Main AFK cloaky thread

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1026

Stop arguing already!

You know who docks up immediately when someone non-blue enters local?
People who cry about afk cloaling!

You know who benefits the most of perfectly safe space, where they can make billions with no effort?
People who cry about afk cloaking!

You know who docks up immediately when someone non-blue enters local?
Bots!

You know who benefits the most of perfectly safe space where the can make billions with no effort?
RMTers!

Stop this ■■■■■■■■ already! There is no point in not blanket accusing these people of botting and RMTing! None! Absolutely ■■■■■■■ none! This thread is full of evidence that they do not care about any and all arguments whatsoever, and they will never stop, not because they’re self entitled safe spacers, BUT BECAUSE IT IS REAL LIFE INCOME FOR THEM, and it’s absolutely effortless to achieve, but one damn afk cloaker keeps them from making their money!

And THAT’S why this topic is being dragged on forever! Their ■■■■■■■ RMT!

It’s all about the money, nothing else!

You’re endlessly talking to people who only care about their income in real life! Do you SERIOUSLY believe people find it fun farming billions endlessly, every ■■■■■■■ day? What the hell do you think would they be doing with all this money? Do you think they need it to fund their PvP? THESE CRYBABIES? ■■■■■■■■! They RMT it!

It’s real life income for them, and that is the only ■■■■■■■ reason why they will not ever stop this whining, instead of just going somewhere else! It is basically effortless money making, and a single guy in a cloaked ship halts or cuts into their income stream!

That’s all there is to it, so now stop arguing and instead tell them what they deserve!

If i must, I will keep repeating this message endlessly, until even the last one gets it!

They bot!
They RMT!

Tell them to go fling themselves!

Thanks!

1027

Why can you only imagine such a simplistic version of AFK enforcement?

To @Lena_Crews, and me, AFK is bad. Maybe not “cheating”, but right not I will take that extreme case for illustration. As @yellow_parasol points out many (I don’t agree all, because in MMOs some people do mindlessly boring tasks that should never be fun) of the people against AFK cloakers are bots/RMT. So we get “other people are cheating, so I have to cheat too, and if you try to prevent my cheating, I’ll cheat harder.”

To my mind, botting and AFK are the same type of problem, they differ in degree, not kind. They are both people not playing the game. Right now AFK is allowed, but if that were to be changed, as @Lena_Crews is suggesting, then it’s very easy for CCP to update the EULA at the same time with a line like “artificially manipulating the AFK timer is not allowed”, then anyone who does the things you suggest has to worry about facing the ban hammer.

I know botting software is getting better, but for the most part it isn’t that hard for a game to tell the difference between a player, a bot, and an empty chair. Many things in EvE are very AFKish in their nature, but the player doesn’t stare at the space on the screen in that time, they alt-tab away (the client can check if it has focus or not), they chat in-game, they use the fitting tool, they do PD, they check their PI, etc. A bot “stares” at empty space and interacts on a clock in a predictable manner. An empty chair doesn’t do anything.

The problem is, that despite it being easy for the game to see who is a player and who isn’t CCP isn’t really doing that much about it. Botting and AFK are both real world problems that CCP needs to deal with. By saying that I’m making the distinction between things that players deal with in-game, like someone scamming you, and things that CCP should deal with, i.e. outside the scope of “the sandbox”.

I don’t know if it’s the best option for EvE, but I know other MMOs have used random or unbeatable NPCs combined with CAPTCHA style puzzle games to deal with botting/AFK. An EvE version of this could be something like when the system detects botting/AFK, CONCORD/drifters (depending on what space you are in) drop on you and get point (this prevents a bot from atuo-warping away. To escape, you have to “hack the drifter’s link” or “show papers to CONCORD” this would be a CAPTCHA style mini-game like hacking. Not designed to be hard, but designed to be only human completable. If you prove you are human in time, you can warp away from the drifters or get left alone by CONCORD. If you fail to prove you are human in time you become a cloud of space dust.

This doesn’t remove local, this doesn’t nerf cloaking for ATK cloakers, this does do something about bots and AFK. Is it perfect, no. Will the bots eventually find a way around it, yes. Will it create an ongoing cat and mouse between the devs and the bot devs, yes.

The tools exist for CCP to do something about bots and AFK, and they really aren’t doing much about it. :frowning:

1028

It’s simply not relevant to consider those who don’t, because they’re still supporting those who do, even if it’s indirectly only. Therefore approaching them as equals, especially because we can’t distinguish them from another, is perfectly valid.

1029

Are you saying that every pve player do rmt?

1030

Learn to read, learn to consider context and then try again. Harder, next time. Your bullshitting with words and contextes goes nowhere.

1031

Your crying thread was closed and now you came here to cry more.

1032

I suggest everyone not to let the hateful troll bait your egos. It’s likely that i triggered the botter here and he needs to lash out now… not unexpected. Remember that these people do not deserve the attention they get, and as long as we reply, they will keep going.

1033

Oh so now you are saying that im a botter. Nice lmao!

1034

That only makes sense in a consequentialist ethical system. I concede that most people in the world tend toward consequentialism, and those that do have a hard time seeing anything else as conceivable or rational, but deontologists do exist. There is no objective means to determine which view of the world is correct, and it’s just narrow minded to force your world view on others.

I know you don’t really think AFK is bad, but for example I’m going to pretend that you think both botting and AFK are bad:

As a consequentialist, you would look at it like this:

AFK is bad, we should do something about it. What about X? Well that would fix AFK, but it would help botting which is also bad, so we can’t do it.

As a deontologists, I look at it like this:

AFK is bad, we should do something about it. What about X? Well that would fix AFK, so let’s do it. What about it helping botting? Botting is it’s own problem, we should fix it too.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a connection, nor that the “big picture” doesn’t matter, just that in some ethical systems “side effects” would not count as “support for” like you have suggested.

I guess on the botting/AFK issue (as I said, I see them as one) I see it as a real world problem that CCP needs to deal with in the real world, with EULA changes, legal actions, and bans. Not an in-game problem that players need to deal with in-game. So the argument “we need AFK because it prevents botting” doesn’t do much for me.

I think the efforts @Sir_SmashAlot / @Wanda_Fayne are doing are a great way to deal with the problem at hand, but not the real solution. The real solution is for CCP to do whatever it takes to make the game better playable by players and unplayable by bots and empty chairs.

Also, I think this is 100% false. I think CCP can easily distinguish them from each-other if they tried at all. Human interactions and machine interactions are not hard to distinguish in sever logs.

1035

You are overcomplicating things and you’re reading words i am neither writing, nor implying. it’s great to think a lot, and put things into many perspectives, but from the looks of it have you lost your grip on what’s essential and important: The reality of the situation. And damn, you failed at reading my post.

From the group of people who complain about afk cloakers, we can not distinguish botters and non-botters. We. Here. On the forums. CCP does not matter here, as can be seen by their lack of action in here, and quite frankly said they don’t seem to matter in the game either, as they don’t appear to be doing much, or anything effective enough.

As we can not, in here, distuingish between those who bot/rmt and those who do not, we can treat them all as equals, because differentiating and continuously communicating is effectively useless and only serves those who bot/rmt. No one else.

If you spend enough time reading through this thread, you can come to the conclusion that the only reason why they keep talking, is because they make people talk. They lie, manipulate and pretend. They abuse other people’s willingness to communicate for thekr own gain, though the idea of such a gain is quite stupid, because no matter how many words they throw around, they’ll change nothing.

We can not distuingish between those who bot/rmt. Because …

  • non-botters/non-rmters behave the same way as bots (dock at sight of a non-blue), and
  • nullsec systems behind intel channels provide the perfect environment for botting/rmt (high safety, high income), and
  • because those who do not bot/rmt use all the same arguments and reasons (aka mostly bullshit)

… it is completely unnecessary to differentiate between those who bot/rmt and those who do not, also because both sides seek the same outcome.

There, i hope that was clear enough.

1036

It’s perfectly clear, and exactly how I understood you the first time, although I expanded it to also include CCPs enforcement of what we discuss.

This is only a true statement if you are a consequentialist, it is completely false to a deontologist. It’s just like saying “the Bible says so” as a proof or a reason to an Atheist. It makes sense to you the consequentialist/Christian, but it’s nonsense to the deontologist/Atheist.

1037

And that’s still irrelevant to the reality of the situation, which you apparently are incapable of grasping as the one thing that truly matters. vOv I’m not going to waste my time on this, as it achieves nothing. Feel free to have the last word in case you need it.

1038

Because the simple version is the standard AFK flag, and the only one that actually tests for players that are genuinely AFK vs. players that are ATK but not doing much. Setting it any other way gets into arguments about just how much activity you have to do to be considered ATK, with no clear answer that everyone will agree on.

I don’t know if it’s the best option for EvE, but I know other MMOs have used random or unbeatable NPCs combined with CAPTCHA style puzzle games to deal with botting/AFK. An EvE version of this could be something like when the system detects botting/AFK, CONCORD/drifters (depending on what space you are in) drop on you and get point (this prevents a bot from atuo-warping away. To escape, you have to “hack the drifter’s link” or “show papers to CONCORD” this would be a CAPTCHA style mini-game like hacking. Not designed to be hard, but designed to be only human completable. If you prove you are human in time, you can warp away from the drifters or get left alone by CONCORD. If you fail to prove you are human in time you become a cloud of space dust.

Yeah, because god NPCs that, in the best possible outcome, force you to warp off and abandon whatever you were doing, are a great idea in a game with permanent ship loss on destruction. Not clicking often enough should definitely give you a “solve this puzzle or lose your ship” test…

1039

Ok, but we might as well talk about how true something is to a flat-earth theorist, which is a theory that is about as reasonable as deontological ethical systems. Why should we pay any attention to what some fringe nutcases think about ethics?

And, on a more relevant point, your deontological nonsense is also **** game design. Forget the supposed moral issue of botting, what matters is what is best from a gameplay experience point of view. Increasing botting makes the game worse, so changes that increase botting should be avoided unless there is an extremely compelling reason to make that change. Your proposed AFK changes lack that compelling reason. At best they reduce a minor annoyance for you, at the cost of massively distorting the risk vs. reward tradeoff in favor of botters and entitled carebears. And that is **** game design.

1 Like
1040

They are not the same. It’s not about not being present, it’s about inputs from a non-human entity. You can be at the keyboard but it’s still not ok for the computer to press buttons for you. You’ve literally got it upside down. I can afk mine, i can even afk rat, as long as the only input is from me.

And by putting a timer/capture on an afk cloaker you make it easier for the null bear to tell whether someone is there or not. Which you’re not getting.

1041

Or… some of us want to be able to bait a red in system… not have them be asleep and thus unable to be baited.

But feel free to rant about bots and RMT when defending someone is “playing” the game while not at their freaking keyboard. That is some pretty ridiculous hypocritical garbage.

1042

I have maybe 6-7 hours a week to play the game. I don’t want to waste an hour trying to lure someone into interaction when they are asleep on their couch. I spend an hour trying to bait a player who’s AFK into interaction, that’s an hour lost where I had zero chance at success.

Yes, I’m seriously bitching at that person being able to waste my time by pretending to be present when they are not.

1043

How is there a difference, from your point of view, between a player who is asleep and a player who is watching a movie and only doing the bare minimum to keep the AFK flag off? Either way your bait is going to fail and you are not going to get any interaction.

1044

Stop treating baiting as a discrete activity.

Do “something else” productive, in a ship that seems reasonable, but really is bait.

Examples include:

  1. An epithal doing PI. You can cyno in reinforcements, they’ll be hard pressed to be isk efficient even in bombers.
  2. A battleship ratting in combat sites. You can fight the solo dropper if that’s what you think it is, or tank until the cavalry arrives.
  3. Mining in a belt. Cyno or battlerorq ftw.
  4. Undock your bait and don’t stop your ship… it’ll drift out of tether eventually. I’ve seen it happen for real, I’m sure most of us have… and think about all the salt a cloaky hunter can harvest from some dude that forgot to stop his ship? Granted not an otherwise productive thing, but you could do it with an alt.
  5. Start gating a capital or freighter around the constellation. Maybe you’re an indy dude and you need to move stuff around… it happens.
1045

I am doing that stuff. It’s not very good bait if you’re not.

The point is I’m not looking to PVE in peace. If I am I’ll go to a clear system. If I’m baiting I want to be in a system with an active threat. Not an AFK player. Yes, I might make 50m in an hour of running anoms… but I’m not running them to make isk… I’m running them to bait a hunter. I can live with the idea that he might be too smart to take the bait. I’m frustrated with the thought that 95% of the people I try to do this with aren’t at their keyboards to even consider the bait. I feel like the game is allowing them to waste my time while putting no effort in to do so.