Player Features and Ideas Discussion

GM Karidor recently posted a change to how customer support handles wardec-related petitions. TL;DR--if you can do it with the current mechanics, its permitted, no matter what was said in the past.

Wardec mechanics have long been a problem and much of the discussion surrounding them digs deep into underlying issues of fairness, concerns about griefing, concerns about 'easy mode,' and the fundamental principles of EVE. Whatever any particular player thinks, however, the reality is that there is a very large contingent of players who don't want anything to do with PvP. Simply saying that those people should man up or leave EVE is unrealistic and ignores the fact that CCP wants to keep subscriptions, not lose them. So how to balance them?

My proposal approaches hisec warfare in a different way than the current wardec mechanic. It allows those who don't PvP a measure of safety at a very steep price and it gives those who do want PvP greater freedom to engage in it but they can never evade it.

This is my first attempt and it relies on "fixing" the way in which corporations/alliances calculate their collective security status and faction standings. Standings need to be handled in such a way that they pass downwards from the alliance to corp to player; the reasons will become clear as you read through it. It also completely does away with wardecs and the idea of "paying for war."

Corporation/Alliance Types

Upon the creation of a corporation, the Founder will receive an option to choose one of 3 types of corporations. Each has benefits and drawbacks.

Pacifist Corporations/Alliances

Benefits:
* System security 1.0 type response from Concord everywhere in hisec.
* Attacks on pacifist corps/alliances get triple the current security status hit. (Fix current mechanics so that it is impossible for criminals to jump clone, reset medical clones, or enter in any way, shape or form systems of the prohibited security level)

Penalties:
* Members cannot use weapons, drones, or modules that target other ships, including remote rep. Corp members can’t fit them or board a ship that has them.
* Can’t anchor POS’s anywhere in EVE.
* Pacifist corporations can only join pacifist alliances and pacifist alliances can only have pacifist corps.
* Cannot hold system sovereignty.

Faction Ally Corps/Alliances

Benefits:
* Faction navy responds to criminal aggression against Faction Ally corps/alliances instead of Concord. Attackers receive standings hit for the faction, but no security status hit. Faction Navy doesn’t respond to attacks on the same grid with a Faction Ally corps/alliance POS, but the attacker still gets a faction standings hit.
* Can attack opposing Faction Ally corps/alliances anywhere in EVE without faction navy response.
* Can anchor POS in aligned faction’s hisec; however, the corp/alliance must have positive sec status.

Penalties:
* The corp/alliance security status determines system access for all members (after fixing current mechanics so that it is impossible for criminals to jump clone, reset medical clones, or enter in any way, shape or form systems of the prohibited security level).
* Faction Ally corps/alliances that attack an aligned faction’s navy or aligned Faction Ally corps/alliances receive triple faction standings hit.
* Faction Ally corporations can only join Faction Ally alliances of the same faction and Faction Ally alliances can only have Faction Ally corps of the same faction.
* Cannot hold system sovereignty.
* Cannot anchor POS anywhere other than aligned faction space.

Warrior Corps/Alliances

Benefits:
* Can attack any other warrior corp/alliance anywhere in EVE without Concord response or sec status penalty.
* Can anchor POS anywhere in EVE, provided they have the appropriate faction standing and a positive security status for hisec POSs.

Penalties:
* The corp/alliance security status determines system access for all members (after fixing current mechanics so that it is impossible for criminals to jump clone, reset medical clones, or enter in any way, shape or form systems of the prohibited security level).
* Can be attacked by anyone, anywhere in EVE without Concord response or security status hit.
* Warrior corporations can only join warrior alliances and Sovereign Entities. Warrior alliances can only have warrior corps.

Sovereign Entities

(while the other three selections are choices, this category is automatically assigned as soon as the alliance holds a system. It overrides all other categories.)

Benefits:
* Can attack any Warrior corp/alliance or Sovereign Entity anywhere in EVE without Concord response or sec status penalty.
* Receives no sec status penalty or gate/station gun aggression in losec.
* Can anchor a POS anywhere in EVE, provided they have the appropriate faction standing and a positive security status for hisec POSs.
* All the current sov mechanics apply.

Penalties:
* The corp/alliance security status determines system access for all members (after fixing current mechanics so that it is impossible for criminals to jump clone, reset medical clones, or enter in any way, shape or form systems of the prohibited security level).
* Can be attacked by anyone, anywhere in EVE without Concord response or security status hit.
* Only Warrior corps/alliances can join a Sovereign Entity.

lol pacifist corps... in eve.
so you are suggesting that they will be able to compete in the market-pvp also but not with a 50% pacifist tax then?

just fix wardec system properly to add timers for leaving a corp that has been wardecced to 48h or something so they will atleast have 24h pvp, if they choose to stay docked then thats it.

wardecced corps should not be able to join a alliance while having a active wardec alternatively leave a alliance with a active wardec until they have stayed the 48h period.
ive always seen targets who jump to a alliance as giving me a free 1week war with lots more targets.

also the limit of 3 wardecs should be removed as to stop the 4corps exploit wich apparently now is not a exploit, silly GM's

dont start overcomplicate things, if people dont want wardecs then you have the npc corps wich one cannot wardec already at the cost of a corptax, cant have cake and eat it you know.

Just curious why there should be a 50% tax? I mean if a warrior corp is station trading and a Pacifist cirp is station trading, whats the difference?

The OP is a bit convoluted and is a very rough idea, but I do think that having multiple kinds of corporate models is one possible way to improve the war experience. I would prefer fewer benefits that matter more, with more elastic modifications.

Something like pacifist corporations cost 25% more to declare war against, while warrior corporations can declare war for 25% less. Approach things from an economic model.

Related: I am unsure how to fix the "we all leave our corporation for an NPC corp when it gets in a war" problem, but I am convinced it is a problem. In a more perfect world, wars would follow people even when they change corporations.

I'm surprised how many people have misunderstood the Pacifist model. You're stuck on the word Pacifist.

Currently if a player stays in an NPC corp, he can't be wardecced. This is precisely, 100% the same as the Pacifist corp model. But in this model, they're being penalized for being pacifists. They can't participate in about 90% of EVE activities. They can't mission, they can't rat, they can't form POS farms, they can't fight, they can't fight back, they can't change or affect their standings. Currently, I can join an NPC corp and do all of those things (well, ok not POS). I pay no penalty for the convenience.

As for assertions that somehow wardecs are what makes EVE dangerous, you're fooling yourself. Wardecs are quite possibly the most pointless game mechanic in EVE. Everyone who doesn't want to be decced just drops corps and goes to NPC corps. The only way to get to them is by ganking. And even in my proposal, ganking is still a danger. The sooner CCP and everyone else gets it through their head that people who don't want to fight aren't going to fight under any model, the better off we'll all be. If you really want to kill them, you know what to do: thrasher gank FTW.

If the dec follows individual players, griefing will be rampant. Do you really believe that by deccing an individual he'll come fight you? What then? He has to keep on fighting you? Where does it end? Underlying that idea is a mechanic in which one player is forcing another player to do what he wants. How many players would willingly pay for the privilege of being virtually bullied? I feel fairly confident that whatever they do, the wars won't follow individuals.

At its heart, the wardec discussion is really a discussion about the underlying psychology of the play styles.

My attempt (and its rough I admit) is to adhere to a couple of basic principles:
* If you want to play as a pacifist in hisec, you can, but that's all you can do. And it doesn't exempt you from ganks.
* If you want to fight and make war on people, great. But you can't run to hisec to hide. You're a target everywhere.

No, no, no, and another thousand 'no's.

Can you imagine what kind of chaos that would cause? EVE would become almost unplayable -- you'd have pirates ganking new players en masse, camps at every gate and station in highsec, the economy would flatline because nobody could safely transport anything, anywhere, and nobody would fly anything bigger than a T1 frigate because every single bounty hunter, pirate, gatecamper and neg-standing pilot would swarm anything larger and pod anything smaller.

Trust me, if you give someone a chance to be a jacka** in a game like EVE, they're going to take you up on the offer lock, stock and barrel.

Wouldn't it just be easier for a corp to pay increasingly more expensive (based on member count) "protection money" to CONCORD to flag and maintain themselves as a "cannot be war-decced and cannot war-dec" corp? This of course would only apply to where CONCORD actually operates, and the corp has their HQ, i.e. High-Sec.

Individual pilots in said corp could still be shot at in High-Sec and Low-Sec, without changing the current sec-status hit or criminal flagging for the aggressor(s).

I disagree with the weapons and no POS building, because pirates in 0.0 don't need to follow the law.