Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What Nikk is saying it that the game's mechanics are changing in a direction where local will become less and less useful for intel gathering...at least the interceptor change is a move in that direction. No ratter or miner is watching local every second in game. We have seen in this thread that people who use sentries often don't stay aligned. So a few seconds of inattention on the part of the ratter and a lucky choice of anomaly by the interceptor pilot and you end up with an expensive ship tackled. This is more true now than before the last update. Why?

Interceptors now ignore defensive bubbles, sending in the interceptor first makes tremendous sense for this reason. Interceptors also get into warp fast, and their warp speed is the highest in game now. This is also is a good reason to send in the interceptor first.

So now local becomes a bit less useful for the ratter. More such changes and we might get to a point where people in null have reduced their reliance on local to a point where changing it might not be a big deal...and depending on the change, maybe even a welcome one.

The mobile cyno jammer is another thing that makes it so that the ratter does not have to be as reliant on local. The both reduce, in their own way, the need to rely on local as a source of intel. In fact, the interceptor makes early reporting of a hostile even more beneficial. If I hear a guy is 3 jumps out I can recall/scoop drones and start aligning out. If I don't hear anything and the guy suddenly pops up in local, even not scooping drones and aligning out/initiating warp may not save my bacon. Because that interceptor is going to be on top of me much faster than before Rubicon.

That is what Nikk is saying.

No, there is nothing in my last response that indicates anything like this at all. In fact, I even noted that a BS pilot may see the the interceptor pilot in local, but if the BS pilot didn't notice him in local right away, it maybe too late.

Here let me be very, very explicit:

1. BS pilot is ratting in an anomaly and has defensive bubbles on the in-gate.
2. BS pilot looks over to get his drink.
3. Just as the BS pilot looks over at his tasty beverage, interceptor pilot jumps in.
4. Interceptor pilot opens up his on-board scanner picks an anomaly and hits warp.
5. At about the same time the BS pilot says, "****!" Because he just noticed the guy in local.
6. As the BS pilot is aligning out to head to a safe (POS, Outpost, safe spot) the intercpetor lands and gets a lock and warp scrambles him.
7. Rest of the gang jumps in, burns through the bubbles and warps to the inty and kills the BS.

Notice something there? How about #5. Local is still there, like it is now. It works, like it does now. But the change to interceptors has increased the risk that PvE pilots face. Now defensive bubbles don't work for interceptors. Now the interceptor will get from Point A (12 KM off the in gate) to point B (and anomaly) very quickly, much quicker than before.

These changes are in game right now as we speak.

This change makes local just a little bit less useful to the PvE pilot.

CCP has chipped away at the utility that local provides.

So your above characterization is simply inaccurate. I have said nothing about a ratter in any kind of ship opting to remain on grid. My point is that even if he tries to get off grid with the changes to interceptors even trying to get off grid when a neut/hostile enters system it isn't as sure a thing anymore.

The mobile cyno jammer also makes local a little bit less important, but in a different way. By providing some protection to cynos in a limited area, even if a gang cynos in, but off grid, now the ratter will have a little extra time to get away. Thus, one could stop trying to watch local every single second.

Now, one could speculate that making these changes are designed to help wean PvE pilots of relying so heavily on local. With the ultimate goal, being months maybe even years down the road, of eventually making a drastic change to local as an intel device. But it wont have as significant an impact because all the previous small incremental changes induced players into moving further and further away from simply relying on local.



This is a complete non-sequitor. It is as if I asked you, "Do you walk to school?" And you answer, "No, I carry my lunch." Those last 3 sentences absolutely do not follow from anything I wrote.

Now, that was all probably for no damn good. But what the Hell, the response will help keep the thread on the front page and maybe get people thinking.

The interceptor is a single change to make the tackler better at tackling. It doesn't decrease reliance on local.
The cyno jammer is pointless to even discuss, it costs a lot and only runs for an hour. That's more designed to help blobs ensure that they get pre-warned about a cyno when destroying a structure.
A PVE player would spend more on the jammer than he makes from the anoms he deploys it in.

Removing local will never be a welcome change. People don't want a career masquerading as a game, they want more fun and quicker access to that fun. Making local a chore to work with would only increase fun for solo PVPers that want an easy kill in a cloaky ship. Everyone else would just find it additional pointless hassle.

Just look at probes. Originally you had to fly around dropping them in space around where you thought the target was. Then they made it so you can drag them around. Now they've made it so you can deploy them in a preset pattern and just drag the group. I would expect CCP to implement more helpful automation, not less.

This is an excellent point. There are options to the ratter even with the changes.

If you have room for drones, using a flight of warrior IIs would probably be a good idea. Fitting a small close range gun or two, while usually considered dumb, might be reasonable now given these changes. Another is to rat with a buddy. If the two BS are fit with long range weapons and keep enough distance they can try to shoot said frig. Also, with 2 people watching local it is less likely the frig will go un-noticed for very long.

The bottom line here is: the game has changed; either you adapt or your die (more frequently).

It has **** all to do with what I want.

That's great and all. But I don't think you know much about MMO design. Generally people do not enjoy having to do more to receive what they already get. Had local never been implemented, sure an intel tool that rewards players for effort and encourages group play would be good. However local intel is already there. Removing that and making players have to work to get that back would not increase the amount of fun people have. The only people that would have more fun are the ones that benefit from the change, and that would only be solo and small gang cloakers. Everyone else would just have mroe work for no gain.

Now sure, you could just increase reward for mining, PVE, etc. But since that's independent of the local change, most people won't see the two together. This is why most game developers avoid making existing features harder directly, and instead simply add more to do alongside it. Like the inteceptor change. They've given more of an edge to interceptors, but without taking anything away from anyone else. SOE ships are the same, they've broadened the spectrum of cloaking ships without stripping anything down.
Obviously there are some exceptions to this, but they are usually extreme, and are generally positive for the majority. Such as doomsday changes.

The main thing you have to remember is that chances are you are not part of the group that makes up "the majority of the playerbase". What you think would be more fun probably wouldn't be for them. A game developer is rarely going to choose to implement a change to benefit a niche group at the detriment of the majority of the playerbase.

Not without making it more boring after how you want it to be. That's the thing you don't graps.

You think it will be better as it suits YOUR type of gameplay and not about how it would suits everybody better.

If this had been so easy and if this really had made the game better, it would have been in EVE many years ago. Or at least a very common system would be in EVE then.

If CCP haven't had the ability to change local since 2003, then what makes you to believe that CCP will change local the way you want it so suddenly?

I'm pretty sure CCP have come up with 5000000 times more ideas than you have about how to change local without breaking the game without having any success with the ideas as all of the ideas breaks the game.

Again, i have been here in EVE since early 2004, so i know what CCP have said about local through the years.

As I understand it, the MJD does not cycle when a warp scrambler is active on the target. I cannot see step 7 happening as you describe. Seems the neut is the salvation here, but any frigate beyond the range of the neut is using the disruptor, so then the MJD would work.

Not if he has a warp scrambler vs. a disruptor.

And no, they wont be nuking local anytime soon, IMO. But if they continue in this direction players will have to learn to adapt and move away from relying so much on local.

But not for the afk cloakers, right?

#1 - The point is not that they are having an effect on players. The point is that they are harming Eve itself by effectively removing a system and its content from the list of options for smart PVE play in the Eve Universe. The AFK timer is an effort to improve the Eve Universe. Obviously, it is not really the AFK cloakies fault, because the central concern is on the cyno which he may have, so we really need to focus on how the cyno is breaking Eve by denying entire systems of content by its mere potential presence on a mere frigate. The AFK timer is a start to improve Eve by limiting the effect of mindless AFK behavior on removing Eve content. The full solution requires a look at the cyno, including the capabilities of cloaky ships carrying regular cynos.

#2 - There is no denying that actual execution of a BLOPS hotdrop requires some amount of risk, though I would be hard pressed to accept that there was any significant risk if the bridging ships do not jump through (as they should not). We do not even say that the risk is zero after the AFK cloaker drops cloak and engages. The issue is that a cloaked cyno is completely free of risk while it is cloaked AND that even if it is lost, the value is likely to be much less than the tackled target. Call it "low cost" if you wish, but the fact is that the risk isn't even a shadow of the projected threat/control.

#4 - If you go with my #2 or with any PART of my proposal, I promise you that no part of the issue will be made better, and in all likelihood, many things will be much Worse (TM). Ignore cynos, and whatever else is done is at best a bandaid, and probably not even a big enough bandaid at that. That said, I am open to discussion on my #2, if you desire. I ask that you not consider it in the absence of some AFK and cyno changes, or else we must surely expect it to fail in resolving anything important.