Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Afk cloaking is as much playing the game as afk mining, trading, doing pi, moon mining, collecting taxes with a citadel...etc

But if you don't like afk cloaking you can rat in hi-sec.

Why? Is there some method for people in-system to detect who is docked in a station and who isn't? Should you have to be actively doing something in order to stay docked in station all day? Staying docked in a station all day requires zero effort and has much the same effect on hostiles as staying cloaked in space all day does.

It goes both ways. Your perception of what is safe and what isn't is not a result of any broken game mechanics.

Would it not be prudent to create a set of probes that allow you to at least "ballpark" the location of a cloaked camper, then perhaps create a module that acts like a "depth charge" of sorts only instead of damage it creates a bounce back signal of the cloaked ship. Allowing for the "removal" of cloaked campers. Forcing people to actually play the game instead of just lying in wait...Even surface ships were able to eventually find a means of locating and removing a "U-boat" from a heavily used harbor. It only makes sense...and quite frankly would change the way cloaking technology is used in combat... I'm not saying I haven't done this...cause I have...I just think that after so long technology would eventually catch up with the cloaking device. Though this wouldn't change the use of AFK camping a system... there is just now a risk involved in doing so...where there really wasn't any before, even AFK mining has risk.

All it does is make you pay attention to the game...if they find your camped fleet you simply move...it would only really affect cloaked AFK camping...if you're camping and paying attention you'll know its time to find a new spot in system or find a new system all together.

The only reason local isn't perfect is because of afk cloaking like you say. But thats how intel SHOULD be. So you're not nerfing cloaks unless you nerf local.

How do you check the inside of an outpost or citadel you do not have docking rights to?

Stealth simply allows you to do what the people who live there can do. We have a huge amount of info to play with so and AFK player poses very little threat.

This thread is a lightning rod for bad posting about this subject, CCP are unlikely to do anything about it because frankly, there isn't a better way to balance local. Remove local and you will get a shitstorm, nerf cloaks and you wipe out the only counter to local.

Its worked for the last 13 years so its not going away.

Yup. That's it. And while you are at it remove bumping, ganking, and war decs too, they all drive away new players (who rat in carriers, fly freighters, etc.).

There is really only one thing to say, and that is nothing in a game should be so powerful that it cannot die and that is exactly what a cloaked ship in a system is.

After that being said I would not know how to start fixing the problem I gave up reading it all after reaching page 120. And I can already se a lot of good ideas in the thread and I believe if some of the good suggestion was taken out of this thread and discussed then maybe one could be found among them which would satisfy most players.

One thing to be said could be that it is unfair that a cloaked player can scan for you while cloaked and you cannot scan for them.
I believe that to look for something you have to send out some kind of signal, and while a cloaked ship tries to find the other it should be possible to pick up where this signal comes from. That would be a way to say when the cloaker scan for you he is also in danger. profit = danger, what the cloaker is trying to do is find the profit by killing some one. So he should not only be able to be spotted when he light the cyno but before that. I saw some where in this thread that some of the cloakers likes the thrill of hunting, would this not just add to the thrill of them not being invincible until they decloak. And look I did'nt even say that we should be able to detect a cloaker which is afk cause that does not matter that much to me, but if I am clicking something resembling the d-scan I could pick up the signal of the one scanning me down.

And so the hunter might become the hunted some times.

If that was implemented I would almost be willing to give up local cause then I have a chance to escape before he gets to me.

I just don't like give up local with no possible way for me knowing if some one might come for me. Cause this would just almost always just be the secured kill to the cloakers then as they would come in groups. That does not promote large scale pvp in null which is what I like.

And such a ship cannot kill...seems balanced to me.

I know, I know...you'll say, "blah, blah, blah, uncertainty, blah, blah, blah."

My point is that to maintain that degree of safety the cloaked pilot must never, ever, engage. Ever. As soon as he engages he is taking a risk of losing his ship and any ships he may or may not cyno in.



When it comes to AFK cloaking there are almost no good ideas. All "good ideas" usually nerf the game play of ATK cloakers and as such are, IMO, automatically bad. To get at a subset of cloakers you have to nerf all cloakers is...well just bad. It is the same insipid logic elementary teachers used in punishing the entire class due to one malefactor. I despised it then and I despise it now as the solution of the idiot.



Can you at least admit you are not interested in nerfing AFK cloaking but ATK cloaking then and that your problem is not AFK cloaking but just cloaks in general. And that your entire post is actually...off topic. You do know what AFK means, right? Away From Keyboard in case you don't know. Pray tell, how does a player away from keyboard "scan for your"?



Yes, we know players like you do not want to give up the safety of local. Oh, what? You are upset I chopped off the rest of your post and misrepresented your views? How about you be honest and just say, "I don't like cloaking" and then go away.