Since the change to war mechanics where you are only eligible to declare war or have war declared upon you, a lot of entities have created holding corporations. This was probably done to protect all the hisec miners and mission runners who would be harassed by war decs, but the consequence is corporations of various sizes have become invulnerable to wars (wormhole corps in particular like holding corps). This has really ruined part of the game.
There should be an incentive to actually holding structures in your corporations name, otherwise, you should just get rid of the war mechanic entirely.
If only it was as simple but i think many wardeckers would agree the current iteration is less than perfect and in many cases far worse than before.
Back when i started wardecks could be fun but then many were more evenly matched and you could also use watchlist and agents to track down targets… now its pretty much relegated to camping hubs and killing citadels of small corps or alliances in highsec.
Let’s also be honest with ourselves here… these groups are feeder alliances for Nullsec groups. They serve to inhale tax from new players trying to find their start into Eve Online.
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Sure you can go after the structures they own in a holding corp, but to what end? Is blowing up a mostly undefended structure engaging and fun gameplay?
That null feeder alliances are using holding corps for structures is both unsurprising, and imho somewhat of a missed opportunity for their recruits.
I was under the impression that null groups encouraged their newbies to PvP as soon as possible; having to defend a corp structure with others is a trust building and bonding opportunity for newbies.
They’d take losses, but newbie ships are cheap and enough bloodthirsty newbies with halfway competent leadership are more than capable of bloodying the noses of those that tangle with them.
Linking wars to structures was a terrible idea, it has created way more problems that it solved but it will not change because the dev team would have to acknowledge it was a dumb idea.
ACL allowing access to groups and individuals that intentionally opt out of pvp is a mistake
What type of content or experience are groups like those 2 examples providing? Doesn’t look like they are drawing new players into Nullsec where at least the “narrative” is that you’re fighting for something that is yours. These groups are farming new players for taxes, no doubt. I wonder how many of those 18k pilots still play Eve Online?
To extend on the above point, NPC corps don’t have leadership taking advantage of new players.
There’s a lot left to be desired when it comes to Highsec. Seems like CCP is happy with how things are now with little reason to actually create new avenues for Highsec players to interact with each other. It appears that to the Nullsec dominated CSM, Highsec is just this wasteland comparable to a landfill where Eve Online’s just so happen to start at. Seems there’s little thought in providing conflict drivers.
These corps have taxes, too. That they’re paying them to the corp and not sending it down the memory hole doesn’t really matter. ACL access doesn’t matter either, because you can identify which corps own the structures they’re using and you can war dec them, and they can’t use these corps to defend them.
Ask the folks who are in those corps what content and experience is being provided. The fact that those groups have thousands of characters means their leadership is doing something right. Who are you, or me for that matter, to judge whether that experience is good or bad? They’re doing what they want to do. If the players prefer being in these groups and paying lower taxes than in an NPC corp, what does it matter who collects the rest? The new players are still ending up on the better end of that deal.
This looks like what everybody expected would happen - social corps. Nothing wrong with that.
Conflict drivers are something that need to be added in a variety of places, yes. But I don’t see anything inherently wrong with what these corps are doing.
Pretty sure SICO was linked to Brave like ICANP was. Don’t know about the other.
@Brisc_Rubal As the main person pushing both the social corp idea and the structure based wardecs idea in the years leading upto the December '18 changes; I’d just like to say CCP took two great ideas and royaly screwed them.
When i had the idea of linking wardecs to structures it was to take away some of the focus on station games, create meaningful choice and allow for defenders to force a fight. But that was with only the attackers having a structure. The decision to link war eligibility to structures was in no way made to generate conflict, content or meaningful choice, it was just more safety. Now you’ve got complaints from wardeccers who are getting tired of grinding structures, no one to force a fight at the deccers war HQ because the defending side is a holding corp and complaints from Athanor owners because people are taking their ore.
The other thing with wardecs was the cost to wardecs. The 100mil/cost plus the requirements of a 500mil structure put wardecs out of the reach of pretty much anyone that isn’t PIRAT. The whole argument that 50% of wardecs are done by only 5 groups…well that looks stupid now doesn’t it?
CCP also completely missed a trick where you could have contracts for destroying structures.
Regarding social corps, the whole idea is that a social corp would be a social corp and nothing more. They’d still get npc taxed and have no assets, including no corp wallet. The point was that a social corp would be a place where people could get away from npc corps (known for their toxicity) and play with their friends without worrying about decs. It wasn’t meant to be anymore incentive to a social corp than that because that’s when people spam invites to hoover up corp tax and spoil the experience for other players (see ICANP). Social corps have become the norm, and the term ‘social corp’ has become ironic. The reality is that very little happens in a corp of a thousand players in hisec. Most players are inactive, and the ones that are active hardly talk to eachother let alone are flying together. Leadership sometimes suffer from megalomania. There’s little to no camaraderie or emotional attachment. The old saying of friends made in eve are closer than friends made in other games no longer applies here. Why did CCP have 11% corp tax on npc corps in the first place? I’m pretty sure it was to get people out there into the sandbox where bad people can do bad things, but good people become good friends.
You suggest a corp of 1000+ players is doing something right, but they are just spamming invites, taking corp tax, abusing new players and occasionally trying to start a cult (I encourage you to check them out with some alpha alts). They rarely provide, support and lead their members.
The whole situation of hi-sec is boring and with little agency, not just for deccers but miners and mission runners aren’t invested either. The whole meaning of being in a corp is all but lost. It’s hard to imagine how CCP could have done it worse.
If we don’t find a way to bring more of the pvp sandbox back to hi-sec, where the majority of our players are, it’s always going to be boring and unengaging. And that’ll continue to be the first impressions of the vast majority of our new players.
Suggestion (part 1):
Change the threshold of social corps from structures to renting an office, and change the corp wallet such that it activates on the creation of a corps first office. Corps also pay 11% npc tax until they have rented an office.
Structures automatically have a corp office. But there may need to be a change regarding POCO’s such that the owning Corp need an office to anchor one.
Corps cannot close their last office until the corp wallet is empty and all structures unanchored. Failure to pay office rent will put a timer on your POCO’s where interbus will repossess them.
Renting an office also allows friendly fire (cause eve was more fun that way).
Suggestion (part 2):
Lower wardec fees and/or create smaller structures for smaller groups. Aggressors still need a structure.
Make a better ally system that allows both sides to call in friends where allied logi works and wars are less compartmentalised.
Contracts for destroying structures. Payment triggered on destruction.
Suggestion (part 3):
ACL’s and mining ore that doesn’t belong to you. See thread below.
The world’s smallest violin is playing right now in my office.
Not really, because the cost still scales based on the size of the group being wardecced. The point was to make it more expensive for those 5 groups to do this as a way to make it harder for them to sustain constant war decs. Regular groups who want to fight each other already have structures and infrastructure, so that’s not an issue for them, and they’re not going to be mass wardeccing people, either.
These are still “social corps” even if they don’t fit the definition you created for them. These are groups of players who are working together, but don’t have structures - they are glorified NPC corps with slightly lower taxes.
I don’t think it’s fair to make this kind of a blanket statement. Obviously these players see some value in these groups, or they wouldn’t have joined them and they wouldn’t stay. If they’re inactive, then there’s no issue.
Then players will leave. There’s nothing forcing these players to stay in these groups (which means they’re not a cult), and there are plenty of alternatives if players want something different. Karmafleet, BRAVE, Horde, EVE University - there are plenty of other groups that these players can join if they don’t like the big high sec social corps. Nothing is stopping those players from doing this.
I still think there’s a disconnect between what CCP thinks highsec is supposed to be, what the average highsec only player things highsec is supposed to be and what the ganking and wardec community thinks highsec is supposed to be.
I think the bottom line is that some folks are mad that there are large numbers of players they can’t war dec and kill when they feel like it. But that’s kind of the point of the war dec changes.
