EVE General Discussion

Outside of honor lowsec engagements you are seldom going to find people who take on a fight if they aren't rather certain of victory. That isn't a wardec issue that's an EVE issue all around. There isn't much you can do to make a wardec that isn't about good fights about good fights.

You do have choices though. You can bait a fight through multiple means. The log-in trap works great, with a miner fit with a web and scram. There is also the hauler bait, web/scram and a good tank with your mates one jump out.

You also have the choice of continuing your regular ISK making. You can do all the PVE with a combat fit, it's a myth that you need a PVE fit. If the baddies come you don't dock up, you wait for them to engage. If they do you ping your mates to warp in and help. Don't have mates to help? Don't start a corp.

You don't need to guard your POS 23/7. You bring out a fleet when it exits reinforcement, if they aren't there to fight you rep it back up and add stront again.

If anything the choices are lacking for the attackers, not the defender. Lack of choices when your target drops corp and flips it. Lack of choices when 8 risk averse targets would rather stay docked then try to fight you and your one buddy.

And this is exaclty why highsec non-consensual wardecs make little sense, imo.

Any Corp that knows its sh*t enough to do the - smart - stuff you suggested, would either bait/kill you or blue-ball you (depending on relative strength/numbers). All while merrily carrying on their business: hauling with alts, missioning with a travel fit and/or scouts for gates (hard to tackle people in deadspace...!), using insta-undocks, bringing in adequate friends or mercs to defend any POS that, if set up correctly, is a PITA to kill anyway without capitals, etc. etc.

Any Corp that doesn't do all that, quite probably is totally clueless. Either new players or dudes 100% focused on PVE.


So I would never define it 'griefing' - because 1) it's a game, ffs! 2) if the mechanics allow it, it's fine in my book - but it sure looks like a wardec can be 'succesful' only against quite laughably weak opponents...

I see...so when I go for a walk and don't play Eve, that is PvP too, because I'm docked and no one can shoot me. Ditto for all the people not playing, since they could have subscribed, made a character, and been shot at.

Nice to know what PvP encompasses these days.

Because in EVE, doing PVE means you are having an affect on other people EVERY unit of ore a miner mines lowers the value of everyone else's ore. EVERY item gain via mission runner loyalty points does the same thing etc etc.

The price for being able to negatively affect everyone else (as oppose to some kind of offline or single player game, which EVE isn't) is that others get to affect YOU. The potential for Wars, awoxing, suiced ganking bumping etc is the price you pay for participating in an activity that affects other people.

It's simple outside of high sec, people just shoot you to shut you down, but in high sec their are all these special rules, so the 'high sec player' thinks EVE doesn't apply to him. He's wrong.

I've aid in the past, I'm all for an 'oberserve' mode in high sec. Total invulnerabilty so long as the pilot can do nothing that impacts another player. The second that player does something that affects another, invulnerablty gone...forever.

Of course there is risk for the attacker. There is the risk that the target will go out contract a competent mercernary organization after they have committed to the wardec and there is risk that the target will take the time to pack up, reform, and shed the dec to name just two obvious ones. That seems more than enough risk for the benefit of changing a few combat flags (equally for both sides) in highsec. The wardec earns no ISK, and is a only tool to force direct competition with another player group.

Since reward for the attacker is many times not tangible (or even knowable by others), what exactly do you propose that they risk beyond the ISK fee and the fact that the defender is allowed any allies to join for free which can completely change the calculus of the war? The war fee is already at serious risk of being lost to a drop-fold, and the final composition of their opponants is totally unpredictable, that is a definition of risk.


No, the ganker is playing by, and enforcing, the rules of the game. Just as CONCORD appears and blow up the ships of players committing certain actions, other players are always given to ability to press a button and take the stuff of another player who hasn't bothered to protect their stuff sufficiently. That is the game design.

I think of the ganker not a profession but a game mechanic enforcing the risk on others. The ganker and her livelihood are completely dependent on the actions of others and thus is not necessary subject to the general risk vs. reward think, all though in practise they are - ganks can and do go wrong and are subject to interference from other players. But the core point is that the target is earning all the reward, has the ablity to completely protect themseves but if they choose not to to save time, earn more profit or whatever, they have to accept the risk another player will "cash out" and take their stuff,

Wardecs are analagous although not exactly the same. You can completely prevent a wardec by staying in an NPC corp. If you choose to take additional risk to make more ISK by running a player-owned corporation and running say a POS, you have to accept someone is going to object to that and declare war. Who objects and why is immaterial and likely even unknowable, but you are making the reward so you have to take the risk that someone will do this and/or the responsiblity to defend your corp.

The nuances of the system decide whether this mechanic is fun or not for both, but that is the overall design of the system. As it is, with the ability to fold corp with little penalty sets the bar for the maximum level of risk for the defender (they have 24h to fold up shop and reopen - the worst outcome) and the ally mechanic makes it impossible for the attacker to know who they will be fighting injects much uncertainty.

I agree the system needs changes, especially to encourage people to get out of NPC corps and into meaningful corps that they are willing to defend - either by themselves or by hiring mercenaries - but trying to "balance wardecs" by somehow equalizing risk and "levelling the playing field" is not one of them.

This is correct, naturally.

But currently there's no scaling. Any corp can be decced and forced into the exact same 'open PVP' situation, whether they're dominating the incursion running community (significant effect on other people's ISK-making ability) or they're just inefficiently mining in 3 barges without orca boosts (non-zero, but still laughable effect on New Eden).


That's why I'm one of the guys in favor of a two-step approach:

1. Form a Tier-1 Corp, get a common name, chat channel, maybe corp contracts

2. Upgrade to a Tier-2 Corp, get offices & hangars, the ability to collaborate in industry, the ability to anchor stuff in space and all the rest

Possibly also put a tax on Tier-1's income or, even better, a bonus to Tier-2's (carrots are more fun than sticks, though you'd probably also need an overall nerf to 'base' income from highsec activities to balance the bonus effect).



So Tier-1 dudes can take a more casual approach to the game, have fun as a group with an identity, just look out for gankers. No wardecs.

If you DECIDE to have a stronger presence in the game, you upgrade to Tier-2 and willingly put yourself at risk of being attacked and have your activities disrupted.


Because the issue now is about expectations, I think. If you're just another small highsec corp, you can easily play for months without anybody noticing you. You mind your (relatively) safe highsec business. Then one day, you get wardecced and suddenly everything changes.

People go from 99% safety to 0% safety and I can understand it's quite confusing.

Draw a clear line between 'casual' and 'full benefit' play, then you can make it easier to wardec the Tier-2 corps and harder for people to evade them (penalties for dropping a Tier-2 corp during a wardec, etc....).

This is not wrong. This is the game design. Please re-read my previous post as this was my main point. The risk is all on the person making the reward, in this case the defending corp.

The actual in-space mechanics of a war are exactly the same for each side, so it is balanced as anything else is in Eve.

If you have the assets, it is your job to defend them. If it was impossible to defend them, then you might have a case that the system is broken, but it is not - there are plenty of ways to defend your corp. If you want to reap the rewards, you have to accept the responsibility of defending them from all-comers.


I seem unable to make my self clear so let me try one more time. There is no such thing as a "grief dec" a wardec is a wardec is a wardec. You claim to be fine with "balanced" wardecs but seem only able to accept that they are balanced if there is a "level playing field" between each side. That is not Eve. There is no way to balance wardecs such that the defender is always able to do something meaningful to "get back at" the attacker. Some opponents are going to be too strong, too organized, too wealthy, or too numerous for you ever to do anything meaningful to. Does that mean you and your ISK-printing activities should be immune from their influence because it is "not fair"?

I am all for mechanisms that give new and small players a chance to get established - and there are plenty already for the little guy to skirt around the influence of the big boys and still play the game. Even more could be added or changed to make things more engaging ore even encourage meaningful wars between more equal opponents. And I agree that there is not enough reward for being in a player corp and that rolling a corp is a stupid mechanism that needs to be fixed. But Eve is fundamentally designed as a competitive sandbox so if you are going to compete, you need to accept that others are going to try to stop you. Those others might be equal in power to you, or they might not, but ultimately it is you who have take responsibility for your assets.

And to your last question, you can always mitigate your risk to wardecs completely by just dropping to an NPC corp and continuing your "play-style" unmolested (albeit at reduced rewards). That is, and always should be an option.

I think the best way to improve this game in all ways is to make local optional (for all players not just people in wars), think about it if people had to actually look for their war targets instead of just looking at local ganking/gate camping would go way down but wardeccing for an objective (such as knocking down a POS or controlling access to resources) would not be affected Targets would not feel the need to log off for the duration of the war since stealth actually becomes possible and wardeccers could actually be able to do something besides camp trade hubs since they wont show up in local and scare all the targets away.

Local makes the game too Safe

We are forced to make isk..

Good point!

I'm guessing you mean: if PVPers need to make ISK even though they hate to, non-PVPers should also need to learn basic PVP skills even though they hate it.

Which is a fair point.

That points towards nerfing ISK-making ability in highsec for players that don't want to fight, just as PVPers that don't want to make ISK have their PVP capability nerfed (can't buy stuff).

But there should be a better 'sliding scale' for carebears to choose how much they want to be involved in PVP (and be able to make more ISK the more they expose themselves to PVP), just as PVPers can very easily choose how much effort they want to make in ISK-making.


The way it is today in highsec, it's either stay in an NPC Corp, get 99% rewards and avoid PVP (except ganks), or join a Corp, get 100% rewards and have to deal with PVP everytime someone decs you. Does not compute, and it's also a shame that the highsec PVP mechanic is intertwined with the most important social mechanic...