pvp is constantly evolving, npcs are static

let's say CCP makes a new lvl3 mission: kill a single angel cynabal which keeps kiting you and will warp away when you try to get a point on it.

apart from the thousands of ship losses this would cause during the first few weeks, it would only take one single guy in all of eve to figure out the optimal way to complete this mission, share his findings on eve-survival and the mission would be permanently "solved".

Show me any game where the NPC victims have similar capabilities as the PC characters.

If you want to Solo, then you can probably handle L1-2

Show me any game where the NPC victims have similar capabilities as the PC characters.

(It's a simple thing to get your head around really, although I can hear the Tsunami of NO approaching.)

Why is PvE and PvP so different in a game like this?

Wouldn't it be far better to just rebalance the Missions, Belt Ratz, and such to having the same comparable offensive and defensive capacities that the Players have?

I say let the only difference be NPC AI vs Players, just rebalance the missions to a small handful of NPC's, do away with the Mission Blobs of NPC RED. If you want to Solo, then you can probably handle L1-2, but once you start into L3's you should be needing a few friends to fly with. It would also be to encourage PvP style ship fittings and tactics. That would balance the game quite nicely, and it would better prepare folks for PvP Combat since there would be no substantial difference other than AI vs Player unpredictability.

Now.... Unleash the Trolls.... my Tear Bucket is at the ready.

The first part of the idea sounds fine, albiet somewhat unrealitic to implement.

The part about rebalancing missions so solo players get reduced from 4s to 2s, that is just butt hurt and would never fly.

Sounds like the first step towards arena based pvp, which i don't really think is that well suited for the eve universe.

Making the opponent npc based is going to result in series of patterns that players are going to prepare for, and cookie cutter fits will emerge over time. Now player carry around different types of resist, and many drones and ammo for different missions. It would just add the need to bring more modules for optimal fitting for each mission.

The only lasting design would be players fighting players, but i think that would have a huge negative effect on the rest of the game.

unrelated, in any case, lame idea with no real merit that solves nothing, therefore a waste of dev time, lets have the devs work on PvP not PvE.

Sweetness....Moar....give me moar....
Clearly you see no value in a well educated PvP target. Don't you see that this is the best way for devs to improve PvP?

So many ways static missions could be different every time you do them.

Each ship type gets several different loadouts it could randomly choose when the mission is created.

The trigger should change, but the trigger should be identifiable in some fashion for the basic mission levels. such as scanning or visually seeing a command module highslot item that looks like an auxiliary bridge "turret".

Ships that use drones (not like spider drones) I mean real drones. This would require a smart bomb change from griefer cloaked ships to be simply considered a suspect flag as cloaking near a neutral should be its own hostile act. And they can deal with each other without Concord intervention.

More missions that mimic player activities:

Waiting at a mission stargate and scanning npc cargo ships as they warp in at 15 and auto to the gate, need to cargo scan just the right one and take it out.
Make untargetable npc ships aggress you and targetable by taking their can for a corp hit contract.
Combat scanning missions to find specific npc ships.

I absolutely agree with the OP on this. While it obviously would be impossible to truly mimic the intricacies of PvP combat within EVE's PvE environment, that should be the goal. Are players going to "solve" the missions, even if some random elements are introduced to spice things up? Sure, and players will always do their best to farm PvE content as efficiently as possible. Nevertheless, there's still a lot that could be done here without having to reinvent the wheel, not least of which is that the missions should encourage PvP fits. That would go a long way toward removing the artificial PvP vs PvE environment as it currently exists in EVE.

Killing NPCs should be both fun and challenging. Who cares how it is in other MMOs, EVE should set the standard for other games to emulate. And IMHO, this really ought to be high on CCP's priority list because it would have benefits for everyone in EVE.

The so called "artificial PvP vs PvE" exists world wide and has since before computers.

Some games are competative, football, boxing.

Some games are personal best, solitare.

Each person has their own preference based on thier personality. That is normal, that is the very nature of games.

But here, some of the PvP community, not all many remember what a mistake this was in UO, are obssesed with converting carebears to PvPers.

It would be dumb to commit so much effort to making PvE better in a hope that it will improve PvP when they could spend the same effort directly on PvP and being in players from the millions of PvPers world wide.

Converting carebears is a fools errand.

Because players think. They're capable of making decisions.
NPCs do what they're programmed to do, they can't act beyond those parameters.

This proposed mission would be solved within the first week by one guy who would then post about it on EvE-Survival.


PvP evolves. PvE is static.


EvE isn't like all the other games, but PvE is nearly impossible to change.

...
Ok, Bootleg Jack... I'm listening... It is easy to criticize, it takes hardly any effort. How about giving us your Solution. How would you "Improve" PvP? Hmmm....

Show me any game where the NPC victims have similar capabilities as the PC characters.

Show me another game like EvE Online...

Why should EvE be "just another game..."?

There are no MMOs with NPCs *as good as* players but certainly they have them hugely better than EvE AI.

2003: Istaria MMO: maybe one of the first MMOs where NPCs would "message" each other, form a group with healer, tank, crowd controller and DPS (multiple of them if available) and gang against 1 player. Of course the healers were quite though and would also resurrect the dead NPCs. Their attacks were very straightforward though. This phenomenon was expecially tangible in the so called Sathyr Islands.

Darkfall Online MMO: has pretty sick NPCs. They not only gang up but (I admit I only had experience as a newbie there) also would hit quite hard and in that game whoever you are (even newbie) you drop all your loot, all your gear *and* all your money. Some of them would do some basic kiting, would run back to their spawn and call reinforcements, some of them would climb on scenery and be harder to target. Their attacks were less straightforward than the above.

Guild Wars2: the training PvP area (The Mists) sports duel NPCs. While they are far from being good, they can still quickly and easily kill the players. They know how to dodge attacks, how to get in line of sight when you try hide, they use abundant crowd control and some of them self healing. Some of them summon and use pets.

(It's a simple thing to get your head around really, although I can hear the Tsunami of NO approaching.)

Why is PvE and PvP so different in a game like this?

Wouldn't it be far better to just rebalance the Missions, Belt Ratz, and such to having the same comparable offensive and defensive capacities that the Players have?

I say let the only difference be NPC AI vs Players, just rebalance the missions to a small handful of NPC's, do away with the Mission Blobs of NPC RED. If you want to Solo, then you can probably handle L1-2, but once you start into L3's you should be needing a few friends to fly with. It would also be to encourage PvP style ship fittings and tactics. That would balance the game quite nicely, and it would better prepare folks for PvP Combat since there would be no substantial difference other than AI vs Player unpredictability.

Now.... Unleash the Trolls.... my Tear Bucket is at the ready.

First, you improve PvP to draw from the millions of PvPers world wide.

1. Ignore the carebears, they make lousy PvPers, have to be either bribed and/or protected...