Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Alright so after completely reading the CSM notes a couple of times now, can't help but feel quite angry each time I do at how completely ignorant most of those involved in the dicussions seems to be with how changes made to the game actually affect the Players across the universe; not just those in their little bubbles of the universe.

WarDec are one thing in-particular that in my opinion have changed so much, with a focus on changing the dynamics of High-Sec Wars ... yet the reality is they haven't changed a damn thing.

They are little more than a Griefing Tool outside of legitimate Mutual Wars.
Claiming that without them "High-Sec would become too safe" is complete swill.

You WarDec a Mission Runner or Industrial Corporation, they simply Dock up until it runs out.
You WarDec a PvP Corporation, then often such groups quickly realise they've bitten off more than they can chew so the agressors then cower in the Stations.

If you truely want to disrupt High-Sec Industrial Corporations, the best tools available aren't the WarDec but actually Corporate Espionage or Suicide Ganking.

I mean for crying out loud, even the point of WarDecs don't even make damn sense even in a Lore point-of-view because it would be like paying off the Police (who in this case aren't the Police but more like the FBI / Interpol) so you can shoot someone in the face while they turn a blind eye.

Sure I can see this working in a small area... but the ENTIRE Force? C'mon give me a break.
What frustrates me the most is those who seem to WD others right now seem to do a WarDec, then sit on the Undock of Jita (or another trade hub, but Jita is definately by far the worst offender for this) and snipe WarTargets. If anything shows up they can't handle they'll sit cowering in the Station until the coast is clear again.

This frankly is absolutely horrible gameplay mechanics, there is almost no Risk for these people.

What seems to be missed with the WarDec Mechanic and many new / revamped mechanics is that the Mechanic on it's own isn't fundimentally flawed more than there are several gameplay mechanics that contribute to the problem.

With WarDecs, Station Games, Aggression and Neutral / Off-Grid Boosters.

Now to me the solutions to most of this should be relatively straight forward provided you accept that fact that EVE Players are at their core very greedy people.

There used to be a saying in EVE, "The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward" ... but it seems like a distant memory as new gameplay features are relatively easy to do with ever increasing rewards for doing them. As if CCP are bribing people to play those mechanics.

As far as I'm concerned this all comes down to Industry and Taxation or rather lack there-of Importation Taxation.

• Put NPC Mining Barges in 0.8 - 1.0 Space, they can supply all of those local stations with 10% the Volume of what they Mine @ Regional Prices
• Ice should ONLY be available in 0.7 or below
• WarDecs should only be possible in 0.7 Space and below
• WarDecs should be restricted per Empire, i.e. you pay a flat 50 mil Per Corporation or 300mil Per Alliance to Each Empire you wish to Fight in.
• Fees for Allies are not paid up-front but rather are provided as a Bounty Incentive (which are Taxable by the Mercenary Corp)

As such they would pay a 5mil ISK (Per Corp) or 30mil ISK (Per Alliance) Administration Fee for an Ally [ISK Sink] this fee is reduced for the Defender Corp by the Diplomatic Relations Skill.
Then what the Mercenary Corp/Alliance charges for it's services is then put in a Retainer and used for providing bounties in the exact same way the bounty system works... so the more participation the Mercs have, then the more of what they ask for they will earn.

Any of the ISK that hasn't been claimed in bounties is then returned to the Defender Corp at the end of the Contract.

In addition to this there could be a Standings System from a new NPC Corporation for arguments sake we'll call the "Mercenary Coalition Council" .. where for each Ally / Merc bounty that is claimed that player also gets a standings boost to them, if they are killed by a WarTarget it takes a negative hit. In both cases this would be proportional to the Ship Value Bounty system.

This could also be provided for Bounty Hunters as well outside of the WarDec system as well, that way if they ever get Bounty Mark Contracts / Assasination Jobs ... it could serve as an official Rep, although obviously any truely successful players in that field would also get a player word-of-mouth rep that likely would be better as cannot be farmed in any way.

The final peice of the puzzle here is really a heavy industrial restructuring, but that subject is far too big to include within this post - instead what I will say is that it should be UNPROFITABLE to live in 0.8 or above Space. Yet at the moment the disparency between Starbases, NPC Stations and Null-Sec (Low-Sec frankly has no real benefits past moon mining, which all the Null-Sec Alliances really have a Syndicate on anyway so pointless talking about) frankly is too big and doesn't encourage Null-Sec unlike Wormholes to be Self-Sufficient.

If Players can't be trusted to do this on their own merits, then game mechanics and seeding should encourage it.
Still as I said will cover this is in a more comprehensive dedicated Industrial Thread, esp given the CSM and CCP don't seem to have a clue when it comes to this stuff.

The point here though is you want to encourage people to move to Lower Security space in order to reap better personal rewards, moving conflicts away from heavy traffic areas to where people actually live.