Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Or you run smack into the law of unintended consequences, or as I like to put it, perverse incentives.

If we remove AFK cloaking, and Nikk, the Gunslinger, Mag's, et. al. are right...we could see a dramatic rise in AWOXing. Then how long until people are here on the forums whining about that? Wanting that prohibited somehow as well.

The argument is the PvPers should adapt. Well they might, in a way that is even worse. Now you might have to start docking up even when a blue is in system.

It also sorely misses the fact that PVPers already DID adapt - and thats why we have the cloaky camper strategy in the first place. It was PVPers adapting to residents appropriating a chat channel as an infallible intel tool. Residents used it because it was perfect and afforded them a very high degree of safety, so we figured out ways to handle that. What happened when we adapted? Well, a minority of null industrialists, like Nikk, adapted themselves. But a lot of them refused, and instead made ten thousand threads demanding changes.

They do not realise they are fighting a losing battle because those who adapt will always be ahead of those who cannot or will not. Even if they got the change they want (and the subsequent one they wanted after we adapted, and the one after that after we adapted again, and so on ad infinitum) ... they'd always be stuck waiting for the next change. We'll adapt far quicker than CCP will make major mechanics changes.

If a player truely is afk then of course there is no threat until they return, obviously, but because no one can know either event, it is best to NEVER AGAIN MENTION WHETHER A PLAYER IS AFK OR NOT .. because no one will ever know .. not even if they are watching a movie and clicking on the client every hour when a timer goes off under the new auto-logoff feature proposal.

I am not asking anything about threats. I am talking only about auto-logoff of clients with NO player interaction. This is about interaction, not threats. It deals with the single term of being "afk" cloaked or not. Resolving "afk", the issue of afk cloakers (this issue) suddenly becomes resolved as well; plus any other afk issues, too. Since interaction correlates only very loosely with threat levels, there is no accuracy regarding the client's affect on threats and there is still plenty of intel work required by the players to discern the threat level of all hostiles still logged in. Plus, not all log-offs would be auto-logoffs, because some would be log tricks. Additionally, cloaky-campin' players, station-chillin' players, and any player in general may be chatting with friends, watching a movie, eating lunch, take'n a pee, whatever, and still clicking on the client at least once per hour to keep the auto-logoff timer resetting. The timer would affect all afk and not just only target the small group of cloaky campers; it is fair. As before, they will be assumed to be an active threat. The auto-logoff won't even broadcast in local the last time there was a click or key press for each player in system (a bit of a stretch for an idea affecting the stargate communication system anyhow). Some false threats will be removed, but the point is to resolve the concern about afk and to have a player base that is actually playing to at least a very limited degree or possibly "illegally" scripting which would be reported the same as scripted high sec mining.

Auto-logoff is about leaving the game to those who are actually playing and present, not about balancing gameplay or tricking people about whether or not you are active because I could care less about whether or not you really are active or really are at the keyboard when it comes to assessing you as a threat. Now, do you want to resolve the "afk" part of the issue and possibly also this entire thread with one simple, fair auto-logoff mechanic .. or not?

Because you guys seem to be claiming that by removing an AFK cloaker, PVE players and miners would die less. This is utterly wrong. Prove that AFK cloakers are increasing actual threat, not just introducing an appearance of threat.

They APPEAR as a threat but are NOT a threat. You guys are claiming that removing them makes PVE and Mining players MORE SAFE. So prove it. If you can't, then you are complaining about the removal of the uncertainty for no reason, since removing that uncertainty will not increase our safety.

You have trouble understanding, I get that, but stop acting like I'm saying things I am not. At the end of the day, our level of safety WOULD NOT CHANGE with this change, the only thing that will change is your abuse of the game mechanics.

You are either purposely being dumb, or you are really stupid.
HOW CAN YOU TELL if they are AFK to then DECIDE that they are NOT A THREAT?
That's literally what this ENTIRE THREAD is about.
So you can go on saying "oh, but AFK players mean nothing!" but unless you can tell, they HAVE TO BE TREATED as active. so while they provide NO ACTUAL RISK, they still must be treated the same.
They KNOW this, and they exploit this part of the mechanic to pin down systems for weeks at a time.

Please learn to read English, or don;t bother responding with the same nonsense over and over again. We're all fed up of hearing the troll response of "AFK players can't kill you". That's beside the point and you damn well know it.

You are not supposed to know if they are AFK.

After all this time, have you not realized this?

Deception is one of the core elements to EVE. They may be active, but deliberately silent... or they could simply be AFK.

You don't have the right to know this with any certainty.

1. Meaningless / CCP has this covered.

2. Really meaningless. A significant portion of game affecting play is not even done on game servers, but on voice chats and forum discussions, including those owned by individual corporations and alliances.
Did you think all those websites and apps had no purpose?

3. They even have EVE mail for this, as being able to reach people 1 on 1 is not a priority for immediate communication.

4. We disagree on the meaning of active. My version cannot be measured by clicks or keystrokes.

5. Not something worth even mentioning.

6. CCP really does balance the game, even if you find flaws with AFK this or that.

7. Come on now, this just restates the earlier points with different words.

8. Same wash / rinse / re-word....

9. Activity being the opposite of AFK, in this context, another re-worded point.

10. No additional reasons necessary, the logic behind the local changes was never beaten, simply avoided or ignored.
Those not wanting the change to local in exchange for a change to cloaking, are almost literally sticking their fingers in their ears, going la la la I cannot hear you....



It really is a beautiful day.

Did WHAT again?
What is your inability to read causing you too see between the lines now.
I'm SIMPLY STATING that the current state we have is due to the broken mechanics. You are trying to tell me what i have the right to know and what we as players are SUPPOSED to know. Yet YOU want LOCAL REMOVED. Do you not understand how this makes you a hypocrite? How this shows that YOU want what YOU want, and simply make up this between the lines crap to try to justify that?
Don't make me laugh bro. Learn to troll.

Proof of WHAT?
What proof do you want?
You make absolutely no sense, because I think you are having a conversation with yourself that I am not a party to, due to your lack of understanding english.

YOU are claiming I have NO RIGHT to the information I WANT.
YOU are claiming I AM NOT SUPPOSED to know that a player is AFK.
YET YOU want LOCAL REMOVED, and seem to think you are not SUPPOSED to see people in local.

I don't NEED to prove anything, since what I WANT is not something provable. YOU must PROVE that I have NO RIGHT to ask for it.