Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This is another thing that drives me nuts. You should not be able to tell, to be quite honest. Nowhere are you entitled to such intel. Further, you can often do things to revise your beliefs as to whether or not a player is AFK or not. For example, you see him in local (these comments apply to null I don't want to get side tracked with the Bravo Sierra issue of HS or even LS). You move next door to another system and he doesn't follow you, you should revise your initial beliefs as to the "AFKness" of the player in question.

Now if you are saying you can never be certain...well yeah. Asking for certainty is asking for ALOT.



Yes, but I actually have an example to counter your claim. You were and are wrong. My claim on the other hand is also true. And while AFK cloaking is sub-optimal "game play" simply removing it is unequivocally not balanced.

Edit:

Here are other things you can do to revise your beliefs regarding a players "AFKness":

1. looking up kill board activity.
2. the longer you are "next door" the more you should think he is AFK.
3. Age of the character, a character just barely old enough to fit a t1 cloaking device is probably not a huge threat and is just an AFK cloaker.
4. Talk to people in corp/alliance also using that system. When did he log in? Right after down time...you are Pacific time....chances are he's asleep.

Seriously, this isn't hard. You do this kind of thing all day in RL...do it in game.

(1) Realistically any reasonably fit and prepared PvP fit **** can shut out a PvE fitted one. The only difference between a regular ship and a cloaked one is that a cloaked one can do it while AFK. Any other ship has to be actively at the keyboard and worried about their own survival. It's also pretty clear from available evidence that calling avoiding getting tanked "minimum requirements" is at best a tautology, because the thing you're meeting minimum requirements for is not getting ganked. Therefore if you get ganked you weren't meeting minimum requirements. See my problem with the logic here?

(2) I'm also expecting any reasonable counter ability to cloaking to require the cloaky pilot to make a serious error in judgement in order for him to get caught. At present it's perfectly possible to warp around a system more or less infinitely between various celestial beacons, sites, and created safe spots in anything short of a Battleship and be basically impossible to scan down in any practical way.

In general I'm of the opinion that this won't have a significant impact on the actual risk or reward of PvE operations in Null Security space. AFK cloaking is annoying but seems to only account for a small number of actual kills. I can't say for sure without detailed stats and some way to determine which players were "AFK cloaking" but all reports from even the most ardent detractors indicate the practice isn't common, just excessively annoying when it does show up.

Also as I've said before, I fly cloakies in PvP and quite enjoy them. I'd describe my reaction to the Recon changes as somewhere north of ecstatic. I have no interest in cloaking losing all of its advantages, but I also feel like it should play more like the old DOS/Win 98 era submarine games, at least to an extent, with the cloaky playing hunter with advantage as well as prey who is hiding. This sort of mechanic could take any number of different forms, but you'd better believe I'll be slinging paragraphs and spreadsheets of opposition at any idea that I feel overly inconveniences cloakies as a whole or kills the class's gameplay.

Good discussion btw, pleasure hashing this out with you

Here is a wild thought.

What IF:

The Array worked best, when not located in the system it was observing, but in a nearby one.
(Same logic, as having a helicopter or satellite overhead to follow events on the ground. A view from above the events granting a different perspective)

The Observation Array gave you specific details, of a target system within X light-years, where X is based on the skill of the operator.

The info would include everything local had in it's pilot list, as well as intel on cloaked pilots, with a BM to a location, accurate to a limited skill vs skill opposed contest between the OA operator and said pilot.
(The BM would be unique, in that it would also include a heading the array expected at the time of observation)
Any meaningful amount of skill lacking on the OA side, would give either flawed location, heading, or both.

(This cloaked detection ability not available to arrays located inside the same system, just the local listing function)

Question for all the "we have to keep local" people (keep in mind this is primarily for NS, not LS or HS).

If the OA can be set up to provide intel that is generally as good as what local currently provides and maybe in certain instances even better (e.g. you dock up to an OA and you can get the intel from all of your OAs)....isn't local then rather redundant? Safety/sercurity/risk levels are roughly the same and maybe even better (lets face it, the vast majority of us null sec dwellers have an alt we could park at an OA).

If local is redundant, if we have "clawed back the Bad Effects™ of removing local" with the proviso that the OA is destructable no longer 100% invulnerable (note the irony "we have to keep local" people)...then couldn't it be removed (or merely delayed as in WH space, so during certain instances it could still be a source of smack, etc.)?

(1) Fair points. I think the Power Projection changes have helped significantly with this. This might be something the OA could further help with by being up-gradable (at significant expense) to show system populations (but nothing else) within Jump Range of your system. Of course there would be ways around this (logging off or just waiting one system out, jumping, and then bridging, for example) but as I mentioned a decent part of this is about the perception of security granted by tools rather than the actual analyzed benefits.

(2) This more or less sums up why I feel cloaky gameplay should be developed into something with actual play and counter-play. There's a lot of potential here. We have the models to work off of it's just tricky to implement without swinging things too far one way or the other. I think there's the potential for a *ton* of fun though. As it is Bombers are probably one of the most fun things in Eve (at least in my opinion) and I think basing the entire cloaky/anti-cloaky meta around a sort of hit and run/cat and mouse style could be very successful.



It's a further interesting way to incentivize controlling an entire constellation but on the other hand that would probable end up with a network of arrays just all watching each other's backs and also seriously penalizes sov holdings of one or two systems. Depends on what CCP what's in to incentivize or penalize here.

Also I don't think that the array should require someone to be actively operating it. That either ends up costing the player nothing through the use of an alt or requires that someone be sitting there clicking a button repeatedly instead of doing something more fun (seriously, we do not need "Cookie Clicker: The Intel Game" in Eve).

A few additional points here....

1. All structures in null are almost surely going to be vulnerable to the entosis link so "squishiness" is not an issue. It will be vulnerable in the vulnerable window and any gang or even a solo pilot could take it down in about 25-35 minutes.

2. Who cares if the attackers can't "hold the system" the point is that for awhile at least they can counter the intel of those who anchored the OA. For somebody who has gone on and on about how cloaked pilots are 100% invulnerable you seem to be completely unaware of the 100% invulnerability of the current intel mechanic. The best that can be done to the intel local provides is to for an AFK pilot to turn it around on the system's PvE pilots.

3. At best a sov holder will be deprived of intel for the duration of their "vulnerability" window. Once that is passed another OA is anchored and nothing can be done to it for another 20ish hours or so. And of course there is nothing to stop the sov holders from showing with their own entosis link to stop the attacker.

Now...can you answer my questions?

Didn't think so.

Then why aren't you objecting to the 100% invulnerable nature of local as an intel mechanic?



Oh, no I read what you wrote and you did not answer the questions. You were blowing a lot of smoke and bravo sierra.

The questions are:

If the OA can get you to a level of intel that is as good and maybe even better than local is local then not redundant? If local is redundant why can't it be removed?

Simple questions....

Siphons are a bit underwhelming atm, perhaps the observatory stuff could tie in with these slightly in a similar way to the suggestions around AFK cloakers. Anything to make them a little more involved to counter than see it, shoot it really.

Well, guess I'll ask again. Maybe people missed it the first two times.

If the OA can get you to a level of intel that is as good and maybe even better than local is local then not redundant? If local is redundant why can't it be removed?

Just had to point to the irony

Complaining of being blue balled. Go Figure