I’ve always wondered about this mission. For those who may have forgotten, this is a career agent mission where you take an empty frigate, fly it towards a structure and it blows up, then you fly your pod back out.
I don’t see what this teaches new players, as no situation really exists like this in the game. It could be argued that it’s supposed to teach loss, but then I think The Stand (5/10) does a much better job of this requiring you to fight until you explode.
In my opinion, Angel of Mercy (2/10) would serve new players better if it were something like ECM, where a ship is tackled and you have to take a frigate in with a civilian ECM module to break the lock so your friend can escape, as that would at least be a situation that could occur.
So the real questions here are, do you think this mission is useful and what are your reasons either way? Would you replace it with something else, and if so, what?
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That’s what The Stand teaches, sure. But in what situation in the actual game do you fly a completely unfitted frigate at a target to blow it and yourself up? The purpose of this particular career agent is to teach various techniques, so it has a warp disruption mission, a logi mission, an afterburner mission, a web mission, etc.
In my opinion Angel of Mercy stands out as a filler mission that teaches nothing because it’s a scenario that will only ever occur in that one mission and it would be better served teaching another type of module such as ECM.
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Maybe it’s more about the feeling of doing nothing useful in terms of combat but still achieving your goal while sacrificing your ship in the process.
So basically teaches you what it’s like to be a bait or when getting ganked or being a tackler that will most likely get killed or getting caught on a gate so your buddies can pass or whatever.
So the general sense of being defenseless and getting blown up for the greater good I guess.
Just my swift interpretation as never put much thought into it beyond it showing your ship being blown up is part of the experience.
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It teaches that ships explode. Sometimes just by being in a wrong place at the wrong time. Or at the right place at the right time, depends whos exploding and who is not.
Outside of that mission, have you seen a ship explode spontaneously and take out a structure with it?
You are giving it way to much thought. More than CCP gave career agents ever. For many players (before new, new, new (…) NPE it was first time you actually lose a ship. It teaches you exactly that experience. Without any burden of other activates like combat or ewar. As bitter vet you might not remember it. But coming from other games to EVE. Where “losing harshly” is on day to day basis. Tends to be biggest barier to enjoying the game.
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My ships were exploding around structure that blowed up, I have seen ships exploding around structures that took the structure with them to their grave, poetically speaking. Sometimes you dont have to shoot the structure even for your ship to be blow up and then you are rewarded with “mission complete”.
I agree that CCP haven’t given it much thought.
I’m not sure it really teaches anything about loss though as they give you an empty ship and tell you to fly it over to something then it blows up. The Stand does a much better job as you fight someone then you have to get blown up.
Similarly, they could have you use ECM to save someone but then have you get scrammed and destroyed in their place and at least that would feel more like a real scenario in the rest of the game.
It teaches what happens if you die: the ship is gone and it doesn’t respawn so you have to get a new one.
5/10 is not about teaching what happens if you die, it’s teaching about the 3 layers of hp. That is why they take so long to kill and why you’re webbed and damped so much: you’re forced to sit back and see it unfold.
You’d think this would be fairly obvious to people who post so much on the forums they surely would/should understand the game well enough.
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So if people don’t agree with your opinion that means they don’t understand the game?
In my opinion, the mission teaches you nothing. You fly an empty ship to a spot in space, wait a second then fly back in a pod then complete the mission. It seems like a wasted opportunity for real teaching.
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It teaches reading the mission.
If you fail to read the full brief and jump out with a ship you have put some time into, it’s lost for no reason, when you could have just gone in the ship given to you for the mission’s purpose.
–Gadget sometimes reads the instructions
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It’s not a great example, and the text/wording could use some updates.
What I’ve used it for when helping newbies through careers:
- Reminder that you’re immortal, ships are replaceable, death is not a big deal.
- Reminder to insure your ship if you think it’s going to explode.
- Reminder to check to make sure you’ve got the right ship+fit for the job.
- Reminder to read mission descrips carefully.
- Reminder that agents have no compunction about sending you to your ‘death’ and ship-loss, so be wary.
Not everything in a game tutorial will 100% teach something directly useful, but at least it doesn’t give any wrong impressions.
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But what does it teach you that The Stand does not? You jump into a ship fly to a spot in space then fly back in a pod, it’s the same as The Stand without any actual combat, ship fittings, etc. Just seems like a wasted opportunity, especially in a mission chain that teaches you a variety of module types.
Repetition helps people learn:
" Repetition sounds simple enough, but it requires a high level of patience. When stimuli are learned by repetition, they are remembered better and retained for a longer time . Studies have shown that the brain forms new pathways when a task is repeated often, thereby optimizing the performance of the skill."
Yeah, I agree, but they could repeat being blown up while also learning something else. For example, you could have to go ECM an enemy to save a scrammed ship and in the process get scrammed and destroyed yourself. That would be the first example in the tutorial of being taught ECM and being shown that you can be scrammed.
Instead, you fly an empty ship to a spot in space to explode with some invisible explosives in your cargo to take down a structure, something that does not actually happen in the game.
That one is actually covered in the AIR tutorial (last time I ran it, anyway).
Learning progression usually follows the principle: start simple, with few distractions. Then reinforce with more examples under more conditions to broaden and deepen the learned situation.
Many things about the tutorial system could be upgraded or tweaked for the better. Personally I’d prefer to see them set up a PvP tutorial to set expectations and awareness of that aspect of the game.
I’d a bit curious if I fleeted up with a newbro toon (obviously the player isn’t new if he can do this) and crash the site with 7 BCs and see if the NPCs could be overpowered with 720 howitzers sniping away. But giving the new player an ECM and having him try to free someone would probably be better. The only problem is that one of the rats that’s supposed to scram the player might scram the NPC he’s supposed to save after breaking the first lock and then he’ll just fail. Unless I misunderstood how these rats behave with aggro, I don’t think your proposal will work unless it was the old ECM.
Well in the Angel of Mercy, the problem isn’t the NPCs. The site is scripted to blow up your ship and the structure when you land on it.
The other mission, The Stand, I’m pretty sure you can keep fighting them but you won’t complete the mission until they blow up your ship.
This can all be scripted in. Many of these missions have special NPCs that don’t follow regular rules. It would just be scripted so when you use ECM on the big guy your ship receives the scram effect and the NPC you saved warps off, then you get destroyed.
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