Tylara duChelm
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Posted - 2009.11.02 13:38:00 -
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For arcs that are many missions long, the payoff (Aside from the lab from the caldari) is. . . pathetic. If one can make ~30m a mission doing generic level 4s a payoff of ~40m isn't attractive really, especially with the risk of going into lowsec. In other words, they aren't particularly compelling.
What I would like to see:
1) Reward balanced against risk, if you go into lowsec you should get some sort of reward that you can't get in highsec.
2) Voice acting. If Kerberos Studios (Makers of the Excellent Sword of the Stars game, and essentially a 12 person studio) can have voice actors for virtually their entire game, CCP could get voice actors for epic agents.
3) A sense of accomplishment: Change SOMETHING. Have a system's sovereignty flip from one empire to another, or something that actually has an impact on the game world.
4) Have different payoffs for blitzing and for being completionist. Have hidden timers that give extra bonuses for comming in WAY under the "bonus" timer. . . and/or have hidden triggers that give bonuses for a completionist victory. Think about the level 2 Gallente mission where you are sent to recon an ammar warfleet. There is no benefit for killing the fleet, no bounty, just tags and salvage. Taking out the entire invasion fleet is a significant accomplishment that should be rewarded.
5) For the final payout, have a reward that clearly shows that the person has finished said epic arc, and cannot be gotten any other way. I'd love to see a faction battlecruiser or battleship. (different from current offerings. Say standard stats entirely, except with +2 slots, however that balances and works out.)
Now I personally dislike anything that forces you into lowsec for missioning. "But but Eve is a pvp game!" people cry, ad nausium. That's all well and good, and I do enjoy some pvp. (Especially fleet battles) but as CCP has commented in the past, NPCs don't act like PCs, and making them do so would take excessive resources. This means that a ship designed for mission running WILL NOT be good for PVP. Many fittings don't work on NPCs but work gloriously on PC ships, and vice versa. Further, Missioning is typically a solo activity, where someone hunting lowsec missioners will tend to be travelling in a gang. Now if the player CHOSES to go use a lowsec agent, they deserve what they get, but being FORCED into lowsec to complete an arc is. . . unfair.
A note on rewards: It has always struck me as odd that the all powerful empires, that do the majority of the research, and have the VAST majority of the population, and tons of resources, are getting out-researched and out teched by pirates. What am I talking about? Deadspace and officer modules. Currently there is nothing even CLOSE to matching the quality of meta 11+ deadspace and officer mods. Are there no researchers or agents that could offer similar quality with the economic might of Empire to back them? Putting such into epic arcs makes sense, as you can only run each arc once. So unlike say Draclira who you can gang as often as you encounter her, you'll only ever get 1x of "Gallente fleet improved energized adaptive armor plate" or the like.
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