Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yes it is against the EULA, and they will be banned. I thought about bots when typing, but they are not really worth taking into account when developing mechanics to deter mainstream players. If you play with the bots, you will win against the bots, but you will also have lost all your non bots too. When you create a game that tries so hard to get rid of bots, it usually ends up becoming too harsh or too much of a burden to deal with these "changes" for the normal player.

This is in regards to making mechanic changes. All the bot fighting should be done on the back end through analytics using the massive amount of data that they have from server logs. You know those repetitive EXACT same position clicks of the bad bots? Those EXACT same movements that are otherwise impossible for anything but a bot? They have this information recorded as nature of the logs, it's just a matter of creating a analytics system to filter out such suspicious behavior and then put them into a purge, or more supervision needed list. For smarter bots, you can still rely on the sheer amount of time they are active. If an account is active 23/7 365 and actually doing things (not just sitting AFK) that's an extremely strong indicator of a bot that only needs a little bit of extra evidence to incriminate.

I think that making the cloaker scannable interferes much more with the normal function of the cloak because it simply denies it. Also, as an experienced prober myself I can't think of a way of making it interesting. Consider this: all scannable objects are scannable because they are detectable in some way. We used to have different types of signatures (gravimetric, radar, etc.) for each site, that were the things that a probes are detecting as anomalies in the system (rocks, radar emissions, etc.). Now what is the thing making the cloaked ship detectable? Their sensors? Idk. It sounds complicated, but there may be something on that direction. It's an idea to be worked on.
I think that the cap makes more sense but not with drain per cycle like regular modules. The drain effect must work directly on the cap recharge rate. Make it negative but at a very small rate so a complete drain takes at least one hour to occur. When the ship is completly out of cap the cloak just deactivates.
To compensate the effect for ships that warp cloaked there could be a bonus to cap required for warping for those ships. This bonus can even act as a buff to active players because the cap drain will not affect them as much as someone who is not there to turn the module on and off.
I don't know if messing up with cap mechanics is too complicated for implementing a feature like that. Anyway, it's just an idea.

The person that thinks AFK cloaking is a problem, makes it their problem. Especially when they cannot see the implications of their ideas or the actual mechanics at work.

Oh and market games are PvP games, combat is merely a subset of that acronym.

But without local, the problem does not exist. Therefore it's is completely related and the cause. AFK Cloaking is merely an effect of that cause.
Cloaks are meant to hide your ship, they have counters and penalties built in. This idea like every other idea, looks to nerf cloaks to fix what is an issue with another mechanic. Rather like putting a plaster on the skin of a man with a bone sticking out his leg. It may fix the effect you are seeing, but won't fix the underlying cause.

Local gives intel 23.5/7, unbiased, without effort, 100% risk free and in such a way that it's intel improves depending upon the systems it's used in.
E.I. When in high sec locals intel is helpful, but doesn't give much in the way of narrowing down your enemy. High sec is widely used by all, meaning anyone could attack you at any time. The only true idea you have of an enemy, is a flashing war target. Which isn't much help if you're not at war. Then there is the fact that you can dock at any station, which in turn brings anyone there.
Due to how high sec works AFK cloaking therefore, does not and has not ever had the effect bemoaned about in these threads.

When in low sec, it's safe to say everyone is out to get you. But again, lots of low sec is populated by people you don't know. The stations there too, bring everyone as they are also open to all. Even though hot drops are a plenty here, none of those are due to people having to sit AFK cloaked for hours. So again due to how low sec works AFK cloaking therefore, does not and has not ever had the effect bemoaned about in these threads.

Null NPC space. I cannot recall ever seeing a post bemoaning the use of AFK cloaking in this regard, when in NPC null. It like other areas, is open to all. Also it has easy access to all the stations located in those systems.

WH space has an obvious reason why AFK cloaking doesn't work, there is no local for you to use against others in these systems. This makes going AFK for the purpose of psychological warfare, pointless.

Sov null. This is a whole different ball game. Stations are locked, to whomever is blue to those who have sov. This means there are little interest in most, to hang around these areas. They become blue zones, for want of a better term. As a result, neutrals and reds stand out amongst the crowd. Their course and system positions relayed. As they cannot dock, cloaks are the preferred method of travel to allow for movement and data collection. It also halts the use of blobs from those blues, in an attempt to remove enemies.
These sov null restrictions, only serve to improve locals intel more than any other space.

So what does this tell us? Well that differences in space makes local in sov null, the reason for AFK cloaking. To ignore this fact makes any suggested pointless and not a balance approach. It means that any idea not taking this into account, will also break more than anything they purport to fix.

Removing cloak? Do you mean removing cloaked pilots from local channel?

No, because you cannot discuss one without the other. Local is the reason for AFKing in this regard. Whether it's with cloaks or without.

You said it is a bad idea because it affects the game of the active cloaker, but it does not. If someone is using a prototype cloak the drain will be so slow it will be barely noticeable as long as the player is active. The more sacrificed would be the cov-ops. For them it would be a greater change but the bonus to warp core cap usage could counter the sacrifice, and even act as a buff if well managed.

I thik the WH local mechanics would be great if applied to nullsec, and nullsec only... maybe only sov nullsec? That's something the change local people can discuss.

The amusing thing is CCP has an AOE smartbomb like decloaking device in the database lol. That would be a bit too OP on gates, but amusing none the less since it seems like they've tried finding a way to implement counters to cloaks before. Of course this device has been in the database for several years, so I'm thinking CCP just gave up on the idea of "countering" cloaks. Probably because cloaks are not a game breaking problem besides in this one griefing instance with AFK cloakers.

The way things are now there needs to be an effort from a player for him to be aware of the cloaker presence. It's the same effort taken to find out if a ship is in a POS, station, or somewhere else. The scouting. You're only aware that there is cloaker is in the system if you scout the whole system and his ship is not visible anywhere.
Anyway, I don't like the idea of probes giving up the cloaker presence too. It would break the WH game.

Aside from jump drive capable ship, which have a special cargo hold and are immensely powerful, no other ship has fuel. Imposing a fuel cost on cov ops, bombers, and force recons seriously gimps them as it means less space for other items in the cargo hold and puts severe limitations on their usefulness (e.g. the cloaker may need a cloaky industrial following him around with more fuel, ammo, etc.). And if the fuel is cap, that renders currently cap stable or mildly cap unstable fits wildly cap unstable when using their cloaks.

And you have to remember a cloaked ship only disappears from local when the cloak is active so coming into system means the pilot will be visible briefly. So, if you want to know if a cloaked ship is in system when you log in, undock in your scanning ship, launch probes, scan. If nothing comes up, redock, undock in your PvE ship and go about your business like you normally do and keep an eye on local and the intel channel.

No he is saying your claim is BS. It very well might have been intended that cloaks hide the pilots identity as well...at least until they attack. We don't know really though...one way or the other.

What we do know is t he current state, and that many of these issues are almost surely unintended and we have some evidence (e.g. CCP Exploerer's twitter posts) that indicate CCP would eventually like to change things.

And yes, if the pilot of a cloaked ship is removed from local there is nothing that says he can't go AFK...but why bother. People don't do it because its fun, but because it is a form of psychological warfare. You know this, this is one of your complaints. But for this to be the case the pilot MUST visible in local, FFS.

Remove said pilot form local and the psychological warfare aspect is reduced to irrelevancy.

Another reason to AFK cloak is to lure residents into a false sense of complacency. Then when they start PVEing again, start killing them.

Again, if a cloaked pilot is removed from local, the long terms AFK cloaking for this purpose is vastly reduced. To mitigate abuse of AFKing for this purpose though, those of us who advocate this kind of solution also advocate making cloaked ships huntable via some other in game mechanic, be it probes, a system wide decloaking POS module, whatever. Now, the cloaked pilot will likely have to be active or risk getting blown up while AFK.

And changing local to be like WH space could be problematic and is the least likely to succeed. The reason is that many people who PvE are rather risk averse. They often use min-maxed/costly fits and wont want to risk them. Long term, it could mean less people and less content in the game. Note I said "could".

Try again. CCP knows about AFK cloakers, they also aren't happy with the current in game intel tool: Local. My guess is neither will be changed independently.

I think that breaks the WH game, doesn't it?