Warfare & Tactics

WARNING***** this is a wall of text


Please make an attempt to keep drama out of this, I know some of us just can’t help it but please just this once.


I understand that there are already multiple threads on this subject but most have descended into a troll fest and are far beyond off topic at this point.

Before I get started let me state that I have no interest in a political finger pointing game because there are a couple of threads that have descended into this on the same subject. I simply wish to learn the reasoning behind the decision not to discuss the politics of this group did this or that group cried about something. To be honest who did what doesn’t really matter because CCP makes the changes not an alliance or corp within the game, it’s their game and there must have been a reason, legit or otherwise, behind their decision I simply wish to discuss with CCP their reasoning behind it in a honest and drama free discussion.

From what I gather CCP’s original plan behind the changes to the War Dec system was designed to make alliances and corps consider wars carefully and provide options for the small corp/alliance when deced by a larger entity. Say if I have a 20 man industrial corp and I get war deced by a 200 man PVP alliance I can call in mercs/allies to assist me and ensure that the defender can actually defend themselves against a larger aggressor. I am guess the purpose of this was to reduce the amount of high sec trade hub wars and make war a bit closer to reality in that if you start a war with the little guy his big friends can come save him. This was working perfectly as the larger alliances learned that if you dec the little indy corp you may end up fighting a large group of alliances that are friendly to said group instead of the days of 1000 man alliances being able to dec 20 separate small groups and those groups having to depend on their allies to counter dec the aggressor and so on. The new system allowed an easy way for friends to help defend each other and aggressors to be more hesitant to toss around war decs and consider the implications of each war and what the repercussions would be.

The only issue many people had with this was that if you declare the war mutual then either both sides should be able to bring in allies or neither side but you cannot have only one side bringing in allies as it could be abused. This, in my opinion, should have been changed to allow both parties to bring in allies in a mutual war so that the consequences of said war could spiral out of control just as in reality and you could end up with half of EVE trying to kill the other half this would diminish the amount of abuse that could occur and still mirror the reality of war. I also think the idea of 2 week “contracts” for allies is an amazing idea as it allows those groups to move on after the bulk of the fighting without committing to an extended conflict.

This new system was working, granted it was not perfect yet it was working quite well for those corps who have no interest in high sec wars as it allowed them to end wars quickly through the use of free allies and friends then get back to playing the game the way they wanted. Now with the changes the aggressor pays the cost of the dec and the defender has to pay for each ally they allow to assist them. If I am in a 1500 man alliance and I dec a 20 man PVE alliance then I pay very little while they pay a ton of ISK to gather enough allies to fight me. This puts the advantage to the wealthy/larger alliances and corps and truly screws the little guys to the point where they sit in station for weeks on end, go out and lose their ships wholesale, or pay billions to get enough allies to actually fight back. This puts every advantage back into the hands of the large groups and ultimately does not change the face of war from the previous version in the slightest beyond it costing a bit more, the little PVE corps still get griefed by the larger groups and the 0.0 alliances still dec the smaller low sec/ high sec corps only now after the latest round of changes the PVE corps have little recourse but to take it, pay billions, or hide/quit.

I am simply baffled as to why the guy getting attacked by the larger group is forced to pay millions of Isk per ally while the larger aggressor gets the advantage of backing out at will without too much risk to themselves. If I were to dec a small group and they brought in half of the 0.0 alliances to help and outnumbered me 30:1 I would let the dec lapse and be done with it, if they made it mutual then I should either be able to fight them 1 v 1 or bring in help of my own, granted the latter would lead to a host of other issues but at least it would balance out the two sides and give the defenders at least as much of a chance of fighting back as the aggressor. I understand that war is not fair, it never is however how is it considered balanced out when the only thing that has truly changed from the previous method is that it costs a bit more money to carry on wars now. The little guy still gets stomped on by the big guy and the big guy can throw his weight around without much opposition unless people want to spend billions to fight back.

I am sure that we would all likefor CCP to explain this change given the apparent controversy surrounding the timing of the decision and the radical departure from what was originally intended. I am sure there is a perfectly plausible explanation for this change and I for one would like to listen to CCP and get their side rather than trying to sort it out from hearsay and opinion. Thank you in advance for your response CCP and good job so far.

Just because someone finds a way to abuse a game mechanic does not mean the mechanic is broken. Every patch that comes out has changes that attempt to correct issues however in the case of the current war dec mechanic it is once again lopsided to the benefit of a select group. The original game mechanic allowed someone with 2000 member to declare war on a 30 man corp and the 30 man corp had no choice but to sit there and take it or disband with the possibility of having all your friends counter dec said 2000 man group. In your opinion giving the small corps and alliances the ability to bring in friends to fight back is wrong because someone can bring in all of EVE to fight against you. As I said people finding ways to exploit a mechanic is not unusual however the changes that were made cripple small groups from being able to fight back against huge alliances that grief them so you punish the majority of corps and alliances because a few groups gamed the mechanics.

Much like other recent changes CCP has made I agree they had the right idea and some of the changes in the recent patch do make matters better however they took it a bit too far and did just as much harm to the mechanic as they were trying to prevent. The same issue can be seen in the new FW mechanics that were designed to increase PVP and had the effect of crippling the losing militia’s ability to use LP for capitol and created an explosion of LP farmers. It has been stated in other posts that there are already ways where you can bypass the increase in cost and continue to exploit the war system. Without a complete overhaul of the war dec system you will never fully stop its exploitation and even then someone will figure out a way around it.

The point of this post is not to argue over the decision that CCP made but understand what their grand vision is for the war dec system and why they took that particular route in attempting to close up loopholes. In understanding their thought process we as a community can weigh in on the issue with ideas that will improve the game we play instead of having to find ways around said system. I understand that we have CSM’s that do just this however we all have the ability to suggest ideas to CCP and carry on a drama free discourse with them to improve the game that most of us love.

As for my punctuation, I am not writing a research paper it is a forum post for a video game. I have pointed out punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors on many posts in order to troll the thread however I would ask that this thread remain on topic in the attempt to get CCP to weigh in on the issue.