Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Depends on a number of factors, can be easy, can be impossible. But tell me, did you spend most of those two days AFK cloaked in that little bomber of yours while playing other games or doing something else?

Some people can kill stuff without having to use boredom to grind people down...

Well instead of testing myself against players I worked out that I was testing myself against **** poor mechanics and lazy useless players, so where is the fun in that for someone who wants to test himself against people with something about them. AFK cloaky camping is just the fallback position of losers.

AFK cloaky camping is a strategy used by lazy losers.

Your argument is solely that local is too difficult for you poor little lambs which forces you to AFK cloaky camp while you play World of Tanks while waiting for someone to take a bet that you are off line, elite Eve play my ass, really it is as stark as that, there is no challenge for a player to play against other players here, it is just a rubbish experience. And trying to divert attention away from your own personal failures is typical.

Seriously. Dracvlad, you've loudly announced you have given up on this game and are quitting, so why are you wasting your energies on battling people on the internet about a video game you will soon, or already are not playing? Don't get me wrong, it's your subscription and if you want to spend the remainder of it wrangling over changes to a game you will not be around to see, be my guest, but perhaps there is something more constructive and directly useful to you personally that you could spend your time.

Might I suggest spending that time on finding a new game or other pass time to start exploring when you subscription ends? Or if you know what you are going to do with your free time next, you can make your presence felt on their discussion boards. AFK cloaking in Eve is a minor issue, one CCP will eventually get around to addressing but not for a while yet. It is not worth 343 pages of moaning, or the constant salty bickering you have been engaging in over it for days on end.

No one is a "loser" for playing the game by the rules. Maybe those rules could be improved, but there is a reason why things are the way they are and why CCP hasn't moved on this issue in years. They have said they will though, possibly with these upcoming Observatory Arrays, and that should be enough to let it lie for now.

Go and find yourself a new passion you are excited about. There is a whole wide world out there of things to spend your leisure time on other than a video game you are done with.

I am writing a book, well three actually, one is at 480 pages, another at 170 pages and another at 130 pages, when I get writers block I check out this thread. I have another game which is Star Citizen, though I cannot be bothered with the beta stuff.

As my parting shot I am taking aim at something which is very destructive in terms of player retention, as I have said in other threads that currently ganking of mining ships is in a good place, because people have options to use a lower yield tanky ship and that was important in terms of giving players something that works for them.

War decs, the mechanics are pretty good, need some adjustments which I have gone over, but the issue is how things have developed with the player base in hisec and the loss of prey players, hisec is not in a good position.

Eve needs active players, AFK cloaky camping is not helpful in terms of activity, less cloaky camping would see more people doing stuff, creating more targets for roams and more people willing to fight. One thing I saw quite often was people log on, see camping say damn this then log off, or log on a mission or incursion alt because no one else was active. And I kept seeing it. I have got people to go out in groups and all that, but it is very dependent in terms of who is on and able to be active.

The problem is that I studied a group of players that were camping me, I got into their group and funny enough still have contact with them, none of them are currently active ion Eve, I saw what they did:

1. Account share
2. Play other games with a screen logged on with all their camping alts which they checked every so often
3. They were all very wealthy ingame with massive ISK and asset reserves
4. They only dropped when there was no risk, I was set up to kill them and one spotted one of my guys who logged on by accident and that was itm no drop.
5. Their objective was to get perfect execution style BLOP's drops

I did enjoy doing these drops a few times, but it is not a white knuckle fight that really gets you, like me and my mates going out with 3 BC's and 2 cruisers killing a Tempest Fleet Issue and Gila and I was the only one left alive with a sliver of structure in a drake, its nothing like that. It is just so flat.

This game has so much going for it, but it is players like that which have ruined it. I am keeping an eye on the game, I hope it will turn around enough to be worth coming back to, but I currently doubt it.

This issue defines for me whether Eve will die or not, because if CCP are serious about activity this will be one area they would take care of, that they do not speaks volumes to their lack of awareness in my opinion of course. I know that they will use an OS for local going forward, which is a good thing, and I have heard them say that they will do something, but saying and doing is another matter.

You are one of the people on the other side so to speak who I have a lot of respect for, I wish you well.

Players haven't ruined anything here. Local is give and take. Right now it's symmetrically broken - attackers and defenders both have perfect intel. If one of those conditions were not true, then it would be asymmetrically broken, but as of right now, its gives as much as it takes. Players rather have found an emergent solution to perfect intel.

Okay, here is the thing, if most people who are cloaky camping are EU TZ, then it is quite possible that other TZ's can safely ignore such activities (relatively speaking). If you are US TZ there is a good chance you can log in and do stuff like ratting when the EU TZ guys who are cloaky camping are in bed and/or at work. I am Pacific TZ so when we had a cloaky camper in Cloud Ring that is exactly what I did. His corp was heavily German (I did a bit of intel gathering to figure this out). I looked at the time I'd log in and want to do some ratting and he was there in system...and I'd conclude that at 6 AM on Wednesday it was higly unlikely he was at his PC. Yes he could take the day off, yes he might work nights, or some such, but hey....its a risk and I was willing to take it. Never saw any action other than rats dying and then getting the occasional escalation.

But if you see somebody in local day-after-day, and do nothing about it....like find out what TZ they tend to be active in. Trying to bait them to see when they are ATK (and by baiting I mean literally feeding them a free kill, and don't be dumb, act like you are trying to avoid being killed...well mostly), fleeting up when ratting, dropping down to a cheaper fit, running anoms in PvP fit ships in a group, etc....well...you must not want that space.

These are all ways to change and uncertainty into risk. And risk can be managed.

Now this does not mean that it can't be improved...

But I don't think going from one binary system to a different binary system is the way to go. Something that is going to muddy the waters, so to speak.

Right, change the calculus. Those being camped do have options. Maybe you don't feel they are the best options, but you do have options and if you truculently insist on not exercising them and logging off....well, that is a choice that person made, not the cloaky camper.

And I seriously do not believe that an AFK flag will result in more targets, more ships in space. I have a feeling that people will be back arguing that the AFK flag is not sufficient. That the next evolution to cloaky camping as a result of this change will not have the intended results.

For example, you warp to an anomaly at range and burn off all while cloaked. Then you go AFK till you get the AFK flag and then you come back every now and then and see if somebody is in the anomaly. When it finally happens you warp into the anomaly and lock, scram, light cyno and one dead ratter.

After this happens enough, a butthurt ratter comes to the forums and whines. More come and we are back to where we started and even when there is an AFK flag, people still dock up and the Bads™ still loggoff.