Once again, the unstoppable invincible fleet that will curb stomp anything. Might as well head back the HS. Please do not use this argument.
In fact, the fleets that come through are not invincible and comprised of massive numbers. They usually come via black ops/cov ops cyno. As such you (the indefinite you) are looking not that many ships. If you modify your behavior when there is a cloaked hostile you can quite possibly prevent the hot drop.
There is no risk if he is AFK.
Further, risk vs. reward is absolutely not cast in stone. It is dependent on what the hostiles have and how you respond. If you turtle up you can reduce your risk to zero, but then so is your rewardâŚas it should be. You can also accept some degree of risk, but also reduce it by changing ship types, and how you go about doing stuff in system.
In short, this âmisalignmentâ does not exist.
Cynos have already been indirectly nerfed via jump fatigue and jump range reductions. This is a classic example of âone more nerfâ. Get over your fear and take charge of your riskâŚyou have the ability to do so. Get into a fleet, rat in a group, etc.
We can have less perfect cloaks when local is less perfect.
We should not force anything, IMO. We can make remaining AFK can cloaked for a period of time risky, but force should not be used as a game mechanic in this instance, IMO.
Risk is not some thing that exists independent of your actions and the actions of others. Both your actions and the actions of others determine risk. You cannot control others, but you can control yourself and your choices. As such risk is not really something CCP should be getting involved with. If you are foolish and/or imprudent then that is your problem. If you are so risk averse even small amounts of risk send you scurrying for the station or citadelâŚthat is your problem not CCPs.
While I agree with your criticism of local based intel, if a player is prudent (i.e. is aligned) then that is fine. I do not see a problem with that. Playing prudently should never be punished.
This should be done only when there is a way for players to get at least variations on that intel âbackâ by anchoring a structure. One suitably vulnerable so as to be points of conflict and to make for interesting emergent play.
Sorry, but thatâs just stupid. You might as well talk about how itâs not fair that the self destruct button is hidden in a menu option, and needs to be more prominently displayed so players are tempted to press it.
I didnât mention if he was AFK because there is no way to determine when he is ATK vs. AFK, leading people to making the only reasonable risk decision possible: Assume ATK.
âOnce again, the unstoppable invincible fleet that will curb stomp anything. Might as well head back the HS. Please do not use this argument.â
Please give a reason why this argument is invalid, otherwise, I will continue to use it as I, and many others, find it completely valid.
âIn fact, the fleets that come through are not invincible and comprised of massive numbers. They usually come via black ops/cov ops cyno. As such you (the indefinite you) are looking not that many ships. If you modify your behavior when there is a cloaked hostile you can quite possibly prevent the hot drop.â
You make a general statement, however that general statement is only sometimes true. 40 man bomberâs bar fleets and dread bombs are not uncommon either. The issue is that itâs mechanically unlimited. If it was limited to a handful of BLOPS, it wouldnât be the issue that it is.
"There is no risk if he is AFK.
Further, risk vs. reward is absolutely not cast in stone. It is dependent on what the hostiles have and how you respond. If you turtle up you can reduce your risk to zero, but then so is your rewardâŚas it should be. You can also accept some degree of risk, but also reduce it by changing ship types, and how you go about doing stuff in system.
In short, this âmisalignmentâ does not exist."
I actually address this later when talking about the lack of risk associated with carrier/super ratting. I say there is a misalignment, you say there isnât. Itâs a difference of opinion.
"Cynos have already been indirectly nerfed via jump fatigue and jump range reductions. This is a classic example of âone more nerfâ. Get over your fear and take charge of your riskâŚyou have the ability to do so. Get into a fleet, rat in a group, etc.
We can have less perfect cloaks when local is less perfect.
We should not force anything, IMO. We can make remaining AFK can cloaked for a period of time risky, but force should not be used as a game mechanic in this instance, IMO."
You get in a fleet and rat in a group and tell me how it goes for you. Bigger fleets tend to lead to bigger drops. Itâs not a case of âone more nerfâ, it addresses an almost unrelated issue. Jump fatigue was designed to address strategic movement of super fleets, this addresses a movement mechanic at a tactical level.
I actually agree here, and I address it later in the post.
I also agree here. I donât think itâs a good option, but I wanted to address it because I think it is an option.
âRisk is not some thing that exists independent of your actions and the actions of others. Both your actions and the actions of others determine risk. You cannot control others, but you can control yourself and your choices. As such risk is not really something CCP should be getting involved with. If you are foolish and/or imprudent then that is your problem. If you are so risk averse even small amounts of risk send you scurrying for the station or citadelâŚthat is your problem not CCPs.â
I donât see how this applies to excessively low risk of nullsec entities, and also, game balance is absolutely CCPâs problem.
âWhile I agree with your criticism of local based intel, if a player is prudent (i.e. is aligned) then that is fine. I do not see a problem with that. Playing prudently should never be punished.â
If the mechanics allow a player to be aligned, they absolutely should be aligned; itâs the smart thing to do and I wouldnât criticize them for it. I would, however, argue that from a game balance standpoint, itâs not well balanced.
âThis should be done only when there is a way for players to get at least variations on that intel âbackâ by anchoring a structure. One suitably vulnerable so as to be points of conflict and to make for interesting emergent play.â
I agree here. I think limited would be better than removed, and I think the most interesting gameplay would come from some mechanic that allows you to limit the limit. I like the grey area.
You can get a pretty good idea if you put in some effort. For example, zipping around system and between systems in an epithal with zero response is a good indicator that he is indeed AFK. You can use Bayesian probabilities for this. I detailed it in on the old forums awhile ago, but instead of looking for it Iâll provide the analysis again. There are a number of Bayesian probability calculators out there but I like this one because it has a revise to priors options.
Define the follow probabilities:
P(AFK) our prior probability the guy is AFK.
P(ATK) our prior probability the guy is ATK.
Note that P(AFK) + P(ATK) = 1.
Now we want to know P(AFK|Response) and also P(ATK|Respones) where Response is how the guy responds to our squishy target. To this we need to know:
Prob((Response|X) is where X is either ATK or AFK.
So, if the guy is AFK we can set
Prob(No Response|AFK) = 1 and
Prob(Response|AFk) = 0.
That is there is no way for the guy to go after our epithal if he is AFK.
Now ATK is different, and here weâll need to use some guesses. Suppose we set the probilities thusly,
Prob(No Response|ATK) = 0.35 and
Prob(Response|ATk) = 0.65.
That is there is a 65% chance the guy will âtake the baitâ. Suppose further that we have things looking very much not like a trap. All we want to know is, is he AFK or not. So we donât have a buddy login and then go next door in a interdictor or interceptor or the like. Or if they do, they start in a different system so as to now arouse any suspicion.
We also need our prior probabilities, one school of thought is when you donât know go with an âuninformativeâ prior, in this case weâd set the priors to
P(ATK) = P(AFK) = 0.5.
We donât have to start here we could set them to:
P(ATK) = 0.05 and
P(AFK) = 0.95, for example.
But lets start with our uninformative prior. So our first trip out to draw out the cloaker we getâŚno response.
Our posterior probabilitiesâi.e. after updating with our new information, yes a lack of response is informatinâwe get:
That is we are now certain he is ATK. We are never fully certain he is AFK, but our beliefs, as expressed via subjective probabilities, is that he is most likely AFK.
This kind of analysis can also be augmented by looking at corp information and killboards as well. If you are say, Mountain TZ and he is in a Euro TZ based on KBs chances are when you login he is AFK. And if you do the above test that should revise your beliefs/probabilities even higher towards AFK.
This is a more detailed and fleshed out argument that Scipio has been making. Note if you do it right you can combine it with others as an actual trap, but like I said, best to do that by having people come from another system than the one you are starting in so as to not arouse suspicion.
Because it is totally and completely illogical.
Consider this point. If the guy is ATK, and he does have a cyno, they will only come through and engage when they think they can win. That is all you are going to see are those instances when the odds were much more in their favor than not. As such, looking at Killboards will give you a biased view.
Another point is that this argument hinges on this every growing fleet at an instance notice. So if we have 4 guys undock in ishtars and start ratting as a group, maybe with some alt logi and which are PVP fit, your argument is that the hostile fleet simple increases in size instantly so that they can curb stomp us. That is just patent nonsense. That is, to destroy 4 ishtars and a 2-3 alt logi theyâll bring in 24 guys. But if we add another ishtar because one of our buddies log in and joins us then that hostile fleet instantly grows to 27 guysâŚnever mind that they are in hostile territory and that their buddies are 23 jumps away. And so the calculus goes. If our little ratting fleet grows to 7 why now they have 35 guys. They always have enough to destroy our fleet. If this is the case I have really bad news. You have just lost your space and the AFK cloaking argument is moot because soon it wonât be your space and youâll be either in NPC space or HS.
There are few certainties in EVE and that is a feature not a bug. Yes, it could be a 40 man fleet. But then again why are you not patrolling your space? They canât be that far away anymore. Heck, even the in game map can help you by giving you an idea of average active pilots. If there are alot of pilots in a nearby system (i.e. within cyno range) that you know has no station, outpost or citadelâŚgo look.
For example, if a group of hot droppers want to drop on people in say Delve, many of the âgood systemsâ are fairly heavily occupied. So a BLOPS group will most likley âhideoutâ in a âbadâ system. There are only so many of those. So if you see something suspicous thereâŚgo look. With the JB network and using a cloaky industrial you could get there quick. If you see 40 hostiles sitting there in local and nobody elseâŚwell there you go. More information.
In short, I see much of the ânerf cloaksâ argument as more of an âI donât want to expend effortâ argument.
[Queue up Mike talking about the lack of effort on the part of a guy using a cloakâŚnever mind the effort to get there in that system.]
Risk is based on your actions and those of others. It is not some thing that exists independent of your actions and those of others. So if you can take action to mitigate your risk, there is not a problem unless the risk is so large that it is still excessively large even after you take action. I do not believe that is the case at all with AFK cloaking. Why doesnât AFK cloaking work that well with Goons? Because Goons have a pretty good culture (regarding other Goons and allies). Dropping on a carrier who is doing it right will likely draw a quick and heavy response. This isnât to say that Goons do not die in carriers or rorqauls or other blingy shipsâŚbut chances are they were doing it wrong. Which also helps explain the huge amount of ratting ISK coming out of Delve.
It will go just fine until there are enough guys to take down such a fleet rapidly. I have seen guys in Delve ratting in pretty sizable fleets. Granted it is probably one guy multi-boxing, but still, coming in and taking him down would be difficult and if he started fighting back and had a more PvP oriented fit ti could very easily go badly for the dropping fleet. If you are multi-boxing a group of ishtars and they abandon their heavies and pop sentriesâŚit could go bad for the in coming fleet.
If a group is faces âlow riskâ because of effort or actions they are taking that is not a problem at all for CCP. Player groups that look at the game environment and take necessary steps to mitigate that risk should not be punished unless there is an overall game balance problem due to faulty mechanicsâe.g. tracking titans. If a group faces low risk because guys with alts who are ATK also park faxes on citadels ready to jump to people in troubleâŚthat is not a problem for CCP.
My point is risk is not something that CCP should be concerned with. If a player is dumb and takes excessive risk that is on him. If another player (or group of players) are not dumb and mitigate their risk that is fine. Working as intended.
There is a larger point here. People often think that risk-reward is something CCP should and can tinker with. This is wrong. Risk is based on a persons actions and often those of other players. The classic example is a freighter pilot.
A freighter pilot who:
Anti-tanks his freigther.
Over fills it in terms of cargo value.
Does not use a scout.
Does not use a webber.
Auto-pilots
That player is practically begging for trouble. That he does not know it does not change the fact that his actions were very, very imprudent and have dramatically increased his risk.
There is absolutely nothing for CCP to do here. Nothing at all. You canât patch out stupid, and with a game like EVE you donât want too. That is anti-thetical to the very core philosophy of the game.
The same goes with most other things in game. Jumping through a NS gate in a slow cumbersome ship will probably not end well. Doing so without at least a scout is very risky. Maybe you have few options, and have to take that risk, but you could try to mitigate that risk by doing right after down time. But again, this merely high lights that risk is not some âthingâ in game that CCP can generally fiddle with like it can, does and often should with modules and ships.
But people often write posts as if risk-reward is something that exists out there independent of their and otherâs actions.
Iâm not going to reply in quotes, because this will become a very long post if I do.
Probability calculators: The issue with using probability calculators to determine if someone is AFK or ATK is that they take a lot of information to get to a conclusion, and even if you get it correct, itâs only good until the person decides to login, which will be undetectable to you.
Fleets instantly getting larger: I never said hotdrop fleets instantly get bigger, but they certainly can get bigger over a period of time as someone excitedly tells people about the giant drop theyâre setting up. Iâve personally experienced a 40 man drop when we expected something much smaller, and ratted in a group because of it. The risk you take by ratting in a group is much greater than the reward you get by continuing to rat.
Patrolling space to prevent hotdrops: This argument assumes you not only have control of your space, but that you have control off all the space around you all the way out to max jump range and that you have excess people lying around to go check every system that may hold a hotdrop fleet. Not everyone is working with a giant blue donut. Deep in Delve this is absolutely valid. It is not valid for most of the rest of Eve, and I donât think the game should be balanced just for giant empires.
Risk vs. Reward. I agree that the Goons have done a great job in responding to attacks, but I would also argue that this mostly due to the absolutely massive numbers of high SP players that the Goons have, and again, I donât think the game should be biased toward massive empires to the degree where giant empires are under next to no risk and small empires struggle to exist at all, even when not in wartime. I donât think itâs good for the giant empires either, because they will run out of content.
Carrier aligning: The issue is not what people do, the issue is what the game mechanics allow to be possible. Using the freighter as an example: Everything you mentioned was correct, but there would be a balance issue if that freighter could align and warp faster than a deep space transport and with the same or a better slot layout, because it invalidates use of a deep space transport other than a thing you fly when you canât fly a freighter. When compared with battleships, that is almost exactly what carriers/supers are doing when running sites. They can run sites aligned, battleships cannot. Battleships are nonsensical to use for ratting once you can fly a carrier.
You donât have use these calculators, but the point is that after trying to bait the guy and he hasnât taken the bait you should hold the view that he is more likely AFK than ATK. He could still be ATK and is just very, very, very suspciousâŚbut then heâll likely be just as suspicious if you are ratting away in a VNI tooâŚno?
Maybe that fleet can grow. But that just means there is more time for you or somebody else to spot them in the area. And yeah, there is no guarantee that ratting in a group will stop any and all dropsâŚbut that is not a bad thing.
If you donât control your space why are you ratting? And moving around with a travel fit ceptor to check things out is very fast and very safe.
Just the other night I was out in my anathema practicing scanning (which I havenât done in ages). Saw that there was a gang of hostiles not to far, I started burning towards them. They started burning in my direction. Several of us were providing constant intel updates and sure enough in a manner of minutes a counter fleet formed, dropped on them and wiped them out and podded them.
Sure, having high SP veterans helps, but it is not a requirement, and keep in mind Goons also bring in lots of new players via Karmafleet. The point is having more people to help makes things easier. More people doing logistics mean the logistics guys donât get burnt out (the guys moving â â â â not the guys in logi ships). More people out and about make it harder for a group of hot droppers to stay concealed.
The discussion of AFK cloaking almost focuses on one ratter vs. the cloaker and what ever he might cyno in if he has a cyno. That is an incredibly stilted view of the problem, IMO. Get friends, get a bait ship, take the fight and burn them down or at least try. Or turtle up and hope they go awayâŚbut having the Devs solve your problem because you donât like the choice you made is not my idea of how the development should work.
WellâŚbattleships seem to be in a bad place development wise. When it comes to most things you can do with a BS there is almost always another ship out there that can do it better.
Teckos, while you and I see things differently, I think together we laid out some of the key balance points worth considering if there are going to be any decisions made about changing or not changing this, or related systems, and I appreciate the good conversation!
The discussion around the practice of cloaky camping has been an active one in our corp and alliance for quite a while. We live in nullsec so my perspective of this situation deals with nullsec. I was recently referred to this thread and thought I would throw my thoughts into the mix. I will admit to not having read each one of the 488 (currently) comments in this thread so please forgive me if Iâm repeating anything.
I believe that the practice, as it is allowed today, represents a broken meta that is negatively impacting the game and it needs to be fixed. Allow me to address the reasons why I think this, first, and then Iâll propose my solution. Iâve seen comments talking about risk versus reward, about how the whole concept of local is wrong and needs to be effectively done away with, etc. I think the issue here is more a matter of effort versus impact and how that affects game balance. CCP is big on balance, right?
Aside from the intel-gathering aspect of cloaky camping, I think itâs obvious that the intent of camping a system is to disrupt the economic activity of the system. The camperâs presence increases the risk involved for the residents of the system in mining, ratting, exploring, and performing PI. This is not, in itself, anything improper. Rather, itâs a tactic taken by an opposing force to affect the target corp or alliance and improve the attackersâ chances to conduct SOV warfare or reduce the defendersâ ability to recover from losses in combat. The issue, I believe, is centered on how easily this effect is applied against the targets by the camper and how low the effort required is to maintain it over extremely long periods of time. All off the economic activity mentioned above requires active participation by the players to perform. Camping does not. You cannot, for example, log in your client and have your pilot rat a systemâs combat sites without your involvement. (Yes, you can effectively AFK a specific site, but you canât be AFK and have your pilot move from site to site ratting without your direction.)
Again, itâs a matter of the camper being able to produce such a large and long-term impact with nearly zero effort or investment that is the problem. Adding to this, the virtual invulnerabiltiy that cloaking up at a safe spot offers makes a camper quite literally safer than someone docked in a citadel. Given time, a citadel can be destroyed around the pilot docked up in it. Thereâs nothing that the system residents can do to impact the cloaky camper. And the impact that the camper exerts requires nothing more from him to apply for an entire day than to simply log in just after downtime and cloak up. The imbalance of that tactic is massive and no serious counter exists for it.
I can appreciate that CCP has a coding nightmare on their hands and that a variety of solutions that have been suggested would add a project-level load onto that burden. That is why I would like to propose a minor change in how the cloaking modules work. Simply put, I suggest that cloaking modules be set such that they operate as if they are being overheated. Modules that can be overheated have a heat damage number that is applied to the hit points of the module when that module is overheated. That feature should be activated on cloaking modules and be set to apply when the module is activated. The number can be made to be very low so that the damage to the module accrues slowly. Pilots who use the module to travel unseen should be able to do so for quite a while before the module would burn out. Most cloaked transits through a system take less than a minute or so and the cloak shuts off when passing through a gate. Iâd like to have the damage number set low enough that someone using a cloak in that manner will be largely unaffected.
The number should be high enough, however, to burn out the cloaking module after some longer period of time. Iâm recommending that time frame be about 3 hours. A pilotâs Thermodynamics skill would help extend that, of course, but after a few hours the module would be burned out and the camper would reappear. Thereâs been a difference of opinion in the discussion my corpmates and I have had about whether a cloaking module should be able to be repaired with nanite paste or should require repair at a station. If we allow the modules to be repaired using nanite paste then the process should be a rather long one to give the residents of the system a window to locate the camper.
Using this approach the effort on the camperâs part is increased and the activity is no longer a passive one. The effort required of the camper is now on a level that makes sense given the impact to the game the camper exerts. Finally, it presents a reasonable counter to the tactic and offers those impacted by the camper to respond.
Effort is only for the schlubs that do PvE. Risk is only for the schlubs that do PvE.
If you want to kill soft targets, then the game is laid out for you like an all you can eat buffet. The no drek âbalanceâ logic as told by the lead developer on this subject is that so long as itâs slowing down PvE in Null, itâs Ok.
I have argued along the same lines as you to show the imbalance in the system, but that is where I gave up trying to show that there is in fact an imbalance. Devs have final say on whatâs balanced, and by Dev Fiat, this is balanced. Screw logic.
The second reason it wonât be received is because according to some of the Cloak Apologists cloaks must have an unlimited lifespan in order to be useful. You canât keep your unescorted titans safe, you canât scout properly, etc⌠You have now âbrokenâ ATK cloaking, and are therefore invalid. Nevermind that cloaking itself is only balanced by Dev Fiat and it does not matter if the cloaker is ATK or AFK, the cloak itself is problematic.
Mike is correct that your suggestion wonât be accepted. But not for the reasons he is suggesting.
The problem with AFK cloaking is a psychological oneâyou think you face higher risk and therefore you act accordingly. The thing is that this only happens because of local. No local, no problem as nobody would be AFK cloaking. Further, local itself is too good. With local the result of players trying to interact is usually dichotomous. Either the ratter dies, or nothing really happens at all as the ratter (or miner or whatever) warps for safety often before the incoming hostile is even in system. If we were to make a distribution of these outcomes there would be a ton of observations at 0, the no interaction beyond seeing the bad guy and warping, and a much smaller number at 1, the ratter/miner/etc. is caught and a fight ensues. With pretty much nothing in the the middle.
So as a result some players AFK cloak camp a system or even systems to try and catch that target. It is not optimal, but it is largely balanced in that local tells you he is there and to mitigate your risk (and no, docking up is not the only way). The cloak keeps allows the camper to be in system and let him possibly catch something while he is ATK.
The problem is that you cannot change cloaks without changing local. CCP is aware of this and as a result they havenât changed anything because they realize doing so would be unbalanced.
You are also wrong on the effort and investment. Players do expend effort in getting to the system in question. They do invest in two senses. First the direct sense that they train the skills, buy the ship, etc. The second sense is that while AFK cloaking they incur an opportunity cost to do so. They cannot use that character for anything else, so they lose out on whatever benefit that player could have provided had they not used the character for AFK cloaking.
Mike is correct that your suggestion wonât be accepted. But not for the reasons he is suggesting.
Heâs basically suggesting a time limit on cloaking using heat mechanics. The most hysterical argument against that Iâve heard in these threads boiled down to âSave the Titans!â because apparently some groups keep records of every known Titan Logout Location and watchlist the pilot so they can instantly catch them upon login even years later after the player took a break. While thatâs not been your particular argument, you have also rejected any sort of timer for similarly silly reasons.
The problem with AFK cloaking is a psychological oneâyou think you face higher risk and therefore you act accordingly.
If this held any water at all, then we would not be having this conversation. The increased risk isnât illusionary. Itâs a nice try at shaming the victim though. âHur Hur, PvE guy scared of literally nuthinâŚâ . And of course, because itâs not an illusionary risk that only manifests in the cowardly psycology of the risk averse PvE pilot, you then contradict yourself by talking about local and how itâs the only way to bring risk to the PvE peopleâŚ
The problem is that you cannot change cloaks without changing local. CCP is aware of this and as a result they havenât changed anything because they realize doing so would be unbalanced.
While thatâs the party line, itâs observably not true. Wormholes exist. The 2 things arenât linked in any way, merely tangentialy interact. While you need Local for AFK cloaking to have itâs current effect, cloaking works fine without local (if a bit too powerfully) and Local works fine without cloaking.
You are also wrong on the effort and investment. Players do expend effort in getting to the system in question. They do invest in two senses. First the direct sense that they train the skills, buy the ship, etc. The second sense is that while AFK cloaking they incur an opportunity cost to do so. They cannot use that character for anything else, so they lose out on whatever benefit that player could have provided had they not used the character for AFK cloaking.
You are fundamentally wrong on this too. Everybody has to train their ships, and getting into a CovOps is longer than a base frigate, but itâs not so long as most ratters are spending on basic T2 fit Battleships that are the bottom end of what you can do that content in, Nevermind the higher end cruisers and such that people prefer for mobility because Nullsec aint safe and enemies show up commonly (OMG, Risk in the absence of a cloaked camper, say it aint so!). On the other hand, the bottom end of cloaked camping is a newbie ship and a prototype cloak⌠You need fair fitting skills to make it happen, but lets not pretend itâs some kind of epic months long struggle. Ratters spend more time training to get to battleships than is needed to get into a cloaked camp.
Your argument on expending effort getting to the system is just silly. Everybody had to get to the system they are in. Your risks are different, and the means of mitigating them are different, but especially in the bigger alliances I would not say they were less. Plenty of internal jackassery occurs through awoxing and with spies that there is always risk, especially if you are in an known area flying something expensive.
Your argument concerning Opportunity Cost is also not really applicable. Opportunity Cost occurs when you have mutually exclusive opportunities (If you do A, You Cannot do B). At itâs most extreme application, the cost of a cloaked camper is limited to the Price of a monthly Plex, and that assumes the camper isnât capable of setting up some other passive income stream, or being used to farm skillpoints. You canât set the price any higher than that because it takes no active time or effort to maintain the camp, and at the pricepoint of a monthâs plex you could just sub another account to do the other thing-- The Plex itself is the only limit here, and since they can run concurrently they arenât mutually exclusive.
Exactly why should WH dwellers have a crucial module hamstrung in such a way because PvE players are too scared to undock?
If the risk of an AFK cloaky not being AFK and dropping a cyno on you is an issue in game mechanics terms (not psychological which is my view) then the issue isnât with cloaks but with the allowed use of a cyno immediately after decloaking. Put a cooldown on a cyno after a de-cloak if something is required but donât mess with a vital part of someone elseâs game because you donât like it.
Exactly why should WH dwellers have a crucial module hamstrung in such a way because PvE players are too scared to undock?
The fact that cloaks are considered so âcrucialâ to wormholes should speak to power and need for adjustment of cloaks in and of itself.
I am sure there is some irony somewhere for cloaks being so crucial to wormhole dwellers and that being OK while ratters at known positions in Kspace are âperfectly safeâ up until the very second someone opens fire.
Because wormholers accept that they are in a dangerous space and act accordingly, while nullbears whine about there being any risk in their space and want it to be removed instead of learning how to diminish it.
The thing is Mike you have one response and only one response, turtle up. Other suggestions have been discussed you simply refuse to use them.
Yes, and notice nobody complains about cloaks let along AFK cloaking, in fact they consider them essential in many regards. So your point here is whatâŚthat local is really the root of the problem?
You clearly have no idea what opportunity cost means. It does not mean that I do not train my alts or even my main. It means that whatever I do chose the train them for, the opportunity cost is the next best alternative for training. If I trained my alt for invention and my next best option was mining, the opportunity cost of training for invention is not training for mining. This always applies everywhere all the time when you face a choice. Attempts to argue it does not apply are simply incorrect and demonstrate a lack of understanding of the concept.
And referencing other peopleâs time is irrelevant. That it takes a player 4 months to get into a ratting fit to make X ISK/hour whereas with invention it takes another player 3 months is irrelevant. That is not opportunity cost. Opportunity costs is the foregone (net) benefit based on what the player chooses. It has nothing to do with what another player chooses.
Yes, but I didnât have to go to that system that you are in. I could have gone to many other systems including ones where I could use the alt to make ISK.
Yes, and if I am AFK cloaking I cannot make ISK, I cannot mine, I cannot do PI, etc. So you are incorrect here. Your statement about PLEX is also not true. If I could use the player to engage in something that can produce enough ISK for a PLEX plus say 500 million ISK left over or AFK camping that foregone PLEX and ISK is the opportunity cost. It is the net value of whatever you give up. No ifs, no ands, no buts.
And please name this passive income stream you speak of, would love to see it.
opportunity cost does not apply as the main abusive players of this mechanic are paid in plex and isk by alliances to harass. Economic warfare by 1 player with 11 accounts, that literally and effectively stops hundreds of players from playing.
they donât have to worry about earning isk or what they are training to get into these ships.
Question: how does requiring a player to actively be engaged by requiring a fuel bay (like the rorqual to stay sieged) or a module that reloads ammo and must press f1 once every x unit of time, break cloaky camping? You can still gain intel, drop cynos, stay safe, etc. You just cant do it in a harassing manner for weeks at a time, just by logging in at dt, pushing f1, and leaving for 23 hours.
You referenced training time as a relative effort vs PvE, it is nonsense as everyone trains and cloaked camping has a fairly low investment vs the opposition, and extremely low when comparing minimum entry.
Opportunity Cost is a fairly straight forward concept, and if you ignore the fact that the value of that lost opportunity is recovered at the price point of a plex minus any income the toon actually has then you are applying it wrong. You are trying to ignore that the costs must be mutually exclusive. Other Playerâs time does not matter, but the player of the camperâs does. Since the Opportunities are unlimited except by player time and the price of a plex, and cloaky camping requires near zero time to maintain, your cost becomes the subscription price since that buys you an identical opportunity with the added value that an alt generally brings. All other factors are a wash, as everyone has to train, travel, etc⌠to fulfil their purpose.
The thing is Mike you have one response and only one response, turtle up. Other suggestions have been discussed you simply refuse to use them.
No, your argument is the one trying to ignore costs now. The value of the space is set by what you can get from it. I have said many times the options are to Fly Stupid (incurring the deserved loss the camper hoped to inflict), Fly compromised (PvP capable fits usually donât PvE well, mixed fits do both poorly thus risking double loss), waste defense time (dividing gains with no benefit) and/or inflict the penalty of compromised fits on multiple people. I donât view any of those outcomes appropriate when inflicted by an immune ship indefinitely. Pretending you arenât doing anything while inflicting losses on the enemy does not justify doing it Risk and Cost free-- Dev Fiat might, but the actual logic does not hold.
No, this again demonstrates a lack of understanding.
First off, AFK cloaky players are not paid to AFK cloak. Second they could be used for something that generates ISK and as such that foregone ISK is the opportunity cost.
And AFK cloakers only stop players from exploiting their space because they are bad.
This does not negate the opportunity cost.
If I can:
AFK cloak, or
Make 300 million ISK/month doing PI.
Then if I choose AFK cloaking my opportunity cost is 300 million ISK from PI.
Yes it can be done for weeks on end and if you let this keep you from using your space then that is on you.
You still donât get it. If I can train for:
Mining, or
AFK cloaking.
And I select AFK cloaking the opportunity cost is training for mining.
If I had already trained mining and then I train AFK cloaking (over invention) then my training opportunity cost is invention training, and if I actually do AFK cloak then the opportunity cost is the foregone benefits from mining.
No I am not.
Can I mine with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I do invention with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I do PI with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I do station trading with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I rat with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I run missions with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I extract SP with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
Can I gank freighters with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
When I decide to engage in AFK cloaking then I cannot use that ALT for other activities and if those other activities generate ISK and or resources then that is the opportunity cost.
This nonsense makes zero sense at all. What other players do or do not do have absolutely nothing to do with opportunity cost. The fact is, that by AFK cloaking with an alt it means that alt cannot be used for anything elseâŚthe next best option from that list of âanything elseâ is the opportunity cost.
Then donât fly stupid. Fly smart and prevent the AFK cloaker from attacking, prevent the drop.
SeeâŚyou just donât want to deviate from the maxi/min approach. If you canât fly in your sanctum with a maxed out ratting fitâŚwhile youâll just dock up and log out. OkayâŚbut that is your choice. Stop whining about your choices.
If they are not going to decloak then there is no risk. And we have taken care of the cost argument. You just do not grasp the concept of opportunity costâŚeither via deliberate obtuseness or lack of trying.
I like how you seemingly answer the points I made without actually doing so by cherry picking.
The first point has nothing to do with opportunity cost. It wasnât addressing that point in any way. You reference training time, your own training time, as effort required to cloak camp relative to that spent by the local ships. That argument is garbage because that relationship is heavily in your favor unless your are cloak camping in a Black Ops. I will grant you could do so, and the train for a Black Ops is more than high end Battleship ratters, but at that point we are looking at ratting carriers and such as well so it really just evens out rather than just horrendously favoring you.
No I am not.
1.Can I mine with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
2.Can I do invention with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
3.Can I do PI with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
4.Can I do station trading with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
5.Can I rat with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
6.Can I run missions with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
7.Can I extract SP with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
8.Can I gank freighters with my alt while I am AFK cloaking? No.
When I decide to engage in AFK cloaking then I cannot use that ALT for other activities and if those other activities generate ISK and or resources then that is the opportunity cost.
The answer to all of that becomes Yes at the price point of a single plex, minus any income the toon is making. Hell, some things like PI you could do with only minute interruption anyway, and with proper skills and a good choice of camp you could station trade. Its laughable that you say no one gets paid to AFK Camp systems, though itâs not every AFK camper. There are several passive income streams that can be set up in EVE, though to collect some of which might require you to occasionally leave your camp and incur the minor setup cost in time again, some of which could be delegated to alts, and some that are purely passive but all of which would allow you to leave the character cloaked for weeks on end while still making ISK.
This nonsense makes zero sense at all. What other players do or do not do have absolutely nothing to do with opportunity cost. The fact is, that by AFK cloaking with an alt it means that alt cannot be used for anything elseâŚthe next best option from that list of âanything elseâ is the opportunity cost.
What other players do has nothing to do with Opportunity Cost, but what One Particular Player does with All of his Alts does. The Use of the Alt is part of the Opportunity. The Time spent using the alt is the other part. If the Use takes no time then the cost stops increasing at the price point of the Plex that provides the Use of the alt. At that point the Opportunity is no longer mutually exclusive. You canât treat alts like completely separate players for this analysis, which is what you are attempting to do.
Then donât fly stupid. Fly smart and prevent the AFK cloaker from attacking, prevent the drop.
Itâs not about what I do or do not do. Itâs about the losses incurred by being forced to fly compromised, bring guards, or get whole groups to fly compromised. At some point (depending on area and activity not a very long one) you are losing the value of the ship that would have been destroyed simply by operating in the âsafeâ manner. Itâs better than nothing, but itâs still intolerable when itâs being inflicted by a pilot who is invulnerable. The only way to win that game is not to play.