Assembly Hall

Any chance ccp going to fix this war system?

Seems like petitions get ignored, posts get deleted/edited, and seems like political answers from GM's.

Is this kind of thing CCP endorsed then?

Hello guys, thanks for the mail, and I'm happy to give you an update on the situation here. Essentially the issue is this - the team that was responsible for the wardec system overhaul was never allowed the room in their sprint schedule for proper through on the wardec system following Inferno's release. They were assigned Bounty Hunting as the headline feature for Winter, and the pressure on them has been to finish and deliver Bounty Hunting first and foremost.

This leaves wardecs in a completely unacceptable state in the meantime, and this has been a major point of contention between the CSM and CCP, ever since they were given their assignments this fall. We've asked time and time again when this issue was going to be addressed, and basically told the same thing each time, priority was finishing the new items (Bounty Hunting, salvage drones, and microjumpdrives) before wardecs would be revisited. Obviously this is not the priority the CSM would have preferred, as it is a poor example of CCP following through on their commitment to iteration before new features. Not to mention many of us still think microjumpdrives are useless.

So in otherwords, for most of the summer and fall, there really hasn't been any news to report other than "We're aware of the issue and speaking to CCP about it". Is that the answer anyone wants to hear? Of course not, as reflected by your current email. But its the truth nonetheless, we've just been up against a resource allocation issue that was beyond our ability to control.

That is not to say in any way that the fight is over, recently Alekseyev Karrde successfully landed a 1 on 1 meeting with CCP Soniclover to review this situation and once again deliver the message that wardecs are in a completely unacceptable state and that the situation continues to worsen and threaten the usefulness of even having a wardec system in the first place. Aleks felt the session was productive, in terms of making sure that the development team understands exactly what needs to be done, but this doesnt resolve the short-term issue of lack of time being devoted to fixing this.

Since Retribution is about at the "hardening" phase where its all about polishing finished code, it's extremely unlikely this will be addressed in the Dec. 4 release. From the meeting with CCP Soniclover, Aleks was able to confirm that not only is wardecs #1 on the teams own backlog, but that they will attempt to work on this in point releases following Retribution's initial release. We'll keep you posted as things develop, but thats about all there is to share on the news front where wardecs are concerned.

I appreciate everyone's patience, this affects all of us (most of us on the CSM are involved in this through one war or another) and I know how frustrating it is to not have an end in sight. Just understand that we've been in the dark as much as you regarding when this will be addressed, and are continuing to hammer this as one of the most critical pieces of unfinished business from the last couple of expansions.

At the upcoming summit, we'll not only bring up this issue once again, but will also be emphasizing the importance of follow-through on broken systems in the future, as this is one of the low points in the road to iterative development when compared to say, Faction Warfare, where proper resources have been allocated to add the needed polish for the system to function properly.

Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions, email is fastest as the Assembly Hall is essentially a redundant version of Features and Ideas discussion section of the forums, and we've been long lobbying for them to remove it completely and consolidate the two so players aren't posting in a relatively inactive part of the forum.

o7

So..
As long as you START no wars, there is no trappings and no issues, right?

+1 to get rid of current system

Ok, first of all ty for an update on this issue finally.
Second: This all seem reflect (once again), that ccp dont understands what could happen:

Not only the most advertised feature of Inferno addon but also a key gamemechanic of Retribution is obviously a "trap" for everyone in this mmo who wants to use it:

So fixing it not till Retribution would be rediculous and cant be intended seriously.

This - in combination with an completely floping "customer support" would even mean that ppl cant use key-properties of eve-online for more than a half year.

After presenting this in our circles I heard for the first time of my 4 years eve carrer more than one thinkings about demanding back money through complaints for these months till it would be fixed finally.

Brib Vogt seems to foretell already something like that, too.

Ppl WILL unsub if they get furtherhin suggested to reform their corps for every war which they have to declare as mercs for the next time.
Not the mechanics of mutual wars is the problem thereby, but the fact that there is so less to fix to get it running well combined with ccp's behavior and prioritys makes so many ppl angry and frustrated again.

After 6 weeks of no information there IS no patience anymore tbh - everybody is thinking hard about his next steps.

Yes.

However RvB's issue with this is, we are now "trapped" in mutual wars we actually never started in the first place - and that we have to pay the initial weeks cost for as the "aggressor".

The wars themselves do not bother us as 90% of the 3rd parties are bears who were simply trying to hide from another war by joining DS in the first place and we have too much fun shooting ourselves to hunt them down. The rest are annoying but usually consist of epic fail groups hoping to leet pvp us to death or who leet pvp camp hubs as rvb space is scary for them.

But yes this whole thing is broken.

The team working on war decs is the same one that is charged with making Bounty Hunting for Retribution, which is one of the highlight features for that expansion (it's looking pretty good too). No amount of posting will get that priority switched up.

Thankfully you DO have a few members on the CSM not content to just sit on their hands. As Hans mentioned, I talked one on one with CCP Soniclover, specifically to confront him about the lack of attention to war dec iteration and the numerous problems facing the system. To my pleasant surprise, that meeting actually went very well and has been diligently followed up on. I can confirm there will be some, probably minor, war-related items in the initial Retribution release with many more to come shortly there after. I've seen the list as it stands; there's still going to be room for improvement (ie it's not everything we need imo) but several of the changes represent significant improvements over the status quo.

Keep your eye out for a war-related dev blog in the not too distant future with lots of details on what Team Super Friends has in mind.

Aleks, Hans, and Kelduum have all been actively involved in fixing these issues from the start. Just because it hasn't been public knowledge does not mean they've been sitting on their hands. What you should be asking yourself is, what are the other CSM members doing? Where have they been all this time?

Maybe they have not been sitting on their hands, but they haven't got their fingers on their keyboards either. As musiaba wrote: In my second answer a a GM wrote: Thank you for your feedback on the war declaration system, but I am afraid we are unable to address potential changes to game systems through the petition system.

He wrote FEEDBACK!!!!!

AND: We recommend such suggestions be posted to the Features & Ideas Discussion part of the EVE Online forums, as the developers frequently read that forum section for feedback on existing systems as well as ideas for new ones.

They RECOMMEND posts, many posts.

I do not pay my money to the CSM crew. I pay it to CCP. There should be a responsible writing something himself instead sending a negotiator with news like: They heard, they know, but they do not give a f.uck 'bout it. It is not important, but please be patient and pay your friggin money.

I am a customer of a product. This product had a lot of advertisement. This advertisement was big about war dec.

Let me say it in capital letters: ALL CRAP

Come out where ever you are, show yourself and defend your actions, or better your priorities.

To be honest Aleks, unless you are commenting on refinements not available to us mere players, Bounty Hunting promises to be about as broken as War Decs. A lot of "we couldn't spend the time to get it anywhere near right so here's what you get", in spite of the fact that all they have to do really is not implement the features everyone is telling them are crazy (ie: kill-rights as suspect flag).

Perpetual war lock-in, in this case. How hard could that possibly be to remove? Would fix most of this right quick. (Edit- In fact, I don't see why this should have to wait till retribution. Should be much simpler than the recent FW fixes.)

A bunch of other improvements are possible, true. But killing the lock-in would make this largely go away. Only effect of mutual should probably be no cost for RvB style wars.

Its just very frustrating to watch CCP drag its heels yet again on another game-breaking bug they where told would happen but proceeded with anyway. How many times do they have to burn their fingers before they learn?

And what software engineering company doesn't let engineers work on fixing bugs on their old code even as they deal with new projects? I work in the industry and that doesn't sound right to me.

Anyway Alex, kudos to you and Hans for keeping on this.