Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Decrease the synergy between Cov Cloaks and Cyno. Then decrease the effectiveness of Star Map info. Then decrease the effectiveness of Local. Then Save the Cheerleader. Then save the World.

Just because someone can "Monday night quarterback" their loss with a "lesson learned" does not mean that there was a problem. The only way to learn is to make mistakes.

What I am talking about are the kind of mistakes that should not happen. Like having the item delete right-click option right next to the show info menu option. Or not having a confirm option for deleting items. We are NOT talking about events beyond the players control happening and we are not talking about actions which the player may later review and decide as a mistake! We ARE ONLY talking about really stupid mechanics designs where the player initiates ACTIONS which the player did not intend to initiate AT THE TIME.

The Asakai event is one such example where the Titan did not intend to jump and the faulty mechanic made him jump anyway. While the event was huge, memorable and greatly discussed, it is a BAD thing for a game to create an environment where players do things that they did not want to do AT THE TIME. Games should be about players doing what they INTEND to do!

Ok, you are talking about problems with the interface, not bad choices which are often described as mistakes in hindsight.

If it happens often enough, it is bad design, if only occasionally, then it is player carelessness.

I thought they separated the jump bridge options awhile ago....?

I have no clue, never even seen a screen shot on the topic, let alone piloted a titan.

Edit:

If it is the case that the options for jumping/bridging have been moved, then Asakai was more pilot carelessness than error. And, irrespective the entire Asakai fight would not have happened with many of the cyno changes you suggest Andy.

The Devs will almost surely not implement such changes. Like I implied earlier, Asakai was a huge advertising boon for CCP. One of the biggest battles ever in the game. Something one rarely ever sees in other games.

It is very difficult to not get polemic regarding this topic.

AFK cloaking is "only" a "problem" in 0.0. So, a "neut" enters a foreing territory where 0.0 residents "peacefully" grind their sanctum and haven sites and amass fortunes. Once a player gets the knack of a certain ano site, he will be able to do it either semi afk or afk.

NPC rats are no threat once the right ship, decent fit and appropriate strategy is found. It is, basically, like doing the SAME SINGLE mission over and over!

Now, a neut is in the system!!!! cloaked, unscannable... OMG... Well, if he is afk, he is not dangerous, if he is activley seeking grinders, he is.
Big deal! it's 0.0 space. One is not supposed to feel or be safe at any given time!

I could recount all of the arguments that are carried against each other like in a holy war. PVE players vs. PVP players..and all that bs about sandbox....

Let's face it. If there is an afk cloaker in your system, fly ships that don't hurt being lost! As every Hisec carebear is told by super PVP pros: Work together, don't do things solo...
The problem is not cloaking being OP. The problem are the game mechanics. If you don't agree, the nask yourself the question:

"How many pilots in EVE die every day in a consensual 1 vs 1 PVP fight, where both pilots can shoot at each other?"
and
"How many pilots get killed by gangs or fleets with totally uneven odds?"

If that is all there is to PVP? Then WoT is way better balanced.

I don't object to this, but I would point out this shifts the balance against cloaking, and towards the supposed targets they had threatened.

How would you balance this, or would you instead imply it was already out of balance, and this corrected the issue?

This is a flaw of perspective.

Considering what it is you write, you would imply there are only TWO types of ships, and players who fly those accordingly.

Now, I can accept that there are PvE ships. I fly them as a primary choice, not just a necessary evil required to fly other ships.
What I cannot accept, is the idea that any ship that can fight be classified as simply PvP. That is confusing the issue by failing to acknowledge the distinctions present.

If you have two fleets, original blob style if you want to describe it so, they will probably be formed up from the most cost effective means for delivering DPS available. They will be efficient, as this is the primary need for success.
Delivering DPS, and surviving long enough to keep laying it on.

What you would not see, is front line ships equipped to do something meaningless in their mission. No artifact scanners, no tractor beams, no hacking modules, and no cloaks.
Oh, certainly, you can have cloaked ships operating in support, but only a fool sticks a gimped ship on the front line.

Cloaked ships sacrifice either tank, or DPS, sometimes both. This, in exchange for the ability to avoid hostile attention in unfriendly space.
What you have left is this trade off, which I can even make into a diagram.

PvP Ships beats Cloaking Ships beats PvE Ships.
The balancing point is that PvE ships are needed for PvP ships, which connects them back to the start, and completes the circle.

Of course, the method to deal with ANY superior opponent is to avoid them, so you do not pointlessly waste your assets.
Asking to improve the chances to catch ONLY the Cloaking Ships, trivializes their role. It is well established that PvE ships can reliably avoid opposing PvP ships, which is why they are not threatened by those by design.

I believe this is one of the reasons that the new interceptors have been changed, to bridge that gap which cloaking is having difficulties with.

It suggests to me that the developers acknowledge that PvE is intended to work under threat, or else they would simply automate that aspect of the game, and spare pilots the tedious grinding that some feel is keeping them away from the actual play.

Well, this could be turned around. We have been told a single cloaky camper with no cyno ability is not really the issue at all--i.e. they work with a team too. Why does that have to be the case.

And, you don't have to work in a team if your ratting systems are clear of cloaky campers...solo all you want. So it isn't as one sided as you claim. Solo those anomalies when no threat is present, buddy up when it is.



The claims above are dubious. Yes, CCP prefers their game to one where PvP can be "forced" on any player at any time. In different contexts the probability of that happening vary, but that is how the game currently exist. Even in a 0.9 system, given enough guys in catalysts you are doomed in your exhumer if enough players decide it is time for your ship to die.

What is in question is the amount of PvP in null. How much should their be for the PvE player? Would changes to local entail a "huge" increase in PvP? Possibly, but it depends on how it is done.

And let me add, that most of us agree (and CCP does too) that any change to local must be preceded by a new mechanic for players to gather intelligence on who else might be in space with them. Also, that simply removing local would not be a good solution to this problem. And based on some recent posts/interviews we may be seeing changes to local and the game on the issue of local sooner rather than later.

Such a replacement should entail more effort than is currently in game--e.g. virtually none apart from staring at local. It also should not have the same degree of infallibility as the current mechanic, otherwise why even bother replacing it. Yet at the same time it has to be good enough so that people in null feel like they can continue living in null doing their thing. Maybe not exactly as before, but still remain in null doing things that either need to be done (mining high ends, moon mining, etc.) and doing things that don't need to be done (e.g. ratting, exploration, etc.).

So any solution should not result, IMO, in a huge increase in PvP for those who do PvE. In fact, there should be only marginal changes, at least IMO. CCP may have a different view of course.

Pilot error should never ever be removed, nor should it be justification for a "do over" in this game.

I've hit warp, when I've meant to hit align, I've lemminged through gates when I did not mean too, etc. Those were my mistakes, I was not "careful enough" and I accept responsibility for the potentially bad outcomes those mistakes could cause. Making the game where players are insulated from their mistakes is, IMO, counter to the entire ethos of Eve Online.

As for the overall problems with your notions on things like cynos and bridging, the problem is fights are much less likely to escalate or even occur with your suggestions such as targeting delays. The old, "get in system first with overwhelming force" becomes the rule of the day once again. Now not so that anyone coming in after you gets lagged out, but because the new cyno/bridge mechanics render the new comers unable to do things upon entry into a system. For example, bridging in at range on a fleet that is bubbled so as to get a warp in (one of your proposals was no warp drive for 30 seconds). Or tackle being unable to work for 30 seconds (another of your suggestions). Why should tackle modules in a big battle be disabled for 30 seconds? That requirement of yours looks very much like something intended solely for the benefit of PvE pilots. And the whole cloak/regular cyno thing. And sometimes getting a guy in the target system with a cloaky and a regular cyno is a good thing from large scale combat point of view (e.g. the in gate is heavily camped, and a cloaky may have a good shot at getting through and with the cloaky time to get into a good position to light the cyno).

I get the force projection problem for looking at cynos and jump drives and possibly changing them, but your suggestions look to me like ways to make ratting safer from, of all things, regular cynos....yet how often are those used? And when there are things like a jump drive cool down might do as much or more to dissuade people from dropping on PvE ships in a super carrier (hanging out in hostile space for 15 minutes might not seem like alot of fun if you are in a super). If cynos/jump drives need some rebalancing, fine...but don't make them less useful in terms of actually fighting with them. (Oh, and yeah, this is one area where I DO want more ships like this on my killboard, I love shooting capitals in a big battle.)

And caps need sub-caps, IMO. for support. At least they should. The idea of capitals being totally independent from sub-capitals is not good. So a change that makes it harder or sub-caps to move with caps (i.e. no bridging of sub-caps) I am hesitant to support either. And we see it right now in game. 250 archon slow-cats is nearly impossible to deal with. Add on drone assist and you have a fleet composition that is damn hard to counter. I fully expect drone assist to be getting hit very hard with the nerf bat sometime very soon.

As for big battles without cynos....name one.

And you are not even really responding to my point about the Devs and CCP, that was free advertising for them. Significant free advertising. PvE never generates that level of free advertising. As such, PvP is going to be the primary focus and limiting it is not going to be something CCP is going to favor. If anything big battles is what CCP is going to want to encourage.

I am pointing this out, as it is in conflict with the idea that PvE ships should operate either under threat, or be automated to eliminate pointless grinding.

The ONLY meaningful difference here between PvP and cloaked ships, is that PvP ships can be driven out by defenders of the PvE ships.
PvP ships are not considered a threat, precisely because they cannot be sustained as a threat if driven out.

The means to be warned of the two ship types are identical, since both can be reported into intel channels, and both can be seen in local chat.
If you limit Cloaked ships, effectively giving them the same terminal handicap PvP ships suffer in this context, then you reduce their effectiveness to the same level by comparison.
Both have to leave, neither can stop the PvE ship after having left.

This leaves the PvE ship with an uncountered advantage, since time and their own PvP assets will remove both opposing aspects.