Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Lol? A popular strategy isn't a dominant strategy. People choose to not engage generally because the players running PvE have no interest in PvP. That's not to say there aren't other and better strategies if you are good at PvP, just not ones most players in that situation will choose. If you're purely basing it on a strategy being popular then this game is literally riddled with dominant strategies, as there's a popular way of doing almost everything.

Amusingly if you read what that says on that page, if it is dominance, it's actually the other way around. Cosider these two strategies:

A. Run and hide from hostile.
B. Confront aggressor with a stronger force.

These are two viable options for getting out of the situation where you are playing PvE and an hostile attacks. In A, you have to stop what you are doing, and that's that. In B, you remove the hostile and can return to your PvE. So in all situations B is >= A. A never gives a greater payoff than B, but B does give a greater payoff than A. In situations where the hostile flies though and leaves (i.e. not actually attacking) then both are equal. So if there's any dominance, it's weakly against running and hiding.

And once again it's irrelevant, since under a new intel system the action taken would be exactly the same.

In order to maintain balance, that time frame would need to include an equal chance of the cloaked player being successful.

As we are comparing a significantly longer time frame to one hour, it must be noted the reason often given for success would no longer be valid.
That being, the PvE player being deceived into thinking the hostile name is inactive, and the probability of them still being a risk being worth gambling on.

Lucas,

You did not just say it is popular, but that it was popular and any other strategy puts the player at a disadvantage. That pretty much renders it dominant. Here is what you wrote:



And if a new system results in the same behavior--i.e. a dominant strategy, then that new system is no good either.

Dude, you stole my ideas.

It could make roaming other people's space and even your own interesting. Obviously details would need to be worked out. Still, with such a set up people would want to periodically patrol their space, even more so than they do now.

And if hacking allowed the hacker to hide is gang's presence in a given system...set up a gate camp and murder those thinking things are safe. Pretty quick the residents will figure something is up and form a response fleet and there you go....content.

Look, I'm not going to argue about dominant strategies. Obviously you think it is, I disagree, it's irrelevant. Whatever way intel is gathered the strategies will remain the same.

It's never ever ever ever ever going to happen. A PvE player, even on prepare for PvP will have to swap ships to PvP, because PvE and PvP are incompatible and at the very least even if you were in a PvP ship you'd be getting shot by rats giving the aggressor the advantage anyway. The moment you do swap to a PvP ship, the aggressor goes and hides, because the vast majority of the time the hostile wants an easy kill and won't fight someone who is willing and able to fight back. It's exactly as it happens now and changing the source of intel won;t suddenly make it any different. You'll still have risk averse PvPers looking only to kill PvE fit ship and PvE players with no interest in playing cloak games for hours trying to catch a hostile specifically fit to evade PvP fit ships.

I see the dominate troll is at work. Nice to see that it's not only AFking, that doesn't change.

So, what you are saying is this:

PvE players should not expect to PvP. They can be threatened with this, but they should never seek it when flying PvE fit hulls.

Cloaked players, who by popular perception fit between genuine-PvP and PvE fits for combat ability, should be pushed into encounters for which they have no expectations of positive outcome.
IE: They should not encounter PvE ships, but rather PvP hulls.

You can talk about how ill prepared pilots are routinely killed, as much as you like. That is not intentional gameplay, but examples of where at least one side was not expecting or prepared for an encounter, assuming they were even paying attention.

Here is your golden question:
WHY should PvE players, in PvE fit hulls, want to only avoid encounters with hostile players?
(What value is to be had with only evasion, as their response, to use different terms)

You never answered the question, but assumed details which were never involved.

Let's throw out a more detailed scenario, and restate.

Our PvE hero is controlling a ship which is ratting, and thanks to (insert changed mechanic here), they know they can take on a cloaked ship in a fight.
They won't be facing PvP fit hulls, as they have a gate camp catching those.
They won't be dealing with multiple hostiles, as they have intel warnings for that.

So, a lone cloaked ship penetrates to their ratting system.
(Hot dropping is not a threat, in this example, thanks to that changed mechanic from above)

What gameplay value is to be had, by standing their ground and being ready to fight?
What gameplay value is to be had, by evading the potential threat?

These arguments give me a headache...

You all are making assumptions before ever starting your arguments. Here, you're assuming some magical change is going to be implemented making hotdropping a non factor. You also assume people are going to take the time to gate camp every entry system at all hours of the day apparently.

Fact is you're wrong on all counts.
1) True gate camps rarely happen, they happen when people are bored out of their mind and would rather not fly around hunting -or- when they know an incoming gang is coming. Either way, gate camps typically last for a few hours at most leaving plenty of openings. Just use a scout and you can avoid them and come back later.
2) Hotdropping will always be a factor, as such a PvE player is not likely to take their billion+ isk ratting ship to kill the possible cyno which is specifically tanked for the local rats, armed against the local rats, and set up to optimally apply damage to BS and cruiser targets. If they are willing to handle the cloak themselves they will always reship to a PvP fit orthrus or other ship better suited to handle the situation as quickly as possible.


In the end, better gameplay will always be had if the PvE player is able to stand their ground. With current ratting mechanics this cannot be done in PvE hulls against a prepared attacker. Due to the value of these hulls, the pilot must assume at all times that the aggressor is prepared and not alone. Most will avoid a fight altogether, but some will stand and fight, you should be looking forward to that engagement not cursing the world that you didn't get your easy billion isk ship kill.

Advantage always goes to the defender, if they didn't why would anyone ever want to hold space? The best system is one that allows the aggressor to degrade that advantage through active preparation and planning. Then when you catch that billion isk ship it can come with a sense of accomplishment, not just another easy km to add to the pile.

Assumptions are exactly what you are making.
First and foremost, that the existing mechanics will always be present, made clear by your defense of them as things that will always exist.

1) gate camps are the most effective way for minimal defenders to use the leverage of a bottleneck to protect the most area.
These may not need to be in existence continuously, but if your alliance can't be bothered to meet this level of protection, it falls to the individual players to support.

2) Hot dropping. The idea this can't be reigned in, is a joke.
Add in a one minute cooldown between dropping cloak, and use of any cyno, and no cloaking ship can land a hot drop on a target without the target being capable of being warned.

Ultimately, my conditions were intended to confirm the intentions of the design, more than the basic mechanics.
We agree that encounters where the player can stand and fight are interesting, more so than needing to evade the opposing player by comparison.