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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 32 post(s) |
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CCP Bayesian
620
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Posted - 2013.04.29 08:59:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hi everyone, thanks for the reams of feedback. We'll be releasing a devblog/devblogs over the next few days detailing exactly whats coming and how it works so you'll have a lot more information in your hands. I'm going to answer a few specific points that have come up a lot here though:
Colourblind People We're absolutely aware that we need to make the interface work for the colourblind. All the visuals at the moment are WIP. We have software internally that lets us simulate how the interface would look to you and are using that during development.
Soloing We are doing nothing to prevent people from soloing. We obviously cannot predict exactly how players will end up using this feature but there is no intention of making it impossible to solo explore and successfully make money from it. CCP RedDawn is a solo explorer and he'd be most upset if we took away his favourite activity!
Twitch Gameplay We totally understand your concerns about how the scattered can collection will work as it is a departure from how the rest of EVE works. The mechanic itself comes from a mining prototype developed by CCP Veritas and does work well within EVE as far as we can ascertain from our user testing of it. It's not a crazy clickfest as it will take several seconds to pull each can in. We are in a phase of playtesting and refining how long, how fast and how many cans will scatter. The 'twitch' side of it is no more than exists in EVE interacting with the UI now, the main difference is that you are interacting within the space scene itself. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
621
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Posted - 2013.04.29 09:36:00 -
[2] - Quote
Brooks Puuntai wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote: exists in EVE interacting with the UI now This isn't a good selling point, since the interaction with the UI is and has always been pretty bad. I do appreciate the time taken to clarify and will be waiting to see how this plays out.
Hah, I mean more from the clicks per second, requirement to move the mouse about wildly side of things rather than the interaction design itself. We're basically not looking to make people do more than they do right now in terms of click spamming or mouse use. The actual interaction is about as simple as it gets, if you're in range you left click on the scattered can and it will take the can. You can use the tractor beam module to pull cans that are out of range closer or fly out to them. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
621
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Posted - 2013.04.29 09:44:00 -
[3] - Quote
Yaboo Sux, in hindsight we definitely should have had our devblogs ready to go. Letting people speculate isn't terrible and it's nice to be able to target specific concerns that people have on the forums in addressing a wider audience.
This will all be on Sisi as soon as humanly possible along with the rest of the Odyssey stuff as per normal and we're user testing the beejezus out of it internally. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
625
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Posted - 2013.04.29 10:55:00 -
[4] - Quote
J3ssica Alba wrote:will radar and mag sites still need the codebreaker and analyser mods? because im not sure I saw them on Soundwave's fit ...
Yes, we were running with devhacks to just simplfy the demo. There are some new dual use modules being introduced as well. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
625
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Posted - 2013.04.29 11:02:00 -
[5] - Quote
Mis'tral wrote:So if you are doing solo hacking sites, you can eventually get all the items, providing you are in range, you fly to them or TB them to you? From the descriptions provided thus far, the impression is that you can actually miss alot of items from hacked containers (if you don't have a buddy helping you 'collect' them in time).
If the above is true, what's from stopping you hack all containers in a site one after another (not bothering to 'catch' them), then just fly around and collect all the items?
It's something you can do solo but you aren't penalised for wanting to do it in a group. The containers in question aren't designed to last in open space so they degrade reasonably quickly and are destroyed along with their contents. You'll do good as a solo player but better with someone else, Garresh's comments about opportunity cost are dead on.
We're of course experimenting with values for all of these things internally and will be watching and adjusting things on an on-going basis as this hits Sisi and TQ. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
630
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Posted - 2013.04.29 11:25:00 -
[6] - Quote
blink alt, we're definitely looking at the balance of the sites themselves and the spread of them through high->null sec. I'll let our content designer speak to it though.
Mara Rinn, there is no intention to move this to mining. This came from a mining prototype that hasn't been taken forward anywhere. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Prime
C C P C C P Alliance
23
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Posted - 2013.04.29 11:43:00 -
[7] - Quote
Thanks for the feedback, the reactions are varied and heated and that was expected.
I want to underline one thing in this feature, and that is that you get the loot automatically put into your cargohold, if you have available space for it. There's no UI window management involved. The plan is to show the cargohold button blink and above it what it is that you recovered.
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CCP Bayesian
635
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Posted - 2013.04.29 13:53:00 -
[8] - Quote
Nicen Jehr wrote:the hate, it burns! Looking forward to trying this out.
will our hacking and archeology skills be modified? will we still have to be within 2500m of the cans to open them? will the cans appear on overview?
Team Superfriends are all about the skills for Exploration but as far as I'm aware they aren't about to change the core skills. We might see some new ones though but I'll let them fill in the details.
Currently we are experimenting with the interaction range for the scattered cans. You'll definitely still need to be close to start the hacking and going out of range will fail the attempt and that will stay with the same interaction distances that the modules have right now. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
635
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Posted - 2013.04.29 13:59:00 -
[9] - Quote
Mara Rinn wrote:James Amril-Kesh wrote:Prototype = "stated intent" apparently Why else would you prototype something and introduce that mechanic into the game? Until CCP Bayesian clarified the situation, it appeared to me that they were prototyping this, testing with exploration, with the intent of moving the mechanic to mining in a later expansion, since changing how a hacking container spawns might be easier than changing how asteroids spawn. Remember, if you worry about being too paranoid, you're not paranoid enough.
I actually did a presentation about this at Fanfest, hopefully it'll be up on the Twitch site at some point soon if it isn't already. IIRC you can watch the SD stream of it for free.
Essentially though prototyping an idea is no guarantee it will go anywhere. For every good idea we move forward with there are a pile of terrible ones that sounded interesting but ultimately didn't work out for one reason or another. What they do let us do is find good ideas that may not have worked in one setting but did work so we have lots of things to draw on in the future. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
635
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Posted - 2013.04.29 14:02:00 -
[10] - Quote
Minmatar Citizen160812 wrote:Holy crapola a couple devs with balls that will answer questions and admit a few small mistakes like not having a blog out in time??? I don't like the loot spew mechanic but the openness is refreshing. The mini-game is ok...I tend to like anything that keeps people's eyes off of local and d-scan so they don't notice the Pilgrim decloaking.
All mechanics aside, will the loot still be the same for mag sites or is there more valuable stuff being added to the drop tables? I see there are many new decriptors so radar is probably still solid income. Unless something worthwhile is added to the mags they will remain the bottom of the barrel for exploration regardless of what system you find them in. No mini-game is going to attract more people to sites that are a waste of time in comparison to almost every other activity in the game.
Thanks, one of the key things for me at least is a lot of sensible interaction with you guys.
We're rebalancing the sites and updating loot tables. It's not something I'm directly involved in deciding though so I'll let the others talk about it. At the moment we're probably going to do one blog about the mechanics and another about the rebalancing. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
635
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Posted - 2013.04.29 14:24:00 -
[11] - Quote
Talsha Talamar wrote:That and Twitching really has no place in EVE in my humble opinion. Keep it to Dust. Eve is about strategy, tactics, blobs and tears; not hand-eye coordination :)
Our hope is to encourage people together so that more of those things end up happening as well as providing some more depth to the Universe. For example we think that people trying to nab your scattered cans should be flagged in Crimewatch. Or players might choose to ambush people in these sites after they complete the hack not only to get a kill but also to grab all the stuff. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
644
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Posted - 2013.04.29 15:22:00 -
[12] - Quote
Solkara Starlock wrote:Thanks for the feedback CCP Bayesian!
I still think that forcing players to do something is not good design.
Absolutely which is why we are incentivising it so it's a more attractive choice.
Solkara Starlock wrote:People who want to play in groups can do so. The game provides a multitude of possibilities. In fact EVE can only be fully enjoyed while playing with other people.
But exploration has been one of the only things that you can do solo and in a short amount of time. There is a niche for that kind of gameplay in EVE. Sometimes you don't have the time, the will or the online buddies to play in a group. It's not that exploration is the biggest ISK making profession in the game.
Forcing group play upon exploration will annoy players. I see little added value to that.
Vanishing loot is a stupid idea, I can't say it in any other way.
We are not intent on forcing people to abandon solo exploration as I've said previously in this thread. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Prime
C C P C C P Alliance
25
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Posted - 2013.04.29 15:49:00 -
[13] - Quote
As it stands, you have containers bursting out in groups along an axis in a random direction.
It's not much of a chase, but more of a decision what is the optimal way to position your ship to recover the most of the loot. As for the assumption that this is twitched based gameplay, we'll see once it is on SISI and what the feedback will be. In the state it was demoed you have to invest ~4 seconds to get one can, meaning that once you've clicked it, you have ~4 seconds to choose what can to take next. |
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CCP Bayesian
645
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Posted - 2013.04.29 15:58:00 -
[14] - Quote
Vincent Gaines wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote: We are not intent on forcing people to abandon solo exploration as I've said previously in this thread.
No, however you're making it fairly pointless not to.
That depends on how the balancing is done. It won't be pointless if people soloing can still make what they consider a reasonable income for a reasonable risk and time investment.
Vincent Gaines wrote:With the amount of modules, and the can pinata you can't be anywhere alone without losing a good chunk of the loot. What's the threshold here?
How many "good" items are ejected? How long do you have to grab them? With what means can you do so?
How long is a piece of string? These are things that will effectively be set for first release on Sisi through internal playtesting, then monitored and altered as the feature is in testing there and will be actively monitored on TQ as we see real world usage.
Quote:Are these sites out in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of a busy system 2 AU from a planet which would make zero sense for something to be undetected for so long.
So the items form a storyline? Do they delve into the lore of the Eve universe, or is it just some junk to throw in your cargohold and sell like generic mission loot?
The sites are the exploration sites that currently exist with their contents rebalanced. It would nice to involve lore and new consumable content in with this update to exploration but impractical given our development restraints. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
645
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Posted - 2013.04.29 16:14:00 -
[15] - Quote
Solkara Starlock wrote:Even if the loot will be equal.
People will not care about the can they could catch, but be sorry about those they couldn't. You'll probably have more players angry and disliking this part of the game. I doubt they will be calling on their friends to go can hunting. They will call upon their friends to go ship hunting or so.
Somehow this feels like giving solo players a bad feeling about playing solo. That's why it feels like forcing group play.
I guess there is an analogy with fishing in the real world. One rod only gets you so much no matter how many fish you see swim by and there is satisfaction at getting better at fishing and netting more fish. Bringing a friend along means you can near enough always get more fish so long as there are enough to catch by spreading out to cover more river. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
647
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Posted - 2013.04.29 16:31:00 -
[16] - Quote
Fereval Kondur, those are all good points. We definitely agree that the larger scale gameplay, particularly when it gets social is what defines EVE as a game. That doesn't mean the tasks that you can do and organise around shouldn't also be interesting in themselves. We have plenty of people working on "the Universe" but the details do need some love as well. I would absolutely love to tie this into EVE on a wider scale and we have some exciting ideas for future iterations that I'll go into in the devblog.
Things like success in the minigame affecting the scattering in a non-binary manner is most definitely on the table. For example at a basic level we could add in secondary objectives that if complete cause the scattered cans to be obviously distinguishable (in a context appropriate manner, like discovering the "cargo manifest"). We're also thinking of ways of tying some new items from the hacking into the market but that needs some more thinking so is unlikely to make the first release.
What happens depends on what we see the feature doing on TQ. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
647
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Posted - 2013.04.29 16:44:00 -
[17] - Quote
Mara Rinn, something like kill mails but for exploration is something we talked about. Ditto for mining operations. Information that you can directly compare with your past performance and other peoples performance. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
664
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Posted - 2013.04.30 09:00:00 -
[18] - Quote
Rytell Tybat wrote:Have you considered also having the collaboration aspect as part of the hacking/archeology activity? A mini-game that more than one person needs to play simultaneously, for there to be a chance of success? I'm thinking of an additional variation of what is potentially coming with Odyssey, not instead of. Perhaps a different type of exploration site? This way teams of hackers/archeologists could collaborate, not just in grabbing loot (nothing wrong with that), but also in a cooperative mini-game. There may be some major technical issues in regards to this, but it seems like this would fit perfectly in EVE. Also, if it would require the cognitive effort of 2+ individuals, then perhaps it would be more difficult for it to be reduced to a multi-boxing exercise. Keep up the good work!
Ultimately we want to keep things simple for the first release which is why the hacking is explicitly single-player. This not only lets us concentrate on getting the hacking right in that context but lets us fit it into the timeframe in which we want to get it out in front of you guys which has got to be the first step. I had lots of people at Fanfest saying they want to play this cooperatively and competitively. Future iteration is definitely the plan though. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
664
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Posted - 2013.04.30 09:49:00 -
[19] - Quote
Zen Dad wrote:HOWEVER can someone with direct first hand knowledge confirm the following for me - ODYSSEY will allow a cloaky solo to explore higher reward null sec sites without any rats or rat aggro?
If this is the case , then the Lord truely has taken away with one hand but given back with the other and I'm grateful- i think.
( Meanwhile - Somewhere deep in the CCP HQ in Iceland - Dev sends memo - " complete Odyssey update by removing cloak from cloak ships")
*stops typing memo and looks over shoulder* ;)
More seriously, yes I think that will be one result. I'll let our content designer tell you more though and I think it involves thinking hard about the cloaking stuff mentioned just above. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
664
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Posted - 2013.04.30 09:55:00 -
[20] - Quote
Malla Nkomi wrote:What incentive is there for an alliance to install upgrades for these? I'm one of the team who would have to put forward the business case for the project to procure, ship and deploy these; a project with significant time and resource commitment in an environment with chaotic redistribution of income due to other changes. With no way for an alliance to track usage (no unique rat bounties showing up on corp apis), no alliance or corp revenue generated, and no obvious strategic advantage from yet another minor income source for a few individuals over other income sources?
It might be fun, but we won't know who is using it, how often and what income is derived.
EVE is serious business.
I don't know if you saw the keynote where CCP Seagull was talking about Instigators and Enablers? We definitely want to empower people like yourself to make these sorts of decisions. This means providing you with more data and CREST our new third-party API platform is one of the means to doing that. This is bigger than just the exploration feature though and CREST is not yet user-facing so there are a couple of hurdles in the way but we're moving towards this ideal pretty quickly. Exposing data then becomes much more straightforward. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
664
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Posted - 2013.04.30 10:24:00 -
[21] - Quote
Malla Nkomi wrote:Information after the event doesn't sell it to me as a distributor of your game content - if I don't install the ihub upgrades we have no way to tell how many fewer of these sites will appear. With no way to predict the addition or absence of game content. With no way to predict and then evaluate usage, why am I going to run the titan and freighter ops to ship in hundreds of upgrades for this and then expend man days rolling them out?
I'm the player you need to sell this game content to first. I need reasons to kick off the project. So far you've given me nothing.
I AM your enabler and instigator for multiple regions in eve.
You were talking about tracking usage so I presumed you were talking about data collection on activities you were carrying out or things that were publically accessible but not easily aggregated currently as a rule. As you note you'll still need information after the event to determine if your predictions are correct so it's still something that should be accessible.
In terms of prediction could you spell out what you'd like to see so it's clear what we're talking about. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
665
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Posted - 2013.04.30 11:51:00 -
[22] - Quote
Myntelle NicAtoch, awesome thanks very much for such a detailed response.
CCP Affinity is the content designer on our team and we're working closely with CCP Tallest and CCP SoniClover from Superfriends. I've passed this directly on to them for comment. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
847
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Posted - 2013.06.08 08:49:00 -
[23] - Quote
Staten Island wrote:Anybody know whether sleepers were overlooked when npc were removed from hacking sites - or is it intentional for them to still be there?
Intentional. :) EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
847
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Posted - 2013.06.08 13:08:00 -
[24] - Quote
Thanks for any and all bug reports it makes tracking problems down much easier. We're actually going to do a pass on the distribution and loot for the next release. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
848
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Posted - 2013.06.08 22:01:00 -
[25] - Quote
Salpun wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote:Thanks for any and all bug reports it makes tracking problems down much easier. We're actually going to do a pass on the distribution and loot for the next release. Release as in 1.1 or 1.0.4?
1.1, changing this sort of thing is something we'd do based on a large amount of data from how people are using the sites.
Problems in individual sites we'll obviously fix and patch as they happen. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
848
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Posted - 2013.06.08 22:03:00 -
[26] - Quote
Kor'el Izia wrote:CCP Bayesian wrote:Thanks for any and all bug reports it makes tracking problems down much easier. We're actually going to do a pass on the distribution and loot for the next release. Need more details about what excatly you are about to change, or a small devblog
Absolutely.
EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
854
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Posted - 2013.06.10 19:28:00 -
[27] - Quote
Johan Toralen wrote: You gotta see the positives of it. While you can't cloak for long in a site without it despawning it also means someone else can't wait there cloaked to pop you. Tho i think sites would be more fun for both hunter and prey if cloaking was a-ok. I also don't see the point of sites despawning from the probe scanner after the first container is hacked. Would make for some interesting situations if the competition could chime in halfway through.
If CCP Prime checked his changes in for the patch tomorrow these issues should be fixed. The sites will despawn on completion, when all containers have been either failed or hacked successfully rather than at any other time. The probe scan problem in particular was a regression from the previous behaviour. The cloaking a somewhat over zealous fix for the problem of cloaked ships keeping other kinds of sites around indefinitely and preventing their respawn. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
854
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Posted - 2013.06.10 19:40:00 -
[28] - Quote
Charley en Cedoulain wrote: Thank you! Though I have to ask, what was the probe scan problem?
It's not very noticeable but contributed to hackers being much safer, essentially the sig of the site disappeared after the first successful hack for anyone else looking. The only way people would be able to find you after that was via combat probing. Now there will be the danger of people cloaked in the site and people able to chance upon you which should increase competition. Adding more risk outside hisec. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Prime
C C P C C P Alliance
41
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Posted - 2013.06.10 20:53:00 -
[29] - Quote
The fixes going in tomorrow are:
A site will not despawn until all containers that contain loot have either been hacked or destroyed. So you can go in there to find the most valuable can, hack it and cloak as needed or you could cloak and wait for your prey to appear.
The signature for the site will be visible until all cans that have loot have been hacked or destroyed.
Fleet logs will show the loot all members of the fleet managed to gather, and who gathered what.
Programmer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
866
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Posted - 2013.06.11 18:12:00 -
[30] - Quote
Thanks, I fixed the cause of that already so it should be out on TQ right now and fixed.
There is an in game bug reporter as well which is a bit more efficient as it's not always the case that a developer will see a post on the forums. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
866
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Posted - 2013.06.11 19:01:00 -
[31] - Quote
Haha, don't worry about it, reporting problems that are obvious bugs is always helpful. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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CCP Bayesian
868
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Posted - 2013.06.12 08:57:00 -
[32] - Quote
The first thing we'll be doing is getting setup to make Utilities something that can be taken out of the systems you are hacking and fitted into the module in advance of going off hacking. Without doing that hackers are really still at the mercy of the board generation when it comes to making choices. It also adds a secondary income for explorers that is linked to exploring and ties the hacking more into EVE. This is really the first thing that has to happen to add more depth to hacking and isn't an insignificant amount of work.
Following on from that initially it's a case of adding more Defense Subsystems and Utilities to support more interesting things happening.
We also want to let players be able to influence the result of the hack more. For example in the exploration sites, heading off and tackling certain nodes would let you influence how the scattering of cans occurs. Further we'd like to increase the granularity in failure as well. This creates more options for any new systems that get introduced using the same mechanics. EVE Software Engineer Team Prototyping Rocks |
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