EVE General Discussion

If I cyno onto a gate camp, there will be two sets of ships at risk, and absolutely some losses. Do it enough and you can get campers to either find another gate, or up their game. If my action has caused them the former, EvE has happened, might has made right. If the latter happens, great, big fight happening soon!

If I bring numbers to an undock, deccers will simply not engage and have a huge blanket of neutral logi to crawl back under. Nothing was ever realistically in play, whereas even the most cowardly (You may choose to read cowardly as prudent, smart, or calculating) gate campers actually risk their ships to get frags. Again, I'd be 100% fine with wardecs as is if cynos could break the near perfect intel that HiSec affords. Given the multiple layers of safety one has hugging an NPC undock, with zero assets in space at risk, I find the risk hilariously asymmetrical and different than every other mechanic in the game. To project risk on to others, every other mechanic and mechanism involves exposing yourself to risk. Except Wardecs, for which you can wage war all from the safety of the undock.

I'll give you is a weak parallel at best.

Dropping the dec is still 100% voluntary. That doesn't give me the means to actually attack their capacity to make war, as with every other mechanic which first exposes something to risk before it bestows a benefit.

They have perfect intel, because cynos are not allowed.

They have neutral logi, because somehow this is allowed.

They have a station they can ALWAYS dock at which doesn't require defense. FW you can at least take away docking rights from the other side, which then causes citadels to vastly increase in tactical value, as they give a forwarding base that has to be defended to bestow a benefit. I totally wouldn't be opposed to the idea that aggressors in HiSec wars CANNOT use NPC stations - then you have a citadel, i.e. some skin in the game, some vulnerability that deccers are responsible for, to get the benefit of target selection.

The ability to attack another group in a PvP game isn't a "benefit". It is the main point of the game. Certainly, there is also no other mechanic that gives you game-enforced immunity to attack for any reason. I am not sure why you think you, as a target of someone declaring war is entitled to such.

Again, if you think wardeccers haven't enough risk, why not just fix that? What If you were elected CSM and told your concerns to CCP and they were like, "You're right, Vic, those wardeccers have too many ways to evade". So they go and add covert cynos and command destroyers (their jumping) to highsec, some sort of citadel-like mechanic where you can't dock if pointed, and neutral logi in a war is now a criminal offence and gets you CONCORDed. Would you still insist to them that you should have the ability to take away another group's ability to attack anyone?

I still don't get your fixation on that idea. It must come from an extreme dislike of their tactics or a deep-seated desire for absolute safety for yourself. I actually find the last one hard to believe (although it is I think the usual reason for this proposal from people on these forums) so I will conclude that you are just trying to legislate opportunistic PvP out of the game. Dude, not only is opportunistic, asymmetric and predatory PvP part of the game (even your game if you are honest about it), but it is good for the game. Risk is suppose to come from the players. You can't just turn that off by game mechanics because one group is much more powerful than another group in Eve. In a game where the sides are left open and unbalanced, all that does is add more and free safety and protection for the larger guy and stifle even more the dwindling opportunities for conflict and content creation in the game.

I am fine with wardeccers having a moderately-priced (like in place of current war costs), and vulnerable structure that you can go explode, inflicting a cost on them and giving you a victory you can rub in their faces. I just don't see why you and your highsec structures should also get to be immune from their counter-attack the next day.

I suppose you could stipulate that a war deccing corp have either a citadel or an engineering complex, but I'd let them dock wherever. If war dec alliance ABC sets up an fortizar at the ass end of creation so they can continue their activities and have an asset at risk...I guess I'd be fine with that...I think...

I am not sure what you are going on about or if you are even following the discussion.



Vic is arguing that the defender should have the ability to end the war, or in his exact words he is arguing that he should have an ability to "attack their capacity to make war" of a group that declares war on him. This idea has been floated often and repeatedly by many players, not just Vic here, and as my post directly addresses, is a bad idea in my opinion for the reason I provided.

Directly addressing a point raised by someone else is not a "straw man". It is how dialogue and discussion is suppose to work. I appreciate that you would rather critique the debate itself rather that the subject at hand - wardecs - but can we please try to stay on topic?

I would no longer advocate the ability of the defender to end the war, because any one of those changes would introduce risk to the attacker which I feel is missing in the current rule set. Heck, if half those things changes happened, I'd be in favor of removing the ISK cost of wars too, since there would be sufficiently adequate tools to let the players police themselves. The amount of wars you can fight should be decided by on grid strength, not by your wallet, bartered by NPCs.

So basically you are correct. I don't have an issue with wars per-say. I have an issue with the combination of wars and the hi-sec rule set.

A suggestion for getting started with informally identifying and testing possible solutions, without (for the moment) establishing formal context, assumptions, and objectives:

1. Assume some variant on the current Wardeccing mechanism could make sense
2. Identify some "good" scenarios for Highsec wardecs, with a (very) brief justification for each one
3. Identify some "bad" scenarios for Highsec wardecs, with a (very) brief justification for each one

There's an example of "good" earlier in the thread (from a CCP Blog IIRC): approximately "allow nullsec wars to be extended into highsec".

There are plenty of posts in the thread with scenarios for "bad" wardecs. Unlike the first one above, there are people trying to protect the current system, but that doesn't mean their opposition has no right to speak. Their response is to suggest whatever they are trying to protect be added as a "good" wardec, but they have to provide a rational justification.

It seems like a bad idea. CAS actually works at getting pilots to play and live in null, ie it populates syndicate, there is a permanent defence gang, occasional fleets and newbie/low sp friendly combat days. ie nothing in the organized emergent gameplay of pvp NPC players suggest they want a perma wardec to farm hapless newbies.



All this will do is stack people into whichever corp is currently 'winning', and the 75m "tax" is regressive (ie its a large expense to new players trying to move to the winning side to do their business in relative peace, but utterly meaningless to old players injecting up fresh newbie farming characters).

The answer is simple.

Just like everything else in Eve, make it a skill. Corporation Management category.

Levels 1-5.

1 wardec allowed per level according to the corp CEO's skill.

This same skill would transfer to the Alliance level, applying the skill level of the Executor corp's CEO for a maximum of 5.

OK, let's get CRAZY and have 'Advanced War Theory' (Wardec V required) for 5 more with a MAXIMUM of 10.

This gives wardecs purpose and meaning and REAL consequence. You must be selective and use them with discretion and.. you know, weeds out incompetent leadership pretty quickly.

We did something similar. We had a wardec, so I did some research and found some of the other corps/alliances they had decced. This was back in the day when wardec corps could be small. So we teamed up with one corp that had extensive NS experience, but was now in HS. We'd show up in system with the war targets and force them to dock up. We did that a few times and camp them denying them access to all war targets. As soon as possible our war dec and that on our ally dropped.

Of course, given changes over the years this kind of thing is probably less feasible....and it is a pitty.