Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Sense my topic has been locked i guess i will post this here. I do how ever launch a complain that I have to move it to here, there are 360 pages worth of posts here witch means that the chances of this being read are very slim.


Alright one of the biggest issues i have with this game at the moment is cloaked camping.

The reason i have this issue is because you can set up a character and cloak in the system you want to camp, you can then walk away from your monitor and never have to think about it again. They are not in a pos, they are not in a station, they are just out in space so there is no way for anyone to know anything about them. This would not be a problem if they where effected in turn, or actually had to engage in what they where doing. They basically get free pressure for nothing.

That being said i understand that it is a good mechanic in the game, the ability in null sec to be able to bring adm's down in huge. It is a mechanic that is needed so i am not looking for any sort of way to completely shut them down.

So what i propose is that we add a cycle time to all cloaks.

I propose 2 parts to this,
part 1 Cloaks start with a minimum cycle time of 1 hour,
This is an extremely short amount of time i understand.
How ever if you are going to camp a system you should be engaged anyway so 1 hour isn't that bad.
Also for those of you in exploration i say that you don't necessarily need 1 hour of time most of the time anyway.

part 2
Have the cloak skill add +20% to the amount of time to the cloak.
This results in that when you have cloaking 5 you will in fact have 2 hours
before you must re-engage your cycle again after its brief cool off period.
This also help those that do need a longer cycle time or to be more effective in a wh.

I bring this forward because I think there should be a chance to catch campers.
This does not prevent cloaked camping. It just means that to camp a system in game you must be more active. I believe in part this will provide 2 improvements to the system,

1 it will lessen the ability to be able to adversely effect your enemy when you are no where near the game and don't have to do anything.
2 it provides more of an opportunity for there to be for people to engage one another.


Again this does not remove the mechanic from the game. It leaves it in place. How ever it makes it so you actually have to engage in the game. This also provides opportunities for both sides to better use it. If you have to come back every few hours to re cloak then you might just find a carrier on d-scan and get a bunch of buddies to come kill it. Where as if you are being camped you will be able to occasionally catch people that are afk or having to wait for the reload time.

I know a lot of wh will be mad about this hole subject of a timer. How ever with citadels coming out you can now dock up in a wh. And if you want to remain un-docked you can use a ship that doesn't show up on d-scan. All this does it takes the laziness out of cloaking. Now if you want to watch something you have to move from your spot every 1-2 hours for a mandatory cool down period. This provides and opportunity for a skirmish. It also says that if you want a gank you have to be on top of it. There is no more idly sitting by for hours on end. Now if you want a gank you plan for it. You have things set up. If you need to re cloak you warp to a safe, wait the 30-60 seconds it takes for the reload time and cloak again.

I bring up null sec because people will literally camp an area for 23/7 i needed. It gives pressure for doing nothing other than leaving a toon loged on. IT does not stop people from camping. it does not mean you can't watch someones wh. It simply states you have to be smarter about it. You can decloak and the re cloak at any time. Assuming your cool down period has ended between cycles. So while you might complain, and say that isn't how it should be, i beg to differ. If you look at it realistically in order to cloak it takes a high grade of technology, all tech needs a cool off time no matter where you go. The servers are restarted daily because of this. Not to mention every other active module in the game has a cycle time/charge. I am not asking for charges to be placed on it. Just for it to have a cycle time so that you can't just walk away with no repercussions for being out in space.

If there is a big enough uproar in the wh community why not add a passive effect to all wh to increase cycle time based on the size of the wh. Along that line you could even add in an implant or a drug that would further increase the cycle time.

Ioon
Hardly wasted.

Some CCP intern spending less than a day reading through this and bulletpointing ideas worth highlighting for this or that interteam meeting....

Not exactly the skin off anyone's teeth and a good learning experience for the budding professional in question.

Wander
1 hour seems ungenerous. 5 hours aligned with the pending command burst system seems nice.

You saw CCP is testing out mining rats with mining rat standing fleets on the test server?

No doubt independent discovery and not something that was suggested around page 340 in this thread. Smarter rats give smarter ratters (if you want ratting ships to be pvp fit, then make rats that suggest that the optimal ratting fit is also a very strong pvp fit).

Omni damage for the win :-).

Basically what Wander said.

That and my usual objection to this nonsense....why should ATK cloaking players have their game nerfed because you guys can't figure out a way to deal with a guy who isn't at his keyboard?

How many of you are logged in? Have you thought of making a fleet and burning down sanctums together? Safety in numbers after all. If you use ishtars/VNIs have you looked into fitting neuts in the highs? Anyone warps in neut them down and put your drones on them. If they light a cyno, neut anything that jumps in and put your drones on them. If they cyno in alot, everyone should GTFO.

I think you guys are missing the note on the cloak timmer. the timer Meryl takes out the lazyness. while it is true an afk player doesn't get a kill there is still presume placed by them being in system. Best anology I can give you. YOU are in a room with a machine that has a gun pointed at your fridge. now the gun is loaded. if you want to eat you need to get in the fridge. how ever the person on the other end of the gun controls it from a computer. you know nothing about them. we there they are even at the computer or not. How ever all they have to do is hit enter to fire it. Knowing this would you get in the fridge?

All the timer would do is make the robot power down after so long. now if you are active and cloaking the chance of you uncloaking before the timer is high. especially if you not just trying to troll or bring down adms. in wh this means that every few hours you simply need to decloak for 30/1min based on the refresh timmer. it takes nothing away from you other than being on top of it. It punishes no one. those that do exploration are in and out of cloak sooner than you think. as well as when you decloak you show up on dscan but people still need to probe you down. so unless some one is on dscan contently or you are in a tiny system you can work around. IN wh space I know that people are more up on the dscan how ever look at both sides. it does make it harder just to sit around cloaked, gives more Intel if you are lazy about it, yet unless you are running more than one account and just leaving one screen alone (still afling that toon) you probably are not going to sit looking at that screen cloaked for that long.


If you think that 1,2 hours is not enough please enlighten me on what you actually contribute to the game by being cloaked that long with out decloaking anyway.

Again point of reference adding cycle timers will
Create more content
Allow repurcusions to people afk pilots that are not docked up, tethered or in a pos.

I bring this idea and points up because a group has decided to cloak camp my null sec group. at first it was 1 toon. how ever last count there are 8 cloaked campers cloaking separate systems 23 hous a day. this does adversely effect game play around there. now these toons are in npc corps providing that free presume on us. while yes we can group up your missing the mark. the mark is literally that there is no fight against it. the cloaked person litterally only has to interact with the gam for 5 minutes and can adversely effect he area. ccp is trying to do away with this. the 30,1 minutes is very short. if handled wisely will not change anything about cloaking. there is not change other than a time constraint.

Neither side are willing to compromise, so we are deadlocked until CCP decides on what they want to do, if anything.

Alright, i have still yet to have anyone say how being able to cloak for 5 hours straight benefits the game. This is the reason why i hold to my 1-2 hour time frame. If you can actually give me a valid point for the 5 hours or more i might actually consider it. How ever if the sole purpose for it is to be able to afk undocked and not worry about it i don't agree. With the ability to put posses up in wh space you can be docked with out giving a ton of info away.

I can see what you are saying but 5 hours of time. that is a bit excessive isn't it. I mean you can get a decent amount of sleep with in 5 hours. so you can still be fairly afk. The point of changing this is so that it can't be as afk. 5 hours that means total in a day you at least have to decloak 4-5 times. still seems way to much time for me. yes it provides human error but it is still a lot of afk time.

The reason i want it changed has nothing to do with camping a system 24/7. The issue i have is that there is no interaction needed to do so.

another quick thought that just came to mind is maybe instead of a cycle timer why not have a 1 minute prompt. this will show up randomly on your screen. if you don't react with it within 1 minute or so then all active modules are turned off. time frames can be randomized.

requirements for this to happen, undocked, not in a pos, and not changing your current list of commands. The only issue i see with this is that a boting program could easily be created to skirt around it.


Again I will ask sense no one has yet to answer, How does the game benefit from someone being able to cloak for more than 1-2 straight hours?

The point is not to make it safer, if at all it will make it less safe. Why players will be more active and will use it more. It doesn't remove it from the game either. You can still cloaky camp you just can't ignore it all day every day. Also where is the danger to the person camping once they get in system. There is virtually none. so they are safe.

Also look at wh space. People still cloaky camp there. There is no local. So That part of your argument is void. People will camp one way or the other.

Again i don't want cloaky camping out of the game. You don't see my saying remove it. I am just saying that if you are going to be undocked in system then you should have to interact with the game. A neutral being docked still provides pressure but there are ways to handle that. There is no handle for it nor is there a risk to it ( out side the initial get into system).


Again how does the eve game benefit from being able to be cloaked for more than 2 hours at a time. Not looking at indivuals or corps or alliance. Over all game play. So far from what i see it removes game play.

Again a timer doesn't stop that. It just asks that you be smart about it. You look at it as a punishment, when really if you are camping well and at your key board you are going to have safes. places you can go to get away from scan or have an optimal moment to be able to uncloak and reset your timer. It does not make it that complicated. It only says play smarter, removes the laziness of it.

With a charge system you are looking at having to have more in your cargo hold. You are also probably looking at a longer recycle/ reload time. Also if you run out of charges you have to leave the area to get more. This may provide some tactical advantages for the defensive end i agree. How ever do you want to have that added risk/cost. Or would you rather take the chance of being able to briefly have to dodge dscan if you are in a wh, or any where else in space for that matter.

with having the 1-2 hour cycle down time it does nothing besides say hey every couple hours you should probably move to a safe spot and recloak after the brief time for it to recycle.

Someone else brought up the idea of having the cloak take damage over time and eventually burn itself out after so long. I don't personally like this idea, how ever what is the chance of ccp liking it?

here is the thing one way or another there is going to be a limit put down on cloaking. The reason for this is no one is particularly happy with this game mechanic. Why if you get cloaky camped then you get annoyed. ccp is already expressing a point of doing this. The question is do you want something more than a cycle timer to come down? weight your options.

I would be willing to say ok 2-3 hour timer. any more than that doesn't make sense. Not really. If you argue other wise you are just trying to cling to a overly easy set up. It is ment for 1 party to benefit from at a time. in it's current state there is no counter to the pressure that is put down. in hs it doesn't matter as much. in low, null it is huge. in wh you assume someone is there anyway.

With the ability to dock now in wh i don't feel as extended cloaks necessary any more. If you are going to be gone from the game longer than a few hours be smart, either dock, log, or find a place out of dscan.

You know it is funny now that i have had some time to think about the hole safety comment. Those people that are fighting for the cloak to not have a timer and wanting the safety and uncounter ability that a cloak provides. You know that while you are cloaked that you can not be seen or found, no matter what system you are in or security of space you may be in. That you can be undocked, not tethered, or in a pos and be completely safe. Anything that you do at that point is because of your choosing.

So explain to me how in eve that is fair? You have complete control and safety to try and ruin other peoples days but they can do nothing in response.

Is this how cloaks where intended ccp? to provide a complete safety net while you have it. to never have a need to come out of it if you don't want to. Even a pos can be taken down. a citadel destroyed, a station seized, yet if you have a cloaked camper in system be it a wh or a sec status system there is nothing that can be done? Yet they get to assert there control over the area in complete safety. One of witch they don't even need to be very active to put down.


if you wish to argue that marketing is completely passive i beg to differ. there are always battles going on. If you are talking about api then you still l have to undock a ship, fly to the planet and pick it up. It does not make sense to have it this way. Some would argue log timers. Yet how does this promote actual game play that is meaningful? It only acts as a frustration. giving small spaces of opportunity semi frequently that can be skirted around and managed effectively makes more sense. All it does it takes away the lazy i don't want to have to worry about it attitude of cloaking. it doesn't stop people from cloaking, or even camping a system for a period of time. It just says if you are going to do this do it with meaning. If you don't want to spend the time to do this then figure something else out. I think most will adapt quite well to a 2 hour timer. If you complain that the system you are in is to small to get out dscan range or something consider a different way to deal with it. Daily raids are a great way to hit systems and achieve the same goals.

True but with command bursts you are not safe. Nor is it easy to effectively use them warping in and out with out being right there. You still risk your ship every time you use them. With camping in a cloak you risk nothing until you take it down yourself witch is never. There is no risk. There is no counter. Command bursts can be locked down. an uncloaked ship can be locked down. A cloaked one that is somewhere in system will never be found. 5 hours is overkill. it only promotes being afk. It does nothing to stimulate playing the game. Bursts on the other hand you almost have to be playing the game to be able to use. You have to either sacrifice time warping to where the burst person is or you have to put the ship in jeopardy on grid.