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This change is CCP attempting to set the "griefers" against the "griefers". It's a trap based around the premise of making one of the corps that enjoys highsec wars make the mistake of actually declaring war against anybody. Within 24hrs they're going to find that every single other corp that enjoys wars will have offered their services to the defender for 0.00Isk. Eve being Eve, the defenders won't care and just accept them all, as Eve University's cardinal rule goes: "The more the merrier". Essentially pitting people who like highsec PvP against people who like highsec PvP, a section of the so called sandbox cordened off so these people don't disturb the other kids playing in the sand.

Unfortunately this change, it's based on anecdotal evidence provided by unheard of alts worried about losing a highsec pos because they have 3 characters in the corp, all the same person, and people who post heavily in every dev blog regardless of the topic and believe in their heart they are indeed the expert on every subject that they think they are.

I can't fathom why as SoniClover already stated in another blog that small corps weren't being griefed in the first place. He's made little attempt to explain why it is that 0.0 alliances need to be protected on their Jita trips. I've outlined elsewhere what it is that over time has caused highsec wars to be predominantly based around Jita, I can't be bothered to repeat myself so I'll just link it again. What we have now is an evolution as more and more nerfs came in, this forthcoming patch does absolutely nothing to tackle this which indicates to me at least that SoniClover and his team of ~superfriends~ are oblivious to what goes on in and with wars. Remember, if you've been around long enough you would know that the mercenary business was once an entirely self-sustaining and thriving player community based business that didn't require the aid of a marketplace. I'm surprised none of the team didn't look into what it is that changed to cause it die before trying to reinvigorate it with whats little more than a shot in the dark.

Anyway you look at this, the new war mechanics and mercenary marketplace are not going to work, at least not in the way intended. I'm actually astounded that no-one on the development team flagged the issues that have been highlighted already. Apart from anything else, no-one at CCP has considered that people may like to do highsec wars as a form of income. The assumption all the way is that people do a few missions to get the ISK to pay for the war. An astounding misjudgement of what people in their game are doing and why - probably been listening to too many of those alts that mysteriously appear shout proclaimations of doom and gloom regarding forthcoming unsubscriptions due to being griefed by mean people before fading back into the shadows again.

I'm a guy who likes to shoot stuff
I'm clearly in a 0.0 alliance as can be identified by my corp and alliance. I'm pretty bored to death of 0.0 as it's based on timers, few will bother to lift a finger unless some sov based mechanic informs them that they need to. When there is a fight, people go for the simple numbers + alpha approach - it gets samey pretty quickly.

I have an alt in FW which is funny because everyone in FW just wants to do missions and fit for speed and ecm, yeah thats not really that entertaining to me

Highsec wars just got nerfed out of existence and the only people who can't see that yet are the people who instituted the changes.

No wonder everyones so ISK rich now, no-one loses anything.

Still, at least there's still highsec ganking, fortunately The Mittani will not allow CCP to 'fix' that. Sreegs hasn't even spotted that some have a considerable advantage over others yet.

I see a minor bit of fun occuring as a result of this actually. Bait Corps will be cool.

That's a lot of words for a "bad game design. Bad CCP."

Can't you merc corps just wardec the target corp if you are worried about endless fighting? Then you control the time limit.

Sure it will actually cost more money, but you have total control.

You should have to think if you truly want to start a war. And having to stick with it to the end, definately gives your allies incentive to fight :)

Is this system perfect... probably not (few things are). But the old system was just a blatent griefing tool.

Hey, you can still sign on as an ally.

But if you really are too scared to take the fight to the end, you have this option to dec them yourself. I see more flexibility with different cost options.

Seems you missed the obvious and click reducing step of linking this to the standings system and letting your allies by standings be allies in war. So now we'll have:

• allies, the ones in our alliance
• allies, the ones we're blue with
• and maybe allies, who we agree to fight a war with

Yet again CCP hit the jackpot for multiple different features all with the same name!

Why wouldn't you blame the people who came up with the design and then coded it? They are exactly the people responsible. Or, would you prefer to blame Hilmar's dog?

I must remember to use that one at work - well I did a fantastic job of describing the feature in the manual so the fact that my code blew up an oil refinery is just not my fault.


The thing is there aren't going to be "real serious changes that need to be made in upcoming months to iron out this system into something workable and effective" because when CCP published a devblog they have already made up their minds and written the code. And, once written that code will not change for years. Oh sure they'll promise iterations but they never happen within a reasonable time frame if at all.

Why would a sov alliance join in its renters' wars? Or even its own allies' wars? For alliance members, highsec wars are a nuisance to logistics, and the leadership, if they think about them at all, considers them a distraction from all-important timer wars. That's why wars against them work.

Glad to hear it, I'm hoping to see more love in there for mercenaries and space-bads than we're seeing right now.

The biggest hope for an independent wardecker in the new system as it is currently described right now is the hope that lots of really bad groups will join up as allies against an inconsequential target, providing them with the targets they desire; if that's not how it turns out, there won't be much of an case for declaring war on anyone in the first place.

Oh, and Irongut... you sound mad bro.

CCP is yet again not really bothering to listen to a lot of intelligent people who generally have a pretty decent handle on what potential mechanics changes will mean. CCP gets ideas in it's head about what great new features need to be introduced or changed, and there's no dissuading them from going ahead full steam no matter how much evidence to the contrary there is to make them reconsider. It's as if they're afraid of wasting all that time invested, when in the end it's wasted anyways as the changes blow up in their faces.

Isn't the first time, sure as hell won't be the last time. Every time CCP has the opportunity to really do something interesting with a new feature or mechanic they screw it ten ways to Sunday.

I'm not a merc. I haven't done highsec wardecs in a couple years now. So I don't have any stake in this particular card game. I'm just a subscriber who logs in to change skills and chat a bit and that's pretty much it. Changing skills is about the most exciting thing to be found in EVE these days, though I hope that might one day change and hence why I keep the characters training.

CCP: Take the revised war mechanics, remove them from Inferno and put out a finished product, and one that is actually productive rather than counterproductive. Get it right the first time. And getting it right the first time means actually listening to the folks that have some experience with this particular facet of the game, rather than basing your work on assumptions made by devs who don't. I just can't believe that any dev who has half a brain about them doesn't see the potential issues these changes are going to open the wardec system up to, many of which have already been mentioned here by far more knowledgeable folks than myself.

Alekseyev Karrde is one of the most knowledgeable people in EVE (if not the most) regarding merc issues. Do yourselves a favor and actually listen to what's being said. Drop the changes from Inferno, write off the time put into the changes and start over. Put out a real and complete system in the next expansion.

Of course, we already know CCP is going to do what they've always done.