Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
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Posted - 2013.08.06 19:30:00 -
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I would expect PVE to start out in high-sec. I imagine PVE teams fulfilling contracts made by the factions or Concord, which means Concord wouldn't take kindly to raiding parties attacking the contracted teams.
As it moves into low- and null-sec, let alone wormhole space, it would start to feel more like anything could happen. However, I would want the invading team to have to do a decent amount of work to find a team to ambush. It could be that you'd land at a site, do a scan and see that there are other players somewhere nearby. You'd then have to choose whether to move forward or leave and find another site, without knowing anything more about the equipment or skill level of the players that are already there. And you'd have to move faster than they do, which you'd think would be easy enough since they've already blazed a trail and looted all the goods along the way, but they might have also left a few surprises for you--or they might have skipped some good stuff because they knew it would slow them down.
I like the idea of some of these maps being "exploration" maps, where you have to follow a path (say, through a ravine or a series of caves or something), with chokepoints (deadly places to be ambushed), arenas (where you'd find yourself on more even ground and may have secondary objectives), and gates. The gates would serve two purposes: you'd have to get the gate open to pass through, and you could close the gate behind you to slow down anyone following. The gates could use varying mechanisms, so you might have to hack one gate, another gate might require two operators to sync at different locations, you might have to scale the gate with special equipment and open it from the other side, etc. This would introduce variation in gameplay as you have to protect the hacker, split up your team, depend on specializations, and it also risks increased vulnerability to attack. And what if you have an element of stealth, so that you have to avoid firing weapons or running too quickly or risk being detected and having to fight off a horde? Then you introduce the ability for saboteurs to reveal you by bouncing sounds or using target painters to light up your sig and attract the attention of nearby drones, without having to get through the barrier. You could make sites that offer extra rewards by being incredibly difficult technically (i.e., easy to lock yourself out if you're not skilled), but still offer rewards to people who aren't as skilled. Then you'd frequently have a feeling that you could have gotten more out of that last run if only you'd twitched right instead of left, or if only you'd walked instead of running, or if only you'd hired a better hacker...
Anyway, I like increasing the possibility of PvEvP, where players are manipulating the environment against other players rather than engaging in direct conflict. Direct conflict would also be possible, but it starts with the hunt, then the chase, then the fight. |
Goric Rumis
Dead Six Initiative
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Posted - 2013.08.10 16:16:00 -
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I really liked my stream of consciousness in that last post. I hope it doesn't get totally buried.
It may be time to start putting a priority on PvE, if for nothing but the new player experience. Giving people a way to get out of the cycle of pub-stomping would really help to retain new players, and it would give them a way to meet new people who could help them in PvP.
I don't think this would need to be at the expense of working on core mechanics, since the skill sets involved seem like they wouldn't have all that much overlap, but maybe I'm mistaken about the difference between programming core mechanics and programming AI. |