NPC Sotiyos

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Was told in a petition to post ideas in here in reference to the Blood Raider/Guristas NPC Sotiyos. Preface this with handful of guys and myself have run more of these than anyone else so we actually have first hand experience on them. This includes having lead fleets in subcaps, caps, supers, and titans versus these structures. I think it is a great mechanic but it needs some tweaks which wouldn’t take too much work.

  1. Issue: NPC Sotiyo spawn quantity

Discussion: With the most recent patch and them being able to spawn everywhere, there should be a clear amount of the number of these spawning. The Guristas Sotiyo at last announcement/patch notes from CCP spawns 2x in 0.0, 1x in lowsec. The Blood Raider Sotiyo spawns 1x in 0.0, 2x in lowsec. The patch notes didn’t detail the spawn region, but it was far far greater than the original discussion of Delve/PB/Querious or whatever else for up north.

Recommendation: I would recommend the default spawn be 2x in 0.0 and 2x in lowsec (or 1x lowsec if the other factions ever get sotiyos as well since lowsec is slightly smaller than 0.0).

Result of change: This gives a moderate / low chance to see them, while still being rare enough that they don’t get flooded (it’s a 4 day respawn timer already to keep the quantity introduced balanced). A set quantity out there means those who actually want to run these know what they are looking for slightly (if there is one in The Forge and one in Geminate, they know there is still one 0.0 one available somewhere)

  1. Issue: Spawns have no bonus chance to home region.

Discussion: Spawns should still have some tie to lore. This is one of the few things CCP could have left in game that made a region unique. The fact that Guristas/BR Sotiyos could all spawn in Angel space with nothing in a home region is a bit dumb and makes no sense. Why would a faction wouldn’t be trying to build a super capital/titan/etc in their home space…but forward staged only.

Recommendation:
I would recommend there be a guaranteed 1x 0.0 spawn in the home regions based on the race of NPCs. Something like within 10 jumps of the factions NPC space (Venal, Delve, etc by faction)

Result of Change: This change would mean there is no monopoly on these sites they still spawn eve wide (2x 0.0 spawns, 2x lowsec spawns) but there is a reason to live near their home space. Those who live in Venal and Delve (Curse if Angel ones are ever released, Stain for Sansha, Syndicate for Serpentis) actually have a rare item they can export / hunt for.

  1. Issue: The LP store currently only offers Serpentis BPCs

Discussion: Either all serpentis BPCs should be removed from the LP store, or there should be additions for the Guristas and Blood Raiders to the LP stores in their regions. This would give a level field for them and actually give a reason to run missions for blood raiders (holy god what a terrible LP market)
BUT PITTS! The serpentis ones have a super high mineral cost so it keeps them from being mass produced read recommendations

Recommendation:
Add BPCs for the Faction capitals/supers/titans to the LP store for each faction. However have it be a separate BPC from the ones that drop in the loot boxes in Sotiyos. Obviously it would be broken if you could just farm LP all day and crank out a Komodo or Molok fleet. So just have 2x BPC versions for these faction caps. One from the sotiyo’s with the reduced mineral cost (25% increase from the standard hulls), one from the LP store with a significantly higher mineral cost similar to that of the vanquisher currently. Make it cost 2-3 times more than the current loot box versions do.

Result of Change: This change would mean there is a way for potentially even a brave small group who are running missions and cashing in LP to get one at an extremely higher cost, but still keeping the current reward of a lower cost BPC after running these “difficult” sotiyos. (Coding isn’t that hard…you just make unique properties for each and modify the name to something like Komodo LP Blue Print Copy and Komodo Blue Print Copy). If you look at the number of vanquishers or vendettas in eve it is not a proliferation of them due to the mineral cost and fact that not everyone lives there.

The final change I had was related to the NPC response fleet spawns, but I have not tested one since CCPs latest change. Hopefully they keep the escalation based on ship type so the use of capitals yields a different response then a fleet of ravens or whatever.

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You are aware that CCP referrs to ‘Cant Code Properly’, right?

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To supplement point 1) the original reason the spawn counts were not identical was due to the amount of space available for spawning, should the spawn rate not be increased to account for the massive expansion of space? Personally I’m worried that this expansion of spawn zone heralds the Devs giving up on this style of content, which would be a mistake imo.

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CCP is trying to do New Eden to flat and not interesting.
No respect to Lore, what is quite sad in game like EVE.

Faction BPC for capitals and above should be from the start only in the LP stores but instead of high material cost they should act as ISK sink.

Faction titan?
No problem 500.000 LP and 150 bil ISK for 1 run in LP store.

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That would be a great alternative as well. No need for a new BPC but make the isk sink and time to get that LP so heavy. I know there are groups out there who like to “blaze” and could probably gain that LP semi easily but if you did something like 25-50million LP and made the cost at least 90b (similar to that in the materials) you definitely keep it from mass proliferation.

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That wont require a dev team to work for several years to make tools for them to make new pve content though. It also wont bring with it a freighter full of bugs and unintended beahaviour. Cant do a reasonable thing like that.

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CCP changed the Sotiyo spawns to spawn in all space after GSF refused to run them because they were such a ■■■■■■■ pain in the ass to run, and because it is a dumb idea. You don’t want to sacrifice half a Mach fleet every time someone in your alliance wants a fancy capital. Also the fact that the BPCs aren’t available in the LP store gates the availability behind a seriously high SP and ISK wall, or gives participants little to no worthwhile payout due to fleet size.

IMO, CCP should slightly reduce subcap spawn spam, add in a few more capital spawns, slightly nerf the DPS, and add the BPCs to the LP store. As an added incentive, make a new shiny/top quality skin that can ONLY drop from the Sotiyos, and can only be used on the factions that make up the pirate faction (I.e. Gurista sotiyo drops Skins that can only be used by Caldari/Gallente, BR drops skins for Amarr/Minmatar, etc).

Edit: Also, mineral costs for the faction caps is ■■■■■■■■. I can get two Titans for the cost of a faction Super. Double mineral cost is fine (so 28b mineral cost), but 8-9x cost is not.

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Additionally the fact that the reward for members of more than like 10 in a fleet is trash doesn’t bode well to running them. We have run in the double digits of these and the fact that you can literally get nothing of value for a total drop of approximately 3-500mil means bringing any sizable fleet is really just a charity event.

Issue: A further needed change which I forgot to discuss is the payout.

Discussion: There is only bounties on the cruisers in these and a small bounty on the KILL of the sotiyo. So the whole concept of “fleet pve” is worthless unless no one cares about getting paid. In the same time it takes to run one of these over two days you can easily AFK VNI rat more than potentially drops. Currently the only successful methods to run these are Titans, Supers/Carriers, Dreads with support, and a large group of subcaps (INIT has had success vs the Guristas one with a group of 50, others have done 200+ in other ships as well). Anything subcap related though is a trash reward given how many have to be involved.

Recommendation: Give a set bounty to people on the RF and the Kill. This would take some more coding work so slim chance from CCP…but if everyone got paid 100m on the RF and the kill then it gives an incentive to run it in a group similar to incursions.

Result of Change: You will see more run since there is actually an interest by fleet members and more than one doctrine done to do it. It means you won’t see these just run in capitals in small groups.

For those who haven’t run these the loot drop in 0.0 is potentially 2x BPCs, 1x BPC, or no BPCs with a random chance on the faction or even officer loot. The officer loot drop is rediculously low probability. It is not uncommon to get less than 1b in loot which given it takes 2 days to run these it is not worth the time.

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Exactly. Nullsec needs more possibilities to produce many more isk than now.

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They are a lowsec thing as well. Not like they are common when there is currently only 2x 0.0 spawns in ALL of 0.0.

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