You can almost see him? You made that up. That’s never been proven.
Totally agree that the cost to declare a war could change if the price ofthe Core was added into the total cost to initiate.
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Hey all! It’s post-holiday and pre-year-end reports hell at work these days, sorry for falling behind here. Looks like a 100 or so new messages so thank you for commenting! Looking for the cool new stuff now.
I think maybe the intent was indeed that wars in high sec would teach players about conflict and PvP. But both CCP and Kezrai’s reviews say that’s not working - wars are so unequal that basically target corps just log off and don’t engage, sometimes don’t come back. Ove the past week I’ve done some checks back on old threads about wardecs and this always seems to have been the case. Strcuture wars is only the latest version of it.
This seems interesting but I’m not clear what the scaling does? Like say a defender has a scale of 0.5 and an attacker has a scale of 2.0? What effect does that have? Or is it, like, you can only declare war on people who are equal or higher than you on the scale, or you pay more or less depending on the difference, or what?
Interesting, but I’d guess any wardec corp would just say “Hey guys dock up for 15 or 20 minutes while we declare our next 20 wars OK?”
When I read the CSM 13 minutes linked up earlier in the thread, this was the feeling I got that CCP was looking to solve. That it was clear Wardecs were only entertainment for a very small number of players overall, and that a very large number of players would rather log out and stay logged out than engage.
That was actually the reason I made the thread, after reading some posts in another thread a back in Novermber I think. Because I have some links and notes in my in-game journal pad going back to 2011 I think, saying wardecs are basically crap being farmed by the few. So I thhought maybe it was an intractactable or insoluble issue. But I think the discussion here has shown there are options to do them better.
I’ve jsut scrolled past a bunch of posts that are getting close to being just personal attacks or snippy comments between people. While of course that’s going to happen on any hot topic in EVE forum, I think we casn all benefit from different viewpoints and exchange of ideas here. It doesn’t have to get personal.
I remember seeing a post some time back, maybe 2022 or 23, that claimed wardec corps were making billions per week from structure kills. So I think defenders must have a fair bit of skin in game. But Kezrai has made the point and I think its a good one that defenders have nothing to gain in a war. Even if they kill a War HQ, which they likely idn’t care about anyway, they almost ceertainly lose more in ships than any attacker HQ will drop. So it seems that maybe attackers need to put more skin in the game, and maybe keep adding to that with every new war they declare.
Maybe the simplest change would be to find some way to increase the possible risk/reward of defeating an attacker?
Aaaaand that’s all I have time for tongith! Thanks again for the ideas and comments, hope to see more good ones next time! (Also sorry about the typos I do forums on my phone and its not ideal for that)
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People make these claims, but its entirely anecdotal. Kezrai’s quotes from CCP are from 7 years ago, so it can’t be that urgent an issue if CCP have done nothing in 7 years.
Whatever ‘gain’ is hoped to be achieved is surely from putting up the structure in the first place, otherwise there’d be no point putting it up. Why would anyone expect a gain from putting up an un-defendable structure ?
Why treat the whole matter any differently to any other player owned object in space ? In fact some stations are actually cheaper than some player owned ships. A structure is simply a stationary ship in space that has to be wardeced in order to be destroyed. Other than that, nobody has explained why there should be some different rules to normal to prevent it being destroyed.
CCP really need to fix the assist - mechanics.
Remote repair needs to be possible between allies. Imagine Goons+Init needed to join one alliance to defend against Horde… that would be unacceptable.
But for Highsec groups this is acceptable? I think it’s not.
I don’t want to ruin my alts employment history, jumping between the same two groups everytime there is another wardec. It’s a very backwards mechanic.
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Well, doesn’t look anything is gonna happen in 2025…. So I guess we should probably stop pining for any kind of change.
The lack of any attention to high-sec will most likely be confirmed at FanFest.
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To me, that sounds like it indeed teaches new people about conflict in Eve. CCP has said that if a fight is fair, someone screwed up. Running from a fight is a legitimate strategy in Eve.
Slight difference between running from a fight and not showing up at all by not logging in. Technically I guess they’re the same, although the latter tends to push players away from the game. Inactivity leads to stagnation, apathy and disinterest.
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If you scout a gate camp, do you go in and try your luck or do you simply not show up at all and go do something else for a while? If you go in and try your luck, you’re playing Eve wrong. Abandoning a structure being threatened by a corp that outnumbers you ten to one is the right move. There’s no honor to be satisfied in Eve.
Like the computer said, “The only winning move is not to play.”
I assume you mean actions taken post-scouting, as the act of scouting entails at least some risk. Or are you suggesting not even scout because it’s too risky? Confused…
Something many don’t realize is that a portion of structures have already been abandoned before any wardec. There’s no fight because the owners long since ceased to care. This is seldom taken into account by those who try to make every case be one of some wardeced corp being ‘too scared to log in’. Often wardeccers are simply cleaning up someone’s trash they left behind.
Valid point. Is there any merit in having abandoned structures assailable by everyone? (say after 90 days or something)
You want details- I respect that. It’s a fair request. 
You’re flying a Bowhead carrying a few expensive ships. You’re taking all the precautions because it’s a very risky move. You scout ahead and get word back from friends that confirms what you just saw. The gate camp ahead is more than enough to destroy your Bowhead. A tornado, ships named “BUMP”, and quite a number of battle cruisers. You have no chance. Do you give it your all and go for it or do you dock up, use a jump clone, and go run missions for the day? (or log off)
If I get a War Dec notification and I do my research and see that the attacking force is a 50 member fleet with massive combat ships, is my winning move to rally up my 8 member corporation to defend my structure? I’ve already done my scouting. The threat is real. I can’t win this one. My winning move is to clear out our assets and use a jump clone. I have ships set up with jump clones just for this scenario. I can resume play elsewhere until the war is over- or simply begin anchoring another structure in a new place because that one will be gone soon. We already have replacement structures constructed and waiting to be anchored. It pays to be prepared.
The winning move is not to engage or defend when outnumbered.
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It would, but then there’s no shortage of smaller corps like Bully Brigade who I’ve seen destroying abandoned structures with 3 or 4 man fleets.
My main point was that ‘defenders not turning up’…something Kezrai loves to infer as the defending corp being too scared to defend…is often a case of defenders simply no longer existing. As a member of Wrecking Machine I’m at least qualified to say this is not infrequent. It’s not some rare thing like 1 in 100…more like over 20%.
Which totally alters the whole ’ people not showing up’ factor. It does help on the forums when the people discussing something have actually done it.
Absolutely! I fully support this.
Sure, in that scenario docking up, doing something else or logging off are all valid strategies. And options unless you’re afk and and auto piloting - which is something else entirely.
So the 100m ISK wardec is basically a “nuisance fee” to ensure no one (else) gets to destroy the structure for free?
Well, groups like Wrecking Machine and Blackflag have permanent war HQs so there’s no extra ‘setting up HQ’ cost, and the 100m war cost is relatively small. In fact piddling, really. I mean, I’ve seen baiters sitting outside Jita in an Enyo with larger kill right amounts.
Highsec wardec fleets vary enormously. It can range anywhere from a dozen ( or less ) people bashing some long abandoned structure, which is not uncommon, to fleets of hundreds as in the Finanar war. The latter is actually the rarest scenario.
Highsec wars are also only just over half of all the wars I’ve collectively ( in all alts ) been involved in. Lately its been mostly lowsec and null.
There’s another scenario that warrants abandoning it instead of defending it:
Even if you can win the fight, you should weigh the costs. If defending it will cost you several ships and run the cost fo war into 10-30 billion ISK, would you really want to go through with it to defend a structure that only costs 2 to 3 billion ISK to replace? Personally, I’d rather build a new one. Save your ISK. Structures can be replaced. In the real world, houses are expensive and take a long time to abandon (packing up, moving truck, movers… it’s a serious undertaking). They’re worth defending. In Eve? You can pack up, move out, and begin anchoring a new structure in less than an hour. It’s about cost. Now sure- if your corp wallet is in the 100 billions or trillion range, wage war! But for most, it’s worth it to just leave. It’s all about the rISK factor.
When I first started playing EVE Online in 2014 I eventually met a certain casual chill pve mining and ratting high sec corporation. I had some more involved health issues at the time that no Dr could explain to me, but alas I kept gaming regardless of how I felt. It was nice to learn some of the ropes in high sec of the game, of corporations, and of organized mining from them. However, as time passed this same corp I found myself in would eventually become war dec’d by a small group that wanted nothing more than to camp us and destroy anything we undocked with for sport. So what was the advice at the time from our leader? It was simply to stay docked, do not engage, do not give a reason to pvp, and to simply bore them to tears and they’ll go away. This did work essentially and they did stop, but it made all of us want to defend ourselves as we tried to do a few times.
This event cascaded out into a series of choices I would later make to further engage in more pvp and try to learn my hand at this complicated game. Thus I joined the Minmatar FW and specifically a rather fun Minmatar roleplaying corp that also pvp’d. From there I would later join pirates in their daily rounds, meet plenty of other players, and see EVE even from the perspective of the Goonswarm Federation upon joining KarmaFleet during the Casino War.
Without that one experience of a wardec in High Sec sov, and all of us rather chill and pretty nice players trying to defend ourselves, none of this likely would have happened.
A series of events spawned another and thus content was created. I understand how this game works and this is why war decs are fine. They aren’t perfect and perhaps could use a bit of changes for all I know, but they served their purpose at least in our case.