Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It really is refreshing to see you switching up your game, and then you do this.

Cloaks aren't stations. The only time I have pointed out that cloaks provide safety comparable (in fact, superior) to stations is to point out how broken cloaks are for doing so. You see, stations are meant to provide safety by taking your out of space and providing a place to accumulate assets so as to give gameplay meaning. This was actually covered in a Dev Blog when they talked about how Citadels handle your stuff when destroyed. This is why stations even exist in the first place.

Your much vaunted Golden Rules are actually contradictory on this point. They state that anything in space is supposed to be at risk, and then point out that being cloaked at a safespot is also safe. I personally hold the view that the exception is an emergent oversight to a bad decision. You disagree. The difference is that I go on to support my view with logic, and you go on to support your view with numerous fallacies, empty dogma and inconsistent standards applied through bias.

So while you can draw a superficial comparison between what stations do and what cloaks allow, they are not *supposed* to be comparable. One is a necessary fundamental game condition, the other is a ships module. Ships in space are supposed to be subject at all times to non-consensual interactions. Cloaks do not meet that most basic standard of gameplay if there is at any time a circumstance that allows the ship to be completely immune to non-consensual interactions. Adjustments to the mechanics surrounding cloaking need adjusting until they do meet that standard.

The answer to your little double-think concerning non-consent is pretty simple. The cloak user is not consenting except in circumstances that he chooses. This is why cloaks need adjustment, there needs to be some way to force action upon a cloaked ship simply because that is the most fundamental aspect of the game. You can limit an opponents options, but the control of those options cannot be in the hands of the cloaked player, as it currently is, or you can never have non-consent. That is the whole core of the problem- The cloaked player *can* easily find a fight, he just can't easily find one on his terms. If he were to start crashing gates he would soon find himself confronted by those looking to defend the space. He does not consent to that fight, and so uses his cloak. Fair enough, except that there is now no way to bring force of any kind to bear upon the cloaked player. He has opted out of danger entirely, except he is still in space in contradiction to that most basic tenet of the game.

@Linus Gorp He is right. A few names in this thread all are against consensual-pvp while at the same forget that it holds true to cloaked ships as well. Its a moral ambiguity when they provide countless arguments around the idea of PVE players should be at risk. Its somehow convenient for them to leave out that same hold for the cloaked ships. Its as if they think AFK-camping will be gone and everyone and there dog will hit the belts in nullsec and there will be no way to stop them.

Not even minor nerfs are accepted as to just keep things the way they are. Bunch of purist traditionalists.

I think the biggest reason why cloaks aren't a issue in W-space is to player attitude. Wormholers tend to go with "How can WE deal with the cloaker" where as nullsec the thought is "How can I deal with a cloaker"

The problem is, cloaky-ships excel at hunting solo targets. The best defence against s cloaky ship is teamwork.

Citadels aren't safe. Same cant be said about cloaked ships.

And yet again, there is no silver bullet of proof regarding balance passes. It's only a popularity contest.

What? If you give people the means to decloak things, the counter-balance is making the cloak meaningful in the first place - I.E. actually hiding the ship, including from local.

The cloak is a purely defensive module currently, as it hides nothing. Hunting would be many times more engaging if the cloak actually hid you, but in turn was subject to counter-play. Local removes the entire idea of a cloaked ship.

The difference you keep ignoring is that those people are actively making ISK while being safe, while a cloaked ship is just sitting there. A FW farmer with lows full of WCS is turning a PvP combat system into another mindless PvE farming opportunity, continuing to make ISK at maximum effectiveness with near-zero risk because WCS have no penalty. The AI changes are stupid because why should the NPCs attack someone who came in to kill the person who has been killing them? And nobody is complaining that people dock up instead of going into suicidal fights or demanding changes to the docking mechanics.



When the effort involved requires weeks of work from a major PvP force, and it's virtually impossible to keep the players docked inside from escaping at some point before the citadel is destroyed, the idea that being docked in a citadel isn't 100% safe is pretty insane.

If true, it shows that CCP have not learned anything when it comes to their player base.

Source? This is great news.

He has no source.

Yet the one thing they are supposed to do, provide a safe place, is done better by a cloak.