Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well.. I the first to admit that I dont have full knowlegde about all playstyles in eve, but I'm trying to find some middleground.
Its like people telling me "why cant you just use locators" to hunt corporations in highsec.
I'm ok with locators and watchlist just working in highsec.. but I got yelled at by other 0.0 guys who hunts supers for suggestion it.

Because.. as it is now.. if you know about the workarounds to see if someone is online, the watchlist change did only just affect highsec. Hunting just a couple of targets are still doable.

I agree with Scipio, this change basically completely undoes the watchlist changes, and on top of that gives wardeccing corps structures to monitor that they can camp for even more kills.

It's nothing but a buff to ganking/HS wardeccing. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate, but that is what this idea pushes.

Either way, cap hunting in LS/null needs to be addressed. Keep this in HS only and I really couldn't care. And keep locators out of WHs.

Yeah and I feel sorry for what effect the change had on highsec.

I think it was an ill conceived change, where either the devs didn't really understand the use of watchlists and/or had such a narrow focus on one issue, that they didn't consider flow on effects. Possibly both.

When I look at this proposal, it has the potential to essentially undo the change that was made, in which case I think a neater proposal is to request the old system be returned. I don't see CCP agreeing to that though.

So if CCP won't bring back the old system, then no new system should provide intel on pilots in lowsec or nullsec - just so there is no issue around intel on supers and titans logging in.

I think the current proposal is ok. It should just be limited to highsec though and take the loss that you wont know about someone who is in low or null.

The alternative would be to suggest this system, but instead of a defensive structure, allow individual players to pay a fee to not be on the watchlist in a limited number of systems. I don't know it that is any better, but it does remove all the structures that would be needed in lowsec and nullsec, when wardecs don't really mean much there anyway.

Coming across a little too much like a frustrated mumsnet subscriber to be taken seriously. I can almost envisage your trembling, marigold clad hands dripping soap suds all over your keyboard. Don't you have some flowers to arrange?

At least Hyacinth has a valid point from time to time.

Few thoughts first then some ideas.

I personally don't agree with the fact that simply because you have decided to call yourself a Merc, then CCP needs to "step up" and make NEW mechanics specifically suited to help you.

Being a Merc is "player driven", it's not a "class" in an MMO with specific underlying mechanics for it, it's players deciding they simply want to hunt players, so if they want to do that, then they should not be handed better tools then the prey or tools that are better then things already possible. The old watchlist allowed a player the ability to tell the instant another person logged in account from anywhere in the universe ... you could map a person complete weekly timeline in the game by just recording a popup message.

On the other hand, the current system is a bit stupid. For example, the game already shows me everyone in local.

I could sit in a system with a cloaked ALT, with an overview set to only show anyone I marked as -10 flashy (so it stays clear the rest of the time) then video record a 24 hour session at 1 frame every 10 seconds or so, then just play it back at very high speed and still get an exact timeline of all targets (if any) and times they stay in system. Repeat with new system till you get what you need.

Fair bit of annoying work? Sure, You could even automate the process by running a program on the video stream to do that for you, and I can't even see it being "an exploit", if you are doing it on non-real time video stream that does not even require the EVE client to be actively running, although CCP might frown on "AFK recording" maybe ...? Not sure here.

My point is this:

If we can see Local, so can the stations, so can NPC's in those stations, so why when you ask them "have you seen this guy?" do they give us stupid level info? Why can't they print partial Local logs from their own Corp owned records of the stations they belong to for example, and say "this name/ID was visible in system at such-and-such".

Maybe let me bribe someone for logs, or hack the station computers for activity logs ... I mean, if something needs to be added, make players "play the game" to do it. If the targets have a problem with that, make them hack to clear their logs, or bribe someone to suppress the logs.

Nothing should be free or easy for EITHER side. Effort should be required to hide, and effort should be required to hunt. It's simply the matter of finding a way that makes it fun for everyone.

The side that makes the least effort is the one that suffers. Is this not the EVE way?

EDIT: forum ate my entire post, let's try again.

What you just described is what basically happened prior to the removal of the watchlist. The vast majority of your time was spent running locator agents, scouting with a neutral alt and positioning characters. Currently if you try and do this the vast majority of your time ends up being spent investigating players who aren't online and may not have been online for long periods of time, which renders the entire process totally ineffective.

As a result the mercenary groups that are most likely to produce kills in a war are not the ones who dedicate the most time and effort to intelligence gathering, rather they're the ones who have the most camping coverage.

There's no better illustration of this than the fact that a month prior to the removal of the watchlist Tora conducted a purge of trade hub campers from the Marmite Collective with the specific purpose of making the alliance more active and focused on seeking out targets, subsequently his entire alliance almost failscaded and was forced to revert back to camping post-change. Vendetta Mercenary Group, however, which embraced these same trade hub camping types is now the dominant mercenary alliance in highec.

I personally don't care too much that this is the outcome, however many people often decry tradehub camping as a type of gameplay, yet support changes that have lead it to become the only viable form of war-based gameplay other than shooting structures.

I think the watchlist changes were definitely needed, but locator agents should return the same message if someone is offline that they do if they are currently in a wormhole.

I'll also point out that Mr's Bucket here has been complaining about the hub humping war spammers alongside the rest,
Those changes are directly(though not entirely) responsible for the massive uptick in that and that this praposal and my praposal are both aimed at facilitating highsec entitys in moving away from this.

As for double standards, we are all expected to defend our beliefs here,
something both myself and raz have been doing visibly for six months now.
Every single time I have seen this conversation I've been told to HTFU just like anyone else,
the difference is we have willing and patient enough to articulate exactly what we want without losing our ****.

Last February was the prediction