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You know to be honest; it really feels like the war dec mechanic could be tweaked to revive the merc market and not provide a situation where mega alliances are all but immune to war decs in high sec from aggressors. Yet CCP and the CSM happily present the 1.1 patch and the open end to abuse it by large alliances as collateral damage with no intention of taking an honest look at it.

Any other ideas that not only maintain the idea of a dynamic merc marketplace, but improves upon it are promptly dismissed because it also includes a fix to keep super large alliances in the danger zone. Why are you determined to keep super large alliances as safe as possible while in high sec??

Jade, the major problem with your proposal is that the ONLY scenario in which it is a good idea is in YOUR situation. You don't see why people are writing it off as incredibly biased?

Your original comments were a conspiracy fed "this has been changed because it helps Goons" whereas your proposal is literally requesting a change to aid yourself.

I will tell you what is wrong with it.

One of the major changes that CCP wanted to remove in Inferno was "greif decs" -- wardecs where a small entity wardecs a larger one for a tiny, tiny cost as there is almost no downside to it. So CCP added price scaling, such that small entities trying to wardec large ones would end up paying for what is basically a large target list. You get more reds the more you pay.

Under your solution, there would be more small corps wardeccing slightly larger industial corps because the aggressed party is outnumbered, and ergo penalised under your system.

In case you don't know, this is the MAJORITY use of the wardec system. It is literally what wardecs are used for in nearly all cases. Don't believe me? Look at the war history of any random highsec corp.

Now, you basically have two.

Say it again, TWO groups who don't fit into this in their wardeccing -- Goonswarm and TEST, attacking two entities, BEEP and you.

TWO.

Who just happen to be aggressing you. Oddly enough, the only other person with you on this is Issler and OH LOOK, they're the other victim of this "unjust" change.

Can you admit here that you see why your suggested changes are being bashed down by everyone, including the game designers working on it and the lead game designer who has already told you why your suggestion is completely wrong for the game?

Can you give me a suggestion that explains the need for your system which doesn't:

- Mention a CFC alliance
- Mention 9000 vs 100
- Mention the unusual case of nullsec players wardeccing

If you can achieve this, you may have a solid point.

I'm only on page 10 so far but wanted to highlight the below. Been trying to put my finger on my own 'core' issue between the two and you've nailed it. Even if item 1 is not easy to do, item 2 is more critical.

As an aside, I'm very familiar with tree inventories and their interaction, from their use in Second Life (a core feature since I started circa '04). The main reason I can live with such a system is that they have a very easy way to spawn a second window (making organizing a breeze).

Surely if you're concerned about not being able to add sufficient allies to match your aggressor's numbers, you could simply recruit willing participants into your corp or alliance rather than use the ally system? Sure, fewer people will be willing do leave their own corp or alliance to do it, but hey - war is supposed to be all about consequences and difficult choices right? It'll be harder for you, but just ticking a 'requesting assistance' box and letting people do their thing seems a little easy to me - why shouldn't you have to put in some effort? Alternatively, you can simply pick your allies well - choose someone who has a proven record of forcing larger entities to surrender. That's what the ally system was supposed to be after all.

There are solutions, even if they aren't the most elegant solutions or the ones that you'd like to have as the defender. For the regularity with which such situations occur, I think it makes far more sense to rely on those than to demand the whole system be designed around your edge case.

You're also assuming that these 'huge alliances' will active prosecute a war against a smaller party using their full membership, which isn't true at all - almost all of them are in nullsec, and even at a stretch you're going to be actively fighting a very small portion of their membership. Treating a wardec from a 9000 member nullsec alliance as a war with 9000 hostile participants is deliberately misleading.

i was thinking more nerf mallets and protective gear like in american gladiators...

I would never ask (or want) CCP to try to "balance" a fight or war in eve. I'm not taking that side in this forum fight. Yet I couldn't help but notice this.

" If you want to go to war with someone, a higher number of potential targets should be more expensive" other than this not being duck hut online, targets CAN shoot back. We are not just putting quarters into a machine and asking for more ducks to flyby with our isk. Many times a smaller entity is taking a huge risk war dec'n a big alliance. But that aside, why then is the war mechanic the only one where corp size matters? Are larger corps now going to have higher corp offices cost since "more" pilots are using them? Will smaller corps now get a discount on those offices? Or is the war mechanic the only one where larger corps get the favoritism? (of note I feel the war price should just be one flat fee for any size corp or alliance treat all of us the same).

Oh please. This discussion should be about how to have mechanics in place that create fun gameplay.

Some elements of the new wardec system is stupid, no doubt about it. But the proposed changes will just create new problems, and reinstate the wardec as primarily a griefing tool. So this isnt about "shaping the mechanic around the Goons", its about gameplay issues larger than the Goons.

EVE is supposed to be fun, and that goes for both parties in a war. When one side vastly outnumbers the other, wars are not fun, unless the smaller party just likes it that way - which is the minority of cases.

EVE is also supposed to encourage coorporation and teamwork, strategy and tactics.

Changes should be made to the mechanic that would enable the defender to achive numerical parity if he so wishes, and only hurt finacially if you try to outnumber the attacker. Alternatively, if the defender outnumbers the attacker, the option to call in allies opens up for the attacker as well. Why is this so hard to accept?

Thanks, Azual. This was exactly the point I'm getting at - for the situation Jade describes to be one that shapes the game play decisions, it needs to be happening regularly.

This is a sandbox after all, I don't think its fair to accuse the CSM or CCP of trying to completely blot out Jade's vision of a vast war against the Goons. Unless I'm overlooking some rule, it seems that there are indeed methods through which a defending alliance could take on as many willing participants as they can find, its just not *as easy* this way.

Azual's beaten me to the punch, but I'll leave this here anyway.



I agree that the original setup is odd, and needed tweaks. This seems like a step in the right direction for the mercs, and it still gives corps/alliances an option (which is not discussed much yet).

@ Jade - Are you willing to open your alliance to corp recruitment and alliance merger? If you're this dead-set on showing any holes in the system, than consider standing up and taking it to the next level. Perhaps in the process you'll find the kernel of a new highsec power bloc.

@ Marlona Sky - Looks like you're (or at least a group of FHC folks are) doing this already at the merc level, which sounds intriguing and cool.

By the way, in the one or two instances where GSF actually acted on their wardecs (i.e. messing with Krixtal, etc) they numbered less than 20.

Even in your edge case of a large entity going after a small corp there's simply not an issue that couldn't be solved by the first ally you hire being a good outfit, such as Noir.