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AFK Cloaking™: Ideas, Discussion, and Proposals

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Jerghul
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5241 - 2016-01-10 02:54:55 UTC
Teckos
You may want to rethink that last post of yours. We know you manage 7 pilots yourself. I for one am generously assuming you are paying for 1 real life subscription. I am generous that way.

Otherwise. Nice straw men. Its nice to see people play with dolls made of environmentally friendly fibers.


Blocked list: Teckos, Sonya, Wander, Baltec1
Maria Dragoon
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#5242 - 2016-01-10 03:34:16 UTC
Jerghul wrote:
Teckos
You may want to rethink that last post of yours. We know you manage 7 pilots yourself. I for one am generously assuming you are paying for 1 real life subscription. I am generous that way.

Otherwise. Nice straw men. Its nice to see people play with dolls made of environmentally friendly fibers.




Assuming you know someone's spending habits, despite never meeting them, and in turn assuming you know how many accounts/characters they have, is to a dangerous straw-man, and a route you do not wish to go down.

Your constant personal attacks on others in attempts to avoid the facts they point in your directions is starting to become ridiculous.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

"A man who talks to people who aren't real is crazy. A man who talks to people who aren't real and writes down what they say is an author."
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5243 - 2016-01-10 04:33:27 UTC
Jerghul wrote:
Teckos
You may want to rethink that last post of yours. We know you manage 7 pilots yourself. I for one am generously assuming you are paying for 1 real life subscription. I am generous that way.

Otherwise. Nice straw men. Its nice to see people play with dolls made of environmentally friendly fibers.




Honestly? I have 7 alts and 3 accounts. All 3 accounts paid with RL money. I tend to buy a year at a time to get the lowest price on a per month basis.

I can't stand trading.

I can barely stomach ratting and I do it to help maintain defense indices.

I can do mining semi-AFK.

I don't mind invention or PI (because the time involved is relatively short).

I have ran reaction farms for about 2 years.

I fought in just about every major block war since about 2008.

I have participated in several Burn Jita/Amarr events and thoroughly enjoyed them.

I never AFK camp (except for FinFleet and that is because they are FinFleet, a bunch of arrogant [insert colorful metaphor of choice here] holes who deserve everything bad that happens to them in game, IMO).

I play on average about 2 hours/day and have been playing for just over 8 years.

So your claim about multiple account entitlement is just a load of errant nonsense and Bravo Sierra. You are talking out of your third point of contact making assumptions about things you know nothing about.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Xcom
US Space Force
Black Rose.
#5244 - 2016-01-10 11:10:49 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Xcom wrote:

Morrigan This is your opinion. Its not a fact or anything other then your wishes regarding how the game should and shouldn't be. Some do believe that any impact caused by tweaking the cloaking dilemma won't impact on local in any extent other then minor ripples. I believe that people just use that as an excuse to firmly hold on to cloaking the way it is.



No Xcom you are wrong. This is not just opinion it is a well reasoned and logical argument. Your stubborn obstinate position is rather disquieting in terms of trying to have a logical discussion.

Maybe if we consider another form of game play.

One of the things I see people complain about are market bots. People screech about how they'll reset their prices in Jita and almost instantly they are undercut. They conclude (probably errorneously--I can explain this part if you like, but I'll leave it out for now) that only a bot could respond so fast.

So lets suppose CCP listens to their customers* And they introduce a captcha for trading. Problem is now they have nerfed everyone's game play who is a trader to get at those few bots. Traders would be pissed, especially if the bots adapt and carry on just as before.

The generalized concept here is that if you have N players using some aspect of the game and M < N (say M is = 0.1N) that are using it in an "annoying" way. Nerfing the game play for N players is instead of just M is bad because now you **** of not just M player, but N players. If you had pissed of M players and 25% of them quit...well maybe not so bad. Maybe even a good thing in that these guys were just doing this to annoy others. But if you lose 25% of N...now that is bad because most of those players quitting did nothing to annoy others. In fact, they were generating content.

Virtually EVERY suggestion to nerf cloaks falls into this category. Virtually EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I should now because, well go look here. I have probably read more AFK cloaking proposals than even ISD (I think in the later years they just locked them and didn't read them much). And don't foreget to click on the "continued link" at the bottom of that page to see the additional proposals I found.

So lets do this....

Divided cloak users into 2 categories:

AFK cloakers: These players use cloaks but periodically AFK cloak.

Non-AFK cloakers: These players use cloaks but do not AFK cloak (or if they do it is for Bio breaks, answer the phone, wait out a hostile camp--i.e. they are not trying to suppress game play).

Now along comes Jerghul, who in his infinite wisdom, decrees...no cloaking unless once every X amount of time you click to stop your cloak from failing (and as an aside I'll add that there is [insert colorful languag here] all about this in the lore...for those who care). Now he has nerfed the game play for the Non-AFK cloakers. I'm going to hazard a guess here, but I'm guessing the first group is rather small compared to the second group.

Now Jerghul has also accused me of essentially wanting to kill the game. But I don't want to nerf anybody's game.

I want NS ratters and mission runners to be able to do their thing.
I want NS roaming gangs and solo guys to have things to shoot at.
I want NS miners to be able to mine.
I'd like more people in NS, and be there by choice vs. by necessity.

Xcom...you are on the wrong side of this debate....and after all these years of playing the game.

*WalMart listened to their customers once.
Quote:

In 2009, Walmart surveyed customers in an effort to improve the customer shopping experience. The survey data was used to create the company's Project Impact, a plan that overhauled Walmart's approach to displaying inventory on the sales floor. The program included the removal of 15 percent of the store's inventory from the floor. As a result, the retail giant eliminated the use of pallets that blocked the aisles, decreased the merchandise stocked on the aisle end caps, and shortened shelf height. The Outcome? Customer satisfaction rose while sales plummeted to the sound of $1.85 billion.

Yet every single change, nerf, buff and additional content added to the game do just that, impact the N group. Its kinda pointless stating this in the "Player Features and Ideas Discussion" part of the forums. This mindset would be thrown out the window the second you disliked a feature too.
Jerghul
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5245 - 2016-01-10 11:19:56 UTC
Maria
Teckos mentioned how many pilots he managed a number of hundred thread posts ago.

Teckos
You are again restating that the finite resource is real life time.

You moved the goal posts in your second to last post (which is a strawman arguments). The infinite account, but for time is an equilibrium equation. So 1 plex per account, not 3. I also always assume the first account is a paid subscription.

Afk cloaky camping is established multiple account entitlement.

Bravo Sierra is a masked profanity.

Blocked list: Teckos, Sonya, Wander, Baltec1
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#5246 - 2016-01-10 11:22:57 UTC
Xcom wrote:
This mindset would be thrown out the window the second you disliked a feature too.


This is a very funny sentence.

See, because carebears are utterly incapable of intellectual honesty, they also assume that everyone else is as well. They cannot actually understand a non-hypocritical position.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#5247 - 2016-01-10 16:14:45 UTC
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:
Xcom wrote:
This mindset would be thrown out the window the second you disliked a feature too.


This is a very funny sentence.

See, because carebears are utterly incapable of intellectual honesty, they also assume that everyone else is as well. They cannot actually understand a non-hypocritical position.




very rich. You love lieing, scamming, and dishonesty of all sorts. You troll and lie for entertainment, and accusing anyone else of dishonesty is itself a trolling lie on your part.

You win EVE. good boy.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5248 - 2016-01-10 18:29:42 UTC
Xcom wrote:

Yet every single change, nerf, buff and additional content added to the game do just that, impact the N group. Its kinda pointless stating this in the "Player Features and Ideas Discussion" part of the forums. This mindset would be thrown out the window the second you disliked a feature too.


Yes, which is why you have to look at the larger effects on the game and make changes that are beneficial (at least that is the intent/goal). Making a change to serve just a subset of players is bad game design. Have you heard of Malcanis' Law?

Quote:
"Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of 'new players', that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players."


Well, he generalized it.

Quote:
"Any change that is made to privilege a specific group in an open, classless game will invariably be to the greater benefit of older, richer, more experienced players"


This is what we have here. If you nerf AFK cloaking, older, richer, more experienced players will benefit disproportionately. Those that rat, will be able to do so more frequently. The extra money coming into the game economy will likely flow more into their wallets than new players because the vets play a bigger role in just about every market in the game simply due to their age and their wealth.

The conclusion of Malcanis' article is simple and elegant,

Quote:
Don't try and make EVE "better for new players"; just try to make the game better for everyone and the new players (or miners, or solo PvP, or small alliances, or hi-sec CSM voters) will benefit just fine.


It is pretty hard to argue with. Just make the game better and all players will be made better (or no worse off).

So when it comes to cloaking and intel...the discussion should be how to make the game better in general.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5249 - 2016-01-10 18:45:08 UTC
Jerghul wrote:
Maria
Teckos mentioned how many pilots he managed a number of hundred thread posts ago.

Teckos
You are again restating that the finite resource is real life time.

You moved the goal posts in your second to last post (which is a strawman arguments). The infinite account, but for time is an equilibrium equation. So 1 plex per account, not 3. I also always assume the first account is a paid subscription.

Afk cloaky camping is established multiple account entitlement.

Bravo Sierra is a masked profanity.


Jerghul,

I have never said time is not something that faces the same issue of trade offs. In fact, in threads bemoaning the high price of PLEX I have argued that opportunity cost says if people find it too challenging to grind for a PLEX then pay with RL money.

However, here it is not that time is the constraint that is imposing opportunity costs. The primary factor is the location of the camping alt in game. Since he is AFK camping he cannot rat. He cannot change sell orders. He cannot put buy orders. He cannot do PI. He cannot mine. He cannot build things. He cannot invent things.* He cannot haul things. It is not time....it is location. He is far from his home turf where he can be productive. So when I choose to send that alt to AFK camp...I incur a cost, the lost income stream of having that character being totally unproductive. This latter issue is probably why AFK cloaking is not that common IMO. I really think this whole issue is a very, very, very vocal minority.

And I never made an infinite account claim, I merely generalized it to the case of N accounts. N is an arbitrary finite number.

So, to recapitulate,

With multiple accounts it is indisputable that there is an opportunity cost to having a pilot AFK camping.

With a single account with multiple characters there is an opportunity cost.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Jerghul
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5250 - 2016-01-10 18:49:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Jerghul
Teckos
You fail to appreciate that afk cloaky camping is free for optimizing players, and that afk cloaky camping predominantly targets newer players that rely on ratting and mining to fund their peak time pvp activity.

For established players, isk revenue per active account is easily higher than the plex the account costs. Isk revenue scales infinitely for an individual player on Tranquility. It is capped only by real life time. Afk cloaky camping is something to do with excess pilots once time is insufficient to manage all pilots actively.

Which is why afk cloaky camping is an established multiple account entitlement.

Afk cloaky camping is a bad game practice that should be ended without compensation.

Just ended. Snap of fingers. Gone.

Blocked list: Teckos, Sonya, Wander, Baltec1
Xcom
US Space Force
Black Rose.
#5251 - 2016-01-10 20:47:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Xcom
Teckos Pech wrote:
It is pretty hard to argue with. Just make the game better and all players will be made better (or no worse off).

So when it comes to cloaking and intel...the discussion should be how to make the game better in general.

Simply put, everyone here is trying to make the game better. The difference of ideology either for or against change is what differs.

I think the game will become better for everyone if cloaking were to be made less unbalanced. The side effects of such change will be negligible such as the influx of nullsec farming. Some individuals will be impacted more or less, for better or worse, but in the end the game will become a better more balanced sandbox. Note that this is my opinion and your thoughts on the matter might differ.

No one here is an expert on game design. Have any credentials or proof, statistical data or anything other then pure speculation. Claiming someone wrong in this thread is a mighty huge claim brought out of massive hubris that your opinions somehow hold more merit. Because anything posted by anyone here is no more then just opinions as nothing can be backed by any data.
Maria Dragoon
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#5252 - 2016-01-10 22:04:19 UTC
Xcom wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
It is pretty hard to argue with. Just make the game better and all players will be made better (or no worse off).

So when it comes to cloaking and intel...the discussion should be how to make the game better in general.

Simply put, everyone here is trying to make the game better. The difference of ideology either for or against change is what differs.

I think the game will become better for everyone if cloaking were to be made less unbalanced. The side effects of such change will be negligible such as the influx of nullsec farming. Some individuals will be impacted more or less, for better or worse, but in the end the game will become a better more balanced sandbox. Note that this is my opinion and your thoughts on the matter might differ.

No one here is an expert on game design. Have any credentials or proof, statistical data or anything other then pure speculation. Claiming someone wrong in this thread is a mighty huge claim brought out of massive hubris that your opinions somehow hold more merit. Because anything posted by anyone here is no more then just opinions as nothing can be backed by any data.


"I think the game will become better for everyone if cloaking were to be made less unbalanced." Cloaking is perhaps the most balanced mechanic in eve online to date, this is perhaps it has recieved so little change regardless of the number of threads cropping up demanding that cloaking be nerfed. An in any case, when you change the balance of something, you must make sure that both sides of the equation are properly adjusted, or things will break. It bad game design to not take this into account.

"No one here is an expert on game design. Have any credentials or proof, statistical data or anything other then pure speculation. Claiming someone wrong in this thread is a mighty huge claim brought out of massive hubris that your opinions somehow hold more merit. Because anything posted by anyone here is no more then just opinions as nothing can be backed by any data"

Do you need me to start posting killboard records on how cloaking ships die all the time, and in fact are not the invincible ships that you and a few others claim they are? That proof, as for other data, making up data is a bad practice to tolerate, and calling people out on making up bad or false data does not bring any hubris upon's one own opinion. It one thing to have opinion, it a total another thing to try and back up that opinion with data that you pulled out of thin air, and is in fact non-existent or false.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

"A man who talks to people who aren't real is crazy. A man who talks to people who aren't real and writes down what they say is an author."
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5253 - 2016-01-10 23:32:15 UTC
Jerghul wrote:
Teckos
You fail to appreciate that afk cloaky camping is free for optimizing players, and that afk cloaky camping predominantly targets newer players that rely on ratting and mining to fund their peak time pvp activity.

For established players, isk revenue per active account is easily higher than the plex the account costs. Isk revenue scales infinitely for an individual player on Tranquility. It is capped only by real life time. Afk cloaky camping is something to do with excess pilots once time is insufficient to manage all pilots actively.

Which is why afk cloaky camping is an established multiple account entitlement.

Afk cloaky camping is a bad game practice that should be ended without compensation.

Just ended. Snap of fingers. Gone.



It is not free. What does AFK cloaking get in the way of ore, minerals, modules, ISK or any other in game resource? Answer: nothing. Could that character be used to acquire such resources? Yes. Those forgone resources are the opportunity cost.

Your argument that I don't have any time to use him for certain things is invalid. People have played with quite a few accounts. I have ratted on 2 accounts at the same time, using 3 accounts at the same time is not a problem. Doing PI on several of my accounts does not take much time beyond the initial set up (which is a sunk cost and thus irrelevant). Station trading is not going to eat up vast swaths of your time unless you are going to sit and monitor your orders and 0.01 all damn day. Invention is also can be done fairly quickly as well. I can usually deliver all the jobs and install 20 more in less than 10 minutes/character.

And even if this were true there is still yet another form of opportunity cost. I am taking time to train a character that will be completely and totally unproductive. Time I could have used training characters who are productive.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5254 - 2016-01-10 23:42:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Xcom wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
It is pretty hard to argue with. Just make the game better and all players will be made better (or no worse off).

So when it comes to cloaking and intel...the discussion should be how to make the game better in general.

Simply put, everyone here is trying to make the game better. The difference of ideology either for or against change is what differs.

I think the game will become better for everyone if cloaking were to be made less unbalanced. The side effects of such change will be negligible such as the influx of nullsec farming. Some individuals will be impacted more or less, for better or worse, but in the end the game will become a better more balanced sandbox. Note that this is my opinion and your thoughts on the matter might differ.

No one here is an expert on game design. Have any credentials or proof, statistical data or anything other then pure speculation. Claiming someone wrong in this thread is a mighty huge claim brought out of massive hubris that your opinions somehow hold more merit. Because anything posted by anyone here is no more then just opinions as nothing can be backed by any data.


No Xcom, if you think I am opposed to change you have run off the rails right there. Further discussion is not possible till you get back on the rails.

And cloaks are very well balanced. Cloaked ships are safe while cloaked....and ships are safe from cloaked ships while cloaked ships are cloaked. When the cloak is turned off, then they can each attack each other. Seems pretty balanced.

Wanting to shoot a ship that cannot shoot back...that is not balanced.

Yes, you cannot "force" a fight on a cloaked ship very often, but at the same time ships that can fit a cloak effectively (i.e. force recons, stealth bombers, etc.) are not robust combat ships. Their primary advantage is stealth and their role is a support role. So their stealth is counter-balanced by lowered combat ability.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Mike Voidstar
Voidstar Free Flight Foundation
#5255 - 2016-01-11 01:47:05 UTC
Lack of action from the Devs on cloaks isn't evidence that they are balanced.

They freely admit the issues, and give them a pass because they consider the impact on the prey professions to be more important than balance.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5256 - 2016-01-11 02:44:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Mike Voidstar wrote:
Lack of action from the Devs on cloaks isn't evidence that they are balanced.

They freely admit the issues, and give them a pass because they consider the impact on the prey professions to be more important than balance.


Yes it is. It may not be conclusive evidence, but it is evidence that cloaks are in their view balanced or close to it. Throw in local and it may be a different question/answer. I think that is balanced too, but could be better.

Let me give an example that is not on topic that can hopefully show how this is at least weak evidence in favor of the hypothesis that cloaks are balanced.

In physics/philosophy there is a concept known as the weak anthropic principle. The basic gist, for those who do not follow links, is that the universe's various aspects are conducive to intelligent life. Some creationists have argued that this principle is evidence that the universe was "designed" by an intelligent being (yes, Intelligent Design). However, that is precisely wrong. To see why you'd consider the opposite case: a universe where its basice aspects are hostile to intelligent life, yet intelligent life exists anyways. This kind of a result screams for an intellient being creating life in this universe because there is no other way for life to arise. Or to put it differently, yet again, a universe that is conducive to intelligent life and has intelligent life is not...shocking.

We have a similar situation here. That Devs have not touched cloaks in nearly a decade, and even with suggested upcoming changes they still wont be touching cloaks (directly at least) is evidence that the Devs consider cloaks reasonably well balanced. They have had many, many chances to "adjust" cloaks and each and every time they have passed it up. It is not 100% conclusive evidence, but it is evidence none-the-less. To argue otherwise is simply not rational.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Xcom
US Space Force
Black Rose.
#5257 - 2016-01-11 07:19:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Xcom
Yet however balanced cloaked ships are ones they drop there cloak. They are overwhelmingly unbalanced before they do as described on post #5220. Less combat ability doesn't make up for the extreme advantage choice of engagement brings. Its easy to think of cloaked ships balanced when you ignore said part of the equation.

@ Maria Dragoon If you really do have actual evidence to back your claims you should lead with it. I don't think its that easy proving any claims put forth in this thread.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5258 - 2016-01-11 08:18:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Xcom wrote:
Yet however balanced cloaked ships are ones they drop there cloak. They are overwhelmingly unbalanced before they do as described on post #5220. Less combat ability doesn't make up for the extreme advantage choice of engagement brings. Its easy to think of cloaked ships balanced when you ignore said part of the equation.

@ Maria Dragoon If you really do have actual evidence to back your claims you should lead with it. I don't think its that easy proving any claims put forth in this thread.


That post is a load of Bravo Sierra. AFK ships never gather any intel. And an active cloaking ship to gather intel is completely legitimate. If anything you should welcome the changes to local and the OA since it will make gathering intel very different and much different than it is now.

Please list the benefits of AFK cloaking.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Xcom
US Space Force
Black Rose.
#5259 - 2016-01-11 08:26:30 UTC
The AFK part of the cloaking is the product of broken mechanics. Cloaking itself needs a proper counter so going AFK wouldn't be possible.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#5260 - 2016-01-11 08:29:35 UTC
Xcom wrote:
The AFK part of the cloaking is the product of broken mechanics. Cloaking itself needs a proper counter so going AFK wouldn't be possible.


AFK cloaking is only viable because of local...no local, no AFK cloaking.

Revamping how intel works in the game can address AFK cloaking an other issues.

Focusing on just cloaks is wrong.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online