EVE General Discussion

You had me nodding my head the whole way through, however I'm unsure about the whole idea of 'ante'. I agree there needs to be a goal and an incentive to fight back, yet I would think the end result of such a mechanic would be for the alliance/corp that declares war to target weaker (safer) opponents rather than one that might fight back. Let's never forget that for the most part, these are wars for profit.

I am, of course, primarily talking about ship PvP, the canonical form of PvP this game is built around. But wardecs are central even for the economic game you mention. The are, at least were intended and will be again once POSes go away, the way industrial rivals are suppose to disrupt each others' operations. This is usually what people refer to as the "good" kind of wardecs that enable rivals to use direct force against each other to interfere with gathering and building things.

This ability to interact is fundamental to how the game is designed. And yet you want to break that by handing out safety and immunity in some short-sighted play to punish a play-style you don't like, or perhaps just to add a tool you know you can use to make yourself safe from them? In the end, it seems you are really just another of the camp that wants to smother emergence and any chance at sandbox player-driven play with yet another in a long line of buffs to player safety.

There are ways to make aggressors put more on the line or have something at risk that can be counter-attacked to give defenders something to shoot that don't involve giving groups the ability to isolate themselves and their economy-altering economic operations from the sandbox.

Is it?

If CCP is clear about what type of game they are designing, and the developers generally are both when discussing with the players and with the world at-large via interviews with the media, is it an insult to point out that a player's expectations to not match with the design intention of the game? That quote of SoniClover is but one example of how CCP intends for how wardecs, and the game more generally, should work (as is the last devblog on wardecs which everyone should read). Complaining that something isn't working as intended, or there are problems with balance or difficulty is one thing, but complaining to CCP that their intentions for their game do not match your own (or you do not find their game fun) is futile. If you don't like the game or how for CCP intends for it to work, then vote with your feet and go play something else. There are people that find CCP's game fun and you are incredibly self-centered to ask CCP to fundamentally change their game to match your vision of fun at the expense of the current players.

Complaining that wars are currently too punitive on new players or player groups is one thing and something CCP should pay attention to. Complaining that the game doesn't give you "complete game security" when the designers specifically say the mechanics are not suppose to give 100% safety to groups in highsec is just wasting everyone's time and those whines should be dismissed out-of-hand with evidence that this is "working as intended". There are enough real problems of game design and balance in making a competitive, open-world PvP sandbox to worry about players who are playing the wrong game, or at least one incompatible with their expectations or how they derive fun.

Most players show up to a basketball game to enjoy a physical PvP contest against against another group of players, where they jockey for the ball and try to score on the other team. If there is some issue that is preventing interesting competition from taking place, the governing body should step in and change the game - say institute a shot clock - to keep the game moving. However, if some player decides that they find more fun in just repeatedly bouncing the ball and seeing how many times they can do it in a row, and thus starts whining when a player from the other team comes by and steals the ball, or asks for points to be awarded if they can dribble the ball 100 times in a row, the governing body should ignore them. The game is basketball, not competitive dribbling, and such a player is simply just playing the wrong game.

Eve Online is a single-universe, full-time PvP sandbox game. A single, giant arena where you are always at risk to other players and competing for resources and power in a massive and persistent Battle Royale. That has been unequivocally stated and is explicitly written in the New Pilot FAQ by CCP. Offering suggestions on how CCP can realize this core idea are worthy of consideration. Complaints that the game puts you at risk to non-consensual space violence when non-consensual space violence is the core idea of the game should be ignored and have been by CCP for 14 years now. Complaints that the game puts you at risk to non-consensual space violence, that are masked as suggestions to provide "balance" or "incentives" like Vic is doing here should be called out for what they are - self-interested pleas to remove core game play for personal reasons.

Eve only works when we are all vulnerable to each other. It is a pretty complex game with multiple spaces and types of game play, where you can choose how much risk and competition you are comfortable with, but at its core we all need to be vulnerable to each other. It is why SoniClover was so dogmatic with his comments and why I am so certain immunity from wars will never be offered as a reward for participating in a war. There is a place in New Eden for the blood-thirsty adrenaline junky, and for the pacifist and profit-minded industrialist. But there isn't a place for players who are not willing to accept any level of risk that they might lose a ship to another player, or for players offended when another player interacts with them without their consent. Those players should just stop playing Eve. CCP will never nerf the game enough to make them happy, and they are setting themselves up for disappointment after disappointment when the core, intended game play finds them.

There truly are people who are incompatible with Eve. It isn't an insult to point out what type of game Eve Online is and ask other players if this really is the type of activity they want to be spending their leisure time on.

Going to point that our current state with regards to wardecs is the result of changes CCP has made to the game. Changes that people who didn't like wardecs often advocated for. For example, the change in wardec costs. The logic was: which make wardecs more expensive => less wardecs; carebears rejoice!!!!

What happened? You ended up with larger wardec alliances. Imagine we had 5 wardec corps and before they change they had little interest in banding together. They could, for the sake of simplicity afford to have 5 wardecs each. Then along comes the change and each corp can now only afford 1 dec. But wait! If they form an alliance they could still have 5 wardecs. So now you have an alliance in place of individual corporations. And now you got 24/7 coverage for your wardecs so now even though the number of wardecs has gone down in our thought experiment people are back here saying, "They are always online, I can't play once they dec me!"

STFU. You got what you begged for. Law of Unintended Consequences. Welcome to the sandbox dumbass.

Edit:

Oh, and the other 20 corporations or alliances not getting decced....they don't show up to the forums and say, "Yay, no wardec." Because there is no counter-factual. So all you see are the whiners. In short listening to the complainers on the forums means you are most likely getting a biased view.

... wowzers 12 pages.

I couldn't agree more. That is exactly the reason why wardecs are loopy. Everything else in the game works on a paradigm of increasing risk or more exposure to risk for a potentially better reward or benefit. There is essentially zero risk in blanket deccing hundreds of entities while hugging NPC staitons like cockroaches under a damp blanket of neutral logi. You don't have to give up the protection of CONCORD to ignore CONCORD. You want this grand justice of everyone being equally vulnerable - I approve. I just don't get why the double-standard; why should the war-deccers not actually become vulnerable to something in exchange for the benefit of being able to ignore CONCORD?

I love how it is Hakawai implying that players interested in casual PvP in the game are some how less than courageous, cowards even. The ol' lets extrapolate in-game behavior to real life attributes. I sometimes wish CCP would make this kind of thing a bannable offense on the forums. We'd get rid of pieces of **** like Hakawai who, when you get right down to it, is nothing short of a toxic passive agreesive troll who probably carries a box of tissues in his murse. Hey...if they can make implications about us in real life...seems only fair if we can return the favor.

Isn't this true of all wars? You can push an alliance out of its space, but there is nothing to stop them from coming back again and again trying to retake it. Why do NS alliances eventually "give up"? Because if they aren't making headway in their stated objective they'll start to lose people. Either they'll stop logging in or they'll move on to other groups. Keeping throwing yourself at a lost cause and you could trigger a failcascade.

As for NS/LS alliances and HS war decs, is it because they can't "win the war" or is it because they can avoid most of the major downsides to war, or is that there is little to be gained from a NS alliance even "winning" such a war? I'm sure Goons could camp any HS war dec alliance into station if there was wide spread desire in the leadership and the rank and file to do so. My guess is that desire is not there for a number of reason and you have only cited one. Citing just one and then trying to arrive at conclusions and even policies based on that one reason may be Bad™.

Might blocking an aggressing corporation/alliance from docking at an NPC station for the duration of a war be part of a solution? That would increase their risk. That would give defending corporations/alliances a reason to fight, knowing that the aggressor can't hide if things go south.

No. That will undoubtedly change the behavior of people on both sides for sure and probably not like you think. Do you want less player interaction or more?