Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Sorry, where do you get the idea that wardecs are meant to drive conflict?

I know it's kind of thing we might all expect, but in terms of the game design, where does this come from as a basis for CCP including the mechanics?

The only thing I can find is this in the 2012 devblog from the last changes:

The system is not broken, it’s not useless (though underutilized) and it does what it’s supposed to do (allow people to fight legally in hi sec).

It would seem that CCP's view is that the wardec mechanics are there to allow legal fighting in highsec (which doesn't seem to require that both sides want to fight, just that fighting can occur).

Additionally, further in the devblog, CCP identify 3 aims of the changes:

Out of these speculations we came up with a few guidelines, which can be summarized as follows:

• Tighten the war system, so it becomes clear how wars start, proceed and end.
• Make war progression (i.e. how everyone’s faring) more visible, both for strategic and status reasons.
• Make fighting wars a viable career path for dedicated mercenary corps.

The third being the most relevant in terms of why people might choose to fight.

I've never been able to find anything from CCP that claims the wardec system is supposed to drive conflict, only that is permits fighting (because of CONCORD and Crimewatch).

So it seems totally appropriate that wardec mechanics would be very asymmetric by design since they are designed to allow a group of players to attack another group without being Concordekenned or losing sec status.

And do you believe this will remain true once citadels (& other structures) replace POS, which can no longer be pulled down to avoid a war?
Because I sure don't.

Also, the same is true to ganking, and is the exact response used in Null sec to a neutral entering system (or being seen within 5 jumps by the intel network). See a ganker, leave belt and dock. See a neut, leave anom & dock.

So no one fights. Let me break it down for you: wardecs are taking place all the time, and there is plenty of conflict, so your argument is a moot point anyway. Additionally, what's being explained to you is that wardecs are a tool for enabling conflict, not driving it. The conflict driver is the reason for declaring war in the first place.

Not as far as I can see.

If it allows you to legally pew, then it allows one side at least to shoot the other without consequence from the normal highsec (and to a degree, lowsec) mechanics of punishment for aggression.

I would personally think the driver for conflict exists between people, not mechanics; based on what happens in lowsec and nullsec.

The Great War, the Fountain War, the Halloween War, the current conflict between Imperium CFC and "Voltron" (doesn't really exist, but just as a collective noun for the major lowsec entities in Essence/Black Rise), PL's invasion of Catch against Brave, the civil war between the Russian Alliances, etc., etc., etc.; how did these all happen in the absence of wardec mechanics?

The mechanics aren't needed to drive conflict in lowsec or nullsec. The drivers come from the people.

The only reason wardec mechanics are needed is to allow legal fighting in highsec. Drivers for conflict are present aside from that.

Ok, so.... you want the defender to be able to force a war ended by doing damage?
I take it you also are going to allow the attacker to force a defender to pay a surrender bill by doing damage then?
It needs to work both ways if you want something to work.

The fact mutual wars end when the attacker stops paying is slightly intuitive, and I could see a change there, where you no longer declare a 'mutual' war but a 'counter declaration'. And a counter declaration runs a week from when you declare it (and can be renewed) and the cost is whichever would be the lower of your war dec costs & their war dec costs. So the price is the same both says.
That solves your complaint that the attacker can run away whenever they want and get a grace period in the middle before you can declare war on them.

And yes, Citadels are going to provide things to shoot at, but they also shoot back, and are valuable, so become worth defending with ships in space as well. If the attacker stays away from your citadel systems, well then you can keep doing what you do in those systems and warp to the cover of the guns if they enter your system. Provides more opportunities for ships to explode in general, seems great to me, and more reason for people to form larger corps in highsec to defend citadels against larger attackers. Also seems great to me.

When I'm upvoting Nevyn, you know you messed up bad.

Of course we specifically target those areas. Predators go where the prey are, it's really that simple.

But yeah, when you and I have common ground, that's when we know we aren't in Kansas anymore.

When someone makes a good point, says something demonstrably true that requires no elaboration, it doesn't matter who said it. The facts stand on their merits. If the evilest person in the world announces 2+2 = 4, he's not wrong by virtue of being evil.

I've never been in charge of a corp and actually probably never been on the attacker side of a wardec so I'll just ask. Technically, you can disband/leave corp?

Which is as bad as paying to prevent wardecs.

Would it be good game play if a community of players pays enough isk to stop players getting missions from agents or activating mining lasers? It would be an isk sink so it must be right?