Assembly Hall

I think he's refering to the sec flags.....call it a hunch.

But yeah.....even the surge in population would be a bit of a tell-tale indicator.

o7

I think there's a real disconnect between some of our experiences, because when I lived in Sov Null space, so long as I watched local and stayed in my own alliance's space there really was no risk of hostiles getting me. As brand new player living out there I didn't watch Local and Intel chanels and got killed, but the mistake wasn't repeated. I just don't think the occasional newbie, the really dumb, and the afk getting killed constitutes it being "easy to get people in their own space."

Even with my system suggested you're unlikely to get jumped unknowingly by anything larger than a cruiser while staying in your alliance controlled space, and that's with no one watching gates. The goal isn't to deny players any form of Intel, it's to make them have to actively pursue that Intel.

I expected objections, but I really didn't expect a rejection of the proposal based on the argument that Local provides protection for suicide ganking. It's somewhat unrelated but I think all mining of any real value should occur outside of High Sec anyway. Perhaps keeping Grav sites, but those need to be scanned down, and as anyone who's spent time in WHs will tell you Probes show up on DScan.

More to the topic of the proposal your comments did get me thinking on some finer points not addressed in my OP. Particularly how those registered on Local would display on those just entering the system. The way it reads would imply that once on a systems Local you would show up instantly to those entering the system and I'm not sure if that would be the best option.

If it was based not on the system, but the individual pilots it would mean those entering a system would not only have a delay on their own ships showing in Local but also the ships of those already in the system. So if you're mining you won't show up on a newly arrived pilot's Local for a minute and half. Thus in some circumstances you'd be getting warning of their presence before they knew of yours, if they were in BCs and didn't scout you out first for example. Just Brainstorming here, thoughts? Would this allay your objections Davon?

No.
And we want to show on local the GCC-ed pilots instantly.

Who dont want this crap idea and who want to show the GCC-ed pilot on local and who dont want to spamming his dscanner button (CCP would be realy enjoy this, when 20000 pilots refreshing his Dscanner during every two seconds), who dont want to safer traveling for enemy or neutral pilots at 0.0. You want more things to know ? The list is so long.

Have a care Xorv....schizopherna (sp?) is not a joke. *Troll/Tease*

Thank you for your comments and criticisms Gizznitt,

Aside from a few key points you made, which I'll get to in a moment, I do not believe your statement that the system is overwhelmingly unbalanced towards predators. First the whole analogy of predators and prey I find sets up an image which is somewhat unhelpful. When you say predators and prey, we think of wolves and sheep, and well unprotected the sheep are in fact hopelessly vulnerable to the wolves. But my issue with that is why are we automatically attributing sheepish qualities to players and then in the name of "balance" some like yourself want CCP through mechanics to act as shepherds for these players. Fact of the matter is players don't have to be sheep or wolves, they could be mountain goats (PvEers that are alert and take measures against wolves themselves) They can be Sheep dogs (tamed wolves/predators) and protect the sheep in return for the bounties of their labor. In short if players choose to be sheep and forgo the protection of other players they should be vulnerable to predation, that is balance!

You have a point about people in the system being immediately visible to new people entering the system is problematic. I addressed that in an earlier post in this thread. It could be done based on individual pilots rather than the system, so those timers start individually for every pilot that enters the system, both in terms of being seen and seeing those already in the system. In other words all those timers in my original post would apply to everyone, not just those entering the system.

I don't follow why my proposal is ok for Null but not Low Sec, yes frigate scouts become a real factor, but that's my goal. I want active scouting to be a part of the game and I want more reasons to fly smaller ship classes. As to DScan, the woes of using DScan are way overblown IMO, but that said if you go to the link in the OP it will take you to a larger post I made in Features and Ideas that covers broader issues of Intel in EVE, including DScan. There I suggested an improved DScan with some automated capabilities. In any respect saying DScan shouldn't be pushed on people is as meaningful as me saying Local Intel shouldn't be pushed on people...anyway take a look at the link and see if that removes your DScan concerns

To say this system puts cloaks into "God Mode" is ridiculous. In fact although it would finally allow Cloaks to do what they're meant to do, it boosts stealth gameplay in such a way that ships with cloaks are not even required. Under this system roaming gangs of Frigates and Destroyers could remain off Local fairly easily and they don't need cloaks to do that. If you want to remain undetected for a prolonged time in a system under the enemies noses, or just have the extra edge in sneaking around and scouting that's when cloaks are useful. CovOps ships are going to be the best at evasion and ambush, as they should be. I don't see what the point in having CovOps would be if it were otherwise.

I didn't claim it was similar to WHs, because it isn't. There is always the new form of Local Intel in Low and High Sec, and in Null there are multiple ways in enabling the new form of Local Intel. Moreover the means of enabling Local Intel favors sovereignty holders, as the Local Intel is not available to everyone, only those that create it and those they choose to share it with. So WH space remains 100% Local Intel free, Null does not.



1. Cloaked ships aren't completely immune to the delayed local. If they remain visible to a pilot long enough to register on their Local Chat, they stay there until they either log out or leave the system regardless of being cloaked or not. I don't think they should be shown anymore than that. Local Intel as it is now has broken the core functionality of cloaks, why would I want to reintroduce anything like that?

2. This plays into the numbers game of "lets make sure we have a bigger blob than they do". Further more all these suggestions diminish the need for actual active player scouts which is one of the main things I'm trying to improve.

Some of your points here don't make sense in regard to the actual proposal. There's timers based on ship class to show up on Local, so even in they are hunters in enemy territory with a Local Intel system in place they can still navigate it without showing up by using small ship classes. Big ships will show up very quickly... I'm usually accused of not giving enough to sov holders with my proposals, this is a first where I've been told I'm giving too much. In practice what this ought to mean is larger forces will likely deploy skirmishers (Primarily frigates and destroyers) ahead of the main fleet and CoVOps ahead of them. Skirmishing forces can take out an undefended Scanner Array if that's what's being used to create Local, ahead of the main force. If it's an Outpost that generates Local, well that's a large investment and likely a home system for a large group of players their Local advantage shouldn't be easy to remove there. Sorry but that part of your argument just doesn't make sense in context to this proposal.

You've misunderstood, how the proposal affects Low Sec I think. There everyone gets access to the new form of Local Intel, Standings as a requirement were only mentioned for NPC Null Sec.



These comments and your instance on describing Cloaked ships that don't show in Local as "God Mode" makes me very skeptical if we're remotely on the same page. Take a step away from EVE for a second and consider other similar games and how they handle stealth and detection. There's none that I've played that nullify the ability to be sneaky as much as EVE does with Local chat. Darkfall which has no invisibility of any kind is a night and day better than EVE for supporting the ability to use stealth to evade and ambush other players. CovOps ships are weak by comparison to their visible equivalents, and they can't remain hidden to actually make an attack on someone. Further, all your criticisms could be applied to gate camps on the jump in side equally well, do you support changing that?

All that said removing or radically changing the way Local Intel works is just the first necessary step, if you look again in the link to the larger post (see link in OP) encompassing broader issues, there is ideas for cloak hunting and detection. However, that can only happen after Local is changed. I'll also mention since many won't look at the link, that the detection idea lends itself to cat and mouse gameplay and is specifically intended to be largely useless on gates. If you're wondering why I didn't include it all in one proposal it's because it would be overwhelming and most would simply ignore it, plus some of the ideas just weren't ready to be posted in the Assembly.

I'd get to your comments on predators and prey, which as you might have guessed I disagree with, but it will have to wait as RL calls.

Anyway, I welcome suggestions and changes to the proposal and positively seek them in the long buried thread in Features and Ideas where this originally comes from. However, only if they're in keeping with the desire to empower stealth tactics (read not just cloaks), active scouting, and a much increased fog of war.

Please read and respond to this:

I don't play other games so-much, so I'm oblivious to how cloaking works in other games. We seem to primarily disagree on what should be cloaked: I think cloaking should hide your identity, while you think cloaking should hide your pressence. Currently, local chat makes hiding either of these impossible.

You're trying to make cloaking hide your pressence, which I consider overpowered. The reason I consider this OP, is there is NO COUNTER to it. Mixing your "delayed local" with current game mechanics, by the time I become aware of your pressence, I typically have no time to react, leaving me SOL. This system is inherently unbalanced towards the cloaker, which essentially has infinite time to setup and prepare, while their target has NO TIME.

This is why I keep suggesting cloaking (and your new local in general), should not hide your pressence, but only hide your identity. This allows everyone to be on a much more equal footing, because then we both have the same amount of time to react to the pressence of each other. Hence, the intel system is starting off balanced to all parties. It is from this point, that we should create the game mechanics to identify each other. Be it ship scanners, system scanners, or what not... It's ok to give some advantages to ship types, infrastructure, teamwork, etc... as long as both the defenders and attackers have tools available such that neither side gains an overwhelming advantage.

I really don't understand how cloaking your presence is good for the game!??!?!?