Well, that’s part of the problem: CCP isn’t telling the players what that vision is.
I understand ccp. Wants to keep eve a sandbox. And let it develop by the players actions… but they should have a mission statement. Every company does. As an old player. I took a 6 year break. Ive come back to so many new unnecessary changes
Developing via player actions is one thing. Having a clear vision for how different parts of space are intended to function and what kinds of uses they’re supposed to be for, what uses different classes of ships are intended for, what different classes of ships, as a baseline, are supposed to excel at when compared to other ships… these things don’t prevent the players from having agency. They just let the players and the devs work from the same page when it comes to ‘how to we achieve and maintain balance in the mechanics of the game?’
Which is a very different thing than maintaining a balance of power in the game.
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Vote Dursntis for ccp head developer. Jk. But Arrendis. Msg me in game. I need a home for my toons. And for me . Ive been lonely since returning
This isn’t the whole story.
The following is a “if I recall correctly” stipulation, but…
I was fairly sure the entire point of the T3C rebalance was to two goals: getting the cruisers about equal to each other, and making them less unjustly powerful given their size.
You’re focusing on goal one, when all indications point to goal two still being a smashing success and exactly on-target.
If we want to focus on goal one, there are stipulations that may make such a judgement never possible. Each cruiser, given that it comes from each race, will have a myriad of strengths and weaknesses inherit to those races, which will make them better or worse for certain things. I still hear people talk about the Tengu being great for PVE it’s solid tank and selectable missile damage.
Given that, the Loki might be in high use due to meta reasons that may or may not pass in time as preferences change. Perhaps it’s due to flexible damage type and decent long-range PvP applications with the high-alpha artillery? Perhaps it’s something else. Maybe a proper focus group can zero in on exactly why, and figure out if there is anything within CCP’s control to even address it. Maybe it doesn’t need addressed at all because it boils down to preferences and not actual power level? Because if it has to do with artillery being the current PvP preference in null, tweaking numbers will just break the loki in all other aspects and that is exactly what we want to avoid doing.
To continue with your example, the focus group seems to have worked better than CCP’s typical fixes. If you cure a patient’s stage 3 bone cancer but the chemo injured their kidneys and they’re on pills to treat it, that’s still a net positive. That’s something much more controllable. Verses CCP’s “well we amputated both legs just to be sure”.
I remember a youtube video where one of the CCP developers talked about the Zombies Inc incident. If I recall correctly they also talked about a brief time when CONCORD was introduced it was controlled by humans, though this was insufficient due to well, being human.
The data presented during the CSM Summit disagrees.
No, they’re still banging on about how the war declaration mechanic is just fine.
How big is impact on economy now with wars actually? Majority of people now would just not fight, not undock, and not fighting means no ships destroyed, even to npcs when they dont undock. Few percents of abyssal NPC losses? How much? 
Is few more ships on market really so bad when people would play more and lose them outside wardecs?
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The numbers are that bad? What’s the curve of the graph look like? Linear? Exponential? Death Spiral?
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I don’t think bonding wardecc with structures is good thing. It would be easy exploitable and it would take even longer than today, because it is at least 3 weeks process (due to structures cd) vs 1 week now.
I don’t think social corps will work either. As much as I do want to be social, because current wardecc system literally expelled me from in-game social behaviours, I don’t think it would be abuse free. Since I left e-uni I never took a look at any corporation because of wardecc system. We have catch 22 here: it is proved that finding and playing in groups bind players more than solo playing but because groups are exposed to griefing mechanism such as wardec they don’t last and players are leaving. It is not HTFU anymore or those players won’t fit here. I’m hearing that kind of arguments since 2013 (the year I started), there is a reddit thread about this, where people describing case after case. It’s been like this for years. It’s not just new players thing also. There won’t be “good” changes about it. Problem is deeper than “how to change wardecc system”. Core problem with wardecc is not the mechanism itself but Concord. People don’t want to socialize in HS because there is a retribution. Illusion of safety. Players should build that “safety” for themselves not by concord. It’s hardcore approach but only viable, whatever CCP change it won’t be enough. Wardecc will still be oppression tool. HS is to big to be “starting area”. It’s also shouldn’t be that way.
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Kill the man, kill the issue -Iosif Stalin 
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On the issue of wardecs suddenly becoming an issue for CCP, I wonder whether it’s related to this:
Sunday, October 1st 2017: 4432 new characters created
Sunday, September 30th 2018: 3197 new characters created
That’s a 27.8 % interannual dip in new characters created. Some might be true noobs, some might be alts, but no matter who they are, that looks like a bad sign. A game that’s not worth start playing is not in a good position.
Suspect is not important, I was just talking about a potential start of the new war mechanic. The key points are:
- shooting a structure starts the war
- the war is broadcasted and public
- it lasts until the structure attack cycle is over
- everybody can join the defending side
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Sounds familiar…
CCP should ask WHY wardecs exist. Because if they exist to prevent people from playing, that’s rubbish. If they exist to increase PvP, that’s not happening and won’t happen. If they exist to remove HS structures… KISS!
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Ahh, didn’t see your proposal, similarities are purely coincidently. 
I’m advocating for a simpler and more crimewatch related solution for a while. Personally I’m interested in the safari, third party effect.
I think War Decs have an important role in the game, or should at least. I’m not entirely sure that Wardecs are as oppressive in nature as people make them out to be. Yeah I know CCP has data, but stop for a minute and be honest with this whole situation.
It wasn’t long ago where everyone said that war dec groups didn’t hunt and would just sit on trade hubs. Many people report never even seeing their aggressors. In fact if you don’t go to a trade hub often times that is very true.
So now war dec groups are somehow hunting down new players and preying on them. Take a look at my killboard and more specifically my alliances and you will find stark evidence that the majority of those killed by war decs are people from Nullsec.
I’m not saying that wars don’t effect people because I know they do. What I’m trying to say is that often times the first response to a dec is for the CEO to tell everyone to drop corp. Sounds to me like the CEO is directly responsible for creating this boogeyman that’s popped up here.
Here’s something interesting for everyone to look at as well…
Im not saying that wars don’t need changing and fixing, because I am totally in favor for an overhaul and some changes. I just can’t believe that what pushed new players to quit was a war dec in which they likely didn’t see their aggressor and that it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Eve Online is a difficult game filled with confusing mechanics with a repetitive and sub-par PvE experience, where you have corps in Highsec that are preyed upon by greedy CEOs looking to make some ISK. Let’s look at the whole picture instead of focusing on one thing you choose to be the devil today.
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that’s easy, why there are no wars (as declared one) in LS and NS. They are not needed there. In fact HS wars are not wars at all. It’s just criminals paying bribes to have ability to shoot others while authorities look away.
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While the whole picture is most certainly more broad, blanket wardecs to circumvent the restrictions on the space they happen in was debatable to begin with, even without statistical data. Not saying it is all because of wardecs, but it is broken, the Data made CCP realize that. It needs fixing.
I doubt that it will fix player retention for good, but the reasoning provided certainly isn’t “make belief” and understandable. Wardecs made players log off and stay off. So it’s definately a good point to start with.
Funny thing statistics. You must know how to read them. Just because losses on wars are so low don’t mean we don’t lose players to wars. They just don’t undock so from where should that value be high?
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This is I think fundamentally correct. If the numbers are to be believed, that preferred strategy by far when faced with a wardec is to turtled up. And why not? With the exception of structures, you completely can control your risk using the ‘undock button’. If someone declares war on you and you see no reason to fight, which obviously is the case in the vast majority of wars, you are not going to undock. It seems therefore impossible to layer on bandaids or incentives to get people to do so, at least in the large majority of cases.
Therefore, the only solution to prevent the players from walking away for a week is to let the opt-out of wars in advance, the same way many players currently do using the NPC corp.
Wars are always going to exist in highsec - this is a game about perpetual war in a dystopian universe after all. I have no doubt whatever iteration on wars or replacement is made @Tora_Bushido and other like him will adapt and still be one of the dominant players under the new system.
There are already ways to play this game ignoring wars, so making so groups can do so isn’t going to kill Eve. But better to remove formal wars completely and replace it with some other way for groups to fight over things like structures than waste developer time turning wars into a convoluted game of capture the flag that no one will use. We have that already - it’s called faction war.
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