Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There have been a lot of responses to your tirade, so I won't bother with dissecting the fallacity of your assumptions and go straight for the bottom line:

1) Judging by how fiercely you're defending the dscan immunity, was it your idea in the 1st place ?
2) Have you bothered asking the actual players how they feel about the upcoming changes, rather than just smugly announcing it ?
3) Who do you think pays your salary ? Hint - it's us the players, the ones with the active subscription. We're the paying customers and our opinion matters.

Why am I so aggressive about it ? Because it seems that for every single positive change there are at least 2 ridiculously negative ones. Example - more k-k WHs was probably the greatest thing CCP introduced in years, but it just had to be offset with the WH spawn range change and the rabidly spawning frig-sized WHs. These badly thought-out changes do not promote conflict, they just induce more headache when dealnig with trivial things. Maybe it's time to start actually listening to what the players (the ones who are paying your salary, remember ?) are saying, instead of stubbornly defending your ideas, no matter how bad they are.

If there MUST be D-scan immunity, it should be a toggleable mode, like the Tac Destroyers. Turn it on, but take a serious tradeoff, like passive targeting only (massively reducing lock times/tracking) and a massive drop in power levels across the board as your ship diverts power into emissions control to keep from showing up on scans. Certainly, allow the pilot to keep some fire control and activities compared to a cloaked ship, but as everyone else says, it's too much to have D-Scan Immunity AND full combat capability.

Idea: For D-Scan immunity, you have to kill outgoing emissions. Alright, so to trade off for that mode, you lose shields (bright flaming power source! What is that!), active targeting (you have to rely on your target targeting you to track their sensor emissions) or extremely limited targeting (single target), and something like a massively reduced capacitor regen as to keep your powerplant signature low you're running far below rated combat specs. And, you have to power back up in sequence. Maybe you'll get your sensors back up first, then your shields start regenerating alongside your capacitor regen rate increasing.

Make it useful, but tricky to pull off successfully, with timing that requires precise piloting, a bit of luck, and skill in knowing exactly when to fire up again for the coming battle.

Blanket-stating dscan immunity is staying without change negates the purpose of asking us for our opinions, and there have been a LOT of good arguments on both sides. I hope your stating that dscan immunity is staying is not meant to mean that you are not considering ways to better BALANCE this immunity, to address the very real concerns being brought up here.

Because the concerns raised about how out of balance dscan immunity is on these ships are very real and valid. Please do not ignore all that has been stated already.

For me, the issue with dscan immunity is that there is NO drawback to it, no "interesting choices" created by choosing to fit for the bonus or not (because you don't have to fit for it, it's already there). It gives way too much intel and power to the recon pilot without any counterbalance to it.

The recon pilot will always know you are there, will always know when you are probing them, and can quickly adapt without ANY drawbacks or penalty's or RISK at all.

At least a cloaked pilot can't instantly land on you and lock you up - there is always a slight delay - and a cloaked pilot has to be careful about when and where they chose to decloak. These are interesting choices and piloting decisions.

Right now, any ship can be dscan immune by simply fitting a cloak. There are, of course, drawbacks to cloaks, but the CHOICE of using a cloak creates interesting gameplay decisions.

There is a much simpler way to make the recons more interesting: Give them ALL the ability to fit covert cloaks. You achieve the goal of making the recons much more interesting, yet still provide some choices, drawbacks, advantages, and more.

Or at least make dscan immunity a module that can only be fit on these specific recons. At least that way there is a fitting decision for it.

We already have Ishtars Online, do we really want Eve to be Ishtars and Recons Online?

I'd actually like to see the Virus Strength Bonus applied to the entire line of Covert Ships, it's already on the Covert Ops Frigs, and the SoE Faction Ships, adding it to the Covert Recons and Black Ops just makes sense, as being something that is on a line of ships and natural progression :)

I suppose it could be added to the combat recons, however it doesn't make quite as much sense.

A lot of Crying about not being able to see a ship on D-scan. I love the idea from a PVP perspective. From a PVE perspective, it adds a bit more challenge to the game. easily overcome by working as a team and watching the incoming and static WHs in the system.

Can't wait to go hunting :)

Good job CCP... Not going to make everyone happy but they will do as they always do... GET OVER IT!!!

Happy hunting everyone

If there's one thing I trust on matters related to PVP , it's the opinion of someone with a 180-121 kill/loss record.

So does anyone have the numbers on the updated tank for some of the combat recons?

That actually makes a lot of sense..

I've read all 50-odd pages of this mess…


People are getting caught up on this D-Scan issue and it is frankly a silly waste of time. It makes no difference at all in any realistic 0.0 or WH situation, with a couple of twists.

The D-Scan immunity is essentially just a special cloak that doesn't require a high slot and doesn't work if someone puts any real effort into finding you. That's all. The Recon still cannot hurt you unless it is on grid with you.

In the current Eve universe, I enter a system. Per SOP, I immediately check local and then D-scan. I see one pilot in local. I see no ships on D-Scan. That tells me no one is uncloaked within 14.3 AU. That's all. I look at how big the system is, it is more than 14.3 AU. I warp to the other celestials and D-scan, still nothing. The pilot is either in a deep safe or cloaked.

If there is a station, there is the possibility he is docked. I check my map tools and see that as of 30 minutes ago, no one was docked. Okay, he is either in a deep safe or cloaked.

In the future, I just add the assumption that he could be in a Combat Recon ship. It doesn't change the analysis one bit - it is the same as if he is cloaked. Worst case scenario currently - he is cloaked in a T3. If I am not careful, he will fly up close to me, bump me, lock me, and call in a gang to kill me, whether because they are waiting next door or via cyno.

Worst case scenario in the future? I warp to a signature and he is waiting for me and we fight. He could do the same thing now! All he has to do is wait until I am on short-range d-scan and decloak a couple of seconds before I land. By the time I have landed, his five seconds have worn off, he points me, and we fight.

I look him up on zkillboard or eve-kill and see that he has 43 solo kills in a Rook. I wonder what ship he is flying?

I drop my combat probes, because I don't leave home without them. I scan him down. Then I call for my friends, warp to him, bait him, and kill him with my gang. Or his gang comes in too and we have a brawl. Yay!

Or, I look him up on zkillboard or eve-kill and see that he routinely has 14 other pilots on killmails with him and all are blackops jump bridge capable, and he is always in an Arazu. I wonder what ship he is flying?

I bait him again and we have a fight. Yay!

His ship still cannot kill me unless I let him get on grid with me and within range. Which I can avoid by active piloting and paying attention to my surroundings. Or, I can drop combat probes, find him, and either kill him or make him leave.

So, where is the issue?

The much more important part of this change will ultimately be the T2 resists. They will determine whether I can keep that Rook alive in a small gang fight, or whether my Lachesis gets volleyed off the field right away in my fleet.

All these changes to Recon ships as a whole are awesome - CCP has finally removed the pre-nerf that came with them when they were first introduced and given warpy-cloaky ability. They finally have decent capacitors, speed, etc. They can be a really viable component to all scales of combat.

There may even be some interesting changes for PVE from this… Depending on how much DPS and tank I can squeeze out of a pimped Rook, there may be a shakeup to the current PVE meta. Normally, when a roaming gang comes into system, the interceptors D-Scan and look at ranges to anomalies, then call "short" or "long" for the rest of the gang. "Short" if there is anything PVE looking on d-scan and "long" if there is not. The gang shotguns to the appropriate anomalies at ranges. Now, if the Rook can viably run anomalies, I can PVE in that and not be instantly obvious to that initial scout - giving me more time to get safe, get into a PVP fit ship, and fight the risk-averse pussies who come looking for ratters to gank. Don't be offended, I am also one of those people who likes to gank ratters. We all do.

As for changes to individual ships - the Pilgrim should get a range bonus and an amount bonus, just like the Curse. The price it should pay for covert jump bridge capability and warpy-cloaky is that it fits slightly fewer neuts because it fits the covert ops cloak.

I would like to see all Recons get the option to viably go shield or armor based on slot layout. Obviously armor fits will have more utility than shield, but this class should be versatile in this regard.

I'd like to see the Huginn and Rook get enough CPU/PG to fit appropriate weapons, reasonable tank, and prop mod comfortably.

I'd prefer to see the Rapier be the Projectile Ship and the Huginn be the missile ship. I think a missile Huginn is potentially more interesting than a projectile Huginn, especially one that has a hard time fitting 720s.

Still, all in all, good changes.

Please, stop exploring. If this is your attitude, and everyone else is this risk averse, I will make so much more ISK if all the competition stops. I already assume that if there is a character in local with me, he has scanned down the site, gotten inside and cloaked (it's all possible if you know what you are doing). So, I plan accordingly.

If there is no local, I already assume there is someone cloaked in the site and plan accordingly.

This situation is absolutely no different than if the dude is cloaked inside the complex or site, except that at least I can immediately see him on grid with me when I warp in the first ship - and I know that he is currently tanking all the rats in the site. Good luck fitting all these insta-locking tackle Lachesis OMGWTF solo pnwmobiles of doom and tanking a plex at the same time.

Or, after I scan it down, I drop some combat probes really quickly and check for recon ships. Oh my God! How hard was that? I didn't even have to change ships to find him!

Or, I warp at ten, cloaked, in my covert ops to the relic site, and see the Combat Recon sitting there. Then I call in my own friends, they warp to me, and we fry him like Grandma's yard bird.

The only area this potentially affects is it injects some uncertainty for truly "solo" PvPers looking for honorable fights inside of FW medium complexes. I can already tell from looking at a killboard that the asshat in local with me is the kind of dude who rolls with a Falcon or Rook alt. Most of the people crying are concerned about the new risk to their FW income.

If I cannot be bothered to know the pilots in my area, or do basic intel on them, I deserve to get killed by pirate-implanted, drug-boosted "Elite PvPer 1337 WTFpwnzor" and his Falcon/Rook/OGB alts.