EVE General Discussion

edit:

New dev blog!

Highlights:

-Ally contracts will now have a fixed length of two weeks.
-Allies can now no longer be part of mutual wars.
-There is a cost now associated with hiring lots of allies.
-There is now a [500 million isk] cap on how [defender size] affect the war declaration cost.

Proof that CCP does listen to us. Great job guys, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm still a bit concerned about the effect this will have on those mutual wars that currently have allies involved. They need to have their mutual status revoked if the alliances are going to be nullified. Otherwise you're putting people in war situations where the situation is drastically changed from what they committed to.

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First off, the lack of dec scraping and dec shielding is great. Wars are actually wars again, and fights are happening because of it. So in that sense this patch has been a huge success.

However, there are a few things a lot of us have a problem with.

Wardec costs. I understand the logic behind making corps pay more isk for more war targets, but at the same time I believe this has had a chilling effect on wardecs against those most capable of defending themselves, driving those corps who use wardecs as a means to get fights to go after smaller groups. I don't really have a good change in mind to correct this without breaking all the things CCP stated as reasons behind the change, so I'm bringing this item up so that maybe someone else with an idea can chime in.

Also, it costs a small fortune for a 1-man corp to wardec Goonswarm, and a pittance for Goonswarm to wardec a 1-man corp. Instead, I suggest basing the wardec cost on the total number of participants on both sides.

Allies: I've said it time and again, unlimited free allies for defenders only is a bad idea. I love the idea of officially bringing allies into a war, but the current system goes over the top and woefully imbalances warfare toward the defender if they know what they're doing. Some suggestions for fixing this:

• Add a per-member Concord fee for every ally coming into the war. This will make it prohibitively expensive to spam allies and force defenders to carefully consider their options before throwing money at it.
• Allow attackers to bring in allies at a 2:1 ratio; meaning if the defender brings in two allies, the attacker is then permitted to bring in one. If the attacker does not "escalate" the war, then the defender is stuck with just the two allies.

Mercenaries: The mercenary market as it exists isn't so much a market as a free-for-all where lots of would-be mercs spam themselves into wars so they get lots of targets without actually caring about war objectives. Real for-money mercs are having a very hard time getting work because the wars are so full of free (and mostly useless) allies. So here are the changes I'd make:

When a defender advertises that they're looking for aid, they can set a win condition (percentage kill ratio, fixed number of kills, or attacker surrender/withdrawal) a deposit amount, and a payout should the win conditions be met. This way serious mercenaries can shop for paying customers AND be held accountable. Coupled with the proposed changes to the ally system that would force defenders to be more careful about the allies they accepted, this could make the mercenary profession an actual profession (you know, where people get paid).

If a dev actually reads this and has a response, I'd ask these questions (which I edited because they sounded more hostile than I intend them to be):

Do you believe the new wardec system is working as it was envisioned, or would it benefit from tweaks/changes?
Any thoughts on what I suggest here? Do you (or anyone else) have better ideas?

edit: one other thing I'd kind of like to see is for players to lose the ability to immediately drop corp while at war. I've always been opposed to the idea of locking down membership during war, but seeing a wartarget dock up and then undock in a different corp with instant Concord protection? I'd say that could stand for a change.

edit on 6/13: From the wiki linked later in this thread:





A corpmate told me that there is a dev post on the forums stating that there is an idea to add a cumulative fee for bringing more allies into the war. I've yet to find it (lol if it's in this thread and I missed it). If so, those three changes would resolve almost every issue I would have with this. Mercs have a definite time frame in which to work (though it would be nice to give them the option to extend the alliance if so arranged), defenders have to be selective in their allies, and everyone has a way out.

This does raise one concern: What about current mutuals? There are wars out there today that took on allies and went mutual with the expectation of having those allies in the war. I would suggest invalidating any mutual wars that have allies attached to them along with Inferno 1.1. Otherwise you would be locking corporations into mutual wars under circumstances vastly different from when they declared the mutual.

I disagree. Defenders were getting hammered in the old system. The ability to hire mercenaries to assist in a war is awesome. A small industrial corp getting picked on by a group of griefers now has the ability to really put up a fight in a meaningful way. it's just that this first version of the system doesn't do in the real world was CCP seemed to be planning in their presentations.


It's not *that* expensive to dec a 500-man alliance, and that will give you a fair number of targets. This assumes that you're willing to pursue them. If you're looking to sit behind Jita with a r-sebo'ed Nado, tbh I don't care what you want out of a wardec. That's just killmail wh*ring.


I think it's perfectly fair to charge a cost per wartarget. I'm not sure the current cost structure is balanced, maybe it needs to be reduced, or maybe given a cap of 1,000 or 1,500 members, above which the price no longer changes.

One problem I see with basing fees on attacker size is that it would be possible to start a wardec with a one-man corp and then fill it with 30 combat pilots once the war is live. You would just need to operate a handful of corps and bounce between them from one set of wars to the next, allowing you to pay minimal fees.

The team has goals and visions laid out in place, which don't stop at Inferno. Just posting here to show that we watch threads. Additionally, the CSM were here last week, and discussed the systems with the designers. I would keep your eyes open on the summaries and meeting minutes presented from your friendly CSM space people.

If you watched our Fanfest keynote, you will see that a clear goal for us is to not leave a feature after working on it. We will iterate where and when necessary. And as it happens, we have some really nice stuff to include in future updates that we are now working on.

Please continue and discuss though :)

I'd say that it should cost ISK depending on skillpoints by the members... not on total amount of members.
And that the cost of war should go up or down depending on the SP differences.
ie: if you have more SP than your targets, you should pay a crapload more ISK. If you have less SP than your targets, you have to pay less ISK than normal.

Further, the old system, where there was a difference between wardecs between corps/alliances, was just fine and realistic.
But it needed a change. Instead of just 2 types of cost, there should've been 4:
Alliance declares war on an other alliance = most expensive. ie: 500 mil basecost per week
Alliance declares war on a corporation = expensive. ie: 250 mil basecost per week
Corporation declares war on an alliance = moderate. ie: 150 mil basecost per week
Corporation declares war on an other corporation = cheapest. ie: 50 mil basecost per week

This basecost would then further be modified by the skillpoint differences. If the attacking corp/alliance has more SP than their targets, it will cost more ISK. If the attacking corp/alliance has less SP than their targets, it will cost less ISK.
To prevent abuse, leaving a corporation or alliance that is involved in a war will automatically prevent you from rejoining that corporation, or any corporation in the same alliance, for the next 30 days.

If this is balanced right, we would see a fair wardec system.



Further, I'd like to see this system expanded on with war points.
just give ships and POS modules and Outposts a value in points. Could be based on the average ISK price, on the mineral value, or whatever. Just give it points... much like tournament teams.
These points are then added to a sort of scoreboard of war (Campaigns) when these ships are killed.
for extra flavor, you can even name these Campaigns, and can be shared much like the new killreports.

At the end of the week, the side with the most points wins a round. Each week counts as a round. Any allies hired by the defender will cost the defender points, but in turn, the mercenaries should help gain those points back, and possibly even help the defender side get ahead. The defender can request a minimum amount of points that the mercenaries must gain for the defending side before the mercenaries get paid.

When at least 3 rounds are fought, the war can be ended if both parties agree to it.
The side with the most rounds won gains a temporary 5% Victory Tax on everything the enemy members gain for 2 weeks. This tax is more extreme than the default tax, as in addition to the default bounty and mission reward taxes, it also includes the estimated ISK value of every resource the enemy corporation/alliance creates. This includes PI resources, moon goo, mining ore, manufacturing stuff, and selling stuff on the market.
The losing corp/alliance can't declare war during this period as well, neither can members leave the corporation/alliance, and the corporation/alliance can not be disbanded as well for the first 2 weeks after a war has been won against them.
If there were multiple wars won against the same corporation/alliance, the Victory Taxes stack on top of each other, but never more than 50%. If more corporations/alliances won within that timeframe, the war will be extended for free and will be ended as soon as the victory tax drops.
After a corporation/alliance won against an other corporation or alliance, the winner can't declare a war on the same corp/alliance for the next 180 days anymore either.

Some notable exceptions/rules are:
- If two or more corporations are in the same alliance, and won a war against the same corporation, the 5% victory tax will be divided between them.
- If the defender hired mercenaries and won the war, the allies don't get anything from the victory tax. Mercenaries should then just ask some ISK for their services and do it right.



This would allow much more dynamic and a more fun system that you can mess with. Might need some tweaking, but this could be a very nice base mechanic for player wars IMHO

If you're going to do it by skillpoints, it should be by average SP, not totals. Five 20m SP characters could easily take on a 100m SP character with four rookies. This *would* do a lot to stop alt spam dec shields...but then it would also discourage the recruiting of newer players.



You just described a very convoluted and arbitrary scoring system for wars....no thanks. Killboards work fine as a victory condition if you have no other objective.

To keep it short and simple:

Base war dec costs on the difference in membership. This applies whether the declaring corp is larger or smaller than the target.

Allow allies to target and activate modules, including weapons, on everyone on thier side of the conflict without repercussions. This means that the ability to rank and make comments about a merc organization is an absolute must. This also means that corps who throw themselves into the ally system simply to reap as many targets as possible will have tremendous temptation to shoot at the hiring corp and any other allies, which should force the defender to carefully consider whom they let into their war.

War dec's need to follow all of the individuals that are members of a corp when the war went active, both attacker and defender, until the war is done. It should not be carried over to any corp a "defector" might subsequently join, to avoid potential exploitation.

There should be a way for an ally to easily leave a war. If the system were set up to allow a contract to be put in place that allowed a weekly payment to be made to continue the arrangement , simply refusing the payment could be their way out.

Love the OP post. Good post.

One thing I would like to add, in case someone else hasnt already, is having a place Mercs can advertise their services, prices, area of operation, etc. Defenders could then browse the ads and pick who they want to help them instead of waiting on offers.

Stop being morons the whole SP idea is stupid.

WTF is a 50mil sp INDY char gona do?

50mill sp indy vs 50mill sp pvper...

Ya I mean you just made balance.

25mill sp pvp vs 50mill sp indy... 50mill still dies...

Hell a 10 mill sp pvper would crush a 50mill indy char.

CCP may be watching but I watched a car wreck once... I never did anything about it...

The costs should have been A vs B member difference... nothing more it was said before the system went live... and ya not put in.

If you are 7000 people you should need to pay ALOT to attack 50 people... if you are 50... should be a small cost to attack 7000.

Oh yes, please listen to the CSM.
Because those null sec entities know SO much about high sec war mechanics.

Personally I would have the cost's inflate depending on the difference in number of members of each corp/alliance.

Equal number of members = 200 mil war dec costs
Attacking corp has 50% more members then defending corp 600mil per week
Defending corp has 50% more members then attacking corp 50mil per week.

These numbers are just examples and you would have to adjust the scaling.

What I would see this doing is making it so if you really want a good fight you would be looking at corps/alliances that are the same size as you, creating a more even playing field. This would also prevent the inflation of corps to get huge just so the costs go through the roof. These numbers should also include defenders when brought into the fight if the war goes on past the first week.

Also when War deccing larger corps and alliances it would look at home many other war dec's are against them and then adjust the price for new dec's depending on the numbers that the other corps and alliances have totaled.

But I never go into Hi-sec so war dec's are meaning less to me. This is just a view from an outsider.