PvE anomalies in high-highsec- minesweeper for starters

[ZombieFX]

o/
Flying with a friend who had just started the game, I used an alt account to play alongside him (without having to move halfway across the galaxy) and for the most part, it was good. Had anos, missions, small Abyssals…

Then I looked for something else to fly (together).
Mind you this is 2 jumps from the starter system in 0.9 space! It was already ‘jumpable’ without scan.

I stumbled into an anomaly full of sleeper-like things that chased me back to the station and nearly got my frigate. I said “okay, tough cookies but it was just a frigate” ~ so i got my cruiser with hardener and whatnot and once more those bastardly things almost shot it down while taking nearly 0 dmg in return.

Okay. Whatever. Looked those up for more details and groaned in annoyance about the things i saw…

I told myself that’s no biggy and ignored them and moved on.
Really not in the mood to drag a battleship down here for ‘that’.

A couple days later, about to clean up some basic ships, one of which was a Venture, I discovered a ‘mining anomaly’ in a 0.9 system. Once again I saw an anomaly that was ‘jumpable’ and promised some sort of ‘rare ores’.

I thought “okay lets take a brief look” - and this time those npcs shot my ship before I knew what was going on. Each of those bastards had a low bounty so i mistook them for easy prey… this and it was once more an open gate with no warning (just come npc text about ‘additional rewards’)

I took my cruiser just to see if it was a fluke or not but again; way too strong enemies.

At this point, I gotta ask: what the freak, CCP?!
Did you drown your brain in a box filled with Quafe?!

Starter systems. 0.9 space. ‘open for all’ with NPCs telling you some bs about ‘how lucky you are’.
=> death behind the gate. Some of which trying to track you down throughout the system!

Just today (with my main) I found a mining signature in 0.5!! One i had to scan for.
NOT ONE NPC. Just miners and drones digging as much into their pocket as possible (Yitirum mostly). It was directly after the DT and ppl just kept going in. No way they had time to kill NPCs

So 0.5 > candyland!
And 0.9 > vietnam?!

I remember a long time ago how we couldn’t find jack in high-sec (without incursions or wh).
That’s why you flew to 00. That’s where we got 2-4 fat cats and raided those missions.
-and those you had to scan for with pretty nifty stuff. Took a little time to find them in the first place!
We had to upgrade the system and raise its level over days and weeks…

Now any kid can just ‘stumble’ right into those?
Sprinkled in between other (old school) anomalies you can do with a starter ship?

Seriously, I think there is an implant loose in your head if that’s your idea of ‘balanced’.

• Put a sign there [BEWARE; ship recommendation]
• Make them so you have to scan them first. (so its at least separated from ‘casual ones’, just like WHs)
• Give that NPC jackass some useful information! [Careful! Those XXX don’t give up their minerals easily]
• or put a ‘level’ in its name or somewhere else! (color-coding?! make it intuitive?!)

Why do I have to spell any of this out?!

Having to go into the wiki and read up on sites and FAQs for each freaking anomaly laying on the sidewalk is bad game design. I read more Wiki entries than I like to admit and I really am not in the mood to play anomaly-minesweeper whenever I just want to fly with a friend and have a chill time.

There is no difference, no separation, no clue that it is different! So don’t gimme the “ouh but actually” crap.

Get your ship together and get this fixed…
thanks

[DeMichael_Crimson]

What was the site name?

And yeah, I pretty much agree with what you said…

Also want to add that for quite a while now CCP has been drastically trying to get players to leave High Sec, join a Null Sec Alliance and fight big wars so CCP can once again get free advertising from various game review sites…

[Mary_Forcades]

Agreed.

Good thing is though!
The game kind of is slowly going to that direction…?
It’s just a matter of slowly re-writing and implementing EveUniversity wikia to the game client.

What comes to mind is the The Agency and Opportunities.
I think that those kind of are a push into that direction!
Not much but something!

One could also argue that warping into a site without knowing what’s waiting after landing is part of the fun and excitement to which i totally agree.
The dilemma comes when relic site is partly a sleeper combat site or ghost sites having hidden timersand so on and so on…

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

@ZombieFX As someone who played a while, you should know ccp leaves information for players even noobs to figure out on their own.

[Mary_Forcades]

Also agree to this. What kind of information exactly would you @ZombieFX be keen to see in-game?

Probe scanner, if i recall correctly, tells atleast the level of the site…
That isn’t much though. But how and what would you really say if there was “Show info” for say a combat site?

Some other games use levels like “This instance is for level 5-10 characters.” but that kind of approach doesn’t really work in Eve. Some capsuleers are able to complete hard combat sites with Assault Frigates via manual piloting and just purely having better support and fitting skills, where as new player could take over-sized ship hull for the same site and get totally wrecked.

Every game has guides, FAQ, min-maxed how to run in internet but not in the game itself.
I totally understand that the names of the sites aren’t really intuitive but how many times you need to enter the site to remember that “Oh this was Mordu’s Legion combat site, wayyy over my reach at the moment.”

Figuring stuff out yourself is, atleast for majority of the players, the fun! It would be super-duper boring to copy-paste your gameplay from internet to the game and then what?

This is kind of off-topic, but kind of relates: Personally i believe that the whole “new player, stay-and-play” problem is because it’s players own responsibility to play the game in a way that it’s engaging and fun. That really doesn’t happen when you’re actually playing with the second monitor that has Eve-University wiki pages for combat sites open right? The absurd amount of “What fit for X” posts on Reddit, Discord, Forums, everywhere is only due to the fact that majority of the players don’t really engage and figure literally anything out themselves.

There is a show info for NPC that tells you which damage to deal and to resist.
There is overview that tells you velocity & size.
There is a show info for missile that tells you explosion radius and explosion velocity.
Now combine all the data. It is true though that the game doesn’t tell you nearly enough information or data for example on how to calculate shield resistances % in relation to incoming damage and whatnot.
But i hope it’s getting better and believe it slowly is.

End of “rant”

[Anabella_Rella]

I wish we could move away from this whole attitude of blaming newer players for not engaging with content the way some think they should.

It also has to do with the fact that losing ships in Eve has a much harsher penalty than most other games. Therefore people go to greater lengths to avoid said losses. Newer players can’t experiment a lot (especially after the scarcity/industry revamp changes) because it’s quite expensive to do so.

[Io_Koval]

@Anabella_Rella

I wish we could move away from this whole attitude of blaming newer players for not engaging with content the way some think they should.

No one is doing that.

What is consistent in Eve Online, is that every anomaly and scannable thing is possibly full of NPCs waiting to kill you. It could be a “gas” site, an ore site, a data site, a relic site, a wormhole. I can think of examples of each that has hostile NPCs, or spawns them later, or has special mechanics that blow you up. No matter the Level I through Level V scanning difficulty.

What is also consistent is Eve Online purposefully being mysterious and not explaining every single mechanic and site to you beforehand. So arming one’s self with knowledge from other players is a part of the core gameplay loop:

1. Research and Plan
2. Prepare
3. Make an attempt
4. Fail (eventually)
5. Learn from the Failure
6. Go to step 1 with new Learnings

So the question becomes: Where should a new player learn these lessons? Should it be a part of this core game loop? OP is asking “not high sec”, but then where? When they have more to lose flying around in other areas of space when they’re not new per se, but still haven’t learned?

In general, I am very much for these sorts of things being in high sec, because it is the best place for new players specifically to learn these sorts of lessons.

@Anabella_Rella

It also has to do with the fact that losing ships in Eve has a much harsher penalty than most other games.

A lot of these sorts of points came up before when the guy was upset he lost his bling battleship warping to a HS drifter hole. He wasn’t new, and the old adage is: you’re supposed to only fly what you can afford to lose. Losing a cruiser might be devastating for someone new, but frigates have always been readily accessible even post-scarcity. Face-checking these sites in a Venture or other frigate – while it doesn’t feel great losing a ship – provides ample opportunity to learn (see: core gameplay loop) while on a budget.

Every ISK lost is ISK invested in one’s self. Some people get a lot of bang for their buck, others don’t because they carry “numbers only go up” syndrome from other MMOs and games.