EVE General Discussion

It's all fine and good for everyone to be stating that everyone else doesn't get it or doesn't understand, but it's not helping when the understanding isn't all the way around.

Everything in EVE is PvP, that is from mining to ship to ship combat, it's all PvP. That is NOT the same as those saying that ship to ship is the ONLY acceptable PvP in the game, it isn't. That's actually mostly end cycle destruction PvP... the result of all the other PvP types before it.

Resource PvP is generally mining, salvage and reprocessing types of competition.

Production PvP is industry, research and the competition that happens there along with all the trappings for that.

Those two types of PvP are often referred to as PvE in EVE, even though they aren't PvE by most other MMO definitions, they are a different kind of PvP. I had to have King Ralph point that out to me and it blew my mind to start, but now, it just changed my perspective on what PvE and PvP (in EVE) are.

Ship to Ship PvP, can be something as singletons going at it to massive armadas duking it out for control of space. This is where all the resource and production goes... to get blown up at some point.

So YES, EVE is all PvP, however, that does not mean it is solely geared for ship to ship PvP. That's just the destruction portion of the cycle of economy in EVE.

The game would work just fine if all War Dec's went away and were replaced with something else. HiSec "could" be made entirely free of ship to ship PvP and still have PvP of the resource type, to state that it has to remain as a valid gank zone is just as much wishful thinking as those that want it to be combat PvP free. It can be either way and still work, or just left as is.

War Dec's being used as 'get out of Corcord penalties free' costs is probably not what was originally intended as CCP's own media states that it was intended for corporations to engage in combat against each other so the Resource and Production PvP could spill into combat as needed for struggle of control of HiSec resources. What we have now with Poacher and Merc corporations using War Dec's as Concord bribes is probably better called "Emergent Gameplay" not necessarily 'intent'.

Post by CCP Falcon regarding EVE PvP: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4972885#post4972885
Thanks again to King Ralph for this link... lots of awesome goodness there!

As per usual you make a lot of good points, and show that despite your relative newbieness that you've got your head around what Eve is all about; but I must disagree with this. The interruption of trade in hisec is intricately tied in with the political landscape of everywhere that isn't hisec, you cannot remove the ability to interrupt supply chains without affecting destruction elsewhere in the galaxy, it'd also tank the economy somewhat.

Destruction of hisec assets and shipping has always been a design goal of CCP, they're hardly likely to remove it.

As well as dishing out random decs mercs get hired to kill off the supply chain of null sec groups.

You'll also find that many mercs also run industrial operations on the side, so they'll be hiring themselves occasionally.

Great link, fixed it to make it easier for others to follow.

I'm also a PvE player, there's always a reason for a wardec, could be a member with a potty mouth, or one that flies shiny fits that grabbed the wardeccers attention. The way to not be prey is to not look like it, same as suicide ganking

I'll have to hold a difference of opinion here, I won't go into it because I don't know enough to explain it, but the ramifications of even slightly changing such a fundamental part of hisec aggression rules goes far deeper than you realise.

They already did, it's covered under the auspice of a wardec; and for years PvE players have flatly refused to change their tactics to deal with it; which is why threads like this keep appearing.

For the most part the wardeccers don't demand rule changes, they adapt to them; the inverse is generally true for their opponents.
The forums are PvP too

That's perfectly fine and indeed correct. Even most agressors engage in the more non-direct forms of PvP (i.e. not ship combat) than they do shooting stuff. But the issue is not that some people prefer to compete indirectly, or dodge the hunters while they go about their business. The problem in these threads are the players who think that they should somehow be immune from being shot at all, or have a way to opt out.

Wardecs are intended to allow corporations to influence each other using ship-on-ship violence. That is it. They are a manifestation of the everywhere-you-are-at-risk pillar of the game. You do not get to to isolate yourself from the other players because ship combat is somehow the only acceptable form of PvP, but you don't get this safety because by design you are always suppose to be vulnerable to your opponent. Highsec shapes this and gives some warning and limits to your opponents, but that vulnerability is suppose to be there.

What the worst of the carebears proposing "fixes" to wardecs (which are usually just nerfs they think will make them safer) don't seem to get is that even if CCP is convinced that wars are completely broken, and throws current version of the mechanic out the window, they will replace it with another mechanic that will equally make corporation assets at risk. They will not make it such that a corporation, at least a real corporation with in-space structures, can grind away in highsec in absolute safety. Just like when they redid freighters, or now with the inability to take down Citadels after a wardec has been declared, they will make corps vulnerable to other players as is the basic design of the game.

On this you are quite wrong. Wardecs could be replaced with something else to shoot structures - like say suspect flags instead of CONCORD - but removing non-consensual PvP from highsec (without removing all rewards) would break the game. The risk vs. reward balance is already so far out of whack it is asphyxiating the conflict in the spaces outside highsec. A completely safe highsec would result in almost everyone moving their resource generation there, leaving only consensual, and thus meaningless fights in low/null, for a little while anyway until the economy completely collapsed and people stopped logging in. Why do industry if no one is buying your stuff because everything is trivial to get and cannot be lost?

Eve would die as a single, living universe, and would just limp on as a ship/fleet combat simulator, a shell of its former self. Go play on the test server where nothing has value for a bit to get a taste of how less good of a game Eve is without scarcity and risk of loss.

I think this is one part reading tea leaves and another part wishful thinking. In the last wardec devblog CCP said that the purpose of wars was simply to allow people to fight legally in highsec. Nowhere to they say they want "good fights" or anything else of the sort. Their last revamp was just designed to allow sandbox play to take place in highsec, and to increase the number of wars as they thought the mechanic was underutilized. Fights in Eve are always unbalanced and I seriously doubt CCP expected corporations not to attack those weaker than themselves.

That is because this is what Eve is suppose to be. A open-world experiment where players make their own stories. That doesn't mean wars are perfect, but being able to avoid player interaction so you can grind resources in peace is explicitly against they type of game CCP is developing as CCP Falcon pointed out. Direct, shooty-shooty competition will always exist in highsec between corporations, to allow direct action against your competitors. That said, I am all for a social corp or other mechanism where a few friends who are not really competing can form a social group. But real corps are always going to have to provide for their defense as that conflict is the real content of the game CCP is selling, not the asteroid mining or dated missions. Making people safe removes content, both of the hunter and of the industrialists who supply the hunter and the prey.

Get that and you will have a much better gaming experience, and have more insight into what types of changes are compatible with this game, and which are downright impossible to implement.

My Blog about it needs work tbh. I made it tooooo sov orientated. Took some of the uniqueness of lowsec and highsec away. I like how citadels will add something for larger entities. The TLDR of my proposals was some sort of benefit limited to one group per constellation that only affects care bearing giving the care bears a reason to fight each other over a thing and draw some of the focus away from mass dec groups

My Link

Thanks for the shout out

I think You can shoot Them same as They can shoot you.

Is balanced in my book.

But, as other pointed out before me ..... the neutral logi is kind of killing the PvP potential. You might be tempted to engage, but there's always that voice of caution "yea but what about logi?"

I need to brush up on my highsec knowledge, but since the ship shooting you is not doing anything illegal, the logi would NOT go suspect whereas in fact it should. It's involved, so it should go flashy and allow you some nice fat logi kills in the process.

Other than that though, the whole point is having a fight between A and B without everyone and their uncle getting involved.

In highsec, CONCORD is there to give controlled engagements to everyone, the predator and the prey alike. Criminals are already free to shoot and chased by infallible NPCs, but wardecs just enable legal fighting between two player groups. It is not suppose to be one side vs. one side + the 20 neutral battleships.

If you are in a legal war, you know exactly who can shoot you and who you can shoot legally. That applies to the aggressor and the defender, as it should be. It is not an exploit to shoot someone who is not expecting it in Eve, especially as the war gives them 24h notice that notice that someone is gunning for them.

That my friend, is intended game play.


Of course it isn't. That is the core design of the game.

You can shoot people in null against their will and have meaningful fights. In fact, most people undocked in null are ratters and miners not looking for a fight. The PvE rewards have brought them out as a target, and thus content for the other players. Highsec is exactly the same, albeit with more limited restriction on what types of engagements are possible.

What we already have too much of in this game is players grinding their income in complete safety in highsec (I'm looking at you Incursions) only to go out on drunken roams in the other spaces, looking for other people doing the same. While this might be entertaining, it is meaningless and completely consensual as everyone has written those ships of before they undock. Real, meaningful conflict takes place over resources, wealth and status and that is completely undermined if players are essentially immune to their opponents while in highsec.

How can anyone ever win if no one can ever lose?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If carebears get to hide behind CONCORD mechanics, it's only fair that the hunters do as well.

Often, players that are trying the hardest to avoid PvP are the ones that are most in need of being exploded. They are generally plump and rich, having grown fat on the bounty of highsec and not having to worry about their defense. They need to be at risk, and their resources generation needs to be at risk to prevent the game's economy to be unbalanced too far in favour of the producers, as honestly it has been for too many years.

I am not sure why wars bother you so much. They are completely optional. If you just want to mine and mission do so in an NPC corp. If you want to propose a new type social corp so you can have a name and logo with your friends without worrying about wars, I completely support you. But if you want to benefit from the income-boosting benefits of a corp, especially the in-space structures, you need to defend yourself.

The players are the content for each other in this game. It is as simple as that.

There are many ways of playing Eve, but all of them involve you being at risk to other players. Corporations provide benefits, and as a downside require their members to defend those benefits from other corporations. Choose to be in one, or choose not to take that risk as is up to you and how you decide to play Eve, but that risk vs. reward choice is fundamental to the design of the game.

And your suspect flag idea is unworkable. As I said before, the point of wars is so that both sides have a defined set of opponents who they are fighting. I realize you are too self-absorbed to see this, but not everyone is a scared rabbit, seeking only to hide from conflict with other players. There are plenty of new and small corps and players in highsec that want to play the role of the aggressor and attack other groups. They need a mechanism where the can initiate an attack under some controlled conditions, like the wardec provides, so they know who they will be facing on the battlefield.

You already have the free ally mechanic to turn the tables on the aggressor. Why should you now get all of New Eden on your side to defend you?

Neutral logi does go suspect. The main problem is that you never know how many will appear out of thin air, unless you are familiar with all their alts.

Oh! Well then. Sounds like all is good in highsec; couple of neutral logistics landing is still a lot better than a couple of Hels and Thannies landing so I guess some "deal with it" is in order.

Can I ask ... according to which mechanic does the logi go suspect? Is it because they're assisting someone with a PvP flag, or is it because they're causing "an effect" outside corp?

(example: if corp A and corp B were in an alliance, and a logi from A would rep B during PvE - would that cause a suspect flag as well?)


[I'm such a nub LOL]

No...this is PVP for the sake of PVP.

Except that's not the only reason for combat in EVE, and it shouldn't be either. You wouldn't expect countries IRL to go "challenge themselves" when they fight wars. No...they do everything they can to win. Whether that's fighting enemy soldiers or disrupting supply chains, no one is innocent when they help the war effort.

When you boil down combat to "you shouldn't pick on the helpless" you remove all the metagaming that makes EVE interesting. You make a ton of assumptions about why people fight in high sec. For some they are largely true, people are lazy and want easy kills. However there's a million other reasons to fight in highsec and you can't throw them all out because you don't like a certain playstyle.

It reminds me of the question a lot of new players ask - why pod people? Pods are defenseless! That's just mean and griefy! To which the answer is, pods are not defenseless. They are capable of imbuing super powers to the next ship they jump in. If we let all the pods go, every pilot in the game would be running around with high-grade pirate sets. By shooting pods we create an environment that makes people think twice about the risks they take with their implants. Which improves balance across the board and prevents your enemies from having free advantages.

High sec is no different. The people there are not defenseless. They are just hiding behind mechanics that keep them moderately safe for a reduced payout, while they happily grind away to support their other characters in other areas of space. Anyone can be the predator. If you choose to be the prey, you can't complain when the wolves appear.

And don't get me wrong, I actually prefer the "challenge myself" style of combat and I find it more exhilarating on a personal level. But I respect the right of other players to work together towards bigger goals, and that doesn't always mean pursuing the funnest path for the individual.