There is always a discussion on Wardecs and CSM election refueled it, due to the only re-running CSM7 member, Trebor supported the idea of eliminating wardecs. I wrote several pieces myself but now I want to write a new, completed piece that doesn't argue based on an ideological platform (one is free to be left alone vs one is free to gank newbies). I want to analyze and explain.
Wars are between organizations. The target of a war is never a person, not in real life, not in EVE. The ultimate defeat in a war is not death of people (they die on winner side too, and very few wars ended with the death of all losers) but the total destruction of the organization. World War II ended with the Nazi Reich disappearing. Band of Brothers in EVE disappeared too. It doesn't mean that Germans disappeared from the face of Earth, nor that old BoB members all unsubscribed.
In low, null and WH you get access to unique mechanics and blues by joining an organization. You can't just use stations, POCOs, POS-es as you wish. Only members of organizations can do that. By joining, you also become ally (blue) to many other players who will not shoot you, and might even save you from others shooting you. More importantly you need to join specific, unique organizations to access that specific resource. To dock in K-6K16, you must be member of TEST or its blues. Joining NC. doesn't help with that. Similarly if you want blues who are capable to jump in supers to save your ratting Nyx, you'd better join PL and not Proviblock.
In order to keep having these resources and blues, the organization providing it must exist. A war defeat can mean you lose them. In order to keep them, you must fight. Of course you can choose to not fight and forfeit the resources and blues. But you clearly have something to lose if the organization goes down.
In highsec you can access almost every mechanic without joining a player corp. Other players are not allowed to shoot you, would they still do so, CONCORD will soon arrive, much faster than any friendly player ever could. Finally even the resources linked to player corporations (no tax on missioning, POS access) aren't unique: any corp is capable to provide them, including a 1-man altcorp. So that particular highsec corp provides you nothing.
Of course highsec corporations can have social value, as it holds the friends of a player. However it's not bound to the corp organization, the social values aren't in danger if the corp needs to be dissolved and reformed under a different name.
Within the current highsec rules, corporations have no value, so you have no reason to fight for them. Wars targeting these corporations therefore have no point either. The only people they can harm are those who are ignorant of the game mechanics and fail to dodge wars like everyone else. For informed players a wardec is no threat, just inconvenience. Getting rid of wardecs is a straightforward solution. However making corps having unique values would be much better. If they could provide bonuses to players, they would fight for them or at least hire mercenaries to protect them.
Wars are between organizations. The target of a war is never a person, not in real life, not in EVE. The ultimate defeat in a war is not death of people (they die on winner side too, and very few wars ended with the death of all losers) but the total destruction of the organization. World War II ended with the Nazi Reich disappearing. Band of Brothers in EVE disappeared too. It doesn't mean that Germans disappeared from the face of Earth, nor that old BoB members all unsubscribed.
In low, null and WH you get access to unique mechanics and blues by joining an organization. You can't just use stations, POCOs, POS-es as you wish. Only members of organizations can do that. By joining, you also become ally (blue) to many other players who will not shoot you, and might even save you from others shooting you. More importantly you need to join specific, unique organizations to access that specific resource. To dock in K-6K16, you must be member of TEST or its blues. Joining NC. doesn't help with that. Similarly if you want blues who are capable to jump in supers to save your ratting Nyx, you'd better join PL and not Proviblock.
In order to keep having these resources and blues, the organization providing it must exist. A war defeat can mean you lose them. In order to keep them, you must fight. Of course you can choose to not fight and forfeit the resources and blues. But you clearly have something to lose if the organization goes down.
In highsec you can access almost every mechanic without joining a player corp. Other players are not allowed to shoot you, would they still do so, CONCORD will soon arrive, much faster than any friendly player ever could. Finally even the resources linked to player corporations (no tax on missioning, POS access) aren't unique: any corp is capable to provide them, including a 1-man altcorp. So that particular highsec corp provides you nothing.
Of course highsec corporations can have social value, as it holds the friends of a player. However it's not bound to the corp organization, the social values aren't in danger if the corp needs to be dissolved and reformed under a different name.
Within the current highsec rules, corporations have no value, so you have no reason to fight for them. Wars targeting these corporations therefore have no point either. The only people they can harm are those who are ignorant of the game mechanics and fail to dodge wars like everyone else. For informed players a wardec is no threat, just inconvenience. Getting rid of wardecs is a straightforward solution. However making corps having unique values would be much better. If they could provide bonuses to players, they would fight for them or at least hire mercenaries to protect them.
10 comments:
I think this is factually incorrect. What value does a lowsec corp give you that a highsec corp doesn't? What value does a NPC nullsec corp give you that a highsec corp doesn't?
Blues. If you are alone in low or NPC null, you can only solo PvP or run. Everyone is out there to kill you. Corp membership provides you people who don't shoot you and help you when shot at.
I actually like the idea of corporation providing bonuses. EVE might be able to learn from WoW here (god forbid!). What about following proposal:
There is a total of 10 Perks to choose from. Any corporation might only choose 5 Perks. Every Perk itself got 5 tiers. There are 5 PvE and 5 PvP Perks. Perks could be something like 2% more mission rewards per tier or 1% max ship velocity. Upgrading a Perk will cost ISK, the amounts are debatable but lets go for 5M/50M/500M/5B/50B.
Of course if you dissolve your corporation all perks will vanish. So it will add a benefit to corporations even in High-Sec but it will also increase the stakes in case of a wardec. Do you really want to lose your 50B*5 Corporation or do you fight for it?
I think that removing wardecs would be best solution. Wardes are evidently not functional and they became cluttered with rules, abuses and counterabuses. Ramoving them and adding new ones when it would make sense could result in much cleaner solution.
@Luke Or do you leave an alt to hold open your 50b corp for the duration of the Dec while you hop out to a new corp.
Whilst blues might be common for null, and they might not help non-blues, in lowsec, relationships are built among regulars in an area with no need to set to blue.
It is not true that "Everyone is out there to kill you".
NRDS exists in null, for better or worse, and in lowsec, inhabitants of a system/constellation etc band together in groups without any official tag marking them as such.
People are actually quite amazing at forming groups when needed, whether they be pirate, anti pirate, or just going for a random roam. You can be flying in to help out random people from your area one minute, and the next flying in to defend someone they are attacking.
A corp is not some magic badge of people who will have your back, nor people who you can trust, it can be, but nothing says it has to be.
That is the mistake many people make.
Wardecs need looking at, from both sides, but then they have been evolving since they were launched, and I have no doubt they will continue to.
I run a mercenary organization. I would argue that wardecs ARE functional, but not ideal. Removing them is not the solution.
While it is true that many corporations get dissolved, the players leave and rejoin a different one, or any other number of counters (Of which we are all aware), there are many organizations which do not. The important difference, I believe, is the number of players in that organization.
We have been paid for many and many contracts throughout our lifetime. We've done contracts where we were hired by carebears to clear out their operational area of competition, we've been hired by carebears to protect their haulers and mining boats from the griefers who want easy kills, and we've protected POS's that griefers thought were easy kills.
I'm essentially saying all this to try and give examples of how the mechanics, while not perfect, certainly are not as broken as many people think. There are a lot of people who utilize the allying system, though by no means are they the majority. However, it is enough to keep us in a permanent state of contracts, and those griefers who war dec everybody around are some of the people we make the most money off of.
If you want more concrete numbers I can certainly provide them.
I do think, along with most others, that corps should have some unique perks to prevent people from hopping. Like many of you have said there is no real reason to stay in them.
This is another situation where Gevlon's talk points are probably wrong, but his main point is obviously right.
Joining a corporation does nothing for you in EVE unless you are in null or WH. In lowsec people just learn you by name. In null you have access to things like jump bridges, pos manufacturing, etc. Blues are a significant thing, and NRDS is just weird due to the current political situation in null. They aren't as big of a thing as gevlon is saying they are, though. Blues are functionally a social thing after all.
But corporations cost money but do nothing. In most games, guilds are a social thing, but in EVE they're supposed to be more than that. Joining a corp in EVE opens you up to risk but does nothing for you except reduce taxes on things that not everyone does.
Corps should provide some benefit, and I kind of like the idea that you have to be in a real corp to do certain things in EVE; perhaps tie higher level missions to corp membership, or have some kind of corporate benefits. I don't think it should be any skill thing, I think it should be more like, if your corp does x thing, you get some kind of faction LP or something you can trade in for something related to that thing. Like, if your corp mines, the miners get some kind of LP that they can trade in for useful things like faction mining lasers or something, I dunno, I'm not a miner.
In Age of Wushu (which is a lot like EVE, all things considered), there is no real CONCORD so the main threat to PvP is vigilante players, and most of that comes from guildmates. It's interesting to see how the dynamics differ; in Wushu you are basically forced into a guild naturally; just wearing a guild tag of a powerful guild discourages people trying to kill you. A random griefer could just get kos-ed by your guild, or even his whole guild depending on politics. It's a lot different.
@last anonymous
"Joining a corporation does nothing for you in EVE unless you are in null or WH."
I guess you never tried putting up a highsec tower for research
@last anon
Not anonymous, lol. reading comprehension ftw.
Anyway, research in highsec takes time, but it costs virtually nothing. You could also pay a null or WH organization to let you come in and research at their towers. I absolutely refuse to believe it's impossible, as anyone can get into TEST. Once you're done, you leave and bam you're back in an npc corp, free from decs, and while you're in null alliance xy you've got the power of that alliance behind you.
That's assuming you do research at all, which not everyone does. Manufacturing isn't the best money/time for sure, though it probably has the best margins.
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