EVE General Discussion

I am happy to hear that there is a technical reason for this rather than it being purposeful gameplay design.

The other argument besides technical reasons seems to be that the UI should be nerfed in this game so as to truly separate the wheat from the chaff. But they never explained 'why stop there?' Why only nerf the UI related to dscan, but nothing else?

What are you people.... pussies? I say let's truly separate the real men with hair on their chests from the boys in this game. For starters, nerf the local chat and the overview. At a minimum, add refresh buttons to them. But that's just a start, and a pussy start at that. Any self-respecting video gamer could spam-click three buttons in his sleep. I say we can do better. Much better.

For instance, what's with the propulsion in this game being so pussy automated? So care-bearish? I say nerf it so we can find out who the real men are in this game. You want your ship to move? Add a 'thrust' button to the UI. You mash it once and you get a millisecond of thrust. That means mashing it even once a second will have you moving at a ridiculous snail's pace. A real man should be able to quiver his hand and finger to mash the button at maybe 100 times a second, which will afford him a normal speed. NOW we're getting somewhere. NOW we're starting to separate some wheat from the pussy chaff. But we can do better. Much better.

For instance, what's with the main 'world view' in this game being so pussified? It's care-bearish to the extreme. Here's a much better idea. Get rid of it. We don't want pretty, carebear graphics - it's all for pussies, and it does nothing to separate the real men with hairy chests from the boys. I say replace all the graphics on the 'world view' screen with nothing but binary, scrolling upwards in real-time. What we want is just like that scene in The Matrix where the guy says "I don't even see the code anymore. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead, etc." Well, that's what the non-carebear real men in this game should be able to do - decode the matrix on the fly. What I want to hear from real men is "I don't even see the code anymore. All I see is Raven, Bhaalgorn, etc."

And that's just off the top of my head. I mean come on! There's just SOOOO much more work that needs to be done in this area. Let's come up with a list of ideas in addition to the ones I proposed, and propose them in whatever appropriate area of the forums.

You don't understand, what he (and someone earlier posting "yes, please do this") means is about how 5 seconds isn't fast enough when it really matters, in that specific case you need to use it MUCH more often which if it would be automated would create even more strain on the server. So if automated it would make everyone Dscan all the time which would be a problem for the server to begin with and in times you actually need it the 5 second cycle would be too slow anyway.

This is another reason for my "don't ask for game design changes if you don't know enough on the subject" reply to the OP earlier.

Ignoring the hyperbole you vomited there for a second...


There are groups of the population who like things to be more manual and "difficult."
They have many reasons for this;

- some like to master the "klunkiness" as a show of personal skill
- some prefer to have more control over what they do and when they do it
- some are simply comfortable with it as is
- some simply find it more fun to work and play with things that go "oops"

At the same time though... if you make things too difficult and clunky, it stops being fun.

There is a sweet spot you have to hit. Not too automated... not too mechanical.
Engaging, but not overly tedious.
Something that rewards your input, but doesn't necessarily stop you from doing what you want to do.



A good example of this phenomena in the real world are people who like to work with more mechanical, more manual, and/or more "clunky" cars.

Automatic cars (ones where the car shifts gears for you) are arguably "better" than manual (see: "stick shift") cars as the car will pretty much handle the engine by itself. Little human input is needed beyond stepping on the gas pedal.

But some people PREFER manual cars. This is despite manual cars requiring constant attention, actual practice and training, and being more prone to "driver error."


So why do people subject themselves to such tedium? Why be dumb and not trade this anachronistic tech for something that is more efficient and automated?



In fact... if they were "REAL MEN" they would ditch the car altogether and ride horses! Those take skill!
Stepping on a gas pedal is too carebearish for "REAL MEN!"
Steering with a wheel is too automated... the test of true skill is to make an animal with its own mind to turn!!

(see! I can hyperbole too!)


Geronimo McVain explained it perfectly in his post on the first page.
(https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6707089#post6707089)

Every game needs imperfections to reward activity and player knowledge. The "imperfection" of the D-Scan, technical or otherwise, is a good thing as it rewards those players who use it with diligence.

I think if OP just throws away his computer and tries to play EVE by reading and inputting bits through his network wire, and then posts a video of winning a pvp fight by playing like this to Youtube, he would become really popular as a REAL MAN.

So why is this the 'sweet spot' for dscan but not for local chat?

Your aggressive tone and continuous stream of insults only show your lack of knowledge on the subject.

In our case, the dscan can be cached so that the server only sends information once for evey ship that changes grid. This is way less computing-intense than the overview : the overview sends every second the informations of the grid : modules cycling, speed vectors of the objects (drones, missiles, npcs, ships of course). Which is a LOT more computation than sending a cached data on request.

So, NO in the present case there is no "strain effect" to prevent dscan from being automated. Maybe it is poorly implemented and CCP doesn't want to spend time on it, but the present functionnalities could be automated with no cost.

(just stating the obvious, but the dscan for elements on your grid can be skipped as the data is already sent for the overview - so the server only needs to store the grid relations , eg grid 1 contains elements a,b,c and is at X Y Z from grid 2 ; and the elements which are not in a grid (ie in warp))

I update my previous post on what needs to be computed.
basically, not it does not, on the opposite it only needs to store the data of grids relations and grid contents.

that's why I wrote "Maybe it is poorly implemented and CCP doesn't want to spend time on it, but the present functionnalities could be automated with no cost."

There is no inherent strain in the dscan functionnality - and that is my point. People saying that dscan functionnality is a strain are wrong. The implementation can be, but with the grid system and the slow update of it( few grid appear, and few elements warp on average) the automation does not have to be painful.

So I know better than you may imagine. If you don't understand me, no point in even trying to answer : the topic is out of your capacities.