Player Features and Ideas Discussion

See it's that. "Additional burdens". Cos clicking 4 times an hour is so ******* hard. How did they even get you to activate your guns? Why aren't you complaining that that's not done for you too?
Sorry bro, but this one is moronic. You outright object to 4 click per hour, while arguing for a change that requires everyone else to work their asses of for a handful of intel that we have always had. If you can't see how one-sided that is...

I don't claim to be the majority, or speak for them.

I claim to have my facts straight, and to be objective.

Not neutral, but objective. Neutral is a bias in itself, which loses objectivity in an attempt to center itself between two points.

Sorry, being objective is not a function of popularity, and certainly not opinion.

You declare many things with no supporting evidence. That reflects, at most, your opinion.
Your objections to my ideas are centered around unfounded expectations of arbitrary catastrophes, which apparently stem from an inability to extrapolate results stemming from a change you cannot understand well enough.

Things like:

• Everyone will leave null
• Cloaked ships will suddenly be able to kill everything
• I somehow want to pad a killboard that I have otherwise neglected for years

You then refer back to those points, as if you had employed sound logic, instead of your opinions.

If you want to say you don't like the idea, that's fine.
But don't pretend you actually found flaws in it, when it has yet to be demonstrated you even read more than the first few lines.

Seriously?

The elements of the game that permit cloaking, in this manner, are intertwined with the amount of free intel gained from local chat, as well as the level of rewards available from professions that can be threatened by so-called AFK cloaking.

If you were to put a timer on being AFK, even assuming you could do so realistically and not create something casually bypassed to make the issue even worse...
You would be helping to define an absence of threat, which results in less risk and uncertainty.
With less risk and uncertainty:

• Obstacles keeping many players from moving to null suddenly are perceived as acceptable.


• The fittings for mining and ratting in null become more oriented towards maximum yield, as defense concerns recede.


• Players that were in more volatile and contested areas more often find opportunities to earn ISK.

These three factors alone would indicate enough of a shift to be notable, and have a potential to cause the devs to reduce null income levels to compensate.
Whether they would reduce the availability of rewards, the quality of rewards, or substitute NPC based risk, the intertwined nature of these mechanics suggest that AFK cloaking cannot be changed by itself.

We know. We made this point. But Lucas, et. al. absolutely insisted that this kind of thing never happened.

Perhaps you guys should send some e-mails and work on your script and talking points.

Semantics. To me it read as, this only happens in the sphere of Opinion, which is not true. It's a documented occurrence and I know you've lived in 0.0 long enough to know this. It is not an Opinion, it is a possibility, but I think in essence we were trying to say the same thing.

The 2nd point is also documented throughout Eve and this is a possible action which may occur, not an opinion unless by opinion you strictly mean that is the only option available to a cloaker in the system. Many cloakers do not use the cyno idea or this tactic is not available to them due to their alliance size / online players / location etc. So I think what you mean to say is that these are possibilities, but do not mean they will happen ALL of the time. Opinion is, strictly speaking the wrong implication to anyone who has lived in 0.0 in a large or renter alliance for more than a few weeks because they understand or have seen these tactics used.

And they present zero risk so long as they use that cloak.

The problem is the perception of increased uncertainty and the attendant risk that hostile usually provides...but it is only a problem for those who let it influence them into effectively giving control over the system in question to the cloaker.

We have seen it here. Both Andy and Lucas have made the case:

The PvE pilot must assume that that the AFK cloaker is in fact not AFK. That they are present at their keyboard and can attack at any moment. Andy has also stated that it is not unreasonable to assume that such a pilot also has a cyno fitted and fleet on stand by...at all times.

In other words, Andy and Lucas, and I doubt they are alone, assume the most risk averse position possible. That's fine...that is their choice. Let me repeat that, that is their choice. But it is not their only choice.

Which is exactly why there were two versions of each, one stating a popular opinion in some circles, the other relating actual facts.

It is perfectly fine to take precautions, against the possibility that someone might have a genuine ability to attack or bring in allies, but it becomes misleading to suggest this is an absolute, or even that it happens more often than can be demonstrated.

Convincing someone that something happens more often than it does is misleading, because game changing decisions are made from expectations which are perception based.

Missed opportunities are the flip side of being overly cautious. Let's not inspire missed opportunities to happen any more than they already do.

Sigh....

Regarding counters:

Counters do not have to be hard counters--i.e. blowing the guy up or something like that. They can be soft as well. If you have an AFK cloaker show up, start ratting as a group in PvP fit ships. No single cloaker will even try to engage so long as your are reasonably smart about it (i.e. if one of your group is 125 KM off and out of range of your guns, but close enough so you can warp to him; then he might be picked off...maybe). Now you are utilizing your system, getting resources and denying the cloaker kills should he happen back to his keyboard while you are active. You have essentially countered him.

Look at when he is active. His KB can tell you this (assuming he has one) and if he is active when you are in bed...well, lucky for you.

Moving over a system can not only allow you to continue to acquire resources (i.e. a counter to part of what the AFK cloaker may be after) it can also give you more information...or at least go someways towards reducing uncertainty. If you move over a system and start PvEing and the cloaker does not follow...he is probably AFK.

Find other ways to utilize/acquire resources in your system(s). I routinely undock alts when a hostile is in system. I then stop my ship, align out to a POS, warp to the POS, then align out to a safe, and if possible cloak for a bit, then align to the out gate or whatever else I need to do (i.e. not ratting or mining). I have never lost a ship doing this. Could I someday? Yeah, but so far the risk appears to be minimal even when there is a hostile in system.

Regarding Anti-AFK Suggestions:

Earlier in this thread I offered the following advice to the Anti-AFK crowd: come up with a solution that presents not even the whiff of a nerf to the active player. The active player is not the intended target and anything that nerf's his game play is Bad™. There is only one problem with this...its really, really hard. Every idea on the front page either nerfs cloaks in a pretty obvious way, or for quite a few players means extra hoops to jump through (e.g. an alt scout in another system would need to be kept "active" even though the player is at his keyboard....I can imainge alot of PvE pilots whining about this once their scout alts start getting logged off).

And as for reading people's posts. Scroll back. I gave an example where I used my cloak for more than 30 minutes straight once and would have died if Andy's earlier suggestion of the cloak just shutting off and needing a manual restart were in effect. I had to fly around a very large gate camp (there were hundreds of people in that system, it had just been the site of a big extraction effort by a number of titans and fleets). Andy pompously implied I was a liar because it was highly doubtful I would have to fly through 720km of bubbles. In reality I spent as little time flying through the bubbles because I FLEW AROUND THEM....manually and at sub-warp speed in an Arazu. I was going for the thinnest/weakest point in the bubbles/camp to get out of the system and get back to our main stagging area. All this was clear from what I had written. And yet, there is Andy stamping his foot demanding I read his post where it implies I suddenly accept that simply removing local is too much, and that my earlier suggestions were going to leave NPC null without any kind of intel infrastructure even though I had addressed that point.

Now, if Andy wants to re-wrire and re-post I'd be glad to read it.

Again, semantics. Presenting possibilities, ie something which MIGHT happen (or may NOT) as 'Opinions' instead, is not valid and implies these things are a matter of perspective, which they are not. These things happen, this is not a matter of opinion.

How frequently they happen is the what you are trying to say, as this more than anything color's people's perspective when it comes to making games changes. Since we don't want people to over-react and break the game, I appreciate your thoughtfulness in this area in trying to present a rational and objective view. I am often unable to do this as well myself and I appreciate you trying to do so. Thank you.