Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yes, I would. The nerf-cloak-nerf-local combo would work. Cloakbuster Probes would work. The Sonar idea had an alluring ring to it as well. But I don't think we're going to get any of that -- learning to deal with the issue is still your best bet; and any SMALL change towards that end I consider a win.

What you want and what I want is quite similar -- although we're both hunting for different reasons and hunting different prey. I can live with cloaks being safe -- that's after all what you pay for. There is still targeting delay; I don't know if you've ever tried hunting somebody but it's not as easy as it looks. The time it takes you to lock your target, you may find them out of scram range putting you at considerable risk yourself. If you DO manage to scram/web and bite down on the target, there's still a good chance friends will come pouring in any second now, so you've got to be quick and keep controlling range to maybe, as a last resort, disengage and GTFO. Once your cyno goes up -if you have one further gimping your fit-, there is no guarantee backup won't arrive and you find yourself losing a couple of Redeemers, juicy Falcons, a few Pilgrims ... and of course you'll still have to extract them afterwards.

Do you now see why the hunter does put a lot on the line? You didn't get to pick the engagement, that's true. But isn't the same true when you run into a gatecamp? It's not like you get to click "Undo - nope, I didn't jump that gate". Part of the fun is suddenly having to "wing it" and wiggling and rocking and rolling yourself through it.

Now back on topic - why did I bother to post at all? Well: T3s are too safe traveling from gate to gate, and that's something one might reasonable hope to get rid off. New mechanics may be too much to hope for, but taking away some of the nullified cloaky stuff improves your chances of catching some of the more fierce contenders out there. Giving you more options to defend your space. Some days, it seems like we're playing Interceptors online; and even the ratters in our space tend to use cloaky/nullified T3s to earn some bucks and waltz out, not a care in the world.

"Protect your space" sounds like a daft argument under those conditions. If only one could effectively STOP them, you wouldn't even be facing this problem. See where all this came from?

Unless that afk flag also locked the client so it didn't display any information while you are flagged, then it would just be abused, or result in no change.

I could accept a local delayed so long as a ship was still under gate cloak, which is something I saw recently. It would answer the only real injustice I see on hunters, which is people reacting before the client even loads.

I disagree that afk is the problem. It's the safety that makes afk an advantaged playstyle rather than a lethal liability.

Let me see if I understand this...you want to "hunt" an intruder who is not at his keyboard and has only 1 module activated and who poses literally no threat?

Of course, you could try baiting him when he his no longer AFK. A hull tanked shield ship would be good. You could look like your are ratting, but then he slams into your substantial hull tank and you pop a cyno...people flow in and you bone him and any friends who came with him.

Oh....wait...that would take effort and even risk, at least compared to shooting a guy who AFK and can't defend himself, let alone attack you.

We can rehash these tired arguments too...

No. I don't want to hunt an afk ship. He should not be so safe that he can afk all day in perfect safety. His afk status is just a red herring and completely irrelevant. We aren't talking about a bio break or other fairly contained time period. An intelligent pilot will not ignore a potential hostile in space. If you are in space then you are consenting to PvP. If you do not want to be susceptible to PvP then you need to get out of space.

That's what PvE pilots are doing that you hate so much. They aren't staying in space accomplishing any goal at all. They are giving up their entire playstyle to either reship and meet you in the field or else leaving entirely.

What I want is to deal with the issue at hand. Before I put a vulnerable ship in space that can't fight I want to deal with any hostiles currently in that space. If that hostile chooses to remain AFK that isn't my concern or my fault. I would not expect to remain unexploded if I left my ship AFK with a hostile hunting me. I would expect him to show up and shoot me.

And no.... Attempting to bait a camper isn't a reasonable solution. He is 100% safe, so he is going AFK for days at a time. Why should I be expected to give up my (and that of my backup) playstyle for days at a time if he isn't even going to be there. Every other pilot in space has to deal with the actions of others forcing them to do things they may not want to do, unless they take action against their antagonist, except the cloaked camper. He can't be forced from his spot, the best you can do is hope he is as stupid as he is hoping you are and takes the bait? No. That is BS. He needs to be susceptible to outside pressure of some sort like everyone else.

No. I don't want to hunt afk ships. I expect them to not be afk once they lose that perfect safety. I expect they will either prepare to be found, or else leave. I expect when 100% safety goes away and simply going AFK is no longer the optimal gameplay that the will do something else.

Twist it how you like, only one side of this argument is 100% safe in their activity with no effort, and it isn't the guy watching local with his finger quivering over the warp button like a ferret on a tripple expresso.

Requiring that both sides be actively ensuring whatever safety they enjoy isn't advantageous to one side or the other. As I said a few posts up, a suggestion where you stay out of local for as long as you are under the gate cloak solves you only problem that AFK cloaking is supposedly solving.

Pretty sure that setup is called a wormhole, only with more capitols.

...and this bring me to why cloaky/nullified is such a bad combo. It is possible to catch them... but I think those cases were lag or plain old bad luck. 99% of the time, those T3s just zip through and post hilarious comments in local. ;-) Same for interceptors; so I can imagine ceptoring to your destination and blopsing in your hunter from there if/when CCP decides T3s need to stop laughing at any defense you put up.


Other that that though, I would agree there is really nothing wrong with the mechanics as they are today. When they're sitting still, consider them docked/POSed up. Free your mind. Don't let "fear of the neut in local" paralyse you. Highsec, lowsec, NPC null, wormholes, all have their fair share of neuts in system -- what does it bother you somebody else is logged in to the server? You can't expect recons to stop doing what they're meant to do: gathering intel, waiting for the opportune moment to strike, deep in hostile territory... that's their role.

Simply being able to catch them cloakies on the move would already go a long way imho -- it'd give us one more option besides baiting to flush them out or threaten them. It'd make the getting in/getting out part a lot harder, and then Teckos would be right: mosty safe, mostly harmless, and requiring effort to get there.

As I said before (I believe it was the very first thing I said in the very first post I made in this thread): I'm in favour of hunting them; yet that doesn't *have* to be in their safespot. If I can snag one jumping a gate, that'd be just as fine by me. Wouldn't be so "invulnerable" anymore now, would it? That's the real complaint I keep hearing, the one thing that bugs me too: they're 100% safe. Yet to be honest, my Machariel is also 100% safe when it's docked, and I can be docked up all day if I want to -- what business is it of yours?

While I agree that the T3 cloaky and nullification is a problem, I do not agree as much for interceptors. First off your scenario above is not nearly as effortless/risk free as one thinks. Interceptors, for example, cannot fit a covert ops cyno, so you'll have to use a regular cyno...which shows up on the overview and the in game map and you'll be stuck there for 10 minutes. So while it would work with an interceptor another ship that can fit a covert ops cyno would work best. Factor in jump range nerfs and fatigue and this tactic, while theoretically possible, is not nearly as awesome as it once was. Now a BLOPs team might take a few days to get deep into hostile territory while in the past it would take maybe an couple of hours.

And as always, I'm fine with changing the cloaking mechanic as long as there is a way to make things less safe for non-cloakers--i.e. making intel sources vulnerable.

I find Mike's stance about local and cloaks either paradoxical or hypocritical.

• Mike on local: Local has been in game all along and was intended by Devs.
• Mike on cloaks: Cloaks while having been in game a very long time, their AFK camping use was not intended.

But how do we know that Devs intended the chat system to be used as an intel network with local being the supporting pillar? We don't. Not at all. Maybe that was their intent...or maybe not. However, cloaks were also intended to be in the game by the Devs. Their different uses...we don't know what the Dev's intentions were.

Cloaked players at a safe are completely incapable of doing not much more than a docked player can do. Local on the other hand is unassailable and provides hyper accurate information and even works as an early warning system.

I'd absolutely love a deployable mobile structure that prevents cloaking within its range of effect, similar to how faction warfare outpost becons work, it could be consumed i.e self destructs by itself after a period of time or it could run on scripts, and ofcourse be destroyed anytime by players. it could be fairly expensive because it would reap many rewards!

Good thing cloaks do not convey utter immunity.

That link right there disproves your claim.

Care to come back to reality?

Edit: Oh no!

Edit 2: Why this cannot be! Mike has told me a cloak conveys utter immunity.