Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I applaud your efforts, but the Devs aren't touching this. People who have tried to get a straight answer on it found out it's like nailing jelly to a wall. If anything happens at all, it's just a mess and you hurt your thumb.

The devs, in the form of Fozzie, have acknowledged the situation, and deemed it good. There is no argument to be had here on the grounds that the overall situation is balanced. The only reason I even still reply is because my right to an opinion was attacked, not the conclusion that since the Devs deem it balanced, it's balanced until such time as they change their mind.

Again that has absolutely nothing to do with the assertion.

Tell me why lowsec dwellers are not shy about PvEing with neutrals in local? Seriously if you cannot explain that, then you cannot legitimately attack the gameplay of cloakers in null or try and pretend that null is somehow magically "different".


The crux of the issue is this: nullbears wont PvE with a neut in local. Lowseccers WILL and like I keep saying there is absolutely no mechanical reason for this behaviour no matter how much you wish there to be one.

It is counterable. Bait them. rat in a PvP fit, have friends logged off right next to you and jump them when they attack you. Have a standing fleet.

Killboards, forum posts, watch lists, locator agents, local chat, chat channels are all free intel. Assuming you want to nerf those as well? Or do you want to finally admit you are a hypocrite?

You have local chat. That's free intel. Let's remove that too.

Go to a wormhole if you like that ruleset. The info provided by local is available to all, including the cloaker. If the gate cloak prevented a new arrival from being displayed in local until it dropped even the miniscule delay caused by your IP and computer would not be a thing anymore.

Removing local does not balance cloaks. The issue is invulneability while maintaining effectiveness.

The balance is that you can do the same thing the cloaker is doing.

If you did not have local you wouldn't know the cloaker is there until he uncloaks and you see him on dscan or on grid.

Nullsec AFK cloaky camping (enduring cloaked presence with cyno potential) does have its good sides. For example it provides leverage to an alliance that is seriously outmatched (it can always disrupt the larger opponent's player activity) and I generally do favour asymmetric mechanisms (something that gives small groups the chance to make a disproportionate impact).

(I also generally favour things that make nullsec PVE dangerous and AFK PVE suicidal)

The problem is the cost. It increases Eve player attrition (it makes people not play Eve). No one can quantify the cost until the data is examined. But it certainly is higher than none. So to me it has nothing to do with balancing, and everything to do with player retention.

I would like the Dev's to reconsider the issue from a player retention perspective.

I have an objection. Being ... I'm frankly not interested in retaining players that refuse to play with me. You see, this is a sandbox; and I don't want to play alone. The only motivation to get rid of AFK cloakers is to ensure they can make piles of money unchallenged; for the AFK cloaker is the only tool left to challenge them with.

There are places where you can do that (highsec), so CCP already caters to the crowd. The only interaction to be had with players who, despite this, insist on going to sov null on their own to make even more money and cannot be arsed to defend it, is making them dock up and enjoying the smell of feces wafting from their pants.

It is not a sov war tactic -- in fact, all this makes me wonder how exactly did these people claim sov and how much longer do they intend to hold on to it with Fozziesov? The target is clearly not to reduce activity levels; that's the worst possible outcome. The goal is to provoke a response, to challenge ownership of the system and its richess. Just because you're losing that fight and may quit because of that, doesn't mean there is a problem.

This is the very nature of EvE: they will either learn to deal with the situation or retreat to a safer area appropriate to the defenses and the numbers they can muster. This could be lowsec, highsec or even wormhole space.

Players dropping out of the game because they refuse to adapt, insist on playing alone, and cry on the forums until CCP deprives other players of any chance whatsoever to come out and play with them, are not a bad thing. I'm not encouraging them to leave, but it is a fair question if this is the kind of player we wish to retain? How is he "contributing to the sandbox"?

What difference does it make if there's 25k people online or 20k people online, if you never ever get to play with those 5000 you're afraid to lose? Being PvE minded or industry minded is cool; there's a whole world of unarmed player competition going on. Yet giving this one guy a free pass to untold richess hurts them too! How can you reasonably compete to a guy ratting away day and night in a carrier - yes a carrier; without the AFK cloaker, who's going to stop him? And while we've got a good thing going, why stop at one carrier? Just get 3-4 carriers and AFK multibox -- the more profit the merrier right?

It is not, and has never been, about the number of subscriptions. Half of the people online may be eyes or links; who cares? What matters, is the pilots you encounter in space or competing on the market or hauling stuff around or scanning down relic sites. But do we really have to go out of our way to please players who choose to sit next to the sandbox?

Null-Sec AFK cloaking camping is a sov war technique used specifically to increase hostile player attrition rates. You can discuss how widespread it is, and how dramatically it increases Eve player attrition. But it factually does exist as a technique with the explicit goal of simply trying to get as many players as possible to not log on.

I would like the devs to analyse the effects afk (enduring) cloaky-camping (cloak + cyno potential) specifically to determine to what extent the mechanism causes players to leave Eve.

Smart bombs, he ran into a pack of rokh’s with smarties going off and was obliterated….while cloaked.