Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You went right off the rails in your first sentence. I do not AFK cloak (exceptions being if I have a cloak and need to go to the bathroom, get food, etc. but that is not what is being discussed here).

Edit:

I like how you tacitly admit that local is indeed part of the problem.

And knock it off with the cyno nerfing. Cynos have already been nerfed. They are nowhere near the threat they used to be.

Cynos have already been nerfed. You have not made a case for additional nerfs to cynos.

As for your ewar limitations, cloaking ships are often specialized in using e-war. No. Stop nerfing everything and just learn how to play the game better.

It's been longer than a year, and it's still the same couple of dogmatic trolls shouting down an endless parade of people observing the problem and coming here to suggest changes.

There is no way forward until a paradigm shift happens within CCP itself that acknowledges a play style other than direct predatory PvP as legitimate gameplay. Everything thing else is just bait and switch to provide 'content' for predators, and supported as minimally as possible.

Until that time it's working as intended because one group deserves to benefit from their efforts and one group does not, despite the reletive amount of work on either side being grossly uneven. The very foundation of EVE is warped to make it ok to be totally safe while cloaked, even as steps are taken to make even the NPC stations potentially destructible.

I do nearly nothing but PvE, and see no problems. More often than not I'm doing it solo in hostile LS/WH space too. If you don't like the idea that you're always a target when PvE-ing, you're in the wrong game. That's part of the fun.

Also the irony of you calling someone a dogmatic troll isn't lost on me.

EXACTLY.
Give us the means to hunt those who are hiding , and build a bigger 'PVP Circle of Life' .

If you want to be safe and insulated inside your own world and wander of to RL for hours on end.......... DOCK !

You want to leave your ship in space in a hostile environment, cloaked up for hours on end whilst you don't maintain a watch on it? AND you expect this to be fair, whilst all others ARE reacting to you in system? then you should be in danger of being discovered and routed out.

Eve is a lot of things but safe it definitely isn't. And unless you can give me a cast iron argument to how sitting AFK, cloaked up, is balanced and fair when even docking and un docking is potentially hazardous then this will always be an issue.

NO I don't want to see cloaks nerfed, No I don't want a red carpet directly up to the cloaked ship but I do want to be able to put actual time and effort into hunting a cloaked ship and if they're willing to leave their ship and go AFK then fine, give me an exceptionally easy kill. If however they're sat there waiting for me to appear and I go pop then well I should be more careful.

I don't want the scan/probe/array to tell me what they're flying, possibly give me a hint to it's size but not an exact 'this is their ship type, this is their fitting, this is their precise location..........
BUT
I would like..
Scan......... the ship is roughly here......re calibrate/re-position, Scan........ it's there ish........re position/re-calibrate......scan, there's definitely a ship here..........somewhere........ now i've a rough area to search. Now I have to go there and look and sweep and search.
By all means give the claoked ships warnings that there's a scan going on, and when I pop up on the probe scanner with a possible big Green bubble saying 'I'M HERE AND I'M LOOKING FOR YOU!!!' then they know that they're not safe and if they're hunting and scouting or about to pop my nosey ship then they're active.

If they're AFK well.......... time to get a very easy kill.

I'll also add that no method of engaging a cloaked ship should be introduced until there is a method to reduce the OP nature of local. Either reduce its information content or even remove it entirely.

Yeah, when I get that button that undocks you from station while you are AFK you might have a point.

See... There you go again, falsely conflating core game elements and the function of a simple module. If it's not local it's stations. Both things exist for good and necessary reasons, while cloaks are just supposed to allow for stealth tactics among many other possible and viable tactics. It is in fact possible to allow a stealth option without granting it 100% efficacy for all time.

I will knock it off with 'utter impunity' the day someone pushes the cloak button while sitting 100k away from the next nearest object and still feels a need to watch for hunting hostiles in system. The targets you want to hunt can't ignore hunting hostiles even when off grid entirely.

If the same logic were applied to everyone, just shutting off all weapons and tank would opt the ship out of non-consensual PvP. You could turn them back on any moment you like, but shutting them off and reducing speed to half just automatically means you no longer have to do anything at all to protect yourself no matter how many hunting hostiles are in system with you.

No Mike. Being in a station is very much like being in system and cloaked. You can’t tell if I am AFK. In fact, the methods I have suggested for determining “AFKness” are far, far less effective for a person docked. A person docked could be doing all sorts of stuff. For example, invention, taking care of market orders, putting up corp/alliance contracts for doctrine ships, etc. He could be doing something Important™ and there is no way to tell if he is AFK or not at least compared to a guy who is cloaked in space.

Second, having a guy docked in system with you, in LS or NS, could be worse. While a guy who is cloaked in system the number of ships he could be in and still be combat effective is limited. Yes, it could be a velator, but lets stick to the most likely suspects here (force recon, tier III cruiser, sisters ship, covert ops, stealth bomber). All can light a cyno or covert cyno and expect to live for at least some reasonable amount of time—i.e. long enough for the hostiles to come through and kill you…if they have a cyno. If not, these ships can still be a threat on their own. But a guy docked…now he could literally be in anything from a capital down to his pod. The threat evaluation becomes that much more difficult. And he is just as safe as if were cloaked at a safe. He can also undock and dscan and then redock (assuming docking rights). So if I were living in NPC null I’d view that guy in station as much and possibly more of a threat than a guy cloaked in system.

Further, modules are a core game element. The fact that different ships can fit different modules and that hulls give different bonuses to different modules creates a varied ship fitting system. Does that guy in the Arazu have a scram and a disruptor? How about damps? Covert or regular cyno? What kind of guns and drones? And ships fitting cloaks have been a core part of the game for a long time. They allow for players to evade gate camps, and cause havoc deep in enemy space. So this includes cloaks. Without cloaks the game would be too safe. Local would provide sufficient warning that only those who screw up get caught. Hell that is true now, but at least with a cloak you can try to create an environment where somebody becomes complacent.

Can the cloaking-local mechanics be made better? I think so, but you cannot change one while leaving the other. The current system is lousy, but balanced. Changing just cloaks will make an unbalanced situation. Such a change would greatly favor the ratter/PvE style of play. If you want the ability to hunt a cloaked ship, then it is not unreasonable that if you are simply going to dock when a hostile comes in that that hostile can at least make your life a bit more complicated/uncomfortable for your lack of response. Name taking your intel systems offline and/or subverting them. You should not have an un-assailable fortress you can retreat too as soon as you feel threatened and stay there until you feel you are safe. That is antithetical to the very core concept of this game. So you can get down off your “core concept” high horse because you only get on it selectively…when it suits your and your style of game play.

And your “utter impunity” is simply not based on anything even remotely factual. It is just you being dishonest. We all know cloaking ships are vulnerable near gates and structures. If you fail to engage and stop them at a gate or a structure, then yes, they are near impossible to engage so long as they stay at a safe. Similarly with your “100% efficacy for all time”. That is just simply Bravo Sierra. Cloaking ships die every day. If they have “100% efficacy for all time” please explain this.

You are so wrong and one sided on this it's really, really insane.

First- There is a lot more to keeping local clear than just logging in first. Feel free to try it on a useful and regular basis in high sec and let me know how that goes. For that matter try it in lowsec on a popular pipe.

Second- You keep dragging this back to ratting and null as if cloaks somehow work different there than anywhere else. They don't. They get used offensively there more due to conditions, but the issue of being too safe is everywhere regardless of intent or location. I will happily trade you an invulnerable, immobile force field that disallows scanning, probing and a view of the grid which can be scanned, monitored and camped for the ability to make cloaks scannable and huntable. I will even let it repair all 3 hit bars at a slow rate and grant regional access to the market with interbus shipping if further than 5 jumps from the nearest accessible station, and a 30 second invulnerability to ewar upon shutdown. Now you got your portable station... But you will still insist it's not safe enough.

Third- ships with cloaks die. So what? There is still no way to compel a cloaked ship to put itself at risk. Stations have good and valid reasons for providing their static, conditional safety. Cloaks do not have those same reasons, and are safer, more flexible, and useful while effectively hunting. Stations and cloaks are in no way equal. That they have comparative safety is ridiculous. That stations lose in any way by comparison is just bad game design.

Fourth- cloaks are eternal, for any practical purpose. I am sorry this screws up your narrative of paper thin conditional effect... But it's just not true. The conditions that break a cloak are well known and completely under the pilots control. There is no danger to a cloaked ship that the pilot does not choose to risk. There is no action that can be brought against a ship cloaked in space that the pilot does not choose to engage. By every measure cloaked ships do not meet any standards for risking non-consensual PvP. This is why it is possible to engage a cloak with 100 active hunters in system and go AFK for the rest of the day in safety. People interested in reason will see this as bonkers. You will no doubt hand wave it away because some idiot flew into a camp of smartbombs with a cloak fit to their ship.