Player Features and Ideas Discussion

NO SOUP FOR YOU! NEXT!

It simply comes down to this:


It is not that cloaks should not change, but this stalemate effect is countering the free intel being given out by local.

We have right now, a case of: "I know you are there, but I cannot find you"
(Absolute presence awareness countered by absolute location concealment)

You cannot change one side without the other, and still have balance.

Too much focus on how to remove AFK cloaking. You are addressing a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

If you want to remove AFK cloaking's game impact, remove cloaked ships from displaying in local.

When this is done, it becomes reasonable to consider means to hunt cloaked vessels. NOT before this happens.

So long as people in a system magically know cloaked pilots are present with them, cloaked vessels should not be vulnerable to being hunted effectively.

Cloaking will be earned when cloaking awareness is earned. Balance must be maintained.

Cloaked should mean what it says: cloaked - in all respects including local.

Do that and the "problem" vanishes.

There should be no local at all . Countless topics were made on this over the years and ccp happily ignores the facts but is glad to add some feature who noone wants. Probes should be main tool to find pray and defend yourself not local chat.

While that may be feasible for the WH space currently without local, it's entirely impossible to implement in K-space due to the system connections and instant travel/hotdrops by cyno field.


If you remove K-space local, then some other kind of intel detection system must be implemented that would serve most of the same purposes as local.

No local + no way to detect cloaked vessels = no PvE in nullsec. Who would take out that tengu of theirs for belt ratting if at any second an unseen in local, unscannable ship could decloak, light cyno, and drop a dozen ships on them at any instant without warning? Nobody. And having the scanning for cloaks functions built into the existing probe launchers/combat probe launchers would be almost as bad.

People who respond "oh keep guys on guys to watch at gates and keep scanning all the time" are frankly idiots. It's unfeasible to keep people non afk watching every entry gate into a system at all times, while constantly scanning for people logging on from within the system in that cloaky cyno recon of theirs. Even one slips through and your in deep trouble, unless you have a guy sitting there mashing and checking the cloak scanner on a dedicated scanning char. Especially not for a mere 50% more or so income per character per hour than highsec. No solo ratters allowed bro, 2 chars with 2 separate monitors minimum to rat for a dead end pocket system, 3 for one with 2 gates, etc.

If I get into a system cloaked without being noticed, I can pinpoint a ratters anomaly and be in warp to it in 30 seconds or so. Those scouts better have eyes glued to the screen every second, and those scanners mashing on the scan button if they don't want to be bent over.

Also, POS jump beacons for capitals. Currently you can jump to one in general safety if you know local is clear. Now every beacon system has to be scanned by a prober before a capital can jump to it? Bad game design there.



TLDR: Removing local without something that provides close to the same intel would effectively kill nullsec PvE, and no nullsec PvE = a whole hell of a lot less people in nullsec, and less income to spend on ships to blow each other up with.
Lots fewer ships blowing up in attempts to take/defend now useless nullsec space = less production, less money moving, less pvp, less players.

"EVE online expansion: move to highsec or unsubscribe"

No cyno's in WH's. You either bring ships without cloaks but enough defense to be able to attack the people running sites without getting instagibbed, or cloaky ones and hit them by suprise as they finish, or whatever. I did live in a c6 WH for a few months (with Bite Me), I do know the drill from both sides.

But there's no instant cynos suddenly dropping 20 guys with bubblers on you, no titan bridging a gang from 15 systems and most of a region away on top of you. The limited entrance and exits mean surveillance is much easier than nullsec, and the attackers actually have to warp to you after traveling through chokepoints. Plus the reward is often much better than all but the best nullsec ratters.


TLDR: no local works in a limited traffic, no cyno field environment, but not in normal K-space.

Implying that local isn't the easiest source of intel in the game. This happen in wh as well, people just make sure they fortify the other side beforehand, and are able catch them if they try and jump back.

So remove cynos? :)

Cloaking to interdict (aka AFK cloaking, thout that's not entirely true) is not only not an obvious problem, it's not a problem at all.

When I interdicted with my "AFK" alt, I really wasn't that dangerous to any resident who had just a little backup. My bombers could take down a hulk fairly fast but I still had to get off multiple volleys. Orcas and a combat ships are more difficult and if you have friends in system, are unlikely to be killed. I've only managed to kill two Orcas and neither was very well tanked or supported by friends quickly enough.

If I showed for a mining party in my interdicting bomber, I was easily stopped by a couple of PVP ships. Bombers (and recons) don't really have that much tank.

If you want to get rid of an "AFK" cloaker you only need to not be dumb or lazy. If the targets of opportunity never present themselves, the cloaking pilot will find another system to kill dumb people in.

As for hot drops., they're a whole 'nother class of cloaking .. Welcome to Eve. :)

With out local there would be MORE null pve, if every time you enter a system you have to launch probes and scan down the system to look for ships it WILL set up a big red flag to everyone is system that probes are out (this of course assumes that people are actually watching d-scan). Like in a worm hole if you see probes out safe up and cloak. If everyone is at a safe spot and cloaked then the cyno ship cannot hot drop you.