Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Exactly! The thing is ... I've got the feeling throughout this whole thread, that only solo PvE players are complaining about AFK Cloakers because pretty much everybody else just ignores them -- and therefore, nobody even bothers to log in an alt to go sit AFK the whole goddamn day unless intended to annoy these solo ratters.

If you read any of my previous posts, it should be obvious I am in favour of anything that improves the chance of PvP happening; and this does not solely mean ganking Marauders. I can live with some changes to local chat, although I'm wary about unforeseen consequences and do not really feel the need to do so. Yet, it would offer certain appealing scenarios too so I'll wait for change to happen and will adapt accordingly. Personally, I am more inclined to build in some vulnerability in the cloaking module itself -- a way to counter them.

The only reason I pitched in on the whole "PvE" discussion that's been going on for quite a bit now, is that at this point, over 140 pages down the line, it's been pretty much established the ONLY people complaining about it are solo ratters; and the only real complaint is "dem profits!".

I attempted to prevent yet another circlejerk, by presenting the case that even if Solo Ratting Guy got everything he wanted, he'd still be fitting for maximum profit and he'd still claim his ship is defenseless. To save you the trouble of grinding it down to the essence of the matter, I wanted to get that straightened out right now.

AFK Cloaking is a griefing tactic specifically aimed at a very niche population, nothing more. There is indeed no counter to a cloak, BUT let's not forget the *meaningful* ships that can fit a *meaningful* (read: covops) cloak are already balanced around this. They DO have a targeting delay. They do have less highslots, less DPS, weaker tanks and are only available in T2 or T3 version, so they're a bit on the expensive side.

Therefore, Tachos, Nikk and others managed to convince me that maybe, we don't need to change current mechanics at all. If these mechanics were to change, however, interesting stuff may happen -- yet PvE guy would still be whining about it. Of this I am certain. Many many many pages have boiled down to this simple fact, and to avoid the same arguments being raised, I wanted to set the record straight on that one. If you do not agree, read the last 20 pages and tell me where I reached the erroneous verdict.

I am all in favour of engaging gameplay, and yes! New mechanics for local or for the cloaking module may achieve this. But there is simply nothing you can do to ease the pain of Solo Ratting Guy. He'll insist on building gimped fits for optimum profit, and will remain unhappy whenever somebody attacks.

Further more, it has been clearly established that Mr. Rat chooses to dock; and therefore, AFK cloaking is the only way to maybe catch one. It DOES serve a genuine purpose: both to lull potential targets into a false sense of security (because "this guy's been there all day, he must be AFK") and to degrade the system's worth by promoting sub-optimal (non-gimped and affordable) ships. To illustrate a related tactic in highsec: you have no other choice but to Suicide Gank loot pinatas, because there is NO way to declare war on NPC corps.

I don't feel we should cater to the permanently-malcontents. So either local chat mechanics change in such a way you don't *need* to be AFK for prolonged periods to have a shot at certain targets... -OR- ...or AFK cloaking is declared a valid playstyle and is kept in place, as-is.

Unless you really want to go all the way with making PvE similar to PvP (which would probably also make the vets cry in their soup) and allow for a chance to FAIL your mission because you didn't manage to point the target in time, because they drove you off and you failed to put the mission structure into reenforce / blow it up, or because they heavily bubbled the warehouse where you were supposed to retrieve goods, lit a cyno and they blew you up. Is this what you want PvE to be?

You said it yourself: very little will change whether you fix cloaks, fix AFK gameplay, fix PvE gameplay or introduce some new kind of local. It's really nothing but a case of 1 player getting raped by many. Through the use of wormholes, cynoes or whatever you fancy; the fact of the matter is that ONE guy alone does not and should not stand a chance. If that guy had some backup and fit his own cyno, he would not perceive a problem in the first place. If dropping using AFK cloaks wouldn't yield results, people wouldn't be doing it.

While change might make things more interesting, the whole discussion has been reduced to 1 specific case so many times one cannot help but wonder: aren't there ANY other examples of AFK cloaking we could conceive? Is PvE profit what it all comes down to in the end? I would have you ponder that one before proceeding. Meanwhile, I'm more worried about how these observatory arrays could play out. What *exactly* would they do, how would this affect gameplay, who could anchor them, where, what does that mean for high/lowsec, ... I don't care much how Solo Nullbear feels about them -- you're not supposed to fly solo in SOV space anyway. If you choose to do so, you should at least behave as if you were *always* at risk -- and that's really the only thing an AFK cloaker does: make you feel at risk. That should be a default stance before or after change either way, no?

Lucas, I believe we are in agreement. Every point you raised I agree with; the real question is HOW shall we accomplish this? The proposition on the table involves changes to local (and intel in general -- I presume the information revealed by the in-game map feature as well).

You may have noticed I am in favour of vulnerability to the cloaker and I am in favour of "sneak attacks" by not showing up in local at all .... but I don't quite see how this can be accomplished.

That said, PvE turns up every other post and I can't help but wonder why. I would like to direct discussion away from ratters whining about their PvE ships and the impact "griefing tactics" have on their profits. It's been milled to death, a fair degree of concensus has already been reached.

The real question, at this point, is what changes would need to be made?

- Cloaks getting some kind of fuel / increased chance of pinpointing them the longer they sit still / even dedicated scan probes have been proposed and they end up being the same thing: you'd be able to engage them. Great!

- Changes to local are much more obscure, in the sense I can't quite grasp what it would look like or how that would work.

Excess clutter about PvE, however, is just that. Yes, PvE may need a fix and yes, asset denial is the only reason AFK cloaking is a thing in the first place (otherwise it wouldn't have to be done AFK) ; but that's not getting us anywhere. Page 1-140 covered all that in great detail to lengthy extend.

While I concur with the responses to my quotes, you didn't pick up on the whole reason I butted in. So please tell me: do you honestly think making PvE more like PvP would make the perceived problem go away? Do you? I don't.

As for "So are you in favour of simply removing AFK cloaking then?", well, obviously yes. Except I don't see the "simply" part. How does one "simply" remove AFK cloaking? Unless the fix is well thought-out, I can live with the mechanics as they are ;-)

Auto logoff is an option, yes. Except Safe log off currently implies not being in a fleet, not having any modules (cloak) running ... You'd simply close the socket after a visual count-down timer during which some sign of life (an action, pressing "cancel", ...) should be given? Works for me.

The income from blitzing L4s isn't from rat bounties though, but from LP...and LP are actually an ISK sink. So the problem of ratting income is made quite nicely by this point. Incursions do not put as much ISK into the game as rat bounties do. And High sec trading also does not put new ISK into the economy.

If we are talking game balance issues, then you have to look at money creation and not just how people make money in the game. Money creation, if it is too rapid will lead to inflation. In the case of New Eden the new ISK is largely ending up in the PLEX market. So when people like Mike et. al. bemoan the "significant" loss of income...it may be something to think about in regards to game balance....something that goes in favor of AFK cloaking (at least for now).

Dunno about you, but I wasn't talking about how much isk is coming into the economy, but how much reward people get for their activities. Value given in any form, be it LP, isk, whatever. Note that the reason nullsec groups are insanely rich isn't beacuse they rat too much, it's because they pull in shockingly large volumes of moon goo and manipulate the markets.

Of course there is. I don't believe you should be allowed to impact other players directly without being there. If you want to sit there all day and babysit your PC, great! But if you aren't going to play, you shouldn't be there. I have no problem with people camping people out of their gameplay, I simply have an issue with them doing it while they are at work, in bed, etc.

How much ISK is coming into the economy is hugely important. Too much and you'll have considerable inflation, too little and the economy might start to suffer...shrink the money supply and you could end up with deflation which is probably not good for the game's economy. ISK creation is why they backed off the anomaly buff early on with Dominion sov. Already the amount of ISK flowing into the game economy is very large...something like 1 trillion IKS/day (IIRC).

That only applies to NS and primarily AFK cloaking and people ratting. Again, those making such arguments often have something to gain since rent seeking is rarely a good thing. At the very least is leads to bad precedent, cry enough to CCP and they'll change it in your favor.

And to the extent that it reduces ISK creation in game...even if small, I'm in favor of it.

IMO anything that promotes ratting income should be viewed very skeptically, since nerffing AFK cloaking will promote null sec ratting, it should be allowed...until better mechanics can be put in place.

And if it is as small as you say it is, then it if AFK play that has negligible impact so who cares. It is a trivial issue, and logging off players over a trivial issue is just a waste of developer time and resources.

IMO, cloaking is not a problem at all at this point. you want to kill cloakers? use smartbombs. it's no different than a scout on the ground hiding in a bush with a ghillie suit

What's the biggest smartbomb radius, something like 18k? I don't recall all the deadspace versions.

Regardless, you tell me how to reliably get within 20k of a cloaked ship, and I will agree that they are no problem at all.

All you're showing with that scenario, is that the current direct counters are not filling your requirements. It doesn't mean they don't already exist.
So thanks for proving my point in that regard.

You're really bad at it, so indeed it was.