| Pages: [1] 2 :: one page |
| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 0 post(s) |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
212
   |
Posted - 2014.08.18 17:59:00 -
[1] - Quote
This is a long shot and not a fully baked idea so please try to bear with me.
A long time ago there was a game (already cancelled in development phase) with interesting twist: a multiplayer one but providing single player experience. It was named "The Crossing". Something kind of first person shooter/action with the main player progressing through the story. The twist was in the shape of opponents, they would be controlled by other players and while inherently weak (the hero has to succeed after all) they'd provide the cunning and unpredictability of real humans.
And it struck me, what would it be like if such principle was applied to EVE's PVE?
HOW?
Possibilities are many but two come to my mind:
1. Allow a player to board given NPC ship during PVE encounter. Possibly allow to 'switch' to another taking part of the same fight, either upon former ship's destruction or just at will.
2. Make such player an overseer which would take control over some NPC ships in a manner similar to controlling POS' guns.
Mind you, this wouldn't be a change in power balance, only in NPC behavior (and you thought sleepers were pain in the ass...).
WHO?
This is where things become interesting (in the "may you live in interesting times!" sense). I think they should be selected and vetted group of volunteers (not unlike ISD maybe) who want to and agree to devote their time for others' fun.
WHEN? WHERE?
I believe it safe to assume that number of PVE encounters happening at any time would be much greater that number of such... well, let's call them animators, and honestly it would be overkill to guarantee every such encounter was human-handled. Thus probably the simplest and possibly the best solution would be to match a pool of active animators and randomly drop them into PVE actions out there.
On the other end of gun, maybe add a safety switch, which would control whether player consents to such extra spice during their activities.
POSSIBILITIES OF ABUSE/GRIEFING.
Still present though rather limited. Apart from actual brain, NPCs don't get any extra superpowers. Running away (with mission goal to prevent its completion) can be guarded against by teleporting ship back if too far from initial position. Maybe some safeguards against podding should added too. Everything else seems to be fair game and after all, this aspect in one of reasons why animators should be somehow vetted.
FINAL NOTES
That's it. Flame if you wish but if you have any refining ideas, counter ideas or just want to point out some glaring weaknesses/issues with it, you are more than welcome. Mind you I do not propose anything of such kind must be implemented, rather, it's more in the "what if" spirit.
Discuss. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
212
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 14:55:00 -
[2] - Quote
No love? I could understand. But no hate? This I find a bit... offensive. ;)
(Also, stealth bump). |
Velicitia
Arma Artificer
2499
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 15:54:00 -
[3] - Quote
No.
How about you just go shoot another player.
One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia |
Aquila Sagitta
Blue-Fire
422
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 17:00:00 -
[4] - Quote
I take control of npcs in l4 mission.
In warps golem. Put everything on him
Barely scratches it.
Watch for 10-15mins as he kills each one of my npc ships.
Wooo so much fun
Blue-Fire Best Fire |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
212
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 19:56:00 -
[5] - Quote
Aquila Sagitta wrote:I take control of npcs in l4 mission.
In warps golem. Put everything on him
Barely scratches it.
Watch for 10-15mins as he kills each one of my npc ships.
Wooo so much fun
Or if this mission happen to be in busy mission hub you may wait for sudden ninja. Decision to make whether to go after ninja (may be interesting if scrambling frigs are still alive) or keep putting pressure on missioneer.
Or trigger full aggro on missions which do not aggress automatically (Assault?).
Or if guy brings friend(s), you may try to make their lives interesting.
Or if he happens to have drone boat you may coordinate attack on their drones.
Or you may employ spiraling trajectories to actually avoid being instapopped.
Or you may use EWAR where it counts. Same with remote repping if available.
Of course if someone uses blinged Marauder or compatible then there's not much what can be done. But on the other side, 'animating' a mission would be purely optional. When set up, you are given a choice whether to mess with given encounter or to pass it, and when taken you can 'abandon' it at any time which would mean it would take its own course. When you relieve control of POS guns they keep shooting as if you weren't there.
Velicitia wrote:
How about you just go shoot another player.
Good point, however I'm writing from the perspective of spicing up PVE, not of sneaking into PVP. |
Bohneik Itohn
Universal Freelance
CONSORTIUM UNIVERSALIS
710
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 21:03:00 -
[6] - Quote
There is some merit behind the idea of giving players control over NPC's.
LOTRO does this with it's PvP. A single player goes up against a single monster controlled by a player, the monster player gets abilities and attributes appropriate for challenging the player and it's up to the two of them to see who uses their abilities more wisely.
There is plenty of room in Eve's PvE for this too. Burner missions are about to be added, which while not wholly different are a departure from the standard. You could make a system where people could queue up to be an elite in someone's mission while they're sitting in station, and if someone pulls a mission of that description and there is a player available, they get an extra reward for killing the elite. If the elite can survive until all of the NPC's are dead and warp out, or destroy the mission runner, they get the reward.
Or... Other things. There are a lot of ways for it to work, and it is fun. Some games base their entire PvP experience around it. If you don't like the OP's suggestion, then improve it, because there is precedence for this and it works very well, and there are plenty of people who would rather do this than compete for #1 ship spinner while waiting for their fleet to get their **** together or corpmates to log in or the scouts to make contact with hostiles or whatever.
Wait, CCP kills kittens now too?!-á - Freyya
Are you a forum alt? Have you ever wondered why your experience on the forums is always so frustrating and unrewarding? This may help. |
NEONOVUS
Diabolically Sexy Eureka-Secret Science R Us
907
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 21:12:00 -
[7] - Quote
Become the burner and destroy your friends with small weapons, offgrid boosting, and officer fit pirate frigates.
Sounds like a fun plan, would love to see it. |
Bohneik Itohn
Universal Freelance
CONSORTIUM UNIVERSALIS
710
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 21:34:00 -
[8] - Quote
NEONOVUS wrote:Become the burner and destroy your friends with small weapons, offgrid boosting, and officer fit pirate frigates.
Sounds like a fun plan, would love to see it.
Assuming you have the ability to fit the ship you use, fleet up, and match appropriately.
Use some logic... 
In the case of you having NPC support an appropriately balanced ship would be provided. It's not about smashing them solo, it's about controlling the engagement and playing the objective. The mission runner can't just show up in a Golem and expect to press the iWin button, because you have the option of maintaining distance and warping out when everything else is dead. If they show up in a ship that can chase you down and the mission ship you're given really is appropriately balanced This is why you put in multiple win states. It makes gaming the system harder. You can take and switch it up from mission to mission also. The elite's secondary objective might be to give an NPC he's escorting enough time to flee, to maintain a perimeter, to stay within range of a certain point in space for a period of time, or whatever. Lots of different things to do that will make both the challenger and the mission runner play in a variety of different ways.
If you want 1v1 matches, you can just give the challenger a 120-180 second window to fit a ship of the same isk value as the estimated value of the mission runner's ship.
If the issue is the mission runner using an OGB? Simplest solution I can think of is forcing the two opposing players into the same fleet. 
Wait, CCP kills kittens now too?!-á - Freyya
Are you a forum alt? Have you ever wondered why your experience on the forums is always so frustrating and unrewarding? This may help. |
Paranoid Loyd
1497
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 22:43:00 -
[9] - Quote
Velicitia wrote:No.
How about you just go shoot another player.
^This
"PvE in EVE is a trap to turn you into PvP content, don't confuse it for actual gameplay." Lipbite |
Gully Alex Foyle
Black Fox Marauders
Repeat 0ffenders
1864
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 22:59:00 -
[10] - Quote
OP, do it this way.
Allow players/corps/alliances to join pirate factions. For example, Guristas.
The players in the Guristas faction can be legally attacked anywhere, including highsec.
BUT... any player that attacks a Guristas NPC gets a 5min LE with all Guristas faction human players.
Would be awesome.
Make space glamorous!
Is EVE dying or not? Ask the EVE-O Death-o-meter! |
Zan Shiro
Alternative Enterprises
474
|
Posted - 2014.08.20 23:30:00 -
[11] - Quote
hmskrecik wrote: Apart from actual brain, NPCs don't get any extra superpowers. .
ummm, you do know rats are vampire proof...and have infinite cap, right?
Unless changed go test this. If changed, please correct me as I have not retried in quite a while.
Run nos/neut on a rat. If it works it will stop working after a few cycles. Nos will for sure. I tried this in the past. You get a few pulls then nothing. Nos will still run mind you, but at that point its just drawing activation cap from your ship, not getting any back from the target. Reason for this: ccp didn't want rats being abused to run permarun ships nos'ing rats. It also be the reason why long ago billboards were moved. As I hear it they use to be a lot closer to gates....campers would nos the billboard to boost the cap. This why they are all the way in left field and not really in your face visible.
Infinite cap is seen In that even the inty rats if you let run wild in your mission....just keep burning and burning and burning and burning. "boss" rats like trigger BS also have a permarun tank, they can rep/shield boost all day long. You see this when low sp running and your dps not strong enough to break the tank. YOu have enough to knock off a few hp but the reps are eternally getting it back to where it was.
I could also be nitpicky and point out rat e-war stronger. Even with ECCM II, sensor boost array II , electronics sub 5 and diss. sequencer,, grav sensor 4, AND HG talons (used to be my unprobable setup, now I am jsut hard as hell to find) I still get jammed from time to time by gurista in my tengu.
|
Bohneik Itohn
Universal Freelance
CONSORTIUM UNIVERSALIS
715
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 00:47:00 -
[12] - Quote
Zan Shiro wrote:hmskrecik wrote: Apart from actual brain, NPCs don't get any extra superpowers. . ummm, you do know rats are vampire proof...and have infinite cap, right? Unless changed go test this. If changed, please correct me as I have not retried in quite a while. Run nos/neut on a rat. If it works it will stop working after a few cycles. Nos will for sure. I tried this in the past. You get a few pulls then nothing. Nos will still run mind you, but at that point its just drawing activation cap from your ship, not getting any back from the target. Reason for this: ccp didn't want rats being abused to run permarun ships nos'ing rats. It also be the reason why long ago billboards were moved. As I hear it they use to be a lot closer to gates....campers would nos the billboard to boost the cap. This why they are all the way in left field and not really in your face visible. Infinite cap is seen In that even the inty rats if you let run wild in your mission....just keep burning and burning and burning and burning. "boss" rats like trigger BS also have a permarun tank, they can rep/shield boost all day long. You see this when low sp running and your dps not strong enough to break the tank. YOu have enough to knock off a few hp but the reps are eternally getting it back to where it was. I could also be nitpicky and point out rat e-war stronger. Even with ECCM II, sensor boost array II , electronics sub 5 and diss. sequencer,, grav sensor 4, AND HG talons (used to be my unprobable setup, now I am jsut hard as hell to find) I still get jammed from time to time by gurista in my tengu.
I believe he was trying to say that the player who takes control of the NPC ship doesn't get anything special, just a ship like any other player could fit up. The fact that a player is flying it immediately removes all NPC quirks from the picture.
Wait, CCP kills kittens now too?!-á - Freyya
Are you a forum alt? Have you ever wondered why your experience on the forums is always so frustrating and unrewarding? This may help. |
Sentamon
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
2107
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 02:19:00 -
[13] - Quote
Bohneik Itohn wrote:
LOTRO does this with it's PvP. A single player goes up against a single monster controlled by a player, the monster player gets abilities and attributes appropriate for challenging the player and it's up to the two of them to see who uses their abilities more wisely.
This is extremely fun, would love to see something similar here.
~ Professional Forum Alt -á~ |
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
1478
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 03:41:00 -
[14] - Quote
Sentamon wrote:
This is extremely fun, would love to see something similar here.
Uh, this is exactly what PvP here is. The 'Monster' is just an alternate ship with a different fitting. It's still PvP. EVE actually has far better PvP to LOTRO. |
Komi Toran
Paragon Trust
The Bastion
175
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 04:36:00 -
[15] - Quote
The basic problem is in the Who? section: you need volunteers for this. Volunteers that want to add to people's "fun." Well, we have those in the game right now, and they volunteer to be FCs, to head corporations, to sponsor events, to provide necessary services. And the thing is, we don't have enough of them to cover the jobs that need doing. Want another major null-sec war? Well, we need volunteers to run it.
This suggestion is a drain on a limited talent pool. It requires a pretty big expenditure of in-game human effort (there's even a vetting process!) to benefit a segment of the population that is, by nature, interested in solo play. It doesn't seem like a good deal to me. |
Raiz Nhell
Veni Vidi Vici Reloaded
363
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 04:53:00 -
[16] - Quote
So I am controlling the NPC's in a lvl4...
I know the system, I know the location...
I know who has just entered my mission...
I know his fit (roughly)...
I know a friend who likes violencing blinged out mission runners... I think you know how this ends...
Also I volunteer all the time to provide content for others... its called undocking... and unlike lvl4 NPC's sometimes I win.
There is no such thing as a fair fight...
If your fighting fair you have automatically put yourself at a disadvantage. |
Felix Judge
Gallente Volunteer Defense Forces
Spaceship Samurai
4
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 09:37:00 -
[17] - Quote
Velicitia wrote:No.
How about you just go shoot another player.
Rubbish. You cannot shoot "another" player, because most often you meet more than one, who are shooting you. Or are running away because your group is larger. OP's idea would be a nice way to ACTUALLY solo PvP (and by that I mean no offgrid-boosting, alt-probing, logi-ex-machina "solo" PvP).
|
Felix Judge
Gallente Volunteer Defense Forces
Spaceship Samurai
4
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 09:41:00 -
[18] - Quote
Raiz Nhell wrote:So I am controlling the NPC's in a lvl4...
I know the system, I know the location...
I know who has just entered my mission...
I know his fit (roughly)...
I know a friend who likes violencing blinged out mission runners... I think you know how this ends... [...]
Assuming you can choose the location where you are placed in the NPC ship. If you are assigned randomly to some mission somewhere, then good luck to your friend burning to that system. Provided you are being told the system at all, which you as mission NPC do not need to know and thus need not be shown. |
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
2470
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 09:47:00 -
[19] - Quote
I volunteer to control Lv4 missions in Sinq Laison.
Now, which trash ship should carry the cyno so I can drop officer-fitted super-long-pointing Core Grand High Admiral Carriers on unsuspecting billion-ISK navyravens, or EOM Soul Destroyer Dreadnoughts on Marauders that are almost out of their Bastion cycle and won't react in time to turn it off before starting the next? |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 15:53:00 -
[20] - Quote
Gully Alex Foyle wrote:Allow players/corps/alliances to join pirate factions. For example, Guristas.
The players in the Guristas faction can be legally attacked anywhere, including highsec.
BUT... any player that attacks a Guristas NPC gets a 5min LE with all Guristas faction human players.
Interesting concept and I sort of like it (though isn't there already something like that in the form of FW?). However this mechanism is totally unrelated to what I have described. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 15:57:00 -
[21] - Quote
Zan Shiro wrote:
ummm, you do know rats are vampire proof...and have infinite cap, right?
[....]
Sorry but I don't get how is it related. My proposal, at the beginning at least, would involve only change to NPC control. All other stats and attributes would be unchanged. They'd retain their strengths and vulnerabilities. Only behave less stupid. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 16:00:00 -
[22] - Quote
Bohneik Itohn wrote:
I believe he was trying to say that the player who takes control of the NPC ship doesn't get anything special, just a ship like any other player could fit up. The fact that a player is flying it immediately removes all NPC quirks from the picture.
Erm, no. Quite opposite. Like I mentioned in the post above, I was thinking precisely about leaving NPC ships as they are. Only taking control of them.
At least in the beginning. Maybe later evaluate further options, taking player skills, maybe also implants into account. But I'd most definitely start with least intrusive changes. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 16:10:00 -
[23] - Quote
Komi Toran wrote:The basic problem is in the Who? section: you need volunteers for this. Volunteers that want to add to people's "fun."
You have scratched subject I didn't want to touch for time being: the incentive. There needs to be one to convince a mission runner to remove safety, to allow such addition. And there needs to be one to convince another player to spend their time on most probably futile attempts at kicking such mission runner's ass.
On the other hand, rewards cannot be too great, to reduce temptation to game the system and after all, L5 missions were removed from hisec for a reason.
In summary I do not have ready answer how to manage that and I'd leave this part out of the discussion.
Quote:This suggestion is a drain on a limited talent pool. It requires a pretty big expenditure of in-game human effort (there's even a vetting process!) to benefit a segment of the population that is, by nature, interested in solo play. It doesn't seem like a good deal to me.
I do not agree with this statement. The people who run missions, and I conjecture they'd me main source of such animators, would not FC fleets anyway, nor run gangs, wars, etc. My point is, the population is already segmented and this feature wouldn't change it much, except of maybe introducing another microprofession. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 16:15:00 -
[24] - Quote
Raiz Nhell wrote:So I am controlling the NPC's in a lvl4...
I know the system, I know the location...
I know who has just entered my mission...
I know his fit (roughly)...
I know a friend who likes violencing blinged out mission runners... I think you know how this ends...
Also I volunteer all the time to provide content for others... its called undocking... and unlike lvl4 NPC's sometimes I win.
Oh dear, this is what I call unexpected consequences... I really didn't expect that. :)
Apart from introducing some perfectly legal butthurt to carebears (and I'm writing from the point of view of such mission runner) it looks like working as intended. Okay, you got some intel but it was already available, you just got it a bit easier but that's it. On the other hand you both volunteered to that so hand's clean. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 16:18:00 -
[25] - Quote
Felix Judge wrote:Raiz Nhell wrote:So I am controlling the NPC's in a lvl4...
I know the system, I know the location...
I know who has just entered my mission...
I know his fit (roughly)...
I know a friend who likes violencing blinged out mission runners... I think you know how this ends... [...] Assuming you can choose the location where you are placed in the NPC ship. If you are assigned randomly to some mission somewhere, then good luck to your friend burning to that system. Provided you are being told the system at all, which you as mission NPC do not need to know and thus need not be shown.
This. Maybe in the OP I wasn't clear enough but I assume that animator is just dropped into some randomly chosen encounter. So you don't know in advance where and against whom.
And for time of such event I think fleeting should be disallowed (that would be too easy). |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
213
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 16:19:00 -
[26] - Quote
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:I volunteer to control Lv4 missions in Sinq Laison.
Now, which trash ship should carry the cyno so I can drop officer-fitted super-long-pointing Core Grand High Admiral Carriers on unsuspecting billion-ISK navyravens, or EOM Soul Destroyer Dreadnoughts on Marauders that are almost out of their Bastion cycle and won't react in time to turn it off before starting the next?
Honestly, I have no friggin' idea what are you talking about. Which NPC ships carry cyno generators or jump drives? |
Antillie Sa'Kan
Forging Industries
Silent Infinity
624
|
Posted - 2014.08.21 21:54:00 -
[27] - Quote
NEONOVUS wrote:Become the burner and destroy your friends with small weapons, offgrid boosting, and officer fit pirate frigates.
Sounds like a fun plan, would love to see it.
There is nothing stopping you from doing this right now in lowsec. |
hmskrecik
The Scope
Gallente Federation
214
|
Posted - 2014.09.05 18:06:00 -
[28] - Quote
One more bump, the last one. |
NEONOVUS
Diabolically Sexy Eureka-Secret Science R Us
927
|
Posted - 2014.09.05 20:30:00 -
[29] - Quote
Antillie Sa'Kan wrote:NEONOVUS wrote:Become the burner and destroy your friends with small weapons, offgrid boosting, and officer fit pirate frigates.
Sounds like a fun plan, would love to see it. There is nothing stopping you from doing this right now in lowsec.
Well I need friends, an offgrid unkillable perfect booster and an officer fit frig to start |
Velicitia
Arma Artificer
2636
|
Posted - 2014.09.05 23:07:00 -
[30] - Quote
NEONOVUS wrote:Antillie Sa'Kan wrote:NEONOVUS wrote:Become the burner and destroy your friends with small weapons, offgrid boosting, and officer fit pirate frigates.
Sounds like a fun plan, would love to see it. There is nothing stopping you from doing this right now in lowsec. Well I need friends, an offgrid unkillable perfect booster and an officer fit frig to start
Well, I'm not exactly a "friend" ... but I have a perfect fleet booster somewhere ...
granted, there's no guarantee we won't just turn the tables on you ...
One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia |
| |
|
| Pages: [1] 2 :: one page |
| First page | Previous page | Next page | Last page |