Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Partially agree

I would qualify it with this:
Covert cloaks should not allow direct hot dropping options.
Either have a spool up, 60 seconds, or not allowed on grid with hostile due to field stability issues.
As the trade off for this, they should be freely allowed on cloaked ships, to the point where I would suggest they be even considered a part of the cloaking system of covert ships.
(No second slot, the cloaking device includes the covert cyno.)

And instead of depriving the cloaked ship, of non-covert type, access to the cyno, simply have a synergy penalty where either the cyno induces a 60 second spool up, OR allows the cloaked ship to be directly hunted.

SHIPS CLOACK SHOULD CONSUME FUEL.


SO ....FUEL EMPTY.... DECLOACK

And



The littany of bad ideas goes on and on.

As for fuel, no. Covert ops ships, generally speaking, have smallish cargo holds forcing people to take fuel not only nerfs the ships when cloaked, but also when uncloaked since it limits things like ammo, nanite paste, liquid ozone, and so forth.

It is a bad lazy idea.

As for cap, again these ships are not noted for their robust nature and now with this dopey suggestion when a ship decloaks for combat it is now gimped because it has lower cap levels limiting modules that can be activated.

Another bad lazy idea.

Two horrible ideas that have been proposed since the dawn of cloaks by the whiners who want have their cake and eat it too.

Nerfing cloaks won't solve this issue.
All a cloak nerf would accomplish, is giving PvE a free pass against the closest thing to PvP risk, which has any meaningful direct impact on it.

Blob reinforcing the outpost or taking out that POS? The PvE pilot leaves for greener pastures.

A roam shows up? The PvE pilot knew about it from several systems away, and most roam pilots know perfectly well they won't encounter anything but careless or consensual opponents.
A roam has about as much of a surprise factor, as a high school marching band playing Sousa music while going down main street with parade floats.

Lack of enjoyable resolution, both for the cloaked pilot and the PvE player.
This is the issue. Not making it impractical for cloaks to show up, but making it practical for both sides to stay on the field, and play together by shooting each other's internet spaceships.

Convince both sides that they have a fighting chance at winning, and they will treat it just like a game they want to play against each other.

Yes they do. Nerfing even an active cloaking ships is just simple Bravo Sierra and the last two suggestions did precisely that.



Oh, baloney. Here is what you do....

1. Form a standing fleet.
2. Get on comms.
3. If possible rat in ships with more of a PvP fit if possible.
4. If you do get tackled/attacked, speak up on comms so people can come help.
5. [Added via edit] Have some PvP ships close by so you can swap out and help those who are tackled.

Will this ensure you aren't going to have a problem? No.

Other things you can do, look at the person's kill board and gather information. What type of ship do they usually do their hunting in? Do the kill mails show other pilots who probably came in via a cyno (covert or otherwise)? When is this pilot typically active?

Again, it will not ensure complete safety, but so what?



No, AFK cloaking is not fun. But it is not fun because of local. This has been gone over again and again. Hopefully local will go when the OA is introduced or shortly thereafter and it will solve the AFK cloaking problem.



It is about flying with enhanced safety and reducing risk and doing so in a lazy way.

And yeah, I've ratted in a system with an AFK cloaker. A dude from VeGA when we were back in Cloud Ring...thing is he is German so when he was active I was not logged in, when I was, he was almost surely sound asleep....but still logged in while I was ratting happily away. So, your last sentence should be, "Lazy people don't."

With the exception of those players using acknowledged AFK protections.
Such protections clearly precluding direct access to ISK generating capability while active in their respective forms.

1. Logged off (clearly imperfect, as demonstrated by timers holding the ship online till they expire)

2. Sitting in a POS (effectively perfect, as the game will dump you out during the next down time, making it your choice if you should log into one on the day it's reinforcement timer expires)

3. Sitting in an outpost (It may change ownership, if player built, but they can't get rid of you without your cooperation)
(Docking permission, on the other hand, may involve not having an active timer, station depending, as well as standings)

4. Cloaked. (You must gamble on other players not getting in close enough proximity to decloak you, often requiring being off grid to likely travel areas in a system. Often the only practical option in hostile space, if timers become involved, or a need to obfuscate intel regarding whether you are online and active)

Diminishing the ability of a normal cloak to actively impact others play is just fine, but the ability to be AFK is the logical intent of this mechanic.
COVERT CLOAKS are the notable and clearly defined exception, to the expectation of being used strictly for AFK support. It is possible some degree of compromise could be needed here, but a nerf to direct combat capability is obviously preferred to making the stealth aspect less useful.
(These should be more challenging to use in direct PvP, I believe)

So with the release of FozieSov we had a cloaky camper set up shop in our main system that we stage out of. He's logged on for about 15hrs a day. His killboardz show he's a hotdropper. Every few hours or so he logges off and on but cloaks at a safe before we can combat him down.

Now with the new sov mechanics because our indices are falling its placing our system security at risk. Eve to me is about risk vs reward. If we choose to use the system we risk our PVE ships so what does the camper risk? If they are actually at their computer, he sits on another character going about his business and every so often scopes the system looking for a target until he finds a fight he knows he'll win. Their is no risk for him except at the point when he chooses to decloaked. There is no way to force their hand.

Local is not the issue in this. If people don't want local go live in wormholes. Their needs to be a balance in being able to control the terms of engagement. Right now it's all on the person cloaked to decide when to fight or even put themself at any risk.

My suggestions are:

- Cloaks us fuel eg. Strong or isotopes But covert ops ships get a fuel bay
- cloaks cause cynos to have a cool down timer meaning a miner or ratter would have time to get a fleet together to help
- cloaks recieve heat damage when in use. The longer you use it the longer it takes to cool down. Use it too long and it burns out. This means cloaky campers have to be somewhat active and gives a window when they can me caught.

BUT, let's just rewrite a few lines, to point out how balance exists.
It exists to the point where resolution is off the table, it would seem.

Eve to me is about risk vs reward. If we choose to hunt in the system we risk our Cloaked ships, so what does the PvE player risk? If they are actually even online, they sit on another character going about his business and every so often scopes the system looking for a risk free opportunity until he finds every hostile has left. Their is no risk for him except at the point when he chooses to undock. There is no way to force their hand.

Local tells us when to stay under cover. If people don't want local, or several other major game aspects, they might want to go live in wormholes...

Then this part drops. The conclusion being reached that consensual interaction is perfectly fine as the only option of risk that sov PvE players need.
Their needs to be a balance in being able to control the terms of engagement. Right now it's all on the person cloaked to decide when to fight or even put themself at any risk.


Sure, let's not even mention how the cloaked menace has zero chance to catch a prepared and alert PvE player, and how they are quite clearly choosing when to fight, or even put themselves at risk.

It seems obvious they choose to NEVER fight, and while I understand the reasoning they use, I am disappointed in the solution I hear all too often.
Rather than make the encounter between cloaked and PvE ships desirable by both sides, just make the cloaked players unable to remain, so the PvE player can go back to PvP free grinding.

Examples, which at no point expose the PvE hulls to any risk:

I think cloaking is just fine.

But here's an idea: the mobile Cyno disruptor deployable. Give it an extra function: the ability to offline and retrieve/reuse it so long as you do so before its standard timer expires.

Actually you are wrong. If the guy is in a cloaked ship and has no back up, the above will go a long ways towards negating the threat of the cloaked ship. If the guy does not have enough back up, then that too can go a long ways towards negating the effect of the cloaked ship.

Of course, you can't know this, but then that implies you dislike uncertainty (as opposed to risk, which can be managed, uncertainty is much harder for many people to deal with psychologically, see for example the Ellsberg paradox). Don't take this as an insult, the vast majority of people are this way. When presented with say a choice between a known risk and uncertainty...even when there is no reason to think the uncertain choice is worse, people will gravitate towards picking the known risk (and often when making such choices in sequence they make assumptions that should lead them to sometimes selecting the uncertain choice...which is the gist of the Ellsberg paradox).

However, from a game perspective I find the notion of uncertainty what makes the game interesting. If we removed all uncertainty we'd only have risk...and as I noted risk can be managed. And once risk is managed the game would become rather boring rather quickly.



Now you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Here you are going on about 1 ship, but then you'll breathlessly tell us he might have a cyno and friends, even a fleet and OMG nothing can stop them!!!1!!!Eleven. And again, you are mis-stating what I wrote. I did not say that there has to be a PvP fleet on standby, but that there is a standing fleet that all ratters are in, even across different systems. When something Bad™ happens people in the standing fleet switch to PvP ships and ride to the rescue if they can.

Second, if he wont attack in the scenario you outlined he cannot project any threat. So even in your distorted scenario of what I wrote you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Pick one side and try to be consistent.



First, if you are a defenseless miner that is by choice and it is also a bad choice. You can fit a tank, and you can carry a flight of drones. And if you fly a skiff or procuror then you can fit quite a bit of tank...probably enough for help to arrive even from a system or two away.

Second, while cloaked the cloaked ship presents no threat...only when decloaked does he present a threat and at which time he can also be engaged. If it is a recon or covert ops ship going after our skiff above, he might be in trouble too given the tank and drones.



And that is the way things are going with the OA, but at the same time something needs to be done to make Local vulnerable as well. I'm hoping they'll remove local and let people get intel also via the OA and which will be vulnerable to attack/subversion.