Player Features and Ideas Discussion

That argument only works if you accept local is broken. It isnt.

As has been discussed, even if it was removed this moment, it would have to be replaced with at least a system that gave an accurate count of ships in system. This would result in the exact same behavior we have now. Those coming in would announce themselves, those leaving would announce that, and the end result would probably be an even more scrutinized grasp of who is in system than local provides now with only an eye needed on the system population count.

So long as entire professions are built around ships that must rely on evasion to have a chance at survival then some form of local or its equivalent must exist or it becomes impossible to secure K-space to any degree at all. That is fine for shooters where the only consequence is reputation and stats, but EVE is all about meaningful consequences, so legitimate defensive tactics must be available and viable. The rules of k-space require something like local to work at all, except where CONCORD does the securing for you.

Cloaks are broken because any ship in open space should be huntable. Docked or in a POS isnt in open space, yet a cloaked ship is safer than one in a POS.

Cloaks do not balance local. Local is balanced on its own, only player effort makes it powerful, both in proactively clearing systems of hostiles and in getting clear so that the combat wings can do that.

these arguments only work if u assume cloaks are broken and dnt balance local which they arent and they do

isnt the only reason cloakys are feared in 0.0 sapce that the could use a cyno and hotdrop you
i dont fear a little cloaky but the fleet behind them in wh space cloakys arent that much of a thread
since they cant light a cyno and hotdrop you

most people in this post dont understand the huge difference betwen wh and 0.0 space
the cloaky in itself isnt broken the ability to light a cyno is broken

I would reply that this is a sub-aspect of the issue, left in the game because without it the warning provided by local would defeat any significant number of ships trying to catch a non consensual target.

To quote myself from the past:
Hot Dropping: Bridging is intended to bypass reinforced blockades and travel time. Here, it has been fine tuned to avoid advertising the presence of a fleet to the free intel tool as well by delaying the easily recognizable population spike till the last possible moment. The intention is to deny the warning local provides, although it still reports the presence of the cyno boat enough to be associated with AFK Cloaking instead.
Quite simply, while PvE pilots would never resume regular activities with a hostile fleet present, they are sometimes willing to gamble over whether a cloaked vessel represents that level of threat at a given time.

There is no effort in seeing one person jumping in local and warping to safety.

AFK cloaking is a manifestation of the broken nature of cloaks that also exploits the efforts of your enemy in clearing space. It is not a counter to local, it's just broken.

If you wanted to hire thousands of newbies to flood through gates and muck around in enemy space that would be countering local. It's exactly what makes local in high sec useless. Exploiting broken cloak mechanics to passively eliminate the efforts of hundreds is just broken.

You wind up with 2 possibilities here.

First, the only ships capable of escaping detection are rare, expensive and inoffensive. So long as entire ship lines are created that rely on evasion for defense then they must have the capability to actually rely on that defense. That pilot doing everything properly should be assured that he can indeed evade, or else that ship and any like it are useless.

Second, all consequences to losing your ship are removed from the game. If choices are to be meaningful, there must be a chance for success. So long as ships are required to evade or die with no realistic middle ground, evasion must remain not only viable, but probable---just short of outright assured.

Cloak fitted ships die all the time, so I don't understand how you can say there is no counter

The very concept of ship lines that rely on evasion for defense is a distinct problem.

It is one thing to choose and fit a ship with this expectation. I believe that is a choice, which deserves whatever consequences follow.
It is quite another to take an entire line, and condemn it to perpetual paranoia that a hostile anything could arrive, and destroy it without hope of survival, unless they avoided all possible contact.

I believe ships should not be required to evade by design.

Between local and cloaking, we are running into entirely predictable stalemates as a result of this.

and at the same time raids need a chance of success. They are just as ineffective as counter infiltration because of local (some attempts made by cloakers are foiled, some bears still die to cloakers). it should be subject to counter tactics like everything else.

no, bears dnt owe anyone kills. and no one owes bears risk free monies for them and their alliance either.

im trying to get u to see that cloaking and local are opposties, ying and yang. for every argument against cloaking there is a reflecting argument against local. they are both undesirable in their current state, and both counter eachother.

the bear can see any incoming attack because of local. so the cloaker goes afk and uses local against the bear. The result is that the bear cannot rat without risking his stuff, but at the same time he can take steps to bait the cloaker.