Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This is a false equivalency.

The ratter and miner can still accomplish their goals. They do not need to make an effort superior to a hunter to remain safe, just a minimum default effort.
The hunter cannot compete against this, since no opportunity is offered to directly oppose the effort.

So, what we have left for gameplay, is the hunter is reduced from a threat, to an annoyance. He cannot make any effort beyond waiting, and hoping the PvE pilot will ignore local in frustration, and voluntarily expose themselves to risk.

Now, add your idea. The annoyance is being removed, the PvE pilots will now KNOW that only active hunters are listed, and will NEVER voluntarily risk exposure to risk as in the past.

THAT, is killing risk for PvE, and as already demonstrated, the rewards that risk had been the balance for.

I'm not arguing that someone shouldn't be able to provide a reasonable threat by sitting in a system, cloaked, and waiting till the inhabitants get frustrated/whatever and choose to accept the risk of going back to ratting/mining. I'm simply saying that if they are going to go afk for extended periods of time, rather then actually being at their computer to actually present this risk, that their should be a counter-balancing amount of risk for them in return. As things stand now, they present a risk factor whether afk or not to the ratters/miners, while undergoing 0 risk themselves until such time as they choose to engage in PvP actions, yet present the full risk of that by their very presence in system to the ratters/miners with 0 risk to themselves.

So far, all I'm reading are tears from those who have had it easy for so long with the current set up against something that would present a reasonable amount of risk to them in return for the 'gains' they seek, currently at 0 risk, in 'easy' kills of PvE'rs.

The ratter / miner is perfectly aware of the hunter's presence. Local permits no uncertainty here.

Unless they recently paid attention to local chat, the hunter would not know a new potential target existed. A partially or fully AFK player doesn't even know to check on potential PvE areas.
Advantage PvE.

Knowing a threat is online in system, activity is perfectly possible. Use of wormhole tactics and similar hostile countering strategies are demonstrated to work, but effort and possible teamwork is needed.
Null should be expected to be less convenient than high sec, even if not as dangerous.
Advantage PvE.

Voluntary risk, as this cannot be honestly described any other way, is always under control of the player making the choice regarding whether to take the risk. The cloaked player only has a chance to fight if they either fool the PvE player into this, or the PvE pilot makes errors.
Advantage PvE.

Make it clear that AFK results in eventual decloaking, and you create a new default behavior. Hunt patrols to find the newly exposed hostiles. Hostiles not wanting such a risk leave on their own. No more reasons to risk an AFK hunter, since you can now be far more certain.
"I win button" for PvE.

There's nothing stopping the hunter from pretending to be afk while actually not so.

Advantage PvE canceled.

The difference between a player choosing not to act, and a player not aware of an opportunity to act, means nothing to the player they are opposing.

The player they are opposing either will be attacked or not, and is therefore either right or wrong about the threat and their strategy against it.

PvE advantage unaffected.

The cloaked pilot cannot surprise the PvE pilot.

Local has already defined them as present.

The PvE pilot will either see them warp in, or see them decloak on grid. Unless they are flying a scripted hictor, the attacking pilot cannot realistically lock and point the PvE pilot with more than 2 points of warp disruption.
Assuming the PvE pilot at least is operating aligned to a tactically sound location, they can warp before any locking attempt can complete, and by fitting stabs as needed.
(The venture already comes out of the box with +2 strength)

The PvE pilot has to choose being active, knowing a threat exists in system. To presume they are foolish enough to be an easy target fits inside the definition of pilot error, in this situation.

Also, none of that applies in regards to the afk-cloaker, beyond being a presence in system to attempt to lure the PvE'r out... yet they can do that without being afk as well.

pssh, your playing life wrong, guaranteed, anything you can think of to do, there's someone out there who won't like it :P

Common knowledge indeed, but that doesn't stop them from doing something on an alt acct while logged in and still sitting there for hours on end camping, and just tabbing over to that acct to deal with cycling the cloak... still mostly afk, but having to at least minimally actually be active in the game... in the long term it would settle out to be about as effective as it currently is, just force them to either be minimally active or risk ship loss. Just like the PvE'rs have a choice of being inactive, or risking ship loss, yet still being active while logged in.

Sounds rather balanced to me.

And you would still end up with players who are forced to take the risk when the cloaker isn't afk but camping when doing so for hours on end, after all, there's always plenty of peeps who can't afford to waste game time day in, day out hoping for them to go away... which is why they risk it at all now.

The change would reduce the ability to counter already described advantages held by PvE pilots, with no balancing benefit in exchange.

This therefore fits one of two categories:

You either believe the devs deliberately left this imbalanced, bringing into question why they would choose an idea such as this to adopt. It raises more questions than it answers.

This unbalances the game in this context, and won't be taken unless balanced by other details not described here.