Standings over the last few years have lost nearly all meaning; You no longer need them for jump clones, anchoring POS (soon to be removed anyhow), even the sales/refine tax/ aspect is bypassed by citadels. The only reason to have standings with the NPC factions/corps at this point is for missions (cosmos/arcs included). The requirements to join a faction in faction war are laughable at best.
There needs to be more interaction between the NPC corps. Maybe they can pay concord off and start a war with each other occasionally, and you can offer your services to either side (standings related missions) to help. The rewards for partaking could possibly be a skin or apparel related to the NPC corp that you helped. Perhaps have something similar to overseer personal effects that you could trade for loyalty points, that could possibly drop from the opposing corp NPCs. Maybe even add in more NPC activity around some of the stations of the corps at war, have it so anyone would be able to partake. Obviously, you would gain or lose standings depending on which side you chose to help.
A similar idea to incursions could be applied to empire factions, taking place in high security space. This would more or less be a “lite” version faction war with parts of the incursion system mixed in. Each faction could invade an opposing factions space, maybe even reinforce their allied faction in a few areas. There could be anomalies where an active battle is taking place, signatures of what could possibly be a new staging point for a forward operating base, maybe an event agent (beacon) for missions for more specific objectives, etc. There could be varying levels of objectives available depending on the level character faction standing. Obviously this could not be as profitable as faction war is, but it could be good way to give faction standings some meaning. Rewards could be similar to the ones awarded by NPC corps; Faction related apparel, ship skins, standings; In place of loyalty point rewards, tags of the opposing faction(s).
The best part is that there would be no isk being injected into the economy. This would give meaning to standings again, as well as provide content for people. I’m looking for constructive criticism, please keep it civil.
There are many aspects of the PVE environment that are really lack luster. I remember starting eve in 2007 with a friend and we were drawn first to the PVE and Mission side of things. We thought on the lines of “Ooh! Look what we can do in space!” Faction standings had purpose then as well, for POS’s, Clones, taxes, missions, etc as you mentioned already.
There are a ton of ideas out there that CCP coupld capitalize on to improve the PVE and Story Line aspects of eve.
For instance, there could be a simple, binary story system setup around the currently popular event beacons, where - depending on if players do A or B more often in the event (or if they acquire more standing for faction C or D) - the next event can be X or Y. It gets announced to everyone, people all know about it, an eve mail like the incursion one comes out from whoever the faction was that was supported most by the players thanking those who spent the most time assisting them.
This would be a great addition too. An agent that offers work for a certain area of space, not affiliated with any corp or faction. Less rewarding, but maybe have more missions that could be remotely accepted/completed.
An NPC Corps system that gives minor but noticeable QoL solutions to structure-holding player corporations and alliances. Like (but not limited to) NPC haulers that can move stuff between structures owned by an alliance/corporation within the same solar system, for a small fee.
An NPC agent system (maybe tied to WarDecs?) that hands missions designed to disrupt or defend the one described above. Examples related to the one in the first point could be to move fuel to a hidden outpost that makes NPC haulers less efficient; to locate, hack and disable said outpost; or to destroy enemy NPC haulers and the small gangs that protect them.
An LP store for Citadels.
Said systems would provide several things, including more ISK sinks, the possibility of having less ISK faucets, more PvE content that can potentially lead to PvP and overall more life inside solar systems and around player owned structures.
Gah! I hope to never see npc’s moving player stuff.
Putting npc mission agents in a citadel (something I’d like to see) would understandably have a link to standings. The higher your corp standing the higher level of agent they let you use.
(though one day i hope all agents give a pool of missions of varying levels that can be accepted remotely. Citadel agents could give more missions and of a higher value. Perhaps also related to owners standings)