A few things pushed smaller groups out of the activity / game or forced them to join the larger blanket dec groups in my opinion. The lack of interest, effort, or ability to adapt to these are some of the main culprits:
Watchlist Removal
For better or for worse it’s gone and it makes your scouting or profiling a group take more effort. Something that many players and groups were willing or able to do.
That doesn’t mean that hunting is dead, but hunting is much more of an activity for someone who isn’t lazy / spread too thin.
War HQ Changes
This is a big one in my opinion because the smaller groups knew that their larger enemies would just deny their content by consistently destroying their war HQ. Not seeking what most would consider a fun fight, but an overwhelming beating that you cannot really fight.
Prior to the War HQ change groups basically survived and attacked each other using evasive tactics like: log off traps, abusing certain mechanics, as well as scouts… neutral scouts everywhere. So for some groups it was nearly impossible to really have meaningful impact on them.
So when the smaller groups were put in a position where they now had to have a castle to knock over, many fled to the larger groups or quit. A side note is that everyone grouping together wasn’t only because of larger more oppressive wardec groups but because we knew that we were now going to have to deal with Nullsec and their even greater advantage of N+1.
War Immunity / Access Control Lists
So I get that war immunity has always existed simply by staying in an NPC corp and I get how being in a player corp is a vital part of the experience… where war immune corps become annoying for war dec groups is Access Control Lists (ACL). I don’t need to go into great detail but you basically reap all the benefits with none of the risk.
A good example of this is the groups that are war immune. They hide, protected from wardecs while running their mouths. Pretty annoying but the best we can do is try and target things they might care about… war eligible friends or structures. This transitions into the next one…
War are now about structures
Wars begin and end with structures. A ton of players in the previous version of wars absolutely hated structures… timers… not shooting at players. Shooting a structure very rarely results in a fight, and while I admit that I am approaching this from the view of a Blackflag member, I imagine if you select an active group you could probably get a fight on a structure.
Still the fact remains that wars aren’t about the players. I think CCP reviewed their data about players leaving in droves (which I think was flawed data but what do I know) due to wardecs and realized that wars should be about the structures. So yeah you can investigate and find out that this war immune group comprising of 40-man mining fleets owns that Athanor or Raitaru with their 1-man holding corp. you can absolutely go take out “their” structure, but for what result? You haven’t killed any player… only a structure that was manned by a single gunner if you’re lucky.
Decreased Playercount
Yeah this is a massive issue everywhere but it’s hard to want to properly hunt the way we have to now when PCU is ■■■■. Luckily Highsec is the most densely populated area of the game, but you have to sift through all the players that can’t be interacted with using a wardec.
I’m lucky that I get to play in both EUTZ and USTZ depending on how my job rotates. If I was a USTZ player only, I think I’d be finding another game to play.
Ganking
For the past decade you’ve seen more and more players dropping their wars in favor of ganking. The ability to be intentionally setup to attack any player at any time and not have the same restrictions as wars is nice. Granted there are a whole other set of restrictions and hoops to jump through, ganking has been the next step for many.
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That said, there are a few players that prove that if you can’t adapt or quit the game because of the above then you’re just weak or lazy. @God_Emperor_Kane is a good example of someone that when he feels like it can produce really impressive results solo. It’s what he was known for back before I started in 2012 and he can still pull it off today. So while Kane is able to produce results, I don’t think that the activity should be considered balanced or in a good state just because someone that’s always been known as a competent apex predator is able to pull it off.
From where I sit there are only 4 groups consistently using war decs: Blackflag, Wrecking Machine, Riot, and Pain & Compliance (don’t know much about them). I don’t count Bully Brigade or Nonni / Capstext because they are only after abandoned structures and aren’t interested in player interaction.
So @Githany_Red i know there’s gotta be smaller groups using wars on a regular basis but I would be willing to bet they’re concentrated in specific constellations or systems and nowhere near trade hubs since that would catch them in the crosshairs of either Blackflag or Riot. They probably only have a small handful of wars (3-5) as well.
