Making it impossible for Hi Sec industrial and missioning corps to play the part of the game that they enjoy and ultimately turning Hi Sec into another form of Low Sec since it is really cheap to ask concorde to look the other way.

My concern in part 2 destroys the gameplay experience for these "carebears" who actually fill a central role in the overall game. Trading in LP for special mods to sell on the market to people that enjoy PVP'ing. Or mining and producing ships that will later be destroyed in combat. This line of work is becoming way too risky and is being trolled way too often, and it seems that CCP just keeps making it easier to troll these people.

It seems for a 2009 char you know very little.

CCP increased the cost of deccing corps and alliance a lot. Remember when it was 2 mil for your first dec, 4 for your second and 8 mil for you 3rd war.

It is now 50 mil up to 500mil depending on the number of people you have.

Educate yourself before you post something that makes you look like you know nothing.

And as well... Thanks for adding you alliance on my list of wardecs.

I'm concerned that you're not too familiar with the old war dec system. Yes war deccing a single corp use to be cheaper (which I stated) but war deccing alliances was much more expensive. I recommend you do your research my friend.

LOL telling Cannibal Kane to do his research on war decs. That's rich. If Kane says it's X, you can believe it's X.

I'm not saying he's wrong. As a matter of fact he is correct. Perhaps he should just read my original post a little more diligently before attempting to correct me. And he stated nothing on war decc'ing alliances. So again. Maybe don't troll, but instead actually read.

My suggestion, which is really just a base suggestion and is in no way perfect, is to either;

1) make war more costly for the aggressor as this will inspire them to choose targets more selectively (No war is started without a purpose or to just find easy targets, which is the case now in HiSec).

2) allow "carebears" the same right that you allow PVPer's. Since PvP corps can pay concorde a sum of isk every week to look the other way. Why not allow carebears to pay concorde a sum of isk every week to not allow them to be war decc'd.

I know a lot of pvp people will hate the 2nd idea because it'll make it too easy to keep safe in high-sec. To this I argue that it is currently too unsafe. I propose that a mixture of these 2 be instantiated. Increase the cost to war dec someone and continue war decc'ing them in order to make people choose targets more selectively and allow corps to pay a large sum each week to keep from being war decc'd.

I look forward to hearing people's replies and any stemming ideas.
-D

war deccing alliances was much more expensive.

Look at his post again. He most definitely did mention alliances.

That's only fair. I don't like the idea of invulnerable people in HiSec either, but there needs to be a reason or objective behind war. No war is fought just to shed blood of random people.

there needs to be a reason or objective behind war. No war is fought just to shed blood of random people.

2nd is to Katherine Raven. If people want targets to shoot at, grow some balls and move out to low sec or null sec. Don't be pansies about it and only shoot at people that don't want to fight. The war decc'ing system should not be a way to bribe Concorde to look the other way unless there's a way to bribe them to stand up for you. That's only fair. I don't like the idea of invulnerable people in HiSec either, but there needs to be a reason or objective behind war. No war is fought just to shed blood of random people.

I understand what you mean when you say that no war is fought just to shed blood of random people

1) The 'Why won't you just leave me alone?!' types. They do not understand that being 'left alone' in a competitive MMO is nonsense and would make everybody's gameplay pointless - including their own. They basically do not want competition in a competitive MMO . They don't want to actually PLAY a game, they want to 'just relax' (their own words, often).

2) The 'Come at me bro!' types. They take time to learn and understand game mechanics. They have no issue at all in dealing with wardecs, either through 'drop corp' tricks or by good awareness and piloting. They also enjoy EVE competition in non-combat activities and they might sometimes use the wardec system themselves (hiring mercs) to gain an edge over other carebear corps.


IMHO the first category doesn't contribute much to the game (they might as well play on SiSi) while the second one does. So the game certainly shouldn't be made duller for the second type of players (+ all the PVPers) just to make the first category happier.

Actually the first group contributes all those ships and mods we so love to go blow things up with. They they're pretty much the entire reason that the pvp even exists in the first place and we're not all just flying around in pods bumping eachother.

There are a bunch of pretty good examples of entire peoples having their lands invaded and populations exterminated/eaten/enslaved even though it served very little appreciable benefit for the people doing it.

In those cases it tends to be what happened is one group with a predilection for violence and the ability to carry it out becomes aware of another group that has an aversion to violence and no means or even a particular inclination to resist it. The subsequent conflict typically favors the aggressor pretty strongly. A good example is what happened with the Moriori people of the Chatham islands. Tribes are a good lens to look at groups of players in EVE through.

I probably wasn't clear enough. The second group are PVEers/industrialists too. They just don't whine, so arguably they mine, loot, salvage and manufacture much more than the first.

Can't speak for any of those "griefer corps" but my guess is they're mostly looking to do just that, shed blood of random people - on the off chance one undocks their prized mission boat or hauler stuffed with all their belongings.

Everyone goes for softer expensive targets when they get the chance - say you go out low-sec in your assault frig. You get the choice of either engaging that bomber running FW missions, or that criminal Omen Navy on the gate, CLEARLY prepared for what you're about to bring to the table. It's not rocket science - everyone is gonna go for that bomber in hopes of taking down at least 30mil with the only effort being catching the damn thing.

Fair is not an integral part of this game.

On the issue of there needs to be a reason for a war, not according to the devblog when the wardec mechanism was changed:

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/changes-to-war-mechanics

The guidelines even make it clear that wars are a valid career path for merc corps. No reason more than that involved.

1 that is meant to be somewhat safe... "meant to be"

2.) This has gone beyond merc coprs. There's corps out there with 100+ war decs. I guarantee you that they are not "guns for hire" in most of them. Since their targets tend to be smaller insignificant, easy target corps that a larger alliance with money to hire mercs could easily attack on their own. Most actual merc corps get hired to take out much bigger targets.

So I invite you again to come up with another legitimate example of when any people started attacking large numbers of random groups of people for absolutely no reason.

Why are you presuming that highsec wars don't have reasons? There's no thing in the world that a person does that doesn't have a reason behind it. Like I said before, just because you don't know what it is, or you don't think the reason is legitimate it does not cause that reason to not exist.

Real wars happen because the conflict satisfies some kind of need in one or both parties. The need isn't necessarily a material one, it can be ideological or religious in nature, they can happen in reaction to perceived threats that don't exist or to get revenge for something. The same is true in EVE.

The argument that people declare war on highsec PVE corps at random and for no reason is wrong, there's always a reason.

2 points.

1.) if fair is not an integral part of the game, then why do they do so much work on ship balancing? Seems they would just let one races ships stay OP if they didn't care about fairness.

Why are you presuming that highsec wars don't have reasons? There's no thing in the world that a person does that doesn't have a reason behind it. Like I said before, just because you don't know what it is, or you don't think the reason is legitimate it does not cause that reason to not exist.

Real wars happen because the conflict satisfies some kind of need in one or both parties. The need isn't necessarily a material one, it can be ideological or religious in nature, they can happen in reaction to perceived threats that don't exist or to get revenge for something. The same is true in EVE.

The argument that people declare war on highsec PVE corps at random and for no reason is wrong, there's always a reason.

2 points.

1.) if fair is not an integral part of the game, then why do they do so much work on ship balancing? Seems they would just let one races ships stay OP if they didn't care about fairness.

I'm sure you thought that was a pretty cutting point, but really you're just playing semantics with a concept that has a conveniently loose definition that varies wildly by context.

The game is fair on a macro scale in most regards: We're playing by the same overarching rules that govern the game. By logging in and playing the game, you're agreeing to be bound by those rules, and agreeing that other players are bound by the same set of rules, and may do or not do as those rules permit.

On a micro scale, however, the game isn't overly concerned with fairness, and this is a part of those aforementioned overarching rules that govern the game, none of which dictate that this is a game of internet spaceship duels where grievances are settled via Rifters at 30 paces. It's not Bob's problem if Alice wants to sit in high sec and never fight. That's Alice's problem, and while Alice is free to pursue that lifestyle, she's not free to dictate that other players must accommodate her in that pursuit. Those are the rules she agreed to when she logged in. That's "fair".

That's a fair point. But I fear you are only looking at this from one perspective. If it shouldn't be Bob's problem if Alice wants to never fight and Alice shouldn't be able to dictate that to other players... Then why is it currently Alice's problem if Bob wants to sit in high sec and create havoc for as many easy targets as possible. Furthermore, why is Bob allowed to dictate his wants on others and Alice is not?

2 points.

1.) if fair is not an integral part of the game, then why do they do so much work on ship balancing? Seems they would just let one races ships stay OP if they didn't care about fairness.

2.) This has gone beyond merc coprs. There's corps out there with 100+ war decs. I guarantee you that they are not "guns for hire" in most of them. Since their targets tend to be smaller insignificant, easy target corps that a larger alliance with money to hire mercs could easily attack on their own. Most actual merc corps get hired to take out much bigger targets.

My carebear alliance was recently decced.

Corp mining events were cancelled and the most
common reaction to the dec was that members stopped logging in.

When the war was over, many but not all of our members started logging in again.

Yes, there are many different ways to respond to a war dec,
but the stop playing response is quite strong in many players.

I am sure to be informed that those players who stopped playing were not "right" for EVE anyway and therefore no loss to the game.

If mining is one of -or the- main activity of your corp, he should've simply asked all miners to temporarily drop corp and just go right ahead with your mining ops.

It's maybe an inelegant solution but much better than not playing or -worse- permanently losing corp members (assuming, as you seem to imply, that they were excellent EVE players).

My carebear alliance was recently decced.

Corp mining events were cancelled and the most
common reaction to the dec was that members stopped logging in.

When the war was over, many but not all of our members started logging in again.

Yes, there are many different ways to respond to a war dec,
but the stop playing response is quite strong in many players.

I am sure to be informed that those players who stopped playing were not "right" for EVE anyway and therefore no loss to the game.

3) Drop corp* and travel to the system with the mining agent

4) Rejoin corp, and do the agent's missions while watching local.

Actually, for many casuals, not playing for a while is much less of a hassle than losing corp chat, setting up an alternate chat channel

Because at it's core Eve is about PVP, it's not a single player space mining simulator. Giving people a mechanic to avoid PVP for whatever reason, no matter how well meaning will always result in horrendous abuse.
Let's say I gank a mining corp to bear extinction, and they decide to war dec me to get revenge. We'll guess what, I don't want to be under a wardec, I want to gank. Why should they be allowed to dictate how I play? So I use the mechanic you are suggesting and avoid the war. You will not be able to make a mechanic along the lines of what you are describing without a situation like this happening.

Heaps of good advice

The only reason anyone does hisec mining at all is because it's simple, easy, and generally doesn't require you to pay much attention as long as you're not flying obvious gank-bait. Having to take active measures to avoid getting murdered ruins the ISK:Effort ratio and I can't really think of a worse way to make money if you're going to be actively babysitting your ship.

I'm concerned that you're not too familiar with the old war dec system. Yes war deccing a single corp use to be cheaper (which I stated) but war deccing alliances was much more expensive. I recommend you do your research my friend.

If you play EVE as a PvP game anticipating eventual combat... all the problems you mention about "destroyed gameplay" suddenly vanish. Interesting, isn't it?

My only contention is that PvE and PvP requires such drastically different fits. I think CCP should change that - fewer rats with larger tanks and higher individual DPS (but lower overall pocket DPS) that are challenging but are able to be done in a PvP fit. Of course 99% of bears won't use the PvP fit the same way 99% of miners don't fit tank - but the point isn't what players will do, it's about what they have the option to do.

Why should the whole PvE Mechanic be redesigned just because you don't like it and are too lazy/Poor to have seperate ships/fits for them...

You completely missed his point.

The fact that the two styles of flying are so far apart contributes to the ignorance of carebears. If they had to fit for PVP to do PVE they would be more likely to be able to defend themselves when the inevitable happens and PVP finds them whether they want it or not.

indeed the majority of the caldari militia is a prime example of what happens when players who are trained primarily in the pve mechanic attempt to pvp: gallente get free killmails

Why should the whole PvE Mechanic be redesigned just because you don't like it and are too lazy/Poor to have seperate ships/fits for them...

If you drop corp while a war is active you cannot rejoin for 7 days or till that war is over, whichever comes first. So that part of your plan does not work. That being said, you can hop in a shuttle to get to your destination.

When did they start that. I remember people poping in and out of war decs all the time. Admittedly the last dec war I actually tried to fight in was long ago. (Not counting the one that lasted a only week while work was in crunch time.) Generally I just stay in wspace or LS until it's over. That's a good change for the defender because the weirdness of people docking dropping corp, undocking, docking, joining corp and so on was annoying as hell.

...low sec PvP'ers have to deal with sec status loss and going suspect for fighting other PvP'ers...

War decs need to be fixed, not necessarily to *prohibit* PvP, but to give new players a fighting chance.

For instance when you declare war, you are paying Concord to look the other way. This doesn't mean the faction navies should do so. Why not have faction navy NPC's warp to the aid of players who are attacked by war targets in a non-mutual war?

I also find it ridiculous that war dec'ers can kill hundreds of defenceless PvE ships and not lose any sec status, when low sec PvP'ers have to deal with sec status loss and going suspect for fighting other PvP'ers (far less criminal/piratey in my opinion). Why not have war dec'ers go suspect, lose sec status and take gate guns when attacking non-mutual war targets?

These changes would balance the war dec system without prohibiting PvP. Of course, war dec supporters will not be in favour of this because they aren't *really* interested in promoting PvP, just easy PvP that benefits them.

But the type of people who live in LowSec don't care about sec status, generally.

I also find it ridiculous that war dec'ers can kill hundreds of defenceless PvE ships and not lose any sec status,

when low sec PvP'ers have to deal with sec status loss and going suspect for fighting other PvP'ers (far less criminal/piratey in my opinion).

Why not have war dec'ers go suspect, lose sec status and take gate guns when attacking non-mutual war targets?

War decs need to be fixed, not necessarily to *prohibit* PvP, but to give new players a fighting chance.

For instance when you declare war, you are paying Concord to look the other way. This doesn't mean the faction navies should do so. Why not have faction navy NPC's warp to the aid of players who are attacked by war targets in a non-mutual war?

I also find it ridiculous that war dec'ers can kill hundreds of defenceless PvE ships and not lose any sec status, when low sec PvP'ers have to deal with sec status loss and going suspect for fighting other PvP'ers (far less criminal/piratey in my opinion). Why not have war dec'ers go suspect, lose sec status and take gate guns when attacking non-mutual war targets?

These changes would balance the war dec system without prohibiting PvP. Of course, war dec supporters will not be in favour of this because they aren't *really* interested in promoting PvP, just easy PvP that benefits them.

The reason they don't lose sec status is because war targets are legal targets. On that note, why should faction navies intervene when someone is shooting legal targets? You might not be aware of lore, but the four empires are more or less beholden to CONCORD. There's no reason for CCP to make NPCs protect players when the players can protect themselves. CONCORD exists to punish people who aggress illegally. This is necessary otherwise HiSec would become a virtually unlivable environment.

War deccing, for the most part, is fine. There's some minor mechanical issues, but that's about all. There are ways to run logistics during a war. There are ways to mine and mission during a war. There are ways to fight back during a war. But all this depends on player choice and education. If you're not willing to take that step, well... I don't see why anyone should sympathize with you.

Your ideas would reduce grief wars. However they would also kill legitimate rivalry wars. "Hey those guys we don't like war dec'd us, lets NOT make the war mutual so every time they shoot at us they go suspect and we can doggy pile them with friends and allies who are out of corp. We'll be able to kill them one at a time and they won't be able to help each other."

the killing of non-combatants tends to have consequences

It also depends on ISK and SP.

Fair point, but how many non-mutual legitimate rivalry high-sec wars with a parity of forces are there?

Your ideas would reduce grief wars. However they would also kill legitimate rivalry wars. "Hey those guys we don't like war dec'd us, lets NOT make the war mutual so every time they shoot at us they go suspect and we can doggy pile them with friends and allies who are out of corp. We'll be able to kill them one at a time and they won't be able to help each other."

That is a terrible idea.

I agree the grief wars would end which would be the biggest improvement to war decs possible.

I agree the grief wars would end which would be the biggest improvement to war decs possible. As far as your issue with people not making a war Dec mutual. If there's actual a territorial dispute chances are both sides will be wanting to push the other out. You can easily fix your issue with adding a mechanic that allows you to purpose a mutual war to your opponent. If they agree then and only then does that war begin

"Grief wars" are an imaginary thing made up by carebears to make it sound like war decs against them are somehow illegitimate or rulebreaking.

Like all imaginary "problems", there's no need to address them at a mechanical level. They can be addressed at the HTFU level.

Complete tautological reasoning. What is legal and illegal is a matter of game design. I am quite aware that war targets are "legal" as defined by current game mechanics. What I mean is that in most sandbox games, the killing of non-combatants tends to have consequences e.g. stars in GTA, bounties in Elder Scrolls, etc. I assume the equivalent in Eve is sec status.

It also depends on ISK and SP. Don't get me wrong, after playing for a year and a half, I have the ISK and PvP experience to thrive in a high sec war. New players who have to PvE in high sec to make ISK and are getting griefed by t3 fleets don't have many options.

Yeah, sucking rocks for 6mil an hour is definitely worth having to remain vigilantly at the keyboard and making industrialist corps reform because someone paid 50 mil to shoot at them is fantastic game design.

If someone chooses to suck rocks for 6 mil an hour, it doesn't magically make war deccing them an act of "griefing".

If you don't want to fight then why would you ever agree? In which case would the war just not happen or would we be back at the previous terrible setup? In any war the aggressor has something he wants to take / smash from the defender, and the defender would really rather keep it intact. So why would he make the war mutual if NOT doing so gives him an advantage? Good attempt to fix it, but I still don't see it working.

BTW, I'm not really happy with how war mechanics work right now, but I'm not taking a liking to anything you've proposed so far.

Bring in NPC's?

Are you another one of those... " I don't have enough friends and need help from AI" type of people.

Basicaly you then want to force people to PVE. Something I have never done in this game.

But the people in the defender corp can still leave corp if they want nothing to do with the war and continue with their missions and mining.

You cannot pidgon hold one group while another group is still able to completely ignore the war if they chose to. Your trying to fix a people issue with mechanics which will never work. We all know wars have their issues but unless CCP finds a way to make both sides happy it is going to stay 1-dimensional and left to the players to resolve conflict under themselves. Which is the preferred way.

In addition to what Kane has already said, you would inevitably end up with a merc alliance out tree with excellent faction standing that would now get help from faction police when steamrolling smaller corps. Congrats, you just made the problem you identified worse. Now you'd have players getting killed on gates by NPC's then wondering why cops are shooting them.

I'm just saying it'd be an interesting addition to the mechanic.

Everyone thinks their proposed changes would be an interesting change to the game, regardless of how stupid or pointless the proposal actually is.

Oh and in reply to the bear above me who is talking about war decs hurting noob friendly corps. The last thing a noob needs is to group up with people who can't take care of themselves.

What is broken about it is it is entirely too easy and cost free to dodge a war dec.

1. Just drop corp and hide out in an NPC corp till the dec ends.

2. Have a pre setup corp or two then have all members join that corp till the dec ends.

Not difficult for carebears to dodge war decs nor does it cost them anything. They should either have to pay or carry the war dec with them.
The ease at which war decs are dodged is what breaks the system.

What is broken about it is it is entirely too easy and cost free to dodge a war dec.

1. Just drop corp and hide out in an NPC corp till the dec ends.

2. Have a pre setup corp or two then have all members join that corp till the dec ends.

Not difficult for carebears to dodge war decs nor does it cost them anything. They should either have to pay or carry the war dec with them.
The ease at which war decs are dodged is what breaks the system.

My carebear alliance was recently decced.

Corp mining events were cancelled and the most
common reaction to the dec was that members stopped logging in.

When the war was over, many but not all of our members started logging in again.

Yes, there are many different ways to respond to a war dec,
but the stop playing response is quite strong in many players.

I am sure to be informed that those players who stopped playing were not "right" for EVE anyway and therefore no loss to the game.