CCP is just tempted to do what every F2P mobile trash developer does and sacrifice quality game design in favor of short-term monetization goals. Prior to being bought by a F2P developer CCP made it very clear that they agree 100% that there is no problem with AFK cloaking.
Look man. This is an idea subsection and thread. Its a place to discuss ideas. We all know our ideas are unlikely to lead to actual change, and thatās anywhere on the forum and not just here. I have said this before too and even in this thread.
So why you come after me and only me I donāt even know.
Who said this had to be only a thread of cloak nerfing ideas?
The end result of suggested changes could be a net buff to cloaks, at least as far as the ideas go.
But thatās never gonna happen if people keep using this thread as a place to troll every idea concerning changes to cloaks.
Imagine some sort of timer/fuel idea combined with the ability to gate jump cloaked for covert cloaks. I would be well happy with that trade off.
But its hard to tell if people are trolling this thread for the fun of it, or because they really think they are protecting cloaks.
Of course there does. If there is no problem then the status quo wins.
Imagine some sort of timer/fuel idea combined with the ability to gate jump cloaked for covert cloaks. I would be well happy with that trade off.
Iām sure a lot of RMT botters would be very happy with a nerf to cloaking that removes the ability to mitigate local while doing effectively nothing to buff cloaks in return.
Who said this had to be only a thread of cloak nerfing ideas?
It doesnāt. If you would like to post suggestions for buffs to cloaking with sensible analysis of the problem you are trying to fix and the effects of your solution then feel free to do so.
@CCP_Dopamine if I have a counter for afk cloaking and donāt want to post it in the forums because it would make my own, and a lot of other peopleās lives hellish, how do I send it directly to you, or whoever is working on āfixingā it?
If there is a counter to this, and I think there is, cloaking wouldnāt need to be changed at all. That would waste of developer time, and eliminate the need for mega threads on the subject.
I donāt know who to send my method of doing this to, and Iām sure as hell not putting it here.
As it stands now, people can get stuck in systems for days and being unable to stay cloaked would flat out ruin it for a lot of people for no other reason than the people in gigantic corps canāt handle a little pressure, they created the need for this in my opinion, have failed to protect the systems they think they own and then want god to change the universe for them.
This sort of thing is messing up Eve as one very vocal group after another gets things changed on a fundamental level. If there is an ingame solution to a problem (as they see it) the rest of the people in New Eden shouldnāt have to suffer because they didnāt use it.
Sorry it took me so long to respond, but holy cow! Great post, and thanks for doing all of that math, most of it is beyond my ability.
Two things, Iām not stating it here, or telling anyone who could use it against me (or others) in game or out. To do so would be idiotic on my part.
The other thing is that once someone is in āyourā system they can make bookmarks, so itās too late at that point, what Iām talking about is having the forethought to prevent it in the first place. Something no one has evidently done yet, at least in terms of the people squeaking about it to CCP.
Everyone has their own āop-secā, the less than idiotic donāt put that stuff on the forums, itās just bad planning.
Anyhow, thank you for that post, itās a bit over my head math wise (this is an understatement) but I get the idea in a big way, itās also surprisingly close to what Iām thinking, just sort of the other way around.
Seriously, Iām amazed, and kind of awestruck.
The size of the numbers got me good, even with a calculator I couldnāt do that. I have trouble even reading the price of stuff in Eve once it gets into the billions, it drives my friends nuts because I have to ask āhow many Praxisās is that?ā.
One of the first things I tried to do in Eve, like in my first couple of days, was to try flying to the Eve Gate. Eventually someone calculated how many decades it would have taken me, and that ended that project in a big hurry. Same with trying to fly out to bump into the skyboxā¦
Iāve since had all sorts of ideas about leapfrogging multiple fast ships, ships with micro jump drives and so on and it still doesnāt work. The only thing that might get me to the Eve Gate is having a clone that does nothing but, year after year after yearā¦
As you said, space is huge!
I think the point is to discuss ideas. Nowhere does it say all posts have to be constructive or that we have to work together to create and improve ideas.
From the pinned post;
This is a breeding ground for ideas. If someone has an idea, listen to it. If you donāt like it, think about why.
Constructive feedback is good.
Posting āThatās an awful idea,ā is not constructive.
Constructive feedback does not have to always push an idea forward. Posting āThat idea sucksā when its an idea which has been posted over and over and over again, while harsh is also fair. If you come up with an idea it may behoove you to scan back a bit in the thread to see if someone has come up with something similar, and what was the response.
Iāll be constructive. I like your idea, but to make it even better Iād do away with the whole timer/fuel thingy. So useless unnecessary.
Just give us a better clue than you already have. Or better yet tell us your idea. Whatās the worst thing that could happen?
Also Iām assuming you are already using this to hunt down and kill AFK cloakers all over New Eden. You should start a Cloaky removal service. Iām sure you would make a ton of ISK
What I love about this thread is consistency. I can leave for a couple months and when I get back and catch up I can see that other than a higher post counts nothing has changed.
What is it? Just post it here, I donāt see why you shouldnāt. And you got me interested, is it something new?
For example āRemove local chatā is one such solution to make AFK cloaking useless while also make a lot of peopleās lives hellish. Is that what youāre thinking about?
Nope, itās super old, itās been done, itās even been done by accident. Thereās a couple of PvP heavy groups who use it on a small scale.
I do love the idea of doing it as a business, but honestly I want people to keep doing it, it keeps my enemyās off balance and I find it very amusing that something so simple makes them so very unhappy. In the long run the campers are doing me a service by keeping people that I donāt have the ability to fight cowering in their metallic hovels. Meanwhile I get to run amok as I please.
@Skriven Penshar
I donāt want to post it here because of people who arenāt in either large corps, or ones like Signal Cartel who would be severely effected by it. I have been effected by it, though in one case I made a bloody killing because someone else used it and wasnāt around to stop me.
Also people like @Merin_Ryskin, who might want to think more and speak less donāt need to be spoon fed ideas or methods of accomplishing things. This is the sort of advantage nasty people use in large scale, and in large scale only the exceedingly wealthy (by my standards) can use with any degree of practicality. Itās a way for them to keep getting ahead while crushing the little guy. Something they donāt need more help with as it is.
I see cloaked camping as being a valid tactic, just because large corporations donāt like the threat it implies doesnāt make it any less valid, in fact it makes it more so. I donāt like large corporations thinking they own the space I travel in or through but that doesnāt mean that having a large corporation needs to be changed. There are plenty of people freaking out about the āblue donutā though I have found them to be less odious than what I call āthe brown donutā (lowsec) and Iām not suggesting either be changed by CCP, I learned to get around them instead. Can I fly a cargo ship through these areas and expect to arrive at my destination? No, but I can still get my stuff from anywhere in Eve to anywhere else usually and I can do it without help from CCP.
Anyhowā¦
The main thing is that cloaking doesnāt need to be changed, it works fine and in fact could even use some improvement in my opinion. It most certainly doesnāt need to be changed by CCP, thereās been quite enough of that lately and with things like the new jump animation breaking jumping itself, maybe a bit too much.
Itās not large corps that are complaining in this thread, it is solo players who think they are entitled to be alone in a system (mainly NPC null) and donāt feel safe if they are not.
I cannot think of any legitimate reason to bring something to the table you are not going to discuss. I donāt know if you did it on purpose, but its trollish to tell us you have a cloak counter but are not willing to share what it is. It doesnāt help us in any way to discuss this topic. In fact, it hinders.
Change is often its own reason, because stagnation is often detrimental in itself. I can think of no solid reason for the new gate jump animation for example. No āproblemā was solved. In fact, some people have said that strongly dislike it and it created a problem for them. I donāt care for it one way or the other, but the change made EVE slightly more interesting for most people I think.
There is no reason why changes to AFK cloaking could not be similar. There could be something small and almost insignificant, but the change is good just for being something new.
But I am positive thatās not gonna happen with all this ship-posting going on.
This is a fundamentally stupid way to design a game. Ever hear the saying āif it aināt broke, donāt fix itā?
There is plenty of counterplay, and AFK cloaking is only low effort if you never do anything but sit idle in a safespot where you can be safely ignored.
Actually it partly is solid. Technically itās a colloid. A gel. A combination of liquid and solid.
Uncloak and blow stuff up - Be quicker/tankier/more likely to bite back (Verdict = counterable)
Uncloak and pop a cyno - See above. Especially the quicker part. Though a waiting fleet or your own cloaky cyno would work also (Verdict = counterable)
Provide intel to attack fleets - Not if youāre AFK (Verdict = not a thing)
Provide warp ins - Correct me if Iām wrong, but couldnāt bookmarks do the same? If you are warping to an AFK pilotās ship is that not the same as a bookmark? Again this falls under the first precautions. (Verdict = counterable)
Technically none of those things can be done while you are AFK other than the warp in thingy, but that is of dubious use since youād have no idea what you were warping in to. And if you did know it would most likely mean the AFK cloaky was no longer AFK. Which circles around to your constant beating of the dead horse which is āAn AFK pilot becomes an ATK pilot and you donāt know when that happensā. Schrodingerās cloaky.
Tell that to the people whining about the lack of content
I like the cycling idea because it makes the cloak module more in line with other modules.
Another good point is that it will keep my attention on the module more. As it is, I tend to ignore it, and when I accidentally get decloaked its easy to miss.
Also it seems much simpler to implement than other cloak changes as the mechanics/ programming already exist.
Of course some will create devices to recycle the cloak automatically. I suppose that realization makes me begin to see the long cooling down time in a more positive light. But even without that, its still another layer to the onion and one more thing that could go wrong for those abusing AFK cloaking.