Very few players would argue that wardecs are fine as they are now, but until now, CCP has always been reluctant to change the system. The main issue is that it's hilariously biased in favour of the aggressor, who can prepare for the war and will always pick weak or industrial targets.

The defender gets just 24 hours' notice to get a plan together and warn its members of the threat and typically won't be in a position to fight back.

The new mercenary system will help even the odds, but it won't be that useful if the attacking corp can weasel its way out of the war by not paying the bill.

Comments???

Another major problem is that a small corp of alts can declare war on a legitimate corporation, and there's nothing the defender can do about it. As long as the war fee is paid each week, a handful of alts can disrupt a corporation or even a major alliance like

The article and it's ideas for Wardecs are terrible.

The worst part is the structure idea, making you have to defend a static location gives all the power to blobs and is yet another blow to small gangs and guerrilla warfare.

Very few players would argue that wardecs are fine as they are now, but until now, CCP has always been reluctant to change the system. The main issue is that it's hilariously biased in favour of the aggressor, who can prepare for the war and will always pick weak or industrial targets.

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That is plainly wrong. With legal decshields any corp can shake off any war at any given time. It's currently simply not possible to take down a POS in highsec that is filled up with stront.

The defender gets just 24 hours' notice to get a plan together and warn its members of the threat and typically won't be in a position to fight back.

---

Any CEO has to have a plan what happens at war time before he presses the button to create the corp. If he starts to prepare for war when CONCORD sends a mail it's to late and that CEO should be driven out of business.

The new mercenary system will help even the odds, but it won't be that useful if the attacking corp can weasel its way out of the war by not paying the bill.

---

There is no reason why one can't declare a counter war when the wardec mail hits the inbox. That's even possible right now.

First off, I can see that this guy is a total carebear. Also, most of that article is complete rubbish and I can't help but notice total bias.

To start, I notice that he focuses on the attacking corps being able to 'weasel' their way out of a war should things go south, like not re-upping the war. 1) I would think this is good news for the corp that got wardec'd. I am pretty sure that in many cases they really don't want the fight but if they can scare off the dog then great. 2) I can't help but notice that the narrator conveniently left out Dec-shields but focuses on the dec'd corps being so helpless. A corp is only as helpless as they let themselves be. 3) He talks about Merc's not really being a boon as the wardec corp again can just weasel out of the situation. Again, I point to #1. Isn't this the goal, to get the monkey of your back?

Second, I find his comment about pvp corps being shell corps loaded with alts and how they will always pick weak or industrial targets to be complete bull. I am not an alt. My corp is not a shell corp. And we do not strictly go after weak targets. And I know my corp is not the only corp that works to these standards. In fact back when I was in Warsmith's we would regularly be hired as mercs to go after other grief corps. Simply put the Narrator is factually wrong here.

The above also coincides with point three, that these small shell corps have 0 risk when attacking larger corps. Again, a corp is only as helpless as it allows itself to be. If they decide to dock up and do nothing then that is their choice, just let it be known that there are tons of other options out there. And as I said, we are not always risk free. We may know how to fit a ship better than some corps and know how to use them, but numbers are still numbers, and if the larger corp that we're attacking suddenly decides to fight in numbers, there is very little we can do.

Another major problem is that a small corp of alts can declare war on a legitimate corporation, and there's nothing the defender can do about it.

Quite a terri-bad article.

Want attackers to commit to a war? Simple:

Declaring a war mutual by the defender, makes it impossible by the attacker to end the war, unless by formal surrender.

That, in combination with CCP's idea for a 'deserters' mark for people leaving a wardecced corp and the ease and lack of cost for adding allies, should fix the whole problem quite nicely. Don't forget that most wardeccers are e-peen warriors and such a mark would likely be a bigger blemish then a negative kill-board ratio.

Putting things like 'victory conditions' into a mechanic is simply asking for abuse and exploits. War objectives are something that resides squarely in the realm of meta-gaming and should never become some arbitrary 'objective'.

The only problem I see now with the upcoming wardec system is that it makes it almost too expensive to go after big alliances, and does very little to protect the smaller corporations.

Instead, divide the corporations and alliances in size-brackets with fixed war-fees for each bracket and cost-modifiers penalizing declaration of wars on a corporation outside your own size bracket.

The main issue is that it's hilariously biased in favour of the aggressor, who can prepare for the war and will always pick weak or industrial targets.

What reason does anyone have to do this? One can already fight back or just not undock and that will not change. Unless you are bringing other into the fight making it mutual doesn't provide any differences, and if you are bringing backup, that is exactly what mercenary corps are doing. So what are you getting at?

*snip* The other is that it reduces the viability of revenge by requiring mutuality to be declared within the first 24h.
*snip*

Is his sollution is a wired tournament mechanic? Or am I wrong?

wait... wat?

Are you saying that the new dec mechanic requires your opponent to AGREE to the war?

I really hope that's not true...

No. He is talking about the ability to make a war mutual, which is already part of the wardec system.

thats stupid though..
you : i declare war on derp
me: k
you: i killed your structure i win
me: k

I am getting at that the author is wrong assuming that an attacker can "weasel" out of a war by simply dropping the war.

You seam, as much as the author, not to know the purpose of wardecs. Players compete about recources, Corps compete about players and alliances compete about corps. The wardec system is meant to provide means to enforce that competition in highsec. An individual pilot is free to rebuilt after his former corp is driven out of business by dropping back into a NPC corp. Quite in contrast for a corp that should vanish when driven out of business. That's why co-operations are called that way. To refer to the cut-throat-competition that is described in great detail in the back story.

It's even in the name of the game: Everyone vs. Everyone.

Quite sad to see so many players that don't know the basics.

wardecs aren't for war right now which is the actual problem.

wait... wat?

Are you saying that the new dec mechanic requires your opponent to AGREE to the war?

I really hope that's not true...

wait... wat?

Are you saying that the new dec mechanic requires your opponent to AGREE to the war?

I really hope that's not true...

No, no, no, nothing that awful GÇö just something that's a bit silly. They're changing how you declare a war mutual (at least as of the last time it was mentioned). Right now, you can do it at any time, just to hammer the point home that the attacker picked the wrong target and now you're out for bloody vengeance. They've said that this will change so that you can only declare a war mutual during the first 24-hour wind-up period before the war actually goes active.

Most likely, this is due to the defender's ability to bring allies into the war, and they probably thought that it would be awfully mean if the defender could enlist half the galaxy and then, at the very last second and with all that backing secured, ensure that the original attacker cannot get out of it. This somewhat ties into Nyphur's complaint about corps GÇ£weaselingGÇ¥ out of their own failed wardecs.

However, since we are now being given a more fully-featured surrender mechanic, I simply don't see why we shouldn't be allowed to get revenge that way. Yes, they picked the wrong target, and yes, it turned out every corp north of HED-GP is now out to get themGǪ so what? Tough luck GÇö time to bite the bullet. Slink over to the defender's office, get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. That sounds more like the way it should work.

What do you think real wars are like?

I'm genuinely curious.

No, he's saying that the defender can trap an attacker in to a war by making it mutual. This will stop the attacker dropping out of the war unless they explicitly surrender, rather than just being able to let the wardec lapse.

The problem is that the defending corp must make that mutual decision within the first 24 hour notification period, before the war has actually started

Dec-shields under the proposed changes are going away. Assuming this article is a response to that, the omission is entirely relevant.

Calling him factually wrong would be like stating it never happens. If no one had alts then perhaps this could be considered valid, but the idea that no one has ever thought of having their means to continue business as usual in a different corp from the one they are using to declare war for whatever reason is laughable.

This again goes back to target selection. Knowing your opponents numbers and activity provides an invaluable potential resource for an attacker who also has the initiative. It allows you to ensure you have all reasonable advantages. Why would someone who is trying to accomplish anything other than getting blown up want to undock to that?

this is dumb because there will be
ITS A TARP
corps that look juicy, get decced, declare mutual then just play on alts for the rest of their lives.

This is how the real world works. It's generally considered unwise to inform the person you're going to attack ahead of time, because they'll prepare. See: 'surprise attack', or the politically correct term 'pre-emptive strike'. If you want to have any chance for peace in hostile political climates you have to prepare for war.

Some other good points, though.

I'd say you are missing some fundamental parts of everyone vs everyone yourself. Simple things like knowing your targets, depriving them of what they want, and getting what you want all at the same time. An example involving wardecs:

I get a wardec. I look up my opponent. I see characters significantly older than mine who are very PvP active. My chances of doing serious damage with my character/players skills and numbers available are slim.

I have alts, those alts are spread out amongst different corps or some in NPC. Even without corp hopping I have an easy means to bypass your interference to a reasonable degree.

If I fight, I lose ships and productivity, if I don't you paid for nothing and I continue close to normal operations and I've effectively won.

Sounds like the price you risk paying for having poor judgement as a CEO. Either deal with these alts that never log in, or dissolve your corp and start over having learned a valuable lesson about thinking before you act.

Sounds like the price you risk paying for having poor judgement as a CEO. Either deal with these alts that never log in, or dissolve your corp and start over having learned a valuable lesson about thinking before you act.

this is dumb because there will be
ITS A TARP
corps that look juicy, get decced, declare mutual then just play on alts for the rest of their lives.

And what about "one little problem" that attackers are in 99% alts in alt corp that don't need to play at all on that alts to play EVE and defenders don't have that privilege so they actually cant play at all???

This is doubly the case, given that war history will be available for every corp under the new system

And what about "one little problem" that attackers are in 99% alts in alt corp that don't need to play at all on that alts to play EVE and defenders don't have that privilege so they actually cant play at all???

The ideal war system would be one that forces the attackers to commit and has clear victory conditions. It should make small corps engaging large entities riskier and encourage people to fight a war rather than dock up for a week. To start a war, the attacker should have to place the war fee into a war command structure that would be in space, orbiting a planet, or at a starbase. If the defending corp destroys this structure, it would collect the war fee as a prize, and the war would end. This way a larger corp that costs a lot more to wardec would have more incentive to fight, and small alt corps wouldn't be able to reasonably pursue a war against large alliances.

Dec-shields under the proposed changes are going away. Assuming this article is a response to that, the omission is entirely relevant.

---

Nothing is stopping a player from corp hopping into an alt corp. There is more than one form of dec-shield out there.

Calling him factually wrong would be like stating it never happens. If no one had alts then perhaps this could be considered valid, but the idea that no one has ever thought of having their means to continue business as usual in a different corp from the one they are using to declare war for whatever reason is laughable.

---

No it is not like saying it never happens. I know there shell corps out there, you know that there are shell corps out there. But he is stating that we are all alt corps and we only pick on weak players and industrials. That is factually wrong. We are the big bad boogy to many carebear corps and they commonly tell campfire stories about us to each other. How would a corp know what the other corp does once their own war has ended.

This again goes back to target selection. Knowing your opponents numbers and activity provides an invaluable potential resource for an attacker who also has the initiative. It allows you to ensure you have all reasonable advantages. Why would someone who is trying to accomplish anything other than getting blown up want to undock to that?

---

I've said it twice and I'll say it again, a corp is only as weak as they allow themselves to be. You don't want to do your homework on the people who are attacking you, fine. You don't want to seek help in removing the problem, fine. You don't want to learn how to fight, fine. You have the tools, if you choose not to use them then don't look to blame anyone but yourself.

The article does make a good central point. War decs lack meaning. Having something to fight over would be a good thing. War just for the sake of war is lame.

I get a wardec. I look up my opponent. I see characters significantly older than mine who are very PvP active. My chances of doing serious damage with my character/players skills and numbers available are slim.

a handful of alts can disrupt a corporation or even a major alliance like EVE University.

The new fee calculation makes it more expensive to target larger organisations like EVE Uni

To start a war, the attacker should have to place the war fee into a war command structure that would be in space, orbiting a planet, or at a starbase.

Dec-shields under the proposed changes are going away. Assuming this article is a response to that, the omission is entirely relevant.

Just one problem: dec shields are not going away. Under the proposed system, it becomes the default mechanic. Most larger alliances will automatically be decshielded through their sheer numbers GÇö the thing that should already give them a whole lot of protection. They don't need the mechanics to inherently provide a dec shield on top of that numerical protection.

Most <> All. I'm not even arguing that "most" is an entirely accurate word in this case. But dismissing the argument and saying it's factually wrong is like stating it isn't reasonably prevalent or worth considering.

The main issue is that it's hilariously biased in favour of the aggressor, who can prepare for the war and will always pick weak or industrial targets.

As most empire wardecs are initiated by small shell corps full of PvP alts, the attacking players won't mind logging out for a few days if the war backfires.

Knowing you are up against a superior force doesn't suddenly put you on equal terms. Shelling out isk for defense doesn't guarantee success, and it certainly doesn't mean you can go around acting as normal with no issues. Fighting back doesn't guarantee a favorable outcome. There is no such thing as winning simply by disallowing weakness.

And very specially, in the real world, most people who lose a war once can't wage war never again. War it's game over if you lose, and this is the bloody reason of all the above.

Just one problem: dec shields are not going away. Under the proposed system, it becomes the default mechanic. Most larger alliances will automatically be decshielded through their sheer numbers GÇö the thing that should already give them a whole lot of protection. They don't need the mechanics to inherently provide a dec shield on top of that numerical protection.

Here is an example of how the Current Wardeck system was broken & I see no fixes in the next one..
Dailty Corp hopping:
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Sebiestor Tribe [S] from 2012.

Here is an example of how the Current Wardeck system was broken & I see no fixes in the next one..
Dailty Corp hopping:
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I think this was designed as a "throttle" mechanic. CCP is probably going to adjust the cost/member based on how much the mechanic is used. If nobody is at war I bet it gets pretty cheap. That would be my guess anyway. Personally, as one who intends to start wars for profit, what it's worth to dec a corp in terms of isk/member depends entirely on who they are and what they do. My targets will be worth it (unless they totally kick my *** which is a real probability). If it's some nub training corp it wouldn't be worth it to attack from a profit standpoint... so maybe that is all as is intended.

Yea... this is a big problem, too.

Accepting new members if you are an aggressor should not be allowed at all.

On the other side, if you ditch from a corp in a war (or Alliance) you should have some sort of "stain" on your record.

Character age is another misconception among players. He can never have more than 5 points in any one skill just like you. Having said that, if a ship set up requires 12 million points to fly then it requires 12 million points. Having points in lasers will not help your blaster boat. Having points in negotiation will not help your armor one bit. A character having more points does not make him automatically better.

Yea, alts care about "stains"

It will be designed as a foolish mechanicGǪ

The problem isn't the cost GÇö it's the equation. People will be using the **** out of the mechanic because it's so easy to go after a squishy target. The only way they can throttle it is to either make wars free (so even Goons can be wardecced) or to make it so hideously expensive that not even Sunshine and Lollipops can be decced. Anywhere inbetween, and there will be tons of wars, so by any such metric, it will be a success.

The problem is that the wars will not matter. Anyone who's a worth-while target will decshield themselves up the wazoo; anyone who isn't won't. Your particular brand of wars will be completely obsolete because no target will ever be worth it (unless you are thinking about taking up POS-cleaning for a low commissionGǪ and even then, it's doubtful). For the whole thing to work for you, the price will have to come down so low that wars might as well be completely free, otherwise the valuable target will just hide behind a massive decshield pay-wall.

The current suggestion also rather removes the point of having the ally/merc system: a target that's small enough not to bankrupt you from the wardec fee alone will not be in a position to pay mercs to defend it. Should you bite the bullet and go after an worth-while target, they will be able to pay enough to ensure your defeat every time. The only counter is for you to be massively larger than any target you go after, which only further reinforces the first problem.

The whole pay-per-target idea is flawed to its very core from the start, and that flaw spreads to ruin pretty much all the other changes they're thinking of by making them pointless, and the tragedy of it is that one of the key design goals of the whole thing was to remove things like decshielding and obvious griefdecs. Instead, they're reinforcing both.

Things...

The empire wardeccers are the predators killing off both the sickly and the obese, before they infect to many newborns.

That's not war, that's stealing purses from old ladies and lollipops from babies. This moral argument of weeding out the weak is a just an attempt to justify greifing carebears.

If one wants to help "weakling" newbies, go recruit some instead of trying to justify teaching them a lesson with the big epeen gun.

War in Eve should be fun, not dreaded. Creating clear goals for both sides will help in this regard.

Wardecs in the current system are crap and corps join dec shield anyway, so no reason to talk about it.

Future system will also be crap because it fails to address multiple important game design points:

1) Does not address the fact that people will do the impossible to avoid it (they'll join huge fake alliances and whatever).

This is an EvE failure. I play other PvP MMOs and in there people WANT to fight, in EvE they don't. Therefore there are elements in the gameplay that discourage new and old people both to leave high sec AND to fight back anyway.

I have my own ideas about which those elements are but I can't be arsed listing them.

2) Does not address AT ALL the simple fact that even a "legit non griefing wardec" is still stupid.

If a competitor wardecs me to disrupt my business, I am GLAD to hire mercs to fight back but...

... it's useless!

Why? Because in ANY WAY, whatever the amount I pay, whoever I hire, the attackers WILL disrupt my business. So it's just pointless to pay the mercs as the mercs can't let my business not be disrupted.

If I have an industrial corp, the attackers WILL be able to fly disco battleships with neutral alts and then they WILL be able to warp to the mining ships and pop them all. So why should I pay mercs again?

If I have a POS, I know no famous / trusted mercs accepting hi sec POS defense contracts (they tell it's way too boring). So I'd have to hire poor sods accepting the menial task, with high chance they get run over and then I lose the POS anyway.

If I have heavy logistics, I'd have to pay zillions to a big merc corp to escort soft targets 23/7, else I have to stop the logistics and be disrupted.

So, what do I hire the mercs for? To make their wallet happy? Because I have to see anybody being able to prove me that the ONLY reason to hire mercs (to avoid disruption) will succeed.

Defense in this game is retardedly weak and is designed in every feature (from loltank Mackinaws to general mechanics).
This is one of the reasons of point 1 why EvE wardecs fail. The targets already know they were picked because the attackers were SURE they could not retaliate.

After all, everybody know that PvP attacks are often decided before the first shot happens and that people attack only when they are sure to win with all the chances stacked in their favor.

Wardecs are no different, as long it's so easy to have all the chances stacked in aggressor's favor EvE wardecs will always fail as mechanic.

1) Does not address the fact that people will do the impossible to avoid it (they'll join huge fake alliances and whatever).

Pretty sure i heard CCP mention that if you corp hop from a decced corp you will still remain a war target until the war is over.

Might have misheard them, though.

Jesus. Everyone thinks they have the right to a corp.

The merc corp wouldn't be hired to keep you safe.

You need to keep yourself safe in a wartime situation, so maybe you need some of your people to escort your weak members around.

VETO or the like was working for you, you better believe it's going to have an effect on your enemy.

If you have a corp, there are benefits. There should also be risks.

It's also pretty bizarre that no matter how militarily powerful a corporation or alliance is, it can't physically win a war declared against it. There is simply no system in place to let the defender win the war. The sad reality is that this means the optimum strategy for beating a wardec is currently to stay docked and wait until the attackers get bored and stop paying the war fee. Even a massive alliance like EVE University asks its members to practice target denial during a war because fights are exactly what the attacker wants, and no matter how many fights you win, there's no way to actually win the war.

While I'm excited for the possibilities of a wardec revamp, I got the distinct impression from the Fanfest stream that CCP doesn't understand how wars are actually used in the game. It's currently a pay-to-grief system that actively discourages conflict, a system in which the defender's job is to avoid fights and bore the attacker into submission. Wardecs allow a handful of PvP alts to pay some ISK and shut down a large corporation's highsec operations for a week at no risk to itself. That's not fun, and it can't be good for EVE that the best course of action during a war is to log off and play another game for the duration.

Being in a corp in EvE is not a privilege, a right. It's a WoW-alike canned non sandbox mechanic to force you into it and people hate it.

I forsee the argument
"its a mmo"

And this is another failure. 90% of people would not want to have a corp at all, they are forced into making them. The day 1 pilot who just bought his small ammo BPO just sees 40 days research queue everywhere even in most of low sec. So they plan to get a POS for some basic stuff and guess what, that's standings to grind forever, must pay an office and must have a corp. Being in a corp in EvE is not a privilege, a right. It's a WoW-alike canned non sandbox mechanic to force you into it and people hate it.

Then it's useless. I may as well do it by myself. So what are mercs in the new mechanic for again? In RL you hire mercs to guard your workers or assets and the huge majority of the time, the workers are succesfully protected and the activity can go on. That's why RL entities keep hiring RL mercs, not because mercs look fluffy. RL entities DEMAND results for their money. If the SAME result cannot be achieved in EvE then mercs are useless, end of.

Little issue: PvP capable people want to PvP (duh!). Guess what happens when you get 10 PvPers in the corp and the corp does not get a wardec for 6 months.... they leave. So mercs / PvP corps are the "on demand" guys to pick.

Let's see how the nameless hi sec corp can pay VETO or Noir. Oh wait with the new mechanic those able to afford the big names will be those so large that just the wardec fee will make them unattackable anyway.
Also, there are how many of such merc corps? All the others are nowhere close as effective.

If there were enough benefits, people would not keep disbanding them, no? Also, what's the risk on the aggressing corp for being a corp? They too insta-disband / hop away at the first sign of trouble. Where's their drawback again?

Nobody will fly a mining ship, hauler, freighter, or expensive mission-running ship while a war is in progress,

After reading more of this thread i've become convinced all the griefers need is better propaganda to convince the public that the killing of the innocent and defenseless is justified.

Maybe start making baseless claims that small hisec industry corps are connected to corps that are actual threats?

Pretty sure i heard CCP mention that if you corp hop from a decced corp you will still remain a war target until the war is over.

Might have misheard them, though.

oh? You have something to say... an analog to RL? In RL if you hire mercs you are doing so to kill the hell out of your enemies. Armies and "public" security usually handles garrison security jobs (in other words entities hiring mercs are capable of defending themselves, they use mercs for more dangerous jobs like attacking).

Again, this isn't minecraft. If someone wants something you have you can't just stomp your foot and pout like a little kid. Well... I suppose you could but a lot of good it will do you.

You are terrible at PVP and so is your whole corp. The reason for this is that you are a very focused industrial corp. BUT.... you are so bad at industry that you don't have any ISK either?! ROFL! Man you are just bad at EvE. It sounds likeyou don't do anything well and on the basis of that you intend to raise an empire. Good luck with that... hahaha! For the record though watch how many small yet very good merc corps pop up now that there's a viable mechanic to support them. I know a lot of guys who have been waiting for it.

The agressing corp can be deced just like your corp can. They are just at much at risk... just because they don't feed your feeble corp members easy kills and ships doesn't mean they are taking any less of a risk.

Ahh, that's a good angle.

Maybe start calling anyone who starts a corp an insurgent?

Read the article. The author's clearly a delusional carebear who didn't put up a single good idea.

I think you're missing my point.

I'm attempting to show how screwed up real wars are, and the idea of any war having a clear goal or noble purpose is something propaganda usually creates.

There isn't any difference between what your average pirate or griefer corp does in this game and what actually happens in real wars. The only difference is in real life they often have to convince the public everything was justified. In EVE they just go ahead and do it, which makes people demonize them for attacking innocents. If they want to lose that negative stigma, they should adopt the same propaganda methods used in real life to disguise evil deeds, and we wouldn't be having these discussions about poor little defenseless hisec corps being wardecced.

Those small hisec corps are mighty wicked, and they're only pretending to be weak. It's a trick! They have ties to a giant threat, but i left the proof in my other pants. We can't waste time with all this evidence gathering, we must attack now!

Even though they already do, frequently.

Just sayin.

After reading more of this thread i've become convinced all the griefers need is better propaganda to convince the public that the killing of the innocent and defenseless is justified.

Maybe start making baseless claims that small hisec industry corps are connected to corps that are actual threats?

Removal of a POS was an example you gave before. That's a resource you're either just denying someone else to weaken them or you plan to put your own POS there. There is no land in this game obviously, but places to put a POS are in high demand for some hisec systems

Intolerance and pettiness has fueled many, many, wars in real life. Lots have even been sparked over smacktalk, much like they are in this game. The idea all wars are justified and fair is propaganda. You routinely see extremely powerful militaries invading weaker and unprepared countries with little or no justification given. And there's always benefits to war for the victor, and the people supplying armaments.

It's bizarre to find myself on this side of the 'greifers' here for once , but i'm only doing so because much of real war actually is greifing. Go check out liveleak for awhile if you don't believe me. If you want to make an argument that war in EVE should be more fair than real wars i'd have no problem with that, but lets not have any illusions about the fairness of real war, please.

Darn trolls, stay under bridges.

Also, I love derailed threads,

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you all argue like Tippia

To start a war, the attacker should have to place the war fee into a war command structure that would be in space, orbiting a planet, or at a starbase. If the defending corp destroys this structure, it would collect the war fee

What happens if all the members of the defending corp decide to bail out of their corp leaving an inactive CEO as the only member? Can the attackers destroy their own war structure and collect thier isk back or do they just sit at their POS/Planet glumly looking at thier defunct war structure?

The problem with adding victory conditions to wars is that this assums both sides want to fight.

Part of the idea is to give defenders a reason to fight. If fighting had a tangible benefit, such as ending the war sooner, or forcing it to end if the attackers aren't committed to fighting. In my opinion a tangible war goal would be a good thing, but what it would have to be i don't know. And as many have pointed out the static structure idea has it's glaring flaws.

you all argue like Tippia

Give the defenders a way to win

Even though they already do, frequently.

Just sayin.

First when a war is declared there is no timer it happens right then right now.

So when a freighter pilot is nearing Jita a corp can declaire war against thier corp and attack straight away? Are you a Goon alt?

Yea, alts care about "stains"

I think CCP should let us wardeck NPC corps.

who's with me?

I don't have a solution for a better system, but I trust CCP that they will make a good system.

Frankly, the small-med carebear corps that infest hisec need to be weeded out since they're the ones that burn out new players. I've seen quite a few of these "indi" corps where the older players abandoned their newer members like rotting carcases to the vultures, instead of teaching and leading them against the wardecers.

Your numbers fail to impress. You seem weak.

Can't dec-shield like that with the new mechanic. Not as easily anyway. Read... something. If they all jumped ship though, that kind of contradicts your argument about mercenaries being worthless... just like your "durka 3 digit billions" (the judges would have also accepted "hundreds of billions") contradicts what you said about not being able to afford a merc corp. sounds like you are super rich and super bada** at PvP you should dec NC.

No. I'm going to share my laughter. At you.

Nonsense about alts

It's also pretty bizarre that no matter how militarily powerful a corporation or alliance is, it can't physically win a war declared against it

Lets have a look at just one paragraph of that article.



That is plainly wrong. With legal decshields any corp can shake off any war at any given time. It's currently simply not possible to take down a POS in highsec that is filled up with stront.



Any CEO has to have a plan what happens at war time before he presses the button to create the corp. If he starts to prepare for war when CONCORD sends a mail it's to late and that CEO should be driven out of business.



There is no reason why one can't declare a counter war when the wardec mail hits the inbox. That's even possible right now.

That's just one paragraph in that article. Pretty much anything he writes is either plain wrong or an assumption. In can only hope that the author has never played EVE Online.

The article has good points. One has to admit that the War Dec system is really just a griefer enabler. CCP originally wanted a PvE zone and a PvP zone. Then they decided to create a PvP/griefer tatic in the PvE zone, and now they realize their mistake and can't figure out a way to fix it.

yk

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

Your knowledge of EVE history and design is about as good(bad) as they article's author knowledge about wardecs.

Wars will never be "fair", because wars aren't declared for fair fights, they're declared because the aggressor thinks they can win or have something to gain.

How about a collateral system for the aggressor so that they have something to loose.

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

The article has good points. One has to admit that the War Dec system is really just a griefer enabler. CCP originally wanted a PvE zone and a PvP zone. Then they decided to create a PvP/griefer tatic in the PvE zone, and now they realize their mistake and can't figure out a way to fix it.

yk

You could always, you know, declare the war mutual. Then ransom the aggressor to end the war, or force them to disband their corporation.

If the aggressors lose and they have to disband the corp they have to pay all of 1.6M to re-create a new one. It's not a massive amount...

Is this a loss? Are you going to ransom them all of 1.6M (beyond that, they just re-create the corp)?

In the mean time, did they manage to disrupt your 300M a day operation? Yes. See where the tiny asymmetry is?

CCP originally wanted a PvE zone and a PvP zone.

You could always, you know, declare the war mutual. Then ransom the aggressor to end the war, or force them to disband their corporation.

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

And you just forced them to end the dec, scrub their current kill board history and begin yet another brand new corporation. That kind of reputation tends to follow people around, and it's not unknown for corps to fall apart due to war decs and being forced to disband and reform.

Lol, 300m a day operation.

It seems to be a game for griefers.

If I was an industrialist and the corp was war deced, I'd simply just close my account and move on.

If that is what CCP wants out of this game, then it's there wallet. They can keep the greifers they cater to.

A small indy corp won't pull much more than that. It's why attackers ask for 500M to 2B ransoms and not 2 trillions.

It is there you should stay. The fact is anyone can have a corp right now and that makes it meaningless. When there is no risk and everything is put in term of "grind" the game looses all value. Why not build an empire in Maya or some 3D modeling software rather than play eve? EvE is easy if you never have to play against another player... and you can do that. nobody can wardec you and you can continue to mull about in empire without risk doing whatever repetitive tasks you seem to enjoy filling your day with.That's fine... no one is taking that away from you. The fact that a corp has to defend itself and it's in-space assets are exactly what gives corporations value! I mean why are you even playing an MMO? Why not play something where nobody ever bothers you if you are so afraid of what other people might do?

YOUR small indy corp. A decent one should make a bil or two a day. Of course... you would have to leave jita. LOL! tool.

illusional

The article has good points. One has to admit that the War Dec system is really just a griefer enabler. CCP originally wanted a PvE zone and a PvP zone. Then they decided to create a PvP/griefer tatic in the PvE zone, and now they realize their mistake and can't figure out a way to fix it.

yk

No. CCP originally wanted a PvP zone, which, due to excess, they had to split into a completely free PvP zone and a pay-for PvP zone. Since then, they've simply been fiddling around with the pay scale and pricing mechanics for that pay-for PvP.

Killboard is an out of game feature that is mostly watched by other PvPers for e-peen slapping. You can see in this very thread an example of joining and leaving a corp dozens of times, this is how important will be to stay in same corp or disband it.
Also, killboards can be managed to be retained across corporations since it's just a website, a visitor won't see what went behind it.

A small indy corp won't pull much more than that. It's why attackers ask for 500M to 2B ransoms and not 2 trillions.

No, the kill mail system is an in game feature that relies on 3rd party boards to function. Just because a single aspect of it is provided by a 3rd party doesn't render it irrelevant.

A small indy corp won't pull much more than that. It's why attackers ask for 500M to 2B ransoms and not 2 trillions.

The original vision of the game was to create three zones in the galaxy with the a highest risk and highest reward zone in null sec, a lower risk and lower reward zone in low sec, and a lowest risk and lowest reward zone in hi-sec.

But along the way things got all skewed. Hi-sec rewards are now too high in high sec incursions with little risk. Mining in hi-sec has now become one of the more risky activities because of hi-sec hulk ganking. These by there very nature turn the original risk/reward structure upside down. Where grief decs sit in all of this are the question at hand... Is the imminent grief-dec skewing the risk reward ratios in a wrong direction?

Then again, how does CCP mitigate the uber rewards of the Jita market giants with their billion isk/week hi-sec manufacturing and trading strategies. The war decs are one way to do it... but is it the best way? Maybe what needs to be done itself is not to increase the hi-sec risks... but rather to decrease the hi-sec rewards in terms of decreased incursion payouts and higher hi-sec taxes to make profits lower. This would be a better way then just making hi-sec another griefers vector. Otherwise all the games zones play out pretty much the same.

yk

Making a PHP script that parses the API and replaces the corp names before storing them in the database does not seem impossible.

Not all farm incursions.
Also look at the average money per player data that CCP posted. It's much less overabundant than you say.

If you honestly believe a small industrial corp pulls a total of 300m a day then you've been doing something drastically wrong in Eve. Maybe some very bad one man operations pull that little, but for most players 300m is the equivalent of two, maybe three hours gameplay.

If you were to do that, and create a kill board filled with altered or fake kill mails, the discrepancy would show during comparisons to battle clinic or eve kill. You would be mocked to the ends of the Earth, and your recruitment thread would probably get trolled into oblivion.

Not all farm incursions.
Also look at the average money per player data that CCP posted. It's much less overabundant than you say.

Where the hell are you mining in highsec?

are you mining in highsec?

are you mining

mining

There's plenty of 2-5 men small merc / harass / station games corps, it'll be hard to go check them out, and it's not like they had a big name to defend to begin with.

Average ISK in wallet

The article and it's ideas for Wardecs are terrible.

The worst part is the structure idea, making you have to defend a static location gives all the power to blobs and is yet another blow to small gangs and guerrilla warfare.

Where the hell are you mining in highsec?

YOURE the one talking abouit indy corps and you berate me for asking about mining. nice job invalidating your own argument and showing youre just looking to troll.

I see you editted your quote too

So make it multiple locations located in the defender's systems? The attacker should have something valuable that can be lost, not just paying a bribe so concord looks the other way... Risk vs reward, amiright?

Yes, because you assumed my comments on income were based on a single person, or small number of people, mining.

MINING.

Lol. As I said in my original comment, a "300m a day operation" for a small industrial corp is pretty terrible. There is a reason industrial is not synonymous with mining.

How do you define the "defender's systems"? My corp at the moment is an alt corp based in syndicate, could I now war dec a high sec care bear alliance and they'd have to come into syndicate with a structure grinding force to fight back against me?

That would certainly be entertaining at the very least.

If the warring parties were banned from NPC stations. Then waging war from syndicate into high sec would place a huge amount of stress on your war party. This is why warring parties should be banned from NPC stations, it gives immediate need to get the war over and done with. While creating a need for logistics so they can run the war, with the bonus of putting both parties at risk .

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

CCP - Your board sucks. It reeks of having lost control of your technology. Not a comforting feeling.

War should be the province of player sov. Since sov is only holdable in 0.0, it can only occur in 0.0. (Try counting how many "problems" this present system has which that would solve.) Hi and Lo sec already have existing sov. Only Minmatar, Amarr, Caldari and Gallente can declare war in their specific zones. Their wars are on their borders, ipso facto.

This would solve the abuses of the War Dec, removing it from the reach of griefer corps. It would remove the absurdity of thinking you can declare and operate a war in someone else's sovereign domain...what is CONCORD being paid for but to maintain order?

Further, it would provide the much needed incentive to move players from hi to null sec as a matter of player development and maturation. It would return the goal of "being good enough to play in null sec." This in turn would open the flood gates for null sec recruitment, thus making competitive the obtaining of new players. Not to mention...though I will....provide an incentive for the better players, to turn their attention to newer players...give a reason to help them develop. Null sec's warrior draft system.

This would create meaning to the phrase, "If you want to play (EVE) with the big dogs, you have to get off the porch." The "endgame content" would become more significant to the newer players. It would even give the older players another dimension to the game that would require organization and planning. He who doesn't recruit from the welling ranks becomes outnumbered. It would also make it rather risky to try to settle with a handful of people "you know you can trust" and make people start running a few risks...you know - the ones that like to pretend they're doing that already.

Look at the map. Empire is tiny compared to null. The game should be played out there. The rules should be made out there. Hi and lo should be boring. "Nothing ever happens in hi or lo," is how you get people out of there into the real space.

May the whining begin.

My knowledge of Eve history and design stretches back to release! http://community.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=11087&page=1#1

Probably before you could drive or vote.

yk

Yea... this is a big problem, too.

Accepting new members if you are an aggressor should not be allowed at all.

On the other side, if you ditch from a corp in a war (or Alliance) you should have some sort of "stain" on your record.

As long as high sec wars puts nothing at stake for the aggressor, consequently making it impossible for a defender to gain something from a victory, they will continue to be a "pay-to-grief" tool.

You guys read the article on massively about this subject, published earlier today???
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/04/15/eve-evolved-fixing-the-wardec-system/

I think it have some good points (maybe the best).


Comments???

Actually, the proposed ideas on fanfest (and round table issues afterwards) really show that the guys working on it should go do something else, like revamping mining or something. I know this all sounds harsh but I have zero respect for people who decide to implement changes to things they have no clue on.

And you know whats the funnest part???
CCP put one whole DEV team on WAR decs.
And whole team wants to solve all problems with tweeks in few simple formulas.
Sorry, but I don't see where is DEV time spent here.

When i heard that CCP put DEV team on this problem i thought there will be whole revamp of War Decs and we are getting nothing.

And you saw FanFest presentation?
DEV that hold that part of presentations didnt even wanted to be there
and all people that asked him questions on the end were concerned and got the same kind of "no answer".
And you could clearly see that DEV had no idea what he is talking about.

When person who do the job is not into it, you get nothing.

Sorry but i don't see that any real work is getting done here.

Quite. Mind you, I'm not "attacking" the guy in question, it's nothing personal. I'm raging against the decision to put someone in charge of stuff he has no affinity with, something so important and fundamental in EVE as wars.

When i heard that CCP put DEV team on this problem i thought there will be whole revamp of War Decs and we are getting nothing.

I fully support the idea of the aggressor being unable to scoop new members/corps mid-war.

This is a terrible idea. Good merc corps can be at war a significant percentage of time. This would make it impossible for them to recruit while doing business. I really wish people would think things through before they suggest them.

A "cooldown" where a new recruit can't participate in a war for 1-24 hours would be just as effective at stopping what we and others have done in the past.

As for penalizing quitting a corp that is at war: just prevent the player from rejoining that corp for a fixed period of time. If you bail on a corp, whether they're on offense or defense, you can't rejoin it for 30 days.

This is a disturbing trend i've noticed since Dominion, which was supposed to dramatically change war dynamics in 0.0. They start off saying one thing, but then back down later and only tweak it slightly. I sometimes wonder if devs playing the game along with players makes them sympathetic to whines of a vocal minority, when they should instead soldier on with what's best for the game overall.

But in this case, i still think war is war, and it's never 'fair'. You can either have wars in hisec along with all the unfairness war brings with it, or you remove the ability to have hisec wars altogether. Anything else and it's simply not war anymore.

Now, if only they'd also allow 'unfairness' in 0.0 wars, instead of catering to casuals. It's ridiculous that people can leave things completely undefended and get around to defending it much, much, later. In real war if you leave something undefended, you lose it, even to a small force. Why is all this care and attention put into ensuring everything is fair for 0.0 people, while people in hisec are told to HTFU?

It's also pretty bizarre that no matter how militarily powerful a corporation or alliance is, it can't physically win a war declared against it. There is simply no system in place to let the defender win the war.

One thing many people seem to be missing here is that by making a structure the goal of wardecs it COMPLETELY removes the ability to wage a guerilla-style warfare in empire, because the defender can just force the attackers to fight a pitched battle at the structure.

Not to mention that this also makes it almost impossible to fight a war against larger corporations (because in a pitched battle the blob almost always wins).

From that article:


Wel duh! That's how war works. The Americans seem to make it their country's duty over the last decade to prove to the world that overpowering military might does not equal guaranteed victory.

And 'winning' a war is a concept that resides heavily in meta-gaming territory. If you pummeled the few alts into no longer logging in, then you already achieved the main goal of just keeping your members safe. Of course it's annoying if they remain a lingering threat. But if a corporation can't deal with that because all members are wandering around willy-nilly, then that corp deserves to get picked apart like a flock of domestic chickens clucking about in the wild.

very easelly fixed. Remove ability to doc in stations (maybe even for both parties or just the war decker). Maybe even force to must have a POS runing during war in high sec. You still can wage war and will be forced to defend at times, also still can do militia warfare and both parties have fun. Unlike one sided war that does bores everyone.
This brings very interesting events to the game. Find the wardecker pos and put it into reinforce. Not to mention wardecker operating POS guns and many other interesting aspects into eve. This will inject LIFE back into high sec war dec. SOLVED!!
CCP implement something like this!