Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I could actually care less why any player does what they do. Their motives justify nothing. It doesn't even matter that the stealth bomber's sniping disruptor holds the target until the blob lands, points, and pops the target. So, there is NO misleading. Plus, I never mentioned anything in your first paragraph in my summation, so you'll have to do better than that to paint my digest of your view as anything but the exact truth of what you have said.

AFK cloaking does NOT work because no one can ever say if anyone is AFK and so no one can wisely afford to treat any player as if they are AFK. Local is irrelevant, because if there were no local, then an area could not be confirmed to be secured or sufficiently secured .. unless, like wh space, we make all known space void of cynos and bridges. Waiting for you to endorse the perma-cyno-jam throughout all known space. [hearing crickets, I think]

So you are naive to say "No local...no AFK cloaking" It goes without saying that the term "AFK" is meaningless unless there is a video camera recording if there is in fact anyone actually near the keyboard. So your statement more accurately and merely reads "No local..." Remember, an ostrich may put its head in the sand to not see the predator lurking nearby, but the predator is still there (afk or not, probably not) even the dirt prevents the ostrich from seeing it.
Your statement really should be revised to say "No local...no pve"

My 30 minute auto-log timer does not nerf only cloaks, but affects all non-scripted, afk behavior. I always hesitate to target any nerf at cloaks only. I would certainly stop far short of a cloak targeting decloaking module. Requiring the reactivation of the cloak every 30 minutes less work than recalling probes every 60 minutes and then launching and re-configuring their formation. Neither mechanic could be called a nerf; module cycle times are a natural mechanic in Eve and 30 minutes is longer than most cycle timers. My ideas are quite reasonable, follow existing mechanics, and have minimal impact on the game. I am wondering how anyone could consider my ideas a nerf, especially after hearing how cloaks can be scanned, targeted and decloaked while cloaked out to 100km away. Only a real afk would even notice my auto-log, and then he would have one less process wasting away his CPU cycles.

And what risk does an AFK cloaker in enemy territory face? I can sit cloaked 24/7 and not even be at the computer and know I am 100% safe. If I'm truly honest about it, I have to ask why I'm able to sit with zero risk in enemy space? Cloak or not, I shouldn't be immune from repercussions.

This post is to clean up some ideas, terms and definitions here....

AFK: Away From the Keyboard--i.e. a player who is not at his keyboard and not (largely) aware of what is going on in game.

Cloaking devices: Modules that are fit to ships, when fit they prevent all other modules from functioning. The prototype cloak and even the improved cloaking device and faction cloaks all heavily nerf the ships sub-warp speed and prevent ships from warping. The covert ops type cloaking device allows normal sub-warp speed and warping.

Risk: The potential of loss (an undesirable outcome, however not necessarily so) resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen. The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome sometimes exists (or existed).

Risk of a single adverse incident can be expressed as:

(Probability of the adverse event)*Loss.

Uncertainty: It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable and/or stochastic environments, as well as due to ignorance and/or indolence.

Based on the above we can safely conclude that an pilot that is AFK and who ship is cloaked at a safe spot presents no risk to a pilot who would like to PvE in the same system.

However, since the pilot who wants to engage in PvE does not have complete knowledge (i.e. he cannot know if the pilot is really AFK, was AFK but no longer is, is simply pretending to be AFK, etc.) the level of uncertainty has increased. This increase in uncertainty is often translated, by PvE pilots, as a commensurate increase in risk as well.

So when we get right down to it, the issue of AFK cloaking is nothing more than a discussion of uncertainty. One side wants to lower that uncertainty, the other side does not.

The following suggestions for AFK cloaking, are to varying degrees, nerfs to cloaks in general:

Cloaking timer (i.e. the module cycles and needs to be reactivated at the end of the cycle).
Cloaking fuel.
Heat damage.
Various additions to the lore that cause cloaks to drop over time.
POS decloaking array.
Cloak detection probes.
Modules that decloak like the POS module.

All of these suggestions impact ALL cloaks.

On the contrary, Nikk's idea is comprehensive when it comes to the issue of AFK cloaking. And it is largely focused on that issue. Granted, you can't just change a game mechanic and have its effect be totally isolated, but he has tried to come up with an idea that gives something to both sides. The PvE side gets no more AFK cloaking. The cloaking/PvP side gets cloaked ships removed from local. To prevent cloaked ships from becoming OMGWTFOWN machines cloaks also get nerfed too--i.e. a method to detect cloaked ships even while cloaked.