Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Baltec1
Wrong, my dear friend. Wrong in so many ways.

But thank you for sharing your opinion. It is always greatly appreciated.

Baltec
Thank you for sharing, buddy!

It does not make you less wrong, but I firmly believe everyone should have as many opinions as they care generate.

Sonya
Intrusiveness is always in the eye of the beholder.

I am quite certain ratters would find a slight change to cloaking modules far less intrusive than even the smallest fitting change to their ratting ships.

You can of course argue that ratting players are irrevokably broken and need to be fixed, but attempting that would of course be highly intrusive. As this thread has demonstrated many times.

All I want is for a high volume of ratting ships to be undocked so that the unwary amongst them can be caught by small gang roams. Human error is the premier pvp content provider in null-sec.

Well, I would not mind probing down systems 5 hours and 5 minutes after downtime, and 10 hours and 10 minutes after down time. Because you never know if a afk cloaky camper might miss reloading the charges in his or her cloaking device. Because: Human error is the premier pvp content provider in null-sec.

Afk cloaky campers will just have to bear the risk of making a mistake I suppose. The horror.

Take off posting for a week or two, and things explode.

And since I find myself interested enough in this conversation to want to continue being a part of it... here we go, yeh? I've read back over my posts to make sure of what I had been saying before, and for the most part I still agree with... well, myself. I've taken some time to think over baltec's point and while I agree to afk cloaking and the eventual grinding down of the ratter's awareness being the counter to local, I would still like to see some changes.

Changes which include local. As I mentioned before, a simple change for local that instead of showing names and "set to red/blue", instead showing a player in system counter that updates every 2-10 minutes, based on stargate activations to and from, would remove most of that intel and put what remains in-game in an in-character fluff avenue. Hotdrops to a cyno that bypass a gate would not up the counter so players would absolutely need to pay attention to d-scan and probes. For an intel network to remain accurate, there would need to be players tending to the gates watching incoming/outgoing traffic.

It would require active work. All of which I am quite okay with. Even if an alliance/corp just needed to tend the outermost gates, they'd still have advanced warning and time to form up without having system by system free tracking. Unless they invested time, players and resources into keeping their people aware and by extension safe.

Then, I'd like to see counterplay for finding cloakers added. Make it a specialized hull, or special high-cost probing equipment. Make it a high-skill process, where a cloaker that is paying attention has a reasonable chance of getting away the same as a ratter that is likewise paying attention to dscan.

That way with the right investment, players can reasonably secure their systems short term and well-run intel networks can keep an eye on things, but intelligent roamers/hunters have ways in. It promotes skilled play on both sides, I think, same as on the individual level with the cloaker and local inhabitant of the system they're searching through.

How's that? Feel free to pick through, correct me where I'm wrong. >_> I'm trying to compile a suggestion that hits all the checkmarks here for both sides of the argument.

Got it. Just one more nerf and everything will be balanced.

Crazy, asking people to actually use existing in-game mechanics to defend themselves. I see your point now. Earning isk in null should be 100% risk free!

Nerf local everywhere, leave cloaks as is... add counter play. It would still not be a wormhole because of entry mechanics, but players would be directly responsible for their own awareness and their safety. It'd be a net gain on most fronts, with the only real losses being to AFKers and people who are lazy.

>.> Right?

Limi
Changing cloaks the way I suggest adds counter-play to afk cloaky camping specifically and exclusively (it provides only counter play to afk cloaky camping). This through human error. If a player remains afk too long, his or her cloaked ship becomes vulnerable to being probbed down.

A whole cascade of changes are in my opinion simply too complex and intrusive an approach to use to adress issues pertaining to afk cloaky camping.

Changes to local might be warranted on its own merits, but that is a bit outside the scope of this thread (as I alluded to earlier when comparing it to changing null-secs security status to 0.5 to resolve issues pertaining to afk cloaky camping).

Sonya.
Yes, I have heard that opinion expressed numerous times now. I disagree.

So you mean 0?

I mean, there's a reason people feel safe enough to rat in supers and that's because it's literally impossible to get caught.

Ratpack
Human error is the premier content provider in null-sec. Which in turn is a function of volume. Catching 3% of a large number of ratters gives more kills than catching 3% of a small number of ratters.

Afk-cloaky campers rooster-block small gang roams, buddy. Ships docked up are not vulnerable to human error.

Lima
Counter-play starts the moment you undock and launch probes. It does not depend on if the cloaky ship has been uncloaked or not. You cannot interact with anyone afk anyway.

What I actually expect will happen is that there will be less afk cloaky campers as people cannot leave the pc puttering away while they are at school, or at the pub. For those that remain, counter play is an option. Just checking to see if they can be caught is a lot more satisfactory than not being able to do anything.

There is also the counter-counter play. An afk cloaky camper pretends to be afk, lets himself/herself get probbed down, then lights the cyno as ships are warping in.

Can we put it this way: Adding charges to cloaks is worthwhile. It may work out the way I think. There may be the need for additional tweaks. But its a start that is realistic to introduce relatively soon without creating cascade effects.

I do understand where you are coming from. I am just looking at the least intrusive change I can imagine that is likely to give a positive content creating outcome.

Yes, that would be the least invasive solution. Let the players adapt to the situation, and those that do not adapt or refuse to adapt...well that is their problem. Seems most fitting with the game.

Of course, I like the hints we've been getting from CCP on this front. Remove local, release the OA, give fitting options for the type of intel one can gather, more stuff to shoot, etc. Hopefully it will be done well/can be iterated on and improve game play.

Call me an optimist.