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AFK Cloaking™: Ideas, Discussion, and Proposals

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Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#1621 - 2015-03-22 19:35:41 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
As for the Observatories and Gate Structure roles and associated mechanics CCP are proposing, it is entirely underwhelming.

much of that devblog have great improvements and much needed changes but this part of the devblog seems ill thought out and rushed in order to round out a structure orientated devblog.

and i have to say, doing a half-job to round out a feature-set is extremely bad practise in eve and has never achieved good results.


bear in mind all that stuff is just on the drawing board atm. Saying they've done half a job is meaningless when they themselves are saying they are far from finished.

They will come out with their threads long before they put them in the game and we get to scrutinies every feature to be added or removed.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
GeeShizzle MacCloud
#1622 - 2015-03-22 19:45:54 UTC  |  Edited by: GeeShizzle MacCloud
Nikk Narrel wrote:
It's ironic how changes are often suggested which ignore what I consider the key issue, and treat it like a secondary detail of less importance.

That key issue, being PvE hulls being too risk averse to accept being active in the presence of an uncertain hostile.

Uncertain, some might say?
Exactly.

The argument, part one:

1. This player must be AFK, probably a majority of the time, since being constantly present and actively played defies expectations of play capability. Noone seriously believes the unseen hostile is present at all times, so must often be AFK.
THIS IS AN ASSUMPTION, with only circumstantial support possible.
The PvE player projects expectations of limited presence, often because they have limits to how long and often these PvE players can be present.

2. This player will be present, and ready to engage, at unpredictable intervals. The avoidance employed to counter this, is not a matching set of intervals, but rather a persistent effect based on an absence of intel.
IT IS ALSO AN ASSUMPTION, that the hostile could be active at any time, as the uncertainty regarding them has no means of defining when they are a genuine threat.
The PvE player, by making this assumption, simultaneously gives them credit for being possibly active by avoiding them, and condemns them for not being active by declaring them AFK.


Is the key issue knowing when the hostile is a genuine threat?
NO.

The key issue is the expectation that this unknown hostile represents too high of a probability that it is an overwhelming force, and is therefore unmanageable by fitting and hull combinations.

Make this manageable, by the PvE player in a way that allows them to PvE at acceptable levels, and the issue is resolved.


so does this mean you'd like to see PvE hulls be capable of taking on 20+ other ships at once with the very real potential of being able to succeed?

Because that seems to be what you are saying for PvE hulls piloted by capsuleers to be less risk averse and get out there doing sites.
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1623 - 2015-03-22 20:15:03 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
It's ironic how changes are often suggested which ignore what I consider the key issue, and treat it like a secondary detail of less importance.

That key issue, being PvE hulls being too risk averse to accept being active in the presence of an uncertain hostile.

Uncertain, some might say?
Exactly.

The argument, part one:

1. This player must be AFK, probably a majority of the time, since being constantly present and actively played defies expectations of play capability. Noone seriously believes the unseen hostile is present at all times, so must often be AFK.
THIS IS AN ASSUMPTION, with only circumstantial support possible.
The PvE player projects expectations of limited presence, often because they have limits to how long and often these PvE players can be present.

2. This player will be present, and ready to engage, at unpredictable intervals. The avoidance employed to counter this, is not a matching set of intervals, but rather a persistent effect based on an absence of intel.
IT IS ALSO AN ASSUMPTION, that the hostile could be active at any time, as the uncertainty regarding them has no means of defining when they are a genuine threat.
The PvE player, by making this assumption, simultaneously gives them credit for being possibly active by avoiding them, and condemns them for not being active by declaring them AFK.


Is the key issue knowing when the hostile is a genuine threat?
NO.

The key issue is the expectation that this unknown hostile represents too high of a probability that it is an overwhelming force, and is therefore unmanageable by fitting and hull combinations.

Make this manageable, by the PvE player in a way that allows them to PvE at acceptable levels, and the issue is resolved.


This is well put and states the problem succinctly.

Now the question is how to allow the PVE player to more correctly assess risk. Some kind of indicator of 'afk-ness' would help.

But let's not only help the PVE-loving residents. What about imposters like me who find sport in emerging from w-space to run all the combat sites in somone's SOV? I'd like to know whether station campers are AFK too :)

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1624 - 2015-03-22 22:44:00 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:


Still denying an alliance/corp/whatever isk/resources is totally legitimate game play and the primary method to do this effectively is via AFK cloaking.

Roll


i know we've had our disagreements and recently seeing eye to eye, but i feel i must point out that afk cloaking is NOT the primary method for resource denial.

Cloaky Hotdropping is the primary method for resource denial. having a periodically afk cloaker is just a means to leverage the power wielded both physically and psychologically by cloaky hotdroppers over an extended period of time.

by extension it is NOT cloaking thats the problem its the hotdropping, more specifically its the covert cyno hodropping from black ops just off the undock of NPC stations.

afk cloakers arent an issue to ratters if such cloakers are not an avant garde to a cloaky hotdrop group, and even if they are, its not a long term issue if those cloaky hotdroppers are wormhole daytrippers because although its a PITA, its not severely debilitating over a long period of time. added to that is the fact that the cloaky hotdroppers are actually legitimately putting ships at risk moving black ops through wormholes, unlike the blops bridgers that sit in station till thefinal second, undock, bridge up and dock back up again.

My fix?

1) covert cynos cannot be online when covert ops cloaks are online (not online not meaning active)
2) black ops battleships cannot open bridges within a certain range from a station, say 10km.


though i appreciate techos that we both agree that cloaks and local are in balance, it is just barely in balance.That balance is neither optimal nor without flaws that should be addressed.
the 2 fixes above are a gentle approach to bring issues associated with cloaking and local into a more optimal balance and thus impart a knock on effect of shifting the balance of cloaking / local into a more agreeable state.


It is ideally a mixture of both. To do the hot dropping one often needs to do lots of AFK cloaking interspersed with periods of being at the keyboard. The periodic hot dropping will ensure that the AFK cloaking keeps on having the desired effect.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1625 - 2015-03-22 22:46:21 UTC
Perkin Warbeck wrote:
Sorry CCP but I haven't been able to read this thread or even read in great depth the detail about proposed observation structures but this is my view.

There should be a distinction made between cloaky camping a system and afk cloaky camping a system. While I'm guilty of both I have no problems with implementing a mechanic that automatically logs off inactive players after a certain time period. That should reduce the ability of an afk cloaky camper to lock down a system 24/7

The cloaking mechanic is fine and should be left alone. I don't think whole classes of ships should be made redundant (recons, bombers, covert T3s, blockade runners, blops and covert ops ships) because of drastic changes to the ability to decloak or detect cloaked ships.

If you do implement a drastic change to the cloaking mechanic that hinder or deter hotdrops then you should drastically reduce the amount of income available to ratters and miners in null. They are not defenceless, the implementation of jump fatigue has meant that cyno mid points are rarely used (and so more space cannot be reached with a hotdrop) and so less risk should always be balanced by less reward.


Any mechanic that logs off players that are perceived to be AFK is just not good and is lazy. It would be better to find a solution for both local and cloaks that is balanced.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1626 - 2015-03-22 23:25:23 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Nikk Narrel wrote:
It's ironic how changes are often suggested which ignore what I consider the key issue, and treat it like a secondary detail of less importance.

That key issue, being PvE hulls being too risk averse to accept being active in the presence of an uncertain hostile.

Uncertain, some might say?
Exactly.

The argument, part one:

1. This player must be AFK, probably a majority of the time, since being constantly present and actively played defies expectations of play capability. Noone seriously believes the unseen hostile is present at all times, so must often be AFK.
THIS IS AN ASSUMPTION, with only circumstantial support possible.
The PvE player projects expectations of limited presence, often because they have limits to how long and often these PvE players can be present.

2. This player will be present, and ready to engage, at unpredictable intervals. The avoidance employed to counter this, is not a matching set of intervals, but rather a persistent effect based on an absence of intel.
IT IS ALSO AN ASSUMPTION, that the hostile could be active at any time, as the uncertainty regarding them has no means of defining when they are a genuine threat.
The PvE player, by making this assumption, simultaneously gives them credit for being possibly active by avoiding them, and condemns them for not being active by declaring them AFK.


Is the key issue knowing when the hostile is a genuine threat?
NO.

The key issue is the expectation that this unknown hostile represents too high of a probability that it is an overwhelming force, and is therefore unmanageable by fitting and hull combinations.

Make this manageable, by the PvE player in a way that allows them to PvE at acceptable levels, and the issue is resolved.


so does this mean you'd like to see PvE hulls be capable of taking on 20+ other ships at once with the very real potential of being able to succeed?

Because that seems to be what you are saying for PvE hulls piloted by capsuleers to be less risk averse and get out there doing sites.


That is one solution, the problem with it is that it is not a good solution. There are more ways to manage risk.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Perkin Warbeck
Higher Than Everest
#1627 - 2015-03-23 06:59:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Perkin Warbeck
Teckos Pech wrote:
Perkin Warbeck wrote:
Sorry CCP but I haven't been able to read this thread or even read in great depth the detail about proposed observation structures but this is my view.

There should be a distinction made between cloaky camping a system and afk cloaky camping a system. While I'm guilty of both I have no problems with implementing a mechanic that automatically logs off inactive players after a certain time period. That should reduce the ability of an afk cloaky camper to lock down a system 24/7

The cloaking mechanic is fine and should be left alone. I don't think whole classes of ships should be made redundant (recons, bombers, covert T3s, blockade runners, blops and covert ops ships) because of drastic changes to the ability to decloak or detect cloaked ships.

If you do implement a drastic change to the cloaking mechanic that hinder or deter hotdrops then you should drastically reduce the amount of income available to ratters and miners in null. They are not defenceless, the implementation of jump fatigue has meant that cyno mid points are rarely used (and so more space cannot be reached with a hotdrop) and so less risk should always be balanced by less reward.


Any mechanic that logs off players that are perceived to be AFK is just not good and is lazy. It would be better to find a solution for both local and cloaks that is balanced.


Why is it lazy? It seems pretty reasonable unless people also want to rat and mine afk (but you can't have your cake and eat it)

So what exactly is it about cloaks that is so problematic? Why is it an issue that needs to be resolved? What does a cloaky camper do to you? Stops you ratting and mining in a system? Why is that such an issue?

The only issue an afk cloaky camper can actually affect in any meaningful way is the system index. That will have repercussions with the forthcoming sovereignty changes. So flip the issue a bit. Why only have the number of NPCs killed or asteroids mined as the metric that determines a system index. Why not have the number of pilots docked, the amount of PI/moon mining, even the number of pilots active in a system (so a cloaky camper could actually maintain or increase the index). I would argue that that is a truer measure of occupancy based sovereignty.

That way you can maintain the benefits of cloaks, stupids will still be hot dropped but an afk camper can't affect your system index or your sovereignty.
GeeShizzle MacCloud
#1628 - 2015-03-23 10:15:45 UTC
Because the whole idea of a sandbox is to give the players the tools to engineer themselves out of a problem, not introduce a cruise missile style fix that obliterates the problem and causes significant collateral damage to other areas

There's no issues with cloaking and people who have issues with cloaks aren't concerned about the cloak its about what happens after the cloak drops and a bunch of undesirable appear instantly to make a fight totally one sided.

the problem is the relative risk that the gankers have to deal with when carrying out these ganks, and that risk is practically zero.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#1629 - 2015-03-23 13:29:43 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Nikk Narrel wrote:
...

The key issue is the expectation that this unknown hostile represents too high of a probability that it is an overwhelming force, and is therefore unmanageable by fitting and hull combinations.

Make this manageable, by the PvE player in a way that allows them to PvE at acceptable levels, and the issue is resolved.


so does this mean you'd like to see PvE hulls be capable of taking on 20+ other ships at once with the very real potential of being able to succeed?

Because that seems to be what you are saying for PvE hulls piloted by capsuleers to be less risk averse and get out there doing sites.

Your ironic solution, brings to my mind a case of the tail wagging the dog, to use a metaphor.

The idea that a PvE ship should have a defense capable of dealing with the 'overwhelming' attack, or even a dynamic one that scales, seems to be the wrong direction here.

No, I would add in a means to make cloaked hot dropping a manageable risk, by adding in a conditional cooldown timer.
As I stated in a previous post:
I would be more willing to see a 1 minute cooldown from a cloak dropping, applied to activating a cyno device.
(The power system for the cyno needing to build a charge, previously denied in the interest of undetected cloaking)

Such a cooldown only coming into play by dropping a cloak. Any other cyno use being unaffected.

Mournful Conciousness wrote:

This is well put and states the problem succinctly.

Now the question is how to allow the PVE player to more correctly assess risk. Some kind of indicator of 'afk-ness' would help.

But let's not only help the PVE-loving residents. What about imposters like me who find sport in emerging from w-space to run all the combat sites in somone's SOV? I'd like to know whether station campers are AFK too :)


You are dangerous in the minds of others, only due to how you are perceived.

If they either do not see you, or realize your threat is a non-issue, they can manage a defense able to react to you.

My proposal here
...would effectively hide a cloaked ship from sight. The trade-off, is that the cloaked ship could not threaten with cyno based forces without first revealing themselves, either through their name appearing in local, or them appearing on grid with a cool-down timer active on the cyno.

Net effect: If they can't see you in local, you are either AFK, or a manageable threat.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Mournful Conciousness
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1630 - 2015-03-23 14:15:53 UTC
I think it's a reasonable suggestion that protects against cyno abuse (certainly a good thing).

However, my experience of w-space and 0.0 roaming is that the existential threat to PVEers is not just the cyno, but also the gang hiding behind the wormhole/gate who will warp immediately to the de-cloaking scout.

I really feel that the scout should not be able to hunt unless it is in some way detectable - the analogy being the periscope on a submarine giving away its position while it is observing shipping, or the radar emissions of an aircraft (used to detect other aircraft) being themselves detectable and giving away the position (or at least the bearing) of the emitter.

This would in my view, level the playing field and perhaps lead to more emergent content.

Thoughts?

Embers Children is recruiting carefully selected pilots who like wormholes, green killboards and the sweet taste of tears. You can convo me in game or join the chat "TOHA Lounge".
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#1631 - 2015-03-23 14:37:51 UTC
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
I think it's a reasonable suggestion that protects against cyno abuse (certainly a good thing).

However, my experience of w-space and 0.0 roaming is that the existential threat to PVEers is not just the cyno, but also the gang hiding behind the wormhole/gate who will warp immediately to the de-cloaking scout.

I really feel that the scout should not be able to hunt unless it is in some way detectable - the analogy being the periscope on a submarine giving away its position while it is observing shipping, or the radar emissions of an aircraft (used to detect other aircraft) being themselves detectable and giving away the position (or at least the bearing) of the emitter.

This would in my view, level the playing field and perhaps lead to more emergent content.

Thoughts?

My proposal here

The proposal, (through the above link to it's post in this thread), specifies that having the cloak itself block being seen in local, justifies being able to hunt the cloaked ship.

This hunting can be proactive, (you have not yet seen evidence of cloaked presence).
This can obviously be reactive, (you are responding to evidence of a cloaked presence).

The player would choose when to attempt cloaked detection, and so bears responsibility for their own protection.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#1632 - 2015-03-23 15:37:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Daichi Yamato
Perkin Warbeck wrote:


Why is it lazy? It seems pretty reasonable unless people also want to rat and mine afk (but you can't have your cake and eat it)




If the mere fact that im logged in in local tells the residents that ive touched my keyboard in the last hour or so, then they know my presence is likely. That is too much information.

So long as local remains as it is, it is impossible for me to sneak up on anyone unless an active player is indistinguishable from an afk player.

hell no to log offs, afk markers next to my name, or any other such short sighted dribble.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#1633 - 2015-03-23 20:44:23 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Because the whole idea of a sandbox is to give the players the tools to engineer themselves out of a problem, not introduce a cruise missile style fix that obliterates the problem and causes significant collateral damage to other areas

There's no issues with cloaking and people who have issues with cloaks aren't concerned about the cloak its about what happens after the cloak drops and a bunch of undesirable appear instantly to make a fight totally one sided.

the problem is the relative risk that the gankers have to deal with when carrying out these ganks, and that risk is practically zero.


Bullcrap. It is only incredibly narrow-minded fools that think hot dropping has zero risk. I've personally been on counter-drop forces and QRFs that have trashed entire blops fleets.

That does not mean that I think the current cloaking/cyno/local issues in nul/losec are good. I'm only disagreeing with your assertion that there is no risk to the people dropping in on the lonely carebear. There are a multitude of tactics the bear can use to make himself a very undesirable target, or to bait the blops fleet into an untimely and embarrassing loss.

As for the stuff going on in the observatory thread, I'm looking forward to some form of afk cloaky counter-measures that an active player can easily avoid and an afk player cannot.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Perkin Warbeck
Higher Than Everest
#1634 - 2015-03-23 22:09:33 UTC
Daichi Yamato wrote:
Perkin Warbeck wrote:


Why is it lazy? It seems pretty reasonable unless people also want to rat and mine afk (but you can't have your cake and eat it)




If the mere fact that im logged in in local tells the residents that ive touched my keyboard in the last hour or so, then they know my presence is likely. That is too much information.

So long as local remains as it is, it is impossible for me to sneak up on anyone unless an active player is indistinguishable from an afk player.

hell no to log offs, afk markers next to my name, or any other such short sighted dribble.


Well I was thinking a longer period. Every 6 or 8 hours for example but I still think that the metrics for system indexes should be reconsidered so that there is some incentive for a cloaked camper to move on after a few days.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#1635 - 2015-03-23 22:33:05 UTC
I also want a way to reward miners and ratters who are attentive, as well as making a better effort.

I want them to be harder to catch.

I want to have an opposed effort, so whoever plans better / works harder.... wins.

PvE can be a goldmine of genuinely interesting play, if this is done right.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Aeryn Maricadie
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1636 - 2015-03-24 01:05:25 UTC
AFK cloaking and Local are bound together, the problem is such that

Upon any non friendly entering system where it is immediately identified, everyone in system runs for fear of being ganked. The only way to counter this is for the non-friendly (assuming they are actually there to gank) is to sit around at a safe, cloaked up, and play the waiting game. This is incredibly lame for both parties, but the proposed solutions from either side are always one sided. PvE'ers simply want the cloakies gone so they can safely resume ratting, and the hunters want local gone to remove their biggest obstacle.

Ratting outside of high sec is supposed to come with the added risk of being attacked by other players its the whole risk vs reward thing. Local is far too powerful simply by alerting people to the presence of risk, it should be done away with. On the flip side the PvE'ers ought to have more to defend themselves with than just the few seconds it takes for the hunters to show up, there are plenty of ideas out there but they should only be implemented on the condition of delayed local.

Methods of defense should not be centered around making the system less accessible to the enemy, since this would merely replace the current non-interaction with a different form of non-interaction, they should instead be focused upon players actively resisting each other in some way, with all relevant ships exposed to risk.

Some random ideas that have probably been said before,

more reliance on combat scanning to find the enemy fleets, and a limited ability to scan cloakies

make cyno's less accurate so the gank fleet doesn't necessarily land right at the perfect range, limit amount of ships that can go through at once, or maybe put timers similar to decloak timers on ships that use the cyno

add a cyno like mechanic to WH's, I think it is too easy to make them safe as it is now.

add a ship maintenance bay to logi ships to allow PvE fleets to refit to PvP fits.

I fully recognize that I should not expect anything like this to actually occur.
GeeShizzle MacCloud
#1637 - 2015-03-24 01:25:24 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Because the whole idea of a sandbox is to give the players the tools to engineer themselves out of a problem, not introduce a cruise missile style fix that obliterates the problem and causes significant collateral damage to other areas

There's no issues with cloaking and people who have issues with cloaks aren't concerned about the cloak its about what happens after the cloak drops and a bunch of undesirable appear instantly to make a fight totally one sided.

the problem is the relative risk that the gankers have to deal with when carrying out these ganks, and that risk is practically zero.


Bullcrap. It is only incredibly narrow-minded fools that think hot dropping has zero risk. I've personally been on counter-drop forces and QRFs that have trashed entire blops fleets.

That does not mean that I think the current cloaking/cyno/local issues in nul/losec are good. I'm only disagreeing with your assertion that there is no risk to the people dropping in on the lonely carebear. There are a multitude of tactics the bear can use to make himself a very undesirable target, or to bait the blops fleet into an untimely and embarrassing loss.

As for the stuff going on in the observatory thread, I'm looking forward to some form of afk cloaky counter-measures that an active player can easily avoid and an afk player cannot.


Entire
Blops
Fleets...

yahh okay.

Im gonna assume you mean just a bunch of blops and not 256 man blops fleets there. Cause if you're gonna go balls deep into a hotdrop with combat blops then yes you are taking a risk, but most blops hotdrops are stealth bombers only, maybe with an arazu and falcon there to jam and perma tackle from range whilst aligned out. its a tiny risk that is totally out of balance to the payoff.

Plus this thread is also concerning the fact that this comes after hours of seemingly inactive play from a cloaker, so unless you have a whole bunch of guys that dont mind sitting on a titan or blops for hours upon hours doing absolutely nothing of any concequence, just waiting on some other guys sitting in a station waiting, then fair enough.

But that sort of mind numbing pseudo guns at dawn gameplay done from several light years away isn't engaging. Its dull and boring and when its go time it happens so quick that when done well you can almost never counter it.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1638 - 2015-03-24 03:50:37 UTC
Perkin Warbeck wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
Perkin Warbeck wrote:
Sorry CCP but I haven't been able to read this thread or even read in great depth the detail about proposed observation structures but this is my view.

There should be a distinction made between cloaky camping a system and afk cloaky camping a system. While I'm guilty of both I have no problems with implementing a mechanic that automatically logs off inactive players after a certain time period. That should reduce the ability of an afk cloaky camper to lock down a system 24/7

The cloaking mechanic is fine and should be left alone. I don't think whole classes of ships should be made redundant (recons, bombers, covert T3s, blockade runners, blops and covert ops ships) because of drastic changes to the ability to decloak or detect cloaked ships.

If you do implement a drastic change to the cloaking mechanic that hinder or deter hotdrops then you should drastically reduce the amount of income available to ratters and miners in null. They are not defenceless, the implementation of jump fatigue has meant that cyno mid points are rarely used (and so more space cannot be reached with a hotdrop) and so less risk should always be balanced by less reward.


Any mechanic that logs off players that are perceived to be AFK is just not good and is lazy. It would be better to find a solution for both local and cloaks that is balanced.


Why is it lazy? It seems pretty reasonable unless people also want to rat and mine afk (but you can't have your cake and eat it)

So what exactly is it about cloaks that is so problematic? Why is it an issue that needs to be resolved? What does a cloaky camper do to you? Stops you ratting and mining in a system? Why is that such an issue?

The only issue an afk cloaky camper can actually affect in any meaningful way is the system index. That will have repercussions with the forthcoming sovereignty changes. So flip the issue a bit. Why only have the number of NPCs killed or asteroids mined as the metric that determines a system index. Why not have the number of pilots docked, the amount of PI/moon mining, even the number of pilots active in a system (so a cloaky camper could actually maintain or increase the index). I would argue that that is a truer measure of occupancy based sovereignty.

That way you can maintain the benefits of cloaks, stupids will still be hot dropped but an afk camper can't affect your system index or your sovereignty.


It is lazy because it does not address the issue that is causing people to AFK cloak in the first place. It is treating the system vs. the actual problem.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1639 - 2015-03-24 03:51:27 UTC
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:
Because the whole idea of a sandbox is to give the players the tools to engineer themselves out of a problem, not introduce a cruise missile style fix that obliterates the problem and causes significant collateral damage to other areas

There's no issues with cloaking and people who have issues with cloaks aren't concerned about the cloak its about what happens after the cloak drops and a bunch of undesirable appear instantly to make a fight totally one sided.

the problem is the relative risk that the gankers have to deal with when carrying out these ganks, and that risk is practically zero.


That is an even better answer.

+1 for that...

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#1640 - 2015-03-24 03:52:39 UTC
Mournful Conciousness wrote:
I think it's a reasonable suggestion that protects against cyno abuse (certainly a good thing).

However, my experience of w-space and 0.0 roaming is that the existential threat to PVEers is not just the cyno, but also the gang hiding behind the wormhole/gate who will warp immediately to the de-cloaking scout.

I really feel that the scout should not be able to hunt unless it is in some way detectable - the analogy being the periscope on a submarine giving away its position while it is observing shipping, or the radar emissions of an aircraft (used to detect other aircraft) being themselves detectable and giving away the position (or at least the bearing) of the emitter.

This would in my view, level the playing field and perhaps lead to more emergent content.

Thoughts?


Cyno abuse...whiskey tango foxtrot?

Seriously what is that? Somebody opens a cyno, you die, therefore abuse?

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8 Golden Rules for EVE Online