Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Heh. Ok, if you really think that I have some beachfront property to sell you. In Nevada.

What would change would be the frantic clicking and checking of every unfamiliar name that enters local so you can see their standings. Many people would rapidly tire of this and either go to highsec or lowsec or WH's to avoid this horrible mechanic.

Highly populated space would become a liability because of the difficulty of discovering who you were actually red to. Upgrades space would decrease in value because of the liability of having multiple people.

Not exactly a great direction for nullsec space to be headed.

"AFK cloaking is the equivalent of posting on forums until somebody stops ratting. "

Not broken.

You don't need to cyno anything in. The alts logged off in the WH already and the AFK cloaker is checking on you time to time for a perfect target. The "upside" is that this can change at any moment for the gruelling 23.5/7/365 that they sit one in every system you use. I would prefer something more active, to actually do something to hunt cloakers down and they can then be evasive.

If people are AFK they can't harm you.

AFK cloaking is fine.

Risk averse pansies too afraid to bait out a blops a gang are the problem.

I write this as a person that has made great use of the cloaking system in the game. I have spent great deal of time doing PVP in cloaked T3 ships among other things. I have also lived in null and feel that just sitting AFK in a system and being able to shut it down for most parts as any cloaked ship can easily fit a cyno to bring in hundreds more either black ops or not is a broken mechanics.

Idea:
New mobile deployable structure similar to the cyno inhibitor, limited timer(maybe 1 hour, maybe be able to be picked back up?), expensive and can be destroyed without to much problem(so the hunted can fight back if he is active, maybe show up on overview). Has to be set up to form a network and scans the area around it in an x many AU radius, droping one wont cover a system so you might need multible once to cover an entire system.

This would provide a bit of a mini game as they would need to be deployed in the right way to cover an entire system. Good cov-ops pilot could place there safes in such a way that they are not easily found, e.g. edges of systems, were as simple safe spots are easier to find e.g. those located in between planets or other celestials.

If a cloaked ship is inside the radius of these structures for enough time they would be decloaked(maybe even damage the cloak) but they could prevent this by moving out of the area of effect of the structures and over time the effect of the structures would fade(the effects would increase over time, once it reaches 100% cloak deactivates, to reduce the % people would either move to another system or move out of the effected area).

This would make it a sort of a cat and mouse game as active cloakers can move around system and evade the hunters and even engage the structures were as the AFK people could be hunted down. This makes it so one can hunt people down but it requires actual effort and you need skilled people to do it as the deployment of the structure takes some thinking as you can just throw it down randomly.

Some pointers:
-Creates a mini game of sorts.
-Makes it possible to hunt AFK cloakers.
-Does not kill the cloak mechanics as a whole as active players can evade it.
-Not to easy to do but not impossible, range of module can be changed so you need more/less to cover a full system(to balance out AFK vs active).
-Can be easily balanced with change in price, effected range and time it takes to locate a player.
-Inhabitants of null sec might over time set up pre-positioned locations to drop the module.

don't think anyone is compalining about that.

This thread is about those are are not 'gathering' intel, because they're at work, watching telly, ... doing anything but looking at their screen all day.

Yes there might be the odd exception of a guy who actually 'seems' afk, but is actually dedicated to watching a screen all day to gather intel on the system he's cloaked in. But, that kind of player is quite rare.

By your statement above, you seem to be having a different discussion about wether cloaks should be allowed. (Which clearly they should). What most people seem to agree on, is that (like any other undocked activity) it shouldn't be 100% safe, which it currently is.

So, you think a counter drop must sit around 23.5/7 - ready to go at a moment's notice because one guy has put an alt in a system?
How many accounts and resources should we have on gruelling "fun" standby for one guy that sits pretty in a perfectly safe cloak?
Hmmm.... considering how many people can fly bombers for example, how many should be sitting in a few nearby systems all rubbing against each other trying to rat in black ops ships while they try and kill the tedium of waiting?

It is absurd.
Like building a house with a faulty floor and dead bolt from the inside basement. Someone keeps crawling in there, locking themselves in then spearing you from between the floor boards and you have to have to keep dancing around hoping there is enough people that one of them can grab the spear and pull it out of the floor.

Forget it.
I can't even make a good analogy for this. It is such stupid game design.

From here.

It's not nearly as bad as you make it sound.
In order to need this counter drop available "23.5/7", (as you described it), the threat must be real for that amount of time as well.

Good news!
The threat for most of this time is either a bluff, or limited to the point of:
Hey, someone undocked, how quick can we grab a titan and some guys to tag this guy?
(Newsflash, unless they have enough people standing by, this drop doesn't happen)

Why is it a bluff?
BEACUSE: The PvE player is the one who CHOSE that time to appear / undock / etc.
And, unless the PvE player is active an amount of time that seems too long to have a group on stand-by, that cloaked guy knows he might be jumping into a trap.
The cloaked guy wants to wait long enough for an ambush to go stale, so he feels comfortable bringing in his own team.

That means if a PvE player is only active for short bursts, like 30 minutes with meaningful down time between, the cloaked guy can't build an expectation of safety.

It would be the same as the PvE guy becoming active immediately after the cloaked player arrived. Far too likely that his hot drop buddies are still around.

Both sides are bluffing, and the bluff is whether they have friends ready to join them.
Both know that it is dull waiting around, so expect the other guy's friends will leave at a certain point. They will NOT be around 23.5/7 at the very least.

Man that is so much a pvp ship I have here.

I've been PVEing in null sec since 2008 and the 1st thing I noticed was the whining about 'afk cloakers'. I've never understood why people see it as a problem. But then I've never been the type to think the game should cater to my personal needs either.

The end of afk cloaking (or introducing some kind of 'counter') would benefit me greatly. I rat in null every evening, lately I've done so with 3 characters (my Mach pilot, my Gila pilot and my carrier assiging 5 fighters to me and 5 fighters to my buddy in his Mach, nothing says "I love you" to npcs like 4500 dps). If I didn't have to react to cloaked people coming in to my ratting system, man could i ever make more isk than I already am.

I mean, screw the EVE economy that the AFK cloakers actually indirectly help regulate and screw other people playing the game they way they want to. Hell, screw using the tools that ALREADY EXIST (like warp core stabs, target lock breakers, MJDs, Mobile MJDs, Mobil Cyno Inhibitors, Mobile Scan Inhibitors, FoF missiles, energy neutralizers, ECM, ECM drones, ECM bursts, Cynos, Defensive bubbles, friends, alts, friends with alts, alts with friends, etc etc).

It's all about me, right, so CCP should just 'fix it'? That's how all these 'afk cloaking is a problem' people think, so why not?