EVE General Discussion

Cloaky Camping

Does CCP like people playing their game?

What does cloaky camping do? It makes 1 person make infinite other people go play a different game.

Does it create content? No it just hurts content.

Solution?

Pick one:
Cloaking devices need to use fuel, limiting the device to a few hours before needing refueling.
Cloaking devices need to have cycle time that can't be auto.
Cloaking devices need to consume a ton of capacitor.

Maybe these are just ideas, I'm not sure what the solution should be.

Basically there is no counter to cloaky camping and there needs to be one. It is a broken mechanic.

There's nothing you can do to counter 30 black ops ships coming through a covert cyno except having an overwhelming fleet ready to counter. That's not possible for for 99% of the eve population.

The point is to actually have more people playing Eve. And I KNOW CCP has lost a significant portion of the subscribers in the last year. Maybe CCP can listen to a player who has been here for a long time. Nobody likes cloaky camping except the very few.

Give me just one legitimate use for cloaky ships being able to infinite cloak, not be able to be scanned, and no way to counter it that isn't just telling me I'm crying about it.

LOOOOOOCK!!!!!!!

DAMMIT DOC!!! lol

So trolls have to take over the thread?

I bet there are more players who want an end to overpowered cloaking than do not.

If there's so many threads complaining about it, why does CCP not address it? Obviously a lot of players want it gone.

I would say the cloakey camper is closer to playing a single-player play style. Most of the time this is done AFK, with only occasional attempts to create content or engage others.

I see the OPs point, being able to AFK-cloak for untold hours on end is a broken mechanic. This activity has no risk, unlike AFK auto-piloting through hi-sec. I don't see the actual BLOPS gangs as a problem, if you knew you had a BLOPSer and they were going to be engaging or disappearing sometime in the next hour, that would create content. However, the fact that they can sit there until DT with no interaction whatsoever is broken.

AFK cloak campers are a pain in the back side at times... I would like to see some type of depth charge developed for tech II/III destroyers. That way we can employ tactics that navy destroyers use to hunt down submarines and the destroyers in this game need some lovin' anyways. I mean how many frigates, cruisers, battleships are out there and there are only soon to be 3 destroyers out there per empire. Oh well, just some hopeful wishing....

Right click [insert name here] stargate. Select jump. Carry on as you were. AFK Cloaky countered.

Being afk, possibly a threat, and invulnerable to risk is a balance issue. In any changed sov system that encourages smaller groups to hold space it's going to be horrible.

As is a cloaky camper isn't the end of the world, but the responses are carp:
1) Move... that's a horrible option, run away from activity
2) Have a fleet... and he gets to wait until he's got enough ships to take your fleet and then all get crushed... awesome content there
3) Ignore him cause he's "afk"... awesome he risks nothing and gets to pick battles only on his terms.

Solution:
Deployable Structure, costs 100m, activates on deploy and is unrecoverable.
On activation, pulses system wide causing overload to any active cloaking module, pulses again every 5-10 minutes with system wide 30s warning. Deployable lasts 48 hours.

Active campers - can decloak and roll safes, hunters can try to scan down... this is actual content that will be entertaining and is worth the dev time in and of itself.
AFK camper - burns out cloak in 1-2 hours and comes back to docked screen after being sent packing.

Supers - If supercap cloaking for safety is a concern, a capital cloak is always an option that is immune based on ship types.
Blockade Runners - shouldn't have any problems with transporting (they would still if they're used for camping)
Cov Ops - If you're running, not a problem, if you're trying to hide out... well, it's content
T3s - Overheating bonus comes into play here and gives a solid reason to risk a higher end ship on camping operations

Haven't thought too much about w-space on this one... but at least to start it could be k-space only.

TL;DR; - It's a bad mechanic, with a simple fix (dev wise) we get more content and activity from it and it's not a bad mechanic. People shouldn't be rewarded with afk activity.

inb4lock

And a few points:
If they do capacitor, capitals would probably get a bonus to decrease it. Covops cloaks would probably not consume much (if at all) or the ships that use them would get a bonus to decrease it (making this whole point moot), it would ruin the cloak/mwd trick. And all because you're scared of someone that might not even be at the computer.