Player Features and Ideas Discussion

fleet-in-being doctrine, read about it.

Its active cloakers they want to nerf

At some point has anyone noticed we are treating cloaked vessels as things that are common knowledge when they are present?

The entire point of their existence is stealth, being undetected, and being able to scout in order to gather intel without contaminating this intel with their own presence.
Their combat ability has been nerfed to compensate for the ability to hide, so a prepared ship is not truly at a disadvantage, simply a different approach to their tactics.

Now, we have big powerful space ships. They have sensors, the sensors can be boosted, or jammed. They can even be remotely boosted by support vessels.
Noone really cares though, since we get most of our intel from a chat channel.

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.

Hot Dropping is an entirely different tactic, and while it also relates to local intel, it is NOT directly tied to cloaking beyond the convenient association. If speed is more useful, then you will see faster ships used more often. Same logic as toughness and survive-ability.

An AFK cloaker is no threat. They are AFK.

Consider however the apparent AFK cloaker who is sat in system, perhaps only a few 100km off one of the gates, or the station, monitoring traffic periodically whilst they do other things on their main account. This is intelligence gathering, why should it be punished?

I used to get frustrated by cloakies in local. I used to sit in station and spin, cursing the S.O.B. I don't do that now. Instead I view it as a higher risk level and equip myself appropriately. Work in fleets, be on comms, and even switch fits for more hybrid PVE/PVP fits than a straight PVE one. Ok, there's a reduction in ISK per hour, but its all a trade off.

Having a cloaked hostile, or neutral, in local promotes the development of strategies to minimise risk. This is emergent behaviour. Its something the sandbox nature of EVE encourages. Learn to embrace it rather than look for an easy mode.

I take it you are of the opinion that all POS-hugging and (essentially, practically) unscannable boosting T3's should also be dealt with in as fatal a fashion as "AFK" cloakers?

note that in this debate, it all revolves around a perception that a pilot visible in Local and presumed cloaked, is presumed to be AFK after an arbitrary amount of time has passed.

This is subjectivity at its best, and I for one, don't want to see cloaking given a nerfbat just because nullbears are too useless to change their behaviours to deal with a perception that an AFK cloaker is going to not be AFK at some point in time.

Secondly, the idea that their ships should be decloaked at an arbitrary time, by some module or infrastructure item, is fully stupid. I paid nearly 60M ISk for my Cheetah and, judging by the cost of cyno jammers, some Alliance of crying, mewling carebears can pay 120M ISK for endless amounts of Cloaking Nerfbat Beacons, is ridiculous.

The idea of removing a cloaked player from Local won't just benefit supposed "AFK" cloakers; it will benefit botters and ratters who can warp to safe and dock up. THIS is at least as risk averse and unfair as someone staking out a system and waging highly effective psychological and economic warfare (proof: this thread and others, by whiners, who aren't maiking ISK and are too scurred).

Ratter cloaks, disappears from Local. Unable to see when enemies leave Local except, perhaps, via D-scan. Cloaker unable to see ratter, except by D-scan. Zomg! Suddenly its like wormhole space! No one can kill anyone in wormhole space, ever, cause they never see each other in Local!

The problem is that people gathering intel take no risk at all ( apart from jumping into the system ).
They can sit in system for days with risk factor of 0. Thats as broken as it can be imo, its like
carebear v2.0.
We all take risk by living in nullsec, why should there be some people excluded from that ?

Thats why we need some way to find cloakers, not an easy one but still, so we can move out from pos and acually find something :P

You obviously a cloaker or just trolling. You making perfect points against yourr own case.

They dont have to worry about hostiles, they dont have to deal with them.

They dont have to worry about losing their ship.

You give them easy "I Win" button at their job by not being able to do anything to them.

Must say i could not make better points against cloakers as you just did...

They also don't mine, rat, mission, PvP or anything to provide ISK or reward.
Intel is activity like any other as far as i know , just like mining, rat, PvP, it has its rewards but no risks involved. Dont really
know how thats right. Every activity in null should have some risk involved this have none.

If you can't see them to be shot, I suggest luring them into revealing themselves with bait ships.
Option two, fit a tank and work as teams. Then PvE in this mode till they show up.
Explosions happen.
Well cant see any logic in your point, intel is not about shooting and PvP, cloaked guy never gets lured because hes gathering intel.
Dont really see why I must state obvious things like that...

You give them easy "I Win" button at their job by not being able to do anything to them.

Lack of effort in this case comes from bad choices, not lack of ability.
Use tactics and strategy, not fear of the unknown.
Wut...

Must say i could not make better points against cloakers as you just did...
Funny, I could say that too.
Better re-think what you just written :P

(afk) cloakers are needed for various reasons and thats fine.
suck it up and deal with it. if you cant its your problem but not of game mechanics.
afk cloaking is fine.

and now stop posting in this sh*tty thread, everything has been said millions of times,
if you are interested, check those old countless threads. There is no need for another rant thread like this.