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[Ghost Hunter]

Copied from the EVE ONLINE post, found HERE

Hello.

The purpose of this thread is to address the issue of the lack of diversity in the Pirate Lifestyle, and hopefully garner community input in what could make it better. I myself am a Pirate Roleplayer, so I am greatly interested in illegal / black market / against the Empires & CONCORD functionality in game mechanics and in story presentation.

Rather than focusing on each others' ideas and seeing who has the best or most balanced, I encourage people to post and contribute their ideas. The merits and detriments of each idea will be left up to CCP, so that we can simply provide our voice in what we want.

Name: Dead Drops (literal or otherwise)

Summary: This is a small part of a greater black market / illegal play style that I am still trying to fathom, so it may not stand alone as a useful addition or will have to be rolled together into a larger content release.

The Dead Drops idea has one component to it: giving players a unique item they can purchase/build/acquire somehow that they can write information into.  This is the simplest iteration of the idea, so there is room for expansion.

Currently, we have cargo containers which fulfill the need of a dead drop location quite nicely without any work. Many people do not know, but bookmarks can be written in the notes field for players to leave in the bookmark - context on what it is, where it goes, etc. Adding in the Dead Drop item would create a clear indication of there being a 'hey, this item knows stuff!' rather than people seeing a bookmark and never checking the Notes field.

Why I am suggesting it: As an outlaw, I sometimes want do-gooders to find out about my shenanigans to prompt them into action. However, there are no easy ways to deliver this in-character without a heavy amount of jedi hand-waving involved. I have to ramble about my evil plans on the IGS, ramble about them in public channels, or contact my enemy out of character and arrange an understanding. I think a proper dead drop item would go a ways to giving outlaws the ability to leave literal breadcrumbs for their enemies or allies to find. Parts of research logs, cryptic puzzles to locations, codes, etc.

As an example, imagine dead drop items being like the old Pirate ship logs before they were removed. You can simply write the description (and perhaps have an editor attribute to see who this log belonged to when it was last wrote in) and carry it around as a physical item.


Name: Changing Faction Aggro

Summary: This is a standings mechanic change, designed to lessen the burden of being hated by NPC Empire factions. This system only strictly affects how [ Player <-> Empire NPC standings ] interact, and not how [ Player <-> CONCORD Security Status ] works. In essence, -5.0 or worse Empire Faction standing locks you out with God NPCs. CONCORD standing, which is what bans outlaws who kill players, remains unchanged - so suicide gankers and the like don't get a free pass.

Performing any actions against an Empire faction is usually undesirable not because of the agent lock outs, but because of the CONCORD-lite high security lock out. As soon as you are -5.0 effective or worse with an Empire faction, you are locked out of their high security by a constantly spawning faction police team. There is no lee way to this, and the only meaningful choices limits player potential by forcing them to deal with the cops somehow.

This idea involves removing the police response system, and instead giving the 'outlaw' players a type of global criminal status. In essence, if a -5.0 effective or worse standings player is in that Empire's high security, they become legal kill targets like actual flashy red outlaws. This means they can move through and operate in enemy high security, but other players can try to police and remove them.

The outlaw player wouldn't have any special abilities to kill players who haven't aggressed him, as that falls under the CONCORD police response system and can remain unchanged. The outlaw player is essentially at a disadvantage: he cannot fire upon any other player until they shoot at him.

The upside, however, is that they can freely crash their Empire standings and traverse that Empire's high security if they're willing to brave other players. It may not seem like a fair trade at first, but it's easier to get past players than it is god NPCs.

Why I am suggesting it: Pirate faction missions tend to suck because they are against Empire factions, and will ultimately get your ass banned from their high securities. Most people circumvent this problem by using mission alts, but changing the nature of the lock out would make it much less harsh on main characters. Empire factions are also much easier to recover standings for than Pirate factions, so losing their standing is not nearly as bad in comparison.

This change also opens the door to other possible outlaw career activities in high security, such as raiding NPC convoys and the like. More on that in the next idea.


Name: Holy Shit Convoys (HSC)

Summary: This is an NPC mechanic change, designed to help improve EVE's ambient 'wild life' and offer profitability to the outlaw life style.

Convoys had a short but glorious life at the launch of EVE. Players loved to raid them because they had the chance to drop, at the time, rare and extremely lucrative items. The Harvester Mining Drones, for instance, only came from convoy drops. As time went on, Convoys weren't expanded upon and the game's sense of values moved on. These days they're just little white squares that don't offer much to level 4 missioning. Lets not even talk about how they don't exist in low sec.

The idea of this change is to vastly improve the Convoy mechanics, updating them to the modern era. With the advent of the scanning system, it may be possible to introduce 'neutral' anomalies where these Convoys could be at: trading, refueling, passing through (cause you do that in space apparently), etc. While Convoy hunting may not be possible in high security due to faction aggro mechanics, there is no reason to exclude nasty convoys from low sec.

It would be quite fun, for instance, to raid Imperial Shipment convoys in Amarr low sec that has Sansha belt rats. There could even be Military Convoys, Convoys with a battlegroup and a lot of military tech on board.

Why I am suggesting it: Holy Shit Convoys

More to the point, Convoys provide more non-pirate based PvE and a real outlaw activity to partake in. Improving Convoys also has another benefit: it gives those who do factional loyalty another means of attacking their enemy. Minmatar players raiding Amarr NPC convoys for the slaves, for instance.

It's hard for me to comment on the profitability of Convoys, as that would require a degree of awareness beyond what I have. Ideally, enough profitability to make them a lucrative pass time if nothing else.


Name: Empire NPC Anomalies in Low/Nullsec

Summary: This is an NPC mechanic change, designed to help improve EVE's ambient 'wild life' and offer profitability to the outlaw life sytle.

There are a lot of indications that the Empires often have low/nullsec establishments, usually in the form of long range military raids or installations.

This idea is relatively simple: Add in anomalies/signatures where the NPC of choice belongs to an Empire faction. FacWar does this to an extent already, but those are all related to that specific system and so tend to be only of value to the Militia.

Why I am suggesting it: More choices for the outlaw player. In general, you do not bother attacking the faction you are running missions for so belt ratting / scanning can be impossible in that faction's territory. The chance to find Empire anomalies/signatures would greatly help to offset that. It could even introduce alternative means of getting Empire faction tech, if their loot tables are designed to be like that. Empire Commander spawns and what not.


Name: Level 1 Pirate Agents in Low Sec

Summary: This is an NPC Agent system change, designed to help accessibility issues to agents or common usage problems.

Currently, all pirate agents can only be found in their faction's respective home territory. As all these territories are Nullsec, there are inherent problems with their copy+pasted agent system.

In general, if you are running level 1 Pirate missions, you are doing it for standings gain of some kind. It could be faction recovery, or it could just be getting your foot in the door. Level 1 Pirate missions are profoundly difficult to do in Pirate Nullsec that tends to be 23/7 camped. In some areas you can do them relatively undisturbed, but I know for certain how much of a stake out Curse's Angel stations tend to be.

Level 1 agents in Low Sec, while dangerous, wouldn't have the TOTALHELLDEATH difficulty of Nullsec. This would take the burden off the eventual journey to the Nullsec territories, where you're not burning hours away just to even get access to higher agents to begin with.

Why I am suggesting it: In general, I think confining the Pirate factions to their sole Nullsec territory tends to hurt participation in those factions. Pirate Nullsec is largely considered to be 'baby nullsec', and most organizations fiercely guard the system/constellation they're in against everyone else. It's very difficult to do missions with any semblance of regularity if you are not using a T3. While this does nothing to address those issues, this change does help to improve accessibility to Pirate factions.


Name: Redesigning Pirate Mission Content

Summary: This is a Mission system change, designed to improve the quality/content of the missions.

Normal Pirate missions tend to be the most unique at level 1 and level 2, however level 3 and especially level 4, they are very copy+paste.

It is easy for any prior Empire mission runner to see the amount of Empire content copied into the Pirate mission pools, to the point there I can only think of one (1) unique level 4 Pirate mission. The rest are all exactly the same as Empire missions, just different NPCs.

This change would involve redesigning Pirate mission content to better reflect the faction giving the missions. Some Pirate content is copied across all their factions, such as The Uprising, where a colony rebels against their ruling Pirate lords. How the hell does that even exist in Sansha space?

Pirate storylines tend to be rather unique in nature in my experience, so I do not know how much work those might need.

Why am I suggesting it: In general, missions tend to be one of the primary vectors a player learns about their faction or an enemy faction. Copy+Pasted Empire content greatly shoehorns in missions to run, but doesn't add anything new for players to learn about the Pirate factions. Same shit different day, as it were.

Also, as a personal thing: Take out the missions Material for War Preparations and Special Delivery from Nullsec storylines. Take them right out and shoot them, because whoever put them in is a sadistic bastard.


Name: Improving Ship/Cargo Scanners

Summary: This is an item improvement change, designed to incentivize the use of specific items.

This change I am more hesitant to offer, largely due to the impact it might have on suicide ganking mechanics.

Ship/Cargo scanners are largely used in high security to check people passing through primary trade hubs / pipelines, looking for worthwhile suicide ganks. In my experience they don't see usage elsewhere, because they occupy the holy grail of midslots. Why fit for a scanning device when I could have a Warp Disruptor/Web/Jammer/etc.

This idea does two things: Ship/Cargo scanners are moved to high slot for utility usage, and they are given a inaccurate/accurate scanning mode.

In essence, by moving them to the high slot you move them into a slot range where they might see more usage. Instead of taking up the valuable mid slots, you can determine what you want to use in your utility high slot. Neut/nos, or ship scanning? etcetra.

Inaccurate/accurate scanning works like this: Inaccurate is the current system, where you often have to run multiple scans to get all the fittings correctly displayed. Accurate is a new method, where use a more intense scanning cycle to get a completely accurate reading of the enemy ship. By having these two modes, you can continue to passively scan ships and piece together what they have. Accurately scanning would alert the enemy that you are scanning them (A GCC act in highsec?).

Why am I suggesting it: As an outlaw, the more I know about my enemy the better to ransom them with. By having the scanner modules being in the utility high slot, and the accurate scanning only being viable in low security, I can choose to have the tools to know what my ransom victim has. As is, you typically ransom based off the hull they're flying and the rough age of their character. Having the option to know that Megathron has deadspace gear on it before I kill it would be pretty nice.


Suggested by Zanzibar Heroshima

Name: Improving Pirate Standing Gains

Summary: This is a standings mechanics improvement, designed to increase accessibility to the Pirate factions.

In general, the vast majority of older players have horrendously unrecoverable Pirate standings. The main purpose of the Epic Arcs was to introduce a way to recover those standings.

Ideally, introducing smaller but viable means of recovering Pirate faction standing that didn't involve Level 1 grinding in Nullsec would be great. In following the design of some of the Epic Arcs, new storylines or existing ones could be given a branching path option: Do A, receive Empire standing. Do B, receive Pirate standing.

This would allow players to actively choose morality on some storylines, and either work themselves into getting Pirate standing or remaining loyal to the Empires.

Why am I suggesting it: The Epic arcs are great ways to recover standing with some of the Pirate factions, but they're not perfect and there has been indications CCP is hesitant to do more of them. As a stop gap solution, taking inspiration from the Epic Arcs and frankensteining them with existing storyline missions might help players recover Pirate standing.

[Senn Typhos]

... I want all of that stuff. :O

Can't say I have anything mind-blowing to contribute, but I think you've nailed the critical issue of pirates literally having less things to do to actively support their faction, in in-game mechanics terms. I mean yeah, facwar is broken, but it's still a step above pirate corporations who can't even display their faction as their alliance, as a facwar pilot can.

[Ghost Hunter]

I had thought about suggesting something like a badge of loyalty demonstration, but I could not really think of anything immediately beneficial mechanically. It would be very nice to have one, but in CCP's game design path I don't know if it would gain the traction for any resources.

[Senn Typhos]

I had thought about suggesting something like a badge of loyalty demonstration, but I could not really think of anything immediately beneficial mechanically. It would be very nice to have one, but in CCP's game design path I don't know if it would gain the traction for any resources.

Well, I could think of a number of ways to represent loyalty. Dog tags being available in pirate LP stores for reduced prices or something of the kind would be a nice touch, but not very practical. Badges would be in the same vein. Personally I think it should simply be a part of corporation development that a loyalty be available for selection. Maybe not something you could instantly or easily change, but something that in a real sense would align the corp with the given faction.

This should, if it were viable and implemented, be available for the non-pirates too. But I could see a couple problems... Caldari corps randomly claiming alignment to the Republic or some such. Also, once again, no real productive perk.

Maybe that could be the mode of gaining pirate rep in the first place and making progression therein easier. Case in point, make a corp and claim fealty to the Guristas, instantly lose the majority of your corporation's standings with the State, but gain a +1 with the Guristas  faction, making access to their missions and LP stores possible.

[Ghost Hunter]

Well, I could think of a number of ways to represent loyalty. Dog tags being available in pirate LP stores for reduced prices or something of the kind would be a nice touch, but not very practical. Badges would be in the same vein. Personally I think it should simply be a part of corporation development that a loyalty be available for selection. Maybe not something you could instantly or easily change, but something that in a real sense would align the corp with the given faction.

This should, if it were viable and implemented, be available for the non-pirates too. But I could see a couple problems... Caldari corps randomly claiming alignment to the Republic or some such. Also, once again, no real productive perk.

Maybe that could be the mode of gaining pirate rep in the first place and making progression therein easier. Case in point, make a corp and claim fealty to the Guristas, instantly lose the majority of your corporation's standings with the State, but gain a +1 with the Guristas  faction, making access to their missions and LP stores possible.

Displays of loyalty could probably tie into the rumors of Pirate NPCs being reprogrammed to not aggro +standing players to their faction. Perhaps make it a requirement to declare loyalty in order to qualify for a NAP? You do the mercenary contract work to prove yourself, then make the pledge to join, receive some benefits... It's like the Militia system in a way, except not tied to a very specific boundary.

If they introduce more Empire NPC wild life, it would give value to having Empire corps getting the same mechanics. As is, if you're being shot by them, you're a global criminal of some kind.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I like all of these, with the exception of the one about converting empire faction navy aggro into potential player aggression.

My reasoning is simple - you seem to be wanting to allow low-security-status players a chance to slip into highsec without lolinstapwnage happening. However, in many cases instapwnage already does happen - at many trade hub stations, there are people who sit outside the stations in inties, dramiels and destroyers (with the last probably becoming popular with the winter expansion), instalocking and podding anyone who undocks with a poor sec status and isn't quite fast enough on the warp or has that second of ping against them.

They do this for no other reason than, for lack of a better phrase, shits and giggles. You don't earn a ton of money - bounty payments are relatively rare, from what I understand - and you do end up with quite  a few people mad at you. Now, your suggestion could quite possibly expand this into  all space, and on a much larger scale, making entering highsec in anything but a superspeedy hull nil once more. Thoughts?

[Ghost Hunter]

I like all of these, with the exception of the one about converting empire faction navy aggro into potential player aggression.

My reasoning is simple - you seem to be wanting to allow low-security-status players a chance to slip into highsec without lolinstapwnage happening. However, in many cases instapwnage already does happen - at many trade hub stations, there are people who sit outside the stations in inties, dramiels and destroyers (with the last probably becoming popular with the winter expansion), instalocking and podding anyone who undocks with a poor sec status and isn't quite fast enough on the warp or has that second of ping against them.

They do this for no other reason than, for lack of a better phrase, shits and giggles. You don't earn a ton of money - bounty payments are relatively rare, from what I understand - and you do end up with quite  a few people mad at you. Now, your suggestion could quite possibly expand this into  all space, and on a much larger scale, making entering highsec in anything but a superspeedy hull nil once more. Thoughts?

you seem to be wanting to allow low-security-status players

I do not know if you are referring to people with low CONCORD security status (penalities you get from suicide ganks, etc) or low faction standing (-5.0 or worse to the Amarr/Caldari/Gallente/Minmatar Empires). I will assume the latter for my post, as -Sec status players are not the ones being affected by this suggestion.

Trade hubs and the pipelines in between are heavily camped with those kinds of players, this much is true. From a design point, I do not think developers would put the most valuable outlaw PVE content in those systems. They've already worked on removing most normal PVE content from them already. Empire space is vast, and there is no reason an outlaw player should intentionally or be forced to operate near/in player Trade hubs for the reasons you describe. They are obvious death traps due to their insane amount of activity, so the prudent outlaw would avoid going there for their PVE content.

I do not think it would be unreasonable for outlaw players to enter fringe areas of enemy high security in heavy ships. There are definite regions that have barely any activity in them, compared to monsters like The Forge. If they are more daring to go into more active territories, that is their decision. As a whole, I feel entering the areas you describe is a death sentence in anything that isn't super fast. Empire space is vast enough that there are enough territories that will not be patrolled by these lazy system campers, allowing for heavy raids.

As an aside, I replaced the God NPCs with a global criminal flag in order to keep the penalties associated with outlaw status relatively the same. I do not feel players should get away with atrocious standing, but visualizing a sufficient penalty that isn't content-blockingly prohibitive is a challenge. Perhaps banning them from using hostile Empire stations entirely?



Edit;

What the hell people, suggest ideas

[Kaleigh Doyle]

You know, when I came to this thread, I was expecting a discussion about pirate types and how they RP, not a game mechanic discussion, but then I noticed where the thread was located, so I thought I'd add some input.

The way I see things right now, there's no real tangible benefit for smugglers to smuggle, because there's nothing available out in the free land of 0.0 that Empire types really want. So the first challenge is creating a demand, and then formulate a supply to satisfy this with a hefty amount of player interaction inbetween.

So the first thing we need is demand. I really like the idea of explorable deadspace pockets being the place where neutral, pirate friendly trade hubs can interact with player smugglers. So for instance, a player discovers an illegal trade hub in a .6 space area, they warp to it and access a local market where npc buy and sell orders are in place to entice them to either fulfill said orders (for great profit), or buy other illegal items and perhaps engage in some smuggling of their own to other illegal hubs. They can ask for boosters, slaves, illegal firearms, or whatever the locals don't like to see very much of that the factions out in 0.0 have an abundance of. The higher security the space, the more valuable the hubs.

And if you want to be a law abiding citizen, you can destroy said hubs and aggro the local defenders, kill the prime building locations and the site will despawn and re-appear randomly elsewhere. The do-gooder will get bonus points with the local government and CONCORD for their service. These deadspace pockets should also be PVP friendly zones allowing one another to engage freely, so that player pirate organizations making a killing on a local hub can defend their cash cow against meddling do-gooders.

What this kind of idea would require is a re-evalutation of the standings system and its impact on players, as well as creating an effective smuggling mechanic that benefits fast ships and scan-resistant mods to support a percentage per second based npc scanning system at key points: stations and gates. I for one, approve criminal flagging for people caught smuggling; it encourages pvp and makes travel through high traffic areas risky and unfavorable for someone looking to get their goods in to the right location without trouble.

[Lyn Farel]

Ok, these ideas are nice and promising, except for the one letting pirates getting into high sec due to the removal of faction police.

1) It does not make any sense RP wise.
2) Lets -10.0 outlaws come into high sec and suicide gank everyone, after all, they have nothing to lose anymore... I do not even want to imagine the rampage on exhumers (which are already half fucked most of the time by gankers) and mission runners.
3) Why do they want to come in high sec ? To buy their stuff and not use their alts ? Have they heard of what we call consequences of one's choices ?
4) By doing this you devaluate even more low sec as pirates will come to live in high sec instead half of the time.

[Saikoyu]

I think CCP hinted at making smuggling a player based mission, where the NPCs would go away and only players would stop smugglers.  I think that could tie in with your ideas Kaleigh.

As for pirates in high sec, I'm not sure about letting sec status not matter any more to the NPCs and havign PCs take over.  But I might suggest the following.  Even 1.0 systems have pirate ships in them in the belts, they are just frigates.  What about making the NPC only go after people with bad standing if they also have a ship of a certain size.  So, frigates can get into 0.9-1.0 systems, destroyers can get into 0.7-0.8 systems, etc.  This would fit into the lore and what is already in the game.  Then you could add to that your idea on a tiered scale.  Say a frigate pilot will never become fair game, but a destroyer would in 0.6 systems and up, etc.  Notice I stagered it so that a destroyer pilot will be safe from NPCs in a 0.8 system, but still needs to worry about PCs.  Frigate pilots will always be safe in high sec.  Or maybe make haulers never fair game in high sec, with frigates taking destroyers place on the list.  You could justife it with backstory about bribes and such.

Or, make a new skill, called bribes or something, and make it so that for every level of the skill, you can go into enemy high sec by one level, so at lvl 5, you could go anywhere without beign bothered by anyone.  Or maybe it would only apply to NPC, and there would be another skill for PC, but one they could somehow see through it they had another skill.  Or maybe just limit it is NPCs only.

Or another idea, this one beint the most technical but in my opinion the coolest.  Make a new module like a cloak, but instead of hiding your ship, it disguises it as another ship.  Like a cloak, you could not target anyone, and could not fire, but others can target and fire on you.  Anyone attacking you will not get CONCORDed if you have a low sec or empire status.  But it you are clean, then you are fine and they do get CONCORDed.  Now, to use this module, you have to destroy another ship and salvage from it a datacard with that other ships stats on it.  Then you plug that into the disguise module like a script and visually, on overview, and to the NPCs you are that other ship, however you still handle like your true ship, so if you are a frigate and you are disguised as a carrier, unless you are careful, somone is going to wonder why a carrier is going 1 KM/s.  Also, this module will tell the NPCs that you have the cargo of whatever ship you destroyed, not your true cargo.  Player scanners will say the same thing, and will say that you are fitted like the ship you destroyed.  You will even have that other pilots info in the show info button.  However, anyone who knows that pilot will know that you and not hima nd blow you away.  And finally make the datacard expire after a day real time so that the database doesn't get crowded.  As another version, you could salvage this from NPCS as well, so that NPCs in missions would not attack you and you could blitz missin by going to the final room and then cutting lose.

So, ideas suggested.

[Ghost Hunter]

Ok, these ideas are nice and promising, except for the one letting pirates getting into high sec due to the removal of faction police.

1) It does not make any sense RP wise.
2) Lets -10.0 outlaws come into high sec and suicide gank everyone, after all, they have nothing to lose anymore... I do not even want to imagine the rampage on exhumers (which are already half fucked most of the time by gankers) and mission runners.
3) Why do they want to come in high sec ? To buy their stuff and not use their alts ? Have they heard of what we call consequences of one's choices ?
4) By doing this you devaluate even more low sec as pirates will come to live in high sec instead half of the time.

1) There is sufficient room within the Prime Fiction for the Empires and CONCORD to delegate non-CONCORD outlaw Capsuleer policing to other Capsuleers. As it stands, the system is full of holes considering I can still dock and use high sec resources - despite my massive pirate standings and roller coaster Empire standings.

2) In response to this post and Esna's, I've edited my original post to have a more clarified meaning of what I intend for that system. Once again, it does not affect the security status ratings players get from pirating each other - it only affects how players can pirate the NPCs.

3 & 4 are invalid as I feel they are questions about -security status, not -faction standing.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Alright, so yeah - I totally misunderstood, thought you were talking about people with a security status low enough they couldn't enter highsec.

Standings makes me more open to this idea.

[Myrhial Arkenath]

All of this, please. But if I could pick one thing, changing faction aggro would really make my day week month year decade life. It'd give dedication to an NPC region a lot more sense, and give the "locals" an edge over random alliances who are just here because they got kicked out of their sov or because they like to steamroll NPC space. Sov holders have an edge to defending their ground, so why not NPC supporters?

[Crucifire]

My pirate roleplay involves LifeStyles™ too.

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

I like most of these ideas.

I especially like the idea of removing NPC intercepts in response to poor faction standing in High Sec and replacing them with semi outlaw status.

Why is this? It means I'd be able to go to the Amarrian Empire and get fights with the loyalists. At the moment my Imperial standings are nuked so the only place I'll see Amarrian loyalists is in FW space.

Also. It means all you faithfull followers of Jamyl that aren't in the militia can come to the Republic and demonstrate your superiority (at getting shot at). I'm all for more interaction, even if it's just cursing at each other between volleys.