EVE Frontier Cycle 4 - We're Not In New Eden Anymore

Cycle 4 for EVE Frontier is now live, which means patch notes. I'm going to take a higher level look than I usually do because I think Frontier is noticeably beyond what players find in EVE Online. Looking back to the beginning of the year Frontier has really changed and I think the patch notes will help demonstrate the differences. 

First off is the introduction of manual piloting using the WASD keys.

Design Intent

With this release our intent is to introduce an elegant and accessible foundation for Frontier’s evolving piloting fantasy. We want something accessible enough for anyone to pick up right now, yet robust enough to grow with the game as we continue to flesh out its other systems and content. This first iteration is deliberately focused on accessibility, but not so far that there is no mastery involved. There is a small price of admission with some skill required - this is a hardcore game, after all; get good/skill issue/etc. - but the controls should still feel intuitive, and Riders should feel like their skill as a pilot improves as they progress in the game.

And here are the differences in flying around the game in Cycle 4.

Flight Controls Changes and Adjustments

As part of the manual flight controls update (and thanks in large part to the deranged screaming feedback we received from players), we have both heavily modified and removed some previously used ways to navigate the space scene to support a more manual flight control scheme.

• We have made multiple changes to the physics engine that better support manual flight.
• All of the ships have been adjusted based on the aforementioned physics changes to better support manual flight.
• The autopilot system has been mostly removed, with some parts still remaining (such as the waypoint system for interstellar travel), but modified:
  
  
• Double-clicking in space to move in a direction has been removed.
• It is still possible to use both the contextual menu (right click) and double clicking on the brackets of static objects to command your ship to automatically go to that point (Approach). Objects in motion such as NPCs and other players can not be approached using this command.
• The selected object window has been removed, as have other movement commands such as Orbit and Keep at Range.
  
  
• The old speed widget has been removed, replaced by the new movement widget.
• Manual flight is enabled in Tactical Mode, but the navigation widget is not shown. As a result, control in Tactical Mode is difficult, but certainly possible. Part of our intention here is to eventually give players a mix of manual and automated movement systems that fulfill the ideal spaceship fantasy, and we’re taking this next step to try and uncouple the legacy HUD until we have higher fidelity automated control schemes which make sense for Tactical Mode.

Bumping into things also begins to matter now, with the introduction of collision mechanics.

Collisions

• We have made the first change of many to the way collisions work in EVE Frontier. We have added different surface material types which interact with the ship in different ways if collided with. Hitting a rock should feel different from hitting a structure, for example (note: both should feel like a not ideal thing to do, for the same reason bodyslamming a door is generally not the best way to open it).
• We have done away with fully elastic restitution which makes collisions feel much more realistic, and added a first pass of VFX and SFX to support the collision event.

Another big difference from EVE Online is the clone technology. EVE players are used to killing off their clones to travel faster. I think the developers of Frontier want to take the concept up to 11.

Character Progression

With this update, we are introducing the first step towards our ultimate transhumanist power fantasy. You will be able to gather a limited amount of memories that can be permanently transfer to the character; however, die and you must start over (Editor's Note: admittedly still better than the alternative of dying and just staying dead).

This initial progression rollout is only a prototype of our long-term plans for character progression - considering how fundamental this system is to the heart of the game, you can expect to see significant developments on this over the next several months (and years probably, who can say). We'll be taking specific feedback during Cycle 4 to further review how satisfying (or disatisfying) this version of the system feels, how easy (or painful) it is to use, and what players are expecting to see in the future.

In this iteration of the progression system, you will:

• Gain memories through gameplay and increase skill level of the shell.
• Die.
• ...and lose the collected memories when you do.
• Ascend (if you don't die), and store some of the memories as permanent character skill levels.
• Each skill level on both the character and shell will improve fitting attributes

From reading the above I get the feeling Hilmar didn't really like the decision to remove skill point loss from EVE Online.

Another difference between Online and Frontier in Cycle 4 is the intelligence of NPCs. Frontier's artificial intelligence promises to be an upgrade over the original game.

NPC Behavior

This update is our first step towards making the feral drones full denizens of the Frontier that Riders must learn to combat or co-exist with. The ferals now have some understanding of the inventories of containers and ships and will react accordingly with what they find. Items in your ship and in your assemblies may not be safe from their clutches.

Design Intent

The work in this release is focused on laying a foundation for the feral drones to be a much more interactive threat, both synchronously and asynchronously, in the Frontier. Our goal with this update is to both re-define what it means to interact with feral drones and to make it significantly easier for us to add depth to their interactions with the environment and players going forward. We want the feral drones to be a source of tension in the Frontier as well as reward those curious and observant Riders with ways to manage and even manipulate these adversaries to their advantage.

What type of changes to the AI? Here are the ones listed in today's patch notes.

Drones equipped with these new behaviors currently are only available in landscapes, all other drones are using older behaviors.

Some drones are now equipped with scanners and are capable of checking the inventories of wrecks, containers, ships, and certain assemblies.

Some drones desire specific items and will do what is necessary to acquire these objects of interest.

Some drones will leave traces of their interactions with objects.

The loot of some drones is now partially tied to their activities and experiences before their deaths.

Drones now have reasons for attacking beyond simply shooting on sight.

Drones are capable of halting aggression under the right circumstances.

Drones will hold grudges against specific ships which have wronged them.

This isn't all the changes the development team have made to change EVE Frontier into something more than a reskinned EVE Online. I'll go into more detail about some of the industry changes and the new massive belts that don't despawn. But the subjects deserve their own posts. I'm not going to say whether I like the changes -- I probably won't like all of them -- but I'm glad this cycle runs far past EVE's Winter Nexus event, because I still want that ice mining destroyer.