Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This thread comes up on almost a weekly basis. In fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a nerf cloaking thread in the first 2 pages on this forum section. Almost every single one of them goes like this:

1. OP posts a post with a new (lol) idea that always boils down to some variation of the following:
- "There's a big meanie who is sitting in my system and not doing anything, but I don't know where he is and I can't ever just go next door. I can't find said meanie and even though I know that he's probably at work and poses no threat at all, I wont do anything in my system that I absolutely can't leave ever because he might not be at work and I might lose a ship. CCP please stop the meanie from being able to do nothing to me because he's probably at work"

2. Thread gets trolled because its been done literally to death. This horse has been beaten so hard and so often that it's little more than a memory of a memory of a red smear on the grass, and yet it STILL WONT DIE! In fact it's been done so many times that this particular horse is now undead; even if it does die, it will still be remembered and parodied.

3. Someone comes along and suggests that AFK cloakers can't hurt you, because they are, by their very definition, AFK. No one ever lost a ship to someone who ISN'T PLAYING THE GAME.

4. Someone else comes along and points out that while the cloaker might be AFK, he might not be, and so we have Schrodinger's Hot Dropper. The cyno pilot who might be AFK... but he might not be as well, and you will only know for sure when he decloaks, points and lights his candle. (Yes, I know this isn't how the cat works)

5. Someone else comes along and suggests that you use bait and setup a TARP. Or have a defence fleet on standby. Heaven forbid you have to actually fight to defend your space.

6. A further person comes along and suggests that the problem isn't cloaking AFK in your system that you can't possibly leave ever, but that you KNOW that the person is AFK in your system... and perhaps local should be removed because free 100% accurate intel is probably not the best thing in the game and if you didn't know that the big meanie was in your system, you wouldn't be worried about leaving the undock/POS.

7. Then another person pokes their head in and complains that local is 100% NEEDED because D-Scan and probing are such bad mechanics, and IF YOU TAKE MY LOCAL AWAY IM QUITTING FOREVER AND NO YOU CAN'T HAVE MY STUFF!

8. Someone asks if they can have 7's stuff.

We end up with another thread which goes on for pages and pages between complains about local, defence fleets, inability to just go next door, people who aren't playing the game but are playing the meta, lots of bickering and in the end nothing gets solved. CCP wont remove cloaking because it would mess with waaay too many things and it creates content (which is a good thing) by removing content (which is a bad thing) but they can't really think of any way to do it without a complete overhaul of the local and scanning systems.

Now that I've had this entire thread's conversation, can we just let it die? Please?

There is a way to win versus a cloaky camper, it's called bait and counter drop.

That does not address the OP's issue of the afk camper. They are too safe in space, much less hostile space.

Why is it a problem? The active efforts of your fleet of people trying to hunt a hostile in your space is completely countered with zero effort of any sort.

But he is afk? 100% of all initiative should not be his for zero effort. Initiative in combat is everything in Eve, you should be making active effort to maintain such a huge advantage. Even if not ark and not camping but just gathering Intel, it should not be zero effort to maintain that safety.

How do we determine he is too safe? Pilots in high sec are at many times more risk (suicide gank). Pilots in a fleet of corpmates are at more risk (awox or other betrayal). Ships under POS shields are at more risk. Even a ship docked in an outpost or faction war station can have ownership flip and lose access to them.

If they're afk, then why do you care if they're in the same system as you? An afk player is literally a non-issue.

Cloaking is not a zero effort activity either. You have to make sure you don't warp too close to something, or get caught in a bubble and decloaked, and if you're attempting to hunt someone you don't have the benefit of prop mods so your ship goes at whatever is its base speed. Also, with the exception of stealth bombers and black ops ships you have a five second targeting delay at cloaking 5, or four seconds if you're using the very expensive 'Smokescreen' cloaking device.

Why is it a problem? The active efforts of your fleet of people trying to hunt a hostile in your space is completely countered with zero effort of any sort.

But he is afk? 100% of all initiative should not be his for zero effort. Initiative in combat is everything in Eve, you should be making active effort to maintain such a huge advantage. Even if not ark and not camping but just gathering Intel, it should not be zero effort to maintain that safety.

(different then the typical ideas)

Hello all, I have been playing eve for a few years now. One thing that has really begun to grate on me is the "no win" situation that is presented by AFK Cloaky Blops pilots. I am positive the original designers of the covert Ops cloak never considred that it would be used to sit in a system and prevent people from being able to do their normal activites for weeks on end because they could call a Black ops Cyno in and drop 30+ bombers on you with no way to combat the situation. -snip-