Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What part of chance of getting a kill do you not get? A number in the interval (0,1) most likely a number between (0.95,1), maybe even a smaller interval. That does not mean guaranteed kills like you claim. It means a chance, nothing more.

But thanks for the bumps!

Edit: By the way, if the risk is say 2% chance of being caught on any given attempt, then it will take about 50 attempts before you can reasonably expect to get caught.

That seems not that outrageous. And I'd bet that null income (for the individual pilot, not alliance income sources like moon goo) would get a good bump. After all, you'd be facing more risk than high sec missions so the rewards must be higher to compensate for that increased risk, or...now be patient...wait for it...wait for it....you are right, people would leave null.

The Devs are not stupid. Granted they on occasion make mistakes or don't see how certain changes can lead to certain outcomes (part of the reason here is that the number of options in terms of what you do with ships, modules and fitting are very, very high, and when you have a large number of people, and a large number of options, and a game [think game theory with that last term] where the duration of play is unknown you can get a huge number of equilibria and predicting which ones will obtain becomes nearly impossible), but they aren't dumb. If they make changes to make risk in null greater, and there is an exodus they will change the rewards. Heck they may change it before the exodus.

So your claims are just not true, at least for what Nikk is talking about. He (and I) are talking about risk vs. reward. We are saying the risk needs to be higher and that higher risk would justify higher rewards.

That would be the case IF the game were already fully balanced. The argument this thread is about (you might want to read the thread title) is that AFK cloaking is NOT balanced. You want to "fix" that by smashing balance even further in favour of cloakers, not even stopping AFK cloakers, and destroying PVE.
Honestly bud, can you keep a straight face when writing this nonsense?

No Lucas, it is all true.

People complain about AFK cloakers...then they point to an example where the guy is clearly NOT AFK.

So, these people are either:

1. Confused about how the game works.
2. Dumb.
3. Dishonest.

I'll go with 1 since it is the nicest possible way to read their comment and help them realize their mistake.

Seriously, lets go through a what if too see...

You log in. There is a neutral/hostile in local. You undock in your spiffy scanning ship that has a fast align time and warp off to an insta-undock point and cloak. You then go to a new safe, and launch probes....you check...and damn. Nothing on scan.

So the guy is almost surely cloaked.

But your buddies in corp/alliance say, "Oh he's been there for hours...."

So you dock and get out a ratting ship. You are happily ratting when that guy in local decloaks and scrams you and starts shooting you along with all the rats!

Now...at that point is the guy AFK or not AFK.

I argue that given game mechanics he is not AFK. He had to find you in a belt/anomaly. He had to get in postion. Deactivate his cloak. Target you. Activate his weapons and whatever tank he may have. All of those things are typically done by people at their keyboard.

So long as that cloak is active though...he can do none of those things.

Now, I realize you'll respond with:

But we have to assume HE IS ALWAYS AT HIS KEYBOARD!!! (Caps are for emphasis, I know.)

Which is precisely my point. You aren't worried he is truly AFK...you are worried he isn't and you want to nerf his game....for your benefit.

[note: bold, italics and underlining are for emphasis]

Andy,

No. I have explained how the system I advocate would eliminate AFK cloaking. If you want to know how it would work, go read those posts.

It in fact would NOT eliminate AFK cloaking. I've already gone over this.
If the cloaker were to set a trajectory and fly at a moderate speed (easily achievable by all cloak ships, with the exception perhaps of a blops), even if you could can them out, you would never decloak them. This would simply change how an AFK cloaker works. Grab some combat probes and a couple of fast frigates, and you can test this out on regular ships.

I accept the game is as balanced as the CCP devs can make it.

I am not a blind fanboy, but simply point out that it is in their best interest to do this, as a balanced game attracts more players, and creates more variety that further draws in players.

You imply the game is not balanced, and nerfing cloaked vessels is needed to fix this.

Even if I were to assume you were correct, (which I have no reason to do), then I would need to accept that the rewards in null are also in need of a change.
Either they are too low now, and will be proper after this nerf, or they will also be reduced to compensate.

At that point, the much referred to rewards in high sec will be even more competitive, shifting players to high sec.

And you are simply wrong.

Why do people AFK cloak? Because of local. It lets everyone know you are there and a threat.

If local did not report pilots in system then AFK cloaking would not work.

And if we add in ways to hunt down and AFK cloaked ship, then that is doubling down on killing AFK cloaking.

You did raise a valid point that if the cloaked ship is fit for speed and has a covert ops cloak that might not be enough.

I then suggested we also go with Nikk's idea that when the scanning ship is on grid with the cloaked ship (i.e. you get close enough) then the ship becomes visible.

Active players could avoid this by warping to safes.

Other than warping you to a dead space and logging you off if you don't input something frequently enough...you're right no adverse impact to somebody sitting in a system and monitoring what it going on (I have done this in the past, sat there watching stuff, taking notes, and so forth...not touching the keybaord...much like an AFK player).



Yeah, the main way to use local to the disadvantage of the residents/defenders is to AFK cloak.

And no, generally speaking I am not a fan of AFK activities.

As a tech person I would want local to be a chat channel, yes.

Andy,

No. I have explained how the system I advocate would eliminate AFK cloaking. If you want to know how it would work, go read those posts.