Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As someone who, yes, has a corp toon that deals with wardecs...wars can be quite fun and really bring out the best in the game...if the other side shows up.

I recall a while ago that someone put forth an idea about a POCO-like structure should be anchored in space for a corp to be able to wardec. Defending corps would have an incentive and ability to shorten the war by having a centralized target to attack. This idea was originally put forth back when structure grinding was how SOV worked, but since SOV is being overhauled via entosis links, maybe this idea could be revisited by the original author and updated with ideas from the new mechanics that will be coming up.

It's not a perfect idea of course, it certainly has drawbacks, but I think it has a lot of potential and might be better than the current system. The next iteration of [any given system] doesn't have to be perfect, just a step up from where you are currently. Perfection is a path, not a destination, or some jazz like that.

What about adding another aspect to the mechanic, in that in order to Wardec someone, you now also need to pay for each region where you wish to operate ... IE each region you want requires "x" amount of isk, which in turn can be a flat fee or based on a multiplier of the target corps size..

just tossing an idea.. feel free to flame if you feel the need.

This is the part where I ask what you're going to buff about wardecs, since you'll be drastically increasing their cost and slashing their utility.

Because otherwise, you're just going to drive more people into larger groups to offset the increased costs, making every group Marmite, and making Marmite bigger still. And thereby basically making trade hubs worse deathtraps.

See, the thing is, you don't get to nerf wars any more than they already are. To do so will just make people tighten up their tactics, like suicide gankers have done.

If you want to make wardecs more meaning full in highsec, then make it so aggressing on station and gates are not allowed in the wardec rules. You can lore reason that the station owners and gate maintenance guys don't allow it, disrupts other stuff, etc.

The lol, look at my e-peen station games are what ruin wardecs. If you wardec me and can't catch me on gate/stations, well that means I can undock and go about my business. It also means you don't automatically get free, easy ganks.

But how do I get my leet, awesome pvp kills? Well that means you have to actively hunt them down in space . It now allows people who are wardec'ed to still be active with some safety, i..e undocking and gate traveling but they can still be disrupted during their other activities. Because let's be honest, 90% of the wardecs in this game are people just looking to gank your hauler

I completely agree that a fight on the gate or station can be just as meaningful as a brawl at top belt (god I miss those days of EvE). My point is that the wardec mechanic, except for a few niche cases in lowsec; i.e. you're all dirty pirates and want to engage them on gates without having to take gate guns, is to allow you to freely shoot the other guys while in highsec.

However, it's that same mechanic of freely shooting in highsec that results in "perma camping trade hubs and/or their mission hub" and that is pretty much what makes war decs meaningless. It's people griefing other people for a week or more in an attempt to get a super easy kill by having an instalock loki/legion on the station, a neutral mach for bumping the guy off the undock, and then having enough neutral logi to take on a small army.

The no fighting on station (I'm willing to say gate fights would be okay) would force people to actively hunt their targets. It allows parties to do their best to outsmart the other in an attempt to get their kills. It also adds a huge amount of risk to the standard station camper's tactics as they won't have the 1 min safety buffer if things actually go sour.

I'll tell a story of "way back when" of some of my first warden experiences. We were an industrial corp with pretty much the biggest crabbers you could imagine. I had been experimenting pap'ing in the neighboring lowesc area and was getting pretty good. We got wardec'ed, and unlike today's carebears, we prepared for it. All of our towers went into defense mode in case we needed to fight. All of our ratting ships with the bling got stored away safely and we switched to t2 fit ships and ran missions in groups. We lost a couple guys to a gate camp on the way to Dodixi, and we ran them off a few times with our haphazard fleet. We even decided to take the fight to the wardecers and got a kill on the guy while he was running a mission. We ransomed his ship and told him (he was the CEO) if you don't end the wardec we'll keep coming after them until they quit the game (lol the brass we had :D). TL:DR, they dropped the dec and everybody learned something that day.

^That was meaningful. Fights happened naturally and without the risk aversion of today's highsec wardecers. Take fighting off station and you'll see that emergent gameplay open back up because people aren't being "hell" camped into stations all day. People will feel safer going about their business and may even give it a go at PvP'ing.

This idea has been proposed by carebears over and over.

It's an idea that could only ever be proposed by someone who has the specific ulterior motive of not wanting people to be able to declare war on him. It's not a suggestion that would improve gameplay in any way, at best it's intended to stifle conflict, discourage actual player interaction and protect the wealthy from the poor.

Just like with all of the inferno changes related to pricing all this would actually do is further encourage highsec wardec entities to consolidate into larger and larger marmite-like groups so they have more and more spending power and I'm sure everyone wants to see that happen.

It would also have the wonderful effect of making wars even more worthless to the regular Joe Highsec who is already unlikely to declare a war even against his most bitter rival due to the ally system. People with miners and mission runners I their corps generally speaking don't like to pay through the nose to allow any random merc to be able to join in and shoot at them for a week.

This proposal can basically be translated as "I have lots of money and want to be immune to wars" how about instead of that you surrender, hire someone to fight for you or god forbid do it yourself? You know anything that actually involves gameplay.