Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Amid all the recent proposals to change war declaration mechanics (including my own), it's worth thinking about whether "corporation wars" are the right way to structure high sec PvP at all. Today we have two extremes, the suicide gank, where CONCORD gives its maximum protection to the defender, and the war dec, where CONCORD does not interfere at all. Whether a high sec player finds himself at one extreme of CONCORD protection or the other depends not on his own ambition to push the risk/reward envelope, but on the whim of war aggressors. This is contrary to the spirit of EVE's other risk/reward propositions, where increased risk is the direct result of a player's decision to pursue greater rewards.

There should be more of a sliding scale between complete security and complete lack of security, rather than the steep cliff that separates high sec from low sec, or war declaration from peace. A player's position on this scale should depend on his choice to pursue greater rewards, which entails greater risk of attack. Such a mechanism, if designed properly, would make the war declaration system obsolete, so that war decs could be removed from the game, but would not reduce the overall PvP activity in high sec. This scale could take many forms, but here are some rough ideas:

Alternative #1: Security status 0.4-0.5 becomes "medium sec". All level 4 missions and incursions, and all ores better than scordite are moved to these systems. CONCORD no longer responds to attacks in "medium sec" space, unless they are very near a stargate or station.

Alternative #2: In order to run level 4 missions or incursions, or to use the best station refining/manufacturing/research facilities, players must declare some sort of faction allegiance. Those players are then vulnerable to attack by rival factions.

Alternative #3: Some high level PvE missions, incursions and resource sites randomly become PvP free-for-all zones, even if located in high security systems.

More alternatives are certainly possible. The above ideas surely have flaws, but I believe that both aggressive and defensive players would agree that high sec PvP would work better if it were based on simple, unchanging rules of risk vs. reward, rather than today's convoluted war declaration system.

Pardon me, but I am mostly a high-sec carebear myself. My perspective on this idea is more about when I'm being shot at, not shooting others.

PvE and PvP don't mix. If you force PvE'ers to PvP area many will not go at all and those who do will not go another time after losing their mission ship on the first run. Some will blitz level 3s and some will quit because the isk gain is not worth their time anymore. Would you go to current lowsec with a resist hole the size of a barn on a 1 bil battleship and no warp disruptors, neuts or agility mods? Or an exhumer? Basically you would give the risk to PvE people and the reward to PvP. Not much of a balance.

Also this particular proposition seems to target the combat PvE specifically. A hulk mining veldspar in 0.6 still cannot be ganked any easier and traders and industrialists have no changes to their gameplay. If gaining access to better facilities requires participation in something risky, we'll see more alts that won't undock only used for refining. Mine on character 1, transfer ores to character 2 in FW, refine, transfer minerals back to character 1. All it does is making the process more complicated and less user friendly.

I wouldn't go so far to say that the current wardec system is perfect or even good. It does give a little warning before someone starts shooting you, the completely risk-averse can play to their liking and the deccer can get the occasional war in relatively safe enviroment. There is a little for everyone so it's not completely broken. And I'm not sure if anything can be done for wardecs because either you are safe or you are not. You can be shot or you cannot be shot - there is no in-between.

You'd have to introduce something better to hisec to give an incentive for players to leave the safety. Nerfing is a risky move because it'll anger many people which will affect subscription rates if it's anything more than marginal. If you can be shot anywhere any time the risk-averse won't like it, and it won't be much different from the lowsec quite honestly.

If you want to lure people to more risk there would need to be a carrot. This of course would mean higher isk / hr and then we are enroaching into the lowsec risk / reward area which would of course be bad for the lowsec. And depending on the amount of danger you might actually be better off joining a large null alliance.

So what would work? First of all we don't want to turn highsec to a new lowsec by allowing anyone being shot at for no reason so it would need to be join-only, which would mean that the people not taking risks will still not take the risks. What would the incentive be? Better missions? Increased rewards for professions? Access to something new? How does it affect the current professions?

Then we'd need to figure when you can be shot at. At all times? In plexes? Not at gates or stations but elsewhere? In certain systems? All of these have their good and bad points. I'll give an example that just popped up in my mind. Likely not a very good one since I'm getting tired but here we go:

FW lite: Missions of all types (combat, mining, courier) that flag you shootable for the opposing faction while in mission pockets. Pockets do not appear in overview but have to be scanned down first. Happens in high sec. LP store offers new faction items unobtainable from elsewhere. So a player goes to a deadspace pocket and starts doing whatever. He's now marked a legit target while in the pocket. He can warp out if he's fast enough and come back in a combat ship to drive off the intruder, or abandon the mission. In mining missions you can keep the minerals but have to mine a certain amount, or work comets containing random raw materials (ore, ice, PI stuff, moongoo...) into them. Courier missions give a small package to deliver. Combat missions are like normal, though a more pvp-centric fit would be a good idea to incorporate into them.

Problems: Should core or combat probes be used? Does the FW mission status show up on scan or does it need visual confirmation by popping in the pocket first? Should the opposing faction show on local/player info/elsewhere or do you just see them hostile when they enter the pocket? (Don't undock vs redding a thousand players manually). Need to balance new vs current modules of all types, better (at something) than old faction but leaving all desirable. Need to investigate how this affects traditional missions, exploration, plexing, harvesting and manufacturing. Are the mission types balanced? Couriers would need a flag all the time making them vulnerable to interceptors at gates while miners and combat players can avoid hostile players by warping out if paying attetion to d-scan. Also the combat pilot is much better off than the miner if a hostile shows up. What kind of penalty would be not too harsh but still encourage people not abandon the mission?

Pros: Easily approachable, no need to venture into the scary lowsec. Players can still be safe when they choose. Might be a good primer for leaving high. More opportunities for PvP.

Cons: A whole lot of research and work to be created. Might obsolete some other areas of play. Still doesn't cover those who will not risk themselves or those playing a non-mission proficiency.

...And with all that work you could just make lowsec more lucrative leading to more pew pew. Of course this doesn't have anything to do with fixing wardecs anymore at this point but it should explain why I think that fixing low is a better idea, even if it got sidetracked a bit .

TL;DR - Wardec system might not be fixable. Either you are safe or not. However we can make something that will give more opportunities for PvP in a way that will not nerf anyone.