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War decs : not achieving objectives

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baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#241 - 2017-03-09 20:31:13 UTC
Veyreuth wrote:
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.


If the defenders are unwilling to fight the aggressors ships what makes you think they will take on a citadel?
Veyreuth
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#242 - 2017-03-09 20:33:31 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Veyreuth wrote:
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.


If the defenders are unwilling to fight the aggressors ships what makes you think they will take on a citadel?


The majority of defenders won't attack a citadel, but there's a few that might under the right circumstances.

The point is to expose the attacker more if they're camping an NPC station.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#243 - 2017-03-09 20:41:27 UTC
Veyreuth wrote:


The majority of defenders won't attack a citadel, but there's a few that might under the right circumstances.

The point is to expose the attacker more if they're camping an NPC station.


There have been a lot of nerfs, buffs and changes made over the years to make attackers more exposed but the defenders these changes were supposed to help never materialise.
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#244 - 2017-03-09 20:43:09 UTC
Veyreuth wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
Veyreuth wrote:
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.


If the defenders are unwilling to fight the aggressors ships what makes you think they will take on a citadel?


The majority of defenders won't attack a citadel, but there's a few that might under the right circumstances.

The point is to expose the attacker more if they're camping an NPC station.


You still aren't thinking this through clearly.

War starts, docking rights at NPC stations are revoked.

Now if I have my ships in an NPC station I get one undock then that's it unless I happen to have my clone or a jump clone set to the station with my ships, that's it I'm done.

To fight in the war I'd have to put a citadel first, move all my stuff there, etc.

This is a horrible idea.

Even if you could dock at an NPC station in say a pod, it is going to change the behavior on both sides. Nobody is going to undock except when they have back up, and plenty of it. And even more targets may decide to not undock at all....

No, this is a recipe for less player interaction not more.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#245 - 2017-03-09 20:47:43 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Veyreuth wrote:


The majority of defenders won't attack a citadel, but there's a few that might under the right circumstances.

The point is to expose the attacker more if they're camping an NPC station.


There have been a lot of nerfs, buffs and changes made over the years to make attackers more exposed but the defenders these changes were supposed to help never materialise.


Exactly.

People need to stop with the simple linear thinking. Oh, they can't dock, so there will be more fighting. Not necessarily.

Think about your own behavior. Would you undock? Or would you wait for more people to back you up? And even if you win, then what? You can't dock back up unless you have a citadel.

Basically, would you keep doing it like you did before the change or would you adapt. If you would adapt, how would you adapt. Even if you are not entirely sure, the fact you think you might adapt should immediately call into question:

"Oh, they can't dock, so there will be more fighting."

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#246 - 2017-03-09 21:18:16 UTC
Black Pedro wrote:

You are falling into the classic logical trap those arguing that ganking make when they argue that gankers have "no risk". That completely misses the point that suicide ganking as a mechanic is the only source of risk to a large number of NPC corp members. The risk that the gankers (or in this case wardeccers) present to others is completely intended but independent of the risk they are under. That isn't to say they shouldn't have risk, but conflating the two is not productive nor even makes sense. You don't put gankers at more risk by making their targets safer. Similarly, you don't put wardeccers at more risk by making their targets immune to them. You just make the game more boring.

If you want to make declaring wardecs more risky, you should present some ideas that actually put wardeccers at more risk - not just add new safety mechanisms to the game. If you want them to be more vulnerable, suggest mechanics to CCP that make neutral logi and station games more difficult and force them to commit to a fight or to the war. That is rational. Your nerf-risk-out-of-the-game-to-punish-behaviour-I-don't-like strategy of making everyone more safe in attempt to add risk to the game is so clearly motivated by emotion and personal bias, I question if you are not just trolling at this point. Or, perhaps you are just cyncially playing populist politics in an attempt to score some votes at the expense of an unpopular group in the game.

In any case, in the remote possibility you do make the top 10 of the CSM vote, I hope you come up with some more productive suggestions for CCP to make wars more interesting than your idea to allow players to earn immunity to them, something they can actually use. The game is already suffering from excess safety and we don't need yet more.


A)I don't want to muddy these waters at this point, and I doubt you do either. Ganking in HS is something I have done no small amount of, and is not comparable to wardecs. The Gankers have risk:
The gank could fail.
They have to risk time (opportunity cost) for targets to pass through, and to scout them.
They have to risk bad drops due to RNG.
They lose a constant stream of ships.
They could have their loot taken from them.
The increasingly self-sufficient null industry may be taking targets away from them.
The T1 Industrials are hilariously over-buffed.
Depending how it is done, they also have to buy a constant stream of tags.

...If anything they need to give the gankers some buffs due to the side-effect of the base hull resist changes. You won't find any argument in me about legitimate ganking in highsec - it needs buffs! 100% Pro-ganking with a track record to prove it!

B)Over the years, I've tossed around lots of ideas about wardecs through various mediums. Everyone of those ideas is usually summarily shot down. It should be pretty clear at this point that any idea is going to be found to be too risky by the blanket-deccers, and too unsafe by the turbo-bears. We could chew on any one of them, sure, happy to do so, but it probably isn't going anywhere. Everyone else seems to get about the same mileage with any proposals, which again is readily explained by unrealistic standards on both 'sides.' Total safety in a game about risk is absurd, yes, but so is total partitioning of risk via selective participation, i.e. wardecs.

C)I fully admit that I probably won't get elected. I would rather not get elected and speak my mind than bend the knee or speak for others, which is more than I can say for many of the other candidates. I don't expect anyone to mirror my opinions 100% on anything, otherwise there would be little difference between them and I, the most I could or should aim for is respect for the thought process that got me there.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#247 - 2017-03-10 04:55:14 UTC
Vic Jefferson wrote:
Teckos Pech wrote:
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™.


You are correct in so much as it is silly to paint with so broad a brush - wardeccers as a group may not be homogeneous, however, people's perceptions will be molded by the most active of the bunch, and by volume of dec, we both know who those are.

I would find it highly unlikely that one could motivate null/low blocs to go ahead and counter-camp a station for weeks at a time. Generally null/low blocs are not as afraid of losses and losing a perfect killboard, so they typically find more excitement elsewhere in the game. I presume most would prefer to tear down someone's sandcastle in null/low, even if there were no fights, to sitting there on the undock, doing nothing. Basically morale is the biggest reason. PvPers want frags. It is their currency and stock. If the wardeccers had some sort of defensive liability, this would change, I surmise, as suddenlty there's a 'win' condition.


I have to agree with Black Pedro here, you appear to be operating under the assumption that risk must be symmetrical, but why should we have that assumption? This is EVE for crying out loud, is a gate camp in NS symmetrical risk? Is A coalition attacking an enemy rotting from the inside symmetrical risk? Is a pipe bomb symmetrical risk?

This is a sandbox and the notion that risk must be symmetrical simply is a fiction, a hold over from other games or some innate sense of "fair play". If my risk if "50" because of my actions why must people looking to exploit my choice to take on a risk of "50" also take on a risk of "50"?

The fact that some players study/learn the mechanics and use them to their advantage is a kind of what this game is about. That some players learn the mechanics and mitigate their risk while imposing risk on others is literally what this game is about, IMO.

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Teckos Pech
Hogyoku
Goonswarm Federation
#248 - 2017-03-10 05:03:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Teckos Pech
Vic Jefferson wrote:
Black Pedro wrote:

You are falling into the classic logical trap those arguing that ganking make when they argue that gankers have "no risk". That completely misses the point that suicide ganking as a mechanic is the only source of risk to a large number of NPC corp members. The risk that the gankers (or in this case wardeccers) present to others is completely intended but independent of the risk they are under. That isn't to say they shouldn't have risk, but conflating the two is not productive nor even makes sense. You don't put gankers at more risk by making their targets safer. Similarly, you don't put wardeccers at more risk by making their targets immune to them. You just make the game more boring.

If you want to make declaring wardecs more risky, you should present some ideas that actually put wardeccers at more risk - not just add new safety mechanisms to the game. If you want them to be more vulnerable, suggest mechanics to CCP that make neutral logi and station games more difficult and force them to commit to a fight or to the war. That is rational. Your nerf-risk-out-of-the-game-to-punish-behaviour-I-don't-like strategy of making everyone more safe in attempt to add risk to the game is so clearly motivated by emotion and personal bias, I question if you are not just trolling at this point. Or, perhaps you are just cyncially playing populist politics in an attempt to score some votes at the expense of an unpopular group in the game.

In any case, in the remote possibility you do make the top 10 of the CSM vote, I hope you come up with some more productive suggestions for CCP to make wars more interesting than your idea to allow players to earn immunity to them, something they can actually use. The game is already suffering from excess safety and we don't need yet more.


A)I don't want to muddy these waters at this point, and I doubt you do either. Ganking in HS is something I have done no small amount of, and is not comparable to wardecs. The Gankers have risk:
The gank could fail.
They have to risk time (opportunity cost) for targets to pass through, and to scout them.
They have to risk bad drops due to RNG.
They lose a constant stream of ships.
They could have their loot taken from them.
The increasingly self-sufficient null industry may be taking targets away from them.
The T1 Industrials are hilariously over-buffed.
Depending how it is done, they also have to buy a constant stream of tags.

...If anything they need to give the gankers some buffs due to the side-effect of the base hull resist changes. You won't find any argument in me about legitimate ganking in highsec - it needs buffs! 100% Pro-ganking with a track record to prove it!

B)Over the years, I've tossed around lots of ideas about wardecs through various mediums. Everyone of those ideas is usually summarily shot down. It should be pretty clear at this point that any idea is going to be found to be too risky by the blanket-deccers, and too unsafe by the turbo-bears. We could chew on any one of them, sure, happy to do so, but it probably isn't going anywhere. Everyone else seems to get about the same mileage with any proposals, which again is readily explained by unrealistic standards on both 'sides.' Total safety in a game about risk is absurd, yes, but so is total partitioning of risk via selective participation, i.e. wardecs.

C)I fully admit that I probably won't get elected. I would rather not get elected and speak my mind than bend the knee or speak for others, which is more than I can say for many of the other candidates. I don't expect anyone to mirror my opinions 100% on anything, otherwise there would be little difference between them and I, the most I could or should aim for is respect for the thought process that got me there.


While there is risk to suicide ganking, it is not like the risk the suicide ganked face. At worst, the gankers risk their ships and 15 minutes in station waiting out a timer. That's it.

The target may be facing risk of up to 8 billion or more ISK when you factor in the ship costs, modules. and cargo.

The risk is predominantly on the one being suicide ganked. No doubt about that.

But here is my assertion: So the mother **** ******* what?

If I could have less than zero sympathy for a guy who puts 5 billion in cargo value into his freighter and then autopillocks through Uedama, I would. Here is how I feel about that guy losing his ship, his cargo, etc.: **** him and his freighter.

I hope I am abundantly clear on this topic.

When one takes on too much risk, one should never be upset when the downside materializes.

So, your entire (implicit) premise of balancing risk is just...well, daft to me. If I am ratting in NS and also watching game of thrones or even AFK getting another beverage and somebody lands on my anomaly and blows me up...it is my own stupid fault. The risk is totally and completely asymmetric....because of my actions.

Asymmetric risk is not a bug in this game. It is a Goddamn feature. Those who can exploit others who knowingly or unknowingly take on too much has a name in this game; that name is "content".

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
Hakawai
State War Academy
Caldari State
#249 - 2017-03-10 08:26:53 UTC
Teckos Pech wrote:
Bjorn Tyrson wrote:
Hakawai wrote:

  • Experienced players who don't have the courage and/or skills to PvP in the unrestricted parts of EVE or to go after difficult targets in highsec are able to hang around where they won't be attacked, and select targets who won't (and/or can't) fight back.


    • What makes you think they cant/wont tangle with the larger groups?

    lets take pirat, one of the largest (if not the largest) wardec corp. have you actually LOOKED at their war history? right now they are at war with, test, brave, goons, wingspan, marmite, xxdeath. etc etc etc... notice anything bout those names? but no... clearly they only go after newbie corps and people who can't fight back right....


    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.

    FYI:
    When a certain kind of person runs out of rational arguments, but lack the mental flexibility to reconsider their views, they switch directly to "ad hominem" . It's a natural path for people who can't think straight.

    But there's a problem I don't believe you're capable of solving - by ensuring I have no respect for you or your opinions you've made me immune to your insults.
    Raca Pyrrea
    Center for Advanced Studies
    Gallente Federation
    #250 - 2017-03-10 08:37:24 UTC
    Besides being a PvP game, Eve is also the best designed economic simulation game out there. That draws a lot of players in. They dont care about PvP and will not come out to play, and rightly so since Eve is a sandbox game allowing all kinds of play styles. So CCP tries to keep a balance for those playstyles somewhere between being to safe and being prohibitive.

    It was mentioned above that wardeccer corporations go to war with big nullsec entities. That is of course not accurate. They indeed wardec them, but that only for leeching on those juicy 0.0 loots around jita. You dont need to wardec to go to war with 0.0 entities, you turn up at 0.0 where their members live and PvP. Wardec corps rarely go out to 0.0 to play.
    Teckos Pech
    Hogyoku
    Goonswarm Federation
    #251 - 2017-03-10 08:38:25 UTC
    Hakawai wrote:
    Teckos Pech wrote:
    Bjorn Tyrson wrote:
    Hakawai wrote:

  • Experienced players who don't have the courage and/or skills to PvP in the unrestricted parts of EVE or to go after difficult targets in highsec are able to hang around where they won't be attacked, and select targets who won't (and/or can't) fight back.


    • What makes you think they cant/wont tangle with the larger groups?

    lets take pirat, one of the largest (if not the largest) wardec corp. have you actually LOOKED at their war history? right now they are at war with, test, brave, goons, wingspan, marmite, xxdeath. etc etc etc... notice anything bout those names? but no... clearly they only go after newbie corps and people who can't fight back right....


    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.

    FYI:
    When a certain kind of person runs out of rational arguments, but lack the mental flexibility to reconsider their views, they switch directly to "ad hominem" . It's a natural path for people who can't think straight.

    But there's a problem I don't believe you're capable of solving - by ensuring I have no respect for you or your opinions you've made me immune to your insults.


    That is hilarious since you've been using ad hominems all along and in a passive aggressive manner. People whom you don't like are cowards, fun vampires, etc. Weren't you even going on about how people who were pirates were sociopaths at one point IRL?

    Get out of **** town.

    "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

    8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
    Hakawai
    State War Academy
    Caldari State
    #252 - 2017-03-10 09:12:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Hakawai
    Black Pedro wrote:
    Hakawai wrote:
    This "complete game security" claim is a "straw man", and in it's own way as much of a passive/aggressive stealth insult as that EVE fun-vampire favorite "perhaps this isn't the right game for you".
    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.

    I read the article you linked above. It's useful, so I haven't classified it as an attempted "timewaster" tactic, but it was a near thing, because the blog doesn't say what you suggested in your post.

    There's a bunch of stuff about implementation details, and just this section on game objectives:
    CCP in the dev blog linked above wrote:

    It is our hope that the changes outlined here will serve to make wars a more engaging, fulfilling and fun experience for all. As always it is very difficult to create a system that supports legal PvP in a one-size-fits-all manner, as people have different playstyles, needs and expectations. With the changes currently in the pipeline we do realize that wars become a bit more hardcore and harder to avoid. But the line that is being drawn in the sand here is that if you’re in a player run corporation, then war is something you must be prepared to tackle. The ally system and the surrender with enforced peace do give options beside just duking it out (or docking for a week), but if you absolutely do not want to be war decced, then the only option right now is to be in a NPC corp. This is not an optimal solution and we might iterate here in the future, but this is the direction we’re taking right now.

    I quoted the whole section, but the underlined section is the only part that's actually indicates a strategic objective for the game. It falls back to tactical/implementation trivia almost immediately.

    The OP and the interesting parts of this thread are all related to that strategic objective: "make wars a more engaging, fulfilling and fun experience for all". (My underline again).

    My argument is clear enough: the current mechanism encourages some unfortunate behaviors:

    • Frivolous wardecs of combat-weak Corps, many of them small groups of EVE beginners by much more powerful combat-capable Corps
    • Weak Wardec targets (especially the beginner Corps) finding their best choice is to stop playing for a while

    This is obviously not fun for everyone involved.

    And it's not unreasonable, given the incompleteness and lack of clarity in the objectives started in that blog, that CCP would like to increase their corporate income and profits by increasing the number of subscriptions, and that one way of doing this is for new players to join, subscribe, and continue playing EVE.

    Given that assumed objective, the behaviors listed above lead to a bad outcome: beginners finding that the game (perhaps inadvertently) ,contains a mechanism (wardeccing in highsec) that is significantly biased against new players, in exchange for a very small benefit to experienced players and/or large combat-capable Corps.

    If you could find some evidence that CCP's (Corporate CCP, not the words of some inebriated code-monkey) objective is to get rid of new players as quickly as possible I'd be open to some of the arguments you present.

    Failing that, I'll continue to assert that a mechanic that makes unbalanced combat safer and easier for rich, powerful Corps and less safe for small weak, beginner Corps is not good for the game.

    Of course if the objective is to have a game with few new players, it's great: in that case any mechanism (implemented by CCP or experienced players) that contributes to making it as hard and time-consuming as possible for new players to get properly set up (income, skills, experience) would be just what CCP wanted.
    ImYourMom
    Retribution Holdings Corp
    Retribution.
    #253 - 2017-03-10 09:37:01 UTC
    im sorry to say but war decs are just a lame mechanic for lame pvpers to gank weaker highseccers for easy kills thats it.

    i would like to see them removed completely or only playable/shootable in low /nullsec

    as bruce lee said boards dont hit back
    Soel Reit
    The Scope
    Gallente Federation
    #254 - 2017-03-10 09:44:49 UTC
    ImYourMom wrote:
    im sorry to say but war decs are just a lame mechanic for lame pvpers to gank weaker highseccers for easy kills thats it.

    i would like to see them removed completely or only playable/shootable in low /nullsec

    as bruce lee said boards dont hit back


    hi mom Cool
    Black Pedro
    Mine.
    #255 - 2017-03-10 11:34:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Black Pedro
    Hakawai wrote:
    Given that assumed objective, the behaviors listed above lead to a bad outcome: beginners finding that the game (perhaps inadvertently) ,contains a mechanism (wardeccing in highsec) that is significantly biased against new players, in exchange for a very small benefit to experienced players and/or large combat-capable Corps.

    If you could find some evidence that CCP's (Corporate CCP, not the words of some inebriated code-monkey) objective is to get rid of new players as quickly as possible I'd be open to some of the arguments you present.

    Failing that, I'll continue to assert that a mechanic that makes unbalanced combat safer and easier for rich, powerful Corps and less safe for small weak, beginner Corps is not good for the game.

    Of course if the objective is to have a game with few new players, it's great: in that case any mechanism (implemented by CCP or experienced players) that contributes to making it as hard and time-consuming as possible for new players to get properly set up (income, skills, experience) would be just what CCP wanted.
    The blog I provided (an official statement to the players approved by CCP corporate communications), gives us some insight:

    The first question we asked ourselves is why touch the war dec system at all? Isn’t it functioning fine? The answer to that is yes, and no. 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).

    This bit says they thought not enough people were engaging in wars, which implies one of their goals was to increase the number of wars going on in highsec. It also clearly provides the main purpose of wars in Eve Online: to allow people to fight legally (that is without NPCs getting involved) in highsec.

    They then go on to talk about the problems as-of-then with wars and provide the objectives with the 2012 changes:


    • 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.


    I think most reasonable people would agree they succeeded to some extent on points one and two, and while arguably they may have failed to create a viable mercenary marketplace, they clearly intended and even desired for professional wardeccers and mercenaries to exist.

    The go on to detail some changes, and then state what they wish for these changes to do:

    It is our hope that the changes outlined here will serve to make wars a more engaging, fulfilling and fun experience for all. As always it is very difficult to create a system that supports legal PvP in a one-size-fits-all manner, as people have different playstyles, needs and expectations. With the changes currently in the pipeline we do realize that wars become a bit more hardcore and harder to avoid. But the line that is being drawn in the sand here is that if you’re in a player run corporation, then war is something you must be prepared to tackle. The ally system and the surrender with enforced peace do give options beside just duking it out (or docking for a week), but if you absolutely do not want to be war decced, then the only option right now is to be in a NPC corp. This is not an optimal solution and we might iterate here in the future, but this is the direction we’re taking right now.

    They explicitly say they want you to be unable to avoid wars if you are in a player corporation, and the intend for you to stay in the NPC corp if you want to opt-out of wars. This is clearly the intention of the design team. They also say they may want to iterate on that, and have subsequently said they are still unhappy with wars in general, but it is clear that wars are largely "working as intended", at least "working as intended in 2012", when it comes to the general situation we have today.

    How this relates to CCP's intention for new players I cannot say. Wars, like everything else in this game from industry to wormholes living to faction warfare, are stacked against new, ISK-poor, SP-poor and solo players. However, if you understand the game, it doesn't seem to me that wars are the worst example of the inherent unbalance of an open-world game like Eve. You can completely opt-out and avoid them if you are willing to stay in the NPC corp, and if you join an existing corp, you benefit from all the non-new players in it for your safety and who can teach you to operate under the threat of war. The only groups that get excessively hurt are the new corporations (and perhaps small corporations), especially ones led by players who themselves are new and don't know what they are doing.

    To help these groups, I have advocated for a "social corp" or "corp lite" to allow these small and new corps to form social bonds and grow a little, with reduced rewards of course, before declaring themselves ready to compete. For the life of me I can't figure out why CCP hasn't found some developer time since 2012 to create such a mechanism, but I guess such are the vagaries of software development. It seems a no-brainer to uncouple the social element of corps from the competitive element of corps to give players more options in finding the proper level of risk vs. reward they are comfortable and capable of dealing with.

    The 8 Golden Rules of Eve

    Why Do They Gank?
    Hakawai
    State War Academy
    Caldari State
    #256 - 2017-03-10 13:02:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Hakawai
    Black Pedro wrote:
    [Comments on the blog post I references and quoted from

    I don't think the part of the blog listing low-level objectives and implementation details contains any information relevant to the current state of this thread.

    The actual implementation has the negative effects I described earlier, and there's no sign of any balancing positive effects. It still nets out to "Good for fun-vampires who target rookies; irrelevant to experienced players; bad for 'rookie Corps'".

    IMO if this is what CCP wanted it's a mistake. More likely it's an "emergent effect", and they haven't had a strong enough reason to do something about it.

    Black Pedro wrote:
    [...]
    To help these groups, I have advocated for a "social corp" or "corp lite" to allow these small and new corps to form social bonds and grow a little, with reduced rewards of course, before declaring themselves ready to compete. For the life of me I can't figure out why CCP hasn't found some developer time since 2012 to create such a mechanism, but I guess such are the vagaries of software development. It seems a no-brainer to uncouple the social element of corps from the competitive element of corps to give players more options in finding the proper level of risk vs. reward they are comfortable and capable of dealing with.

    I agree with this though.

    The social organizations made available in MMOs in general are trivial and extremely limited compared to real life. You'd think this alone would be a "red flag" to MMO owning companies, but instead the norm seems to be restrictive player organizations that are something like the combat structure of a medium-sized military organization.

    I think "parallel organizations" (such as the idea described in the current thread called NPC High Sec Blue Community) would address many of the issues with getting new players established and widely engaged in EVE.
    Vic Jefferson
    Stimulus
    Rote Kapelle
    #257 - 2017-03-10 17:40:23 UTC
    Teckos Pech wrote:
    Is A coalition attacking an enemy rotting from the inside symmetrical risk?


    If you are a coalition and own space, you have already shouldered a huge amount of risk and liability. This is implicitly different than waging war from from the safety of an NPC undock, purely at your leisure and convenience.

    Any sort of gate camp in low or null is fine, because there exists the cyno. We wouldn't be having this discussion if they allowed even just covert cynos in HiSec.


    Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
    Teckos Pech
    Hogyoku
    Goonswarm Federation
    #258 - 2017-03-10 20:49:35 UTC
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    Teckos Pech wrote:
    Is A coalition attacking an enemy rotting from the inside symmetrical risk?


    If you are a coalition and own space, you have already shouldered a huge amount of risk and liability. This is implicitly different than waging war from from the safety of an NPC undock, purely at your leisure and convenience.

    Any sort of gate camp in low or null is fine, because there exists the cyno. We wouldn't be having this discussion if they allowed even just covert cynos in HiSec.




    That isn't an answer though. Facing risk from other parties is there, but the attacking a weaker foe is not usually a risky endeavor.

    And regarding gate camps you are making my point. If a group cynos in they are usually going to do so when they are sure they are taking on less risk and will impose risk on the camp. So the gate camp is imposing risk of lone travelers or smaller groups. Along comes the cyno ship which in turns imposes large risk on the the gate camp. In both cases the risk is asymmetric to the targets.

    Many confrontations/conflicts in the game are asymmetric in regards to risk. This isn't a bug, it is a feature. Especially when one adds on that risk is something that can be mitigated/managed/manipulated. For example, what looks like a quick kill is actually a cyno bait ship.

    "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

    8 Golden Rules for EVE Online
    Vic Jefferson
    Stimulus
    Rote Kapelle
    #259 - 2017-03-10 22:13:58 UTC
    Teckos Pech wrote:
    Facing risk from other parties is there, but the attacking a weaker foe is not usually a risky endeavor.


    That's the whole point. I'm fine with completely one-sided engagements. I'm fine with being selective with targets. EvE is a dog-eat-dog world - great, never have I tried to change that. There's risk buy-in for larger blocs - if you want the muscle to bully around smaller entities, you have to have the infrastructure to maintain that muscle, and this is usually something that is vulnerable, i.e. sov space or POSes.

    There's no risk buy-in for wardeccers that can hide in NPC stations all day - there is nothing that is vulnerable. There's risk buy-in for every other part of the game!

    If you gate camp, someone else could cyno you and take your gimmick away.
    If you take sov, someone else could take that away.
    If you take moons to build an alliance, someone else can take that away.
    If you heavily invest in a market. you could go broke if someone is playing games with it.
    If you start a corp, someone could take all your stuff.

    Where's the ability for me to disrupt the war-dec gimmick? There isn't one. There are no assets which are exposed to risk because it can be waged entirely from NPC structures which are not 'in play'.

    It's a total partitioning of risk. You decide who can and cannot shoot at you. In order to ignore CONCORD, there should be more of a trade-off, a risk buy-in, to get that ability.

    If you want to dunk a bunch of people that don't know the mechanics, that don't know how to fit a ship, that don't understand basic hisec mechanics. Fine. That's a right and part of New Eden that should not be taken away....but it should come at the cost of some risk! There should be some exposure, some mechanic, that gives a defensive liability in exchange for selective targeting and selective enforcement of CONCORD.

    Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
    Teckos Pech
    Hogyoku
    Goonswarm Federation
    #260 - 2017-03-10 23:44:53 UTC
    Vic Jefferson wrote:
    Teckos Pech wrote:
    Facing risk from other parties is there, but the attacking a weaker foe is not usually a risky endeavor.


    That's the whole point. I'm fine with completely one-sided engagements. I'm fine with being selective with targets. EvE is a dog-eat-dog world - great, never have I tried to change that. There's risk buy-in for larger blocs - if you want the muscle to bully around smaller entities, you have to have the infrastructure to maintain that muscle, and this is usually something that is vulnerable, i.e. sov space or POSes.

    There's no risk buy-in for wardeccers that can hide in NPC stations all day - there is nothing that is vulnerable. There's risk buy-in for every other part of the game!

    If you gate camp, someone else could cyno you and take your gimmick away.
    If you take sov, someone else could take that away.
    If you take moons to build an alliance, someone else can take that away.
    If you heavily invest in a market. you could go broke if someone is playing games with it.
    If you start a corp, someone could take all your stuff.

    Where's the ability for me to disrupt the war-dec gimmick? There isn't one. There are no assets which are exposed to risk because it can be waged entirely from NPC structures which are not 'in play'.

    It's a total partitioning of risk. You decide who can and cannot shoot at you. In order to ignore CONCORD, there should be more of a trade-off, a risk buy-in, to get that ability.

    If you want to dunk a bunch of people that don't know the mechanics, that don't know how to fit a ship, that don't understand basic hisec mechanics. Fine. That's a right and part of New Eden that should not be taken away....but it should come at the cost of some risk! There should be some exposure, some mechanic, that gives a defensive liability in exchange for selective targeting and selective enforcement of CONCORD.


    Making them dock up is the disruption. You can try to cyno in on a gate camp, but once you move on they'll be back at it, and a lot of them will have warped off as well. And this very same complaint is often leveled by wardec corps against their targets. On that score they are symmetrical.

    "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."--Friedrich August von Hayek

    8 Golden Rules for EVE Online