I guess we have drastically different experiences.
I started in 2009 and omce Id got into a small corp it didnt take us long to work out how to evade em, then by 10/11 we were in an alliance that could defend itself if needed, and by 2012 I knew enough to start wardecs with one person, and do protection racket crimes against folk who wouldnt even undock.
Hilariously, my industry is now in a wardeccable corp where as my crime corp sold its last structure during Cores. Either way, Wars are basically nothing these days. And I dont think the game is better for it.
Basing a value judgement on how something “sounds like” is feminist bait.
For sure. I didn’t join a corp at all and operated as a solo “tax haven” for a while since the people that got me into this game (two collegues) were rolling C4-5 wormholes at the time. Content my Rifter was not suitable for. I got a very early taste of how certain content is for certain SP levels.
I left my tax haven to join a corp which was terrible, to such a degree that I thought I could do better… which I did. The former tax haven became a 40 man lowsec gang and as time progressed we tried some wardecs and found ourselves on the other side of the coin: we could take over POCO’s without much resistance as our targets docked and dropped corp. It became such a boring seal clubbing activity we almost deliberately overreached, decced Eve Uni and got our lowsec assets stomped. Everyone else just rolled over and just took the punishment.
What I learned from that is that wardecs epitomize the “only engage when victory is certain” style of PVP I have come to resent.
An interesting question indeed, as the only answers I can come up with are:
Gauging the chance of victory above an acceptable percentage (but not 100%)
Indifference or apathy regarding the result
SRP
Deliberate welping
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to only commit when victory is expected in a game where every loss is paid for, just to make that clear. I just think that engagements elsewhere tend to have more angles of approach making for more interesting situations in which certainty is less likely. Ships suddenly decloaking in Wspace or a cyno opening up in null can change the tide of a battle.