Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Have CONCORD sell a few deployables, of various levels of ISK investment and toughness. The base model would be 50m, probably, with the rest of the ISK cost coming from the actual activation.

Then, they are anchored somewhere (nothing special, 5m or 1m or whatever). Once anchored, they can be used to start a war (24h timer, obviously) or end it. Similar total costs as current system, except players should probably be able to pay even more for tougher deployables. ISK cost to run instead of fuel, since as far as ingame lore, you're just interfacing with CONCORD systems to flag ship-vs-ship engagements as not to be responded to.

• The defending corp/alliance is not notified of the deployable location, but it is visible when entering a system.


• The structure must be located in empire space.


• If the defending corp/alliance or friends find and destroy the deployable, the war ends.


• If the deployable is un-anchored, the war ends.


• If the ISK runs out, the war ends, and the deployable can re re-used, but deccing again or deccing another will of course cost more ISK.

Details: Vulnerability timers? Weapons on the deployable? Reinforcement timers? Deployed near (but not on top of) player structures? Where can the structures be located? Should it have to be located in hisec to carry the war into losec and hisec? Losec anchoring for losec only? Any point in requiring the wardeccing person to actually be at the deployable? Probably not.


My thought is this: Wars are frequently not really very war-like. Lots of people use it just to get free targets, without any real risk, and then they just camp trade hubs. The attackers get to choose pretty much everything, target, timing, whether to engage or not.

This system would create a defense point for the attackers, and they would need to protect it during vulnerable times, and/or respond to the structure going into reinforced. A defender would then have a CHANCE of responding to a war in a proactive manner, or hiring mercenaries to track down, join defenders, and destroy the deployable.

It would help create fights.

Bonus: if you successfully un-anchor and scoop, you get the deployable back.

Bonus: people can have fun hunting around for these, and selling the locations.


EDIT> Also, have a period after each destroyed structure, where the destroying corp cannot be decced by the attacking corp for a period of time. 1 week per attempt, starting at 1 week. So 1 week, then 2 weeks, then 3, then caps at a month. So if someone is REALLY persistent, you only have to kill their deployable every month.

For each month of war-free behavior, the penalty drops by a week. Or something. Those numbers are just ballpark.

And because people would game this by using alliances, if they join an alliance, the alliance inherits any war-declare-delay penalties.

Except strategic objectives essentially don't exist in declared wars right now. Right now the arbitrary point people fight over is "wherever we happen to randomly bump into each other." So... what aspect of wardecs are you defending exactly?

What I like about this idea is that it gives the defenders incentive to fight, and a way to forcibly end an unwanted wardec. Whereas right now the incentive for the defenders is to log off and trade in their EVE subs for a netflix sub.

I'm feeling like something's missing with the idea though. Maybe it can help to facilitate asymmetrical warfare. Maybe something along the lines of making it raidable for intel (like maybe hack it to get a full member list of the aggressors.) Something to give the defenders not just incentive to bash a structure, but even more, to hunt down the aggressors.

While I am all for working towards creating organic objectives to fight over, this bad idea is contrived and forced and will do nothing but give the largest groups in the game more safety (they can opt-out of wars by forming and blobbing the structure) and the power to dictate how smaller groups use the war mechanic. The game mechanics should not give you complete safety, even as a reward for fighting. You should always be at risk to retaliation and harassment by smaller entities, and you shouldn't be able to defend your structures by just turning off the ability of your opponents to shoot it.

That said, I would be for a structure wardeccers want to use (or even have to use) so there is someway for the defender to try to force a fight and/or inflict damage on the aggressor. Ideally they would want to use it,and I would even accept if it was mandatory if it had only a modest cost and the ability to wage war itself wasn't tied to it. Earning complete safety, even by fighting, is anathema to the core idea of the game and is honestly a non-starter. CCP is not going to give PL invulnerable structures because they are big enough to end any war and prevent other groups from even trying to shoot their structures in highsec.

I hope CCP can get there with the Observatory Array which would have intel tools wardeccers would want to use. But really, keeping your stuff should be all the incentive you need to defend yourself in a PvP game. If you don't want to defend a player corp, then don't join a player corp. CCP has thoughtfully provided multiple wardec-immune NPC corps for you to use.

Bribing players with safety to participate in wars is completely counter-productive for a vibrant, conflict-filled PvP sandbox game. It isn't going to happen.

The strategic objective is:
Whatever the declaring party decides is relevant.

This proposal exchanges that economic warfare with capture-the-flag.
This proposal exchanges player driven objectives for a rigidly structured mini-game.
This proposal is contrary to EvE's open-ended nature.

The part of wardecs that I am defending is the attacker's right to decide what the objective is and how to go about achieving it.

What, exactly, is stopping the defender from taking the time to gather intel, to scout their targets, to set backups for themselves so they can continue carebearing, to maximize their own safety, all before they are ever under threat?

Not a real fan of the OP idea either but I do want to comment on this.
Stop already with this big lie about how war decs are about restricting industrial and economic activities because it is simply not true. Yes you will catch and destroy stuff that belongs to some of your targets because they are lazy and do not want to bother but you will NEVER be able to affect even in the slightest a well set up and well run high sec indy corp. I know I have a character in one for the last 5 years and we have been under nearly constant war decs and those war dec players have never destroyed anything but a few lazy, stupid people that are no longer in the corp. With alt characters, alt corps, NPC corps, hauling services like red / black frog, POS / Citadel owned by alt corps but funded by the main, you can bury your activities so deeply that you are immune to war decs and there is no way for the war dec players to ever sort out what you are actually doing and who you are doing it with. In fact we have lost 100 times more stuff to gankers than we have to war decs.

So...rather than learning the game, scouting out where the big wardec groups live and operate, figuring out some tactics, maybe even going on the test server and getting some practice in, you expect your small group of rookies who don't know how to play the game to fly to a highsec pocket in solitude or aridia and bash a structure belonging to an experienced and generally pretty well resourced pvp group who in no way are going to ever even consider using a couple of alts to ruin your clueless newbies day?

I'm pretty sure the simple answer here is 'git gud'. If you're losing when outnumbering the other guy five to one, the problem is not the system.

This is only a problem if you suck at EVE. The people who are logging off for the duration of a war are the "level my Raven" types who quit at the first sign of adversity. EVE doesn't need them, and shouldn't pander to their lack of ability to defend themselves.

That is ridiculous. That attitude is toxic. People who think like that are what's wrong with EVE. People who want "EVE: Newbros Unwelcome" really need to not be part of EVE, or really any community.

CCP is a business, EVE is a product. If CCP can't sell EVE, then they are failing. Period. The way your hands drift below your belt while you suicide gank in rookie systems doesn't enter into it.

My stance on this idea is still: it might not be THE solution to better wardecs, but it has got some compelling aspects that could inspire something closer to what would work.

No, the toxic attitude is this idea that EVE should be welcoming and cater to everyone's desires. This is in direct opposition to the idea that EVE was founded on: a cold, dark universe in which the strong survive and the weak are slaughtered. EVE is NOT a game for everyone, nor should it be. People who want to farm PvE content in safety and quit at the first hint of adversity are not the kind of people who should be able to succeed in EVE. Altering the core identity of the game to please these people would be a huge mistake.

Also, let's not pretend that this is just about newbies. Many of the people who whine about war decs are well out of their newbie stages, they just insist on being able to PvE all day without any risk. True newbies, people who are just trying to learn how the game works, are not worth a war dec and are most often found in NPC corps that can't be a target anyway.



And yet here EVE is, after well over a decade of people complaining about how being hostile to new players will kill the game. Meanwhile competing game after competing game has failed and died. The concept is indisputably successful whether you like it or not.