So you do it wrong and drag many players with you into the ragequit? And because you can’t accept that it is your fault and change your ways you expect the game changes and everyone else adapts?
Not really going to happen.
at this point we’ve digressed into why wardec mechanics need a tune-up more than anything else.
i don’t even remember what the OP was about.
TL;DR: remove non-mutual corporation-wide wardecs and enable wardecs on individual structures for a reduced fee. Attackers will get suspect flag while they shoot at the structure so they can be shot by anyone willing to defend the structure. Anyone attacking the attackers will get fleet aggro so attackers can shoot it back. Structures under attack will be advertised gamewide to allow roaming fleets come to defend or fight the attackers. This will allow emergent PvP and will let tutoring corporations split between go-mutual and no-mutual sections to allow easy PvP progression to all noobs. The loss of blanket wardecs and opportunistic kills of unwary war targets is deemed acceptable as the new proposal enables more PvP and non-mutual blanket wardecs rarely are honored by defenders, who just drop corp or stop playing. 
reading your TLDR in that last post…
It just not going to work in the way you propose…
I for one, if wanted to to attack a single agressor how you explained it…i would just drop a gank group on the target…
Oh look, i now have aggro…his buddies warp in…they cant do anything cause im not in a fleet…and i now know their fleet comp…
Advertisment…hmm, not my structure why do i care? Im busy doing other ■■■■ to better my group of friends and myself, let it die.
I dont agree with blanket wardecs, but your idea just sucks cause it will stagnate Wardec pvp not encourage it.
i think i said that the suspect flags wouldn’t be necessary since current wardec mechanics allow for the defender to accept an ally, you just have to tweak it so an individual can get in on it if they so feel inclined.
I also concede to Daichi that depending on the wardec entity it is possible to still play the game under 'dec as long as you keep a watchful eye, since a lot of blanket wardeccers tend to camp the main trade routes anyway.
Lol no. It’s my 5 guys vs a pvp alliance over 200 strong. You can literally check the history on this char.
It was in fact my lack of structures that allowed me the freedom to operate under a month long dec against overwhelming force. The pvp alliance weren’t concentrated until i started bashing their structures. And the industry group i decced got all of my attention.
In a straight fight we’d be overwhelmed. But that’s not my point. My point is that you don’t have to stop playing when you’re decced. You only need to be more vigilant, and you might even give your aggressors a bloody nose if you create the opportunity.
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You’ve successfully described the basic philosophy of anti-gankers. It’s very imaginable that 3rd parties would willingly participate in this schema.
My point still stands then
Not sure the proposed structure wardec is a good solution (for hi-sec):
- Quite some citadels in hi-sec are owned by a dedicated 1 pilot corporation to avoid the old wardec system.
- If I substract the inactive members in my current corp I endup with to little pilots to defend anything escpecially against the current serial wardec’ers but now have a far bigger change to get wardec’ed because we mine a moon with a structure that cannot really defend itself.
- In the past it was enough to avoid some systems (with juicy ships) to avoid the attention of serial wardec’ers. I agree ducking and lay low is not fatastic gameplay bit it got the job done.
Bottom line, the old system was, giving the misbalance with serial wardec’ing corporations, far from ideal. But the proposed system is no improvement imho.
I would like to see a good change of Concord kicking in against agressors for a couple of days and end wars prematurely. Then wardec’ing would bring a serious risk for serial wardec’ers as well.
One of the better articles I have seen on the issues of war deccing:
War Decs the Pink Elephant in the Room
Easily seen that hi-sec war decs are not a black and white ‘good for the game’/‘terrible for player retention’ issue. They are obviously useful for some situations that are part of the EVE experience, and obviously abusable by the ‘bad’ pvpers who simply use them to grief newer/smaller/less capable players/corps.
If you are going to actually resolve an issue like war decs, you need to step back and look at the actual game design, and support it with data (or failing that, by talking with experienced players who know EVE game ‘play’ far better than CCP does - because they do it every day for years).
- What is the overall purpose of war decs/high sec PVP?
- In what ways does EVE/CCP benefit or lose out from current (abusable) mechanics?
- Under what scenarios does War dec PVP play out well for players and CCP?
- Under what scenarios does War dec PVP cost EVE/players/CCP potential benefit?
- What numbers/$$ are involved on either side of the equation? (Who uses wardec PVP, who avoids it)
Answering design questions will work far better to reach a viable compromise solution than simply poking at the code and seeing what kind of changes are easy to make, then making those changes and waiting for the backlash.
My own observations from over a decade of playing EVE off and on (more off than on, really):
- Hi sec wardecs aren’t a huge issue in the overall numbers of EVE, but they are an issue that often strikes new players just at the stage where they are getting more involved in the game.
- Wardec abusers aren’t raging all over the place, and aren’t always the big obvious ones (eg. the ‘top 5’ and other well-known wardec corps). They tend to be the smaller/mid-size corps that can’t really throw down with the big boys and so they need some easy targets to pick off.
- They rarely result in a ‘good fight’ as war deccers won’t generally declare against someone of their own ability range, weak targets have no reason at all to attempt a fight, and griefers are only looking for easy kills and tears. It’s an inherently unbalanced system.
- The current war dec system is uninteresting to the typical player and even the typical PVPer; hence why it attracts the griefers (who will abuse any mechanic to find easy targets) and has the ‘just don’t log on til its over’ response from targets. There’s nothing in it for them.
- The current system is a blunt instrument - it doesn’t create much content overall, it doesn’t provide a development path for new corps, it doesn’t encourage participation, it isn’t very flexible.
On the other hand, we can’t envision a big, full-blown re-write of war decs/high sec PVP, or some totally new system to replace it - CCP is obviously working with limited resources in coding game changes and any ‘war dec solution’ will have to be a moderate change to systems already in place.
To keep this post from getting even more ‘wall of text’-y, I’ll describe an example War Dec approach in the next couple messages (or after the first reply, if it merges consecutive posts).
A viable war-dec/corp/PVP approach should:
- Have options for weaker targets to not simply be bullied by griefers
- Have reward systems that make it possible and (potentially) desirable for both sides to participate
- Be a creative tool in the hands of various player groups
- Provide a growth path for players to progress from ‘new fairly weak player’ to ‘corporate asset’ to ‘potential threat’
- Allow new corps to grow to the point where they have more options than “we lost everything and had no chance”
First, we need a corporate structure that allows some operational ability without being a potential WarDec writeoff. I’ll merge some concepts from various posts here:
Step 1) Implement ‘War Dec flag’ for corporations. New corps would start with this flag ‘Off - No war decs’. Once a corp turns the flag on, there’s no going back.
Step 2) Social Corps: A new corp with the WarDec flag ‘off’ is a Social corp. It pays 5% tax to Concord for protection, max 20 members. Your basic ‘friends and family corp’.
Step 3) Licensed Corp: A new or social corp pays a fee (10,000,000 ISK) to Concord to upgrade to a Licensed Corp. A Licensed Corp can have up to 50 members. It pays the same 5% protection tax to Concord.
Step 4) Limited Corp: Upgrade to a Limited Corp. 50,000,000 ISK fee and an additional 2% Concord tax (7% total) to license 1 structure in space. 80 members max.
Step 5) Production Corp: Upgrade for 100,000,000 ISK fee, additional 2% Concord Tax (9% Total), licensed for 2 structures in space, 120 members max.
This allows people to experiment with starting and growing their own corps, keeps simple ‘tax evasion’ to a minimum, provides some ISK sinking, and allows people to operate a moderate sized corp without fear of losing billions in assets. However the fees, taxes and limits involved will provide a constant incentive to ‘strike out on their own’ and give up WarDec protection.
Any corp can turn on its’ WarDec flag at any time to avoid these fees, taxes and limits, as a permanent change. Anyone leaving a corp with WarDec flag ‘on’ retains the WarDec status of that corp for 3-5 days (to minimize corp-hopping).
Now we have a 'growth corp’ path, next post is WarDecs.
(Modified post from another thread)
EVE needs a WarDec style that encourages continued operation, and even upping your game, while under a Wardec. This should be something dynamic that people can participate in under their own schedule and not (necessarily) something that requires a full-on corporate/alliance slugfest to decide.
Use the ‘Agency event’ interface to break corporate activities down into smaller pieces, which can be completed solo or as a team/corp, and award points. A WarDec would become like a player-created mini event.
The target corp has smaller Agency-style goals like ‘earn 1 million in bounties’, ‘Complete 4 Security missions’, ‘Mine 5,000 m3 of ore’, ‘Complete 3 Relic sites’, ‘Kill WarDeccer Ship’ etc. Those mini-goals would be repeatable and earn X points each. A certain number of points would be needed to resolve the war. The attacking/declaring corp could earn points by attacking/disrupting the target corp activities, scoring kills etc. and win that way.
The WarDec corp posts a War Bond as part of their wardec. The Wardec type or possibly the Target corp type/goals would set the template for the tasks they need to complete to earn points. If they earn enough points, the WarDec is over and they get the bond (or some other corp benefit, perhaps). For the WarDeccer, they get hunting rights.
Note that paying Concord for the war is one thing (WarDec fees), posting the WarBond is a separate expense. (Alternatively, the War Bond could just be 50% of the WarDec fees)
The ‘points required to end war’ could be set based on the Target corp size at the time of the Wardec. Although as mentioned elsewhere, possibly factor in corporate activity levels in the previous 30 days or something. That way, corp jumpers would be considered ‘undesirables’ as they abandoned their corp to earn their points with fewer members, and ‘corp membership would mean something’.
Concord could toss in something like Faction/WarDec LP, in which case Wardecs could be a bit like mini faction wars that don’t nuke your faction standing. These rewards could go to either side, possibly scaling on how rapidly they win the war (fast resolution = more points). Some careful design needed here, possibly based on actual ship losses or something, so that people don’t simply set up milk run wardecs for the points.
Another wrinkle would be ‘Merc Wars’. Corp ‘Nasty’ posts a ‘bounty’ on Corp ‘Target’. Corp Nasty specifies goal as ‘X Ships killed’, ‘YYY ISK assets destroyed’, and/or ‘N Space structures destroyed’, using the Contract interface. Corp ‘Hunter’ picks up the contract, then has to WarDec Corp Target using the above structure (post a bond, War goals and points set by scaling slider corp size vs corp size/activities etc). Corp Hunter renews the WarDec until they either complete the bounty contract, at which point they get the bounty (plus any loot/spoils/WarDec LP). If they fail either the contract or the war (because Corp Target completed the needed points, or contract time expired or something), then Corp Target gets paid the War Bond, plus any Faction/WarDec LP they earned.
Now you’ve got a flexible wardec system, using (mostly) existing mechanics, that creates some balance between larger attackers and smaller operators, and gives everyone a reason (and the ability) to participate. It also gives corps tools to use in wars against other corps.
I’ve seen two suggestions on Reddit for fixing wardecs that I like. With both of these mutual wars where both sides agree to it still exist of course.
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War flag/timer: So this one is relatively simple, wardecs as they exist now are gone. At any time though, anyone can shoot a structure in highsec without fear of CONCORD retribution. However if you do shoot at a structure in highsec you are immediately given a war flag/timer that lasts for quite some time, maybe 30-60 minutes or so. The war flag works like the suspect flag in that anyone can shoot you without fear of CONCORD retribution, however unlike the suspect flag anyone that shoots/reps/etc someone with a war flag gets a war flag themselves. This allows impromptu wars to start up by simply attacking a structure and anyone can join in by simply attacking someone else involved in the war. This allows people to still take out highsec structures and fight over them. Anyone that doesn’t want to get involved in the war can do so but of course if you’re in a corp putting up structures you have to choose between protecting your investments vs. staying safe.
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War Structure: This is a little more complicated but the idea is to have a special war structure that can only be placed in high-sec before you can declare a non-mutual war against another group. The war structure can only be placed in high-sec and when you pay your wardec fees (which should be much higher) they are paid into the structure itself. You can wardec as many groups as you want, with no restrictions, just like now however when you declare a war the attacked corp is immediately notified of the location of the war structure. If the attacked corp manages to destroy the war structure then they “win the war” and receive part of the fees paid into the war structure and the attacking corp can’t place another war structure for a designated amount of time. The advantage to this option is that it forces attacking corps to actually risk something with their wardecs. The have to be good enough to protect their war structure or else they’re just going to end up feeding the corps they declare wars against. Also, they can’t just “wardec everyone” as the more people you declare wardecs against, the more people you will have gunning for your war structure and the greater the likelihood that you will lose it. The downside is it still doesn’t completely protect newbros who make a small corp to learn the game together so there should be some sort of “social corp” option for them but I think it fixes the worst abuses we have with wardecs now.
Typically with any proposed change to game mechanics, the first thing you want to do is look at the idea and ask:
“How would I break it/exploit it/abuse it/avoid it?”
I was going to put at the end of my posts “Please tell me how you would go about exploiting/abusing this method” but they were already too long.
In your points 1 and 2, there seems to be a heavy emphasis on structure-related battles. How do you WarDec if you don’t want structures involved?
How does this help small corps against large corps and alliances? If anyone can attack a structure, how does it deal with large entities griefing smaller/newer entities? The War flag also seems to allow scamming, since you could have a small group attack a structure, gain flags, lure/bait some folks in to attacking them, giving them flags, then the first group calls in their reinforcements and mops up.
Frankly, it seems worse than the current system.
The second ‘War HQ’ idea, again totally favors large, well established Wardec corps against anyone smaller. Basically, the big guys can afford to put a structure up and defend it, and then they are free to go wardec crazy on anyone they like.
Again, all the same problems of the current system, with a new mechanic being added into the game to essentially change nothing.
So a corp could anchor POCOs and not be wardeccable?
No thanks. Some POCOs are valuable and they should always be viable conflict drivers.
Well, all numbers/limits etc in a proposal are flexible and subject to change. Tax rates, upgrade fees, member limits are all given as examples only. People with more corp experience than I should be able to set more appropriate numbers.
The point of giving a Protectorate corp 1 or 2 structures in space is so they can basically practice structure management and build up some potential defenses before going ‘in the wild’, so to speak.
It would perhaps be reasonable to limit them to, say, Upwell structures only; or even “Upwell structures that aren’t the largest size”, or “Entry level Upwells” only. Maybe ‘entry level Upwell’ for Alphas, and ‘Upwells below max size’ for Omegas. Maybe make it so Alphas can only have the base Social corps and you need to be Omega in order to upgrade to Licensed, Limited or Production.
You can’t introduce invulnerable structures into the game. The only indispensable part of wars is that they are the only way to remove and fight over structures. Therefore, either structures have to be only accessible to war-vulnerable tiers of corps, or there has to be an alternative mechanic to contest structures.
I also don’t see why a ‘wardec flag’ has to be irreversible. Some timer yes, but I don’t see why a social group should not be able to revert to protected status if they have failed to successfully complete, other than the difficulty in removing benefits you have given to the corp.
But other than that, I like there general idea of the OP: more types of corps with different levels of risk and responsibility.
+1
I’m not completely wedded to the idea of a Protectorate corp being able to put up structures, but I do think it is a logical progression in going from ‘starter corp’ to ‘corp able to put up and at least somewhat defend structures from a WarDec’.
Otherwise you still run into the sticking point of ‘any new corp that puts their first structure up risks losing it to the first wardec griefer that comes along’. Also to allow them to learn (and earn) modules, defenses, etc. for their structure.
Are there compromise limits that would not be too abusable? No compromise solution will be acceptable to everyone or in all situations, but if we can get a ‘minimally abusable approach that is interesting for players’ then we’d be miles ahead of where we are now.
- Limit Protectorate structures to 1.0 space?
- Limits on where they can be located within space? (Eg. minimum 1 million KM from other structures?)
- Possibly a timer on how long a Protectorate structure remains free from attack? Eg: Put up a structure, your corp has a 3 month timer before WarDec flag goes on.
The reason for the WarDec flag being one way is twofold: First, I am pretty sure creative players could find a way to abuse/play shell games with switchable On/Off corps. A timer would help minimize this but I don’t think it would eliminate it.
Second, because a corp unlocks all abilities/limits when it goes WarDec ‘on’, it would require a substantial checklist/conversion process to check everything it might have done that is not open to Protectorates and reverse them. I was looking to minimize the ‘new coding’ involved in the proposal, and this sounds like a pretty significant (read: buggy, error prone, abusable) potential loophole.
Here is an idea there will be a few holes you can poke in but that’s the point this is not a hotfix for wars but a Long term system overhaul Poke your hole but try and fill it in too these roles can be place corps and alliance alike
Different war types
- real mercs taking military contracts (real guns for hire) they still need to be able to operate for iskies
- Corp vs Corp conflicts (i am mad at you and you are mad at me)
- Pirate wars (they look weak and defenseless lets attack and cause hell)
All these type of conflicts are pushed under 1 type of war. (there is 1 more ill add toward the end)
- first right now this is the 2nd most common reason wars are tossed around people not wanting to be bothered. this include structure defenses and attacks
or weaker corps mustering money to attack local bullies and right now it super messy and clunky to figure out what wars are about.
****2. Right now everything is working as intended NO issues when you have 2 corps are are clashing heads outside of war sometime it just boils over that have similar strength.
- the BANE OF ALL NEW corps including industrial corps you are kinda Forced to setup shop somewhere low profile and pray to Jovians(lol) they people don’t find you normally you have no military and if you get war decked , you hide and wait or your corp dies
starting at the foundation that means there is 3 types fo corps Mercs, Standard, Industrial (wars should reflect this)
4.“a new challenger has appeared” the (i wanna see the world burn corp) WARdeck anything and everything that moves and lets see what we catch. this being a sub-divisions of pirate corps
FIXS
this being my opinion Make corps class themselves General purpose corp, Merc corp, Pirate corp. And industrial corp let me explain(numbers are random examples)
General corps being most of the corps in high sec right now they would change the least at the moment , except you are limited to a set number of wars at one point, nothing more then 10( devs and CSM can build in exceptions for null and low sec.) you can still dec whoever without anything changing but dramatically increasing industrial corps right now its 50 mill if you war dec 4 industrial corps war decs go up to 500 mill each then going up to 1 bill as you reach 10 indust corps again balance can be worked out i am just tossing numbers.
Merc corps a flushed out system for getting hired to War deck people [Corp A: pays Merc corp to attack Corp B ] maybe each ship killed Corp A pays 50mill per ship killed up to a limit(prices set by a merc corp) all isk is store in a war vault and can be claimed when kills have been confirmed by some method OH YEAH KILLMAILS weird. lol indust corps being able to call for help in the corp interface to hire you help if being attack for the next type pf group(Please note they can still war dec everyone just like now except when freelancing wardecs against industrial corporations might have increased war deck costs
NOW PIRATE CORPS 1st your Sec status weight is nullified 5.0 or 0.0 you sec status is effectively -0.5 while in a corp talking to npc and stuff not much of an effect just for player public knows something pirates have to place a pirate base hub that has to be defended 1 mill EHP in high sec 4 mill EHP in null or low if destroyed allcorp members flagged for suspect for 1 hour it can be places anywhere within the region
This could be the most appealing for pvp pirates wanting to keep high sec a unsafe place. first War decs you war start up timers are set to 1 hour hours pirates normally have the were and when bonus war last about 3 days on 3rd day war abruptly ends 7 days is LONG as HELL When you declare war on a corp and you attack weak npc police are dispatch to the area no ewar just light dps, starting at 50-150 dps. slightly increases per ship you kill only kill, and you a flagged for suspect for 2-3 mins high risk high reward. (after thought : maybe only 1 min) meaning if people decide to fight you you can turn a simple fight info mess if you can create a bloodbath anyone that attacks you gets a limited combat timer with your entire corporation. War progression kills in increments of kills the effective police the show get stronger again response time for NPC(police advanced tech) is 1min, now until you get up to battle cruiser so some 30-40 kills tackle ECM is deployed on police ships(there is no reinforcements coming) 1 wave of police capping at 10 ships (no police in low sec you on your own),
(war decks are the cheapest and have no Limit) the world being your playground like some groups like Code(i still dislike you buggers) BUT this is the eve we play this would give code more ability to get at certain targets BUT also give people more way to get at code
WORLD BURNERS just war deck everyone have at it you dig the hole you wish to escape if you kill a set limit maybe you steal a limit of corp funds or local NPC pirates pay your funds the concord requests lets talk about this(or maybe just a bad idea if its a bad idea
finally Industrial corporations the workhorse of eve and normally the Safest of all you get… nothing special sorry no risk no reward except people get higher war dec costs generally across the board except for pirates for attacking you and slightly longer war def cooldowns right now its 2 weeks so 3 weeks for all non pirate corporations and 2 weeks for pirates (game devs and CSM DO your job ) lol
CONCLUSION
EVE is not a simple game there is no EASY fix there are too many factors that go into eve if you make 1 change you might disrupt an entire groups play that have been around for years
if you don’t want anything to change setup a HQ in low sec with a general corp so a war Note spawns and wardec 50+ corps with a general purpose corp but this gives you a way for people to get out of a war for an alternative
Null sec alliences, these limits are increased by 400% meaning if you have the money to wardec people for stand 7 day war for x60 corps sure go ahead (standard)
Alliances can only be marked to General, Merc or pirate
What?
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