Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Sure, I'll agree. Hiding behind station games to avoid loss, risk or retaliation is lame-o.

Seems to me there are plenty of good ways to nerf station games without letting rich carebears loll about in invulnerable highsec structures though.

Exactly. So why re-invent the wheel? Just give small/new/casual corps an in-game shared identity that is the same as them being in the NPC corp and nothing has changed other than players truly will no longer have any reason to whine over the war mechanics. They can putter about safe in their little club, immune from both hub-humping, and the increasing rare hunting-style war dec, and play Eve as inefficiently and non-competitively as they want. Meanwhile, real corporations can still form, deploy structures and compete with each other as the game was designed.

Players should be able to join a formal social group without all the baggage being in a real corp comes with. That seems a much better solution to me than the OPs convoluted capture-the-flag mini-game. When CCP gets around to changing wars, it will be to simplify them and attempt to make them more player-driven, not create a contrived 'Faction Warfare lite' in highsec. I see many ways they can give more organic objectives and reasons to go to war without giving 100% safety to the richest players in the game or forcing players to defend useless beacons just to maintain the ability to interact with another player group.

Simple is it? How can it be more simple than the 'pay 50M ISK at war for a week' we have now? Different systems with different rules of engagement based on where you are and that can change if you blow up or deploy structures?

Actually, I am all for a structure-based component to wars. I would be fine restricting wars to only corporations that have in-space structures. I would though move all corporation benefits - taxes, hangers and the like (and eventually give them more benefits for players to fight over) - into those structures and then make corporations without structures immune to wars given they are now functionally equivalent to an NPC corp anyway.

What I am not for is tying the war to those structures, nor limiting the war to systems with structures only. Why do this? If you are at war, you are at war. You shouldn't be able to aggress on a gate and then hop one system over and have magical invulnerability restored. Nor I am for the largest groups in the game being able to turn off the ability to make war of everyone smaller than them by shooting their structures. I shouldn't have to ask permission of every group capable of exploding my structures to aggress another group. I should just be able to aggress another group and interact with them.

If you want to limit wars to fighting over structures, then I would much prefer you keep it simple and just get rid of wars altogether and make Upwell structures like Mobile Depots in that they are free-to-shoot but generate a suspect flag. Then battles can start and escalate organically. That is much less contrived than your structure system, which honestly given it takes 7+ days to explode a citadel, isn't going to change anything. People won't bother trying to explode them given the long time frame, and instead just add the systems where they are vulnerable to their 'avoid system' list and carry on as usual.

I also reject your premise that wars are for "fun". They are not there for fun or to produce good fights. They are there to enable the competitive sandbox game that is Eve Online to carry on in the oppressively NPC-controlled environment of highsec. If you don't want to compete, then don't join a player corp. CCP has telegraphed this directly as the way the game is suppose to work.

Let's go with your hypothesis that corp getting decced actually make EVE lose players. A better solution to this would be to make corps harder to create so only people who are dedicated to having a corp and making it thrive do so instead of every dicks and toms who will fold as soon as they might be under attack. Once you remove all those **** corps from the game, then new players would join corps with decent leadership who will lead them through hard time instead of telling them the solution is to fold.

EDIT: At the end of the day, it's not the wardec that make people leave corp and stop being linked but **** leadership who tell the players that's how you should go about it.

From the devblog:

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.

Whether you use current structures, or new 'war beacons' you are just inventing meaningless objectives to fight over for the sake of whether players can fight or not in a particular system. This is completely contrived and has nothing to do with real war or real objectives. It is a silly mini-game that is a waste of time. This is a sandbox game and wars are just how we interact in highsec, not the prize itself to fight over.

I don't generally participate in wars and the few I have been in I have been on the receiving end more than I have been an aggressor.

CCP devs have been asked multiple times about wars and while they are not happy, they are also clearly not concerned enough about it to make it a priority. That's because wars are largely working as intended. I see no sign CCP has any intention to touch wars (CCP Fozzie said as much on Talking in Stations a few weeks ago) so given the current development timetable we are looking at 12-18 months at the earliest before wars are revisited.

I agree wars have issues, but they aren't the ones you seem to be fixated on. Players are intended to be vulnerable to each other. Yes, even new players. I think station games are terrible, and would be happy to see that tactic deleted from the game, but wars between groups, especially structure-owning groups are here to stay my friend. I think it is you that needs to accept the reality of what Eve Online is and stop hoping for some far-future change to the game to make you happy. Conflict, both non-consensual and unbalanced is the lifeblood of this game and no amount of crying 'Save the Newbies!' is going to get CCP to change that.

Contd. CCP is completely wasting it's time trying to get people to play together in HS whilst the current wardec system exists.

It is no coincidence that incursions are run by people in NPC corps or single player corps they can rotate through.

To try to play with others without doing so is simply suicidal behaviour.

Does that sound like they are going to succeed? It is like trying to improve your meals in a restaurant, to improve customer spend and revisits, when you still have a drunken filthy hobo, disturbing all the customers on the doorstep.

Maybe, that the first thing to move on, so all following efforts are not just wasted, and the restaurant is wondering why they do not have any customers any more, even though the food is amazing.

Sometimes it is the simplest things, the Hobo does not require a new coat and a shave to solve things, get rid... now!

Sure... choice.. nope. Every choice is sub-par. Thats the way the system works, and some desperately want to keep as long as they can.

I min I'll post the choices.

Here you are.

So current defender actions are
1. Die in a fire
2. Fight and die in a fire and get the wardec extended
3. Fight and watch them dock up and get the wardec extended
4. Leave corp
5. Log off and go and play overwatch for a week or two
6. Live somewhere else.
7. Avoid all contact with everyone, hide in the cracks, try to be as invisible as humanly possible.
8. Rotate corps until your CEO dies of exhaustion or quits.

Missed any?

Most at least try 1-5, before realising the futility. Those of us who survived our first corps failscades, mostly are still here because of choice 6. I didnt mention the most common choice, because that involves not resubbing.

I really do not how you understood that from both his and CCP seagulls comments, ( I didn't hear Hilmar say it) but if you want to believe that carry on.

The current wardec system is irretrievably broken, the goals however are still valid. Hence the OP (back to that again)

And YES EVE is a game with PVP, Lots of PVP, and player control is good, player interaction is good, but you may be surprised that people do other things too. Funny that. Every player Engages with other players, that is the beauty of the game. And that needs to be encouraged, and that which prevents it nuked into oblivion. Not everyone takes a narrow one dimensional view of what that means.

Being fair, the current wardec system is an out of control Juggernaut
, so It wouldn't make a fat lot of difference.

You are still holding in your mind the current wardec system, and extrapolating the results from there it seems.

To understand this, you would need to cast aside your preconceptions, in order to see that an extremely simple system can have complex effects.

Basing ones view on "big thing not die! Loot no good!" Simply misses the entire point.

But I imagine, viewing the world from the perspective that "club is good big club better! Hit more! " Is much simpler to understand, even if it gives entirely the wrong results.

I have tried to explain, but sometimes one is put up against impossible obstacles, and I just have to accept you will never see it, pity, maybe if it comes in, after a year, when we see Hisec with a thriving and most importantly, popular level of PVP activity, you will believe it was CCP magic responsible somehow. By then you will of course completely forgotten this thread.

But of course for players who only wanted kills and not fights, They will feel the game has been unbalanced, and EVE should still be hard!

What they mean is they want and miss the easy opportunity to make it hard for others.

I do not of course know your motivations, that's for you to deal with.

I could bother mentioning that the op clearly states, one could not wardec unless both defender and attacker had structures, you picked the word citadels out of discussion of a specific hypothetical scenario, but I know, reading, who need it eh?

Now the elephant in the room is NOT the one you are pointing at, that is a mouse. The wardec mechanics are great? Well, that's an unexpected view. Wardeccers might LIKE the absurd imbalance, But I can hardly Imagine a wardeccer would be willing to face the ridicule that would come, from saying wardec mechanics are great.

The problem is that the current wardec mechanic, such as it is, actually penalises and punishes players who want to try co-operative PVE. And co-operative gameplay is a good thing whether for PVP, PVE, or anything else you can think of.

Remove this punishment aspect, and HS corps will cope quite nicely, they don't need buffing, they need to be something that allows and even rewards, cooperative behaviour, without it being a death wish.

I wrote quite a long explaination on this, explaining the pros and cons. It is there if you wish to read it.

I have struggled to see how your suggestions here, actually have any relevance to the discussion, or even independent value. I am not sure of your intention, they seem so detached, where on earth does ganking come into this? is it simply an attempt to derail the thread? Or create some strange mutant Strawman argument?

Edit :- I have edited to ensure that the word "structure" is unambiguous stated in every post, My apologies for any confusion I mistakenly assumed that people would actually read the posts, and remember the clarification in the previous answer, by bad

Thank you for your reply, I look forward to your next, where you expound such "interesting" statements such as black is actually white, the sun rises in the west, and earthquakes are merely dragons farting.

For a wider understanding, It might be a good idea for you to get out more in game, meet people and talk with them, rather than simply shooting them in the face before they have the chance to share their experiences.

I am glad you made your views clear about forcing people out of the game, it is nice to have such a clear declaration of self interest.

We all know with what weight and value to hold your comments now.

Alternatively,

Please ensure your next post is clearly classified as fiction, you would not want to have people think you REALLY believe such twaddle.


Either way, we know the value of your comments and views.