CSM Campaigns

It should also be noted that as it is a game, often what you say and what you actually believe are very different things.

Re the first question.

Firstly all corporations are involved in PVP all the time, even if they aren't involved in starship combat. Running missions for the Sisters of EVE, turning your loyalty points into Sisters probes, selling them on the market and using that ISK to buy a Kronos, deadspace modules and a PLEX is a form of real-loss PVP, in which the winners are the explorers that looted those deadspace modules, end users of Sisters probes and the Kronos manufacturer, and the losers are other holders of Sisters LPs and other net users of PLEX.

The winners and losers in this case gain (or lose) more than those involved in a tech 1 battlecruiser 1v1 fight, or a Catalyst ganking a Covetor.

But let's focus solely on starship combat PVP and corporations that do not specialise in it, as I assume this is what you mean..

The defenders have considerable advantages in a war, mostly the ability to source allies. If your corporation feels completely outmatched, you have the ability to source outside help. I have seen this done effectively to me in the past - after I declared war against a mining corporation, they brought in competent mercenaries that scored two or three kills against me and totally neutralized my ability to project force into their system.

In addition the defenders have the ability to reship. Unless they are a dedicated mining alt, even the most mining centered of characters usually has the ability to fly tech 1 frigates acceptably well, and a swarm of t1 frigates and destroyers is extremely effective if led with even a shred of competence.

What is needed for the defenders isn't rule changes that favor them (the present system does that to a significant but balanced degree). What they need is advice as to how to resist effectively.


Re the second question and strategic objective focused wardecs.

Were it to be an isolated change, a restricted wardec would be an interesting mechanic. However, I have no faith that a strategic objective focused wardec could be implemented in a way that wasn't simply about reducing conflict overall.


Re the third question.

Money is the universal equivalent - something you can trade for the time of other people.

Wardeccers (and other starship combat PVP focused players) need to support their actions somehow. I support mine primarily through trading and tech 2 production (I've sold 43 Lachesis hulls since the patch, for instance).

Even if some change to this effect was made (and I do not support such a change), I'd get around it by paying useful idiots (sorry, people who do not value their time) to do it for me, much the same as I pay useful idiots to do all of my for-profit and alliance logistics related hauling; just as a corp can currently outsource its starship combat PVP to mercenaries.

Good answers!

Even if you were on the CSM yourself?

Anyways, follow up question. If it is as you say, and wars favour the defender, why have we not seen any Incursion based corporations or alliances that operate specifically in highsec? These individuals are likely the most educated in PvP, or at least the in-game combat system, and yet we still see them operating out of chat channels and solo or NPC corps to avoid wars.

The following question assumes that creating highsec based non-PvP corporations is a good thing, regardless of your opinion:

What changes to the corporation mechanic and wardec system (specifically the hiring of mercenaries) would have to change in order to make it worthwhile for these groups to actually forms corporations and alliances despite the threat of wardecs?

Furthermore, I feel like you are constructing a strawman to some extent.

The way you talk about wars sounds like an idealized version of how I see them as currently existing in the Eve meta. You're mainly discussing using the wardec system as a tool for conducting non-spaceship PvP, which I completely agree is both a valid playstyle and a necessity for competition in highsec. My concerns regarding the current state of highsec wars and PvP is the prevailing trend for wardecs to be used as a broad brush to farm kills from new players and the otherwise uninformed. None of the ulterior motives such as market PvP or disrupting the logistics of a hostile corporation are present, the only motivation that exists is simply to kill anyone who dares use a trade hub or a pipeline system. The Marmite Collective currently has 1300 active wars, and 95% of all their kills occur in either a trade hub, Madirmilire, or Uedama. (That's not a guess, I checked).

Targeted aggression in highsec is fine - more than fine, it's awesome.

... but a blanket license to prevent 1300 different corporations simultaneously from using trade hubs or even travel?

Is this something that you think is okay? How would mercenaries be able to help a corporation in this situation?

Everyone in Eve is guilty and they should all be shot and podded.

I get that this is tongue-in-cheek but it really does highlight a misperception the hardcore carebear has to the game. Wardeccers are forced to play the PvE/Industry playstyle by definition. They need to interact with the economy to acquire the ships and resources to pay for the wardec. If they "only PvPed", they would quickly be reduced to shooting each other in unfit rookie ships as their combat tools were lost.

PvP needs PvE/Industry and PvE/Industry needs PvP (or their would be no point to gathering resources and making ships if there was only peace in New Eden). So why should players get to decide to opt out of this interrelationship because it is not "their play-style"? PvPers have to indulge in PvE/industry (or find someone to do that for them) so why should industrial corps not be forced to as well? If you don't want to fight, the mechanics are highly slanted in your favour and you can find someone to fight for you either by diplomacy or straight out ISK and join you as an ally.

I am not claiming wars are perfect, but this idea they are done for "griefing" or infringing on some right to be left alone needs to be stomped out. Eve is a competitive sandbox game and corporations are one of the basic units of this competition. If you are going to gather resources or engage in industry that competes with my operation, you need to be vulnerable to me and others, even if you want to be left alone. That is just a reality of the sandbox.

I do think there is room for a corporation that would could opt-out of this - the so-called social corp. Being able to tune your risk is something that could be done better in this game, so a social corp that is immune to wardecs just like the NPC corp but has all the restrictions of the current NPC corp is something that should be in the game. This would allow a group a friends who just want to have some fun shooting crosses or mining together to do so in relative safety, while leaving the wardecs to the corps that are in actual economic competition with each other.

May I ask how wars favor defenders currently? Last I saw, more than 80% of all wars have been won by the attacker. If a defender can't fight, which most can't which is why they are targeted, they can refused to undock or they can disband corp or they can try to play and not get killed. CCP implemented the ability to hire allies, which is usually just a group who has no intention of fighting for you once paid or an alt corp of the attacker. That's the only way I can think of it being in favor of the defender.

You seem to maybe be missing the point. This is a competitive sandbox game where we compete with each other on multiple levels both direct PvP ship combat, economic PVP, and while doing industry/PvE. You cannot separate the two in this sandbox game. PvP players need ships to be effective at their wardecs which they can buy from the market (but they do need ISK from somewhere), but by doing that they are paying another player to do the PvE and industry for them. While it may be true that it is harder to buy "PvP" defense from the market, a PvE player can do the exact same thing, hire mercenaries to defend their operations. Allowing players to compete in complete safety from other players breaks many things.

You can only PvE and do industry in this game, but like a PvPer who has to find someone to hire him or give him ships because he dislikes PvE/Industry, you better make arrangements for other players to provide your defense. Join a balanced corp, make an arrangement with a PvP corp (some of your industry for a guaranteed ally in a wardec?), or hire mercenaries, but you are at risk in New Eden and you cannot abdicate your defense because it is not "your play-style". Well you can, but then don't complain when you are a constant target for your competitors who have arranged their defenses properly and have you and your undefended organization in their sights.

That is just the nature of the game.

But I agree with you, industrial corps are forced to PvP but this is a PvP game. If you want the rewards that come from out-competing other players in the sandbox, you have to accept that these other players might want to stop you. I could see how this might be frustrating to players that don't understand this, but that really is how Eve has been designed.

Now that all said, wardec mechanics aren't even close to perfect. Sabriz has some good ideas that could make wars more entertaining for both sides.

Not at all, although he is probably sleeping now. Plaan Jaynara responded directly to my comment on a question from yesterday, one that Sabriz had already had his say on, so I felt it appropriate to give her the courtesy of a response.

I am sure if Sabriz has something to add or to disagree with me on he will when he wakes up, but he has indicated previously in this thread he is fine with using this thread to discuss issues related to his CSM platform.

I see what you are saying, but this discrepancy stems for the fact that corporations are the basic unit of competition in a PvP game. You are right that this means that all competitive corporations can be forced to engage in ship PvP, or hire someone to protect their corp. The wardec really is just the "lubricant" for allowing the underlying conflict to take place. You cannot opt out of this competition because it is the very nature of the sandbox.

As for "buying" your way out of a wardec it is probably not a mechanic because it is essentially "ISK-tanking" and would favour, richer, more established corporations. If you read the last wardec devblog you can that the last changes were intended for you to spend that money not on bribes to CONCORD, but on mercenaries. Perhaps Sabriz has a different view, but I think a "counter-bribe" is not a good idea, however clearly the last changes didn't work out as well Team Super Friends had hoped.


Of course you are right - there is much more to this game than ship combat. However, just like the PvP player has to deal with industry somehow, the industrialist has to deal with his competitors wanting to blow up his operations somehow. That is the game.

Clearly there could be mechanisms introduced into the game to facilitate industrialists finding allies to help defend them. Or I would support mechanisms, like the social corp, that would allow them to continue industry/PvE without the risk of wardecs, but less efficiently than a corp that took on the responsibility of defending themselves from their competitor corps. Or perhaps Sabriz has another idea of how industrial corps could be integrated with PvP corps as was intended by the developers. But ultimately, industrialists have to be made to understand that the corp that just wardecced you doesn't hate you or want to stop your fun, but rather they are just competing with you for power and riches in the sandbox that is New Eden.


I can see that too. New players and corps should have some protection from the "big boys" when they are starting out, but that can't last forever, especially once they are influencing the greater economy. Ultimately, a single industrialist or a small group of industrialists is going to have a hard time competing with the "big boys" by themselves. Highsec is not suppose to be a risk-free place for industry, nor a corporation's assets immune from the touch of their competitors (and this has never been the case in the last 11-years of Eve). If a large number of players think that this is the case, then CCP is not doing a good job at setting the expectations for new players at what kind of game this really is.

I think I have had my say on this issue, but I will finish by saying that wardec and corporation reform is a serious issue for the highsec community and one of the reasons why I think Sabriz would make an excellent representative because of his deep understanding of these dynamics.