Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hey, you seem to have missed my question to you.

Please answer me this. What game mechanic are they using to interact with you and attempt to create fear, through psychological warfare?

Sonar is sound, which does not exist in space.

I know, the explosions in the movies, that's hollywood for ya.

There are already several counters as has been explained ad infinitum in this and every other "nerf cloaks" threads. If they're influencing the economy it's because the owning alliance (in sov space) or your corp/alliance (if in npc) isn't competent enough to deal with it.There doesn't need to be more. If you would like me to explain the counters to you again please let me know. Cloaking is only 100% riskless whilst the ship is actually cloaked. Once the cloak drops the ship is vulnerable to attack and is nerfed by the very fact it has a cloak fitted. When AFK the cloaked ship isn't a danger. You're concerned about people who pretend to be AFK. If you're in nullsec and you have a cloaked ship in your system and you're too afraid to do anything that is completely your problem. Fix it yourself rather than demanding that the game be changed because you can't play it.



Again, this has been suggested over and over again. What would be the point in cloaks if you could scan them down like you can scan down a ship which doesn't have a cloak? It would render them useless. Your suggestion wouldn't be a good thing for cov ops cloaks. I'll admit that for other normal cloaks it could be interesting but for cov ops it would completely break them.

Ok, the only way I can see this even remotely working is if there was only one ship per race that could fit these modules and those ships would be about as much use in combat as a cov ops frigate and it didn't work on cov ops cloaks, just non cov ops cloaks.



Assuming all the other issues are ironed out this bit sounds sensible as long as it doesn't work on cov ops cloaks.




This shouldn't be a problem. I don't believe the portaljump cloak (is that what it's called?) is effected by anything.



With respect, if you've experienced AFK cloakies and you just docked up (or got inside your POS shield) and just waited for them to leave you're something of a joke. I've lived in nullsec a few times and other than getting hot dropped by a sizable carrier fleet once we always either managed to bait whoever it was or just ignored them. You work with what you've got so if you have a cloaky in system you don't take out your shiny pirate faction battleship, you all take out your pvp fit drakes (or whatever you use that's cheap and can be used in pve or pvp) and rat together.

People keep talking about "solutions" to AFK cloaking. As has been explained many times the best solution is to change your perception, not to change the game. Cloaking is working as intended. If anything, the only thing that needs to be done is stop cov ops cloaked ships being able to fit normal cyno beacons. If you really must push for a probe launcher that allows people to completely negate the usefulness of a cloak in ALL situations you can at least leave out cov ops cloaks. Breaking cov ops/black ops fleets along with every other ship that fits a cloak just because you can't cope with someone being in your system but not doing anything seems downright selfish.

Gonna just stop there, and point something out.

They don't have to be cloaked to have this effect.

Sure, cloaking is a convenient and often referred to means to avoid detection. But it's hardly the only option.

Put them in a fast inty. By the time anyone actually goes to the trouble of scanning them down, they are off grid to where they were detected initially.

Put them into almost any ship able to warp quickly, and give them a set of safe spots to cycle through.

If your supposed cloaker's goal is just disruption through fear of the unknown, knowing he is not actually AFK is a lot scarier than if you weren't sure. After all, the idea that they are actually active IS your worst case scenario.

To quote Shakespeare's words:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.166-7), Hamlet to Horatio

Local may be a crutch for intel in high sec, but it is a broken one.

Unless you recognize a pilot's name, or have it flagged for a war dec, local tells you nothing actually useful.
You can't tell who is a ganker, who is passing through, who is missioning or mining, who is docked at a station, or who is just plain AFK.

You are better off using your dscan, and just pinging your local area excluding stations and travel paths. At least then you know if someone is actually coming near you, not just in the same system.

Cloaking has already been broken for some time. It is balanced, however.

Sound like a contradiction? Then you also assume balance implies functionality, which it does not.

Cloaking is broken by local reporting it, in an absolutely reliable manner. This is broken.

It is however, balanced by:

You absolutely cannot locate a cloaked vessel, unless they let you, or make a mistake. This is also broken.

Since both sides are countering each other, it is in balance.

Sadly, this leaves cloaking as a meta gaming tool. Many people enjoy this play, so to them there is no problem at all.

Remove Local.

Having seen many wormhole systems in my time, I can tell that removing local is awesome.

Yes, that is a very good point. It would basically bork WHs.

So, would removing or delaying local in low sec and nullsec suffice? Surely people in null and low will then just come onto the forums and complain that they can no longer tell that they're imminently going to be ganked? In the situation that you remove or delay local but make no method of telling whether there are cloakies in your system I and my 2 corp mates could take our pvp fit falcons and totally gank every solo carebear in nullsec without much difficulty. It would make cloaks overpowered.

This is why there hasn't been a good solution suggested where cloaks are concerned. There simply isn't one. Whatever you change screws someone up.

This is the reason why in every "nerf cloaks" or "remove local" thread there are those who argue against it. Either change would inevitably create bad feeling and destroy perfectly decent practices.

Personally I think CCP should remove local and not put in any method of finding cloaked ships because, well, they're cloaked. Lets see all those people whining about AFK cloakers discover that they were never actually complaining about AFK cloakers at all as they repeatedly lose their bearing ships. After all, that's how it is in wormholes and I have yet to see anyone (excepting idiots) complaining about that.

I'm under no illusions here. What I want simply won't get through because it, like every other suggestion, doesn't address all the issues. I'd like it, I didn't say I think it's correct for the game as a whole.

I just see so many people with "nerf cloaks", "remove local", "add cloak probe launchers", "add cloak fuel" etc. None of them have addressed all the concerns as can be seen by the shear number of these threads that appear, get argued about and then subsequently disappear.

The main reason I find all these arguments so irritating is the cyclic nature of them. Really, people's fear of cloaked ships is bourne from a feeling of fear based on knowing they're there. What these people never seem to get is that they're in a better situation knowing their enemy is there than not knowing their enemy is there. So all those calling for removal of local to remove the "AFK cloaker" issue don't seem to get that if that's done they're going to get uber ganked. I know a lot of high sec bears who would jump in a force reacon and go gank the hell out of nullsec if this happened.

But then nerfing cloaks so people can find them doesn't work either because this would negate the point of a cloak.

So whichever way you look at it, whatever change you make, you'll be breaking something.

That is, unless that change isn't made ingame. If those whining about AFK cloakers grew some gonads instead of making themselves look like pansies on the forum the situation would be resolved.

As has been stated many many times: Cloaking is working as intended.

... and do what about the obvious issues that entails?