Hello Eve Community & CCP,
I’ve been playing Eve Online for a good number of years, since 2005, I’ve watched the game evolve, change, and grow, however there is one component to the game that doesn’t seem to have any growth at all, of course I’m talking about cloaking.
Within the game there are counters to everything, it’s a game of rock paper scissors, there are modules, strategies and techniques that will allow you to counter just about every mechanic.
Speedy enemy > webber
Warping enemy > disruptor
MJD enemy > scrammer
High resist enemy > use another damage type
Safespot > combat probes
Cloaking> ?
You get the picture… there are ways to counter just about everything in Eve.
But with Cloaking… there is no counter play, no auto log off feature for AFK pilots, no method of decloaking someone without flying close to them and I see this as a problem, it renders them invulnerable for an unlimited amount of time, combine that with Black Ops bridging or lighting a cyno and you have given an invulnerable ship one of the most powerful tools/weapons in the game that can be used at any time without warning.
Now I understand that a cloaking alt is essentially free money for CCP as it requires Omega for a character that does almost nothing all day except making the odd drop, but there needs to be a counter to it in the game, a way to hunt that ship that can quite literally log on after downtime once a day and sit in hostile space providing intel and perfect ganking opportunities for unsuspecting pilots with no effective counter to those particular ships.
I think there is a simple and viable solution to cloak camping the game already in the heat mechanic, if you made cloaks overheat after a period of time and burn out if left on it would force players to decloak to repair the module to sustain the cloak, this would open a window up for people to probe/scan down the ship, or alternately you could introduce a ship variant designed to find cloaking vessels and bring in an entirely new mechanic… the possibilities are there.
So I’m asking the question, can we please have an in game counter to the cloaking mechanic?