Someone explain to me how that is not a broken mechanic.

I don't mean the meta-drama.

Goonies gonna goon. Jade is gonna tinfoil. The Mittani gonna be Space Dr. House (yeah, went there).

But I expect the company that I spend hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) a year supporting, to not punch in their responsibilities and deliver a quality product of endless possibility of entertainment.

The way I see it, a sandbox world in which mercs are a profession should be about escalation and epicness and death and destruction no matter what sec. It should be about unexpected, unscripted, unplanned, surprises. About ingenuity and cunning and creativity over math and scripts played out time and time again.

Having to pay trillions of isk to get epicness in wars is breaking that. All it promotes is defensive carebearing - sitting in stations why your alts do the work elsewhere. It denies fun to the attacker, and it denies fun to the defender. It makes for a boring game.

I am not saying there should be fairness. Quite the contrary. I am saying there should be freedom. Freedom can be unfair.

There should be the freedom to call upon dozens of corporations to engage in protracted battles of epic proportions if that is the way the involved want to take it. Attackers should be cunning and finds way to counter this (such as bribes, spies etc). There should be financial risk for both sides.

So I do not understand why would it make sense to essentially have a linear wardec fee with a cap, but then have a logarithmic merc hiring fee with no cap. I just try to find a reason. "Eve is not fair" doesn't make sense, to me, as reason.

EVE is not fair is true and should remain true.

Eve is not fun shouldn't be.

I think CCP if forgetting this is a game and not a cult formed around the vision of self-styled prophets imposing their vision of sandbox instead of actually building one.

I want tools to play in the sand. They can be hard tools to master. They can unfair tools. But make them result in fun.

Not premade castles with the same outcome every time its is played. Boooring.

That is turning wardec and mercenary roles into a boring PVE mission. That is unacceptable. So stop punching it in and start actually using your brains CCP. This sandbox is not just griefers and carebears.

Also you can be brilliant - TiDi and the new mining stuff shows you can get it right when you want to. So don't punch this one in. Really create a vibrant hisec merc role. I mean, why not introduce hisec semi-sov for merc alliances? You worry about complacent carebear, do

However, some kudos to CCP for putting the fire under the meta-drama. It beats Game of Trones in the guilty pleasure soap opera category... I see what you did there -.-

1.Goons wouldn't last a second in a real sandbox.

2.You are being a ****** by trying to reason with Goons. They know they are lying vermin. They never stop lying. Treating them like they want honest discourse is ********.

Show me on the Exhumer model where the bad Goon touched you.

Someone explain to me how that is not a broken mechanic.

Doesn't require 1 isk to defend, you can either bring in corporations into your alliance or - get this - actually defend yourselves using combat ships and stuff..
hope that helped

o7 o7

Is that supposed to be clever?

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

Oh, you were mad. I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to be clever.

Oh, you were mad. I'm sorry, I thought you were trying to be clever.

Or, you can leave a docked holder and drop temporarily to another corp/npc corp.

1.Goons wouldn't last a second in a real sandbox.

2.You are being a ****** by trying to reason with Goons. They know they are lying vermin. They never stop lying. Treating them like they want honest discourse is ********.

Doesn't require 1 isk to defend, you can either bring in corporations into your alliance or - get this - actually defend yourselves using combat ships and stuff..
hope that helped

o7 o7

1.Goons wouldn't last a second in a real sandbox.

2.You are being a ****** by trying to reason with Goons. They know they are lying vermin. They never stop lying. Treating them like they want honest discourse is ********.

QFT

Attacking is cheap because the attackers are doing it by themselves. If the attackers hired mercs to attack you, it would cost them more too.

Solution, if the attackers can succeed without mercs, so can you.

Implying any nullsec group gives a damn about a bunch of highsec "pvpers".

If goons like the Jita camp, they wouldn't be crying to nerf it.

If goons are crying about Jita camping, my respect for said goons is dropping a bit. Dodging "mercenaries" and "pvpers" in Jita is as easy as neutral alt.

If goons like the Jita camp, they wouldn't be crying to nerf it.

It is banning by other means. That breaks the entire purpose of having allies. I rather go back to the old system then, this is feature is useless if one cannot play with it and push its limits.n.

Goon alt hates war

Nothing prevents you from just fighting the abovementioned people and force them into submission.

If goons like the Jita camp, they wouldn't be crying to nerf it.

Indeed. But this isn't about what I can or cannot do, but about the balance of the wardec system.

Just because I can't be bothered to type out a fresh reply, here's one I made earlier.


Perhaps you haven't been around very long, or perhaps you don't frequent many other parts of the forum than GD, but you are terribly mistaken. There are certainly members of GS that behave less than prudently on the forums, but that is not to say that all of them behave in such a fashion.

If you had bothered to do even the tiniest bit of research you would realise that, for the most part, the GS have made invaluable contributions to this game. Granted there have been some rather major and well publicised negative events involving GS members, but that should in no way over shadow the positive aspects of having GS around.

Back in 2004-right through until the arrival of GS we were lumbered with an Alliance that was of the same relative size and power as GS, but who did little to bring about changes that would be of benefit to the masses. GS have, to the annoyance of some, brought about some very good changes to the game, prominent amongst those being the nerfing of Titans, and more recently their requests for Technetium to be redistributed more fairly.

The majority of people crying on these forums are not members of GS, but rather those who have little to no understanding of GS, nor of their intentions, even though these intentions should be clear to most by now. Most of the GS members I see "crying" on the forums are actually being ironic, sarcastic or just plain in your face trolling, the laughable thing is that people seem to believe that they really are crying.

What is actually happening is that people like you are jumping on the "hate them cos they're bigger than us, wah wah wah" bandwagon, while taking absolutely no time or effort to take a look at things for yourselves. I suggest you go and educate yourself on the "facts" lest you appear more foolish than you already do.

Balance is achieved when you're on the right side of the blob? Is that why the defender having allies brings forth butthurt?

balance

Its about the possibilities of the sandbox. Essentially a trillion isk to mount a massive battle ground means banning massive battles in highsec.

Where exactly are you getting this figure of "a trillion isk".
It costs 10M + 10M*n^2 per ally.
Which means you could bring on the 9000 pilot "Anti-Goonswarm Alliance" as an ally for 20M isk a week, or whatever.

So what 'possibilities' are being restricted?

How much would that 10+10M*n^2 work out for 100 90 pilot "Anti-Goonswarm Alliances?" Or do you mean little guys should dock up?

Where exactly are you getting this figure of "a trillion isk".
It costs 10M + 10M*n^2 per ally.
Which means you could bring on the 9000 pilot "Anti-Goonswarm Alliance" as an ally for 20M isk a week, or whatever.

So what 'possibilities' are being restricted?

Lots, so they should merge up if they're serious about their anti-Goon goal and not just indiscriminately looking for cost-effective workarounds to wardecs.

How much would that 10+10M*n^2 work out for 100 90 pilot "Anti-Goonswarm Alliances?" Or do you mean little guys should dock up?

That is exactly what he means.

Yeah of course. I take all this time making a coherent argument that explicitly places itself outside of the Dramabelisk, but I am part of the collective carebear butthurt and the tinfoil hat set.

Yeah...

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

The butthurt over Jita-camp is strong in this one.

Yeah of course. I take all this time making a coherent argument that explicitly places itself outside of the Dramabelisk, but I am part of the collective carebear butthurt and the tinfoil hat set.

Yeah...

Yeah of course. I take all this time making a coherent argument that explicitly places itself outside of the Dramabelisk, but I am part of the collective carebear butthurt and the tinfoil hat set.

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

Since we're discussing the wardec thing, I thought the "butthurt" was from the goons, not carebears?

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

stuffs

oh no jita decbears are preventing us from doing things

*logs in neutral alt*

No idea. As I pointed out, goons in this thread have either only 2/10 trolled or been nice.


Wait. I see what you did here -.-

I'm actually not sure.

On second thought, were you talking about Jade Constantine's whining over the infinite allies for free forever nerf?

Balance is achieved when you're on the right side of the blob? Is that why the defender having allies brings forth butthurt?

Edit: Pyramid quoting removed - ISD Stensson

you still can, pay for it scrub

you still can, pay for it scrub

Translation?

3. I believe that (fiscally speaking) this is probably the most extreme nerf of anything in the history of Eve Online.

Has anyone pointed out that if all 46 corps combined into one, you could have them all for free? They might not even have to combine into one corps, I'm fairly sure an alliance would work. Need to SiSi it...

Has anyone pointed out that if all 46 corps combined into one, you could have them all for free? They might not even have to combine into one corps, I'm fairly sure an alliance would work. Need to SiSi it...

I pointed it out and everyone got extremely upset and mad
Pointing out that Jade could also save money by trying to actually defend himself instead of getting highsec wardec corps looking to skirt around paying a wardec fee to fight his battles for him was met with incredulity.

Has anyone pointed out that if all 46 corps combined into one, you could have them all for free? They might not even have to combine into one corps, I'm fairly sure an alliance would work. Need to SiSi it...

I pointed it out and everyone got extremely upset and mad
Pointing out that Jade could also save money by trying to actually defend himself instead of getting highsec wardec corps looking to skirt around paying a wardec fee to fight his battles for him was met with incredulity.

You can still do all that tho? There's just wssociated with wardecs, hardly something new, and encourages defenders to be more selective in their contracts. Which I would think would be better for mercenaries - you're not trying to sell something that scrubs are giving away for free

You can still do all that tho? There's just wssociated with wardecs, hardly something new, and encourages defenders to be more selective in their contracts. Which I would think would be better for mercenaries - you're not trying to sell something that scrubs are giving away for free

you should just join an npc corp jade, then you can have ultimate wartime isk efficiency

you should just join an npc corp jade, then you can have ultimate wartime isk efficiency

That is a red herring. I am not arguing for free allies. That clearly needed tweaking. But when having 6 allies costs more than a plex every two weeks you are doing two things:

1) Forcing corp/alliance consolidation - breaks the sandbox

2) Remove the incentive to hire merc, which will make carebears run for neutral arts or figure out other decshield exploits - breaks the combat fun.

Its a lose for mercs, its a lose for carebears, its a lose for the sandbox. Not even the FW nullsec people win because wardecs are pretty much irrelevant to them (did Burn Jita need a wardec?)

So who wins here? No one.

I am not saying there should be fairness. Quite the contrary. I am saying there should be freedom. Freedom can be unfair.

Funnily enough this system is a bit of a lose for FW people as well, since with Inferno 1.0 attempted selective wardeccing of particular militia corp/alliances to split up their collective efforts could be resolved via the ally system (ie the whole militia joins into the war and fights the aggressor together.) That is now completely off the table and once more its possible to disruptor militia operations by targetting specific corps and alliances amongst their number.

There is freedom. Plenty of it. We just own more freedom than you.

This is a change that only really affects Empire. Why is the Goons so concerned?

Which is in part why I think you are wrong Jade.

This change benefits no one. Not even the people you say it benefits.

Why blame malice when incompetence is more common?

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

also, a real sandbox would be all about removing CONCORD
anything else is a compromise

There is freedom. Plenty of it. We just own more freedom than you.

In a real sandbox there wouldn't be concord, but then players would have control over the jump gates. Since there are more carebears than PvP'ers, this would ensure that most of space would retain hisec staus, even if once in a while systems were lost to piracy.

There is freedom. Plenty of it. We just own more freedom than you.

The Mittiani owns you now, little goon.

You can still do all that tho? There's just wssociated with wardecs, hardly something new, and encourages defenders to be more selective in their contracts. Which I would think would be better for mercenaries - you're not trying to sell something that scrubs are giving away for free

Wow, silence for the first time ever. Do I get a medal?

If all a mercenary corp can offer is the same thing a bunch of uncoordinated strangers can offer, I don't see why their trade should be protected. Surely if you're supplying a service, you need to offer something that requires more skill than average or do something that other people don't want to do? So I don't buy the argument that these changes actually help the mercenary market.

I am implying that you are Jade Constantine, btw.

I think there is merit to that

I mean, Jade's tinfoil has nothing on yours.

Yours drives the prices of aluminum up every time you need a new one.

1/10

Well, it was either that or make fun of your one-man vanity corp, but even that seems a little low for me.

You mean making fun of what almost everyone in hisec who post on forums does?

Yeah, 1/10 was better than that, which would have been -1/10.

Making fun of something that takes five minutes of skilling and **** money to make is not even taking candy from children, its taking it from the floor when the child drops it on purpose.

If you were in game before CONCORD existed, well, I don't think you would see any merit in it whatsoever.

I wasn't, so whatever.

I do play long enough to know the wardec was broken. It was fixed, with a few kinks to iron left, and now its going to be broken again.

That I care about.

How, exactly, is it 'broken'? You could argue that it's a bit unfair, or places too much support in favor of the aggressor, or that the cost of allies is too high, or the cost of wardecs too low, or that it should take into account the difference in members... but none of those things make it broken in the same way that dec scraping or dec shielding did.

Let's compromise--you can have as many defensive wardecs as you want as long as I don't have to read about each one in eve-mail.

That's great that you don't accept facts, but it doesn't really change them. Seriously, try it with gravity, tell me how that works out.

You can't say it's a fact that these changes actually help the mercenary market, because it's too early to tell - the changes haven't been implemented yet.

You can't say it's a fact that these changes actually help the mercenary market, because it's too early to tell - the changes haven't been implemented yet.

Well inferno was supposed to help the mercenary market, and ... well we saw how that turned out.

Exactly.

But even that limited tool, if tweaked, could have led to a better merc role. Now we will never know, because of the nerf essentially returning to pre-Inferno conditions. I even explained how to decshield even with the trillion stuff.

Well, all the amazing whining over the changes are great and all, but it was fun to be able to find highsec as a target-rich environment of people that can't leave the war without disbanding their corp/alliance.

Can we go back to that? It would be really nice...

I thought you guys were about moon goo botting, "renting" sov, and ganking, no of which require war decs, and only one which applies to highsec. So I am curious...

I mean, its not like highsec is not a target rich environment already for your kind, isn't it?

It is now when some people have 35+, 45+ allies.

moon goo botting

I think there is merit to that, but that is besides the point.

I am not presenting a wish list. I am addressing a specific implementation of a specific feature.

Forcing a "mano a mano" in wardec robs mercs of business opportunities. That is diminishes fun.

Any real merc wants a fight, even if they lose.

And that is what being lost in the whole meta drama that amuses but its irrelevant to the average dues paying player. Add playing opportunities, not diminish them.

Any real merc would go find fights in low sec or null where they dont have to pay for a dec

how does this work?

Having to pay trillions of isk to get epicness in wars is breaking that. All it promotes is defensive carebearing - sitting in stations why your alts do the work elsewhere. It denies fun to the attacker, and it denies fun to the defender. It makes for a boring game.

linear wardec fee with a cap, but then have a logarithmic merc hiring fee with no cap.



yep

It's not boring for the defender because whilst one character is indeed docked in a station their other character is out mining or running missions or what ever it is that they like to do. You fail to understand that other players have different play styles and what one person calls fun makes another person feel like logging off.

Any real merc would go find fights in low sec or null where they dont have to pay for a dec

A real sandbox wouldn't have a designated "safe" area

check and mate

It will be bad because it limits demand. Its simple economics.

If 10 companies are servicing a client, and cannot offer their services, then 10 companies can prop up to replace them. The companies with better services can charge more, the ones with ****** services less.

Looking through some of your later posts, I don't think we're on opposite sides here. I'm all in favour of the mercenary profession being a viable career, but I just don't think a healthy career option is going to come about via this kind of protectionism. If it does, I think people are not going to value mercenaries. They'll be seen as the group who had so little to offer clients that they couldn't compete with random strangers. I don't see clients wanting to pay mercs much if that's how they'd be viewed.

That's only true if mercenaries have nothing more to offer than what can be supplied by a bunch of random strangers who want in on a wardec. Even simpler economics states that if you have a crap product that can be supplied by anyone, it's going to be a hard sell.

Well, I think selling rights to camp the jita undock and kill wartargets' haulers and such should bring in more than -1 isk (you pay for "help").

You can then use this (1isk cost) "service" to prevent them from undocking in various market hubs, as long as they don't remember to use NPC corp alts or altcorps etc etc.

That is what people don't get. Inferno professionalized war in hisec. And one of the ways it did so is going to be nerfed.

If you wanted to limit alliances, one way to do it is to have the amount of allies affect the ability to permawar.

One on one, can permawar for free. Bring one ally, and a 500 million payment after two weeks resolves the matter. Have two allies, its 400 million. Have 5 and its free.

Professional Market Hub Undock Camper: Elite


Hm, paying CONCORD money to end a war... and if you have more allies you can end it cheaper? So someone adds five random undock camping allies and in two weeks they can end the war for free? Nice...

I agree we are not that far.

However, I do not think that being able to (relatively affordably) summon allies is in any way protectionism. In fact, I showed how to do a decshield even with the "new" new method.

Its about trillions versus billions.

As to the other stuff on quality etc. We agree.

But I think you make a false assumption, specially for a sandbox, which is that the game mechanics should be in the service of the best players.

Then it isn't a sandbox. It is a very hard game that only an elite few can play. It will become very boring and very unpopulated very quickly.

Let the top, elite, mercs, stand out because of word of mouth, actual delivery of services (which is very easy to verify now) etc. The crappy mercs will be crappy, and the good one will be good.

Let me give you another example: Red Frog/Black Frog haulers and freighters.

They charge way over the usual contract rate in the public contract pool for couriers. Yet nearly any industrialist and trader that doesn't self haul, or who needs extra hauling, goes to them at their inflated prices. Why?

Because they deliver a high quality, no bullshit, 99% successful service, even in the depths of war null, and in pirate infected low sec.

Yet, they have zero advantage in terms of the mechanic. They still have to put cynos up. They still have to jump gates, aligning the slowbelisks etc.

So mercs is the same thing.

A mechanic that affects mercs should be available to both crappy wannabes, and the most respected mercs. Or it breaks the sandbox.

But I think you make a false assumption, specially for a sandbox, which is that the game mechanics should be in the service of the best players.

....

Let me give you another example: Red Frog/Black Frog haulers and freighters.

They charge way over the usual contract rate in the public contract pool for couriers. Yet nearly any industrialist and trader that doesn't self haul, or who needs extra hauling, goes to them at their inflated prices. Why?

Because they deliver a high quality, no bullshit, 99% successful service, even in the depths of war null, and in pirate infected low sec.

Yet, they have zero advantage in terms of the mechanic. They still have to put cynos up. They still have to jump gates, aligning the slowbelisks etc.

So mercs is the same thing.

A mechanic that affects mercs should be available to both crappy wannabes, and the most respected mercs. Or it breaks the sandbox.

I agree. I think you may have misunderstood me earlier when I said something along the lines of "mercs need to offer more than the average uncoordinated random stranger", by which I meant people who pile in as allies in a wardec in order to get targets. These people probably won't take on difficult or necessary jobs like taking out a POS in enemy territory or disrupting supply lines in null. You may not even be able to trust them to come to your help when jumped on. The advantage of having them (in the Jade vs Goons example) is that it makes it harder for the enemy to come into Empire space to harass defenders without losses - but they are not really competition for good mercenaries, who would be able to offer a lot more than that.

Eve War Concept:
Rule #1: Non consentual war requires a payment from the party who has the choice (Aggressor)
Rule #2: Non consentual war has no cost for the party who does not have a choice (Defender)
Rule #3: Consentual war has no cost for the aggressor or the defender.

If we add the new rule to it:

Rule #4: Third side are allowed to join a war without cost.

this effectivly disables rule #1 since the third side, having a choice and all, still does not have to pay for the war.
Instead of declaring war, you look what wars your opponent has and simply join it (and pay the Defender to make it mutual for a fraction of the cost of starting your own)

Yea, it is that easy. You are supposed to pay for wars you choose to fight and the ally system was circumventing that fact.
Third side joining should be still covered by Rule #1, you have to pay, perhaps with a 20% discount because otherwise you do not need the system at all.

Sure there is. 20sp put into mining skills that's what.

I love it how pewpewbrears think all their t2 stuff came from thin air...

They don't, they either made it using their alts or bought it from the market.

An ecosystem needs prey and predator. One without the other destroys the ecosystem.

There seems to be enough prey to sustain the predators thus far. If you're not willing to fight back, you can either pay someone else to do it or roll over and take it.

In truth, some people just need to admit that they're masochists and get on with it.

However what does that have to do with the topic?

I love it how pewpewbrears think all their t2 stuff came from thin air...

What does this


have to do with this topic?

We're long past discussing the OP.

Nothing's stopping you from bringing your "allies" into a mutual alliance. Or having your allies pony up the cash and wardec the aggressors themselves. Or any number of methods that involve actual allies, and not just highsec ganker corps who merely want cost-effective workarounds around having to pay a wardec fee themselves (which I imagine is what you actually want).

Someone should make a chart that on the Y axis has all your options for fighting back against nullsec wardecs, and on the X axis the options of "Works if you want to fight back against a nullsec alliance" and "Works if you want a free/low-cost war against a nullsec alliance"

Actually, no. It goes to the core of the drama.

Nullsec people who want highsec to be like nullsec, and vice-versa.

Why the game mechanic gets broken in a way it doesn't mitigate, but encourage, the drama is at the heart of the OP... which was mine...

Can you please phrase your answer in the form of a question? That makes absolutely no sense...

Speaking of the costs as "drama", I find it hilarious that the costs were much lower before this expansion and you couldn't bring in allies. Is it now a problem because you can't scrape the war-dec?

Space-holding alliances should be unprotected by concord, and thus "kill on sight" whenever they enter Empire space.

Cue the null-bear tears

So the problem is not the permadec, its the trillions to bring allies and the disconnect between the linear increase on costs for the attacker and the logarithmic increase in costs for the defender.

I love it how pewpewbrears think all their t2 stuff came from thin air...

So, what does that have to do with this


Besides, costs for the attackers is determined by the number of people in the target corp/alliance, while costs for the defenders is determined by the number of corps/alliances that are brought in as defenders. It's in your best interest to ally with a big corp or two since you get allies much cheaper than attackers get targets.

They all would simply never venture into Empire except in neutral-to-highsec-blue-to-themselves alts.

Problem solved.

Its what FW players already do to be able to go to Jita if they are not caldari.

Those are three axis. Four if you count free and low cost separate.

You're not good at graphing. You do not need a 4-dimensional structure to visualize this.

You're not good at graphing. You do not need a 4-dimensional structure to visualize this.