Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Can you or can you not give us an example of AFK cloaking being the sharp tip of a sov war spear?

So once again you and those like you are doing the sandbox 'right', and those that do other things are 'wrong'. Despite the fact that less than 20% of log ins engage in PvP?

It's wonderful that PvP is where the action is, for you. I guess so long as it's on your terms, with the risk pointed squarely away from you and towards your chosen prey.

I have tried getting involved in all the pvp you like so much, didn't like it and gave it up for various other things long ago. I have been around for a very long time myself. EVERYONE I have ever seen leave the game cited the silly pvp mechanics as the reason. Sure, the PvE is dull and stilted, and we would have enjoyed more PvP under other circumstances... but of the dozen or so personal friends I have played the game with, when each of them left, it was because of the ridiculous one sided nature of EVE pvp and the bias to toxic and predatory playstyles.

I don't have CCP's data, but several of my friends enjoy plenty of PvP. Each of them left, each of them got involved in PvP. All of them cited the PvP as the reason they left.

The complaint on the hunter side is that no one will stay and fight them. Given any chance at all, they would rather dock and wait for you to leave. That is a problem with deeper roots than risk aversion.

What you should be lobbying for is not more, and more lopsided, ways to force people to play as your targets. You should be lobbying for development of the game to give your targets something worth fighting for. Then, when they do try and fight for them, try actually fighting.

The dumbest thing about the defense of cloaks in their current condition is the argument that it's needed because otherwise you would be hunted and destroyed, and then the locals will just go back to what they wanted to do in the first place.

That to me sounds like working as intended, and should be exactly what you were after. Maybe you killed some miners, maybe you didn't. You came for PvP, and got PvP. Not all PvP is shooting fat, defenseless ships, nor should it realistically be that way past one or two targets of opportunity. Of course people pull those ships in. You can't tell me they don't ever reship and try to fight, because I have seen it first hand in ever 'sec of space. People quit trying because the aggressors aren't any more willing to engage a readied opponent than the defenders were to engage in their non-combat ships.

It's like there's this big playground, and most of the local kids like to play games like marbles. The kids from the next neighborhood over like to play football, but they want to win and so only like opponents without pads. They have taken to charging into the playground and just rolling the local kids as fast as they can, but when the locals go get their pads and try to make a real game the kids from the next neighborhood hide out. The pads keep the kids from being able to play marbles well-- it's hot and uncomfortable. Eventually they take off the pads, and out come the guys from the next neighborhood again. and repeat, until eventually the local kids just stop bothering to come out and play.

Everything you say about what should be the risk to PVE players is true of their hunters as well. The fact that it's not is what creates the stalemate, with one group sullenly waiting for the other guys to get out of the bushes. PVE is meant to drive confict- mission successful, except the cloaks make the hunters immune to the consequences of their actions. It stops being a contest, and simply becomes a one sided fight with only half a winner.

These threads have been around since cloaks were put in the game. It's not just SOV null, though that's where the conditions exist for the maximum pain of the situation to be felt, and so that's where the majority of the complaints originate. I have seen it in lo sec. About the only place you don't see complaints is high sec, because it's all but impossible to secure space there and control traffic.

Here's a non anecdotal thought to consider.

If this is so powerful and makes people quit, why have MOA not shattered the CFC yet?

Now consider that this has not happened directly shows us that being "affected" by cloakers is a mindset and player choice.

Perhaps then sov null teaches us only the strong who are prepared to fight for their empire survive. That those who don't, who cower at the possibility of a fight, who run from the mere whisper of a faceless boogieman are ran out of their area.

Sounds a lot like it's working as intended to me.

It effects player retention (have more than 0 players quit Eve for lack of usable content in 0-sec systems?).

The only question is to what degree.

The degree of course is what should determine the level of Dev intervention.

Of course passive, contact adverse, content removing, 0-risk, and "no-cost" afk cloaky camping with an implicit cyno works to increase attrition as intended.

If it didn't work, people would not do it.

Selection bias, or just your usual outright dishonesty.

Of course if you hang around with nothing but other bloated carebears, all you'll hear is that PvP is the reason why anyone quits.

CCP themselves disagree with you however. In fact, they called it a "myth" that PvP in this game negatively effects new player subscriptions. I can't imagine a more thorough condemnation of your claims than that. And since I already know that you are almost pathologically unable to tell the truth, I will take the developer's word over yours.




Oh, quite incorrect. This game has had non consensual PvP snipped away a bit at a time for years, and player subs have fallen commensurately.

It's long past time that CCP stops pursuing known policies of failure, and swings the pendulum the other way for once.




That's not dumb at all.

It's suggesting that stealth be viable at all. What you want is for it to be unviable, so you are never surprised and never have any uncertainty.

You're basically asking for the removal of non consensual PvP in freaking nullsec.




And here again you prove that you do not belong here.

"targets of opportunity" and "fat, defenseless ships" are EXACTLY what cloak ships are supposed to be killing, and pretty much nothing else. Cov ops ships are inherently weaker than most other ships of their class in and of themselves, and the cov ops cloak is deliberately intended to allow people to strike targets of opportunity.

I mean, come the **** on. You are literally admitting that you want cloaks to not work as intended, to satisfy the e-honor you're using as a false flag.

Guess what, chuckles? Cloaks are supposed to promote that kind of behavior.




100% false.

Risk vs reward applies solely to activities that generate assets into the game world. Any and all PvE should be subject to risk or it should not exist. PvP content has it's risk determined by the actions of the respective participants.

You also totally do not understand cloaks.

Cloaking devices are probably the most balanced module concept in this game. You disappear from grid, and barring collisions you cannot be effected by other players. In exchange, you can activate no modules. (and for cov ops ships, you take a fairly hefty stat penalty, especially the frigates)

You can have as much effect on the grid as the grid can have on you. Less, in truth.

The mechanics of cloaks are perfectly balanced right now. But you don't want balance, in fact you hate the very concept of it. What you both are asking for is a deliberate imbalance in your favor. And you're asking for it for purely meta reasons, completely ignoring the facts and realities of both the game at large and the mechanics of cloaking devices.

It is not possible to be more wrong than you are.

You are defining automatically losing and abandoning the field as 100% safety. If they were safe they would continue their activity, much the way a cloaked camper does not bother to go anywhere.

consider the examples:

PVE goes afk, opponent enters field, locates PVE ship, PVE guy dies.

Camper activates cloak and goes AFK, opponent searches for camper, camper continues to camp forever as he is 100% safe.

There are ways to prove that. Insert a red or neut into local, monitor what happens, compare what happened to a baseline.

PvE is not less safe (in fact it might be more safe as roaming small gangs and true hot droppers might also spend less time in an afk cloaky camped system).

Enduring afk cloaky camping with an implicit cyno never generates PvP. PvP is not its goal. It creates the perception of risk to reduce activity.

Mag's
I know anecdotal evidence is far from robust. Hence my recommending that Devs collect relevant data before deciding if intervention is required.

Utterly false. One of the core tenants of the game is Non-Consensual PVP. Unless you mean the asinine statements about agreeing to PvP when you undock, or log in, or whatever. If this wasn't the case we would not have warp scramblers and disruptors, nor would anyone be bumping those freighters.

In the case of that cloaked camper, he gets to choose when and if he ever drops that cloak, until downtime. No outside force can take that choice from him, and he remains 100% safe so long as he isn't stupid and runs into something.



You are right. It's even less of a deterent than I claimed, and still counters nothing at all.




"Logged friends or standing fleet that didn't already exist is just wasting everyone's time, and isn't a counter unless he chooses to attack"

Actively being able to kill someone in your home system is now a 'waste of time'? Do you listen to yourself?



Without a way to force his hand, yes it's a waste of time. He chooses to attack or not to attack. He won't so long as that fleet is apparent, he will simply wait for a better opportunity because there is no counter to his tactics.





"In every case it hinges upon the camper choosing to break his camp voluntarily. That's not a counter, that's wishful thinking."

"In every case it hinges on the PvE-er being so risk averse that he chooses to no do anything if there is the slightest chance of maybe, possibly being shot. Harden up and undock, or stay in high sec."

PvE has no effective opportunities to do anything except endure without recourse or abandon the space completely.




"I am not the hypocrite here. I assume you want all that free Intel gone along with local too?"

"I want local, watch lists and killboards gone. All of them do nothing but help carebears like yourself turn EVE into hello kitty online. "


Hello Kitty Online would be several orders of magnitude more challenging than the risk free playstyle you are advocating for cloaked campers. I'd be all for watch lists and killboards being gone. If you don't like local just stay in your wormhole and the problem is solved.




"You want to nerf playstyles that you don't like without wanting to nerf parts of the game that literally do nothing but protect what you do (ie, local). That is the very definition of a hypocrite, kid."


I am actually going out of my way to look for compromises and find ways to impact anyone's playstyle as little as possible while still addressing the issue. What were trying to do? Right... Just be belligerent and derail all discussion.

No, it's outright invulnerability.

If I am out doing whatever activity I am doing, and I go AFK, and a hunter shows up then I am dead.

If the cloaked camper goes afk, and someone hunting him shows up, the cloaker is never in any kind of danger at all.


Local isn't a defense, it simply allows opportunity to take defensive action. Cloaking is a defense. It outright denies any offensive action from being taken in the first place.

If I am in a dock and I want to go and attack something, I must get into space at a known point, travel to my target and only then can I begin my attack, with whatever I am hunting reacting to my presence immediately. The cloaker can hunt his target, provide intel to any allies, and knows as much as can be known before making any decisions or initiating his attack. There are several points of failure for the local, while the cloaker has only pilot error.