Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The discussion evolves. That is the nature of discussions.

I am talking about one change: Give cloak modules a 5 hour timer. Preferably by introducing a command burst charge type ammunition requirement.

The expected effect is a reduction in the number of systems camped in null sec at any given time. This translates to increased numbers of ships undocked in null sec at any given time.

I favour reducing total bounty payments slightly primarily by targeting outlier high isk ratting schemes. I would prefer procedural solutions (less rats die because they adapt to ratting techniques. This also corresponds with an expectation that more ships would die in pve due to rats being smart).

I expect stable or reduced total monthly bounty payments. Which is currently way too high. So the impact does not need to surgical in nature for as long as its within a give or take single digit trillion range per month.

I expect somewhat more ship losses, but no where near the trebling of current numbers to give balance between production and destruction. This to is not an exact science because ship losses currently are way too low. Any increase is dandy.

I expect somewhat more pvp. Which also does not need to be defined beyond noting that today's numbers also are way too low.

You are again making the mistake of wanting to overspecify variables when it is not required. Be careful with that. It leads to decisionmaking paralysis.

More ships will die, there will be more pvp, bounties will remain stable or fall.

Which is good because

Way too few ships die, there is way too little pvp, and bounties are way too high.

Jerghul, I'm a bit confused by your statements.

You seem to think that the nullbears aren't safe enough already, yet the number of bounties paid is so high that CCP is thinking of doing something to keep the economy balanced

You talk on and on about human errors, yet your solutions decrease the chances of the errors happening by increasing the amount of intel given to players for free that is always accurate instead of making the players be in charge of collecting the intel, which would make it possible for human errors to happen. (Oh, and CCP is on record for saying they want to decouple the intel off local and also to increase the things that are in the hands of players instead of given to them for free.)

You have a serious case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too. You cannot say you are after content, when you are decreasing the amount of places where human error is possible. It would appear what you are after is that nullsec turns even more safer than it currently is. You want to PVP when it suits you, not to have PVP happen to you when you least expect it. You want to be able to choose between PVP and PVE which is not how Eve works.

I went through the collection of ideas posted on first page, but not this whole thread (7k posts!) I tried, but sorry if this has already been discussed. < / disclaimer> So to get back on topic:

I think that people reasonably call AFK cloaking a counter to local. The problem isn't local though, and I think that maybe the problem isn't even how people use local, but how they rely on local.

So what is the actual problem with AFK cloaking? It's not that cloakers are safe when AFK, because everyone else is also safe when they're AFK. But people rely on local to take (some of) the risk out of low and null (rightfully so, and this shouldn't be changed or else w-space would be less interesting.) However, it is a problem that people have learned to rely on local so much that they dock up when there's a 'neut in local' and have learned to stay docked and scared until said neut leaves. This is usually acknowledged, though opinions differ on whether this is a psychological fault of the scared player, or a mechanical fault of AFK cloaking, or local, or something else. I won't make an argument on that here, but the fact remains that a neut in local is a perceived threat that can shut down a system, and AFK cloaking allows that to happen for extended durations with little counter-play.

So what are they afraid of? There are only 3 things this cloaky neut can do:
Not be AFK, be a solo player waiting for something, or be a cyno.

1.) Not be AFK; making perches, gathering intel, actively hunting you, &c. This is not the problem (because a player is unarguably at risk by a potential hostile that is actively playing, cloaked or not) almost everyone agrees, evidenced as that most suggestions make a point to add at-keyboard mechanics that allow cloaking to remain unchanged.

2.)Be a single player, waiting around. He could be an explorer on a bio-break, a nomad, a spy waiting around to gather long-duration intel, or, importantly, a solo (or duo, or small gang) hunter waiting for a good target, which is what activates the caution, and causes aforementioned dock-up. We might not agree on this, but I would adamantly say this is not the problem. No matter how long a solo hunter camps up afk cloaked, there is counter-play to this: fly with backup. I would say that this is the point of low/null, that you should be able to fly safe/cheap, and with your friends/alts in order to manage the increased risk of that space. This is the point of low & null sec, and of corporations and alliances, if a player is unable to get a group to fly with, or is unwilling to take the risk, they can head back to high-sec until they are ready. I say this not to belittle them, but because flying with your corp-mates, in ships you can afford to lose, or have the strength to protect against a know enemy, is relevant game play (and this enemy is known, their name is in local!)
But I'm not dismissing the issue, keep reading!

3.) Be a player, with a cyno, waiting for a good time to hot-drop. This presents a very different risk than that of a solo hunter. The enemy is completely unknown, because it could activate an NPSI rageform with a surprise, instant drop of X ships, and you have literally no way of knowing about the size of that X, or when it could come. And it is ridiculous to ask these players to consistently field a group that can defend against a fleet of up to 70 bombers, for the duration of the AFK cloaking. This is the problem. While AK cloaking, and solo hunting do not present worrisome risks beyond what should be expected in null, the emergent combination of AFK cloaking in local, with cyno-dropping, and random hunting, provide a realistic deterrent to active gameplay during an AFK cloak, since there is no _realistic_ counter play to this possibility. At the core, I think this combination is what needs to be neutered in order to stop the complaints.

And thus (TL;DR) my suggestion: Remove the ability of an AFK cloaker to shut down a system by having his mere presence provide the threat of a 70 person unknown (in quantity/quality, but also time) hot-drop. This ought not to be removing the ability to fit both cloak and cyno, but could mess with the interaction of the two, such as a de-cloak timer before cynos are activated, or incompatibility of covert cynos with cloaks. However, the difficulty would be in not also removing other, more intended, uses of cynos, like dropping on the fleet of a known enemy. I'll leave it to the reader to theorycraft and balance ideas.

Finally, It should be noted that I think the danger an AK neutral in local (cloaked or not) or the risk/threat an AFK cloakie solo hunter in local, is well within the purview of lower security spaces, and helps to reinforce fly-safe habits, corp & alliance play, and provide a graduated risk from high-sec all the way to w-space. We might disagree on exactly where those risks should be placed on the spectrum, but I think we can agree that play in null should make players nervous and force them to do things differently that in high, such as the aforementioned fleeting, or flying cheap. I would suggest that seeing neuts in local does present a valuable de-risking over w-space, and cloaking while in local does provide reasonable counter play to that, but presenting the idle threat of a 70-ship hot-drop is too much (not even w-space has that :(

But that's not a problem, local is giving you good intel and this is a clear advantage over w-space. It's better to know there's a potential threat, than be unaware.

The problem isn't even that a neutral in system could be cloaked, and also could be waiting for a juicy target, and also could have a cyno and also could have a 70 ship fleet waiting to drop.

The problem is that _every_ AFK cloaked neutral presents that threat.


Maybe cloaks slowly burn through cyno fuel, but can still work without it (like say, don't give the velocity reduction if you have fuel in your ship, but automatically uses cyno fuel if you have it) that way you can afk cloak forever if you don't need a cyno, or for 2 hours if you do? I suppose you could eject your fuel in a can/mobile depot for later cynoing, but that CAN be scanned down.

How is that better, if it means you stop playing the game? Just do you PvE in fleets, with every ratter running the same site at once while on comms. Have a few people in combat fits to hold down forces in a hot drop. Rat as if you are always doing it in hostile space and there isn't an issue.

The root of the problem is people wanting to live in extremely profitable and dangerous space (sov null) without wanting to take steps to defend it.

People _appropriately_ use local to mitigate the risks of Null. Any neut can shoot you there without consequence, but there are dank iskies to be made, so if you think it's worth it, you need to find ways to deal with the added risks as best as possible. One way is to dock up when a neutral comes in system. If they're just passing through, you undock and resume, loosing some time, but the increased rewards are worth it. If they're active and playing, you can undock and try to counter play them, or you can stay docked and wait, your choice, and a choice that shouldn't be removed from the game. In these cases, the problem isn't that local gives you good intel.

The problem is the combination of:
1.) Local giving perfect intel,
2.) Neutrals providing the threat of a practically un-counterable hot-drop. (a risk that you should dock up and avoid), and
3.) Neutrals being able to stay in system indefinitely via AFK cloaking.

Removing ANY ONE OF THESE would solve the problem. You're right, changing local would solve it, but I think that could be at the detriment of important and beneficial ways that local is used, and either way would be a huge undertaking with regards to programming and game design. Other people are right too, making Cloaking duration-restricted would also work, but this has been discussed to death, with many great ideas ready for testing and balancing, but there seems to be no movement from CCP in making this change. I'm proposing that we also look at ways to change the third aspect, the un-counter-play-able threat of a huge random cyno-fleet. Maybe restricting the number of ships that can pass through a single cyno's signal would do it; a 30 man fleet would need 3 afk cloakers, a 70 man fleet would need 7, and thus the size of the threat could be determined (except they could use log-on traps for the other cynos, or bridge a 2nd cyno in, so this is probably a bad idea.)

TL:DR
I guess I'm just saying that the problem can't be linked to a single feature, be it local, indefinite cloaking or cynos. And rather than arguing WHICH of the features is the True Problem, we should be looking at ALL of the features of the combination to figure out what the smallest, least impactful change would be, that could get rid of the AFK Cloaking (tm) problem.

2 is not a problem, it is a features. It is one of the things that make the game fun and interesting and challenging. Hot dropping is a feature designed that way on purpose. Unless you want us to believe that CCP had absolutely no idea people would use cynos in that fashion.

3 is not so much a problem but a symptom of the problem and it is sub-optimal in that it isn't interesting given the typical response from most players. This can be seen quite simply: no local, no AFK cloaking. AFK cloaking only works because the cloaked pilots shows up in local.

Changing cloaks while leaving local is bad for 2 reasons:

1. It removes the counter for local.
2. Why nerf the game play for people who are ATK?

And all of the ideas are, in general, terrible. Fuel requirements mean giving up space for said fuel and limiting the duration of play for ATK players. The T2 probes are terrible as is would render many current uses for cloaks untenable or much less of a Thing™. POS modules that decloak cloaked ships are terrible in that they'd be abused against things like bomber wings in various fleet fights. And what do people who are ATK gain from any of this? Absolutely nothing.

It is absolutely clear though that there is a sub-group of players who are lobbying for their own benefit. Those who rat in NS (and generally those who rarely live in space they have fought for). Just about every anti-cloaking thread has started with a rage post about some guy "shutting down a system" for a week or longer. This side always wants to talk about cloaks as if they are an 'I win button' but again this is horribly flawed.

When I am cloaked can I shoot you? No.
How much DPS can I do while cloaked? Zero.
How much ISK do I make? None.
How many minerals or ore or ice do I get? None.
Do I get officer modules? No.

So I can't shoot, I can't make ISK, I gather no in-game resources or items...yet this module is wildly over powered? Cloaks are fine. A cloaked ship has never even damaged let alone destroyed another ship. Ever.

Oh, and I have actually argued that sitting cloaked in a system AFK actually comes with a cost. If I have an alt sitting there scarring you into the station while cloaked in his helios...he is useless to me for PI, invention, mining, or any other ISK making skills he has acquired.

People also talk about risk vs. reward with regards to cloaks, again see the above list. There are damn few rewards while cloaked...so why should their be any risk? If you want to impose risk on me...how about letting me target and shoot and point you while cloaked? How about we make it so you can scan me down, but if I get in range of my point and guns...well I can go to town while still being cloaked? No? Gee, funny how the other side has to bear all the risk.

2. There is already a solution to that. Rat in groups. If you have 15 rattlesnakes in the same site ratting in PvP fit ships, very few people are going to hot drop you, especially if you are in fleet and on comms with each other 100% of the time. Problem solved.

3. A non issue, assuming you do what I said for #2.

To take a page from the WH book, we typically run PvE sites in fleets with logi, with at least one or two points fitted. If nullseccers did that, hot drops would be a lot more difficult.

No I get that, but what I'm saying is that structures that mold intelligence are only half of that puzzle. If you have to do a 24h online time just to disrupt intel, then there aren't really any good reasons to distrupt intel, since you can't do it "on the fly"

Because, okay, assume you have observatories up to get local, starmap filters, even occupancy warnings in an intel channel, whatever, right?

If the only way to counter them is to participate in structure fights that persist over weeks... what's the point in disrupting intel at all? The only reason you'd want to disrupt intel is so that you can sneak around, or do a distributed intel interruption over several systems so that the owners would have to do some guesswork as to where your fleet is. If you are assaulting a fixed point it doesn't much matter what the intel filters look like as the defenders only really need to camp that fixed point during the vuln window, and they're already going to have that intel for the full duration.

Similarly, it is highly unlikely you'd want to maintain intel interruption in systems you have permanent structures in. You are on defense here, so there's very little for you to gain by cutting off that intel, again, not much of a point anchoring a structure that actually makes it more difficult for you to defend that structure.

My point here is basically there should be a system of "Hard Intel" and "Soft Intel" Personally I like the mobile depot approach, but the hacking approach is pretty slick as well, and both could coincide to create some interesting counterintel tools. Intel disruption isn't all that useful when it requires a long term operation to accomplish. Its primary use is for suprise rapid disruptions as part of another op.

Similarly, having solid intel in undeveloped systems seems like something that should be avaliable to itinerant forces, and the quick-anchor mobile depot approach would achieve this.

I'd be OK with something like that as long as it's combined with some sort of nerf to local chat. You can't nerf cloaking without nerfing local in sov null.

Give a structure that provides local that I can take down to disable or delay it, and I'm on board.