…which is how it always was pre-citadel. The current idea of a game-mechanic “hardcoded victory” is an aberration upon what should be player goals instead.
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I am very disappointed.
I was convinced that CCP was entirely incompetent and their game would die quickly. Instead, we have progress.
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I believe this is true , but frontal assaults on the network don’t work as BjornBee found out and after that omega and friends split there network into small groups so not so vulnerable under one attack.
So reading how the French king and the Pope brought down the Templars knight all at the same time on Friday 13th .
Maybe we should do the same 50 individual groups all war decing all the small parts of omega and friends at the same time . Each corp should be able to take out multiple Poco on the 1st night and by the time Black Flag can react we end the wars 100s of Poco could be taken out . BF may take out 1 or 2 war HQ but a small and acceptable loss .
Even very small corps could take part , Poco are relatively easy to take down , just a war hq and war fee.
So that’s what I was thinking any thoughts
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Lets not forget that most power in highsec is held by multiboxers using free omega accounts (selling back LSI) and input broadcasting software. This monopoly of Cheat-to-Compete or Pay2Win is another side effect of war HQs. When you dont allow a forced fight sitting in one place (the war hq), they fall to the pressure of smaller fleets because that actually have to fly with skill and thats not possible for 3 to 4 guys running 12+ accounts each. I have flown with them personally.
Someone disputed that CCP colludes with nullsec and abuses the CSM? Its literallly on video of the nullblocks admitting it. For example, the “scarcity” indi changes were given to PH months in advance. Admitted on camera, Trading in Stations.
i personally have 94 chars across 33 accounts. When is enough, enough?
and btw, Blackflag is the least of this issue, they are mostly good pilots with real skill.
End the prohibition on highsec pvp. Remove war HQs. Thats the only chance we have after widening the gap industry-wise with the removal of our ability to use Sotiyos.
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War HQs aren’t a “victory condition”; they’re an opt-out mechanism.
If Wrecking Machine declares war on Joe & Son’s Salvage and Scrap Emporium, the latter will never be able to exercise the “victory condition” of taking out the former’s war HQ. That war will indeed go on forever, until the aggressive party gets bored of it. Likewise, if the latter is the one declaring war on the former, the victory of the former is guaranteed. That’s not a “victory condition” as much as it is a simple cause/effect relationship.
A true victory condition would be something like a group that declares the war choosing a ransom amount in the interface, and if they cause enough damage to the target before a certain amount of time passes, the target either needs to pay the ransom, or is automatically disbanded. And the corollary to that is that if the defenders are able to accomplish that, then the aggressive party is subjected to the same consequences.
In the absence of hard-coded victory conditions like that, wars should indeed be open-ended, with victory conditions decided on by the participating parties in direct negotiations (or lack of).
This wouldn’t work in practice because BF would take out considerably more than “1 or 2 war HQs.” Each participating group would need to take out around 15 POCOs in order to break even on the damage caused versus damage taken. Also, the small groups wouldn’t be able to provide logistics to each other during fights. And you’d never find enough players to be willing to participate in this anyway.
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It should be up to the leader to say when the war is over and what the conditions are. CCP and creative game mechanics deigned to force a blob to win with forced peace is not a player driven experience. It simply CCP catering to null groups. Coming to highsec and defeating us is the same thing as trying to win the Vietnam war. Good luck. You arent winning anything without CCP stepping in which is exactly what they did.
I’m especially very bad at believing, let alone accepting accusations - especially conspiracies - without any supporting evidence that is more than the result of vivid imagination or a mindset.
Why would it ? Both INIT. and the Imperium stepped out of that particular power structure. Of course these will have to fend for their existence, just like any other major or minor group, that’s part of the game.
Oh, the almost entirely blue donut of 2014-ish had staged fights, because nothing else was going on. In light of the TTC agreements, the conflicts indeed have that foul sheen of being staged too, until WWB2 at least - where the mastermind behind the TTC now was of a mind that “goons needed to be pushed out the game”. Yes, they still received from the TTT, all parties did. Yes, that is not a sustainable or believable position towards the membership unless that isk somehow flows back to them (structures, srp, whatever) so they don’t care enough about ethics. Money is a powerful counter to ethics, true, even ingame ethics.
That WWB2 made the position of the mastermind(s) behind the TTC no longer acceptable, it was indeed a war of extermination - which failed, thankfully. I would assume his position was no longer acceptable at least. The extra hisec wardecs via BF I referred to earlier, against a few of the TTC members, and funded by TTC taxes, nailed the coffin, I would imagine.
I’m not privy to that level of ingame politics, but it does interest me. I also do not speak in any leadership capacity for any TTC member current or former. These are my fairly neutral impressions of why and how the ■■■■ really hit the fan this time. One member group clearly overplayed its hand, and in all but name, ceased to exist after WWB2, although they still receive proceeds from the TTT until today, yes.
Easily explained, that was always part of the TTC agreement, from what I read on reddit. So yes, it was always possible that you could have panfam, imperium, test, on the same side of the grid.
Yes, they could do a number of things if they deem any player created situation outside the boundaries of normal gameplay (and normal in EvE is a broad concept, thankfully).
However, I also wrote in a post a few months ago that I’m of the opinion that players, especially the content creators leading groups of that size and number, have a responsibility to keep it playable too. I sincerely hope that the steps taken by current and former Imperium members against things like the TTC are rooted in that sense of responsibility, and that others will follow suit.
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I think that people (and mostly null-sec players) have lost sight of what “content creation” actually means.
What happens in null-sec today, or what happens as a result of any actions or decisions made by null-sec powers, can very rarely be described as “content creation.” In fact, it’s in their best interest to create as little content as possible, because their constituents prefer predictability and stability. Content is what happens when players don’t have a choice. And null-sec powers have always had a choice, since about 2011 or so.
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I think its appalling that you are not using 5 of your chars.
Well, perhaps I’m in the luxurious position of being part of a large group that has action (content) every single day, both in official wars and opportunistic fights. There’s a substantial number of players in the group active every day to make that possible. On top of that, we seem to hate stability and certainty, or we wouldn’t make the moves we do make 
Not all groups are similar, true.
But then…if someone sets up a 3 man corp and plants a station somewhere, why ever would they not expect to be attacked by a larger force ? Why should a nice juicy station be any different to a nice juicy anything else ? Individual ships get attacked by larger forces hundreds of times a day…and I don’t see you using the same N+1 argument there, especially as you have yourself partaken in such conflict. So why do you apply one rule for stations and another for everything else ?
So let us fight ship vs ship and take out all the bad mechanics designed to favor one side. Ill see you on the battlefield… oh but thats not good enough is it? We cant fight on the open battlefield. We have to force the fight and ensure the win for one particular group. I have no issue losing a building to a larger force. But its not that simple is it?
Much Love Goons!
Once again, that’s not content. That’s just creating the potential for predictable player engagement routines for members to be kept in the game, attending fleets, etc. Content is different. If you need to observe how your members react to content, we can perform a few experiments. For example, we can park an AFK cloaker in one of your systems, and see how residents respond to it. Will they use it as an opportunity to provoke some kind of engagement, or will they cry and whine about it in local, and do everything possible to make the cloaker go away so that they can resume their grind? Or, I can log in right now and send your group a mutual war invite. Will your leadership accept in order to subject its player base to the possibility of dynamic, unpredictable engagements, or will it decline in order to not shake up the status quo and create an “inconvenience” for the members?
“Content” would be your group creating a task force to secure Ahbazon and then charging players a fee to use it as a safe transportation route, instead of sending out mails warning your members to not take their freighters through there without a scout, and then kicking out those who repeatedly do not listen.
The difference between fighting ships and fighting stations is that one allows for tactics and strategy, and the other doesn’t.
Let me ask you this: how do you think the two following scenarios would play out?
- I declare war on your alliance and put up a war HQ as per current requirement to do this.
- I declare war on your alliance in an environment in which war HQs aren’t a concept.
I can assure you that the outcomes would be vastly different.
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Well, if you think that parking an AFK cloaker in a system is content, what can I say. We have them 24/7 btw, and if one of them makes a mistake they are removed, creating a small puff of content.
And a wardec from hisec to nullsec, logistical headaches to get the stuff all the way up there are also not content unless it’s worthwile and serves a purpose.
Why would a nullsec group behave like a bunch of highwaymen in Ahbazon, that particular niche in the game is already taken.
Nah, we made some content in the southeast, now we have some content in the north, and plenty on our home turf. After all, why would we take your content from you ? Enjoy it.
I get that you dislike nullsec powerblocs for whatever reason, and that’s your right. But you do not seem to write based on experience. You may not know it, but we share the same definition of content: it’s “fun stuff to do”. Perhaps we have a different idea of what appeals to others, but I’m very certain that players engaged for instance in piracy would not be very interested in fighting a war somewhere in deep nullsec. Neither would your typical nullsec pvp’er be gate camping every day for long periods. Our respective leaderships provide, and one either fits in and enjoys it or doesn’t and goes to join a different group with a different play style.
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I dont think there will be a fight at all, who is defending the TTT? Will just be a battle for the core.
Will not be interesting at all to the casual observer is my bet.
Nope.
- We burn your ■■■■ down
- We still burn your ■■■■ down
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Be realistic.
Quite frankly, nothing in the previous post is “realistic”, neither the 2 scenarios nor my ironic reply.
No, that’s not content. You keep making my point for me. A “removal” is not “content.” Content would be something like letting one of them “catch” one of yours (i.e. bait), and buying as much time as possible to see if you could escalate the encounter. But all players in groups like yours want to do is remove as quickly as possible, to get back to the grind.
Is that why null-sec leadership has to constantly either provide incentives or make threats for players who just want to grind to show up to ops? The only other population with which the concept of participation requirements overlaps this much is high-sec mining corporations.
That’s because groups like yours would literally not allow for such a war to happen. They’d put all resources into making it go away as quickly as possible in order to get back to grind time. Like most other null blocs, you guys have bots running 24/7. I’ve been to your space and I’ve seen them. Let’s not make any pretenses about the primary driver behind participation in null-sec gameplay.
That question wasn’t aimed at you. With regard to your specific group, the two outcomes would be a nearly triple-digit fleet (or maybe bigger) showing up to take down the war HQ as quickly as possible, and your side consistently losing about ten billion ISK a week on the war report, respectively. Wrecking Machine would be a considerably more difficult target, though the outcomes of the scenarios would still be different from each other.
There’s a reason why your leaders were the biggest proponents of the war changes a few years ago.