Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There is this too. Heck, a good system can keep 5-6 guys at least ratting away happily. Got a couple of systems nearby...that means 15-18 guys. Now you might get an actual engagement.

But Mike doesn't like that. He doesn't like PvP, he wants to just PvE. He doesn't even understand that in this game the basic idea is we players create the content....not CCP.

You cannot proactively engage a target who is immune to non-consensual attack.

I expect Mike will point at that, and see cloaked ships as the immune party.

Just as likely, it is the PvE pilots as well.

The cloaked ship is vulnerable at the travel bottlenecks. My old alliance used this as a means to limit their potential.
Quite successfully, I might add.

The PvE pilot is vulnerable to being caught off guard. Not paying attention, or simply being AFK while not bothering to dock up due to expectations of safety.

This is overly balanced, to the point the contest is locked unless one side or the other does something to void the circumstances.

We need to create unavoidable uncertainty on both sides, so the expectation of perfect safety and control is dropped like the training wheels on a child's bicycle.

Knowing what to expect is an advantage. Insisting on knowing what to expect is a handicap.

Still eating your cake and wanting it at the same time I see.

If there was a way to create uncertainty other than with cloaks...great. But there isn't, so too bad the cloak is the current best mechanism for that. Hopefully the observatory array (OA) will change all this.

And the answer to this question is,



Yes. Although the mechanic is not broken. Working as intended. That is what uncertainty can do. It is why people tend not to like it. That is exactly what we want, IMO, in this game. In the game it keeps things exciting.

Consider this...suppose in the future we have the the OA and it has the following features (among others):

1. After a cloaked ship is stationary for "too long" it becomes probable (i.e. no more AFK cloaking).
2. The OA can be either destroyed or disabled by the entosis link (24/7, that is, it does not get the immunity window, at least for being disabled).
3. When the OA is disabled, local goes bye-bye until somebody from the alliance holding sov comes and does his entosis magic to get it back.

What would Mike do if a hostile comes in? Dock or POS up. After all he is PvEing in a ship that can't PvP. Suppose he decides to just wait out the interloper and said interloper then disables the OA. Now what? Well, Mike can no longer see local so he will not undock that PvE ship until he can. He may not even undock a PvP ship either. In fact, Mike might even go AFK in the hopes he can undock in a cheap ship with an entosis link to restore local.

So what has happened? A guy has come in and slashed the value of the system. And much of that time where value was lost he probably wasn't even in the system. And he created uncertainty as well.

Can we all guess who'll be back here on the forums a few weeks after such a mechanic goes live?

That's a lot of false equivalence.

To begin, those structures are intended to be safe. They also cost significant resources to maintain, or else shut off. They are also destructible, and not cheap to replace.

Yes, you can't kill them in a day. And? you can't force a cloak to shut off ever, short of rebooting the server. Good thing that happens every day, but then the camper is logged off. Effectively he needs no effort of any kind to maintain that greater security for all eternity.

The false equivalence continues with the actions that are circumscribed to maintain that security. You can't leave the POS and be safe. You don't get to track targets or do anything outside the POS shields at all.

Cloaks are safer, and they allow more freedom of action.

The POS and cloak are not equivalent. I’ll grant that, but they are similar in that they can offer considerable protection and each has its strength’s and weaknesses.

Let’s look at the cloak first. Yes, if you go to a safe, activate the cloak you are totally and completely immune from everything.[1] However, this safety does come at some cost. If you are using a covert cloak you can warp around, but that does increase your risks. For example you could land in a bubble with objects that can decloak you. You could just get unlucky and land near an object. If you want to change systems you will have to decloak and make yourself vulnerable. Twice. You cannot resupply, you cannot activate any other modules. You cannot do much of anything in the game. You cannot interact with others in the game except via chat and mail.

Let’s consider the POS. Here you are quite safe for a time. The POS does need fuel. A POS can be reinforced and then destroyed. However, unlike a cloaked ship you can store additional ships here, you can store modules. You can anchor guns and hardeners making it harder for people to lurk about (unless they are in a cloaked ship). Cyno jammers can also be anchored which are quite nice. You can anchor cyno beacons and jump bridges (you can’t anchor all of these last three at the same time of course). Like the cloak you only get the protection of the POS while you inside the shields and never leave the system. Your ability to interact with others is limited, but depending on the modules anchored it maybe more than with a cloak (i.e. if you have guns anchored and are a POS gunner you can shoot targets…and they can’t shoot you, just the POS).

I think this is fairly exhaustive. I’d say that a POS has almost much in common with a cloak in many regards. Granted nobody uses a POS to camp a system (although it is theoretically possible…but kind of weird, but if your goal is to provoke the people you are camping it certainly might work if you can get the time to anchor and online the POS and modules.). But, when people complain about the safety a cloak affords, I think it is on par, in the short term (1-2 days) with POS and in some ways might be better (guns, ships, ability to refit a ship, restock ammo, etc.). Over the longer term the cloak is superior in that it doesn’t need fuel and will not be shot/reinforced.

In the end, I don’t think the claim of false equivalency holds that much water. There some truth that a POS and cloak are not exactly the same, but in many ways they share traits.

[1]Not sure about AoE weapons, but unless you are cloaked near a structure your chances of taking damage from one of these is very, very remote.

Same as a a cloaked ship unless it warps which no longer makes the cloak 100% safe.



If you warp to any celestial you can end up being decloaked maybe even killed. So much for your 100% safety.



Again, no longer 100%.

There goes your narrative.

Non-consent is mutually available to both sides.

The seeming right to PvE in space which has no meaningful player presence, (when compared to the expected hostile threat), is not so well supported by arguments asking to make the hostile's position weaker.

PvE is time consuming, and often numbing to being highly attentive over time.
PvP, by frequent contrast, is quick bursts of intense activity that are expected to resolve themselves with finality.

Are we, as the players of this product, best served by having such a mismatched set of playstyles with the expectation of interaction?

The cloaked player, driven with a quite justifiable motive of running roughshod through an opposing alliance's economic support regions.
This is not a bad play style, nor can I honestly say it is best served by needing extended time investment to the point where many believe the pilot must be AFK significantly.

The PvE player, driven to get ISK in order to support, what? A circular play style where ISK is needed to further simply more of the same? No, and while I can believe exceptions do exist, I would put forth that many of these players want that ISK to do things unrelated to PvE so directly.

For my view on good content, we need either groups or solo / small groups to face targets which either cannot, or will not, run off the field.

POS bashing, while blob associated due to the resources needed, are a great example of this.
The defending team is not required to defend it, but the POS is an investment they will lose if the hostiles are not pushed back.

Give the PvE players a comparable target, for smaller engagements.
A roam, if not a solo or small group, should be able to threaten these targets with destruction.
The PvE player, by proxy represented by these assets, can either risk themselves by defending them, or sacrifice the assets by allowing them to be overwhelmed.

It seems a better path for gameplay, to me, than what we have now.

But there lies the imbalance in a cloak.

Regardless of which activities you are talking about, or how marginal any danger is, the cloak has the superior level of safety with greater choice in action.

In an outpost or POS your only option is to sit in it, or leave it and be in constant danger. The cloaked pilot does not need to be at a safe to be safe. He can be sitting 50km outside your POS, watching you sit in it.

Sure, you can run into bubbles, but as minor as that danger is, it's one suffered by all. It's not special to cloaks. So the cloak is always safer, and in any practical case completely safe except for the choices the pilot of the cloak.

The cloak is not the counter for a POS or an outpost.
In point of fact, it is meaningful to consider that the cloak is available as an option for ALL pilots who meet the requirements.
And this, despite your views that the cloak


It is also meaningful to consider, that the PvE pilots in question apparently consider the cloak to be too great of a burden to fit, so instead appear to be using these POS and Outpost options exclusively wherever possible.

So, their is your answer, sacrifice a fitting slot, and pop a cloak on those PvE ships!
With such obviously equal potential on both sides, that must be better, right?

As I am sure you know, many do. I know a couple of miners that keep their 'safe' barely past warp range and watch the rocks while they wait out hostiles.

Cloaks are completely trivial to fit. I have one on a T1 transport that I bought right after I trained the skill because I happened to be making a supply run when it finished training. No sacrifices in fit at all on anything I have ever wanted to put one on.

And no. It's not balanced when a PVE pilot does it either. Of course both sides will. It's too cheap and effective not to.

Many PvE pilots don't bother because like so many other modules that aren't either tank or damage it is useless against rats, but I know plenty that glued them into a utility high years ago and never removed them since.