Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Instead take a few seconds and look at the existing threads...namely the one where I collected many of the common suggstions.

Stop shitting up the forums with the repeated nonsense.

Oh, and get a clue, this issue has been talked about since 2007. Nothing has been done...nothing is likely to be done.

I think most people agree that AFK cloaking with the intent to never engage is lame, of course you can often work out those people, however the AFK cloaking by people who do engage is different, there are times that you can call their bluff and there are times that you cannot, sometimes its a good idea to setup to kill them, but then they chose to be AFK...

But I like cloaking, it means I can operate where I want to and not be caught, therefore I do not want to see anything that nerf's cloaking.

Often in AFK cloaking threads you get the remove local rubbish, sometimes you get people say that it works in WH's, of course Cyno's don't, but many seem to miss that. They say that local is a perfect intel tool and that it is unfair, but refuse to see that the report of activity is also perfect intel, they want local removed so that they can kill things easily, not to make Eve space big and dark again, just to make their kills easy. Many of them fail to see the balance impact that will have, without local to balance that other intel and the most important part the power projection of cyno's they are just focussed on the thing that benefits them. And any attempt to make them see sense results in mindless insults, just like you saw here. They fail so much to see that risk has to be balanced and therefore if they can run around killing any person ratting in 0.0 they will and then start bleating about nerfing HS to force people into 0.0 so they can blow them up.

To be blunt the situation with AFK cloaking is not perfect, but this sort of works, its likely that you are being camped by the Delve Goons, I have been in that situation myself, though the Goons now are vastly better than the Goons I dealt with in Querious/Delve when SAS had B-7. This means that you will be hot dropped. What can you do about it, well you can take it on the chin like many do, or you can moan about it, or you can get your stuff together and do it back to them. I spent a week camping the best ratting system in Tenal, but while you are moaning about the Goons in your space, what about CVA moaning about Thorn and Replicator and his numerous alts camping their space, I loved it when they killed him, I suggested to them in that thread to go camp B-7 in return, I hope they did.

The ideas you put forward have been put forward by others, I often cloak while AFK, though as I see AFK cloaking as lame I tend not to do it unless done to me. To which end I am waiting for a certain corp to get space aand then I will be there, that is the way of Eve!

Not respecting those with no apparent interest in engaging is harsh, but I can accept that many PvE pilots often present exactly this posture when combat comes their way.
I believe you will find that the so called AFK cloakers have a definite interest in engaging.

It is simply not in current game balance to allow cloakers this option.
But how? And why is this?

First 'why', as 'how' follows that with logic.

Why is explained by people choosing to attack target A with ship B. Whether that ship is solo or part of a fleet, it has a range of acceptable targets.
PvE craft are targets, and legitimate ones, especially outside of high security space. Unfortunately, a rather hard to balance and possibly unintended feature is allowing them a 100% success rate of combat evasion with preparations done right.
I obviously refer to local chat's pilot roster, which gives them reliable warning so they can always warp to safety if aligned.
So, what happens when someone comes to visit them with gift baskets full of missiles and rail guns? They get safe, and avoid engaging.

Tragic, I know.

Now, with that precedent firmly established in nearly each and every incident, the would be visitor finds themselves suddenly blobbed by an overwhelming force that has no interest beyond driving them away. Possibly with an added deterrent of don't hunt here or you'll just get more of this.
How then, do they bring needed combat to the PvE pilots?
The best they have been able to do is wait, and hope, that they will come out and play.

Since the heartless blobby crews have no interest in fights, simply preventing them instead, it is determined that the gift baskets need to be hidden from them until a proper delivery can be arranged.
Singing telegrams were suggested at one point, but hot dropping was added as part of the second verse, better to get full orchestral support for such music.

So, their love is cloaked, since all others are rejected this heartlessly.

The problem isn't someone going AFK while cloaked, its the free intel channel called "Local" that is the true issue.

People fear the unknown. In this case the unknown is the question if that cloaked person is really AFK or not.

The real question should be, am I really alone when I can't tell with any certainty, like WH Space.

The Local chat channel should be changed to Constellation and you only show up if you talk, like WH Space. Then there is no way to tell if someone is in your system even if they talk in the Chat channel, .

The fact that you can tell if someone is present in any given solar system via local is one of the biggest immersion breakers in this game. You should have no clue.

Of course some related game mechanics will have to be changed to balance this out.

Here an idea for you all! Turn all of null sec into wormhole sec, make it claimable, and the WHs can randomly spawn anywhere!

That will create two things! It will get rid of whining nullbears, cause by god, I'm getting sick of them

and then there will be no more local....


Oh god...I think I broke my sarcasm meter....

I just want to pick apart this real quick.

First, you say we want to remove local so we can get easy kills. Of course, that would be incorrect, you fail to take note that without local, it that much harder for a /hunter/ to find usable targets, that means your hot drop cyno alts will have to go out deeper and deeper to find said target, which in turn will cause the hotdrop fleet to move around. This will reveal a notable footprint on the map that you can easily check up on every 30 minutes. Also, what is this..."Other intel?" You speak of? D-scanner? Sure, you can D-scan people down, but, they can D-scan you back, and they don't require probes to find your probes hunting for them.

Cloaking, and Cyno was developed as a counter to local, Cloaking makes local unreliable, if you have someone sitting there 24/7, not knowing if he there or not. And Cyno bypasses local's report system, until the very last minute, also known as hot dropping to some.

I think the current problem is we are having is that local is the biggest issue, that caused a-lot of band-aids to be placed ontop of one another, Local is the starting point of it all, band-aids were applied, and thus now we have cloaking, and Cynos, or Hot-dropping as some called it. Now, what I think CCP fears is that, if they remove local, what will happen to their band-aid bridge? Will it keep standing or will it....Fall and burn?

There's a lot of deliberate misdirection and misinformation whenever this is discussed. Let's take some of these trolls apart:

"afk cloakers never harmed anyone" A player establishes a presence afk that often leads to players disregarding them and then being killed when the player becomes active. The issue is that a significant game advantage is gained while not actually playing Eve.

"htfu" I'm sorry, you sit there invisible, so safe and snug you don't even have to watch the game and you want us to htfu? Get real. If you want to kill you should be at risk yourself.

"There is no problem." There is a problem and this is it: it's boring. My perspective is as a null FC who loves doing home defence. It's really hard to motivate people to counter-camp or try baiting because we are likely to be playing a game against someone who just isn't there. Sure we can camp the out-gate in resebo-ed insta-slashers or go mining with a cynoed Skiff but after an hour with nothing happening people start to drop fleet in favour of more exciting real life alternatives like watching paint dry or dusting the attic. And a boring game is bad not only for those of us who play it but for those trying to make a living from providing this game as a service.

I'm not asking for cloaking to be removed - it's an awesome aspect of the game. What I'm asking for is a game design that allows us defenders to interact with our attackers. You want to cloak up, come down to Delve and try to kill ratters and miners? Great, bring that content to us. But right now it's not content because countering you guys is so boring.

The only "advantage" gained is that local is no longer a 100% infallible intel tool with zero risk or effort. Now there's a tiny bit of uncertainty.

It is entirely unreasonable for you to expect absolute certainty of intel in null. Take your entitlement and go back to highsec, bro.



And the moment they become capable of killing anything - i.e. when they come back to the keyboard and when they uncloak (they cannot kill without uncloaking) they are at risk. A big risk, since cloaky ships are mostly paper thin and low dps.



The amount you can interact with cloakers is identical to the amount they can interact with you: i.e. they can do nothing except appear your local list, and you can do nothing to them except appear in local. That's fair. That's balanced. Demanding you have an extra way to "interact" with them is unbalanced. You already have the home field advantage and you're crying for more? How bad at this game are you, bro?

PS I don't see you also championing a way for me, as a cloaker in a hostile system, to be able to "interact" with you while you're sitting safely in your pos shield or outpost. Hypocrite much?

It is balanced.

Both sides are using game mechanics, and it is resulting in a stalemate condition.

While a stalemate may be unresolved, it undeniably proves balance with the absence of unavoidable losses to either side.

if they are afk they can't hurt you

god damn babby knights just pay the pizza delivery man and he'll go away