And here we come to the root of the problem: you think it is “abuse” that farmers can’t have their own private nullsec system to farm 23/7 with immediate and 100% accurate warning every time a potential threat enters the system, along with immediate and 100% accurate notification when that threat leaves (or goes AFK) and it is safe to resume farming.
I like the cycling idea because it makes the cloak module more in line with other modules.
Except it doesn’t bring it in line. The closest equivalent to a cloak is the mode switch on T3 destroyers, and that has no cycle time. And other modules don’t have this weird “one long cycle, then a cooldown” mechanic. If you turn on an armor hardener it just runs indefinitely on auto-repeat unless you are out of cap.
Unsurprisingly, a cycling cloak module will not make every problem go away as I am conceputalizing it. Some problems will require separate solutions.
One should not construe that to mean I am in favor of said problems or somehow benefit from them. That would be stupid beyond belief, and I mean that. I would not believe such accusations were said in earnest.
If this change to cloaking is felt to be too negative, more positive changes could be made, in particular to non-covert ops cloaks, as covert ops cloaks are really over-powered anyway. Other cloaks should not have such severe sensor sensitivity loss and also not such severe loss to speed while cloaked.
I was looking after arguments and contra arguments.
First that that took my attention that “local chat” is giving to much “free” intel, well you as a hunter are also exploiting this “free” intel, not to mention “star map” which is the motherlode of free intel with not risks or costs involved.
You want you target to sit “blind in the dark” well then your cup of free intel should go away too. While it is not the case, the balancing needs to be done. You are not entitled to your easy, almost no risk kills. And yes I acknowledge that it takes “some” effort to bring in cyno capable ship into target system.
It is a fact that cloacky camping is in dire need for counter play and it was/is neglected for to long.
I’m almost impressed that the “local is free intel” argument is still being raised in 2021, despite the fact that the types of players who 1) cloaky camp and 2) are actually hurt by local are usually completely different people.
Well that’s certainly a new level of delusion for you.
You’re right. Cloaked hunters are not entitled to easy low-risk kills. The only get them because farmers voluntarily allow it to happen. If farmers stopped sucking at EVE and learned to defend themselves the easy low-risk kills would go away and cloaked hunting would be an incredibly dangerous profession.
Then perhaps you should use one of the methods for keeping a force out of local until the attack is launched. Anti-cloakers constantly whine about how a solo AFK cloaker can instantly turn into a whole fleet, why can’t the defenders do the same thing?
Also, if the hunter refuses to engage any target that is capable of winning then their risk level is only kept low at the cost of making them completely ineffective. An AFK cloaker that never decloaks and engages faces no risk but is only capable of sitting idle in a safespot all day. And at that point the defenders have won.
They can, but even if a defence fleet is formed quickly, it may take a minute to get ready and that’s all it takes for an afk cloaker to have come online, cynod in a fleet and killed a target.
If an active blops hunter is spotted moving around, it’s much more feasible to form a defence fleet to counter drop faster and wait until they catch a target.
Letting that defence fleet stand ready all day while the potential danger is actually sleeping or at work is disproportionate effort, not engaging and no fun for anyone involved.
Here’s your problem. Stop looking at defense fleets as something you do reactively and start treating them as a mandatory prerequisite for PvE activity. The defense fleet should be formed at all times and ready to jump in as soon as the attacking fleet arrives.
You ask from people that they have a response fleet ready all day to deal with guys who are actually sleeping or at work.
Don’t you see how this is completely disproportionate? Those people in the defence fleet want to fight, they don’t want to sit tethered on station in the off chance that one of the afk guys may wake up or come back from work.
If those cloaky campers were actually at their keyboard this would be an entirely different thing: then you could have fun with them, try to bait them into a fight or counterdrop them.
But as long as cloaky campers can do that 24/7 afk, there is nothing compelling about sitting ready all day to counterdrop.
Nope. Maintaining the defense fleet requires more work than maintaining the cloaked threat, but the PvE farming the defense fleet protects produces infinitely more ISK and material rewards than the AFK cloaker receives while AFK. You need to stop looking at one part of the picture and accept that PvE is a privilege you earn through hard work, and maintaining a defense fleet at all times that PvE activity is happening is one part of that work.
I have removed an incredible amount of posts from this thread for being off topic, violating community guidelines, and other various rules offences. I am going to say this once, and only once, as I and other members of CCL have had to clean this thread up numerous times and issued warnings.
The next offence that I have to remove from people that have been warned before will deal with has a very good chance of being their last.
Keep it civil and on topic. Here are the rules in the event you’ve forgotten what they look like. Make yourself familiar with them, lest you be on the wrong end of them.
And you need to look at the expense/ lost income a single cloaked pilot inflicts by your suggestion, whether AFK or not, with no way to actively hunt the pilot even with the fleet you recommend. The cloaky invader gets the initiative 100 percent and inflicts isk losses until he decides to engage, at which point he either inflicts more loss or dies. That’s broken.
And how exactly do you intend to quantify this loss for game balance purposes, given the fact that the lost income is 100% determined by the players and could be anywhere from zero to 100%?
Of course it is. If the net effect of AFK cloaking is a 0.0001% drop in income then it’s absurd to use that loss as justification for changes. If the net effect is a 99.9999% drop in income for even the most skilled and determined players then it is justification for a change.
(Of course let’s be honest here, the reason you don’t want to quantify it is that the drop in income is small for skilled players and only significant for low-skill renters.)
Its certainly not been an issue to you “exactly” how much was lost by RMT botters up to now, but only that they surely did lose some amount.
Once again: the status quo is the default assumption, the burden of proof is on you as the person proposing a change. It doesn’t matter how much AFK cloaking costs RMT botters because I don’t have to justify anything.
Thank you all for response. Now I would like to get more feedback regarding cloacky camper counter play.
Essentially the ONLY way to counter play cloacky camper is to have massive super capital umbrella (please correct me if I am wrong). Thus this is pushing everyone into MEGABLOCKS.
And there comes the problem that not everyone want to deal with ■■■■■■■■ (politics) that comes with being part of one.
So in essence you are dictating only one possible type of game play. What we see that CCP is trying to evolve current meta. An this meta need to change.