CCP’s vision for the game in general, it’s hard to say. The most recent content, the Abyss, is mostly PvE oriented, with some PvP added in the end. And EVE cannot be 100% PvP, cause almost all isk comes from PvE activity. You pretty much have to grind to PvP, except for certain profitable PvP, but even then, if their targets didn’t grind somewhere, they wouldn’t have anything worth ganking for.

The bounty system is broken as well, and is easily abused, therefore no way to make pure PvP that way either. Not to mention bounties come from players anyways, which comes from grinding. So in theory, CCP has to make PvE content, but it has to be at least tolerable grinding. But PvE can’t be so fun that people hardly interact and there is little PvP, that is definitely not EVE’s role. So CCP has to tread carefully within a certain tolerance.

But at this point, I would have to say IMHO, the mission running content has gotten stale enough that it is barely tolerable grinding, but could be intolerable for others.

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Spammin’ Jammin’ - when I read that in my minds eye I saw a can of spam with legs and arms, wearing a ZZ TOP beard and hair rocking out on the guitar on stage… funny though but yuck I can’t do spam… it smells like tinned dog food and tastes like :face_vomiting: (cue the spam lovings reeeeeees)

When was the last time missions have been updated with anything new, exciting or challenging? Aside from burners, mish needs some luv! Alphas, meh - I have never liked the idea.

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I couldn’t see where you mentioned this in the OP, specifically ‘Tools to Create Missions’, but it sounds like the sort of thing that could work and would certainly make things more interesting.

I’m now torn between NPC Corp missions and somehow integrating player Corp missions… cause you’re a null sec type and doing missions for < High Sec Faction > isn’t your bag, you need to infiltrate Goon space (or PL, or whichever large entity)… or you need to Save < insert name of corp dude who’s only got a pod and needs to be scouted home >. Similarly if you’re a high sec type PIRATE need someone to defend their miners from teh ebil CODE (cause they have no permits)… that could work.

Not sure on the “Ewar all teh things” but I think it would be preferential to a blanket ban on access to content… but also think as described you’d lock out a lot of current Omegas that do enjoy L4s in their Pirate BSes (I know I do).

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

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M Cincinnatus, I would support your idea about handing the community tools to create new missions - I have seen how it worked out great in at least one other game. The player created quests were very unusual, interesting and popular. But I suspect the issue is that CCP does not have standardized and user friendly tool for mission creation - missions are just coded and I am sure CCP won’t give access to the game code for any regular player. Of course they could create such a tool from the scratch, but that would require time and resources and to be fair CCP never has been and probably never will be too interested in PvE aspects of the game. They always did that part of the game with an attitude “lets make so that it would be… somewhere… somehow…” but their focus has been on PvP aspects and honestly that is what they are good in. With all the due respect they just don’t have talented PvE content creators and those who have some ideas about this type of content don’t have authority within to push through massive PvE content expansions. All their attempts to add some PvE content did look like they have put some experimental content to test out and then totally stopped further development without any plans to update or expand (missions never been significantly updated from initial introduction; wormhole sleepers remain the same as they have been introduced; Incursions have never been updated or expanded - just nerfed a bit over time; anomalies are the same for a decade or more…) I would like it to be other way as I prefer PvE myself, but reality is as it is.

Other sections of your post seem too personal opinion to me and it looks good to you, but in some cases they are totally wrong. For example if you would make some investigation you would know that marauder class ships never have been created as “missioning” ships - quite opposite - they were initially created with intentions to revive battleship scale PVP and after initial launch they have been rebalanced and reworked to fit to that role. But as it often happens players had their own opinion and plans of CCP did not have too much of a success. Then again your opinion that marauders are best for Missions for now is solely your opinion based on your play style and your preferences in missions - a lot of mission runners would argue these claims or even tell you that you have no clue what you are talking about as they do missions absolutely other way and marauders don’t fit their vision of mission running at all.

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i Think a idea for corp missions would be a nice idea it can work in sov and all other space´s too, My wishen was all time that sove space Pockets or Region can Say Caldary we like you send us agents or so. So you can fly missions in sov too.

Bud Corp missions would be really nice because player canwork us corp. It must not be mission where Player start playing 20 men like incursion. It can be mission we need som Mineral´s get this Please. Or other stuffs like this.
Perhaps it can be that you build a fraction Like Creation a Fraction Citadell for them us misson hub or other thinks and much more. They way you can do this is really great and Can Made Fraction Warefare in a large Scale and other stuff…

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That’s cause I changed it on ya, I called it a “level design kit” in OP, sorry bout that. :sweat_smile:

And yah, I would love to see what a toolkit in the hands of fans could do.

Player Corp missions sound like a great idea. Missioning is already a grind, no need to add another layer to it.

Sorry about that too. :sweat_smile: Although, technically it wouldn’t lock them out, just be an annoyance. And I’m not truly invested in the idea of “Ewar all teh things”, it was just one way of bringing everything together. CCP could also create more Marauder types, and although very unlikely, T2 Pirate battleships would be pretty cool. I’d love to get my hands on a T2 Vindicator… :sunglasses:

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It would be really cool to see where fans could take missioning design. I’ve seen it work very well in other games as well. Here’s hoping that after they implement their new 64-bit engine, they put in new capabilities for such content.

It’s not really my opinion on why Marauders were first introduced into EVE, it’s more of my memory. It could be my memory is going along with my age, but when marauders first came out IIRC, they had a gimped sensor strength on purpose, so that they were not OP in PvP. This caused them to be easily taken out of the equation in player battles with a little ECM.

Then, if my memory serves, the Marauder balance pass happened years later. This introduced Bastion, which went the complete opposite direction, and made Marauders nearly ewar immune, and therefore have some niche roles in PvP, despite its expense and immobility. A dev also said at this point, Marauders were trying to fill a role between battleships and capitals. That doesn’t mean that people didn’t try PvP before bastion, but from what I’ve read, it wasn’t common.

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what kibd of idiot are you?? lvl 5’s were never ment to be in high sec. and a good deal of them are antifaction…

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utter lies they were often in high sec

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they was NEVER ment to spawn in high sec… if you want that kind of stuff go null sec