Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You are breaking the game by removing the only counter to local.

It is all about removing damaging AFK play mate...

Please tell us how a ship that can't move, can't target, can't shoot and has nobody controlling it damage play?

The risk of hot drop a clock matey boy...

First of all I did not call you an idiot, Sonya Corvinus is an idiot. I looked at your initial post and thought it a bit samey, but your second post has got my interest up because you are certainly more thoughtful about this issue, so respect to you and please excuse my samey response, its hard not to get a bit flippant when I have to reply to so many mediocre posts.

First of all local enables you to define risk, before we had skill injectors and watch lists it was not the only thing that enabled risk to be ascertained, but that's life. Now if people can run around and warp to anoms without probing them then it gets rather easy for someone in system to have fun, so if one removes local, one has to adjust other aspects to balance off against it. For a start I would get rid of all that other free intel in the map, so the lazy blighters have to go check that naff -0.01 system has someone mad enough to do stuff in it, crazy thought that.

Without local people would have to have multiple accounts to watch the entry gates and I think every WH player will be in seven heaven, kills galore. The risk side of the equation just goes way off base and the issue with Eve is that it will make it even more obvious that this is a game where rich older players can farm to their hearts content, why, because newer players want the ISK and want to build themselves up and the older players just farm them.

The thing is that it will get so easy it will not be worth it, one as a hunter I would just find it no challenge and think Eve is pathetic, and people ratting will go no way unless they were set up for it as a group. That means that TZ's like AuTZ will see a lot of people not bothering at all, can you imagine just how dead early EU TZ will be.

The only times people can make any ISK is when other people are around, so WOT's looks a lot more interesting and never mind Star Citizen.

Fact is all this is left in this game is predators experienced and risk aware old players and noobies taht will soon work out they are patsies and walk, great move...

People tell me Eve is a hard game, but hunting should be hard, remove local and even a moron can do it... and there are quite a few lazy morons in Eve.

One part of me does not care, I have de-subbed and 6th October is it for me, I don't intend to come back at this point, problem is that there is so much good about this game, but what annoys me is CCP making it a theme park for HTFU players which is really funny.

Eve should be hard and hunting is part of that!

Risk and reward need to be balanced, that I do agree with. Currently the intel is very much in the favor of the defence due to local updating faster than people load grid. That has lead to local becoming the most important intel-tool in the game. It is used as a binary system, where you are either dead or safe, depending on what the local list tells you. This in turn has created the AFK-cloaking -tactic to make people either not risk it, or have the chance of someone actually being there and the ratter getting caugth.

The problem cannot be fixed by solely nerfing cloaks, or by solely changing local. You need to address both parts of the issue. The problem is, finding a effective way to do it without nerfing either activity to the ground. People need to be able to feel safe enough to do stuff in space without making them invulnerable to being caught. At the same time, cloaks need to keep the edge to be able to choose the moment they attack and be the intel-gatherers, without making them invulnerable to being found. Both sides need to work to be able to achieve their goals.

I don't think the current implementation is the best, but it's also not the worst. I think it's the best compromise that CCP could come up with. While I can understand the frustration of having AFK-cloakers sitting in your system, I don't think that the intel-channels of nullsec and the power of local make the equation easy for the hunters either when your prey is docked up before you even enter the system, sometimes even before you enter 3 systems before the one the ratter is in without ever having someone actually scouting for incoming hostiles.

You have to also remember that there is 2 types of AFK-cloakers. There is the strategic-kind to lower morale and indexes. There is the tactical cloakers who are mostly after the kills. There are different reasons why it's done, but it all boils down to the same reason why it works: The intel provided by local.

This isn't an easy problem to solve. How do you quarantee enough safety for the ratters to be able to do their business in space without making them too vulnerable to being jumped on and while also keeping the cloaks being a usefull module without making it too powerfull.

I don't think the fix is in timers or fuel for cloaks. I also don't think that removing local is the key.

What I suggested is an OS that puts an AFK flag on people who are not active after an hour. The issue is with the end of the watch list people cannot log the droppers, with skill injectors you cannot assess the age of the toon and the risk and you miss out on history because people can create a pristine AFK cloaky camper which does not enable you to link them to who the droppers are likely to be.

I don't want to see cloaks changed in terms of timers and fuel or being able to proble them out. What I do want to remove is this 24/24 7/7 camping while sleeping, working and shagging...

So an OS that links to the OS used for local would be the preferred option, and it can be attacked when active, so its a conflict driver. Hopefully CCP do this.

And if you remove local you make hunting too easy and the risk too great so most people will head back to hisec. Having no local works in WH's, but it will not work out well in 0.0.

AFK-flag doesn't sound a very Eve-like solution. It's again free intel given out without any participation of players. It's too easy and too cheap. The player should be the one making the decision who is a threat and who isn't.

And how do you do that at this point? Don't forget taht we are not talking about WH space so that hot drops are a thing, not hole control and pre scanning.

As soon as you explain how someone not playing the game can harm anyone, other than be a perceived threat (which you should be ready for all the time anyway in NS), I'll keep treating you like a child.

Refuse to fleet up, refuse to PvE in a PvP ship, refuse to warp out when threats show up, refuse to pay attention when playing. -Dracvlad's guide to null.