May 26, 2016 by Guy Fleetgood

Reshuffling The Dec With Fozzie-Sov For All | Part 2 of 2

An opinion piece in relation to Sov Mechanics and War Decs in EVE Online

Searching For Solutions and Gates To Deeper Conflicts

Ahem.. Many Earth Months On..

In the 1^st part of this article (written summer 2015) the case was made that the current war declaration process in EVE Online could be considered from a number of standpoints as either weak, failing or fully broken. Without wishing to rehash the entire piece the position taken was that not only are the current systems likely illogical and imbalanced within New Eden’s lore but rather that they are also structured in a way that does little to truly catalyze player to player interaction and further advance immersion or gameplay.  It’s this author’s hypothesis that with some relatively small adjustments to the current war-dec mechanics the quality of the gameplay could be greatly improved. Any adjustments made should constitute a positive change for all parties, both attackers and defenders.  The current system is extremely linear and this is not an attribute that should be associated with either EVE or war. The current system in fact cheapens the very nature of the word “war”.  While war should remain something that exists and flourishes within EVE as a driving force within the game it should not be terminology without weight. War should not be defined as cheap by capsuleers either literally or conceptually.

What then are some possible ways in which the current War-Dec system could perhaps be changed for the better?

Concept 1) The Art of Negotitaion

The first concept we are going to highlight is a pretty simple one and has been voiced many times by other parties on various EVE forums and blogs. It’s the idea that even if nothing else is to change in the current war-dec system it’s imperative  that when declaring war the attacking party should by default be required to indicate their reasons for declaring war and/or what it is they require from the aggressed party in order to obtain satisfaction and cessation of any engagement.  The benefits of having a system that provided some kind of structure to this process could be multiple.  Firstly a hard lock in a contractual manner over what is sought by the aggressing party could provide a stronger catalyst for the opening of dialogue between war-decer and war-decee. Dialogue between players within the game client in relation to achieving in game goals are surely one of the key markers of immersive MMO gameplay.   While there is nothing within the current system to prevent corporations from seeking dialogue and diplomatic negotiation on their own, the system itself does little (if anything) to incentivize player to player dialogue and interaction. The only real systematic prompt to action is the initial notification of the war-dec itself.  It is the feeling of many defending parties that the best way to engage or deal with war-decing groups is simply to starve them of content and fully disengage. An attitude of lets fully ignore communication, lessen game activity, and win by way of out-boring our enemies unfortunately seems to be prevalent across much of high security space.

The 2^nd benefit of a system that requires formal announcement of the goals of the aggressing party is that it sets up a potential goals and win scenarios for the defending party.   One of the major criticisms of the current war-dec system is that it fails to provide any solid win condition for defending parties. If looked at objectively it actually fails to set up any kind of win condition for either party, however the aggressing party likely at least has some privately held and self-imposed win or loss conditions.   Also at  any point desired the declaring party (provided the war isn’t made mutual by the defenders) can abandon a losing war with just 24 hours notice.  In this manner an aggressing party can in a worse case scenario still take some comfort out of their capacity for ongoing strategic evaluation and subsequent ability to execute change.  In stark comparison defending parties in war-decs have no real idea when a war-dec will end and little capacity to force change. A defending party often defines its goal as simply surviving the war, hoping to exit it as quickly and cost efficiently as possible. Currently there is little game incentive for the defensive party to either fight or engage as there is no guarantee that any action along these lines will stimulate anything that might be deemed a victory from their perspective.  More clarity up front over exactly what aggressing parties are hoping to achieve could provide defenders with more aims, and an increased sense of what in fact constitutes a win for them.  Much like the attacking force enjoys currently, what exactly defines a winning condition for defenders would likely be negotiated by corporations internally and  vary case by case.   Still any deeper insight into  attacking parties  goals would likely assist in defending parties conceptualizing their own goals.  All around this approach could provide a more dynamic and immersive war gaming experience.

Concept 2) Fair Market Bribery

Another long standing argument made on the EVE Forums and one which is difficult to ignore is that it is highly illogical that Concord (a multi trillion isk collaborative force with the sole agenda of maintaining peace and commerce) would in the highest security space be willing to accept relatively low cost bribes to look completely the other way for extended periods of time.

It’s been previously pointed out that even if we take the position that Concord is somewhat under funded (and so desperate times call for desperate measures,) it still appears to be acting fairly illogically. At no point currently does Concord look to extract the most value possible out of this difficult situation by offering assurances of protection to the would be war-decd corporation for a fee. In essence what has been suggested is that gameplay would be far more immersive, balanced and interesting if defending parties were provided opportunity to stave off war-decs by a system of counter bribes.  Critics of this concept suggest that such a system may be far too care bare positive. The concern being that if the defending party could just pay off Concord to prevent a war-dec, they more often than not would follow that course of action. This could mean that war-decing as a realistic means to ISK fight infusion in hi-sec would become considerably less viable.  Personally I think this is a rather hollow position as many aspects over how such a counter bribery based system would be implemented are debatable  and the nature of how such a system would be structured seems key to whether or not it would provide a more enjoyable and appropriately balanced war-dec system.

Some possible options for how Concord’s favor could be won include (but aren’t limited to) :

Open Highest Bid – An auction system whereby each parties can openly see the others biding actions and respond within designated time periods (as seen fit) with higher bid(s) or cessation of biding.  

Closed/Blind Bid Refunded – A system where within designated time frames parties may submit a private bid for service(s), where winning bidders obtain said service, and losing bidders retain the full (or partial sum if pre-designated) sum of assets pledged with their bid(s).

The dynamism for any bid based system could be heightened with the ability to formally create ceasefires, armistices and peace treaties by way of formal negotiated settlement payoffs to the opposing party. Any auction type or bidding type system should provide plenty of opportunity for escalation. Even in a more static blind bid type system we could do something creative like place a chance based device for the opportunity to submit a further counter bid at 100% that of the current winning bid. Additional mechanical devices such as these would allow for strategy and action to take place.

Concept 3)  Get Off My Trade Hub

With this concept we break down war-decs into licenses to commit legal acts of aggression within individual solar systems or constellations. Rather than a carte blanche declaration of war existing across all known space and following on from  the currently active and established  bribery model, surely it should cost more to war-dec in higher security space such as 1.0 than that of lower grade 0.5 hi-sec? Arguments for this run pretty simple. The expectation of adequate protection from Concord in the highest security space should naturally exceed that of lower security space. Also in higher security systems Concord openly displays a larger presence and increased force projection capabilities. It follows that more Concord officers and administrators would need to be paid off in higher security systems in order for any amnesty for aggressors to be maintained. If the war-dec system was to be reinterpreted to a system or constellation based model (as in: corp X declares war on corp Y in Z territories) then higher fees could be charged for the highest security systems or constellations.  This could mean it costs more to war-dec a corp with the sole intention of jumping their members in 0.9 and 1.0 trade hub systems such as Jita, Dodixie, Amarr and Rens.  Would be war-decers may be forced to choose between a strategy of paying a premium to sit on key high value trade systems  or spending less to have open opportunity to attack over a larger region of perhaps lower value systems. Ofcourse there are still plenty of fairly high traffic 0.5 and 0.6 pipe systems on the way to low or null that the opportunistic war-dec corp might wish to take advantage of.  Perhaps now though you’d want to choose your targets more carefully?

Concept 4)  Levelled Responses

Rather than aggressors paying for complete removal of a Concord’s response from a system how about they pay for a lowering of Concords response efficiency. We might imagine a premise for this as while Concord is still underfunded (or not entirely full of pilots and administrators on the up and up) and as such it wants to take the offered monies to look the other way. However at same time Concord does not want to openly admit it is abandoning its duty of care to pilots within its space. Thus how large a ‘donation’ is provided could correlate directly with how long Concords arrival on grid is to be ‘Unfortunately delayed’. A feature like this would require a war decking corporation to try and figure out what they really need in terms of a time windows in order to effectively execute conceived attacks and then get appropriately docked up or out of the solar system. With this system there would clearly be a potential for greater ROI for more time efficient ship killing teams. This system could also provide more of a challenge and thus be more entertaining for attacking groups, as the added factor of time constraints could mean that a more tactical approach would be necessary in evaluation over whether or not to engage enemy parties. If for example more enemy ships are present in the solar system than were initially anticipated via recon, it could be prudent for a would be attacker, even one possessing overwhelming firepower, superior technique and the benefit of surprise, to  actually abort their attack. Attacks may be aborted not so much because one fears losing the engagement to the other party but rather because there are valid concerns that the p2p engagement couldn’t be fully won in the allotted time before that mighty Concordoken hammer falls.

Concept 5) An Exchange Of Wars

Another consistent factor across EVE’s markets is Inflation. Much like with real world societies and markets over time the amount of currency in New Eden has increased and thus subsequently the price for most goods or services has also increased. A clear problem with EVE’s current war-dec system is that the initial cost of the war-dec is non-responsive to general inflation and market pressures.  The max upfront cost for a war-dec per week even taken against the largest alliances currently sits at 500mil isk. Quite frankly in the current context this fee constitutes a pittance and offers great ROI potential. At time of writing It’s in region of 800mil to buy an unfitted Orca openly off the market in Jita. Knock off just one Orca beavering away in Hi-sec or a few well laden Kryos’s marching into a trade hub and there’s a good chance you’re profiting nicely.  The result of the current war-dec pricing model is that many large groups are essentially running around (quite intelligently in many respects) spamming war-decs.   Now CCP could remedy this issue for a period of time by just readjusting the base costs higher. For a while this might slow down the crazy but eventually, due to inflation, the market value of the targets will increase and without further adjustments in pricing on CCP’s part we’d likely be back where we started.

One fairly simple way to fix this issue would be to bring the war-dec system itself into line with the rest of EVE’s economy by actively integrating it into the market.  Imagine each week a set number of war declaration permits were seeded into New Eden either by way of in game drops or direct weekly auctions via a dedicated exchange.  Imagine these permits could be activated (and subsequently consumed) by CEO’s upon other corporations as the method by which to declare a war-dec. With a limited number of such permits in game at any given time the intrinsic worth of a permit (and thus of a war) could fluctuate but at a base level should at least track inflation.  A move to a model like this would certainly be a radical shake up from the current war-dec system.  Without well considered planning the implementation of such a system certainly could come with negative consequences.  We would need to implement such a change very carefully and the potential results could certainly be mixed.  

Concept 6) Beating The War Chest

This is a concept that was forwarded a while back and seemingly is advocated for by a number of the CSM 11 (Council of Stellar Management) members including Steve Ronuken (aka “Fuzzy Steve”).  With this concept part or all of the initial war-dec fee paid by the aggressing party is deposited into a war chest floating somewhere in neutral space.  If the defending party successfully destroys this war chest they not only achieve the immediate end of the war but also  get to keep the ISK inside.

On the face of it this mechanic does seem to provide  much needed incentives for actual war engagement by defending parties. It gives defending parties chance to truly profit from a war engagement and some clear victory conditions.  Simply the existence of such a mechanic would at least require some diligent research and careful decision making on the part of war-decing corporations when they are looking for war targets.  Maybe attacking corps of a far greater size as a matter of course now becomes less viable as a smart strategy for profit. This could bring an extra level of realism and immersion to New Eden.

Ofcourse like most concepts the true key to whether or not a system like this would work well likely lies heavily in the details.  Should the aggressing parties get any portion of the isk placed into the war chest back when they win the war or not?  Mechanic such as this would need to be diligently thought through and tested if it is to successfully provide to New Eden the more balanced and engaging war gameplay we need.  Without careful thought and implementation a system like this is again likely to become unbalanced and subsequently gamed to the fullest extent.  Clearly this model though demonstrates  great potential for quickly and efficiently improving and balancing  war gameplay within New Eden.

Concept 7) Stand Up For Your Rights

Walking in stations. It’s not exactly lived up to the hype right?  While it can be nice now and again to take a breather from the old pod, stroll down that stylish gantry to the comfort of your 3 person sofa where you sit in isolation,  chill out watching the market news in total ORE of your 80” TV before wandering over to that nano coated mirror, just in order to double check you exist… there is that other door  in the corner that won’t open and it gives you a sneaky feeling that there is a distinct possibility all of this maybe some booster induced dream….That maybe you are actually the only entity residing in this giant structure after all… That this whole room is in fact just a self-enforced and elaborate wind up.  Well what if this wasn’t the case? What if you could open that other door to a negotiation room or privately receive another party? What if it was required by Hi-Sec law that all diplomatic agreements between corporations and the filing of documents detailing either the beginning or cessation of war can only happen via in person attendance at negotiation rooms in stations?

Clearly this is a fairly elaborate concept in comparison to many of the suggestions listed above and certainly again it comes with serious potential for pitfall, but the opportunity to deal and negotiate face to face in real time with your enemies, to have your capsuleer look the enemy capsuleer in the eye, with argument and diplomacy taking place fully within the EVE client, Surely this would be exciting and a good addition to the game? A system such as this could also provide for a higher strategy focus by corporations and capsuleers in the area of logistics. The specifics over destination systems and the exact stations/citadels in which negotiations, meetings  and document signings are to take place could themselves be subjects for disputes and negotiations ahead of time. The opportunity of a mob style ambushing of your adversaries while they travel to the meeting destination may be highly tempting or perhaps you have a sneaky feeling that members of your corp are being set up for ambush along the way. Situations like this could all become part of the general field of war-dec gameplay.

Concept 8)  Agents of War

A well established and major aspect of EVE is skill points.  To do almost anything in EVE well you’ll need to first train up (or inject) the appropriate SP. Another consistent aspect of EVE is that the game is absolutely littered with NPC agents.  As a player you may wish to do tasks for these NPC agents in order to improve various standings with them. Benefits of increased standings are higher value mission opportunities, better research and refining opportunities, the possibility of using locator agents and higher security standings. It’s interesting that outside of requiring  some general corporation management skills, declaring war in EVE ties in in no way whatsoever with either your characters (or your combined corporation’s)  skill investment or standings.  I’m not totally sure how I feel about this concept and certainly this is a very raw idea, but would it not be interesting to have aspects of the war-dec system (such as the initial costs, costs of renewals, the time delay between registration and the beginning of the war) actively respond to the skillset of the CEO, select players in the corporation/alliance, or the balance of the corporation/alliance as a whole? In the same manner could the war-dec system benefit from being structured with mechanics more similar to research or mission running in eve, whereby  standing  with  Concord directly or specific NPC diplomatic agents who are to work on your behalf,  affects the percentage chance of obtaining a green flag for a valid war-declaration upon an application?

Concept 9) People Capital ?!!

This concept is a little off the wall, likely would never be implementable and possibly could be all out game breaking, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway. EVE’s biggest resource is the players themselves. Perhaps a point of negotiation for war declarations and for cessation of hostilities could be the trade of capsuleers?

I’m thinking this almost certainly wouldn’t work to be honest as it could quickly turn EVE from skill training online into slave trading online. If one of the current problems is that defenders of war decs often dock up an wait things out rather than fight, I can imagine these same capsuleers if press ganged into transferring to another corporation would be less than co-operative to their new corp overlords.

That said maybe the enactment of some game mechanic like this wouldn’t be disasterous.  It could provide for more fluidity across the game as a whole with players (whether by initial choice or not) sampling various different corporations and groups and thus being exposed  to a higher variety of playstyles and options. Provided mechanisms were put in place to allow players who had been traded or transferred to other corps (as a result of war-dec activity) to be able to return to their previous corps after a reasonable length of time had elapsed,  or a reasonable debt payment had been made, maybe this would be interesting and workable? Truthfully this would be more like indentured servitude for capsuleers than slavery. Maybe after spending time with a new corporation a capsuleers opinions of them would change? Perhaps having been traded by my former corporation and now feeling allegiances were betrayed or generally under-appreciated, my former allies in fact evolve to become my mortal enemy? The risk that players may get upset and quit altogether certainly could be there, but also the variety of possibilities for gameplay escalation with the implementation for such mechanics could be pretty dramatic. Maybe EVE could benefit from such a dramatic change. It could be fun? 

Concept 0?) Paper Wars?

Ofcourse it is entirely possible we are looking at all of this completely the wrong way. That in fact the war-dec system doesn’t need to be fixed in any manner but rather totally abandoned.  I should strongly stress I don’t personally feel this is the way to go, as in general (and as I’ve explained previously) I’m in favor of bettering gameplay through iteration and addition. We are looking to improve EVE’s gameplay and depth rather than weakening it by just ripping out current features.  Still there are a number of obvious reasons the advocation of such a position could be popular.  One could simply believe that hi-sec space should consistently provide higher levels of security than that of low or null sec and that anyone who wants uninhibited PvP is already catered for and simply needs to move from hi-sec to either low, null or w-space. Even minus the war-dec system hi-sec wouldn’t be a wholly safe place to reside as PvP would still be fully viable by way of strategic ganking.

As the nurturing ground for EVE’s newest players the current war-dec system may in fact be a detriment to the larger game as a whole, in that the strategies employed by defending corporations are usually strategies of inactivity. Forced long periods of inactivity do not constitute a stimulating new player experience and thus many newbies are likely being turned off from EVE both prematurely and permanently.  This is the kind of reality issue that CCP cannot afford to take lightly. For EVE to continue to prosper into the future it will need a regular influx of players sufficient enough to counteract the loss of those veterans that finally mothball their pods and move onto other pastures. Allowing excessively high attrition rates of newbies in favor of promoting systematic boredom and easier player trolling simply doesn’t seem like a good business model.

In Non Conclusion

There is no one obvious one way in which to improve on the current war-dec system but there do appear to be many ways that the system could be restructures and improved upon.  Personally (as likely evidenced by the sheer length of this piece) I feel fixing and improving the war-dec system should be a high priority, and something both CCP and the wider EVE community need to tackle collaboratively.  Luckily there seems to be a little bit of a buzz brewing in the community  right now surrounding this topic with a number of CSM 11 candidates openly campaigning as strong proponents of war-dec change.   Please feel free to comment and suggest further ways in which we could perhaps improve the current war-dec system.

by Guy Fleetgood.
Twitter: @GuyFleetgood.