Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hostage?

No, the PvE players you refer to simply refuse to accept that they can be shot at. They may talk about how tough they are for flying in null sec, but so long as they are denying to fight in the ships they undocked with originally, they are risk averse.

They could fit in high sec because concord gives them protection, but they are still possible to suicide gank or war dec.
They cannot be suicide ganked in null. You can't be war dec'd by your own corp or alliance, and that is all they accept in local before warping to safety.
Short of unexpected awoxers, they have no realistic risk that they cannot completely avoid.

Whether you like it or not, both sides being stuck doing nothing is balanced.
Whether it is broken and frustrating to both sides diminishes nothing, it is balanced because both sides can be AFK or not, and can choose to not expose themselves to risk.
They even have the same game supplied intel to verify who is present in the system.

As to which is worse, the cloaked side keeping the PvE side hidden in fear, or the PvE side refusing to take a chance and risk playing with the actual ships the hunters are after.

Perspective really, it is two sides of the same coin.

I've done it. It isn't efficient, but it can be done.

And if you rat with 3-4 people, it will be even easier and you'll grind the rats faster.

For that to work and be balanced local must also be hidden from you.

Players in WH know what they're getting into but those in null somehow missed the memo that null isn't perfectly safe? Each type of space Hi, Low, Null, and W have their own rule sets. If players should be aware of how things work in one of them the same goes for the rest.

You have to act differently when there is a possible threat than you would if there wasn't? Why yes, yes you do. The problem is you seem to think that Sov somehow entitles you to risk free PvE but it doesn't. Just like in W, there is a certain level of risk to doing PvE in null. If you don't understand this then the problem is yours.

Is the irony of this statement lost on you? Manufacture, PI, RnD, and most importantly mining as it has the same may or may not be present dichotomy as cloaked ships... Industry in general is largely done while afk or not logged on at all.

And the WH players appear to be doing just fine. Granted null k-space is not the same as WH space (no static gates, not showing up on any maps, etc.) But, the idea that a change to local in null would drive everyone to empire is a bit over-wrought.

What these two posts wrote. This would eliminate the reason for AFK cloaking (why bother if the locals can't see you). Further, it becomes a much more risky style of game play.

I'd also add in that when you decloak from your jump cloak before you activate your on board cloak you are visible in local so that for about a second locals do have a chance of seeing you. Other than that, they'll have to work at finding you from that point on.

No more freebie intel.

Go figure, in EVE you affect the game also when you're offline; only an example: place market orders and log off, you're affecting my gameplay.




you're doing exactly the same; I've no way to know if you're AFK at your POS or in your station. But you want tool to know what people is doing in real life becuase "hey, they're in MY system, I BOUGTH it, is my right to know what they doing in real life". Serious?

However I think we can agree in removing the chance to be AFK when cloacked if we agree to introduce some mechanic that force your ship (or pod) to undock or eject outside the POS shield when AFK.

I'm sure you'd love this and agree.

Ahhh so you are being dogmatic. Fine, then leave. No really leave the thread.

See, my issue isn't that cloaking couldn't use some attention, but that it has to be coupled with how players use local for intel. I'm also not suggesting that local be removed or that there isn't some manner of gathering intel. My problem with with how good the intel is from local.

To recapitulate one more time:



That is pretty damn good. If you are aligned and paying attention that hostile has little chance of catching you.

Also:



Again, very useful as you can tell if the person coming in is friendly, neutral or hostile via standings.

And:



This means you can always count on local as soon as you log in. You don't have to even turn on a module like a cloaker does.

Lastly:



In fact, some alliances have come up with websites that work with the in game browser. You can call it up and copy and paste various things like local, dscan results, etc. and it will organize them all nice and neat. Telling you corp, alliance, etc. and for dscan ship types etc. You can get the composition of a hostile gang very quickly, and you can see if maybe they don't have enough logistics support or some other weakness you can exploit when you start forming a counter gang.

So local is an excellent source of intel. Couple it with people reporting stuff and it gets even better. TEST had it set up so that with reporting of hostiles in systems it would show up on a map you could access while in game. You'd keep that open, separate local as its own window and someone trying to sneak up on you and do you harm had a tough road ahead of them.

The only way to inject uncertainty back into local is via one and only one module: the cloaking device.

This is an extremely reasonable conclusion. I would like to see you provide a counter argument to what I've just written. You could dispute one of my 4 points about the excellence of local's intel. You could argue there is another way to create uncertainty pertaining to the intel local provides. I doubt you'll even make the attempt though.

Now, absent some other way of making the intel provided by local less reliable, any nerf to cloaking will be a buff to local. Yes that even includes AFK cloaking. I agree with you that AFK cloaking sucks. Like I have written several times before, it is not something I generally do. If I were to do it though, it would likely be in conjunction with a BLOPs gang, or to try and lul the residents into a false sense of security so I could, at some point engage them and kill them (or maybe they'll kill me).

I have outlined my position very carefully. I've given you facts about local and drawn conclusions about them. From my perspective they are logical and reasonable. I am not being dogmatic. I read your posts and find the arguments lacking. Mainly because you want a buff to your intel, albeit indirectly, by nerfing cloaks. I find that unbalancing and against the very nature of this game.

Pretty much every enlargement has been heard. Every idea even remotely possible to deal with the issue presented. Even to the point where cloaking pilots admit to going AFK cloaked in wormhole space.

To my knowledge CCP has never embraced AFK cloaking. They will only tell you that it isn't an exploit.

So I still believe the ONLY reason this issue has not been dealt with years ago is that cloaking is one of the few remaining things from the early years of EVE Online that has not been significantly touched in years. The code that handles it must be an absolute mess and changes to it will require significant development resources.

IF they ever decide to do something about cloaking. It will no doubt be controversial. Large alliances have relied on the current cloaking system and a change that gives defenders a chance to uncloak a ship that has a pilot that has been AFK for hours will mean they will have to rethink many aspects.

IF they do change it. I hope those who have been using this way of using the cloak will find more active uses of their ships.

I blame Incarna for CCP being hesitant to do truly new things.