Building Roadmaps

Has been awhile.  No good reasons, no excuses.  I just felt like I didn't have much to write.

Sugar posed an interesting question, and instead of cluttering up her comments feed with a few paragraphs of stream-of-consciousness, I'll type here.  Because I can.

First, let's put the question into context.  Sugar is asking about Roadmaps.

We think we might know what that means, but ... do we really?  In response to her post I'm seeing well intentioned folks respond "I want feature X fixed."    That's great, but ... roadmap?  Not really.  That's a feature fix, a singular patchnote.

So back up -- Simply put - a roadmap is a plan.  In order to have a plan you need a goal (a destination).  The roadmap is the master plan of how to get from where we are to where we want to be, top to bottom, the whole game.

But first we need a destination, and we have to have some agreement that we aren't already there.

Agreeing on where we are NOW and where we SHOULD BE is no small task.  But if we could do it, then the gap between those two is the ground needing covered.  And then we can build the plan to get there.

Agreeing on the plan/route to get there is no small task (sensing a trend yet?) but if we could do that, then we have the tasks (or features) we need to implement to get to our destination.

Those tasks, written out and time phased is the Roadmap.

I'll beat this horse some more, but to summarize:
1. Grand Unified Vision (GUV) - Ideal Future State.
2. Assess current position.
3a. Determine Task/Feature List.
3b. Determine time phasing.
4. Generate Roadmap.
5. Execute Roadmap.
6. Review and include stray projects into GUV, then go back to step 1 and iterate.

I sometimes think that CCP thinks that the roadmap itself is the goal, the product, the destination.  As in, "see, Feature X is cool, will fix all our woes. Here's a shiny web page, we are doing stuff, trust us and send us more money."

At Vegas during the PVE panel, I raised my hand and asked for the PVE stuff to be added to the roadmap, or developed into its own roadmap.   Granted, I didn't ask the question very well, and those in the room looked at me like I had 3 heads.

What I was really trying to get to - but didn't articulate very well - was "How does PVE fit into everything else that CCP is doing?"  

Is there a coherent answer to that?  I can't really tell.  Or pick a topic - ingame store, PLEX prices, new player experience, mining, ingame social structures (corps/alliances), ship balance, Thera, POS, storyline, Capship rebalancing, small Fleet pvp, Faction Warefare, Planetary Interaction, Offgrid Link Removal, Citadels.  How does /any/ of this fit into the GUV?

So let's go back to step 1.  Grand Unified Vision.  Does EVE have one?  I'm not sure.  Has it ever had one?  I'm even less sure.  There are a lot of un-unified tasks being accomplished, and some sweeping changes being debated, but where is it all really going?  And how will we know when we get there?

EVE is so big that we think that we have to break the game up into these topics so that the context is comprehensible.  And as a communication strategy, that's maybe true.  But somewhere behind it all needs to be the GUV acting as the engine to move everything forward.  Somebody somewhere has to have a master plan.

Convince me that you have a master plan, and then we can debate roadmaps. :)

What's Playing:  Tool, Aenima, Stinkfist

....About Those Daily Quests in EVE

EVE is going to have Daily Quests, and after a month since Vegas I'm a little surprised I still see it popping up in blog comments as a negative thing (said another way, of all the things the pundits could complain about, I'm not sure this one tops the list).

The system, as described, didn't sound all that blasphemous.  Players will get a bonus payout for the first PVE that they participate in that day.  Various activities will get a rank 1 through 5; the higher rank of content, the higher the payout.  

So, CCP wants to pay me for things I'm probably going to be doing anyway.  Uhh. Ok?

I wonder if some of the angst is the lack of clarity from CCP and the internet working itself into a froth.  (Wouldn't be the first time....)  When described at Vegas, most of the room kind of shrugged and waited for the next statement.  I leaned to the guys next to me and said something like "Uhhh... EVE is getting dailys?"  More shrugging.  It really sounded quiet harmless.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't like WoW dailys (I'm talking specifically about Wrath- and Cata-era dailys).  I'm not even that fond of GW2 dailys though I can usually ignore them.

I dislike systems that feel even vaguely mandatory; I don't want a laundry list of chores that I "must" complete each session to stay relevant in the game.  I don't want something that I "must" complete each session before I can go tackle whatever it is actually I logged in to do.  After a week or three of doing the same 'chores' every day, suddenly those 'chores' become almost the entirety of your online play, and burnout ensues.

But I don't mind a system that gives you a small boost for doing something you were going to maybe do anyway; i.e. flexible systems that let you choose the activity and lurk invisibly in the code waiting to surprise you with a boost.  Yes, there's an incentive, but it's not the end of the world if you skip a day or a month.  For those quiet times, though, the payout becomes another reason to maybe gang up when you otherwise wouldn't, or maybe undock and look for trouble instead of spinning your ship and chatting for the evening.  And I think EVE needs a few more good reasons to undock.

Anyway, I'm hopeful that some of this will get explained if CCP Affinity is able to get the PVE plans out in the blog post she promised.  Or maybe I'll reread it and light my torch and grab my pitchfork and join the angry mob.  

But right now... not so much.

Blog Banter #65: Iteration

I saw the Blog Banter recently about Attributes but didn't have time to respond.  But when I'm at the pool burning swim laps, I have a lot of time with my head face down in the water to think.  And one of the thoughts that came through my noggin was half-realized response to the Attributes post.

Attributes and Skills
Does Eve need attributes? It's been discussed a lot recently. Unlike other MMO's your characters attributes don't make a difference in day-to-day gameplay. They simply set how fast you train a skill. Is it time to remove attributes from the game or totally revamp their purpose? Do they add a level of complexity to the game that is not needed? If you really need to use a 3rd party application to get the most from it should it be in the game? Should they be repurposed with each attribute adding a modifier to your ship? Are attributes a relic from the past or are they an important part of Eve - You make your decision and deal with the consequences?

I'm way late to this Blog Banter party, but here goes, in three separate but related thoughts:

I.  I get the logic behind wanting to nuke the Attributes system.  They're not used as intended, and really aren't a meaningful differentiator between your character and mine.  People wave the flag of character customization, but it's not really that either, and kind of never has been.  Past a certain point, what determines if I'm a better pilot is a) my time invested in skillpoints and b) how good I am at the nuances of EVE and whether I can put together a decent fit or not.  Attributes go into the first bucket (a), but given the age of the game and the ability to buy characters on the bazaar the value of the Attribute system is diluted greatly.

I'm still against (in general) ripping them out.  It's a slippery slope.  The learning skills don't add much, nuke them.  Attributes don't matter, so rip them out.  With Attributes gone, the +3/+4 implants are just a tax on clones, so let's just toss those in the bin too.  Wait ... "Everyone" has max gunnery skills, so they don't matter either ... let's crap on those too.   Shield vs. Armor tanks really don't matter, (hitpoints are hitpoints after all...) so let's get rid of Shields entirely and just have Armor and Hull points from now on.

The game would be much simpler, yes?  Then why not do it?

I come from a 5+ year stint of WoW.  To me, Homogenization is a very dirty word.  Blizz spent years making it so the classes were "balanced" and evening the playing field so that new players could enjoy the same endgame that veteran players had access to.  Patch after expansion after patch trashed old systems and replaced with shiny and new that promised to be "better" but really didn't make the game any richer or deeper.

In the end, it was a boring, watered down mess.  Having a few antiquated warts in the combat system is fine. Stop making it "better" and work on new content instead of reinventing the old every patch.

Better is the Enemy of Good Enough.


II.  Originally Attributes mattered because you badly needed skills.  Now everyone has the skills they want and the skill queue is something they load up once a year.  Rather than nuking Attributes, I'd be in favor of making them meaningful again.  I'm sure I'll get shouted down on this, but perhaps it's time to add another layer of skills across the game.

Don't remove content just because people have conquered it. Removing old content nibbles at the soul of the game, bit by bit.  


II.  I worry about the iteration going on.

Here's an analogy:  When you live in an old house, some upkeep is expected.  But if that's all you do, you never get ahead of the curve and won't turn your old house into a charming piece of property.  (Trust me, all I've done this year is cut the damn grass and haven't done ANYTHING to improve the 10 acre spread).

I know there's big things on the horizon, but beating CCP up to iterate on old stuff, banging pots and pans about the "useless" attribute system maybe isn't the best use of their time.

We should be careful what we ask for.

Coffee Politics and Incursions

At work, there are few things worse than what I call Coffee Politics.

We have a small break area with one of those monster coffee makers and several pots.  The coffee itself is free but they do take up a collection here and there for "bonus supplies" like creamer and sugar.  I'm a coffee drinker, but I haven't participated in the Coffee pool for 4-5 years.  I get up every morning and make my own Folger's (French Roast) and bring it in a thermos.

Why?  It's just easier to bring my own and watch the natives self destruct over little things.  Who left the coffee pot on overnight?  Who took the last pour and didn't make more??  There are fights about how best to make the coffee (how strong, how weak, how much water).  There are fights over when to clean the pot (some guys like a mildly dirty pot, yuck).  Why are there grounds in the pot again??  There are fights over getting the supplies from the centralized closet up front.  Who made a pot late in the day and then didn't drink any?  Who left the pot on again over the weekend and left the pot to evaporate down to tar?

Quality of Life for the Mission UI

I've been running lvl4's lately, enjoying the added variety of BC-sized Burners, Team Burners, Single Frigate Burners, and of course... Silence the Informant.

(Side note:  So far I'm still running about a 5:1 burner to vanilla ratio following the Carnyx patch but I really don't have all that much data).

Paying attention to LP payout, burner rates, and how often Buzz Kill seems to spawn (grrr, that mission), it reminded me that I wanted to do a post about the mission log and some Quality of Life UI improvements.

So here are three upgrades that I'd like to see....

Corporate Survey of Thunder and Goodness Results!

The survey is now officially closed.  There were 37 folks who chose to respond, which for a small blog in a small game isn't all that bad.  I was shooting for 50 responses but was happy with 25+.  Oddly enough, 37 is right in between those two numbers.

Background:  First, I figure I should elaborate on why I did this.  I started off wanting to ask a few questions and using the blog comments to collect some thoughts.  But, as the idea started to gel, I realized that I had more than a couple questions I wanted to ask.

The core of my query is to support a future blog series that talks about starting your own corp/alliance and avoiding some of the problems of the first 6 months or so.  I have my own opinions on this, but wanted to see if my ideas held up to reality.

I knew going in that the results would be skewed - you fine readers are a subset of a subset of EVE players (people that read niche blogs as a subset of folks that actually read news outside of the game).  But, SOME feedback is better than NO feedback, so here we are.

And with that out of the way, let's dive into the results.

Survey Closing

I'm back at the PC after a hectic weekend including out of town visitors (her parents), unexpected out of town visitors (my parents, who invited themselves down at the last minute), and the triathlon (which overall went well).*

I started a post to run through the Survey results, but thought that I'd give a 24hr warning to anyone that hadn't taken it yet.  So here's this post instead:  I'll be closing the survey a little after this time tomorrow.

Thanks to those who've spent the time to take the Corp survey; if you haven't the link is here.

In the mean time, I'm running more lvl4s and beginning to tolerate the new icons.  I still think they stink, but it's not going to keep me docked up while I pout.

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*Tri info:  Mrs. Durden did well despite a rocky swim and finished around her target time.  She was hoping to improve her bike avg speed and did so.  She held out on the run and got a good time, and her Dad was there to take pictures and enjoy it with her (he hadn't been to one of our races yet).

My swim was strong and went well.  I fought my wetsuit (which has now happened 2 out of 3 races with it) and am thinking of cutting the sleeves off of it (imagine swimming with large rubber bands on your arms).  Despite that, I hit last year's time almost exactly while getting out of the water in overall a more composed state.  Transition was fine, if a little slow.  Bike hit my time for last May's race but slower than last June's.  First lap I was on fire and felt great, and passed a few slower guys.  Second lap my legs threatened to cramp the last 10 miles and I couldn't push and my average speed came crashing down.  It was a cool day and I'd opted not to take my anti-cramp tablets in the transition.  Was a bad decision that cost me.

Which is why I love multi-sport events.  The variability of the course, the number of small decisions that can make or break a race.  It's all a puzzle that needs to be solved.  Yesterday I chose to save a few seconds in the pit and it cost me minutes on the course.  I'm not mad or disappointed because my time is still where I have been and I took 1st in my age group (of 2, hah!) - but I'm going to need to solve the puzzle better if I'm going to improve my time.  I'll return to the same course in September for a rematch.

Drifters Kill POS Tower

For those of you who read EveNews24, this is old news, but I this last night and made me laugh as I read it aloud to Mrs. Durden.  So, as a public service announcement, I decided to repost it.

It appears that the Drifter NPC AI can be enticed into attacking POS structures (formatted for emphasis).

According to sources, TITAN GER, on the fourth run, logged off inside the POS when the Drifters started to attack the POS. The Drifters successfully reinforced and subsequently destroyed the tower. After the reinforcement timer the Drifters returned and continued to shoot the tower. It appears that TITAN GER logged off to avoid an aggression timer, but the Drifters came back, found a target, then engaged and destroyed the POS. It was TITAN GER’s personal POS so there was no call to arms to save it.

Links:

• Full EN24 Article
• Tower Killboard Entry

Kind of scary, but kind of cool at the same time.

Burner Difficulty and Real PVP Fits

I've been trying to get words around this topic for awhile now.  I should probably save this draft and proof it a few more times, but what the heck.

----
One of the complaints I see about Burners is that they don't fully emulate "real" PVP fits.  Burners fly faster than they should.  Ships dps AND tank AND fly fast AND have high resists.

I remember some comment from CCP that they were shooting for a balance point that would emulate a fully faction fit hull, with every module having a green icon, and max skills.  I've not messed around in Pyfa to know if that's still true, but it feels like in some cases they're cheating.

The reason why the difficulty is kept high is simply this:  In a real PVP encounter, you never really know what you're up against.  Sure, you know who's on local, and you know that based on what the target is flying what you should expect (in big terms, like: drones or not, armor vs. shield tank, kite vs. brawling).  And sure, certain groups tend to fly certain doctrines.  But if you're roaming around looking for a solo fight, you really don't know what you're going to run into until you find the target on a gate and you dive in.

Unlike the real world, Burners are predictable.  I know that the Burner Worm is going to orbit me under high mwd at about 40km and bombard me with missiles.  I know his damage profile within a percent or two.  I know that in order to beat him, I need a fast ship with good web to pin him down and take him at close range.  And once I have that ship fitted out, I leave it in my hanger until the next time the Worm is offered, because the Worm never adapts to me, and never learns from the tactics I use against him.

Every time the Worm is offered, I know exactly what I'm up against, unlike the real PVP world.

So, CCP has two options: dumb the encounters down, using a lower balance point, knowing that they'll be min/maxed within a day or three by the masses(1), people will yawn and farm them, or keep the difficulty very high, to at least keep things interesting for a little while longer. They've chosen the latter, resulting in a smaller pool of people doing Burners (due to skills, percieved risk, and cost investment), but yielding maybe an overall longer lifespan of the content.  It's the lesser of two evils.

On the horizon, though, is some hope.  CCP has stated that they are developing dynamic/procedural PVE content.  This should mean that content scales in difficulty, which would offer up these kinds of fights to a wider range of players. Instead of a fixed balance point of an arbitrary "fit" the targets will adapt.  If true, and if it works out, that could be a very cool thing.  It won't ever replace the true PVP experience, nor should it try, but offering a range of difficulty balance points would hopefully bring a wider audience to the content.

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(1) Some will say "heck, they're min/maxed before they're on the live server!"  True.  But compared to the number of mission runners overall, that min/max group is relatively small.  My point is if Burners were easy peasy, everyone doing lvl4s would be kicking their teeth in as part of normal farming, which kind of isn't what Burners were about.

Battlecruiser Burners Up on SISI

Found this reddit thread while looking for some answers on the Jaguar losses.  I had to blink a few times, but it appears that Battlecruiser sized Burners are up on SISI.

Engagement rules are thus:

• BC and smaller allowed past the gate
• No tech3 ships

At first I thought it was a troll post, but here's the youtube feed:

I sense more insurance payouts and lost ships in my future. :)

Ominous

There's a pretty good dev blog (yay for charts and graphs!) that's been available for a few days but somehow slipped past me.  It's worth a read.

The dev blog ends on an ominous note:

We are really enjoying watching all the creative ways you have come up with to interact with the new NPC AI and we look forward to seeing how you tackle the next phase!

I see folks complaining that Drifters are a waste because they drop no loot.  This quote seems to confirm my quiet assumption that CCP is dabbling here, poking and prodding ... and they aren't done yet.  Thanks to the quicker release cycle, hopefully we can see some improved PVE options in the near future.

Mentally, I've tried to map Drifters into current PVE features (Drifter Burners Missions? Drifter Incursions?) and came away with a pain in my frontal lobe not unlike a brain freeze.  Ow. Ow. Ow.  I decided that as much as I love doing work for my SOE agent, I hope it's something new entirely.

Am I Happy?

Just to follow up on the previous post, I swapped to another Caldari agent in a 0.5 and will see if the LP conveyor belt is reasonable.  The items available in the LP store are less lucrative, but I'll trade some lost efficiency just to keep a blue sky for a bit.

Anyway, main reason for this post:  I found the following 2 tidbits in the CSM Winter Summit Day 2 minutes.  I had missed them the first time through.

As there was some free time, CCP Fozzie also went over an unrelated plan to add Cruiser-sized burner missions. 

Corbexx also asked about Sleeper burner missions: CCP Bettik responded it's an option if it made sense from the story.

And in the same section:

Sugar Kyle also asked about making some agents that only gave out burner missions or increasing the percentage chance for one to be offered. 

CCP Fozzie had some concerns with them, such as the easy ability to chain them with the correct fittings.

CSM Minutes, Day 1 and 2

If you're not aware, the CSM Winter Summit is going on RIGHT NOW.

CCP is releasing the minutes from each daily session in (nearly) real time.  Although there's perhaps less detail, getting the info so quickly is much better (imho) over waiting weeks and months to see what was discussed.  Said another way, I'll take a 90% solution in near real time rather than a 99% solution ages later.

Day 1 minutes are here.
Day 2 minutes are here.

The very first session of Day 1 (Roadmap and Release Schedule) is pretty interesting.  When the Incarna Trainwreck happened, I really never thought I'd be reading words from CCP about their dev philosophy and nodding my head in agreement.  I guess that makes me a fanboy.  Oh well. :)


I'm reading the Day 2 minutes as I type, so let me grab a few snippets relevant to my interests (i.e. PVE, missions, etc.).  I'll snip out most of the quotes to just the bare essentials.  Go read the full minutes for the full detail version.

Does This Fit Make My Ass Look Big?

Sorry for the post title, couldn't resist.

In case you missed it, the ingame fitting window is getting some love.  See CCP Sharq's post here for some info.  TLDR version is that they're looking at bringing some of the features of Pyfa and EFT into your friendly neighborhood fitting window.

Before you get excited, CCP Karkur clarifies on page 4 of the thread that this is a "side project" and not a formally planned project.

Still, it's something I'd definitely use.  The 3rd party tools are fine, but they haven't stopped me from being dumb about rig calibration a few times while shopping.


What's Playing:  TOOL, Undertow, Sober

Progression as a Ball of String

Editor's Note:  Happy Holidays!  We're doing the usual tour of family homes that generally leaves us exhausted.  I've not had much time at all for EVE the past week and a half, but I did have this old article gathering dust in the drafts bin.  Let's knock the dust off of her and see where it goes.
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Let's talk a little bit about progression.

I started this post awhile back; before the wave of newbies pulled in by the supercool trailer.

Progression.  That's a dirty word in EVE as it's associated with the themepark mentality. You say the word 'progression' and it conjurs up other words like 'raids' and 'gear treadmill.'  But let's strip that away for a minute and get back to some core game design concepts and adjust our context away from a particular implementation.

Game Theory:  In order to log in every day, a player needs to have an itch to scratch.  He has to get some sort of satisfaction out of it, or he wouldn't do it.  Even if the task at hand is grindy and tedious, he's building towards something bigger and better, and that feeling of progress compels him to log in and get to work.

EVE has nonlinear progression.  In fact, I'm reminded of an old-ish Dr. Who episode with the infamous weebly-wobbly, timey wimey stuff quote.

Another way of saying:  a big ball of yarn.

Medicine Haze

I was scheduled to work today, but thanks to a nasty head cold that ambushed me last night, I am sitting at my PC at home in my PJ's.  I'm nursing some coffee and then will decide if I have the will to eat.

I had just started typing something semi-incoherent about Standings and the PVE Soundingboard that the CSM hosted earlier this month.  I got three paragraphs in and wasn't sure where I was going.

Thank you, cold medicine.

Let's to this instead.

Here's a preview of 3 things I'm working on around here:

1. I still need to wrap up the Resolutions series.  Unless I get greatly inspired, the next post will hit on/around 1 Jan and will probably be the last for awhile.
2. I'm working on Cruiser skills and poking through some of the hulls I've forgotten about.  Exploration/Anoms are a good way to do this.  Other than some sporadic Logi duty, most of my time in a cruiser for the past decade has been in the Sacrilege.  For many years I didn't fly anything smaller than a BC, and of course lately I've been mostly in the Golem or killing burners in frigs.  Now, I love the Sacri, but if Cruiser-sized burners ever become reality, I need to be a little better rehearsed.  This has already fed one post on the blog and will likely spawn a few more.  The help and comments you guys have provided are already helping, so thank you.
3. Burners.  I'll owe my monthly stats update in a few days.  My fits and strategies have generally stabilized, although I'm still missing the Team Enyo.  I may need to change regions and see if I can get him to spawn.

There are a few other drafts knocking around in the bin that I need to dust off and see if I'll ever post.  Half finished thoughts, and a rant or two.

What's Playing:  The Black Keys, Live at KCRW, Next Girl

I'd Like to Keep it on Manual Control For Awhile

For this post, I must quote his ever-whineyness, Luke Skywalker:

LUKE
(into comlink)
Yes, Artoo? 

Artoo utters a soft, carefully phrased steam of whistles. 

LUKE
(into comlink, chuckling)
That's all right.  I'd like to keep it on manual control for a while.

If you haven't seen it, you should read the latest Dev Blog about the beta feature in Rhea to allow WASD control in space.

Good gravy, where was this 12 years ago?

On one hand, I'm impressed that CCP is able to challenge fundamental assumptions about the game and start peeling back some of what has perhaps held the game back.

On the other hand, ... good gravy, where was this 12 years ago?

I had actually had passing thoughts about writing a post here about the merits of WASD control.  Maybe it was something I read in the Summer CSM minutes that influenced a stray thought.  I'm usually not that clever.  Now I'm going to have to go read them again and see if there were some hidden hints.

I'm sitting here trying to think of a downside.  People will be afraid of change, or will say it's a kneejerk reaction to Star Citizen or Elite: Dangerous, and maybe there's some truth there.  But I still can't see a downside for the EVE citizenry.

Blog Banter #59: Force Projection and Terrain

Blog Banter #59:

Probably been done before... What about local force projection (as opposed to the longer distance force projection that is often talked about)? I think of 'terrain' in EVE to be how systems are mapped together by gates. Strong tactics which exploit terrain have historically been extremely important in deciding battle outcomes. How does this apply in EVE in the presence of cynos?

I'm going to dive straight sideways and sidestep the dev blog about force projection, and the associated threadnaught.  I'm framing my response at a potential future state, far down the road, and talk about a general direction I'd like EVE to take.

Burner Blog Math

I promised a few days ago that I'd dig a little deeper into the dev blog by CCP Fozzie.

Let's focus on this graph:

Two main points I'd like to make:
1. Only 15 out of 100 Burner missions are actually accepted.  The rest are declined.  Fewer succeed.

I was initially shocked that the accept rate was so low.  I figured there would be a lot of declines, but I hadn't really thought about what I considered 'a lot' to mean.  I guess 85% to me is a metric buttload, which is approximately double 'a lot.'

This spawns a concern:  Are too few people partaking in the new content to warrant CCP to continue to deploy burner updates?  What is their threshold of pain for investing dev $$ into content that relatively few players are apparently participating in?

Should EVE Have Achievements?

I can already hear you muttering, "NO!"

Hear me out.

Rule #4 of this blog's Manifesto talks about having multiple ways to measure a player's progress.  Here, I'll go copypasta it and save you a click:

#4 - Sometimes, we need a different measure of progress than isk/hr.  And I don't mean adding things that convert to isk (like LP/hr or m3 ore/minute).  That's just isk in a different format.   

In PVP, we have killmail and killboards and that's a good way to measure things and keep a score.  Character skillpoints has always been a measure (if over-emphasized) of character progression.  The recently overhauled Ship Mastery is a fun way to generate some bragging rights, maybe.  But here's the point: nothing motivates nerds more than "leveling up."  As I continue to post, one theme you'll see is an attempt to allow progress to be captured.

 So, as CCP overhauls the lvl4 / burner experience, what tools do we want to capture the progress?

Do you want an in-game achievement for killing the Anomic agent?  For solo'ing the Angel burner?  For killing the Serpentis Burner in under 10 seconds?  ... for getting killed by a burner agent?  :)

For PVP, there are information feeds (API) that allow the player-community to establish killboards.  There are in-game killmails to link, and collect.  All of this drives all kinds of behavior, some of it good, some of it ... less savory.  But it's a type of motivation not (usually) rooted in isk/hr.

For PVE, we don't have that, have never had that, and don't even have a log showing what missions we've completed or declined recently.  This past week I went through the game trying to count, and ended up in my Wallet counting mission payouts.  This only worked because I had a screenshot with a datestamp telling me when I should stop counting.  It only told me I'd done a mission, not which mission or even which agent.

Now then, I'm NOT (not!) advocating a WoW-style achievement system with hundreds/thousands of meaningless tasks.  Let me digress a minute and say that the Achievement mentality is something that helped drive me from WoW.  I don't need that kind of instant gratification and constant reinforcement of how cool I am.  I don't want a checklist of to-do items that I must complete or not be considered uncool.  EVE doesn't need that kind of structure or handholding.

But I do think I want something in between the big nothing we have now and the absurd something that other games have.

So for me, I'd start with a killmail-style mission log, included on my character sheet.  Collect some metrics like: which ship I was in, how much damage taken/received, and which agent.  Make it part of the API, and see where the community takes it.  Then adjust accordingly.

Does that count as an Achievement system?  It could.  It could be the foundation of one.  The important part would be starting small and staying small.