Player Features and Ideas Discussion

phew, long thread this one.

So, whats this about anyway really? I mean, REALLY?

Arguments like "AFK cloaking shouldn't be 100% safe" in my mind translate to "Someone is cloaked in "my" nullsec system and I cant be 100% safe".

Arguing that nothing should be 100% safe, referring to cloaks, with the ulterior motive of you being 100% safe in nullsec is faulty logic and does not compute.

I understand that someone can actually afk-cloak troll a nullsec system for as long as they wish, making residents nervous. This is kinda problematic in my opinion as well, but, well, get used to it. As you said yourselves, "nothing should be 100% safe in EvE"

I do not see why an anti-cloaking mechanic should be implemented, hindering many activities (exploration for example) just for the
nullsec miners to feel safer. After all, they still have local to warn them, imagine how wormholers feel, who might get finger-cramps from dscanning every second and still not knowing whats out there.

If someone wants to spend all their playtime being afk-cloaked in a system just to unnerve the locals, they have every right to do so.
Now, there is ofcourse the argument of alt-afk-cloaking, which i find logical, since i am opposed to all multiboxing in general.
I understand it generates revenue for CCP, and we all want CCP to do well, but it damages many aspects of the game which i wont go into in this thread.

Doesn't eve still have like 250k unique accounts?

No need to. CCP sayd it's 250k active unique accounts some time ago, if that's not enough for you, nothing will be.

I notice this change leaves intact the function of local chat, so let's do a quick run-through.

Notice, the risk to PvE shipping is specifically limited to begin with, and nearly non-existent after this set of changes.

Cloaked ship enters large alliance sov null space. Uses cloak to avoid gate camp, and observes some patrolling ships have bubbled the exit gate, and are sitting on it.
After 20 minutes, the patrol ships leave to respond to other items.
**Total time cloaked, 25 minutes**

Move to next system, at the pipeline bottleneck there is another camp, this with anchored bubbles.
Slowboating through takes 10 minutes, and owes it's success more to distracted defenders jumping on someone else trying to get in.
**Total time cloaked, 35 minutes**

Fast burn through pipeline, only seeing one or two other names, also traveling with no interest in encountering a hostile.
Takes another 10 minutes getting through a 5 system chain, and that is fast for these conditions.
**Total time cloaked, 45 minutes**

At this point, the larger ships which could use a cloak are no longer viable, and can be tracked down if they are unable to log out before being spotted.
PvE shipping in the target system never even see the hostile appear in local.
For smaller cloaked ships, the journey is almost over.
One more bubblecamp, leading into an active PvE system with a single gate connection.
(Slowboating takes another 10 minutes, this alliance probably has dedicated teams doing these)
**Total time cloaked, 55 minutes**

Smaller cloaked ship now in target system.
Owing to intel channel, locals are aware that this ship was first spotted entering their alliance's territory almost an hour ago.
They simply dock up, having been more than warned by the name appearing in local.
(They can do math too, and know that the ship needs to exit or log out in about 30 minutes, so a limited loss of activity is a trivial item. Most go get a sandwich, perhaps)

After the last 35 minutes passes, the ship can no longer operate it's cloak, and is forced to either exit or log out.
The PvE players lose only 35 minutes, instead of needing to adapt in order to resume activity.

In the event that entry to this space was wildly easier, no bubblecamps and such, the cloaked player might have a whole additional 20 minutes.... which is rather trivial.

As anyone reading this thread knows. I advocate for changes to how cloak works. Though not a direct change to cloak, I do feel that cloak shouldnt have 100% immunity to aggression once in a system. Interesting example from last night.

Went to deal with an SBU. In system were a couple cloakies just hanging out. Not a big deal, we could deal with them on their own if needed. So we engage on the SBU and get it to about 40 % shields when the on grid sabre decloaks and warps off. This entire time the sabre had been watching us, gaining intel and advising his fleet on what to bring.

Now eventually we were pushed off and it wasnt due to the cloakies. The fleet of ishtars did that, and thats fine. That's the game and I am not complaining about that at all.

In the short term, I see no issue with that happened. Cloak did its job, intel was gained, attempt to kill SBU happened and we got pushed off by a larger fleet. Pretty typical EVE.

What does bother me a little bit is the sabre is not a covops ship. It uses a basic cloak. If it hadnt been for the fact that the ship cant be threated while cloaked, there is no way he could of gained the intel he did on our operation. I can see it if it was a covops ship but just a basic cloak?

See as a player I am willing to put the effort in to try to clear the system before engaging in the op. Not because I want safety. The entire op is unsafe but it does make tactical sense to not have any hostiles in the system before starting anything.

I personally would like to put some pressure on the cloaked player, so they cant just sit back and sip coffee. Not so much the covop ships, but definately the non covops but cloaked ships.

Just an example and a thought. Not complain. Just pointing out where I personally see a flaw.

It is still irrelevant to this thread and having proof on why people leave the game.

And that is your opinion, many other people have a different opinion to you, some have the same opinion as you, only CCP has an idea, but even that can be subjective, because a player leaving as he is bored in hisec for example may have gone back there because he was not able to operate in 0.0 due to excessive AFK camping, but he will say left because he was bored, not directly because of AFK cloaky camping. There may be some people who detailed that they left due to the mechanisms around afk cloaky camping, who knows, only CCP will have that and they do not release that data.

I for one tended to fill in why I de-subbed, my last one was due to the D-scan immunity for combat recons, in the end I still liked the events that are developing in Eve in terms of the Jovians, so decided to come back, however I am selling all my stuff in NPC 0.0, and I will no longer bother trying to generate ISK in 0.0. My fun will come from sending alts into WH's and the like but not doing sites at all, its just the fun of moving around in hostile space and laugh at people camping that data site in cloaky ships waiting for me to go there, I will just send out the probes, probe them down and waste their time, fun fun fun...

But as I said earlier the best way to deal with this whole issue it to have a flag after an hour detailing that the player is inactive for over an hour, and that as soon as he uses D-scan or warps or uses any modules he will send a Notification Feed and the flag is removed. Then we have him having to actually be at his keyboard to interact with people, something that a lot of people demand that miners do for example...

From my perspective that is the proper use of a cloak, the player was active and was there to gather intel and be ready to bubble you when his fleet turned up, I was wondering why he left and did not bubble you when the Ishtars arrived, but ho hum.

My issue with cloaking is the 23.5 / 24 and 7/7 cloaky alt, whose objective is area denial, the art of not playing Eve to force people to not play Eve. Whose players is either asleep or at work, I am not keen on people using other peoples accounts to cloaky AFK camp too. Changing the cloak mechanism is the wrong way to go about this, the issue is that Eve does not have a log out mechanism, but it cannot have a logout mechanism, which is why I suggested a one hour inactive flag to be applied to people cloaked and in space and that the flag is removed and a Notification Feed made when he uses D-scan, warps or uses a module.

This also gives interesting possibilities for people to use that mechanism, but here is the rub, they have to be active to do so and that I can live with.

Risk, not fear, sigh...

I have been camped by single people who have no backup which I ignored or killed, often baiting them, my most amusing one was being a bait badger which got a Goon Tengu kill in 2010, love that one... No fear there...

I have also been saturation AFK cloaky camped by NCDOT. alts in Stain when they were deployed next to Stain, in the end I was playing other games while being AFK in the station to keep their interest on me so that others would not be bothered further down the pipe until someone boasted about it, oh dear, was that fear?

I have no issues about being camped, I just do not like the AFK part of it, I think its the bit that annoys people and it annoys me too, when you see them logged in 23.5/24 7/7 its just so damn lame, and that is why the only thing that can remove that 23.5/24 7/7 is a tool that better enables you to work out their activity times so you can take more damn risk!!!

So when you say that he cannot hurt you if AFK then flag him as AFK then, seems simple to me!

The counter to that is simply to have someone watching the target SBU, one time we had a watch on a gate that a Goon sabre was haunting, so we saw him warp to his safe and cloaked, so we waited then jumped through and burnt right at his safe, sadly he got wind of it and was able to warp out before we could get a point, but that was the end of him haunting that gate.

My suggestion would not help you because its really to deal with the blanket AFK camping which is lame, the example you have given is something I would see as failure in terms of my own intel and tactics. Suggest to your alliance members that they need to have scouts watching the targets for about 5 hours before hand, trust me its the best way to do it, its a pain and boring, but its so important.

Oh no, you made the statement, you back up your own words.