Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The New War Cost Formula

- Make a single entity's outgoing wars completely independent of each other.
- Make no distinction in cost between wars where alliances are involved, and wars where they are not.
- Potentially shorten the war duration.
- Make outgoing corporate war votes instantaneous, the same way allied votes are.
- Adopt a new formula that determines war cost, as follows:

War cost is determined by the amount of characters in the corporation/alliance that declares war, and balanced against the amount of players in the corporation/alliance that receives it.

The base per-character unit cost of war should be an amount of ISK that will be fairly determined by the devs and CSM. For the sake of example and simplicity, let's say that value is 1 million ISK. A 50-person corporation declaring war would have a base bill of 50 million ISK per week.

Now comes the balancing part, and it's really simple: simply multiply the base bill by the ratio of characters in the entity that declares war versus characters in the entity that is declared upon. For example, if corporation A (50 members) declares war, and corporation B receives it, then:

If corporation B has 10 members, the bill becomes [50 * (50/10)] = 250 million ISK.
If corporation B has 50 members, the bill becomes [50 * (50/50)] = 50 million ISK.
If corporation B has 100 members, the bill becomes [50 * (50/100)] = 25 million ISK.

Now, what happens if corporation B has incoming wars from multiple entities? Once again, the answer is simple. Simply adjust the bill by the new ratio of total characters belonging to all entities that declare versus the total character count of the receiving entity. For example, let's say corporations X (10 members) and Y (40 members) join the hostilities by declaring war on corporation B. The base bill now becomes:

If corporation B has 10 members, the bill becomes [100 * (100/10)] = 1,000 million (1 billion) ISK.
If corporation B has 50 members, the bill becomes [100 * (100/50)] = 200 million ISK.
If corporation B has 100 members, the bill becomes [100 * (100/100)] = 100 million ISK.

This "base bill" should then be proportionately split between corporations A, X, and Y (corporation A pays 50%, X pays 10%, and Y pays 40%).

Victory Conditions

Nothing fancy here at first, to let the new system settle in. Simply allow the use of contracts for the payment of official ransoms/reparations. If Corporation B surrenders and pays the corporation A via this system, corporation A can no longer declare war on corporation B. Of course, this system should be entirely free-form in terms of payment sums and agreement durations.

Fighting Back (Leveraged Buyout)

Entities that are declared upon should be able to counter-bribe CONCORD to pay their way out of a war. However, the same concept of proportionality outlined above should apply here. For example, if we have corporation A (50 members) declaring war on corporation B, then:

If corporation B has 10 members, the counter-bribe becomes [50 * (10/50)] = 10 million ISK.
If corporation B has 50 members, the counter-bribe becomes [50 * (50/50)] = 50 million ISK.
If corporation B has 100 members, the counter-bribe becomes [50 * (100/50)] = 100 million ISK.

This system should allow an indefinite cycle of bribe and counter-bribe payments. Empire warriors could potentially save their targets money by asking for less than it would cost to counter-bribe CONCORD. This system could work well with a reduction in war duration.

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I have been playing this game since 2004. PvP has been my primary focus since day one, and empire warring has been my most favorite method of engaging in it.

I feel at least moderately qualified to say that the concept of proportionality, as well as hard-coded victory conditions and the ability to counter-bribe CONCORD, would add a sense of balance to the empire war scene. Now the truly weak, small corporations would experience a moderate degree of safety from highly-organized mercenary/griefer groups, while the large, fat alliances consisting of hundreds of characters, who have no excuse to whine about 3-man corporations declaring on them, would be unable to escape hostilities with impunity (or at the very least be forced to trim their fat).

Please feel free to comment. This proposed system is an idea/suggestion, and is no way a demand that's set in stone. Please also note that I'm not claiming all of these ideas as my own. Ideas like victory conditions have been discussed for years now, and unfortunately not given much thought by the developers.

While I definitely agree that this system would make wars by small corporations against large alliances much cheaper, I believe that these large alliances have more than enough capability to defend themselves from such wars, both in terms of military might, and in terms of scouts, alt usage, etc.

As it is right now, large null-sec alliances already get plenty of wars, except they get them in bulk from larger empire war entities (the Privateer method). If the major hubs are already camped by large, wealthy empire war groups, then adding a few dozen small corporations into the mix won't affect the null-sec players' bottom lines.

Let me give you another argument, from a different perspective. A small alliance covets a large 0.0 bloc's space. They can't attack that alliance head on, but they can attack its empire supply lines to divert its attention and/or weaken it for an invasion. Makes sense from a strategic perspective, right?

Also, I disagree that "Wardeccing a bigger group of people than yours should be more expensive for you because you get more targets to shoot." A large empire war group that declares war on a big 0.0 bloc gets just as many targets to shoot, but pays the same price as a small corp. It's much cheaper for the large group to wage this war, since the cost is thinly spread amongst its member base.

This can be fairly easily circumvented in one of two ways:

1. Reducing the base duration of the war, to, let's say, one day. The bill would then be adjusted every day. With automatic pay for war bills already implemented and functional, this is quite doable.

2. CONCORD immediately adjusts the bill, and sends a second bill to the corporation that initiated the war and then gained members, for the remaining balance. A specific element of this method would make sure that money is never refunded, either if the entity that initiates war loses members, or if the entity that receives the war gains members.

I like the idea of the cost being relative to size. I also like the idea of varying the length of wars.

Allowing an alliance/corp to counter bribe concord is not going to work IMO.

I don't think it needs over thinking.

A war dec goes in and the agressor sets a condition. It may be isk or assets related or it may be corp/player expulsion, relinquish a moon/system etc. The agressed should be able to respond in terms of a counter offer that can either be accepted or refused...and can be made at any time.

What needs to be included though is a system where leaving a corp or an alliance either as a single player or as a whole corp does not protects you from the war. If you are war decced its there for the duration.

Remeber war isn't fair.

The base costs of wars needs to be raised, the current 3M/50M costs are piddly in today's EVE economy. The base costs should be at least 200M to declare a war.

There should not be a difference between corps and alliances. Just have a tack-on fee to the base wardec cost where you take the number of pilots in both sides, add them together, then scale the fee up based on the total number of pilots involved in the conflict. (RvB corps could just make the war mutual to avoid the fees.) Something like the sqrt() or cube root of the total number of pilots involved, multiplied by a base fee.

Weekly Fee = 200M + (50M * cuberoot(# of pilots in both organizations))

You'd pay 308M for a 10-pilot war, 433M for a 100-pilot war, 599M for a 500-pilot war, 700M for a 1000-pilot war, 770M for a 1500-pilot war, and about 1050M for a 5000-pilot war.

Alternately: Weekly Fee = 100M + (100M * cuberoot(# of pilots in both organizations))

You'd pay 315M for a 10-pilot war, 565M for a 100-pilot war, 890M for a 500-pilot war, 1100M for a 1000-pilot war, 1250M for a 1500-pilot war, and about 1850M for a 5000-pilot war.

Member hopping by the attacker really wouldn't affect the numbers much, because the other party probably wouldn't be doing it.

If you want to inconvenience a few thousand pilots, then you should be prepared to pay. If you want to inconvenience a lot of different targets, then you should be prepared to pay.

yes clear goals are the key. Isk loss is as you say too vague and hard to track.

As far as people not joining corps that is their choice. People working as communities is important to eve without doubt.

Prevent people from leaving corps or alliances would be the easiest way to track it. I should have made it clearer I don't care if people want to leave. What they shouldn't be able to do is leave with no consequence. If a one country invades another but one of the regions in that invaded counrty all of a sudden says oh wait we are not part of that country anymore....does that mean they are now safe?

This is something we can hope for in the future. In the short term, this is too much to expect from CCP.



I think we shouldn't go this far. We're talking about corporations here, the members of which can simply resign their posts; not religions/nationalities/ethnicities, which stay with you forever.



I know this. I was simply trying to justify my proposed system to the other player, in terms of a roleplaying perspective.



I certainly don't mind raising the cost, and the "one million per member" value I gave was arbitrary. However, raising the base war cost for a small corporation to the tune of hundreds of millions is unacceptable as well. I've been running mercenary corporations for half a decade, and I can tell you what clients will and will not pay. Raising the lowest fee to hundreds of millions will essentially cut out the entirety of small-scale pvp from empire, and kill off mercenary corporations with less than a few dozen members, as well as ensure that small-scale corporations and players with grievances wouldn't be able to pursue revenge.

Please keep in mind that my system already has a sliding scale built in. The more people that an entity is at war with, the more those people will pay for their wars. We can add weights to this system, but proportionality must be maintained either way.



No, it wouldn't. As it is right now, you mostly get wars from large, established entities who can afford the multi-hundred-million bills every month. Let's say you have 800 war targets at any given time. Will it really be the end of the world if a few dozen more one-man corporations put out wars against you as well? I doubt you would see much difference in your daily routine.

Unless of course, you mean to imply that the large entities only camp a few hubs, but the small guys would actually put in the effort to chase targets around. Well, you know what? I see nothing unfair about that.

The bottom line is that my proposed method encourages more small-scale combat, because it would no longer be a necessity for small corporations to pool themselves into alliances in order to be able to afford wars against large empire and 0.0 entities. This means that while you're likely to see a similar amount of war targets, you're also likely to see quite a few less blobs. Tell me how that's a bad thing.

Allowing "big mining corporations" to pursue their ventures without any risk never was, and never will be the answer.

People who don't want to re-balance the war system, and people who advocate "shields," are all part of the same group of people; the "carebears" (no, not "industrialists, there's a difference) who want nothing less than to be able to influence the game's economy with impunity. They want:

- To be able to mine and do missions risk-free.
- All pvpers to absorb the entirety of pvp risk in low and null.
- To be able to make money from the people who absorb all the risk.

EVE has been a great game for so many years because this is exactly how things were not.

And tell me, what excuse do the large corporations have for not wanting to defend their industrial operations by means of numerical superiority? If you have 50 active players, surely you can devote the strongest 10 to defend the miners and ratters, if a one-man griefer corp or two come-a-knocking? Or are you saying that you want all of the ore and bounties, right now, without worrying about precautions?

PS: Locator agents. And it's not like people who start a lot of wars make a point to hide from their enemies.

I do think that the current EvE war mechanics needs a serious overhaul.

Your algorithm is scarily off. If a 200 man corp is setting up a Hi-Sec industry system, its very reasonable that they war-dec every corp in system so they can setup POS's at every moon. If there's a 1 man corp setup with a research POS, your algorithm has them paying 40 billion isk to declare war.... or 4 trillion isk if its a 2000 man alliance setting up their industrial wing. I just don't think these numbers are anywhere near reasonable!!!!! Additionally, let's assume there are 20 moons in system.... Why should the war-deccing corp be economically motivated to kick out the larger corps than the smaller corps. In my mind, booting the 1-man POS corp is a much better for the game socially, militarily, and economically.

Basically, why should war costs be dependent on corp/alliance size?

Now for the really questions:
What are the current problems with the war-dec mechanics? and How does your proposed change address them?

In my opinion, having the orphanage alphabetically dec every large alliance in game is not an issue. Big alliances dec'ing small alliances, or small alliances dec'ing big alliances is not what's causing problems. The problem with wardecs is the ability to grief a corporation out of existence.

To expand the metaphorical sandbox, there are players that only enjoy destroying sand castles, their are players only interested in building sand castles, and there's a bunch of player in the middle. Most players drift towards one extreme or the other. Current war-dec mechanics allow a few bullies to essentially prevent a non-PvP corp from playing the game for an extended period of time. This is not healthy for the game.

But they can join an NPC Corp:
--- At its heart, EvE is a social game. People that play over the long term, do so because of the friends they make, and the experiences they share with those friends. In this game, the corporation is THE entity that represents your circle of friends. It provides you a group identity, it allows you to share resources, it allows you to share allies and enemies, it truly represents the social core of a group of players. In an NPC corp, you lose most of these benefits, and in doing so, I would argue that most players begin to lose their circle of friends. I personally believe this is very bad for the game.

While I believe PvP is pivotal to this game, and its important that no-one is ever 100% safe, a significant portion of EvE's game play and players want to do nothing but build castles (PvE). I think changes to the wardec mechanics need to focus on allowing the builders to build the majority of the time.

I feel like I'm not putting my point clearly.
1.) I think wardecs should allow any corp to occasionally kick another corp in the balls.
2.) I don't think wardecs should allow a corp to continually and excessively kick another corp in the balls.
The current mechanic does not obey principle 2... and that's its biggest and most important flaw.

Unfortunately, this is very much a non-trivial problem, and I don't know of a good solution. Whatever the appropriate solution is, a few good guidelines are:
Allow for mutual wardecs (RvB is a wonderful thing).
Allow for wardecing any corp (All corps should be subject to occasional wardecing).
Prevent non-consensual extended wardecs on a corp.
Avoid exploits that allow privateers to wage extended non-consensual war-decs.
Avoid exploits that allow corps to avoid all wardecs.
The larger your member count, the more vulnerable to wardecs you should be.
If you have a non-null POS up, you should always be vulnerable to wardecs.

While I agree with the original premise that wars cost should be a function on the amount of members involved by the warring sides, a care should be made to distinguish the actual activity of members in those corporations. Often, a more casual corp will allow for alts, older members that have been inactive, friends and similar to remain in the corp.

However, if war cost is a function that only uses the amount of members, and not their activity/effectiveness this would seriously hamper the existence of those laid back corps. And the problem is that there doesn't exist an easy way to work around the issue. F.e you can't use total player hours online per week, as people often AFK while being logged in, or have their alts logged in at the same time.