Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You are seriously saying that warping into an anomaly in a ship designed to handle that anomaly carries exactly the same risk as the hunter warping in in a ship not so designed?

Oh, and lets not forget that if the hunter uses e-war of any kind on the ratter, the rats will generally start shooting the hunter as well.

Teckos... sometimes you are engaging to discuss things with, and sometimes you are just hammering away at the same tired, debunked, and fatally flawed drivel that has plagued this discussion since before this thread was a thing.

One side has to remain awake, aware, and on point at all times, the other is so safe they can AFK for the next unlimited hours. This argument holds water only if that can be true on both sides--- and since no one in space except someone under a cloak can remain completely secure enough to go afk, it's not true on both sides. This argument is invalid because the cloaker has no obligation to do anything but sit there as long as he likes, indefinitely. The discussion isn't about ratter safety, it's about cloaker safety.




The cloaker cannot directly shoot. This argument fails both because there are more ways to inflict damage than with bullets, and because it's not about how safe the ratter is. It's about how safe the cloaker is. No one else is so safe they can AFK for hours, and it's not appropriate that the cloaker be that safe in the face of hunting hostiles while you are in space. Cloaker does not even have to be at a safe. He could be on grid and you still can't realistically break his cloak unless you saw where he was when he activates it and he sits still--- say for instance if he was spying on a POS or monitoring a station for a certain target.


Except in this proposal, you can DScan first, and everyone has to use probes. Those probes might be a hostile, or they might be friendlies checking on the system, or an explorer, or anyone, really. It's a massive buff to stealth when stealth is already incredibly OP by any objective standard.

I'm still waiting for a description of these 'decloaking skills' that work in any situation where the cloaking pilot has not first broken his own safety. Just because some idiot flies into some smartbombs, or doesn't know about warping to any distance but zero does not make cloaks somehow weak or vulnerable. Everyone risks the same making blind jumps, so that's not a cloaking thing either, though cloaks do grant a big advantage in mitigating the risk.



When 'safest' is 'utterly immune to all interaction by hostile pilots in system' it is too safe by the core design principals of EVE. I am surprised that anyone that actually participates in Null play would consider detailed intel 'very, very little'. That's the sort of thing that warfare is made out of. But I'm game. If you want to make impotence the standard for safety, then I can look forward to my damage immune shuttles, godlike pods, and un-gankable freighters.

Yes... breaking your own safety can increase your risk. It's not about the risks you choose to take on, but about those risks that are forced upon you by others. Currently there are none of the latter.

It's not a contrived scenario. There are many places in game where debris are either uncommon or just plain not present. Most in fact. Cloaks are all over the game, not just in null anomalies, and they affect many aspects of play, not just null ratting. The more vital the function, the more important it becomes that the function be vulnerable to hostile player disruption, and the more inappropriate the absolute safety of a cloak becomes.

As to the Magically Teleporting Cloaker dealing with debris... You missed the point. Morrigan was referring to the same silly notion you like so much that since a ship with a cloak on it had to come through a gate and therefore experienced its 30 seconds of risk that month that it somehow justifies the safety of that same ship once the cloak is activated and enjoying it's complete invulnerability for an unlimited time. It does have to deal with debris, assuming it's dumb enough to warp to zero on some, and assuming it's even interested in a ratter as you keep assuming. For my part, I assume nothing other than a pilot in space should be vulnerable to other players in some fashion. A cloaked ship does not meet that standard and it does not matter what it's doing or not doing.

Except that this whole thing exists in the first place because certain people feel entitled to him *not* being able to get away. That's either OK, or not OK. Personally I agree it's OK.

However, EVE's core principals are that shooting someone you don't like in space is always an option. Cloaks violate that principal in a way that is too strong. Station Trader isn't in space, station trader don't get shot. Cloaker is in space, shooting him should be an option. It does not have to be the *only* option, but it should be among them.

It would amuse me no end to see you doggedly defend absolute safety like this for any other thing in space.

You really, really need to actually spend time out of HS before you keep talking. The hunter is vulnerable to PvP against him. as soon as he is able to hunt you can shoot him back. You're already in a fleet, you're already on comms, when the fleet arrives, you yell in comms, everyone warps to you and you take out the attacker. Problem solved. No one in a fleet and on comms doing PvE worries about an AFK cloaker. The only people who worry are the ones who want the benefits of null without the dangers that come with it.

Oh wait, you don't want to be in a fleet, you don't want to be on comms. You want to play an MMO solo in the most dangerous parts of the game with 100% safety. Right.

Mike, since it seems like you don't actually play this game, I'll quote you a line from the 'golden rules of EVE'



/thread

Wow. I'm actually torn in which direction to rebut this.

I guess, first, the one that supports me least. Unlike real life, where completely one sided situations occur all the time and very often there really is only one possible outcome to any situation, EVE is a game. Played for fun. If the thing that is fun for you is shooting defenseless ships that won't run away, the game is littered with NPCs. Sometimes they even call for help and complain you are shooting them in local. You know what isn't fun for 99.9% of the human race? Being on the losing side of a rigged game with only one real outcome. The mechanics behind Cloaking aren't fun for anyone but the guy taking a nap under his cloak.

Now, why would that argument support me least? You probably aren't bright enough to ask, but I will tell you anyway...

Second, perhaps it is you who would benefit from re-watching Das Boot. Beyond the surreal quality of watching a movie that makes you cheer Nazi's against their Allied enemies, it shows us a number of things that pertain to this conversation. They were *never* safe in hostile waters. When confronted with hostile hunters they had to *move*. When the situation allowed for them to hide, they could only do so for a *limited time* before running out of air. Even when hidden their location was generally known and Depth Charges were a potential issue.

So using a cloak is *nothing* like Das Boot, at all. If we take any lessons from that movie, it's that perhaps Nullsec could use a few 'freehold' NPC null solar systems with stations sprinkled around, so that those that want to hunt have better access to neutral docks.

Funny thing. This is another of those widely held beliefs of things about EVE that the Devs didn't actually say. This came from a larger post on the old forums. It's pretty good advice for the most part, but not a statement of game design or official CCP policy, despite being maintained on their website.

And really, excellent job digging up the reference *right after* I referred to it too. Skilled research and detective work, to be sure...



I guess to be fair, it was Teckos that pointed it out to me. But then, you would have seen that if you had read the thread instead of making us rehash it for you.

It has come up, though not in light of the comparison to off-grid boosting. Even that carries more risk, as boosters do get scanned and either killed or run off all the time.

It's also worth noting that any other form of afk gameplay suffers from increased risk and loss of efficiency, while camping becomes more effective the longer you continue it.

Mike, I have exactly one character in this game. Sorry if that ruins things for you, but don't hide behind "****, he proved me wrong, so he must be using alts!"

You're a grown adult and use terms like 'adorkable' and 'butthurt'? Wow...

The cloaked ship is not safe when it is attacking. It's only safe when it can literally do nothing to hurt anyone. How the ever living hell can you sit there and say there are no counters to cloaked ships? A cloaked ship is not a threat. What it does after it decloaks is. The counters to that are easy. Get in a fleet and shoot it.

Direct question, how often in null do you see people PvE-ing not in a fleet and not on comms? Give me a specific answer.

EVE is marketed as an open world game with no PvE servers where you CAN be the villain. It's marketed as being harsh and unforgiving. It's not marketed as being warm, fuzzy, and holding your hand as you seem to want.

I'm not focusing on killboards Mike. You've accused me of being a ganker, of lying when I explain I do nearly nothing but PvE. Killboards are the only way I can actually show you that you are completely wrong. Every time I show you that your points are complete BS you resort to going after me instead of the topic and claim I'm lying. That's a nice combination of hilarious and sad, to be honest.

You have yet to point out how cloaks affect anything outside of nullsec, which is very strange given you are never in nullsec. People in systems absolutely die to cloaked ships. Do you know why? Because they don't use the existing counters. I do most of my ratting in a system in null that typically has 30+ people in local. Even when in a standing fleet it often takes people 10 minutes to realize someone hostile is in the system. When someone is attacked, MAYBE 1-2 of those 30 people jump to help. I'm always one of them, but the point is with 30 people in a system, that's a fleet of 30 people that can easily overwhelm an attacker. They just don't want to. That's the root problem here, people wanting the benefit of risky space without wanting to defend it.

Funny thing Mike, Devs never actually said the only place you're 100% safe is docked in station, but you use that all the time. Also nice use of sarcasm when the fact that I pointed out how ridiculous your own argument was went completely over your head....

Mike in this thread right now http://i.imgur.com/N2aj3gf.gif

Killboards are a reflection of what we do in game. When you accuse me of being a ganker and lying about PvE-ing, you would think the proof you can look to would show that.

I don't know who you're talking about, but it apparently is surprising to you that different people have similar opinions? Am I accusing you of being an alt of everyone else in this thread who doesn't like cloaks? AFK cloaking is only relevant in null, so logic would state people who have no experience in nullsec shouldn't talk about them. Your KB suggests (and you have admitted) that you DON'T live in null. That's the relevance of your KB. Now that that's out of the way. Even if you don't subscribe your API key, your KB would reflect your action if you die to someone who does.

Since apparently now making your text bold, capitalized and underlined makes your point less ridiculous, here goes. YES IT DOES MATTER WHAT A SHIP IS DOING OR NOT DOING. Cloaks are a module in the game specifically designed to give a degree of safety in exchange for a high slot as well as in exchange for the inability to kill anyone or earn money. The rest of your second paragraph I'm going to ignore, as reductio ad absurdum isn't a tactic that I can take seriously. Try again.

Your third paragraph is pretty much bullshit, as a throwaway character in a rookie ship can do 95% of those things without a cloak outside of NS. Find a single WH resident who is complaining about cloaks. Please, find just one. NS residents are the only ones who complain about AFK cloaking.

I'm not going to repeat the exiting counters to a cloaked ship. Your insane stubbornness in reading something and then completely ignoring it is starting to make me wonder if you're my father.

And once again sweet pea, (I'm trying you bold caps thing again, since apparently that means we're really serious) IT ABSOLUTELY MATTERS THAT A SHIP CANNOT FIRE ITS GUNS the counter comes to the fleet and the attack that follows, otherwise there's no balance in the game. You do know what balance is, right? Your ideas make PvE-ing 100% risk free 100% of the time.

Your last paragraph is by far the dumbest thing I've read in a long, long time. You're taking one specific point and pushing it to an insane logical extreme. You do realize how insanely stupid that is, don't you? That's like saying "as soon as you realize it's ok to have one drink after work, it's ok to have as many drinks as you can get down your throat!"

It's completely fine for someone to be relatively safe in space when they can't DO anything in the game. It keeps PvE-ers on their toes, it promotes PvP content, it helps solo explorers not be afraid to leave the comfort of friendly stations for extended periods of time. The PvE guy IS safe as long as he wants, as long as he does the proper stuff. Bring a depot, refit to a cloak, warp to your own safe when you feel threatened and hide out until the guy's gone. 100% safe, regardless of if you even have a station/POS/citadel in system to hide in.

Your last paragraph is 100% possible today. You DO realize cloaks can be used defensively as well as offensively, right?

How about we just eliminate local as that is how AFK cloaking works. No local, no AFK cloaking.