Player Features and Ideas Discussion

They gave you the prospect and endurance. I haven't mined in anything other than those two since them came out and never lost one. They are damn hard to catch.

But I forgot, "my mining yield will go down!"

This is the problem, people don't want balance. They want max rewards for their playstyle with no additional downsides to go along with it.

I have used that argument myself a thousand times over the years for afk cloaking and I stand by it. If you look back you will see that I made the argument myself.

However, the major issue I have with it and please remember that this is coming from somebody who has camped system for weeks on end in a ship that it was impossible for me to hurt anybody, just for lols, is that there is no player interaction.

The only way for me to get caught was if I did something stupid. There is nothing you can do as a player to get somebody to decloak unless you hit the jackpot and happen to fly right on top of them.

Something I would have no issue with is if there was a mechanic put in place where another player using a tool at their disposal was able to track you down.

Now so long as you the cloaked player can counter act that just by doing as simple as moving then I do not see a problem.

You now have player interaction and a player will have an ability to force you into a mistake.

People have come up with various ways to implement this, some I like, others I dislike (looking at you structures grrrr) and each idea has their own merits as well as their downside, it just depends on your point of view.

Neither is right or wrong.

Cloaking when used correctly by active players is a powerful tool in all areas of space, not just null, however as you can see I used the word active.

I dislike any mechanic that allows a player to have an in game effect, regardless of what it is or how big or small it is it is by not even having to be at their keyboard.

I am all for player interaction and players being able to effect each other whilst in space. AFK Cloaking does not allow this.

So yeah, I am in favour of something that creates player interaction whilst at the same time removes a players ability to have an effect whilst in space afk.

I am also in favour of changing NS local. I would completely remove it from NPC Null Sec and after that I am honestly not sure, but something does have to change to stop the undisruptable (pretty sure that is a word lol) real time intel that local currently gives.

The core problem with afk cloaky camping is that it lowers activity. So it has to go. Preferrably by precision targetting the afk contribution to the equation. But some cloaky and camping collateral damage is acceptable.

Kobol
What is your activity impact expectation of a changed local in null-sec?

Like every other change sense the release. Cloaks needs a counter and its about damn time they added one.

To shay you feel all carebear safe behind that cloak. HTFU

How do cloaks hurt you so that they need a counter? Again, link a KM from someone who died to a cloaked ship.

No group ratting or mining with an active defense fleet in sov null with a few points on their ships have anything to worry about with AFK cloakers. Most people in null simply don't do that.

If someone cloaky camping finds a group of 15 rattlesnakes with logi in the same site at the same time, they are going to pause before they light a cyno.

Kobol
Thanks you.

I would not mind an environment such as you describe. I just don't think it should be null-sec.

My frank feeling is that OA are a good fix for wormhole space. It would alleviate the spam dscan issues that segment of space suffers from.

CCP is tweaking wh space more and more toward n-space anyway. May as well try out a breakable local in that locale.

Phylosophical intermezzo.

There are some ships nobody wants to fight (~nobody without caps on standby anyway) -- the lone procurer (Hi SLYCE !), the lowsec maller, the lone brutix / raven. Because it's hotdrop bait.

Cloaked ships suffer the same illness: there might be fun to be had with a cloaky Loki, but it's never going to happen. Because it's either a drop or a nullified travelcruiser.

Since you don't actually know what ship is hiding, one has to assume it's yet another boring dropper- and therefore, solo guys or real PvP'ers never get any consideration in this kind of threads.

I don't mind getting rid of AFK by simply flagging them as such (as per Dracvlad); but then one would have to do something about the increased safety; and I just don't see how at this point. Either you catch the prey every time, or you never catch it. Currently, the only prey that gets caught is already either AFK or multiboxing, and when you take the permanently cloaked eyes out of the equation there basically won't be any risk left.

Pondering this subject some more, the only way to get fights would be an all-out invasion- or at least the pretence of one. This still wouldn't be too bad, but that's where entosis mechanics rear their ugly head: you can no longer provoke fights in just one system: it'd automatically become constellation wide, leaving small alliances high and dry.


Then there's the idea of chasing cloaked ships down, also eliminating AFK in the process. This would yield similar results except that people would be willing to go after the cloaker, and this may yet be useful to provoke a fight-- by allowing yourself to be "captured".


Perhaps neither of these are the way to go; perhaps the problem really is that covert cyno after all. This and only this is what makes the AFK cloaker a fearsome adversary. It is also what makes true solo hunting difficult: no one is his right mind believes you are truly solo. Imagine if you will we gut that module instead -- by imposing two limitations on it: (1) you can have either a cloak OR a covert cyno online. Not both. And (2) even when using a cap booster to online it, you can't light within 60 sec after decloaking. Then what would happen?

Nothing much, really- you'd just get an advance warning from DScan (if onlined at a safe), or an option to defend yourself before all hell breaks loose. The bite is still there, it's just not teleporting smack in your face out of nowhere. (especially since we can no longer watchlist your bridge pilots).


This obviously without taking any changes or delays to local chat into account -- these may or may not help; fact of the matter is you want people out in space doing whatever and get a fight out of them. As long as the whole idea behind AFK cloaking remains to terrorize the locals and occasionally instakill whatever you fancy just to prove that you can, there will be complaints. We want to pit ourselves against active people; otherwise CCP might as well spawn random names in local to throw you off (or keep your name in local where you logged off). Inactives shouldn't count... but thanks to Covert Cynosural Field Generator, this can never be the case. Anything in local does count, even when it shouldn't.

The way I see it, no local=no go; delayed local+probing doesn't fix anything; too much safety for the locals=also no go; and structure bashing=for smaller groups, definitely no go either.

So, perhaps we need to go about it differently and take the edge off the cyno instead? Keep the sting, but allow for a fighting chance?


Your thoughts, gentlemen?

Brokk
Increased safety is illusionary.

Risk per undocked hour decreases only for players willing to undock to pve with an afk cloaky camper in system.

For other players, risk per undocked hour remains the same.

Undocked hours increase. But for PvE, time is merely a means to an end: Isk generation.

Decreasing isk/hr earnings compensates for more undocked hours.

From a roaming perspective: The number of caught pve players is a function of the number of undocked pve players. Roaming kills will increase as the number of undocked hours increase.

In sum:

Increase carebear volume by removing the ability to afk cloaky camp systems
Decrease carebear efficiency by tweaking mining, bounties, salvage, and drops
Specifically target the afk component, and null-sec pve generation.

Easy-peasy.

Maybe you can just post with Jerghul or Broll....how about that?

Edit:

Also, can you knock off the straw man Bravo Sierra? Who here has said "no local"? Who has said just "delayed local"?

Why is Techos so salty? is it cause we are trying to remove his ability to cloak + Alt + tab to forums module? or he is just eve forums biggest troll.

Local isn't the counter to cloaks. You cant neutralize cloaks using local. There is no proof of anyone ever having used local to kill a cloaked ship. Show me the killmail.