A better way for War dec's

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
126

As much as it is a burden for hs wardec’rs to come fight in lowsec, nullsec or wh space and fight. But don’t you worry about me, I’ve got my stuff in order in more than one way :wink:

… which leads me to this:

prompting CCP to drastically change the wardec mechanisms - so there must have been whining of one kind or another. Let’s not kid each other. You know exactly what happened, and you yearn for those “guudtimes”. Fortunately there is something called corporate memory at CCP. They haven’t forgotten. And if they have, they will be reminded.

Hmm :thinking: You think so ? Which part of it ? The huge wardec lists, the easy hisec paid-for-unlimited-pvp, the easy targets, wars that aren’t wars ? I don’t feel responsible at all for any of that, lol. I’m not the one implementing weak and unbalanced rules, nor am I the one exploiting and abusing them.

Do I believe wardecs have a place in this game ? Of course I do. It’s also a mechanism that influences hisec, how all players experience hisec, vet and rookie, and hisec harbors the core trade of the entire game, which is not unimportant. That is why I wrote a short list of possible parameters to work with to come to a more balanced solution.

Some players think the current mechanics are one-sided, ironically covering both the side of the aggressors and the defenders…
Well, there’s the list of parameters to work with to suggest a better game aspect. It requires thought, consideration and moderation, not mere self-interest. Brushing it off the table won’t achieve anything at all.

Weeks ago I wrote my arguments against the original suggestion, which was altered a few times during that lengthy discussion, btw. If you act like that discussion and its evolution never took place, that’s fine. We’ll have the discussion again until you at least confirm the needs of your potential targets which happen to play the same game. Or … you could skip that unnecessary step, work with the wardec parameters and reach a balanced suggestion that doesn’t turn hisec into a paid-for-turkey-shoot that turns non-hisec’rs into paid-for-outlaws and maybe discourages some to continue to play this game. At this point it’s pretty much up to you, you know.

127

You validated all my points with this one sentence, because it shows your true underlying opinions, so I didn’t bother reading the rambling justifications.

You’re just another “grr wardecs” troll who will never be satisfied until the entire wardec mechanic is removed from the game.

Opinion dismissed, good day now.

128

You do know it doesn’t work that way ?

Anyway, congratulations on not adding any substance to the discussion and completely ignoring what I wrote - or rather, you have nothing to counter the “rambling justifications” with, that weren’t even “justifications”, lol.

You want it easier on your terms ? Not gonna happen :smiley:

129

unfortunately i have dracvlad on block so i cant see what he has written…

as to the others however, there is no fixing Wardecs, there how ever can be a balancing.

I think one way balancing wardecs would be adding the starbase charters for Empires back into the equation of PoCo’s and Upwells.

On top of that, new rigs only applicable to Citadels(astahus, fotrizar, keepstar) ahouls be introduced.
The new rigs wold be only from T2 salvage
Each Rig would allow for 1 war declaration from that Citadel

Starbase charters would be consumed at no less than 180 charters per hour as fuel for PoCo’s.

Upwells would consume the same amount of charters as they do in fuel blocks.

What this does(hopefully) is give meaning to those that really really want to do business in t he Empire of their choice, utilize market or LP stores to keep their upwells fueled.
Makes PoCo’s more appealing to local empire builders at the constellation/region level, and less appealing to over all HS wide Empire building by single entities.
Will Hopefully bring back merc mentatality or allow for more organic wars between smaller entities that are not bully brigade units like BF and their allies.

The idea is not to get rid of blanket wardecs, but if you want to do 100 wardecs you are going to need at least 34 active running upwells. fueled and chartered to do that.

130

On it’s own not a bad idea, you can of course view the posts of people you have blocked, but you will always be unable to look at the top post, your loss.

Starbase charters are a bad idea however.

That is what I want to see too.

131

The alliance I’m in often destroys hisec war HQ’s. Currently that means that every war declared by that hisec entity ends for everyone involved. It is the only existing counter - at least via normal gameplay - against blanket wardecs. Would you take that away ?

If you impose a condition of having a separate war HQ for every war, and make those completely independent from each other, you also take away the benefit described above, unless you also implement an extra condition of “losing one war HQ finishes all wars”.

On a different note, there are other fun things one could do with war HQ’s, more in line with the Equinox expansion:

One thing would be to power up these HQ’s via a War Rig that would consume a special (third) type of “Skyhook” fuel. The War Skyhook(s) in question - which could be a new type of Skyhook entirely and e.g., only deployable in hisec space, has (have) to be owned by the party that declared the war, and are an extension of the required war equipment. Fuel consumption could be linked to number of active wardecs. That could introduce new pause or end conditions: no War Skyhook and/or no fuel → war(s) paused. At the same time it would not be a hard cap on wardecs, while giving small defender groups the opportunity for more breathing space and retaliation.

132

If you have 1 astrahus, and need to core, fuel it, and as in the name(pickone) of the big HS war dec groups, use your income to buy all the charters you want/need that will be consumed at the same rate of fuel blocks in each one…and keep in mind you need the charters for each of the empires unless you drop them in only 1 of them…it will get annoying at the very least very fast.

And the counter to not put charters on the market means eventually someone is going to have to farm them from doing Lv4 missions or such to get the LP to get them.

Because everyone in HS and Losec will need them for any Upwell.
And Every PoCo owner will need them as well to fuel PoCO’s in LS and HS or they stop working.

The idea is not to stop blanket wardecs, the idea is not to stop wardecs vs nullsec or wh groups.

However if it works, the idea is put the onus on more Localized groups to own/run the PoCO’s, the idea is in a sense to force those that want to own such things and Empire Build in Empire space…to put some effort into stuff not just a little bit of skin.

and by effort, I mean in time less multiboxing(maybe/hopefully), recruiting and training new players to the core of EvE (everything is pvp).

As to Skyhooks in HS, i disagree unless or until CCP allows moon mining in all of HS not just .5

and this is also not an idea to cater to small defending groups. This is an idea to add Effort, real effort for those that want to Empire build and create Alliances. This is an idea so that those that do…can do so if they put in the effort for maintenance…and if they get grow big enough and get tired of the maintenance the whole “Alliance” can pack up and move to null and try their empire building there.

If it was me, and I wanted athanors or azabels i would need the structures, the cores, fuel blocks, and charters at a minimum for each one. Now lets say i wanted a PoCo or two in my home system as well…i need the stuff to make a PoCo, and the minimum 180 charters per hour to fuel each one(4,320 per day). not too mention the astrahus and charters, fuel, core, and at least 1 rig that allows for 1 wardec to even wardec the PoCo that i want. THIS, would be a lot of effort to maintain let alone prep for…i had better get hopping and get more active players in my corp cause im not going to be able to do this by myself and the few i already i have in it…not enough time.

133

also 1 more thing, the idea is not to add fun…more like unfun for Those that want to call them selves Leaders or content creators. Null leaders have a lot/enough on their plate in this department. IT is about high time so called HS(and LS) “Leaders” feel the same pain, have to go through the same level of important decisions imho.

134

yes 100% ! its simply bad for the war economic if you only can be attacked if you hold any structure ! look at the wars like they exist … its only structure grinding and nothing else ! if you dont want a war then you have 2 corps … 1 main corp without any structure and then a holding corp wich can ignore every war if you want ! it has no impact anymore if you declare a war !

135

Currently, if you are the defender (or an ally of the defender) and you want to stop the war by taking down the enemy’s war hq, that is indeed structure grinding. With @Max_Deveron 's suggestion that structure grind would increase up to a hundredfold - which I pointed out to Max (and which he is adamant about, for reasons I don’t know).

His as well as my idea both add a different requirement to the war HQ. His idea, as I see it, adds a passive layer, via charters. My idea, as I intend it, adds an active layer via a type of Skyhook (for lack of a better word) fueling the War Rig in some way or another. That Skyhook would at the same time be a means to introduce some extra challenge, an extra vulnerability, since it could be attacked, interrupted. and eventually destroyed.

I don’t see what Skyhooks of any shape or function have to do with moon mining in HS when we are discussing possible war dec mechanisms and requirements. Moon mining in HS has been turned back, and it was long overdue. That was one extra generosity of ccp Seagull that cost the game in the long term, and opened the way to Scarcity and Redistribution.

You can achieve that same level of involvement on the side of the aggressor in different ways, as we both demonstrated - assuming you are up to date with the challenge that Skyhooks present. In the case of nullsec their function is to develop sovereignty systems while adding vulnerability, in the case of hisec wars it could be a case of influencing the flow of the conflict by adding vulnerability (hence decisions and organisation). That vulnerability opens a door to extra gameplay on the side of the defender - who is usually very unwilling to take part in a hisec war. That could be fun if taken up. The cores of both ideas are not that different, but the resulting (extra) gameplay is. As you know, I prefer a “fun” factor over the next round of “tedium”.

Anyway, we don’t have to discuss respective ideas with each other. And I certainly do not want to flesh out any idea, when a creative CCP game designer would be the potential customer of the idea. Let the game designer have all the fun, run with it and turn it into something unexpected and fresh. It’s his/her job, and he/she loves to do just that. One word should be enough to initiate a train of thought. And in my case that word would be “Skyhook”, :grin:.

That would also require that the good people at CCP see the opportunity - if not the necessity - to update the wardec mechanisms. And that they actually hear about respective ideas in the first place…

136

Abolish the requirement for structure possession as a requirement for war eligibility.

Make the cost realistic (ask any government what it spends on war/defence).

NPC Corps are the default. They cannot be wardecced. If you want to form or join a corp, be prepared to defend it against wardecs. Make alliances so that in both attack and defence, you’re doing as much as you can. Sometimes you will lose. Suck it up. Play better, plan better.

Allow full freedom to attackers and defenders to use game mechanics which enable meaningful engagement rather than heavily choreographed balletic encounters.

If CCP is serious about pitching EVE as a co-operative experience, then let the sides in a conflict co-operate properly with their allies. If they fail to do so, they’ll fail to thrive.

Solo players, many of them very good at PvP, should be encouraged, not shut out of war activities. Let them breathe.

Let uncertainty and threat linger throughout New Eden’s regions, from Nullsec to Highsec, and everywhere in-between. Life in this game has become too predictable, too manageable.

What happened to the ‘dark, dystopian’ game whose tattered remnants currently lie scattered around the workstation of whichever Design Lead is flavour of this financial year?

Eve should be something similar to watching shock/thrill/horror/zombie movies. We are entertained or even challenged by those sensations, but we do return to our normal lives when the end credits roll. Thus, we’ve had a fully contained yet deeply satisfying experience.

If you’re not interested in PvP or Profit, join an NPC corp and stay there.

2 Likes
137

We had this already. For years. It simply didn’t work and was exclusively used to stomp down new players and their first endeavours to create anything, as promised by CCP in all their ads and trailers. And CCP finally changed it because they monitored a constant new player withdrawal from the game - to the thousands and tenthousands - because if a product can’t hold what the advertising promises, the users won’t pay for it any more.

If they go back to open wardecs without requirements other than paying a bit of ISK, they put another nail in the coffin of this game. And they know it very well, because unlike some newer players who never experienced how shitty the old system was (I have, and it was the worst system I ever encounted in any game - and I have played A LOT), they remember what it did to their playercount (aka income) in the past.

1 Like
138

I know. I believe that it is the framing of the concept of corporations in EVE which has led to a reluctance on the part of some of their leaders properly to protect their investment.

Like the belt-miner of yore, they simply don’t believe that anyone should be able to attack their interests without significant handicap. I suspect that the CEOs of ‘industrial’ corps in Highsec don’t believe they should have to defend themselves at all, because they’re ‘not here for the PvP’. It’s the old argument, rehashed.

War - real war - takes place between parties who believe that something important to them is at stake. In our case, it might be a structure - fine - but it might also be reputation, ISK or something else.

I don’t think the past situation was good, Syzygium; but I don’t believe the present iteration of the mechanic is particularly attractive either. I certainly avoid it.

It seems to me that CCP has taken the Limited Engagement/Duel idea and simply inflated it, with a change of name to ‘War Declaration’.

I admit, the game is beginning to pass me by. The changes I would like to see are most unlikely to happen. Here’s an example: parties to a wardec should have access to a reinstated watch-list. There. That’ll set the cat among the pigeons!

Look, this stuff is off the top of my head. Please pick me up on anything obviously crappy - it might make me more cautious in future, and will certainly stop me looking at EVE Now through this wretched jaundiced eye…

139

Skyhooks generate some sort of resource to fuel ihubs(?) and the new moon mining drills, along with population and power constraints/control of stars and planets.

No Empire is going to release its sovereignty for power and population in their space.

However, the passive moon drills over using athanor/tatara could be utilized, and for that to be worth it. CCP would have to allow for moon mining in all Security types…otherwise the skyhook is not worth a damn except for being a prettier structure in space.

So no, we dont need them in HS unless we get moon mining on all moons and in all systems.

And it may have been years but last time i checked Vaankalen had moons with platinum on them and vanadium.

140

I would not do this.
Because in the past it was far easier to wardec someone and gank them before it went live, during the war, and still after the war.

Structure eligibility forces a choice, put up a structure, or go the gank n’ spank route only.

141

im not just looking at agressor or defender…

What im looking at is utiliztion of everything from mining, to running anoms, to mission running, to manufacturing, to PoCo Control and PI for anything beyond the Corporate level. Maybe a large Corporation at that. But say an Alliance that in HS wants control of an entire Constellation for some reason…with different corporations owning/in charge of different star systems…integrating all these things into a happy pretzel of utilization wont mean much to the line member that partakes in the content being provided by the Corporate/Alliance leaders that this control would actually matter to.

142

But I thought no-one was safe anywhere in EVE, at any time, bar station-spinning?

Surely, my suggestion simply re-states that notion.

Still, if you don’t like it, Max, I defer.

143

The nullsec Skyhooks, as structures, have peculiar properties. They can be “linked” to, allowing the theft of the reagents they pull (and also destroy the leftovers). They can be attacked. They have short timers. They give (very) limited warnings when linked to or attacked.
The essence of that new mechanism is that it adds 1) limitations and 2) vulnerability (they really do need defending, to say the least).

When I mention “Skyhook” (for lack of a better word) in the context of hisec wardecs, it’s not referring to the current version of the structure itself, but to the spirit of that particular mechanism mediated by a novel Skyhook-like structure (in properties) AND a War Rig needed on a War HQ to enable a potential aggressor to declare and conduct an official war on a war eligible defender. This “skyhook” fuels that rig, that’s the idea. And it becomes an additional target, because it’s part of the “war economy and infrastructure” determining if you can go to war and to what extent, with a strong suggestion to “defend” that ability (the skyhooks being the vulnerable utility lines) at the same time.

That is the core, embryonic idea. How that scales, what exactly this new “skyhook” is, how it works, how the entire package differs from nullsec mechanics, how and to what extent they can influence the course of a war, how they affect multiple wars, in short what the designer wants to achieve, all those details are for the concept builders and the designers to decide and play with.

The nullsec skyhook mechanic in general opens several ways for the game designer to finetune what is possible on many different levels and aspects of gameplay (from economy to pvp). And something similar, mutatis mutandis could be created for hs wardecs, along the same core principles.

At least in nullsec these skyhook mechanics are a real content generator along diverse angles, and they bring decisions and consequences to the player, to say the least. “Invigorating hisec wars” - I can already see the adverts, after the November update at least :rofl:

144

Hi Drac hope you’re well.

Based on a general overview of the entire game any disruption to the ability to wardec 100s of other corps could affect the amount/rate of ship destruction to the extent where market trading could slow down. Any mechanic would have to be well thought out and perhaps some longterm simulations would need to be involved where the goal is to observe how long it would take for stagnancy to set in.

With your ideas in place I can see many struggling to find pvp in hi-sec due to the rising cost of maintaining a war, this might also prove to expidite stagnancy.

From a realistic perspective Eve can be very much like a slot machine where you win prizes, keeping this in mind we know that slot machines are set to pay out a small percentage to players and take the money/credit of a larger percentage of players, that is just the way it goes.

So comparing my example to Eve, this games mechanics are set so that there will be lots of players who suffer losses, I’m not sure that much can be done about it and there are a ton of methods to avoid war dec’s. The mechanics of Eve can very much be a test of gaming skills and patience which funny enough still attracts and retains many.

It would be difficult to push this point with the problem being there is already a mechanic in place to avoid war, a player is completely immune from war-dec’s if they are in an NPC corp. Players will need a solid understanding of what it means to join a corp and a level of acceptance that if they do join a corp then there will be cross-hairs on them.

Your post immediately assumes that being in a corp is standard and mandatory when in actual fact it is not. Ultimately this is why Eve will always be one of the best games ever simply because it forces you to adapt and if you don’t or can’t adapt then Eve might not be the game for certain people.

Eve does have a good game design which really tests the psychology of the players, A player in an NPC corp is free from war-dec but this comes at a cost where it’s a little more difficult to organise larger groups of people without a corp. Being in a corp is purposely made to be very appealing to players but the psychology aspect is are you able to resist that appeal and find other ways to operate within an NPC corp? This is factually where the problem is not so much in the mechanic. what are your thoughts on this?

145

Well, yes.

What did you expect? When you, personally, pop on grid, everyone runs away.

That’s the legacy you hold from that 1000 ship fleet op you were in, back in the day. Or so the story goes. And when you landed, in your, what was it again? A caracal? Or something, everyone on the other side turned tail and ran.

With that sort of presence, EvE is going to be a massive yawn fest for you.