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Much like there not being a log on who removed all the stuff from your corp hangers, it's pretty much a "give the roles to people responsible and trustworthy" thing.

My sense of mischief wants it left how it is.

Aside from the fact that unlimited allies completely **** over any chance of mercenaries having a chance, it was just a dumb thing. When all of this came up at the CSM Summit the primary examples discussed were about what had happened with EVE Uni and how it would affect the Mercenary profession, which is something CCP does intend to keep working toward making viable. Unlike in the past, CCP has recognized this was a dumb thing and have acted to fix it quickly. I'm not a fan of this EXACT fix but maybe it'll change a bit more between now and release. Regardless, unlimited allies was a dumb thing.

However, this tinfoil idiocy is an even dumber thing. You want to argue about the mechanics, fine. If you don't like the way they are now or the way the changes will make them, that's fine too. But check the tinfoil crap at the door.

I cannot fathom how after nine years of this game being live anyone could really BELIEVE that the people that work on it give two ***** about the colors on a map or what corp / alliance is affected by balance changes. I worked at CCP in Game Design for over three years and I never made a decision or a change based upon how it would affect in game ~politics~ and no one I worked with did either. It's completely off the rails to suggest that someone like CCP Soundwave takes his cues from anyone other than CCP Unifex, the guy that does his salary reviews. It's even more absurd to bring CCP Screegs into anything related to Game Design because the guy is too busy hammering bots and RMTers; he's got nothing to do with this stuff.

It's just too dumb; I refuse to believe that you believe this stuff, Jade. The more you rabble about it along those lines, the less attention anyone is going to pay to you. Stick to talking about the actual mechanics and stop this nonsense.

Well, what if we don't think its a fiasco? This is one of those cases where the breadth of experience provided by the CSM led to a fairly consistent conclusion - unlimited allies doesn't make for good gameplay. Not that the CSM was unanimous, but most of us though this was a bad idea and that it defeated the whole purpose of having a competitive "mercenary marketplace" in the first place.

Having a "breadth of experience" doesnt mean the feedback has to be split 50/50 on every issue.

So what about the compromise solution where you don't pay concord for allies as long as the total headcount of defender + all allies is less than the total headcount of the aggressor?

This puts an upper limit on allies for most smaller wars - while allowing proper countering of a giant alliance wardeccing a smaller alliance.

I agree with Jade. If you couldn't bring in world renowned PvP allies like
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to fight the Goon menace, then there is NO WAY to fight them. It's impossible, really. The only way to kill Goons is to have 100 random allies in Empire. Then and only then can their nullsec empire crumble.

So Elise - since you find these allies so utterly laughable and irrelevant why should I have to pay concord a premium for them as long as the total size of my alliance and these corps is less than the total size of the entity making the incoming wardec?

Riddle me that.

So another point of view.

I don't believe there is deliberate goon influence in the current CSM, that said, there are some CSM and CCP developers that seem to have pretty similar views of Eve when compared to the goons.

I am the only CSM seriously being affected by this change and I am definitely NOT happy with the current planned change. We were grief-ed deced some time back by the goons and then by test. We asked for allies and we got some great responses for free. So we have lots of folks hunting goons and test with good result.

I can't say that this fact hasn't had something to do with pressures to change what we now have. That's my opinion, and again, I am the only CSM member directly affected in a major way by this proposed change.

We are 150 person alliance being prema-dec-ed by the two largest alliances in Eve. How could we possible fight them in any fair manner? The war dec war-dec fees will never be factor to these big alliances, they print isks with their tech moons for example.

The current allies system at least let them pay in actually combat losses for their nonsense. But making us have to start paying a lot for allies will be a burden for us. Where is that fair given the huge difference in size 150 vs 12000!

So what I hoped for and don't see yet are changes that address these issues.

1. Something that takes into account the difference in the sizes of the corps/alliances involved.
2. Some clear reasonable "win" condition, like driving someone out of some part of space or some amount of isk loss that triggers surrender.
3. An allies system that takes into account the relative sizes of the parties, I should be allowed to have a lot of allies if I am fighting 12K folks with my 150.
4. Something that makes it more attractive to me to hire a merc as compared to free allies. If there has to be a cap for the number allies we can have, then we should be able to make any fees that have to pay past that maximum of free allies go to mercs we can hire, not concord.
5. Fees sustainable by smaller organizations under siege.

I don't see these changes addressing any of those items.

So I don't think the goons got this because of plants in the CSM or CCP, but I think its clear from my perspective if this change goes forward it eliminates the only way a small outfit like the Honda Accord can survive against such an unbalanced war and definitely favors larger aggressors in a very unbalanced manner.

Issler

I'm curious, why was it determined that only defenders could bring in mercs, sorry, "allies" (don't we already have alliances?) in the first place? Why not allow anyone, attacker or aggressor, to bring in as many mercs as they can afford (with an adjustable contract length, much like price is negotiable?)

True, but it's not under any sort of obligatory contracted system. Right now, I can't (as say, an industrial corp that wants to push out competition), go look up some mercs to hire and set up a legitimate contract that says, "You will wardec x corporation for y ISK and z length of time." It's all scouts honor, which in EVE generally means it's not going to happen as often as would be nice.

When I first heard about the mercenary marketplace, that's what I was hoping for.

The current system doesn't make much sense to me any way you slice it.

True, but that's why we can look up a corp's war history now, isn't it?