Not going to mince words - this is a fairly simple change:
the NPC tax should be changed to apply to everyone who is in a corporation that doesn’t own an Upwell structure.
This means that unless you’re in a corporation that has its own Upwell structure, NPC payouts get taxed at their 11% rate. I’d like to see additional NPC taxes on other activities too, but that would be a separate proposal.
Why is this change needed? Because CCP (in their infinite wisdom) decided to tie wars directly to station ownership. However, as everyone knows, it’s possible to completely evade this system by using a holding corporation for structure ownership. Many corporations in fact advertise themselves as being “immune to griefers” in their recruitment spam.
Being able to declare war on the holding corporation and destroy the structure is insufficient counter-play, as those structures are cheap enough to keep rolling over to new ones every week, declaring war costs money, and the structures are very often not fit with anything aside from some worthless basic modules, so destroying them is a losing proposition financially. This is flat-out war evasion, with none of the traditional costs attached, and doesn’t belong in this game.
I like this. Currently, Broker Fees at Upwell Structures have a minimum %, and half fees are ISK sunk and only half go to structure owners - perhaps the same can be done for corps that are neither war eligible nor enlisted in FW (base sunk, or base sunk + half sunk). This would:
penalize carebears/farmers for not engaging in higher end content
sink ISK from krabbing
increase the relative value of war-eligible groups
While I would prefer to detach war eligibility from station ownership, I think that this is something that should be part of a much greater reworking of high-sec aggression mechanics. My proposal acts as a band-aid for the current system, if CCP insists on making Upwell structures a requirement for war eligibility.
I’m going to post a much grander proposal for high-sec aggro/wars at some point. It will be much bigger in scope than what’s being proposed here.
I’d eliminate the ability to toggle it off entirely, and go back to how things were initially. Content for a different thread/set of proposals, though.
It’s worth considering. Of course, I’d grandfather existing non-eligible corps having existing offices, and would only apply to newly rented offices. Damn CCP and their aversion to grandfather mechanics…
This diminishes the motivation to move to player corps if the advantages (esp. in relation to carebear interests) are diminished. Using the Upwell Broker fee approach is probably more sensible: Base + Half. The base ensures “tax havens” cannot be 0%, though a player corp would still be better than an NPC corp. so as to make them attractive.
Hard no on this one. I can list numerous reasons why, spanning from being overly aggressive to being unnecessary/unbeneficial to achieving desired objectives to serving as a massive inconvenience to holding corps NOT intended to house players but that do use the corp to manage finances without the need to rent an office (bank corps).
A good approach.
I’m going to have to stand firm on the ability to maintain control over friendly fire at all times. The game should be change to 1. lower the barrier to entry to higher level content 2. increase motivation to go after high level content 3. not make the transition to higher level content so overwhelming so as to make carebears permanently retreat to carebear space/activities. Having said that, this change doesn’t achieve any of those goals, but it does unnecessarily decrease fun and retention for carebears (who need not be carebears forever given the opportunity to blossom). Carebears merit a safety net against awoxing and even non-carebear corps are entitled to not have douchebags ruin their fun (without getting CONCORDed) in HS - hence this feature should stay as is.
11% is a bit too harsh, it’s specifically extreme to get people out of the NPC corps and into actual player corps. I’d propose a more reasonable 5% or thereabouts for non war elgible corps, such that moving from NPC corps is still well incentivised but those in war free corps still lose a lot of money.
EDIT: Besides, the tax is just a weak incentive for most. Haulers, explorers, DED/Site runners, miners, industrialists, all care very little about a tax. Really, the only people who do care are mission runners, which while a decent chunk of the HS population, is very far from all. This problem exists with the NPC corp tax too, but luckily there are plenty of other reasons to leave an NPC corp, even if it is just to your own solo corp.
The incentive is to have a group that you can name yourself and have a shared mail list, contact list, killboard etc with all your buddies.
Even with NPC tax and no corp wallet, a corp with the above is still better than an NPC corp in every way.
There is literally no reason to stay in an NPC corp.
I consider any asset sharing/pooling, and any objectives related to such, a higher form of play.
Thats why any corp worth its salt will pay attention to who it recruits. Social corps can still be AWOX free, and the quality of recruitment (and the level of engagement) will reflect that.
I’m aware its a long shot, but trust me its better.
I dare CCP to try it out and monitor which corps get people logging in more.
There is a huge percentage of players, esp. within the carebear demographic, who don’t see it this way. And since we’re trying to make them get out of their comfort zone, we can’t make changes that make them stay within or further retreat.
Is that how they see it? Are the changes you propose diminishing or reinforcing that impression?
So many players have such a bad experience finding good corps, the last thing they need is a corp that can’t control awoxing even in HS.
I see you a lot on the forums and in many cases I like your ideas, but in others I severely question your judgement. I will forever remember you as “The guy who vehemently insists that a google link to a news article many years old with clearly grossly out-of-date elements from the archival section of a website is an official link to an active still-in-effect policy document even though it is not a website link (ie. non-google) nor is it accessible at all whatsoever from the website except from the archival section of the website” - when you insist on such things (and other things I’ve found questionable), I require pounds of salt when I assess your judgement on all subsequent ideas.
None of this is intended to be an insult, just saying that it’s going to come down to sound arguments and merits moreso than trust.
Historically, awoxing was primarily used against high-profile targets, because it’s a one-and-done approach due to character reputation.
Having to deal with awoxing is actually a good thing as far as training players for high-end gameplay and corp management goes. It teaches players how to not assume constant safety and do proper security checks when recruiting new players.
The only compromise I’d be willing to make is making CONCORD protection for awoxing not free. If flipping that switch turns on an NPC tax, then it might be a decent compromise.
If anything, 11% is not harsh enough.
As far as non-taxable activities go, yes, that’s also an issue. The only way to address that is to change payout structures for many of EVE’s activities. Instead of exploration giving drops, for example, it would pay out LP of some sort, which could then be converted to goods at various loyalty point shops. But this would be an extensive set of changes. For now, I’d settle just on what I’m proposing here.
As a learning specialist, all I have to say is that this is one of those “right time, right place” things. This is matter of imposing higher-end content on a player when they’re not ready. Suicide ganking is already a thing, as is LS/NS piracy. They can run Awox simulations via duels and operating in LS/NS. They’ll get confident and be willing to expand if they can grow at a reasonable pace, not have it thrust onto them.
I don’t like this as I find it to be unnecessary (per above) and against lore, but hypothetically speaking if it was a mandatory compromise I’d go for it, though I’m fairly confident CCP would never implement an “Awox Protetion Fee” mechanism and as such I don’t find it worth debating further.
If friendly fire is the default, unchangeable state, then no learning has to be done at all. It’s just the immediate reality of existence in the EVE universe.
Also, new players weren’t the ones being killed by awoxers; old, rich players with billion-ISK mission boats were. I’ve never seen a new player complain on the forums about being awoxed back when it was still possible to do so, possibly with the exception of those who dropped hundreds of dollars on the game right when they started. As a learning specialist, you should also see the merit in learning taking place when the risks are much smaller (e.g. the rookie losing a T1 destroyer gets a lesson that keeps him alive later when he’s running null-sec DEDs with a deadspace-fit Vindicator).
Why not? If players want to offload personal security duties onto a third party, they should pay accordingly.
Can you tell me one reason to stay in an NPC corp over a player corp that has the exact same NPC tax and exact same lack of corp wallet?
Pre-awox changes we didn’t have the problems you’re worried about. Or the recruitment spam and isolationist tax havens we’ve acquired since.
Its harder to find a decent corp now because recruitment is saturated with bad corps. It gets harder to find a needle in a hay-stack if you add more hay.
Custom offices have an addtional NPC tax in hi-sec right?
Structure and the likes outside of hi-sec can be treated the same way.
I’m not looking to invite trouble, particularly when the state of the game as a whole is substantially different from what it was back then. Such great liability, so little benefit, so many unintended side effects relative to the stated objective.
Griefing is a thing, and can very easily be done to newbies without violating the Rookie Griefing Policy.
Newbie carebears and/or carebear corps are going to hire others to constantly shadow carebears as they conduct carebear activities to ensure they aren’t awoxed? Doesn’t sound like market.
Objectively speaking, yes, but 1. not everyone knows that and 2. not everyone thinks this way. I’ve personally encountered a few hundred players who have left war-immune tax havens (or tax haven’ts that weren’t war-decced back before war immunity was a thing) in favor of an NPC corp - and remained in that NPC corp for an extended period of time (weeks or months or years) - just because that player corp either had a culture that didn’t suit them, or was inactive.
So clearly, there is a psychological element here that might not apply to the more rational players, but not all players are rational, and we’re trying to capture as many players as we can, not just the rational ones.
Like I said, it didn’t happen in practice. Joining corporations just to kill some Merlins, or an occasional T1 barge, simply wasn’t a thing. Meanwhile, targeted hits on high-profile targets, or revenge ops, were a thing, and are no longer possible.
We have to consider how features were utilized in practice, and not just in theory.
Conduct your own security, or pay CONCORD for the privilege.
CONCORD protection should be line-item for player corporations. Once again, this is a conversation for a different topic, but I would baseline CONCORD protection at a certain level (likely above the current 11%), and players in player corporations could opt out to save money.
Again, I think the word your looking for is “pathological”.
I find WH life relaxing. Fleets come through and bash the station hoping for a defense fleet, but lucky for us, never stayed. WH’s pay their taxes in another way. We should be WD eligible but not be able to WD others. Just my concerns…
Historically it was also done in Low Sec where the friendly fire tag is irrelevant also.
And the only reason friendly fire existed was to allow fits testing in a live environment which we now have duel features for.
If you want to appeal to history don’t ignore the parts that don’t suit your argument.
It is far easier these days to make throw away accounts that can not be kept out of corps in any reasonable manner. Friendly fire doesn’t make LEs so Neutral logi works. High sec awoxing should be able to be turned off if you don’t want to deal with it.
I’ve been active on the forums since the early days, and I’ve never seen any new players complain about awoxing. I’ve also been a member of hundreds of corporations, including many large high-sec carebear corporations that I’ve infiltrated. Lots of old players complained about awoxing, but not rookies. New players weren’t getting killed this way - old carebears made it sound like they were just to get what they wanted. That is history.
Due diligence.
That is easy to fix.
CONCORD should be turned off if I don’t want to deal with it.
You being able to stay docked in a station should be turned off if I don’t want to deal with it.
Lost about 3 forums ago unless your google fu is more amazing than mine. However if you really are as old as you claim, you know this and are just calling for a source to try and discredit it.
Impossible to do. You know this. You can’t keep out someone’s 99th throw away alt. not unless you want to have some kind of ‘Omega only, 5 years required’ stupid corp restriction. At which point the ‘fix’ is worse because it alienates all newbies even more.
We could indeed do this all night, but you are being stupid with your counter arguments here and ignoring the other ways of targetted vengeance that are possible along with the true origin of Awoxing.
I really really see no incentive in butchering the payout structures of half of eve’s activities just to be able to charge a tax. The main problem with taxing an activity that involces the sale of items to others is that any such tax would by necessity have to use CCP estimated values for items, which would be terrible. I have always been strongly against CCP market estimates being used for anything concrete ingame due to their general terribleness and manipulability.
And no it’s not something you can just set aside, especially if you want to make the tax higher . . mission runners will see it as an undue and highly targeted nerf, which, of course, it would be. If you really want to allow everyone in highsec to be engageable, you’re probably better off creating some mechanism by which you can engage even those in NPC corps . . otherwise, everyone who mines,explores,runs sites, etc etc, will just flock to an NPC corp, or a structureless corp which also has a NPC tax they don’t care about.
Of course, such a mechanism would also open up a huge pathway for killing/harassing newbies, which is most likely why it will never be implemented, unless even further bizarre measures are taken (new players get to stay in a special newbie unwardeccable NPC corp for 2 weeks before being kicked out ?) or something of the like.
