Player Features and Ideas Discussion

That doesn't change the fact that the player above got something and hurt someone while doing nothing. And to clarify, I know you can't hurt someone directly while AFK. But that is not what the infamous AFK Cloaking™ tactic is about.

You wound me Teckos...

Okay, how's this,

You want to know where AFK has the biggest impact on the game? Bet you can't guess.

Better?

BTW, serious question.

It is however a very big concern for a lot of players. If you can atleast accept that fact then I'm content.

A bit extreme in my opinion, but it tends to be the norm in null-sec.


My guess would be on OGB. If you say local I will beat you!

I've said my peace about this some time ago, so I'll go back to lurking now. And I apologize Sonya, overall I'm not againts you. Its just posts like that frustrates me since they are counterproductive, and devalues the concern that miners in nullsec tend to have about this issue.

I fundamentally believe if you choose to live outside of high sec, you need to act as a team. In my case (WHs) your first warning when not in a fleet/not on comms is to be neuted out and left to sit, second warning is your ship is destroyed, third is your pod.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to not be on comms, not be in a fleet and to play solo. I do it myself. I just have a setup in HS for when I want to do that. Bringing it back to AFK cloaking, if you're in a fleet and on comms, AFK cloaking is NEVER something you worry about.

They got what? That your ADM levels fell? Why did they fall? Or better yet, why did you let them fall?

Goons have retaken some space along with LAWN. You know what they are doing in those systems? Deliberately pumping up ADMs to make retaking those systems harder. They take a system, boost the ADMS to the max, move on to the next.

How do they do it? They run anomalies in fleets. 30, 40, 50 man confessor fleets wiping out anomalies in like 10 minutes/anomaly. They are running mining fleets too. Boost the military and industry ADMs to the max, move on.

What the Hell is wrong with your leadership that they are letting their space be attacked and are not responding? If the AFK cloaker is stopping you guys from keeping ADMs up....well maybe you don't deserve that space.

Let me see, lets dissect your response.

First you are dismissive, then you admit it is true. You also try to down play the point I'm making. See, even if those players are AFK and they cannot adjust their orders, which is true, so what? Those orders are still there and add liquidity to (most of) the markets. Thick, or liquid, markets are a good thing if one wants a stable market. Prices are stable and the quantity is plentiful...i.e. people can buy and sell what they want/have. So these AFK players are having a tremendous impact...and are often making lots of ISK as well. And they risk very little if they diversify.

So the usual complaint about AFK cloaking is:

1. They have an impact on the game while not playing the game. Same with station trading, even more so.
2. They get something. Same with station trading even more so.
3. They face no risk. Same with station trading.

But nobody complains about station trading...probably because that type of AFK is mutually beneficial to the buyer and seller. No player is about to complain they bought a falcon from a player not logged in.

Whereas with AFK cloaking they do not have the mutually beneficial aspect. In fact, it can be considered a negative sum game if it is to try and wear down ADMs, zero sum otherwise.

But there are lots of things in the game zero and negative sum. So, this is not a very compelling reason to get rid of AFK cloaking.

I think AFK cloaking should go because it is boring game play. And I think it should be replaced with something that is interesting. If you want to wear down ADMs it should be via the player actively doing something. And countering it should be via players doing something. Not having the game toss up a flag so everyone can get free intel.

And again, anchoring a structure is free intel. The reason it is free is that it is just a fixed cost. The marginal cost is zero, typically optimal pricing is where the marginal cost = marginal benefit (in a market where goods are traded this would be marginal revenues, but we aren't in such a situation, so we look at marginal benefit). This is an argument you have not really addressed. You claim to have studied economics, so these concepts should not be foreign to you.

One possible solution is to have the structure entail both a fixed and variable cost--i.e. it consumes something. However, balancing things on costs has typically not been very good in this game in terms of balance. For example, the massive jump bridge networks back in the day when coalitions spanned multiple regions and a player in any ship could cross east-to-west or north-to-south on the map in mere minutes. Hence the introduction of jump fatigue which applied to even bridges. Another example is the ubiquity of titans. Initially it was thought that there would be a few titans in game. Instead we have hundreds. The cost aspect is not a significant factor.

This is why I prefer having a player activity element in terms of rooting out AFK cloaking.

BTW, I put in my post no less than two times that I was being sarcastic about having buy/sell orders disappear....seriously, learn to read. It is quite clear that is NOT what I was suggesting.

Edit: And to be quite clear, I do not want to let AFK cloaking continue (except for may a few minutes while players go take a bio, answer the phone, etc.). Other than it will be gone in terms of trying to grind down ADMs or any other strategic use.

The Alinsky rules for radicals should be interesting reading, guilt by association is a good way to discredit people, you added sarc to cover yourself and then suggested an AFK play like that and tried to align my suggestion of an AFK flag was equally stupid, nice play, but pretty obvious to a person like me. Your dismissive reply to the fact that adjusting trade orders is the value of being active shows how hollow that point was, you have to be at the keyboard to react to market changes. I know what you were trying to do.

A structure is not free intel, it costs ISK and if CCP make it so that when it is operational it can be shot gives another conflict driver on something that is valuable. It is not cost related, it is intel that benefits those in system and something that needs to be defended as people will blow them up. So while you look at it in terms of ISK value, I apart from the cost of making it or buying it am looking at the OS as a conflict driver, which needs defending. Your points on economics are for me just diversions from the key issue.

The key factor for me and I keep repeating it, I want to blow them up, when they are asleep, at work or doing something else then I am wasting my time trying to get them to make a move. It is not rewarding play for an active player faced by an inactive one and I have no idea if he is inactive, which has been made even worse with skill injectors. Players could also watch list those that dropped in the area giving themselves some cover.

It is good to see that you want AFK cloaking changed.

I like cloaks how they are, also the logoff mechanics have to be as they are due to that being a way to escape, so I was always looking for something that stopped me from wasting my time, enabled people to get better intel on the threat and finally something that created a point of conflict. All of those were met by my suggestion.

Just to make sure you get it, I can read very well, I realised what you were doing and what the sarc was for, just because you run rings around most posters don't assume that all are idiots, I certainly do not think you are an idiot, in fact you are very smart, I don't claim to be smarter or anything like that, just that the point always was how can I as an active player get to them when they are AFK. and why should I as an active player be penalised by one AFK.

The true problem of AFK cloack is the use of this by some player: Avoid other player play, and make MORAL HARASSEMENT.

So you need to have one viable counter.

But it really isn't a big deal. AFK cloaking is really only done in sov null, and the only people who complain about it are those who don't watch intel, aren't in fleets and aren't on comms. A multi-billion ISK kill of a BLOPS is something anyone would like to get, and anyone in a response/home defense fleet gets that kill if they get dropped.

I dislike this thread simply because it's not "cloaking vs not cloaking", it's "easy mode null vs having to work as a team"

What..., I have been cloaky camped in NPC 0.0 too and most BLOP's drops I saw was when the droppers had absolutely no chance of getting caught. The lazy person is the AFK cloaky camper, one I saw in Stain was a top killer for a Russian alliance, he would come in with his cloaky Legion and hope I was stupid to think he was AFK, so I would wait 20 minutes, then I would go next door, an hour later he came into that system. Rinse and repeat, that lazy idiot camped me for three weeks, I had all his BLOP's watch listed. I setup a trap for him when he had a lower number of BLOP's logged on and baited him and he decided not to risk it, go figure...

You have observations, I have observations, there you go...