Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This, is a nerf. You are taking a role a single ship could do before and making it a job where 2 people are needed and you have yet to address the issue of local which is unbalanced and gives a clear advantage the target already in system. This is not a slight change it is a change that requires 100% more pilots and increases the risk and decreases the efficacy of BLOPs work.

It is an unmitigated risk and for no good reason.

So is local as an intel source, lets remove that too.

Always trying to connect local to the issue of the day, I see. People hotdrop because it is an easy way to get the fleet to any surrounding system in an instant. The hunters go out while the fleet remains safe and hidden. One hunter catches a ship and the other hunters pause hunting in their systems while the cyno goes up and the entire fleet drops the ship that was caught with numbers which overwhelm the opposition. It has little to do with local, except in the attempt to bait, but that can just as easily be done through the stargate as well.


The process of jumping through the cyno off-grid and then warping to the target is no slower than jumping through a stargate and warping to the target. I see that you are really intent on catching pve ships so how about this tactical suggestion, Camp a cloaky interdictor until you find someone who decides to ignore the threat and rat or mine in the SAME system, and then warp on top of him and pop a bubble. Even if my proposal goes through, your gang will easily be able to come through the gate or cyno and catch him. My proposal would prevent simultaneous activation of cyno and point, but says nothing about the bubble. All HICs are open to this tactic as well.
And .. I still refuse to return the personal attacks. :) But I hope that you enjoying yourself, because I could careless about the mudslinging.


Hey, you kept mentioning the Arazu over and over again like you had a special fondness for it. My bad, I guess. Anyhow, you mentioned several tactical shifts and issues with those shifts, so it is clear that you can adequately consider and adapt to my proposal if you had to. You would have no more or less advantage than before the change, because before you would have no targets and after you would have as hard a time catching the targets as with jumping through the gate, with my no point and cyno proposal. Cov cynos do not appear on overview or dscan, FYI. The idea of bubbles is that the players first notice the bubbles as they are sucked into them and then cry, Oh crap! If they notice the bubble before then, you are doing it wrong. You covered the use of a second disrupting player fairly well, so I have little to add there.

Cynos are the only reason that anyone really cares about the afk cloaky. Untouchable cynos threats floating cloaked and unhuntable in space. If there were no cynos, we could easily adapt our tactics to handle solo frigates.


I am sensing a very strong sense of entitlement to killing pve ships from you. Whatever you are sensing from me, it is hard to imagine it comparing to the level of entitlement coming from advocates of your position.

Cynos are not untouchable. You can shoot the ship lighting one quite easily. And people die to AFK cloakers who don't have cynos. Look over Mark Hadden's killboard. He managed to get lots of decent kills solo in a bomber (e.g. February 2011).

I am not advocating any sense of entitlement in terms of killing PvE ships...what I advocate is that there is a chance to kill these ships. There is s difference between advocating for ensuring null maintains an acceptable level of risk, and trying to remove risk. The latter is your position and it is based on these unsupported claims that cynos are so OP there is no way to counter them.

A frigate is not entitled to a chance to kill a battleship with a cyno blob. Any one who assumes that there is not a blob on the other side of the cyno is either a fool or flying a ship plus clone worth less than the cost of the stealth bomber which tackles him. The instant you stack the odds in favor of the SOLO frigate catching the pve ship is the instant that no one risks more than the cost of the stealth bomber in space where they may be caught, because if there is a cyno, under normal circumstances, the best you will be able to do is kill the stealth bomber before you die. All of the more expensive ships will be moved to less risky areas.

Underlined for clarity, above.
Is this a joke?

First, the frigate is not doing the killing. It's involvement is nothing more than a counter, to the fact that the PvE battleship is otherwise completely able to avoid the ships needed to threaten this asset.
Sure, they gate hop a few systems, and get reported by anyone capable of noticing multiple ships suddenly appearing in local, AKA anyone online in those systems.

Since the assumption that a pilot is not foolish enough to operate without watching local, and can be expected to have intel channels able to report the marching band coming to get him as well, anything short of a cyno has dramatically reduced chance of successful hostile intervention.

The group of ships BEHIND the cyno are the ones with a right to the fight, and possible kill.
Your hypothetical frigate is just the messenger delivering an invitation.

Reality check.

People seem to like saying we have "non-consensual" PvP in null sec.
It could even be described as a popular expression.

But to be perfectly clear, NON-CONSENSUAL means the losing side has NO choice in the matter.
They cannot get away, leave, or otherwise prevent their dying horribly in a fire here, should they lose their fight.

A POS cannot choose to leave, in response to an unexpected presence. Neither can an outpost.
Both can be attacked.

A ship in the right circumstances, where the pilot has the choice of fittings and tactics capable of avoiding PvP, is only threatened by consensual PvP, because it can avoid it.
If they choose to go undock a carrier to rat in, that was their choice. They could have chosen a ship far more capable of avoiding combat while at the same time earning ISK.
If they got caught because of the choice to use a slower ship, then it was that choice that cost them the ship.

This debate is focused on local for one simple reason:
It eliminates human error and failures in knowing the presence of a hostile. You cannot fool anyone into thinking no hostiles are present in the system.
The only tactic which is left, is the very one depending on human error. That's what competition is about, one side making a better effort or fewer mistakes. Sometimes making a better effort simply means being more careful about avoiding mistakes.
LOCAL never makes a mistake.

If your sov holding gives you access to a POS or outpost, which your opponents cannot use, THAT is your big advantage.
Being told for free when to use it is abusing a mechanic to do your intel gathering for you.

We accept the game as balanced. Being able to look at local, and use it's warning as leverage to be able to avoid a fight is an accepted aspect.
By the same perception of existing balance, we look at the ability of a cloaked ship to remain forever undetectable as also being an accepted aspect.

If you want to change only one side of this, other players not wanting or needing such changes have a right to point out if it changes the balance.
They have the right to point out why they think this, and if feeling helpful, can even suggest what could give that change if grouped with other changes, to KEEP the balance.

It is easy to repeat how a one sided change would be nice. But it opens the door and gives license to repeating a reason why it will cause issues.

Having people complain about how they want an easier life is something that has always existed. But it only makes sense if it is sustainable, and not forcing other people to shoulder their burden to compensate.

Balance must be respected.

Your wording implied the frigate should not have a chance to kill the battleship.

Being entitled means to have the right to do something, a type of permission, if you will.
Being entitled to have a chance, is almost like saying they have permission to play a game.

A frigate is not entitled to a chance to kill a battleship with a cyno blob.

So, either the battleship is outside the game, or the frigate is not allowed to play....
Your wording is suspect, as I have trouble accepting you mean to say the frigate should have NO chance to fight the battleship.

I quite agree.

I believe the quantity and quality of effort on both sides of a conflict should be the determining factors.

No change required.