Player Features and Ideas Discussion

With this cloud need to remove the idea of not only scanners but targeting as well. Let it be fun trying to "shoot from the hip."

By the way, since we are referencing some other sci fi, anybody remember that Voyager episode where they ended up in a totally black void?

Tbh this sounds like more fun than anything in the actual game right now.

Are you talking initial attempt, or finished product?

Initial attempt, installed on TQ and SiSi simultaneously:

a. A cloud, minimum 5000 km across, roughly spherical, that shows up randomly in potentially any system in the game, and hangs around for 3-7 days.
b. No scanning equipment works, including d-scan.
c. No warping of any kind works, but MjD's of some kind will likely be necessary in early iterations. The cloud also cannot act like a warp bubble and drag ships out of warp, at least at first.
d. Contains nothing of value.


Then, as time passes, players/ CCP co-operate to find what ideas work on the Sisi version.
Slowly, over multiple iterations, PvE opportunities are added to Sisi, tested, and strenuously re-tested and then added to the TQ cloud.
At the same time, various "cloud conditions and mechanics" are as equally strenuously tested on Sisi, and iteratively added to the TQ cloud.

Player feedback is completely crucial in both the PvE and cloud mechanics, and slow iteration.
A "game within a game" is being created, and throwing a whole bunch of mechanics and PvE situations into this cloud at once is a recipe for abuse and player distaste.

This whole concept is about trying to create an environment that cannot be industrialized, not documented in some manual about "you shall do this to maximize income". And it has to be an environment where all have equal footing, where a small group of smart players may actually stand a chance against the largest entities in the game, if they use their wits, design some good tactics, and get lucky. Where no one has in-game intel channels telling everyone who is exactly where, where predators have to work hard to catch their prey, and the prey have to act equally hard to to find some PvE rewards, before they may be hunted down.

Where exploration is a thrill again, because everything is unknown, because you can't drop out scanners and say "OK, I will pick and choose what I go after", because everything is randomized and hidden in a swirling soup of gases.

In the final analysis, I would like to see a long list of potential PvE sites that the randomizer chooses from when creating the cloud, and the game mechanics, whatever they finally are, allows a very very lucky solo player, or better, a small group working together to achieve some decent wealth. But it has to take significant time, effort, and risk to achieve that. Not just warp in and be gone in 30 minutes. The predators have to have time to find their prey, or set traps.

Would be a nice place to have them start showing up, and a nice salvageable capital wreck would be a different reward to find too

I have been assured by one source that this concept is being brought up at the CSM Summit, and another source has sold me that several, or many, dev's have already read this thread.

But remember, there is no love lost between me and many of the dev team, if you have read any of my other posts on the forums.
I would be very surprised to see some dev who I have screamed at many times post up, "gee, we really like this idea".

Besides, I am quite certain that I am not the 1st person , especially within CCP, to think up something along these lines.
There may be technical reasons why this concept has been kicked around at CCP, and then discarded.

Sov intel channel:
-Intruders spotted near station system
-How many? Who are they? What are they in?
-We don't know for sure boss.. They are hiding in the Nebula as they come, we can't tell how long has this been going on for. We have lost count
-You! Rookie! Go in the Clouds and see whats going on! NOW!
***mumble grumble*** why does it always have to be me..

With the aggro rules around new deployables construing a movement towards adding "nullsec-like conflict elements" to highsec, this would certainly be a good idea. Sometimes it looks like CCP wants to blur the lines between the different zones.

Actually, my original concept for this was that anything goes in the cloud.
There is NO Concord.

This is a place like null, or wormholes in that regard.
I mentioned in one earlier post that the whole idea would be, at least in the case when one of these pops up in a high sec system, that the smart players would REALLY learn quickly, and CCP would advertise it, that in bright neon letters "Here be Dragons" would flash, metaphorically speaking of course.

People in high sec could ignore the cloud, and it would not interfere with their day to day actions.
But if they choose to go in, to explore for riches, there would be a high risk, and would require real effort and intelligence, or a lot of luck, to find a PvE site.

We are talking sites just as valuable as anything in the game. But they are not easy to find. You HAVE to explore, old school.
Solo players might get lucky and find something, but I had this more in mind for small groups working really well together.
And further, you cannot predict what you will find.

One of these pops up in say, high sec Gurista space, but you might find a 10/10 Blood Raider site, or a sleeper class site found in a C5 or 6, or the richest null sec grav belt or gas cloud, or NOTHING.

No one has any way to industrialize the PvE income, because what you find is so random.
And naturally, if PVE'ers head in, predators are sure to follow. But as hard a time the PvE'er have finding a site, so do the predators have finding prey.

Consider this:

Assuming a cloud 5,000 km across, you are looking at over 62 billion cu kilometers. That is a lot of space.
Does a cloud hold 5 PvE sites, or 10, or 100?
I have no idea at this point, because it has to be tested like crazy on Sisi. Hence my "initial start" a few posts above.

Now, getting into the nitty-gritty mechanics is what makes or breaks this thing.
Too easy to examine the volume if space, and the whole thing degenerates into a race for riches and juicy targets.
Too difficult to find anything, or anyone, and the concept dies because it is too hard and boring.

The game mechanics, like anything else, make or break a concept.

Example: I asked on one of the other forums about if the standard grid size can be altered by CCP from system to system. Naturally, the trolls, and eventually, the ISD derailed the thread, without me getting an answer. The reason I asked is because I think the standard grid size we have today is too large for something like this. If the grid in the cloud case extended only 100 km from your ship, or any object you dropped in space, a this point I think it would be a good starting point. If someone can see say, 400 km in any direction (I have seen stations 400 km from my ships), then it gets way too easy to find stuff, and to also see trouble coming, or to find prey. But can CCP code a special size grid inside the cloud while have the traditional size grid outside of the cloud, I have no idea.

And that is just one example.

Because we are essentially talking about a new game within a game, this has to be built very carefully, and slowly, to make sure it is works properly. I think the design and testing phase of Apochrypha would be a good template.

I suggested a while back that cloaks still work, but an 'Unknown' entity would flicker in and out in the overview list. No ship class, no distance, just the inference of a vessel as your sensors note a hole in the white noise saturating them.

In reference to this being a cloud it doesn't need to be in the physical sense, more that it's a cloud like region of space where sensors are utterly screwed except for close in. More of an electromagnetic cloud that messes with your systems but doesn't show up visually.

In terms of how this would show up in scan I would suggest it is an anomaly that anyone can warp to (along the lines of low level combat/ore anomalies). However when you warp to location you land at a random location around the outer edge of the region. This is a true anomaly that your sensors cannot get any fix on other than the localized area. The landing point from warp would have to be random so that it can't be landing point camped by the first to find the anomaly