Actually, he has a point. Something needs to be done about complexes.

For far too long has CCP catered to the whims of the exploration crowd.

Not only do they get endless streams of faction/deadspace modules, earning billions of ISK every day, breaking the entire economy worse than incursions, they get bounties and salvage from exploration sites without having worked for the standings to access them like mission runners did.

If anything, CCP should remove all faction loot from exploration sites and put them inside asteroids in mining belts.

I honestly just want the communities opinion on this, but do complexes (both rated and unrated) need to be redone?

If so, what do you think needs to be changed about them and why?

1. There are a number of complexes where you come up against a formidable spawn, but basically all you have to do is pop the "boss" , bookmark his wreck, warp and let the site respawn. Granted I like being able to finish them quickly like this, but it seems a little like cheating.

As much as I use EvE Survival and such sites for reports on the sites, it feels a little like cheating.

Asking the question in such plain form, expect wide range of answers. You need to be a bit more specific, like hi/low or 0.0 plexes you are talking about

I would not get into drop rate issue, which is not really big deal and been discussed hundreds times already

What really bother me is imba of hi sec DED rewards, especially Gurista's ones. I just went out for my little weekend hi sec probing voyage and got about billion from the very first GSO I have found. I do not have any problems with such grate loot I got myself, neither I have problems that anybody else have such luck and got insta "rich". The thing is, hi sec rewards too attractive compare for low sec, especially considering the fact of almost no risk in hi sec exploration. The sites themselves are bored as any mission at the end of the day. Only rewards make them exiting. And some sites, for example, Guristas Watch or Vigil, in terms of difficulty and rewards nothing close to 3/10 or 4/10. Sure, you can finish last step of Watch in couple of minutes, and get A-Type small SB. But the probability rate of such expedition even less than the same SB drop from 3/10. So, what I am talking about is a bit tweaking of drop tables, not drop rates. For example, I honestly believe, expeditions for hi sec to low sec should drop B-Type medium gear, if follow the logic of low-sec non rated escalations, leading to 0.0 and dropping A-Type medium gear

The second thing what should be looked in a bit, is the fact, that exploration is not mini profession anymore, as it used to be. And there is almost no difference between seasoned explorers and someone who just got a Tengu or dual boxing with couple of 2 weeks old chars in terms of requirements to be successful explorer in hi/low sec. o.o is a bit different story tho.

There's nothing imba about the reward distribution among security. The same logic applies to high as it does for low. High can lead to a-type small in low, and low can lead to a-type medium in null. And high has a site that drops a-type small and low has a site that drops a-type medium.

Gurista loot is special because of the demand for shield modules. High sec rewards are attractive in Caldari space because the modules are in high demand. What needs to change is armor mods need to have more differentiation so that loot from Sansha/Bloods/Serps is actually different.

And exploration is still a mini profession bro. Two week characters definitely don't see consistent success.

Also, ban Tech 3 ships from high sec sites.

According 2 weeks characters. well, you may be not be able to compete with armadas of Tengues, but definitely can pull out some serious ISK within short period of time.

From another hand, if someone can fly a Drake, lets say 6 month old char, nothing stops him to became competitive explorer within 2 weeks using 2nd char for probing.

Should I write Exploration Almanac II for this matter? :-)

So, answering to OP questions, I think the "existing logic" can be changed.

[quote=5nipe
So, answering to OP questions, I think the "existing logic" can be changed.
[/quote

why?

fixed

Why? It is very good question. I don't think this forum exists for only reason to throw arrows left and right. But also for the reason to answers questions and express opinions. If you not agree with something and/or someone it doesn't mean you need to be rude
Sorry, but nobody have monopoly to dictate me what I can and what I can't write here

EVE is sandbox game, but it is not static, and some changes here and there can makes this game more interesting, exiting and entertaining. If you think everything is just fine, and nothing should/can be changed, it is absolutely fine with me

According Almanac, I had no intention to teach experienced people, like you, what and how to do. It was written to show new players that there is something interesting in EVE, not only missions and mining. And, in fact it was mostly about Radars, no
about DED

I know people who read it, joined channel and asked different questions. Some of them find exploration frustrating and didn't enjoyed much. Some got exited. I am happy that some of them still in touch with me

If you think blog is not any good, feel free go ahead and write something on your own :-)

also +1 for the consumable gate keys ... just make it so that the gate locks after 2 minutes so gang can jump in some reasonable time frame.

Loot from complexes is fine. RNG is RNG, sometimes you win and sometimes you don't. Last week one night I ran 8 GSO's. The first six had nothing but OPEs and trash loot. Right after telling myself "after next site I'm going to bed" I ran one more and got a shield booster and invuln field, 850 mil just like that. The unpredictability of exploration is what keeps it fun for me, you just never know when you're gonna make it big.

That said, if there was anything I could change to exploration it would be those awful mag sites (speaking for high sec, supposedly low sec ones got buffed but I'm not comfortable with low sec exploration quite yet). Very very rarely will I get a piece of T2 salvages; normally it's nothing but malfunctioning shield emitters, smashed triggers and the like. I think I've read that the average yield of a high sec radar are from 6-8 mil. What's the harm in buffing mags to at least that level of average yield?

Remove salvage from missions. Increase salvage drops in mag sites as necessary to keep supply on market similar.

Instant boost to mag sites.

You wrote all that and didnt answer my question. I'm asking why you think there needs to be a change in the drops. You've yet to state why. I don't care that we have different opinions. But at least be able to give reasons for yours. I think things are balanced just fine. You don't. You should say why.

The only way I could see things being changed is high sec = c-type mods, low sec = b-type mods, null = a/x type mods. Faction mods in all 3.

Also, selective reading much? I said your guide was good for showing noobs the potential, but its ultimately irrelevant because....youre an experienced explorer.

I just realized you are actually saying that high sec explorations should remain in high sec (as in they should always end in high sec).

Yeah I disagree with that. Sending people to low sec helps expand their horizons and experience. And open them up to new things. Challenge them. Add a bit of risk. Forces the question "is it worth it?"

These are good things.

No you're throwing me off with your grammar.

lol, you will be even more confusing I guess, if I start writing in German or Russian.

But what is the point to waist a time for peanuts, especially when other opportunities exists, like 4/10?

Just talking about makes this sites more attractive for people, so they decide to go there, I mean low-sec. Get great rewards, escape back to hi sec, fly to Juta, and feel themselves as real heroes.

The watch has the 3/10 loot table. Its just the way eve works - frigate stuff is available in highsec.

The vigil is the natural thing you should compare against a 4/10, as those are cruiser table encounters, and yes there are tasty reasons for following a vigil to low.

Uniformity is entirely unnecessary in payout odds for exploration and the payout odds reflect market dynamics anyway. Lack of uniformity is actually important as knowledge is part of what explorers seek and exploit. ie you are currently a more effective explorer for income (if not for fun) if you ignore some encounters, and there is nothing wrong with that. I enjoy doing the different encounters and that negatively affects my income but I just do not care.

The loot table itself on the last step of a vigil is more valuable than a ded 4, its cruiser a-type vs cruiser c-type. I know serp c-types are falling in value despite the general inflation ingame, so the relative value of all the escalation effort may change in the future relative to the non effort involved in a ded4.

IMO the main problem with 4/10s is that some can be cheesed, which makes the relative value of having a semi-safe private escalation bookmark less when you can just go in and kill 1 npc in a public sig.

Last step of vigil is a-type smalls (frigates).

IMHO they need to add more frigs to the Gurista 3/10, that site takes way too quick to finish.

get out, thats stupid as hell

care to explain why ? sure people can spawn camp those, but I do have a pile of different pass keys that I don't actualy need ... and they are worth exactly nothing .... but I have to loot them every time I do a site just because some noob can come by without one at it buys me some time .....

Empire faction sites would be pretty cool, things like "Secret Caldari Navy staging operation" in Branch or "Hidden Amarr Navy ambush" in Delve etc etc.

Empire faction sites would be pretty cool, things like "Secret Caldari Navy staging operation" in Branch or "Hidden Amarr Navy ambush" in Delve etc etc.

The one thing that springs to mind is that the DED complex system is still incomplete, which is why for example the Gistum A-Type invul (selling now at about 850mill in Jita) drops in the Angel 4/10 in highsec - a site than can be completed inside 15 minutes in a Drake


CCP are gradually seeding in new DED stuff. But until consistent grades of DED & unrated complexes exist across all factions and all security, I don't think its useful to try to "fix" anything. In the meantime, experienced explorers will continue to cash in.

It should, but there's no Angel DED 6/10, so they just shoved the A-type Invuln into the DED 4/10.

This needs to happen.