Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Oh that will happen alright but it will be in one of the few "good" systems that BIG alliances use and charge and ARM AND LEG to make use of.

And to defeat it all you need to do is be willing to AFK cloak anyway. Who will know with no local?


"But BUT BUT I WANNA KILLZ THA GOLEMS!!!!111 REM0V3 L0C@L!!!"

It is about getting more free solo kills and free ganks.

LOL @ everyone who has to believe I'm a Golem-killer. That's the ONLY way a person could want local removed as a game tool, eh?

I love the excuse of laziness:



If the game had been the way it should have been from the beginning, you wouldn't be used to using the broken mechanic that is local. Then cowards like you wouldn't be the ones out doing lowsec ratting. People ***** about how easy some ISK faucets are, but then ***** about how hard said faucets would be to take advantage of by doing something like removing local. Make up your mind.

Its not even that defensive gate camps are boring (they are, either nothing happens and you win or you get your **** pushed in. But I guess you're the expert on game design so you probably know that), its more that they don't work. You have to keep them up 23 hours a day forever and even then someone could just log on inside your space and all that effort was wasted. How about this, you get rid of local but ships logged out in unfriendly space never disappear. That sounds pretty fair.

Local definitely needs to be fixed...... Rynnik's ideas are an interesting start idea, and I support CCP looking into changes similar to these.

If they don't introduce a new intel system with the Winter Release, I'd like to see a 10-15 second delay on people appearing in and seeing local. This isn't overpowered, and will go a little way to forcing players to adapt when NOT provided such easy instant intel.

Additional thoughts on Rynnik's Proposal:

I toy a lot with the idea of moving system local -> constellation local: IMO, the cons of this outway the benefits. It provides too much info, instantly, and this is the biggest problem of local now... your just giving even MORE notice about incoming gangs, and your making intraconstellation travel extremely safe. Overall, it would be a huge boon to the defenders becuase they have more time to ship up to fend off the attackers, they have more time to get their ships safe and out of harms way, and they pretty much negate the ability of an incoming gangt to hide a portion of their force nearby while they bait out some targets.

This is an MMO, so some type of local/area chat is very much needed. The ability to communicate with an unknown in your space is enormously beneficial, but I don't think delayed local like WH space is appropriate (BTW, why is it called delayed local.... WH local should be called Voluntary Local!!!). I think a truly delayed local is probably the best fit. A local where you do not show up in local, nor see local, for 60-120 seconds upon entering a system (i.e. long enough that fast moving gangs can traverse a system and completely avoid local, thereby undermining its value as an intel tool.

I do like the off-grid overview, however:
1.) I think the main overview should be left as is. Let offgrid celestials, beacons, etc show up there, if people want.
2.) I'm worried about my screen space with all these overviews. Ideally, I'd be able to have very specific settings (ships only, wrecks only, etc), so I could minimize the space I need.
3.) I thing the ability to remove individual items from the off-grid overview would be immensely useful (think similar to ignoring ships/sigs while probe scanning).
4.) Don't remove the dscanner without providing another tool to narrow down the location of targets by distance and direction!!!! As a matter of fact, I don't think they should remove the dscanner at all.

5.) The information coming in needs to be balanced. There needs to be warning of a potential threat, without instant identification that it is indeed a threat. Basically, if I come into system 30 AU from a target, upon decloaking, the target should get notified of a an unidentified ship in system. The target should be notified of my ship type by 30ish au's, and my standings at 14ish au. This way, they have time to react to a new person in system, but the threat level is ambiguous (unless its nearby).
6.) In order to balance the with the gate cloak, I would make the off-grid scanner inoperable until gate cloaked is broken. However, I would allow dscanner to work!! Truth be told, I fear this system significantly imbalances the cloak in general, especially covops cloaks. To prevent shifting the interceptor's role to SBs & Recons, I strongly suggest removing the ability to use the offgrid scanner while cloaked. Let ships use dscan, or uncloak, to get this intel.

I don't see this problems you foretell. I really don't. I've lived in nullsec for most of my EvE career, typically PvE'ing in null on one character and PvPing on this toon. I've had lots of experience from both sides dealing with enemy cloakers and roaming gangs, and don't think this unbalances the system in some unfair manner.

Please explain why this system is sooo problematic?

I never really thought of going to constellation chat as a buff to intel collection. But I can definitely see what you are saying about prep time for people who are also looking to pew pew and face a threat or even if the folks watching it simply become risk adverse enough that they get safe when a potential hostile enters that greater spanning intel 'catch all'. If that behaviour perpetuates it is also a big buff to AFK cloaking as in that case 1 can shut down an entire constellation rather then an entire system. Does that behaviour continue to build if you move it to an entire regional channel? Something even bigger? A Jita sized local everywhere you go? The Jita local spammers probably wouldn't mind that one.

At the end of the day I am not sure what the solution to local chat is. I don't think 'voluntary local' is too much but I can understand others not wanting it.

I mean there are lots of things CCP could do ranging through various levels of ridiculous. Change local to not show who is talking? Change local to not having a member list and making the name unclickable so that least the person has to type and link a character name in chat if they care? The ideas just get worse and worse as I brainstorm it.

What if local stayed instant but went to a LY system instead of being tied to a constellation or something? Even change the LY 'range' in null so that it is something huge (as null tends to be emptier so it keeps the chanel 'fuller' and 'pin pointing' someone by presence in it should be tougher). In hi-sec greatly decrease the LY range so that it is much closer to 1 or a limited few systems (maybe not all congruent however). I don't know.

I don't have all the answers and am sure someone out there can do better then I just did thinking about it.

Absolutely. I have avoided specific numbers and I don't know if 'unidentified flying objects' (sorry, I had to... ) should show up at 14 AU, 30 AU, or 300 AU. But the basic gist of that is what I am proposing.



I don't know if the gate cloak would be OP if you could gather information on this system with it. I don't think it would be much different then now.

I also don't mind the idea of cloaked ships becoming the favoured intel tools and I don't think SBs and recons would replace interceptors, but these are certainly the types of things I think we should be discussing on the off chance CCP is reading and actually considering this. Maybe nullified T3s would have to be 'intel' nerfed to keep them from being the Nullsec scouting must have. But I already think covops, SBs, and recons have enough down sides to keep from becomming overpowered in this system.

+1 !


That would enhance cloaking tactics, and war-strategy.
1/2 AFK's perma scout would then be useless, replacing by in-space intel.

"roleplaying" 'speaking, hi-sec must stay self.
Navy BS at gates are giving intel.

1.) What is the difference between Nullsec and WH space with your intel changes? I don't see any differences. Decreasing null intel to WH style might seem reasonable, but there are HUGE differences in game play that significantly make this unbalanced. For most wormholes, there is no such thing as solo content. Your targets are almost always in a group, well tanked (often with RR), making them more dangerous to engage. Additionally, the rats themselves do enough damage to give most covert ships a short life expectency, and will more often than not switch targets to the new kid on the block. WH rewards are much higher than nullsec, and finally, WH traffic is highly limited, meaning the threat of an incoming gang is much lower than in nullsec. Ironically, since scanning for probes becomes automatic, life in a WH also becomes safer.

2.) I really think covert cloaks become OP in your system. The SB can instantly lock a target upon decloaking, such that no target can escape, and most BC's would have a hard time warping before a recon catches them. The truth is, I often rat with cloakies in system. Stay aligned, don't warp to zero, and stay alert, and 95% of the time you're uncatchable. Keeping up that diligence 100% of the time though, is not something I'd enjoy nor want to do. All covert ships can be reasonably well tanked, the target has NO warning that they are there before they attack, so why would you hunt with anything else?? (I'd really hate to deal with Noir with this change... yuck!!!) The truth is, the hunted deserves a little warning of potential danger. Its important for game balance, and under your intel scheme, covert cloaks break it! I personally think the unreconable minute of gate cloak is a little too much, allowing a pilot to more often than not locate a target and instantly warp to it from gate cloak.

-- Potential Gate cloak compromise: Anyone within scan range of the gate gets a gate activation notice....
-- Potential Cloak compromise: Severely limited offgrid scanning range while cloaked.... (except for covops, which should get an increased decloak-lock delay instead.)
-- Random Interceptor and Covops boon.... Increased scan range?

3.) Finally, I really think that local should still exist... but in a truly delayed mode (on the order of 120 seconds), where you can't see local, and local can't see you for that entire delay. I thought of increasing this to constellation, but I can't think of a reasonable delay, and I really want to maintain the uncertainty involved in going through a gate! This also limits cloaky camping, in the sense that its not any more powerful than it already is because the person will appear in local if they stay in system long enough.