Assembly Hall

....Because in real life....

I don’t think that you are wrong to identify the aggressor as a problem but the problem is bigger than a single expected role, in my opinion. In fact renaming many of the terms used in the war system would at least manage expectations – war could be relabelled ‘Disappointment’ and the participants ‘Unlikely to be suicidal corp 1’ and ‘Unlikely to be suicidal corp 2’ rather than aggressor and defender – it would reflect what goes on far better than the roles that are stated but rarely fulfilled.

A big problem I see with the war system is that it allows for ridiculous ratios, there is nothing a hundred people can do in a war against ten so you don’t bother trying. War, as far as I have experienced, can not involve everyone that is involved especially if there is ever going to be any fighting.
A good mechanic has to be able to involve everyone and the current war system is almost designed to exclude people from the game.

Why not modify your idea into an additional feet fighting system separate from war that allowed for arranging times and places for fleet fights using a limited number of ships, something along the lines of the alliance tournament. A specific system is assigned for fighting so everyone still has the normality of high sec – heck, it can be an ultra sec system to save breaking the universe and have concord manage fair play. The fleets can be no larger than the membership of the smallest corporation involved and the victory condition the elimination of the enemy fleet. Three fights over a week, winner gets an e-peen extension. The time of the fight, or best match can be derived from the corps members activity so it is known in advance if the two corps time zones match.
Moving scoring away from isk would also be nice, tactical fighting with the best you can afford rather than the isk based shopping list that is the norm for a high sec fight – losing the battle but killing the most isk shouldn’t really be an aim, entertainment should be above accounting.
It doesn’t have to be mutual, just by invitation and recorded somewhere in the corp bio as some form of honour type rating, turning up being as positive a thing as winning.
I realise that it would be slightly civilised to simply get on with the fighting in this way but it would serve to open up conflict to all those corps that really don’t want to waste a week on probably not shooting at anyone.


That is not to say that war should be removed but it would need to be adjusted to reflect that you had ganking, duelling and fleet fighting as well as low and null which all in provides a smorgasbord of combat opportunities.
Currently there are corps that declare war in order to gank freely, they have no interest in fighting and are only in it for the barges. Obviously with notice most people know to lock up the ships that these people want to shoot at making it a fairly pointless exercise for all, in many cases.
I think the cost of war would have to be increased to a point where you would do it when you only do it when you wanted to take on/out a corporation, to take out its towers etc. Our towers have been floating in space poorly defended through countless wars without anyone even bothering to threaten to take them out, let alone actually shooting at them. Our ‘aggressive’ enemies have always had plenty to shoot at, just not the will or numbers. Both corps involved should have assets anchored in high sec space, there should always be something for the other side to shoot at and the victory condition should be destroying those assets or not. The aggressor and defender might even fulfil those roles if they have a reason to. Im not suggesting that shooting at towers would be thrilling but it would be a lot more interesting than the 161 hours of nothingness that war seems to currently provide.
In addition to that a red vs blue type war should be accessible if wanted but that should be mutual.

I appreciate my pop poll is not scientific but the first corp in my current system has 3 kills and no losses after a total of 10 weeks of war – 1 kill for every 23 days of war they have enjoyed. The next has 1 loss and no kills for 203 days of war, fantastic fun. I know that there are counter examples but in a system with 30 people in it a random one is not to hand, nothing seems to happen in most wars based on where I am. It would be nice to see some CCP statistics on high sec war, what I can read for the corp I’m in suggests that we lose fewer ships when at war than not, which is scary. That is largely because if we do fight we outnumber the enemy which guarantees the aggressor won’t come out to play, the rest of the time I guess our members are not as suicidal as the system seems to require them to be.

I don’t know what the perfect answer is but as it stands it seems that removing the war system would entertain more people than retaining it in its current form. I do think that there should be war but it shouldn’t be a ball and chain that the game has to drag around and I certainly agree that people seem to be wrongly tied to the idea that an aggressor is aggressive.

Seriously....

This is just a bunch of 'noob corp' only alt characters complaining about the war dec system.

Lets just lock it.

You have posted three times in this thread without once being constructive.
You don't want more ways to fight in High sec, more fighting or perhaps you are just a disinterested in the subject and randomly posting?
You must have a mind, I promise no nasty men will break into your house if join in with the discussion in a reasonable way. If your opinion, what ever it might be, is valid then why is that, what is it etc., can you not persuade others that it is a good pov, if so why?

You may lack experience of high sec wars as you seem unaware of a tactic that is familiar to me. It is a no brainer a lot of the time that the WT will have alts watching, I've been in a war where the aggressor had more alts than corp members - a side effect of a desire for a 'perfect' killboard I assume. Half the point is to lull you into 'going about your business' under the watch of the alts, then as if a shock on log the WT's. Essentially it isn't worth the risk of going about your normal business but there will be no WT's to shoot unless you undock something 'shiny' or at least easy to kill. That is not to say that you cant use that to make a trap but that is usually tedious, certainly a long way from being a rewarding use of time.
You can not be watched 23/7 but without prior knowledge and tedious research you can not be certain who is watching you or have them all on your watch list, you don't know who the enemy is. There are more interesting things to do in this world than mess about not fighting a war in Eve.
Fighting and winning is also a huge risk, especially if you don't want to be in a war. As the aggressor can not call in allies you get fresh war decs instead, turning seven days of something you don't want into ten plus days is not smart.


The aggressor in a war has the purpose of shutting the corp down, that or surrender are the conditions that end wars early, perhaps there should be some penalty if the aggressor does not achieve that aim.
As a defence docking up is the best, totally effective. It would seem odd to penalise the defender for using a defensive tactic that is 100% effective. I cant think what else the defender should achieve in war than a 100% effective defence and still be operating after seven days - surely fulfilling that role so effectively should earn a reward rather than a penalty, more so when the defender has assets in space that are totally ignored. A lot of problems do seem to relate to the use of these roles as they create expectations that are unrealistic.

I do agree that there is currently absolutely no point in a defender fighting a war and that might lead to suggesting some form of Carrot via penalty for the defender but all such ideas tend to be impractical because you can not force players to log in. That does logically lead to considering the aggressor, if the defender fighting could in some hurt or hinder the aggressor in a meaningful way then that could perhaps help persuade the defender to fight. However, as you demonstrated, there is a great deal of hostility towards such an approach.
Currently it is fairly pointless for either side to do anything unless they are certain it kills them more isk than they can lose - that tends to lead to stalemate at best.

Using an alt to post an opinion about anything on these forums is reasonable, especially where a war dec may effect more that just four corp members where at least three are one persons alts. I don't think it is fair to risk a week of all my corps mates playtime by joining in with the forum with my main so I use an alt. I pay a subscription like everyone else and feel I have a right to express an opinion as an account holder rather than a character, the idea that we must get caught up in role-play when discussing game mechanics is daft but can be the case.

For those of you wondering why i wrote that we are an alliance of about 150 people we have been at war for just over a month and a half there is rarely nobody online in my alliance and we certainly don't stay docked up, the aggressing corp is a 2 man corp that has been seen online for maybe 10 minutes collectively for the entire war. It just seems like abuse of the war dec system to me but it is within the rules. And those of you trolls I will not post my alliance or corporation im not new to eve and I don't want more war declarations.

How do people who are logged out stop anyone doing anything?

I mean AFK cloaker whines are bad enough, but complaining about people who aren't even logged in? Come on now.

To put it simply its keeping a few of us from incursions, I know a lot of people don't care for them but they are part of the game and its what we pay to do. I would be fine with a month and a half war with people who actually come online for more than a minute a week but that is not the case and there is no way to get back at them.

... because in real life ....
I had the lols.

Yeah, because in real life one country goes to the UN and formalize a war declaration. LoL

Ok. I admit that present wardec system is a joke, and one thing I agree to the "in real life" argument, that it is a little insane that lets say the Caldari State would allow people to blow themselves up right beside the "Town Hall". It is simply not very realistic that you can make war on hisec, and that brings the idea that the ONLY reason wardecs exist is to find ways for people to do pvp alone in peace with only people they want, which is at the same time a turn off on the verge to go to low and null sec, and a turn off for a lot of new players.

In this case I think war dec should be put aside altogether and leave it to a simple set said corp to low standing and let people go to areas where they can blow themselves up. That solves a lot of problems and sure will make a lot of new players join the game and stay in the game.

Population of hisec will most likely always be majority, but wardecs, higest valued ore by qty/price ratio and the certanty of any action being bailed out by some npc rat bashing is a bit overkill if the idea is to keep the hisec population all happy.

The moment you cannot blow people up in hisec, and mining isnt that profitable, people will seek places to do it. Right now the best place to do it is in hisec, and CCP seems to enjoy it so you have everything being made easy to be done in hisec.