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AFK Cloaking in System is a Terrible Mechanic
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Tessla Coil
Pirannha Corp
#121 - 2012-05-21 04:40:52 UTC
Eso Es wrote:
Savage Angel wrote:
I love these threads. Goes to show the hypocrisy of the players that whine about Empire needing more risk for the rewards and how players should be "forced" into nulsec. If you quiver in a POS when a single ship is sitting in the same system doing nothing, don't talk to me about risks.


That single ship isn't what scares me, its the power hes able to project that does. He can at any time, find me in an anomoly, drop a cyno, and before i can even blink have 20 reds sitting right on top of me. Again, my main issue here is the non-interactivity of cloaking as it stands. I'd rather not have this thread turn into a discussion of having local or not, rather, whether or not cloaked ships should be able to be combat probed.


Let me rephrase for you:

It is not the single suicide ganker that scares me, but the power that many project. He can at any time, find me in a belt, mark a position, and before I can blink have 5 suicide gankers right on top of me. Again, my main issue here is not the non-skill of suicide ganking as it stands. I'd rather not have this thread turn into a discussion of having suicide ganking or not, rather, whether the cost / benefit of suicide ganking is insanely wrong.

You null bear hypocrites make me sick.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#122 - 2012-05-21 04:47:12 UTC
Tessla Coil wrote:
Eso Es wrote:
Savage Angel wrote:
I love these threads. Goes to show the hypocrisy of the players that whine about Empire needing more risk for the rewards and how players should be "forced" into nulsec. If you quiver in a POS when a single ship is sitting in the same system doing nothing, don't talk to me about risks.


That single ship isn't what scares me, its the power hes able to project that does. He can at any time, find me in an anomoly, drop a cyno, and before i can even blink have 20 reds sitting right on top of me. Again, my main issue here is the non-interactivity of cloaking as it stands. I'd rather not have this thread turn into a discussion of having local or not, rather, whether or not cloaked ships should be able to be combat probed.


Let me rephrase for you:

It is not the single suicide ganker that scares me, but the power that many project. He can at any time, find me in a belt, mark a position, and before I can blink have 5 suicide gankers right on top of me. Again, my main issue here is not the non-skill of suicide ganking as it stands. I'd rather not have this thread turn into a discussion of having suicide ganking or not, rather, whether the cost / benefit of suicide ganking is insanely wrong.

You null bear hypocrites make me sick.


the difference is that a suicide ganker scans your ship, lines up a warpin and then gets those 5 dudes on top of you

"hmm why is that crucifier targeting me in this ice belt, surely he must have missed the humongous block of ice that he can't mine, maybe he's checking my ship's health!"

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Roime
Mea Culpa.
Shadow Cartel
#123 - 2012-05-21 05:39:43 UTC
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, instead of discussing it, people go cycles parroting the same old irrelevant things about local, botting and balls. I couldn't care less if the cloaker scares some people or not, but the fact that you can run the most powerful module in the game forever and be 100% invulnerable forever is a broken mechanic by itself.

Doesn't have anything to do with local, it's the cloak module. Adding cloak fuel mechanic would force the cloaker to decloak and refuel periodically, which would make the whole thing more fun and interesting to all players, but annoy the hell out AFK alt cloak people.

.
Hammer Crendraven
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#124 - 2012-05-21 05:50:55 UTC
Wild Rho wrote:
Zoe Athame wrote:
Obligatory "Zero people have ever died to an AFK player."


That''s either missing the point or ignoring the actual problem.

The AFK cloaker can sit in a system all day but only needs to be actively used by the player when they (and possibly their friends) are ready to take action. If they're bored or there are no targets they can leave the character sitting there and go do something more interesting until an opportunity presents itself.

On the other hand the defenders have no idea when the cloaker is active or genuinely afk. Their only response is to remain docked and do nothing or to actively form a gang to protect whatever activity is going on.

This sounds reasonable at first but what this means is several things are stacked against the defenders:
- Several defenders are forced to stop what they are doing to baby sit others and (if they have an organised defence) there is then a realistic chance that nothing will happen. The attacker only requires a single character and can be active when they feel like it.
Also maintaining this type of defence constantly is neither engaging or fun.

- An attack is only likely to occur if the attackers know they have enough of an advantage to win, the defenders can never preempt this or counter attack.

- The attackers will always have the advantage of knowing what they are engaging in advance, the defenders have no information at all until the attack is launched.

- The attackers have the advantage of mobility since their goal is typically combat orientated and they can move elsewhere. Defender goals are usually around resource collection of some form which is mostly static, so the option to move around is limited.


None of this is really the fault of either side, it's just the inevitable outcome of Eves mechanics that hand out information to the players at no cost or effort.


And now you know how miners feel in high sec. Every unknown is a potential ganker. Very close to the same level of helplessness and worry.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#125 - 2012-05-21 06:32:25 UTC
Hammer Crendraven wrote:
And now you know how miners feel in high sec. Every unknown is a potential ganker. Very close to the same level of helplessness and worry.

Love to rat with stealth bombers in local.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Eso Es
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#126 - 2012-05-21 06:33:23 UTC
greeny knight wrote:
wel the discution is years old and i'm 8 years old most in nullsec and i'm a damn good cov op pilot and they need to fix this afk cloacking s******.

if you are a miner and you have a nice system you always mine 1 afk cloacker can ruing your game , in inferno ccp claims to have a counterfit to every fit in game , wel here is some news they don't that afk cloacking is broken and gives alot of people alot of greef , here are some viable selutions that can solve this problem in the gamespirrit of eve .



sugestion 1

as the covop mod is active its a invisable bubble that cant get the gasses out and need to be vented every 10 min so it decloacks for a set timer say 30 sec , if the cloack button is not prest it stays uncloacked

suggestion 2 (my favorite)

create a ghosthunter specialized to hunt cloackies no offencive weapons filled to the eyeballs with electronica to spot them and decloack them prob verry fragile not cloackable basicly a flying coffin when the cloacky is not afk

suggestion 3 (also my fav )

we still have the deep space probes thea are basicly useless now , convert them to ghost hunter probes that can launched from a cov op or a specialized ship to reviel cloackies



Love suggestion 3.

"And now you know how miners feel in high sec. Every unknown is a potential ganker. Very close to the same level of helplessness and worry. "

Can we seriously stop talking about HiSec ganking, the mechanic im discussing has absolutely nothing to do with HiSec ganking, when was the last time you were hotdropped by a cloaked ship in HiSec, oh wait, NEVER? Yea thx, kk.
Americe Zane
The Lucky Punx
#127 - 2012-05-21 06:45:22 UTC
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, instead of discussing it, people go cycles parroting the same old irrelevant things about local, botting and balls. I couldn't care less if the cloaker scares some people or not, but the fact that you can run the most powerful module in the game forever and be 100% invulnerable forever is a broken mechanic by itself.

Doesn't have anything to do with local, it's the cloak module. Adding cloak fuel mechanic would force the cloaker to decloak and refuel periodically, which would make the whole thing more fun and interesting to all players, but annoy the hell out AFK alt cloak people.




Sure, I can be invulnerable forever, same as someone who sit in station all the time can. If I want to probe, I have to decloak first often long enough for someone else to probe me down. If I want to see where people are and what they are in, I risk a chance of being decloaked by random things. It is a powerful module, but there are accepted drawbacks that we take.

Adding a fuel will be pointless. How would you balance it? Too much fuel needed will eliminate extended deployments and intel gathering the ships were designed to do, too little and it might as well not be there.

All in all, it isnt an issue of AFK cloaking. I have yet to see a KM made by someone AFK. If a SB solo or in a gang killed a ship, good on them. If another cloaked ship cynos a gang in, then well played. In both cases, planning and manpower went into it, and I doubt that the the cloaked status of the ship made all that much difference. If it did, then isnt that what those ships are for?
Eso Es
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#128 - 2012-05-21 06:48:39 UTC
Americe Zane wrote:
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, instead of discussing it, people go cycles parroting the same old irrelevant things about local, botting and balls. I couldn't care less if the cloaker scares some people or not, but the fact that you can run the most powerful module in the game forever and be 100% invulnerable forever is a broken mechanic by itself.

Doesn't have anything to do with local, it's the cloak module. Adding cloak fuel mechanic would force the cloaker to decloak and refuel periodically, which would make the whole thing more fun and interesting to all players, but annoy the hell out AFK alt cloak people.




Sure, I can be invulnerable forever, same as someone who sit in station all the time can. If I want to probe, I have to decloak first often long enough for someone else to probe me down. If I want to see where people are and what they are in, I risk a chance of being decloaked by random things. It is a powerful module, but there are accepted drawbacks that we take.

Adding a fuel will be pointless. How would you balance it? Too much fuel needed will eliminate extended deployments and intel gathering the ships were designed to do, too little and it might as well not be there.

All in all, it isnt an issue of AFK cloaking. I have yet to see a KM made by someone AFK. If a SB solo or in a gang killed a ship, good on them. If another cloaked ship cynos a gang in, then well played. In both cases, planning and manpower went into it, and I doubt that the the cloaked status of the ship made all that much difference. If it did, then isnt that what those ships are for?


The point is, the defenders HAS NO IDEA if the person is AFK or not. I see them in local, they've been there for 2 days, maybe I can go rat a bit.. or maybe hes at his computer waiting to drop me. You begin to see how 1 person can shut down a corporation's ops just by being logged in in system, and theres not a damn thing said corp can do about it other than twiddle their thumbs for a few days and hope said "afker" goes away.
Americe Zane
The Lucky Punx
#129 - 2012-05-21 06:54:51 UTC
Eso Es wrote:
Americe Zane wrote:
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.

Unfortunately, instead of discussing it, people go cycles parroting the same old irrelevant things about local, botting and balls. I couldn't care less if the cloaker scares some people or not, but the fact that you can run the most powerful module in the game forever and be 100% invulnerable forever is a broken mechanic by itself.

Doesn't have anything to do with local, it's the cloak module. Adding cloak fuel mechanic would force the cloaker to decloak and refuel periodically, which would make the whole thing more fun and interesting to all players, but annoy the hell out AFK alt cloak people.




Sure, I can be invulnerable forever, same as someone who sit in station all the time can. If I want to probe, I have to decloak first often long enough for someone else to probe me down. If I want to see where people are and what they are in, I risk a chance of being decloaked by random things. It is a powerful module, but there are accepted drawbacks that we take.

Adding a fuel will be pointless. How would you balance it? Too much fuel needed will eliminate extended deployments and intel gathering the ships were designed to do, too little and it might as well not be there.

All in all, it isnt an issue of AFK cloaking. I have yet to see a KM made by someone AFK. If a SB solo or in a gang killed a ship, good on them. If another cloaked ship cynos a gang in, then well played. In both cases, planning and manpower went into it, and I doubt that the the cloaked status of the ship made all that much difference. If it did, then isnt that what those ships are for?


The point is, the defenders HAS NO IDEA if the person is AFK or not. I see them in local, they've been there for 2 days, maybe I can go rat a bit.. or maybe hes at his computer waiting to drop me. You begin to see how 1 person can shut down a corporation's ops just by being logged in in system, and theres not a damn thing said corp can do about it other than twiddle their thumbs for a few days and hope said "afker" goes away.



If he is able to to drop you and you have no defense, you were outplayed. Its not like the cloaky and the other people he was working with dropped you passively. Wouldnt that play into the risk part of the risk vs reward thing people always talk about?
Gorenaire
Theosophical Society
#130 - 2012-05-21 07:03:55 UTC
I thinkn we need a dozen more threads about this non issue
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#131 - 2012-05-21 07:22:26 UTC
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.
That's because it's a pretty bad solution. Either it wouldn't restrict cloaking for long enough to appease those who are afraid of local, or it will be so restricting that it breaks cloaking.

The reason local keeps coming up is because that's where the supposed problem of AFK cloaking resides: people are getting their panties in a twist due to having their perfect free intel tool subverted. They want to be able to be able to use local to determine who is a threat and who isn't. The presence of AFK cloaking makes this less reliable.

The core issue is that, at the end of the day, AFK cloakers aren't doing anything. The residents of the system are the ones who choose to be disrupted; who choose not to try to not control their space; who cannot conceive of any way to protect themselves; and generally to stick their heads in the sand and complain about their own choices. It's a psychological warfare tool that subverts intel and provides the single counter to the source of intel that local provides.

The two are inextricably linked. Want to fix one? Then you have to adjust the other.
Ziranda Hakuli
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#132 - 2012-05-21 07:56:46 UTC
i wonder how many times this thread will be recreated. OP is just butt hurt on being popped by someone who was AFK cloaked in the system. I know how the guy waited out everyone.....so simple you be suprised.....logged in. set toon in deep safe spot cloaked up and possibly moving....then proceeds to go to work for about 8 to 10 hours.....comes back and sees the candy waiting to die.

Null Care bears are starting to give the Empire carebears a bad name
Roime
Mea Culpa.
Shadow Cartel
#133 - 2012-05-21 07:57:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Roime
Tippia wrote:
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.
That's because it's a pretty bad solution. Either it wouldn't restrict cloaking for long enough to appease those who are afraid of local, or it will be so restricting that it breaks cloaking.


You are referring to balancing the fuel consumption, and I don't really agree that it's impossible to do right. Like Tobiaz said, linking it to signature radius makes a lot of sense. Covopses would still be able to cloak for extended periods.

I'm not afraid of local (I don't have one where I live) and spend most of my time in cloaky ships, I just find cloak fuel an interesting mechanic that could add more tactical gameplay than being able to cloak any ship forever. I'm all in for fun & excitement, and being deep in enemy territory and running low on cloak fuel would certainly be exciting.

Also, another player-made item is always good. Make the ingredients low-sec ladar site only Cool

At the same time, make cyno only mountable on selected T2 ships and increase cyno theory training time multiplier to 8x, and change it so that when you get killed with cyno fitted, you lose one level of cyno skill (like T3s). I don't think EVE needs armies of disposable cyno alts in T1 frigs.

.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#134 - 2012-05-21 08:06:31 UTC
Roime wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Roime wrote:
Cloak fuel has been brought up numerous times and is a perfect solution.
That's because it's a pretty bad solution. Either it wouldn't restrict cloaking for long enough to appease those who are afraid of local, or it will be so restricting that it breaks cloaking.


You are referring to balancing the fuel consumption, and I don't really agree that it's impossible to do right. Like Tobiaz said, linking it to signature radius makes a lot of sense. Covopses would still be able to cloak for extended periods.

I'm not afraid of local (I don't have one where I live) and spend most of my time in cloaky ships, I just find cloak fuel an interesting mechanic that could add more tactical gameplay than being able to cloak any ship forever. I'm all in for fun & excitement, and being deep in enemy territory and running low on cloak fuel would certainly be exciting.

Also, another player-made item is always good. Make the ingredients low-sec ladar site only Cool

At the same time, make cyno only mountable on selected T2 ships and increase cyno theory training time multiplier to 8x, and change it so that when you get killed with cyno fitted, you lose one level of cyno skill (like T3s). I don't think EVE needs armies of disposable cyno alts in T1 frigs.

It would be amusing. Right now all the stealth bombers go out with a cargohold of nothing but torpedos because what else would you ever bring.

Still though, I'd prefer be able to cloak forever. Meh.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
TheGunslinger42
All Web Investigations
#135 - 2012-05-21 08:08:43 UTC
I love AFK Cloaking tear threads. Nullbears are as terrible as hisec bears.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#136 - 2012-05-21 08:19:46 UTC
TheGunslinger42 wrote:
I love AFK Cloaking tear threads. Nullbears are as terrible as hisec bears.

yes i assure you that your wormhole alliance (which is in wormholes because they didn't cut it in nullsec) is obviously very hardened, living on the edge in eve online with the cutting-edge gameplay that is dscan spam

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
TheGunslinger42
All Web Investigations
#137 - 2012-05-21 08:20:09 UTC
Eso Es wrote:
Savage Angel wrote:
I love these threads. Goes to show the hypocrisy of the players that whine about Empire needing more risk for the rewards and how players should be "forced" into nulsec. If you quiver in a POS when a single ship is sitting in the same system doing nothing, don't talk to me about risks.


That single ship isn't what scares me, its the power hes able to project that does. He can at any time, find me in an anomoly, drop a cyno, and before i can even blink have 20 reds sitting right on top of me. Again, my main issue here is the non-interactivity of cloaking as it stands. I'd rather not have this thread turn into a discussion of having local or not, rather, whether or not cloaked ships should be able to be combat probed.


He can't find you if he's AFK. And there are plenty of instances where he can't just instantly find you and get the drop on you - for example, depending on where you are and what you're doing, he might have to use combat probes. In that case, it is up to you to check your d-scan and keep checking it. If you see probes narrowing in on your location then leave before he gets a hit.
TheGunslinger42
All Web Investigations
#138 - 2012-05-21 08:23:06 UTC
Richard Desturned wrote:
TheGunslinger42 wrote:
I love AFK Cloaking tear threads. Nullbears are as terrible as hisec bears.

yes i assure you that your wormhole alliance (which is in wormholes because they didn't cut it in nullsec) is obviously very hardened, living on the edge in eve online with the cutting-edge gameplay that is dscan spam


"didn't cut it in nullsec"

Sorry but wormhole alliances aren't the ones who run screaming and crying back to their pos because an AFK player is in the same system, then spread their tears all over the forums begging CCP to protect them from players who aren't even there and can't do a damned thing.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#139 - 2012-05-21 08:25:19 UTC
TheGunslinger42 wrote:
"didn't cut it in nullsec"

Sorry but wormhole alliances aren't the ones who run screaming and crying back to their pos because an AFK player is in the same system, then spread their tears all over the forums begging CCP to protect them from players who aren't even there and can't do a damned thing.


yes this is clearly behavior demonstrated by every last member of every alliance that, unlike ExhaleDOT, has succeeded in the eve online end-game of conquering and holding space

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Christa Larne
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#140 - 2012-05-21 08:36:32 UTC
In my opinion the issue here is risk versus reward. Many posters have talked about miners being too risk averse to mine with a hostile in system - I guess I can relate to that and I agree that is their choice. They know what the risks are and the rewards and can make their own informed choice.

What is unbalanced is that for the cloaked ship there is very little risk to offset the potential reward of getting kills. You can park at a safespot, aligned to something under cloak, and you know 100% that there is no risk to your ship and character. I don't really care what mechanic is used but we need to introduce some element of risk to leaving a ship cloaked in a system. Whether it be fuel, or some sort of anti-cloak probing module, I don't really care but there needs to be some element of risk.

Personally I would prefer to see some sort of cloak scanning device. Not because I want to stop AFK-cloaking but because I want to kill them! I logon and see a red in my system I want to hunt it down and kill it but today I can't do that because only the cloaker gets to decide when they engage (which will generally be at the point of lowest risk to them). For sure make it so that scanning down a cloaked ship is a slow and painful activity, and of course a smart cloaked pilot will switch safespots from time to time in order to restart the scanning cycle, but it would add a lot of risk to just going AFK and leaving your ship in space.

Of course this is all fairly irrelevant. From the comments posted earlier from CSM it looks like CCP can't do anything to change cloaking without assigning significant development resource that they don't want to take away from other projects. Which is a shame because irrespective of the whole null bear / ganker debate I think we are missing a potentially fun additional game mechanic in the ability to actively hunt cloaked ships.