EVE General Discussion

You make a fair point, for me it'd be about narrowing down exactly where the really steep peaks are on the path from noob to regular player and just trying to file them down without breaking the overall pvp oriented direction of the game. CCP are doing a great job building up the NPE to solve the initial 'WTF IS GOING ON?!' that was a problem for new players for so long, but I think the issues around corps and to a smaller degree war decs is still out there.

I've wondered for a long time whether a possible solution could be to restructure the corporation mechanics a little. Looking at them dispassionately, corps are quite a complex mechanic with a lot of functionality but also a lot of detail that for newish players is probably unnecessary. Perhaps the better solution would be to add more of a gradient in there. You'd keep existing corps as they are because no-one wants to open that can of worms (obviously roles and access need a cleanup, but that's a different discussion), but rework the current 'Update with Skills' function to actually move new corps between different states. Perhaps also drop the member limit for the lower corp management levels.

So in practise when you start a corp you'd have a much more limited corp functionality than at present, and in that initial state maybe a cap of say 5 members. At each new corp upgrade level when the CEO updates, it unlocks new functionality, raises the member cap like it does now but perhaps with smaller earlier increments, and crucially the ability to place or receive war decs only unlocks around corp level 3. When it does and you go to update you're given a very clear warning that you're making yourself vulnerable. The key here is that although you still need the relevant corp management level to upgrade the corp, the corp upgrade is done in distinct stages regardless. So if you start a corp and you already have corp management 5, you still need to manually upgrade the corp from its starter version to the level you want it.

In effect if you want to start a corp, for the first two corp stages you're invulnerable to war decs BUT you also have a much reduced corp functionality. No structures, much reduced member count, less wallets and roles you could even go the whole hog and say no or much limited office access. The members aren't invincible, they're still open to being ganked in high-sec like anyone else, but that initial organization can't be picked on. In exchange, they can't use it for anything massively useful until they choose to step up and take the risk in exchange for the reward.

Is it open to abuse? Maybe. There's probably some gaping holes in there that I haven't thought of, but I'd hope the huge reduction in corp functionality would act as a barrier to most vets using corps in that state (and it's not like vets usually give a damn about wars anyway). It'd just give new players a way to get together with their friends outside the noob corp structure and start to move towards regular corp life without that initial additional threat.

speaking as an industrialist and a hauler... there is no problem with ganking, avoid known ganking systems, fly with a scout, fly with escorts, fly tanked, don't make yourself a loot piniata, transport small, high value goods in an insta-warp ceptor instead, have some of your friends run a counter-gank fleet to clear the camp etc etc etc... all of these counter arguments have been put forward so many times that if someone is still falling prey to ganking they are either a) unlucky b) lazy or c) actively avoiding taking even the slightest bit of precaution.

while we're at it, lets explore this "cost to gank is bonkers" theory here.

a tanked obelisk can have upwards of 500k ehp, a t2 gankalyst can put out upwards of 700dps, for the sake of this exercise we are actually going to be assuming perfect application with zero resists (which isn't the case but it makes the numbers easier and actually stacks it in your favor)
now an obelisk on sell order runs about 1.2 billion, a gankalyst is 10-15 million, i'll go with 10, again because it makes the numbers easier and stacks things even further in your favor.

so 500k/700 is 714. thats how many catalysts it would take in order to kill an obelisk in 1 second, again assuming perfect application. thats 7.14 bilion isk worth of ships... now we all know that concord doesn't respond instantly, so lets keep going with that.
in a 1.0 system like say perimeter, concord response time is roughly 6 seconds. assuming they are not on grid elsewhere which adds about 8 seconds to the response time. so we will go with 14 second response time. thats still 51 pilots, and half a billion isk worth of ships to pop a freighter.
50+ investing at least half a billion total to pop a freighter in jita or perimiter (or any 1.0 system) doesn't seem quite so bonkers... and how much safety do you really need if you think its unfair for a single pilot to be able to avoid he actions of 50?

lets go one step further again with this, to give you as much rope as possible. a 0.5 system has roughly a 19 second response time, add 8 for concord being spawned but off grid, gives us 27, lets call it 30. that still means you need 23 pilots at minimum and a 230mil investment. now that is roughly a 5-1 ratio in cost... but that is still hardly "bonkers" especially considering the amount of co-ordination and the number of pilots involved.

it also means that in order for them to even break even on a gank, you need to be carrying at least double the value of their ships depending on how nice the loot fairy is. absolutely HAVE to travel through a .5 system that is known for ganking? maybe limit your load to half a bill or under, hell even a bill or two would probably not be worth the time or the effort for most gankers.

absolutely need to move more than that for some reason? use a scout alt, or hell, ask a friend, or pay a friend to scout for you. if you can afford a bil+ ship, and multiple bil in assets (and I hope to **** that your not trying to move everything you own all in one ship) then you can afford to splash out 50-100 mil for a friend to escort you... and it comes with the bonus feature of them being able to web you into warp making the trip even faster... thats incursion levels of isk/hr for your friend so I don't know many who will say no.

Or have RFF move it past the gank spot, then take over from there.

I was basing it off of this fit.
https://o.smium.org/loadout/100796

unless things have changed and it no longer works, 700 dps is the "target number" I keep hearing used for gankalysts and so thats what I used.

An example of what i would personally consider a good and cheep escort ship, would be an exequoror, with t2 reps it puts out about 500hp/s (if i'm calculating things right). throw a mwd, dual webs, and a sebo, should pull a 30k tank.

will be able to web the freighter into warp, should still be able to land and jump ahead of it to keep scouting, and if something should happen those webs could make all the difference between a successful gank or not. all for about 60m. (I went full t2 even on the rigs, which is probably overkill, without t2 trimark pumps the cost is cut down to about 20m)

1)Fit a tank, use a scout, use a cloaky hauler, learn to use instant-undock and instant-dock bookmarks. The T1 Industrial line was buffed so extensively that they are borderline OP if you take the time to anticipate threats.

2)Risk vs. Reward is mediated by more than one party. I've managed to lose every sort of ship I fly except freighters and jump freighters. There's a reason why. Hi-Sec ganks are 99.99% the gankee inviting disaster, the gankee has to be willfully negligent and unaware for a gank to happen. Since the ability for a gank to happen or not is almost entirely up to the would be target, there's no reason to alter the ships - 99.99% of all ganks can already be prevented with existing mechanics alone, that people choose not to is telling of other things.

Wardecs, yeah, are dumb.

Well, there goes the vacation. Left the corp and it doesn't matter. So much for the wardec mechanic. Gonna be about the 14th before I have any time that's mine. Enjoy your war, jerks. I don't remember what your name even is, but I'm not even gonna be home, let alone playing, so you just have some fun with trying to kill me.

I'm not sure, ever, wether I should laugh, or cry.

Not putting those assets at risk is always an option though. The way I see it is that for many targets of HS war decs is that they just don't want to PvP. If they did they'd already be doing it. The idea that we'll "fix" war decs by having assets at risk will only work for those players who already do not have an issue with PvP. Those that do will just stop putting those assets at risk. The idea of "we have to give them something to fight for...lets put their assets in space at risk!" Sounds great on paper until the targets of war decs see the problem and tear down all their assets in space.

And lets be honest, many war dec corps, they aren't looking for challenging fights. They are looking for something casual and without any big build up. Log in, look for war targets in the usual places, when found engage. Usually these are not PvP oriented players either. If they wanted PvP oriented players why not war dec each other.

So again we have one group that simply does not want to fight. Ever. The other group that isn't interested in going out of their way for a fight, and especially against an entity that will put up a robust response (heck go down to Providence and poke them long enough and they'll bring the fight, same with Goons).

Where is he happy "middle" with these two groups?

The simple answer is to make faction warfare space War space,everyone in it must be in a corp to fight or plex otherwise concord blaps them, quickly, then pirates can kill others without standings hits by wardeccing factions and other corps, and Hisec wardeccers can have all the fights they want, and the space become an active vibrant PVP zone.

I know that losing the ability to kill unarmed and unskilled players will be a sad thing for some, but the term HTFU comes to mind, I mean aren't all these elite HS pvpers just looking for the good fight?

I'm not necessarily in agreement with your fix for this, but this really is what it comes down to in the end. For a game that sells itself as pvp oriented and conflict driven, its actually a pain in the ass for a lot of people to actually find a decent fight.

In low-sec you can get some good battles, but often it involves flying around for hours trying to find someone to gank, straight up fights with fairly even sides are few and far between, and if you're moving as a gang then there's a fair chance someone is going to drop a cap on you at some point (well there was when I left, I've only been back a few days so maybe things have changed?). Null is also fairly dull for finding fights, as you either move as a big enough group to break gate camps (and invite the inevitable cap drops) or at some point you'll end up getting popped by a camp yourself. There are other options of course, but they usually require a decent number of people all wanting to do the same thing at the same time, with the inevitable sitting around for ages waiting for everyone that that entails. Hi-sec ganking is just one group popping anything vulnerable they can get away with or picking on miner corps with wardecs.

Faction warfare space is about the most fun pvp I found in EVE being honest, and that was without ever actually signing up to be a tin soldier. You could just dump a pile of frigs, intys and cruisers out there, and genuinely expect to be able to find lots of fairly equal fights in a short space of time. The standings hits were a mild annoyance, but more than worth it for the constant pew.

I think more of that kind of space with some limitations on the kind of ships people can fly within them are probably the ideal solution to a lot of EVE's issues (ideally some that don't revolve around actual faction warfare). If there was an area you could go to and actually get decent pew without having some arbitrary mechanic like standings making it a pain in the ass, and without having the fun spoiled by the constant risk of hotdrops or blobs then maybe the people whining about how everything in EVE should be combat-oriented would actually do some for a change instead of just whining about how the carebears they're bullying want to ruin EVE.

Unlike every other content seed? What are you talking about? With only a handful of exceptions, there are no mechanics that penalize a fleet at all for not undocking. Almost in every instance of PvP in Eve taking the field is optional and only done when both sides decide to, or one side gets the drop on on the other. In most fights, the only thing lost is face if you choose not to undock, and even in the few cases where you will lose something - sov timers, structure timers and so on - the only thing at risk are in-space assets or indexes, not the ability to attack your opponent. When CO2 decided not to defend their Keepstar, they only lost a structure, not the very ability to attack or counter-attack their opponents. They were not forced to take the field and indeed chose not to.

I think your problem is that you view wardecs as some sort of object or "content seed". They aren't. They are the fundamental mechanism by which PvP is done in highsec. It is a mechanism that controls who is on each side in highsec to shape highsec fights. That's it. They aren't a prize to be fought over or privilege you earn. They are the only way groups can interact with other groups in highsec. There is literally zero chance of CCP awarding immunity to that as some sort of carrot to get groups to fight. That is completely counter-productive, and problematic for many reason with how structures are designed to be fought over.

You think wardeccers are too safe? Then make hub camping wardeccers more vulnerable - fine by me. But I am amazed someone with your purported views on safety and risk in this game has gone all in on a "solution" to a perceived problem that clearly would give yet more safety to players. Do you really, honestly think that letting large groups blob their way out of wars is going to be a net benefit for content creation? Do you think it really a good idea to let large nullsec groups prevent anyone from shooting their structures in highsec by winning a single battle? No, such a mechanism would add barriers to content, make players more safe, and prevent escalation and continued fighting from happening at all by mechanical decree.

I am not a wardeccer. I can count the number of wardecs that affect my game play at all on two hands and the number I have declared on one. But it is clear to me that wardecs are fundamental to how conflict is suppose to take place in this game and giving players the ability to opt-out of that conflict, even if they have to earn that safety by shooting a button, is a terrible one and one that there is absolutely no chance of CCP ever implementing. The only thing I can see is that you espouse this bad idea because either you think it advantages you as a member of one of the larger groups in the game, larger than any highsec mercenary group anyway, thus allowing you to opt-out out of non-consensual conflict you'd rather not participate in or, the fact that wardeccers don't fight as you deem proper somehow offends your personal eBushido code of honour and this dislike of hub camping wardec groups is clouding your judgment. Either way, it doesn't bode well for your suitability as a CSM member.

Wars can use work. Things should be changed to encourage more hunting and wars between rivals, and less camping and blanket declaration. That isn't going to come about by letting groups earn safety by ending wars early though, nor is there any chance of CCP doing this. They basically flat out said this in previous CSM minutes:

SoniClover [on wardecs]: And it seems that some are clamoring a lot for the game system to protect them. And we're trying to minimize that as much as possible. EVE is never going to give you complete game system security. And we're never going to go that route.

Try again Vic. There are other options to make wars better that don't involve handing out "complete game system security" to players as a prize for participating.