Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There's the "safer than hisec" fallacy again.

Not balanced at all if you warp to a random spot withing 30km and then use the other thing that goes out to 50. The cloaker would be screwed royally 100% of the time. And if you also add the fact that you want this module to be used while cloaking then the only reason for it would be to be able to fly to the grid of the cloaker cloaked so that the cloaker is unaware of the hunter. Then the other module goes off while cloaked and you get the location of the cloaker. You approach and decloak...

This would essentially make cloaks useless and the hunter would be so bloody OP its not even funny.

All things can be balanced with a little though my friend. For example, there could be some kind of warning for the cloaked pilot when this SDFD is activated within 10 km.

A stationary cloaked ship would be easily caught using the device but if the ship was moving, the cloaky hunter would have to do some work.

If you are going to make life harder for cloak types, you need to give something back as well.

Local was not the balance for cloaking, it overcompensated for it if anything. I don't believe it was an intentional effect on CCP's part, but it was easier to just leave it alone.

Cloaking is balanced by the nerfed combat capacity of every ship able to warp cloaked. They may get the element of surprise, but are not fighting in a ship that is as dangerous as others of it's type.
Their base T1 equivalent, with both ships properly prepared, will beat the cloaking vessel every time in a straightforward engagement.

Even Black Ops, (arguably not a true cloaking vessel, since it cannot warp cloaked), is no match for a T1 BS equivalent. These ships are one trick ponies, able to make covert jump bridges only. At over 600 million isk each, noone chooses to fight in these either.

If you want to make cloaked ships huntable, then you must make them able to hunt back.

Put in a cloaked attack vessel to balance the hunting one. I made a thread on this too: Seawolf in space

Changes to local require delicate balancing. I am curious how your idea compares with my own. This might help both ideas.

What are the base principles you want local to be based on?

For comparison, these are what I would like to see:

You must not make cloaking a trivial ship function. These ships already paid for this offensively. The current local can be viewed as already highlighting cloaking types, since it clearly lists those who cannot be probed down.

You must not make gankers able to have an 'at a glance' source for all they need to know about prospective targets in a system not their own. Skilled pilots right now in frigates can use local as a tool to gank ratters and miners a lot easier than many realize.

Miners and ratters, in their own space, deserve a level of security on par with the efforts of their corp and alliance. They should know immediately if any hostile is present that may want to hunt them. The hostile, not being in friendly space, should need to work for the intel by scanning or probing.

System defenders deserve to know what is in their space, and whether they constitute a threat. They should know if something hostile comes into system immediately, regardless if any other information about the threat is available.

I'm not sure I 100% agree with this. Sov Holders currently hold vast swathes of space, I don't think they should be able to secure all of it to the degree you seem to suggest. A number of core systems, perhaps a whole constellation, but not an entire Region or even Regions of space. Outside of their core/home systems they should not get immediate info that a hostile has entered.

In regards to Miners and Ratters, reagrdless of whether they're part of a Sov Holding Alliance or just out on their own, they are making ISK/Gathering resources and should not automatically get instant flawless intel, and they should be subject to the dangers of predation.

However, In their defence, PvE should be redesigned over time so that PvP fits and PvE fits aren't radically different, nor that big slow ships are always the best thing to bring for PvE. Mining should be more profitable in Null, proposed drone changes being a good start. That way the rewards better reflect the risks, and make bringing combat ships for protection worthwhile.

Local needs to go flat out , hi sec, lo sec and null sec. It makes the game suck. Wars occur in hi and low sec and even if you find a non chicken shi.t corp that will undock during war, local ruins almost all the tactical and surprise elements of the game. You should have access to zero intelligence you didn't directly reveal. Locaters the exception as without them no fights would occur and wars would be pointless. But outside of that, no free intel and bring forth the surprise attacks. Undocking wouldn't be an issue with insta warps and a modified if necessary redock timer. Eve should be harsh.

And cloaking is irrelevant to that issue.

Quite honestly, the hardcore players are bored of playing the softcore version of EVE. And not just in desolate, bumphuk nullsec.

It's like Ultima Online all over again. Tell the Trammies to buzz off and bring forth space Felucca. Then trading will have a real value for those who take the craft seriously. Easy mode is what's holding the game back.

And the devs need not worry about the great lie regarding everyone will quit. Its a crock. The Trammies want the respect from playing on the hardcore server. Thats why no one plays on SiSi. They just want to powergame the best of everything, ISK and such until they can become the bully. Its proven in every decent pvp game that goes down the tubes catering to the incessant incrementalist game dulling whines of entitlement demanding candyasses. They follow the hardcore pvpers around every game that boasts full on pvp changing it to a softcore stinking pile of mediocrity. Be different and you will succeed. Cater to them and you will lose the community everyone follows around. Trust, people don't log in to EVE to politic with risk averse dock humpers. The bold make the game what it is and without them EVE would have been mining and shooting red x's, fail.

Speaking of which, if DEC Shields are going to be allowed, war decs currently being a huge fraud, then remove the ability to leave a corp or alliance under dec without huge penalties to rejoining a corp 30-90 days or something else equally punitive. Allow perhaps an option to pay the current clone cost to the hostile corp(s) wallet for a penalty free dismissal.

My thoughts on this have evolved since this thread fell to the distances.

Right now, I figure cloaked ships and local need to both change.

What is balanced and makes sense?

Here is what I came up with. You get to hunt cloaked ships, so long as you cannot spot them in local. I don't care if this means local chat is gone completely, or cloaking just removes you from being listed with no other changes.

You ARE trying to find a needle in a haystack, so you should need special tools. Any of the existing probing ships works fine on this, but they will need to use T2 Counter CovOp probes.

Gameplay effect: Since noone will be getting free intel on cloaked vessels, and they can now be hunted by enemy covops, deadly little games of cat and mouse can begin.
The first step of each game, unless people are psychic or making blind assumptions, will be to first figure out that the CovOps is present to be found, since they are not visible in local.

Would the OP like to cite some links where CCP has stated that changes to local need to be made? I don't recall seeing anything that specific stated by CCP as of yet and if true I would like to read said statements and any ideas they might have.

In an attempt to nerf afk cloaking, you are taking the nerfbat to the ability of recons and bombers to do what they were BUILT to do, and that is stage ambushes and make surprise attacks. They would no longer be able to maneuver into position before launching an assault without revealing their presence to the enemy, completely negating the purpose of cloaking.

You want to get rid of afk cloakers, just get rid of local. Then there's no point in ***AFK*** cloaking because it would have no effect on the others in local.