You know, you waste RL money doing this? A subscription is much cheaper than PLEX.
Make your alt CEO, drop corp on your main. Problem solved.
That is why I am not suggesting a link between corporation size and war declaration costs, but rather the number of simultaneous wars initiated by a corporation or alliance. Right now, Marmite, for example, has 217 wars active or pending. Of course, they are just one example. If the cost increased significantly for each extra war, they would still be able to fight them, but would have to be a bit more discriminatory in choosing whom they wished to fight.
Anyway, you miss the point; I am not asking for ways in which I can come up with a dodge. What I am arguing is that the war system is broken in HS - fix it, perhaps along one of the two ways I have suggested, and then people like me do not have to consider dropping corp or running another Omega character just to be a figurehead CEO. And if/when someone does declare war on me, I know it is for a real, strategic reason as wars should be, not just because it is my turn on the Marmite “who have we not declared war for two weeks” list.
2 Likes
I meant that I pay a subscription. My point is that I give money to CCP in return for playing the game, rather than buying Plex on the market with ISK.
The OP asked for views on HS. I am one of those people whom CCP say represent around half of players, but whose views are massively under-represented in discussions about the game. One of the attractions of playing the game is for my characters to be in the corporation that I choose, or even create. Yet one week in three, I can only do that by dropping corp?
It does not matter whether such tricks exist - the question is whether or not a particular mechanic is risking driving paying customers away, from a bit of Eve - High Sec space - which the propaganda and received wisdom claims is not where the hardcore players are. Fine if they want to play in LS or NS - I would never dream of offering an opinion on what goes on there. But how about stopping and thinking whether minor changes in HS - and that is what a modification of wars would be - might improve the experience, interest and retention of those who want to play there?
1 Like
I’m not a fan of the current wardec mechanics, but I choose to adapt by staying in the NPC corp. The alternative would be using alts, which I don’t like for personal roleplay reasons. But whatever, nobody can stop me from playing the game like I want.
Fair enough, and I am glad that you have found a way not to be prevented from playing the game as you want. My issue is that for me, personal roleplay means having my own baby corp, and being in it.
It may be that I am alone in my thinking and motivation - but we come back to the silent majority problem; the only way one can start exploring what the HS solo players think is by coming out and saying it.
I still think the simplest option would be to extend the ratio of war time to enforced peace time. As I say, four weeks peace for every one week of war between two corps.
Then once that week is up, the corp you were are war with will war dec you with an alt corp or pay a merc corp to do it. You’d still be under war dec 24/7 no matter what…
Different matters, but the same point: Marmite 1 has 1 active wardec, Marmite 2 has 1 active wardec, Marmite 217 has 1 active wardec… Instead of wardec spam you would get wardec corp spam.
The reason why CCP is reluctant to tackle wardecs it’s because the only place where a nerf would be effective would be on the target corp -once wardecced, wardec cooldown -but then some would wardec their main corp A with alt corp B to give main corp A inmunity to all other wardecs.
What else would l do? If they asked me personally, I would kill the non-consensual corporation wardec system altogether and would replace it for a structure wardec system. The excuse for the existence of wardecs it’s to remove structures. OK then, wardec the structure. Shoot at it and CONCORD turns a blind eye to it. BUT, anyone can shoot the shooters via criminal flag. Apply the KISS principle: want to let players destroy highsec structures? Let them wardec those structures for a modest fee and keep corporations out of it if they don’t go mutual.
This would make it quite simpler to everyone, and Red vs Blue and others still could use mutual wars for their purposes.
(Also, wardecced structures should be widely advertised, in case some mercenary corps fancied to drop by and gank the gankers)
3 Likes
I very much appreciate the feedback, and I appreciate you taking the time to be constructive.
2 Likes
This is actually a very interesting idea and it closes quite a few loopholes. It could work.
The “criminal” flag needs to go in that scenario. They have permission to attack the target.
Yeah, obviously. And the owners should not be able to actively defend it if they chose to avoid the war. But it’s one of the most interesting ideas I’ve seen. The biggest problem I’ve had with war decs is getting people to actually fight, but that’s a different issue.
Corps in general should be allowed to defend their assets. I think the proper flag would remain war target still. You have to be allied (not just requesting assistance, actually in an alliance) for my view on this to function for support.
1 Like
Criminal flag allows anyone to take a role in the wardec by shooting at attackers. Why should they be inmune to criminal flag when you can get one just by doing PvE…? (wink, wink)
Of course, there’s the point with how would the attackers be able to defend themselves. Maybe the attackers in a wardeccing fleet should get free shoot at anyone agressing the fleet…
I picture a scenario like someone bringing ganknados to alphastrike a few agressors before dieing in a fire as the attacker fleet retaliates. In this scenario everybody would get kills & fun whether the structure survived or not. Even the hapless defender could go and spit on the attackers to score a “honor kill”. And if he doesn’t shows up… well, the wardeccers get the structure KM and/or any “accidental” PvP triggered by the public nature of wardecced structures. Some could just log in, find the nearest structure under attack and drop on the attackers for the lulz…
This has a solution, open up the fighting to everybody and third parties on the defender site. Basically simulate low sec for structure fights. A proper suspect like flagging of the attackers would do the trick.
Because criminal flag is concord offense and they WILL blow up your ship. Suspect is free to shoot for anyone and everyone. War target is limited to owners of structure and allies.
Actually the way I would see this working:
Corp A war decs Corp B. In the 24 hours before the war dec goes live, Corp B has to choose one of 3 options:
-
Do nothing - war proceeds as currently implemented.
-
Mutual the war - war dec remains the same as current mutual consent
-
Decline the war - War is active against structures only (attacker can destroy any anchorable structure, but players (and their ships) are not valid war targets). However, the members in Corp B may not defend their structures (besides manning the guns in case they have them) without CONCORD intervention.
I doubt CCP would go for this, but it would help the situation described above.
On an alliance level - the individual corps would still have to make one of the choices above. Though I suppose the Alliance could be setup to decide for it’s corps.
That’s the point of the suspect flag, it makes fighting in somebody else’s war a casual, on-the-fly matter. As long as the attackers can shoot back, it’s pretty fair IMO.
A normal individual suspect flag may not do the trick. In the old forum I had a proposal for a corp suspect flag with a longer duration, which implicitly creates a war like situation, between you or your corp and the corp/ally you shoot at.
LOL… I said, KISS!
The attackers will be legitimate targets as long as they attack the structure (+15 minutes after they stop shooting).
It’s up to the defender to show or don’t -but also to anyone willing to attack the attackers.
Mutual, corporation wide wars would be handled as current; the “structure wardec” would be a different system.
Attacker notifies CONCORD, CONCORD notifies defender, and 24 hours later the attack can happen for a given time (one week). The fee should be modest, probably like: (current wardec cost / average amount of structures in corps game wide), i.e., if wardec costs 50 million and average structures in corp are 2, then 1 structure wardec = 50/2= 25 million ISK. It would be a bargain for attacker as they would get a higher chance of obtaining PvP, and the usual one-man corp would evade wardecs exactly as they do now -by doing nothing.
Why you think that would not do the trick? Because it expires after 15 minutes? Bear in mind that the defender is 100% safe unless he’s manning the structure, attackers need a degree of safety (like, see incoming enemy fleet, go to safe and hope they won’t be in time to scan you down).