Assembly Hall

Watchlisting is one of the most used and easy intel assets at the moment.
People just have to put you on watchlist and provide free and easy instant intel.
There are alliances that have every single Super and Titan-pilot watchlisted and it makes it almost impossible nowadays to log in a SUPER or Titan pilot without the enemy instantly knowing it.
This makes boring gameplay and prevents covert CAPITAL operations.
This will also generate big-bloc power projection since nobody wants to fly his Super or Titan with smaller Alliances because they know that big blocs like Pandemic Legion have them watchlisted and will hunt them down as soon as they log in.
So there is only one choice left and that is to join a big bloc or loose your Super to them because they have you watchlisted.


I propose that people can only watchlist you if you accept it. in other words:
If somebody wants to watchlist you, you get a message wich asks you if you agree to have that person watchlist you.

This way people will actually have to do more active scouting and less metagaming in station.

And it will provide more capital action since people will be less scared to log in their capital ships without having the danger of being ganked by big alliances with lots of capital ships that are waiting for you to log in and see you on their watchlist.

i think that's an interesting argument, that people may not log in supers because of a watchlist. i think it's preferable that someone'd feel comfortable logging in without feeling that basic act'd get them killed.

but i also wonder if it'd be too difficult to catch a super without a watchlist? it's silly to expect someone to camp a logoff point for months. big news stories in mainstream media come out of having supers be tracked for months, and it's a playstyle a notable number of people enjoy.

should supers be 'caught' with watchlist games or should they be dying in battle? (e: a big fight) would a restricted watchlist cause more people to log on their supers? would it result in people having more fun in their supers, more supers in fights? is that a good thing or a bad thing? who'd it benefit and who'd it restrict?

i've seen less supers in space than i have fingers, haven't been in a fight with more than two hundred people, and barely log on, so i've no bloody idea.

Well, as you already said it: Supers should die in a fight, and not die because PL has every single Supercap Pilot watchlisted and as soon as they log in, they run a Locater on them. And no it is indeed silly to have an alt logged of in the system, like I said they use Locaters AFTER they noticed it log in. This is way to easy intel.

+1 for the Idea

my question 'should supers die in watchlist games or in battle' in my previous post is very poorly worded as it suggests that these two things ('dying in watchlist games' and 'dying in battle') are opposed to each other. i see no reason to assume that reducing one would lead to an increase in the other.

i think it's called a false dilemma. i'm sorry for asking such a bad question. i'd like to stress that these are actual questions and not questions designed to convey a message - i am almost completely ignorant regarding supercap meta and am not qualified to comment

And this is exactly why I like the OP's proposal, it will reduce metagaming that is ruining this game.
You shouldnt be able to get kills through easy metagaming.
As I recall CCP is removing API-pulling for wormhole data for the exact same reason.
People can see how many NPC's are killed in each Wormhole by an API pull.
They are removing this because it is too easy intel.
And in my opinion the watchlist is just as gamebreaking to Supers and Titans

Well, I am glad it makes some sense at least :)
Now I am hoping there will be some discussion about it, and maybe some changes in the future.

Ofcourse PL and other big Supercap entities will complain about it since they will have to do much
more "Effort" to get easy Capital kills.

On the other hand it will be much more exciting for Super and Titan pilots to fly their ships since they can move it around the galaxy much easier without the enemy knowing it. (If they do it right) and people will hopefully be more confident flying their Supers and create more content.

There is no unfortunatly in this story, since your enemy doesnt know how many YOU have online either...

That could be easily solved by making that if 2 entities are at war (through a wardeck) they
automaticaly become available for watchlist.
As soon as the war drops, the availability of being able to watchlist them drops as well.
You can even put that in a story line. That if people wardeck each other they will have spies everywhere that will keep an eye on the enemy and will tell you when they log on. So Roleplayers are happy too.....

Therefore I am not against the idea that if 2 corporations or alliances have wardecked each other the watchlist becomes available for them. Because if PL or any other big entity wanted to watchlist every Super or Titan, they would have to wardeck the entire galaxy.

Depends if you believe it is a desirable fix, remember it cuts both ways. The defender is more likely to be inconvenienced as the same intel is not available to them. They are unaware if their aggressors are online so either they will dock up out of paranoia or always have to move around with scout which isn't always a possibility with lightly social groups.

This wouldn't prevent the other methods i.e. log-on traps, liberal use of 90% pointless war decs similar to the Privateer alliance trick a number of years ago, suicide ganking or awoxing. If you make one play style less effective people will adapt to the next best thing.

As for the suggestion of a "War dec" watch list, if we are going to choose game mechanics we could come up with something better than the current locator services + watch list. Effectively combining the two into a kind of a short delayed target radar, something that is used every 20 minutes that tracks "legal combatants" available to both parties, (maybe through standings.).

Depending on the length of delay, war dec requirements & watch list opt out it could help with the OPs post of super capital pilots being easily tracked.

That could work too, you could even use the same agent that will tell you both
the location AND if he is active or when he was last seen active.