Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Morrigan
Just view it as a type of heat damage that is repaired by doing certain operations (being close to something that non sustained cloaky afk players are usually close to anyway in a given time-frame).

Say Jerghul... I Just did a little background check on ZKill (yes, I intend to investigate your claims and I started with trying to find what war you were in).

I am having severe issues with your credibility, however. Could you please post on your main if you wish to continue spilling theorycraft? Because this "Jerghul" character hasn't been in any sov war, hardly plays (with like 16 bil killed) at all and doesn't show any cloaky anywhere. T1 Destroyers and Maulus?

Do you even wormhole??

I think it's fair to say we've categorically blown that possibility out the water.

Just as afk as a cloak is "invulnerable"

This is my main. I currently do 90% of my flying in a cloaked ship :). I could contract you some t-3 bps I suppose if that helps. And how do you figure I have not been in sov wars?

But its not really about credibility. We sort of resolved that point by resting on "this is something the Devs should collect data on before deciding a course of action" (or words to that effect).

Boy, a lot is certainly lost in translation.

Increased player attrition is caused by implicit threat. The only thing required is an enduring cloaked red (or neut depending on how you set the overview) presence in local.

It does not claim sov. It impacts on the number of Eve players an Alliance has at its disposal

While it isn't a factor in why I object to them, their use in breaking alliances was a highly touted feature much earlier in the thread, by supporters of the camps. Obviously the usefulness of that is limited, but it was presented as a measurable effect earlier.

Brokk, I understand why you have been convinced, you came in pretty neutral in the first place and there's a lot of vocalization in support of the camps. Don't discard reasoning based purely on it not impacting you however.

People like to shoot soft targets, and feel they have a right to a good opportunity to do so. This is further aggravated by the many bots that permeate eve that never miss a new arrival and never wait for that one last cycle or one last rat to die. While space would be much emptied without them, so too would the targets you find be more prone to mistakes or fits of bravery.

That desire for someone to behave as you want them to instead of their own best interest does not excuse a lopsided mechanic that makes their best play to simply not play at all.

Making cloaks huntable would create more PvP, which is what the users of cloaks are currently claiming they afk camp to achieve. Making the gate cloak keep people out of local until it dropped would resolve the so called 'safety' of local residents warping before grid even loads.

With both sides now needing to pay attention to stay alive you get a more lively and interesting PvP aspect, and more satisfied players on both sides.

1) Remove local.

But you won't accept that because "risk" so...

2) Cloaked players do not appear in local.


Issue resolved all uses of cloaking preserved. Although doubtless not to the satisfaction of the risk averse bears.

@Mike
Oh yea, absolutely. I don't advocate it HAS to be done AFK; there are some suggestions I quite like (false positive probing, sonars or delaying local chat) but on overall, mechanics appear to be rather balanced. Based on what I've personally seen and done in-game as well as what I've heard here; and of course under the assumption people in sov null do have defenses. Sure enough, 1-on-1 it doesn't seem fair. Things rarely do. Sitting on FW beacons at zero with AB, scram/web fits is also lame. Fun, fair and balanced are not to be confused with each other. On the topic of AFK cloaking, I don't think it's fun nor fair, but it is balanced.

It can become fun when somebody actually jumps on you, lits his candle and you get into a barfight. That'd be fun -- but still not fair. Most fun things aren't. "fair" fights would practically be pre-arranged with loads of restrictions and regulations. I'll freely admit I don't fight fair: when we gatecamp and you happen to jump through all on your own, it's not like I'm going to tell the other 4 guys "hold DPS lads - this guy is alone so we'll take turns, solo him, best two out of three wins the cake". No sir- we'll just open fire and see what happens.

Somewhere along the way, people have gotten very salty about balance and the general unfairness and hostility of the universe. They forgot that fighting the odds and coming out on top is a fun challenge, and very gratifying if you succeed. Not like we're stealing your car dude. New Eden is full of scammers, burglars, con artists, pirates, mercenaries, evil overlords, insidious plots and demons hiding in the endless night. You're trying to ninja gold nuggets in the enchanted forest, hoping the big bad wolf won't catch you. Without wolf, your spoils would be meaningless. Weird as it may sound, you NEED the red in local. There can be no heroic empire builders and entrepreneurs (such as yourself) without evil basterds trying to take it away from you at every turn.

That's basically where I stand: the less regulations, the better. CCP provides balanced mechanics, we shall use them in unfair ways, and in the end there is fun to be had. Even if that implies horribly losing your ship. Losing ships is good. It drives the economy.

At the end of the day, if CCP were to waltz in right now and ask me "Yo Brokk man, what do you think we need to do with dem cloaks son?" I'd probably tell them to "fix strategic cruisers" and leave everything else as-is. The mechanics are fine.

You do understand that in Curse where I live, there's no shortage of neuts and reds around the clock, everywhere? Docked, POStrash or cloaked - take your pick. Even my staging has 3 as we speak.

What I fail to see, is the problem. You see, I came here because hunting cloaky T3s or deep space transports would be a nice-to-have. You make it sound like a life threatening situation -- christ, they can't even do anything.

Oh wait! Perhaps I misunderstood you. Was I supposed to run in fear now?


Edit: yes, I do have a problem with your premise. I believe it to be blown completely out of proportion. Up until now I've deliberately tried to avoid the deep sov issues, to no avail: every other post, somebody dragged PvE and ratting and ISK/hr back into the discussion. In the end I caved in and accepted it was impossible to discuss the possibility of maybe hunting cloaked Naglars / Orcas / Mastodons / Tengus for PvP purposes. Apparently, this is about filling wallets and preventing the filling of wallets. Then you showed up, and made some outrageous claims about cloaks essentially killing EvE; with a proposition attached that would invalidate most uses of a cloak (eyes, deep space recon, wormhole life, advance scout, ...) and we're supposed to take your word for it.

I ask for numbers, you tell me to ask CCP.
I ask for examples, you give me none.
I ask for relevant experience, you give me none.
And then you ask me if I have a problem with your premise? You bet I do! I wasn't going to call horsecrap, but ..... see, I'm a hands-on person. I like the pragmatic approach. Theorycraft is all good and well but not only are you fixing things that ain't broke, you're breaking fundamental mechanics here.

In short: I do not agree with your assessment of the situation, and I most certainly do not agree with your "fix". Which I already told you two or three times by now. Rephrasing your theory and asking the same question isn't going to change the outcome, unless you start providing these anecdotes, numbers and other factual data you claim to wield.