War decs should cost 10m additional isk for each outgoing war

Communications Center General Discussion
597

Nullsec is experiencing the same brokenness. Look at the stagnation. What narrative do people have to fight for? Look at the groups that are left and who is aligned with who. CCP has done an absolutely TERRIBLE job at facilitating conflict all while caving into the portion of the playerbase that demands a space farming simulator.

Why should conflict and building stop at a Highsec gate? I feel every area of space is vitally important and ought to have unique properties all while serving as an extension of space that players can influence.

What’s wrong with this vision and desire?

Wardecs are also a part of Lowsec as well. They allow groups to fight without the intervention of gate guns. However trivial wars might be to those in Lowsec, Wardec mechanics do spill into there as well.

You’re not wrong. I’ve voiced my opinion on this a few times, mostly to other line members. I wish we’d hold back a little and honeypot a fight.

The funny thing is that we don’t do anything that anyone else can’t do as well.

This is exactly my point dude lol. I wish we weren’t the only ones that seemed capable of flying how we do. The point I make is that if Highsec were worth fighting over… if citadels were less disposable… if there was real strategic value in holding structures… if there were better financial stakes in Highsec… then we’d see more capable group fighting.

Yes what it would turn into is a lot of Nullsec groups coming to swing their dick around but at least there’s be more people to take up arms with. So let’s say Nullsec blue donut group #1 wants to take advantage of having a Highsec base of operations and market that serves as a jump pad to their Nullsec staging, but then there’s blue donut group #2 that actively doesn’t want this to happen.

What you have fighting where smaller skirmishes can break out and then suddenly it’s not PIRAT that are a dominating force but group X that PIRAT was hired to fight alongside… oh but wait a new mercenary group has risen out of the sudden spurt of content and you have merc group Z aligned with the other side.

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603

I want to make some important points clear:

There is two main reasons why all the hisec mercs banded together into a single alliance.

  1. It’s by far most cost efficient to have 500 people in an alliance sharing the beneifts of every war for the same set fee of 100m isk.

  2. The war HQ system means they need to be strong enough to make sure their war HQ’s don’t die too often. So it benefits them to all group together.

The fee issue can be dealt with by having the war fee scale with the number of players in the war dec corp. Exactly how this is achieved and how abuse is prevented is up for debate but it’s the only way to remove the incentive for mercs to all band together under one alliance. To prevent abuse it may require some reworking of the war system.

The war HQ is the other problem. The mega hisec war dec coalition rarely ever loses their war HQ and there are multiple ways the system has been abused. It just doesn’t work as was planned. Perhaps the war HQ idea needs to be scrapped entirely because it just encourages mercs to all band together into the mega hisec wardec coalition. What system should it be replaced with? I’m not sure. Perhaps you just shouldn’t need to own structures to declare war.

605

They didn’t.

There are still groups, other than PIRAT (quite a few), and a number of smaller groups quit EVE all together.

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606

The biggest ones, vendetta, marmite, pirat, merged

607

Which isn’t all.

608

And if war dec fees scaled with the number of players in the corp those small merc corps wouldn’t have had to quit. They could have continued operating as a small merc groups with far smaller war dec fees.

609

It also means that the people the alliance declares war on can all coordinate their efforts in opposition, instead of being isolated in separate wars. Perhaps the people this alliance is fighting should stop being useless perma-victims and use the tools they already have.

The mega hisec war dec coalition rarely ever loses their war HQ

So maybe you should make them lose it. I mean, if they’re declaring war on half of EVE then surely you have the numbers to blob it with overwhelming force and destroy it.

and there are multiple ways the system has been abused.

“Being more organized than our enemies and winning at PvP” is not abuse.

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610

No, fees weren’t the reason they quit and fees did scale before. Back before 2012 and then right up to the 2019 changes.

611

Doesn’t it seem like it would be more healthy for the game, that if instead of having the mega hisec wardec coalition, ridiculous in size, there was several smaller merc corps in their place. Sometimes battling with each other over conflicting interests of customers.

The system should be reworked to strongly encourage that style of play. Instead it was reworked in a way that encouraged the situation we have now, with most of the mercs banded together. That’s not healthy for the game and it seems these mercs don’t find it much fun either.

612

Yes, but your approach of making it ridiculously expensive to declare war won’t achieve any change in the right direction.

Adding 10 million, compounded per war is just an approach to achieve fewer wars in highsec, not a more vibrant situation.

613

There are already several HS wardec corps.

621

So make it like this. Set the base war fee to 50m. Scale it so that the fee increases with active player numbers in such a way that it works out more expensive to declare war the more people that are in your corp or alliance. Therefore the most efficient way to pay for wars would be using smaller player numbers in your war dec corp, not more. If they want to keep their war dec costs down, they should aim for less players in their corp, not more.

Example:

War dec fee 50m for 1-50 player corp/ally

War dec fee 125m for 51-100 player corp/ally

War dec fee 312m for 101-200 player corp/ally

War dec fee 780m for 201-400 player corp/ally

War dec fee 1950m for 401-800 player corp/ally

War dec fee 4875m for 801-1600 player corp/ally

You don’t even need exact tiers like this. The formula can calculate it based on exact player numbers because otherwise players will for example aim to have max 400 players to avoid the 1950m war tier.

Costs can be adjusted as necesary. Sure it mean an alliance of 1000 players will pay nearly 5 bill to declare war, but surely they can afford with those numbers as long as they’re not spamming many dozens of war decs.

You could also add something like, the first 3 war decs declared by an entity are charged at the base rate of 50m per dec. It’s only after you have 3 actively declared wars that the enhances fees based on player numbers kick in for additional decs. I don’t think it’s necessary to add this, but it’s an option.

The ever increasing costs for declaring war, at a rate set that increases the cost per player as player numbers increase, is to encourage people to work as smaller outfits, rather than bandwagon all under one alliance. They have the option for either way, but those who go smaller will be rewarded with effectively largely discounted war fees.

You’d also have to make it so the system cannot be abused, for example by declaring all your wars at the lowest rate on a new corp and then piling in all your members to the new corp. I gave an example of how to achieve this earler. The only problem was possible abuse to save war HQ. But if the war HQ idea was removed from the game, that would solve it.

622

How does that work when a HQ can be destroyed and end all wars? That encourages larger groups, in order to be able to defend, just as has emerged.

Looking at it from a single perspective and trying to weild a stick to encourage a certain behaviour, when other aspects of the system encourage the opposite still won’t achieve what you want.

You’d need a much broader proposal that considers everything, not just “let’s make things more expensive”.

And none of that changes the fact that there is already a perfectly accessible way to achieve what you want, using the current mechanics.

623

As i suggested previously, they should consider getting rid of the war HQ system. It doesn’t work very well. It encourages the type of behaviour that is bad for the game.

624

That’s just been edited into your post. It wasn’t in there when you posted that suggestion initially and yes, get rid of War HQ. Now you are back to everyone else saying that they want something to fight over, just like it was before War HQ were introduced.

Honestly, just go use what the game already provides and you have no problem that requires all these rubbish proposals. The game already provides you an equally rubbish approach that needs nothing further.

625

No it hasn’t been edited in. I posted it a few posts back and haven’t edited it in anything.

626

Every change to wardecs that makes them more expensive or restricts potential targets ends the same way; the wardec corps evolve and then people call for more changes to make war more expensive or further restrict the mechanics.

This has been happening for at least a decade and will continue to do so.

Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true ~ Aesop

627

The change I suggested makes war decs cheaper, back to the old rate of 50m, if you are a smaller outfit of less than 50 players. For 51 to 100 players becomes slightly more expensive than present and gets more expensive after that.

628

Yes it was. You’ve made 2 edits to the proposal just a couple of posts back and that wasnt there initially.

But I agree, remove HQ. It won’t happen though. CCP only just introduced the idea of a HQ. They aren’t going to change it so early on.

Seriously, you have a solution looking for a problem, when a solution already exists to you. Just go use the existing mechanics.

629

It shouldn’t be and this is something we’ve been discussing. There will very likely be moderation changes in the near future.

To those of you flaming each other, end it here.

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