Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As much as you think its imbalanced making it more safer to rat or mine in null its far more imbalanced to have invisible non counterable cloaking devices in EvE online. Only a good game knows how to put a yin to every yang. Every game feature must have its counter. In eve the lack of counter to cloaked ship is true sign of failed game balance. Failing to recognize it shows its being abused to counter yet another flawed system in the game.

That broken game feature is what your arguing for. Keep the flaw so we can counter another flaw. With that approach you wont ever fix anything, you will just end up walking around in circles. Maybe if one side of the coin was fixed it would help expedite the fix for other problems in the same area. But I suspect that's not what your aiming for here.

I think Im with Lucas Kell. End of the day similar to all other game balances done over the years this problem will have to be addressed. Till then its pointless trying to convince anyone after 125 pages. Specially to people that stubbornly want to keep on to old broken features to milk the abuse out of it.

Edit: Just to add something small. Its important to recognize the difference between an opinion and recognizing a flaw in the system. Its only your personal opinion that changing cloaked features adds or removes danger to null space and makes it worse or better. But giving cloaked ships a counter is necessity out of game balance.

Of course it is a counter. It makes local less effective. In fact, it turns local against the player trying to engage in PvE. That is, by definition, a counter. It is using the very thing PvE players use to their advantage to their detriment. How is that not a counter?



No, you are quite wrong here. Defenders, aka people already in system, get a distinct advantage they have done absolutely nothing to earn. At least the AFK cloaking guy has done stuff to get to AFK cloak. He has spent time training the skills, spent time getting into the system in question, etc. PvE players have done absolutely nothing to get the benefits of local.

And please don't say holding sov, because local would work for you and provide that advantage whether you held sov or not. And you have trained no skills, you have put down no structures, or anything of value. You have done precisely nothing for that benefit.



TBH I don't think the SoE ships will make into the game as is, or if they do they'll get hit with a nerf bat sooner rather than later.



A small force should be able to be a PITA to a larger more conventional force, IMO. Right now that just isn't really going to happen aside from AFK cloaking...which sucks. The reason is that many null blocs own large swaths of space, they can PvE in many different systems, or even go to high sec to run missions if all else fails.

Right there is where you advertise your ignorance for everyone following this thread to see. I have expressly advocated counters to cloaks. Change local--i.e. separate local and intel. At the same new probes, maybe a a new ship module to detect cloaked ships. Also, the new intel infrastructure would detect ships not under cloak...so when a cloaked ship passes through gates it would be detected. But you'd have to set up the intel infrastructure...pay for it, defend it, and it would involve trade offs in terms of system upgrades.

In short, you are working from a position of extreme ignorance of what I'd prefer to see in the game. As I said, you should read some of the previous pages.

The counter, to play with the wording freely, is local.

Cloaking is stealth. Local breaks this, but in so doing makes it trivial.
To balance this, the devs determined that no method of locating a cloaked vessel would exist.

Both are free, and absolute. There is no limit or gap to the reporting done by local.
In theory, this is so the players can see each other, and chat.

Back when local really was just a list of names, this could sometimes happen in null. When the standings got added though, it reinforced the intel nature of the pilot's list. Many alliances now have policies limiting chatting in local, if they accept it on any level.

Because the so-called cloaked pilot is visible to anyone, and known to be in system flawlessly, considering them hidden is a total joke on that level. If you needed to be in a system, and have that actually not known, you cannot be online in the system at all.
This means you can only be logged out, or outside but possibly in range of the system, since local will report you.
Gathering intel not tainted by your opponent being aware you could be watching is impossible in the game. Yes, you could misrepresent yourself to them, and be a spy, but that is espionage rather than stealth.
That is metagaming, since in game mechanics to gather untainted intel do not exist.

At current levels of opportunity, the game is effectively treating players as if cloaking was not an unlocked mechanic. We are automatically warned about all hostile presence, and cloaked ships are in turn impossible to find.

To unlock this, you must permit effort to succeed with both sides, and equally be required for both sides.

cloaking and AFK cloaking are the same thing.
AFK cloaking does not exist. There is no AFK cloaking module, just a cloaking one.

Because it does not counter local. People just move next door. They don't suddenly go "Onoes! My diluted local". It doesn't make local any less effective.

Well no, I am not wrong. It's an opinion. You have yours, I have mine. I don't think cloakers should have free reign to gank at will Why do you deserve to have an overview? You didn't work for it. Why do you deserve to see you cap, armor and hull levels? You didn't work for that. How dare you think you should be able to see when someone targets you! You didn't pay for that! Literally any built in game mechanic is the same.
The short of this is YOU don't like the mechanic. That doesn't automatically make it bad or wrong.

Doesn't that tell you something about the balance between cloakers and non cloakers? If a covops combat ship would be too powerful?

You don;t want to be a PITA though, you wan't to be a significant threat. You want to be able to shut down whole systems and gank waves of PVE players and miners. There's a bit of a difference there.
My whole point is if you want to be a PITA, YOU should be a PITA. You shouldn't be able to leave your character around to be a PITA while you aren't playing.
Now that's it. I'm done here, it's just not worth my time. So don't bother asking me anything here you want an answer to, because I simply do not care about this pointless discussion that is going to go nowhere. When CCP officially discuss it, then I'll be back.

I completely support this.
Added: Let there be a visible timer in the upper left. Let it flash red when the timer falls beneath 1 minute.

Only if people who are afk in station get booted out and warped to a random deadspace pocket when they go afk.

Also all control towers should treat people with afk flags as hostile entities.

I, for one, have struggled back and forth on this for many years...

There has been times, I have Hated the ability to AFK cloak. I knew what they were doing. I knew that a cloaked ship could not hurt me while cloaked. I knew that most of the time, they were probably AFK. What I also knew after research, many times with near certainty, who was associated with that character, and what would happen if/when they came to the keyboard, and developed the situation with a conclusion that risk to them and their fleet were minimal.

Oh Yes, there has been times...

Then again, there have been times, I have sat, patiently on a Titan or perhaps a Black Ops ship, and I have absolutely been enthralled by that very same ability. That raw psychological power, that one ship could have such a profound, and violent effect over so many without ever firing a shot. That only one ship, a phantom, unseen to any, given enough time, could lull a group of pilots to a state of complacency and comfort. That when the moment came, and their weakness shown, like a Death Adder's strike, the cyno would light. A beacon of light through the darkness, to show hells wrath where to land.

Many times indeed...

All is working as intended. The perceived omnipotence of the cloak keeps the weak perched in their castle. Remember that AFK cloaking is a two way street, and the sooner some of you see that, the better your situation might be. I hope that bit of advice helps you.

They counter each other. Hence the current mechanics are balanced. They are sub-optimal, but balanced.