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Friday, August 15, 2014

A Bucket Of Ice

A lot of players like to think that EVE Online is all about collecting buckets of tears.  But the bucket I've carried around lately is filled with ice, and I need to start thinking about where I empty the contents.

The latest example concerns the new level 4 missions.  On Monday, CCP Seagull published a dev blog about the upcoming Hyperion release.  In the blog, she mentioned a new type of level 4 mission:
"Take on a single, powerful enemy using fitting skills and combat tactics in new optional level 4 missions for frigate size ships that will be available from all security agents in Empire space. An upcoming dev blog will present the new missions."
Immediately after the dev blog was published, CSM member Xander Phoena was on Twitter touting how great these missions were and how many ships players would lose because of the level of difficulty.  Now, I realize that getting new PvE content is a big deal, but sometimes I get a little selfish and think about how I play.  For me, I don't do security missions, which is what CCP Seagull's description made the new content sound like.  Also, I thought the missions were designed for more than one player, which is not a problem since I usually dual-box security missions on the rare occasions I do them.  Although, looking back, I probably have not done a combat mission of any type since I finished my big Minmatar faction grind back in December.  If I exclude COSMOS, storyline, and epic arc combat missions, I probably have not done a combat mission (i.e. a regular security mission) in over a year.  So I Tweeted out that I probably wouldn't do them.

Afterwards, I kind of felt bad about that.  I can understand Xander's excitement.  CSM members get a lot of grief about the state of the game and helping push out (I'm assuming the CSM was involved in internal testing) new PvE content shows that CCP is listening to the player base and, by extension, the CSM.  I probably should have waited for the more detailed dev blog was published, even if Xander couldn't contain himself.

I do have to say that the new burner missions don't sound bad.  Players will need to at least fit tackle and prop mods like they would in a PvP environment.  I suspect that sensor dampeners will come into play as well for the kiting NPCs.  Perhaps more importantly, the missions are part of the regular security mission pool.  The descriptions of the NPCs make the missions sound more like storyline missions, but adding the missions to the regular mix shows that CCP is updating existing content and not just making a new class of mission.

So even though the new content doesn't fit my play style, I'm glad to see CCP add the new missions.  And in the future, I'll try to think before I tweet.

6 comments:

  1. only things in this patch that are good overview sharing, and faster BM copy. The only good part about these "burner" missions is noobs will learn how to fit a frig for pvp. And a new AI but tbh unless ccp fucks up and makes them pay stupid amounts of isk i doubt i ever run one.

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  2. I'm kind of waiting for the time when CCP Fozzie says "sorry guys, we forgot to mention that Burner missions will always spawn in lowsec systems"

    It would be so.... CCP.

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  3. It will be interesting if it actually requires multiple ships to beat one of the NPC's, and the more I read, the more I think it will.

    If so, just another move to Alts R Us for Eve.

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  4. The problem with the PvE is in part that NPC's do not act as players do. They aren't affected by ewar like real ships. If these missions include ewar being used against the player you will rapidly see a lot of crying.

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  5. Not really the mission will apparently tell you what they do so you just counter fit and bring your own links vOv I'm sure many people who have only ever flown PvE battleships will struggle a little at first because it will require adapting. And yes people PvE with links :P

    But I'm equally sure plenty of people will beat their first burner without breaking any sweat at all.

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  6. It doesn't take long for anyone to min/max anything. That's the nature of any community. To condemn them because of that fact alone is short-sighted.

    I'm excited about these missions, and I hate pve. Not for doing them, but because they may bridge the gap between pvp and pve and represent CCP trying to fix things.

    Let's not bitter-vet this quite yet. PvE sucks right now, and isn't engaging. The two ways of fixing it are too include more variation our get people involved in pvp sooner, which is down to deepen engagement and lengthen subscription time.

    And the best part...if you choose not to participate, there are no downsides, so it's not cramping anyone's style.

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