14 replies to this topic

[Rho]

Now this is just my own opinion and experience, feel free to shoot me down on this, this is taken from the perspective of someone who apart from PVP-BASIC class had no idea what pvp could be like. Like alot of players who spend most of there time in high security space our only experience of PVP is when our agent gives us a mission in low sec, we end up podded or worse. We go back to our pve missions and our trade, but as i've heard from alot of people who pve that its very easy to become detatched from eve, it becomes just an exercise of evemon/eft and logging in to switch skills, the availability of GTC trade also means that there isn't even that draw to make money in eve aslong as you have the rl cash. I like most went down the path of bigger is better, by the time I had my destroyer I wanted a battleship/titan/carrier lol.. The PVE side of eve actually encourages this, one of the first things you learn is all those e-war skills you need in PVP don't affect npc's. I don't want the pve side removed or toned down, I would instead love to see the npc ships you fight be effected and properly effect you, give the AI a much needed kick in the butt. I am not asking for uber intelligent AI I know that has its own problems but a shift towards a more realistic use, yes it would make pve more challenging and harder. We see it very clearly in battleclinic the clear divide between pve loadouts and pvp, how much better in the long term would it be if you hadto use the same kind of loadouts to face npc enemies as to face players and imagine an entire generation of Eve noobies who from day one in npc fighting practice basic ewar abilities and skills. I guess this is abit of a rant and for that I apologies but at the moment the way the pve side works in EVE it is actually detrimental to the teachings of PVP. This would be a win win situation for both the PVE brigade who would get a more lively and interactive fight while at the same time give them a chance and a ship fit that could handle danger in low sec, wouldn't force them into pvp as alot don't want it but would mean they weren't "sheep", and as for the PVP people well you would get a better quality of challenge and a run for your money.

[Bamar]

Try sleeper npcs in wormholes, not quite like pvp but more similar.

[Rho]

Will probably do that one day, this wasn't a post looking for that, after all I am going to go almost pure pvp from now on once everything is sorted , I just think the current situation creates a huge divide between pve players and pvp right down to ship loadouts.

[Baka Lakadaka]

One of the tricky things about low-sec or 0.0 missions or ratting is being fitted for the almost inevitable PvP while doing PVE. It's a tricky balance, but it can be done.

[Rho]

One of the tricky things about low-sec or 0.0 missions or ratting is being fitted for the almost inevitable PvP while doing PVE.

It's a tricky balance, but it can be done.

True but if the npc's in missions were more true to PVP standards then you wouldn't need a tricky fit you would fit out for pvp as you did pve

All i'm saying is hypothetically if pve missions and the npc's within them were setup to teach people or help people learn the basics of pvp then it would only be a plus to the future pvp

[Bemir]

if you go up against 5-10 ships of similar size to your own in pvp youre pretty much dead pve (missions) frequently requires you to go up against 5-10 BS. So if you want to change pve into something more like pvp there must be changes to everything from bountys to complete rewriting of the missions sleepers are an attempt for a middleground

[Silas]

I did read somewhere that the sleeper AI is somewhat of an experiment and that plans exist to change/improve the way standard belt/mission rats behave. Can't seem to find the post at this time...

[Rho]

if you go up against 5-10 ships of similar size to your own in pvp youre pretty much dead

pve (missions) frequently requires you to go up against 5-10 BS. So if you want to change pve into something more like pvp there must be changes to everything from bountys to complete rewriting of the missions

sleepers are an attempt for a middleground

Interesting, let me put it this way, by making the pve more difficult I didn't mean that in the way your thinking, hmm how to best put this, atm I think we can all agree or hope we can that Mish's in EVE are boring as hell and once you have a good ship setup you can almost do it with your eyes shut.

It's why after doing the PVP BASIC its going to be really hard for me to go back to mishes:)

Now i'm looking at this from a game mechanic point of view (having run my own mud txt based game for the last 10 years now on its 5th revision moved over to mysql/java hybrid.

This is all hypothetical but I am putting it forward in a post on the eve forum as an idea to discuss

Increase loot table drop and bounty by 50%
Reduce quantity of enemies by 50%
enhance the basic npc with a few more abilities
enable all modules we use in pvp and our load outs to work against npc
And then scale and measure them against those abilities

Keeping what is called the risk v reward curve.

[Rho]

Quoting Malcanis on the main forum [blockquote]At the very least, NPCs should have something approaching a realistic fit, and they should STOP the EW and range cheating. An NPC who's tank is failing should try to escape, incentivising missioners to fit tackle.[/blockquote] That would be pretty damn good and interesting.

[vissuddha]

While I definitely agree with you, that would limit the different types of game play EVE provides. Being a sandbox of a game entices a broader base of subscribers which equals more $$ for CCP. Not everyone wants to think when they game....I'd suggest WoW to them.

[Rho]

While I definitely agree with you, that would limit the different types of game play EVE provides. Being a sandbox of a game entices a broader base of subscribers which equals more $$ for CCP. Not everyone wants to think when they game....I'd suggest WoW to them.

oh you didn't, you mentioned the WoW word! RUN!!

[Arkole Blake]

I personally am happy that CCP does not continually try to balance both the pvp and pve sides of the game with each other. As a veteran of many other online games I have seen far too many be ruined by the developers trying to do exactly this. PVE players tend to want to maximize thier $$/hour etc, which means having skills/items/whatever that can handle multiple hostiles with less effort. While PVP players tend to want more balance between 'classes' so that they are not continually 'forced' into a FOTM 'template' that pwnzors everything else. When you try to balance the two it usually ends up screwing up both. CCP is far from perfect, but better than most at keeping the two seperate. -Ark

[Ged Hawkins]

I did read somewhere that the sleeper AI is somewhat of an experiment and that plans exist to change/improve the way standard belt/mission rats behave. Can't seem to find the post at this time...

Google gives a couple of dev blogs of interest:

http://www.eveonline...?a=blog&bid=620

Last but not least, we are further improving NPCs by assigning advanced AI capabilities to them. Of course we are not going to assign such improvements all of a sudden to all NPCs, but rather proceed on a careful step-by-step approach which starts with the Apocrypha release. At first, only Sleepers and existing Officer spawns will receive such improved behavior and no other changes will be made to existing PvE interactions. However, with time, we might want to progressively revamp the whole face the EVE Online PVE experience by giving most NPCs clean and fresh roots to rest on.

http://www.eveonline...?a=blog&bid=636

First of all, what I am going to describe is going to worry a lot of people, so DON'T PANIC!

We are not going to change 80% of the NPCs in the game. Your faction-fit Navy XXXX is still going to allow you to run LV 4 missions solo. We haven't changed the NPCs that spawn in belts, nor in any of the classic dungeons, but that may change in future iterations (post-Apocrypha).

http://www.eveonline...?a=blog&bid=645
(no specific mention of future PvE changes, but some info on current Sleeper PvE tactics)

[Oli Geist]

[...] one of the first things you learn is all those e-war skills you need in PVP don't affect npc's. [...]

Actually, they do. The only one that is really ineffective is sensor dampening, because rats have effectively infinite locking range. I know for certain that jammers will break their locks and based on what I've seen paints and tracks work as normal - they have signature radii and optimal/falloff/tracking of their weapons which are affected as they would be on a player ship. They don't "use" cap in the same way as a player, but a reservoir and recharge is modeled and they can be successfully Nos'd to keep your own cap up (my ratting setups rely on this.) I have no experience of neuting them; I believe this is supposed to reduce the chance of them repping. They are unaffected by warp jamming, though webs do work. Oh, and defenders will shoot down their missiles just fine.

The thing is, in a PvE fit there are usually better things on which to spend the slots - tank or cap recharge for a mid and weapons for a high - so the EWAR ends up as a suboptimal choice anyway.

Most rat EWAR works in the normal way and can be countered as normal (tracks / tracking computers, tracking enhancers; damps / sensor boosters, signal amplifiers; neuts / cap injectors; paints / better tank for when you get hit more) although Guristas' ECM is supposedly based on a raw chance and not related to the targets's sensor strength as it should be (in my experience there is also a much greater chance they will successfully jam as they aggro.) The NPCs do sort-of cheat in that their EWAR is unchanged from before scripts came in and the speed nerf - eg. rat damping affects both range and res, and their webs are 75% speed reduction.

[Pesets]

NPCs being realistic would mean even more "bigger is better" mentality, you'd need at least an assault ship to complete current lvl1 if that happens (and i wonder where the hell you are supposed to get one, and skills for it, if you're a newb who just started). Supposedly you can do missions as a fleet, but i'm not sure it will work very well with the current rewards system. And again, a gang of frigates will need rewards that at least compensate their inevitable losses, while a battleship would likely be able to farm them afk...