Oh my goodness - when does that standings change go live on TQ! That's SO much better than that absolutely AWFUL grinding.

I do not dislike the grinding.

I do dislike having to juggle things around and outright decline missions (after googling) to avoid getting shitlisted by one of the NPC empires. That part of the whole Standings feature is the really really really sucky part.

Mission isk and lp rewards use a system that autocalculates them based on a number of factors (including how quickly people complete the mission on average and how often they decline it). Unfortunately this means that the mission completion rewards will be a bit wonky on Sisi, and for the first couple days on TQ.

Is that unique to burner missions?

Because from what i've experienced on TQ, that doesn't seem to be the case with standard level 4 missions.

It's the case with all standard missions. The reason you don't notice it for other missions is they are calculating from such a giant pool of runs that it changes extremely slowly.

We've set the reward multipliers to a level that should work pretty well after a few downtimes on TQ, but we are also committed to tweaking them as we go. It's very possible that these numbers could see several tweaks in the first few weeks after Hyperion launches.

I assume these mission multipliers are to combat the speed at which these missions can be completed, which might create a high risk vs low payout situation. Although the amount of effort to fit a specific setup for each mission may lead to people declining then all by itself.

I can imagine as I do myself, you have your suspicions on what trends may arise but that it will be hard to be sure until the feature matures.

I think every other mission restricted to "frigate type vessels" allow destroyers. These do not. I assume that is by design?

Ran two of these, the Succubus and the Worm.

A+ for PVP practice
D (or low C if you get a faction drop) for being a useful way to make money.

I've spent most of my Eve pvp career in frig gangs and 1v1s, and these are an excellent way to simulate that. Genuinely tough solo fights. Slightly disappointed at the heavy use of the kiting meta, do none of them brawl?

If people are running them solo, you might want to consider extending the amount of time given for the bonus reward. I found these tough by myself and I have plenty of experience fighting in that kind of scenario.
I can imagine that a player who spends the majority of their time running lvl4s in their battleship is going to have a really difficult time of these if they run them solo.

Also slightly disappointed about the near necessity of a pirate frig or assault frig to run these. Have you considered adding lower level Burner missions for lower sp players to practice pvp in t1 and navy frigates?

The pvp side of me loves these. The side of me that likes money is underwhelmed.

Dear CCP Fozzie,

First, forgive my noobiness on that matter, but I have some questions witch I cannot find a solid answer.

1 GÇô Appears to me that new type of mission have a clear objective to approximate the pve part to the pvp part of the game, and which the conception I ask for a way to be possible for the play get a specific agent that only give burner missions. That way the player will have more ways to try to approximate the pvp part of the game, because he will have more missions to do. You already said that the reward part of the burner mission will be similar to ordinary level four missions, and giving that consideration I do not see any impediment of an exclusive burner mission agent, seems nobody will be rich doing only that kind of mission. Again, forgive me if you have another argument, please clarify that point.

2 GÇô Again, in the way to approximate the pve to pvp, I ask if will be necessary to fit the warp disruptor -¼-¼/ warp scramble modules. This is because in pvp that module seems to be a necessary one, because without it the enemy player will get away. However, the current npc AI do not warp way when in danger of being exploded. So, I ask for a new type of AI for the burner npc, which warp off if not scrambled / disrupted. I do not say warp off grid, but warp to 100km or some distance to be necessary for the play to again, tackle it.
In advanced, thank you for your consideration.

Castelo

The fact that we only have 5 burner missions is a big reason why we aren't attaching them to their own agents in this release. We might consider it later once there is a larger pool to choose from.

These are good!

I got the Worm one and I'm having a hard time coming up with a ship/fit to take it down.

I've made like 7 attempts in various ships.

Don't tell me, I can figure this out.

Fun.

I can confirm that I've found a way to beat that one using a T2 ship and all T2/meta modules, with no expensive implants.

It's pretty much always a tricky fight for me though.

Thanks for the feedback.

The fact that we only have 5 burner missions is a big reason why we aren't attaching them to their own agents in this release. We might consider it later once there is a larger pool to choose from..

the worm does what kin and thermal damage?

so that would mean a galente or caldari ship maybe the vengeance?

I would think stay away from turrets as they would have trouble tracking a mwd ship at long sram range...

so that leaves either the ishkur or the hawk... though i have had trouble fitting hawks in the past so i might just end up doing it in a vengeance...

This blood raiders burner is the bane of my existence.

do any of them even have real scrams? no other rats in the game have real scrams afaik.

do any of them even have real scrams? no other rats in the game have real scrams afaik.

Ummm, are these only in the official 'test systems'?....because i just loaded SiSi up since i saw the updated OP....first mission i get is "Attack of the Drones"....the regular old lvl 4 mission...

This missions are super waste of time.
We killed 15 burners, guess what, EMPTY WRECKS

All of the burners are WAY overpowered, can't be soloed, they can't be killed even with 2 players in group, you need at least 3 players.

Rewards are NONE, nothing drops.

I'll be skiping those missions, even level 1 missions are better to do and have better rewards.

The Guristas Burner ingores my scram on him once he switches to my drones.

The Burners that fight at closer range (Angel, Blood, Serpentis, Sansha) do indeed use real scams.

This missions are super waste of time.
We killed 15 burners, guess what, EMPTY WRECKS

All of the burners are WAY overpowered, can't be soloed, they can't be killed even with 2 players in group, you need at least 3 players.

Rewards are NONE, nothing drops.

I'll be skiping those missions, even level 1 missions are better to do and have better rewards.

I've beaten all of them solo without expensive faction modules, expensive implants or gang links. They're tough but they're definitely not impossible.

To be clear, these missions are definitely not intended to teach players how to PVP (although I can completely understand why people might hope that they would be).

Even attempting that would require a completely new AI. Optional missions that teach PVP skills are a good long-term goal, but these are designed to be challenging changes of pace from the traditional level 4 mission experience.
They do expose players to thinking about fittings and tactics in ways that other missions don't encourage, and hopefully by either solving these puzzles themselves or by reading about how others have solved them they will improve their understandings of EVE mechanics and how module fittings can be used creatively to reach specific goals.

This missions are super waste of time.
We killed 15 burners, guess what, EMPTY WRECKS

All of the burners are WAY overpowered, can't be soloed, they can't be killed even with 2 players in group, you need at least 3 players.

Rewards are NONE, nothing drops.

I'll be skiping those missions, even level 1 missions are better to do and have better rewards.

Also one question I had, the Blood rat, he nuets, are those nuets overpowered/oversized for what would be possible to fit on a frig (eh-hem *cough* sansha incursion frigs) or are they infact small sized nuets?

We've reproduced the Guristas speedup when he switches targets. Still working on a solution.


It has the drain over time amount of a Cruor using two small deadspace NOS and a talisman implant set. The rate of fire of its neuts/nos (we don't have a NOS effect for NPCs and the result is the same in this case) is actually significantly slower than it would be from our hypothetical Cruor, but that helps make it a bit easier to play around.

I've beaten all of them solo without expensive faction modules, expensive implants or gang links. They're tough but they're definitely not impossible.

Ok, serpentis npc.
He orbits at 11km, if i use any t-2 ship with t-2 web, i can't web him down, if i try to approach him to get in range (10km) i can't because he webs me down and i am too slow.
I can tank him, but i do no damage to him because he's too fast.
If i use hyena, i get no damage from this ship, other ships can't web him down.
Overloading the web can only hold him down so many seconds, after i burn web out it's out of range again.

So there's no solution here, it can't be killed unless i use faction web that gets me 14km range.

If only there was a way to overheat a T2 web to get more range out of it.

In between bouts of the server problems I was able to test a bunch of these missions. My first impression of the burner missions is that, first, they can actually be easy (in a sense), and second, no, they are not at all like frigate PVP .
Players aren't going to learn much about PVP fitting from them (regardless of whether that's a goal for missions). Efficient fittings for these missions are what I would call GÇ£cheeseGÇ¥ fittings, most of them useless in any other context, but it didn't take long for counters to become apparent.

For example, ECM fittings on high DPS ships like the Worm work decently on all but the Guristas mission, as noted above.

For the Guristas burner, it was surprisingly easy with this lame fit I quickly threw together:

[Worm]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster
Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Empty Mid Slot

Prototype 'Arbalest' Light Missile Launcher
Prototype 'Arbalest' Light Missile Launcher
Prototype 'Arbalest' Light Missile Launcher

Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II
Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II

3x 'Augmented' Acolyte
2x 'Augmented' Hornet

The augmented drones did not seem necessary and rockets would have been better than the light missiles. Start the fight by overheating the MWD, apply web, use MASB as needed, and it is over pretty quickly. That's just one way of doing it, and there are likely more efficient ways.

It does seem like the only frigates that will be able to complete any of these missions (solo) will be those that can do very high amounts of DPS. A T1 frigate might be able to do some of them with enough DPSGÇömaybe a max DPS atron or merlin with lucky ECM cycles. In fact, all of these missions seem highly biased toward the Worm.

Some players (above) have already said these missions are too hard. At some point they will be easy, as once you figure out a "cheese" for them, they are just as predictable as the Damsel in Distress--you can even leave slots unfilled in some cases. That predictability etc. is not necessarily a bad thing, as they are still fun. But yes, these missions are different from the usual security grind, but only insofar as they require frigates in quirky fittings, not because they somehow approximate PVP...

I think the ships are immune to Tracking Disruption, but not ECM for some reason (which is far more effective). Just tried to fight the Daredevil Burner with a Sentinel with 2x TDs with -76% optimal each, and it still was hitting me at 12km.

*Note I am still at work and have been unable to test the feature*
Fozzie will you have some sort of warning display before accepting a Burner mission?

When I run mission I have the bad habit of spamming 'complete mission' and 'accept mission' before I have even read where/what I am supposed to be doing. I worry that people may accidentally accepting a Burner mission and not have the resources to complete it.

I feel the introduction of the 'niche' missions may catch certain players (especially newer pilots) off guard leading them to losing ships and losing standings to abandoned missions.

I've also noted a few ppl saying how after being unable to break the NPC tank, they tried to log-off to get away to try again...yet were not able to get away by logging off. Does this mean these NPC's will ignore the E-Warp built in to pve for the many times that players get those pesky 'socket-disconnects' that you claim you have no control over fixing...

(sorta like today, after seeing the server go down, what, 5 times now?, i'm not touching anything Eve for the rest of the day at best)

to be fair, since you're one of the designers, you already (probably) know at least one of the ways to beat them.

I fail to see how making a cheese fit when you know exactly what you are fighting is nothing like actual PvP. If I knew what I was fighting beforehand in a solo fight and exactly what he would fit, yes, I would fit exactly to counter his fit.

To be clear, these missions are definitely not intended to teach players how to PVP (although I can completely understand why people might hope that they would be).

Even attempting that would require a completely new AI. Optional missions that teach PVP skills are a good long-term goal, but these are designed to be challenging changes of pace from the traditional level 4 mission experience.
They do expose players to thinking about fittings and tactics in ways that other missions don't encourage, and hopefully by either solving these puzzles themselves or by reading about how others have solved them they will improve their understandings of EVE mechanics and how module fittings can be used creatively to reach specific goals.

Level 4 mission runners tend to be low-sp and heavily focused in one direction, usually towards battleships.

thankyou for your enlightment.
so?

I really dislike the idea of messing with the difficulty (except perhaps the rep power on the blood one as previously stated). Myself and others in the thread have proven that they are consistently beatable with t2 fit ships, without fancy implants or links.

If CCP does add more in the future, there's opportunity to add lower difficulty ones or missions tailored around larger ships, the current ones are in a good place where they are right now. Only thing I don't like is that I basically wont be able to do these missions since I have absolutely no interest running l4 missions and they are not available in any other avenue. However, I do understand that it would not make sense to add a new agent type when there are only 5 missions available. Maybe make the structure inside the mission deadspace scannable with combat probes to allow organized players to blitz the missions if they prepare (lowsec/nullsec only)?

Also another point of feedback, I assume the racial structure inside the mission does not drop any loot? They have a massive amount of HP and I wasted quite a bit of time killing a couple to see if they dropped anything. Should probably significantly reduce the HP or just make them invulnerable to avoid player confusion and frustration.

I'm a failure at this game.

20 failed attempts on the Serpentis rat. I live for 10 sec. at most. Haven't tried the others yet

I'm so dissapointed. It's so hard I shall never try this on TQ. I'll just lose my ship.

Maybe you can get CCP Rise to integrate some T1 frig versions of these burners somewhere in the new player experience (or better: in a special L4 mission pool for characters who are less than 6 months old)?

[Worm, Burner Blood]
Co-Processor II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 50
EM Ward Amplifier II
Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II

Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Scourge Rage Rocket
[empty high slot]

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II
Small Warhead Calefaction Catalyst I

Hornet II x2
Warrior II x2

Hey, it is the ccps way of telling players, that they will soon need alts even for mission running, once they force every pvper to train their own ogb.

Anyway, I am unable to get on sisi right now, can guys who tried burners write here "stats" of burner rats (speed, at what range they stay, at what range they use ewar, damage etc) plx? Id love to theorycraft something so I have some frigs ready for them on tq.

can guys who tried burners write here "stats" of burner rats (speed, at what range they stay, at what range they use ewar, damage etc) plx? Id love to theorycraft something so I have some frigs ready for them on tq.

Hey guys. We've got a set of tweaks that should hit SISI tomorrow, that include a reduction in the active tank of the Blood Burner and a fix for the issue that caused the Guristas Burner to reactivate his MWD while scrammed if he switches targets.

This package also includes a number of other changes, such as an increase in the bounty of the Burners and a rebalance of the loot drops, additional mass and inertia for all of them so that they fly a bit more naturally and some tweaks to their target switching behavior.

We've been running these guys quite a bit internally with the new stats and we're quite happy with them. It's likely that the version that hits SISI tomorrow will be the version that reaches TQ and we'll continue to tweak from there.

I can re-confirm that all of these guys are very doable solo. I've been able to come up with reliable strategies to kill them all solo using at least two different ship types and T2/meta modules, no expensive implants and no gang boosts.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, and hopefully you enjoy the tweaks that will be hitting SISI tomorrow.

Were any of those successful ships Minmatar?

I can re-confirm that all of these guys are very doable solo. I've been able to come up with reliable strategies to kill them all solo using at least two different ship types and T2/meta modules, no expensive implants and no gang boosts.

Yup. I think a lot of people are underestimating how helpful T2 resists can be.

This NPC is an extremely powerful frigate with stats based on those of a player flying a pirate frigate with officer/deadspace gear, pirate implants, and command links.

Please confirm that this is the case. Because last i looked, there was no deadspace fit for most of these frigates that will do the kind of dps that we are seeing them do, all while having a ridiculous tank. And how many different full implant sets are each of these guys sporting...or are you doing each particular stat individually..."well if he had max armor fit, his tank would be this...plus if he had max dps fit, his dmg would be this...plus if he was max nano-fit, his speed and orbit would be this.." ?

As to the 'atleast two different ships'....does it happen to be the same two ships for all the missions? And most players consider T2 rigs as not-cheap to fit, and don't regularly fit them to throw-away ships.

You do realize, Fozzie, that two valid ships per burner means that most people will have to cross-train just for these missions...

(In other words, they will skip them after loosing some isks, and the content becomes useless :/)

I thought it was more or less normal to train multiple races.

I have to ask, can these npcs be capped out? because thats about the only way I can see me killing them, I'm using max booster pilot and main which has 90m SP and I can barely make a dent in half these things before I pop

For the running of lv4 missions? What's the point?

Guristas burner... oh well, after failed try to catch him with enyo (2,2k/s vs 3,6k/s) I just warped 170dps lml hawk at 0 and killed him withou moving, comfortably tanking him with medium booster. Quite easy too.

There's quite a variety of ships I've been able to beat these guys with so far. Some ships appear on the list of viable options a lot (most people have realized that Worms can run a lot of these, although they are often far from the best option) and others appear for just a few.

For the running of lv4 missions? What's the point?

I mean if we are only considering pilots 5 months and younger sure, there will probably be some problems in not being able to do too much, but still they should probably be able to do at least one of the burner missions.

I never said these guys would be easy, but they are definitely doable and once the EVE hivemind has had a bit of time to mull them over I'm sure you guys will consider them to be trivial within a few weeks.

This is weird, light missiles fromrange did nothing to the guy for me. Like, not even scratching him.

I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of people who complete these will be people who use more than one character. The risk drops dramatically with another ship or links

I'm willing to wager that the vast majority of people who complete these will be people who use more than one character. The risk drops dramatically with another ship or links.

No way I beat this Cruor solo in a frig ... with Worm MSE+double MASB 240 dps (hobs+rage inferno) I can barely scratch its armor, it's permatanking. When it switched to my drones I could escape. With a Hawk (my first try) I could permatank its damage until I ran out of boosters but I'm not able to create the required DPS to break the tank.

Maybe I could roll the dice with ECM ... but that's not what I would ever do on TQ with an expensive ship/fit.

With 2 ships these missions are a piece of cake, just run them together with a griffin and permajam the rat.

I poped him with this fit - mind you, I almost ran out of cap charges and my last 2 drones were in structure. Couldnt figure out if hobs or infiltrators do better damage but he certainly mitigates alot of rocket/lm damage if he is not webbed.

Any Burner except for the Cruor dies to a T2 fitted Daredevil. One thing always overheat your guns when in range and the Burner is webbed.

how many isk will they loose before understanding who's the right one? :/

how many isk will they loose before understanding who's the right one? :/

this is stupid, i am outta here

but afaik there is a small chance of faction drop .

I can confirm, I once had a faction module dropped.

The problems with those missions I see:
- a typical solo lvl4 mission runner is risk averse and will not have the skills to do them solo, so there is nothing to learn for them
- although they foster group play (like the Dagan mission), which is good and will work also for less skilled people, ... burying them in the lvl4 mission "profession" and standing requirements, will exclude the newbies.
- the shiny ship vs. reward is not much out of skew compared to the standard lvl4s ... but the likelihood of a loss is much higher, hence putting the risk/reward out of balance for solo play

I don't have a good proposal to fix this ... as I clearly see that the lvl4 thing is necessary to protect the mission from being farmed by multiboxers all the day.

We've reproduced the Guristas speedup when he switches targets. Still working on a solution.


It has the drain over time amount of a Cruor using two small deadspace NOS and a talisman implant set. The rate of fire of its neuts/nos (we don't have a NOS effect for NPCs and the result is the same in this case) is actually significantly slower than it would be from our hypothetical Cruor, but that helps make it a bit easier to play around.

I can confirm, I once had a faction module dropped.

The problems with those missions I see:
- a typical solo lvl4 mission runner is risk averse and will not have the skills to do them solo, so there is nothing to learn for them
- although they foster group play (like the Dagan mission), which is good and will work also for less skilled people, ... burying them in the lvl4 mission "profession" and standing requirements, will exclude the newbies.
- the shiny ship vs. reward is not much out of skew compared to the standard lvl4s ... but the likelihood of a loss is much higher, hence putting the risk/reward out of balance for solo play

I don't have a good proposal to fix this ... as I clearly see that the lvl4 thing is necessary to protect the mission from being farmed by multiboxers all the day.

lastly the likely hood of a loss is still dang low, baring disconnects

I'm still looking for the T1/T2 fit, no links, no implants to kill the Blood Raider bastard...(out of Worm).
I think Wolf is the way to go, but I didn't succeeded yet

Thx for the fun CCP :)

Drones act all strange with him. They get in range, then stop following and fall out of range. I was hoping I could use web drones to slow him, catch him with a slower ship, and blast him. Nope, the drones do not stay on target.

They mwd after him, then try to orbit at their regular speed...

Was blood burner changed after the downtime?

It seems to have gained max range on its guns.

Also it seems to be passive tanked now.

I give up. Undoable.

And yet other people are doing just fine.

The resist profiles of these NPCs match player ships, not the usual NPC resists. :)

I think this is one thing that a lot of folks having trouble are overlooking. The outcoming damage profiles roughly match NPC standards, but their resists to incoming fire don't. So, pack EM damage against the shield tankers and Explosive against the armor tankers.

If their resist profiles actually matched player ships, therm damage vs shield tankers and kin damage vs armor tankers would be better because no decent pilot would leave em/exp hole opened on a pirate frig with such tank capacity as these burners have.

same for all Burners. is it by design ?

He has no real armor rep .. and a ton of HP .. it takes ages for him to rep up, but he does it over time.

So many people are going to die.

because eventually, L4 missions will be wiped out as we know it, replaced with cruisers and BS class missions that will be impossible to do solo. You will have to either join a group to do a L4 mission, or turn to Alts R Us.

As much as I enjoy a good bit of solo, it is an MMO and that argument will never change.

Maybe I misread the intention here, CCP

And yes, whilst I know these can be blobbed and people can bring help, I didnt expect that group to be the target here.

What is my point?

My point is that a 360 DPS frigate dying at point blank range before I could get through the shield of an armor tanked rat whilst running my repper overheated might be a bit overtuned for what my expectations of the point of the content was.

However, it is easy to readjust my expectations, but that doesnt mean I dont think they have missed a trick.

I get that.

I just dared to hope it wouldnt require a stupid fit that is bugger all use in actual PvP. I was wrong, I get that. Doesn't mean I think this is a good route for them to take it down.

The wolf you used would be about as much use in PvP as a mission raven. No prop mod or point ffs.

It's more of the same PvE fit is PvE and bad at everything else and that is the disappointment.

Furthermore, it's a quick reward : as soon as you find a strategy to go against, the reward for these few minutes of attention in the fight will drop, better than most lvl4.

Burner Cruor
Way overpowered compared to the other, after latest changes:
- Drone ships doesn't work at all because the Cruor priory target is now Drones
- Missile ships doesn't work at all, because you can only run 1x web and your Rockets will hit with like 25% of their DPS
- Kiting does not work anymore because the Cruor now instantly web and shot beyond 12km

Only thing that works now is a passive Jaguar with 2x medium ASB and 200mm AC + Fusion and even with that it is hard because the DPS from the Cruor at 5km is ~320, you can barely tank that.

What might work is an AB Kiter with tank + 14km dual web, need to test that. But honestly that Cruor is way overpowered.

We have not adjusted the NOS/Neut range on the Blood Burner at all since they were first deployed onto SISI.

We have not adjusted the NOS/Neut range on the Blood Burner at all since they were first deployed onto SISI.

We did add some falloff to its weapons (the older version incorrectly had the falloff set to 4m).

11:57:19Combat797 from Blood Raiders Burner - Wrecks
That wrecking hit took a damage control-tanked daredevil from full armor to ~90% structure...