Player Features and Ideas Discussion

^^ Imbalance that needs changed.... ratting in a fleet should increase your pay, not reduce it....



The changes to NPC AI typically result in the rats primarying the new ships on grid.... That helps.... And if you are in a fleet running the anom, you can typically gank a cyno ship pretty damn fast... (although not all)...


The issue of unscoutable hotdrops is an alternative issue... and not an AFK Cloaky issue....

You brought up AFK Cloaking.

I shall try to explain a few details that are usually glossed over crudely, but hold the truth.

AFK Cloaking: This is done in response to Local Chat flawlessly reporting pilot presence. It dumbs down the interaction between pilots by outright telling all parties who is present. Without this crutch, use of sensors, strategy, and cooperation would be needed to fill the void.
What does it achieve?
It creates a flaw in the usual flow of cause and effect for life in many systems. Often, a neutral or hostile pilot is seen entering, and activity is suspended until they leave. There is trivial risk, as standard procedure often involves being ready to get safe in the time frame provided by this instant alarm. Hostile pilots who refuse to leave are subsequently hunted down.
When the "AFK Cloaking" pilot enters, he disrupts this process, by not leaving. Further, since this intel tool persistently shows him present, the default response of suspending activity is perpetually pushed as chosen reaction.
This devalues the intel tool, as it is now being used against the native PvE pilots instead of helping them.
If local were removed, sensors strategy and cooperation would be placed as valuable means of protecting PvE income assets.
It would also be pointless to AFK cloak, as noone would be aware of your presence while you were passive.
It is widely anticipated that any change to local which stopped free cloaking awareness would also include a means to hunt cloaked ships.

Summary: That free intel tool favored by so many can be used by the hunters too.

Hot Dropping: Bridging is intended to bypass reinforced blockades and travel time. Here, it has been fine tuned to avoid advertising the presence of a fleet to the free intel tool as well by delaying the easily recognizable population spike till the last possible moment. The intention is to deny the warning local provides, although it still reports the presence of the cyno boat enough to be associated with AFK Cloaking instead.
Quite simply, while PvE pilots would never resume regular activities with a hostile fleet present, they are sometimes willing to gamble over whether a cloaked vessel represents that level of threat at a given time.

Sorry about the length, but the mindless repetition of "AFK Cloaking is bad mmkay" sounds foolish.

RIght, and this is a valid tactic. Honestly I think it is good that this will be a valid tactic. It's similar to a logoff trap and there should still be some risk presented by a cloaky camper. However as it is now there is no effective way to counter a cloaky camper. This is what I want to see resolved.

It is not that cloaks should not change, but this stalemate effect is countering the free intel being given out by local.

We have right now, a case of: "I know you are there, but I cannot find you"
(Absolute presence awareness countered by absolute location concealment)

You cannot change one side without the other, and still have balance.

Too much focus on how to remove AFK cloaking. You are addressing a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

If you want to remove AFK cloaking's game impact, remove cloaked ships from displaying in local.

When this is done, it becomes reasonable to consider means to hunt cloaked vessels. NOT before this happens.

So long as people in a system magically know cloaked pilots are present with them, cloaked vessels should not be vulnerable to being hunted effectively.

Cloaking will be earned when cloaking awareness is earned. Balance must be maintained.

Botters are frequently associated with PvE activities that have mining and ratting ships automatically responding to local having a new entry, and warping to a safe location / docking / logging.

I believe effort and play should be tied together.
(That means no, I do not like botters)

No player should be able to macro automated responses that give them an edge over their peers.
No player should have effort free Amazing Intel™ that allows them to flawlessly avoid PvP.

AFK Cloaking is the only proven effective means to counter the Amazing Intel™ effect, which many allege to include botters.

Local reporting your presence for free in a system is OP. Local reporting that you are AFK is going beyond that even.

Despite assurances that people will look away from the freely given information on a regular basis, this makes local's intel even MORE powerful.
It now will report the presence of hostile pilots, and remove any uncertainty as to whether they represent an active threat.

Now, bots you mentioned can be set to flee if they don't see this AFK flag, or if it is unreliable, stick with the original design of avoid any hostile afk or otherwise.

There is nothing wrong with cloaking in general.

Stupidity.

Then threads like these shouldn't be here, all I hear is, Awww I can't see him to blow up, there should be a way to blow him up. psych war is a differrent war, but all i hear is I wanna blow it up, I wanna blow it up, for recons its a tool to gather enemy Intel, for black ops its mostly used as an ewar tool. It would be worse than saying aaaaaawww i can't see the sniper in Armma2 they should put a reflective sight on the scope, use kill cam or tracer round like every other FPS


edit: you know the sniper is there. Go flush him out.

While I have spoken against players complaining about this issue every time I have seen it. I actually really like this idea.

I under stand the problem here. With no indication or way of knowing if the person is AFK or not you must treat the situation as if they are not AFK. You have no warning if they start to move, or return to the game, so you must assume, AFK or Not, they are a constant threat. Having an AFK flag would solve this, even if not a 100% solution.

There are many many MMO games that auto flag you as AFK if it does not receive any keyboard input for a certain amount of time. This is not fool proof, and is not a 100% solution, but at the same time does not in any way negatively affect the game. Games like SWG, you used to have to run a macro just to keep the game from logging you off if you did not touch the keyboard for more than 30 seconds. that was nothing but a PITA. This feature sux in any games that use it. it has no place here. just because you are not hitting buttons does not mean you are done playing. Perhaps you are waiting for something. A fleet to form up, a job to complete, a teammate to get back from the can. Whatever.

Having a feature like the OP suggested to track when players are AFK is a good idea. Now I agree that flagging them in local is not a good idea, but linking it with the online flag would work great. Just as you get a pop up when someone on you watch list logs into game or leaves the game, you would get notified when the AFK flag goes up or down. you will have to pay attention though, or you could miss it.

No how would this work if implemented in the game? What happens if a character gets flagged AFK if they really are not?

The way I see it, the benefits of this far out weight the negative impact. If there is an Red Cloaky in your system you add them to your watch list. If they stop being afk and become active you get a notification, so you know they are now a threat and can respond. if they remain AFK you can continue ratting or what ever, knowing that if they return you will have a few seconds notice before they can jump you.

On the flip side this can be used even more as a covert tool. You can let yourself go AFK while still watching the screen, collecting intel, the whole while everyone thinks you are afk. If you see an opportunity to attack, you can warp, jump, or scan in seconds, but at the same time lose your afk flag. They will know you are no longer afk but only have seconds to respond. Combine this with the fear of, are you really AFK or just faking it? the Covert utility is still there, at least for those not AFK.

I see a lot of potential to play this from both sides. With the only negative impact being to those who actually are AFK but leaving their character cloaked to disrupt the game while they are not playing. This act however I would consider an exploit. You should not be able to affect the game world while you are AFK sitting in the other room eating super or alt/tabed to another account.

this change would reduce but not eliminate the impact of this activity, without having any negative effect on anyone actually actively playing the game. I believe this to be an excellent solution and endorse it 100%.