Assembly Hall

I agree on this statement. I read through your post, and it seems it can essentially be broken down to you disliking active intel gathering (DScan, Probes, and Scouting) and from your post bellow it shows you dislike stealth gameplay. Well the goal of my proposal is to make active intel gathering important and stealth gameplay a viable option. So, obviously we don't won't remotely the same thing.




The whole point of Cloaks is to conceal your presence. However, in some games, Darkfall for instance (a Sandbox PVP MMO) concealed presence is the norm, no cloaks/invisibility required. If I hide behind a rock, you won't know I'm there unless you happen to look behind that rock while I'm still hiding there. Yes, Local Chat in EVE because it has everyone automatically visible in the chat regardless of whether they want to use it to talk makes this impossible.



I'm trying to make Cloaking hide the presence of the ship because that is the point of being cloaked. A whole wide field of gameplay typically found in MMOs is nullified otherwise. In class based games this would be identified as the Rogue archetype. The ability to ambush and evade is the legitimate benefits given to a ship/avatar that typically lacks in other respects such as tank or DPS. It is not overpowered.

Cloaks that just hide your identity? I don't even see the point of that, especially considering you could be flying something else with more firepower, more tank, more speed, more group utility.




I really don't understand why you think denying the ability of stealth, ambush, and evasion, that has been good gameplay in many other MMOs, and is a reality of real world warfare would be good thing for EVE?

Gizznitt you're no troll, but I'm genuinely surprised of your ignorance of what the expectation of cloaking mechanics would typically be from veteran MMO players. Although you've come to this thread and made honest arguments which I appreciate, you're clearly very anti stealth (not just anti cloaks), and as a consequence I don't put much stock in what you consider balanced. It's also highly unlikely we'll agree on changes to these areas of the game.

The reason I keep using Darkfall as an example is partly because like EVE it is a Sandbox MMO built around player conflict with a skill based system (no classes), but mostly because it has NO invisibility mechanics yet still provides stealth gameplay. A lot of people get caught up in the invisibility (in the case of EVE the cloaks), but ultimately it's not about that. As such Darkfall provides a great example.

This is a bit off topic but since you brought it up... Rarely did anyone in Darkfall who's gathering resources do so in their best armor and weapons, yes they would be armed, but against well armed prepared opponents they had little chance other than to flee or hide.

Your point here doesn't make sense. Ambushing is always potent (although so too are counter ambushes/traps), and almost all players in EVE (even those claiming otherwise) aren't looking for a fight they'll likely lose. So yeah a cloaked ship isn't going to willing attack a ship that it doesn't think it can beat, what of it? When you're roaming with your gang of 30 do you say "ok half of you wait here, this group only has 15 ships"? Do gate campers challenge solo ships that jump into their camp to a duel with the same ship class, and then let the pilot go on their way if they win?

Get real Gizznitt! EVE is not a sporting event, PvP isn't a boxing match with opponents that are of the same weight class and experience, fighting 1 vs 1 under strict rules and generally in the spirit of sportsmanship. EVE is more of a simulation of warfare, albeit in a futuristic fantasy setting. In warfare it isn't about fair fights, resources to fuel the war are critical, and are therefore a legitimate target. Armies attack the means of production, often including the workers themselves. Those that lack the strength or means of direct confrontation resort to guerrilla warfare, which can be boiled down to saying hitting the enemy where they are weak and evading them where they are strong....stealth, ambush, evasion, surprise, fear, traps... Do you get it yet?



Semantics. Cloaking is a tool used to hide, Darkfall just doesn't require that tool to hide.



No, this just screams at me that you're looking to play a totally different game than I am. You want Arena style PvP in an open world (as opposed to instances) where consensual PvP is easy to find. I want a warfare simulation where I can play cat and mouse style PvP (and PvE it can be just as fun to be the mouse that gets the cheese and evades the cats) and engage in guerrilla style warfare.

I though op pointed that with delaying of local there would come mechanics of finding cloaks ( requiring effort )

Well if they jump through gates or wormholes you can spot them and even kill them.
I agree though logging in system could somehow be tweaked.





Not really.

You understand that "boosting stealth/guerrilla warfare type gameplay" will come at the expense of finding targets in the first place, right? You want more ratter KMs, but you won't get many because the ratters won't be there when it's obvious that some bomber pilot that can fly around almost completely free of any risk of detection, let alone interception, can tackle you the moment he decloaks.

A bomber can get a point on you even if you're aligned - this is how you kill the idiots who think that ratting is fine with hostiles in local ~as long as they're aligned~

Also, stop trying to deflect - discuss the points I've made, not your little grudge against Goonswarm or whatever.

Local chat does not provide any sort of safety in and of itself. It requires constant vigilance to work. You have to keep your eye on intel channels, local, dscan if you're particularly paranoid. Unlike in hisec where you still have the chance of being bailed out by CONCORD, once you're caught, you're dead.

You can also observe a ratter's habits - does he always warp to the station when hostiles show up in local? Does he warp to a POS? Does he rat aligned? Nothing stops you from getting a pull bubble on the station or the safe POS. If he's too slippery, well, he's just prepared. Removing local when you have static celestials that you can warp to without probing and static routes through nullsec is beyond dumb.

WTF ? Teamwork and delayed local is incoherent things.
This topic nothing else just crying about how give an idiot idea to god mode for cloaking fags.

Last time I visited goons, A small fleet of mine put a drag bubble up between a station and a Jump Bridge and caught lots of good targets warping between them. We were outnumbered 20-to-1 in system, and they eventually formed up to kill us, at which point we scattered... That's Guerilla Warfare!!!

I often put bubbles up on gates, and camp it in a solo frigate or a small group, where we often kill the scouts of bigger gangs (and other people that land in the bubble). When done in an overwhelming hostile region, that's Guerilla warfare.

I've done the afk-sb in a ratting system (although I find this tactic boring and pathetic). It's a form of Guerilla warfare.

I've used cloaky tacklers in agile gangs to catch and destroy straggling ships of larger gangs. This is especially fun to do to BS's returning from a Sov Op. That's Guerilla Warfare.

NONE of these scenarios required us to be completely invisible to the enemy....

There are lots of tactics to take on bigger fleets, too. Druka BSs, bombing runs with SB's, Cloaky dictors to split up enemies into bitsized meals, Flyby Snipers, etc. I can provide you with MANY examples where Agony's been SIGNFIcANTLY outnumbered and outgunned, and used tactics and surprise to take on superior numbers. We don't need easy-mode ambush and evade, not when we have a fairly balanced version of it now!!!!!


Stealth does not equal invisibility. Anonymity can easily provide you with the ability to hide (aka stealth). Have you ever tried to find waldo? If a stranger comes into system, they might be friend or foe. If friendly strangers are the norm, then unfriendly strangers can often sneak by!! Why isn't this enough for you?? It really sounds like you're asking for easy-mode stealth, where there is very little chance of being found!! Stealth should be about avoiding detection, not removing all ability to be detected!!! Additionally, a good mechanic for stealth should require much more skill than putting a covert cloak on your ship!!!!



First of all, when your proposal unbalances cloaks, you really need to include the "extra's" that bring them back into balance!! Secondly, your "extra's" do NOTHING to make hunting an aware cloaker in system even remotely viable. Have you EVER tried probing down a ship that knows you're probing them? It's tedious, as the ship warps whenever probes appear on scan. Usually, for probing to work, your target needs to be slow and/or oblivious to the probes. The only thing you'll catch with your anti-cloak technology are afk cloakers!!!


Overall, this proposal has several HUGE problems, which you seem to gloss over as intended design, or unimportant.
Reason's why this proposal will never happen:


A.) In your design, there is NO WAY a target in space can evade being caught by a covert gang. The only defense they have is to prevent the cloakys coming into system (unrealistic) or hope the cloakers never come (unrealistic). (i.e. Covert Cloakers == GOD MODE)

B.) Intel in Sov-null becomes extremely one-sided. You give it to the owners of a system on a silver platter because they built an outpost, which are easy to build and prevelant in today's eve economy!!! Their opponents have to frieghter in an easy-to-destroy scanner array or bridge in a titan (lol). By the way, none of these things involve ACTIVELY GAINING INTEL!!!!!

C.) Finding targets to shoot is exceedingly difficult in your design, especially for a medium sized gang. In order for PvP to happen, you have to be able to find a target.

D.) You come across as exceedingly ignorant of current in-game tactics, and your proposal wreaks of "give me easy-mode ambushing, easy-mode evasion, and other obnoxious imbalances to ensure one-sided PvP!!" One sided mechanics typically ruin good gameplay, not make it better!!!

It's not like there's many people doing anything out in nullsec outside of fleets anyways, so might as well just get it over with and remove local altogether so people'll stop whining about how local is such a powerful intel tool.