Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Then give them the ability to actually defend themselves, instead of just running from other players.


And there, you stick to the very essence of the problem, as if it were something sacred that had to be preserved at all costs.

PvE ships needing to evade, that is the flaw which makes this a frustrating mess for everyone.

Evasion as a tactic, represents a loss of player created content on all sides.
It limits interaction to such minimal amounts, that many would not qualify it as interaction at all.

I will give you that PvE ships deserve a balanced chance to survive, taking into consideration their purpose and resources.

As a PvE player, I most certainly don't want my game to be trivialized. But aside from resource gathering, be it from rocks or rats, my PvE play is already marginalized to the point of being an obstacle to my enjoyment, rather than a valued source of it.

If another player shows up, I have to run.
I can't expect other players to babysit my defenseless exhumer, and fitting for meaningful defense makes high sec activity more profitable by comparison.

This tells me the game design, by outsourcing defense in PvE play, has failed to align with the emergent play that grew from it.
Noone wants the job of defense, the rewards don't support group activity which includes PvP defenders, and the PvE ships are not seen as viable defenders on their own.

They can point at cloaking all they like, but it remains a symptom of the problem, not the root cause.

If PvE ships could defend themselves in a fight, cloaked ships would either engage and resolve, or simply leave. Their fear exists only so long as they are viewed as overpowering.

As a PvE player, I want that ability to defend.

Sure, the old methods of sneaking around will still work. However, it means you'll have to work to keep your intel system, just as you do with Sov, and you'll have to take risks.



Okay, so if 1 is true, and I'm not sure it is, but lets just accept that it is. Then having intel tied to local is a problem. This is pretty much indisputable since it means intel cannot be compromised. Compromising intel can drive game content. I was just reading about where during a fight an FC was given bad intel--i.e. somebody made a mistake while relaying the information to the FC. As a result they lost all of their logistics and a good chunk of proteii. If you can mess up people's intel directly then this sort of thing can happen more frequently, which is a good thing.

As for 2 you are merely making an assumption. Further, even if that is the intent of the Devs it should not be an invulnerable advantage. Please consider that point carefully Lucas. I'm not saying having an advantage is necessarily bad, but having an invulnerable advantage is bad.



Wrong. You can move back to NS, but my and my alliance will anchor OAs and just go on about our business. I'd only go back to HS if local was nuked and there was no meaningful way to gather intel regarding our space.



Simple systems are easy to build. I've already noted that. But if you are going to filter intel data down by say, region or constellation...why not just allow the intel system to be compartmentalized ahead of time and allow for granting access rights or something like that. No need to hand out the keys to the kingdom to everyone in the Imperium.



POS passwords for things like JBs and staging towers are always going to be a problem because they have to be given out to so many players. As the number of players increase, inadvertent leaking of passwords increases as well. Similarly with plans for deployments and other activities that get relayed down to the line members. Once line members are told, the cat is out of the bag, spies or not. However, I bet things like passwords for POS with CSAAs, titans, etc. (if they even have passwords) are not so widely known and that information is on a need to know basis. I am sure other things are kept as secret as possible.

With all due respect Lucas, but WTFAYTA? I have not hinted at changing the way intel works will cause big groups to collapse. In fact, you have simply assumed the following:

1. We are big, therefore we can do everything better.
2. Small groups can’t do anything better because they aren’t big (see 1 above).

Sometimes being a big group works well. Sometimes it does not. What I find intriguing about the Imperium is that they are big group that seems to work well together. If there are big disagreements and drama fests they are well hidden…so well hidden I think it is unlikely there are much in the way of big disagreements that lead to drama fests.

And will changing intel be a big boon to cov-ops and ships that can fit a cov-ops cloak? Maybe. I think, depending on how the OA works, it might give them an extra role, but I’m not sure it is going to make killing ratters easier…not without some work…which kind of negates the “easier” part.

You are spending a lot of time responding to strawmen.

What? If the OA, works very much like local currently does, maybe even better in some ways, why wouldn't Nikk, or Mike be able to evade a hostile coming in their direction?

I don't get this. People argue as if removing local means zero intel, when it seems pretty obvious that if CCP ever did remove local they'd provide an alternate mechanic for obtaining intel.

Again, a complete straw man argument.

Actually, I have always said that if Local goes away it will be replaced by something that fills the exact same function. That's just fuel on the fire of Local isn't a problem, it's a necessity. When all the "elite" pvp guys figure out that they got exactly what they wanted and it made zero difference we will be able to just change the title of some of these threads and continue on as we are doing now.

OA may actually serve the purpose of condensing populations. People will only operate where the OA's are, and as soon as they aren't operational people will stop operating until they are again. Count on it. No one is going to want to directly defend the PvE pilots anymore than they do now, so they will just have to remain preemptively evasive, which means flying in clear systems. Again, no change other than location for some.

It won't even create new conflict. The OA deep in blue territory aren't going to be any more vulnerable than PvE players deep in blue territory. Taking them down won't be possible while cloaked, and if the things don't scream bloody murder when attacked then local suddenly clearing when it goes down will be a clue--it's not like people won't just park an alt somewhere so they can see when Local goes down. All that did was move one of the alts sitting in a cloak watching a gate to the system where the PvE is going on. The only conflict these will see is on the borders like all the other structures do now--- that's just the nature of that level of play.

Cloaks and PvE are an individual issue. It's solutions need to be on an individual level.

Yeah. What do you think the ratio of whiny PvE pilots in these threads are compared to the whiny PvP guys carping about local? PvE pilots are pretty much in the minority on the forums, unlike in game.

So if OA make hunting cloaks possible, yet the situation with local does not meaningfully change, even if only for the privileged few, and the AFK camps dry up due to a few terminal cases of Ka-Boom, who do you think will be turning up the volume on their whine-o-matics? Yeah. Probably not the PvE guys.

You touch a subject I've been wondering about myself for quite some time now. I do my PvE in PvP ships, because people can and will try to attack me (they are welcome to try). My friends in highsec, however, are earning tons and tons of ISK through factional warfare plexing, incursions; some even stick to mining and are none the poorer for it.

The real money in nullsec is in the moons, not in the anomalies or sites you can run, nor in the ores. And the moon goo does not end up in the player's wallet but somewhere up the chain.

I sense there is an issue on the risk vs. reward scale when highsec pays better than nullsec.

Not to mention I can understand rats intended against new players are super-duper-easy; yet against veterans I don't see why they can't behave in a more PvP-like fashion. (including getting rid of ridiculous cheats such as scram/EWAR immunity, infinite lock range, no smartbombs, no capacitor, no propmod ... PvE hasn't evolved since the beta release /me thinks).

Now for the real on-topic question: if PvE were more similar to PvP and could be run using PvP ships, and if this were to pay substantially more as risk goes up ... do you think people would run these sites as a team, or would they still insist on building a gimped fit to run them alone and cash in the maximum for themselves?

I'm not sure the whole PvP vs PvE debate is a matter of ships. Marauders, HACs, Ishtars, are MORE than capable ships. The difference is in the mindset of the player: PvE guy does not want to play with others. If people would band together and run sites together, they'd have more fun, better fits, run sites faster, whine less ... AH! But they'd have to share the profits! That is something PvE guy is simply not willing to do.

You could increase the income in nullsec and PvE guys would still lament about how "incapable" his ship is, and some other PvE guy will start whining about how unfair it is nullbear gets the bird and how broken highsec is.

Nope ... I'm not convinced the vessels are to blame. Or the profits for that matter. It's the mindset of the solo guy afraid of an encounter, claiming he's unable to defend himself. Against 1 cruiser, no less. When I first pitched in on this thread I too made this mistake, but many many posts later I have come to realize the AFK Cloaking issues are really limited to 1 guy in a PvE ship. The argument hinges on a desire to evict this cloaker from their system, but solo PvE guy does NOT intend to do so in the same ship he's ratting in. He wants to dock and reship; at which point we're no longer discussing the abilities of said PvE ship in the first place.

AFK Cloaking is as much a balanced "semi-griefing" tactic as freighter ganking: 1 guy alone who gets his ass handed by superior numbers, and therefore believes the rules favour the ganker. But consider that, without AFK Cloaking, this one guy would rake in millions upon millions with the same amount of risk he'd have in highsec: none.

WEll no, It's not indisputable. You want local intel to be able to be compromised, I don;t believe it would be good for he game over all. I think it would drive more people to seek refuge in highsec and some people out of the game. With the gam in it's current state a big thing is driving player retention. I don;t think nuking locla would help with that at all. I know of nobody that is on the fence about EVE saying "well if only they didn;t have intel on who was in system with you, I'd sign up", yet I know plenty of people who would quit or downsize if they removed it.

The mechanic is invulnerable, the ability to see it in advance is not. Kick people out of their system and the local intel is now yours.

You might, but a lot of people wouldn't. Again, this comes down to taste, you want to live without local, others don't. What confuses me is why you don;t just go live in a wormhole if that's what you want. Why do you have to try to force your gameplay styles on other people?

A half decent system would show you what's relevant to you right now, but you can access whatever you need. Compartmentalising is fine, and can easily be done with a roles system like we have in the Imperium, but for the most part is unneeded. If you treat all intel as public it's much safer than treating it as private and hoping nobody has leaked it.

All of that information can be found with relative ease. It's not published like some information but it's widely known.

I think if they made ratting so you needed to treat it like PvP and so fit a PvP capable ship, it would go a long way to bridging the gap between PvP and PvE and give people another choice instead of evasion.

It's noty though, is it? Try logging on your character in the morning, then going somewhere work with noaccess to a PC and try to gank a freighter. You can't do it. Yet AFK cloaking still works. My entire issue with AFK cloaking is that you can impact people in the game directly without being at your PC, which I think is bad.

And without AFK cloaking very little would change in the way of people making millions to be honest. The best ways to make isk aren't in nullsec, they are in highsec. Blitzing level 4s makes considerably more isk than nullsec as do incursions. Highsec trading is another top money maker. Ratting and mining in nullsec is a prime example of crippling yourself for lower pay. More risk, less reward.