Well don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against your proposed changes (they look okay to me but I’m no expert on wardec mechanics). I’m not even arguing against the OP’s proposals. Wardec count limits, size differential factors, recruitment stasis, ally logi also all look okay to me (same proviso).
But the core issue to me is that under EVE mechanics, resisting is almost never rational. There is simply no point in JoeBlow Corp X trying to actively fight against a dedicated wardeccer. Sure, there are times a small corp decs a small corp and there’s a fight to be had. Or a midsize corp puts up an unexpected resistance. But these are outliers and the stats show that overwhelmingly.
So tweaking the mechanics, even with quite good ideas, is like trying to put a couple stitches on a mortal wound. It won’t stop the bleeding.
Also, consider that from CCP’s perspective, perhaps they’re getting the results they think they want. They may well be thinking “OK, big wardec groups will form up. And the only way to resist them is to form even bigger defense groups and out-war them. This will eventually lead to big wars, which makes the news and makes all of us here at CCP feel really good.”
I wrote about what I consider to be the folly of this approach a few years back:
Okay, so maybe CCP is getting what they want. But apparently the players aren’t. So instead of engaging in wars, the targets find ways around them. It’s not hard, just play an alt until the war’s over.
But if the objective is to get players to engage more in wars, even if they’re the target, then we need to consider “What is the reason for a target to engage in war, rather than avoid it?”. As far as I can see, they would have only a few rational reasons:
- They think they can win it.
- They have something to gain by it.
- They have a practical method to inflict some noticeable portion of harm on the aggressor, so they can at least feel they “hit back”.
Then the greater question becomes, what features can we add to wardecs that create more of a tug-of-war scenario, rather than a “steamroll the weak targets” situation.
Again, wardecs aren’t my thing so I haven’t spent much time on this. But the general idea is to give more options that are more in line with the defenders approach to the game. IE., expecting an indy corp to suddenly switch over to full-PvP-combat mode because they got wardecced is nonsense, it’s not gonna happen. Give them options to fight the war in different ways.
Here’s a couple examples:
Reputation
Have a system for reputation standings. Successfully engaging in various game activities during a war gains you rep. Different types of activities have different gains. There’s various rewards or bonuses you can earn by increasing your rep points. Losing with no or few activities loses you points.
Defense Contracts
Expand the contract or corp project system to have “Protect asset X from situation A to situation B for Y reward with Z collateral”. It can be “defend citadel X for 2 weeks” or “protect freighter X from system A to system B”, but this alone opens up all kinds of options for a full war economy.
War Bonds and Objectives
Reduce the NPC war fee. Make the aggressor post a significantly larger war bond. War bond size determined by the size of the wardeccer. Then present both sides with a list of War Objective options. Each side picks two sets of objectives from their list. War points are added for ongoing completion of objectives (kills, ore mined, freight shipped, whatever). When enough points are completed, or some time limit is reached, points are counted up and the war bonds are distributed according to points obtained.
Both sides now have a reason to pursue action during the war, both sides get to choose ways to accomplish their own goals, and wardec corps have to be a little more discriminating about who they dec.
Of course, better yet would be to implement all three notions, which would mutually reinforce the entire war ecosystem. Or some other set of ideas. The overall point being, don’t add more limits. Put more options on the table, put ways to create gain (not ‘remove losses’), put choices for how to deal with a wardec. Non-PvP corps aren’t going to shift to combat mode to fight off a dedicated PvP war corp, that’s fighting the enemies preferred battle in the enemies preferred way on the enemies chosen ground.
You don’t need to be Sun Tzu to realize that’s a bad idea.