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The 4.7%: Wardecs with a Purpose
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Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#21 - 2014-11-20 00:41:07 UTC
Jarod Garamonde wrote:

Then they just cry to CCP to nerf ALL combat ships. Ugh.....


Of course they do.

In their minds, the ability to shoot other people in ANY WAY is the problem. Everything they ask for is just one further step to accomplishing their goal.

Trammel.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
PotatoOverdose
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#22 - 2014-11-20 00:42:42 UTC
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:

People camp trade hubs because that's how you can actually get kills, thanks to being high traffic areas. Actually hunting targets is made pointless when they can just dodge the dec for a pittance.

Does not compute. Either the "target" dodges the dec, in which case they can't be harmed in a hub in the first place, or they don't dodge the dec, in which case they can be hunted. But hunting takes ~effort~, so they camp a hub instead and catch easy targets.

Which is fine, perfectly valid play style and all that, just like hisec mining. The miner farms ore, the war deccer farms easy killmails, a point that seems well understood:
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:

People camp trade hubs because that's how you can actually get kills

Good stuff, but let's not eulogize the war deccers as "crushing toxic corps", "fighting the evil tax farms", and preventing the "poisoning of new players." Cool
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#23 - 2014-11-20 00:45:41 UTC
PotatoOverdose wrote:

Good stuff, but let's not eulogize the war deccers as "crushing toxic corps", "fighting the evil tax farms", and preventing the "poisoning of new players." Cool



Why not? That's what I've always used it for. Awoxing too, to crush these vile people who try to get new players to mine for two months before they train any useful skills. The people who tell new players nothing except "you can't." The less of these people around to corrupt newbies, the better.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
PotatoOverdose
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#24 - 2014-11-20 00:48:52 UTC
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:
PotatoOverdose wrote:

Good stuff, but let's not eulogize the war deccers as "crushing toxic corps", "fighting the evil tax farms", and preventing the "poisoning of new players." Cool



Why not? That's what I've always used it for. Awoxing too, to crush these vile people who try to get new players to mine for two months before they train any useful skills. The people who tell new players nothing except "you can't." The less of these people around to corrupt newbies, the better.

Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but I doubt even you would claim that the most prolific use of the war dec is out of some notion of benevolence towards new players (as opposed to just farming killmails).
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#25 - 2014-11-20 00:54:15 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
PotatoOverdose wrote:

Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but I doubt even you would claim that the most prolific use of the war dec is out of some notion of benevolence towards new players (as opposed to just farming killmails).


Of course they aren't.

Because thanks to dec dodging, the capacity for it is almost entirely lacking.

That's what I'm trying to tell you. With the way it currently works, "cheap kills" as you put it, is mostly what is available from the mechanic. Killing people who don't avoid it.

But if it can't be avoided... people have to band together, learn to actually play the damned game, and the potential for actual meaningful conflict opens up. Right now there is no meaningful conflict because the mechanic is handcuffed *Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal.

And of note? The previously mentioned playstyles are ones that invariably result in people quitting the game, by CCP's own admitted numbers. We don't need to be enabling the kind of gameplay that kills subscriptions with boredom.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Antihrist Pripravnik
Cultural Enrichment and Synergy of Diversity
Stain Neurodiverse Democracy
#26 - 2014-11-20 01:29:01 UTC
Jean Luc Lemmont wrote:
This is a call to CCP to make wardecs actually useful for something besides being an enormous ISK sink for people with too much time and money on their hands.


The real question is: Why would you want to remove an ISK sink that affects people with too much time and money Lol
PotatoOverdose
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#27 - 2014-11-20 01:31:29 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:

But if it can't be avoided... people have to band together, learn to actually play the damned game, and the potential for actual meaningful conflict opens up. Right now there is no meaningful conflict because the mechanic is handcuffed *Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal.

Everything you described exists in lowsec, nullsec, and wormholes. I don't see the need to alienate the bears that (in part) pay for the further development of eve. Suicide ganking prevents hisec from being a pve only environment and will always prevent that. Wardecs likewise provide another, albeit limited avenue. Buffing wardecs to the point where they're unavoidable for hisec dudes seems to simply be unnecessary.

Kaarous Aldurald wrote:

And of note? The previously mentioned playstyles are ones that invariably result in people quitting the game, by CCP's own admitted numbers. We don't need to be enabling the kind of gameplay that kills subscriptions with boredom.

Or we could just make that type of gameplay less boring....there's an entire gaming industry that seems to do it alright. Less boring pve and a decent sandbox are not mutually exclusive.
Alejandro Rebenga
#28 - 2014-11-20 01:32:29 UTC
Jean Luc Lemmont wrote:
So I was. as usual surfing through dotlan looking for something to take my mind off the tedium that is my job, and I happened upon the Wars page, which I hadn't seen before. I was clicking around through there, and an immediate disparity caught my eye.

Out of the total number of active wars, the number that result in at least one loss mail is less than 5%.

According to Dotlan, there are currently 7,493 active wardecs in New Eden right now.
354 of them have resulted in someone losing something - that's 4.7 odd percent.

To put it another way, it cost 374,650,000,000 (assuming all wars used the minimum cost - the actual figure is going to be higher) ISK to start all of those wars. 357 billion of that ISK may as well have been flushed down the toilet.

This is not to call on CCP to end wardecs. This is a call to CCP to make wardecs actually useful for something besides being an enormous ISK sink for people with too much time and money on their hands. You have established a working group to take a long hard look at nullsec, and the fruits of that labor are now being realized. The time has come for you to do the same for highsec war declarations - make them a tool that's actually worth using for something besides lolz and farming kills.


Lemme introduce another thread of thought: Wardeccers have THAT much isk to throw away, cause its THAT easy to cough up the minimum. All for the possibility that on a weekend, they will catch the wartarget flying a loaded ship.

Remember that time CCP raffled off Geckos sometime last year? Where miners, manufacturers, ratters and pvpers were given 'goals'?

*short googels* Ah! This one, EVE 11 Celebration (BTW Mister CCP Webmaster part of the page is hidden at the bottom part...)

Seven point fourty four Trillion for ratters. Then we have your figure of three five seven Billion, hmm whats that five percent-ish? O wait ratters managed to reach 7.78 Trillion actually, so thats (maths dont fail me now) ~4.8%? Wardeccers that regularly rat/kill npcs sure have it easy huh? (with his hisec npc alts?)

Some of the ideas in teh other threads is to make it harder, for both parties, to deal with wardecs (shorter periods/costly declaration, wardec follows each character, etc.). Anyway, its because of us, the players having too much ISK, that we have players paying CONCORD their weekly ganking permit that number in the Billions. And its not their fault, they have so much surplus money lying around, and here is a mechanic that enables them to have hisec content!

One way to (smugly) frame that 4.7% is that out of the 7,493 parties that were involved, the other 95.3% had enough sense to avoid losing his ship for a week. We have a smart and intelligent playerbase that, yadayada canned-response et al 4.7%-gb2WoW. So once again, its us, the players.

I say it works.
Haedonism Bot
People for the Ethical Treatment of Rogue Drones
#29 - 2014-11-20 02:05:51 UTC
Agondray wrote:

then you have rvb, the people that hate code and some other people.


Where are these "people who hate CODE", and why aren't they wardeccing us?

Wardecs are fine. It would be nice if they would reduce the fees and make evasion carry harsher consequences, but the mechanic itself is essentially sound. Most of those 0 isk wars are just aggressors who are too lazy to hunt their targets. If they want to throw their isk away like that, though, I don't see how that is a problem.

www.everevolutionaryfront.blogspot.com

Vote Sabriz Adoudel and Tora Bushido for CSMX. Keep the Evil in EVE!
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#30 - 2014-11-20 02:06:22 UTC
Wars are pretty pointless these days. The only real use is for Marmite to dec 150 groups at once and farm easy gatecamp kills. The rest of the wars are usually met by docking up and playing on alts, rolling corp, or just ignoring entirely. The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict. When someone forms up to take on Marmite, the Marmite folks just dock up and play on alts, with no real consequences.
Jvpiter
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#31 - 2014-11-20 02:09:02 UTC
Veers Belvar wrote:
The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict.



How would you suggest the defender do that?

Call me Joe.
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#32 - 2014-11-20 02:10:32 UTC
Jvpiter wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict.



How would you suggest the defender do that?



One idea would be to create some type of sov structure in the aggressors home system, and if the defender manages to occupy that for say, 3 days, make the attacker pay a SIGNIFICANT financial penalty to the defender...or something along those lines.
Haedonism Bot
People for the Ethical Treatment of Rogue Drones
#33 - 2014-11-20 02:16:04 UTC
Veers Belvar wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict.



How would you suggest the defender do that?



One idea would be to create some type of sov structure in the aggressors home system, and if the defender manages to occupy that for say, 3 days, make the attacker pay a SIGNIFICANT financial penalty to the defender...or something along those lines.


Ah, you are one of those "wardecs should be a capture-the-flag match with goalposts and referees" people. No way, Veers. Wars are currently motivated by player generated goals and end when player-generated objectives are met. Turn them into a minigame and you defeat the purpose.

www.everevolutionaryfront.blogspot.com

Vote Sabriz Adoudel and Tora Bushido for CSMX. Keep the Evil in EVE!
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#34 - 2014-11-20 02:20:16 UTC
Haedonism Bot wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict.



How would you suggest the defender do that?



One idea would be to create some type of sov structure in the aggressors home system, and if the defender manages to occupy that for say, 3 days, make the attacker pay a SIGNIFICANT financial penalty to the defender...or something along those lines.


Ah, you are one of those "wardecs should be a capture-the-flag match with goalposts and referees" people. No way, Veers. Wars are currently motivated by player generated goals and end when player-generated objectives are met. Turn them into a minigame and you defeat the purpose.


Well, what's the purpose now when 95% of them result in no kills? What is the purpose when Marmite decs 150 groups to get easy camping kills, but when the groups show up for a fight Marmite just docks up?

I mean, does that seem like it is "working?" It scrams "hopelessly broken and in desperate need off a fix."

Wardeccs are about as effective as bounties these days - great for some sound and fury, not so good at actually accomplishing anything.

I mean I get decced sometimes, I just roll corp and laugh at the deccers. Have any "player generated goals and....player-generated objectives" been met?
Haedonism Bot
People for the Ethical Treatment of Rogue Drones
#35 - 2014-11-20 02:37:40 UTC
I know I have a lot of fun with wars, so they certainly pass that test of whether or not it's a good video game mechanic.

As to your Marmite example, I only have one direct experience from which to judge that particular alliance. I joined a highsec mining corp once with the intent to awox them. Moments after I joined, they were wardecced by Marmite. My corp members seemed interested in fighting, so rather than murdering them all as I had planned, I decided to help them fight. Marmite guys came to our home system and we skirmished with them every day for a week. Kills were had on both sides. It was fun. My experience does not match up with your characterization of them as a bunch of guys who just station camp and avoid fights. Not at all.

Your other issue seems to be with wardec evasion. I agree with you that evasion isn't cool and some changes should be made to fix that particular exploit. I think that it should be possible to opt out of wardecs without just logging off and waiting for them to end, but that there should be serious drawbacks to doing so.

Again, as to the 95% thing. About 10% of that is probably due to cowardly corp-droppers like yourself, and the rest is due to lazy hunters. It should be an embarrassing statistic if you are one of the aggressors failing to kill your targets, but there is no real harm done there. CCP collected their fees and nothing else happened- no big deal.

www.everevolutionaryfront.blogspot.com

Vote Sabriz Adoudel and Tora Bushido for CSMX. Keep the Evil in EVE!
Jur Tissant
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#36 - 2014-11-20 02:43:57 UTC
4.7% of the carebear population are responsible for almost 100% of the killmails.

Occupy Jita.
Veers Belvar
Swordmasters of New Eden
#37 - 2014-11-20 02:54:35 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Haedonism Bot wrote:
I know I have a lot of fun with wars, so they certainly pass that test of whether or not it's a good video game mechanic.

As to your Marmite example, I only have one direct experience from which to judge that particular alliance. I joined a highsec mining corp once with the intent to awox them. Moments after I joined, they were wardecced by Marmite. My corp members seemed interested in fighting, so rather than murdering them all as I had planned, I decided to help them fight. Marmite guys came to our home system and we skirmished with them every day for a week. Kills were had on both sides. It was fun. My experience does not match up with your characterization of them as a bunch of guys who just station camp and avoid fights. Not at all.

Your other issue seems to be with wardec evasion. I agree with you that evasion isn't cool and some changes should be made to fix that particular exploit. I think that it should be possible to opt out of wardecs without just logging off and waiting for them to end, but that there should be serious drawbacks to doing so.

Again, as to the 95% thing. About 10% of that is probably due to cowardly corp-droppers like yourself, and the rest is due to lazy hunters. It should be an embarrassing statistic if you are one of the aggressors failing to kill your targets, but there is no real harm done there. CCP collected their fees and nothing else happened- no big deal.


*Snip* Removed off-topic part of the post. ISD Ezwal.

Wars overwhelmingly lead to

1 - dropping corp
2 - docking up and playing on alts, or
3 - ignoring the war, because the deccer was just looking for easy kills at trade hubs

There is very little actual gameplay or content....because fundamentally there is no downside to docking up, logging off, and playing on alts. Until you find a way to punish people for not logging in, wars are kinda useless.

And as far as it being "cowardly" to roll corp, that is another great example of empty CODE propaganda. It's not "cowardly" to use the game mechanics to play the game as I want to play it - PvE style, without needing to engage in combat without CONCORD protection. Cowardice would be letting you dictate how I play the game. Using game mechanics to get maximum enjoyment from the game isn't "cowardice," rather it's how smart people enjoy playing games. Veers 7,458,902 Code 0.
Angeal MacNova
Holefood Inc.
Warriors of the Blood God
#38 - 2014-11-20 02:56:27 UTC
Angeal MacNova wrote:
Too many people think that the purpose of them is to destroy stuff



Veers Belvar wrote:
Well, what's the purpose now when 95% of them result in no kills?


Case in point....

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/goodnight-sweet-prince/

http://www.projectvaulderie.com/the-untold-story/

CCP's true, butthurt, colors.

Because those who can't do themselves keep others from doing too.
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#39 - 2014-11-20 02:56:50 UTC
PotatoOverdose wrote:
Buffing wardecs to the point where they're unavoidable for hisec dudes seems to simply be unnecessary.


They would still be avoidable.

But it just would be through the surrender mechanic, instead of an almost free exploit. That, or playing in an NPC corp, which is pretty much the mandate anyway if you don't want to fight wars in a player corp.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.
Kousaka Otsu Shigure
#40 - 2014-11-20 04:01:37 UTC
Veers Belvar wrote:
Haedonism Bot wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
Jvpiter wrote:
Veers Belvar wrote:
The mechanic is fundamentally broken because there is no way for the defender to force a resolution to the conflict.



How would you suggest the defender do that?



One idea would be to create some type of sov structure in the aggressors home system, and if the defender manages to occupy that for say, 3 days, make the attacker pay a SIGNIFICANT financial penalty to the defender...or something along those lines.


Ah, you are one of those "wardecs should be a capture-the-flag match with goalposts and referees" people. No way, Veers. Wars are currently motivated by player generated goals and end when player-generated objectives are met. Turn them into a minigame and you defeat the purpose.


Well, what's the purpose now when 95% of them result in no kills? What is the purpose when Marmite decs 150 groups to get easy camping kills, but when the groups show up for a fight Marmite just docks up?

I mean, does that seem like it is "working?" It scrams "hopelessly broken and in desperate need off a fix."

Wardeccs are about as effective as bounties these days - great for some sound and fury, not so good at actually accomplishing anything.

I mean I get decced sometimes, I just roll corp and laugh at the deccers. Have any "player generated goals and....player-generated objectives" been met?


As one of the posters here already pointed out, the number of ships destroyed is not a good indicator that the mechanic is broken or not. There are different situations/goals for every wardec, and getting kills is just a bonus.

-Dec a 1man corp POS owner, he moves his POS out of my moon, wardec success.
-Dec a group of miners cause they're eating up all the Kernite in my asteroid belts, they stop logging on, I get to mine my Kernite for a week, wardec success.
-Dec a forum poster just to point out he "chickened out" of a wardec and bring it up everytime you have the opportunity
-etc.

Metagame the thing, cause if its just the number of kills you want to brag about, heh I can point someone else better than you at killing ships anytime.

Archiver, Software Developer and Data Slave

Current Project Status: What can I make with these minerals?