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Solution to AFK Cloakers?

First post
Author
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#101 - 2017-07-21 18:03:51 UTC
Scialt wrote:
Donnachadh wrote:
Scialt wrote:
I just would rather play a mmo with players who are actually at their keyboards. Guess I'm odd that way.

My mom was watching as I was reading through this thread again last night and she latched onto this specific comment.
Her response was simple, elegant and it takes no effort from CCP AND if you take the advice WE do not have to deal with this idiotic auto log off timer. And so I quote her directly.

"He simply needs to consider ALL cloaked ships to be an active player, that would solve his problems."

Leave it to a 95 year that does not play computer games to come up with the easy solution.
But you know she is right and this should be an easy task since there is no way for you to know for sure if a cloaked ship has an AFK player behind it or not.


I do treat all cloaked ships as active.

I find it annoying when I go through the trouble of doing that and NOBODY IS FREAKING THERE.

See my point?

I'm TRYING to give you target. I WANT you to shoot at my ship. I'm actively trying to play a multiplayer game with other players. I am making every effort to create content. But I have no chance because you're too busy chatting with your mom to freaking click on your client once ever 20 minutes.

I'm glad you're chatting with your mom. Log off first so I'm not wasting my time trying to interact with an empty chair.


Or maybe he is and he is just not taking the bait.

See that is the thing, AFK cloaking injects uncertainty into the game. Is he there...is he not there. Is he a threat or not? It is not so easy to quantify. You have to work at it. Working as it should, IMO.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#102 - 2017-07-21 18:06:36 UTC
Scialt wrote:
Daichi Yamato wrote:
The ui should never get in the way of the player, let alone log them off. Doesn't matter if its 23.45 hours.

Afk people do not take up server resources, they dont harm anyone and they don't gain anything. There is no reason to forcefully log anyone off except for downtime.


I've never seen Eve's code... but I have a hard time believing that a player logged in does not impact server resources. It may be a small enough impact to not matter, but a player simply being in a system will have some actual impact on the performance of others in the system, even if they are doing nothing. Any time you do something in the game that requires the server to report back to your client on the other players present... the number of said players will impact the time taken for that call.

CCP can tell us that having 1000 AFK cloaked ships in a system has a negligible impact and I'm going to believe them. If they say it has no impact I'm going to try to get them to show me their code so I can figure out how to do that trick in my work.


Suppose you have 2,000 people in system. Having 1 guy AFK is not going to cause a problem, the other 1,999 doing stuff...yeah they are going to cause a "problems". Removing that 1 AFK guy...won't help the 1,999 guys. The marginal impact is minuscule both because you still have 1,999 guys in system and because that guy you logged off...he wasn't doing anything anyways.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Li Soikutsu
Vorticon Corporation
#103 - 2017-07-21 18:14:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Li Soikutsu
Think in the end it's just a matter of opinion ..

some consider it bullshit for a AFK player to have any impact on the game others disagree.

I think we pretty much discussed everthing there can be when it comes to this topic or the 400+ pages one Shocked

Guess we will have to wait and see who CCP agree's with and how or if they are going to balance this thing out.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#104 - 2017-07-21 18:16:00 UTC
Scialt wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:


Whatever, I say it is activity. Looking to see if a buy order is complete, looking to see if some people are undocking is activity. You want to define activity to suit the outcome you want.

Making players sit and have to periodically do stuff and make their game experience worse to make your game experience better does not strike me as reasonable...especially when many of those players made worse off are not responsible for the issue you are trying to deal with.

You should not be nerfing the game play of those who are not causing the problem.

Why are you not understanding this point?





Because it's not a point.

This reminds me of Bill Clinton's impeachment. "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

You're trying to define activity as not taking an action in the game.

Not taking an action = no activity.

I'm frankly concerned how many Eve players think playing the game involves... not ever touching their keyboard or mouse.




You want to define activity as doing something in the client. According to your definition if you are in your chair, and you click on your guns, and then it takes 5 minutes for them to cycle through all their ammo and you have to click again...in that 5 minutes you are NOT playing. I'm sorry that is just stupid. And you want this definition because it suits your argument against AFK cloakers.

Regarding this....

Quote:
I'm frankly concerned how many Eve players think playing the game involves... not ever touching their keyboard or mouse.


Yeah, I'm not going to start telling other players, "Hey, you aren't sandboxing correctly!"

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#105 - 2017-07-21 18:17:18 UTC
Li Soikutsu wrote:
Think in the end it's just a matter of opinion ..

some consider it bullshit for a AFK player to have any impact on the game others disagree.

I think we pretty much discussed everthing there can be when it comes to this topic or the 400+ pages one Shocked

Guess we will have to wait and see who CCP agree's with and how or if they are going to balance this thing out.


Players not logged in have an impact on the game. Players using autopilot (often AFK) can have an impact on the game. And these are by design.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#106 - 2017-07-21 18:19:11 UTC
Greylord Kane wrote:



Well exactly right? If they purposely log a character on and go AFK for prolonged periods of time. Either they had way to much milk products and they are plugged up or they are purposely grieffing a system.... other wise they'd be on and active.

Maybe they should just do away with cloaking period. .lol wouldn't that be interesting.


You do know we are playing a sandbox game? Log in and do what you want....unless it is approved by some subset of players who have set themselves up to determine what is and is not appropriate in the sandbox. Roll

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Greylord Kane
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#107 - 2017-07-21 19:30:14 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Greylord Kane wrote:



Well exactly right? If they purposely log a character on and go AFK for prolonged periods of time. Either they had way to much milk products and they are plugged up or they are purposely grieffing a system.... other wise they'd be on and active.

Maybe they should just do away with cloaking period. .lol wouldn't that be interesting.


You do know we are playing a sandbox game? Log in and do what you want....unless it is approved by some subset of players who have set themselves up to determine what is and is not appropriate in the sandbox. Roll




Mmmm I would debate sandbox game as I have played many of those. I'm pretty sure AFK Camping is not a design that CCP was going for. Cloaky active camping (totally different) and surely acceptable.
It is not game play when someone logs on and leaves all day a character logged in and is not actually behind the keyboard active. The motive behind that (AFK Camping) is griefing. Point in case. There is no other reason to do it. By balancing out this, it keeps active cloak alert and active, but also deals with the griefing. I'm all for hot drops, sneaking up, cloaking, and like active events. But not for people intentionally griefing.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#108 - 2017-07-21 21:51:04 UTC
Greylord Kane wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Greylord Kane wrote:



Well exactly right? If they purposely log a character on and go AFK for prolonged periods of time. Either they had way to much milk products and they are plugged up or they are purposely grieffing a system.... other wise they'd be on and active.

Maybe they should just do away with cloaking period. .lol wouldn't that be interesting.


You do know we are playing a sandbox game? Log in and do what you want....unless it is approved by some subset of players who have set themselves up to determine what is and is not appropriate in the sandbox. Roll




Mmmm I would debate sandbox game as I have played many of those. I'm pretty sure AFK Camping is not a design that CCP was going for. Cloaky active camping (totally different) and surely acceptable.
It is not game play when someone logs on and leaves all day a character logged in and is not actually behind the keyboard active. The motive behind that (AFK Camping) is griefing. Point in case. There is no other reason to do it. By balancing out this, it keeps active cloak alert and active, but also deals with the griefing. I'm all for hot drops, sneaking up, cloaking, and like active events. But not for people intentionally griefing.


Again, that does not matter. What CCP was going for is not really the issue. CCP gives us this "universe" and they give us various things in game so we can interact. What and how we use them is not up to them. CCP only steps in if they see something as threatening to game balance. AFK camping is not game breaking.

AFK camping is not griefing. That particular line of attack against AFK camping has been tried dozens of times all to no avail. In fact, if you go to the support section of the website and search for griefing you'll only find this. If one goes to the list of known exploits guess what one finds under the list of Non Exploits,

Quote:

Common Misconceptions about Exploits

This passage contains common tactics and other player conduct that is often mistakenly reported as exploits but are in fact not.

[snip]

AFK Cloaking

A player is present in a system for a long time, usually cloaked, doing nothing at all most of the time.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

frqgrenade
Kapsle i Profity
#109 - 2017-07-22 08:24:15 UTC
Cloak works as intended and needs no fixing. AFK cloaking is non issue. Don't really know why people get so butthurt over this.
Black Pedro
Mine.
#110 - 2017-07-22 09:49:53 UTC
frqgrenade wrote:
Cloak works as intended and needs no fixing. AFK cloaking is non issue. Don't really know why people get so butthurt over this.
Because it is "griefing" to leave your name in local when you don't intend to attack someone within the next 20 minutes or so!

Seriously, anyone who makes this argument really is playing the wrong game. In Eve you are not entitled to be left alone, and you certainly not entitled to free, perfect intel that allows you to avoid any fight. Weakening the value of that free intel by leaving a character in a system is not "griefing" - it is using one of the few strategies available to deny resources to your nullsec rivals.

But New Eden is a persistent universe, where my character is a permanent feature. Having character names disappear from local when they log off breaks my immersion. I think to be more realistic there should be a 7, or perhaps even 30 day timer where the character's name stays in local. I mean, if I use a locator agent it will tell me the character is in that system, so why should they not be visible in local chat?
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#111 - 2017-07-22 13:42:38 UTC
Scialt wrote:
But I have no chance because you're too busy chatting with your mom to freaking click on your client once ever 20 minutes.

I'm glad you're chatting with your mom. Log off first so I'm not wasting my time trying to interact with an empty chair.

I tire of people like you, people that are so desperate to prove a point that you will twist the words of others to suit your agenda. The record as witnessed by this thread will prove that I never said I was reading this AND playing EvE and that is good enough for me.
However since you have now proven that you are at the point where you are willing to purposely twist others words I am done with this discussion and as my parting words I leave these things.

Auto log off timers are idiotic and should be removed from ALL computer games.

If I want to spend my money to pay for a game I should be able to sit and do NOTHING if that is what I choose to do.

If my sitting logged into a game doing nothing bothers or offends you that is your problem not mine or the game companies.

The very nature of EvE as a single thread, persistent simulation of what our futures might hold would be harmed irreparably with the addition of auto log off timers and I for one hope that CCP continues to resist call from people like you to add them.

As others have stated because of the free intel local offers (knowing who is in system with you) and AFK cloaking is the only partial counter we have to that free intel then AFK cloaking needs to stay in the game. See next please they are related.

Auto log off timers would remove about 90% of the effectiveness of cloaky camping, and given that cloaky camping is the only counter we have to the free intel offered by local auto log off timers would be a really bad thing for EvE.

And last.
The mental anguish, stess and hassles that AFK cloaky campers cause to pampered and entitled nul sec players like you OP are perhaps the very best reason to leave the out of the game.
Sonya Corvinus
Grant Village
#112 - 2017-07-22 17:24:11 UTC
Greylord Kane wrote:
Mmmm I would debate sandbox game as I have played many of those. I'm pretty sure AFK Camping is not a design that CCP was going for. Cloaky active camping (totally different) and surely acceptable.
It is not game play when someone logs on and leaves all day a character logged in and is not actually behind the keyboard active. The motive behind that (AFK Camping) is griefing. Point in case. There is no other reason to do it. By balancing out this, it keeps active cloak alert and active, but also deals with the griefing. I'm all for hot drops, sneaking up, cloaking, and like active events. But not for people intentionally griefing.


Not really. I have a character that does exploration in deep null and WHs. He hasn't docked up in over three months. If I'm in deep null and am in a system with 30 hostiles and they decide to bubble/camp the gates, I have a few options.

1. Try and crash the gate and pray they don't kill me.
2. Try and find a WH to get out, but there probably isn't one in system
3. Log out, and give them 30 seconds to scan me down (which is more than enough time)
4. Stay in a safe spot, stay cloaked, set max speed and wait until it's safer to escape

No one has ever hurt anyone while cloaked. Nerfing cloaks just to make nullsec ratting and mining safer is ridiculous.
Zimmer Jones
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#113 - 2017-07-22 17:38:47 UTC
Another 400 page thread in the making and nothing even remotely new to say. We don't need two of these for devs to ignore.
/thread

Use the force without consent and the court wont acquit you even if you are a card carryin', robe wearin' Jedi.

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#114 - 2017-07-22 23:42:24 UTC
The load put on the server by afk players is negligible. Like almost nothing.

Greylord, what you think is griefing, is not griefing. Just like ganking is not griefing. No it wasn't intended, but neither was the use of local as intel. DUM DUM DUM!!!

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#115 - 2017-07-23 02:52:25 UTC
Black Pedro wrote:


In Eve you are not entitled to be left alone
Unless you are cloaking, apparently

Black Pedro wrote:
and you certainly not entitled to free, perfect intel that allows you to avoid any fight.
Again, unless you are cloaking.

Only the sacred cloak is allowed to provide endless safety in Nullsec. All worship the sacred cloak, and let no carebear infringe upon it's holy mandate.
ImYourMom
Retribution Holdings Corp
Retribution.
#116 - 2017-07-23 09:50:32 UTC
Zimmer Jones wrote:
Another 400 page thread in the making and nothing even remotely new to say. We don't need two of these for devs to ignore.
/thread


so why have you posted here? Im sure the mods are quite capable of doing their job without you butting in. They are of course free to close this or moderate this how they choose and i am also sure they have seen this and chose to leave it for now.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#117 - 2017-07-23 19:44:46 UTC
Mike Voidstar wrote:
Black Pedro wrote:


In Eve you are not entitled to be left alone
Unless you are cloaking, apparently


Or in a station.

Mike Voidstar wrote:
Black Pedro wrote:
and you certainly not entitled to free, perfect intel that allows you to avoid any fight.
Again, unless you are cloaking.

Only the sacred cloak is allowed to provide endless safety in Nullsec. All worship the sacred cloak, and let no carebear infringe upon it's holy mandate.


Non-sequitur much?

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online

Sonya Corvinus
Grant Village
#118 - 2017-07-23 21:04:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Sonya Corvinus
Mike Voidstar wrote:
Quote:
and you certainly not entitled to free, perfect intel that allows you to avoid any fight.
Again, unless you are cloaking.

Only the sacred cloak is allowed to provide endless safety in Nullsec. All worship the sacred cloak, and let no carebear infringe upon it's holy mandate.


Or watching local in sov null. Watch that free, perfect intel tool and you will literally never die. You can still earn isk though. Cloaked you can't. That means local is the much bigger problem.
ImYourMom
Retribution Holdings Corp
Retribution.
#119 - 2017-07-23 23:12:09 UTC
Daichi Yamato wrote:
The load put on the server by afk players is negligible. Like almost nothing.

Greylord, what you think is griefing, is not griefing. Just like ganking is not griefing. No it wasn't intended, but neither was the use of local as intel. DUM DUM DUM!!!


I disgaree its griefing to an extent. the issue isnt having an afk cloaker per say, the issue is not being able to do a single thing about it. A person can be cloaked in a system for weeks and weeks

He isnt the problem as such, but the fact is the metagame, the psychological effect, the what if scenario.

In a covert he can be warping about unseen
He will hard to pin down via probes, because he can always move and cloak in a new spot in the system
being able to have a cyno, that can jump in 50 caps or sub caps instantly is the problem

You cant expect people to live with that, youre never going to undock anything because of the above points. You cant expect people to have a cap fleet on stand by 24/7 365 days its just stupid to think that and even expect it.

Also if you have a standby fleet then theres prob spy intel knowing what you have, so it can be easily countered, or your 5 man gang is puny enough anyway for 50 ships to jump through. This the problem regarding afk cloaking. The entire thing is completely and utterley one side because you will never know whats coming.

ive seen people just move out of systems because of it, because they just want to get on and play the game esp when someone is just cloaked 24/7 without any consequence. A ship in reality probably would not be able to cloak for so long, that would have some serious effect on the ship.

and maybe another suggestion is that when a cloak is activated, it goes into overheat mode and eventually burns out and needs repairing via nanite paste, and you cannot move during that time, because people can just keep warping around the system until it does.
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#120 - 2017-07-23 23:39:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
And yet people do undock. And people do live with that. And they play with standby fleets. The thing is, null is not for everyone. Definitely not for you it seems (not for me either). Meta gaming and spies and working together are the bread and butter of null. Null comes with big rewards for big playstyles. People who just want to 'get on with the game' by themselves will be able to do so in hi-sec, and even low.

It's NOT griefing. You just have the wrong idea of what griefing is. Honestly you don't even seem to get the game. Why are you even here?

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs