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You really seem to think this is about the ability of old-timers being able to pick on n00bs

No, that's not it at all. It's like you're trying to argue on an entirely different topic

Can you point to a point in history where old-timers get to war-dec on n00bs, but n00bs (or small independents, not necessarily n00bs at all) are PREVENTED from declaring war on large corps

Basically, the *problem* with this idea, is two-fold

1) It PROTECTS huge, powerful entities who need no protection, from smaller rivals. Why

2) It enables infinite wars-of-harassment, which in turn may screw up the possibility of hiring mercs, because who wants to commit to a war that the aggressor can simply prolong infinitely for virtually free

Make it so wars have a point, a goal, and end, and you won't screw it up. Remove the financial protection of the big from the small

If a Merc actually HAS a way to bring a war to an end -- as opposed to it being at the aggressor's whim, then they'll be willing to commit

I DO like the idea of a merc being committed. But it has to be a commitment that makes business sense

But right now, all the commitment is on defense, all involuntary. No commitment at all on the offense, and the war continues at their pleasure

See? Not about wardecing n00bs. It's about huge corps not being willing to face any risk or challenges. Huge corps too lazy to get out their and risk there rears and reps

Frankly, a lot of us are tired of the whining from the giants in the game, when anybody objects to the game going just the way the Goons and the other various swarms want

HTFU. Accept that some big corps may get wardeced by small corps if the fee structure is changed. Accept that maybe if you declare a war, you may not be able to drag it out indefinitely

Even accept that some people may choose to evade you, rather than fight you. Why does that bother you so much? you still get to disrupt their operations. You still may be able to negotiate a surrender based on that. If not -- maybe they weren't the rich target you thought they were? Maybe your intel -- wasn't so intel?

Perhaps the cost of the war should be based not on the actual number of members of either corp, but instead on the difference in size between the corps? That way, whether it's 100-member-corp declaring on 5-member-corp, or 5-member-corp declaring on 100-member-corp, it's still the same cost?

It look a long time!

But now we have a PVP-play. As an Aggressor we can fight against the industry corps how long we want without the risk to have to go in lowsec. I hate the lowsec because there are every time crummys which kill me without any chance to defense.

This is a good chance for little pvp corps to become enimies and ISK. To massacare mining fleets with hulks, and orcas. - Lets kill! - The danger that the industrycorp hire a mercenary corp isn't real, because this will cost much if they have to do this every month and we as agressor can end the war in this case next week or call a supply fleed or another pvp corp wich declare ware to the industry, too. The costs for that is now low again. But in the other case the industry corp has to wait untill we are ready to massacare it.

If we show the war history of the target corp we know if the corp will pay, fight or let masacrare itself. And if the last war of the target corp is not so long ago we can know if they have money for mercenary or it's an easy target which we can agress without risk.

So is PVP funny!

Hope that CCP make good offers for newcomers, so we have all time easy targets.

A great time will beginn in EVE!!

Most of the changes are good, but I really don't understand the reasoning behind the corp size factor to cost. What is the perceived benefit of that? Why do you want to reduce wars against large corps? And as a side effect, increase wars against tiny corps?

Targeting a big corp is, in general, a bigger risk for the agressor, because a bigger corp probably have a better chance to summon a defense. And inflated corp sizes will become a natural way to counter the threat of wars. The harrasment (griefing) of small corps on the other hand will become comparably cheaper. If size should be a factor then the opposite of the current plan would increase large scale wars between high-sec corps. Something that would give wars a bigger impact on the highsec political landscape.

Personally I would like to see a cost ratio based on the strength of the agressor (stronger corp=higher cost), and if the cost is secret then it wouldn't give any info. But I understand that it would be too complex to judge/implement.
In the end, a flat rate is probably a good thing.

I've participated in my fair share of highsec war decs on the side of the attackers. So with that, keep in mind the perspective my feedback is coming from.

First and foremost, in the Wardec keynote CCP posted on their youtube channel they mention they removed the portion of the cost formula that factors in the target entities currently existing wars. This is good. I like this.

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MY CONCERNS

I have a few different concerns in regards to pricing and mechanics directly related to the new war declaration system. These concerns are as follows, in a bullet format for easier reading:

Concerns:

• 500m ISK makes it so massive alliances are extremely expensive to declare war upon in order to interdict their high sec logistics movement. Goonswarm Federation for example has 8,341 members to their name (as of March 29, 2012 at 22:47 EVE). That is a per week cost of $4,170,500,000 to declare war on this alliance before you even factor in the base declaration fee. This to me seems more like a mechanic to protect large alliances from smaller groups that aren't "on the radar".


• The ability for a defender to be able to bring in an unlimited number of allies with no cost what so ever is severely unbalanced. Especially when you consider the fact that most war declarations are small groups declaring war on larger groups.


• The more an attacking corporation has to pay per week will inflate the required/requested ransoms when the target finally decides to surrender, should ransom be the end-goal of the aggressors.


• While I understand this is not the job of the team working on war mechanics, these changes should address and correct the overwhelming issues of neutral support utilized during high sec wars. In fact, that really needs to be changed for all combat all together.

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MY IMPLEMENTATION IDEAS

Based on my concerns and my role play definition of a Declaration of War in EVE Online the following are my ideas on what adjustments should be made to the new war dec mechanics:

War Declaration Maintenance Cost Formula

• The weekly recurring war dec fee only contains the base cost (20mil for corps, 50mil for alliances as proposed [base fee is determined by the aggressors group type])
• The 500m ISK per member fee is turned into a one time "Registration Fee". (I will now refer to this as 'Target Tax').
• The Target Tax is calculated by the total member count of both the aggressors and defenders.
• The Target Tax is charged only once at the beginning of the war.
• Allies called by the defender will incur an additional Target Tax that is calculated using only the member count of the new addition to the war. (IE you call an ally with 200 members the defending corp has to pay that fee on top of whatever agreement they have with the ally)
• Only the base fee of a war dec is modified by your currently outgoing wars.

The "States/Results" of a War

• Retain ability to have agreed upon surrender terms or aggressor cancellation.
• Have the ability to custom set non-aggression periods. (IE enter a number and select "Days/Weeks/Months/Years" from a drop down.) If the party who surrenders initiates or participates in violence against the other party outside of the war system the non-aggression period ends prematurely.
• When a mutual surrender term/pact is met, have kill rights immediately revoked.
• Add the ability for the aggressor to write a description of why the war was declared to add a bit of history and depth to why the declaration of war was made.
• When a war ends by surrender, the victor is able to create a note on the war (that must be agreed upon by the losers as a condition of surrender) marking the "History" of how the war ended. As the saying goes:
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code wrote:
“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?

Cancellation by Non-Payment

• When the attacker cancels a war by means of non-payment the defender, during the 24 hour cool down has the opportunity to continue the war in the role of aggressor.
• When a defender becomes the aggressor on a currently existing war they only have to pay the base price appropriate to their group size (corp/alliance). The "Target Tax" is not re-calculated and charged. This provides the defender recourse and an option to prevent their attackers from "bowing out gracefully".
• When an attacker cancels a war by non-payment, and the defender chooses not to continue the war themselves the outcome is marked as (or similar to) "Stalemate". You could take it further and in this case calculate the winner by ISK damage dealt and account for all fees paid (by either side) to maintain the war. So looking at an attackers profile who dominated their target but canceled the war by non payment would be displayed as "Stalemate, Victor" or something of the likes.

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OTHER RELATED ITERATION IDEAS

There are a couple other things that I think are a must when it comes to fixing wars in high security space.

1. Being in a fleet with someone at war should flag you to their war targets, IMMEDIATELY. This prevents neutral support from abusing game mechanics meant for ALLIES.


2. Engaging remote assistance modules on a person that is currently attackable by a player or at war should automatically initiate a normal 1 minute aggression countdown preventing jumps or docking. This should be done regardless if their target is actively fighting or not. The 1 minute timer will continue to refresh as long as they are providing the service, just like normal combat aggression.

The planed changes on the war system are more importend as it is CCP aware. The Industry activities are coming down in a big range.

the EVE-System is concepted so that have to skill your character very specialiced in single directions. So we have specialiced pvp and industry characters and corps.


Everyone needs the service or produces of the other chars and corps.

But the differnt is:

1.
The industry corps/char sell objects for ISK. So the buyer know what he buys.
The mercenary sells a service or a promise to bring a service. So the buyer don't know what he become for the ISK.

2.
The fighter need only specialiced to fighting. (the rest he can buy on the market)
The industry has to specialiced to producing or mining AND to fighting.(because it's not sure to buying - there are different reasons)

3.
3A The fighter wins if he has the advantage one time in the war-time. (he kill a ship)
3B The industry dont lose if he has not the disadvatage the whole war-time in his industry ship. (he dont lose a ship)
3C The industry wins if he has 3B and has the advantage one time in the war-time in his fighting-ship.


4.
The fighter need only to defend himself (his fihting ship).
The industry has to defend himself (his fighting ship) and the industry-ships and pos's (freighter, miner, pos etc.)

5.
A PVP-Corp can win many ISK and salvages from an industry corp (ships, pos's, freighter cargo)
The target corp can win only the Salvages from the killed ships. (it's all what a pvp corp need)


So it's easy for a 20 man pvp corp to bring down all industry buissiness for a 100 man industry corp. And it's nearly impossible to protect the industry activities and facilities with a 40man mercenary corp.

Additionally, the PVP-Corps are specialieced to kill. There are no changes necessary. The industry corps are specialieced to industry and fighting so far as necessary till now. Between 6 weeks they have to reorganize and reskill to can survive the wardec changes.

If an industry corp is so stupid to pay for an ware end. The agressors can change the corp with his chars and can attack the industry one day later again with the other corp.
The industry needs pos's for its buisiness because that, they can't change the corp with its chars without loosing the pos's.


In my oppinions it would be possible to change the wardec system without shattered the industry corps:

- an attacked corp or ally can sell the war for plus or minus ISK to a mercenary entity. After that the corp can't attack from the agressor. If the war is lost (with or without it was sold before) the lost corp (inclusive the first attacked corp) has to pay an fix ISK which is calculated through the system on basis of a calculated worth of the corp (pos's, Members, ISK o.ä.) and limited to the number of members of the agressor

OR

- the agressor can buy the right to make war against a corp only for a geographical area (Systems, Regions) and the cost are differentiated in dependency of size of the area, the secure lvl, member ...

But in all cases its absolutly nessecary to avoid what today is usally practiced if a 6man pvp corp attack a corp and then 2-4 corps intervene with 20-40char as supplyer. There is a reason because decshild is practicated - but this and the objectives of the players seems CCP not interested.

The agressor can't hire mercs? - He can!
Because other corps can declare war the target corp for low costs. - So this rule is a fake!

CCP - this new proposed system is neither better nor worse than the old wardeclaration system and I am specifically talking about the wardec mechanics. E.g. initiating, dropping wars and war costs.

• Here is why:

Imperial Guardians are currently one of the largest corporations in EVE. As such we have for some time now setup a dec shield to protect those many newbies we have in the corporation against the meaningless slaughter that is a highsec war where a small entitiy (1-20 man) wardec us and only log on when the coast is clear to kill off stragglers. But when we form up small fleets any hint of loss to these entities will make them dock up. So we have to start playing chess with our fleet and use all kinds of games to prevent them from seeing us and springing a trap. Again, it's all annoying docking games and they will only fight defenseless and helpness newbs and not against those who actually PvP

• What WE would like to see.

The possibility of metamorphically pull out your enemies from the station, kick them to the ground and end the war if they can't defend themselves.

• This is how I would like to see it implemented.

In the case of 10 pilots wardeccing a 1500 man alliance. Fine, the wartargets have decided to get themselves outnumbered and most likely being alts they can just dock up and log off for the entire evening when there's even a hint of us forming a small PvP fleet.
How about a structure is created which is owned by the aggressor. If the defender manages to get to that structure shoot it to the ground and have it enter let's say 20-24 hours reinforcement time then the wartargets have clearly failed to defend that.
If 24 hours later the defenders destroy the structure the war is immediately or after 24 hours cancelled and a 7 days period of peace is enforced.

It doesn't make sense that a tiny man corporation can harass a much larger entity without any repercussions or means for the defender to end the war because of cowardly behavior from the aggressors.

DAMN it, if I get wardecced I want to FIGHT. I don't want to play annoying docking games and I don't want my enemy to dock up and log off on their alts and other accounts because they are losing. Let me reinforce that structure and end the war, and if they can't defend themselves the day afterwards they have lost the war.


That is what we would like to see. Nothing more, nothing less. Just a way to end pointless wars.

You're so cute.

Remember kids, it's either CCP's or some griefer's fault! You may want to teach your noobs how to deal with wardecs (read: don't provide free kills) now. It may be to late for that in summer.

EVE business as usual. CCP markets big battles and they wouldn't get big battles if they allowed smallholders to mess with their plans that only big corporations are allowed to play EVE.

This is not a sandbox. This is CCP's game and you must bloody play it the way CCP tells you or else.