Astria Tiphareth
Caldari
24th Imperial Crusade
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Posted - 2008.08.04 08:24:00 -
[1]
I have a lot of sympathy for the OP. It's frustrating when people abuse the game mechanics to give themselves an advantage. Yet it is often the case that there will be those that argue along the lines of 'adapt or die; learn to play; until CCP says it's not allowed, it is allowed' and so on. Personally I don't agree with them, I think game balance is important, but it's worth at least recognising their point of view; that in essence whatever mechanics you put in place, some people will find a way to work around them.
I think the key aspect in your post is 'anyone that has any pride'. Those that fight with honour, pride, a notion of 'good fight' and are out to have fun, do that. Those that seek to win by any means, are obsessed with killboards, and will find any way they can to achieve their goals, will do that. The irony is that some will laud those people for out-of-box thinking, and others will complain that they lack <insert-appropriate-value, e.g. honour>. It's all a matter of standpoint & point of view.
Why am I writing all this? To get a good balance that works for everyone, you first have to try and understand where everyone is coming from. Some will play by the rules, some will seek to always bend or break the rules, and some will just see what they can do to annoy or take advantage of other people.
Changing corp mechanics has to be done with care. For example, it's been proposed before now that once wardecced, people can't leave a corp; this has a huge exploit in the form of trapping people in a corp. A timer to change corps doesn't seem that bad, but is still open to abuse - indeed we used to have one if memory serves.
I'd work it something like this:
To change from player to NPC corp: Instant.
To change from player to player corp: 24 hours.
To change from NPC to player corp: 48 hours.
Thus, in the general case, those wishing to avoid wardecs legitimately (i.e. they have no interest in fighting) can go straight to NPC corps. Those wishing to corp-hop are delayed, and those that switch to NPC corps to avoid a fight cannot rejoin the fight and are penalised for the instant leaving advantage. After all, the way I see it, if you don't want to fight, you might as well be able to get straight out. If you do want to fight, you should be required to do so on a reasonably level playing field in terms of underlying mechanics.
It's still open to abuse, but it does at least enable those interested in combat to try and keep things vaguely sane in this world of meta-gaming, alts, neutrals.
I do have a question for the OP: Why not simply wardec the sister corp as well, or was it an NPC corp?
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My views may not represent those of my corporation or alliance, which is why I never get invited to those diplomatic parties... |