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

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

Highsec entities a forced into wars without the diplo tools nullsec entities take for granted.

Since when do Hisec entities not have the ability to use chat, Skype, voice communications and negotiating skills?

It's interesting that the one CSM member who is against the change is the one who is negatively impacted by it. Guess that means the CSM DOES lobby for their own personal game, not for the good of the game as a whole.

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.

The problem that CSM and CCP are trying to fix is another one: in comparably sized wars, the defender has an enormous advantage by being able to hire infinite allies for free. That then again turns into one side being hopelessly outnumbered and getting beat up on, and is again unfun.

No it's not. That's not the problem they're trying to fix at all. If you don't even understand the problem then no wonder you don't understand the solution.

Oh, my bad, the problem is that Goons wardecced -SF- and are now swarmed by flashy reds. /s

Explain the problem as you understand it, then. I have been known to be wrong.

The problem is that the current system makes merc corps for hire not viable.

Second, numbers do not necessarily determine strength. If someone wardecs you, hiring a single 100-man corp who know what they're doing might do you much more good than hiring 20 50-man corps who just want to camp undocks for shuttles. This mechanic means that, given a limited amount of available ISK for hiring allies for defense, the defender will need to pick between a) arming themselves, b) hiring one or two focused merc corps (that charge fees), or c) hiring a ton of raw numbers who just want a free war. The proposed mechanic establishes an actual tangible bottom line cost that mercs can use to price themselves against. In other words, "why would I hire xXMercXx when I can just hire 1000 noobs and arm myself for the same price" is no longer an option.

The problem is that the current system makes merc corps for hire not viable.

Not nearly as fun as large alliances getting beaten up by small alliances and their heroic allies - now that really is FUN, and frankly the large alliances create a far more impressive stream of tears.

I am very curious what you think of the new "allies" system, Alek. I realize that it's better than what we had before, but I still don't rightly understand why there isn't just a "mercenary marketplace" window where anyone can browse through mercs and hire them for negotiable prices and durations regardless of whatever is currently happening with current wars (or the lack thereof.)

This current system seems very arbitrary and wonky to me. I'd like to get your take on it.

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.

And the solution I proposed was that these wardec allies should only be "free" if the defender + coalition allies is smaller than the attacker.

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.

Not nearly as fun as large alliances getting beaten up by small alliances and their heroic allies - now that really is FUN, and frankly the large alliances create a far more impressive stream of tears.

Because it's good game design. In fact, the way war decs were designed with Inferno was absolutely in keeping with the spirit of the sandbox. Allowing entities to rise up and defend other entities, should they wish to. Only problem was, that goofball Jade found a way to use the sandbox to grief Goons, something that is certainly not allowed, especially with devs who came into the game via Goonswarm to begin with being in charge of game mechanics. Favor the blob, everyone should be in 9000 man alliances! Stupid.

I'd say you should just spawn them a few t2 BPO's while you're at it, but honestly, that's less egregious than changing the rules for the sole purpose of benefiting the largest entities in the game.

Maybe this has already been suggested and I missed it, but there seems to be an easy enough way to at least partially break the deadlock.

Make the aggressor in a war-dec pay for the war based on the sum of the size of the two alliances/corps involved.

If Star Fraction war-decs Goons, the war-dec cost is based on SF's size (74) + GSF's size (9069) and so costs 500 million. If the Goons war-dec SF, same deal. But if Star Fraction war-decs Rote Kapelle, the war-dec cost is based on the sum of the size of SF (74) and Rote (234).

Yes, this would make every Goon war-dec cost 500 million ISK. I'm confident they can afford it.

I am very curious what you think of the new "allies" system, Alek. I realize that it's better than what we had before, but I still don't rightly understand why there isn't just a "mercenary marketplace" window where anyone can browse through mercs and hire them for negotiable prices and durations regardless of whatever is currently happening with current wars (or the lack thereof.)

This current system seems very arbitrary and wonky to me. I'd like to get your take on it.

Whats happened here is that Mittani and goonswarm have whined and pleaded for these changes on the back of the Honda Accord and (now) Star Fraction precedent and CCP have kneejerked into making Inferno wardec system something of a joke.

Now random wardec for the sake of it in highsec by a huge alliance who can't really be bothered to fight and will never be impacted by the opposition because the mechanics ensure its impossible to assemble a force large enough to actually hurt them. There is no real narrative or drive to that war. End of the day the only sensible thing to do is to outsource ganking opportunities to hisec trade hub campers and ignore it.
Thats the difference.

We are 150 person alliance being prema-dec-ed by the two largest alliances in Eve. How could we possible fight them in any fair manner? The war dec war-dec fees will never be factor to these big alliances, they print isks with their tech moons for example.

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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.

GÇó Adding flares to missiles. Makes them visible when zoomed out.

GÇó All V3 ship materials are now a bit brighter.

It's been proposed to make the wardec cost be based on the absolute of the difference in numbers between the parties involved. I'm pretty sure that proposal was ignored somewhere along the line.

Alternatively you can support my proposal and we'll both get what we appear to want.
A bigger and better forever war.

Maybe this has already been suggested and I missed it, but there seems to be an easy enough way to at least partially break the deadlock.

Make the aggressor in a war-dec pay for the war based on the sum of the size of the two alliances/corps involved.