Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have just returned from a long break from EvE and I enjoy all the changes CCP have made to the game, except for one. The current wardec system. While I understand that the previous wardec system favoured the aggressor somewhat as well as being dirt cheap, the current wardec system is horribly biased towards the defending corporation. My main problem being that the current 'mercenary marketplace' causes troubles for any corp wishing to engage in small-gang warfare. I must point out that I have been unable to find a comprehensive description of the current wardec mechanics, so I may make one or two mistakes. I would love it if you could point out those mistakes so I may correct them.

I'll start off with what I think is wrong with the current wardec mechanics, then I will make suggestions on how I think they could be improved.

1 - A small corp declaring war on a very large corp is extremely expensive. A large corp wardeccing a small corp is only 50m. So it costs virtually nothing to outnumber a corp 100 to 1 but if a small corp wants to wardec a large corp, they have to pay through the nose. This makes virtually no sense outside of the RP idea of 'bribing concord for every person you get to shoot at', a large corp will have more cumulative ISK per player than a small corp and therefore paying a big bill will be much easier for them than the small corp.

2 - The 'mercenary marketplace' is nonexistent, the only way for a mercenary to join a fight is to answer an assistance request, which can be done for free. This results in large alliances offering to assist corps in wars because it gives them a free war, this results in almost every corp with a war against it requesting assistance in the hopes that a large PvP alliance will assist just because it means they have more targets to shoot at. This doesn't create a mercenary marketplace, rather it creates a roulette wheel defence system for corps that have been wardecced.

3 - A large PvP alliance can have hundreds of wars open against lots of small corps with very little cost, or no cost if they enter through the ally system. This creates a system where small corps will usually get wardecced by a large corp, or have a large ally join one of their wardecs and be forced to play skill queue online until the war ends. It has essentially killed small gang warfare in highsec. This creates a system in which there is no 'adapt or die', if you like PvP and small gang fights in highsec, the only way to get that, without being kerbstomped by a huge alliance who has dropped a dec/assist for 'moar wars' is to join a huge alliance who does this. The only other way of defence would be to contact every corp that 'Example alliance' has wardecced and hope some of them will fleet up with you to mount organized defence, which takes lots of time and careful planning, whereas example alliance was organized from day one and probably has spies ready to counter this eventuality should it ever arise.

I will now submit my ideas on how these issues could be improved on.

1 - Add a ratio system to the war costs, rather than a minimum, with extra charges per head of each person in the corp/alliance. With a minimum fee set at 5m and no maximum fee set. For example:
A corp with 100 members declares war on another corp with 100 members; the costs would be 50m.
A corp with 1 member declares war on a corp with 10 members, the cost is 5m.
A corp with 1 member declares war on a corp with 87 members, the cost is still 5m.
A corp with 100 members declares war on a corp with 1 member, the cost is 500m
This system would encourage people to fight corps with a similar number of members as them, or would encourage ballsy corps with a few members to go after a megacorporation. That megacorporation could always get a gang together and hunt the small, ballsy corp to extinction. It would also help small merc corps get off the ground as they would be able to offer much better fees than the merc megacorporations, who would have to add the war costs to their fees. It would also help with the issue of people padding their corps with hundreds of throwaway trial accounts in the hope that people wouldn't dec them because of silly-high fees.

2 - The 'mercenary marketplace' should be what it is advertised to be. When you walk into a marketplace you don't see people asking for items, you see people SELLING items. There should be a mercenary shop-front. To ask for assistance should come with a minimum incentive of 50m, that 50m will fall into the ISK sink if nobody picks up their request. However, a corp that has been wardecced can browse the mercenary advertisements and personally request that a merc corp give assistance, this will not have a minimum incentive unless an advertising mercenary requests it. If the incentive is offered this way and the mercenary does not wish to offer assistance, the incentive will be refunded. This would help deal with the 'I'll ask for assistance and maybe get lucky' roulette wheel system that is in place now.

3 - There should be a cap on the total number of wardecs a corp/alliance can have open at once. This should be a soft cap (As a hard cap could be very easily abused with alt shell corps and stuff), where having more than a certain number of open wars (including through assisting another corp) incurs exponentially increasing costs. This would mean that big merc alliances should stick to big mercenary jobs, rather than hundreds of tiny mercenary jobs. This also means that there would be a better market for up and coming mercenary corps, as they could take a few small jobs that would be suited to their aptitude. It also means that people who maybe want to engage in small gang fights can, without joining a gigantic alliance and flying in one of their many small-gang wings.

Let me know how you feel about this and correct me where I'm wrong, I'll set up a second reserved post as this one is almost out of characters.

What you propose would reverse the original fix. Several alliances/corps used to be under 24/7 wardec with no actual fighting happening. One-man Wardec annoyance corps where everywhere.

If you want to fight, then you can afford to wardec with a purpose.

One loser who just wants to cloaky camp a mining operation is not a valid reason to wardec.

I apologize for the extra "o". I was unaware it would cause such a ruckus. I should be hauled out in the street and shot. I have edited my mistake and have hung my head in shame. Maybe I should just biomass all my EVE toons just to appease you?

Or, you could grow up and get over yourself.

While I agree that the current wardec system is terrible, I'm not really a fan of this idea. I think unprovoked wardecs should revolve around high sec structures (POCOs and POSs) and cost a flat fee regardless of corp size. All other wardecs should require a "war right" which would be generated by an aggressor attack or kill in low or high sec. Wardecs using "war rights" would be free to use and non-transferable and would only last one week (extendable if the defender scores one or more kills in that time).

Yeah this really is dreadful, half the war corps knocking about atm are just 4-6 guys with T3s and are frankly alot scarier than the huge chokepoint campers. Allowing them to have 150 wars going rather than 15 would be a really bad idea.

Well the more wardecs a small corp has active the more it will cost, after a certain soft cap has been reached at least. Thing is though, when a small corp decs a large corp they are taking a big risk, all that large corp has to do is get organized and that small corp will find it's life start to get very difficult. Multiple large corps can also get together and make that small corp's life in eve even more hellish.
The problem with wars right now is large merc alliances completely dominating the merc scene and being able to take on as many merc contracts as they want against small corps that cannot respond in any way. Four or five large corps that have all been decced by one corp would be able to organize a single large fleet rather easy, whereas 100 small corps would have an extremely difficult time mounting an organized resistance against a single, large, organized entity, just deciding who will be FC and what the doctrine will be for 100 corps collaborating could take a whole week, whereas with four or five large corps, this could be decided in a matter of hours.



While I do appreciate your input, I feel that killrights already cover what you would include in the 'war rights system', also, in highsec there are no dreadnaughts, or other extreme heavy hitters, so killing POCOs and POSes is going to take a significant part of the day and would make wars extremely boring. The current system, with a little bit of re-working would be perfect.

With the system I propose, things would look somewhat like this:
Corporation A declares war on corporation B, corp B easily outnumbers corp A but is inexperienced, they try to fight back on the first two days but are outmaneuvered every time, the extra SP and experience of the players in corp A gives them an edge in battle. Corp B doesn't have a huge amount of ISK and doesn't want to put up a request for help as it requires a 50m deposit. Instead they visit the mercenary shopfront and look for a corp with similar members to corp A (which will incur no extra ally costs, provided corp C does not have any more than X active wars) that will assist them in fighting (You know, like allies are supposed to) corp A, they find a corp that looks suitable and they specifically request that this corp help them in the war, which requires no deposit, but only 3 offers can be made per day, corp C takes corp B's offer and enters the war fighting WITH corp B to achieve victory over corp A.

Compared to this current system:
Corporation A declares war on corporation B, corp B easily outnumbers corp A but is inexperienced, they try to fight back on the first two days but are outmaneuvered every time, the extra SP and experience of the players in corp A gives them an edge in battle. Corp B feels like they need help but don't have much ISK to offer, so they put out a request for help, highsec wardec megacorp C offers assistance because it means they get another free war and they can have as many wars as they want active. Corp A plays skill queue online for a week and and the war gets left by the wayside, meaning both sides get no pewpew for a week.

I'm sure I could have done a better job of explaining this, though if I think of a better way I'll edit this.

Most of this strikes me as wrong. In particular, wardeccing a large corp as a small corp isn't risky at all under most realistic circumstances.