Zaolen Ying
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Posted - 2007.02.22 12:06:00 -
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As a burgeoning noob, who has just managed to get into a Myrmidon, here are my thoughts.
I think what's making people angry is not so much the additions of the new higher reward agents, but the fact that their existing ones will be nerfed to accomodate. I disagree with this decision as well - i don't mind the removing of bounties on the mission rats, so long as the rewards are in some way balanced (the corp-wide LP seems to be a good start - but how about also more diverse and useful LP rewards - named modules for instance - this can balance out the no bounties - and thus help starting players on their feet, as well as older players by giving them upgrades to their ship)
Now, instead of nerfing the current Level 4's, why not keep them as is, and just add Level 5 above that. In fact, you wouldn't even have to make the difficulty jump in terms of PvE progression between level 4 and 5 very big, because the nature of level 5's being in low-sec already represents a very big jump in difficulty for a lot of people.
As for Level 6 and 7 agents, im not experienced enough in the game to really comment. But i hope they aren't all going to be located in 0.0.
Anyway, assuming that Level 4's aren't nerfed, and level 5 is added above that, then i can really see this overhaul working for a lot of reasons.
Firstly - the empire mission runners can still run their level 4 missions with comparatively the same rewards (if no bounties) and be happy where they are, however, those who want a bit more, can go into low-sec. Now, the idea of low-sec as i see it is that it is rather a lawless place, and so you need friends and (some) organisation if you want to stay there.
This immediately in my mind becomes something which involves the corporation - you would have your entire corporation move their base to low-sec, the mission runners can then access their lovely level 5 agents, the miners can access the low-sec ores, and the corp PvPers can have their share of fun and games (and keep the others relatively safe!)
In fact, it seems like the perfect idea of a prepping ground for moving into 0.0, as a corporation could effectively move into a system / a few systems and make it safe for their members to work in.
The Corporation shared LPs then makes a lot more sense in my mind (if, i read it correctly - i.e. the entire player corp has a shared LP pool with an NPC corp), because then the mission runners efforts benefit the entire corp who can get agent rewards, and the corp PvPers will make it so the mission runners (and miners) can tackle their missions (and roids) without that much risk.
However, the rewards need to be good for it to be worth the effort that an entire corporation puts in. How about also making agent mission difficulties dependant on the sec-status? so Agents in 0.1 space give out far harder missions than 0.4 (With much greater rewards), and thus in turn require much greater organisation. As for actual concrete numbers for rewards, i don't really know enough to say how much it would cost a corp to effectively live in low-sec, but whatever the figure is i'm sure mission rewards can be balanced so as to provide an effective means of income (along with mining) to make living in low-sec more rewarding than living in empire (so long as the organisation and effort are put in).
Of course, i may just be idealising the situation but overall this change has got me very excited, and in my opinion those people who blankly oppose it are viewing it from the wrong angle.
Of course, i realise that it probably doesn't bode well for those people who like solo-mission running, but then, getting the higher rewards means more risk/effort right?
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