Dynamic Local? Update idea

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
#1

Hi!

So Disclaimer: I’m a wormholer and one of the best features ever introduced is no local.

From what I’ve heard about lore, local and jump gates is that the jump gates themselves track the movement of capulseers, therefore, putting them in local which is why WH space has no local, there are no jump gates.

Having no local is a beautiful thing, it allows you to genuinely hide, take to the shadows, gather intel, and so forth. You see someone ratting, well they better be on Dscan! You see someone out with an orca with their holes unrolled, sweet time to sit down get in position, and call the boys over. If local was a thing in WH space 70% of our gameplay style would be impossible. And we love it which is why we are in this space.

And its more than just being a spooky scarry space ganker, When fleet fights happen you have no idea how many enemies are actually showing up, only your intel from your scouts tracking movement can warn you, not a stupid local…

My thought is not original: Why not have a dynamic local, if you were to say enter a system from WH space why do you show up in local… You haven’t run into anyone, you haven’t gone past any infrastructure that can give away that you are in system…

A Dynamic local would open up so much fun gameplay, whether it be wormholers coming to K space from our spooky space or someone Blopsing a fleet from a couple of systems over.

If you haven’t docked, or travelled through a stargate or been spotted by an out of fleet player you should stay out of local…

That’s my 2 cents. let me know, I bet this idea scares a lot of LSers and NSers but trust me its a fun mechanic.

2 Likes
#2

But then you should also not be allowed to keep your skill points because the gate network is what transfers your consciousness to your new clone and that registers you in chats. If you don’t want to show up in local, you are also not registered in the gate network and thus you won’t get your SP if you lose your pod. Would be a nice way to reintroduce clone insurance.

REDNES

2 Likes
#3

confused how skill points how to do with being counted in local.

Does the lore really also include the gates being a factor in re cloning?

#4

The gates house the fluid router network that is used for all communication within the EVE cluster and among other things for the consciousness transfer when your pod explodes. It would also mean that you don’t see local when you jump into system from a wormhole.

REDNES

1 Like
#5

Ahhhhh ty for the lore update

#6

This part of lore seems wrong. How do wormholers keep their SP when they die? And why couldn’t the mechanic that saves wormholer SP apply to the cases described in OP?
Also, why couldn’t the lore be updated to reflect the game mechanics?

I do think there are good arguments against (and also in favour of) dynamic local, but I don’t think this is a valid argument.

1 Like
#7

I agree, this could be interesting. People entering a system with filaments, cynos and wormholes would all avoid local.

I do enjoy local and wouldn’t want it to be gone (or else I would be living in spooky space), but I do believe local chat is too powerful and unavoidable as intel tool.

Something like this suggestion could add an extra dynamic that allows players to circumvent that all-powerful intel, within clear limits.

3 Likes
#8

Because CCP doesn’t think things through. Back in the days when wormholes were introduced, this would not matter because you still had clone insurance. But when CCP removed clone insurance. no one paid attention to wormholes.

Whether it’s not a “valid” argument is debatable but if you do not want to show up in local, there have to be significant downsides for this incredibly powerful capability. Not just some delay or scanner malfunction. The risk for your reward should be appropriate and risk of losing SP is the only appropriate risk for the incredibly high reward of this capability. Especially if you can just bridge in dozens and dozens of bombers or other ships that just appear in system on a deep-safe (which are easy enough to create) and would never appear on anyone’s dscan so that you would at least have a chance to know what’s going on around you.

Besides:

REDNES

#9

I do agree that there should be significant downsides to not showing up in local, if a way to do so were implemented.

However, I do think SP loss is disproportionally large of a few magnitudes, as well as ineffective as balance mechanism as it only adds extra cost or inconvenience rather than gameplay balance. People with a large enough wallet can ignore that penalty.

Better downsides to not showing up in local are (a combination of) combat limitations:

  • targeting speed penalty
  • damage penalty
  • cyno disabled
  • cloak disabled

In addition to not seeing local chat yourself.

Each of these penalties would give a player who is jumped on by a hostile not in local a bigger chance to survive, unlike the SP penalty.

Not sure how that would tie in to the suggestion in the OP though.

1 Like
#10

100% disagree, let it be what it is, a very powerful tool

#11

None of these penalties are significant enough in any way compared to the immunity from being seen in local chat.

  • As long as you can lock one target, the penalty is pointless. And depending on what you target, you don’t even need to lock it because the ship might be immobile or tackled anyway. Not to mention dictors or hictors that don’t need to lock anything to tackle all the things.
  • Damage penalty is pointless unless it’s something like 90% and would not recover until you reconnect to the chat network.
  • Cloak disabled is not enough since we have dscan immune ships, and you’d have to prevent it from being activated after a while without reconnecting to the chat network.
  • Disabled cyno would be the only tangible downside but you would have to prevent it from being activated after a while without connecting to the chat network.

That’s why I don’t think any downsides to ships are nearly enough to counteract the power level of local chat immunity unless they make the ships that use it worthless. And to be honest, and as pointed out in your topic about the exact same suggestion, not even SP loss is really a significant enough drawback because you can just use throw-away-bomber alts for tackle and cyno.

Then you don’t want a new and balanced feature, you just want an easy way to get kills where you have all the benefits and no risk. That might be in line with what the contemporary CCP wants to turn EVE into, but it’s not what it should be. If you want that kind of power, then I want Ihub-Upgrades to prevent covert cynos to be lit in my systems and an upgrade that prevents wormholes and filament traces to land in my systems, for no significant upkeep cost of course. That way I can force all wormholes and filaments in designated systems that I then can farm for kills and as easy logistics and travel waypoints for my guys. That’s the same line of thought, and just as terrible.

REDNES

#12

on that last part, i can counter and simply say I don’t want the local… i should be able to piss on the stargate, cause a malfunction and turn your local off for a week.

Having local is Extremely overpowered, you have to be ■■■■ faced fell of your chair because you over drank AFK in order to miss the local spike before you dock up your orca / miner ship / PVE runner / PVP bait / anything. you walk through null-sec and Dscan is dead empty because everyone and their mom saw the local spike, its supposed to be dangerous to mine/rat/and hunt in these areas but local takes the entire guesswork out of everything

#13

And my main argument with a Dynamic local is that power definitely gets Rebalanced, it makes little sense you go from one space that has no local(because lore you aren’t tracked) to another space, and bam the entire region knows you’re there. It’s not like you’re invinsible, you jump one system over your gigs up, you get smacked into local.

#14

Trying to stick with my (limited) understanding of Lore, but would sovereignty be able to provide a good basis for how a dynamic local works?

Consider the player-based intel channels where the intel gathered from Local, scans, patrols, etc. are aggregated. If the Jump gate is the Lore-basis for those chat channels functioning, maybe sov-holders should have some control over that information stream?

On the one hand, an “encrypted” or restricted access local (based on standings, white/black lists, etc) could use similar mechanics to fleet or chat channel control…and would definitely give the “power of local” to the sov-holder…arguably making the power dynamic worse (I.e. more in favor of the Sov-holder and against the roaming fleet/small-gang.

On the other, it opens up an entire set of options regarding ship fits, which can restore balance and give power to the stealthy/strategic invader. Channel managers would have to decide how their channel information is transmitted (e.g. stargate network, jump bridges, encrypted, etc.). Modules/skills could be implemented that mask Friend or Foe signals so one could fly in system and not register on the local channel. Decryption modules/skills that allow you to tap in to that channel streams (provided you survive long enough in system to analyze the data) could provide counter-intelligence information. An entirely new branch of EWAR opens up where you can affect how a dynamic Local operates.

The main challenge I see with this (beyond the back-end development required and the drastic upset to status quo this would cause) is the Lore appears very retconned to begin with, and Davy teams will simply move communications outside of the game engine, if they haven’t already.

I would almost be more in favor of replacing local with a Friend/Foe counter or ID list separate from any chat Windows. Retcon the whole chat thing to ansible tech, or whatever, and add regional data with a smaller on-screen footprint.

#15

It is not overpowered. It gives everyone the same information to act upon. It gives everyone a perfectly level playing field. You cannot hide from it (well, could not, thanks to CCP’s coding incompetence), you cannot abuse it, you cannot tinker with it. And yet people die all the time despite of this “overpowered” intel tool. And even more funny, lots of wormholers come to null sec for kill farming while they surely could find enough targets in wormhole space where there’s no local. Right?

That something is supposed to be dangerous doesn’t mean that you should have tools to your disposal that remove all danger from you and give you massive benefits. Every single suggestion with regards to making local less predictable and less accurate always end up giving one side massive benefits and the other side nothing but downsides. The system as it is right now has nothing of that sort because it is a well-put together, thought-through and untaintable system.

If you think that bots abuse the system by gathering intel and using the information more efficiently, I have to regrettably tell you that bots also were more efficient at overcoming the Blackout time by placing intel bots on important gates and entries into ratting areas. Pair that with scanner bots (which are abundantly available thanks to exploration bots) and you can’t even keep wormholes hidden for a long time.

Until the time when someone comes up with a system that does not allow for power abuse by one side over another in the equation, especially actual players like me who use local to judge if an engagement is worthwhile or a waste of time for me, I will always be against changes to local chat.

REDNES

#16

Huh, I think you just hit a new mechanic, you can choose to not be in local, at the expense of sp if you die.

#17

As always when this argument comes up, remove local, add constellation instead.
This reduces it’s use as an intel tool while still leaving it as having some intel, but you don’t know if they are in ‘your’ system, just that they are close to you.

You haven’t read deep enough into the lore. It’s a Quantum relay network, meaning without taking gates you stay connected to the last gate you used, so it’s mostly irrelevant where you are, but it does still spread the load on the network out (lorewise)

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#18

And as always things like this only favor bots over actual players. This creates no positive experiences and only makes it so that intel bots on gates give advantages over actual players. Blackout has proven that beyond doubt.

REDNES

#19

I would agree if we had dynamic scrams, disruptors, and bubbles.

#20

what would be the dynamic factor?