The War on War Declarations

I've never liked the War Declaration mechanic in EVE.

I mean, I understand the original intent behind war declarations. CCP wanted players to have the ability to fight over resources in the tightly controlled space of high sec so they gave corporations the ability to declare war on each other, removing the obstacles of CONCORD or sentry gun interference and removing any potential security status penalties.

CCP had visions of groups with roughly equal size and skills clashing in battles over moons and asteroid belts.

And this can still happen! But its vastly in the minority. Instead what the players use the mechanic for is basically extortion and seal clubbing.

Groups of veteran PvP players go around and declare war on groups of carebears, asking them for ISK or lose their ships / structures / etc, and if they have the nerve to stand up and try and fight, are bashed in the head via station games, blingy PvP ships, and more experience.

Not to mention the groups of players that just war dec everything they can and sit in trade hubs camping gates all day, using the mechanic as a way to bypass high sec rules.

Its a shitty mechanic that allows the experienced and strong players to prey on the newer and weaker players without consent or reasonable recourse and it sucks and I think it drives players away.

And now we have evidence from CCP indicating that it's true:

CCP Larrikin pulls up activity data for players of corporations that have wars declared against them and it shows considerable activity drops in all activities during the war. They also show that the low activity continues after the war ends. Brisc Rubal noted that the numbers here were so stark, it would justify immediately removing war decs as a mechanic and promising a fix after the fact. The CSM in general were surprised at how stark the numbers were and noted it was clear this mechanic was having a significant impact on player recruitment and retention.

A comment was made in that summit that perhaps those numbers suggest removing war decs immediately. I wholeheartedly agree.

The concept is flawed, built for a style of gameplay and environment that no longer exists. Get rid of it.

* * * * *

OK, now that its gone and the wailing and gnashing of teeth has died down, the game does need some mechanic to deal with competition over the actual things worth fighting over in high sec that should not have absolute safety. Not asteroid fields or trade hub jump gates (both of which already contend with suicide ganks), but rather structures.

I propose that once declaring war against corporations is gone, we replace it with the ability to bribe the NPC government agencies to look the other way while a structure is attacked. The owners of the structure can be attacked too, but only in that system. This would give casual / noobie / pacifist corps an option besides the "hire mercs or learn how to fight" (which really is "watch you get scammed or die horribly to experienced PvPers"). Or of course, what they do now, which is log out and stop playing.

Now that proposal is not fleshed out, its an off-the-cuff idea thrown out to show that I think a radical rethinking of high sec PvP needs to be done, and radical actions need to be taken. EVE desperately needs something.

Time is running out.

The War Drags On

My industrial corp is still under the war declaration but the hostiles that dec'd it have decided to do absolutely nothing about it. I guess its their money to burn?

So instead of waiting idly I snuck some parts back into the Raitaru and built some structures, and then spirited them off to Dodixie markets which are looking at lot more profitable than they were a few months ago. Either the changes to mechanics have removed competitors or the over saturated market drove them out. Doesn't matter, I'll take it.

Now I just need for my weekends to stop being stupidly busy and exhausting.

To Top It All Off

What a month February has been!

A family member dying (expected) and another family member requiring triple bypass heart surgery (unexpected) and the accompanying funerals and hospital visits and multiple hours of driving over weekends in a row... and I was pretty wiped out this past Monday.

So when I logged in to start manufacturing jobs in my Raitaru I was not altogether shocked to see life deal another unexpected blow to my sanity. My alt corp had been war dec'd.

I tried some negotiation first as I saw the small 4 man corp's CEO was once a member of a Gallente Militia corporation but to no avail. According to him they had been contracted to remove my Engineering complex from the high sec system but for the low price of 600 million they could be convinced to leave it alone.

Yeah, I'm not new here. Either he runs a terrible mercenary corp that does not follow through on contracts, or he's running a shake down. Either way, I politely declined and turned to my alliance for advice as the report of my structure being put into armour was received the next day.

They did not disappoint.

Immediately they told me to open the war declaration to allies and FEDUP joined. The next day even though the reinforcement timer ended at 4pm in the afternoon my time, the call was put out and for pilots to help defend and when the time came a fleet of 12+ pilots answered the call, as well as myself with Kirith in the gunner's seat (since he could not be in a spaceship without attracting the police) and my alt Korneilia in a Hurricane.

A single war target showed up in local as the clock ticked down, and promptly left without a word. The 15 minute repair timer completed successfully and for now, the Raitaru is safe.

Huge shout out to FEDUP's Euro pilots who turned out in a big way for me, I super appreciate it.