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Eve isnt fair, but it should be impartial to both sides of an engagement. Not allowing any allies would be unfair, but also stupid.

Or how about reducing the wardec costs on entities with outgoing wardecs?

So many words.

Quick question:

Since fairness isn't a quantifiable concept as opposed to balance which is largely mathematical, aren't we really debating the balance of wardec costs between a large sov-holding entity and a patchwork, smaller one attempting to engage?

Ive seen it written that it "should be more expensive" to attack a larger corp, a statement which I'm still trying to reconcile. That can't be the only reason. Wouldn't smaller groups already incur higher numbers of ship losses, etc. as a logistical consequence of invading an entrenched, superior foe? They should pay more for the privelege of being hopelessly outmatched?

I can get behind forever wars with unlimited allies as being out of balance (there's none) but these exponential ally costs do insulate larger entities from attack by making it more difficult for smaller groups to finance their offensive goals.

How then is this balanced or good for player generated content?

The words, forever, unlimited, and exponential are not very conducive to balance.

Yonis Kador

Well it was not fair in a sense that we were having a privateer alliance mk2 moment, but as opposed to privateers wardeccing every alliance in eve, here the nullsec entity had to be dumb enough to wardec someone in highsec themselves.
Personally I see no reason for the nerf other than bland favoritism for the nyx pilots who gank JFs right on the bridges =)

Wow, this whole forum is full of some pretty stupid people....

I think the fact that a sizeable portion of the American public do not believe in evolution is a rather strong argument against public opinion being particularly reliable.

:edited:

Oh, you edited.

Well, that was extremely amusing none the less.

*EDIT: Retrieved and quoted.

Hehe, yeah, it did make me giggle when I read it though

Believe it or not, this is the shorter version 'cos I wrote a crapload more and buggered it up when posting... probably a good thing, considering

Somebody a few pages back asked about the fleet compositions, FCs info and whatnot of Jade's allies/friends (edit:here). While I think it was meant as a bit of a dig, I think it kinda made an important point. They're people who don't like Goons and unsurprisingly, there's a lot of 'em. But they are NOT professionals in the way that mercs are and for that reason, I can't see that these wardec changes are the way to protect mercs. If a merc outfit can't offer more to a defending corp than random, uncoordinated groups of well-wishers, they have no business being mercs. It seems to me that what's needed to help merc outfits flourish (and this is an idea off the top of my head, so pick holes by all means) would be more about facilitation - make it easy to find a decent merc outfit and make an arrangement with them. It could be something as simple as a new type of contract, maybe have some way for people to rate the merc corps or give other viewable feedback. Or, just a way to exit a wardec independently.

Outside the merc thing, I don't see dogpiling as a problem. Seriously, even the Goons have said they don't have a problem with it either. If a group of people make ongoing trouble for another group of people, why should they be protected when those groups come together against them? I really don't understand why this was such a big problem that it had to be "fixed" in such a hurry, especially if it doesn't really impact professional mercenary outfits. It feels like the new mechanics aren't needed and get in the way of sandbox gameplay (off topic, but I think the CONCORD aggro rules have the same problem - too convoluted and impose very artifical rules on what should be a much more intuitive situation)

Other thing is, if I'm understanding CCP Soundwave (least I think it was him) correctly, I agree with him that war shouldn't necessarily be fair, but I think he's got the wrong end of the stick there - what people seem to be saying is not that they want war itself to be fair, but they want the mechanics to be balanced and the proposed changes don't seem to be balanced, they favour the aggressor. Instead, I think Eve needs to encourage more Social/Corporate Darwinism - there should always be little corps bubbling up to disrupt and displace corporate rivals. If the game mechanics favour more established corps too much, we end up with unchallengable monopolies and in a game that relies on player-generated content, that route leads to stagnation.


tl:dr
1) allies shouldn't be considered competition for mercs - the benefits of professional mercenaries should be worth their cost.
2) consider helping merc outfits by helping match them up with potential clients instead.
3) Even Eve needs Equal Opportunities!

Man, I don't even get why there's a set cost for hiring allies - surely that should be a market-driven thing..