Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A point I have raised many times. Sitting at a safe spot, while cloaked…yeah you are pretty much immune barring the crazy low probability event that some guy just happens to land close enough while setting his own safe spot. Even then, setting an initial safe, then burning away from it in a direction other than the line on which you warped or anyone else can warp on between celestials (i.e. align in a direction not in line with a celestial) will essentially remove even this crazy low probability danger.

But at the same time you are…sitting at a safe….cloaked. You cannot harm anyone. You cannot activate a module. You can’t do much of anything really except stuff you could do while docked, except for D-scan.

However, when you are doing something, like warping to a gate, or a POS, a station, etc. now the risk goes up.

In the example being discussed, that guy did nothing wrong, he was not (necessarily) incompetent, he ran into a ball of rokhs with smart bombs going off while in a covert ops frig...he was dead as soon as he warped.

True. Sadly, it is the only remaining option to interact with ratters. The moment you show up in anything else, they're already POSsed by the time you're halfway in warp.

But you're right. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Perhaps we don't need to nerf cloaks, but instead encourage less lame forms of PvP by promoting actual combat in belts and sites.

As it is, being aligned in conjunction with local chat announcing hostile presence is an uncounterable defense (and equally lame at that). Until now I was content with the status-quo; although perhaps you're right. Further adjustment -- read: delayed local chat -- may improve the quality of the encounters. Along with some tweaks on targeting delay after decloak or perhaps a spool-up time on cyno activation; but the general idea still stands.

Would need to ponder on that one some more, but you do raise a compelling argument to nerf local. Other option I considered were adding an aggression timer to PvE, similar to a PvP aggression timer that would prevent immediately docking/POSsing up and allow the savvy hunter to bump the target off station ....... but I don't think we need more timers. The easiest mechanics are often the best; ergo: delay local. Problem solved!

It would seem the status-quo is too unnerving to maintain; so if nerfing local brings back proper PvP to the belts and sites, then once again I must concede Techos was right. FFFUUUU. (I cannot tell you how much this pains me but the man has a point and he argued it vehemently).

Well played, Sir.

The point is Mike, you are looking a bit hypocritical. You complain they get something for free….but don’t you get intel for free from local?

And if anything the cloaked pilot has expended effort to get that intel. He had to go to that system, maybe run some gate camps as well. Local on the other hand…nobody does anything for that intel.

Funny. I used to say that too, some 100 pages ago. Yet, between then and now, I've run into too many deep sov ratters that didn't even bother logging in eyes or anything really. It was appalling. So much bling on DScan, nothing to take home for your trouble. Then we caught ourselves some Paladins and a flock of Retrievers thanks to cloaky camping; about three quarters of them still managed to warp off. Then Mike started talking more and more about ISK and at some point, came right out of the closet and said he lives in friggin' highsec. Then I understood.

Yes, shotgunning, wormholes, logoff tricks, ... I was around the entire time these things were brought up. I was in fact the one bringing them up. Only works in Providence though, or against multiboxers taking a quick pee.

Counting on finding AFK ratters? That says it all, doesn't it : they can easily factor in losing a few AFKtars and still come out massively ISK positive. No fux given.

What we want, is to get some kind of interaction out of these guys. You just can't expect to sit there and get filthy rich. We want to bring some kind of excitement to the game, and some peeps will bring it. Some peeps will not. They will flat out refuse to play with you, so you kind of force the issue by bringing a cloaky camper and eagerly await their next move. In some cases, this next move is demanding CCP to remove the neut from local. LAME. It is a sandbox and how people deal with any given situation is not my freaking problem. It's not like "inactivity" is the only option available. If this is what they choose, then fine - so be it.

Not logging in ensures that, eventually, people that DO play will come to said vacant space and perhaps they will play with us. Perhaps we'll take it for ourselves. But do not - repeat, DO NOT - blame us if You don't want to log in because You don't feel secure in "your" space. There is no "issue" here, it's actually really plain and simple: deal with it or leave the space to somebody who can. What, you thought sov null was free ISK? Because a 180 pages down the line, that's what I heard.

FYI - if it's just the one guy, I don't even need a cyno. I can kill him perfectly fine all by myself. Shall I tell you what we used to cloaky camp in? Do you really want to know? A helios. No tank, no point, no cyno. Nothing but a dirt cheap Helios. "Enduring access denial by way of implicit threat to increase player attrition in the target system" sounds more expensive than my hull ffs.

You can do it cheaper and less skill intensive than a helios. A cloaked venture works fine.

Attrition, retention or whatever. It simply is a way of expressing that nullsec sov wars can and do use the potential of cloak+cyno to get people to quit Eve. The combination is a bad game mechanic specifically because cloaky camping can be sustained for days, weeks, months (or hell, why not) years with very little effort.

The Devs are trying new paths these days; tossing things out there that they do not know how will work. This is done against the backdrop of 6 week releases where bad mechanisms can be tweaked and corrected quickly.

It follows that this can and should be done to legacy issues. A mechanic that is used to lower the number of Eve players is a legacy issue that should be seriously considered.

When are you going to get around to trying to prove cloaky campers causes a lower number of players in EVE?

I was not making the "unfair" argument. It is not pertinent.

Null sec AFK cloaky campers are not system killers. They simply increase player attrition. Or decrease the number of people playing Eve. By design.

Pech
You don't have to buy it. I merely want Devs to examine data on player attrition in null sec systems targeted by enduring cloaky camps and draw their conclusions from that.

Afuran
The Eve universe is large enough for devs to get robust data on the effects of cloaky camping. Batting anectdotal evidence back and force is not really a convincing method.

You really should. All you've done is prove that you don't belong here.

It's almost like he thinks that chasing people out of nullsec is not intentionally in the game.

He is actually saying much, much more. That not only are people being chased out of NS, but right out of the game by these monstrous AFK campers (I particularly find it amusing it is done with ventures....people, were so wimpy they abandoned their sov instead of trying to find a way to stick it out because of guys cloaked in ventures).

Edit: So wimpy, that not only do they abandon their sov to a bunch of guys AFK camping in ventures, they then quit the game while crying into their cheerios....maybe....maybe it is shame though. When they find out how bad they are at the game that they lost their space to a bunch of guys AFK camping them in ventures, they quit out of shame. Clearly we must do Something™ to protect these milquetoasts.