Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This was an ingenious trap that was sprung not just on me, but the whole group of us ratting. I give the hotdropper mad props for an excellent game or witts. I could write a whole wall of text on how it was sprung, but frankly I want to use that tactic someday so I'll refrain. The hotdropper did for the first time ever get a GF from me that day. This was not the first ship he had killed of mine though I do think it was the first ship he got on Allanon, and I also think at least so far it has been the last he got of mine too. Either way though I had little to no respect for him until this day. That more than anything allowed him to get this kill. I was arrogant and overconfident.

Either way though, the saying goes don't fly what you can't replace... The loss itself was not the issue. My arrogance was, and he taught that to me that day. I appreciate that more than he will probably ever know.

Also while I haven't had the opportunity to personally strike back at that hotdropper yet. My loss has been avenged and then some. Still it was an excellent trap, and I tried my best to only have the strategic cruiser on that killmail but the panthers are so damn fast. :) Oh and there were five or six other ships coming my way too... I was glad I was able to deny them being on that killmail. And yes it may shock a lot of people but I used self destruct on my nightmare, trying also to burn out all my modules before the SD went off to possibly reduce the amount of loot that dropped. When cornered and trapped I have no problem chewing off my own leg to get away.

You are making assumptions. The scale for wormholes makes them different, but would not have the result you expect in other places.

It is very understandable why you would believe this, but it points out how you missed some important details.

Here is something that is difficult for many to grasp, but is an important detail that those hunting will not have an advantage because of local being missing.

The advantage will always belong to whoever has sov, simply because the intel channels and patrols supplying them will be a huge advantage.

Those hunting in hostile territory will be on their own, and with no local to artificially tell them where everyone is, chances are they will have no idea.
They can, of course, guess, or do research to learn where people usually hang out, but unless someone spies for them and tips them where to look, they will be effectively blind.

Local is never the friend of PvE. PvE has a far more obvious advantage trading it in for an intel channel while the hunters are blind.

Everything is so black and white to you. There is one cause, and this produces one effect. This however is far from the truth. the world is many, many shades of gray. Dealing with the symptoms is the first step in properly identifying the cause.

Symptoms can cause a pilot to act in ways that may be hard for other members of the community to understand. Their behavior may appear erratic and strange or be upsetting. The members of the community can either positively or negatively impact this pilot or the community. I choose to positively impact the community through this and other discussions on the issues.

These issues you call symptons. Well frankly not all issues can be symptoms, at least one and often more than one are the causes. hence this and other discussions.

1. This is a game...in effect a model. Models are, by definition, simplifications of the real world.
2. Given 1, trying to invoke the real world is often problematic.

In this case, AFK cloaking, removing local would remove completely the reason for AFK cloaking.

1. I would not being denying players from acquiring resources while I was off at the theater watching a movie because the players would have no idea I was even in system. They'd go about their business as if I was logged in at Jita 4-4.

2. If I am actively hunting, with no local I would not have to use AFK cloaking to lul other players into a false sense of complacency to try and get a situation where I and/or my buddies can get a kill. I could do it actively.

What other reasons exist to AFK cloak? Take a leak? You are upset that a player AFK cloaks to take a leak? Grab some food? Or deal with some RL issue that popped up?

It is really that simple.

Now of course, simply removing local might be fun for a cloaked hunter for a few days, but I think we'd end up with the ghost town scenario if there are no other intel gathering options introduced. And if we did introduce these options, turn local into a chat channel like W-space, I'd even be in favor of developing methods to hunt down and kill cloaked ships.

But until you deal with local, the current situation, while not optimal, is balanced. Local provides intel for the residents of a system, but can also be used against those residents by cloaked ships to engage in psy-waefare and asymmetrical warfare. And chances are you wont persuade me, Mags, Nikk, Gunslinger, Tchulen, Trii, and everyone else that thinks the current mechanics while not optimal, are at least balanced. And based on things I've seen from a certain CCP developer (somewhere in my AFK cloaking thread I have a link to a twitter feed and several articles spawned off of it by players), probably not CCP either.

Let me also add, that if the current situation is balanced, changing cloaks as you advocate is deliberately changing the game to be unbalanced. Which is just bad. Sure you might like it for a bit as you PvE in your min-maxed ship for a few days, but when other players in empire learn about that significant increase in null PvE safety, they'll all come a running to get in on some of the goodies. And now I get to invoke the law of unintended consequences. Such a change could lead to a rather unpleasant outcome and one that is completely unanticipated.

But EVE players aren't bees so your analogy simply doesn't work. EVE players are people and so their reactions don't work as a hive mind. You need to think of the players as people in order to even try to predict their reactions should any proposed change occur. That way you have more chance of actually predicting their reactions at least partially accurately. There are also lots of different types of people and so when trying to predict how a particular group of people might react you have to take their likely individual reactions and they're likely group reactions, garnered through extrapolation of their current and past behavior, into account. That's a much more sensible way to view things than assuming people act like bees.

Corps that don't protect one system will likely not protect a few systems in a constellation for the same reason they don't protect the one system: They're incapable of it. If they were capable of it they would in the current situation. Those that do are a testament to that fact. Claiming that corps can't be arsed with one system is tantamount to claiming that they can't be arsed. Full stop. Claiming that their behavior would change is a bit on the crazy side.

I have first hand experience and anecdotal evidence from other players on the forum that states that some (and I would posit most) groups/corps/alliances do currently carry on playing with a cloaky camper in their system.

Anyway, this argument is for others now. It's getting a little on the old side for me so I'm stepping out.

We are back to rehashing the same topics over and over again. I agree with Tchulen, this topic is getting old. I see things one way, others see them another way.

The bee analogy was an interesting diversion, but in truth the original post that sprung up that conversation was started on another thread, and not this one. My only point with it was to state that what people will do individually differs greatly with what people will do while in a group.

The one system often only affects individuals and it seems to me that often it does not affect them enough to initiate a strong group response. Extend this effect from the individuals in one system to the individuals in a constellation then I am of the opinion you will see a lot more strong group responses. That is all, and why I believe the constellation chat might be a decent middle ground.

Yes a lot of alliances keep on mining and ratting while a hostile is cloaked in system. If you read my entire post you will see I stated I did too, though in cheaper ships and with a lower yields. I also stated that I left system to mine and rat with my more expensive ships with higher yields. It all depended on what I needed at the time, and upon the risk vs reward aspect. This cloaked person spent five full days in system, so there were plenty of risk vs reward decisions.

There was also plenty of opportunities for them to act, and plenty of opportunities for the individuals in the system to discuss this issue. They have now left the system in question. Since this is the case I am now retiring from this thread barring any new suggestions or pro/con discussions.


What I have learned from this thread...

Cloaking in system and doing nothing (often while AFK) is the counter to the prefect intel of Local chat.
Cloaking in system and doing nothing can lull the locals into a sense of complacency, allowing for easier targets (I really already knew this, but it was not initially stated as such).


Some side effects of this tactic include...

The reducing of industry and military lvls if the locals decide the risk is too great to attempt and maintain those lvls (this only happens if the cloaker stays in system multiple days).
A tactic that can be performed while completely AFK if desired.


Potential overall solutions...

Add a module to allow sovereignty holders to choose to have Local chat or not in nullsec...
Remove Local chat altogether in nullsec...
Change Local chat to constellation chat in nullsec...


Potential solutions to the side effects...

Degrading cloak mechanics...
Cloak timers...
Pop-up windows while pilots are cloaked at regular intervals to ensure the pilot is at the keyboard...
AFK timers that log you out of game after a period of time away from keyboard...


There are pros and cons to everything listed above...

Degrading cloak mechanics... Cloak timers...
Realistic view on cloaking as it exists in current scientific methods (and yes cloaking does exist in real life).

AFK timers that log you out of game after a period of time away from keyboard...
Every MMO I have ever played has this mechanic built into the game, except EVE.
Pros...
Gives CCP a more realistic view of actual active player numbers.
Reduces server load.
Frees up resources for other processes on the server (like large fleet battles).
Potentially reduces the need for time dilation.
Potentially saves CCP money from ISPs by reducing the amount of throughput they need to keep the servers live.
Disables a lot of third party programs (bots) because they probably do not have an AFK processes built into them (i assume this because it is not needed, and botters by definition are lazy. I do not know this for certain).
And the most important pro... Reduce the neverending chat and number of pilots in Jita.
CCP might even be able to put asteroid fields back in Jita.


I think everyone would agree sitting in a system is a counter to Local Chat providing prefect intel. It can be used (and often is used) to lull locals into complacency. If this is done over multiple days it can also be used to negate the industry and military lvls of a system. This can all be done completely AFK, and therefore could be considered botting logically. I do not think anyone would disagree botting is an exploit. Botting is allowing a computer to play the game while you are away from the keyboard. Any tactic you can employ while completely AFK therefore can be argued as technically botting without the use of third party programs.

In order to break this siege effect, sacrifices would be needed on both sides.

No solution to local was ever truly accepted, for the simple reason that some people do not want to rely on other people.
They either believe they cannot, or they think that they will be left out by playing at the wrong time, etc.

Others have an assumption that local's absence would deprive PvE pilots of the only protection they have.
(This is insane if you understand it would affect both sides equally, and that the sov advantage combined with intel channels swings the balance decidedly into the sov holders benefit)

It would take the game, for some, out of the comfort of zero effort into a requirement for teamwork, and that is beyond their comfort zone.

They want the ability to be free of cloaks, for no cost.

This isn't some touchy feelly bravo sierra topic, it is about game balance. You keep wanting to deal with the symptom of the underlying problem when correcting the underlying problem will also correct the symptom. Or to put it differently your view is wrong. It is wrong because it is unbalancing.




These all stink and they all are actually unnecessary once the local problem is fixed. However, if you really want to make sure about AFK cloaking instead of having the game do stuff for you, make it so you can hunt down a cloaked afk ship. Further, the hunting cloaked ships option also includes a penalty for lazy ass players who don't use it. All the automatic "solutions" you suggest on the other hand encourage lazy ass play.

Oh, and that AFK timer, **** no to that one unless it includes people in station and POS and even in space. Why should cloaks be singled out?



Or CCP moves the system where the fight is happening to another node and that solves the serve load problem too.



Exactly how many AFK cloaked players do you think there are? You are talking a marginal benefit, at best, that would simply encourage people to be lazy.

And stop saying AFK cloaking is botting. A cloak is a valid in game module/mechanic. Going AFK is nowhere against the TOS or EULA. Going AFK while cloaked is thus nowhere near botting...which is illegal because it is expressly forbidden by the EULA.



How long have you sat on a titan waiting for a bridge? Now imagine everyone in 3 fleets sitting on three titans in one system have to respond to some dumbass popup window at approximately the same time. How do you think that would interact with oh...say...tidi? Seems like it will be worse than some schmuck sitting cloaked and AFK in a system with 3 frustrated ratters.

Tell us more about how one single AFK player in a system is exactly the same as 200 caps undocking in terms of server load?

Large numbers of players will unsub because you just broke the way they play the game.

How are bots going to be considered AFK if activley playing isn't, when they're doing the same things in game?

As for the rest, well.

Mining - If I mine, I do it in a second client window, and only really look at it once every 10 minutes to half an hour, thus it'd get me flagged as AFK and log me out.

Hauling - Ever tried to move, say, a T1 industrial full of stuff across highsec? Press autopilot, minimise client, now I'd just get logged out for being AFK.

Market Trading - What's that? You want to wait till you can update your orders again? Nope, you're AFK, logged out.

Manufacturing - You want to build that component and wait a bit to build the final product? Nope, logged out.

Scouting - You can no longer keep eyes on a hostile POS/fleet/fprmup system/gate/whatever, because you'll be logged out for being AFK.

Ratting - Tell me again how my drone Ishtar won't be classed as AFK? There are already setups to run these things with zero input.

Fleet Combat - Heavy tidi, or waiting for hostiles, or covering your logi/caps while they rep a thing, or waiting for warpins, or waiting on titans all get you logged out for being AFK.

Waiting for said combat - See above. Wait on a gate/tiatan/ihub/whatever and you'll be logged out.

Boosting - Sit in a POS with an alt running links and it'll be logged out for being AFK. Same with a rorqual boosting miners.

POS management - TIMERS. timers everywhere, and if you go AFK, you'll be logged out.

Wormhole life - What is there to do but wait when someone like AHARM (they're still scary, right? I don't know WH politics) are moving 50 tengus through your hole. Logged out for waiting. Or for scouting. or for mining. Or for camping statics.

Hiding from roaming gangs - Hide in a POS/station/safespot and you'll be logged off for being AFK.

Autopilot - Nope, this is AFK by definition.

Bombers - Got to wait on that perch until the right moment, nope, logged off for being AFK.

Gatecamps - What's that? Waiting for a target? NOPE. AFK, logged out.




EVE is a game about waiting. Disconnecting the people who wait for things is not a good idea.

As for that being standard in other MMOs, EVE is not like other MMOs. If you want to use them as your justification, I await your proposal to replace all the consequences of dying with a small fee and getting your stuff back exactly as it was.

EDIT: Jesus Christ look at all those words.