Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So why are you trying to remove the only counter we have to the intel given by local?

The amount of breakage in this post is monumental. I don't even know where to start...

Well lets begin with the juicy part – probing. You shurely know that your scanning abilities increase with certain scanning skills: astrometrics, rangefinding and so on. But there is another skill that vastly improves probe strength: Covert Ops. Yes, Covert Ops, the very skill you master for a covert ops frigate. You see, CCP designed these ships to be able to fit the cover ops cloak, a rare ability in EVE, and at the same time have monumental 50% bonus to scanning (at CovOps V). And here you come, asking just like that to undo a long standing design, because... certain players disdain effort and demand all-blue sov. I may also add, that covops frig is a ship with no offensive ability and no survivability other than cloaking. This ship may bring to the combat a pod with billions in implants, because for proper combat probing you are looking at flying with virtues. And this pod will be expected to do scanning mini-game there...
But who cares about balance! Lets rip role bonuses from a covops frigates, why not. You basically asking to remove these ships from the game and move all scanning to T3, even though T3 monoculture is already damaging EVE. And you are turning entire scanning profession upside down.

Now lets move to the covert cloak. One major difference between regular cloak and covops is the ability to warp while cloaked. This way you don't announce your activity to the opponent, which is vital to certain class of combat ships (more below). This mechanics of covops cloak is an intentional design by CPP, not an unexpected outcome of some unrelated changes. And here we read that covops ships, or entire wings, must perform spurious warps, because certain players demand all-blue null. An intended design is undone and replaced with broken mechanics, because certain players want perfect intel from local and so they demand that local announce player activity.

Lets move on. D-scan. Lack of local in wormholes led to d-scan becoming primary way of gaining intel and to cloak being the primary counter to d-scan as well as major survival mechanism. For example, when you are running sites you will typically have a cloaked scouts spamming d-scan. When looking for pvp you will be d-scanning while cloaked. When looking for a gank you will avoid decloaking (or deploying probes) at all costs. And here you come with “a balance idea” and destroy the wormholes as we know them. Well, your “balance” is a not welcome there. And they never asked you to design their game environment.

Then goes Recons. After d-scan changes some players raised concern that force recons are becoming obsolete. And here you come and ask that these ships be further diminished by not being able to d-scan while cloaked. Better yet, they should warp every 5 minutes or their warp will be announced to everyone in local. These are Recon ships, you know? You basically asking force recons be removed from game.

So we move to bomber wings. According to the “balance”, these ships too should now be unable to d-scan while cloaked, i.e. they should be removed from wormholes. In k-space we will now have entire wings doing spurious warps every 5 minutes, because otherwise local will announce to the opponents that the wing may be taking positions to bomb. An entire profession is purged from w-space and bugged in k-space. Again why? Because certain null-security residents demand that they be given an all-safe all-blue home.

In previous posts you declared that you do not seek “solutions” with vast collateral damage. You also described yourself as a proud carebear. So I will give you a benefit of doubt and assume that these ideas simply came from not considering the implications well enough and not having sufficient experience in wormholes or covops warfare (and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here).

At the and let me ask anti-cloak group about following proposition
- cloaked pilot is removed from local and
- cloaked pilot doesn't see local (including list of pilots in the system)

I know of course that this proposition will be rejected. Because it lacks a fundamental detail that was in every single proposition thus far from the anti-afk-cloak group: it actually allows a cover ops ship to perform all the preparations for strike, until uncloaking on he grid, without begin noticed. In other words it doesn't give you the early warning tool that you want in this thread. An expectation of safety in null security remains removed - as it is now removed by afk-cloaking - and so such change wouldn't server the purpose that you really want here.

Let's consider these two statements:



and



A cautious reader may point that these are some completely different motives behind advocating a change. And indeed, behind the fog of supposedly decrying cloak safety lies in fact a desire to build an all-blue all-safe null. For example, many times it was pointed out that a cloaked ship cannot attack anyone and that when he decloaks for an attack he's vulnerable. In other words cloak is a mechanism do choose the time of engagement, but the engagement itself comes with risk. These arguments fall on deaf ears. An often repeated contr-argument is that cloaked ships can gain intel on the system. Ok, so did we ever heard Haywoud procaliming “I dont believe that a ship should be given for free and perfect intel from local”. No, we never read that from him, or for that matter anyone from the anti-cloaking group. We didn't read this because it doesn't serve the all-safe, all-blue sov objective. So perhaps we read something about a vastly more damaging intel, namely watchlists? After all, I don't even need to be in your system to be notified that certain accounts logged in and instantly recognize that opponent is readying certain assets. No, never Haywoud or other “give me all-blue sov”-players decried this broken intel. Because intel in fact doesn't bother them at all. Its just a fog put forward to conceal the true objective. And that true objective is a perfect early warning tool that makes sov null a safe heaven. This is way numerous fits posted before by Jenn aSide were basically shrugged. They are an obstacle to the safe heaven objective. Worse yet they may cut the isk/hour, and that is something certain null players won't accept.

Fortunately, from time to time we are given an honest posts, like the one I cited above.

On this I concur completely, and I am deliberately trying to simplify the local topic only because it affects way more than cloaking, and it really deserves its own topic. I have seen a ton of arguments here regarding changes to local (not necessarily removal), that are inventive and great (and some terrible ones ofcourse), but sadly lost in the quagmire of this inflated topic and go beyond the mechanics of cloaking across the entirety of the game in non-sov related gameplay.

I don't disagree at all, but you have to have alternatives if this is not an option for whatever reason CCP has, good or bad.


This is the subjective part where we simply disagree, and the arguments cave in on themselves.

While I think local sucks the joy out of just about every aspect of this game when trying to conduct PvP, using it as a siege weapon is equally disingenuous and misses the point in the long run. In fact, all it has done is highlight an aspect of cloaking that should be addressed, which is having an asset in space that is invulnerable and non-detectible ever (beyond accidental proximity) without cost/upkeep/vigilance. This is highlighted by the AFK aspect, and you actually hit on the exact problem when you mentioned the cloaked orca (or whatever it was) cloaked up and not a problem (it really should be, or atleast require some interaction to stay that way).

The "we have balance now" counter argument is that annoying game design aspects (local) leading to somehow even worse play (having an AFK Cloaker) is not a balance that should be sought assuming the original bad game design (local) is not going to be addressed. Which leads to where we are now.

If however, local was addressed (i.e. an unheard of miracle and oh so welcomed), a good compromise would be to do the following:
Once a cloak is activated the player is hidden in the local chat channel (I would even want to be a jerk and add that they cannot speak in local either) and remain this way until they decloak. Once they recloak they will again be removed.
Cloaking modules have cycles and requires some form of charge or fuel per cycle (preferably not fuel, but whatever).
The cloaked ship can be probed and scanned with a higher degree of difficulty (and preferably only by a ship that requires the covert ops skill) similarly to a very hard to detect anom.

HOWEVER, I do not believe (as opposed to what I actually want) local channel will ever actually be addressed. Further, an offsetting mechanic that encourages inactivity makes a bad situation worse, and should be designed away from. It is in this vein that I argue the need to change cloaky mechanics outweighs the desire to holdout any further fantasies (the game is over ten years old) that local will actually change (it is literally one of the things that never has, but I guess something for newbros to hold on to). It's the old two wrongs don't make a right, and one of the wrongs simply is what it is (local). The second wrong is holding on to the logic that being AFK is a desirable counter. Those that say we have balance now are short sighted for the reasons I just stated. I am saying it is a balance not worth having, and at a bare minimum, mechanics need to be introduced that make the game experience both engaging and active (the idea of having plexed or paid for alts to do this should **** you off at a bare minimum).

With CCPs new design direction, and more aggressive stance towards making content more emergent and meaningful (not logging in to do nothing but be in system), this may be resolved in a way none of us have seen. Short of that, you have to assume the worst (in this case the most likely) that local isn't going to change, and be open to mechanics that keep within the spirit of the game (that all PvP'ers absolutely recognize): assets in space should be fair game.

So wait. Since my solution didnt meet your personal approval, you decided to lie about what I said and try to twist it?

Why should anyone even consider your stance? You just admitted that I have offered compromise to the free intel local topic but you just choose to ignore it and lie.

Simply I described your stance toward intel (as I see it) without fog. Your proposition fails a trivial robustness test and as such is in fact a disguised one-sided “solution”. When you were directly confronted about implications of delayed/modified local:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5422364#post5422364

you yourself said “Try reading. I said that it would include disabling of the pilot info from local unless in a station”

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5422378#post5422378

Also, if you are to accuse me of lying... did you wrote the sentence I said I never saw from you? You didn't. You wrote numerous equally strong sentences about cloaking but far less and far more muddy about intel from local. You wrote nothing (or I can't recall anything) about intel from watchlists.

Wait, where did you address the issue with compensating for non-color-local with external tools (that add missing intel to the player list)? How does knowing player info when in station doesn't give the sov alliance perfect intel (you don't have corp channels when in station)? And wasn't that your suggestion when confronted about implications of modified local:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5422378#post5422378

You don't even need scouts in space with this mechanics.

I pointed out that every single proposition by the anti-cloaking groups includes this "give me early warning" detail, and you illustrate this well. I'm not back pedaling by a iota. Did you wrote the sentence I said I never saw from you? You didn't. But you wrote numerous similar sentences about cloaks.

Read: "after obvious shortcomings of the proposed 'solution' were exposed, and the 'early warning' part laid down bare, I disregard them and declared myself right".



Yes we know that already, and the major flaws were pinpointed out above.



I stand by this suggestion (including further changes to jump fatigue if need be), because frivolous hotdropping is unbalanced mechanics.



By delayed local I of course mean the wormhole local, i.e. you don't show up on the local list until you spoke. Perhaps the wording is confusing, but that's the nomenclature CCP is sometimes using. I believe that this change should be accompanied by changes to cyno, so that cloaked ship doesn't represent potentially unlimited threat with severely limited options for the attacked side to retaliate. I also believe that the ability to dictate the time of engagement is a defining feature of covops ships. So I oppose probing/fuel/etc ideas.
The changes I write about are similar to the wormhole mechanics, and we already discussed this aspect here (and following posts). One outcome of these balance is no expectation of safety in null - a cloaked ship is able to penetrate enemy sov and mount a surprising attack. So it comes, for example, with need for team play or fitting compromises. It also comes with accepting that loosing ships is part of the game. I understand, of course, that certain residents of sov null won't accept such mechanics, because - as I am arguing this whole thread - they want safe sov. For example:



And yes, the above post goes in a discussion about null-security space.

Some would disagree with you, especially on the part I underlined. Now, the jump changes leveled the field somehow. But if after a while CCP decided to balance things further, I wouldn't protest their assessment. And to be clear: I'm ok with hotdropping when it's a commitment on the attacker part. I wrote about this before.



You made this exact same argument here and I countered it in the next post. No need to repeat same arguments all over again.



Of course there is something you can do about those when suggesting mechanics changes - you can remove automatic player list from local and replace it with delayed/lazy list, i.e. switch to delayed local. Then you wouldn't end up with free, up-to-date player list for “add-color-to-local”-tools. And don't be so confident in CCP not going this way. If they were willing to permanently remove certain ships from d-scan, then who knows. Especially that the stated goal of introducing the d-scan immunity can be stymied by vigilantly cross-checking local against external data.



This is not my suggestion. The part I underlined is anything like my suggestion. I stated before that I consider the ability to choose the time of engagement a defining feature of a surprise strike.

No mistake on your part. The bold part come with a whole mechanics in the next paragraph. You can't expect this mechanics be ignored and the proposition be considered a case of “made your suggestion”.