EVE Online's Player Versus Environment content can be broadly broken down into three tiers of accessibility; content located at celestials and other in space locations, content that can be found with any ship's scanner, and content that needs to be found with scanner probes. Generally speaking, these content categories scale in reward directly with the amount of time it takes to find them, and this is where a major problem lies: an increase access time directly contributes towards safety when engaging in money making; potential predators have to go through just as much effort to find the content as the potential prey did.
There are two ways for a predator to get around this conundrum; they can either stake out the location in advance, or gamble on their target's failure to pay attention. Generally speaking, it's nearly impossible, or at least very difficult, to catch someone lurking in a hidden piece of space. The inverse scale of accessibility and reward does not, at this time, feel adequately offset by Eve's design and game mechanics. Other than making it easier to access most PVE content, I do not have many ideas on how this could be changed. However, I think this is something that is worth looking into.
Before EVE's preferred PVE content largely moved towards scanner-sites, before Warp to Zero made point to point travel a high speed endeavor without the aid of bookmarks, and before local provided instant knowledge of standings, players in nullsec (and to a lesser extent, lowsec,) would have to work together in the face of predators stalking their space. With today's buried content, rapid movement and perfect intelligence, it is the preferred state of affairs to perform one's money making alone as possible and flee from detected threats until the danger has passed. When afforded large opportunities for escape, there is little dependence on one's fellow pilots for personal safety. There is a missing sense of community in potentially unfriendly space.
Today's Eve Online encourages a great wasteland of sprawl for money making and territorial buffering purposes. I'd like to see players return to group efforts to fend off solo attackers; group responses to individual threats are a fantastic dynamic, and reintroducing community with new design would be a breath of fresh air. For want of a smaller scale, more intimate 0.0 experience, a restored balance of risk versus reward, and increased amounts of daily interaction among the residents of 0.0 space, any efforts guiding Eve Online in such a direction would be welcome additions indeed.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Imagine The Possibilities
Imagine the crater encrusted battlefields of DUST 514, its players building, buying, and destroying combat gear whose properties and appearance were decided by EVE Online's players. Imagine if pod pilots could invest their energies into concocting new and devious combinations of machinery in a deep, complex development system to give rise to new war machinery for purchase by the mercenaries fighting across New Eden's worlds.
I've always wanted a hardcore engineering mode for the creation of new ships in Eve Online, but implementing the dynamic in DUST 514 is a fantastic proposition to me. If Eve players could offer equipment for the DUST bunnies to purchase, using a variant of the game engine technology that lets you make Tech 3 ships for player designed ground equipment, the interaction of the two games could become even more interesting, creating a whole new level of interplay, while creating a great incentive for more DUST players to begin playing EVE Online.
It would probably be hard as hell to actually make happen, but damn if it wouldn't be sweet.
I've always wanted a hardcore engineering mode for the creation of new ships in Eve Online, but implementing the dynamic in DUST 514 is a fantastic proposition to me. If Eve players could offer equipment for the DUST bunnies to purchase, using a variant of the game engine technology that lets you make Tech 3 ships for player designed ground equipment, the interaction of the two games could become even more interesting, creating a whole new level of interplay, while creating a great incentive for more DUST players to begin playing EVE Online.
It would probably be hard as hell to actually make happen, but damn if it wouldn't be sweet.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Modular Starbase Planner Mockup
After many years of waiting, modular starbases will soon™ be coming to Eve Online. What should it be like to use a new starbase? Today I’m going to look at a user case for setting up a corporation operated refinery. Make sure you click the links for the full sized images!
It all begins with the starbase planner. From the planning window, the starbase can be designed for its intended role and have its services configured for their intended use. The full scope of this feature goes well beyond the scope of just the module positioning planner, so for now we’ll be focusing on just this feature. Once a player has fired up the starbase module planner, they can begin by choosing the size of the starbase they want to create. For today’s use case, the starbase in question is a medium sized installation.
The purpose of this new installation is to provide refining capacity for their corporation in a system with no refinery. To get the ball rolling, storage capacity will be added with storage silos. To do this, the desired module can be dragged from the module selection menu into its desired location on the module placement grid. This task can also be performed by click selection and placement.
Once placed, the relevant statistics of the starbase, as well as its capabilities, are updated to accommodate the changes made by placing the new equipment.
Since 50,000 cubic meters wouldn’t provide very much net storage space to the players who would be making use of this starbase, lets add in a few more storage silos. 100,000 Cubic Meters is a much better amount of space to work with!
This drag and drop (or click and place) process is repeated as needed to provide the capabilities desired by the starbase’s users. For this user, several refinery modules, and a few module connectors to fill the empty space, are the next items to be installed.
We’re obviously running out of room here, so it’s time to take advantage of the camera controls. The camera menu provides zoom, pan, and rotation in increments of 90 degrees. In the event the user gets lost, the panning icon can be double-clicked to re-center the starbase planner on the control tower. A home button might be a good addition to provide this functionality. Let’s zoom out to a more appropriate size for the installation being made.
Perfect! With the screen zoomed out to an appropriate level, the rest of the modules are an easy addition. With one last turret hardpoint module, the refinery starbase’s components will be fully in place.
And there you have it; a fully assembled starbase. While this refinery would not be ready to go right out the gate, as none of the available services have been configured yet, that is outside the scope of this mockup. Please comment and tell me what you think!
Full Image Album
It all begins with the starbase planner. From the planning window, the starbase can be designed for its intended role and have its services configured for their intended use. The full scope of this feature goes well beyond the scope of just the module positioning planner, so for now we’ll be focusing on just this feature. Once a player has fired up the starbase module planner, they can begin by choosing the size of the starbase they want to create. For today’s use case, the starbase in question is a medium sized installation.
The purpose of this new installation is to provide refining capacity for their corporation in a system with no refinery. To get the ball rolling, storage capacity will be added with storage silos. To do this, the desired module can be dragged from the module selection menu into its desired location on the module placement grid. This task can also be performed by click selection and placement.
Once placed, the relevant statistics of the starbase, as well as its capabilities, are updated to accommodate the changes made by placing the new equipment.
Since 50,000 cubic meters wouldn’t provide very much net storage space to the players who would be making use of this starbase, lets add in a few more storage silos. 100,000 Cubic Meters is a much better amount of space to work with!
This drag and drop (or click and place) process is repeated as needed to provide the capabilities desired by the starbase’s users. For this user, several refinery modules, and a few module connectors to fill the empty space, are the next items to be installed.
We’re obviously running out of room here, so it’s time to take advantage of the camera controls. The camera menu provides zoom, pan, and rotation in increments of 90 degrees. In the event the user gets lost, the panning icon can be double-clicked to re-center the starbase planner on the control tower. A home button might be a good addition to provide this functionality. Let’s zoom out to a more appropriate size for the installation being made.
Perfect! With the screen zoomed out to an appropriate level, the rest of the modules are an easy addition. With one last turret hardpoint module, the refinery starbase’s components will be fully in place.
And there you have it; a fully assembled starbase. While this refinery would not be ready to go right out the gate, as none of the available services have been configured yet, that is outside the scope of this mockup. Please comment and tell me what you think!
Full Image Album
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Crimewatch, Remote Repair and Small Gangs
Looking at the new crime watch proposals, something caught my eye. It is currently proposed that the act of remote repairing a target will create chain inheritance of aggression timers, preventing the logistics ship from docking in stations or jumping through stargates.
There are immense implications to consider for small gang warfare, but the long and the short of it is that any force utilizing remote repair tactics which finds itself over-escalated, be it from jumping into a much larger enemy force, being at the wrong end of a log-on trap, being hot-dropped by capitals and black ops or bridged on by Titans, will be hard pressed to de-escalate without losing every single logistics ship brought onto the field.
In the current state of game balance, it is simply not possible for a logistics ship to rely on a local tank; by design, they are meant to rely on their fellow logistics ships for tanking. However, inherited aggression timers will remove any ability for logistics ships to perform their function without constantly renewing their aggression timers. As a member of a small pirate organization, it is very, very common for me and my corpmates to find ourselves jumped upon by a numerically and tactically superior force once an engagement has begun; being able to accomplish anything with that small gang is completely dependent on the ability of a logistics gang to disengage. This change to mechanics will turn any escalation by one side into a turkey shoot against the smaller group of players.
The currently proposed Crimewatch mechanics would devastate the ability for smaller organizations to engage in PVP while adding further incentives for blobbing. Forcing logistics pilots to be the most committed of all the pilots in a fleet is not a good change for the game. While station games are terrible, removing the ability of small gangs to skirmish with larger fleets would be far worse.
There are immense implications to consider for small gang warfare, but the long and the short of it is that any force utilizing remote repair tactics which finds itself over-escalated, be it from jumping into a much larger enemy force, being at the wrong end of a log-on trap, being hot-dropped by capitals and black ops or bridged on by Titans, will be hard pressed to de-escalate without losing every single logistics ship brought onto the field.
In the current state of game balance, it is simply not possible for a logistics ship to rely on a local tank; by design, they are meant to rely on their fellow logistics ships for tanking. However, inherited aggression timers will remove any ability for logistics ships to perform their function without constantly renewing their aggression timers. As a member of a small pirate organization, it is very, very common for me and my corpmates to find ourselves jumped upon by a numerically and tactically superior force once an engagement has begun; being able to accomplish anything with that small gang is completely dependent on the ability of a logistics gang to disengage. This change to mechanics will turn any escalation by one side into a turkey shoot against the smaller group of players.
The currently proposed Crimewatch mechanics would devastate the ability for smaller organizations to engage in PVP while adding further incentives for blobbing. Forcing logistics pilots to be the most committed of all the pilots in a fleet is not a good change for the game. While station games are terrible, removing the ability of small gangs to skirmish with larger fleets would be far worse.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Less Prime Money Maker, more Pod-killing Encourager
My recent proposal to modify the bounty system was met with some opposition that I had not expected.
"Problem is does even this fixed bounty system make bounty hunting viable? Or will it just be "Ooooo that guy I just podded had a bounty!". Is it possible to make bounty hunting as a profession viable, or will it always just be a way to give someone who just popped someone you don't like a small reward? As soon as you offer rewards that are worth doing something to get, the alt/corp mate collection becomes very viable."
Drackarn's comment, as well as a couple of posts in F&I (where game ideas go to die™), pointed out something that I missed; the desire of players to perform player vs player bounty hunting as their primary means of making money.
I do not think that making one's primary earnings from collecting pod bounties is a viable goal; there is an inherent problem with trying to make a living from PVP bounties in that any PVP mechanic will be competing with EVE's long standing PVE mechanics; PVE bounty hunting provides an extraordinary amount of ISK while being highly predictable, and thus relatively safe. PVP, conversely, can be extraordinarily dangerous and is considerably less predictable than PVE. Without turning PVP into an extraordinarily cash flow positive activity, I perceive this to be an irreconcilable problem.
PVP in Eve Online is already great fun in and of itself. While it would be very neat to make one's living solely off of PVP activity, it is not a viable design goal without performing considerable, massive overhauls to the nature of Eve Online's economy and PVE systems. To me, bounty hunting mechanics would better serve as a secondary money maker in Eve Online. To that end, modifying the bounty system and allowing it to serve its originally intended function, albeit while not being the chief breadwinner, looks like the best solution available to this long standing design issue.
"Problem is does even this fixed bounty system make bounty hunting viable? Or will it just be "Ooooo that guy I just podded had a bounty!". Is it possible to make bounty hunting as a profession viable, or will it always just be a way to give someone who just popped someone you don't like a small reward? As soon as you offer rewards that are worth doing something to get, the alt/corp mate collection becomes very viable."
Drackarn's comment, as well as a couple of posts in F&I (where game ideas go to die™), pointed out something that I missed; the desire of players to perform player vs player bounty hunting as their primary means of making money.
I do not think that making one's primary earnings from collecting pod bounties is a viable goal; there is an inherent problem with trying to make a living from PVP bounties in that any PVP mechanic will be competing with EVE's long standing PVE mechanics; PVE bounty hunting provides an extraordinary amount of ISK while being highly predictable, and thus relatively safe. PVP, conversely, can be extraordinarily dangerous and is considerably less predictable than PVE. Without turning PVP into an extraordinarily cash flow positive activity, I perceive this to be an irreconcilable problem.
PVP in Eve Online is already great fun in and of itself. While it would be very neat to make one's living solely off of PVP activity, it is not a viable design goal without performing considerable, massive overhauls to the nature of Eve Online's economy and PVE systems. To me, bounty hunting mechanics would better serve as a secondary money maker in Eve Online. To that end, modifying the bounty system and allowing it to serve its originally intended function, albeit while not being the chief breadwinner, looks like the best solution available to this long standing design issue.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Fixing the Bounty system
It occurred to me the other day that everything that is wrong with the bounty system can be expressed in a single sentence:
"Bounties don't work because the payouts are worth more than the clones."
Now that implants are included in pod-mails, the market value of a destroyed clone is public knowledge; this has created an opportunity to implement a new bounty system. As the nature of the current problem is that a friend or an alt can claim an outstanding bounty, the fix is actually relatively straightforward; change the mechanics of bounty payment to only supply a portion of the value of each clone and treat the total bounty on a pilot's head as a payout pool.
With a proportional payout pool, pilots will no longer be able to take a bounty for themselves without suffering more in losses than payouts. By supplying small payments rather than a lump sum, a new incentive is created to keep podding a given pilot as long as there's money in the bounty pool.
Voila! The eternally broken bounty system is fixed!
"Bounties don't work because the payouts are worth more than the clones."
Now that implants are included in pod-mails, the market value of a destroyed clone is public knowledge; this has created an opportunity to implement a new bounty system. As the nature of the current problem is that a friend or an alt can claim an outstanding bounty, the fix is actually relatively straightforward; change the mechanics of bounty payment to only supply a portion of the value of each clone and treat the total bounty on a pilot's head as a payout pool.
With a proportional payout pool, pilots will no longer be able to take a bounty for themselves without suffering more in losses than payouts. By supplying small payments rather than a lump sum, a new incentive is created to keep podding a given pilot as long as there's money in the bounty pool.
Voila! The eternally broken bounty system is fixed!
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
A Corollary To The Mid-Game Problem
In the latest entry of Jester's Trek, RipardTeg refers to one of the big problems facing Eve Online; pilots finding themselves limited by what they can't do, with many people quitting when they're faced with the issue of what they aren't capable of.
My opinion is that part of the problem is the sheer versatility afforded to pilots who have sufficient skill points to fly ships equipped with full racks of Tech 2 modules. The reality of Eve Online's balance system is that Tech 2 is a linear upgrade over Tech 1 and meta level modules; very few popular ships are significantly limited in what Tech 2 gear they are able to equip.
When all the good ships come with the expectation of the pilots maxing them out with tech 2 modules, pilots are hitting the utility wall much sooner than they could if less skill intensive modules were more viable in combat than they are today. The right direction to tweak ship balance is, in my opinion, downwards; it should be harder to pack a ship full of tech 2 modules than it is today.
When a player doesn't have to train as many skills to fly a ship of interest, the problem of situational flexibility can become much less significant than it is today. If I'm right, nerfs might just be what the doctor ordered for improving the mid game appeal of Eve Online.
My opinion is that part of the problem is the sheer versatility afforded to pilots who have sufficient skill points to fly ships equipped with full racks of Tech 2 modules. The reality of Eve Online's balance system is that Tech 2 is a linear upgrade over Tech 1 and meta level modules; very few popular ships are significantly limited in what Tech 2 gear they are able to equip.
When all the good ships come with the expectation of the pilots maxing them out with tech 2 modules, pilots are hitting the utility wall much sooner than they could if less skill intensive modules were more viable in combat than they are today. The right direction to tweak ship balance is, in my opinion, downwards; it should be harder to pack a ship full of tech 2 modules than it is today.
When a player doesn't have to train as many skills to fly a ship of interest, the problem of situational flexibility can become much less significant than it is today. If I'm right, nerfs might just be what the doctor ordered for improving the mid game appeal of Eve Online.
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