Crime & Punishment

When I started in EVE (early 2009), even hard-core PvE corps used to try to fight back when they got wardecced - sometimes succeeding in getting 1-2 kills they could be proud of even against the big scary merc groups. Sure occasionally we had to hide in station after determining we just couldn't beat them - but more often than not we just hopped in cheap suicide ships and had some fun losing even then.

Over the years of course I've seen EVE changing - while I was off in low/null sec for 3-4 years the atmosphere in high sec stagnated. People were less willing to fight back, and more prone to hide in station for a week or even drop corp to avoid wars....but overall at least 50% of the high sec population still fought back and wanted to win their wars if they could.

Even as the war-declaration-spamming corps (the ones in the trade hubs/pipes) grew out of control and started declaring literally war on everyone in site, while flying heavily tanked ships with entirely too much rr - people STILL fought back at least sometimes....

And then....roughly 6-9 months ago....suddenly the last of the spirit in the denizens of high sec died. All of their spines finally snapped. And for the past 6-9 months I've been involved in ~50 wars, sometimes with scouts in the enemy corps, sometimes not - all declared with only 1-3 people in my own corp... - but NOBODY even WANTS to fight back...

I've even made some noob alt characters with no combat ability to declare test wars, with the same result. And I've observed other wars in EVE, often declared by utterly incompetent corps that I could literally solo, vs 50-man missioning/industrial groups that should wipe the floor with them...and STILL it is the same. Every single corp I can see does 1 of 3 things now when they get wardecced:

1) Drop Corp/Quit EVE for a week. Sometimes both.
2) Immediately ask how much it costs to surrender?!?
3) Hire one of the hub camping corps to literally do nothing other than add another war they won't do anything with - then do #1


So...What happened?!? What was the straw that finally broke the back of all Carebears everywhere?

New players have more isk thrown at them than they know what to do with - and half of them buy plex/sp as well (I've seen the faction fit battleships running L1-3 missions to prove it) - but they can't afford a few cheap suicide ships anymore? They've decided that whining/crying is more fun than going out and trying to get a kill?

Corps with all the resources at their disposal to, if not WIN their wars, at least make a good showing of themselves and win the isk war - instead choose to just roll over and DIE because "PvP is scary" or "its a TRAP".....


Who killed casual PvP - and is there any way to bring it back?

Random atempts at retaliation still happen, though very rarely, and usually they are not really Hisec 'carebears', but WH and more rarely Low and Nul corps that try their luck.

I've been involved Hisec pvp since 2010, I agree that it has become much staler.

Blanket wardeccing likely have a role it to play on that phenomenon - Players have been under nearly constant pressure combined with (likely) defeat after defeat trying to fight back likely lead to this sorry state of affair. And in my opinion, the removal of Watchlist only exacerbate that situation.

Also, suspect baiting have become so rampant that those 'carebear' that dare to engage have likely learned not to.

The removal of can mining is another thing that removed casual PVP from Hisec.

Can stealing/baiting mechanics were an extraordinary mechanic for both the PVPer AND the Miner: Why? Because the miner had to live on edge and make a decision: To can mine or not to can mine, efficiency vs security. Now with Ore Holds (except for ganking) there is only security and it certainly had an effect over time on the player's mindset.

My 2 cents.

I think a big part of it is that the various merc groups have refined their tactics over the years.

It's hard to get a bunch of miners into decent ships and take on 3 Proteus', two Bahlgorns, three macharials and 4 - 6 Guardians.

Plus the mercs are making better and more consistent use of neutral scouts so when a fight is coming their way that they think they might not win, they relocate before the enemy can engage.

Obviously there's other changes as well, such as carebears are more prone to just avoid fights rather than try to engage in them at the risk of loss, but I think the changes in the merc community warrant mention.

I killed my first HAC + battleship about 3 weeks into EVE in a suicide frigate fleet....T1 frigates are in fact exceptionally good at ripping larger ships to pieces. Much as I loathe to credit goonswarm with good ideas - I believe it was their old recruitment ad that pointed out you can take down anything, even a titan, with just a bunch of clueless noobs in t1 frigates - as long as they WORK TOGETHER.


These comments do point to a major mindset change though - which is that people seem to think the only possible war-time scenario is that they will be facing one of the big merc corps in the game w/ superior ships + numbers + scouting + support.

Not every war is started by the major groups - and many of the smaller warring corps really do only have a couple of people who could easily be outnumbered - but for some reason nobody ever seems to believe this is possible. People literally have *exactly* the same reaction (as observed w/ spy alts) to being war-decced by a major merc corp....or being war-decced by my day-old noob alt. Even before it became hypothetically possible (if I were an EVE trillionaire) to max out the day old noob...

With killboards as prevalent as they are, it is easier than ever to find out EXACTLY what you are up against - they post it for the entire universe to see...but nobody ever even looks. They all just give up without a whimper.


Even if it was only vs the big corps, and even if you were crazy enough to go fight their main camp in the trade hub - I remember the days when wardecced CEOs used to actually talk and coordinate with each other to combine forces and fight. Can you even imagine if 50% of the thousands and thousands of players wardecced by any of the big groups actually combined forces and sent a 500 person t1 frigate gang to wipe them out of the trade hub? Even with t1 fittings and lousy skills that is a minimum of 25,000 dps - also known as enough to nuke a t3 cruiser in 5 seconds or less regardless of how much rr it has.


I know it will never happen. As I say, I have realized that this form of warfare is dead.... I just don't see WHY. All the carebears just gave up...but they didn't need to. It annoys me.

That was a pretty good post and you're right.

If even a few of the wardecced corps banded together to go after some of the bigger merc corps, I think it would make history in some ways and be very exciting. The problem I think most of the corps have however is lack of numbers and within those numbers lack of skills to fly much of anything, or at the very least the fear to try.

When I was a kid, I was very tall. I was 6'6 at 15. I grew up in rough areas and went to ****** public school full of bullies. I was big so people never messed with me solo, it was always groups of cousins, brothers and friends. I was always too afraid to fight back even when I knew I could slaughter some of them. I didnt want to hurt anyone, I just wanted to be left alone. By the time I got into the 8th grade and moved to a new school, I decided I wasn't going to let anyone mess with me. I snapped on a big ass kid who started with me at lunch, got a rep and became the polar opposite of what I was used to. I wasn't a bully at all, but I would defend against bullies. I ended up becoming a 7ft foot cage fighter, go figure.

The point to this is, somoetimes it just takes a "Fk it!" attitude and go for broke. At least in EVE, even if you lose, you just lost some ISK and or mining time. If you win, well, then you found the Glory in EVE and likely a new way of life for yourself.

A lot of pvp happens on reddit. In game there are only space ships shooting at each other.

Well, those big, scary, mass-dec alliances won't ever run out of targets; they can just start shooting each other! Oh wait...

Seriously though, why doesn't ^ happen more often? Don't they ever get fed up of camping un-docks/choke points, blowing away rookie ships with insta-loki's e.t.c, and actually have a real go at each other? Or is the thought of having a red mark on their kill board too much for them? This was based on the last time I checked Archtype's history (one example) and in a period of 3, maybe 4 months, the only "big" dec group on that list I saw was PIRAT... and rather predictably, after 1 week nothing had happened.

I know those groups like to hang around in certain areas, but still... that's a little bit disappointing, to put it mildly.

In my opinion there is nothing worth fighting over. BPO's, AT ships, and industrial groups are safe and sound docked in an indestructible station. It's easy to bypass wartargets.

The removal of the watch list killed it for me, taking away the one job I loved doing: solo highsec wardecs. With the blanket wardecs to try to get as many wartargets as possible to keep their bored pilots happy, it definately put pressure on corps to just hide since they can get wardecced by more than one merc corp.

Remember when merc corps used to just wardec corps they were hired to wardec? Yeah, me too....

/sarcasmon

Thanks CCP.

/sarcasmoff

Well I was serious about the 2nd part of my question as well - do any of you think there is a realistic way we could bring it back, or do we just accept that it is dieing/dead and move on to other things?