People who followed this thread since the start know that I have my reservations about this solution.
However, one also has to admit in fairness that the active cloaky pilot is already figuring out ways to deal with the new mechanic and mitigate its effects on active play styles. Will it require more movement and precautions ? Sure. But all in all, ihe new mechanic will have the least possible effect on active players. It will at least give a shot at dealing with afk cloakies, and leave the rest - whether one likes it or not - in relative peace.
For those who want to use the new device to flush out just any non-afk cloaky it will turn out to be expensive and unsuccessful. Which is how it should be. Cloaks are intended to bring an element of danger.
So, let’s give it a shot, see if it works for its intended goal and if or how it unintentionally affects other actions in the game (e.g. waiting out jump fatigue timers).
I’ve been an active Cloak Explorer / Mission Runner for over 10 years and I don’t like this change at all. Definitely don’t need it to decloak me when I’m scanning for signatures or when scouting a gate / station.
Earlier I agreed with the idea that this could have an on-screen pop-up notification with one button click for active players to continue being cloaked. AFK players would be decloaked so problem solved.
if someone wants to spend 40million to decloak my 8mill imicus when im scanning sites then who am i to stop them.
the more i read this thread to get a handle on how its going to effect my gameplay the more im convinced that these things arent going to be as widespread as everyone seems to think.
I had to stop reading there… i’m a really really shitty hunter, and on my first solo roam i caught a krabbing vexor with my shitty shitty skills, and my shitty shitty omen.
You want to hunt without local being an issue, why not hunt in WH space? That’s what i don’t understand about you cloaky folks…
I said near impossible. Yes you will occasionally get a kill here or there. As I’ve said earlier, it’s usually noobs or afks that are the people you tend to catch - which if they were in a vexor is likely the case in your situation too
Why shouldn’t pvpers have the opportunity to pvp in the pvp area of the game though? It’s the risk averse players who belong elsewhere… in high sec. The game used to be based on a risk and reward concept, you could stay in high sec pretty safe doing missions or you could go out to null sec and make more if you were willing to accept the risks that came with it and defend your little corner. But there’s just very little risk attached to null sec farming now because those players expect high sec like safety but the rewards that accompany null sec.
Also WHs are very quiet to my knowledge. Another area of the game that CCP hasn’t been maintaining properly, like FW space.
Well, from my experience as both a krab and a hunter… i do defend my little corner. Yes, if i see someone come on in local i’ll dock and reship to something else fitted for PVP and go after them. They mostly run away, though. Seems that more often than not, they want to catch me with my pants down.
Which i understand, as i slip into their role a few times per day too. I don’t run away if they reship though, but that’s just me and my friends…
Still… yesterday I’ve seen a flycatcher run away from a single kestrel… What gives?
All in all, it seems mostly everyone who complains wants to shoot krabs exclusively, and will “krab away” themselves if locals try to meet them in combat, regardless of numbers.
Really, though. You want to exclusively kill people in PVE fits why not join a high-sec ganking outfit?
Because I don’t only want that. My concerns about null sec aren’t aimed at you if you’re one of the minority of farmers that do actively defend their space.
I’m an extremely aggressive (and whelpy) pvper so it seems unlikely I’m the sort of player you’re referring to too
Who knows why, but maybe the Kestrel looked too baity so the Flycatcher thought they were walking into a trap.
The “they mostly run away” argument is kindof lol too. For example we might go on a roam with 4 guys and take a straight up, or even a bit outnumbered fight but the locals come out with 40 guys including caps for our 2 frigates, a cruiser, and battlecruiser, then complain how we “ran away” from them wanting a “good fight”. This is why we end up using cloakies a lot or tactics that are get in, get a target, and get out fast. With the huge numbers they come out with, it is not possible to straight up brawl them.
That being said, the game shouldn’t have to be about who has the biggest blob. It should allow some guerilla warfare, piracy, etc kindof tactics for smaller groups as well.
“AFK Cloaking” is one such tactic. If you can’t take them head on with a blob, you can whittle down their indexes psychologically. That is the point. Otherwise once an alliance reaches a critical mass then it is impossible to do anything to them, unless they break up by spais or just plain boredom.
I’ll take your word for it. But i’m generalizing… Take a look and you’ll see that being risk-averse is an issue not only with farmers, but with a ■■■■-ton of hunters too. And it’s mostly the latter that are so vocal against these proposed changes.
I’ve seen some of them complaining that they’ll get “blobbed” when they try to hunt near an alliance’ staging system during their prime TZ. Not every single system in every region has 40 people doing jack-■■■■ in standing fleet. When we plan our roams, we avoid those places, and never come back empty-handed or isk-negative.
Might’ve been… could’ve been… so, risk-averse, as i mentioned previously.
It happens to us all the time. Something will come through and we won’t take it, they will complain and talk ■■■■ how we are pussies and risk averse, to take their “solo” ship etc. Meanwhile our eyes see the 30 man fleet next door or the cyno recon, etc waiting to pounce. There is no point in taking a fight that is a guaranteed loss, call that risk averse that is fine lol.
Hmm, i wouldn’t do any different in that case you described. You’ve described an informed decision based on proper intel. I’ve described my own case. Proper intel on my person will see that generally i go out in a blaze on T1 ships while screaming obscenities, and then nothing happens.
And i’ll tell you that even when i’m actively trying to get killed i’ll fail more often than not. Call that being bad at being bad, maybe?
I still don’t get it. You (not anybody here in particular, i'm talking about what i see in average from complaints) want the big juicy targets. You also want them to do their thing, with their blingy fits as if you weren’t there (AFK Cloak or without local). You want, at best, small reasonable defense efforts.
Seems that you want your cake and eat it too. That’s not going to happen, naturally. But then, the options would be:
Krab in PVP ready fits (not going to happen for most people, as that’d bite into ISK/hour efficiency. Better off in HS, or WH if no other options available)
Krab with blingy fits, but with with a fleet of friends to guard you (it has to be reasonable and offer a fighting change for the attackers, though)
Do nothing, to lower ADM. Which currently is what tends to happen.
There’s also a lot of people proposing the removal of local, as if farmers would simply carry on as if nothing happened, while being much more vulnerable. Nope, they’ll simply scurry off to HS or WH. Now we’re left with much less prey, and only have each other to kill… which is fine, i guess?
Really, i’m trying to understand the end goal here …
Local allows perfect intel for the hunted to mitigate the risk of being caught
Local allows perfect intel for the hunter to rapidly ascertain that there’s a target in the system
ESS allows the above from way too many jumps away
Outdated PvE systems encourage grinding in optimized PvE fits to get this over with
There’s no incentive for the ratter to stay in the anomaly while danger is present.
In short: everyone immediately sees everyone and can avoid everybody unless AFK games are played. Such as: Ratter AFKs/doesn’t pay attention and is tackled. Hunter AFKs and tricks target into ratting and then jumps them.
The entire content stack is broken and haphazardly chucking “solutions” at it - such as Blackout or Observatories - just further imbalances the system. But, by certain laws of people and software design, we’ll probably need to endure a few more of those until the devs actually commit to a solution.
Imagine that trade-offs. Krabs almost always min/max and cry when they can’t because boo hoo ISK efficiency.
This won’t happen because of ISK efficiency again. The guards could be krabbing too or they have to be paid. But again boo hoo they have to make an effort instead of min max.
Imagine that - not tending to your garden the plants die.
They shouldn’t carry on as if nothing happened. They should pay attention and actually spend effort for Intel. Or they can continue to min/max and have bad results.
This is NULL for crying out loud.
This deployable is a huge buff to local. The counter to local was AFK cloaking because there is no stealth or fog of war with the absolutely garbage way local works.
Three counter to them knowing you’re there is at least they don’t know your active. But with this deployable they finally get both! So there is no longer any counter to local (unless you break the rules and bot).
If that wasn’t bad enough then actives whom are already known for sure to be there (from local) and already known to be active (though the deployable) are now forced to stop whatever they are doing every few minutes and reveal themselves by decloaking to prove to the deployable gods they are active.
So who really
?
At least nerfing (but not necessarily removing completely) local plus adding Intel tools encourages active play for both sides.
A straight buff to local only serves one group: null krabbers with no balance whatsoever and side effects to many other professions.
No. Just Krab in a way that you are ready to GTFO. I also find it hilarious every time people bring up WH with a clear misunderstanding of WH space.
That being said you should try krabbing in WH space. Once you can learn to evade a WH gank while krabbing you will learn to evade ganks easily everywhere.
My idea was a timer in the upper left corner, (like you had taken a drug) that you had to hit before the 15 min ran out to reset it to the 15 min again… Kinda like how a train engineer has to hit a button to prove he’s still awake. Same premise, different approach… Meh, leave to CCP to bork a simple solution.
That is why i genuinely asked why people who complain about local don’t switch over to hunting in WH space. There’s no local there, and there’s a lot of PVE content to be had from what little i know. What is the matter, honestly?
Exactly. They min/max. You throw a wrench in that mix, they’ll scurry off to High-Sec and min-max there doing incursions, LP farm, whatever. Boom, now we have even less people to hunt. Don’t take my word for it, check what happend during the blackout.
Other than lowering ADM (which is a valid concern), i honestly still fail to see any upsides to AFK camping versus simply roaming space with high NPC kill activity.