Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

I have recently been in touch with a CSM member who suggested the best way to receive feedback and comments would be here. So here I am with some suggestions I feel would make high-sec living more rounded.

As a bit of background to the thread, I have been playing a couple of years now and experienced various aspects of EvE from Null sec warfare and industry, low sec piracy and roaming to my current high-sec dwelling. I am not by any means a veteran of the game but have come to love it for being so in touch with its player base through the means of CSM and forums regarding features and balance.

It is well know that EvE is a pretty difficult game to get into as a new player and whilst for some people this is part of the experience, for other's it can be very daunting. As part of a High-Sec corporation, we devote a lot of time to recruiting, teaching and helping newer members get into the game and find their feet alongside other individuals. Just recently we have been subject to a number of War-Dec's that some people have referred to as "griefer" war declarations. I am sure you are all aware of this form of WD so I won't go into detail.

As a corporation we actively fought back as best as we could and ensured that losses were minimised. However, due to the nature of War-Dec's and the expertise alongside the classes of ships these individuals had, we have lost numerous new members, and I quote because "There is no protection for newer players or individuals minding their own business trying to make a buck or two".

Whilst I fully appreciate that this is part and parcel of the game, it got me thinking about how new and older players alike could be protected a bit in a non-detrimental way to the War-Dec mechanic system.

1. Raise the cost or War-Dec's - Currently it cost's 50m ISK + x amount for each member over 51 topping out at 500mil. Our corporation of 45 therefore falls under the 50m ISK category. This is frankly pocket change for 99% of the players in EvE. CCP pushes the Risk vs Reward mantra a lot. The new industry changes are revolved around this concept and I support that players in greater danger should reap the bigger rewards. If War Dec's cost 500m ISK base and the x amount per person over 51 it would make corporations think twice about who they were declaring on. Factors such as, "Can I get enough kills to justify the payment", "Am I picking a good target, will they fight back or not?" would come into consideration a lot more.


2. War Declaration cool down - Provide some sort of immunity to War Dec's for a few days, or even a week after a previous one ends. Allow the corporation in question to rebuild, restock and provide operations for its members to log on for.

I appreciate that the views on this subject divide opinion greatly and I am not trying to take away from anyone's profession within EvE. My main concern is that it is becoming harder and harder to attract new players to the game and keep them active whilst being under constant threat of attack.

Regards,

BA

Very valid points in all fairness and its great to get feedback on these!

What do you think of the current prices for War-Dec's?

No opinion because it's not my area of expertise but it's a mechanic that's been around for years and changing the cost doesn't look like a very complicated thing to do, so I'm sure it would have been done a long time ago if the CCP / the CSM felt the current costs weren't high enough.

they did this pretty recently -- hiked them up from a flat 2m (50m for alliances) to this 50m base, then sliding scale thing.

Think it was around Crucible / Inferno.

I don't intend it to stop War Dec's, I would just like to see some train of thought behind them. As I explained, currently 50m ISK is a very small amount of ISK to put on the line for potentially big rewards. If the initial cost was raised, it would make the aggressor corporation have to think about all possible outcomes and possibilities.

It doesn't matter if they were paid or not, if the price was raised, so would the price or mercenaries and thus meaning people hiring them would have to pay more.

how is that?

when the cost of a dec went up 2500% they did not change anything except make it more difficult for poor ppl to war dec. Raising the prices just makes it even harder for poor ppl to war dec, which sucks if they have a legitimate reason to dec or want to hire mercs because they are getting attacked by other players.

I'd rather the price of decs be reduced back to 2mil and allies able to join on all sides. Then add some way for decs to be prematurely ended by defenders.

but if you raise the cost of war decs then you're also lowering the risk to high sec corps at what point would ccp have to reduce the payout from missions and incursions to compensate for this?

And when the corp which has had war declared on it disbands & reforms shortly thereafter? (Or, if they really like their name, leave one alt in the corp & switch to a 2nd corp or NPC corp.)

War deccer out 500 million, corp which had war declared out 1.5 million (to start a new corp).

All of these "make war dec's more expensive" ideas are meaningless, unless they also involve forcing people to stay in the war dec'd corp. It's too easy to avoid now. (And that is from someone who spends most of their high-sec time relaxedly running level 4's - my pvp is from a WH character.)

To be honest, I've always felt the cost of a wardec to be upside down.

A large entity attempting to wardec a small one should have to pay the big sum, depending on the percentile difference in numbers...but that's just me...

U just dnt get it. That is the EXACT, pretty much WORD FOR WORD, argument they made when they upped the dec from 2mil to 50mil. And that 50mil is for smaller corps. It can go upto 250 mil for larger groups who still suffer 'lazy decs'. 500mil is still chump change for many PvP corps, have u seen how many decs the likes of Marmite have? All this idea does is make it difficult for poor corps to make legitimate decs.

1. If someone decs u and doesnt come after u, whats the problem? Its their money their wasting.
2. How do u tell the difference between a greif dec and a meaningful one? And whats wrong with a grief dec?
3. How do u tell the difference between a 'lazy dec' and one where the defenders docked up for a week?


@ Bob

So when another miner steals my rocks, i have to give them money to war dec them? no thanks.