Main AFK cloaky thread

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
8467

The problem is I do understand the mechanic and therein lies the issue. Even if it worked 100% of the time on the first try every try it still allows for AFK game play. When I go gank an AFK miner or mission runner or (insert AFK game play here) am I required to jump through the additional hoops? The answer is no.

AFK game play should not be allowed just like botting is not allowed. If you’re at your keyboard great interact with the UI every (insert time here) then were all on the same level playing field and this issue gets put to bed till the EVE servers are closed for good. Until that day I will be on here along with the many others asking for change.

8468

I get why the mechanic has held on for so long as it has and why certain people don’t want it to change. People want to be able to flood sections of null to either prevent the enemy from earning income while at the same time being able to drop on those stupid enough to grind while someone is AFK cloaking.

This is a great tactic but it shouldn’t be achievable while AFK when you’re at work or out to dinner with your boyfriend.

8469

Get rid of the mobile observatory. One of the worst additions to the game.

Jump gates are OP
Panic Is OP
Local Chat is OP

Fix the real problems ffs

8470

ah yes, so we can go back to the days of a single cloaky individual coming into a system and walking away from their computer for the whole day, shutting down entire alliance operations at peek ADM. no problem with this at all.

8471

Why do you even care about an AFK cloaker if you’re actually playing the game? Interfere with your bot too much?

8472

The sheer amount of disingenuous ■■■■■■■■ in this thread is mind boggling.

No one cares about a single cloaked ship.

They care about when that one cloak suddenly becomes 50 stealth bombers directly on top of your battle/capital ship.

AFK cloaking doesn’t (only) refer to someone who is literally AFK. It means that a hostile ship has been cloaked in system for the last 2+ hours, and there’s literally nothing you can do to flush them out.

So either you dock up the big toys, or put yourself at the very real risk that one hostile becomes 50 within literal seconds.

People say that ratters are whiny children who should go sit in a high sec NPC station if they want perfect safety, yet huff and stamp their feet at any kind of suggestion for counterplay to long term cloak camping.

Personally? I think they need to drop the 15 min cloak protection timer, and buff the observatory to a 100% decloak rate.

Or possibly rework cloak such that it still prevents you from being seen or d-scanned, but you can be combat probed. Thus allowing people to try and hunt down the camper.

8473

Holy necro…

Make a new suggestion thread about mobile observatory changes to discuss it if you want and I’ll happily join the discussion there.

But please, let this thread stay dead. Uncounterable AFK cloaking has been killed.

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8474

Gotta love the whiners who think cloaks only exist in nullsec. You can just as easily have a cloaked ship sitting right next to you in a belt in high sec, waiting for their 20+ buddies to drop right on top of you using their ship as a warp-in. So, should we also get to be able to use mobile observatories in high sec now?

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8475

The difference is that you can’t use cynos in high sec. So they would still have to gate in from the adjacent sytem, and then warp to the tackle. CONCORD would also pop them afterwards, so it’s not the same as low/nullsec.

Again, the issue with cov-ops cyno ambush is the fact that it’s nearly impossible to stop hostiles who are unlocking from a random NPC station 8 LY away, and then being instantly sent to a system of their choice. All without having to deal with defenders setting up protective gate camps to try and stop them.

8476

So what exactly is it you are complaining about?

Covert ships? Ambushing? Cynos? Jump drives?

Keep in mind that this is the AFK cloaky thread and not any of the scenarios you mentioned.

8477

The issue with AFK cloaking is the cyno.

No one gives a ■■■■ about a single stealth bomber. Even a lone TC3 Cruiser could be fought off long enough for allies to help, or at least avenge, you.

The issue with “AFK” cloaking is that it’s a one sided “Sword of Damocles” situation.

That neutral who’s been sitting there for 5 hours? Maybe they’re a paper tiger. Maybe you’re perfectly okay to unlock.

Maybe you get tackled within 60 seconds of landing at a combat site, and then their cyno gets lit for all their friends to come in and join the fun.

Either way there’s nothing you can do to stop them. All of the power dynamic is loaded in their favor.

8478

I understand how you see that the issue with AFK cloaking is the cyno.

Because of a cyno a single ship can become many within seconds. There is counterplay against covert gameplay though:

you can bait them. (Let me get back at that later.)

The issue that ‘AFK cloaking’ posed for many years is that baiting doesn’t work. To properly bait you need a response fleet strong enough to take on the people you are baiting. But what if the person you are trying to bait isn’t actually playing, but is asleep for the past 5 hours? That’s a complete waste of time for everyone in the response fleet while baiting.

This results in very skewed unfair gameplay in favour of the person who can cloak AFK in a system to put pressure on it without any reasonable way to deal with it.

… until CCP added mobile observatories.

With mobile observatories players who wish to cloaky camp a system need to be paying attention or lose their ship, which stopped AFK cloaky camping campaigns. People still try to AFK cloaky camp sometimes, but once the defenders bring mobile observatories and probes a few times there’s little reason to continue doing so AFK, because they’re all going to be flushed out in an hour or two of not paying attention.

So the only effective way to camp systems nowadays is by paying a minimum amount of attention.

The good part about cloaky campers that pay attention is that you can bait them.
A strategy that is unreasonable to be expected from players against AFK players is a lot more reasonable when you know the cloaky pilot is looking at the screen at least once every 15 minutes - they can see your bait!

For example, put out a nice Kronos, have a bunch of allies ready and you can bait that cloaky hunter with cyno to engage your ship and even kill a Redeemer in response.

(Yes, I noticed your reddit thread a couple of days ago and really enjoyed the story.)

Really good job, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

You flush out active cloaky players by baiting.
And you flush out the AFK cloaky campers with mobile observatories.

In the old days the second option wasn’t there, so AFK cloaky players were an issue as baiting was not an option when you never know whether the cloaky was AFK or not.

Not anymore: if someone manages to consistently avoid your mobile observatory you know they’re paying attention and can see your bait. If they’re not taking the bait, bring better bait.

In other words, AFK cloaking is no longer an uncounterable issue.

8479

The mobile observatory was definitely a much needed addition. Even if I feel it needs to be much stronger.

For the Kronos “bait”, we had been sitting on an allied titan for two hours waiting for the enemy Blops fleet to do something so we could counter drop.

The only reason the Redeemer died instead if me is because they Jumped instead of bridging in their 15+ stealth bombers.

Had they bridged the bombers I probably would have died within two cycles of rage torpedo alpha.

8480

The situation you describe was not AFK cloaky camping, it sounds like an active blops roam.

There was an enemy blops fleet in the area and you wanted to flush them out or bait them. That’s not the topic of this thread, which is AFK cloaking.

As the covops hunters were actively looking for things to drop on, mobile observatories are irrelevant, because these are designed to deal with AFK cloaking players, not active cloaking players.

8481

The issue is that they had scouts just sitting cloaked up in multiple systems. Again, we waited two hours for them to make a move. AFK doesn’t have to mean someone is literally away from their keys.

For all we knew these people could have been watching YouTube on their other monitor while we waiting for them to finally pull the trigger and do something.

Yes someone perma cloaking for 10 hours in perfect safety while at work was resolved by the observatories. But after how many hours of someone clicking F1 twice every 15 min does “active” camping essentially become the same thing as “afk” camping?

8482

Absolutely, hey aren’t an aggressive module like bombs or bubbles, no reason not to allow them in HS. Or even better, disallow cloaking devices in HS alltogether. :sunglasses:

8483

As someone who does a lot of Blops gameplay hunting for 2 hours isn’t AFK cloaking.

In this context it does.

AFK means people aren’t paying attention to your bait.
AFK means a mobile observatory can catch them.

If they’re not AFK but are waiting and looking, you can bait them like you did.

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8484

Even if someone has to reset cloak by pushing F1 every 15 min, I would argue that it still has the exact same “chilling” effect as someone being literally AFK for 10 hours in a deep safe.

Is it harder to pull off? Yes, but the end result is the same. An entire system is paralyzed for an extended period of time by the possible force projection that one ship represents.

At the end of the day I would argue that they are, in essence, equally obnoxious forms of the same tactic with minimal counterplay. Other than hoping the hostile player forgets to reset cloak, and that they fail the 40% chance decloak pulse.

Tl;Dr How many hours is someone allowed to “active” camp before it become a problem? 2 hours? 6? 18?

8485

That is the very definition of risk averse. Maybe PvP games aren’t the thing for you. It’s called “pixel fear” and, apparently, nullsec is full of it…

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8486

Like I’ve said a million times before in the past 18 years that nullsec residents have been whining about cloaks, you people won’t be happy until it is all but impossible to cloak in nullsec. You won’t settle for anything less, and you’ll keep making another 37 million whine threads about it until it happens or the game shuts down…

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