Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Terrible.

If they present zero risk why do you so desperately need them removed from the game?

Also, if you remove the zero risk entities such as afk players, then by definition the only ones remaining are real, active threats.

So by definition, whenever you see someone in local you would know, for certain, that they are a threat. You would never, ever accidentally interpret an afk players a threat, and you would never, ever accidentally interpret a real threat as afk. It would be mechanically impossible - it is effectively removing all uncertainty and as a result risk. You would never, ever be subject to mistakes, as you would know with perfect surety what something was. How can you claim that isn't a reduction of risk?

And as I've said, it also removes my ability - the active player - from tricking you into thinking I'm not a threat. The mechanics would flat out tell you, for ZERO EFFORT, whether I was or not. This means that no matter how much effort I put in, I can't do anything to influence my appearance to you.

It is very, very clearly a sharp reduction in uncertainty and risk, and you're either incredibly naive or purposefully dishonest if you claim it isn't.

Prove that this happens, as I don;t believe it does. I don't believe that a measurable amount of population simply get desensitised to a random local.
AFK cloakers operate to cause people to move on, lowering the index of the system. They don't do it for anything as complex as goading people into taking risks.

We've not been cyno camped at least not at my end. We had a week or so that a couple of systems got camped, but they don't get anything from us so they moved on.

Are you sov holders or NPC null?

How can the killboards prove me wrong if we're discussing the results of a proposed change? The killboards only reflect current mechanics (which include prolonged cloaking, and the ability to trick some players into thinking there isn't a threat), not the proposed future mechanics (in which prolonged cloaking and the ability to trick people would not exist).

Additionally, killboards are a very broad metric - they represent the entirety of nullsec, which has many, many different forms of PVP. You can't take those extremely broad results and use them as a result against this single, very specific instance. As an example to demonstrate why that kind of response is wrong, lets consider this: Every single human being who has ever lived has died or will die. 100% of people die. Now lets consider a particular cause of death, lets say falling down the stairs. If we were discussing falling down the stairs, and the outcomes, waltzing in and saying "BUT 100% OF PEOPLE DIE, LOOK AT THE STATS" would be utterly meaningless. The scope of that statistic is too broad, and counts things that kill (old age, choking on a burger, getting hit by a car) that are irrelevant to the death statistics of those who fall down stairs

No Andy that is not the mechanic, that is called the lore--i.e. the back story used to justify the mechanic. And if you've paid attention to what others have posted, you'd know we are aware of it.

It is a fine back story for high sec. Where things are supposed to be safer, than in null. Although ironically the number of people in high sec, in a way, render local less useful at enhancing a pilots safety than in null. The lack of pilots and the use of standings in null make local even more efficient at improving one's safety.

Oh, and it is my understanding that way back in the day local did not show standings. That you had to click on the pilot's name to see standings. That is back then you had to work a bit more for the intel than you do now.

And lastly, the changes I'm in favor of would still work with the above lore with slight changes. Instead of broadcasting the information gained by a pilot jumping into the system for all to see, it is broadcast only to those who have sov and have certain security upgrades. In other words, various sov upgrades while less...perfect than the intel you'd get now, it would also cease to be a double edged sword--i.e. AFK cyno camping would be a thing of the past. An active ship with a cyno on the other hand would still be a threat...just like it is now and as it should be.

I think it also makes more sense as a back story too. It is your space, so why shouldn't you be able to take advantage of gates communicate while preventing those who don't own the space for gaining the same information?

Edit:
Oh, and the proposal to remove local is not a proposal to remove stargates. It is a proposal to change how the back story works. The mechanic is how things actually work in game and the back story is there just to provide a filler as to "why it works that way". Much like when sov mechanics used to be based on POS and moon percentages--i.e. if you had a POS on 50% + 1 of the moons you controlled the system. CCP did not like that mechanic and despite any official or unofficial back story they changed it to something they'd hoped would be better. And the back story doesn't fit with local being present at all in WH space. Granted it is just a chat channel, but with no stargates why is that even there? Why isn't everything done via private chats like you are hailing individual ships?

You do realize that you just contradicted yourself. I don't support most of these ideas...but I do support them, so long as they give me the advantage I want.

Look, it would be great to have cloaked ships buffed to where I can fly around and lock and shoot targets and not lose the cloak. I also realize that such a change would mean an even more dead null in regards to average system population. That is it would be great for about a day.



It makes null safer though. Sure travelling and new guys would still allow for some kills, which is what you see on the KBs by the way.

Half assed fit exhumers fit for max yield, crap tank (even against rats in null those tanks wouldn't last long). Hell, alot of those kills don't utilize all their slots? Why? Probably because they loaded up their lows with the mining upgrades making it hard to fit what they'd consider useful modules in the mid slots. Most PvPers would disparagingly call these pilots idiots, nubs, morons, etc. For example, it is possible to get a procuror near 100,000 ehp with the right fit. Will you get as much ore? No. But if you have a merc alliance camping your system and you want to mine and have enough time for the guys ratting in a gang in PvP ships to get to you in case these campers engage....

But what do I know, maximizing isk/hour but sitting with your butt in an outpost, now that's smart!

Oh, my favorite, the fits with 1-2 shield mods and....an ore scanner. Really, you're going to give up tank so you can scan asteroids in null? Okay. I too like to spend time looking over low value intel vs. watching local.

Colonoscopies....:shudder:

I'll pass Nikk, knowing what those are like...well okay, I'll take the drugs they give for those. Damn fine stuff. Actually the drugs are so good the colonoscopy isn't bad (actually you don't remember it) its that goddamn prep for the colonoscopy.

Why are we going off topic, and suddenly referring to kill boards that depict meaningless information?

The context of this is AFK Cloaking. I have yet to see an official kill board entry that specified that as a contributing factor on a kill mail.

(Pilot was fooled into undocking, possibly was AFK using toilet when ganking occurred)
Ahhh... the toilet kill mails we would see....

I am just saying that changes are not just about balance. They have to make sense and fit with the story we call Eve, because if you change that story enough, it would cease to be Eve, except by name only. As I recall, CCP created that story (not me) so you'd have to take it up with them (not with me). The addition of standings in local represents an upgrade in the stargate communications network that CCP (not I) decided to implement; take it up with them. PS: I already explained that the local in wormhole exists simply as receipt of system-wide broadcasts and does not accurately track the presence of ships in the system because there is no stargate network there.

Added: I'll answer the next question,

Since we cannot say if any ship is afk, we cannot identify any ship as no threat; to do so requires that we call the ship afk, which we cannot afford to do. But the afk ship is in reality zero threat, so an auto-logoff removes no threat. At best, it removes a ship which we previous considered a possible threat. Scripts can continue the false perception, but again they are against EULA, so until CCP cracks down on them, they may continue false threats. False threats also continue normally up to an hour before the auto-logoff. So false threats are treated like full threats, until they auto-logoff, or can be engaged.

PS: That 99% figure is completely wrong. Just because one person has a high confidence in their abilities does not mean that it is 99% for even that person, let alone for everyone. This discussion should be more about mechanics that make sense, work, and fit the Eve story than about who is how safe and why, etc.

Still a good indication of mindset - the person believes he has 99% safety with his current modus operandi, and yet he wants more risks to be removed. That's the point actually, behind all this "AFK Cloakies ruin nullsec" campaign.
That and, as it was mentioned in an adjacent topic - botting is impossible while there's a cloaky camper in the system.