Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You are wrong: there is no guaranteed capacity to retaliate. Any large group can attack Provi, or evict someone from a wormhole regardless of where they are from. They can base entirely out of NPC stations with no in-space structures and are not forced to assume any additional risk for attacking. Pandemic Legion just gave up sov and yet still is free to attack anyone's sov it wants, or evict anyone they want from a wormhole. They are only at risk when they make choices give them a material benefit, like holding a valuable moon, not for whom they decide to attack.

You are basically asking for a way to make yourself 100% safe from a wardec in highsec. CCP is very unlikely to provide such a mechanism - it reduces risk and decreases destruction the exact opposite of the current direction of game development. I can see why out of self-interest you want it, but you are not suppose to be or feel safe in this game and CCP is not going to base a mechanic around that.

The best you are going to get are structures that wardeccers will really want (or are forced) to use that will open them for a counter attack, and probably a new social mechanism that will allow you to form a social group without the risk of wardecs (but no structures). But if you want to use (and benefit) from these structures you will have to defend them. Simple as that.

And yet should they decide to invade a WH there is again the rather clear matter of eviction determining a winner, this doesn't prevent future aggression, but then neither would the means to end a war by any necessity. Granted sov does become messier, but there wer still have a very clear system of winning without determining the fate of future aggression. Neither of these situations speaks to having a war goal being unreasonable.

Both have, upon achieving victory and securing the space, occupational advantages contributing directly to their defense, unlike assets in question in a highsec war which allow no limit in strategic positioning nor the ability to resist invasion through simple occupancy. We're at apples and oranges here even if the attackers have no assets as we do have victory conditions and systems which support defense in some way.

In what way does anything I've said equal an immunity to wardecs? It's quite the opposite really. The ability to end a war comes with the decision to undock and fight that same war. If opening assets to loss with a direct attack on a target known by the attacker in the war is "100% safe" then the goal of a war cannot be destruction since it's all but ensured if the mechanic is used.

If the accusation is self interest than I can only assume some misinterpretation on your part, the assumption that creating a conflict is only positively destructive if done on the attacker's part, or the assumption that the attackers have no interest in the defense of a war ending asset and/or causing loss to a force aggressing that asset.

Otherwise I don't see how a target at no additional cost that adds incentive for defender participation "reduces risk" unless you think inactive attackers not fielding assets counts as risk.

Ok, here is the thing: Eve is a sandbox. Winning conditions are fluid and not usually defined by game mechanics. Taking sov is one of the few exceptions where the server declares a "winner" but most conflict is driven by the players and the winners determined by the players. I could be evicted from a wormhole, but manage to save most of my stuff and win the ISK war against the attackers so I can claim I won, while my opponents can also claim they have also won by securing the hole.

Wardecs are not designed to have winners or losers declared by the game. They are just there to allow controlled and limited aggression between players in highsec - that's it. Highsec is much safer than other sectors of space because the wardec mechanic means you have a only small list of players that can shoot you, and you get 24h notice before they can start shooting. That's all. It is not a mini-game or "faction warfare lite" where one group has defined victory or loss conditions; wardecs can be declared for many reasons.

The ability to end a war is a net reduction in conflict. Allowing large groups to blitz their way out of a war provides them with 100% safety to resume their activities. Well, not really as it easily would be circumvented by the attackers using alt corps, but why should a game where conflict is the core of the design offer "peace" as a reward? No group gets to be invulnerable to attack anywhere else in the game. CCP is not going to enable highsec corporations to isolate themselves from the sandbox as a prize for fighting.


No, it is clear why you want to be made immune. You want to continue your ISK making activities, safe from disruption because that is what you do in the game; that is pure self interest. If you were interested in making the game better, you would propose ideas that actually make the game better like those that stimulate social interactions, conflict, destruction, and create content, not isolate yourself from the sandbox so you can gather resources safe from attack by your enemies. That is the worst form of carebearism and needs to be stamped out wherever it pokes its ugly head.

An attacker who does not field assets is at no risk, but also poses no risk. Forcing the attackers to field a "target" for the defenders to shoot is adding risk, and in principle I don't have a problem with it. It is unfair to force the attacker to assume a risk for no benefit, but if overall it promoted more conflict I would grudgingly accept it. Ideally though, it should give some sort of real benefit to the attackers so they voluntarily field it.

Having the war end if the attackers lose that structure is a non-starter. You are literally preventing conflict in an attempt to stimulate conflict - it is nonsensical. If the defenders won some or all of the war fee or something, perhaps it could work. But really, by forcing players to risk something to attack, you will provide more pressure for mercenary groups to form larger, more professional organizations than will make wars even more unbalanced. Players will adapt to these risks by forming larger alliances where they can share the burden of defense and will further make wardecs too expensive and risky for normal corporations and small mercenary organizations, and make the fights more lopsided.

It is also impractical. The new structure mechanics are such that the vulnerability windows seem to be selected so structures take a week take to down, and by then the wardec will be over. I guess you could make it perma-vulnerable, but how is that fair if no other structure is like that to force the attackers to be online 24h a day? If you let the attackers set the windows, they will just stack them at the end of the week. And any serious attacker will just place them in a wormhole, or low/null sec where most highsec corps won't go, or if you make them place it in highsec, in the far end of a highsec island. They would only be vulnerable to the most organized defender who are the most capable of defending themselves further pushing wardecs further onto new and small corps. They would rarely be contested.

Fluid victory conditions is a misdirection at this point by your own logic. Similar to how a WH eviction of sov loss can be considered a victort by way of isk efficiency for the defenders, so could that same metric be used in a system which allows defenders to end a war.

If the argument becomes that victory is defined beyond mechanics and occupation then there is no reason for an objection here as those same variables apply. And as far as risk, the defenders just enhanced their risk for a chance at ending the war, and only a chance.

This makes a pretty big assumption about the conflict occurring throughout a wardec. Specifically it assumes the losses created by giving defenders a target for ending the war is less than the targets lost evading said war in a system which promotes that behavior for reasons stated prior.

It also makes what I believe to be the false premise that time alone is the measure of a wars worth. I think that to be wholly incorrect. Incentive to act should make a better motivator to actually take actions that lose ships rather than promoting staying docked and/or evading until confrontation is forced.

In a system where the majority of wars result in little or no conflict I'd think the idea that time in a war being the only factor is a very flawed metric.

Pure BS. What I proposed demonstrably doesn't do what you say. The choices become either fight for the ability to end the dec, a non-peaceful solution, or sit through it evasively (or inactively) as current. There is no immunity grated unless you consider fighting an opponent to be immunity from a war, which is a very strange definition.

Your making an accusation that's quite frankly ridiculous at face value. An incentive to fight is the worst form of carebearism? A battle which if taken leads to an actual war and if not is no different than what we currently have is immunity?

The benefit for that risk is the declaration of the war and as stated prior it becomes a part of the war mechanic, not an extra cost or maintenance. It would therefore amount to the risk of the wardec fee and nothing more. It wouldn't eliminate the ability to declare war as trivially or non trivially as current. And, also as stated prior, only becomes a factor if it generates conflict. If it doesn't the incident occurs as normal and the attacker will see no difference to wars as they are now.

Regarding mechanical considerations, anything can be adjusted to fit the mechanics in question and would have to be for highsec structures and wars to function properly from both a defender and aggressor standpoint. That's a non argument on the merits of the idea.

Regarding being a non-starter, the logic presented here is purely contradictory. Nothing I stated proposed ending the conflict without partaking in it. You mechanically wouldn't be able to do it as attacking that which allows the war to end is enabled by the war itself. To say it literally prevents conflict is actually literally a lie. If any interaction with the mechanic occurs there was conflict. If not the mechanic was unused and the war proceeded as normal. Those are literally the only options.

Regarding escalation of force, good, isn't that the point? Is not the promotion of capable corps one of the hopes of the wardec system? And if that happens there will of course be a counter escalation, but the alternative is downward reduction in corp capabilities and fights that just don't happen. Essentially the cost argument goes back to paying per head being a bad idea. And full disclosure if massive differences in capability between aggressors and defenders promoting evasion is a goal I can get behind that for self serving purposes as well. Better for me as I won't lose ships to war ever.

You are missing the point: there are no victory condition. Those are player constructs. Why turn the sandbox into 'capture the flag'?

I do not think it is a flawed metric. How can the time a war is open not be proportional to the total amount of conflict?

You are really grasping at straws here.

The worst form of carebearism are proposals like yours to isolate your resource generating activities from the influences of others in the sandbox. An incentive to fight is not carebearism at all - resources, ISK, killmails are all great incentives to offer players to stimulate conflict. Safety so you can grind ISK without regards to your defense is not a good incentive and detrimental to the economy.

As for the rest of your post, if you make wars trivial to declare, but that can be ended by destroying a structure, how do you prevent corp hopping by the attackers? They can just wardec from a dozen corporations and hop from corp-to-corp as you destroy structures. Actually, that would be quite amusing as carebears would get a taste of their own abuse of the corporation mechanics, but I don't think it would make for especially good gameplay.

Well, since nothing about wardecs or corporations seems to be planned for the CSM X meeting, wardecs as they currently are will likely be with us for a while yet.

And there still isn't a victory condition, just an additional condition for ending the war. People are free to determine the goals of a war as they see fit and engage accordingly then measure their success against that goal. If the goal is met before the war ends the aggressor is free to not care about the defender ending the war prior to time running out. All this adds is a possibly variable end point to the arbitrary, mechanically dictated beginning point.

No straw grasping, just understanding that changing options can change behavior, and that changing behavior can change the outcomes over a given period of time. A week of capable evasion can and should provide less loss than a 2 day battle over a static asset unless one of those parties decides to not show up for the fight. That pretty much makes time as a lone metric irrelevant. That's not a straw, but rather a goal here, to increase engagement with the war system.

And if that mechanic is not used and behavior not changed, time is maintained.

Good thing the premise here is completely wrong, otherwise yes, it would be an issue. But as stated before the options are 1) fight the war to (maybe) end it early or 2) the war plays out as current. Those are the only war outcomes available and do not include the "carebearism" scenario you present.

War often consumes more resources and isk than one stands to gain and for a non-aggressive entity killmails won't be a factor. Remember, this is a defender motivation were talking about here. And yes, if were in a sandbox of personal goal determination, "getting back to carebearing" is and should be just as much of a valid motivation as anything else. To argue otherwise is a failure to understand that the sandbox shouldn't be making value judgements on gameplay goals, especially when those goals promote responding to conflict as a viable option.

Not seeing the issue with the "abuse." A series of non threats just dumped far more isk into a war than they needed to against an entity willing to fight back giving the defenders the ability to ignore a number of the no threat decs... ok.

Which is a lie.

I can either believe CCP themselves, who have the data and have attempted to prove your claim but have expressly failed.

Or I can believe you guys, who are proposing cutting player freedom off at the knees for your own benefit.

Well, that's an easy choice. I choose CCP's claim, not your selfishly motivated attempts to nerf a mechanic that is already one of the weakest in the game. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it's the people who want player freedom and real sandbox mechanics handcuffed to serve themselves is what is really bad for the health of the game. When you devalue the core concepts of the game itself, that's how you kill a game like this.

If it requires a structure to even have the option to pay said cost, yes.

That is a huge up front cost that is crippling to smaller groups. That alone makes it unacceptable.




And? You want to chain that playstyle to structures, that much is pretty clear from your posting(at least I can't find anything to the contrary in the last two pages). Therefore it is an added cost.

Yeah, I'm not sure that is actually possible with the current engine. They can generate things owned by NPC corps or other non player factions in deadspace(but they always have a decay timer attached to boot), but creating something under player ownership is tricky, and something they normally only do with reimbursement, which in my experience is always sent directly to a station. (suggesting that it's a GM hack of the contract system)

I don't think they can actually do what you suggest.

First of all, you need to elaborate more.

Does this theoretical structure have vulnerability windows, or can the defender just timezone snipe it? Does it have reinforcement timers? If so, how many, and how quickly?

Does it have guns the attacker's pilots can use, or is it just another FW style entosis beacon? Speaking of entosis, does it use that or can I shoot it?

How about the fact that tying the wardec's existence into this structure inherently puts smaller groups at a disadvantage when attacking bigger ones, thereby removing the ability to punch up as people often do with one man show corps right now?

And, using measured, specific examples, what are you hoping to see result from this?

You're basically trying to argue a half finished F&I submission here. Finish it first.