The next step in this plan is landing with the Lifeblood expansion on October 24th with Pirate Forward Operating Bases (or FOBs for short) and a new Resource Wars PvE system. We learned more about these new features this weekend at EVE Vegas 2017, and they’re beginning to sound pretty epic. Read on for a breakdown of both features and details of how the Blood Raider and Guristas pirate factions may soon be actively hunting you down.
Forward Operating Bases:
Starting with the Lifeblood expansion, the Blood Raider Covenant and Guristas Pirates factions will begin invading high-security space all over EVE and installing military bases. The bases can be taken down by groups of any size but the difficulty is balanced for fleets of 10 players or more and each player in the fleet gets the same rewards. Anyone planning to blob the site with hundreds of pilots to maximise the rewards can think again, as the pirates will call in counter-reinforcements based on what ships you bring to the fight and rewards will taper off on a bell curve up to around 50 players.
The FOBs will be hidden initially and you have to use combat probes to scan them down, but you’ll notice hints that one is in the system as they will send out mining ops and roaming gangs of pirate ships. This is where things get interesting, because the roaming NPC gangs will hunt down and attack players with low standings to the Blood Raiders or Guristas wherever they are in the system. This is the first time that these pirates have actively hunted players like player pirates do, and CCP dropped the bombshell yesterday that these roaming gangs will even attack vulnerable structures.
Resource Wars:
In contrast, Resource Wars seems like less of an emergent challenge and more of a self-contained PvE playground. The four empires of EVE are finally opening their decades-old hidden mining sites in high-security space to players because they need help fending off the new pirate incursions into highsec. The sites are limited to each empire’s specific ships, so the Amarr mining corp won’t let your Gallente ships in.
Players can take on the role of either a miner or a combat pilot defending the miners and haulers from pirates that occasionally warp in and attack. The NPC haulers will automatically warp off to safety when filled with ore, so you can either help fill them up or defend NPC miners filling them up. When all of them warp out, the site completes and anyone who has contributed to its completion gets ISK, Loyalty Points, and standings. The loyalty point rewards can be used to get new reward crates filled with ships and common fittings, and single-use ship skins.
CCP intends Resource Wars to be short-session co-operative gameplay, and to aid in that they’ve added a few unusual features. When you warp to a Resource Wars site, you’ll enter a kind of waiting room area and will be automatically put in a chat channel with all the other players there. Once someone enters the site, 5 minute timer will begin before the entire site explodes and presumably everyone left inside is damaged or killed. The feature feels like something designed for new players to get into after the tutorial that’s a bit more multiplayer than standard mission-running, and this may be a hint of an eventual replacement for missions entirely.
Thanks for the overview Brendan. The video also mentioned “The Agency” – would you happen to have more info on this?
Yes, there was a whole talk on this but I’ll have to wait for CCP to upload it — the structure video in our latest article was uploaded by a player.
The short version is that EVE is getting this new Session Finder tool that points you to nearby content like resource wars or mission agents. I’d like to get some hands on with this before giving my opinion because obviously this could be huge for new players if it’s done well.
Was kinda excited about this till I saw the no Mining Barges bit. Oh well, guess the game continues to be a free trial for part of the game.
I think you’ve accidentally commented on the wrong post, this one is about the new PvE stuff coming in Lifeblood and from what I gather you will be able to use mining barges in the Resource Wars sites.
If you’re referring to the announced changes to free to play characters, those aren’t hitting with Lifeblood but will be landing a little over a month later in December. CCP Rise did seem open to feedback on what skills are available and in response to one question he gave the impression that they might consider allowing small barges and ice miners on alphas.
I’m personally in favour of t1 barges on alphas because at least the character has to be actively played when mining. Bypassing the multiple alpha login limit is a bannable offence so scaling shouldn’t be a concern if they can detect abuse as well as they say they can. Casual miners in t1 barges are also contributing to the game just as much as casual pvpers in frigs and cruisers, and when they allow battleships you’ll be able to get quite a big yield from standard mining lasers anyway. Why not let them have the actual mining ship?
I actually like to do a lot of a parts of any game I play. So that means I did exploration. I did mining/refining. I did missions. Etc. So while I think these PvE additions would be cool and exciting to try out with their expanded Alpha system, if I can only play part of the game (the combat) it’s a non-starter for me. So this is the intended place to put this because while I think it’d be cool to check out their initial statements on what will and won’t be available with Alphas keeps me away.
I think you and I are generally on the same page when it comes to Alphas and what they should do with it based on the other article. I don’t want a free lunch, I just similarly don’t want my sandwich to be all bread either.
As always we will have to wait and see how the implementation plays out.
But do they have rum?
No but some drop stims/drugs. There is plenty Booty to go around. :P
I guess if they think the NPC’s are using peashooters they never did the high end contact missions. I remember getting hit by huge rocket and missile barrages. lol
By that I meant that the current paradigm is lots of NPCs dealing pathetic damage all at once that piles up and the new stuff will be more like PvP in that it’s a small number of ships dealing appropriate damage and simulating player strategies.
Which might be a risk for CCP; different players have different preferences, and I would bet at least part of the PvE players prefer the old system where they can kill NPCs by the dozen and feel powerful.
Particularly because from what I understand those pirates will hunt players in hi-sec space, removing the choice to take part or not in this new PvE content.
I think so, yeah. There is something to be said for farming content that makes the player feel powerful and isn’t a dynamic challenge or a co-op challenge. I think they’re going to keep standard mission running for a long time before replacing it, but when they do replace it I hope they take this into account.
Regarding forcing players into this content, I do kind of agree that it could be off-putting for newer players or those that are in highsec specifically to be safe. There are already these roaming drifter ships that can practically one-shot you if you attack them, and in highsec that level of force feels very unfair. Players want to be able to assess the strength of an encounter and choose to commit or warp out, and being scrambled and one-shot is just going to make us ignore the content entirely.
The biggest group this will effect are those who mainly mine in High Sec. Usually there will be one or two rats that come into an asteroid belt but this the way it sounds will make it much worse promoting the need for more protection then the few drones miners generally carry.
Or we’ll deal with it like we deal with wardec’ers: Stop playing.
Not sure CCP has thought this through.
I’ve never played EVE, and this looks really fascinating. My game play time is limited, so to keep it short – What would be the best way for me to jump into this content, as a new player? Make a Caldari if I want to use missiles, and simply play the game? I am only interested in this new PvE combat.
That would be the way to go. Now that alpha’s can learn all races ships once the expansion happens I’ll be able to use my Navy Raven once again. Maybe even my mining barges/hulks.
If there was only a way to make yourself immune to pvp…
In all seriousness, ever since the alpha accounts Ive been considering trying EVE again…at least not spending any money will easy the ganking ill surely receive…
There is with the safety lock feature just stay in High Sec. The safety lock feature makes it so you can’t attack other players or loot their cargo cans unless you deactivate it.
High Sec ganking is a thing once you start flying shit that becomes a target.
I have had no issues since they added the safety.
The safety doesn’t prevent PvP, it just prevents the old ways griefers could lure their targets into flagging themselves as criminals. So, the safety just prevents players (mostly inexperienced ones) from becoming consequences-free kills for griefers.
On the other hand, it does nothing, at all, to prevent anyone from attacking any other player if the attacker is willing to suffer the consequences of attacking a clean player. Which is intended, so EVE is a game where, by design, it’s impossible to become immune to PvP.
True but if you attack another player in High Sec Concord will pod you and once your rating goes down far enough you will not be able to go into high sec because you will be labeled kill on sight until you improve you ratings. The only real PvP in High Sec with no consequences is if your corporation is War Dec’ed.
Did they change it so Concord will actually pod you now?
Because you used to be able to fly around in a pod as a low sec character then just hop into a ship someone else ejects and then you can gank before Concord could react in most systems.
Concord does not pod anyone, they only destroy the attacker’s ship. However the attacker usually has enough time and firepower to kill you before concord arrives. Also security rating is rather meaningless, as gankers can still enter highsec and gank you even if they are -10.0 security status, they just can’t sit around any more without an alt scouting.
Trust me, ganking is as easy as ever, and will be even easier after this expansion, as gankers will be able to just use disposable alpha accounts for free with max dps.
yeah my bad but hey losing your ship can be bad enough depending how much ISK you have sunk into it and the rigs and everything.
Hey I know that pain, been both the ganker and the gankee before, it hurts a bit when it’s a freightor/JF/Orca etc. I got so annoyed when it happened to me that I actually made two logistics alts just to escort any future valuable ships through trade lane pipes. It has so far resulted in 2 more failed gank attempts where the wannabe gankers lost all their shit for nothing at concords hands.
Not quite “max dps”. While T2 weapons will be available, T2 hulls will not. Since their method of locking stuff down has been a limit on skills, the easiest way to do that is to not allow V’s for any racial hull. I’m sure several of the other Alpha skill ceilings will also fall short of V.
Most suicide ganks are run by multi-boxers. Trying to do that with Alpha accounts is a pretty severe violation of the TOS. Yes even if you use several physical machines.
Once you get a fully trained gank pilot you can maintain Omega via skill goo farming. Sure they’ll be stuck at a certain level of skills but so will an Alpha. You won’t be limited to what CCP allows Alphas and retain the clearance to multi-box.
I’ve played EVE for over 10 years and during that time have been attacked twice in high-sec. So in my experience, it’s quite safe and not nearly as dangerous as what many people on here suggest.