To branch off slightly from my reply regarding metrics and delve a bit into the point of view of a cloaker,
What to me is the targeted problem:
Mass deployment of cheap ships by a single player or group in order to disrupt and suppress activity in an entire region.
What to me constitutes undesirable effect:
Lower than estimated impact on low-investment mass cloaky camping. “Active” hunters being pushed into using the above strategy and options being removed from the gameplay style.
There is a very binary approach to what constitutes an AFK Cloaker in this change. How I see this definition in the current mehanic:
“Anyone who departs the keyboard for longer than 20 minutes is an AFK cloaker”
Reasoning: Around 20 minutes is enough for your enemy to anchor and get a pulse out. Because a lot in EVE is about balancing costs and risk management, at this point you essentially die on a coin toss.
This would actually be a fine assumption as an isolated change - this idea however exists in the ecosystem of New Eden.
In this ecosystem, players who use covert cloaks exists within a certain niche - they belong to the skirmish and harassment group and partial overlap between the cloaky camper and roaming gang exists.
As an example, if the gang and the cloaky camper are in contact with each other, a cloaked player can provide initial tackle or warp-in as they already are in system. This is rare, but I’ve done it more than occasionally.
The roaming gang moves faster and has a wider engagement profile - their logistics ships allow them to pick a fight with another gang and their tacklers, often interceptors, can be on the target quicker. They are also immediately visible in local and their fleet composition is easy to report, allowing a defense fleet to form and ratters to dock up in neighboring systems.
The cloaky camper excels at eliminating cautious high value targets that rely on local to avoid roaming gangs. On their own their engagement profile is slim and covert ops fleet compositions cannot hold their ground against a comparably sized, balanced gang - spare for very rare and expensive compositions which require prep time to set up.
The set up time mentioned is quite important as this kind of gameplay is more often than not reactive - the camper and their fleet need to adjust to their target’s time and be ready, and it’s easier to gather a few bombers than a complex doctrine.
There exists a core problem in the perception of the covert cloak however, as the only thing it can conceal is your current state (active/inactive) and position. ZKillboard provides insight to your intent, ship and possibly fitting and local indicates your movement.
This, of course, applies to all ships that are out hunting - however, an interceptor or other tackler ship hold the advantage of moving faster, while the chief advantage of a cloaking ship comes into play once they linger in a state of potential inactivity for a prolonged period of time.
To reiterate:
- In order to take the full advantage of your cloaking device, you need to remain in the system concealed for a prolonged period of time and bait your target’s confidence.
If we force a “status check” mechanic into play, and that advantage is lost - building our assumption around rewarding cloaked players that move around, switch systems and actively hunt, there is little point in using a cloaky ship in general.
Another point here is that EVE is a game of risk management - you always balance your risk for the target you wish to accomplish. Your risk is how much you put in your ship - and each gameplay style has a measure to mitigate that risk and achieve success.
A skirmish oriented ship has high speed and bonuses that can help it control a small amount of opponents and disengage if needed. Damage application/Range bonuses, tackle bonuses (Orthrus) are an example.
The cloaker mitigates with the ultimate ability of picking their engagements. Once they commit, they become very vulnerable to a response that is ready for them. This is not some ideal case - I’ve seen that happen and worked around it in the past.
Once we push the risk boundary and introduce a deterrent like an obsevatory, the player will take steps to mitigate it and accomplish their goal. That goal is not to stay cloaked up in system in a ship of his choosing - it’s to use a cloaky ship to catch people that would normally not undock with a hostile in local and blow them up.
To do that, he needs to preserve his advantage of having an hard to determine state. The only way forward for him is to ensure his ability to increase survival with a potential observatory present. He also needs to accept losses due to not being at the keyboard (stakeouts can, by default, be very boring and last a long time) for the magical period defined as “AFK”.
The choice is either to switch to a different style of play (this is the point where a fair amount of hunters I know get legit angry and consider quitting. I mean, we play to sneak around, right - and there’s a niche there.) or… well, downship, cut your engagement profile even further, risk less and basically do what certain players that had a lot of characters in bombers did - properly “AFK Cloak” waiting for the jackpot target.
To summarize my biggest points:
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Because in-game (local) and external (zkill) intel tools nullify all others, the remaining advantage of cloaks is that you can, by remaining in an area for a prolonged period of time, conceal your level of activity to bait out a target
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Introduction of a deterrent mechanic forces either decreasing the cost of your operation and trimming the engagement profile or switching away from this gameplay style entirely.
(As a bonus, it pushes Recons further into a niche of being brick tanked fleet cynos)
Of course, to keep it in mind - this is only addressing the consequences for us, a cloaked guys. I will not go in depth on what I would consider the economic impact here, but something tells me that big groups that can pull a lot more than 40m/hour out of a system will enjoy observatories greatly…
