Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If a player has the ability to bring in a unlimited amount of force then it would make sense that the cloaked player should not be safe and should have to deal with some mechanic that makes him have to be strategic and aware as the ones hes hunting.

The way it is set up you got a really cheap set up and possible loss vs huge rewards and powerful force projection. so the risk vs reward factor is Way outta wack when compared to all other EVE mechanics.

Not sure its that people wont admit it. Me personally, I believe they are connected but not at the 1:1 ratio that is implied by some.

what the hec??

CCP could easily discuss this mess with the fanbase at a fanfest.. but they dodge this topic cause it hurts their friends. its the #1 issue they refused to handle.. I doubt even seagull is brave enough to deal with it.. and you want to submit some sound bites going over and over again the same circle of discussion..


no wonder general zod shot the council lady..

he was fed up with their endless debates.

CCP rid the game of AFK Cloaky CAMPING..

that way we don't have to go thru this thread year after stinking year of the same endless debates.

There are trade offs for each aspect.

If you want to limit how long a cloaked character can operate, you need to make it possible for them to catch their preferred target.
That means they need to make an opposed effort directly against the PvE shipping, not the PvE shipping racing against a clock started by seeing a name appear in local.

How might this work?
The PvE shipping cannot use local to be warned of cloaked hostiles.
They can use tactics, like enabling a repeating cycle of d-scan, or have probes out.
(The specific location of the cloaked ship would not be revealed by these effort initiated scans, but awareness of presence in the scanned area would happen)

You want to limit hot drops?
Understand that hot drops are used when a roam wants to encounter something besides consensual targets.
(In null sov space, where targets can easily jump into a POS or Outpost to avoid encounters)
The roam can't stick around, as consensual ships are often expected to force their exit.

Add a 60 second delay to local. Regardless of how the name enters, it takes 60 seconds for a pilot name to be added.
In exchange, a 30 second spool-up would be added to cyno use, which limited the cyno beacon to displaying on grid only for the spool up, and displaying as normal across the system once the cyno can be traveled to.

How might this work?
The cyno pilot could not open a cyno on grid with the target, unless they also gave the target 30 seconds of spool-up warning.
(The target would have thirty seconds to react, break the warp scramble, etc.)
Arrivals would have to hope their cyno ship survived until the cyno became usable, as well as the target not leaving.

If used off grid, the cyno would appear on the system wide overview once it became usable, but no names would appear from arrivals for 60 seconds. Arrivals from this tactic would not appear on grid with the target, since the cyno was not on grid, so they need to warp to target.
This CAN be used to bluff with. A cyno used off grid, completing it's spool-up, would show up on the overview across the system. Noone would know if players entered through it until they either landed on grid, or 60 seconds had passed.

Cloaking, AFK or otherwise, IS NOT an issue.
It's a perfectly working mechanic that is 100% ESSENTIAL to all life in wormholes and a vital part of some kspace gameplay.

AFK cloaking in particular is a non issue.
If the pilot is AFK, they pose no threat to anyone since theyre not at the keyboard.
If they are not AFK, then theyre not AFK and again there's no issue.

The only situation where it would be ok to remove afk cloaking is if the watchlist was removed and local was removed from NS and LS. (IE: never gonna happen)

It should not be touched in any way.

Seems good to me. I was just concerned that a pilot might show up in two systems at once.

While this would support technical accuracy, I don't see it giving a meaningful benefit to gameplay.

The only exception might be if someone had been using a non-covert fit, and had to wait for the cool-down to complete before the cloak re-engaged.
I believe the chances of this happening in the right context are too remote, and any change would be meaningless in the end.

Yeah, I couldn't see it having any significant impact in 99% of actual gameplay situations, it was more of a technical consistency thing.

If you want to be sensible understand that cloaks as they work now are not so much the issue, its the fact that people can be logged on while not playing and they do this for area denial, the simple and best way to deal with this is to have a flag on their character in local to indicate that this character has not done anything for an hour, as soon as that player who has been inactive for an hour or more does anything in game there is a notification feed indicating that he is now active. Its simple and you reward people for actually playing rather than those that do not.

This should only apply to people cloaked in hisec, lowsec and 0.0, not in WH's.

They cannot enforce it, but they can highly encourage it against players of the wrong mindset.

The impact of AFK cloaking isn't in the mechanism of cloaking, it's in the reaction of players to a non-friendly player in local. If they are risk averse, they will cease what they are doing and dock/safe up until the potential threat leaves local. If not, they will be on their guard but otherwise carry on.

I know that this works on some targets because I've done it. I also know that it does not work on others for the same reason.

You can't patch human psychology. As long as risk averse players run in terror at the sight of a non-friendly local, AFK cloakers will absolutely have at least the potential to interdict a system simply by being there. This is the main reason why I don't think anything should be "done" about AFK cloaking: the issue is purely with the players, not the game.