EVE General Discussion

While yes, something like this could be used to be AFK in a system, you're missing out on a key point, which is that a ship that isn't cloaked can be actively observed. While few ships would be able to catch it, it would be viable for someone to monitor it for changes to determine if it was turning from a passive threat to an active threat, something which can't be done with AFK cloakers currently. A fast ship flying along without being caught is no different from a docked player. He can be watched and if he changes from his current state be considered a threat and reacted to.

To the average null farmer (and belive me, I know my brethren), none of the above will make a difference. If they can't be bothered to do anything but dock up/pos up right now with all the tools the game puts at their disposal, why do you think they will develop counter measures (like learning how to use d-scan to see someone warping in on them and being ready to fight or warp off) to non-afk campers?

AFK cloakers don't exist because of game mechanics, they exist for the same reasons high sec gankers do: because their 'prey' (most null sec rock and anom farmers) exists and are already mentally prone to act like prey no matter what they do. That's why I and PVErs like me don't get prey'd upon in high OR null, because we don't react like prey.

This is why some in high sec are still complaining after buffs and additions done by CCP (buffed ships, low slots on ships that didn't have them, ANCHOR RIGS etc), and why the constant call from anti-afk cloak types to "give me some kind of ay to fight back" is actually just wishful/prideful thinking.

lol , Exactly

#banAFKcloaking

CCP needs to provide more buckets for all the tears geez

Next up, #banOffGridBoosting !

What the above is is dislike of a particualr aspect of a thing over-shadowing the entire thing (which happens in real life politics, people don't like a certain thing, ban all of it without looking at the beneficial parts, and then wonder why other things went **** up)

If you focus on the 'afk' part you miss the entire rest of what I'm saying. It's the same thing that happens with gankers, people dislike gankers and want everyhting about ganking to go away not understanding the good things that activity adds to the game (like in some case how getting ganked creates a need for revenge, which is enough of an emotional "tie" to keep someone in the game who might otherwise have left out of boredom).

In other words it's a short sighted way to look at things. There are already ways to deal with cloakers (afk or otherwise) and standing on the 'afk is always terrible' ideology is as senseless as saying "all afk miners must die" lol.

But the AFK part is the entirety of the issue. An active cloaker is actively choosing to have an effect. An AFK cloaker is not. He's not playing the game knowing full well there will be an effect. whether or not you like that effect is irrelevant. If there's a balance issue with that being removed, then that balance issue should be addressed separately. People not playing the game should not be a crutch for bad balance.

I don't like AFK miners either, AFK gameplay is not good gameplay. That said, there's a couple of significant differences between AFK cloakers and AFK miners.
- AFK cloakers are effective indefinitely, AFK miners are only effective until the rocks runs out of their hold is filled (~20 mins)
- AFK cloakers are 100% safe as they cannot be interacted with, AFK miners - quite obvious - are not.

Quite honestly, you should be able to go AFK wherever and whenever you want, but a cloaker going long-term AFK in null sec should be in the same situation as a miner going long-term AFK in nullsec.

Your right, if you're going to harass or spoil the enjoyment of others, you should have to sit at your computer and do it manually.

There are people I scroll right past. I think I have become one of those people.

Remember though guys, the forums are here just for us to vent and reassure each other.
If they want to know something, we will get a questionaire.

Good news everone!

This thread have opened up over in F&I, if you don't already know.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=414191

I have a feeling that CCP will pay a very close attention to that thread, so if you have any concerns or questions I suggest you raise them there.

HTFU has nothing to do with it, if it did it would be "HTFU and stop hiding from someone who might not even be there lol.

My fear is that, in the standard knee jerk reaction people have to things they don't like (like what just happened on skynet, a non-problem if ever there was one), CCP will make rash changes to this complex game that will not only not fix the problem they aimed at, but rather cause problems for the rest of us while the targeted folks benefit in some way I have not yet imagined.

The anti-afk cloak crowd is short sighted and lazy, and i know because I defeated afk cloakers before they even subbed their accounts, by using eft, my brain and the tools the game gave me. Everyone should be expected to do that FIRST, but telling that to the current generation might not carry as much weight as it does to my own lol.

What will happen is CCP will give afk cloaking the "CCP treatment" (aim to fix one thing with good intentions), the campers will find a new (probably worse/more annoying) way to do what they are already doing, and the people who end up suffering aren't just the whiners who couldn't use the already existing tools, but ALL of us who live and play in the affected space.

This is already happening btw, tomorrow 'skynet' goes away and my ability to thumb my nose at afk cloakers by ratting in a tanked industrial with a target painter and assigned fighters will go away. Not a big deal, it just means "whack-a-mole' ratting with my stabbed gila (warp to little used anom, blap npcs, warp off to the next forbore the cloaker can drop on me if he isn't afk) or using the warp core stabbed/FoF/sentry drone rattlesnake, but gone will be a cool "F-YOU-YOU-AFK-BASTARD" technique, all because whiners can't deal.


But hey, at least we'll all be at the keyboard miserable together lol. Some people are so weak that creativity, even in a video game, is foreign to them.