War Dec Abuse, Driving Small Alliances and New Players Away

Communications Center Crime & Punishment
#1

So, just looking over one of the active gank alliances today, we notice that PIRAT has 96 wars active, mostly against small PvE focused corps / alliances. Declaring war against 96 different entities allows them to operate high sec gate camps openly and without concord interference. People like this are too worthless to gain the attention of large alliances, and so they are able to abuse the war dec system with impunity, and zero consequences, ever. Is this really how the War system was intended to function, not as a basis of conflict between groups, but as a tool of suicide gankers who are salty about being 1 shot by concord? If this is truly intended, no wonder this game’s population is stuck and can’t grow, new players get to choose between trying to join a larger alliance to avoid these scavengers, or constantly dealing with losses against enemies flying ships and fleets that the average alpha pilot or group of alpha pilots is helpless against.

A power or group of powers declaring hostilities against one another, a basic definition of war.

A power or group of individuals declaring open hostility against anyone too weak to resist them, a basic definition of piracy. Except pirates still face consequences under the law, and cannot brazenly engage in hostilities within full sight of authorities without intervention.

The War system, a part of “law” in game which allows lawful armed conflict between powers, should not be a tool of piracy, in its current iteration, it is exactly that.

11 Likes
#2

Yes, and it is fine that way. There are multiple ways how to avoid getting killed and if you had asked for advice rather than to rant about the game and call other players “worthless” I would have been able to give you some tips.

8 Likes
#3

And there’s the mentality helping to drive people away, you really can’t comprehend the idea that 96 active war decs might be too many, that concord maybe shouldn’t support such open aggression in high sec? Nah you’re way too arrogant and entitled for that.

2 Likes
#4

just keep swinging Andresoni until clear of the mob…

( just remember mercs: scam, lie, cheat, and are the biggest bunch of hypocrites )

Then again PIRAT are mostly Russian and don’t read C&P, the remainder have mostly been emasculated by ccp falcon over at Merc Services. Would have been a firecracker a few years ago, seems C&P is just a smouldering dumpster again.

1 Like
#5

image

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#6

So if the corp who wardeced you was only at war with your alliance alone and would focus completely on you that would be fine?

4 Likes
#7

Literally just drop corp and you’re untouchable by them unless they suicide-gank you.

2 Likes
#8

Better yet, drop corp and suicide gank them :laughing:

1 Like
#9

A power or group of powers declaring war against one another, a basic definition of war.

A power or group of individuals declaring open hostility against anyone too weak to resist them, a basic definition of piracy. Except pirates still face consequences under the law, and cannot brazenly engage in hostilities within full sight of authorities without intervention.

The War system, a part of “law” in game which allows lawful armed conflict between powers, should not be a tool of piracy, in its current iteration, it is exactly that.

2 Likes
#10

Your alliance, Yokai has 377 members, PIRATE on the other hand has only 127 members. You outnumber them almost 3:1

2 Likes
#11

Over 300 of which are inactive :rofl: every alliance they declared against has fewer than 100 actives.

1 Like
#12

They are at war with 98 alliances/corps as you say. If you band only with a few of them together you outnumber them even more

5 Likes
#13

Because the response to criminal activity shouldn’t come from the authorities sitting there watching, people should be forced to organize into groups of vigilantes who patrol the streets looking for thugs? “Play this way* or else if you don’t like it you can quit” seems like the kind of mentality that again, would quickly turn off a new / PvE oriented player or group of players, and push them away from staying on as long term players.

The current war system allows for pirate activity to take place under the guise of warfare, and if piracy is meant to carry consequences, there should be a way to separate these two activities.

2 Likes
#14

But it isn’t piracy. Those wars are completely legit. If you are in a corp you have to deal with wars, that is just part of the game. How you deal with them depends and there are many options, not all of them involve fighting.

No one forces you to be in a corp btw. Also please don’t use new players as an excuse and shield for your lack of spine. The only thing that discurages them from the game are people like you which lure them into a corp not able or willing to defend themselves and blame the game for their short comings.

11 Likes
#15

You’re stuck on using a technicality / semantics to justify something that shouldn’t be, you can’t comprehend the idea of piracy actually having consequences, using “the game is what it is and I like it as is” to justify your lack of spine in wanting to attack the new and the weak, instead of fighting challenging opponents.

“Declaring war” on 96 separate countries wouldn’t be a war, it’d be an act of insanity / piracy, and international bodies would act accordingly. Concord is the equivalent of an international peacekeeping force, and should be able to differentiate between real wars and veiled piracy.

1 Like
#16

Actually, it is not … frustrating as that might be. It is not there to preserve peace. It is there to enact consequences after peace has been breached. That is not semantics, it is game design.

3 Likes
#17

I agree. It’s been years since I’ve been seriously bothered by war decs, but I remember them when I was new, and watched a bunch of new people leave the game due to them. Going to the safety of null was too big of a step for them at that point, and they didn’t like the thought of dropping corp (which was their form of social interaction) to get away from it, so their logical conclusion was to stay logged off until the wardec was over. After it got renewed for several weeks, they decided that the game just wasn’t for them, really before they had a chance to explore the depth of the game.

I see the need for conflict in high sec, in particular as a mechanic to remove structures, but right now it’s a little too easy to grief players who are doing nothing more than trying to learn and be social.

4 Likes
#18

And that is the crux of the game. If you can show that a war dec, or any other use of a game mechanic, does not have a justifiable business case behind it then it is griefing. Otherwise? It is just a legitimate use of current game mechanics in order to make isk. If that means declaring 96 wars in order to justify hisec gate camps, that might generate targets every 1 in 10 or even just 1 in 50 jumps (or whatever), then that’s what happens.

The argument is that if you or the OP disagree it is up to you to help those new people out. The idea of the game is to effectively force players to cooperate. This in a sandbox where the mantra is “trust no-one”. Tricky that.

1 Like
#19

Tldr. Ill let you in on a secret, even with 120 some odd active wars when I was a merc, we had maybe two targets a night. Most merc time is spent hunting, chasing, scouting, pos/cit bashing.

Its a career. We made money off it. Awesome part of all this, if you (as stated in many many threads on here) interact people you wont get shot so much.

1 Like
#20

I disagree.

First, I understand the reason for the EULA definition of griefing, and I don’t disagree with it, but I think it puts more responsibility on CCP to make sure systems in the game do not reward behavior that causes repeated losses for players who are doing what the average new player does (i.e. join a newbie-friendly corp, do highsec mining and PvE). While we may agree or disagree about if it’s right, this is a business decision for CCP. Are new players or wardec corps in their current state more important to CCP’s bottom line? Probably the former.

Also, gameplay has developed in certain ways as a response of the mechanics presented, but that doesn’t automatically mean those mechanics are good. Until recently, launching tons of Astrahus in space was an extremely efficient way to de-facto take space. I could have protested this by going on hundreds of bash fleets to remove them, but that doesn’t change that it was an unbalanced system, with too much reward for placing them given the cost. I think that wardecs have similar high rewards with insufficient risk.

1 Like