Player Features and Ideas Discussion

They don't find it unappealing, they have never tried it. The complexity of the game in general is unappealing until you get over the NPE. The typical NSer needs to go through the NPE for WH type living. I've yet to find someone who I introduced WH PvP to who didn't love it. Have you?

Also, NS is about empire building. Why should you get intel for free? Build an array that gives you intel as well as gives you the ability to disrupt cloaked ships. If I can take out that array you shouldn't have a right to the intel local gives you.

How do they know it's unappealing if they haven't tried it? There was a time back in the day I had never left high sec. How would I know if I found low, null or WHs appealing or not until I tried it?

More ships undocked isn't the goal. More ships that you can get into fights with is the goal. Your idea simply puts PvE ships on the field that have absolutely no chance of being caught. So, less fights, more resources pouring into the market, and noone to buy them since less ships are exploding. That's not exactly good for the game.

Exactly we want more content, not just ships undocked avoiding each other.

And local is the supreme content killer.

This was true when I said it almost two years ago on the first page of this thread, and it's still true now, 366 pages in.

In this thread I've seen lots of complaints about people getting hot-dropped, spied on, and having their content denied all by AFK cloakers. Well, guess what: someone who is AFK cannot do anything to you. Not a thing. They just sit there, in space, invisible. Well, invisible except for the fact that, at least in k-space, everyone in the solar system knows that they are there and can act accordingly. That's kind of a big downside to a device that's supposed to render a ship totally invisible.

You got hot-dropped? Maybe you shouldn't have been ratting in something worth hotdropping on. Risk v. Reward and all that jazz.

You got spied on? Welcome to EvE, you should probably be more worried about the blue spies in your own ranks.

You got content denied? The person denying you the content was you, not the AFK cloaker. The choice was yours, not theirs, because you didn't feel safe enough.



Cloaking requires zero changes. No fuel, no timers, no limits, no new counters. It's probably about as close to a perfect mechanic as exists in EvE.

Local chat could possibly use a re-work, but that goes far beyond the scope of this thread, so I'll leave that for another time.

How long is this going to go on people?

Thread closed for cleaning. It will not be quick. It will not be pleasant.You will not enjoy it.

EDIT: 2016.11.02 01:49
Thread will remain close for 24 hours from the original time of this post.


Post removed for the above reasons. Note:Adding a sentence or two to a post and posting it repeatedly is spam and will be treated as such.

While I have made my own suggestions about dealing with cloaky campers, I am not entirely certain what command burst style charges for cloaking modules would actually fix. 23.5 hours or 5 hours, people that pay attention (fear) to cloaked campers will do so either way. Putting a charge on the module that requires manual reloading won't really incite loss-averse people to go out and remove them.

The thought process would probably be: "But what if he let the cloak lapse... as an ambush?" And then most would stay in their stations and fret about losing their ratting ship.

And while I get that you are looking for the least intrusive change to deal with a problem, Jerghul, it doesn't seem to be the best one, as it does not address what is determined to be the root cause of afk cloak camping. Which is the unmatched level of safety that the intel from local gives a person who is on their toes.

If you put system-wide "Who is in here, what are their standings" intel on a killable structure that had to cycle its scans and removed it from local, you'd no longer have a need for afk cloaky campers as a means of suppressing that intel. I think I'd prefer that to be the case, personally. A cheap general scanner structure that when deployed gave the people who owned it a list of ships currently registered as being in the system, and then a much more expensive to run/deploy structure that would allow ATK players to scan down cloakers for securing their space. That way you'd have to DO something to secure your space, and generate content in doing so. Then, if you were skimming through someone else's space, you could force fights on the structures or clean out an enemy's intelligence network in the short term to mask your movements.

It would be a much more intrusive change, certainly, but it would fulfill what I've been arguing for and it would at least move the free intel of local into something that had to physically be done in-game to gather. Which would allow for more opportunities for kills, content and fun.

Now, I don't think the cloak scanner should be something that negates the module entirely, such as broadcasting pulses that decloak the ship that has it active. I'd rather it simply scan them down and give the responding ship (so you'd have to work with someone else to catch the cloaker), semi-accurate warpto and approach coordinates data with enough time that a cloaker who is watching can move to another safe, another celestial, another anything. Making it a cat and mouse game where if you screw up, you get popped. Same as any other PVP.

The least intrusive change does not pan out as far as I can predict, so I say tear the bandaid off, get the hurting over with and the relearning started and be done with it.

limi
A 5 hour timer introduces human error into the equation.

An afk cloaky camper may be delayed at the pub and see his or her ship decloak after 5 hours. Meaning in turn that less afk cloaky camping will occur as players make a judgement call (will I be atk in less than 5 hours, or should I log off?).

The 23.5 hour timer does not have the human error option as logging off is mandatory.

In order of magnitude per day in null-sec:
100ds of less afk cloaky campers (double digit % reduction)
10s of afk cloaky campers killed (decloaked by timer while afk and probbed down)
1000nds of more ships in space
100ds of more ships killed
Bounty payment increase (double digie % increase)

The premise for removing local is to find other ways to give individual players real time information.
Removing local without compensatory real time information tools renders afk cloaky camping redundant
And null sec as dead or deader than wormhole space.

Ratpack
Yes, we know you think a 5 hour timer on cloaking modules is a bad idea. I am also incredibly supportive of your right to have as many opinions as you want.

More ships in space will give more ratting sites run. It is quite obvious from the economic overview that ratting bounties are a bit too high already. More ratting will make it even higher.

Lower bounties is now a premise for instead of a consequence of more ships in space.

I have no desire to increase the bounty faucet. I want more ships in space dividing the same faucet.

There are other ways to fix things. We will see how it plays out, but belt ratting looks to have been fixed using other means. The sum of those means are very intrusive from an afk cloaky camper perspective. You may rue the day if CCP moves forward in a similar way for ratting activity.

Ratpack
CCP suggests that local is not really an appropriate way to get real time information. I have no issue with that stance.

I do have issues with rendering afk cloaky camping redundant by removing local and making null sec as dead or deader than wormhole space.

The premise for changing local is introducing other tools that give individual players real time information.

Most people ratting do the right things most of the time. They are interesting when they do not do the right things and can get caught (I use the term human error for that).

The chance of getting caught can be expressed as a % of the number of ships undocked. I am operating with 3%. I high-jacked the number from industrial standards. So debatable. It could be a different %.

Increase the number of ships and you increase the number of victims is the point.

Increase the number of victims and you increase the number of hunters.

The problem with afk cloaky camping is that it relies on habituation. Players slowly get used to the camper in system and gradually lower their guard and make a mistake (undock to rat).

It is a very inefficient way of generating kills and keeps ratters safe and docked instead of undocked and vulnerable to making mistakes and getting caught.

The 5 hour timer does not end afk cloaky camping. It tempers the practice somewhat. Keep at it and do it properely....

...And it will give you more kills than the current system does (by way of entrapment for example).

The problem with afk cloaky camping is simply that it keeps ships docked and safe, instead of undocked and unsafe.

I see the need to temper afk cloaky camping somewhat for that reason and that reason alone.

Changing local in a way that keeps ships docked and safe, instead of undocked and unsafe is not a solution, even if doing so renders afk cloaky camping redundant.

Edit: Off-topic part has been removed, CCP Phantom