Hello mittens is that you :-( /sob shame ...

Guys, before this goes on any further, kindly take off the hats and get real - we do not develop with one corp or alliance in mind...

Which devblog are you referring to?

Superfriends

GÇó Ally contracts have fixed length of two weeks
GÇó Allies can not be part of mutual wars GÇô defender cannot hire allies into mutual wars and existing ally contracts are cancelled (with a 24 hour grace period)
GÇó Cap on War Dec cost GÇô it will never have a base price of more than 500 mill regardless of corp/alliance membership (still affected by the number of wars you have declared)
GÇó New UI control for War options in war lists
GÇó Added cost for hiring multiple allies for a war GÇô hiring more than one ally now incur a cost that goes to CONCORD. The cost rises exponentially the more allies are hired into the same war.
GÇó Added new skill GÇô Armor Resistance Phasing, which reduces the cycle time of Reactive Armor Hardeners

Regarding the war dec system changes being some goonswarm conspiracy - all of these changes were decided (and most implemented) long before this particular goonswarm war even started. Do you really think we add new stuff a few days before a release just because of one war?

Regarding defenders now being defenseless, etc. This change will make it a little bit more difficult to defend, but what we have to do is strike a balance between defender options and incentives to declare war. We can give defenders all kinds of shiny new tools to defend themselves, but if they result in nobody declaring war anymore, then why bother? Yes, we want the system as a whole to have more consequences, but that cuts both ways.

Not only do I not acknowledge it, I have and will continue to actively refute it. I want this thread to be relevant to teams collecting *valid* feedback on their features and so hereforth will be deleting any half baked conspiracy theories.

Come on Jade, being able to lock allies into mutual wars is clearly a really bad idea. Right now, I could form two alt corps, have them wardec each other, and then grab a bunch of free allies or even paid mercs, make the war mutual and never let them out. This is a bad thing, and these changes go a long way towards fixing that problem.

Limits on allies are not just about Goons, why would *any* corp wardec anyone else right now? If you do so, you are subjecting yourself to a possibly unlimtied number of allies. You talk about 9000 vs 100, but what about a 20 vs 20 wardec. Right now, the defender can pull in many hundreds or even thousands of allies, and there is no way a small corp would be able to deal with that.

Just to quickly cover the changes coming to the Ally system, if the costs are kept fairly low, it shouldnt be much of a problem, even when they scale exponentially. After all, someone who *wants* to fight the aggressor will likely just give the defender the ISK if its less than the cost of a wardec.

Also, as a real-world example, we had something like 30+ allies in a recent war, all offered free assistance, and none of who were involved in any kills/losses - its important to note that this isn't the 'mercenary marketplace' which was mentioned, and that should come later, but for now its a way to provide some repercussions for the aggressor.

All this will do is 'moderate' the numbers a little so the defender needs to be a little more selective.

Free 'mercs' != regular mercs who you hire to do stuff.

Indeed. Then you probably wont mind giving me 1 grain of rice for the first square on the chessboard and double that for each field. After all, the cost is only one grain of rice and that should not be a problem, even when it scales exponentialy.

War dec changes make sense. You should have to shop and compare allies in the mercenary market place. Not have a free dog pile.

Now, imagine that I am not part of the most powerful group in Eve Online, and that I am not controlling your game. Instead, I am some 20-man "merc" corp that wants to make a reputation. So, my corporation declares war against a mid-sized alliance. The next day, there are 20 "Ally has joined a war" notifications. None of them are friendly.

Goonswarm doesn't really care about getting wardecced by every mom and pop operation out there. If we want to kill people, we will kill them. Wardecs have never stopped us from causing tears of unfathomable sadness. What this change does is keep things from getting out of hand for other, smaller groups that declare war. The way the system works now, you could theoretically have every other corporation in Eve ally against the aggressor at virtually no extra cost. And if there's anything the last 9 years should have taught everybody, it's that if there's a mechanic that can be abused, it will be abused.

As much as it pains me to admit it, you have a good idea there. We like it. Although the question is whether we like it more than your endless gnashing of teeth over this change. That is a tough call.


You'll see significantly fewer than the 10% (or whatever) that is active, because you live in empire, and goons do not. In most cases if goons had even 1% of our memberbase actively hunting for a fight in highsec, it would be considered an awe inspiring display of power.

So, like I said - drop the strawman.

If you decced us, we'd turn the tables, make it mutual, and invite anyone who wanted to shoot you to do so for free...and I imagine there are many who'd take the opportunity. That would seem to make the cost to dec us irrelevant - after all, if you've such an issue with 9000 vs 100, why would you invite the chance for it to be 10000 vs 100, or 15000, or 20000?

I hear wardecs make it hard to shoot a ship once with a full rack of 1400s

I appreciate your frustration at feeling like your gameplan has been nerfed, I really do, but at the same time your plan was to just have ~everyone~ in high sec join certain wardecs? Do you think all those folks would ~actively~ fight the aggressor on your behalf? In reality, they won't. In fact, the emergent gameplay here is that you now need to choose and prioritise your Allies and work with those that are most effective.

Rather than going "Hey! Everyone pile on for free wardecs!", you are now going to have to consider who are the best partners to have in the war and, every two weeks, you can look at their effectiveness and reward those that are actually helping you and extend the deal, whilst weeding out the time wasters.

Imagine being a tight, well skilled Merc corp and seeing your entire business model be flooded by jokers looking to pile in on wardecs? How can you make a living when everyone is giving it away for free?

I figure that a single professional motivated Marc corp would do more harm to a large alliance than a huge bunch of dudes who don't do anything and dock up when it comes time to fight (see: Noir during Burn Jita). And one motivated corp defending his home, or being paid to do so, is more powerful than a 100 empty wardecs.

Sound reasoning? From Jade Constantine?

It must be a trap.

#4 is excluded from from the aforementioned sound reasoning.

If you mutual declare a war, you're not defending any more. You are saying you are not helpless and you will fight back. If you're needing allies to take the fight to them, that isn't necessarily true, is it?

War and PVP in an MMO built to be a huge open War PVP simulator is a "waste of time"?

Oh, christ.

No, just no so many times.

By the way, Jade, you called your system "Destruction Testing the New Wardec System"

Well, seems you broke it and it's being fixed. Isn't that the point of a "destruction test" - to find the weak spots and fix it? They're literally tests to find the breaking point.

I think you can actually claim OP success.

But instead, because you don't like the result, it's waaaaaaa Goons win wwaaaaaaaaaaaa

You see, the reason that CCP are helping goons is because goons are CCP and therefore,

The difference is you don't get to say what makes a valid "war."

Historically more people have died in more wars fought over grudges (be it racial, ethical, religious or for holy land, etc) than any idea of having a conflict with a positive aim.

You're literally saying "my version of a war is X and anything else is meany pants"

Grow up, or see reason, whichever works.

Question from my last read through on the wardec cost system:
Currently is only the defender's size considered for the war dec cost and not the attacker's?

If so may I recommend the formula instead being (attacker pilot count + defender pilot count)/2 being the new way to determine weekly wardec price.

Killing a regular dose of players new to null, who don't have proper high sec hauling alts is not the same as beating null sec pvpers. You should know the difference. The mechanic continues much longer and null fleets will roam high sec regularly.

So what you're saying is, being on the CSM you have no real power...why bother being a CSM then? What's the real point of it if they don't listen to you? Aren't you supposed to listen to us, and tell them what we say so we have a voice THROUGH you to the developers? Seems to me the CSM is rather pointless to have if they won't listen to the CSM. It's either that or the CSM isn't doing their part but is now saying this just because it's what we want to hear. Just my two cents on that. Not saying you guys are doing a bad job, but this just sounds like a cop out to me.

This won't be abused.

At all.

The CFC's casus beli is your bad posting, and they should be free to wardec you forever and a day at whatever cost it incurs on them, if they wish to.

The problem is exactly how you're abusing it right now and whining that it's going to be nerfed.

i cannot believe how much stock people are seriously putting into highsec wars

this is amazing

it's like you're playing a completely separate, shittier game than the rest of us

It takes a twisted, conceited and incredibly biased mind to read a change that literally helps everyone in the merc marketplace (just look at all the threadnaughts on it, from Noir. and others - Moar Tears literally dispanded and did other things, others are incredibly handicapped) and see it as "Goonswarm asked for the nerf."

You of all people should know that if this is a change they wanted they would be singing from the rafters that they got it changed, tinfoil hats be damned (see: Titan changes, etc and etc).

Incidentally I think the notion of paying magic sky people to wardec at all is completely stupid. If you have a reason to go and shoot someone in the face then you should just press "I hate this corp of idiots" in your neocom and have them show up red 24 hours later.

Anything else is just checks and balances in a sandbox, which is never useful.

Let the weak die, it's what is meant to happen.

I still want you to explain how it makes sense that the goons would want LESS people to shoot at...

Um. Which dangers would our leaders see which our rank and file wouldn't see?

Aside from the fact that unlimited allies completely **** over any chance of mercenaries having a chance, it was just a dumb thing. When all of this came up at the CSM Summit the primary examples discussed were about what had happened with EVE Uni and how it would affect the Mercenary profession, which is something CCP does intend to keep working toward making viable. Unlike in the past, CCP has recognized this was a dumb thing and have acted to fix it quickly. I'm not a fan of this EXACT fix but maybe it'll change a bit more between now and release. Regardless, unlimited allies was a dumb thing.

However, this tinfoil idiocy is an even dumber thing. You want to argue about the mechanics, fine. If you don't like the way they are now or the way the changes will make them, that's fine too. But check the tinfoil crap at the door.

I cannot fathom how after nine years of this game being live anyone could really BELIEVE that the people that work on it give two ***** about the colors on a map or what corp / alliance is affected by balance changes. I worked at CCP in Game Design for over three years and I never made a decision or a change based upon how it would affect in game ~politics~ and no one I worked with did either. It's completely off the rails to suggest that someone like CCP Soundwave takes his cues from anyone other than CCP Unifex, the guy that does his salary reviews. It's even more absurd to bring CCP Screegs into anything related to Game Design because the guy is too busy hammering bots and RMTers; he's got nothing to do with this stuff.

It's just too dumb; I refuse to believe that you believe this stuff, Jade. The more you rabble about it along those lines, the less attention anyone is going to pay to you. Stick to talking about the actual mechanics and stop this nonsense.

If Goons do indeed have the devs working for them, then why in the name of Loki's thorny codpiece cobra do you expect that posting on the forums will help?

Well, what if we don't think its a fiasco? This is one of those cases where the breadth of experience provided by the CSM led to a fairly consistent conclusion - unlimited allies doesn't make for good gameplay. Not that the CSM was unanimous, but most of us though this was a bad idea and that it defeated the whole purpose of having a competitive "mercenary marketplace" in the first place.

Having a "breadth of experience" doesnt mean the feedback has to be split 50/50 on every issue.

I'm the one spearheading for reforms to the Inferno war dec system and the CSM has pretty solidly been behind the changes we discussed prior to and during the CSM summit.

The slight cost added to taking new allies was not one of those changes, I do not support it, and I do not think the CSM as a whole is too enthused (though Issler doesn't support it for different reasons than the rest of us do: it's still ****).

By Ymir's ponderous joy-juice javelin, why do you think, if the evs were so blatantly in the pocket of Goonswarm, they'd change course simply because you complained about it?

I agree with Jade. If you couldn't bring in world renowned PvP allies like
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to fight the Goon menace, then there is NO WAY to fight them. It's impossible, really. The only way to kill Goons is to have 100 random allies in Empire. Then and only then can their nullsec empire crumble.

Why do you believe CCP as a whole would compromise their integrity for one alliance?

Jade, my 'frothing at the mouth' is actually quite measured compared to the rampant paranoia you've attempted to foster over the last several pages. Don't backpedal by saying it's a lack of dev experience or CSM inaction now. As I said in my post, I don't believe you are dumb enough to believe in that tinfoil crap (quite the opposite really) so this coy "what it will look like" routine just falls flat. Yeah, it makes me a little ~mad~ because I honestly thought we were past that sort of nonsense, especially someone like you that has been on the CSM and met some of these guys.

As for the CSM, we're not watching this from the sidelines and were already asking after it before this forum madness kicked off. As Alek said, I'm not sure how the wires got crossed here but I'm pretty sure we can resolve it with a few good posts internally. That doesn't mean the ally system should allow 20,30 or 70 people to bandwagon tho. v0v

So we were waiting for a reply to the question "why can't the defenders hire allies for FREE until both side have the same numbers" ??

As this would mean more pilots fighting, More explosions and more ships burning.

Is'nt that what Inferno is suppose to be about?

Dear CCP Superfriends.

With the new proposed war mechanics, note the following:

A 5000 man alliance can wardec a 500 man alliance.

The 500 man alliance can then ally a 4500 man alliance for free to even the odds, but it would have to pay a HUGE amount if it instead wanted to ally 9 other 500 man alliances.

This penalty against smaller, more numerous entities is surely not your intention?

Please could you adjust the mechanics so that none of the factors (but particularly cost) scale with number of "entities" (alliances or corps etc) but rather with number of players.

It should be free to call in allies until the number of "defender" players equals the number of "aggressor" players. Then it can escalate.


Its also important to note that the 2 week set contract for allies should automatically "roll over" if not cancelled by the defender or the ally (including recurrance of any fees, if applicable), otherwise you are creating a huge inconvenience in longer term wars.

re the cost of adding allies: the problem does seem to stem from the fact that these changes are looking at the corp/alliance level when applying a cost, when it should be looking at member numbers.


Would it be possible to apply a cost to calling in allies only if your "side" as a whole has more numbers than the other "side"?

Ie 50man corp decs a 10man corp; the 10man corp can pull in allies for free until they become a 50man entity making the war "balanced"*, be that 4 other 10man corps, or one 40man corp, or whatever.

Once the defenders are at 50, they can continue to pull in allies but it costs them as they are turning the numbers in their favour.


Making the allies system look at the number of pilots on each side conceptually ties in with the war cost being based on pilot numbers too, although there is some work to be done here for timings and edge cases and the like.




* as much as pvp is ever balanced

You're assuming that a 5000 player alliance will come into high sec?

We've been talking to some of the merc corps/alliances and having no meaningful choice in terms of picking a defender basically nullifies their business. What we wanted to do was put in an incentive to look harder at exactly who you ally with, meaning that successful merc corps would be able to market themselves better.

I agree that in an isolated sense, the 4500 vs 9x 500 people is a bit silly, but at the end of the day, making sure you can't just ally a large number of people was something put in to revive the merc business somewhat. We can evaluate that later, but I'd really like to see how people who do this for a living fare with the changes.

Regarding the recurrence, we're definitely looking at that.

Thanks for the quick response SW.

I understand your thought process but I think you are prioritising addressing the wrong problems. You need to address the "massive group vs tiny group" imbalance that currently exists first before you worry about mercenaries.

If you nevertheless decide to stick to your current route vis-a-vis allies, you should instead re-visit the cost associated with wardeccing a 500 man alliance with a 5000 man one. The imbalance should have a cost associated with it, one that makes it very expensive to do.

Another, more nuanced mechanic might be to have the game identify aggressor entities that outnumber their targets significantly, and reduce the war cost against that aggressor for third party entities as a result until the number of "enemies" of the aggressor matched its own headcount. This would mean an entity could wardec who it liked as currently but if it was in highly imbalanced wars it would be opening itself up to cheaper counter-wardecs.

The fact remains that life and eve do share one thing in common: they aren't fair. Previous to the Ally system, if a more powerful group wardec'd you, you could either fight back and possibly get turned into a grease spot on the sidewalk, or run away.

It seems that if you want a Lot Of People to fight your war for you, you should try to recruit more into your alliance. CCP is trying to keep the current abusing of the wardec mechanic to dogpile "larger entities" (which, by the by, less than 1% of most actually live in highsec so your stating repeatedly of the entire number off denizens of the alliance is hilariously innaccurrate).

What would then stop an alliance from padding their ranks with hi-sec home dwelling alts?

I'm so dissapointed on the outcome of this...

large player bloc says -> we will make high-sec a living hell, therefore we will wardc or gank everyone there
small player bloc says -> i'll use the tools at my disposal to fight back

CCP sees a problem there and "fixes" it..

i mean, these were wardec people were paying, let them cut their throats if they so want to

So many options to make wardecs meaningful and CCP chose the less interesting options....

It's almost like it's designed to make you think about who you ally with, to gauge the actual force you're fighting (i.e. not just looking at how many members are in the alliance and throwing a tantrum from there) and to hire accordingly. Funny that!

Not even remotely. I guess if anything about this was "complex" it'd be your bleating about needing your ally list to be a "fair" number when in practice it was...well, I'll quote your sig: "sign up and shoot Goons for free!".

But back to non-complex things: surely you can recognize that the ally system was at least in part to invigorate the idea of being a professional mercenary corporation, and that "come shoot Goons for free!" accomplishes the exact opposite of that.

Well here is A solution ... please critique it if you see a problem.

1. Concord fees per defending ally are only payable if you are in the process of adding an ally that would take the total size of the defending force over the total size of the attacking force. This will make it prohibitively expensive to massively outblob a small wardeccer (as in small scale mercenary actions) while still allowing a massively outmatched defender (ie 9000 vs 100) to add many alliance for free so they can balance the fight.

2. Introduce 2 week contract periods with auto renewal if either side likes the deal (ie its free) You don't like a war don't renew.

3. Consider leaving mutual decs alone because this alone gives the defender chance to assemble a counter force that can make an aggressor NEED to negotiate an end to the war. There is no reason to deny allies to a mutual declaring defender - all this means in essence is that the defender is removing the attackers automatic right to back out of the war while saving them the wardec fee. Its a transactional tactic - it could be left alone (especially with the 2 week contract periods allowing allies to leave).

4. Then if you are feeling adventurerous - improve the system a bit with iteration -> Once the defender starts paying concord fees (because they have added so many allies they now outnumber the attacker) - let the attacker add allies on a 1-1 basis so the war can escalate (both attacked and defender having the chance to up the stakes by shopping for appropriate allies etc.) With this scale of fighting (ie both attack and defender are relatively matched in numbers - EACH allied choice will matter a lot and people will shop for the right mercs on their capability and reputation.

I think that solves the problem.

Giant ass Goomswarm / Test decs vs little corps and alliances can be dogpiled and frankly they should be. Its fun, its a game, we play for fun and everyone said they liked that.

Small merc decs against similar surgical targets are likely to make the defender think carefully about who they hire because these will attract concord fees and let the attacker escalate if too many are hired.

This serves the needs for huge ass mayhem wars for fun. AND serious small merc fights for profit. There is no need to disadvantage one part of the community to protect another.

I think you guys might now be dealing with semantics and hypotheticals and are just circling around each other. While I'm pleased that it's been civil, you might want to invest your mental energies in a fresh direction. Maybe have a look at the new FW changes and see how they balance?

Discouraging warfare by allowing plexes to be soloed in frigates isn't actually well done. The thread has multiple topics, please stop trying to monopolize it for your own grievances.

Because it merely takes blanket numbers into account. Inaccurate numbers at that.

It does nothing to force you to consider merc quality, just numbers. You're still consigning the "pro" merc groups to be on par with the mob and unable (or just difficult) to break out and shine.

Edit: Here's a scenario: you (74 man alliance) dec a 10 man. That 10 man brings in goonswarm. Per your system, no concord fees (first ally, was below the cap prior).

Also, having to actively pay your allies as opposed to blanket man count also helps reduce the 1% issue on the part of your allies; if they aren't participating or pulling their weight you can fire them.

Just to reiterate, I don't care about GSF wars; I'm enjoying shooting the multitudes you've put together--I'd probably have chewed off my own arm out of boredom otherwise. My main concern is that you are devaluing the committed mercs from the :effort: gankers, and chilling out small/mid size corp wardecs.

Is the first entity a defender allowed to ally with him free?

I think the biggest issue here is that we're trying to solve different issues. I'm trying to bring the merc trade back into EVE and you're trying to add some measure of fairness into wars, which Isn't really a design philosophy in EVE.

Why would I want to balance a fight?

The other thing is that war dec prices are determined by the value you get from them.

Letting attackers add allies conflicts with the notion that attacking someone is risky. If you decide you want to go to war with someone, the consequence is that he could punch harder than you anticipated. If this is just about stacking up allies, the power of that choice fades away a little bit.

snipped general ranting

Well here is A solution ... please critique it if you see a problem.

1. Concord fees per defending ally are only payable if you are in the process of adding an ally that would take the total size of the defending force over the total size of the attacking force. This will make it prohibitively expensive to massively outblob a small wardeccer (as in small scale mercenary actions) while still allowing a massively outmatched defender (ie 9000 vs 100) to add many alliance for free so they can balance the fight.

2. Introduce 2 week contract periods with auto renewal if either side likes the deal (ie its free) You don't like a war don't renew.

3. Consider leaving mutual decs alone because this alone gives the defender chance to assemble a counter force that can make an aggressor NEED to negotiate an end to the war. There is no reason to deny allies to a mutual declaring defender - all this means in essence is that the defender is removing the attackers automatic right to back out of the war while saving them the wardec fee. Its a transactional tactic - it could be left alone (especially with the 2 week contract periods allowing allies to leave).

4. Then if you are feeling adventurerous - improve the system a bit with iteration -> Once the defender starts paying concord fees (because they have added so many allies they now outnumber the attacker) - let the attacker add allies on a 1-1 basis so the war can escalate (both attacked and defender having the chance to up the stakes by shopping for appropriate allies etc.) With this scale of fighting (ie both attack and defender are relatively matched in numbers - EACH allied choice will matter a lot and people will shop for the right mercs on their capability and reputation.

I think that solves the problem.

Giant ass Goomswarm / Test decs vs little corps and alliances can be dogpiled and frankly they should be. Its fun, its a game, we play for fun and everyone said they liked that.

Small merc decs against similar surgical targets are likely to make the defender think carefully about who they hire because these will attract concord fees and let the attacker escalate if too many are hired.

This serves the needs for huge ass mayhem wars for fun. AND serious small merc fights for profit. There is no need to disadvantage one part of the community to protect another.

Can you see anything wrong with this solution?

Surely the merc market isnt ruined by free allies - people dont pay for mercs to make up numbers, they pay for the results they achieve. As has been noted the vast majority of the corps who joined in on the GF-JF war havent achieved much in the way of results - why should a competent merc outfit lose out on contracts to a ragtag bunch of small entities who, though free to ally, can't achieve 1/100 of the results and also inflate GF's own kills (thus making their war more fun/profitable)?

Can someone explain the reason free allies affects mercenaries?

Jade, the problem with all of your arguments is that you think of nothing but Goons this and Goons that. I have yet to see a post where you put more emphasis on mercs and high-sec wars than you put on "STOP THE GOONIES FROM BLOBBING EVERYONE". Maybe just repost your idea without all the anti-Goon sentiment and it will more than likely be received much better.

Well here is A solution ... please critique it if you see a problem.

1. Concord fees per defending ally are only payable if you are in the process of adding an ally that would take the total size of the defending force over the total size of the attacking force. This will make it prohibitively expensive to massively outblob a small wardeccer (as in small scale mercenary actions) while still allowing a massively outmatched defender (ie 9000 vs 100) to add many alliance for free so they can balance the fight.

2. Introduce 2 week contract periods with auto renewal if either side likes the deal (ie its free) You don't like a war don't renew.

3. Consider leaving mutual decs alone because this alone gives the defender chance to assemble a counter force that can make an aggressor NEED to negotiate an end to the war. There is no reason to deny allies to a mutual declaring defender - all this means in essence is that the defender is removing the attackers automatic right to back out of the war while saving them the wardec fee. Its a transactional tactic - it could be left alone (especially with the 2 week contract periods allowing allies to leave).

4. Then if you are feeling adventurerous - improve the system a bit with iteration -> Once the defender starts paying concord fees (because they have added so many allies they now outnumber the attacker) - let the attacker add allies on a 1-1 basis so the war can escalate (both attacked and defender having the chance to up the stakes by shopping for appropriate allies etc.) With this scale of fighting (ie both attack and defender are relatively matched in numbers - EACH allied choice will matter a lot and people will shop for the right mercs on their capability and reputation.

I think that solves the problem.

Giant ass Goomswarm / Test decs vs little corps and alliances can be dogpiled and frankly they should be. Its fun, its a game, we play for fun and everyone said they liked that.

Small merc decs against similar surgical targets are likely to make the defender think carefully about who they hire because these will attract concord fees and let the attacker escalate if too many are hired.

This serves the needs for huge ass mayhem wars for fun. AND serious small merc fights for profit. There is no need to disadvantage one part of the community to protect another.

Can you see anything wrong with this solution?

I understand what you're trying to do, but please stop requoting yourself in every post. It's OK to turn the other cheek and ignore people once in a while.

Found your problem; its your incessantly self-centered argument.
So you and issler won't hire mercs; fine. What about the research alliance that gets dec'd? Or the small industrial group? Will you ignore their needs to defend their towers/assets/members?

Take the focus off yourself and consider the typical situation. Allowing for unlimited free allies is a Bad Thing for merc competitiveness because it dilutes the War History as a determinant of quality.

If you're going to keep linking to it, can I keep linking to Soundwave's post that smacked it down? I mean, that's all that matters, really - getting anyone to affirm "yes this is a good idea" is just you seeking validation.

It's all a Goon conspiracy, Soundwave only smacked your post down because he is favoring the Goonies, isn't that right Jade?

Can we flip the discussion around for a moment and ask why, given wardec costs, unlimited corps should be able to effectively wardec whoever they want for free by simply riding on someone else's coattails? I mean, that's what you're offering people, really. You're not saying "Oh woe is me, come defend me from the evil goonies", you're saying "Come wardec goons for free" and letting people avoid the system. So can you please justify why CCP should consider this okay?

Because this is a evil sandbox and bad things happen.

And this patch is called Inferno because everyone is suppose to be on fire and fighting.

Instead of making it easier to get fights 1.1 is bringing in more rules to stop fights, The Inferno is having cold water poured on it.

I did not ask about "consequences of being a large aggressor." What I asked was why an unlimited number of corps who may also be interested in wardeccing us, but not in the price, should be allowed to so easily circumvent the system.

Obviously, CCP disagrees.

It's all fine and dandy to say "that's just the price you pay as an aggressor" if we are running with a punishment mentality, where the aggressor is the evil-doer and the victim needs protection at all costs.

What you've failed to convince me of so far is the scale to which the atrocities you're trying to prevent are occurring. I understand your personal situation, but CCP has to make game play decisions that are good for the majority of players, not that just cater to one group's particular situation.

I think trying to use the game mechanics to discourage a large corp from wardeccing a small corp are about as reasonable as trying to use game mechanics to discourage a large fleet from attacking a smaller gang. It quickly becomes a game of whack-a-mole, as groups that *truly* want to grief will never actually be restricted by the wardec system to begin with, regardless of its implementation. It's akin to obsessing over which lock to install on your front door - a true burglar isn't going to be deterred regardless.

Unlimited, cost-free ally-stacking defeats the entire purpose of creating a *competitive* mercenary market. It allows for pig-pile opportunistic wardecs without creating real incentive to actually participate in the war.

I think a lot of us realize that forcing some degree of strategic *choice* will incentivize using the best allies for the job and increase the chance those allies will be used in the first place.

I am listening, Jade. All I said was that you aren't convincing me that Goons griefing people out of the game using predatory wardecs is a big enough problem to shape a mechanic around it.

I mean you made a big deal about the CSM and CCP developing policy especially in response to them, but I'd say pointing to an anti-Goon war that now can't happen as your example is doing exactly that. You're still more than welcome to convince me though that the wardec- griefing issue is out of control, I can't speak for the other CSM's but I'm *always* subject to a change of an opinion on an issue with respect to new information.

Surely if you're concerned about not being able to add sufficient allies to match your aggressor's numbers, you could simply recruit willing participants into your corp or alliance rather than use the ally system? Sure, fewer people will be willing do leave their own corp or alliance to do it, but hey - war is supposed to be all about consequences and difficult choices right? It'll be harder for you, but just ticking a 'requesting assistance' box and letting people do their thing seems a little easy to me - why shouldn't you have to put in some effort? Alternatively, you can simply pick your allies well - choose someone who has a proven record of forcing larger entities to surrender. That's what the ally system was supposed to be after all.

There are solutions, even if they aren't the most elegant solutions or the ones that you'd like to have as the defender. For the regularity with which such situations occur, I think it makes far more sense to rely on those than to demand the whole system be designed around your edge case.

You're also assuming that these 'huge alliances' will active prosecute a war against a smaller party using their full membership, which isn't true at all - almost all of them are in nullsec, and even at a stretch you're going to be actively fighting a very small portion of their membership. Treating a wardec from a 9000 member nullsec alliance as a war with 9000 hostile participants is deliberately misleading.

One more thing. You say access to 9000 targets in a war should have a high cost. Ok. The war dec mechanic is only relevant in high sec and maybe lolowsec if you really want to reach for things. Yet, to their own admission, only 1% actually go to high sec. Ok. So to have access to those 90 pilots you have to pay over 500 million ISK? But those 90 can war dec a corp/alliance of 150 for only 50 million ISK??

In one post you justify access to 9000, which is only on the extreme case all 9000 actually go to high sec. But then shortly after brush aside any posts describing extreme scenarios with words proclaiming you don't design game mechanics with extreme scenarios in mind.

What.

The.

****?!

Honestly the suggestion that the allies be allowed be equal in number seems quiet reasonable. If it is an edge case then I see no harm in resolving it. If it is not an edge case then it should encourage more active wars.

@ Jade - Are you willing to open your alliance to corp recruitment and alliance merger? If you're this dead-set on showing any holes in the system, than consider standing up and taking it to the next level. Perhaps in the process you'll find the kernel of a new highsec power bloc.

@ Marlona Sky - Looks like you're (or at least a group of FHC folks are) doing this already at the merc level, which sounds intriguing and cool.

By the way, in the one or two instances where GSF actually acted on their wardecs (i.e. messing with Krixtal, etc) they numbered less than 20. Even in your edge case of a large entity going after a small corp there's simply not an issue that couldn't be solved by the first ally you hire being a good outfit, such as Noir.

For the hundredth time, no, that is not the reason the changes are being made. I know your universe revolves entirely around yourself, but there are actually other people out there who are effected by the wardec changes. Allowing unlimited numbers of allies makes wardecs much more unfeasible for *small* groups than it does for Goons or TEST. If some 20 man corp decs a 5 man corp and the 5 man corp can pull in 500 allies, the 20 man corp isn't going to declare war in the first place. This is the problem that CCP is trying to solve.

See, this is where you lose me. You're approaching two groups of people - the developers and the CSM, and trying to discuss changes in game mechanics, and you're not only telling us both what our motivations are ...

... you also happen to be wrong in your presuppositions. I've never *once* heard "Hey guys, this screws over the fat cats. It's so unfair" in any of the internal discussions whatsoever, and yet you've made this claim a dozen times in this thread.

On top of that, you accuse us of not listening to you. Has it occurred to you that maybe if you want someone to take your claims seriously and have a *real* discussion about an issue that maybe telling people what their motivations are for making decisions (and than being wrong about them) isn't the best way to encourage constructive dialogue?

And why unlimited free allies was dumb if Balance a fight never really been the goal in EVE ?

The only people winning out in this change are small corps attacking small corps that were rapidly outnumbered by free allies. The only people losing out on this change are people who were looking to use the mechanics to make their anti-Goon agenda free for themselves.

Care to post your proof that the *actual* discussion was how to best aide large alliances and members of CCP and the CSM seem to know nothing about it?

Because its just idiotic on its face?

Parity, equality, level fairness is not a goal. Disallowing free wardecs by all the tradehub and roving gankers against a small corp that wants to wardec someone else is just preserving the mechanic from abuse.

Forget Goonswarm. Consider the vast majority of cases--every single wardec is getting unlimited allies against the aggressor, be it 3 alts or 3000 mains. At that point, wardecs are less a way to put a hurt on a guy who's crossed you/competition, and more a way to get nulsec entities NBSI in empire.

If you can't see how that breaks the mechanic, I can't help you.

I 'frothed' because you were going on with your tinfoil nonsense about CCP and their Goon overlords.

I did give you a reply several pages back but you are ignoring it because I didn't just come out and say you were right about everything.

Elise didn't troll

Two Step is well aware of what you are proposing but he's not under any obligation to sing your praises. Hans is arguably the most open minded guy on the CSM and you are dismissing him as well because he doesn't want to agree with you.

Your points were made a while back and there are discussions being had on them and the whole subject. Nothing is locked in. Why isn't that enough for you at the moment? All you are doing by repeating yourself like this is alienating people. v0v

On to your proposal - why does war have to be even? Fleet fights certainly are never even. Skillpoints between entities aren't even, ISK coffers aren't even, intangible experience isn't even. It seems arbitrary to say "hey nothing in Eve is fair, except war". This isn't a fair honoure dueling mechanic, it's a war mechanic.

This is essentially where we have a difference of opinion on what the problem is. You think the issue is large alliance war-decing smaller ones is damaging. I don't, mostly because it has never happened and frankly it makes no logical sense that it ever would happen.

What I perceive as the bigger problem is when two small-to-medium sized entities go to war with one another - a scenario that I believe the war dec system should be built around, instead of the edge case of a nullsec powerbloc trying to kill an empire corp (which I have learned has happened exactly once in six years). Right now the aggressor gets pretty much zonked by the same types of corps who all tag along for a free wardec. No need to hire a merc when the "free wardecs" make fights between two smaller entities moot. I'd ideally like to see allies be penalized for allying with too many people.

I agree with those earlier that brought up the problem of the signal-to-noise ratio in this thread - its very hard to have a grounded discussion when you have clearly already made up your mind about why we support this (which the CSM hasn't ever explicitly said, in fact quite the opposite in several cases) and continue to frame arguments with these presuppositions in mind.

I have a feeling Jade has some issues with the new ally mechanics...

It couldn't be that your idea was ****, it /must/ be that there's a conspiracy to disagree with you out of spite.
You nailed it. Touche.

QFT

And the 1.1 proposed changes will do nothing to fix this, while unnecessarily widening the advantage between big/rich/vet and small/poor/new.

We don't care about K/D, we don't care about the ~isk war~, we don't care about losses/metrics in general. We troll people who lose expensive ship, and make sure they learn from their mistakes. Nothing you are going to do will dissuade us from what we want to do. You aren't going to make our life any difficult than we want it to be. We wanted more targets, you gave us less targets. You should chalk this up as a win and walk away.

+1

What is the purpose of the wardec system, CCP?

We already have PvP in hisec in the form of can flipping, suicide ganking and awoxing. We already have RvB and FW. The people who are interested in fighting have many avenues for exploring their desire to blow things up.

Forcing industrial corps to dock and log out for a week is not "content", and it will never result in hisec care bears taking that first vital step into PvP. They'll go and play Diablo III or Words with Friends instead.

Having objective based wardecs with a reward system in place might motivate care bears to participate rather than disappear.

See, now, that's good dialogue. Thank you, Alek. Most informative. Hopefully our hopes can be higher in the future.

Jade have you ever thought that if you are making enemies out of 5000 man alliances, then it would logically be reasonable that in order to fight them maybe you should be good enough at making friends to have another large alliance ally you.

How will you ever find time to post useless 10,000 word essays and run you rp "business". You barley log on as it is.

You forgot to mention the part where none of those people are your actual friends

Oh you mean the guys in test who would show up by the hundreds to get in fleet with me if it needed to be done?
How often do the people in that allied wardec coalition work together as a team I wonder? Oh right, never.

"... So CCP has to draw a line and the system has to be the same for everyone. There cannot be two separate war declaration systems - one for Goon size "aggressors" and one for everyone else." ->This guy has managed to look beyond "how does this affect me?" and looked at the game as a larger whole. A lot of people in this thread could learn from this example.

CCP, because a LOT of people have said that the dogpile system is completely breaking the merc trade.
You can very well say that 1.1 isn't the perfect solution, but that doesn't mean that 1.0 should stay.

Your solution doesn't work for small groups (the ones actually in the merc trade) but does ~just happen~ to work for you. Yet you still seem to think anyone will see it as anything other than pushing an agenda.

Sorry, just had to comment...

(<-- Please note the CSM tag here.)



I am not opposed to this change, therefore the CSM can not be "universally opposed" to it.


Please, either try harder with the misinformation, or please, just give up Jade.

There are people much better at making stuff up and blowing things out of all proportion than you are, and you're just looking like an amateur.

[ But hope is not completely lost, since CCP is talking about how to fix this issue and if fixed the ally system will actually be a very cool feature for everyone involved (and the merc marketplace will be expanded to something like what you're talking about down the line). The gobsmackingly painful thing about it is the change to the ally system they have decided to put onto SiSi was the only proposed "solution" that the entire CSM present advised against during the summit two weeks ago, didn't get any traction from the CCP people at that meeting, and would seem to not address the design goals set forth by CCP Soundwave earlier in this thread in a meaningful or successful way.

/emote facepalms with a deep sigh

The gobsmackingly painful thing about it is the change to the ally system they have decided to put onto SiSi was the only proposed "solution" that the entire CSM present advised against during the summit two weeks ago, didn't get any traction from the CCP people at that meeting, and would seem to not address the design goals set forth by CCP Soundwave earlier in this thread in a meaningful or successful way. .

The new system ensures that the people who ally you in a war dec are your actual friends who are joining because they are there to help you. The current dog pile mechanic is just being used as a way for corps whose entire business is wardeccing to not have to pay for their wardecs. The person who is accepting these allies can do so with zero cost or fear of repercussions. What other things can you do in Eve that have absolutely no risk or cost (hell even ship spinning costs time)?

How about some constructive suggestions instead. If people are so opposed tot he current change, what if we bring back the dogpile free war mechanic, but instead flag all allies as a having the same aggression rules with each other as corpmates. Think of all the intrigue and emergent gameplay that it would create. If you truly trust these people then you could amount a group of people that could challenge a large alliance, but if you are just accepting any riff raff, then you'll have to deal with getting awox'd 23/7. It's not biased at all, 0.0 groups already have to filter their allies to minimize awox'ing and even then it is an accepted way of life. This would just be introducing a similar risk system to people looking for allies in highsec.

Jade, while blaming other people for you saying obviously and provably incorrect things is at least a novel tactic it is one that nobody is going to believe, ever.

The gobsmackingly painful thing about it is the change to the ally system they have decided to put onto SiSi was the only proposed "solution" that the entire CSM present advised against during the summit two weeks ago, didn't get any traction from the CCP people at that meeting, and would seem to not address the design goals set forth by CCP Soundwave earlier in this thread in a meaningful or successful way. .

/emote facepalms with a deep sigh

I'm saying that the current dog pile mechanic doesn't make sense from an all around general design style of Eve. In Eve there is nothing you can do that doesn't cost money or accept a risk. Currently there is zero cost or risk to you accepting an unlimited number of allies, this does not fit with the general design ideas of eve. You conveniently skipped over this question in my first post.

Sure it does. You could hire actually good mercs, who have proven their reputation before and shown they're worth the money. That's the whole point of the ally system, after all. That will, however, require you to put thought in, and make choices. That, you seem extremely adverse to doing.

If your point is that all wars fought are fought on equal terms, then let's just say that we completely disagree. I'd say the exact opposite, wars are fought when one side feels they have an advantage. Engaging in "fair fights" is about as far from human instinctive behavior as it gets, as soon as we're in a scenario where you have something to lose.

I've cut through your word salad, once again, to illuminate the point you keep lying about.

You're free to hire mercs who can give you a fighting chance: in fact, Soundwave is trying to make mercs a viable profession. You're not demanding the tools you need - you will have them. You're demanding they be free and idiot proof. That's what this is all about at its core: you just don't want to pay the piper.

Moreover, even if you managed to recruit every hisec trash corp in your free and idiot proof crusade, you'd STILL never be able to do any meaningful impact against the ebil alliance since you won't actually go to where it lives or operate cooperatively.

I have deleted approx 75% of goon posts in this thread, and will continue to do so when they step out of line. The only reason I didn't delete your post is that I didn't want to throw fuel on your fire.

See, you simply can't post without it being statements of personal preference presented as group fact.

Ok just one thing

A lot of you seem to think that goonswarms numbers are somehow unfair.

Well they are not, they weren't given those numbers, they accuired those numbers through a lot of work. Its not easy to hold an alliance like that together.

The basic idea that a 50 man corp should be able to fight a 5000 man alliance is just silly.. They will and SHOULD get crushed in any normal fight. They could however manage to get a very high kill/loss ratio with some clever tactics and guerrilla warfare..


Eve isn't fair, Its not supposed to be fair. The goons have massed thousands of players together and now they reap the benefits from that achievement, Deal with it?