Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Dracvlad wrote: Time for an epic frisking...

So many sub quotes....
Please, impress me.



What about people on safari, people who infiltrate your corp, your alliance or your coalition, you forget them, this is one of the ways to get around blue lists and plenty of kills are got by people doing this.

Call me fringe if you like, but balancing the game on the off chance your alliance has a spai... really?
Rejected on the grounds of absurdity.



Local is not an ultimate safety net, there are gaps in coverage, first of all there is the people reporting incoming roams, but clever people log off in uninhabited systems, their objective is to get those who are not paying attention due to no one being reported in local, then we have wormholes openning up in system, look at Verge of Collapse for someone who does this and gets plenty of kills.

Now we are balancing the game because people have logged off in a possible target system. Would you like to add a list of logged off pilots within past 24 hours too? 48 hours?
Rejected on the grounds of absurdity.




The rewards part is all your focussing on, you have ABC minerals in hidden belts, there is your reward, other people have the ability to chew through Hordes at a very fast rate, that is their reward. Rubbish about people in HS being more at risk of suicide ganking, if I am in a Hulk or Mackinaw fitted for yield yes, but in a Skiff fitted for tank no, I mine in a tanked Skiff, no risk. If I move expensive stuff in an industrial I am at risk, if I go over the value of the ships required to gank my freighter/Orca I am at risk, when I undock in my transport ship there is someone there with a fast locking alpha or someone like that on the gate I am at risk. Or if I am in a pimped Tengu with low shields and without hardeners on I am at risk. But in the majority of times I am not at risk, every ship I fly in 0.0 is at risk!!!

Hidden belts don't come close to justifying anything, and represent a trivial boost to null sec rewards by comparison.
And no, you can fly anything in the game at all, with any fit. If you are aligned and watching local, you can't be caught if you do it right.
You have no risk if you cannot be caught.



And do you honestly think that people will risk very expensive slow lumbering ships without low levels of risk, and I can tell you that I never felt safe in a carrier, be it people using the gaps in intel, or WH's openning up into the system I was in, or someone logged off in the system I was in and no one letting me know, there is always risk. Take that from someone who ratted in his triage fitted carrier with an AFK cloaky in system, because I knew he did not have the backup to take me on at that time, but the risk is that I could be wrong.

You used a cap ship to rat in while a known afk cloaked vessel was active in system... but you are worried about logoff traps in the same post??
How is threat projection a problem if you openly admit ignoring it at this level?



If you feel safe in null you are doing it wrong, even with a solid team backing you your not safe because a much more solid team can be after you, you wait to Stain Empire gets fully into gear and if their key players come back, they will show you just how unsafe you are. I have some friends in Unclaimed. and they understand just how much of a threat they are, you are not safe I can assure you having had my own experiences with Stain Empire and the Russian parts of -A- !

Referencing my personal experience shows a weak argument. I believe I know my own experiences better than any possible third party references.
If you cannot justify your argument in a logical manner, just admit it.

Paint huffing sarcasm aside, if it's not cloaked, it's already scannable. Safe Spots aren't safe, just slightly harder to find than a random celestial. Stations are meant to be safe, space isn't. I don't even have a problem with cloaked ships being safe, just cloaked ships that have virtually unlimited threat projection. Unless you are backed by an alliances full combat potential attempting to do any operations with a cloaked unfriendly present is potential suicide. There is no way to balance risk vs. reward under those circumstances, no way manage the risk to match the level of rewards available. It's not about growing a pair and ignoring an AFK ship, it's about managing the fact that the ship in question represents a threat that scales from 0 to infinity without warning, and with no counter.

I don't advocate the removal of cynos. Just their seperation from the perfect safety of cloaking ships.


Put that thing on a nimble ship that can penetrate deep into enemy territory and drop a fleet where your opposition really does not want one. The projection of infinite force in hostile territory should not be a 100% safe and passive activity. The only change to this gameplay is that cloaked ships become scouts to let you know when their forces are low and possibly distractions to pull combat pilots away from backing up gate guards. You send in your fast cyno carrying gate runner, get behind enemy lines and then drop your fleet---with the difference that you are capable of being hunted and stopped. Large Scale force projection now becomes an active and dangerous activity instead of the boring, passive, 100% safe activity it is now.

Cloakers would still prevent bots from doing their thing. They would still threaten solo and small gang operators. They would still provide info in system. They would still do all that they do now, and pretty much the same effectiveness, except allow for the force projection of an entire alliance in an invunerable ship.

If anything, they would get more kills than they do now because nullbears would feel somewhat emboldened knowing that the neut or red in system no longer has the potential to suddenly become a fleet of titans.

I have empathy for your concern, but balance needs to be kept too.

Plus, you DO recall the existence of cyno jammers?

Only BLOPs covert cyno can work then, and it is rarely cost effective to drop anything but a weak and isolated target with these.

Null may be many things, but in this case I don't think being protective of solo players over the interests of group hostility is one of them.

It's not protecting soloists over group hostility.


Its enabling group activity by allowing organizations to specialize their pilots according to their skills and preferences and allowing all involved to enjoy the play they prefer.

If the Nullbear is bearing in his corp or alliance's space, he may be flying without escort but he's not using that space by just his own efforts. That corp or alliance has taken pains to clear and secure the space so he can do what he does. Enemies should have to make similar effort to counter the alliances efforts to secure their space.

In the systems where there are cyno jammers, I have no issue. Any group that is so concerned with a single hostile that they can't undock needs to get an escort or fly something that won't dissolve under hostile enemy intent. I have zero concern for that group of people whining about afk cloaks, and I completely agree that there is no problem with it. Unfortunately, that is also the exact group that has the least to fear from the cloaked cyno. If they have the wherewithal to place a cynojammer in the system, then they likely have a substancial alliance with full combat support that would be capable of engaging an enemy incursion in any case.

Smaller corps and alliances are the ones with the issue. For a trivial effort a larger entitiy can effectively lock down a system despite the best efforts of whole hordes of people. A single cloaked ship represents the whim of the owner to drop any and all forces he has directly into your pudding. If they own the space or can support a fleet without cloaks against all opposition then they deserve that tactical advantage--- but it's just too much power for too little effort to allow an invunerable ship to represent the entire might of an alliance without any support at all. These people have a legitimate complaint, and that is why (or should be why) afk cloaking campers are so hated.

Black Ops cyno is much more self balancing. While one could find themselves royally toasted by a Blops fleet, the ships themselves are far less of a threat than what might come through a regular Cyno. At the very least you know that nothing larger than a battleship is coming through there, and if Cyno were to be made incompatible with cloaks then a blops ship fit without a cloak would be more vunerable and subject to being hunted down by an active and aware alliance.

And their are loads of ways to counter the cyno pilot once he decloaks and tries to tackle you.. MWD, MJD, 100mn afterburner, ECM, Sensor Damps, alphaing the cyno ship.. these are all valid counters. My only issue with cynos is that its relatively inexpensive in terms of fuel to move a crap ton of fleet members around and no risk is afforded to the actual titan doing the bridging. I always thought that bridging should be like a 2 way wormhole unlightable in poses it would allow for counter attacks... and some interesting engagements.

There has been some drift in the conversation but at least I am getting some real responses.

Still not convinced but I starting to see the edges of a real argument to be made for Local removal in Nullsec if not all kspace.

Boiled down... combat oriented pilots want to make Nullsec more dangerous for everyone...pvp, pve and carebearing. But let's be just a little real about this.

Loosing local directly and fundamentally endangers industrialists. No amount of SOV, pos setups, equipment or ship training is going to protect a miner or harvester from a combat ship. And just to be clear, I am ignoring every statements that relates to "All they do is pos up and hide" because expecting unarmed ships to stand in the open while shooters and hunters are there is ridiculous on its face.

The arguments about all the isk and skilling cloakies burns to get inthose ships is ridiculous too... all of us have burnt thousand of hours over the years perfetingour ship piloting skills. And carebears have burnt more in skills that have no effect on the ships to be good at what they do, so let's not pretend the miners in question are 2 month noobs with 1 mil sp's barely able to pilot a retriever.

I have lived in null and I was an industrialist out there, and from myown experience I can tell you that I did NOT just run into the pos or the station shut down my ship and wait for the bad man to go away. I had probers, combat and regular, stealth bombers, intel channels to all the surrounding systems, KBs and dotlan, heavy dps ships, and Dscan experts. We saw a bad guy and we came out to fight.

It doesn't matter a tinkers damn what you do or what research you have if they pilot cloaks parks and walks away. No effort of any kind will pop him out, no force can be exerted, nothing can be done unless he is there. It isn't a matter of denying a play style, because the pilot isn't playing.. he has legged it to a movie, or gone to play his xbox.

Local is the only measure of defense an industrialist truly has. No guns to speak of and the exception of the procurer no real ability to build up his ship to make it remotely survivable in fight. The few seconds warning he gets (if he is actually paying attention that is) is all the protection he gets. That short bit of time he has to get out of harms way and get a ship to defend himself with.

And as far as fairness and risk to reward... How expensive is SOV. per month or per week. All that risk and cost burned into SOV, then no ability to truly build any meaningful defense in the system. No gate guns, or automated police force, no control of the gate really accept drowning it in bubbles. And all can be destabilized by a pilot with a 40 mil cloaky ship. Where is the balance there with removing local.

Still the loudest cry for the removal of local is from the gankers and pirates. A plaintive cry of "It's so hard to trap and kill the unarmed ships because they run from our PvP fleets." If what you were truly worried about is making it unsafe and challenging in nullsec you would have an alternative that did not only favor you.

Maybe a exumer/mining barge only module so they could see all the people in system but combat ships couldn't.That way when you enter a system with no miners you can hunt down and engage the people prepared to fight you. sure miners might alert the other in corp but it would take time for the messages the spred to every pilot in a system and only the miners could be the source of the information.

There needs to be a balance and right now Local is the best answer. PvPers need fight and industrialists need work. Local lets that happen to some extent. PvPers have a disadvantage in that some people will NOT fight. But that is their choice. Taking away local is just your way of taking that choice from them. You choose to fight then go fight. There are people on at all times of day or night that would love nothing better. If you wanna catch only defensless ships I see no way I would even want to help you.

Alacrity Fitzhugh

Nikk Narrel, I find people who suggest something then call it absurd and make it seem like the other suggested it rather sad, anyway I have given up on you, your just focussed on your own position which I understand, but don't really respect, and this will be the last post directed at you. EDIT Its not what I said was absurd, its what you said I said was absurd, and your points were arguments because you are a TROLL.

Fitzhugh

First of all sorry for my hijacking of the thread with the person above who is an industrialist who seems to think removing local is a good idea, go figure... We have had this debate over a number of different threads and he has resorted to suggesting things calling them absurd and trying to make it look as if I said it, how to lose an argument in one easy lesson.

I agree with much of what you said, my main issue with your last post is on the fairness side of risk and reward, AFK cloaking is area denial, at a strategic level its acceptable, though so lame if they never fight. In my time I came across many renters who paid a forture for a very good system and hardly got to use it due to campers.

I got into a conversation with one and he started moaning about being camped and how he was struggling to pay his rental bill, we went through all the strategies and tactics to use, but at the end I suggested to him that he had made an epic mistake at the strategic level, instead of going all in for such a good system he was better off getting a number of middle ranking systems and some poor ones with lots of belts. He pulled out of his rental agreement and did what I suggested and was able to deal with the cloaky campers, the biggest problem he had was trying to keep the industrial level up for the hidden belts over multiple systems and I think CCP should make it easier for the small belt to appear, because the only way to deal with an AFK cloaky camper is to use different systems and force him to move around.

You cannot reason with Gank Bears, I have tried, their fun in the game is getting any kill, and anything that makes that easier to acheive is what they want regardless of any balance, they have utter contempt for people who like to build things so will never listen to their point of view, thankfully CCP have them sussed.

The post above yours is by someone I briefly flew with in 0.0, I was in a couple of hot drop fleets, so I understand exactly what he is saying, there is a lot of effort involved by people actually trying to kill someone. Local however allows people to assess the risk and the reward and I would suggest to Trii Seo that when they get a kill its so much more satisfying then the easy kills they would get without local, I find killing people who fight back much more fun, a couple of months ago I went on the hunt in low sec, an industrial jumped through, I let him go, I was after PvP not an easy kill, a gank bear would have just killed it, I then got an epic fight with a bait maller and a curse, that was what I was after.

Mike Voidstar
Some very good points there.

You never met the challenge of my arguments, you just ignored them and kept going.

I called two things absurd, the notion that Local had gaps in coverage that made any difference, and the concept that spai's in the game were worth changing balance to compensate for.

Both are absurd.

The solid fact remains, that a PvE pilot needs to make no effort to learn when they are potentially threatened, and they only need to align to a safe ready to warp so long as local is providing intel.

As long as they hit warp the moment a non blue enters, the risk does not exist for them, and that is way too little effort for such a flawless defense.

The idea that AFK cloaking is considered by some to be OP because it creates a stalemate is sad.

Good catch on that sig, I just noticed that after you pointed it out.

This might help him, I am trying to use logic here:
It is sad to see this tired argument being so often repeated.

Wormhole space is NOT the same as null without local.
Please do more research before posting such claims.

For those who may not be aware of differences beyond local:
How else is Null different from a WH:

Live and stable gate connections to other sections of space, and between internal systems.
Outposts, NPC and player built both. This includes the sub category of med clones and jump clones as an additional difference.
The Market. Present in all it's glory, even if only stocked by player activity and some minor NPC items.
Cyno capability, both covert and regular.