Only if they want the risk of Corp theft. Corp hangers are not this amazing bonus you keep trying to spin them to be. They come with their own down side
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They are an amazing bonus and the reason so many indie corps (including myself) start a corp.
Try running a decent size industrial operation with your miners transferring ore through trade windows and contracts, to refiners, to industrialists to market characters, and then transferring equipment and materials back down the chain.
Theft is very manageable. And the horror that a game ask you to think about who you give responsibility and trust toâŚand then thereâs alts.
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Ever see the sign next to amusement park rides that reads âYou must be at least this tall to go on the rideâ and invariably one or two parents nearby having to tell their child that they canât go on it?
If you want to do wars and are âsooooo poorsâ why not join a mercenary group that might both allow pursuit of war and some assistance in its execution?
Iâm behind this, though donât forget some places are high security space islands. What to do about wormholes though? Should W-Space structures ever count for war eligibility?
I agree structures should be locatable, as in some form of locator agent should be made for structures.
I do not agree that structures needs to be accessible. A structure is a structure, be that they are placed in k-space or w-space.
That structures can be hid away in some backwater system without anyone interacting with it, is a symptom of a another problem and not really tied to wardecs. Itâs tied to the overall balance of eve and is much more complex than that. Why are stray structures not more vigilantly taken down? Are the incentives for structures balanced? Why are people not more aggressively fighting over structure control? How is the balance of controlling systems? etc etc.
At this point, Iâm not sure how CCP is going about balancing the game, nor do I fully think they have a complete idea of what to do. They themselves have said at Eve Vegas, they have been pretty bad at objectively interpreting data and are trying to get better at it. Not being able to objectively assess their own game is critical, when there are so many different groups lobbying for different things in eve.
Still looking forward to what the additional changes are going to bring, but I still think there are so many other less complicated systems they could have started with or finished balancing. Module tiercide was a great start to take a look at something rather simple and try to balance it. Why did the work on this stop?
I mean, it sometimes feels like CCP is a group of headless chicken trying to stamp out fires all over the place. What we need is some focus. Identify what the âcoreâ of eve is. Clearly communicate what this core is and what the direction CCP wants to take the game. Get really good at this thing, have people want to play the game because of this thing. Once this foundation is built, expand from there.
Basically, make a focused effort to fix current systems and donât prioritize adding new âflashyâ features.
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I think that we are very rarely honest about what increased safety actually means, and who it is good for.
Requiring a structure to declare war is an increase in the cost of war and takes a tool away from the little guy. Little guys have little. They stand to lose little and to learn a lot. Increased safety benefits, and has always primarily benefited, the wealthy and powerful who have the most to lose.
I donât know whether itâs intentional or not, but the root of the observed problem of corp activity dropping during a wardec is the misinformation that there is absolutely nothing to do but log off and wait for it to blow over. I believe there are things you can do during a war, and things to learn from it, especially newbies, if anyone were willing to teach something other than how to play the victim card.
Increased safety is likely at the heart of the continued polarization of the Eve Community. More hoops to jump through to engage in war now serves as justification to further restrict it in itself without any additional supporting rationale. Rather than be satisfied, those on a campaign to stamp out highsec aggression will be emboldened to continue the crusade.
I think Eve needs a change, but it would not be a change that people would be initially pleased with. The kind of change Eve needs wonât benefit me, and probably wonât benefit you, either, as we are likely part of the establishment. What I think Eve needs are changes to let new players tear down that establishment to rebuild parts of the universe in their own image. Small parts, mind you, but a small part where the effects of their influence are tangible enough to feel rewarding, and valued enough to fight for.
That change may simply be proper education, or it may be more complicated or subtile. I donât really know. I donât believe, though, that more expensive and complicated war mechanics or increased safety are the answer, but rather a part of the problem.
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They already have everything youâre talking about itâs called losec and ns itâs a totally different world from high-security space
This idea that high security space is supposed to be something radically different from low and null security space is something that I take issue with, personally, and I do not agree that âtheyâ already have âeverythingâ.
In my view, High Security space isnât something that exists to coddle industry. It is a place that has stricter rules to level the playing field for newer players against older and more experienced players. It is there to allow players to acclimate themselves with the rules of the game. To acclimate, though, players still need exposure, preferably on a small scale.
Requiring structures for war declarations will increase the scale of wars declared. Any corporation declaring war will now have to have the ability to afford the 50 million investment for the war declaration fee, and the cost of acquiring and owning a structure, including fuel costs if they have intentions of defending it.
The large and established groups are not going to be phased. Those already throwing out blanket wardecs can afford, and probably already have, structures. This change only restricts the odds of being wardecced by a force a small corporation could actually stand a chance of reasonably fighting off in a satisfying conflict.
Weâve moved the goal posts. The âsocial corpâ that couldnât be had before was where the goal posts were, and now theyâve moved to structure ownership. PvPers will still have the ability to deny a corporation structure ownership, but if they do the ordinary PvP players will again be labeled as âgriefersâ for deigning to shoot a target thatâs on the ever shrinking list of PvP targets. This doesnât satisfy anyone in the long term, but further polarizes the Eve community along an invisible Indy/PvP line. That polarization seems unhealthy to me.
Wars frequently donât have a âpurposeâ or âobjectiveâ because rules that have been put into place make it prohibitive for groups with good reason to engage in them. Wardecs were easy to dodge. Chances are any group willing to pony up that 50 million would find they got nothing for it other than having their targets form a new corporation with identical name and membership. To have meaning, wars need to have teeth and substance that they lacked. Requiring the defender to own a structure gives a potential wardec some substance, but limits the âreasonâ for a war to structures alone when there could be any number of other issues a corporation would want to go to war over.
The PvP âlittle guyâ is starving for content between ruthlessly efficient CONCORD, Faction Police, and Wardec hoops and fees. The PvP little guy is under equipped to advocate on his own behalf because heâs new and inexperienced. New players are important, and do deserve to be heard. On this occasion I chose to be the voice of a subset of new players that I feel are seldom heard, but very important to the Eve ecosystem.
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If anything, pvp is even more necessary in hisec. Itâs where most of the players are and where a lot of industry and trade is.
Competition, risk and reward are fundamental parts of every area of space.
I see that you grasp the heart of the problem. The reason CCP cited for why these changes are neccesary is that the âbig 5â mercenary groups are doing all the wardeccing nowadays.
As you have noticed, these changes raise the bar to be able to wardec, and thereby force less-spacerich wardeccers to join the âbig 5â, which means that the percentage of wardecs initiated by those alliances is only going to increase, not decrease - exactly opposite of the stated intent of this nerf.
Now if you prefer an EVE where a small number of OP âtoo big to failâ alliances dominate every wardec, as opposed to an EVE where much less oppressive small groups & newbie friendly groups make up a large percentage of wardec aggressors, then more power to you. I think most of us prefer the opposite, and clearly CCP does too (if you go by what they say and not what they do).
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There have already been calls to add a minimum corp size to be on the receiving end of a war dec. Youâre rightâŚcarebears wonât be satisfied until there is zero PvP in high sec.
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As you have noticed, these changes raise the bar to be able to wardec, and thereby force less-spacerich wardeccers to join the âbig 5â, which means that the percentage of wardecs initiated by those alliances is only going to increase, not decrease - exactly opposite of the stated intent of this nerf.
I donât think this is a good prediction. Structures are not THAT expensive - with this new mechanic, you can just get the cheapest, crappiest structure, and put it up somewhere out of the way and then you can war dec. I somehow donât think that is much of a barrier to entry for even a small corp that really wants to get into wars. It may, in fact, lead to some smaller war dec corps growing faster because they want to be more efficient about the structure part - easier and cheaper for ten players to make a small pvp corp with one structure than to make two five person corps with two structures.
Luckily we do not have to argue here about the predictions. CCP has actual data on this so they will actually see the effects. Since this has explicitly been announced as the first step of a wardec overhaul, they can adjust the next steps accordingly.
Trust me, I know what Iâm talking about. Iâve been doing wardecs for years and am intimately familiar with the changes over time. If this doesnât have the effect that Iâm talking about, it is only because nearly all wardeccers have already been consolidated into the big 5 by the last 2 wardec nerfs. I think we have already reached the point where small group and solo operaters have almost completely been eliminated, and there are very few independant wardeccers left to consolidate.
You are right that, compared to other expenses, the cost of slapping up a control tower somewhere is negligable. POS towers may be obsolete, but they can be had for 60 mil or so and will allow you to wardec. Wardec fees from 50-500 mil per war/week are a much more significant factor. Even a small group is going to spend at least a billion/week. Cue the nullsec/wormhole krabs scoffing at what a negligable sum this is, but bear in mind that when you are spending all your time PvPing targets you arenât going to have a lot of income. These prohibitive fees long ago put all the newbie friendly wardec groups out of business, and desperately need to be addressed.
My point is more that it is a step in the wrong direction. CCP says they want to discourage wardeccers from being consolidated in the big 5, yet their âsolutionâ only doubles down on the expenses which caused that phenomenon in the first place.
As to the defenderâs side of things, I think wardec immune corps are a great idea, as long as there is enough incentive for them to become war eligible. This is a step in the right direction but still needs some tweaking - if you can just keep your structures in a holding corp, get their full benefit, and keep your members wardec immune, then that is an issue. Sure, someone can just attack the structure, but that is another factor that props up the big 5 - for smaller groups a structure bash is a daunting & decidedly un-fun prospect. This needs to be fixed somehow. I tend to think tying war eligibility to structures is probably the wrong way to handle it.
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If the aim is to get more small players on the field, the system where wardec costs depends on the number of people in the corporation you dec but do not take into account the deccerâs size are a problem.
Established smaller outfits donât suffer about this terribly much, but for new deccers to enter the field, it should be relatively cheap to dec someone of your size or bigger, and for them to stay small, it should also be really costly to dec someone considerably smaller than you.
But tuning that so that itâs not abusable is kinda tricksy.
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Excellent post again which puts your arguments out in a well thought out way. I do believe that the cost to war dec has to be reduced, but I would also like to see something that enables the defender to force an end to the war dec or get a war dec holiday.
In terms of the Upwell structures and the issue of a holding corp, the issue is similar to the impact on cost on the fee to small groups in terms of war decs. Putting up an Athanor or Raitaru and putting in the module to do refining for the Athanor, and indy or science in the Raitaru is one thing, but the rigs get downright nasty in terms of cost and takes it to another level, hisec does not give you those rewards. So a serious entity will have to step up and defend it.
Will it happen, well it will take time, there has to be a change in mentality and that will not happen overnight.
So in affect putting up a fully setup Upwell structure is not a low cost activity and the cost for small groups is well above your issue with war dec fees. People will not put them up or they will have to create entities that are able to defend them and therefore there will be content, but it is likely to be people only looking to defend that structure, though some may start hunting, you never knowâŚ, but you need to accept that people pottering around in mission ships and mining ships etc. will be outside your reach unless you gank them for at least the next six months.
@Nevyn_Auscent has quite rightly pointed out that the bonuses for indy Upwell structures in hisec need to be put at the same level as elsewhere, one can argue that there is now more risk for them in hisec.
CCP can increase the value of these things by doing this, but there is a major value and a very heavy cost that, you just have not yet seen the real impact develop yet because changing player mentality takes time.
Itâs been like that for years
It wouldnât as big a problem if the big 5 were attacking each other. Look at 0.0 space, its long been classified as the âblue doughnutâ because so many groups agree not to attack each otherâs territory. Miners, ratters, gate camps are all fair game, yet entosis warfare is a no-no if they want to keep the peace. No doubt both >0.5 and 0.0 groups wish to avoid a situation where direct conflict results in a phyric victory where they are so weakened by the war they loose the ability to defend themselves from assault by the next rung down.
Absolutely true and whilst it might be hard to accept, even without CCP intervention will lead to some progress in resolving the concentration of power.
The dominant entities have a finite number of targets to go through before the only other groups eligible for conflict will be the other dominant entities. They will either war with each other, blue each other ( and find members moving as they do in 0.0 to go where the content is ) or most likely, abuse the present mechanic to ensure war eligible corporations are always eligible by reinforcing, but never destroying their structures, leaving many in the same pre-patch situation where their best outcome is to log off or drop corp.
Indeed, this game would be very boring if it was PIRAT Online, or Marmite Online, though for some thatâs exactly what is been for years already. The next iteration of wars will be interesting to see what, if anything CCP does to ensure that ânewâ as well as âdominantâ groups play with an equal environment of âriskâ.
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And that is the key part in terms of the new war dec system, CCP has to make sure that the risk they have is greater than not being able to warp to a station and dock up in time if anything threatening comes into the system. The best option is where the entity that is war decked can destroy something and thus end the war dec.
I am quite liking some of the feedback regarding these wardec changes, I can feel a positive wave of energy here and Itâs great. Itâs great to see how happy you are and it would be very cool if other hisec indy/pve types are as happy as you are with Eve.
Iâm keeping an eye on the concurrent login numbers and I hope to see more people online.
Also one other point Tora, Itâs great you are earning a ton of money. This will change the economy due to there being less wars which could result in less ship and module sales.
Do we have a viewpoint from someone who knows about economics here?
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