Today’s PC Gamer revisited review says: “The user interface is another major sticking point for many new players. My housemate once described it as an “unfriendly, scary, complicated calculator,” and he’s really not wrong.”
The following overhaul was developed after someone else said that spamming D-scan was awful game design/gameplay. I’m no expert on PvP, but I’ve done a fair amount of game design and I agree. Most of my PvP experience is with cruisers and so I’m hoping PvPers and other impartial players will help me improve the suggestion.
(An auto-refresh D scan would mandate the elimination of Local in 0.0.)
Edit: ^^ cannot be done with current Eve design according to ISD_Buldath.
D scan results can still be incorporated into the Overview, without being able to warp to them > 4km away.
There’s a case for simultaneously nerfing the post-overhaul D scan so that identifying distant ships is harder. Big ships would be more easily identified. Directional D scan use would be required to boost identification power (or range?).
We could also solve the cloaking controversy at the same time.
Cloaked ships could appear on overview at 20km, but not identified and not selectable. You’d need to use the directional function of D scan to approach them with any accuracy. If cloaking is nerfed, gate camps would have to be nerfed in some way.
Cynos should probably appear at any range.
There needs to be more opportunity for small gang PvP with less reliance on cloaked ships. With any overhaul of PvP, some will be happy and many will cry. Tuning of the balance could be done with alterations to things like range on the new Overview, range of Overview identification, power of the new D scan etc.
So what does this mean?
D scan spamming will be gone and not before time.
Your UI will be cleaner. You will not need the D scan window most of the time. It will be used when needed, like the Probe scanning window.
Overview will become more important.
0.0 might actually become as dangerous as it’s supposed to be. Whether it should be more or less dangerous than W-space is debatable. This is where more PvP opportunities will arise. Lowsec and Highsec will become a bit safer.
Reduced AFK cloaking.
Players will get a few seconds more warning of cloaked gankers without having to spam D scan.
Hoping for a mature thread about game design rather than the usual obviously-defending-your-EZ-mode nonsense.
I read the entire review, and you take a single portion out of context to push an agenda.
there is nothing EZ beyond a certain point in EvE, and what most might defend is not nonsense.
The player base, as touched on in that review, is a community made up of communities…
and we like inviting others into them, but take offense at attempts to wreck our home.
Get gud scrub.
They already do, normal cyno’s create a global beacon, replacing the overview with a global system would make it far easier to create bots that avoid players so i don’t think thats going to happen, the main issue with d-scan is the server load, i don’t really think CCP wants a system where 30,000 clients are constantly pinging the server for data on who is where, and can you imagine how bad that lag would be in places like jita where your overview would need to show hundreds if not thousands of ships on your overview at all times, ther eis a reason the game limits the overview to only the active grid
Except it wouldn’t because now your overview would be a ■■■■■■■■■■■ instead
Except it owuldn’t, i would now know well in advance if the person in local was actually undocked in anything non-covert, i would know when they undocked in a cloaker as they would have to briefly show on my overview before they could cloak, this would be giving people far too much tactical information at no risk
Sure there would, AFK cloaking is done at safespots , you already said you would need to be within 20km to find the cloaked ship which means you’re still not going to see the AFK cloakers lol
What you mean is “Players would be able to be warned of things without having to actively participate in the gathering of that information” which promotes laziness
OP is (not so) cleverly hiding his personal ideas in his “no really just look at this review” thing. Also, the OP’s ideas are not pro pvp at all which isn’t really surprising because a cursory glance at the killboard shows he’s a really bad carebear who couldn’t fit a ship to save his life.
There are some interesting ideas there. I liked the cloaked ship within 20 km idea as part of this…
However there could be an issue with big battles and the impact of such a change in terms of lag, though on reflection I am not sure how major it would be. If they could reduce the frequency of D-scans when in big battles, perhaps define a specific person who gets the normal frequency.
There is a sort of balance in terms of the existing systems which a number of us have pointed out, but that does not mean that we could change it to something more interesting and this idea rocks my boat because with the cloak suggestion it actually gives something back when removing local and most people just go middle finger to people ratting. So credit to you OP for meeting it half way, if more people could do that then these forums would not be such a cesspit of trolling.
replacing the overview with a global system would make it far easier to create bots that avoid players
Not sure I understand your point. Bots dock up on changes in Local anyway and can autospam D scan.
the main issue with d-scan is the server load, i don’t really think CCP wants a system where 30,000 clients are constantly pinging the server for data on who is where, and can you imagine how bad that lag would be in places like jita where your overview would need to show hundreds if not thousands of ships on your overview at all times, ther eis a reason the game limits the overview to only the active grid
This may well be a legitimate point. I don’t think Jita is much of a problem, where you could have the equivalent of ti-di for Overview, excluding anyone being targeted or with combat timers. The bigger issue is the one Dracvlad raised.
Except it wouldn’t because now your overview would be a ■■■■■■■■■■■ instead
Overview is configurable and if you make it take up the space D scan did, it will still look cleaner.
Except it owuldn’t, i would now know well in advance if the person in local was actually undocked in anything non-covert, i would know when they undocked in a cloaker as they would have to briefly show on my overview before they could cloak, this would be giving people far too much tactical information at no risk
Struggling to understand. Local chat will be gone a la W-space. Could be replaced by regional chat to make up for social loss.
Sure there would, AFK cloaking is done at safespots , you already said you would need to be within 20km to find the cloaked ship which means you’re still not going to see the AFK cloakers lol
Legit point. I always thought combat scanners should have some role in detecting cloaked eg unidentifiied cloaked ship and you land within 20km.
What you mean is “Players would be able to be warned of things without having to actively participate in the gathering of that information” which promotes laziness
Unless you have some strange reason to insist people spam D scan instead of watching Overview, I don’t think that’s an issue.
Of course they are. I question either your PvP credentials or whether you read the suggestion properly.
More specifically, they are pro PvP in 0.0, the space which is actually supposed to be dangerous. Other spaces are made marginally safer. Cloaking is made less safe everywhere.
Automatic D-Scan simply will not work in the Way it is currently implemented. As it is now, The Delay that was put in was to reduce lag, and When you have Hundreds or even a thousand players all in D-scan range, Lag is a serious factor. Every planet, moon, structure, ship, drone is checked each time that scan button is pressed. Only after is the Result given does the filter remove that which you do not want to see.
That said, topic moved to Player Features and Ideas Discussion.
@ISD_Buldath, thanks for the info. I’ll amend the original post to reflect it.
Every planet, moon, structure, ship, drone is checked each time that scan button is pressed.
If literally true, there’s some obvious optimisation to be done here ie make call to subroutine with specific parameters.
Do drones even need to be on D scan? That’s potentially 8 unnecessary objects per player in tidi battles and I imagine D scan usage goes through the roof then.
Manual D scan could be integrated into Overview anyway with the same UI benefits. The suggestion to make scanning dependent on ship size is one I find interesting, and would make frigates more relevant.
There’s a solid vote up for 20km reveal of cloaked ships without identifying type. Removing Local from 0.0 a la W-space was very popular (except with nullbears) when brought up a month ago.
Normal cyno’s have always been an option to be displayed on the overview and broadcast systemwide, covert cyno’s are only seen on grid
Because its still more complicated now than you want to make it
And have a scrollbar a mile long regardless of if you were even near a single other person making it an absolute mess
What did my point have to do with local chat, you would know they were IN local, as in, IN system, you would immediately see a ship appear on your overview and then disappear within a few seconds, meaning it was likely a cov ops
I do insist players learn to use the tools they have been given instead of having CCP do all the work for them, putting every ship in local on my overview is a non-starter it would make too much mess, the reason the 2 tools are separated is so you can filter what you need to know about instead of just having everything under the sun in a single window, d-scan is not a problem that needs fixing and it certainly wouldn’t be “fixed” like this lol
Because its still more complicated now than you want to make it
Still not following.
And have a scrollbar a mile long regardless of if you were even near a single other person making it an absolute mess
We’ll put in an option for you to keep yours at 4000km if you want.
What did my point have to do with local chat, you would know they were IN local, as in, IN system, you would immediately see a ship appear on your overview and then disappear within a few seconds, meaning it was likely a cov ops
Only if you’re undocked and within range of the gate.
d-scan is not a problem that needs fixing and it certainly wouldn’t be “fixed” like this lol
a) Many people including every game designer on the planet disagrees with you.
b) The only way to fix D scan spamming is to make it autorefresh.
It’s a bit academic though since the code won’t allow it.
What gate, you said you wanted all ships in system to appear as unknown signals on the overview, hence i will know if something appears and then quickly disappears
Or you could just leave everything as it is as none of this actually needs fixing lol
Citation needed, i have never seen people complain that d-scan is a problem in the last 14 years i have played this game, you are literally the first person i have witnessed make this complaint
You have still yet to explain WHY it needs fixing, its a tool, if you’re not using it you don’t benefit from it, i’m not seeing a reason why its a problem
Secondly, the range would be adjusted depending on ship size, could be boosted through narrowing the cone and would also be adjusted to provide an optimal balance for non-consensual PvP.
You have still yet to explain WHY it needs fixing
Yes I did, in the top post: “someone else said that spamming D-scan was awful game design/gameplay.”
But you’re arguing against any improvement of anything which isn’t ‘broken’.
Thats just laziness, if you can’t be bothered to use the tools that have existed for the better part of 15 years thats just people not wanting to use it, they expect to get everything for nothing, that doesn’t mean it needs to be fixed, you should be expected to have to work for that safety and information, not have it handed to you on a silver platter
