Main War declaration thread

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
21

With your proposed structures, do you believe each war should have a separate hq per war? Or would it be more like you have 1 hq down in a region for all wardecs in said region?

Correct. Example if you want to conduct war activity in Genesis, you must have a War HQ inside a HS system inside Genesis. After that you can only initiate wars inside constellations within that region.

If you’re going to make the HQ the location where you do wardec activities, for a region, would your wardec still allow combat between warring corporations in the region?

My current proposal would mean active fighting can only be conducted inside constellations that have the Salient Projector anchored inside them. If the players leave said constellation, Concord will continue to enforce Crime Watch as normal. I’m not sure how that would play out, the first thing that comes to mind is the defender or attackers could camp gates on constellation borders to prevent war targets from entering the constellation.

22

I’d also like to add some numbers here. As CCP stated in their findings, 5 corps hold 50% of active wars in HS. A lot of people talk about cost being the factor as to why they can hold these wars indefinitely. Let me put down some numbers from my proposal to see the cost of holding war decs under the current system.

Currently when you activate a war, the attacker has the ability to kill you in every system in empire space for one reoccurring flat fee, which scales at the defender member size.

In my system for a corporation to hold war time activities empire wide for 7 days they would have the following expenses.

23 total empire regions requiring a High Power War HQ.

  1. 25 fuel block * 24 * 7 * 21,000 = 88,200,000 isk * 23 = 2,028,600,000 isk (every 7 days)
  2. Structure cost (lets just use raitaru numbers) 500,000,000 * 23 = 12,500,000,000 isk

216 constellations in empire that have high sec systems

  1. 25 fuel block * 24 * 7 * 21,000 = 88,200,000 isk * 216 = 19,051,200,000 isk (every 7 days and must be hand delivered to structures in an active war zone)
  2. Structure cost (lets just use POCO numbers) 100,000,000 * 216 = 21,600,000,000 isk (unrecoverable as they self destruct when offlined)

So you are looking at an upfront cost of around 55,000,000,000 isk and a reoccurring cost of 21,000,000,000 every 7 days to hold a war dec across the entirety of empire space. Also lets not forget man power as well to maintain these structures.

23

I don’t really have a problem with this idea.

Most wars are declared to simply create targets for the “5 wardec corps”.

Most of the bigger alliances (and even mid-size ones) just tell their members to use alts in high sec. Those that don’t get laughed at for losing stuff to a wardec by others in their alliance… as they should know better.

Allowing those big alliances to kill a structure to turn off the war makes it so wars would generally only be declared by a group that might… hope to win a war. Even 500-1000 man null-sec alliances can usually put together a fleet to destroy a structure that PIRAT or Marmite can’t handle. They aren’t looking for fleet combat. they’re looking to kill a lone member of those corps who’s asleep in high sec.

24

Personally, I think that high sec should be reconfigured - they should make it so that highsec is just 1.0 and .9 space. In the “new highsec” pvp combat could be severely restricted if not out right forbidden. This way the newbees have a place to ease into the game and other folk to retreat to instead of logging out upon a war dec. From .8 to .5 could then be intermediate space (for want of a better term). In this new “middle ground” CCP could keep the current pvp mechanics (although I certainly do believe that ccp should work to balance out the risk of a war dec so that the defenders have some reason to participate in the war).

25

The only way I could be for your idea is if 1.0 / 0.9 space restricted all access to citadels, and CCP heavily nerfed ISK production in these “safe zones”. If there is a safe zone of any kind, there shouldn’t be the ability to make enough ISK to do anything outside of those zones.

However as you are talking about removing PvP for the people who do not want it, my system would allow for that choice. If you want to be an upstart corporation and want to expand your industry and use citadels, you voluntarily choose to participate in the wardec system.

The only thing left to address would be ganking mechanics, and Im going to write up another proposal on how ganking could be changed where the haulers of HS could band together and prevent a gank if they put in the effort.

26

Well yea, if pvp was removed from 1.0 space you would also have to restrict player structures from being in 1.0 space.

27

and mining, and ratting and anything that effects the economy.

28

For starters, there needs to be two different types of War Declarations:

Request War - allowing a monetary incentive, or other terms to the recipient corp in order to agree to the fight, along with a minimal fee/tax to initiate and the terms of engagement. These wars would be mutually agreed upon conflicts that can be fought across all of empire space, or an area specified in the terms.

Declare War - This mechanic will consist of an aggressor and defender and both parties must have a structure within a designated War zone, and will also require payment to the NPC factions that own the space of the war zone.

I think it is integral for any new Wardec mechanic to limit the engagement area, whether this is by Region, Faction territory, or just Number of jumps between and from the two sides designated war targets. How to designate the war zones may the the trickiest part of setting up a new system.

Also, I personally don’t see the need for a designated war declaration structure, but if it is seen useful to have one, then a dedicated citadel service module for this should be enough.

29

Also, I personally don’t see the need for a designated war declaration structure, but if it is seen useful to have one, then a dedicated citadel service module for this should be enough.

The more I think about it the more I think this would be the right direction. This would force the defenders/attackers to have to scout and scan, like you do with getting citadel timers.

30

Once upon a time, wardecs had a flat fee per week. Didn’t matter whether it was against a 3 man corp, or a huge nullsec alliance. Wars were 50M/week. At that price, wardecs were very affordable and any small group could participate and target whoever they wanted. Nullsec blocks mostly complained due to 0rphanage blapping anything they undocked from Jita 4-4, and a fix was made. 2 major changes happened:

  1. Cost of wars scales by target alliance membership. Bigger corps are more expensive to wardec. This protects nullsec alliances, while making smaller ‘newbie corps’ more attractive, since they are cheaper wars. Mercs like a target-rich highsec. Bored mercs end up going back to lowsec or wormhole. If you can’t have all of nullsec wardecced at once, you need to find some active smaller corps to make the profession ‘fun’.

  2. Watchlist got nerfed. Really this was done to protect super pilots logging in and getting ganked, but it hurts wardecs a lot - if you can’t see when your targets are online, running locators becomes more difficult. This drives merc even more towards tradehubs to avoid jumping aimlessly hoping to find targets.

Change 1 resulted in a major shift for high-sec mercs. No-longer could a small corp afford to wardec major blocks. 0rphanage died immediately due to unsustainable costs. Mercs were forced to consolidate membership to be able to afford a decent number of potential targets to hunt, based on income from various contracts (thank you POCOs and Citadels). Targets also needed to become more efficient as well, due to the per-member fee (why pay to wardec the nullsec block with 4% of their membership in highsec when it is much much cheaper to wardec every corp under 200 members in Dodixie today, with probably 70% of them living in highsec).

If new changes are made to protect smaller/newer groups, and changes already exist (and get even stronger with citadel-holding corps) to protect larger groups, then what is the point of wardecs as a mechanic at all? I’m generally OK with looking at the state of the game and having some determination made that ‘change is necessary’ - but what should that change look like? How do we protect the newbies (which are the stated reason for the change) while not completely destroying highsec PvP?

With the recent addition of citadels, major changes to industry (highsec minerals available in null, rorquals, limitless manufacturing slots), and improved ratting income (carrier rework, super-ratting) nullsec is richer and more self-sufficient than ever. No-longer are freighters full of T1 large railguns running to nullsec to sustain production. I would argue that nullsec no-longer needs any protection from highsec wars.

The fix to protect small new corps should be very simple (in theory) and have very little to do with citadel ownership: Invert the previous change. Make it very expensive to wardec small corps, and very cheap to wardec large alliances. Add a modifier for citadel-holders to keep clutter in highsec to a minimum and contract killings alive (like 50% off war fee).

There would need to be a very good reason (like getting paid by a 3rd party for it) for a merc group to spend 400M/wk to wardec some small mission or mining corp. The cost simply wouldn’t be worth the 3-5 mackinaws on the killboard. Probably not even worth the 1 potential deadspace-fit navy battleship kill. Really this type of war will dissappear entirely - for every small corp wardec that produces kills, 3 others end with no activity. And large alliances should be better able to defend themselves, and teach their newer members about game mechanics like wars - if they care to. The number of overall wars will drop. The 70 active wars corp drops to a 3-10 active wars corp. The targeting of newbies goes away. The number of overall targets for highsec mercs stays consistent, and the gameplay style (in general) survives.

31

I say if they are in a non-wardeccable corp they get alpha restrictions. That should include NPC corps. No more 15 hulks and an orca mining afk in an NPC corp.

32

Wardecs is a great idea. Sadly, it has turned out to be nothing more than a way to grief newbies.

33

Has nothing to do with griefing newbies. I get disappointed when a frigate or shuttle come through a gate to be honest. It has a lot more to do with war targets being flying pinatas. I’d much prefer to pop freighters and other blingy things. Wardecs are never targeted at newbies. Usually, they are made due to seeing freighters, orcas, ratting rattlesnakes or other potentially juicy loot pinatas flying around. Or they are due to contracts - yes some wars are due to another corp hiring mercs!

At the same time, many corps have newbies in them. Train your newbros! Players need to learn things like ‘Autopilot is bad’, ‘Watch local’, ‘Everybody in EvE is out to get you’, and ‘Every fair fight is a trap’. Things which are great for any new pilot to learn early. If there are newbies in corps that are targeted by wardecs, and their corp leadership fails to help said newbies learn the easy way - us mercs are here to help. It amazes me how many corp CEOs see the war, and choose to continue business as usual as if there is no war, and then complain when they get blown up. Some alliances, like Eve University, are really good at training up their newbies. They call out intel, form up, scout, set traps, etc.

34

Be aware: Long post about a game mechanic that mostly affects highsec! :smiley:
TL;DR at the end - anyway, here we go:

It’s broken!
Wardec mechanic is broken. Despite driving a lot of new players out of the game, the wardec mechanic in it’s current state does not lead to interesting gameplay. It rather makes people not to undock (or even log in) instead of encouraging people to fight - which should be the real goal of a war(dec), right?

A goal
So the most important part of a good and healthy wardec system is already found: You have to fight for/about something. A war needs to have a target. Instead of just being the button that disables CONCORD, it should be the tool to reach an aim. May it be to destroy a structure or to push those miners out of “your system” or just to take revenge on someone; you need to set a goal which will define the wardec.

Win or lose
This also helps with the next thing a good mechanic needs to fullfill. And that’s recognizing a clear winner and loser. In the current state, the war ends after 7days (if no one renews it) and that’s it. Not even a “congratulation” is given out, as the game does not know or care who won the war. But this is actually a really big deal in the human understanding of war. The game defines an attacker and defender, but doesn’t follow up if the attacker can achieve what he is after (since there is no target atm) or if the defender could avert the enemy from reaching the goal.
If we take a look to Nullsec wars, where wardecs aren’t used, we can clearly see who won a war (with a very few exceptions) by looking at the objectives and who took them. This is usually also used when looking at a single battle, while the always present ISK-war gets added or is the main focus. In the latter case, the ISK-war becomes the objective, which is absolutely legit of course.

An example
So summarizing those points, the new wardec could look like that:
The attacker want’s to start a war. He chooses a victim and a goal. A citadel for example, or simply an amount of ISK they want to have destroyed by the end of the war. The goal should also have an influence on the length of the war, but in general the attacker should be able to select how long the war will go - in a certain timeframe of course. This could reach from a 3day war to destroy 1bil in ships up to a 10day war to destroy a structure for example. The defenders have the same goals. If it is a citadel, they need to protect it. If it is an ISK amount, they can reach it before the enemy. You don’t really win a war if you shoot 1b, but lose 5b to do that. As always the numbers are just examples and I would trust CCP to finetune those to a healthy state. Yes, I really do. :wink:

Regional limitations
That brings me to a second part of the wardec mechanic. It wouldn’t make much sense to fight over an Astrahus and be allowed to shoot the defender in all of New Eden. And if the war is to drive someone away from where you wanna live in Highsec, a wardec that doesn’t “show a direction to flee to” is not very helpful either. So the new wardec system absolutely needs regional restrictions. It should be possible to select the region(s) the war should cover, that should of course also have an influence on the cost of the war, and it needs to be chained to the selected goal for obvious reasons. The attacker should be able to select a system, a constellation or a complete region. I am not sure if several regions should be possible to choose, but I would not expand this to more than the borders of a single empire.
With this, you allow people to actually run from a war - which is purpose of the design. If an attacker drives someone out of a system/constellation/region, they should have gotten what they wanted in the first place, as the area is free from the targets and the goal is reached (or reachable).

Actual fights
But since the mechanic should encourage fighting (and not just flying from one area to another), how do you get people to fight if they don’t really feel the desire to do so? Well, that is also possible: You make them lose something if they don’t come to the fight AND give them a reward for winning.
In case of a structure as war goal, it’s simple: It get’s blown up. In case of the “system drive out” it’s more complicated. But you could make war-losers criminals (also to the local law-enforcement) for the same time the war was ongoing. (10 days of war = 10 days after the war you are not allowed to enter the system). This would be a mayor drawback if you lose a war.
On the side of the winner, you should get additional rewards other than just reaching the goal. Maybe half of the money the war has cost? Or a pre-defined amount of some sort. This part is especially important in the case the defender wins - he would otherwise have nothing to win. Here is much room for CCP to play around and also PLEX or SKINs or whatever can be given out. Of course related to the war-goals and duration etc.

One thing that has been brought up as “fix” many times are simple restrictions in the amount of wardecs you can get or the time you can get them. I don’t like those but would highly suggest to restrict the zones someone can get wardecs in. By either allowing only 1 region/empire to be wardec’ed in, or by allowing all but 1. This way you are always able to play (although you might need to evacuate).

TL;DR // summary
There needs to be a goal (structure/ISK/space) set by the attacker.
A region needs to be chosen by the attacker.
And a reward for the winner (this can also be the defender).
Then the Wardec system is fixed and everyone’s happy.

Now feel free to discuss :slight_smile:

The reddit link can be found here

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35

What if my goal is to annihilate the other Corp? Or take all their stuff? Does the war go on forever? What happens if I succeed? What happens if I fail my goal?

What if the target operates in multiple region? Or all of them? How can I attack them? Can they counter-attack me in my home region or I am immune?

Beyond keeping and/or taking stuff? Well then who pays for this reward?

I am sorry, but there are a lot of details you still need to work out, not to mention you seem to trying to shoehorn all the reasons and types of wars into one narrow archetype.

I’m not even sure there is enough of a proposal here to comment on, but I don’t really see much salvageable here so I’ll just give this a -1 and move on.

1 Like
36

Sorry, but how about you read more of my post than just the TLDR, then you would find all the answers to your questions.

And the “take all” option you are looking for is not part of the mechanic right now either. And I am not sure what you mean by that in the first place. Steal stuff? That is not part of wardec at all, you can do that by the typical mechanics anyways. Destroy eveything? That is still doable like in the old mechanics.

Also, of course this is not a perfect plan as there is a lot of stuff to tweak with such mechanics. It is meant as the start of a discussion. Sadly you don’t like to join that. But good you moved on.

37

ok, misunderstanding from my side.

Useless imo, unless the cost to declare a war all over Highsec remains the same as it currently is (giving smaller groups a bigger chance to start doing them)

see above

you already can.
regions that are somewhat far from hubs usually never see traffic from mercs.
unless there’s something shiny to shoot at.

attackers are often paid by people to keep harassing their targets wherever they go.
this proposition would beat the purpose.

I’ll simply say that you can’t force anyone to take a fight, especially not one they know they’ll lose.
War targets might be dumb sometimes, but never dumb enough to welp billions on t3/machariels to try and get rid of an attacker…

expanding options is good, yes.
but if your options are to restrict, it’s not as good

38

I don’t see anything on how goals are declared, what mechanic adjudicates whether they were met, or what is the reward/penalty for the outcome. I have no clue where this reward comes from and you never addressed how an attacker would deal with a target in multiple regions, nor said in what regions the attacker would be vulnerable to counter attack. What prevents an attacker from declaring war in all regions or with the goal of destroying 1T ISK so the war goes on forever?

In short, you have no answers to any of my questions. At best, you have here a top level design for some alternative system, but it sorely lacks details and seems only designed to prevent/nerf wardec spam with little consideration payed to all the other ways wars are used.

Personally, I don’t see how this can work in a sandbox game where players set their own reasons for attacking other groups, reasons often hard for the game to ascertain.

39

Of course this is not the finished version but more of a top level idea. It’s a first proposal.

And yes there are the answers to your questions. The part of “how goals are declared” is described in the “An example” part. The part of multiple regions is addressed in “Regional limitations”. And the attacker is “vulnerable” in the same way as the defender. Both have the same goal of killing/driving someone out. When it comes to structures, of course the defender only tries to defend it instead of killing it. And of course as part of the goal selection there need to be senseful limitations. I thought this can easily be adjust by the cost of the war.

We can surely discuss about some points and especially the details - this is what I wanted to do in the first place.

40

Conceptually this is freedom taken away from what is meant to be a very free system.

Players should be able to dec eachother for any reason they like, including the colour of their hair if they so choose. The only thing the target needs is to be in a player corp.

The ‘reason’ people are being decced is not the problem. Even when it comes to the whiners. The issue whiners have is that they are decced at all, the reason behind it makes no difference to them.

This is complete bull ■■■■.

Very few wars have clear victors. In game and out. Many times both sides try to claim victory for one reason or another. And it’s the same in eve. When goons invaded the north not long after the end of the casino war they claimed victory for displacing their enemies out of the territory they targeted. But the defenders claimed victory for wrecking goon fleets on multiple occasions whilst relocating members out of said territories (this is my interpretation from what I’ve read. I’m not involved in either side).

And it’s the same with hi-sec war decs. My objective may be to disrupt my enemies income which i may achieve by my own accounts, but the defenders may kill me, a lot. Who won?

And not all objectives are so straight cut. I may wardec someone and demand they stop putting up market orders, or to not mine a certain ore, or stop smacking in local.

We cannot even begin to understand all the reasons people goto war. And the terms of their surrender are equally as complex. Again, see the end of the war in northern null sec and the surrender terms involved there.

It is far far easier to just let us dec for whatever reason we want and when we feel satisfied the war is over, then we can end the war ourselves.

The exception to this would be defenders dominating the war and ending it through a structure mechanics. But everyone is familiar with my feelings on that.

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