@ Daichi He can’t handle hisec either, apparently gameplay there is unfairly weighted towards the “criminal elements”.
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@ Here
You all did see this from the Fozzie Q&A at Eve North-East, right?
Someone asked when cloaky camping would get nerfed. Fozzie said that cloaking as a whole would not get nerfed unless local as a whole also got reworked. He said the systems are too intertwined to touch one without the other.
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You, sir, are a hero of the EvE forums. Thank you for continually preserving this key piece of EvE history.
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Sharing my thoughts from way back in 2015 (first page of the old official “AFK Cloaking” thread) because they’re just as relevant today as they were then.
(Plus…I have to keep tradition with Ralph…)
Someone at CCP/CSM/ISD said it best (and I’m paraphrasing here because I can’t for the life of me find the link): “Show me someone who has been genuinely harmed by AFK cloaking, and I’ll show you someone who has no business playing EvE.”
AFK cloaking doesn’t hurt anyone. It never has, and it never will. All it does is shatter the illusion of safety presented by a local list that is friendly. Any impact that shattered illusion has on someone’s activities is entirely their choice, not the person cloaking.
Until someone comes up with a bona fide, rational example of AFK cloaking actually harming another player, I say it should be left as-is.
/thread
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Probably depends on how excited they get.
Then pin it please.
Okay you got 2. And to secure this degree of safety one has to:
- Not attack,
- Not warp off,
- Pretty much do nothing.
So if I am 100% safe…you are also 100% safe from me. Balance.[/quote]
Why? You keep asserting this over and over. But if you are at a safe and do nothing you can achieve this degree of safety. About the most you can do is report intel movements…which is legitimate.
To be clear, my point is, considering what the cloaked and 100% safe ship/player has to give up to maintain that safety it does not seem unreasonable that a cloak should keep one safe. Or to put it differently you are asserting without support the claim that you should be able to hunt someone who cannot do anything to you.
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Here is the thing…local and AFK cloaking go hand-in-hand. The two are inextricable linked. People AFK cloak because of local, and local tells you the AFK cloaker is there and leads people to the forums to whine. You cannot deal with one without the other. Both must be dealt with. If you want to nerf cloaking…then you must nerf local and the opposite is true.
Also, the idea of increasing risk by removing something that creates uncertainty is a curious argument. In fact, I’d argue there would be a reduction in risk. People would simply stop AFK cloaking. They are not going to be fish in the barrel for you to shoot. As such, the uncertainty that AFK cloaking engenders would disappear and there would be less risk while ratting. So where is this increase in risk?
If any benefit, no matter how minor, is unacceptable if there is zero risk then we need to remove lots of things from the game.
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The forums have to go. Threads like this allow people to provoke an emotional reaction just like a cloaked ship, but if they post from an alt there is no way to hurt them for it or stop them from posting.
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Market orders need to shut down if you are not logged in and undocked. No more zero-risk market activity, if you want to sell an item then I should be able to shoot you and take it from you.
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Industry needs to only be available in citadels so it can be destroyed. No manufacturing in NPC stations where it is completely safe, and the industry jobs should certainly not continue to run even when you’re AFK.
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Local should not be available if you are docked. No alts sitting in station with zero risk feeding information about who is in local.
And that’s just a starting point. I’m sure if we try we can think of more things that have zero risk and need to be removed.
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Oh look. New Forums, same couple of trolls shouting down the problem with the same old debunked arguments, false equivalence and logical fallacies.
It’s all pointless. The Devs have decreed that anyone not wanting to participate in predatory PvP as either the incredibly safe and secure predator or the highly disadvantaged prey don’t deserve any of the sand in this so called ‘sandbox’. They gave up long ago developing the game part of the game because they themselves enjoy the Predator playstyle and so leave no room for anything else.
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Which exposes what he’s really about. His personal gain, which is making money without caring about the game. Arguing against a person with such a mindset seems to be nothing but a waste of time. It’s borderline irrational.
Anything that stops, and or outright removes, farmers should be praised and supported as much as possible.
The issue with AFK cloaking is that it is a way to shut down the economic activity in a system (and therefore the indexes) with essentially no effort and an inactive style of gameplay. Counters tend to be excessively expensive in terms of player time (i.e. large numbers of people sitting in a counterdrop defense fleet for hours on end), are also a broken mechanic (carrier collective defense), or are the exact same thing (camping the attacker’s corp/alliance/coalition money-making system to persuade them to stop).
At the same time, there is almost certainly not enough risk associated with ratting in null, and I don’t think the answer is smarter or better AI; I think it’s better tools for players.
The main things I would focus on would be:
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Making it so that carriers can’t run sites aligned.
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Better cyno mechanics that are less instant and less perfect to stop the drop / counter-drop kill farming.
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Worse intel, through some nerf to local.
Mike, you’re finally describing yourself accurately. It’s about time. Stop trolling already and get in a fleet, get on comms in a PvP fit ship for your ratting and stop worrying about AFK cloaking for good.
Indices*
i will try my own angle on this.
They only shut it down, because the locals refuse to form and do anything. The quoted text above can not work as argument against afk cloakers, because nothing keeps them from grouping-, or solo-baiting, to figure out if the afk cloaker is an actual threat, or just the illusion of a potential threat.
that’s why most people, who complain, have no ground to speak on: you need at least some proof that “your” afk cloaker is indeed a potential threat and not just a random guy who extorts cowards.
- every single afk cloaker remains only an illusion of a threat until proven otherwise.
Consider the mentality of the complaining person. he refuses to undock, because of a potential threat. at this point it doesn’t even matter if he is afk or not, because what they fear is the idea of a threat. not an actual threat.
- look at those who complain and what they share, or have in common.
they refuse to undock their ships for ratting or anything else, which means they’re scared of an yet unconfirmed threat. “anything else” is a stretch, because people who PvP won’t complain about a cloaker sitting in one single system, therefore those who complain likely are farmers.
they refuse to acknowledge the fact that the threat is unproven and also refuse to risk a ship they likely could pay for anyway! it would be silly to assume that those who complain, who likely are farmers, lack the money to replace their equipment, and no one forces them to bling out their ships. they can minimize potential losses, too. they’re farmers, in nullsec, so how can they not afford? they refuse to find out if the threat is actually real, which means that they lack a base to speak on. they complain, because they feel entitled.
The fact that not every afk cloaker can be an actual threat means that, unless a complainers afk cloaker is a confirmed threat, there is no real reason to listen to complainers. they hide for weeks at a time, from a person who would likely not touch them even ONCE, and this ONCE - if it happens at all - is only a blip compared to the time the players spent hiding, instead of playing until the cloaker maybe strikes!
Anyone who complains about afk cloakers should be encouraged to first provide proof that his potential threat really is an actual threat. there is zero reason to support people who can not be bothered doing even a minimum of ground work. there is zero reason to support, or listen to, people who complain that their way-too-big-easy-mode-money-making-machine (sorry; it saves words) is being disrupted in *supposedly dangerous space, because if it wasn’t for that one potential threat, there would be no threat at all.
And that leads to the conclusion that those, who complain but fail to provide proof, don’t deserve the attention they receive.
I suggest that in the future, just like in C&P regarding thefts, people should be socially shamed unless they provide proof that the potential threat is an actual threat. That’ll work wonders and curbstomp this nonsense within a relatively short timeframe, or at least provide slme nice fun on the forums. It’d be better than this nonsense we have here.
Make Forums Great Again! Down with the cowards! (they’re guilty until proven otherwise)
And now back to work…
PS: i refuse to let a minority of potential cowards, who only care about farming, change the game just for their greed and cowardness. people still didn’t learn how that only wrecks the game?
Couple of points…
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PvE players are the vast majority, not a minority. You may not think they are worthy of being considered people, but they are, and their playstyle matters too.
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Cloaking, by its invulnerable nature, prevents any sort of ‘forming up to do something’. You can’t do anything to flush out a cloaker, so there is no point in forming up against one. It’s a waste of time. Of course, your real argument is that it’s reasonable that a single neut in system must be countered by multiple PvE’rs flying compromised fits in preparation for participating in a playstyle they hate.
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What about those who don’t refuse to Undock, but want to hunt the cloaked threat down to eliminate it. I guess that playstyle doesn’t deserve any sand in the sandbox either. Only the Predator deserves to be safe while hunting.
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All threats are considered live until proven otherwise. Doing it the other way is suicide.
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How wonderfully incapable you are of reading beyond my triggering words. 
I’ll address your points.
- One
PvE players are the vast majority, not a minority. You may not think they are worthy of being considered people, but they are, and their playstyle matters too.
You start with the assumption that Quantity > Quality. “PvE players are the vast majority” might be so, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing. Then you come up with a claim I’ve never made, yet you apparently read that right into it, making me question what’s going on in your mind.
Nowhere in my post have i generalized all PvE’rs into the bucket “cowards”. As written above, i’ve logically deducated the cowardness of complainers, who appear to be carebears who apparently do not engage in anything but PvE. It doesn’t mean that I’ve said all PvE players are cowards, and it does not imply that there are no cowards who PvP.
You’ve tried to apply the Group attribution error onto me and it’s probably not me who is doing it on a regular occasion.
- Two
Cloaking, by its invulnerable nature, prevents any sort of ‘forming up to do something’. You can’t do anything to flush out a cloaker, so there is no point in forming up against one. It’s a waste of time. Of course, your real argument is that it’s reasonable that a single neut in system must be countered by multiple PvE’rs flying compromised fits in preparation for participating in a playstyle they hate.
You really need to learn to express yourself in proper detail and without “interpretations” of game mechanics. Like, for example, that “cloak grants, by its nature, invulnerability”. You’re not a native english speaker? I grant you a “virtually invulnerable” due to the fact that you can’t possibly find him, but that’s a BIG STRETCH, because you can still always try to bait him!
Or how you jump directly to the conclusion “you can’t flush out a cloaker” (which really should be “we”, or “i” but i digress…) and therefore he somehow “prevents any sort of ‘forming up’”. What kind of logic is that? He does not prevent you from pressing the UnDock button and just playing and farming, does he? No. You can do it, besides him being there!
If you were smarter about it, you’d do what’s called “baiting” and you probably even know that!
- Three
What about those who don’t refuse to Undock, but want to hunt the cloaked threat down to eliminate it. I guess that playstyle doesn’t deserve any sand in the sandbox either. Only the Predator deserves to be safe while hunting.
The argument of “what others want” is invalid. I don’t see regularly happening threads of people who want to hunt cloaky campers! Coincidentially, soon someone will make a thread about how he wants to hunt cloaky campers, but eventually he’ll be exposed as farmer. I’d not be surprised. And to make matters worse, it comes in such a wonderfully passive aggressive form, which is also quite typically for … well, people like you, who complain about an unconfirmed threat.
- The bell rings
All threats are considered live until proven otherwise. Doing it the other way is suicide.
And THAT’s the thing. You don’t understand that, with this line, you’ve now confirmed that you are indeed a coward!
- You claim that an unconfirmed threat is suicide.
- You make claims about mechanics that aren’t objectively correct
- You don’t even try baiting him
- You claim he prevents you from undocking and doing anything at all.
- You use passive aggressiveness to support your “argumentation”.
You have no ground to speak on. And to make matters even worse, it’s very likely that you could easily replace your losses with what’s in your possession already.
You’re free to explain me why it is so quintessential to you to farm isk in nullsec in absolute peace and safety. Beyond that I really suggest you grow some balls, undock, and find out if he actually is around to be an actual, confirmed threat.
PS: cat tax.
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There is no such thing as 100% PvE in this game.
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No it doesn’t. Join a standing fleet, get on comms, PvE in PvP fit ships and stop worrying about the cloaker
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What do you know about that? You have zero kills in your entire time in the game. Stop takling about things you don’t have experience with.
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A cloaked person in sov null isn’t a threat, if you’re in a standing fleet, on comms and PvEing in a PvP fit ship
You start with the assumption that Quantity > Quality. “PvE players are the vast majority” might be so, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing. Then you come up with a claim I’ve never made, yet you apparently read that right into it, making me question what’s going on in your mind.
Oddly, that sounds a lot like an expression of the opinion that PvE players are of such inferior quality that their overwhelming numbers are of no consequence.
True, you can split hairs to avoid saying that a cloaked ship is only virtually safe, rather than completely safe. It does not change the reality of the situation.
You cannot flush out a cloaker. There is no mechanism where you can force any action at all on a cloaked ship. He can choose to shut down his cloak, but you can’t force that decision upon him unless he is both extremely unlucky and completely stupid. Sure, you can bait him… but that does not do anything to him against his will, which is hilarious given that the cornerstone of the pro-cloaking argument is that no one should be able to do anything in safety.
The argument of “what others want” is invalid. I don’t see regularly happening threads of people who want to hunt cloaky campers! Coincidentially, soon someone will make a thread about how he wants to hunt cloaky campers, but eventually he’ll be exposed as farmer. I’d not be surprised. And to make matters worse, it comes in such a wonderfully passive aggressive form, which is also quite typically for … well, people like you, who complain about an unconfirmed threat.
Those threads happen all the time. It’s why this thread exists. Sure, the motive behind most of it is to secure space for other uses… but that’s kind of the point of owning space in the first place right? Isn’t one of the most common arguments for cloaking the paradox that the residents have failed to protect their space, despite the fact that the aggressors are hiding behind a module that prevents any proactive defense?
You can claim that proactive defense is cowardice if you want, but I assure you that any intelligent person will prepare themselves against potential threats. Ignoring the a threat is suicide. As there is no way of addressing the threat represented by a cloaked camper, all options end in a default win condition for that camper— he has degraded the value of the system by forcing compromised fits, or he is getting his wish of a soft target delivered on a platter, or the space is just abandoned to the cloaker either by logging or moving systems.
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You cherry-picked one sentence that I wrote and apparently ignored what I said afterwards, which I wrote specifically to counter arguments like this.
“Counters tend to be excessively expensive in terms of player time (i.e. large numbers of people sitting in a counterdrop defense fleet for hours on end), are also a broken mechanic (carrier collective defense), or are the exact same thing (camping the attacker’s corp/alliance/coalition money-making system to persuade them to stop).”
If your argument is “be in standing fleet”, well, I suggest you try that sometime. When you get dropped with even as small as a 20 man stealth bomber fleet, you will probably die and the enemy fleet will be cloaked up before the first backup even lands on grid, even if friendlies are undocked in system.
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There’s also no mechanism in game to catch a ratter/miner/industrialist in sov null who is watching local chat. Let’s get rid of that and then we can talk about cloaks.
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