EVE General Discussion

CCP, why is it that people can war dec to their heart's delight with no reason? Today I logged on to find myself war decced for no reason, and now my small new player corp has to deal with "The Marmite Collective", which is an alliance that has 78 active wars and seems to do this for a living. From their killboard I can see they gatecamp a lot in high sec, so it is an issue for my newer and unskilled corp members that frequent populated areas.
You encourage new players to join corps right away, you want to introduce them to the game and the community, but as soon as they join a peaceful new player corp, they are war decced and are now dying in high sec for reasons unknown to them. I have new guys that find this so unfair they want to quit, which sucks because the last thing this game needs is people quitting as soon as they start.
Can we have an option to create peaceful corps that cant be war decced? I understand that sounds like a ridiculous request, but perhaps if it came with severe limitations? I'm trying to introduce people to this game, and it's really difficult when it shows its ugly side like this. I get questions like "how can they do this?", "why us?", and "so that's it, they can just kill us wherever?". And my response is, yes because the war dec system isn't regulated at all.

Now I don't like to point out problems without suggesting solutions, so here's this. How about make it so that in order to war dec someone, you need to have had a member or structure killed by the alliance or corp you wish to declare war on. It would work similar to the kill right system I suppose. War should be an escalation from an incident, not something someone can do nearly 80 times at once because they browsed the corporate ads like a catalog in order to make high sec their shooting range.

Don't take it personally. Marmite has better things to do than hunt down random wartargets. To the best of my knowledge, being a mercenary alliance they have several paid contracts going which they give high priority to. The peripheral decs are more to keep a healthy pool of active wartargets so their members don't go through overly long stretches of crippling boredom.
Move your operation to the other side of the galaxy, stay off the main routes between hubs, use neutral alts and scouts if you have them, and you'll probably be fine.
Unless someone is paying to have you killed. If that's the case, you're pretty much boned.

But, and this is the important one, you should absolutely not complain about it on the forums. That's a sure way to exponentially increase the number of wardecs against you.
wait...

There's no such thing as an event that occurred for no reason, everything has a cause. In fact with wars, because declaring them is a conscious action taken by a person there is inherently a decision making process behind their declaration as well as a specific purpose to them.

Also wars are regulated, they have costs and inherent dangers associated with them, Marmite pays 10+ billion isk a week in war bills, expose themselves to the possibility of unilateral escalation by the defender via the ally system and every war declaration gives the defender a notification and 24 hours notice.

They are able to operate this way in spite of the fact that the defenders massively outnumber them because they have no will to attempt to defend themselves and do not attempt to cooperate with each other to this end, even though if they did they'd be able to beat the hell out of Marmite on sheer numbers alone.

The fact that you came here to complain about it and ask CCP to change the game so you don't have to deal with it, rather than taking in-game steps to try and address the issue using gameplay is indicative of this problem.

It's not me I'm worried about, it's the people that aren't even a week old. Not everyone joins for PVP, and we're talking about very new players who would rather quit than be forced into a game play style they didn't sign up for. I suppose they can just go back to their NPC corps, but all that does in reinforce the idea that they should be reluctant to join player corps.

I'm not against the violence involving me, and as I've said I'm not worried about me.

I suppose that would be an issue. I haven't thought of everything, I was just looking to open a conversation on the topic, which I'm glad you've taken part in instead of telling me how incompetent I am (for some reason?). I've managed wardecs before just fine, but recently I've expanded to bring in more new people, which is where my concern stems from. I have done what I can, I informed everyone how to handle themselves and how to go about business while the war is going on. I set up new locations for them to use, and plenty of safe undock/docking positions for them at main trade hubs. The wardec wasn't an issue the last time it happened, but last time I didn't have people that were just learning what rig slots were, you know what I mean?
Of course, we'll deal with it as best we can. It's just going to suck for some people that want to mine or do industry.

Don't give me too much credit.

I do think that if your members that are new players are struggling, there is a large amount of responsibility you need to take for that as the CEO.



Ok, so seems based on those things that you are making a good start. Things I would suggest:

1. create a specific overview pack for your Corp, so you know they see war targets easily in overview and local chat
2. instruct them all the have local chat open constantly
3. have a standing fleet and use the fleet chat for intel
4. offer NPC Corp alts as haulers for anyone that needs anything in a trade hub (or to deliver anything to a trade hub)
5. ensure they know how to use bookmarks and that they do. Safe dock, undock and gate bounces
6. use any out of corp alts available to the Corp to scout surrounding systems
7. just all stay away from trade hubs, major trade routes and mission hubs (eg. SOE agents)
8. under no circumstances, should any member of Corp talk trash in local. Just don't talk in local at all
9. ensure your new players know how to use d-scan and actually do. If they are running a site and combat probes appear, they should know how to tell when the combat probes are on their site and then stay aligned or move elsewhere
10. Update your Corp char MOTD with relevent information daily
11. If you identify any of their neutral scout alts, set them to negative standings for Corp, so you'll know when they are in local too.

Mostly, ensure they know that the wardeccers are not out to ruin their play. They are just trying to have their own fun. So there's no need to be upset if a loss happens. Just accept it and continue playing, smarter next time.

Also, make sure they keep having fun. Wardecs aren't a reason to stop playing the game, or to stay docked. They are a challenge to work around and in many ways they add extra play for defenders, even if it is in trying to avoid being killed. It's a good opportunity to use highsec as a way to learn how to survive in lowsec and nullsec (bubble mechanics excluded) in a still very safe environment. That's a good thing.

As a CEO, I would recommend you post an evemail (or other systems you use) each day reinforcing those things as well as link to Youtube videos, blog posts and just generally help them learn that wardecs can be managed.

Some useful YouTube videos and blog posts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lULYQc88oyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkOCfuqkMns
any of the guides in this list: http://evedarklord.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/bumfinger-index.html (except the hotdrop one)

Bullshit, the game clearly advertises itself as a game where you can become an explorer or industrialist, where in that description does it say this is a pvp game, go read the recruitment propoganda....


Just found this on the front page..


WHAT IS EVE ONLINE

Player-created empires, player-driven markets, and endless ways to embark on your personal sci-fi adventure. Conspire with thousands of others to bring the galaxy to its knees, or go it alone and carve your own niche in the massive EVE universe. Harvest, mine, manufacture or play the market. Travel whatever path you choose in the ultimate universe of boundless opportunity. The choice is yours in EVE Online.


Stop with the spin that this is a pvp game, it clearly isn't only that. Oh and don't come with the crap that even mining is pvp, I'm talking about a traditional definition, not the spin most of you fall for oh so easily.

There's a difference between "contains PVP" and "PVP centric open sandbox", most people don't understand the difference because they never played a PVP sandbox before nor did they bother to put in some effort to figure it out what they actually signed on for when they started playing EVE.

Many people have this idea that EVE is a spaceship game that has PVP in it, those people are mistaken. EVE is in fact a cut throat, dog eat dog, balls deep open world PVP MMO drama generator... that happens to have a spaceship setting. That is something entirely different and is exactly the reason why keep having this discussion over and over, year after year.

That doesn't mean there's only PVP, it DOES mean that PVP is the core of the game which might/will affect players at any given time and that is how it's supposed to be. One can choose to not enjoy "direct" forms of PVP and actively put in the effort to avoid it (which is PVP in itself) but trying to wish it away or making demands to have the game changed so you can be shielded from it isn't a logical reaction. If you don't like the concept of PVP, in whatever form, then you're playing the wrong game and you either adapt or you play one of the eleventy billion other games out there that aren't PVP focussed.

It's really that simple.

More or less everything in EVE is PvP if you think about it.

Exploration is PvP because you actively compete with other players for the loot. You may or may not attack them but it's still PvP in my view.

Industrialism is PvP because you compete with other industrialist for materials you both need either by buying them before they can or by striking a deal with the local Miners. Researching cheaper/faster blueprints will also give an edge in the struggle to get control over the local market.

The only thing I would consider true PvE is Missioning but even there the risk for PvP is constant and by buying stuff for the LP you get you will later participate in Market PvP which can be just as cutthroat as Ship vs Ship and cost you ALOT more.