I believe every single member of the CSM would be against CCP selling skillpoints outside of their subscription model. Accelerators for RL cash is something I’m very against, unless it’s for special circumstances (I’d probably be ok with a 2x Accelerator for Alpha’s only for example, as long as it fell off if you became Omega and wasn’t abusable).
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Exactly. It’s easy to get around low and there’s no bubble camps and usually a high sec system nearby plus stations and gate guns.
You go into null every jump is a gamble on whether you hit a bubble camp and if someone finds you his entire Corp/alliance/Intel channel knows there’s a juicy target running around and unless you’re in NPC you probably can’t dock anywhere.
By that logic there should be fewer sites in low sec because there’s less risk in a lone guy going out there to attempt them.
The problem is the flip side of your argument: In NS, people who own the territory are quite safe. If rewards are going to be based on risks, it should be the risk affecting the majority of players in that area, which for NS will be NS sov holding players. Since they are safer than the average LS (or even HS) player, they should not get the best reward.
LS is the riskiest environment for both the LS dwellers and visitors, both HS and NS are fairly safe to people who regularly live there, with the caveat that NS is terrible for visitors and owning NS requiring quite some investment. Hence the rewards should be a better than HS, but lower than LS.
Now it would have been great if this “scaling of reward with risk” idea had been communicated before or during the event by @CCP_Dragon or someone, instead of after. My impression of the event was that it wasn’t worth running (in HS) because finding and running sites took too long and accelerators were too scarce. Had I known that it was better in LS, I might have been tempted to try my luck there, and might even have tried to setup a fleet to do so.
I agree with those echoing against Accelerators in the NES simply because it will greatly devalue those who contribute to the in-game effort.
If the whole point of this is to increase engagement, then you need to reward that engagement, not microtransactions. Leave that for other aspects.
But its not about the Lone guy, its about the locals.
If you are a local in LS you are just about as vulnerable as anyone else in LS, that’s why no one mines in LS there is no way to secure the space. Same goes with these sites, if you are pointed, webbed and nueted by a Sleeper for 10 minutes its pretty easy for some random to come along and pwn you.
If you are a local in NS you have a lot more warning and things to slow people down. All the more time to try and get out.
For the lower end gated sites LS is fine, if the rats in this event were like all of the other events before it running them in LS would have been easy. Just spam D scan and warp out (or setup and your optimal range if you want to fight) if anyone is too close but if you are locked down you need time.
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I can share my ideas without problems. I performed a huge amount of Exploration and Combat sites last few months. It’s important to implement good and balanced ideas in game. Sadly, I have no time for well formatted and protocolled texts…
PVE and Agency Feedback
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Good Agency events: Rogue Drones, Warzone. Why? Because nice loot, competition, jackpot rewards and Accelerators. True, in my opinion, every event should have Accelerators in loot or rewards. It’s, mostly, the main condition to lure out game elite veterans from their dungeons, in game. So, we can see interesting competitions and nice fitted ships for the best performance in such kind of events.
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Rebalanced Signature Spawns. Well discussed. Current default RNG functions in computer techs aren’t true random. Most of them generating periodic values (especially those rng functions, which generating digits between 0 and 1). The same problem I noticed in DB systems like MySQL or MSSQL Server. For true rng values should be written user side functions based on: TIMESTAMP, SHA, RAM Maps in large ranges. For example, every system in a Region should be an array element with its weight (number of anomalies). When one anomaly/sig is closed it should open again in one RNG system, among same weight systems, with lowest weight (0, 1). So, Null-Sec players will not waste hours for searching signatures, which all are stacked in one well-guarded military hostile system.
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Rebalance Loot Drop. Hostile ships from every Event or Combat Site must have respective loot, based on difficulty and time to complete it. Many sites drop good loot, including DED. There are many completely useless sites without good bounties and/or loot like Sleepers in C1-C3 (some in C4), those Hideout, Forlorn, Drone unrated DED. The Warzone event initially had good loot and salvaging stuff, based on its difficulty, skill set for it and time to clear the site (in case of two Safeguards). Last few days it turned to just completely hilarious stuff: downgraded loot and 32k ISK from all salvaged Medium Werck stuff (IDK why small and large ships had Medium Wreck with same costly salvaged components). Considering the Warzone sites had the difficulty (damage/EHP) of C2 WH sleeper sites and EWAR/tackling of C4 sleeper sites.
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Risks and Rewards. This topic is linked to above one. Considering the strength of sleeper NPC ships or rats in Besieged Combat Anomalies (aka damage, Neuts, Webs, Scrambplers and Disruptors) and the quality level of ships to defeat them, their sites should have better rewards. This is why C1-C3 WH sleeper sites aren’t popular – we need very good ships above 50M ISK (T3 destroyers, T2 cruisers, pirate ships, T3 cruisers) to sit in a ‘pocket’ without any gate for very long time just to get a 1-2M loot per ship. So, we can afford to lose a ship once per 2-3 weeks there, which is hard condition, for example. The C6 sites worth the Risk and Rewards, because we can bring a Dreadnought and we can afford to lose such kind of ship every few days there. To play for continuous lose make no sense.
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PVP and PVE. The PVP vs PVE in Combat Sites makes no sense. The Combat Sites are designed under PVE concepts, including ship requirements. The PVP fitted ships have huge PVP advantage vs PVE fitted ships. What is the point to hot-drop in a site to blow up a PVE fitted vessel, with 50% EHP and under EWAR/tackling effects of rats. It’s good to put a gate before the last ‘room’ (where boss is), which can be passed with a key (previously looted) in cargo. This will help vs PVP Hi-Sec ninjas. The case when a player will wait near first gate for 20 mins, while you’ll clear all rooms in the pocket, and will jump to kill the last boos to/or steal the loot. This is why FW sites are popular and have such great success – every site (small, medium or large) have the entrance gate. The battles and traps can happen at entrance or in the pocket. The stealth is prohibited inside. Players inside can D-Scan for incoming ships and decide to take the fight or to warp out, because a gang is coming, or ship have ‘overkill’ advantage. Only big or rude mistakes are result of ship lost. Diving into a ‘rainbow’ or ‘blink’ PVE ship in low- or null-sec it’s default and enough PVP risk.
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Accelerators. The Accelerators in the NES just no, it’s very bad idea considering availability of skill injectors and extractors. Based on time limit of Events and their accelerators its ok to upgrade Accelerator attribute boost to 15. Suggestions about boosted attributes by 20 sounds tasty, but it’s kind of ‘fat’.
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Improve Exploration. Including intellectual minigames and hacking matrix concepts.
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Add new Sleeper Cache Sites. The Standard and Superior Sleeper Caches are the greatest exploration events. It will be nice to see new respective site variations with new secrets risks and ‘rooms’. Rebalance their loot. I completed many Superior Sleeper Caches for 75-80% (40 mins of risky stuff of minesweeper) and got avg reward 100-200M. I got only 70M from one site!!!, wich is kind of hilarious, considering Stain explorers can get 70M ISK from one Sansha’s Relic can in Intact Panels in 3 mins.
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Art and Sites. I like the art concepts, presented at EVE Vegas 2017. The art concepts in UI and environments (Sun) are available to 100% of players on log in. It includes warp in, warp out, changes, triggered alert etc.
@Rexxar_Santaro
When you say unrated drone sites that doesn’t mean things like independence and radiance does it? Cause I’ve found those to be the best sites in the game for reliable drops.
Drones in general have a higher faction spawn rate in just regular anoms.
But I regularly pull 200m out of sigs for not much time investment. They always drop something good even if it’s just drone parts that don’t take up any room. Last two independences I did gave me a stratios chip and sentient drone nav computer plus a decent amount in drone parts usually between 30-100m.
Theyre easily soloable and don’t take much time and everyone ignores them because they think drones are awful.
Drones are severely underrated, to the point I regret even saying it publically because I love taking the drone sites others ignore. Theyre awesome 9 times out of 10. Wish all sites were as good as Ind/rad.
As I understood you talking about Null-Sec Drone Combat anomalies like Drone Herd, Drone Squad, Drone Patrol and Drone Horde. I agree, NS Drone Combat Sites and Cosmic Signatures have nice rewards overall, including bounties (which can vary between 30-40M ISK per site).
I’m talking in general about Drone sites in Hi-Sec and Low-Sec also: Drone Cluster, Drone Collection, Drone Assembly, Drone Gathering, Drone Surveillance and Drone Menagerie. Their bounties don’t worth the time spent on them. The 46-X (Astero) Chip can raaarely drop from Drone Collection or Drone Assembly and 43-X (Stratios) Chip from Drone Gathering (Hi-Sec) and Drone Menagerie (Low-Sec). I completed over 50 Drone Assemblies before I got a jackpot - X-46 and I finished over 100 Drone Gathering before I got my first Stratios chip. From Menagerie I didn’t got anything. The spawn chance of Sentinent boss in Hi- Low-Sec is veery low (which drops trash mainly) and the chance to get a Chip from him it’s even lower. I’m doing Drone Gathering not to farm ISK or Chips, but in hope to get a jackpot just for exciting emotions. The Drone Gathering is the only one Combat Anomaly worth to spent time currently. The salvaged components are among the worst from described kind of sites and from even L4 mission drones. After many hundreds of completed drone anomalies I got only one or two expeditions.
Everything changes if talking about Unrated Signatures: Haunted Yard, Desolate Site, Chemical Yard, Rogue Trial Yard, Dirty Site, Ruins, Independence, Radiance and Hierarchy. They have always a final boss Sentinent XXX, which always drops something good from 1M to 15M ISK in Hi-Sec (Drone capillary, components) and sometimes nice faction items. They have higher chance to drop X-Chips and expeditions like Mare Sargassum, Drudge Factory etc. From one Mare Sargassum I got 1 Sentinent Drone Navigation Computer (200M ISK) which drops very rare and can’t counted as profitable stuff but should be counted as a lottery gamble. I like to complete Drone Signature Sites mainly due to explained things and time to time escalations, even to Low-Sec.
The changes to NS mining, Rorqual and faction drones made drone components more valuable and the Drone AI become a basic ‘de-facto’ market component worth of 5-7M ISK in 2017.
Anyway most of drone loot, even from NS, can’t be compared to Guristas DED loot worth between 500M to 1B ISK for X-Type Shield stuff.
More options is always better than less options, and in your case: the more options available, the more possibilities to create. I like your way of thinking.
KABOOM! Thanks, man, this made my day! 
We could have told you that. Actually, this can be googled. CCP tried this several times in the last decade, but it doesn’t work. Maybe someone should write it down and post it onto an important wall everyone needs to be aware of. 
Thank you so much for your time and effort!
The Event was too short for the players to adapt. Newbies get told to risk exploration or gas huffing trips into wormholes all the time. But how long did it take until that became common advice? Month or even years I think. Most EVE players are very cautious and only take a higher risk when they are quite sure it will be worth it. Perhaps that player reporting good drops in LowSec was just lucky? Or bragging? LowSec has a reputation for being a high risk / moderate profit area so it will take some time and/or extra information to alter player behavior here.
Some people’s gameplay would have to evolve and they would have to learn in multiple sessions to survive in low sec. Its not so easy, well maybe it is for first time when you warp your mission raven in there to do missions, just to be surprised somebody found you out and you did not even see them coming. Then you learn very quickly its not so easy and you need to learn a lot!
This is actually one of my arguments for keeping Accelerators as Event-only. Veteran players know how to turn their IRL cash into ISK, so we don’t need to add something new for them to purchase. Newer players will find that this is how EVE works: “You got something cool? Use it or sell it? Up to you!”
On the other hand, in order to keep Accelerators rare enough that veteran players don’t just farm them, we have to make it a difficult grind that new players will tend to avoid it. However my counter-counter-argument to this counter-argument is that we have to balance difficulty no matter what the reward is.
Slippery slope fallacy. You aren’t wrong, but it isn’t a valid argument for me to use.
To you and to everyone. But of course there are people here who think I’m crazy and/or stupid. They think this might allow people to “steal our jobs” or some other silliness. I say let them. Challenge me to do better. Challenge us to stay ahead of the curve. Find ways to make these tools improve the content in the game by allowing players to show us what they want.
This is correct. We find that most people running sites in Null are doing so in fairly safe territory. It’s not always the case, but it’s more often the case. Because of this, Null sees a much higher completion rate than Low.
Using Rogue Swarm Alert from June as an example, I believe it was the highest Low Sec completion rate we had seen in a while. Low Sec was around 7% and Null Sec was around 25% of the total completions.
We’ve been experimenting with trying to “message” that the rewards are better in Low Sec using in-game methods, rather than telling people through the news and community channels. I think if we can make it evident in-game, it would be better. Giving feedback to player actions is still something that EVE does poorly.
Another one of my arguments in favor of keeping Accelerators event-only.
Even this isn’t really entirely the problem. It’s really a matter of allowing more to spawn in a system where there are already several spawned, when there are tons of other systems that are completely empty.
Weighting systems based on the inverse number of spawned sites might be a decent way to do it. Still, this is in discussion phase, not even in design phase yet.
A single medium wreck was all I could get onto them in the amount of time we had to do it. The nerf was requested, that was what I could get in the time we had. I really hate changing loot drops or event rewards in the middle of an event. I dislike it so much that I was perfectly willing to see this through since the event is only running for a limited time so the “damage” to the economy is not permanent. Sure, it might have taken a very long time for it to recover, but can we learn something from this? In the end I decided to let this one go. Sorry, folks.
However, it does show that things like salvage are a good way to give out additional loot. Maybe not during Crimson Harvest, since it is around the corner, but probably during Yoiul Festival since I’m still working on that now, I’m trying to do something to that effect.
Sometimes it needs to be proven. Sometimes it needs to be proven again. Sometimes it needs to be ingrained. Like good science, it should be peer reviewed.
You’ll notice that I have and will continue to test things that we already know or think we know. Some of it is because we think we know but we really don’t. Some of it will be to prove something to leadership so they quit bugging us. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make it sound like we are all just part of some little science experiment…
A single event is too short. However, when multiple events start to trend that way, it can change habits. Especially if (going back to an earlier point) we can give players feedback about where the high risk / high rewards are available. Because if the game shows the rewards are better, it becomes more believable than when a player says “Come to Low Sec, we have cookies!”
I just want to put this out there: I am not convinced either way about Accelerators. This thread has not presented any new arguments. I’ve heard all of these arguments against it. I’ve heard a lot of arguments for it. There are a lot of fallacious arguments on both sides because this is a very divisive topic. My personal opinion is that it will take a very powerful tool away from Events. Even though we have other tools we can use to engage people, that doesn’t mean we should weaken our current ability to reward players for playing the game.
The only reason I’m still considering this at all, is because there are a lot of changes coming to Alphas and Omegas. Maybe in a year it will make more sense to sell Accelerators, but I think there still needs to be further discussion before we get there. I have some say in the matter. If that changes and I lose the ability to have a say in this particular argument, I’ll let you know.
Final note: there is a minor client/server sync issue with applying boosters (or accelerators) after you log in to a structure. It’s fairly minor at the moment since we think we’ve found a work around for it. It is also enough for me to say we don’t sell borked items to players. No selling of accelerators until this gets fixed. This is at least one thing that everyone here agrees about.
10 Likes
You’re now my favourite dev, putting exCCP SoundWave on second place.
I hope you won’t mind me using your words against players who keep inventing their own facts.
Thank you and keep on rocking!
That was actually a joke. But when you talk about slippery slopes… 
People were “rumor mongering” about more options for microtransactions, F2P for years before Alpha changes and then bending to Alpha wishes for more power, and it all became realized, maybe only partially. It is kind of slippery slope, maybe not steep, but it is. Its kind of slope that gives CCP direction.
what other tools you spoke off?
I think a strong argument is that accelerators are not different from “gonden ammo” type of item, as it gives a direct and measurable benefit in game, just like injectors.
Another strong argument may well be the player base voice. I’ll sure let the CSMs know that I’m against this and I doubt a significant amount of players would be favorable to selling accelerators in the NES.
SKINs, Apparel, Fireworks, Modules, Ships, BPCs
I might be able to get injectors or extractors to give away at some point but that’s a very long and difficult discussion for later. Including the question as to whether or not it is even a good idea.
I just wanted to let everyone know that we’re still in discussions and that it is on hold until a fix is in for the client/server sync issue.
EDIT: I noticed we’re super off topic now, which is fine. I’ll probably be absent from the forums for the next week and be back when the Crimson Harvest starts up. (something about spending too much time writing replies… I dunno, grumble grumble)
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Yeah, I missed the hint. And I was quite keen on the event when it started. And, since we were wardec’d during the event, flying in LS might not have been that bad of an idea too, given than HS was not particularly safe any ways. Too bad! It’s good to know you are looking at better ways to get the message across and I very much agree that doing it in game (hey, you have a new agency thingy with all kinds of hints…!) is better than in blog posts or forums.
Salvage, not too hard to hack cans (You know, scanning those big wreck things with our relic analyzers to find the relic that’s in it?!), anything that nerfs people who want to solo (because they have to fit a salvaging module and/or an analyzer onto their combat ships) but rewards people who fleet up (your 100% combat ship + my hybrid combat/salvage/hacking ship, we split rewards) would be cool. Kind of how having mining + fighting seems to work in the warzone extraction sites.
Also, keep up the good work! It’s great to see devs engaging with players so directly
Just dont warp off from valid 1vs1’s and you wont be off my x-mas list.
/me glares @CCP_Logibro
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