Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We have demonstrated countless times how "removing" afk players has a massive negative effect on active players and their ability to influence the game and achieve their goals. Why do you refuse to acknowledge this, and why do you refuse any proposals which would attempt to maintain or balance the abilities such that active players aren't punished?

Why do you continually lie about what my position on this is? I have lost count of how many times I have had to correct you, as you keep purposefully lying about what my intentions and motivations are - and it's wearing really bloody thin at this point. The fact that you are resorting to lying about what I am suggesting or asking about only demonstrates that you have no valid response to the things I actually AM saying. On top of making you look like a liar, it weakens your argument and reflects very badly on your side. Please just cut it out, mate.

It was in reference to your comment you want to force AFK cloakers to fight. Forcing one side to fight in this game is not usually an option. Each side in many fights has a choice to engage or not, to take on risk or not. Carebear corps in empire may tell pilots, "Don't undock, blue ball them, they'll move on." An alliance may decide not to take an engagement in a sov war. PvE players almost always never choose to fight and instead will safe up. And yes...cloaked players can pick and choose their fights too, that is how cloaks work. And that may mean PvE players. Is that unfair? Yeah, could very well be. And I don't care.

I do care about game balance, but that is different than the word fair. For example, I don't think local is balanced in that it gives one side a advantage that is not of the player's doing. The resident of a system will see anyone jumping into that system before the person jumping in sees them. Or to use an example I've given before:

Joe is in ABC-123 ratting.
Bob is in XYZ-987 and is going to jump into ABC-123.
When Bob hits the jump button he'll get to see the nice jump graphic.
Joe on the other hand will see Bob appear in local chat.
Bob is just now starting to load grid.
Joe is in warp to some sort of safe.
Bob sees Joe in system and warps to an anomaly in a futile attempt to catch Joe.
Joe, goes AFK once he is safely inside the POS shields.

So long as Joe is reasonable careful and watching local, he'll almost always get away like that. Unless he gets distracted by a kid, wife, television, or gets scrammed by a rat, Joe has an almost 100% chance of getting away.

So I'd prefer to decouple local from intel. Make intel a separate mechanic, one the players have to work for. I'd even be willing to consider a mechanic where if you "work hard enough" for it, is very close or is as good as the current local mechanic. Of course it will cost you something unlike it is now where you get this advantage for free in any system you go to. For example, you might have to have a high index in the system. You can anchor the intel module, but not a cyno beacon, so you'll have to choose which you want more for that system, great intel or ease of transportation.

I'm in favor of leveling the playing field in terms of mechanics the game provides. What players do doesn't concern me. If a player comes up with a fantastic fit that lets him escape 99.9% of the time while ratting. Good on him. He was clever and deserves that advantage. If a player comes up with a way to be more successful at getting kills, good on him. So if Lucas is never ever caught by some cloaky guy while ratting because Lucas thought up a great idea to keep himself safe. Well done, he deserves all the high end ores he can mine. I don't have any issue at all with that. None.

Of course, supposing they aren't using an in game mechanic in a way that was not intended such as the sentry drone-POS shield exploit. Sentry drones should work just like all other drones.

Well you were responding to my sarcastic comment by another player who did say he wanted to force AFK cloakers to fight. You took my sarcastic comment literally (despite the smiley at the end indicating I was joking).

As for getting the benefit of resource denial for free. Not quite. I'd agree to "very low cost" The AFK cloaker does have to buy his ship, travel to the system he intends to camp, and set up some safes. Granted, that isn't much of a cost. But guess what, I don't care. Not one teeny, tiny bit do I care about this low cost. I know you are sitting there thinking, "Ah ha! I have him now!" Well keep reading before you declare victory and go home.

While PvEing in a given system you get an intel advantage for free. It literally cost you nothing. It was provided by the game itself. Yes, it is called local and you have an absolute advantage over anyone trying to come in and catch you and kill you. And like I said it is free.

So, low cost vs. free. I don't have a problem with it. Nothing you say can change that low cost vs. free aspect because it is true and you can't change the truth. You don't even have to have sov to get this benefit. You can get this benefit while PvEing in another alliances space! So...do I care about the low cost of AFK cloaking. Nope. I don't see it as a valid objection to AFK cloaking at all. So I don't agree with your claim that resource denial is free, nor do I have any issue with the low cost nature of resource denial. In fact, I'd say it is necessary given the current mechanics.

I'll go even further here. I think that local provides an advantage alot like the sentry drone/POS shield exploit. The guys who have a POS and are defending something (a CSAA, TCU, IHUB, etc.) have a clear advantage over the attackers if they use some sort of sentry drone set up and a POS. And this advantage is not due to brilliant tactics, or an awesome fit, or anything else players came up with. It is due solely and completely to an inadvertent bit of bad coding that lets sentry drones function differently than all other drones when assigned. Something CCP never intended. So, they announced it as a bannable exploit.

Local is the same way. The resident of a system gets an advantage over an entrant. And the resident has done precisely nothing for this advantage. It is there whether he owns the space or not. And the resident uses that advantage to his benefit.

Sounds a goddamn ******* lot like an exploit to me. So next time you guys on the anti-AFK cloaking side of the debate want to start hurling around the exploit claims, I think you should perhaps sit down and think hard about it. Real hard.

And the Gunslinger isn't complaining about not getting kills or wanting more benefits for cloaks. IIRC he lives in W-space, if so he is probably just fine with how cloaks work. In fact, he may not want to change anything because probes in W-space that can scan down a cloaked ship could be unbalancing in W-space. If anything, the Gunslinger is talking about game balance issues. And as I noted, that isn't about fairness, but about game balance. That the game itself does not provide any advantage to any group of players for no effort. That seems reasonable to me.

Sorry for the wall of text.

Sadly, I have smileys disabled. :(

How is this free, while AFK cloaking is not free? I too have to get a ship and get in system, not only that, I have to actually LOOK at local. An AFK cloaker does not. Simply clicking the cloak button is enough. If local somehow granted me my ship, and didn't require looking at to keep me safe, then it's free. I would however consider it too to be low cost. Still, the difference being that I have to be at my PC for the entire duration of my activity. An AFK cloaker does not. He has to only be there for a minute to secure 24 hours of his activity.

It's not necessary since it does nothing but cause empty space. It is content denial in a game about content creation. If the cloaker does anything, literally anything at the same time, it's fine, since he has to spend time doing what he chooses to do. That's his choice. But if he's AFK there's no time spent. He's simply denying content while not playing the game.

Except local was DESIGNED the way it works. Drones working when you go into a shield is an oversight. Drones should have deactivated like modules, but they didn't. Local didn't accidentally exist because they forgot to take out some dev UI or something, it was designed to show you who was around. It even includes icons to show you standing and war targets, etc.

Sure he is. Otherwise why would he even remotely care? He's claiming that removal of AFK cloak somehow affect his ability to fight PVE players and miners. Yet I see no evidence of this.

They are not two separate topics, comrade lucas

And Cloaking was designed the way it works too along with no log-off, no state indicators in Corp, Fleet, Local or Constellation chat to indicate DND, AFK, BIO, DOA and that is the balance it's an open unknown state game with no "end game" where the people in system are as active or as inactive as you think they are and so you should be as prepared as you think they are active.

Think they're AFK then don't fit for combat\safe up\whatever else and you may lose your ship. But you don't deserve to keep it if you haven't considered all the options.

Think they're active then fit accordingly, pull in backup to protect you or grab an alt in PVP rig, safe up, dock, POS hide whatever else.

And of course you would lose that lovely free 100% accurate 0 effort required intelligence that lets you faultlessly get safe before I even see the other side of the gate in the system I've just jumped into. I get you, I see where your coming from...but the difference is that I can work around it, I was playing before cloaking was even added and I'll still be playing when "AFK Cloaking" is left unaddressed because it's balance with that lovely free 100% accurate 0 effort required intelligence that lets you faultlessly get safe...Local.

|_| < Fill 'er up with your tears cos they're yummy

I literally cannot understand your post. I do not understand what you are trying to ask, or what point you are trying to make.

As for insulting him and telling him to read... I believe his response is due to the fact he DID read it. Lucas said Local was designed to work the way it currently does, and Maximus rightly pointed out that Cloaking was also designed to work the way it currently does, and CCP were obviously fully aware when they designed it that people wouldn't automatically log off because they hadn't implemented that.

As for your suggestion for an "auto-logoff"... please address the following points:
a) Why is it needed
b) How is balance maintained? If every none-threat is mechanically removed from the game automatically, it means active players cannot ever pretend to be inactive, they cannot mask what they are doing. There presence would by definition mean they are actively taking part in the game. This is not balanced. This is a sharp reduction in the capabilities of ACTIVE players, and shrinks the sandbox.

It is a bad idea.

I might have seen his post a bit wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that cloaky ships like Stealth Bombers was designed to sneaks into enemy territorium to gain intels on others where you have to do some effort to do that, not to sit afk while being cloaked with zero efforts to gain advantages over those who are active playing EVE.

See the differences?

Yes, he pointed out "cloaking" worked the way it does, which is only part of the AFK cloaking issue. What's hilarious is the discussion over whether or not it is an issue isn't even being discussed. People from both the "remove AFK cloak" side and "remove local" side seem to agree that there is an issue to be addressed, we just differ on how it should be addressed. Simply saying "no issue, move on, i can has tears" at this stage is quite frankly, moronic.

Moving someone to deadspace (or in fact logging them off) is a way to remove the AFK cloaker without him losing anything. I'm personally a fan of leaving him logged in but moving to deadspace as he may be (like some afkers in stations) logging chat, which is not a AFK cloak specific issue. If he was logged off, ALL AFK players should be (which is also fine).

As for pretending to be inactive, Prove that this actually happens with the desired result. Your presence is ALREADY assumed to be active, regardless of if you are or not, and that appears to be part of what you are complaining about. How we always safe up. And removing AFK cloakers will not change that, not one little bit.