Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Normally I'd say no, but honestly... that's not a horrible idea.

It tells you SoAndSoTheErebusPilot is Online, time to go run a Locator Agent to get their exact location.



Tell me, if the last time I saw SoAndSoTheErebusPilot online they were in, for example, an Erebus and their killboard doesn't show a recent Erebus loss, is it not reasonable to conclude that they are still in said Erebus?

I'll grant you, this may change when Citadels are released. However, merely knowing that your opponent is logging in Super capable pilots is still a huge piece of intel that the game client is just handing out to players without them needing to do any more than simply add a contact to their watchlist.

If you want intel about a corp or alliances supercapital ship movements, get a spy alt in that alliance.


edit: I'd very much like to hear you ideas on why it should be kept as is, beyond simply "necessary evil for the rest of us"?

I still don't see why you're so in favour of keeping the current mechanic. Nerfing the watchlist in this way would actually help you and hinder gankers.

You can watchlist the gankers to know when they're online, they can also watchlist you to know when you're online.

If NEITHER of you is alerted to exactly when the other is online, surely that's better for you than the current mechanic? You can still see when they're active by using the public killboards when planning a route. They have to go and run locator agents (costs time and ISK) with no guarantee that you're actually online when they run it.

HA! you assume gankers explicitly target me alone. No, gankers will gank anyone in range. I don't care if they watch me, they still go through the same patrols in each system and attack people regardless.

You can run a locator either way. Sure i could log out, but i wouldn't know that a locator agent is being used to find me in the first place. Likewise you can run a search for a titan pilot who just logged in and have him log out moments before the search is done. This isn't even taking into consideration what you will do with the intel from the agent. Fly out there with a gang and probe the pilot? sounds like a problem for superpilot.

If you want to nerf watchlists, then i demand third party sites be denied Kill report data without gaining consent of both target and aggressor.

You, what?

You still haven't given me a single decent reason why the current mechanic should stay beyond that you find it useful to avoid gankers.

And I should point out that the Killboards aren't 'instant intel', it usually takes a couple of minutes, sometimes 15 minutes or more, for the boards to populate with recent destruction.

Which is very much unlike the current watchlist, when you know the instant your 'target' comes online or logs out and regardless if they've done anything that will be reported elsewhere (eg: killboards).

I'm beginning to see you were very serious when you wrote your forum signature.

actually, iirc, the new CREST system is automatic. No need to input API keys for killboards (I could be wrong, but i'm fairly sure....)

Clearly, you've never been involved with large scale, multiple fleet, capital and supercapital brawls.

Simply knowing that your opponent is logging in supercaps is a HUGE piece of intel for a bloc level FC. I really can't stress enough just how powerful that piece of intel is.

I was involved in a carrier/dread operation in Lowsec a while back. We successfully baited our opposition into dropping some expensive stuff on us, which we then countered with our own (well, not MY own, I can't fly anything much bigger than a frigate)

After a solid 10'ish minutes of gud'fighting when we started to hold the upper hand, our FC starts yelling at us all to RUN and GTFO. His watchlist had just gone beserk with our enemies supercaps logging on.

Sure enough, less than a minute later, we had three Nyxs, three Aeons and two Erebus drop onfield (and my watchlist grew by eight).

Now, we had no spai in that alliance, yet we knew INSTANTLY when their biggest, most expensive and shiny toys came out to play.

That's Over-Powered.

Because you can't DOCK SUPERS (yet(tm))

They are a Space Coffin. Once you enter it, you can't leave it unless you park it at a POS (where it is vulnerable to being bumped out of the shields and stolen).

Chances are very, very high that if SoAndSoTheErebusPilot was in an Erebus last time they logged in, they'll still be in that Erebus next time they log in.

Or do you not understand this very simple concept?



Because it's a Conflict Inhibitor. That kind of knowledge can, and does, cause FCs to NOT take a fight if they're genuinely worried about supers raining on their parade.

And FYI: Supers don't only log in for combat. In fact, they very rarely log in for combat. Most times, it's either to re-deploy them elsewhere or, in the case of Titans, to act as a taxi-service for us poor schmucks that don't have one of our own.

We're talking about ISK100,000,000,000 coalition level assets here, not some ISK40,000,000 mining barge in Niballe.

I understand you see no reason to change the current mechanic, I submit you haven't thought it through very far.

Perhaps I'll watchlist YOU and show you exactly what I mean when I say that the watchlist mechanic is overpowered.

In fact, I think I will. Make sure your mining barges are fully insured!

I just found it myself.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5744697


So? you can have alts who are equally trained to pilot the ship and have the WL'd pilot do something else.


it didn't stop you from picking the fight in the first place. If your FC knew the targets had supers and was picking a fight, then you should know they'd be coming to drop ships on your hull. In fact, he did. He saved your hides by making you bounce out. it didn't prevent the conflict, merely knew when the outcome was grim and decided to cut potential losses and run.

If the watchlist is so inconsequential to you, you won't mind if we get rid of it. If it means so much to you that you'll defend it, that's proof of it's need to be removed.

Quite frankly we need to do more than just remove the watchlist. The intel systems in this game are outdated and need overhauled. I happened to write upon this subject quite thoroughly, see sig for details.