Player Features and Ideas Discussion

People go AFK cloaked because they are forced to by the local player list. Local makes you visible and lets other players know you are in system. So the obvious move is to wait for a target willing to risk their ship to PvE in the system your in.

A few reasons AFK cloaking and cloaking in general is disliked.

1. Its bad for bots. If players were not listed in local bots would have a real hard time with cloaked ships jumping in. Even if CCP added a much needed 30 or 60 second auto d-scan button. Bots would go down all over new eden.

2. Its bad for your hardcore bear. He can no longer feel safe like he lives in some sort of new eden nullsec suburbia.

3. Its bad for capitals and haulers. Cloaked sabres and other various methods can be used to take down bigger targets.

This is all a part of the game. These are the dangers you risk for a higher isk payout. Same things with jumping capitals or transporting goods. The true problem is not cloaking at all. The real problem here is the psychological effect of having every single person listed in local chat that is in system. In nullsec there are great sites you can run yourself and the risk of attack will always be there. That was the way eve was intended to be... the lower the security number the more scary and dangerous it is with a greater reward.

Edit---People who complain about not being able to find cloaks dont have the idea. The point is not to be seen or scanned. Thats why CCP made bombers easy to kill. They can tackle quick but they go down just as quick. Same with recons they have a 5 or 6 second target delay+targeting time making it very hard to tackle bc and down hulls. The funny part is most of you bears think your corp is so great when really a good portion of them are feeding information to some other corp. Nobody cares about you as a person in eve only as a target. If you suck people hate you because you suck..If your good people hate you becasue your good. If your there people will blame you just because.

And in regards to local being removed, there is more to it then just local!

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2827608#post2827608

AFK cloakers are disliked and whined about because they disrupt bots and introduce a tiny sliver of risk that filthy nullbears are unwilling to deal with (why are they in nullsec to begin with?)

AFK cloak = not at keyboard doing PvP. Brilliant - and your arguments against botting in the game are? ...

That's where some of us have issues with this.

The main problem with cloaking, AFK or otherwise, is that its impossible to do anything about.


It's a mechanic that puts 100% of the initiative into the cloakers hands, and there is no way to do anything about it other than maintain 100% constant vigilance against a threat that may or may not be present, and may be anything from a single bomber to a capital fleet.

It is impractical and unreasonable for anyone not in a super alliance with a capital combat fleet on standby 100% of the time to have to deal with. It creates a ludicriously imbalanced Risk vs. Reward scenario. If you are not in a huge alliance with a massive combat wing on standby 100% of the time, doing anything in the system with a cloaked neutral is like playing russian roulette for pennies, except sometimes the gun is just a pair of fingers pointed at your head, and sometimes it's a fully mobilized military machine capable of prosecuting a protracted war---or anything in between and no way to tell between them until it fires.

It is poor game design, breaking the rock,paper,scissors plan.

It is not unreasonable for Sov holders to want to secure their space for the activities of their non-combat wings. It's not unreasonable for there to be a way to attack those non-combat wings. It is perhaps unreasonable that the concentrated activity of 100's of players cannot in anyway prevent the ability of a single player to sit in 'their' space projecting the credible threat of a capital ship fleet jumping in to disrupt activities.

It's not really the afk that is bad. It's where the initiative of conflict rests. No pilot should feel safe enough to afk deep in enemy territory---that is a clearly broken mechanic. I'd go with a ship fit like a Cov Ops frigate with little to no offensive value of it's own being able to find them, and call in fleetmates to deal with them---much like the threat the cloaker is projecting on the system he's in himself. The cloaker should be as vunerable to dedicated hunting as any other solo pilot in space, bear or not.

The expenditure of a single frigate should not be able to project that much threat at such a low threshold of effort and ISK. This is regardless of how people react to it---the threat is credibly and potentially real, and far beyond the Reward so little Risk should provide.

Local and other mechanics are seperate issues that need looking at as well, but in no way mitigate the brokenness of the Risk/Reward ratio of cloaking. AFK cloaking is just a logical extension of a ludicriously borked mechanic, no better or worse than afk mining or mission running. The issue is in the cloaking mechanic and it's lack of any effective counters at all, regardless of the amount of effort you put into mitigating or nullifying it.

you know theres a saying about this, it goes "assumption is the mother of all **** ups"

theres a reason why the 'AFK Cloakies' threads never go anywhere and that problem is the simple fact people pigeon hole any cloaked ship in their little piece of dullsov space as being afk, i mean think about it, what are they going to do wave at you every 5 minutes so you know they are at the keyboard?

As much as i'd like to see a new dimension added to cloaking warfare (covert ops bs, some sort of cloaky sonar etc) it will never happen becuase all theese stupid threads ASSUME THAT A CLOAKED PILOT IS AFK

that is all

why is afk cloaky camping hated so much?
because people are so risk averse that they would rather dock up and ship spin than ignore an afk player.

why does it exist?
because risk averse players let it upset them so much, so it's a great way to **** people off with minimal effort.

As for the psychological effects of having people listed in local when they want to bot. I don't care. They are my enemy, why should I give a rats arse about their feelings. If they are bothered by my presence that is up to them. They choose to be upset and shut down their bots when I jump in. It's their choice.

and this psychological warfare of bluff makes whiners more engaged and affected...

you want eve to be realistic? well, real life threat/risk/reward/glory mixing in a tub of existence you call your account character in-game has never been better here than in other mmorpgs :) reason why i love this game... Coz it teaches me not to expect that I would always win...that I have to adapt to survive and progress :)

******* hell, u all need to step back and understand that afk cloaking hurts no one, its a terror tactic.

its when afk cloakers arent afk that u worry. but unfortunately the only ones that know an afk cloaky isnt afk is the afk cloaker himself, and the ratter that get pointed and killed by him. its an inevitable eventuality.

it is not however a reason to go sobbing onto forums about how unfair this game is, breaking news gentle nullbears, life isnt fair, get over yourselves and get on with null sec life.

if ur scared about a small bomber killing ur 2 bil isk tengu then id suggest looking into other ways of making isk or a better way of doing what u do now, that give you a good chance at killing anyone in a bomber that tries to tackle u whilst making money.

however if ur crying cause u come back after leaving ur bot running for hours on end and uve been either forcably separated from your ship and pod or ur bots docked u up cause theres someone permanently in ur system... then go suck on a ****. i wouldnt want u in my alliance.