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New scanning mechanism and its consequences

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Jack Miton
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#141 - 2013-04-30 02:36:00 UTC
BTW, quick question on the new auto launch/formation feature.
Why does it launch 7 and not 8 probes?
Scanning with 8 probes allows you to use some extremely efficient setups and is faster than a 7 probe setup by a good way if you know what youre doing.

Even if its just cos the formations are setup for 7 probes, you CAN still launch 8 probes right?

There is no Bob.

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Jack Miton
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#142 - 2013-04-30 02:38:06 UTC
Ranger 1 wrote:
other players should be able to do more to make a probers life difficult if they play intelligently.

oh absolutely. which is why scanning should not be made simpler.

if ccp want to make PVE scanning easier, they can just increase the sig sizes of the PVE sites to make them easier to scan and have no effect on PVP scanning.

There is no Bob.

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Inquisitor Kitchner
The Executives
#143 - 2013-04-30 03:08:43 UTC

For everyone who doesnt get what Greyscale is saying, he's saying this:

Currently probing is a skill that needs practice. This is good as it means there's a reward for being good.

However the reason you need practice is because the UI is difficult to use, and the game mechanics aren't neccessarily easy to understand, so what you're getting good at is simply arranging probes fast using a crap UI. This is bad.

Your probing skills are currently a "single player" experience because whether you're scanning don an enemy fleet or an anomaly on your own the experience is the same: drop probes, arrange in formation, hit scan, narrow probe area, hit scan etc. With enough practice you can do this every time as there's nothing that ever changes. This is bad.

What Greyscale would LIKE to see is a "multiplayer" system where your scanning is a skill that is required to do against other players. For example, what if there was a module you could activate that scrambled scan probe signals? So you could have a player sitting there D-scanning and activating the module when it's needed? Or what if the other fleet could launch "probe blockers" or something similar, and when matched up to your probing pattern blocked your signal? What if probing an enemy fleet was, in itself, a contest with someone in the other fleet? With you desperately trying to catch them off guard and them trying to desperately stop you from getting a warp in?

THAT idea would be really cool, instead of just making it difficult to probe because it takes ages to launch 7 probes and align them optimally without 3 months of non-stop practice.

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." - Niccolo Machiavelli
Fredfredbug4
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#144 - 2013-04-30 03:16:13 UTC
If something is meant to be challenging, make it more challenging. Make ships themselves a little harder to lock onto, not the actual process of locking onto them.

The difficulty of an activity in a game should not come from how tedious or broken the mechanics are.

Watch_ Fred Fred Frederation_ and stop [u]cryptozoologist[/u]! Fight against the brutal genocide of fictional creatures across New Eden! Is that a metaphor? Probably not, but the fru-fru- people will sure love it!
Skia Aumer
Planetary Harvesting and Processing LLC
#145 - 2013-04-30 05:48:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Skia Aumer
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I approve of this sort of question. Every minute that you're spending interacting with the UI is a minute you can't spend interacting with other players. There's generally a minimal amount of UI time that's needed to work with mechanics that are deep enough that they frame interesting and varied player-player interactions, but it's easy to fall into a trap of rewarding "good at using an obtuse UI" and thinking that's "interesting gameplay".

Maybe you should consult with game developers that a pro in making point-and-click quests, like Syberia? They also deal with similar problems.

And as a general rule of thumb - make things less predictable, for the glory of all gods!
The best example of unpredictable behaviour in EVE is capacitor. Sure, you can estimate it in EFT but the real game differs a bit, you know. So if you could extrapolate the game-design around capacitor on other areas (like industry, and what not) that would be good. Even better would be if you invent even more interesting things, based on an advanced math. Seriosly, when was the last time you used a formular more complex than "Output=A*random()" ?

Inquisitor Kitchner wrote:
What Greyscale would LIKE to see is a "multiplayer" system where your scanning is a skill that is required to do against other players. For example, what if there was a module you could activate that scrambled scan probe signals?

What if probes had to calibrate once they warped to their positions. And the uncertainty of scan result would decrease like 1/time spent calibrating. So you have to choose either to make several hasty scans or one precise scan. More advanced math, less predictable I say! ;-)
Garresh
Mackies Raiders
Wild Geese.
#146 - 2013-04-30 06:13:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Garresh
Inquisitor Kitchner wrote:

For everyone who doesnt get what Greyscale is saying, he's saying this:

Currently probing is a skill that needs practice. This is good as it means there's a reward for being good.

However the reason you need practice is because the UI is difficult to use, and the game mechanics aren't neccessarily easy to understand, so what you're getting good at is simply arranging probes fast using a crap UI. This is bad.

Your probing skills are currently a "single player" experience because whether you're scanning don an enemy fleet or an anomaly on your own the experience is the same: drop probes, arrange in formation, hit scan, narrow probe area, hit scan etc. With enough practice you can do this every time as there's nothing that ever changes. This is bad.

What Greyscale would LIKE to see is a "multiplayer" system where your scanning is a skill that is required to do against other players. For example, what if there was a module you could activate that scrambled scan probe signals? So you could have a player sitting there D-scanning and activating the module when it's needed? Or what if the other fleet could launch "probe blockers" or something similar, and when matched up to your probing pattern blocked your signal? What if probing an enemy fleet was, in itself, a contest with someone in the other fleet? With you desperately trying to catch them off guard and them trying to desperately stop you from getting a warp in?

THAT idea would be really cool, instead of just making it difficult to probe because it takes ages to launch 7 probes and align them optimally without 3 months of non-stop practice.

That's...actually not true. Now I dunno if I can qualify as a "master scanner", as my scan skills in game are not maxed, but I've been scanning for almost 4 years. That entire time, scanning is the only element of eve that has always been a part of my play style. I've ninjad, I've explored lowsec, I've ganked in wormholes, I've lived in wormholes.

There are nuances to scanning, but they have almost nothing to do with the Ui. I don't see any changes to scanning that will negatively impact me.

But scanning is an in depth art, and I will provide concrete examples of why. For each type of target, a different scanning pattern is optimal. When dealing with systems that are populated with a large number of targets, you generally want to set a pattern with multiple layers of probes at different radii, and slowly drag it across the system. In essence, you're not narrowing in on something. You're sifting your filter across space like you would a net through sand when looking for valuables. Further, the nature of your target changes the pattern. When ninjaing for instance, I use either a "nested cross" pattern, which is a 4au cross of 4, with a 2au above and below the center, and a 1au right in the middle. It provides the perfect balance of range and power to lock battleships. Your outer cross identifies battleships, while the center "focus zone" provides warp able locks.

But some systems had irregular patterns which created large areas of space that had missions in them. When facing this, I would use a "lotus pattern" which was essentially a modified nested cross, which an 8 au sphere above and facing outward from the celestial plane. I called it a lotus pattern because the intersection circle lines of your probes made a flower shape. The outwars bubble scanned for targets well outside of the usual target area, while leaving a nested focus as the center to sift into. Periodically, the flower was reversed vertically to scan below the plane, and in doing so you continued to scan the missions without missing the ones that were far away from the main celestials.

Now in lowsec things unfortunately are a bit duller, but a standard cross with a central focus is useful to weed out the less profitable laser and grab sites. Some resizing is still necessary though. Wspace on the other hand can still benefit from sifter patterns, but they're a bit more dynamic due to the nature of the targets.

Now the last pattern I used was designed to catch miners with their pants down. Hard to do, but brutally effective. You warp around cloaked using scan to get a good idea of where the miner is before launching probes. Once launched you reposition them over the course of 2 scans so even when warping the never enter the targets d scan range. Once done, you slowly sift a 32au cross around while keeping probe overlap to a minimum. This is "intentional" and you don't want to get a lock yet. By accounting for the spheres and circles, you effectively think ahead of your own probes to narrow down the target without moving into scan range. Once you have your target in your head, you collapse the probes down to 2-1au in an appropriate cross, giving them about 6-7 seconds heads up before you're in warp.

So yeah...scanning has a lot more to it than some give it credit.

Edit: forgive any typos. I posted this on my phone and l double check it later.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#147 - 2013-04-30 06:49:20 UTC
Skia Aumer wrote:

What if probes had to calibrate once they warped to their positions. And the uncertainty of scan result would decrease like 1/time spent calibrating. So you have to choose either to make several hasty scans or one precise scan. More advanced math, less predictable I say! ;-)


I like this idea. Maybe you can scan an enemy ship down with an hasty scan, but if you warp to after, you would land between 200 - 300 km off your target. more time - more precision. but not too much time. you should still be able to scan down ships at the current times i think.
Donedy
Lulzsec Space
#148 - 2013-04-30 06:59:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Donedy
Rebecha Pucontis wrote:
All I can hear is a noob trying to say something, but still not answering my question. :) Come back when you have figured it out and then I will take you and the other idiot seriously.

Also funny, because I never actually called anyone a dumb noob initially, perhaps a scanning noob which you are, but I never called anyone a dumb noob. It was you and the other dumb noob that started your tirade of insults against me when I suggest I enjoyed the current scanning system. Go back and check the thread. So your last sentence is quite amusing.

Even if i have nothig to prove you, just for the cake I would like to show you in game, but sadly as you're not posting with your main, i cant. And i never insulted you. On an other hand, ampparently you forget really quick what you say...

And stop being pretentious, thats boring.
Arronicus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#149 - 2013-04-30 07:15:07 UTC
Saheed Cha'chris'ra wrote:
Riot Girl wrote:
Skills associated with scanning are being nerfed to compensate for the new modules.


Can you give me a source on that? i hear the first time of this.


This is incorrect. The skills are not being nerfed, the bonus from skills is being redistributed. As you can see from Riot girls link;

Astrometrics - 5% Reduced scan time, 5% reduced scan deviation and 5% increased scan strength per level
Astrometric Acquisition - Changes from 10% reduced scan time per level to 5.0% per level
Astrometric Pinpointing- Changes from 10% reduced scan deviation per level to 5.0% per level
Astrometric Rangefinding- Changes from 10% increased probe strength per level to 5.0% per level


The old bonus was 10% from each of the 3 specialties, and astrometrics increasing deployable probes.
The new bonus, is 5% per level from astrometrics, AND 5% per level, from each of the specialties.

Thus, not a nerf. IF it stacks, it'll even be a large buff. (56.25% increase over the old 50% increase, at all skills level 5)
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#150 - 2013-04-30 07:24:46 UTC
I think we already talked about this point in the posts after riotgirls posting. ;) I think I will update the first post with the new informations we got til now later this day.
Mardris Fol
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#151 - 2013-04-30 07:51:01 UTC
Arronicus wrote:
Saheed Cha'chris'ra wrote:
Riot Girl wrote:
Skills associated with scanning are being nerfed to compensate for the new modules.


Can you give me a source on that? i hear the first time of this.


This is incorrect. The skills are not being nerfed, the bonus from skills is being redistributed. As you can see from Riot girls link;

Astrometrics - 5% Reduced scan time, 5% reduced scan deviation and 5% increased scan strength per level
Astrometric Acquisition - Changes from 10% reduced scan time per level to 5.0% per level
Astrometric Pinpointing- Changes from 10% reduced scan deviation per level to 5.0% per level
Astrometric Rangefinding- Changes from 10% increased probe strength per level to 5.0% per level


The old bonus was 10% from each of the 3 specialties, and astrometrics increasing deployable probes.
The new bonus, is 5% per level from astrometrics, AND 5% per level, from each of the specialties.

Thus, not a nerf. IF it stacks, it'll even be a large buff. (56.25% increase over the old 50% increase, at all skills level 5)


There is a 50% nerf to Acquisition, Pinpointing and Rangefinding. It's true this gets compensated for through the base skill but it still takes 4.5M SP to max the advanced skills out and you might not have chosen to spend 3.6M skill points to get the final 5% rather than the 10% it was.
Vilnius Zar
SDC Multi Ten
#152 - 2013-04-30 08:27:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Vilnius Zar
Inquisitor Kitchner wrote:

For everyone who doesnt get what Greyscale is saying, he's saying this:

Currently probing is a skill that needs practice. This is good as it means there's a reward for being good.

However the reason you need practice is because the UI is difficult to use, and the game mechanics aren't neccessarily easy to understand, so what you're getting good at is simply arranging probes fast using a crap UI. This is bad.

Your probing skills are currently a "single player" experience because whether you're scanning don an enemy fleet or an anomaly on your own the experience is the same: drop probes, arrange in formation, hit scan, narrow probe area, hit scan etc. With enough practice you can do this every time as there's nothing that ever changes. This is bad.

What Greyscale would LIKE to see is a "multiplayer" system where your scanning is a skill that is required to do against other players. For example, what if there was a module you could activate that scrambled scan probe signals? So you could have a player sitting there D-scanning and activating the module when it's needed? Or what if the other fleet could launch "probe blockers" or something similar, and when matched up to your probing pattern blocked your signal? What if probing an enemy fleet was, in itself, a contest with someone in the other fleet? With you desperately trying to catch them off guard and them trying to desperately stop you from getting a warp in?

THAT idea would be really cool, instead of just making it difficult to probe because it takes ages to launch 7 probes and align them optimally without 3 months of non-stop practice.


- the UI isn't difficult to use, you're moving around 4-8 probes, you resize them and that's it. Not difficult at all, possibly time consuming yes but that's fine. All that needs to happen is to add/move some buttons and it's fine. Non-effort clowns may see this differently

- the mechanics are easy to understand if you have a brain, followed some maths classes and put in a bit of effort to learn the stuff, in fact the mechanics are pretty much "realistic" and make 100% good sense. Non-effort clowns may see this differently

- probing other players is NOT a "single player" thing at all; If you're a GOOD prober (of which there aren't many) you can severely limit the time your target may see the probes on his Dscan, and in many cases you can even grab yourself a fast moving target, be it solo or as a prober for your fleet. Non-effort clowns might see this differently

- "probe blockers" exist, it's called fitting ECCM and running signature radius gang links and as such it's fine. If you want your sniper to be more difficult to probe, drop tank and add ECCM. Sure, the whole probe able/unprobe able thing might need some tweaking but that has nothing to do with making it easier, just tweaking. Non-effort clowns might see this differently



Can you see a pattern there? Zero effort lazy clowns want everything easier and done for them, preferably automated. They want this because they never put in the effort to get GOOD at it (or simply lack higher brain functions). GOOD probers are doing fine be it PVE or PVP. Good probers in your fleet will give you many targets and assist the FC in numerous ways. Thing is ofcourse that there aren't very many good probers, most people are **** at it but that doesn't mean probing should be changed, it just means that 90% of the people/players are **** which is pretty much on par with everything else those 90% are **** at. Nothing more, don't adapt game play towards clown morons.

Probing is fine, here's what needs to happen:

1) move the "recall probes" away from the analyse button
2) add a system/galaxy map switch button to the probing window
3) make the arrows 3D so you can grab them from every angle
4) don't automatically open the map window when you open system map
5) tweaks and UI cleaning

Done.
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#153 - 2013-04-30 08:34:57 UTC
Jack Miton wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
Vilnius Zar wrote:
I honestly don't understand why scanning should be made easier or faster. It's not difficult to do if your IQ is more than 70 and it's already fast enough. UI updated sure, making it easier no.


I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a second - is scanning needed AT ALL in this game? Someone earlier said he's worried about probing getting "dumbed down". How much dumber can it get? It's already pretty dumb, non-challenging, non-entertaining "busy work" that only requires absolutely minimal skill.

Do we really need *manual* D-scan and *manual* probing? Are they challenging? I don't know about you, but they're not challenging to me. I can scan and probe when drunk and half-comatose. Entertaining? Again, not to me. Tedious, boring and repetitive more like. Does it improve the overall gaming experience? How can it? When it is neither challenging nor entertaining?

So, why do we need it at all?


I approve of this sort of question. Every minute that you're spending interacting with the UI is a minute you can't spend interacting with other players. There's generally a minimal amount of UI time that's needed to work with mechanics that are deep enough that they frame interesting and varied player-player interactions, but it's easy to fall into a trap of rewarding "good at using an obtuse UI" and thinking that's "interesting gameplay".

you have to be kidding me...
probing is one of the best working aspects of the game and has been for some time.
there is a MASSIVE difference between a good prober, an average prober and a bad prober. the probing UI is not 'obtuse', if functions very well. (with the exception of the 'recall probes' button, seriously, move that sh*t away from the analyze button...)
probing for ships IS interacting with players.

this is more in response to Jame Jarl Retief than your comment Greyscale but even the idea of removing probing is quite possibly the silliest thing ive heard suggested in YEARS.
hell, you may as well just roll back the entire Apocrypha expansion while youre at it...

i would consider myself to be a very good prober (feel free to try me) and personally i think probing should be made harder, not easier.
i say this as someone who enjoys scanning and does so a LOT.

is the probing system perfect? well no, nothing in EVE is ever going to be 'perfect' but it's pretty damn close.
is probing a good game mechanic that adds immeasurable content to the game? absolutely.


We should always be asking ourselves this sort of question. A lot of the time the answer really is "duh", but sometimes questioning your basic assumptions opens up whole new vistas of options. It's a health habit to get into if you want to really min-max something.

Inquisitor Kitchner wrote:

For everyone who doesnt get what Greyscale is saying, he's saying this:

Currently probing is a skill that needs practice. This is good as it means there's a reward for being good.

However the reason you need practice is because the UI is difficult to use, and the game mechanics aren't neccessarily easy to understand, so what you're getting good at is simply arranging probes fast using a crap UI. This is bad.

Your probing skills are currently a "single player" experience because whether you're scanning don an enemy fleet or an anomaly on your own the experience is the same: drop probes, arrange in formation, hit scan, narrow probe area, hit scan etc. With enough practice you can do this every time as there's nothing that ever changes. This is bad.

What Greyscale would LIKE to see is a "multiplayer" system where your scanning is a skill that is required to do against other players. For example, what if there was a module you could activate that scrambled scan probe signals? So you could have a player sitting there D-scanning and activating the module when it's needed? Or what if the other fleet could launch "probe blockers" or something similar, and when matched up to your probing pattern blocked your signal? What if probing an enemy fleet was, in itself, a contest with someone in the other fleet? With you desperately trying to catch them off guard and them trying to desperately stop you from getting a warp in?

THAT idea would be really cool, instead of just making it difficult to probe because it takes ages to launch 7 probes and align them optimally without 3 months of non-stop practice.


Yes.
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#154 - 2013-04-30 08:46:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Saheed Cha'chris'ra
I agree. Imagine if two fleets meet in some system and the scanning-pilots would battle with some sort of probe-antiprobe mechanism, maybe connected with some minigame, connected with skills you can learn in the game and also with skills you learn by doing it often or being smart about it as well.

Also there should be some randomizations, like some interferences when two probers clash together, making it harder to scan if more probers "join the probing-combat", so mass-probing would be less effective then good quality probing.
(Also: Random stuff like "Electromagnetic storms" in systems like wormholes could dampen the effective radius of the probes, this would be really nice - "FC, i am barely able to track the enemy fleet, this ion storm is giving me a really hard time")

The scanning pilot shouting "FC, i got a warp-in!" would be much more excitig as it is now.
Riot Girl
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
#155 - 2013-04-30 08:52:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Riot Girl
Vilnius Zar wrote:
Zero effort lazy clowns want everything easier and done for them, preferably automated. They want this because they never put in the effort to get GOOD at it (or simply lack higher brain functions). GOOD probers are doing fine be it PVE or PVP.

You know, instead of writing that whole long post, you could have just wrote what you really mean. You're mad because you think you have 'pro skills' and they're becoming obsolete. You can still scan just as easily as you could before, easier, in fact. The fact other players can also scan easily upsets you because you're an elitist. It also upsets you because you can't handle the prospect of more competition. So a simpler summary of your post would be;

Vilnius Zar wrote:
I am angry because I am a selfish elitist and I don't want other people to enjoy the same content as me.

It's a pretty poor display. Perhaps you should focus on adapting your playstyle to accommodate the changes, rather than stubbornly trying to prevent the future from happening.

Oh god.
Saheed Cha'chris'ra
Krautz WH Exploration and Production
#156 - 2013-04-30 08:55:54 UTC
Guys, please do your personal-stuff outside of this thread and try to be objective, focus on the topic please. Every opinion is important, but don't attack others opinions without using your brain in the first place Blink

I understand that long-time-scanners may be mad if the new system is too easy, but that's what this thread is for. Discussing on an objective base.
Thank you.
monkfish2345
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#157 - 2013-04-30 09:42:17 UTC
The 'problem' with all of this is that scanning isn't always an easy thing to get to grips with. The changes they made a few years back were designed to get people exploring, and make it available to newer players, because as people have said repeatedly sci-fi and exploration are very strongly interlinked.

For those that remember the previous scanning mechanics it was horrible to use and was near impossible without spending a decent amount of time training for it.

For what CCP wanted to achieve the changes they made were successful.

A side effect of all of this was that combat scanning became so quick and easy it immediately negated sniper fleets. we are currently at a point where combat scanning is both too easy (in the case of on grid scanning) and too fast.

personally as a fairly simple solution, i'd like to see that probes had to be spaced a minimum amount to work effectively and either for combat probes to be less accurate, or take slightly longer.

A balance needs to be found between the legitimate defense of scanning down a sniper fleet and allowing a sniper fleet the ability to operate without having their targets always able to warp on them in about the same time as it takes them to lock a target.
Inquisitor Kitchner
The Executives
#158 - 2013-04-30 09:48:39 UTC
Garresh wrote:


That's...actually not true. Now I dunno if I can qualify as a "master scanner", as my scan skills in game are not maxed, but I've been scanning for almost 4 years. That entire time, scanning is the only element of eve that has always been a part of my play style. I've ninjad, I've explored lowsec, I've ganked in wormholes, I've lived in wormholes.

There are nuances to scanning, but they have almost nothing to do with the Ui. I don't see any changes to scanning that will negatively impact me.

But scanning is an in depth art, and I will provide concrete examples of why.


OK so firstly, being "good" at scanning doesn't require to have maxxed skills, even if it did I'm not the type of person to call someone out after looking up their skills, your opinion and your content of your post is what counts, not stats or killboards or links to character sheets.

Secondly I think you need to have a long ahrd think about the phrase "in depth art".

ART is an indepth art. I can teach you to draw, in fact I could teach you to draw almost perfectly, but that doesn't necessarily make you a world class artist, it makes you a good at drawing.

The techniques you've described are, by and large, redundant too. The probing system isn't an art, it's maths pure and simple and if you assert otherwise I'm sorry to say but you're plain wrong, and if you haven't noticed, maths isn't an artform, it's maths and it's factual.

With decent skills in a good ship 7 probes in the shape of a cross with 1 in the middle, 1 above the middle and 1 below the middle is the only formation you ever need. Most of the time you can roughly pinpoint everything in the system in one scan in that formation, and then focus your scannning down.

The only bit that requires intuition is figuring out which of the things you have located is the one you want to go to. For PvE purposes this is easy as pie as it tells you. For PvP you need to be making sure you are warping to the right ship, which isn't easy and requires a balance of good probing skills to find the ship quickly, but also good guesswork to figure out what the target is likely to be based on information available to you.

In the examples you actually used twice you mentioned a "cross" which is the same shape each time and the only one you mentioned which I haven't seen before is a "sifting" pattern to see what's in system. I'm amazed you've ever managed to gank anyone if you are using your probes to see what is in system before scanning them instead of using your D-scanner. Maybe it's because your experience is only in wormholes where people don't know you're in system and Lowsec where people are used to having neutrals in local and are more likely to have fools who think they are safe in anomalies.

So I'm sorry, I don't buy your premise and I don't believe your examples are concrete at all.

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." - Niccolo Machiavelli
Inquisitor Kitchner
The Executives
#159 - 2013-04-30 09:49:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Inquisitor Kitchner
Vilnius Zar wrote:


- the UI isn't difficult to use, you're moving around 4-8 probes, you resize them and that's it. Not difficult at all, possibly time consuming yes but that's fine. All that needs to happen is to add/move some buttons and it's fine. Non-effort clowns may see this differently

- the mechanics are easy to understand if you have a brain, followed some maths classes and put in a bit of effort to learn the stuff, in fact the mechanics are pretty much "realistic" and make 100% good sense. Non-effort clowns may see this differently

- probing other players is NOT a "single player" thing at all; If you're a GOOD prober (of which there aren't many) you can severely limit the time your target may see the probes on his Dscan, and in many cases you can even grab yourself a fast moving target, be it solo or as a prober for your fleet. Non-effort clowns might see this differently

- "probe blockers" exist, it's called fitting ECCM and running signature radius gang links and as such it's fine. If you want your sniper to be more difficult to probe, drop tank and add ECCM. Sure, the whole probe able/unprobe able thing might need some tweaking but that has nothing to do with making it easier, just tweaking. Non-effort clowns might see this differently



1) The UI is difficult to use, if you think it isn't then you're really missing the point of an UI. The fact it takes me time to move 7 probes into formation but there's no actual barrier stopping me from doing so does mean it's difficult to use, because it's difficult to make it do what you want. Making things "time consuming" but easy as pie assuming you have enough time and writing that off as good game design to punish the "non-effort clowns" is stupid at best.

2) This point just smacks of arrogance, and I suspect you haven't actually been to any maths classes or understand the forumla, usually when people talk down to "the idiots" they usually aren't very smart (you do that a lot through your post by the way). The mechanics are not "obvious" to a lot of people without looking them up, once someone has explained them or you've watched a tutorial yes they are straight forward (which is why currently it's a "single player" thing as you just learn the mechanics and practice arranging probes quickly).

3) You have totally missed the point of what I was saying, which leads me to believe even if you did pass a maths class, you certainly failed basic english, namely reading. EVEN IF you are using D-scan to narrow down where your opponent is (which you should be) the ACTUAL ACT OF PROBING AFTER YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS STILL THE SAME EXPERIENCE AS IF YOU HAD NEVER DONE IT AT ALL OR IF YOU WERE SCANNING AN ANOMALY.

I typed in caps as you seem to have difficulty comprehending normal written english.

4) Apart from that's not exactly multiplayer is it? That's just a ship fitting. Both the examples I actually used in my post (which you clearly didn't bother to read before mashing your pudgy ham fists onto your keyboard to type out a response to show those "non-effort clowns" who is boss with your maths class) actually required player intervention to stop the other person from scanning you, in one case it was activating a module, in the other it was actively deploying "probe like" things and doing something with them. Again, maybe you should try reading things and maybe understand the term "multiplayer" and the context in which it was used before replying.

Vilnius Zar wrote:

don't adapt game play towards clown morons.
.


Again, in my experience people who call other people stupid often easily reveal their own lack of knowledge or understanding.

If you don't believe me, re-read your own post.

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." - Niccolo Machiavelli
Vilnius Zar
SDC Multi Ten
#160 - 2013-04-30 11:03:15 UTC
Riot Girl wrote:
Vilnius Zar wrote:
Zero effort lazy clowns want everything easier and done for them, preferably automated. They want this because they never put in the effort to get GOOD at it (or simply lack higher brain functions). GOOD probers are doing fine be it PVE or PVP.

You know, instead of writing that whole long post, you could have just wrote what you really mean. You're mad because you think you have 'pro skills' and they're becoming obsolete. You can still scan just as easily as you could before, easier, in fact. The fact other players can also scan easily upsets you because you're an elitist. It also upsets you because you can't handle the prospect of more competition. So a simpler summary of your post would be;

Vilnius Zar wrote:
I am angry because I am a selfish elitist and I don't want other people to enjoy the same content as me.

It's a pretty poor display. Perhaps you should focus on adapting your playstyle to accommodate the changes, rather than stubbornly trying to prevent the future from happening.


Lets give everyone a Nyx and 17 moons for their own personal moon mining, also PVP ist verboten unless the other person agrees. Lets make everythign easy and not taking any sort of effort, practise or experience. It'll be great!