Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A certain level of safety is required to get the residents to even bother inhabiting the space. If there is no way to ffinish even a simple task without having it randomly explode in your face you may as well go back to high sec.

We know the chat is working as intended because many chat channels before and since don't work that way. Even with early CCP's insistence on reinventing the wheel for even basic programming tools, this is something it would have been easier to leave like any other game. The modern crop of devs all come from the part of the player base that only cares if things explode, preferably with as many tears as possible. EVE is changing fundamentally, and not for the better- it once had asperations of being an rpg. As the company has changed, so too does the message they deliver, and thus we will likely see the removal of local. I am in favor of putting it back through structures, in general I like building things up in all kinds of ways.

I mention POS a lot because as difficult as they are to destroy and edge case as Corp theft a nd awox may be... Cloaks are even safer than that, without limit and without any significant cost. Being sneaky is absolutely in keeping with the ideals of EVE. Being absolutely 100% safe with no chance at all of of being violenced in any way is not.

Going AFK in POS shields still leaves you vulnerable to being bumped or awoxed. It's safer than open space, but it's not safe. They are also somewhat pricey, and still vulnerable to being destroyed over time. Cloaks are safer, cheaper, and without any other limiting factor beyond minimal fitting and utility slot opportunity cost.

I don't even care about the AFK part of AFK cloaking. Cloaks are themselves too powerful so long as they are absolute. Its the fact that they are absolute that allows the AFK to happen, but AFK isn't the problem, the absolute nature of the cloak is.

If I undock from a station there is no other way to be as safe as with a cloak active. Anything that approaches the same level of safety is much more expensive and comes with far more drawbacks than a cloak does.

When we start talking about sov, we move away from any discussion of one on one gameplay. It's not about a lone hunter catching the lone ratter. It's about the lone hunter defeating the efforts of everyone in that alliance. A tool that allows that to happen for an unlimited length of time, for low skills and resource expenditure, at such an effectiveness as to be utterly without counter despite the active concerted efforts of everyone in that alliance regardless of resources or skills pitted against it is simply not balanced.

For that alliance to function, that PvE content has to be possible. We either need to make the PvE inherent to every hull regardless of fitting---utterly inconsequential to the game as a whole and completable with zero effort or possibly removed completly, or we need to be able to safeguard that PvE activity in such a way that it can be reliably (and since it's a game, enjoyably) pursued.

I favor actually enhancing the PvE in the game so that it catches up in development to the love the PvP aspects of the game received over the years, and giving us all a reason and the ability to stay and fight if we choose. The current setup is too binary, you either don't engage or you almost assuredly lose. There are edge cases where this isn't always the case, but not every PVE activity can be done from 100+ KM with extremely buffed sentries.

I am not saying that PvE needs to be totally safe, I am saying that you should have to fight your way to where the PvE takes place, and have a limited window to do your damage before leaving becomes a choice of by ship, pod, or deathclone. Let PvP face PvP pilots, let PvE face their own challenges with actual engaging gameplay, with the 2 meeting in such a way as the playing field isn't absurdly tilted one way or the other.

I have said as much myself. The 'AFK Problem" is in large part due to cynos. I would still say cloaks are over powered without any sort of counter, but the largest abuse of that mechanic would be resolved.

Once we stop looking at it as one on one combat, it's not the PvE pilot that needs exploded, it's the PvE activity that needs disrupted. Staying in system so that ships that cannot engage effectively in PvP stay docked does that. Those pilots won't show up on a kill board, but they lost the fight anyway. No single module should enable that with no risk of retaliation for unlimited time and irrespective of effort or resources spent preventing or dealing with it. That level of gameplay should be group vs group. Maybe the OA will accomplish that.

Stealth game play should be about cat and mouse On the part of all parties. Cloaks currently are one sided.

Cynos have already been nerfed via the jump drive nerf (range and fatigue). But here we are again with the "nerf cynos" hue and cry again.

I guess at this point how much of a nerf should they get? To the point where they are so useless we can just remove them? Is there any level of risk you'll find acceptable? Because here is how I see it.

1. The PvE pilots already get an advanced warning.
2. Cynos/jump drives/portals have been nerfed.

Yet people are still here complaining about how horribly unfair it is.

It is at moments like this where I'm tempted to just post, "HTFU".

1. What you describe is nothing less than bad judgement, on the part of those setting permissions for the POS.
They trusted the wrong player with access.
It is directly comparable to being in a fleet with a known cloaked player, and betraying them by warping to their location.

Why, you may ask, would such a cloaked player be in a fleet?
Because if they are NOT in a fleet, how exactly are they supposed to open the cyno which they are feared to possess?
If there is a real reason to be afraid of this cloaked hostile, he is in a fleet with someone.

2. Perhaps we need to clarify what a nerf is. It is reducing the functional capability of an item.
If you don't allow cynos on cloaked ships, at all, then cyno use is going to be greatly diminished.
That would be a massive nerf to the current status quo, regarding cyno use.

Plus, it wouldn't make sense with covert cynos at all.

No, I would specify that having a cyno AND a cloak exposes the pilot to additional risk, such as risk of being scanned down.
Without that cyno, the cloak should be scan proof, and not reveal the cloaked ship on local while said cloak is active.

I think that's a fair trade off. The cyno raises the stakes for risk, and threat potential both.

afk cloaking is just not a fun part of the game. u can make the opponent suffer this way, it is just not fun part of the game when you have dock or not able to mine just because someone is afking all day. Its like a rat in the house. you can kill it if it comes, but it just bothers u because you dont know where it is and not fun at all. gathering intel is fine or pressuring opponent, but not with an afk toon. should limit the cloaking to drain cap.

lets say theres a guy in your house just standing there for 2 weeks. but the person might stab you in the back one day. how is that fun? isnt game supposed to be fun? i think what ccp is trying to all the nullsec changes are to get small alliances to be able to come to null, have some fun in small scale too but afk cloaky camper is just not fun part for the small alliance.

oh yeah? i would stab him too but hes invisible. so much fun rite?

You are being deliberately obtuse. He is AFK *now*, maybe.

this is why the problem is with cloaks, not the AFK.

As a pilot of a ship incapable by core game design of surviving direct combat, then the only intelligent way to fly is to insure the space I fly in is secure. Shaking my bare exhaust in the virtual face of an unknown cloaked ship that may shoot me, or worse suddenly become anything from a newbie frigate to a titan fleet is not flying intelligently.

Now, if cloaks were not perfect I could instead break out some probes and do a little cat and mouse action with him, or call a defense fleet in to clear the way for my op, or any number of other active defense measures that provide fun content for everyone involved.

With the cloaky in system I can
A. Fly Stupid and most likely die stupid
B. Not use the system, either moving or just not playing
C. Get directly escorted, because I will most likely be dead before a response fleet can reach me.

The cloak prevents intelligent activity in system of any but prepared PvP combat ops, and that is only reasonable if they aren't there to fight the cloaky that is never decloaking with danger in system.

It's not unreasonable for there to be danger on both sides of the equation. Yes this means your cloaked vessel will encounter combat ready craft rather than defenseless miners or poorly prepared ratters.

Your analogy is off on the wrong foot.

You are not in your house. Noone here has a house, because the moment we log in, we are homeless bums who are doing nothing more than renting storage space at a warehouse for the stuff we aren't carrying around directly.

That plot of space with your alliance name on it? That name doesn't mean you own it, that is simply a high score list with room for only one name, that name being the last one to push it's predecessor off the list.

You may own the moment, but the game is more than happy to let in the next contender.
You'll know you own something, because you will be able to exercise control over it.
If someone you don't want can still come in, you don't have control, which means you don't own it.

This is a game. We log in to play with each other, which means we need to resolve these little conflicts in an entertaining way.

The supposed hostile can't catch a prepared PvE player. Proven and documented more than enough to accept as fact.
The system defenders can't resolve the unknown threat represented by the cloaked ship, present over enough time to doubt they are actively playing. The chances that the threat is real seems to convince enough to treat all potentials as being real.

How do you resolve this?
You keep the targets on the field, and have them want to be there.
We already prove with great repetitiveness that catching them is not working, and making them easier to catch is not exactly the recipe for good play mechanics either.