Devblog: War Declaration Changes - The War Adjacent to Christmas

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977

As always it’s not going to be common to have the war target blow up the attackers structure. Unless it’s two PvP corps going at it the PvE corp is just going to get chewed up and spat out.
They were picked as a target because the attackers feel they can beat the defenders in a structure bash (needed to keep it from being taken down even if they don’t want to destroy it). If the targets can’t defend a structure they certainly can’t attack it.

Asymmetric war goals are a must for it if there are win conditions involved.

978

We have already agreed to differ on this, I certainly do not want to find myself ‘forced’ to mine in a defenceless ship when at war with someone period, those sort of win conditions are of no interest to me because I don’t like giving people easy kills period.

And you know full well that I had defined this as something that a small PVE group could do, not a full on assault on a Upwell Structure which you seem to think is my suggestion, it is not.

979

You are continuing to be delusional in believing ccp are going to make it based on some no timer structure that only the attackers have to defend. Let’s assume for now that targets continue to need a structure. If this is the case it naturally follows that a matching structure allows an attacker to declare war. Forcing them to have some no timer structure to attack would be utterly unbalanced in that match up.

As for not wanting to mine… The presence of asymmetric win conditions doesn’t mean you can’t have a straight up structure objective at the same time. But if you have to do the structure bash as your only option then it is horrible.

980

I am not delusional in believing that CCP will do that, I seriously doubt that they will do that and they will then wonder why people continue to log out.

Game balance is a fluid thing, you create the balance for the game as it is and adjust as the game rebalances, it is not exactly difficult.

That is your opinion, I think that having an easy to kill structure that enables a big nasty bling filled alliance to have a vulnerability against a small weak PvE indy corp is correct game balance for hisec.

Of course if CCP could scale that with the size of the war decker so as not to penalise small war deckers then we have perfection in terms of correct hisec war balance.

I have already said to you that I am happy to have both. Seriously mate try to remember previous discussions.

981

Just a quick thing.
Stop talking about the big5.
Two of those alliances were already closed at the time to the ccp post.
I think VMG got disbanded and most members went to P I R A T.
Similar deal with Public Enemy. Some of them went to P I R A T, some i think to Ballistic Influence.

Also, R I O T was on that list, but you will notice a sensibly smaller number of wars, same is reflected in member numbers.

There is not right now 5 separate big blanketting alliances. I’d say there is two ( Marmite and P I R A T), with R I O T quite behind, and other medium/small entities with less wars.

Makes men chuckle a bit hearing about the big 5 : )
CCP took even stats from dead alliances to make the threat look bigger than it is…

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982

You know, if the problem is that wardecs are concentrating too much to few blanket-deccing alliances, the counterargument that there aren’t even five, but now two, three at most, does not really work? :wink:

983

On top of this, the numbers @Black_Pedro and @Solecist_Project gathered suggested that it hasn’t been so concentrated for so long. It has only been for short periods that it reached 50%. There was a point earlier this year where the top 5 only made up just over 20% by the looks of things.

Wardec kraziness.

984

I did this post initially to talk about that thread you linked, not so much as a reply to you directly, but it turned into more of a general thought on war decs and the change in behaviour and the mechanics so far.

There is no doubt that the structure of war dec costs is an issue in the disappearance of small war deckers, but an even bigger impact which is not taken into account by the two people mentioned though I am sure that @Black_Pedro knows it is that the number of people refusing to log in and contest or even continue to play in hisec after war decs. This was the major impact to small war deckers and well above the impact of costs. I was in a thread three years ago where a small or solo war decker lamented that no one that he war decked would fight or contest and that is what CCP has to deal with first and foremost.

This high cost against major alliances is sort of meh, in that it takes it out of reach of small war deckers, but then again every large alliance will have multiple solo or small gang war deck’s if this was not the case, what is the correct balance for that? To be blunt I am having trouble working that out. Well I could argue that having the ability to blap a hisec structure to remove the war dec and punish them is a good way, if the large alliance can be bothered to set up a hisec war dec group that is.

The blanket war decs aimed at just getting passing targets in the pipes, mission and trade hubs are a major issue and are a big turn off to many in hisec who got a war dec because they were seen passing though in a freighter or Orca and then never saw them, because the war decker was hoping that they would be foolish enough to do it when at war. One hell of a boring turn off. So in that case leaving it as it is now with corps not having a structure being free of war decs will end that cycle of destructive madness and yet that damages small war deckers. Perhaps CCP needs to look at size of war decker enabling or denying different targets? Perhaps have a table of costs based on size and ability, which also locks in the war decker to prevent them chopping and changing corp numbers by war decking with one man corps and then piling in the numbers.

People can argue about this or that, score points, start stalking others make troll posts or whatever, but if the defenders have no way to compete or feel that it is pointless then nothing will change the situation as it is.

CCP have a hell of a job in trying to balance this and part of that is dealing with a massive imbalance in hisec based on the top three, PIRAT, Marmite and RIOT, it is no longer the top five. What is happening now is that certain groups have set up to take out structures and many of them are calling to make blapping structures easier which is something that CCP should avoid, in fact CCP needs to go the other way on structures defensibility in terms of making them better at applying damage and give better bonuses to hisec structures indy so people want to take a risk, but that poor defensive survivability is an issue.

One thing is for certain, CCP needs to keep a close eye on people coming back and not putting down structures, and if they do make them able to be war decked again by the blanket no show war deckers then they need to be prepared to lose those players again.

985

That was the watch list changes. It became unsustainable to run locates on targets and track them down. It’s now more efficient to sit in areas of high traffic.

CCP also need to find a way to foster pvp and in particular conflict in hi-sec. It’s the most populated area of the game and the game relies on such content to get players invested and interacting. The barriers to entry level pvp are higher now and old pvp’rs aren’t being replaced by new ones.

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986

No it was not the watch list changes, the move to blanket war deckers had happened before that change due to the reduction in prey, what it did do was kill off the few remaining hunters.

Many HTFU players regurgitate that lie with wild abandon, I hope that this is a honest mistake on your part.

I would change that more to that CCP need to find a way to foster PvP in hisec that has meaning and is engaging for both sides.

People interact without PvP as in blowing up ships, people mining together for example.

The current cost of war decs is noted and agreed upon as an issue, as CCP has added the need to have a structure which I want to be one based in hisec to be able to do a war dec, but anywhere in terms of being war decked, they can adjust the cost downward and they have to look at something to price it by size of the war decker and the entity being war decked.

987

No it was.

There were some blanket wardeccers, but most people used locator agents and watch lists to hunt. No mistake on my part. I was there.

In 2015 we had the OPPOSITE problem to blanket wardecs by large groups. We had small wardeccing corps wardeccing larger pve alliances and hunting miners and then running away whenever they brought a fight. It wasn’t hub humping, it was guerilla warfare.

After the watchlist nerf, the change in tactics were pretty noticeable. Hunters tried having more alts sitting in target systems to see when targets came online. But it was a tremendous amount of effort and ultimately abandoned. Instead the smaller groups adopted the tactics of bigger hub hampers or were absorbed completely.

We moved to sivala, our boss describing it as ‘down town los Angeles’ and joined multiple decs as allies as well making much more of our own decs against larger groups when we were used to only doing one or two at a time. We went from having 20-100 targets, to over 5k. And we just sat on sivala gates for days. Quickly we got bored and went our separate ways.

To say the watch list changes didn’t have a huge effect on how wars were conducted is disingenuous or entirely disconnected.

The inferno changes introduced allies, against which we gave as good as we got, but the watchlist changes made wardecs ‘hub humping or gtfo’.

They do, but two thigs:

  • These interactions are not as engaging or have as much depth as blowing eachother up.

  • There is nothing wrong with having some groups mine AND some groups hunting such miners. In fact its very VERY good for the economy and community a like if we did.

988

No it was not, many war deckers had already moved to the large war deckers because most of the prey had given up engaging. So go after null sec ninnies, and while it is not exactly engaging content it is at least content where you could get a kill.

Some people were still hunting and you were obviously one of them, but you stopped after the watch list change. That you found people prepared to fight was good target selection on your part, well done.

I did not say that, once again you are being dishonest in your reply, can you ever be honest. Most war deckers had moved to the blanket war decs before the watch list change because of a lack of decent targets, and the watch list change or should I say removal effectively killed off all but the most committed and skilled.

If the targets do not find it interesting, fun or doable then logging off is their only option. Wishful thinking is a mistake that many have, even I am guilty of wishful thinking in thinking that people will stand up and try and fight if CCP give them a reason to in terms of ending the war. But at least I would be prepared to try and help that happen with my own play.

989

So it’s not a regurgitated lie. These people made up significantly more than you seem to think.

Very bad wording on my part. I wrote that in a rush.

However, if the watch list changes weren’t a factor in pushing wardeccers to hub humpers, what other effect could they have had on wardec tactics?

Those who have zero interest in wardecs, can opt out. In fact, they just don’t have to opt in! Wardecs have always been opt in.

Now i can understand that staying in npc corps is very much undesirable. For us, and for ccp. And thats why i want social corps. But we are giving away too much. The pendulum has swung too far in favour of safety. It’s poor risk/reward.

I mean, one of the reasons to get people out of npc corps was to get them away from toxic, defeatist and isolationist players that resided within them…but what we have now is allowing those same toxic isolationists in player corps now because they can have their cake and eat it too.

Using structures as the definitive line between social corp or not leaves too many immune to wardecs and too many too poor to dec.

E.g. People like me, old and rich but with no interest in owning a structure, shouldn’t be immune to decs (and I’m not going to put one up just to go ‘look at me’). But i am, and I’m now pissing off the locals by mining their moon belts. So we’re now discussing the idea of suspect flags for mining other peoples belts!

Having social corps defined as npc corps with social tools, (like name, killboard, bookmarks whatever, but 11% npc tax, no hangars, no wallet, no structures), is just a hell of a lot better!

Rargh!:rage:

/Rant

990

If either the attacker or defender of an existing war loses their war eligibility due to their final structure being destroyed or scooped, the war will end 24 hours later.

We have a war target whose structure we destroyed 24+ hours ago. They show as war ineligible in alliance info so I guess that was their last one. War’s still up tho. Am I missing something?

991

You still got your 24-hour cool down. Then the war is over I believe because they have no other structures you’re still at War for 24 hours I believe

992

Yes, but like I said it’s been over that and there’s neither war end or even time for when it will end.

993

Is the war mutual? If it is, then it won’t end until one of you makes it non-mutual.

Otherwise it sounds like a bug. Submit a report if you haven’t already.

994

No, it’s not mutual and they are also not allies of anyone else. And yea it’s been reported too, just was wondering.

995

Don’t try to kill a good thing

They are trying to introduce people to how to run a corporation without having the worry of a war deck until they get big enough and enough ISK in their wallet to put down the structure

I don’t know all the numbers on the comes to the moon’s but I see them as a Content driver or that’s what CCP want them to be CCP in my opinion then this is only my opinion want the ganking gaming High security space

moons of the way to do it if your moon is worth a crap you would have a fleet of people ready to defend it it’s called throw away characters even with an orca you get enough catalyst you can take that baby down with a matter of seconds

so once again it’s called having the numbers to defend it if you can’t defend your moon don’t have it that’s why I don’t have it I’m a two-man Corporation there is no way in the world but I am going to buy have a moon what I like to sure is it going to happen anytime soon no

PS I still vote for the Hella Miss Kitty skin on the orca, porpoise and also all the mining barges examiners

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996

Isn’t a good thing. They are still going to be just as useless when faced with their first war dec, except they will have more to lose and they can’t hide their structure for a week. They can’t warp their structure out when a hostile enters local.

All i foresee is carebear whine about how their structures should be invincible, and how dare other players come to knock their sandcastles over.

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