Robbie Robot
Exiled Kings
Enlightened Violence
16
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Posted - 2013.09.06 15:30:00 -
[1] - Quote
I've often asked myself this question, What makes a game fun. What parts of EVE are most fun.
Increase in Power. Most people here remember when they first got out of their newb ship and into a real frigate, or out of frigates and into cruisers. This already applies to missions, and is done well.
Challenge. If something is hard to do, but not overwhelming, it gives a sense of accomplishment. I remember how hard missions were before I had BS to 4 and t2 turrets. However, an increase in spawns won't help missions. I think CCP is already doing a good job here.
Problem Solving. You know some games have puzzles to solve in them, and the game that comes to mind is Zelda. Move a block or flood a room to solve a problem. EVE missions have a little of this, in that some missions require ECCM, sensor boosters to overcome sensor dampeners, or to know the triggers. This is the area CCP should focus on. It won't help to add missions that become easier if you bring a certain module, because eve-survival will document that and the fun will be gone, or people will figure it out themselves, dock up and change their ships.
What is needed is to have problems that can be solve by what your ships can do with more generic modules, or with a variety of modules. For example, suppose you have two groups that are shooting at you, and one has longer range weapons, and is farther out, and the combined DPS is large. Your choices could be to:
1. Sensor damp the farther group
2. Neut the closer group so their guns don't work, or their reps don't work
3. ECM wither group
4. Use short range weapons to quickly dispatch the close group
5. MWD toward the farther group and out of range of the close group and shoot the long range group with short range weapons
6. fly farther away so the close group can't hit, and use your long range weapons
7. Orbit the farther group with a HAC so their can't track you
8. Have a massive tank and massive damage and slug it out.
9. Engage Bastion (love this) and shot them from afar.
Some of these techniques work in missions. #8 seems to work all to well. Mainly because the quantity of rats is too large, and some EWAR doesn't work. Let me explain further
1. Doesn't work. Rats seems to have a very long targeting range. Also, there are usually too many to make this work.
2. Rats have no cap. Neuting them can turn off their reps, but that is it. Again, there are usually too many to make this effective.
3. Use a tracking disruptor the turret group
3. There are generally too many rats to make ECM worthwhile.
4. Works fine, except sometimes if there are several BS's they'll spread out far, and if you have blasters, most of the time is used burning toward each BS and melting it with blasters.
5. Works as well as #4.
6. Works, but not implemented much.
7. Works, but not implemented much.
8. Generally, this is what people do for current missions
9. People will do this more when the expansion comes out.
Now, to make #1, #2 and #3 work better, and to alleviate #4, I suggest less rats in a spawn, and for the rat spawns to deal more damage, have bigger tanks. Combine the DPS and tank of a typical rat pack into 2-3 BS's, and increase the bounty accordingly. I'm assuming that #2 hasn't been implemented due to server load. Less rats should help that, and simplify their cap. I'd give them a standard amount of cap, have a fixed recharge (instead of variable like the player's) that isn't affected by what the rat is doing (ie firing, repping), and have lasers shut off at 15% cap or something, and hybrids turn off at 10% (since they use less cap). |