Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In the topic about removing NPC corp chat, I mentioned that I had been banging on about allowing players to war-dec NPC corps for years. It may or may not be a good idea, but it's an idea that keeps recurring to me. So, I thought I might as well write a formal suggestion - so you all could at least flame the idea if it's stupid.

Though, I don't think it's stupid. So here goes...

Suggestion:
Confirm the tier-structure of NPC corps by identifying academy corps like FNA or SWA as First Tier NPC corps. Identify NPC corps such as The Scope as second tier NPC corps.
Allow players to war-dec second tier NPC corps.
Limit starter school corps to actual new players, and set a time line of six months for membership of school corps. After the six months are over, let the player choose a second tier NPC corp to join.

Consequences of War-decing a second tier NPC corp
There should be dramatic consequences for war-decing a second tier NPC corp. The player corporation that does this should become at war with the faction. By that I mean, if a player corporation declares war against The Scope, then this means that the Gallente Federation and its militias and NPC forces should treat the war-decing corp as an enemy and attack on sight. The standing of the war-decing corp should drop to -10 when the war becomes active.

Justification for allowing war-decs against second tier NPC corps
There are four types of players in NPC corporations today.

• Actual new players
• Alts
• Players who prefer to play solo in safety
• Helpful dedicated players who have just stuck around

There is certainly a need for training wheels when you start a career as a capsuleer in New Eden. There must be a time to rid yourself of bad habits from other MMOs, to learn the basic mechanics of the game, and to get one's space-legs sorted. That function should be served by the academy corps like SWA or FNA or Hedion University. But it shouldn't be an eternal state, and that's why I think that people should be funneled out of the starting corps after a certain amount of time.

Alts are cynos, neutral remote reppers, spies, and such. There's very little that can be done about these, because they don't really consume any content. There is also very little that will change for his group of players. They will just move with the times, and move from starting corps to second tier NPC corps.

There are helpful, knowledgeable players in the NPC corps. Often they are also alts of say null-sec or lowsec players who keep an alt for logistics. Neutral freighter alts aren't uncommon for null sec alliances that are under constant war-dec. Logistics may be a bit more tricky for this group of players if an NPC corp is under war-dec, but I don't think that anyone should be able to avoid non-consensual pvp of any form.

The last group is, well, redundant. They don't add anything to Eve, and don't really take anything either. Usually this is the group that threaten to cancel their accounts if their safety-net is threatened, but honestly – upstream new recruits are more likely to stay and replace them over time if the game becomes more engaging for them.

So, there's not really anything BIG that prevents second tier NPC corps from being war-decable. There are, however, a number of reasons for why allowing people to war-dec would mean more meaningful, more varied, and more unpredictable game-play. A game that becomes so predictable that nothing unexpected ever happens once you have the routine to kill rats, shoot asteroids, or farm incursions, is simply not Eve. It is just a matter of finding a proper balance where a six-man corp which war-decs an empire realise that an empire can curb-stomp the six-man corp.

The bit about being KoS to the entire faction, NPCs, FW, etc., makes sense.

However, this sounds more like an attempt to influence the LP market for certain corps. Given that NPCs are "easy" to avoid, I would be worried that this is just an attempt to have an "easy" way to gank mission runners.

So... I'm going to go with a -1.


Maybe if the Faction NPCs/FW also podded you and you were locked out of all the NPC faction's stations? Even then, an alt could keep you supplied. Hrm.

It's nice to dream.

So... Consequences of this.

Everyone makes 1 man corps.
CCP's Corp Databse gets clogged.
Corp tickers get used up for ever.
People rinse & repeat one man corps to avoid war decs.

An entire social aspect of the game is destroyed.

I see no true positive actions from this and several negatives.

Just a minor detail here.



I think the six month period is a bit too arbitrary or artificial. It should tied to how many actual play hours (which eve does track) the character has put in. This way you can get rid of issues about how RL can impede your play hours.

I don't think this part is strictly necessary. Being stuck in a first-tier corp is already extremely limited. If you ever join any other corp, you can never get that character back to a first-tier corp. There's still the issue of specialized alts, who serve only one purpose, and never need to join a corporation. For example cyno alts, freighter alts, etc.. But I think that's an amount of soft, protective pillow-padding that the game can live with.

Alternatively, just do away with the artificial cap on wardec prices and allow people to wardec any corp. The "chaos factor" of the universe would rise a bit, but stabilize at that higher level.

I think this is logically self-evident. If you look at the existing war mechanics: If you wardec a corp that is in an alliance, you wardec that alliance. A "faction" is just an NPC alliance, so logically you cannot wardec an NPC corp that is in an NPC alliance (or a regular corp in an NPC alliance, or an NPC corp in a regular alliance, if such things were possible). You simply must declare war on the faction, or not declare war at all.

Makes sense?

It also sort polices itself: If you declare war on the Gallente alliance, you're in quite a lot of trouble, since they own a ton of stations that they won't allow you to dock in, they have a large militia as part of the alliance that you will also be at war with, and they have many, many players in their NPC corporations that will be allowed to shoot at you.

Also, additionally, remove the artificial cap on war prices. It's silly and artificial, and doesn't help encourage people to join corporations to form a monetary line of defense.

This could potentially result in very large corporations / alliances, but I think we have that already, and I think the challenges of leading alliances and corporations rise proportionally to size already.

Other than these couple of things I've pointed out, which seem a bit contrived or overcomplicated, and lack of consideration for the massive resources it might take to overhaul and QA such an integral part of the game, it's a well-written idea.

Personally, I think it sounds like a step in the right direction - the direction of making the entirety of EVE into one unified game environment, where everyone plays by the same rules, and the same rules apply to everywhere.

I don't really see the organisation, or the lack thereof, amongst NPC corp members as a reason to maintain the status quo. As for school corps, under this system which I'm proposing, they wouldn't be under any wardecs. Only the second tier NPC corps would be. FNA would be safe, The Scope not so much.

There are two issues with my plan, I think. One, whether there should be differentiation between the 'faction alliance' or the NPC corp. When a player corp declares war on the Scope, should the player corp de facto declare war on all Gallente NPC corps by way of the fact that all Gallente NPC corps are part of the same alliance?

The second is that if this is so, then the first tier NPC corps must be moved to another alliance.

That said, reasonable people can always come up with gradiations of this, as well as balances here and there. But I'm not sure that it would require such massive recoding. I think, and only CCP can answer this of course, that the NPC corps use the same system as the player alliances, except they have ticked a box somewhere that says 'not war-decable'. And they've set up an RvB situation with the factional alliances in Faction War.

Furthermore, I think this system I'm proposing would also add aspects to Faction War, which at the moment is a little bit of a bastard step-child of Eve.

This idea would make it impossible to find an unused corp name in a years time.

You seem rather butt hurt about the Scope...