Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I wish I could click on "Like" a few hundred times for this idea!!

Needs some ironing out, but it sure beats looking at angular velocity in "spreadsheet mode"...

Edit: For the bitter vets who will whine that this change is "Eve on easy mode": Go find another game to play already and STFU.

I would rather not see anything like this in the game. The information is already available, but you need to work it out for yourself. Something like this takes a task which the player must do and moves that process so the client does it for them. It would lower the skill ceiling of the game, particularly for small scale combat.

In the end it is still a game and more info is always better then hard to interpret info, when I was new to the game trying to figure out why my guns weren't doing damage was pretty frustrating, I was in range but my tracking was too slow ect. This wouldn't change anything since the info is already there it would just make it not suck to use the information.

This sounds like easy mode and is a TERRIBLE idea.

You have a distance column and transversal velocity column on your overview. Use them, and your knowledge of your ship's weapon systems.

Next thing you know people will want a green light that lights up when people are within tackle range and not tackled by anyone.

Edit: For those of you who don't know what the hell you're talking about, here's a brief explanation of how tracking works with transversal:

Tracking is a number in RADIANS PER SECOND. That's a number like 0.1 rad/sec. This is the maximum rate of rotation of your guns.

Transversal is a number in METERS PER SECOND. That's a number like 500 m/sec. This is the transversal component of your target's velocity, relative to you.

THESE TWO THINGS CANNOT BE COMPARED DIRECTLY. A THIRD PIECE OF INFORMATION IS NEEDED:

Distance is a number in METERS. That's a number like 23km. This is the actual raw distance between you and your target.

You need ALL THREE numbers in order to figure out if your guns will track. The farther you are, the less tracking you need for the same transversal, and vice versa.

The problem with the OP's suggestion is not that information is displayed clearly, it's that it does the thinking FOR THE PLAYER and spits it out in a nice easy "will it track?" bar. Clear information is not a problem, but turning transversal into "will it track" is an absolutely terrible idea.

There is a high skill cap to PvP in Eve, and this mechanic is an essential part of it. Deal with it.

Edit: Whoa, just realized there's an angular velocity column, must've been added after I started. STILL, players need to learn their own guns' tracking, not have it presented in a bar for them.

That, or you can just look at angular velocity, which can also be shown in a column on the Overview. Comparing turret tracking in turret info directly to angular velocity is indeed very difficult. I see how you might think that makes the game difficult.

Indeed, right clicking the module is hard as hell. What separates the best PvP'ers from everyone else is that they know the capabilities of their opponents. The information about your own ship is already right there for you, it's that encyclopedic knowledge of other ships and modules that makes the difference.

Exactly. This encyclopedic knowledge of Eve is what separates expert players from experienced players from new players. It takes people years to learn all of this stuff, and now you want to just condense it all into "red = can't shoot, green = can shoot."

Terrible. Absolutely terrible idea. Next thing you know, there's a red outline around ships that aren't tackled by anything and "Show Info" on modules will just be removed from the game.

The problem isn't making stuff easier to use, it's doing the thinking for the player. If the OP's suggestion was just a visual way to display the target's range and angular velocity, that's fine - it's the built-in comparison to your OWN guns' tracking and optimal that is the problem.

So by your logic if you could right click to 'set tracking speed', 'set optimal', and 'set falloff' like we do for orbit and range it'd be ok to change the UI as per OP?

Memorizing the range and tracking for your weapons does not take skill.

This is not dumbing down the game. Presenting the information to the player in a way that is easy to access and understand is the purpose of the UI. The skill comes in determining what to do with that information.

If you engage a ship that you can't track, this change will not allow you to track them any better. It'll just show you why you're getting your **** stomped. Which is the purpose of the UI.