Player Features and Ideas Discussion

WH population is shockingly low. On top of that wormholes are starkly different from nullsec. You can't just navigate to a given wormhole, you can't cyno into a wormhole, hell, you can't even jump certain ships into certain wormholes, and beside their statics you can seal a wormhole up. Should local be removed from null there would be absolutely no reason to choose null PvE over wormhole PvE.

Because if you actually read the context, we're talking about them as gameplay mechanics as they affect the enjoyment of the game. Ignore what benefit they give you and look at the raw mechanic from a gameplay perspective. The existence of a UI element doesn't change how you play the game. Having to be on grid staring at a gate does, and it forces you into just sitting and watching an object in space. So from a context of actually playing the game, a UI element doesn't suck, it simply provides feedback from the client. Should local be replaced it would have to be replaced by another UI element. Replacing it with players who have to sit and watch gates is terribly game design, and quite honestly something CCP wouldn't do.

There is no reason to not watch local while doing PvE. There is no reason to not scuttle to safety when a non-blue enters system. In "PvE systems" why would you not anchor the observation array and use to ensure safe(r) PvE?

Part of the problem is that there is very little that CCP can do to stop player behaviors. For example, coalitions...I've argued they are a natural result of human nature and behavior and that there probably is nothing CCP can do about it...except maybe some really really horrible game mechanics.

Oh and why might I not want to watch a gate? Well, if we tweak Nikk's idea to it having to be on the other side of the in-gate then its a big fat advertisement...high probability somebody is in here doing PvE. If I don't put them out then people might simply pass on by. Especially if NPCs killed is no longer visible in or out of game. Or maybe I'll use them to trick you into thinking I'm in that system doing PvE when in fact there is a gate camp on the other side.

Lucas comparing the populations of null to W-space is about as bad as making simple comparisons between W-space and K-space and removing local by itself. W-space takes a bit more effort to "live there" than in null. You have to able to scan, and moving things in is a bit more of a pain in the posterior (no jump freighters to ferry stuff in). So it isn't clear it is the lack of local that makes the population low or the extra-effort.

But... surely that's the design of the game. It's designed so that if you are active and alert and respond very quickly, evasion is an option. If the mechanics were changed so that wasn't the case, you're effectively removing evasion as a possibility. As it currently stands you have to be very quick and already prepared to evade a good hunter, and the thousands of kills every day shows this is balanced quite well.

lol? Watching local is something you do as part of your normal gameplay, like watching your shields or watching your guns. Removal of local would mean now a player needs to do literally nothing other than watching a game, because he has to be on grid with the gate and so can't be doing it as part of his normal gameplay. He has to log on, watch gate, type in chat if something arrives. That's his gameplay, watching an object in space. And you can't see why that's terrible game design?

Watching a UI element is not a gameplay mechanic. There's no reason to not watch your shield, armour and hull either, yet nobody would advocate the removal of that, since it's there to inform you of things you then act upon. AS for no reason not to scuttle to safety, of course there's reason. If you feel you can take the person that's arriving then you stay on grid, this happens every single day. That's starkly different from adding an active mechanic which there is no reason no to do.

You might find weird uses for it, sure, but for a "normal" player, there would be no reason to opt out of having the intel. It would be one of those things that you just do.

If evasion results in almost sure survival that is bad game design. By the way almost sure is a technical term you may not be familiar with, an event that is almost sure means that that event happens with probability 1 (although it does not mean the counter event, being caught in this case, has probability zero).

And no, I don't want to remove evasion as an option, I just want to tone down the probability of success or make success more dependent on in game actions is probably a better way of putting it.

You are still missing the point. Nothing of what you wrote describes how you are supposed to counter the cloakies system disrupting power by using local.



Again you are complelty missing the point. Mario said that as soon as you undock you should face the risk of loosing something. Since he defends cloaky camping, I felt the need to point out that he seems to think that there should be an exception for that mechanic for cloakies.
How is your claim that cloakies are supposed to counter local a valid response to this? Either you want that everyone takes a risk or not. Or is that a complicated way of saying "I think that countering local is very important, so those who I claim do so, should be excempt from all risk as reward"?

This claim is used all the time here, it always goes like this:
statement: "cloaky campers are broken because of xy"
answer: "lets ignore xy, they cloakies counter local, so they are fine".

Thats a stupid reasoning. If you dont agree they are broken, then try to argue against xy, your answer should be in the direction of "no they are not broken, xy does not apply for ", dont throw distractions. If you agree then simpy do so, then your logical response should be "yes they are broken, so we should do something about that. This might lead to a problem with local, so we should tackle that next".

Then you can start a new discussion why local is a problem and what could be done to fix that. But there is no point in defending an obviously broken mechanic while ignoring all arguments and simply stating they counter another allegedly broken mechanic.



And I am still right. Your anoms give a lot more rewards, which is ok, because your risk is a lot higher. But if k-space risks raises even above w-space risk, then obviously k-space rewards must be raised too.



No I am not. If you would actually read what I write instead of jumping to conclusions you should now that. I am simply for changing a broken mechanic.
If removing afk camping makes ISK generation in 0.0 too easy, something has to be done there to, I said that numerous times. On that point I am just stating the fact that simply removing local would be a HUGE nerf to 0.0 ISK generation which would put it far below the current status quo (which you claim to be balanced), so as an exchange there has to be a strong buff to income, or in security.

How does the AFK cloaked pilot interact with you Marranar? What game mechanic is he using?

Note, the operative word here is interact. Not how is he cloaking, that is trivial, the cloaking device. How is his presence in system known to you?

Yet thousands of players die every single day, so obviously evasion doesn't result in almost sure survival.

Of course you do. You're gripe with intel mechanics is that people can get away. The alternative is that they can't get away. You say it should be up to actions - it is! You don't automatically get away, you have to be prepared to get away and react with seconds. Whatever mechanic gets put in, if evasion is possible, then all players will be able to evade if they do everything perfectly, just like they do now.

Since you want to start nitpicking:
You do not care about stopping a single player from obtaining ISK. You want to stop alliances or corporations. And since there are limited systems under the control of any given alliance/corporation, and you can camp several systems at once, this will reduce the income, it is just not possible to distribute the players on other systems in all cases.

You are seriously claming that cloaky camping has no effect whatsoever on income since you can just move systems? Really? Then why not remove it right away if you claim that is has no influence anyway?



That does not have much to do with your statement. Here I repeat it for you: "As for risk, lets be clear while cloaked that ship/pilot presents zero risk (...) True, he has increased your risk."

If he presents zero risk while cloaked, he cant increase my risk. Quite simple.



High risk? Who said anything about high? His risk can be quite low. If he is not stupid he will never ever risk more then about 50mil, covops are cheap. And his risk to get killed will also be quite low, it can be nearly trivial for him to escape detection. Of course if he does absolutly nothing to avoid detection (being afk) there is no reason for his risk to be lower then mine, if I were afk for hours in space with him in the system.




And the difference seems to be that I want to balance the risk with the effects of the activity, while you want to set them arbitrarily.
Also if you would read my posts carefully, you might noticed that I wrote " depending on the possible gains and effects of the activity". This was on purpose to prevent any nitpicking where you claim that simply destroying value of the enemy is no gain, thats why I included "effect". That effect is quite strong, so you still should face an adequate risk.



Great, so why exactly do you keep defending AFK cloaking when you agree that it should be gone? Shouldnt you join those that argue against it then and simply argue for changes that remove the local advantage while stil keeping 0.0 pve viable?