Nelh Amaris
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Posted - 2009.07.02 20:18:00 -
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As a mission runner that has spent a great deal of time in 0.0 and other places, I find I disagree with many of the common themes in this thread.
Loot
I disagree with those who advocate the removal of loot, particularly named loot. First, the named loot on the market does have to come from somewhere. Reducing loot means reducing the supply of named modules in all varieties, which will lead to a significant increase in cost, if not a lack of availability. This would be particularly bad in the case of some already exorbitantly priced modules. I do tend to find that meta 1 and 2 items can often sell for less than their inferior meta 0 counterparts due to lack of demand. We'll blame market forces or something for that one.
It seems like a lot of people advocate that loot needs to be nerfed to help the miners. But I have to ask if a third or half of minerals come from melted down mission loot and miners in high sec are already outstripping the available supply, what would happen to empire prices? It may be a miner's heaven as ore prices rise, but would you want to pay 90 million ISK for a Dominix or 230M for an Abaddon?
On a personal note, I like loot. I'm not out to maximize my ISK/hour or blitz and those who do seem to be pushing to steamlining missions can be done faster, which is ultimately boring. I do these things for fun and it's more interesting to poke into wrecks and salvage to see if I lucked into something good. Exploding things and having my wallet blink after it's over is not quite the same. Having a hold full of gear seems to imply more that I've accomplished something.
Low Sec
Mission runners by large don't go into low sec because they don't have adequate means to defend against pirates. While it is possible to mission in low sec, all a mission fit ship can hope to do is abandon the mission and run if someone drops in on them. Sleeper-type AI that would target pirates warping into a deadspace would probably go a long way to helping survivability and maybe make it even viable for a mission ship to stay in there and finish instead of leave. The second key is that low sec missions don't pay enough to justify risking expensive and often lavishly fit ships that can't be insured. No matter what measures are taken to make deadspaces harder to find, you can still get your billion-ISK marauder ganked by six or more people at a gate.
Difficulty
As a 30M+ SP battleship-oriented pilot with a marauder, I find the majority of L4s to be easy and echo the common complaints that they are too predictable and repetitive. I personally would like a harder option, but I realize that for many people on the entry level L4s can be extremely difficult. I've watched more than a few new pilots lose ships due to a lack of skills, fitting and experience that I take for granted. Randomizing certain aspects of missions seems to be the best way to make them harder, since usually doing them easily boils down to knowing in what order to engage ships so you aren't swarmed.
I think I'd also move some L5 agents and missions into 0.5 space. A multi-billion ISK faction-fit ship will never be challenged in an environment where a newer player in a T1 fit battleship without rigs would also have to potentially be able to survive, even with difficulty. I personally don't think that any reasonable amount of coaxing will ever get those sorts of ships to go regularly into low sec where they're vulnerable to being ganked.
Standings
Personally, I don't like or understand that I will become KOS in Minmatar space for shooting Blood Raiders in Amarr space. I tend to think the standing losses need to have a bottom (such as 0) when you're not dealing with faction ships. It also seems to me that it'd help people migrate away from hubs if it was easier to run missions in more places without having to grind standings with a dozen different corporations, all beginning from the ground-up.
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