Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You are correct, I am not sympathetic of players who feel they should be allowed to rat in the game and can wall off any and all interaction with other players. I don't care if you are in HS, NS, or wherever, if another player decides to interact with you, even in a hostile manner, that is what this game is about.

I have read dozens of these threads on AFK cloaking (go to the old collection thread I started and count the number of threads I found and linked) and the vast majority definitely were of this sort. There is a subset of players in this game who view non-consensual combat PvP as a bad thing. You can see it in the numerous threads on ganking, particularly freighter ganking, as well.

I have no sympathy for these players. This is a game built around PvP much of it non-consensual. Further, these players often have a rather disgusting habit of using all sorts of inappropriate name calling for players who do want to play the game as it was intended (e.g. non-consensual PvP). They have even used terms like psychopath and and outright said that such players are this way IRL. In fact you are doing it in that post of your,



There you are assuming bad intentions, vs. considering that people have a different view of the game than you do. This is especially true since I do favor change. I have posted this multiple times. So, no....these players can literally GTFO as far as I am concerned.

Am I clear enough for you on this?

The problem with most of the ideas put forward in this thread is that they nerf ATK cloaking which is fine. I know you disagree, but I find your entire view point antithetical to the philosophy of the game and for the life of me can't figure out why you play. I should always have some means to come up and shoot you in the face in every part of the game.

Cloaks, in general, are fine. You can kill people in ships with cloaks. You can kill them on gates, you can kill them as they warp to celestials if you have a bubble and get a bit lucky. You can kill them when they drop cloak and engage. Yes, they might have a cyno fit, but then that is true of the brick tanked BC that jumps into your gate camp as well.

And I suggest you go look at the amount of ISK flowing into the game via NS ratting each month. It is huge...enormous, ******* gigantic amounts of ISK. It is so large that rumor has it CCP is considering hitting it with the nerf bat. What does that tell you...they are going to hit ratting ISK with the nerf bat and leave AFK cloaking until the OA is going to enter the game. Tells me they are more worried about the former than the latter.

Already been suggested multiple times.

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This will be a very clear buff to gate camps. It will be a must have ship/module. This is a severe nerf to ATK cloakers.

Further, unless the radius is very, very large it will do nothing against an AFK cloaker who is at a safe spot. And if the radius is very wide, then using stealth bombers during any type of combat just went out the window too.

Just curious, has anybody ever been killed by somebody who is actually afk?

I mean the definition of afk is Away from Keyboard.

How can somebody who is away from their keyboard kill you.

As Baltec1 has already said, the person can't move, can't target, can't shoot, can't light a cyno etc.

Also I have not seen anybody mention the effect it would have wormhole dwellers and people who do exploration, both of which heavily rely on cloaking.

Yes, there is at least one example of several people losing ships to an person who was AFK.



It isn't quite what the anti-cloak crowd is on about though because it was ATK cloakers who got the poopy end of the stick....

But AFAIK nobody has died to either:

1. A cloaked ship,
2. or an afk sub-capital.

Kojee
Player triggered decloaking devices would certainly put an end to afk cloaky camping. Which is one way of doing it. A bit dramatic as it would probably put an end to more than afk cloaky camping. But you cannot make lemonade without breaking eggs.

xcom
I don't buy the afk cloaky camping as an isk suppressor justification.

If the revenue is worth supressing then do it ATK would be my view. If people cannot be bothered to do it ATK, then they will have to live with whatever isk others might earn while they are AFK.

Hm. So many options. I have come to realise that, once you decide to not give a rat's arse about AFK entitlement, a whole new set of entertaining options becomes available. To name a few (both old an new) :

- a (sonar) D-Scanner that indicates potential presences via blips on a radar. Doesn't exactly pinpoint it, doesn't provide 360 degree coverage, doesn't work beyond 1 AU but through some manual triangulation and container-fu, threads on grid could be detected and maybe even decloaked by proximity. Sounds like fun, yet difficult enough to not hard-counter all cloaks.

- anomaly survey probes (Tech 2), like regular combat probes but includes cloaked signatures and would drop you somewhere within 300km off the mark.

- EMP burst, disabling all cloaking devices in a 20km radius after spooling up; alas, firing up the modules resets all resistances to zero. Or, -variation on the same theme, but less black and white: a cloaking device generates stealth points. An EMP field generator deducts stealth points. Once the cloaked ship runs out of stealth (it's been too close to an EMP generator for too long), it decloaks.

- seeker drones, homing in on the nearest cloaked signature (friend or foe) although somewhat erratically also chasing false signatures. Close observation will be required.

- a simple proximity sensor. Gives random values, slightly higher when ships are nearby. Observing the numbers to get an idea of the average should help in determining how many/how near other ships are.


...and this without even considering changes to the cloaking line of ships themselves, fuel or the cyno generator! What I've heard in this thread lately is "there needs to be a counter to local - a counter to cloaks however is out of the question", "we abhor people entitled to safety - therefore we are entitled to absolute safety ourselves" and "nullsec is supposed to be dangerous space, nubs! - to demonstrate how dangerous exactly, lemme go AFK for eight hours straight yooo."

Come on guys. You're not even trying anymore- this is getting ridiculous! You're supposed to *try* to make sense.

"How much DPS from an AFK cloaker" Well duh, zero of course- so does a shuttle. So, invulnerable shuttles it is then, yes? Trolling, you say? Yep- but not more so than that useless oneliner. Since when does Your DPS factor into My target selection? Why are we even trying to come up with reasonable compromises if you won't accept anything except "remove local"?

Jerghul -much to my dismay- is hitting the nail on the head here: if uncatchable ratting is the problem (and to be fair it is a problem), then address that. But don't tell me we can't shoot you because you pose no threat-- tell that to every miner out there LOL If the problem is sov null ratting space, then go entosis the space and claim it. There: a counter to sov null ratting already exists; and therefore I urge you to come up with another reason why compromise should be in order. You just demand the cards to be stacked in your favour without offering anything in return.

"How can somebody who is away from their keyboard kill you" .... HAH! that's got to be the most un-EvE thing I ever heard. My dear Mr. Kobol ... Why should you being away from keyboard prevent me from shooting you? Why should your inability to move, target or shoot be any concern of mine? Thank you, please come again.

I think Brokk hits the nail on the head. No need to talk about compromise and risk balance while attempting to tamper with mechanics that will shift the mechanics of nullsec at its core in a thread about a single module. There are plenty of mechanics used to deny resource gathering for a specific group of players. AFK cloaking is just the symptoms of broken cloak mechanics and honestly is the abuse of its unintended use. Its removal have nothing to do with global game balance. Its removal will only be welcomed by a minority.

Fixing roaming gang pvp vs soft pve targets is not going to happen in a thread about cloaks. Attempting to blame cloaks being the only stopgap before everyone and there dog emigrates to nullsec and farms its content and breaks the game is quite literally bullshit. Everyone knows that you can move to the system nextdoor and is currently being used against AFK cloakys. Cloaking changes wont change anything to nullsec. What it will change is free kills with no risk cloaked ships currently enjoy.

Edit: I like that idea. D-scanner should detect cloaks, also add T2 probes that can only be used on cloaked ships in safespots (i.e. ships that are not on grid with a warp able celestial). If OA gets added its all fine and dandy but that's got nothing to do with cloaking.

Using your argument why should me being docked in a station stop you from being able to shoot me?

Also do you realise that you have just made my point for me?



IT SHOULDN'T

That's the point lol

The fact I can not do any of those things means you shouldn't give a damn about me, I am irreverent.

You can't dock in my station, remember? That's sov null for you. But I can shoot the station, so no problem champ.

So much this!!!!