War Cost Raised for The Rich Only

[Asgidur_Hurtini]

I do nothing and I keep winning! Bye, and don’t let the door hit your behind, your mistake was doing it on Friday.

I’m very naughty on Fridays.

Edit> maybe you didn’t know me that well…

[Lucy_Alfrir]

@Redi_Dian

There’s no such thing as War immune Lucy

There is, if you are in an NPC corp you are immune to wars.

Also currently, if you have no structures, you are immune to wars.

Please try not to be wrong, it makes you look bad.

[Mina_Tsunami]

@Dyver_Phycad

If CCP wanted to give small corps breathing room from wars, they would use a scaling cost model: Declare war against a 10 chars corp? 10B ISK. Declare war against a 10k alliance? 1M ISK. (numbers for illustration purposes only.)

Big, organized, member rich groups should be perma wardecd. Small groups of friends should be costly to declare war against to make absolutely sure there is a valid target for that war and not just login denial.

Every player needs to understand this truth, but those who profit from the current system will always choose to ignore it. I absolutely agree with you here.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

when can you stop creating new accounts to spew the same ■■■■ instead of talking on one account..

[Mina_Tsunami]

@Namdor

Cost feels like the wrong lever to me in that it leans into the holding-corp meta extremely hard.

Every athanor and POCO should have its own holding corp.

Cost is absolutely the wrong lever to pull unless the goal was to lower them for smaller wallets. Instead, CCP raised costs, making it nearly impossible for small corps to own structures or fight wars for fun and profit.

This leaves everyone with one option, which ironically guarantees they still won’t own citadels or fight their own corporate wars: pack up, move to nullsec, and join a massive alliance. Personally, I’d rather not play EVE at all than live under nullsec rules instead of my own.

[Mina_Tsunami]

@Nisme

@Nisme

I think this is a start, but what if I am in a 15-member corp that wants to wardec a 30-member corp? Do we still pay 10B? What if we then hire a merc corp with 250 members?

Small groups should be able to participate in wardecs. Small groups should also not be profitable loot pinatas for griefers. The current fix is a step in the right direction but it is also incomplete. If there’s to be a sliding scale, it should have multiple axes to determine the deccers costs.

I am positive there is a way to add a scale factor into the formula which lowers the cost based on your own size. In fact, a properly prompted AI would spit out that formula instantly. But I would agree with here and assume its implementation in game would not be too difficult for our devs.

This is the formula which just needs upper and lower limits to be imputed.

[Mike_Azariah]

Exclusion unless you have ‘done it’ cracks me up.

Try thinking that through to laws, rules. It falls apart real fast if applied to . . . well I think I will leave that to your imagination.

Goons tried that attitude waaaay back saying ‘virgins should have no opinion on sex’. Which in retrospect is hilarious when you know who said it, then. They were trying to exclude opinions of people who might disagree with them, as well.

On a different note? I have suggestion. Make War regional. If you declare a war you have to specify, say The Forge if you want to shoot ducks in Jita. But if you also want to shoot them in Amarr well that is another region and another wardec AND another structure IN THAT REGION.

Feel free to shoot the idea down or discuss it as you wish.

No I have never declared war but I have fought in them in null and in hisec. Although I would argue calling them both wars stretches the word.

m

[Mina_Tsunami]

@Meridan_Night

@Meridan_Night

@Mina_Tsunami

Pop down a war HQ right now and see what happens.

What happens then? The suspense is killing me. How much did they increase the war cost?

What happens next? Your name pops up on a list of all active current wars. Certain men in this game will then begin an intel report which leads in your observation for ability to field a fleet OR one of your wars will get an assist from a REAL BAD MAN… and then you lose your war HQ along with all costs in a very short time. GO ahead… try your luck. It will be content plus a free core. This is how its been since 2017 tbh and I am not surprised how many people would not even know that.

[Gloria_Exercitus]

@Mike_Azariah

Exclusion unless you have ‘done it’ cracks me up.

Try thinking that through to laws, rules. It falls apart real fast if applied to . . . well I think I will leave that to your imagination.

Goons tried that attitude waaaay back saying ‘virgins should have no opinion on sex’. Which in retrospect is hilarious when you know who said it, then. They were trying to exclude opinions of people who might disagree with them, as well.

The issue is not whether people who’ve never done this or that have the right to an opinion on it…but that such people keep coming on and stating mere unfounded opinion as though it were fact.

For once it would be nice to have a discussion based on actual experience…not on what people ‘think’ happens. The conclusions as to what ought to be done may be opinions, but they can surely only be based upon cold hard reality…not on wild guesses.

[Asgidur_Hurtini]

Well, this is a nice opportunity to vent an idea I had some time ago.

Forum sections for omega only, FC only, etc. Just like elitist jerks site.

I see no wrong in that, I do see wrong in people barging in and demanding stuff without any credibility / authority.

[Mina_Tsunami]

Now… G Rod…

@Gerard_Amatin

I think EVE HS wars have problems and that the rise in price was not the right solution.

First, HS wars fill two necessary roles:

• to allow players to have legal fights against another competing group in HS
• to allow players to get rid of HS structures

However HS wars seem to also fill a third role, which may not have been intended but is what wars have grown to become:

• to get cheap kills in trade hubs by spamming wars against many groups so you get a steady supply of unaware players who make the mistake of undocking while at war

I think this third role is a bit problematic. Not necessarily bad, but the scale of it is, where from the last time I got figures it seemed that very few war groups were responsible for the majority of the wars just for cheap kills, while very few wars were the ‘hs group decides to fight another hs group’ kind of gameplay wars seem to have been intended for.

Next, war HQs, and structure-based eligibility for wars. I am not a fan.

On one hand I think it’s good that a war HQ causes war deccing group to have stakes, to give the defenders something to shoot when the agressors would otherwise dock up when outnumbered.

On the other hand the war HQ creates an incentive for war deccing groups to merge into larger numbers to split the initial cost and risk, which is part of the reason we see the large-group-spamming-wars dynamic we have today.

This brings us to the raise in price change: I fear this only reinforces the war spamming large groups to exist while making wars less accessible to a small group that wishes to start a war, by making it significantly more expensive to start one. The large group can probably afford it, and anyone who cannot will likely join a large group instead to do warring, which I think is the wrong incentive.

And for the defenders the structure-based eligibility also caused some what I think are unhealthy situations, where huge groups of players (including some of my alts, I too make use of this situation) are war-immune because they simply do not place down structures and instead live out of NPC stations, or worse, out of Upwell structures placed by holding corps.

Structures vulnerable, members not. That cannot have been the initial intention of this design.

And besides the problems causing holding corps, the other problem I mentioned is that many players now are war-immune with very little drawbacks, which makes the few players who do decide to go war-eligible much more of a target than if there were many more of them.

And then there are the problems of players hopping between war-eligibility and players bypassing war cooldowns with similar tricks, which I think should be tackled.

I wonder if you think about the war dynamics in HS the same as I do, or if there are differences.

My suggestions:

1. Keep wars accessible. Reduce the initial costs, lower the stakes.
   For example let players start one war without war HQ. Place a HQ for additional wars. Initial war is cheap, say 100k, with only additional ones getting more expensive to start, for example 200k for the 2nd, 300k for the third etc or some other scaling.

2. Restrict war-spam, with increased costs and stakes.
   Place a hard limit to the amount of wars with a medium-sized HQ. Let players raise their hard war limit by placing a Fortizar as HQ instead, and still with scaling costs for additional wars mentioned in point 1.

3. More war-eligible players. Any group with more than a certain amount of players becomes war-eligible even if they have no structures.
   While this won’t entirely stop holding corps it makes them far less useful when the defenders are likely war-eligible anyway to due to their size

4. More reasons to be war-eligible. Add an NPC tax to any war-immune corp, and allow corps to choose to become war-eligible to remove the NPC tax even without structure requirement. Be tax-immune or war-immune, not both.
   NPC tax on war-immune corps has the added benefit that it means players have to put in effort to make a corp better than the NPC starting corps, rather than just promising a tax haven with zero effort. A good thing, in my opinion!

5. Cheaper wars against larger groups. They have enough people to fight back if needed, it’s the small groups that need protection.

6. Do something about the war cooldown circumvention. I do not know enough details here to make a sensible suggestion yet, but do something. I’m open for suggestions.

Thoughts?

This post should be printed out and mailed with a stamp to Fenris today. Ofc there are many things to tweak and change but overall… I would agree this post is worth millions of dollars to say the least.

My thoughts? If we could start all over from scratch, this post is where Fenris should begin.

[Syzygium]

@Lucy_Alfrir

These hauling corps are neutral, and they would not be able to do business if they were wardeccable.

Nobody in this game is neutral. And nobody needs to be immune to anything to do business.

Just sayin’

[Gerard_Amatin]

Thanks!

I think it’s a nice starting point, but the ideas I wrote down now on a second sight aren’t without introducing new flaws either.

While making larger corps/alliances war-eligible even without structure makes holding corps less effective, I fear EVE players would circumvent that by making many different divisions of the same corp or alliance, each below this threshold to become war-eligible.

Sure, that is less practical, but we’ve seen before that EVE players are willing to go these lengths.

I’m not sure how to stop that though. Maybe by putting similar restrictions as we’ve seen with Ansiblex ACLs on other structure benefits.

Structures have many benefits, and while some of them should probably stay public in order to make placing a public structure worth it, like industry and market capabilities, many other features could be turned off for non-alliance members to discourage holding corps: repairs, jump clones and/or possibly tether too.

Maybe that’s too much though, but on the other hand I don’t see how else holding corps could be discouraged in a way that isn’t easily circumvented.

[Gloria_Exercitus]

@Gerard_Amatin

While making larger corps/alliances war-eligible even without structure makes holding corps less effective, I fear EVE players would circumvent that by making many different divisions of the same corp or alliance, each below this threshold to become war-eligible.

Remove the structure requirements and make any wardec declarable upon any corp, group of corps, or alliance. I see no reason why that should cost more…as its not exactly advantageous to have to declare war on 20 corps rather than one.

Any of the corps declared war on should be allowed to reciprocate and declare war on associate corps of the one that declared war. After a fixed period, those involved in the war would be fixed…and war would commence.

[Syzygium]

@Gloria_Exercitus

Remove the structure requirements and make any wardec declarable upon any corp, group of corps, or alliance.

Why would Fenris want to repeat a mistake CCP already made and suffered badly from it? -_-

[Mina_Tsunami]

As someone fighting null-sec’s high-sec presence since 2009, trust me: War HQs change everything. Null-sec holding corps can’t win against high-sec subcaps when they lose the ability to drop a 48-hour blobhammer.

High-sec locals and mercenaries were winning the POCO and citadel wars until CCP introduced mechanics that safely funneled passive tax gains to Pandemic Horde.

There will be no longer be a monopoly in high sec of foreign ownership in any form. They know this and I know this.

During the destruction of the TTT, CCP removed those passive tax gains and they also took away the best industrial advantages that high SEC could get because if pandemic horde cannot have it then no one can have it…

So they already took away all the money and what we have left is the remainder of an old system designed to funnel that money.

This system is outdated and there is no better time for fenris to change it than right now because CCP has returned passive tax gains back to nullsec once again in their own space.

If I could have my way you would take the idea refine it and just keep publishing it until CCP takes notice. I will reinstall the game and fight the war as soon as the war is allowed to happen.

Highsec will once again be under the control of highsec residents and there will not be a monopoly. It will be like Viet Cong… many small owners changing hands probably often for smaller gains. Perfect for hisec. The power pyramid of target selection will also be invalidated… If you know what I’m saying.

I have worked for the destruction of pandemic horde and the removal of tranquility trade for a very long time… I understand the system well and the HQ is the last remnant that needs to be removed for the cancer that it is at the very root.

We need to stop allowing them to control the narrative with anecdotal fear-mongering simply to keep the system as the way it is.

This game has been a downhill failure for a very long time. We need the butterfly effect and the power of hisec sub cap corporations in small gangs to grow this game from the ground up with new player driven content.

[Mina_Tsunami]

@Syzygium Exactly. Why keep repeating the same mistakes? I will not continue arguing with you endlessly… do not expect another response.

If you read the ideas that were presented they offer solutions in the form of hard limits. No offense brother but you obviously skipped over those parts simply to keep pushing a false narrative designed to keep nullsec from losing more power. I’d suggest you read it again.

Structures in the new system would become a way to expand the amount of wars allowed by default based on cit size… Which the suggestion was one single war by default with no HQ. This single war being designed to allow aggressive expansion of subcaps corps against encroaching neighbors in their personal space within hisec.

Personally I would expand this to about five wars instead of one… This way all highsec corporations have a choice to fight against huge null Sec megaccoalitions from the ground up while still choosing a few neighbors to battle with for local space. We all have a common enemy, foreign ownership.

[Syzygium]

@Mina_Tsunami

If you read the ideas that were presented they offer solutions in the form of hard limits.

Hard Limits change nothing about the fact that any group of 2-3 Veterans can just pick a single Newbro Corp and wardec them until they disband and half their members quit. As has happened in the past.

No fancy systems about “cost related to members” or “war number limits” changes anything about that.

For me, it’s simpe: A WAR should not be an easypeasy isk-mechanic to get rid of other peoples CONCORD protection. A WAR is serious business. You have to be at a certain power level to participate (achieved by high costs that intentionally exclude every Joe Shmock to wardec others) and you have to risk something (achieved by a war HQ that is a valid target for opponents to “win” the war, even if you are the uberpr0-expert of cloak-nano-kiting warfare and just want to harass and snipe them, but never really want to engage in open combat).

This means, the game needs some kind of lower threshold small groups can intentionally stay below, so they aren’t bothered with wars and war-interested groups need to raise above to be able to participate. I absolutely do not share the idea of "everyone should be able to wardec everyone else as he likes*.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Syzygium

Hard Limits change nothing about the fact that any group of 2-3 Veterans can just pick a single Newbro Corp and wardec them until they disband and half their members quit. As has happened in the past.

Hard war limits make it less likely the group of Veterans picks that particular single newbro corp instead of choosing other groups to target with their limited number of wars.

Without limits it’s more likely that less significant corps also get chosen.

But I agree that hard limits alone are not the right solution, because as you say groups below a certain power level should still be able to avoid wars.

In my suggestion above I keep that option available:

Player groups can still be war-immune, but not beyond certain member limits, not if they have a structure and not if they wish to get rid of the NPC corp tax.

Small groups without anchored structure and who are willing to have higher taxes can still be war immune.

[Syzygium]

You just did. And tbh, absolutely nobody cares for your self-declared competence authority.

@Gerard_Amatin

Hard war limits make it less likely the group of Veterans picks that particular single newbro corp instead of choosing other groups to target with their limited number of wars.

Maybe you misunderstand me. A limit plays absolutely zero role in their decision, because they actively search for a single (or two) totally new groups. They don’t throw wars around and need multiple war slots. They simply declare on one that looks like very inexperienced but daily active and begin to farm their members who have no knowledge about how combat even works. Then they camp them in, kill whatever undocks and continue that until the newbro corp realizes they better stay docked (which will lead to their members lose interest in the game pretty quickly).

Exactly that happened in the past. Exactly that was the reason CCP changed it. “Small Groups” (aka a bunch of 5 dudes or so) simply have no business in war. If they want to play as mercs, they already can do and join in as allies for a fee or just for content. But offensive wars should be costly. Very costly. So costly that only established goups can afford that. Too costly to randomly throw them around against people who barely undock in T1 haulers, Barges or a T1 Cruiser here and there.

You don’t need to share this POV. But I don’t think it is healthy for the game to bascically allow everyone to declare on everyone. I have witnessed that situation already and it was bad. Like in the real world, participants should need a certain size and financial background. Or did you ever witnessed a “war” (so, with Aircrafts, Bombs, Tanks…, ignoring international law and borders) between a local Cheesecake Factory and a Dunkin’ Donuts store? No? Yeah, because thats something only Countries/States do.