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Well given the pretty significant opposition to this particular change expressed in this and *many* other threads on the forums at the moment would it be possible for team BFF "Superfriends" to go and have a conference with The Senior Producer CCP Unifex (Jon Lander) - and discuss the issue? Perhaps it needs a fresh set of eyes and maybe look at shuffling the teams around a bit?

How exactly would it hurt to leave 1.0 in place for the summer to see how it works in the wild? Maybe spend a couple of months coming up with a properly-worked solution to the problems that have been seen.

The rushed 1.1 changes really do feel incomplete and badly thought out.

Example.

1. Sure the lock-in rules for allies need changing, but reverting it to a fixed 2 week contract with no possibility of auto-renew is just clumsy and a bit lazy programming (epecially considering the 24/48 hour cooldown it will force into the middle of hot wars)

2. Exponentional costs for allies regardless of the size of the attacker ... this has been comprehensively criticized and debunked as a gameplay concept now. Its just silly. If the Attacker's wardec costs are being decided by counting pilots in the defending organization then the defenders wardec costs (if any) should also be decided by counting pilots in the attacking organization. Making one linear and capped, while the other is exponential and uncapped - is just poor design.

3. Mutual wars excluding allies. Since mutuals are the ONLY way that an attacker can be forced to commit seriously to a war and since for a small defender (especially an industrial only defender) to seriously threaten a large attacker THEY NEED ALLIES - the impact of removing allies from a mutual war is simply to remove commitment and consequence to attackers in wars. This surely wasn't the point of Inferno? Its essentially a full reversion to pay-to-grief only wardecs with a free pass to the attacker.

4 Imbalance in wardec costs between large and small organizations. Soundwave justified this on the grounds you pay more for more targets - but the reality is that most very large organizations DO NOT actually present more targets because they are not present in HISEC to be targets. If you pay 500m to wardec a 9000 man alliance you'll be lucky to see 1% of that number yet you are still billed for deccing the full 9000 (even capped). Reality is that a 200 man empire corporation is going to present as many targets as a 9000 man 0.0 organization (probably more) so its pretty ridiculolus that smaller one with more numerous targets costs 100m to dec while the larger one that is mostly in 0.0 costs 500m isk. This kind of situation is why people are believing the wardec system is horribly unbalanced in favour of 0.0.

Seriously.

Please use the opportunity of the minor delay in 1.1 to have a serious discussion between Team BFF and their managers at CCP and see if this whole thing needs to be sent back to the discussion stage for reengineering.

It would be a great shame for the centrepiece of the Inferno summer expansion to be turned into a fiasco where only huge attacker on small defender "grief" wardecs have a purpose and the notion of "emergent gameplay" flows only one way.

Perhaps taking a few weeks break and then looking at shifting the teams around is the way to go. Wardecs and all things mercenary, war-fighting and hisec conflict deserve a fresh set of eyes and shouldn't be passed over with such an evidently rushed set of changes.

Come on - I think you are making A LOT of assumptions here.

- Agressors often declare war against smaller (unknown) entities for the stupidest of reasons. Sometimes out of boredom or a random comment misinterpreted in local. The example I posted above is one such real example going on right now. No good reason for the war, nothing will be gained other than a few noob unsubbing. They are admitedly doing it out of boredom (how a 200 man alliance is bored I dont know, thats another EVE issue). You know how many armchair admirals we have here who like to declare war on a 4 man corp because of some miscommunication or perceived disrespect. The very fact you even question this gives your credibility suspicion. I never said that it happens all the time, but it DEFINITELY happens more than occasionally. And enough to warrant a safety valve for smaller corps.

- As to the military advisor. Im not looking for a FAIR & Balanced solution to the wars, only to the wardec/aliance fee system. Of course most war is about fighting what you can win (thought not always) But I am looking for someone who understands the nature, logistics and psychology of warfare better than CCP and even its players to advise them in the same capacity that our good Dr. does in economice matters. And considering Combat is arguably as large a part of EVE as economics is, I dont see why this is a bad idea. Of course CCP can always modify it to work with the game. Getting a professional opinion never hurts and many military experts WILL understand how to fight a war from a underdog perspective as well. I also think he could help with the state of ship role and balancing, soverignty... the list goes on.

- In either case, CPP stated the changes are based on the Merc Industry request, which is an automatic fail for me. My alt is in one such war right now. We have had free assistance and we have paid for good mercs, the argument is invalid and the alliance fees should be put on hold until we have better data. Honestly, If I need to pay 80mil for an ally fee, its less money I have to pay a good merc corp. It makes little sense.

While I am sure that shuffling Team BFF around a bit would accomplish a lot, I feel like we might be a few steps (months) ahead of you there. Also you should definitely tune in to my development processes devblog series to learn about the "management" of teams.

Just read my post that you replied to initially about the war decs. It's in there https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=120106

Please note that in my links above, all words linked in "would accomplish a lot" were achieved by teams formed in the reorganisation, not BFF.

I have read a lot of you posting that you are not a fan, and a lot of people repeatedly posting to disagree with you. Other posters uniquely agreeing or disagreeing may have gotten lost in the throng, but I for one (as a stakeholder of the team) am a firm believer in the direction the team is heading in. SP and stakeholders are in every sprint review that the team holds and ask critical questions in those reviews. Note that I am not dismissing anyones feedback out of hand, just stating my personal preference.

Well try this as a mental excercise. Skip all my posts in this thread. Also skip all Goon/Test/Nullsec posts and anyone specifically trolling my posts etc. The reason being we're specifically involved in the issue and invested in the outcome (which may well be more about personal vendettas and in space politics than objective criticism of mechanics).

Then take a serious look at what the genuine neutrals are saying and see if you think its generally supportive of the 1.1 changes or opposed.

There are issues that many people are criticising (and have indeed been criticising since before inferno) I've just been back reading some of the threads when Soniclover initially laid Superfriends plans for wardecs. Back then I wasn't even posting in the threads but these issues were still continually raised and negative feedback given.

So please try it.

Skip my posts, Skip the large alliance posts.

Read what everyone else is saying.

Perhaps it would be fairer to state how this is an improvement on the original war dec mechanics? Most the features that were hailed as an improvement have been nerfed to hell and back. Like the first blog, we're not seeing a CCP that is listening to suggestions, simply one that is digging it's heels in and not listening. The flaws in the mercenary system were pointed out the first time. How does this system actually improve upon the original war dec system now?

Edit: Sounds hostile, apologies. I just feel that developers have been offended and are now spoiling a set of good mechanics. Unlimited ally's - bad. But exponentially penalising multiple allies, making the fee every two weeks and making the aggressor now have little risk. Silly.

Well you could simply temp forum block "me" and any poster in this friend from "goonswarm/test/obvious nullsec" and look at whats left. But seriously, I understand you are frustrated that we (myself and practically everyone else) kept on debating, arguing, restating our points etc etc - but really, doesn't that just show we're passionate about your game end of the day? Its not a bad thing really.

Imagine how disappointed you'd be if you posted a devblog and everyone just :shrugged: and said "meh".

The common theme to these, is that they're all your posts. You get a few NPC alts chiming in here and there, but no, there is no "significant" weight of numbers in any way. Though, if we were voting on gameplay changes like this suggests would make sense, we'd have highsec immunity already and hulkageddon and burn jita would have been banned.

It is demonstrably completely broken. This has been pointed out many, many times. We can agree that the specific 1.1 change won't be the last word on wardecs, but 1.0 needs to die now.

By who? You? You're saying that by agreeing with yourself there is actually a wide consensus on this issue?

You've still failed to explain how outside of YOUR war there would be a gain in being able to hire 40 allies.

You could equally argue it's unbalanced in favour of large highsec wardeccing entities, or organisations that want to avoid war (E-Uni) ... or highsec alliances that are small corps bunching up for protection (BEEP) .. but instead you're talking Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons, Goons ..

... which is nothing more or less than a hilarious display of your own bias and shouldn't affect changes for the other 350k registered members of the game.

Yet it's already a fiasco, with forum loud-mouths turning the ally system into a farce to offer "free wardecs" with no sense of the legitimacy for which the system was offered.
"only huge attacker on small defender "grief" wardecs have a purpose and the notion of "emergent gameplay" flows only one way"
As said, now, literally dozens of times, for all the relevant wars <5 allies is going to be enough. The sole example where you would need 40 or 50 corps to achieve this same result is when we're talking about JUST TWO alliances. You don't balance a game around two alliances.

You know, this is weirdly illuminating.