Originally by: murder one

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I made a rather amusing (to me) post earlier where I compared the PVE game design of WoW and Eve pretty much as a joke, just to see where it would lead, but it got me to thinking a bit...

The character loadout for PVP and PVE in WoW is pretty similar. The NPCs are designed to be fought/attacked with the same style gear that you also use to PVP with, which made me think about Eve and it's current situation with PVP vs. PVE ship setups.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not making a post to bash mission running or PVE play or any of that. Quite the contrary, I'm very interested in *improving* PVE and making it more engaging and fun. That said, let's continue...

I'd like to hear from the hard core mission runners out there- would it be more fun/interesting if mission rats were fewer in number and more difficult to take down? If they behaved more like players' ships do in PVP? What if they had comparable peak tanks to the latest generation of player ships, as well as DPS to match, and mission combat was designed to be as comparable to PVP as possible? Would this be better or worse? Would it be more practical? Would it help with mission system lag? Are the NPCs outdated and obsolete when compared to the current crop of player skills and ship designs/setups?

What are the drawbacks of having fewer ships with more DPS/tank per ship? What about loot tables and salvage? Would this improve or hurt mission completion times/salvaging issues/looting issues/ISK per hour?

Right now just about any mission can be completed with a small variation of a very generic fit for each class of ship. Ravens can fit cruise launchers and a shield tank with mission specific hardeners, but the only thing that changes from mission to mission is the hardeners. Same with the Dominix, or the Megathron, or the Abaddon, etc. etc. etc.. There really isn't a good reason to radically alter your ship setup, or even the type of ship that you use, for one particular mission over another.

Would it be better/more interesting if it were? What if Caldari Navy agents gave out missions where you had to keep a few NPCs jammed with a Scorpion for a few minutes to allow a friendly ship to get past a blockade? What if a mission was composed of entirely short ranged ships that required a similar short ranged high DPS setup to complete, rather than the generic long range guns/launchers typical of a generic mission setup? What if a cruiser was better suited to a mission than a BS (talking level 4 here)?

Would this make things more fun? Or just more difficult with no fun added? What about making PVP and PVE more simlar so that if a mission runner is attacked, they can defend themselves?

No, this isn't a troll post. I'm genuinely interested in improving PVE. BTW, next stop: improving mining.

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