Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Logging into EVE confirmed to be an exploit.

Logged off pilots can't shoot you.

It takes less than two seconds for for a stealth bomber to decloak and tackle you while his buddies wait out their decloak targeting delay. And without local you had absolutely no warning that he was there.

Pilots in the process of logging in DO show on DScan while their ewarp is finishing. If they had a covops cloak, it takes several seconds before they can press the button. It also takes anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds after they're on grid until they've fully exited warp and can start shooting things.

Logging in isn't much faster than their fleet being in the next system over. If you're tackled they're gonna get you just as easily as the guys logging in. If your intel network would have detected them in the next system over, why didn't your intel network detect them logging off?

A logon trap is also significantly slower and less effective than a hotdrop. Bridged (titan or blackops) ships can start shooting as soon as they load grid, and they'll have fleet boosts all set up. a logon trap wont.

If we're talking large scale fights, there should be 0 chance your intel/spy networks missed their large fieet moving around. Again they wont be in fleet as they log in thus reducing their effectiveness compared to coming in on a cyno.

Overall, logon traps are annoying, but there are several more effective ways to kill you that don't involve waiting on the character screen that are just as difficult to detect.

However in all other cases you mentioned, with current game mechanics, you have some intel on the attackers.

This is what log in attacks prey on, people who think the area is relatively safe and then put themselves in the open.

Wormhole log-in traps make this issue even more glaring. No one can expect the average wormhole group to be able to watch their system 24/7.

So, you figure out when your target is least active, you run into their system, don't put a POS up (they might see it on d-scan) and you wait for them play EVE.

I admire the time, planning and energy it takes to attack someone. However logging out in a system to avoid being seen using in-game mechanics needs to be stopped.

Also, as the years go on its becoming faster and faster to log into EVE. From client side improvements to faster hardware on CCP's side.

It's not a smart ambush tactic, it's an exploitation of existing game mechanics. You can't explain away this truth.

Consistent with the rest of....Eve "reality".... a character can "log off" (wtf is that to my pilot in game) and render his ship completely undetectable? In what way is that reasonable?

I liked the idea of decreasing warp speed of a ship that logs in while in space. If that proves too tricky, increasing the distance a ship must warp when it logs in would have the same effect.

Again, if the defender is large enough to have a chance against a dread and a moderate support fleet (that enter and exit through a single wormhole, no log-off required) they're either big enough to be aware of their surroundings and have alts watching their entrances. The longer the attacker plays log-off games, the more time the defenders have to batphone for help.

In order to consider capital-seeding by the attackers, you also have to consider "capital seeding" by the defenders that probably have had significantly longer to seed their own capitals. If two entities of equal size and resources are fighting, the nature of wormhole mass limits will give defenders a significant advantage. The fact that the defending capitals are likely logged out at a tower is an advantage to them, not the attackers. You can still safe-log inside a tower forcefield. Warp can't stop ships warping out of a tower (they'll just give aggression timers, but those don't matter if they're warping into combat).

Wormholes are not taken by a couple seeded capitals. They're taken by locking down the system to prevent reinforcements. You can't do that while logged off. It's possible for a few capitals to go dark in a system for an extended period of time, but caps without a support fleet are easy kills. I don't see a support fleet living in your system for an extended period of time without being noticed.("Guys, don't log in this week at all please.") If they got in undetected they're risking detection by logging off and waiting.

Even if you aren't paying attention you still have a full strontium bay in your towers and the "Your stuff's under attack!" mails to figure out who's doing it.

Increasing the e-warp time on login is a possibility. It would increase the time it takes for those caps to enter the fight but would do nothing about the fact that they're already in system. And it already takes a significant amount of time for a safe-spotted capital to enter the field of battle. (30 sec align, e-warp to safespot, 30 sec align, warp to target, exit warp/stop, (siege if it's a dread), target) If we're talking null/low sec we've already established several faster and more effective ways to achieve the same result.

If you make ships unable to shoot for X mins after logging in, those invading caps will just hang out in the invasion tower until they can shoot (if they're invading, they're setting up a tower). You also completely ruin any fight where people disconnect through no fault of their own.

Since there's no way to tell the difference between an intentional logoff and a disconnect, making un-aggressed ships stay in space forever on disconnect somehow I doesn't seem like a good idea. If they're aggressed, 15mins (5 for npc timers) is ample time to scan them down. (takes about 30 sec if you know approx where they are. less if you already have probes out)

I agree with most of this, but these aren't "extraordinary lengths." You simply wait for someone on comms to tell you to click on your player portrait, and you log in. Really, really easy to do. One of many reasons this is an exploitation of game mechanics, most notably hiding presence in local.

I do wish local did not exist though.

1) That statement is inept, there is no other way to describe it. User error? Enlighten me as to what I could have done different to avoid said log in trap, please.

2) Except for the fact that I have dealt with log in traps before and never dealt with a Titan bridging a fleet on to me. FFS, You must be joking. You consider the investment of a ******* Titan to be the same as exploiting I want what you smoke.

So if I somehow hack eve, and put a doomsday device on my ibis and nuke a Nyx, "I'd hardly consider it an exploit, since the same effect can be had with an in-game item."

DERP

...Your suggested system is amusingly even more vulnerable to login traps. To achieve the same response time as a login trap, you need to have people sitting in a nearby safespot (less than a few AU away). In your proposed system, the victim would not only know that there are a bunch of hostiles in system, but how far away they are and what ships they're in. The only difference is that the victim knows their impending doom by virtue of a million new ships on scan rather than a local spike.

Log on traps in their current state will not become obsolete unless intel itself becomes obsolete.




Do you really think the game is better when the only way to avoid having a fleet dropped on you within seconds is to not fight? Do you see that making..anything at all...more fun or interesting?

This sounds like an issue with local. Unless I can confirm through local that you have logged out I wouldn't know to try a log in trap. If there is no local what is the difference between you e-warping after you log and you warping off to a safe and cloaking or warping to a POS? For all intensive purposes without local, and you not being on grid, I can't tell if you are logged in or not.

As someone who has used log in traps to catch machs and nightmares ratting, the only time I have used that trick is when I can CONFIRM you logged out. Without local it is very difficult to confirm that. Solution: Remove local.

I don't think you could convincingly argue that this is an exploit enough to get CCP to figure out a way to tell log in trap logs ins from other log ins. If I am hunting you and I disconnect where you were then log back in. You view it as a log in trap. I view it as my internet is terrible and I want to log back in. There are just too many edge cases that unless you were watching the people play you couldn't know if it were a log in trap or something else. IF It is an exploit you really can't punish people because of the edge cases where it might not be their fault.