Devblog: War Declaration Changes - The War Adjacent to Christmas

[CCP_Falcon]

Check out this dev blog for the latest information on the changes coming to war declarations with the December release next week!

Read all about it here!

[Arrendis]

+1 title.

[Dom_Arkaral]

it hasn’t been doing a good enough job of facilitating exciting player conflict and we are confident that it can be improved significantly.

By having people shoot at undefended structures over a week or 2?

The only change you’ll see here is less random corps being decced, and the same amount of clueless nullseccers getting blapped in hubs/pipes.

And probably more people getting ganked (can’t wait to see the influx of Nerf ganking posts in the few couple weeks

I remember a time where Be the villain and Build your dreams, wreck theirs was the motto of EVE. Now even Runescape has more risk to it

P.s. nothing about people that don’t have structures allying with decced people?

[Daichi_Yamato]

If you destroy all of an ally’s structures are they knocked out the war? Or do they just need one to join?

Edit- any plans to tie a mechanic where payment to an ally or aggressor is triggered by the destruction of a corps last structure?

[Arrendis]

@Dom_Arkaral

P.s. nothing about people that don’t have structures allying with decced people?

Down under the picture of the ‘first structure notification’:

As mentioned above, organizations must be war eligible in order to declare wars, have wars declared against them, or join an existing war as an ally.

However, @CCP_Falcon, the first bit on eligibility, “If a corporation or alliance is war eligible it will be able to declare wars, have wars declared against it, and join existing wars as an ally of the defender. If a corporation or alliance is not war eligible, it will not be able to declare wars or have a war declared against it.” does kind of leave that vague. Or at least, room for confusion if people don’t read on. Just FYI.

[NorBdelta_Aivoras]

Are there plans to make declaration of wars more expensive? Or to remove the cap on costs? I feel that the low amount of cost to declare a war on the largest or even small alliances is ineffective. Monetary deterrents for troll war decs could be effective.

[Raggey]

I enjoy a good strong cheese with a nice glass of port.

Also I like these changes.

[Brewlar_Kuvakei]

Another approach to get max price from Pearl Abyss by boosting short term subs. Allready told you CCP, you ain’t getting a single bonus payment on the sale.

[CCP_Habakuk]

@Daichi_Yamato

If you destroy all of an ally’s structures are they knocked out the war? Or do they just need one to join?

For this release they only need a structure to join the war as an ally. It is not decided yet on how (or if) this will change in the future.

[Tipa_Riot]

(If you kill all structures of the deccer, the war ends 24 later. Actually a nice thing.)
EDIT: apparently I read it wrong, see answer from above.

+1 This is an overall good change

So the setup for highsec will be:

1. Put your structures in a holding corp
2. Keep your main corp safe from decs
3. In case somebody decs your holding corp, you can war opt-in by
   3.1. dropping a cheap structure from your main corp
   3.2. join as a defender ally as long as you like

For lowsec/nullsec folks wanting safe access to highsec it’s even easier, because no need to opt-in to the war, if all structures are outside highsec.

[MB_ThePhotographer]

“In future iterations beyond December, we intend to continue to improve the war declaration system with the long-term goal of encouraging wars that have real risks and rewards and are engaging for all sides.”

I would like to know more about what their “future iterations” are?

[Querns]

Thing is, the wardec system didn’t actually do any of that stuff. Players simply took the remedy of hiding in an NPC corporation, or logging off. Neither of these are good for retention – CCP wants as many people to join and stay in player-ran corporations as possible, because that is the single best way to ensure player retention. The changes allow a purely social corporation to exist without having their sh​it pushed in.

[Tribal_Trogdor]

Any plans to give the defender some way to see where the attackers structures are to give them targets to end the war on a defensive end? Seems all it will take is for the attacker to own a poco in ass end low sec or NPC region or bascially literally anywhere in the universe. Defender shouldnt have to check every system in the universe to end it. Also does this apply to wormholes? Because again, if I feel like being an attacker, I’d just put a POCO in an empty wormhole and things pretty much dont change from an “attacker risk” standpoint.

[Brisc_Rubal]

@Mizhara_Del_thul

This has got to be the most knee-jerk bullcrap solution to this issue ever conceived, especially given how many actually good solutions have been presented by the players since the subject started raising it’s ugly head

85% of the solutions to this issue included this structure concept. This is one of the most debated and suggested solutions to the problem. People have been making this suggestion literally for years.

Yet again, no matter how long folks work on a solution, somebody is going to say it’s “knee jerk.”

Every corporation or alliance of any appreciable size wants their own structures in space. Divesting yourself of structures and then watching them get blown up while you can’t do anything if you want to maintain your protection is going to force a lot of people to make tough decisions. But, in the end, it provides players who want the social aspects of a corporation to have one without the risk of being decced.

It’s not elegant, but it’s a passable band aid until more in-depth solutions come along next year.

[Brisc_Rubal]

@MB_ThePhotographer

I would like to know more about what their “future iterations” are?

Everybody would - but they have to finish working on them, first. Patience.

[Samira_Kernher]

We believe that the best EVE experiences involve players making informed choices with benefits and consequences.

Clearly not, with changes like this. As it stands, players in EVE will now have one of the bigger means of retaliation and consequence for their actions removed from the game. If another corporation comes and steals the moon ore belt your corporation created, you cannot dec them unless they have a structure. If a corporation suicide ganks you, you cannot dec them unless they have a structure. If a corporation acts in some other way detrimental to your corporation and its goals, such as interpersonal conflicts or roleplay conflicts, you cannot dec them unless they have a structure. They are immune to consequence unless they choose not to be, yet continue to have quite many ways with which to impose themselves on others if they choose.

And of those groups that do have a structure, the inclination in all of this will be to put those corporations in a secret alt corp, or use public structures. Assuming they even need structures to begin with, which many corporations in high sec do not.

War decs needed changes. Everyone agrees that war decs needed changes. But what they needed was counterplay. They needed to provide people who don’t want to be warred with means of ending an undesired war, through actual in-space activities (thus both encouraging fewer ‘wars without kills’ while also still giving players an avenue to end a war), and temporary war immunities (to avoid ending a war and then just being immediately warred again, or to briefly protect new newb corps populated with only newb members). Not being immune to war completely, and not making wars yet another n+1 game where the larger corp dictates who wins the structure battle and smaller corps can continue to get ■■■■■■.

This is not the right way to fix war decs. It is yet one more change that is taking the idea of consequences-for-actions out of EVE.

[commander_aze]

Seeing as this is a first step, it’s a step in the right direction. Players that want structures will have to defend them in one way or another. And war deccers can no longer blanket dec all of high sec just for cheap kills.

The benefits

1. Corps can use high sec to grow. Previously not much of an option, especially for industry corps.
2. This should help with player retention.
   3 (this ones really only for me) after years of saying change the system and the aggressors saying ccp will make wars even more in the aggressors favor, I get to revel in the pools of salt from their tears…

I’m interested to see what the future mechanic changes will be as this is at its core the “social corps” that were asked for in the past.

One challenge I see is finding the strucutres… so like PIRAT could just anchor a citadel or a poco in a C1 somewhere and be able to war dec with near 0 chance of losing it or the defender ever finding it for that matter.

Edit
Also it’s high sec not mad max, honestly if you didnt see this coming for years then pull your head from the sand.

[Maekchu]

Looking forward to what the future iterations actually hold.

I don’t really do much wardec gameplay, so these changes will have little effect on me.

Hopefully, this will turn down the cry for more safety a little bit, since you now have social corps that are completely immune to anything other than suicide ganking in highsec.

[Brisc_Rubal]

@Mizhara_Del_thul

Yeah, 85% of the solutions being incompetent knee-jerk bullcrap doesn’t change that it is in fact incompetent knee-jerk bullcrap. Appealing to the majority is a pussy way out, just like this structure nonsense. Useless devs and CSM both, ■■■■ me.

Appealing to the majority is kind of how everything works.

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

Horsecrap. Anywhere even remotely functional appeals to the competent. The majority are feckless morons.