Player Features and Ideas Discussion

That is both fair and balanced.

It won't make anyone happy, however, because while cloaking has been demonized along these lines, sitting AFK in other areas is both accepted and expected.

Nice vid Tempelman!

My view as well. Taking local now with out anyway to claw back the loss of intel is not a good idea at all.

I doubt its against EULA to put cloaky alt at WH entrance and turn volume full for that client. So when someone jumps trough WH you hear him coming trough. Why would this be bannable or why would you need macros for this?

And i disagree about this intel channels mindset thing whatever. I never trusted in intel channels myself but instead i can gather my own intel like doing scouting and stuff. In my experience intel channels mostly used for PVP.
And the problem with afk cloakies in sov space is that if theres cloaky on local it pretty much means no PVE in that system. Because it would be very stupid. And its not about expecting system to be safe. System either is safe or is not safe. As in has neuts on local or doesnt.

In npc null neuts is not problem for farming anoms because there is no anoms to farm. And were not talking about belt ratting here. Pirate missions way to go in npc null anyways (probes needed cant just warp afk cloaky there)

Also its not problem while running lvl5 missions because you need probes again to be able to actually warp to mission site and you can easily see on them on d-scan. Besides i know many guys farming lvl5 missions solo in caps and they do only "no risk" station systems. You dont need any gangs or logis for that few ratting carrier do just fine.

Then theres FW stuff they run those with 50mil bombers or even 1mil t1 frigs so thats whole another thing.

And to answer last of your statement. I dont support delayed local because it encourages to empty sov space. As in everyone doing PVE there would just move their PVE chars/alts somewhere else like in WH, FW or incursions.

To borrow your words a bit with your mindset it might be hard to realize that there is less stuff to shoot in sov space when all the carebears move out of there.

Mindset this, mindset that, whatever...

But you do realize that post of mine you quoted didnt mention afk cloaky anywhere. I was talking about delayed local and that you cant compare WH to null/low like that because theyre whole different things. And only thing you actually managed to answer was that you dont know what i meant by voice guarding wh with an alt.

At the end i gotta add that i dont even live in sov space currently. However i have done sov space aswell any other space this game has to offer.

Get rid of local.

Yep and this is usually the case WH groups will seed stuff into other WHs they want to take aggressive action in, If you don't notice them coming and going, you don't know until its to late. Kind of like that big brawl that happened recently in WH's no one saw it coming, and then bam a couple hours, rage pings, and batphones later and 280B isk was destroyed.

Cloaks local and cynos are issues that can only be answered all at once. A cloaker being in local effects other players without any risk or attention of itself but only because they know it could have a cyno.

With the exception of cloakers local is perfect intel. Any form of delay in local would effectively remove it as only the first few seconds of a person being there mean much to their would be victims.
My recommendation: Make any entry into system an event visible system wide with distinct effects for gates logins and wormholes to replace the appearance in local. This lets people know something is happening but not what. This vastly increases the necessity of intel channels and for people to pay attention.

The problem with cynos is they have the imposing presence of the unknown capital or black ops fleet at the other end of it. This almost always gives a huge advantage to the attacker as the cyno pilot can see what he is most likely up against while the defender absolutely can't. That fleet being somewhere instantly while the defender must take time to align and warp is not a reasonably fair mechanic.
My recommendation: Make jumping to them take time. While the command to light and jump will be instant there should be some delay before the fleet arrives. This will give a fair chance for the would be victim to deal with the cyno ship before the overwhelming fleet arrives. Note that the fleet will still arrive on target even if the cyno is destroyed so the victim still needs to make its escape. The only debate for this is exactly how long that time should be. Probably distance dependent and not shorter then 10 seconds and not longer then 1 minute.

And lastly cloaks themselves. With the exception of the few seconds in which they enter the system they absolutely defeat every form of intel. With the idea of degrading local in place there must be some limitation on cloaks or they become an absolutely perfect trap.
Two main options for limits: Make cloaks always overheated or drain cap without any possibility of recharge while cloaked. On the overheat option there should be no damage for the first 2-10 minutes of cloaking so as not to interfere with active hunting. The cap option would drain cap at a rate that scales with sig radius and removes all forms of recharge while cloaked and a short but significant time thereafter. Either way would limit the cloak time in a particular system so that there is a fair chance to catch it if it does not move on after a debatable amount of time with some penalty for remaining that way close to the limit. The times I have seen as reasonable range from 40 min to 2 hours. With degrading local on the table it would be more fair to push that to the lower end of the time frame.

I have mentioned lots of things that I would say are more fair as we all know there is no such thing as an absolute fair setup in eve. I believe the current balance of cloak local and cyno vastly favors the attackers in all usual scenarios. The attacker can precisely choose when the fight happens while the defender must be vigilant for that at all times which is why a single character can so easily disrupt any number of players, a fact that is clearly unbalanced. Even a well prepared counter-drop requires that fleet to be ready at the undetermined time of the attackers choosing.

As I have seen it almost every comment has had the buff us nerf them mentality applied to it in reference to who is attacker and defender. I have tried to take both sides here but I do believe that in the current system the attacker has had the unfair advantage. What I have proposed here would be a calibratable system in which the exact numbers would determine who has the advantage. The numbers I have given here are quite a wide range and while I believe a fair solution would fall somewhere in between them it is not I who makes that decision nor do I believe I know best.

Agreed. Intel should be obtainable. Having structures that allow this...fine. However, they should be vulnerable (i.e. you have to expend effort to maintain that intel), and you should have to put these structures up (again more effort).

Not new, has been discussed to death already, and your version uses a ludicrously short delay for an extremely powerful tool.

Disclaimer: following are just raw ideas. Trying to thing outside of the box.

Could there be another way to be "cloaked" too. Like parking your ship on a asteroid and turning most of the systems offline (keeping the oxygen on, for example). In this mode capsuleer/ship can't use overview, d-scan nor local. Also finding ship in this mode would be really hard.

This probably would need a bit different style of d-scan. Something that doesn't identify stuff so easily, but would actually just tell "hey, there is 30km wide signature. it's asteroid, group of frigates or a big ship"

It could also be possible that belt rats would be "sleeping" on the asteroids and when a miner starts to mine that asteroid or one next to it they would wake up.

Maybe you could also just turn off your ship in the middle of space (safe spot) and you would be seen on local nor d-scan. This way cloaked ship could use fuel or something and cloak would be used only when you are operating.

I personally don't see a problem that there is someone in my system, when he/she can't get any free intel that way.