Assembly Hall

Ссылка на копию топика в русскоязычном разделе: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=344558

Updated: Now there are two tarif plans for corp maintance - "Starter" and "Full" - with former not allowing tax reducing, but costs far less and allows for several POS installations, and later behaves as described below and costs much much more

What need to be done:

1) Concord have to be redesigned to "protect" players in such way it does this currently only in cases:

• a) New players (lets say, up to 2 to 3 months of active subscription, or in several particular system with deliberately low income)
• b) Those who are staying in NPC corporations (and in return significant taxes are imposed on them, not just trifling10%, and not only from bounties and mission rewards, as it is now; let it be 20-25%, including new type of tax - LP tax)
• c) Those, who joined corporation, created by other players.

and allows to engage without any restrictions those, who haven't joined any corp at all (current game mechanics won't allow this). But the last mentioned are freed from almost all taxes at the same time (more on taxation below).

2) Corporation's upkeep fees have to be made large enough that creating one just for yourself and couple of alts became unprofitable in terms of isk/hour; moreover, those fees must scale with growth in the number of members, but not with some linear/exponential type of dependence (so CEOs won't start to dump members who've been absent from the game for a couple of months to save some money)

For a base value we could use a monthly income of generic mission runner on the assumption of his online is something about "1-2 hours per day on weekdays and 4 hours on day offs", and pick up such an upkeep fee that it would need 3-5 such active players in a player owned corp to make their isk/hour ratio equal to that they would have got if they just stayed in NPC corp with its 20-25% tax (currently anyone can just create corp of its own and by that boost his isk/hour by getting instant cut in taxes). Ie, starting from 3-5 active players and more, player owned corp start to become more and more profiable (as long your CEO has at least a little bit of a shame and reduces taxes for each member as their numbers grow). It's assumed that most of these funds are payments to Concord for its security services to the corporation as a whole.

My very rough estimation on actual size of this fee is around 750kk to 1,5kkk isk.

3) Add two different tarif plans for player owned corps. The first one - lets call it "Startup" - will have the same taxes as any NPC corp which can't be nor changed by CEO (more on it below) nor aquired by him (these money just desappear), and will allow to anchor 1-3 POSes, and it behaves like any other current corp except that; the maintance fee of this one is pretty low. Plan "Standart" exactly copies current corp mechanics (so CEO can set any tax level and all all collected taxes go to corp wallet), but has huge maintance fees as outlined in 2)
You can change tarification plan anytime at the start of the month, no need to recreate it.

There were many concerns that it can end existence of so many small corps and questions why we should do such thing. First, most of its CEOs don't use them other than for some chatroom and as an easy method to get rid of NPC corps' standrat taxes. Second, following is the proposal of adding some new type of agent missions designed to reward collective gameplay and intended for members of one corporation. By doing so we in a way adding "Reward" part to the additional "Risk" part coming out of staying in large player owned corporation (like awoxing and wardecing)

4) Ability to not join any corpoartion at all, even NPC ones, and save some money and efforts by doing so, have to be added . But such "freelancer" status will mean that you will be a valid target even in high securtiy space. Ie, if such "freelancer" attacks member of any other corporation who isn't a valid target by himself here, Condcord will bang a crap out of him. But if member of any corporation attacks "freelancer" pilot, he will find himself just in limited engagement with him and all other "freelancer" pilots. But Concord won't interfere in any conflicts between "freelancer" pilots. Yet, all mechanics relating to security status of pilot are still applicable for them (so they can attack any criminal and suspect freely and will be attacked by NPC police if their SS is low enough).
Same result could also be achieved by placing them all in a new corp (like "Mercenaries") with the same properties outlined above.

4) To emphasize the importance of choosing life style that suites player the best, some delay shoud be introduced for processing applications of freelancers (re)joining and leaving NPC corps, a day or two will do.

Appendix 1:
Once again about different types of corp membership and corresponding taxes:
1) Members of NPC corps pay some huge tax from their incomes in highsec, somewhat less in lows, and some tiny bit if in nulls. But they are free to go to lows to run some missions, that come back to highs the same evening and go to Incursions.
2) Members of p-o corps pay taxes set by their CEOs, so it can be 0%. But they are members of p-o corps at the same type (some people have a problem with that, and some others aren't welcomed anywhere at all); they also can move freely as members of NPC ones. They still have problems with awoxers and wardecers.
3) "Freelancers" are freed from any taxes, but don't belong to specific corp. But can be fired upon in highs by anyone. So its a perfect choice for those solo nullsec/lowsec guerillas who doen't want to be ordered or to belong to something. But if they really need to, they still can go to highs securely, just need to wait 1-2 days for reaplication to some NPC corp.

The idea with market taxing is poor indeed, I have some better proposal on the way in this regard.

The problem is not with the way I want others to play, the problem is that a mmo project offers no benefit for cooperation in PVE aside from in cases of high end content (Incursions, high level combat sites and plexes somewhere in nulls; but not in highsecs).

This is quite unhealthy state of affairs. And it is here for ages, it was pointed at again and again. It makes PVE dull for most of players but they just don't see reason to engage it collectively. And they won't until there will be clear advantage for doing so. The human nature is a mistery, nor less :)

And what could become an incentive to play collectively? Well, either the absolute need for it (like with Incursions, you either have a fleet or an army of bots, you won't succeed solo here), or by making it more profitable. There is no other way here. And first one will meet even more furious resistnace than this proposal.

People playing collectively is what healthy mmo community are based upon. Not ONLY such people, but these people are absolutely needed. We have them mostly in nulls and in PvP related communities - because it's easier to survive there when you are many.

And even if those playing collectively while PVEing in highsecs would just start to receive substational benefits by doin so - just by boosting their isk and lp rewards, lets put aside tax changes - others would start to receive less. Well, it's simple consequence, because those now receive more :). So it's not the matter of who is taxed what, it's a matter of proportion, one gets more, others will look at him and say that his activities are better rewarded, and their income is worse. There is no substantional differences in how exactly that would be achieved.

And you completely have missed a point with freelancer buds. They are free of taxes, of all taxes aside insignificant basic ones. But at the same time, they don't need to join any corp. NPC corp members still pay some taxes atop of basic ones, even in nulls. Player owned corp members still have to join player owned corp (some people have a problem with that :)) And freelancers just free, from corps and taxes, but can't be safe in highs until they will rejoin some corp (with application delay of 24-48 hrs). So it's a choice of some low/null sec space adventure/survivalist, resident of some npc null region, who just don't care about highsecs at all, for example. So NPC corp members are taxed everywhere (but much less in nulls and lows), but can freely return to highs anytime. Freelancers can't so freely, and, in fact, they don't need to. Aside from to provoke someone to attack them and gank him, of course :)

Well, there is 2 obvious objections to this argument:

1) Concrod readily will allow small private war in high security space, you just have to pay some upkeep fees for it to last.
2) There wasn't such an option before wardecs were added to the game. What means that there is nothing wrong with Emprire laws changing over time, allowing what was not thought as possible before. It is just a matter of another good Chronic, explaining some changes to treaties.

And after all, Concord still retains its peacekeeping role, its just excludes some particular capsuleers that became too detached from their place of origin and were engrossed in null security space's freedoms so deeply they started to question their own obligations to the State from the list. Their protests and requests to free them from all taxes as they don't percieve themselves as citizens of the state anymore were met, but in exchange they were exempted from many priviligies coming with filled tax return.

And about proofs these changes will improve the game - I don't have such, it isn't possbile to see the future. Moreover, I just can't possibly know all the needed statistic numbers and game's engine intricacies, I'm not a CCP developer after all. This proposal was composed with sole goal in mind: to create some additional substantional incentive for people to prefer more risky and more social (which comes with more burden) gameplay that will serve as a base for furher improvements coming in this direction - like, creating more incentive to engage in collective PVE activities in highsecs aside from Incursions etc. It's just a step towards bigger goal.

I haven't say such thing. I said almost no players posting proposals here can know all the inricacies of game's engine only known to game's developer in the best case. This is a board where players propose their ideas, and not a CCP developers' working forums. And until you or I don't became involved in development process, a great amount of obscure little details and hardly predictable outcomes won't become known to us. That's why you suggested to post it here to someone competent and knowledgeable to decide. Could you explain in more details what makes you think it won't be feasible at the level of the game mechanics?

The Concord's logic change relates only to those, who is voluntarily decided to choose so (became a "freelancer"). It won't harm any innocent bystander. And I can in fact imagine such changes in State treaties that could lead to this situation. As I wrote before, nullsecs and wh offers new frontiers and perspective of greatness that can easly turn somebody's worldview upside down. I don't agree this is contradict with Eve Universe's lore too much.

The change switching off "free PvP mode" within a corp is just a logical one - we already applied so much efforts to get people in the corps, we shouldn't now scare them off with awoxing (it still needed to leave some corp management roles which will allow authorized members to forcibly switch PvP for some nasty charaters who start to create problems for others)
Other changes not so deep ones. They are just slightly shift an income in the direction of collective gameplay. They don't deny solo approach at all.
As for my market taxes proposal, they are crap, I have to admit it. And they are easly can be circumvented, too (just have an merchan alt and put him in merchant corp big enough to be able to cut all taxes to 0, and transfer him all your goods via contracts, thats all). Thats why I now came up with the proposal of adding the abilityu to tax Loyalty Points instead. By doing so in additonal to bounties/rewards taxation (which are already in the game), we will cover around 80% of all mission runner income. We don't need to tax his market profits anymore. Then again, NPC corp "taxes" you more harshly, and player owned corp taxes you as they wish, and freelancers just don't care about all this taxation crap.

Then can you point out the flaws in this proposal that will break game's rules so much it makes this proposal infeasible? The Concrod's logic changes are slight, from my perspective, and would concern only certain selected individulas, and only with their consent.

Why do you need additional protection from awoxers?

We are not getting anywhere like this. No one who isn't on devs team can understand all implications, I'm afraid. And if I've got it right you can't point those implications either. This is why we have this board, after all. To convey our ideas and get knowledgeble answer or criticism, and try to tune them according to this input.

For the first, all the concord logic's changes that were left in a renewed proposal touch only freelancer status (no protection from awoxing anymore). And this particular part is just a variation of crime watch system. You can steal someone's loot ("profit") but that can lead to get shot by someone without Concord intervention ("risk"). You could continue stealing and maintain suspect status all the time. And this only happens as a result of your decision.

And freelancers get rid of all taxes without bounding themselves to some corporation, even NPC ones ("profit"). But can be shot upon in highs ("risk"). Again, it they who decide. It's almost the same thing.

Basically, make it so that you could get 20 to 50% more income from trivia mission running than before (in a new version of this piece new corp fleet missions are proposed, with income scaling with the number of participants; I'm currently translating it to english), if you are in a player owned corporation of at least 5-10+ active members and running missions in fleet with corpmates. And have the same income if you are just in such corp, but playing solo (with inherent risks of awoxing and getting wardecced). And new players get meaningfull grace period (up to 3 months of active sub) as proposed.

So it's more like shift the highsecs a little closer to "risk/reward" paradigm and reward collective gameplay more than soloing. And make corporation mean something aside from just a tool to rid of NPC corp's tax, make it more valuable as it now requires substantional fees to maintain. It's perfectly in tune with latest nullsec changes which tryies to make you treasure you assets here and protect it more. Current corp mechanics doesn't offer enough reward for collective gameplay to those living in highs, but places substantional risks on corp member, this why it should be changed.