The Mission Nerf thread

[Rawr]

I honestly feel the 'nerf' to HS mission payouts is overdue. Being able to make a character, never leave highsec let alone one region and make quite a tidy sum of money with next-to-no involved risk is a bit stupid. If all it does is gets people to move around more, or go to lowsec/NPC space to get better payouts then what CCP set out to achieve has been a success. Maybe a few of those 0-10 people in local mission spots will actually have a few people in them instead of being empty shells. Never know.

[DavidKMagnus]

Going back to the high sec missions, I do like this change overall.
The way they handled the skills was actually quite well thought out as well. Where before you could have up to two 5% bonus LP skills stacking, you now get a single 10% bonus skill that takes twice as long to train. Plus, they are giving the skill books for free and returning the SP.

I also think that the way a system's security status has more meaning toward payout is great. People will choose directly between more safety and higher payout. Also, with people spread out, I think they will be more likely to get ganked in their missions. When I missioned around Motsu I was always careful about ninjas, but when I was in some other random system I didn't even bother. With the threat spread out, and people moving to .5s, I think you are more likely to see both ninja looting and straight up ganks. Hopefully, as people see the payout difference between a .9 and a .5, they may be tempted to try out a low sec mission, since all you need to do is find a level 4 agent and not some specific high-quality one. Might end up being a buff to pirates... haha

I will miss the fact that you could make decent money moving goods from Jita to Motsu (like 20% markup on a Navy Scorp for a long time), but I'm sure other markets will spring up as well with the change. Also, there is a slight nerf to the top end mission runners. Since, on average, everyone is getting more LP, the value will drop slightly.

Anyway, I think this is really a great change overall, but please feel free to point out anything I missed.

Edit: To rephrase, I like how the new system encourages finding the lowest security system as opposed to the highest quality agent.

[RansomList]

New highsec hub will be torrinos? A 0.5 with three lvl 4 agents.

http://ourden.org/agents.html

That means two-volley suicide gank tempests popping pimped out CNR's

[Borza]

Possibly, but from the dev blog:

Agent Locations

Be warned that we'll be monitoring this change closely, along with the player activity it produces, and we will very likely move or retire a number of redundant agents as time goes on: There will now be many stations with multiple agents of the same level and division.

[Gyncognito]

New highsec hub will be torrinos? A 0.5 with three lvl 4 agents.

Torrinos already had alot going for it in the carebear field. My high sec missions runner and trade alts have lived there for over a year.

[Aurora148]

didn't they say that if too many people mission in one system then the mission rewards will start dropping?

[Faife]

didn't they say that if too many people mission in one system then the mission rewards will start dropping?

i remember seeing that in the informal statements, but not in the patch notes, so i guess it's currently not implemented?

i could have missed it though, so hoping someone has definitive answer either yes or no.

[RansomList]

420 people currently in Dodixie, everyone is evacuating their shit!

[Faife]

420 people currently in Dodixie, everyone is evacuating their shit!

beats me why, they'll still make just as much...

[true]

This is a good example when results and intentions will go opposite. CCP wanted to eliminate Motsu? Welcome to the world of 0.5 Motsu's surrounded by hsec.

[Malcanis]

This is a good example when results and intentions will go opposite. CCP wanted to eliminate Motsu? Welcome to the world of 0.5 Motsu's surrounded by hsec.

brb, using my 10 buddy invites a month to make gank alts

[vexter]

You are missreading the dev post linked about unprobables. He is misquoting and agreeing that jumpbridges are getting nerfed. Unprobable ships are a game mechanic, ive seen as much stated in a petition reply. Its hard to do and fit anything else at all. It will stay. Its not different then a 100MWD on a cruiser. Its possible, you wont fit anything else. but you can go 9k+ in a stabber, and you can tackle vagas all day long. Vaga pilots cry "thats not fair, you are exploiting the game, Im going to petition that"

[Arkady Sadik]

Without getting back into the "will change" "will not change" slapfight (surprise: we'll see :-D), some clarification on terminology:

Unprobable ships are a game mechanic, ive seen as much stated in a petition reply.

There are two different concepts relevant here.

One is "currently intended game mechanic". That is, what the current game of EVE sees as "acceptable". This is mostly enforced by the game itself (e.g. it's current game mechanic that you can't dock at asteroids; that's enforced by the game). If the enforcing by the game does not work for whatever reason, using it is declared an exploit (e.g. POS bowling without force field password). This is the only thing that GMs decide on: Is using something an exploit, or "creative use of game mechanics". Unprobeable ships are currently not an exploit.

The other is "game mechanic that is good for the game". That is what game design is doing. They look at game mechanics and decide as used right now whether they are good for the game. For example, the AoE DD was "currently intended game mechanic", but game design looked at it and they saw that it was crap - so it was changed. GMs (petitions) do not deal with this at all. The only way to deal with this is the "Features and Ideas" forum (haha).

Unprobeable ships are "creative use of game mechanic". CCP designed a game mechanic (probing) with some mechanics. They might or might not have realized that some ships might be made unprobeable this way. But players found ways to use these game mechanics (the sand in the sandbox) for great effect (that is, unprobeable gang boosters). The GMs will tell you "well, that's creative use of game mechanics" or "intended game mechanics" because that's how it is right now. But that's not the topic of the discussion here.

The topic of the discussion here is whether Game Design looking at it and go "oh, that use of game mechanics doesn't really look cool to us, we'll take it out."

Whether they said that, or whether we all misunderstood the comment - rest assured, we'll find out ;-)

[Faife]

Without getting back into the "will change" "will not change" slapfight (surprise: we'll see :-D), some clarification on terminology:



There are two different concepts relevant here.

One is "currently intended game mechanic". That is, what the current game of EVE sees as "acceptable". This is mostly enforced by the game itself (e.g. it's current game mechanic that you can't dock at asteroids; that's enforced by the game). If the enforcing by the game does not work for whatever reason, using it is declared an exploit (e.g. POS bowling without force field password). This is the only thing that GMs decide on: Is using something an exploit, or "creative use of game mechanics". Unprobeable ships are currently not an exploit.

The other is "game mechanic that is good for the game". That is what game design is doing. They look at game mechanics and decide as used right now whether they are good for the game. For example, the AoE DD was "currently intended game mechanic", but game design looked at it and they saw that it was crap - so it was changed. GMs (petitions) do not deal with this at all. The only way to deal with this is the "Features and Ideas" forum (haha).

Unprobeable ships are "creative use of game mechanic". CCP designed a game mechanic (probing) with some mechanics. They might or might not have realized that some ships might be made unprobeable this way. But players found ways to use these game mechanics (the sand in the sandbox) for great effect (that is, unprobeable gang boosters). The GMs will tell you "well, that's creative use of game mechanics" or "intended game mechanics" because that's how it is right now. But that's not the topic of the discussion here.

The topic of the discussion here is whether Game Design looking at it and go "oh, that use of game mechanics doesn't really look cool to us, we'll take it out."

Whether they said that, or whether we all misunderstood the comment - rest assured, we'll find out ;-)

jesus christ, look at this beacon of common sense.

i would further posit that the designers weren't expecting for this dynamic behavior to spontaneously develop and while it's not a bug on the code layer, it is a bug in the design layer. this falls under "i believe but cannot prove" though

[Kireiina]

CCP will punitively nerf high-sec payouts when they are tired of running Eve. It is high sec industrialists and mission runners that fund this game.

Unprobeable ships are a crap game mechanic. Getting an advantage without putting something at risk is the antithesis of a balanced PvP environment. You want gang boosters they need to be on the field of play.

[Belloche]

They have NOT nerfed the payouts on lvl 4 missions. They might have buffed them depending on which agent you use. I just did a couple missions yesterday, the first ones in months, and the payout in lp is better then what I got from what I can remember (when I last missioned back in December). I used a lvl 4 agent qual 17 in a .5 system (arvasaras) and my payout for GE was around 8200 lp and 1.5m reward and bonus. I used the reimbursed sp to get my security connections skill to lvl 4 without having to do any training. Therefore my skills technically remained the same. My connections skills were lvl 4 in both the relevant connection skills before. I do not remember getting that high amount lp so I believe the qual of the agent is now 20 like the patch notes say.

[luvcuminbum]

yep...I checked out my lvl5 agents. Giving 91k and 88k for missions that previously gave about 70-75k (lvl4 skills before and after patch).

[cold one]

I have been running missions for Quafe and did almost all combat/encounter missions for decent rewards. I used a couple of Lvl 4 Q 18 agents in the Marketing Division. With this recent patch my useful connection skills were removed and replaced with useless connection skills (mining and distribution). My agents became Distribution agents and now offer courier missions with much lower payouts.

I'm quitting Quafe and heading to nullsec.

(I'll not take any responsibility for your irony meter self-destructing at that last statement. You must install higher quality irony meters when reading Kugu.)

[Combat Scrub]

Does anyone have metrics of agent payout in various security ranges before and after the patch? I am wondering if the payout scale has been adjusted for lower security status to have better payout (even 0.5).

[Grath]

Afaik the blog said that mission rewards should scale with the sec status you are in, and the same mission in FW space seems to vary in payout by the sec your mission is in, so I'm betting that transfers to high sec as well.

[Malaclypse]

Does anyone have metrics of agent payout in various security ranges before and after the patch? I am wondering if the payout scale has been adjusted for lower security status to have better payout (even 0.5).

That's been so even before the patch already, regarding mission rewards and LP payouts.

[poaw]

CCP will punitively nerf high-sec payouts when they are tired of running Eve. It is high sec industrialists and mission runners that fund this game.

Unprobeable ships are a crap game mechanic. Getting an advantage without putting something at risk is the antithesis of a balanced PvP environment. You want gang boosters they need to be on the field of play.

They have to use gates/JBs/TBs like everyone else (and BO bridges). During those times they're vulnerable.

[Combat Scrub]

That's been so even before the patch already, regarding mission rewards and LP payouts.

yes - but I'm wondering if the scale has shifted with the patch. Some folks are reporting better returns (which would make sense going from say a Q10 to Q20), I'm seeing a reduction by about 5% in a 0.8 system with a courier agent that was previously Q-11 and should now be Q20 according to the update. I didn't have any of the connections skills beyond the basic (non-LP) ones, so that didn't change for me. The ISK isn't as important as I'm grinding an alt for datacores/standings, but it was noticeable after the first 3-4 missions...

EDIT: After running a handful (5-6) of missions last night, I'm going to redact my statement - in fact, the LP reward seems a bit higher, overall.

[Faife]

Arkady is right. Viribus is wrong. Bugs will get fixed. Rep was appropriate. You will deal with it.

fuck, i'm right every goddamn time

It is no longer possible to set up a ship to be impervious to scanning while uncloaked.

[Murr]

Farewell sweet nightmare.