Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Local chat has bedevilled the playerbase of Eve online since time immaterial. People have complained about the fact that Local chat provides free and flawless intel to anyone who would wish to have it. There have been proposed several ideas proposed over the years for local chat's rationalization. Most of which involve removing it, replicating the situation in Wormhole space.

In the past I have not agreed with calls for Local chat change because I believe that if local were to be removed completely, it would make places which have many people in them seem dead, and thus convince newbies that Eve is not as populated as it really is and thus disincline them to play further. I also think that a simple means of scouting should exist because it helps newbies be useful in scouting roles, which also helps neophyte fun and retention.

However, I over heard a method which I believe might be an acceptable compromise. A Delay in local chat, such that people who enter show up on local chat, but do not do so immediately. From this idea, I'll float a solution.

* Local should have a delay associated with it between 1.5 minutes and 2.5 minutes (Someone with more recent ganking experience might be able to give a tighter proposal with respect to time). The delay I want is long enough to enter local, warp to a belt, and get a point on someone.
* The delay should apply to people who enter local by; Jumping through a Gate, Jumping to a Jump Bridge, Jumping to a Cyno on a Ship, Jumping to a Cyno on a POS, Bridging with a Titan, Bridging with a Black Ops Battleship, and Clone Jumping to a Titan. People who Log on, clone jump to a station, and get podded elsewhere should appear in local instantly; like what goes on now.
* the delay goes away and the person appears in local if; The time elapses for the delay, the pilot attacks another player, the pilot is attacked by another player, or the pilot speaks in local.

Also to go with this there can be a cloaking device change.
* A script can be developed to go with a cloaking device. Let us call the script 'Ansible Silence' for now.
* If a cloaking device is run without the script, it works as cloaking devices work currently.
* If a cloaking device is run with the script, the person who's ship it is attached to disappears from local after the delay time. If the pilot talks, they reappear in local, and disappear again after the pilot has been quiet for as long as the delay time.

This is my proposal, Like it if you believe that it is good, Any questions, comments and concerns may be left in the thread below.

The main problem I have with your idea is that you as the aggressor seem to maintain the advantage of local while removing it from the target, if I was to support this change then how would you feel about not be able to see Local for the same period of time that you do not appear?

You would then need to warp to celestials and scan for targets quickly to maintain the advantage.

I really like your idea and it puts forward some things that I had not thought of before. Your idea has merit, don't count yourself out.

Some modifications that I would like to see.

-You show up in local if you are attacked, attacking someone, and talking. All other times you shouldn't be in local.

-Players will have an option to report/autoreport seen ships into local, but as a consequence show up in local themselves, also if you are cloaked and report someone into local it will decloak you.

-Cloaks will disengage you from local after 2 or maybe 5 minutes, while the regular local cool down should be 15 works the same as any aggression timer.

-Being docked up works the same as cloaking, if you stay docked for more than 5 min, you disappear from local unless you are chatting.

-High sec ofcourse remains the same.

Best Idea I've seen in a long time.

A Response to some of the comments above.

First Alticus C Bear


What you are arguing is that if a person is hidden from local, then local ought also be hidden from them. That it would not be fair for someone hunting to derive all benefit from this adjustment and for the hunted to not have benefit. I did think about that slightly before writing, but I couldn't think of a way to propose it without being exploitable or without harming newbies scouting ahead. But here's an idea that I was able to piece together from your post.

Suppose people were allowed to choose to enter local chat sooner than the delay would obligate them to. Perhaps by setting a new menu option under the 'Enter Starbase Forcefield Password' let us call it 'Enter Local Chat Visibility Delay' for now. The default can be the max and the player can enter a personal delay time in seconds, there can be a button on the pop-up that allows you to restore the default.
Now how this can function is that the person is hidden from local for as long as their personal delay time, and local is hidden from them for their personal delay time. What this does is anyone who wants to see local instantly would have to be seen instantly, but anyone who wants to have time to look around before being seen in local would also be obligated to use their scanners or bounce the belts since local will not give them anything until they want to be seen. Someone whose goal is to pass through without being seen will have to warp to a tactical instead of knowing whether or not they can warp to the gate immediately if the elect for a local delay.

Now Kusariqqu, Gerrick Palivorn, and Nikk Narrel
My purpose is not to remove local as an intelligence tool for low-sec and 0.0. The cultures of these places use local in ways that complete removal is not practical. In fleets some People are asked to fly ahead in order to see what local will be ahead of them, people are also told to watch local in order to protect themselves from danger. It would be as bad as adding local to wormhole space.



I can agree and this would be an interesting addition, You should be able to select someone in space and add them to local if they are not in local already. You should also be able to choose to have everyone on your overview automatically placed into local if you want that to happen. If you place someone into local, then you should also be placed in local regardless of any delay.

Also


I can see where you are coming from. If a player is inside of a station, then they are not in space at all, and thus should probably be in a station-specific local, rather than in the system local, but can be seen in the system local only if they are chatting. I'm not sure how this would affect things from a social standpoint though. I'll have to meditate on it.

Finally


I don't want to break AFK Cloaking, which is what would happen is the game obligated people with cloaking devices to not appear in local chat. I want people with cloaking devices to have the option to appear in local chat or not. Hence the idea for the script.

In the form of walls of text on things that will never happen.

Cheap ganker spotted.

Bumping this.

I think this would give it a more realistic feel. ALSO: the current system gives too much advantage to rush cloaker style ganking.

(RUSH CLOAKER: You come in from a neighboring system, and use a bookmark to warp directly to your target, who has little to no warning in order to react to you. Highly effective in situations where attacker has intel, such as being tipped off.)
The current system let's them verify at a glance as they rush whether their target is still present, and if more have arrived that might complicate their attack.
The defender, however, has only moments to react, including time to decide if that neutral in local needs to be reacted to at all.
The attacker, relying on the fact they are not visible in the target system's local, is hidden. Rather than wait out the targeting delay on a cloak, where the target already has time to react because you are listed in local, they twist the rules to their advantage.

How about a compromise ?

Keep high and lowsec local channels as they are.

In 0.0, make local only display pilots who are either:

- Speaking (obviously)
- Members of your alliance or PC corp (friends have no reason to hide, don't they ?)
- Members of any NPC corp (those corps have an honorable image to defend)
- On your grid (your sensors can at least detect their presence, even if not their exact location if they are cloaked)
- Currently warping to your grid (your sensors can detect incoming warp signatures)

You could even add a system message informing you that X was added to local because he/she is currently warping to your position.

But TBH, I like it as it is. If you don't like local and you are a d-scan freak, move to WH space.

It would only show them in local: no way to locate the signal in order to decloak the ship, so no decoys needed.