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EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Mizhara on 14 Oct 2018, 22:58

Title: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 14 Oct 2018, 22:58
(https://i2.wp.com/www.corvetteforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Cutest-Beating-Dead-Horse-GIF.gif?w=800&ssl=1)
It's that time of the year again.

This argument has been had pretty much since Eve started and it's never going to really stop until either CCP significantly changes the game (which is possible given the latest CSM minutes) or the game itself kind of dies. It is however always worth bringing up once in a while, either to see if the community has changed in its views on it, or if the game itself has, or perhaps just to give newcomers to Eve RP a chance to see what it's all about. Is non-consensual PvP acceptable in Eve? Can you expect other RPers to not engage in PvP against you, if they're enemies and so inclined? Should what happens in a chatbox be exempt from consequences? Should what we do in space be exempt from consequences, if it's done IC? Or OOC?

This has been brought up many a time, since Eve is a pretty unique MMO in that regard. There's no safe place in the entire game, except the newbie system and even then only if you're in the newbie corp. Well, or the depths of Delve or whatever other nullsec fortress you may be in, but that's a different subject altogether. This has been the case pretty much since beta. If they want to, someone out there can horribly fuck up your day. Suicide gank you, wardec you, blow up your structures, hunt your blingy mission runners, drop a citadel within range of your home pocket and invade your space, sneak in enough guys into your WH, then control the holes and destroy your citadel, etc etc. If you play Eve, someone's gonna be dangerous to you. It's kind of the charm of the game.

Now, I bring this up because I've been getting a resurgence of complaints about exactly this. As some of you may know, I've wardecced pretty much the entire AmarrBloc and occasionally hunt them in high, low and null. I've killed Ventures in a Tengu (I swear I thought they were doing L4 combat missions, not L1 mining missions. Who the hell does that?), HACs in T3Cs, frigates and T3Cs in Battleships etc etc. I've hunted explorers into Providence, Orcas all the way across Eve into Minmatar space and bearing Rattlesnakes into Solitude, etc. It's a lot of work, it's shit in terms of killboard shinies and efficiency (seriously, I get more action in a month in any decent null corp than the entire lifespan of this wardec), but it's pretty good RP stuff. In lieu of RPers getting it together enough for some proper low/nullsec shenanigans, these are the perfect IC enemy targets. They have both publicly voiced themselves to be enemies of Miz's people, and regularly conduct combat operations against her people, documented on the killboards etc. Still, of course, I'm pushing non-consensual PvP on bears some of the time as I do this.

So, I figure I'll list up some of the complaints I've been getting lately, and give my view on them here. Perhaps others can chime in with counter-points and so on.

"You cant dictate how people play"

Correct. This isn't what I do, though. My powers being many and varied, they still do not encompass being able to force anyone to do anything in Eve. What anyone does in Eve is their own business, and I will never be able to dictate what they do or how they're supposed to react to what others do, etc. However, this goes both ways. You don't get to dictate what I or anyone else in Eve do, or how we play. For as long as we all play this game, we all labor under the exact same rulesets. The rulesets regarding wars may change soon, but before then and after, we all have the exact same terrain to navigate, the exact same conditions to labor under and so on. This means that indeed, none of us can dictate how people play. Only CCP can.

"Pretend we dont exsist"

No can do. This is a single shard persistent universe. It's the one sandbox, and as long as what we do ripple out and affect anything but ourselves, we also kind of have to acknowledge everyone else's existence when either we affect them, or they affect us. From the newblings mining in a venture in the newbcorp to a several hundred man combat focused corp dropping a few dozen caps on something, it's all part of the universe that we kind of have to acknowledge.

It's a bit strange to expect being able to publicly push being a certain kind of character and loyalist, and for opposing loyalists to pretend you don't exist?

(https://i.imgur.com/e9LIzJv.png)
RP in Eve.

"dont call what you do RP cause we dont care for it"

Well, we return to "not being able to dictate other people", don't we? To me - and it used to be far more widespread - that is the most outright RP you can really get in Eve. Undocking and fighting for what you stand for. It's honestly very odd to claim that an X Loyalist taking on Y Loyalists in PvP shouldn't be called RP. What we are or are not into in Eve doesn't really matter much. What Eve is, does matter. I am really not into a whole bunch of stuff in Eve, like Triglobytes and Doriftos, most of the bearing events and so on and so forth, but we really can't just go "Well I'm not into X or Y or Z, so it's not RP if your character is into X, Y or Z." That's nonsensical.

This one log is around nine-thousand characters and it's one of many. I've even been getting RL threats some times. However, in the interest of making this a discussion rather than an endlessly long ramble on how RP and PvP are intertwined in Eve, I'll just write up a quick conclusion and hopefully we can get some mature and reasonable discussion on the subject instead of that sort of thing:

Eve is PvP. There's just no way around it. From the outright combat oriented through markets and economy, or even the humblest Venture miner will be competing with other players in some form or another.

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Eve: Everyone vs Everyone

We're all under the same rules and start under the exact same conditions. We get to risk what we decide to risk and we get to reap the benefits and rewards of our actions. More importantly, in a single-shard persistent world, we get to reap or enforce the consequences of our actions and choices.

Choose to side with X or Y. Make decisions that makes you enemies of these or those. Choose to not make enemies. Choose to make all the enemies. Choose to do whatever you want. That's what Eve is all about. Of course, when you choose to be the enemy, is it really reasonable to expect that those enemies can't touch you? Is it reasonable to expect that we can do whatever we want, say whatever we want and do all of it without risking consequences at all?

I say... no. As roleplayers we are particularly beholden to this persistent universe. Our actions and choices matter that much more since our interactions are what forges the stories and progress of our characters and universe. This includes facing the consequences of our choices. This means that just like all other Eve players, when we log in, slap loyalties, words and actions onto our characters we consent to everything we've put ourselves at risk for. If we're in a player corporation, we're at risk of war. If we undock, we're at risk of suicides. If we anchor something, we're at risk of losing it. When we take a stand... we consent to someone trying to break us down.

We are not exempt from Eve players playing Eve at us, when we're playing Eve.

... also, we probably should go easy on the real life threats when someone does RP at us via F1-F4. I'm chill with it, but others would have reported for a ban. Let's keep the crushing of dreams in-game, hmm?

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Also RP in Eve.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 15 Oct 2018, 00:33
I am pretty much entirely in agreement with this. The ability to have non-consensual pvp is one of the most important parts of EVE, and a very essential element for good, immersive roleplaying. It's one of the many things in EVE that makes the game come across as a real alternate universe rather than just a video game. I get that it can be hard to deal with for some people, but removing it would hurt RP far more than it would help it, because the ability to separate and isolate RP into separate little bubbles results in communities becoming distant and the world getting smaller. Yes, having to share the world with people you might not like, or people who do things that you do not like, can be hard, but it is a fuller experience and one that is necessary for having depth and breadth of storytelling. The best RP communities I have ever been in are the ones where the community comes together and works together to build one whole, interweaved community and story, rather than those who split off into isolated cliques running their own storylines in small circles because they don't want to have to deal with anyone/any plot that they don't approve of. Learning how to deal with things that don't always meet your approval or aren't exactly what you want, whether pvp or otherwise, is a far healthier mentality than always constantly worrying, and it's one that translates to real life as well.

The problem specifically with pvp, of course, is that people have an instinctive, kneejerk reaction against it, because they have not really trained themselves to be prepared for it. PvP does not actually affect you in any way, even in a game with real loss like EVE, but if a person hasn't learned how to deal with it it can be a trying experience.

My very first MMO was EverQuest 1. I played it around when I was 13 or so, and had joined a guild of people my mom knew from work. The server we played on was Rallos Zek, which was a full-time pvp server. On EverQuest, pvp worked in that you could pvp, or be pvp'ed, by anyone within 4 levels of you, anywhere in the game (though strong city guards made cities somewhat safer). In addition, they could take items off of your corpse when you died (unless those items were in bags - which resulted in the equivalent of 'unplugging your implants' in EVE where you rushed to put everything on you in a bag when you knew you were going to die). Initially, I hated pvp. I was always the ganked, not the ganker, and I used such tactics as "pulling the net cable while moving zones to force a safe DC" to "whining and crying to my killer". But I, nowadays, consider it to have been a very positive experience to me, because it taught me from an early age how to deal with it. I got my anger and frustration out, and adapted. It was just a game, it was part of the game, and the only issue was my mindset. I later moved on to SWG, where I played a Jedi in the early days and had to deal with getting bounty hunted by other players (which would result in exp loss if they killed you). By this time, I found I loved the rush of it. Always being on the lookout for the chance someone might be after you, watching for the telltale 1 fps lag spike that indicated a person had 'spawned' into your nearby area, pve'ing on less-used planets where the presence of a blip on the minimap was almost surely a hunter, being on constant guard when in populated hubs. Prey mentality. And if they won, oh well, no big deal, because it's just a game. I later went on to an RP-PvP server in WoW, and now, EVE. In those, well, it's just, again, about always being prepared.

It is about your mindset. And mindset is something that can be changed. There is no one playing right now that can't decide for themselves to adapt how they look at PvP into a healthy one. There is no one that can't learn how to say, "I know there is non-consensual pvp in this game. I know that someone can or has warred against me and my guild. I know that they can attack at any time. So, before I undock, I should make sure that I am mechanically and mentally prepared for the chance that I get attacked." It might be hard to get yourself to that mindset, because the shock and surprise can be "traumatic", but once you do, your experience in not only EVE but in any game will be so much better. It even helps you in non-pvp-related roleplay, because that same mindset is one that helps you deal with negative consequences or losses that you incur during RP: "Okay, my character lost this fight/this argument/someone yelled at me, I can get angry and complain at them OOC, which won't accomplish anything, or I can just accept it and move forward."

It's honestly very odd to claim that an X Loyalist taking on Y Loyalists in PvP shouldn't be called RP.

...

Choose to side with X or Y. Make decisions that makes you enemies of these or those. Choose to not make enemies. Choose to make all the enemies. Choose to do whatever you want. That's what Eve is all about. Of course, when you choose to be the enemy, is it really reasonable to expect that those enemies can't touch you? Is it reasonable to expect that we can do whatever we want, say whatever we want and do all of it without risking consequences at all?

I say... no. As roleplayers we are particularly beholden to this persistent universe. Our actions and choices matter that much more since our interactions are what forges the stories and progress of our characters and universe. This includes facing the consequences of our choices. This means that just like all other Eve players, when we log in, slap loyalties, words and actions onto our characters we consent to everything we've put ourselves at risk for. If we're in a player corporation, we're at risk of war. If we undock, we're at risk of suicides. If we anchor something, we're at risk of losing it. When we take a stand... we consent to someone trying to break us down.

We are not exempt from Eve players playing Eve at us, when we're playing Eve.

+1
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: GoGo Yubari on 15 Oct 2018, 03:36
Q: What is best in life?

A: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!

'nuff said.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 15 Oct 2018, 08:32
Because the majority of rp conducted in other games is usually done in the walled garden of a guild, with little outside intrusion and where pvp is usually either consensual or restricted to specific areas.

Also: 99% of rp in Eve is mostly complaining about rp in Eve.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 15 Oct 2018, 09:08
You all know how I feel about this, I'm sure :P

I want to add one slight bit of nuance on the matter though, which is an idea of 'appropriateness' or 'deservedness' to unconsentual RP pvp.

Basically applying an 'appropriate' level of force and destruction on targets only up to a level appropriate with their game experience and veteran status.

-RPers whose characters 'run their mouth' IC and aren't expecting a rp pvper to smack them in space are delusional, and are due a proper spanking of their shinies to learn how this works.  This is an important lesson that a few exploded expensive ships can teach very quickly.

-Younger, newer RP corps and players, I always felt more appropriate to take a 'lighter' approach.  War decs of limited scope, hunting of limited nature, not trying to crush people out of the game overwhelmingly out of the bat.  Just because you are a 6 or 7 year vet and you have friends and resources to shit on younger RPers doesn't mean you necessarily -should-.  You can get your RP points across with an appropriate amount of destruction and not totally make people want to quit the game.  I think the idea is to show them that what they do and say in game has consequences, but that you'd rather them be a part of the community for the long haul and have them around, and that pew pewing them doesn't mean you don't like them.

-Veterans with resources and means, no holds barred. If you've been in the game a few years and know what you are doing, you are in the deep end and should not fear getting trashed most violently in any capacity.  You should know how to handle loss and realize its just game assets, you are gonna be ok.

You'd be amazed how many supposedly tough talking IC RPers after a few years in the game can still be brought to IRL depression and angst after losing a few space shinies, totally ridiculous.




Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 15 Oct 2018, 09:28
Frankly, you never know what's considered 'appropriate' by people until the dec goes live.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 15 Oct 2018, 09:45
-Younger, newer RP corps and players, I always felt more appropriate to take a 'lighter' approach.  War decs of limited scope, hunting of limited nature, not trying to crush people out of the game overwhelmingly out of the bat.  Just because you are a 6 or 7 year vet and you have friends and resources to shit on younger RPers doesn't mean you necessarily -should-.  You can get your RP points across with an appropriate amount of destruction and not totally make people want to quit the game.  I think the idea is to show them that what they do and say in game has consequences, but that you'd rather them be a part of the community for the long haul and have them around, and that pew pewing them doesn't mean you don't like them.

I'd agree with all of it, but the above needs one more qualifier: If the lesson does not take, the gloves come off. Especially if there are "vets" involved that should know better. I'll gladly nurture and guide a little newbling - Ferra Orta currently of Ushra'Khan and doing WH spoopypewpews on another character now is my proudest achievement - but if they go ultrasalt and just refuse to take kind advice or hints, instead just basically wallowing in self-pity about being 'bullied'... well, sod them.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 15 Oct 2018, 10:27
So, without wading into this topic, I'll note this:

If you receive any threats or excess salt from anyone in ARC, be sure to give me a heads-up so that I can talk some sense into the person.

Cheers.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 15 Oct 2018, 12:20
It's a game. played by people.

the setting of blocs against blocs means that there is very little room immersion wise to ""play nice"".

for example: take the situation of House Sarum vs House Ardishapur. Now, for two player entities, it's possible for a war between them, to result in a resolution whereby house Sarum agrees to something with house Ardishapur. And so, the sarumite characters and ardishapuritan characters can then choose to bear a grudge, or let bygones be bygones.

now take the example of Amarr Orthodox vs Sani Sabik. There Can Be No Resolution. There is No reasonable end to a war between those player entities.
"While vile mutants still draw breath, there can be no peace. While obscene heretics hearts still beat, there can be no respite. While faithless traitors still live, there can be no forgiveness.", as wh40k would say.
It can be argued that it is a betrayal of an Amarr characters fundamental nature, to allow a Sani Sabik to persist, to allow their organisation to exist in any way, shape, or form. They must be killed wherever they are found, their supporters and followers executed, their supplies and equipment burned.
From an IC sense, there is no reasonable force to be employed. YOu hit them hard, and keep hitting them, until they're dead.


Now, there are plenty more of these bitter conflicts, amarr vs minmatar for example, there's not really much of a middle ground there, is there.

So it ends up, that the only rp pvp that can be resolved, is the 'internal' disputes - between Houses in Amarr, between Megas in Caldari, between Tribes/Clans in Minmatar, between fashionistas in Gallente.

But for the big IC disputes, the only immersive resolution is to drive the enemy characters out of existence. Which usually requires making it extremely un-fun for the player behind that character to play at all.

So a lot of the time, the only way for a resolution ends up being to drive the opposing players out of the game. and you end up playing with yourself.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 15 Oct 2018, 15:22
Personally I am a big proponent of RP in space and actions having tangible consequences.

However.

I believe the issues with RP wardecs are the same issues that plague all of highsec wardecs. The problem isn't the RP side of things, it's the game mechanics behind it:
I very much agree with Silas' point about appropriate force. As much as an RP-inspired war can be about 'winning', I believe that in the spirit of collaborative story telling the war should, as best as possible, be fun for both sides. The relentless harassment of a group in the long term often does considerably more harm than good, especially if they're not a PvP motivated group.

Yes, of course, Eve is a PvP game and a non-consensual one at that, but the simple fact is some people aren't interested in space combat and aren't suddenly going to become budding space marauders just because they've been wardecced for the last 6 weeks. Some groups aren't going to fight no matter how hard you push them. We've seen this repeated thousands of times across more than a decade and a half of highsec wars.

In these cases, I believe there needs to be a point where the war is ended by some other means, whether that's IC negotiation or straight up surrender conditions.

I think the biggest point for me is that the game, and the RP, is more fun with enemies. Much like Batman and The Joker you can't just eradicate your enemies entirely because then what would you do all day?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Ukeko Ahrzi on 15 Oct 2018, 15:25
I'm of two minds on the issue.

On the one hand I hate to see the low trodden upon. I want to help people and try to save them, even though I can't.

On the other I love that EVE has consequences. Smack talk someone with a gun, get shot.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 15 Oct 2018, 16:24
Essentially +1 for Kala's post. Essentially all components of that are in play here. I doubt anyone with any sense or experience in EVE is going to be arguing in favor of safe spaces or words-without-consequences, so not much to say excepting that it seems a bit of a straw-man.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 15 Oct 2018, 17:08
I think there needs to be a differentiation between filing a wardec to achieve a specific RP political objective or goal against another group; and just slapping a group around because there's been such a breakdown of trust and respect between the players involved that any IC negotiation becomes impossible and the only thing left to do is just harvest the salt and killmails because you can.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 15 Oct 2018, 20:08
In my experience, diplomacy is pretty much always on the table... from the aggressors' side. Every war I've been involved in since I started Eve a decade ago has been wars where diplomatic solutions could be reached, be they the RP wars, un-official non-CONCORD wars, burning the north and so on... There's never been a war that couldn't just end.

... you know, if the defender offered reasonable surrender terms. Over the last ten(!) months, I've been approached for diplomacy once. The diplomat drunkenly fell asleep at the keyboard and it was never resumed/finished.

I don't think the self-destructive tendencies inflicted by pride and so on should really be blamed on the attackers. If a war drags on while it isn't wanted, but no one is willing to reach out to end it... well. That's a thing. As an example: yesterday I had a conversation with someone who genuinely felt that I was supposed to end all these wars out of nowhere. Not because I had an IC reason to. Not because I'd have an OOC reason to. I would, IC or OOC, be given no incentive to give up the wars. I should just do it, because... well, they didn't want to be at war, but they also didn't want to negotiate it, and they didn't want to RP it and so on and so forth.

It's this strange duality and dishonesty, where you are demonstrably having some sort of impact - the amount of privchats and other logs are kind of conclusive - but at the same time acknowledging this in any way IC is utterly unacceptable. Can't really have it both ways, can you? This then is the reason why there does need to be a victory conditions update for wardec mechanics etc: When the losing side decides to go down with the ship, stubbornly and out of pride refusing to simply lose and agree to terms, instead just crying out OOC about 'bullies', it really is not the attacker that's being unreasonable as far as I'm concerned.

I have genuinely never seen someone wardec someone else in Eve without being open to ending it with terms. The amount of times I've seen the losing side self-destruct rather than lose though... well, that's a rising number.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 15 Oct 2018, 20:48
So, I can't speak on all of it, as I'm sure there's more going on that I haven't seen. However, it seems a bit of a misrepresentation. After all, the "I'm so reasonable" line falls flat when ARC directly stated its intent to provide freed slaves to Khaprice Heska of U'K during the Dawn of Liberation event, and your OOC and IC response was, "Good! You're undocking!" and to hunt people who'd be freeing Matari and giving them to a Matari loyalist and loyalist organization.

And, of course, you then seemed to ignore when 2.75m freed slaves were provided despite your very concerted efforts to hunt people.

So, not saying that there couldn't be more done, but it seems like you're sort of overstating your position there.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 15 Oct 2018, 20:58
Edit; Nevermind actually. I really should stop taking derail bait. Call her unreasonable for not trusting slavers working with Sansha if you want.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 15 Oct 2018, 21:20
Uh, k.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 15 Oct 2018, 22:54

It's this strange duality and dishonesty, where you are demonstrably having some sort of impact - the amount of privchats and other logs are kind of conclusive - but at the same time acknowledging this in any way IC is utterly unacceptable. Can't really have it both ways, can you? This then is the reason why there does need to be a victory conditions update for wardec mechanics etc: When the losing side decides to go down with the ship, stubbornly and out of pride refusing to simply lose and agree to terms, instead just crying out OOC about 'bullies', it really is not the attacker that's being unreasonable as far as I'm concerned.


Look, I wasn't baiting, but I would say you're experiencing the frustrations that have existed with RP-PVP in Eve with all sorts of groups and has become a familiar cycle now:

RP-PVP group establishes itself on an IC premise and seeks to pursue its IC agendas through the use of force because it is deemed by its players as appropriate to their chosen background.

RP-PVP group in pursuit of its IC agenda starts a war against another RP group because in the context of their chosen background it is deemed appropriate.

The RP group that is wardecced, instead of fighting or negotiating IC with the RP-PVP group decides, "Hey, you know what? We can't fight these guys so instead what we'll do is call them a bunch of bullies and play the victim card both IC and OOC so maybe they will stop!"

RP-PVP group starts facing a whole lot of pushback and drama OOC over their actions by others in the RP community where they're painted as the villains for using force even though it is appropriate to their fictional background.

So yeah, when you say things like you've encountered things like RL threats, or that you're feeling confused and frustrated that you're called "irrelevant" on the one hand by your chosen roleplaying targets trying to belittle your in-game efforts in public to save face while in private you see the impacts of your actions as being pretty damn relevant to them by contrast I'd say I believe you because I've been there, and so have many others before.

The only question for any RP-PVP'er is usually when they come to the realization at just how Janus faced the RP community can really be when confronted with a situation they cannot just /emote their way out of as the victor is: do you go for the full scale nuclear option of maximum salt extraction upon your enemies or not.

And honestly, just because you and I would have what might be considered history it doesn't mean if you were to send me the logs or mails of folks in ARC threatening you in RL and I thought it verifiable, that I would not gladly wardec them myself.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 02:25
So, I can't speak on all of it, as I'm sure there's more going on that I haven't seen. However, it seems a bit of a misrepresentation.

Eh, the example you used wasn't anything relating to approaching and seeking a diplomatic solution, though. Just, "we did this thing we think should please you" then wondering why it wasn't responded to favorably. SFRIM/ARC probably would have been freely allowed to do it and even respected for it had there been resolutions arranged previously. Hell, I talked to people on Samira and gave suggestions on routes to pursue to get the war ended in relation to this event, but there just didn't seem to be any desire to pursue them.

In the case of this specific event, even if they're ultimately delivered to Minmatar agents, there's always cause to worry of insincerity or that some are getting skimmed off the top first. It kind of has to be factored in that there's reasons to distrust intentions, especially when SFRIM/ARC have given legitimate reasons to be suspicious of them (SFRIM working with Angels, Sansha people using ARC facilities during the event, etc).

Apologies for the derail.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 16 Oct 2018, 04:50
Just to expand on my earlier thoughts to Mizhara:

What I think you are experiencing is what every and any successful RP-pvp player or group will encounter in prosecuting their wars. That the roleplayers who are unable to deter you will resort to the only form of resistance they have available: to attack your reputation and that of your character. You will be cast as the villain and evil incarnate, a bully, a "griefer" and no doubt some kind of real life psychopath because you pvp. You will be character assassinated and slandered. You will have your roleplay cast as both irrelevant and illegitimate by what is considered the community. Every single attempt will be made to frustrate you, ostracize you, and make you a pariah until you stop and bend the knee to kiss the ring.

The thing is though, from what I see, everything Mizhara Del'Thul the character has done has been keeping in line with exactly what I would think a Minmatar willing to use violence to prosecute their goals and agendas would do.

So the only real question I think is if you want to stay true to your character at all times, or give in to the pressure and let the bastards win.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 16 Oct 2018, 06:18
I'm not sure it's strictly fair to say that Mizhara is being cast as a "real life psychopath" for pvping. I've certainly not seen anything to indicate that sort of behaviour.

In a game where everything is PvP, is it really a surprise that this includes PR? If SFRIM or ARC, or whoever it may be, cannot find a way to militarily defeat Mizhara ("defeat" in Eve being a fairly nebulous concept to begin with) then is it really surprising that they might turn to battlefields where they have a better chance? The court of public opinion may not be able to stop a war, but it can certainly be used as an effective tool to prevent others joining it.

As far as becoming a pariah, Mizhara(c) has never needed anyone's help with that ;)
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 16 Oct 2018, 06:44
A bit of hyperbole for effect in my previous statement, but seriously, notions on rp-pvp have gone through the exact same cycles since about day one in Eve and it's always going to remain a deeply polarizing issue -- the existence of these very forums for example being a result of the fallout from the Star Fraction days and the differing perspectives on what is and what is not legitimate in the use of pvp in rp (among a host of other issues).

Addendum: It's just that if you're going to push pvp hard in rp and be a bit of a dick about it then dont be surprised if there's pushback and criticism on it levied against you.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 16 Oct 2018, 08:22
Sami; my understanding is that overtures have been made at points, but they've been turned away, or else milked for maximum salt/humiliation before being turned away. And the entertaining thing about your second 'don't trust ARC' point is that it was a single Sansha RPer at the end of the event, in a freeport that Miz herself has used to lambast us as ignorant. So, either IKAME's ignorant of mechanics, or eeevil (collaborating with Sansha!), or... it's a freeport? And, either way, using it as justification for a preexisting declaration seems... circular?

Anyway, we could roll in the mud over this all day.

For me, the long and short is this. EVE is EVE. PvP in EVE can be consensual or non-consensual, and it is what it is. Even when we might roll our eyes at high-sec wardeccers or pipe-camping gankers, it's part of EVE. If anyone gets excessively salty or makes threatening statements, let Luna or I know, and we'll deal with it, as it sounds like Luna has in all cases she's known of before. In the meantime, I might recommend Miz being less self-congratulatory over successful salt farming. I don't think anyone has a moral high ground to put themselves on in an internet spaceship video game.

Mechanically speaking, though, Kala nailed it on wardecs. Given the structure in EVE, wardecs do vastly favor the attacker. There are no win conditions. Neutral alts, scouts, and channel surveillance (because RPers tend to be in visible places) make it easy to pick a target and hunt them for multiple days if need be. Miz *is* an eminently capable hunter, but also plays sporadically enough that planning to try to trap her is ineffective at best.

So, meh.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 16 Oct 2018, 08:42
I will grant a change to the highsec war mechanics to permit more social RP style corps to exist in a less hostile potential environment is a good thing to me.

Sure, some people might say no it's all about the Elite PVP and "lack of consequence" but honestly, as a roleplayer who pvp's you can be as safe from IC consequence in lowsec or null anyway if you know what you are doing.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 16 Oct 2018, 09:55
It's a very thin line between IC salt and rl salt. For some there is no line. For RPers having their characters and shinies getting shat on, there's usually no line.

Always been my least favorite part of Eve RPers, nobody like "losing" whatever the f that means in an RP context.  Losing is often actually much better for character development, makes you more "real."
I've always had 10x the respect for characters that could lose face IC and keep on trucking
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Isha Vuld on 16 Oct 2018, 10:23
Here is the whole problem with roleplay in EvE that I feel muddies this discussion considerably:

PvP, and frankly, EvE online in general is adverserial. Players do whatever they can to one-up one another.

Roleplay is cooperative.

This is a problem.

If you wardec another group of roleplayers and start PvP'ing at them when they don't want to, you are playing EvE exactly as intended. After all, that's what this game is famous for, isn't it boys and girls?

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IH0kitrgeIE/TxVtl8-cvCI/AAAAAAAAAdo/Xwp5j7_XAtI/s1600/htfu.jpg)

The problem in my mind is that roleplay is the exact opposite. Crafting a narrative takes hard work, writing ability, and most importantly, consent.

If you desire to do something to somebody else in a story setting that can not be done via hardcore PvP, you shall need their permission, and sometimes even active cooperation for it. If not, they will simply say "this did not happen" and all you have is a quagmire at worst, and at best, you get your way at the expense of driving roleplayers out of the community.

Excessive hostility is also, sadly, not something a roleplaying community can afford, because roleplaying communities are extremely small places. It is unfortunate that many communities have a tendency to alienate newcomers in spite of this, because they surely need new blood more then virtually any other kind of community in any MMO.

In short, you need each other, and it would be highly advisable to find some way of getting along with each other.

And this creates problems when the adversarial nature of EvE collides with the cooperative nature of the roleplaying format, specifically when you wardec an RP corp that simply wants nothing to do with you.

I'm not quite sure how to resolve this. EvE is a game where OOC and IC ambitions are highly entwined and this has the potential to get messy. If you wreck a corp's assets for RP reasons, they may well be OOC'ly miffed to have their hard work go up in flames. Their fault to be unable to defend it, except that for the roleplaying aspect of the game, cooperation is desired, and they will be unwilling to give it.

"Why is this my problem?" - Well, because there is the very real risk of an RP community dissolving into near non-existance or becoming restricted to only a tiny clique of people who never interact beyond their own circle, effectively resigning roleplaying in EvE as a nigh nonexistant aspect not worth bothering with.

If you ask me, this is a problem that doesn't have a fix though, and I'l tell you why. If we go the way of other MMO's and hold consent sacred and back off whenever an RP corp asks another roleplayer to stand down, then, I'm sorry guys but let's be real here: They will abuse that privilege as a shield to bail out of any conflict that doesn't go their way.

If you ignore the requests of other roleplayers however, then it is only reasonable that these people are not going to be in any mood to work with you on crafting a larger story or narrative, and you are indeed doomed to use only the constraints of the game mechanics for any future storytelling.

This, however, does have my preference. I would rather EvE be EvE. If you cannot hold on to your assets or are incapable of achieving an objective, then it sucks to be you, but that's the nature of the beast. I cannot imagine how drab the roleplaying world would be if we where not able to assault each other without consent. Oh no wait, I can, I've seen it in many other MMO's, and basically nothing of consequence ever happens because nobody will allow negative consequences to happen to them. Patently undesirable.

The best I can say is: Keep doing what you are doing and make life hell for your enemies, but do try to keep things amiable on an OOC level. Ideally, we should be able to have it both ways: Blast each other apart without being so sore that we cannot speak to each other OOC'ly.

Even outside of RP, this is considered important, and fleets I have been a part of have at several occasions ceased fire early and permitted the enemy to withdraw out of sportsmanship and for the sake of preserving amiable relations. We're all here to have fun, after all.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 16 Oct 2018, 10:39
Fair on all points, Isha, Silas.

Speaking generally, I do come back to Kala's "win conditions are amorphous," as well as Louella's "the only immersive resolution is to drive the enemy characters out of existence" for cross-faction adversity. Smart, no-holds play is optimal, but tends to run counter to narrative-building. God help us all if we actually won these big conflicts, because it'd mean we'd just killed the community.

For instance, let's take Nauplius. Here there's very much a split between 'optimal play' and narrative-building. To properly 'win' and stop Nauplius is to ignore him to the point that he gets bored, doesn't roleplay, and quits EVE. After all, playing with him in the normal IC fashion is 'giving him attention,' which motivates Nauplius to continue being Nauplius. The flip side is-- he's generating content. He's an over-the-top and somewhat ridiculous villain, and gives people something to do. However, to 'win,' we  need to ignore that content until the character withers on the vine, which is detrimental to the community.

On one hand, EVE must remain EVE. On the other hand, we're also engaged in creative (and in theory collaborative) story-telling. Some of the most recent 'wins' for Mizhara have, in fact, required other people to do things that were suboptimal, like Nauplius 'giving up' after a relatively brief period whereas optimal play would just be him logging off, logging back in five or nine days later, and doing his slave-sacrificing; or, in the case of the Khanid attack, ISD:NEC running with events that are essentially mediated by trade goods being in a given station, whereas at various points people call others out for story work that requires activity that isn't mechanically permitted.

So, as said, it's an odd one, and I don't really think there's a proper resolution.

But, that said, if any individual salts excessively or makes threats, make sure to give Luna and I a heads-up and we'll talk to them about EVE. vOv
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 11:18
I really didn't want this thread to become a debate on this particular conflict. It was meant to be about this particular phenomenon as it's been encountered throughout Eve's long career, and our views on it. Still, twice now there's been very specific examples drawn out and claims being made so I am going to have to respond or be pretty severely misrepresented, seemingly maliciously.

Sami; my understanding is that overtures have been made at points, but they've been turned away, or else milked for maximum salt/humiliation before being turned away.

There's been one. Miz was approached by a certain dessicated avocado who fell asleep in his soup mid conversation. Where that conversation was going to go is to this date entirely unclear. All other "overtures" as far as I can remember have been OOC in nature and largely consisting of accusations of bullying. Some of the better quotes have indeed ended up in my bio, like "pray you never meet me in real life you will not like it...." for instance. That one's nifty. "You are an asshole, there is no ic reason you would be in CVA space." is right up there with when a whole slew of us were accused of being "SSoE toting pacifists". I don't really count OOC salt spigots to be 'overtures' of much of anything, especially not when they often open with variants of "fuck you".


 
Quote
And the entertaining thing about your second 'don't trust ARC' point is that it was a single Sansha RPer at the end of the event, in a freeport that Miz herself has used to lambast us as ignorant. So, either IKAME's ignorant of mechanics, or eeevil (collaborating with Sansha!), or... it's a freeport? And, either way, using it as justification for a preexisting declaration seems... circular?

It was never used as a justification for the war declaration. It was further confirmation of ARC/SFRIM not being trustworthy. You can exclude people and entities from Freeports, and not doing so with creatures like Sansha etc is a very dire sign of "these can not be trusted with anything vulnerable.". The justification not to trust ARC/SFRIM at the beginning of the event was very simple: SFRIM had already disappeared thirty thousand people once before, and SFRIM members had broken deals and agreements in relation to even more of Miz's people on top of that. Throw in the fact that pretty much from the moment SFRIM joined ARC, their members started appearing on killboards fighting for the slaver Empire and the ARC/SFRIM combo instantly and very publicly made themselves an outright stated enemy of Miz and her people.

Expecting a Matari to trust them with one, much less hundreds, thousands or millions of their people is kind of a nonsensical notion.

Quote
In the meantime, I might recommend Miz being less self-congratulatory over successful salt farming. I don't think anyone has a moral high ground to put themselves on in an internet spaceship video game.

It's less about self-congratulations, and more lamenting the lacking willingness to resolve the issues. All this salt is so unnecessary. Instead of OOC recriminations over playing the game, perhaps diplomacy is in order?

Quote
Mechanically speaking, though, Kala nailed it on wardecs. Given the structure in EVE, wardecs do vastly favor the attacker. There are no win conditions. Neutral alts, scouts, and channel surveillance (because RPers tend to be in visible places) make it easy to pick a target and hunt them for multiple days if need be. Miz *is* an eminently capable hunter, but also plays sporadically enough that planning to try to trap her is ineffective at best.

You know, I dec'd this other bear alliance recently. They'd done my own bears grievous injustices, so Miz intervened. Pretty instantly I was expertly lured into a trap, my FleetPhoon and a Tengu up against not only the FleetPest and Ashimmu I'd initially scouted but also several logis, more Ashimmus and a Loki. If I hadn't lucked the fuck out and disengaged with haste, I would have been up shit creek without a paddle. It was gloriously done and if they'd had time for a backstop I'd be down two very expensive ships. Then we talked a bit, had a few good laughs, congratulated each other and so on. Then a couple of days later they actually attacked my Fortizar. Adrenaline rush extraordinaire. I hadn't "piloted" something that expensive in PvP since I flew the supers, and even then only when combining with alts. These bears came for me with gusto and vigor, and did fail eventually.

I was invited into their friends channel when the dec was over, as we'd jousted, tussled and then after a bit of diplomacy gotten to an agreement.

They trapped me, almost successfully. They attacked my Fortizar, also almost successfully. They didn't need to see me in channels or anything. They have less tools at their disposal to both be aware of me and my actions and countering them than any RP entity. Most of my scout alts are burned after a single kill or so and the rest of them are ones that are already known. You all have them marked, and you know when I have eyes on you guys. You also know when I'm online and in all likelihood know or can know exactly where I am. I should be one of the easiest marks to protect yourself from, or even be aggressive against out there.

Yes, highsec wardecs do favor the aggressor.

... to a degree. I'm also one single player. I can have a few scouts out there. If I luck out with the engagement location, I might be able to have a second combat character on grid making both of them work at 70% efficiency at best. Most of my hunts have been successful because of one thing: My enemies choose to not fight back, for the very most part. So many of my kills, other war targets have been in system or just one system over, but no one's come to help them. It's so rare to see them protect each other. I've had a WT RLML Caracal on grid with my Svipul, watch me warp to the ice-belt, where I slowboated almost 100km to reach the WT Hulk, kill it, loot it and leave... uncontested.

Okay I'm rambling by now, but the point is... yeah, this is hardly a situation where the defender is lacking options. Oh yes, if you guys spread out and bear solo and don't watch local I can probably rush in and get a kill. It's happened a few times now. However, how do you think I'd fare against two HACs? Three? A HAC and a Battleship? Two Battlecruisers even? You guys have the numbers and industry that vastly overshadows anything I could possibly bring out.

You won't, of course. People simply don't want to fight and that's fine. Just don't say it's because it can't be done. "We cant fight you" is a direct quote. It's also demonstrably wrong.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 11:44
reasonable surrender terms.

There are no such things in certain conflicts.

Would Mizhara the character ever agree to terms that included giving up support for slave rebellions ?

Would Aldrith the character ever agree to terms that included giving up the Imperial religion ?


The conflicts are not something that can be resolved like the Holder wars, where one side ceded a few planets to the other, and both agreed never to mention a certain incident ever again.

Terms would represent betraying the absolute core principles of the characters involved, in the majority of cases.

Giving in to terrorists/slavers/hedonists/whatever the gallente hate the caldari for.


now you can argue that breaking the core principles of a character would make for "good rp", and for a select tiny handful of players, that can actually do that, it might. But for other people, betraying the core principles of the character, causes the end of their interest in playing that character at all.

like terms that would include joining a true slave network. If people wanted to play a nation character, they'd have started a nation character.

If you the player end up having to do stuff as your character that you don't enjoy, then, why play ?


Say you have a Caldari character, and stuff happens, and the only 'honorable' course of action would be that Tea thing, and declare that character dead, never playing them ever again. Or, to dishonour their name, their family's name, their corporations name and so on, and go Gurista, in order to keep playing that character. But you have no real interest in the kind of largely random violencing that the Guristas do, or attempting to justify things in the somewhat farcical easter bunny events. If you did, you'd have made a character that was gurista from the beginning, wouldn't you. So either way, it's the effective end of playing that character.




and then there are the 'cheap' options of hahaaaa, clone backup ! and various other 'retcons' that people have attempted to make stick.


So, rppvp, lol. I dunno. vOv.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 11:47
Of course there are reasonable surrender terms in most conflicts. You're just making up extreme ones that only ridiculous characters would demand. Hardline characters doesn't mean too stupid not to moderate the demands. What stands in the way is the unwillingness to take any terms at all, because that would imply not being a flawless winner.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 12:17
go on then, you say there are reasonable surrender terms.

scenario A:

sani sabik corporation X is doing stuff in a constellation.
amarr corporation Y declares war to drive them out. And are thoroughly trounced by the blooders.

What reasonable terms exist for Y to surrender on, that will not label them to the entire rest of the amarr community as willing to negotiate with the vilest of vile heretics.


scenario B:

amarr corporation X is doing stuff somewhere.
minmatar corporation Y declares war to stop them. And get trounced.

what terms exist for Y to surrender on, that will not label them to the entire rest of the minmatar community as people willing to give in to the slavers ?


Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 12:20
Neither of those are 'surrender' scenarios. They're 'retreat, try again' ones. Neither side have won or lost. Now if the defenders had gone so far as to deny the aggressors the ability to go back and lick their wounds etc, then surrender would be a simple matter of "Yeah, we lost. We'll talk terms."
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 16 Oct 2018, 12:24
I think as the Eve culture has become a lot more competitive over the years it's probably had its own impact on RP groups.

The first RP corp I joined in 07 got beaten down hard first by CAIN and then Stimulus within the first 6 months of its existence. Both wars were negotiated out, roleplayed through, and no one cried foul or unfair.

I also remember the various wars EM and U'K were involved in at the time that didn't have sheer level of acrimony that you have today.

(Yes, I am aware of the irony of me saying that).
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 12:25
Now if the defenders had gone so far as to deny the aggressors the ability to go back and lick their wounds etc, then surrender would be a simple matter of "Yeah, we lost. We'll talk terms."

describe those terms.


because who the initial attackers/defenders are does not matter. A declares on B, loses, and B then declares on A, for a counter strike. It matters not what started it.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 12:30
... "describe those terms" what? They'd all depend entirely on the context and situation. You're inventing nonsense scenarios here and expecting answers to them.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 12:34
... "describe those terms" what? They'd all depend entirely on the context and situation. You're inventing nonsense scenarios here and expecting answers to them.

No I am not.


Explain, what compromise position you can see between slavery and freedom ?

what compromise there is between allowing human sacrifice, and not ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 12:35
scenario A:

sani sabik corporation X is doing stuff in a constellation.
amarr corporation Y declares war to drive them out. And are thoroughly trounced by the blooders.

What reasonable terms exist for Y to surrender on, that will not label them to the entire rest of the amarr community as willing to negotiate with the vilest of vile heretics.

scenario B:

amarr corporation X is doing stuff somewhere.
minmatar corporation Y declares war to stop them. And get trounced.

what terms exist for Y to surrender on, that will not label them to the entire rest of the minmatar community as people willing to give in to the slavers ?

The very fact that they lost is bad enough. Negotiating in surrender doesn't really pile much more onto 'we got our asses kicked by X'.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 12:38
Those aren't war goals, for fuck's sakes. It's not about ending the overall conflict. It's about agreeing to terms around the specific war. If one side ceases to be able to operate, then they can agree to terms in order to regain that ability, paying a price for it. The terms would, as I already said, be dependent on the specific situation they're in. The slavers agree to hand over X amounts of slaves and maintain that delivery weekly/monthly for Y amount of time in return for temporary cease-fire/peace as an example.

There's always potential terms, even if the overall conflict can't be solved.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 12:48
The slavers agree to hand over X amounts of slaves and maintain that delivery weekly/monthly for Y amount of time in return for temporary cease-fire/peace as an example.

Abandon their holy duty as Imperial citizens to cultivate the spirit of man, and hand over imperial subjects to minmatar terrorists. Betraying two core principles of almost any Amarr character (except the ultra-mercantile tash-murkonites, i guess).

okay. that sounds perfectly ~reasonable~.


now find the middle ground between allowing the most vile of vile heretics to continue to preach and practice their religion, and burning them all.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 12:55
Oh now they're "Imperial Citizens upholding holy duties". Of course you're not going to find reasonable terms when you MJD the goalposts with every post. And for your second nonsense scenario: If they're in a position to burn them, they can burn them. If they're not in a position to burn them, they can't negotiate fuck all anyway. Your scenarios are nonsensical and have nothing to do with conflicts in Eve.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 12:57
The slavers agree to hand over X amounts of slaves and maintain that delivery weekly/monthly for Y amount of time in return for temporary cease-fire/peace as an example.

Abandon their holy duty as Imperial citizens to cultivate the spirit of man, and hand over imperial subjects to minmatar terrorists. Betraying two core principles of almost any Amarr character (except the ultra-mercantile tash-murkonites, i guess).

okay. that sounds perfectly ~reasonable~.

If you have lost the war, you aren't the one that gets to dictate terms in a way that upholds your pride or values. If you want to maintain those, then you need to win. Or fight to the bitter end.

Also, we've seen the literal emperor of Amarr deliver slaves to the Republic. That is hardly beyond Amarrian diplomatic sensibilities.

Quote
now find the middle ground between allowing the most vile of vile heretics to continue to preach and practice their religion, and burning them all.

Again, if you lost the war, you don't really get to have a middle ground. You tried to burn them all, and failed. Thus, you have no choice but to come to terms in a way that tolerates or even benefits them, because you failed in your efforts to challenge them. The alternative is that you keep fighting to the bitter end.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 13:07
If you want to maintain those, then you need to win. Or fight to the bitter end.

isn't that the whole point.



Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 13:12
Oh now they're "Imperial Citizens upholding holy duties".

of course they are, it's right there in the scriptures :U


Of course you're not going to find reasonable terms when you MJD the goalposts with every post. And for your second nonsense scenario: If they're in a position to burn them, they can burn them. If they're not in a position to burn them, they can't negotiate fuck all anyway. Your scenarios are nonsensical and have nothing to do with conflicts in Eve.

the majority of conflicts in eve, in nullsec, lowsec, wormhoels, etc. are all about making the mad isks, or getting dank killmails. compromise is possible there.

rp conflicts are far, far, far more about principles. the principles on which people wrote their characters. compromise is far more difficult to achieve there.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 13:18
I'd believe that if I ever saw people give their characters principles of any kind and make them stick. That's one of those unicorns you just won't find in Eve.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 13:20
I'd believe that if I ever saw people give their characters principles of any kind and make them stick. That's one of those unicorns you just won't find in Eve.

so, mizhara the character is prepared to wobble on the principle of "better to die a freeman than live a slave".

I find that hard to believe.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 13:21
If you want to maintain those, then you need to win. Or fight to the bitter end.

isn't that the whole point.

The whole point was that you said there are "no reasonable surrender terms". Which is not true at all. There are surrender terms that are difficult to stomach, that hurt your pride and make you feel like you're failing your goals/your faction's goals, sure. But that doesn't make them 'not reasonable'.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 13:22
a) You know exactly fuck all about Miz. b) This is, again, a scenario that has exactly fuck all relevance to anything that can realistically happen in Eve.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Isha Vuld on 16 Oct 2018, 13:25
I believe that was indeed the entire point, Samira, that there really is no way for certain RP corps in conflict with each other to ever reach terms, and barring that, the only way to actually achieve a "permanent victory" is to push so relentlessly hard the other side stops having fun and quits, disbanding their corp or most likely having their members quit the same.

Surrender terms may be "reasonable", but they would also effectively rob the corp of a reason for existing. I have to say though, that doesn't seem to stop anybody. In fact I am not sure I have yet met an RP corp that doesn't have a graveyard's worth of skeletons in it's closet.

There is some fact to back up the argument of wardecs being a good way to ruin or oust players, however:

"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." - https://newedenreport.com/2018/10/06/csm13-summer-summit-minutes-and-how-war-decs-are-killing-eve/

I feel that this is also true, especially if the parties involved in the war have no desire to actually leave each other be. Now, it seems to me that in some cases, for example, an Amarr vs Minmatar conflict, that the losing party could simply withdraw to their faction's core systems to lick their wounds and rebuild. Yield the field, as it where, cease operations for a while. But if they are incapable of actually surrendering entirely and their enemies are unwilling to go with the idea that they could not or should not pursue their enemies all the way to the core worlds, then they are simply screwed, as one side cannot surrender, the only resolution beyond "backing off and leaving each other be" is to press down until the corp and its players are no more.

This becomes far more likely when two participants are of such conflicting ideologies, and hold such a burning hatred for each other IC that neither would ever capitulate. On an OOC level, however, no sane roleplayer should ever want to actually drive another roleplayer out of the game, or break up a roleplaying corporation.

That is very much the definition of "shitting where you eat".

Once again this is the unfortunate situation that can occur when the adverserial nature of EvE gameplay meets the cooperative nature of roleplay and things do not go well.

That being said, I also have to agree with Mizhara that there are enough stories floating around of just about every RP corp associating with people, flying alongside people, or being engaged in operations that absolutely take a dump on everything their character and nation supposedly stands for that it seems highly dubious that any of them would stick to their guns so brutally as to force a "victory or death" situation.

They seem perfectly happy to commit or endorse the most atrocious things for the sake of scoring a win or avoiding trouble, which does make one wonder why adopting the demands of their sworn enemy would suddenly be a hill to die on.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 16 Oct 2018, 13:29
if I ever saw people give their characters principles of any kind and make them stick.

I resemble that remark!

There's quite a few of them around actually.

Also this reeks of "urdoingitwrong". Every character is going to have their own unique set of principles, and will be following them as best they can. What those principles are, and how flexible they may be, will be entirely up to the player behind the character.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 13:32
It pretty much becomes a case of, 'is this term worth holding onto a war you really don't like?'. Cost analysis. There are some things that the sacrifice of which would be viewed as worse than the war itself, absolutely. But I think the range of options that are better than the war (if you really don't like the war) is quite large. Frankly, moreso in RP than in non-RP stuff, IMO, because in RP you can often get conditions that are 'easy' to fulfill, RP conditions, compared to terms of paying billions of isk (or citadels/territory as recently happened out in null).
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 13:34
I'd believe that if I ever saw people give their characters principles of any kind and make them stick. That's one of those unicorns you just won't find in Eve.
so, mizhara the character is prepared to wobble on the principle of "better to die a freeman than live a slave".
I find that hard to believe.
a) You know exactly fuck all about Miz. b) This is, again, a scenario that has exactly fuck all relevance to anything that can realistically happen in Eve.

It is a principle that Mizhara the character seems to have expressed as being important, on the IGS forum.

So, either the character is prepared to stick to their principles, or they're not. You the player say that no player plays a character who would stick to their principles.

I find that surprising in the case of Mizhara the character. The idea that that character would compromise on one of their principles, goes against everything that has been portrayed.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 16 Oct 2018, 13:35
Now, it seems to me that in some cases, for example, an Amarr vs Minmatar conflict, that the losing party could simply withdraw to their faction's core systems to lick their wounds and rebuild. Yield the field, as it where, cease operations for a while.

This is more or less how the mutual war between PIE and Electus Matari worked for years. They would fight when infringing on each others territory, and in the warzones in lowsec, but it was quite possible for members of both sides to head back to their Empire's core systems and take some time to rearm and recover.

This worked because the war existed for the goals of territorial defense and occasional raiding, not existential conflict. Both sides understood that the destruction of the other was not a reasonable, realistic, or beneficial end-goal.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Garion Avarr on 16 Oct 2018, 13:44
Sami; my understanding is that overtures have been made at points, but they've been turned away, or else milked for maximum salt/humiliation before being turned away.

There's been one.
Factually and demonstrably incorrect.

A: While not an approach, I am given to understand that you told Luna at the beginning of the war that negotiation would be pointless and that there was nothing we could do.  That may not have been the message you intended to convey (given you later said that you only meant there wasn't anything 'you could think of'), it was, however, the message that was taken by us at the time.

B: A successful negotiation was made in which an agreement to not engage each other when Nauplius was on grid was reached.  Not actually sure who made the initial approach.

C: You were invited to fly alongside us in the Drifter fleets, with a ceasefire in effect during the fleets.

D: I specifically attempted negotiations during the Dawn of Justice event to arrange for a temporary cease fire to all us to better engage in anti-slavery operations.

E: Luna approached you about what terms you might find acceptable when she had you as a guest in her gardens.  She very explicitly asked you what options you thought there were for ending the war.  You repeated that you didn't think any you could think of would be acceptable, though you did say you'd listen to ideas we might have.

There have possibly been others I cannot confirm at the moment, but I don't have references for them at hand.

So it is incorrect to say that Ibrahim's meeting was the only attempt at negotiation or diplomacy.  There have been several, and you have implied to us more than once that without giving up the core of our identity, any attempt will be unsuccessful.



(I do have thoughts on the actual topic, and will post them later).
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 14:06
It is a principle that Mizhara the character seems to have expressed as being important, on the IGS forum.

So, either the character is prepared to stick to their principles, or they're not. You the player say that no player plays a character who would stick to their principles.

I find that surprising in the case of Mizhara the character. The idea that that character would compromise on one of their principles, goes against everything that has been portrayed.

... she's literally incapable of both death and slavery. She's a capsuleer. This is one of the most nonsensical hypotheticals in existence.

Quote from: Gary
A: While not an approach, I am given to understand that you told Luna at the beginning of the war that negotiation would be pointless and that there was nothing we could do.  That may not have been the message you intended to convey (given you later said that you only meant there wasn't anything 'you could think of'), it was, however, the message that was taken by us at the time.
Actual copypasted wording:

"Wardec incoming.

Reason: I'm sure you can imagine.
Terms: None really.
Intent: ... eh, might hunt if bored, but mostly just making sure CONCORD doesn't get in the way if opportunities arise.
Timeframe: Until the ISK runs out, I guess? I highly doubt SFRIM has anything to offer to shorten this."

None of this implies any kind of diplomatic impossibility. The wording isn't even ambiguous, it just says "Can't think of anything off the top of my head." in less words.

Quote
B: A successful negotiation was made in which an agreement to not engage each other when Nauplius was on grid was reached.  Not actually sure who made the initial approach.

I don't consider random chatter in the Summits etc to be 'diplomatic talks'. It's random chatter. Although I think this was before Miz got banned from TGW. That was basically the point when I realized diplomatic solutions were kind of unlikely, as AmarrBloc started closing avenues of peaceful interaction without even pretending there were rules broken or anything like that.

Quote
C: You were invited to fly alongside us in the Drifter fleets, with a ceasefire in effect during the fleets.

See above. There was never any diplomatic talks on the subject, just random SFRIM members and random chatter. It's like calling Trump's Tweets international diplomatic missives.

Quote
D: I specifically attempted negotiations during the Dawn of Justice event to arrange for a temporary cease fire to all us to better engage in anti-slavery operations.

Here you may actually be right. I think I do recall a brief conversation on that subject, yeah. You may have to remind me of the details, but didn't that basically end up with you having nothing to offer in terms of trustworthiness etc?

Quote
E: Luna approached you about what terms you might find acceptable when she had you as a guest in her gardens.  She very explicitly asked you what options you thought there were for ending the war.  You repeated that you didn't think any you could think of would be acceptable, though you did say you'd listen to ideas we might have.


Luna tried very hard not to talk about the conflict (and others having read the logs can confirm this), and basically just confirmed to Miz that the terms Miz could think of off the top of her head were simply unacceptable. Luna refusing to actually discuss and talk diplomacy  during that meeting torpedoed that, and also means it was not a diplomatic talk. If you'd like, I can provide the logs.

Quote
So it is incorrect to say that Ibrahim's meeting was the only attempt at negotiation or diplomacy.  There have been several, and you have implied to us more than once that without giving up the core of our identity, any attempt will be unsuccessful.

It was, (other than the Liberation Day event talk with you, thank you for reminding me) the only time I am aware of where Miz was contacted with diplomatic talks in mind. Random chatter with random members really don't count. Especially when there's never any terms offered or discussed. Miz even offered some to Lunarisse, but there was no interest in discussing it further. What you're willing to give up or not is kind of up to you guys IC. Miz has set forth pretty strong options (reasonable ones as far as I'm concerned, and hardly demands ceding the 'core of your identity') and there hasn't even been a revised offer in return.

You're right though, there's been more than one. There's been a whopping whole two. I forgot about our brief talk.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 14:09
It is a principle that Mizhara the character seems to have expressed as being important, on the IGS forum.

So, either the character is prepared to stick to their principles, or they're not. You the player say that no player plays a character who would stick to their principles.

I find that surprising in the case of Mizhara the character. The idea that that character would compromise on one of their principles, goes against everything that has been portrayed.
... she's literally incapable of both death and slavery. She's a capsuleer. This is one of the most nonsensical hypotheticals in existence.

Either Mizhara the character would compromise their principles, or they would not.

capsuleer status of the character is irrelevant.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 14:14
In this case, it's literally impossible for her to compromise that principle.

But yeah, Miz is entirely capable of compromising her principles. She's just as human as anyone else out there. She's got enough public failures, fuck-ups and bad choices gathered up in her decade as a capsuleer to fill books.

Why are you fixating on this? You're so weird.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 16 Oct 2018, 14:19
Isha; that's part of what's curious about these sets of wars. In Mizhara's case, she's derided the FW mechanics OOCly and ICly, but also wants factional war, and so has had wardecs active against most Amarr corps since December of 2017. This gives her free run of all of space, and she'll also pew in the warzone a bit also.

The SFRIM wardec was inherited by ARC when SFRIM joined the alliance proper (as we'd sort of been 'the tiniest coalition' with a handful of other corps beforehand), so they've been under essentially continuous wardec for ten months or so and IKAME's gotten the bonus of the wardec for a bit over five months. At the outset, Miz was hiring Mercenary Coalition to drop SFRIM structures, though I think that's not happened much since.

To be perfectly honest, ARC isn't much of a PvP entity. It's not a primary function of the group. SFRIM's sort of always been the carebear-y side of Amarr RP, and IKAME was started as a Caldari research/exploration corp. We can pew if need be, and people are encouraged to fly with friends for more content (hence mostly SFRIM flying with PIE more nowadays), but, well... yeah. It is what it is.

The specific case of the person who said Miz doesn't have a reason to be in CVA space-- well, in the first place, that's an odd claim on their part. However, I can understand how the person felt the situation had gotten a bit personal. It was a recent returnee to SFRIM, I think a fairly carebear-y, relatively inexperienced EVE player. Miz popped him twice on his first day back to SFRIM in industrials, he went out to Providence to do some nullsec exploration, and Miz hunted him down and killed him again three days later. Naturally, as said, Miz is a practiced and capable hunter. In this case, the target understandably felt that the situation was personal (after all, a single individual pursued them to nullsec), got angry (not justified), and has since unsubbed. I've got mixed feelings on that. On one hand, if someone's going to unsub over losses, perhaps EVE isn't the game for them. On the other hand, perhaps if they had been introduced more slowly they'd actually take it up.

Ultimately, however, past is past. There are plenty of ways to play EVE, and I'm not going to cast aspersions on someone for playing one way or another. The only thing that bugs me is the moralizing about it.

This is an internet spaceship video game. It's really not worth this sort of thing.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 16 Oct 2018, 14:22
In this case, it's literally impossible for her to compromise that principle.

only when its applied to themselves.



and badgering you on a single point is the only way that you ever answer anything, instead of twisty turning and moving the goalposts. So you can dial down your ooc hostility.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 16 Oct 2018, 14:30
In any case, the conversation's gotten a bit off the rails.

At the most basic point, I repeat; Miz, if someone salts excessively or engages in RL threats, then make sure to mention it to Luna and I, and we'll straighten 'em out.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 14:38
The specific case of the person who said Miz doesn't have a reason to be in CVA space-- well, in the first place, that's an odd claim on their part. However, I can understand how the person felt the situation had gotten a bit personal. It was a recent returnee to SFRIM, I think a fairly carebear-y, relatively inexperienced EVE player. Miz popped him twice on his first day back to SFRIM in industrials, he went out to Providence to do some nullsec exploration, and Miz hunted him down and killed him again three days later. Naturally, as said, Miz is a practiced and capable hunter. In this case, the target understandably felt that the situation was personal (after all, a single individual pursued them to nullsec), got angry (not justified), and has since unsubbed. I've got mixed feelings on that. On one hand, if someone's going to unsub over losses, perhaps EVE isn't the game for them. On the other hand, perhaps if they had been introduced more slowly they'd actually take it up.

Talked a few times to that person during those days. Explained to them why they lost the first hauler, how they could have saved the second, etc. Got them into contact with Arsia Elkin (for the uninitiated, one of the more public PvPers in AmarrBloc, streams and pewpews on the regular) who was running some PvP classes at the time (I think they joined one of the classes, I can't be sure). Between Arsia and me both giving advice and encouragement, I'm not sure how much more they can expect.

I mean, they were even told that the only reason they were targeted was because they were the only target out there to hunt.

Quote
The only thing that bugs me is the moralizing about it.

It's not moralizing. I didn't even want this thread to be specifically about this war. I just wanted to remind people that non-consenting PvP is integral to Eve and even more important in an RP framework. More importantly, that OOC complaints are far less likely to get any results than simply negotiating a peace IC.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 16 Oct 2018, 14:39
PIE does not negotiate with terrorists.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 14:41
PIE does not negotiate with terrorists.

Damn well hope not. Un-mutualing the war though, that's just a cheap snub.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 16 Oct 2018, 14:44
We also reserve the right to snub opponents we deem beneath our attention. It is well-known that looking down one's nose at a lesser is an effective means of deterrence.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 16 Oct 2018, 14:46
I didn't even want this thread to be specifically about this war.
Perhaps not, but you did introduce it to the discussion.

Quote from: Mizhara
Now, I bring this up because I've been getting a resurgence of complaints about exactly this. As some of you may know, I've wardecced pretty much the entire AmarrBloc and occasionally hunt them in high, low and null.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 14:51
As a general example yes, without any particular specifics. Then twice there was direct call-outs and misrepresentation. It's just unnecessary.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 16 Oct 2018, 14:58
Was my fault, sorry. I should have left it alone the first time around.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 16 Oct 2018, 15:14
Is it really unnecessary? What other long term, high community involvement RP wars are going on at the moment? It's being brought up because it's the obvious example to talk about.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Garion Avarr on 16 Oct 2018, 15:24
So, I find that I pretty much agree with Isha on this subject.  However, to touch upon a few points in my own words:

I do believe that IC actions need to be able to have consequences enforced.  In Eve, this is very often accomplished by blowing things up.  That's part of the nature of Eve, and RP in Eve has to include this.  In principle, I think that people should follow what their characters would do as much as possible.  And in some cases, one wouldn't be being true to one's character if one didn't try their hardest to destroy another group, or ruin the life of another individual.  And, for that matter, in some cases one wouldn't be true to one's character if one ever gave in to or negotiated with such attempts.  While I may suck at Eve PvP, my personal RP philosophy is that PvP is an entirely valid -- and even needed -- part of RP, and that one should never take personally another player's attempts to completely ruin or end your character or organization's life.  It's just a game.

As a player, that works for me pretty well.

As a director of a corp in Eve, and as a community member and not simply an individual, I see the places it breaks down.

As a community member, I do still lean pretty heavily on the 'PvP is a good thing, it is fine to destroy the lives of other characters' side.  There's just no real stakes to things otherwise.  But I recognize that we also need to make sure we don't make it unfun for the other players when doing things.  We need to make sure we don't drive people away from the community.  It's harder in Eve, where you can't really accomplish the objectives of destroying organizations or killing characters very reliably without simply making things so unfun for people that they quit.  We want to avoid making people quit.  What can we do to keep people from OOC not having fun, while ruining the IC lives?  That's much harder to say.  OOC check ins with players, setting expectations, ect, are all possible steps, but the truth is, even though Eve is at its core a PvP game, everyone here has different expectations, and human beings are notoriously bad at staying objective and not losing their tempers when things aren't going their way.

As a director, I also have a responsibility to the members of my corp.  I see how things affect them OOC as well as IC.  I see their frustrations, I know that some of them want to only RP part time and just do missions or mine without worrying about a RP war the rest of the time.  Such a playstyle may not appeal to me, others may prefer to consider oneself always IC no matter what they are doing in game, but as a director, I have to ensure the needs of both our more hardcore and our more causal players are being met.  And they're not being met.  I think this can mostly be traced to problems with the wardec system itself, but it's plain to me as a director that, ultimately, playing this way leads to people leaving the RP community, either via quitting altogether or via deciding that getting involved in the RP aspect of Eve means people will target them for that when they simply want to enjoy playing Eve.



Ultimately, I believe we do need to have PvP be a strong and integral part of Eve RP.  It's frankly phony if we don't.  But when it starts driving people away -- we better start looking to fix that damn quickly.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Synthia on 16 Oct 2018, 16:29
I'd believe that if I ever saw people give their characters principles of any kind and make them stick. That's one of those unicorns you just won't find in Eve.

Valerie Valate, has the principle of only ever having positive standings with the Covenant, and not shooting blood raider npcs for the isk, unlike just about every other self-declared sani-sabik rper.

As for that whole thing about making unreasonable demands. Look back to that stupid Jovian meme worm incident. Several of you lot were demanding that VV be punished with standings alterations that would make her unable to participate in any future live events, unless she was to grind innumerable shitty level 1 missions. ye, no ooc salt because you lot were sick of losing stupid forum & chat arguments to VV.



So, to the thread topic question. No. You cannot expect safety as RPers.

But the danger of letting rip with full force on RP enemies, is that you strangle anything new that is tried, leading ultimately to stagnation and decay.

If there are no heretics, what fun is there in playing an inquisitor ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 16 Oct 2018, 21:23
Eve war mechanics are terrible and they've been terrible for RP for 15 years with regards to radically opposed idiology.  They work much better for RP with small scale limited Corp warfare, like say two caldari industrial corps agressing for market share or resources. They work terribly for permaconflict Amarr/Matari loyalist types, who would never surrender nor come to terms.
  we work around as best we can.   We handwave around the ridiculous circumstances often, if you want to keep your character remotely sane. 
CCP needed a more granual wardec system to integrate things like vendettas, religious conflict, economic conflict, etc to work within the various factions and have faction specific win conditions and resolution methods. A conclave! Tribal gathering! Rival ceo corp share voting blocs! Who knows.
Nauph and that style of content generation is a whole other discussion which I'll get snipped for I'm sure
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 16 Oct 2018, 22:49
As a director, I also have a responsibility to the members of my corp.  I see how things affect them OOC as well as IC.  I see their frustrations, I know that some of them want to only RP part time and just do missions or mine without worrying about a RP war the rest of the time.  Such a playstyle may not appeal to me, others may prefer to consider oneself always IC no matter what they are doing in game, but as a director, I have to ensure the needs of both our more hardcore and our more causal players are being met.  And they're not being met.  I think this can mostly be traced to problems with the wardec system itself, but it's plain to me as a director that, ultimately, playing this way leads to people leaving the RP community, either via quitting altogether or via deciding that getting involved in the RP aspect of Eve means people will target them for that when they simply want to enjoy playing Eve.



Ultimately, I believe we do need to have PvP be a strong and integral part of Eve RP.  It's frankly phony if we don't.  But when it starts driving people away -- we better start looking to fix that damn quickly.

There's been a lot of good ideas in that humongous threadnaught on the CSM Minutes on how to change the wardec mechanics, but that's ultimately not going to solve much for us short-term. We have the mechanics we have, so any solution will have to come from us. However, I suspect there won't be any solution in that regard, because the impression I get is that no one in the RP community is willing enough to lose. Instead, it'll just go on and the damage you mention will happen.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Synthia on 16 Oct 2018, 23:37
the impression I get is that no one in the RP community is willing enough to lose.

CTCS is. Couple others. Nauplius even.

But apparently their styles don't meet the ~~elite rp~~ criteria.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Veiki on 17 Oct 2018, 00:49
CCP needed a more granual wardec system to integrate things like vendettas, religious conflict, economic conflict, etc to work within the various factions and have faction specific win conditions and resolution methods. A conclave! Tribal gathering! Rival ceo corp share voting blocs! Who knows.
Nauph and that style of content generation is a whole other discussion which I'll get snipped for I'm sure

I still think it's a shame CCP never allowed the ability to conduct orbital bombardment of planetary infrastructure directly. There really isn't a limited or retaliatory strike option for RP wars -- it's either have the fleet on hand to hit a poco/citadel in terms of opposing infrastructure or nothing at all.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 17 Oct 2018, 01:06
It really depends on what you consider losing.

This has a lot to do with what I touched on earlier when saying that there are no set victory conditions and "defeat" in Eve being an extremely nebulous concept.

Goons "lost" WWB, yet they walked away with 90% of their assets and membership intact and very quickly established a position stronger than the one they had just been forced out of.

If we consider that the usual "win" of an Eve war cannot be applied (making your opponent quit the game) here, we very quickly end up in a situation where the war won't end, not because people aren't willing to lose, but because they don't think they are losing.

I'm going to keep using Mizhara v AmarrBloc because it's the only example that's really pertinent right now. These next points are hypotheticals intended to show why things quickly lock into a status quo.

Mizhara thinks she is winning because SFRIM/ARC/etc are unable to stop her from hunting and killing their individual pilots.

SFRIM/ARC/etc think they're winning because Mizhara is unable to meaningfully disrupt their primary content (RP/Hive Ops/etc) as an organisational whole.

Neither side have any reason to surrender.

As my first FC and PvP mentor Arkady Sadik used to say,
Quote
"Wardeccing RPers is largely pointless. They're the only group in the game who often enjoy being docked more than undocking."
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 17 Oct 2018, 02:21
As for that whole thing about making unreasonable demands. Look back to that stupid Jovian meme worm incident. Several of you lot were demanding that VV be punished with standings alterations that would make her unable to participate in any future live events, unless she was to grind innumerable shitty level 1 missions. ye, no ooc salt because you lot were sick of losing stupid forum & chat arguments to VV.

Actually, that event was a prime example of someone who couldn't deal with consequences. It had nothing to do with "losing forum and chat arguments to VV". People loved seeing it because it was amazing to see CCP actually impose real in-character consequences for in-character actions. We'd all been wanting to see that for a very long time - after CCP hit Koro and other characters with a standings drop, people (including Koro and co) loved it, and when CCP reverted it, everyone (including Koro and co) hated it. In this case, the character made the choice to stonewall CONCORD, and was threatened with consequences, continued to defy, then got hit with consequences... then whined OOC. An act which could threaten the possibility of CCP doing something like that again with other people, because, as CCP has said before, the reason they don't do that kind of stuff more often is because they can't be sure of who will actually respond to it like an adult, and who will whine and bitch.

IC actions, IC consequences.

CTCS is.

You literally showed you weren't, during the Jovian meme worm thing.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 17 Oct 2018, 02:58
Goons "lost" WWB, yet they walked away with 90% of their assets and membership intact and very quickly established a position stronger than the one they had just been forced out of.

Which demonstrates very nicely that losing in Eve is something you can come back from. It's worth it.

Quote
If we consider that the usual "win" of an Eve war cannot be applied (making your opponent quit the game) here, we very quickly end up in a situation where the war won't end, not because people aren't willing to lose, but because they don't think they are losing.

I'm going to keep using Mizhara v AmarrBloc because it's the only example that's really pertinent right now. These next points are hypotheticals intended to show why things quickly lock into a status quo.

Mizhara thinks she is winning because SFRIM/ARC/etc are unable to stop her from hunting and killing their individual pilots.

SFRIM/ARC/etc think they're winning because Mizhara is unable to meaningfully disrupt their primary content (RP/Hive Ops/etc) as an organisational whole.

Neither side have any reason to surrender.

I would agree with this... if it hadn't been for the long list of complaints, privchats and so on. You can see it pretty consistently in these kinds of conflicts. Thanks to the mechanics of Eve, you can almost always twist things to make it look like you're doing just fine, IC in particular, in spite of the OOC stuff saying otherwise. You're of course right that in a lot of cases both sides can be "winning" both by their own metrics and simply by dint of neither side really affecting the other too much, but this doesn't apply to all such conflicts. I'd especially say it doesn't if there's this much desire to end it OOC.
Quote
As my first FC and PvP mentor Arkady Sadik used to say,
Quote
"Wardeccing RPers is largely pointless. They're the only group in the game who often enjoy being docked more than undocking."

Ain't this the truth? When I get complaints about who I go after for a kill and have to explain "... yeah but they were literally the only ones undocked that I could find." I genuinely wish it'd make sense to just fuck off back to some null entity.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Synthia on 17 Oct 2018, 11:28
You literally showed you weren't, during the Jovian meme worm thing.

That's not my recollection at all. What are you basing that on ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 17 Oct 2018, 12:32
You literally showed you weren't, during the Jovian meme worm thing.

That's not my recollection at all. What are you basing that on ?

I said it in the first part of my post. Complaining OOC about getting hit with -10 standings because of the willful choice to withhold the items CONCORD requested.

I think I'm misremembering though. The Jovian meme worm incident might have been something else. I was referring to the Corrupted Tinary Relic withheld during the timey wimey event. If the two were separate events then that's my mistake and I apologize. I associated the two together since you mentioned standing hits.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Synthia on 17 Oct 2018, 13:01
I said it in the first part of my post. Complaining OOC about getting hit with -10 standings because of the willful choice to withhold the items CONCORD requested.
I think I'm misremembering though. The Jovian meme worm incident might have been something else. I was referring to the Corrupted Tinary Relic withheld during the timey wimey event.

That's the Jovian Meme Worm affair, right enough.
VV, as far as I remember, was fine with the near -10 sec status (it was something like -9.7) inflicted by CONCORD for having sassed the CONCORD actor, and demanding a custom Sanctity dress. Perfectly reasonable, and self-inflicted. Comedy gold.

What, I recall, she was annoyed OOC about was the agitating by some players, about how VV's other standings, to the likes of the Federation, State, etc. should also be set to -10, all of them, because the -10 sec status was "too light" a punishment. Which she apparently perceived as some kind of conspiracy to exclude her from future live events, because ofc, -10 standing, even with diplomacy V, means you get the faction police chasing you all the time, and correcting those standings is a very tedious process.

Imo, -10 sec status for sassing the CONCORD actor = fine, (and hilarious)
-10 Amarr standing for doing something heinous in Amarr space = also fine
-10 standing to all four of the major powers = yeah, that's effectively banning someone from participating in any future live events until such time as they correct their standings.


incidentally, about the -10 Amarr status, we had a hastily-assembled plan to do something when Empress Jamyl visited Safizon. One of our pilots was going to type "a manu dei e Tetrimon" and ping the Titan with their civ gatling laser on their Impairor.
as I understand things, because the Drifters shot the Titan, then that would have granted them the killmail, as the only player involved.
In the end, the plan fell through due to illness on the player's part.

But it would have been absolutely hilarious if it had happened.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 17 Oct 2018, 13:24
This is why the wardec mechanics are so bad for RP, it's shoehorning a one-size fits all hole that we've all had to wiggle through and twist ourselves and circumstances around.   

But then again the idea of "consequences" for immortal demigods is hard in the PF as well, aside from emotional ones and social ones regarding loss of status or baseline allies.

Eve needs real death? :)
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 17 Oct 2018, 13:58
Consequences certainly exist, but they are much more along the lines of setbacks rather than true difficulties. More or less any loss of assets, reputation, time, investment, etc, can be recouped on a long enough time scale.

The true losses you mention (social/emotional) are much more difficult to code into a game mechanic.

Personally I would like to see a stellaris style "war goals" addition based around destruction of structures in space, total isk destroyed, or something similar.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 17 Oct 2018, 14:02
Stellaris style is a -fantastic- idea with a sliding war cost per goal.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 17 Oct 2018, 14:05
Yup. And if you go a full week without completing a goal you get a 24 hour window to finish one or the war ends.

Hire me CCP.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silver Night on 17 Oct 2018, 14:24
[admin]So, there's a lot of moddable bits in the middle of this, however as they are hopelessly entangled with useful and on topic bits (and not only is snip moderation generally frowned upon here, but I don't have the time to do it) I'm going to leave things as is since the thread seems to be steering back in a useful direction. I'm out of town 1 week and look what happens. That being said, without naming anyone specific I'm going to reiterate a couple of rules and guidelines and now that I'm back I will be carefully watching this thread to see how this experiment in being lenient goes. I would also encourage everyone to review the FAQ (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=16.0) in its entirety. All of that being said, I do appreciate that in spite of a fraught topic that touches both on a sensitive general subject and specific current in game events this thread has been largely civil and productive. [/admin]

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Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mitara Newelle on 17 Oct 2018, 15:11
wtb hi sec avatar so i can get rid of that god-awful fortizar.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 17 Oct 2018, 21:11
wtb hi sec avatar so i can get rid of that god-awful fortizar.
You can pause the timer with just two people in subcaps.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 18 Oct 2018, 01:23
wtb hi sec avatar so i can get rid of that god-awful fortizar.
You can pause the timer with just two people in subcaps.

I mean, technically sure. You know as well as I do that's a rather misleading comment though.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 18 Oct 2018, 02:23
I mean... she tried in a battleship solo? Sure, I was afk at the time but still. This way the odds should go up by about 100%.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 18 Oct 2018, 08:29
I had to look up what a foritzar was. 

I'm assuming with no capitals in high sec these are just as annoying as POS's were for highsec corp fighting.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 18 Oct 2018, 10:19
They're actually considerably worse. It's a pilotable POS that can do over 10,000dps, has timers for both its armour and structure (which have some funky mechanics of their own), and has considerable ewar abilities within a 300km sphere. They're damage capped at 15,000dps so that even if you brought 50 battleships you'd still be on grid for at least half an hour; no way to speed things up just by bringing more numbers.

Basically they're certainly not unbeatable but they are a massive force multiplier in a "small war" like this one.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 18 Oct 2018, 10:57
Eh, force multiplier on that one tiny grid. It literally has zero military value in this war. There's countless freeports that'd serve the exact same mechanical purposes, while being free and less conspicuous and obvious as a staging, etc. If anything, it's a resource drain since it gains me absolutely nothing. They only really have value in lowsec/nullsec in that regard, since there they can be capital staging points, safe logistics harbors and so on and so forth.

There's quite simply zero mechanical reason for any wartarget to ever be on that grid. Hell, given its other IC purposes, it's at worst a prick in the pride.

Also, it's a lot less powerful than it seems at first glance. Without a support fleet, it's fairly easily defanged fighter wise, which means you lose a sizable chunk of dps and can't hold down any enemies. Not going to claim it'd be an easy fight, but it's not quite as powerful as it seems on paper.

Vastly worse than POSes (if you have someone online to run the defense), utterly useless and worthless in an offensive highsec war because they provide nothing you can't get for free elsewhere.

Edit: Basically, all I've done is very publicly put up a 15-30b killmail for any war target to come claim, whenever they want it. It'll never be isk efficient. It'll never be a winning fight, as long as I'm as solo as I am. It's a super carrier without a jump drive, cloak or place to dock, and I can do nothing with it offensively. It's for all intents and purposes harmless.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 18 Oct 2018, 11:54
Quote
Eh, force multiplier on that one tiny grid. It literally has zero military value in this war.

For the first bit; well... Obviously?

For the second, I would contest that. It is the only serious structural asset either side has in play. It is a piece of IC political bait that you understood would force a reaction one way or another, which makes it one of the few tangible "conflict points" of the war.

Quote
Hell, given its other IC purposes, it's at worst a prick in the pride.

I think you know this is an understatement. Considering its location and owner alone are more than enough for an IC Casus Belli, it's purpose is an additional slap in the face.

The only potential real world equivalent I could come up with would be New York waking up one morning to find a Saudi embassy had been erected on Ground Zero.

Quote
can't hold down any enemies.

That just isn't true. 70% webs and a 300/90km point/scram are among the most potent control modules in the game.

Quote
It's for all intents and purposes harmless.

I'm not sure that this actually matters.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 18 Oct 2018, 12:55
Can't hold down enemies for more than 30 seconds*, satisfied? Heh. Yeah, it's got amazing control, but only long enough for an actual fleet to take over the tackling. Without said fleet, all the enemy has to do is survive 30 seconds and skedaddle. The cooldown is huge, for both webs and point/scram. Tackle fighters can do the trick, but any decent attacking fleet will screen those so easily.

And mechanically... all the things I said still hold true. Its military value is zero since none of my enemies have the slightest reason mechanically to ever be on that grid, and it otherwise gives me zero benefits. Like I said, its only 'threat' is that it's a sting to the pride, and since when have RPers ever really put much on the line for that? Especially when it's difficult?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 18 Oct 2018, 13:15
We're veering off topic but didn't they make these things anchorable anywhere or something? Can you put enemy foritzarzarzars on same grid and have the towers pew pew each other?

I don't know what war you all are talking about but there's probably still a bunch of high sec wrecking crew merc corps that will bash stations for ya for a good price :)

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 18 Oct 2018, 13:27
We're veering off topic but didn't they make these things anchorable anywhere or something? Can you put enemy foritzarzarzars on same grid and have the towers pew pew each other?

I don't know what war you all are talking about but there's probably still a bunch of high sec wrecking crew merc corps that will bash stations for ya for a good price :)

Can't anchor closer than 1000km of anything else anchorable, otherwise people'd just put them literally on gates, stations, enemy citadels etc. A citadel structure will always be outside of the targeting range of another citadel structure. As for structure bashing mercs, definitely, but they're surprisingly rarer these days than they used to be. It's basically just too boring. It's three 30m+ structure bashes, two of which happens at a time the defender decides, can't really be afk'd if the structure is armed and piloted, and has the potential for some ugly losses. This basically then translates to Fortizar bashes in highsec being expensive.

I mean, back when I was in a merc alliance, we didn't even undock short of five bill + SRP etc. It'd take more for a Fortizar kill (stage for a week or more, ships being ready/handy, etc) and when there's no real game mechanic reason to do it, that's a lot of money spent on... not being the ones getting anything done yourselves.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 18 Oct 2018, 13:36
That's terrible game design to let you put these up in highsec without capital weapons available, what shittery is that?

Anyways.  back to topic :)
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 18 Oct 2018, 14:18
Final sidetrack: Capitals aren't actually all that much better at taking these on without cheesing hard. Carriers can out-range the Fortizar, but in lowsec/nullsec you have access to the point defense system (basically just a giant structure sized smartbomb with awesome rotary cannon graphics) which'll shred light fighters, and a decent support fleet will eat fighter blobs anyway. Dreads need to siege for it, and thus give the Fortizar (and defense fleet) the time needed to really put the hurt on them, and if fit for it, a Fortizar does insane damage to capitals.

For capitals to be the answer, you either need significant numbers - and then you might as well subcap it anyway for far less risk/isk, same killspeed thanks to damage caps and so on - or cheese it with long range dreads/titans sitting outside of fortizar range. Supercarriers letting fighters slowboat 1-5k km is also an option, but you're basically spending more on FiBos than your enemy did on the Fortizar.

... and honestly, in highsec they're kind of easy to kill. Sure they have decent dps, but capchained Basis/Guardians in decent numbers will basically neuter it. You want to defend it against any kind of decent fleet, you need an opposing support fleet. Or some sort of very delectable cheese disabling logis.

Edited to add: Also, as mentioned, mechanically there's really not much point in taking it on. It has no actual use in highsec. You can stage/dock anywhere anyway, and all the actually useful structures are refineries/engineering complexes. The latter two being far better content generators in that they are more accessible for attacking, and can actually be useful to disrupt operations of.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 18 Oct 2018, 15:11
That's terrible game design to let you put these up in highsec without capital weapons available, what shittery is that?

Anyways.  back to topic :)

And this is just fortizars. TEST put up a fucking highsec keepstar yesterday.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 18 Oct 2018, 18:31
That's terrible game design to let you put these up in highsec without capital weapons available, what shittery is that?

Anyways.  back to topic :)

And this is just fortizars. TEST put up a fucking highsec keepstar yesterday.

looks up what a keepstar is.

lol

back to our regularly scheduled topic
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 19 Oct 2018, 17:34
(https://i.imgur.com/Myd1u1s.png)

Bottom stat is wars without a structure vs wars with.

In December wars are being changed so you can only declare wars against corps with structures. Full wardec revamp in first half of 2019.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 19 Oct 2018, 17:39
In December wars are being changed so you can only declare wars against corps with structures.

Bullshit.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 19 Oct 2018, 17:51
In December wars are being changed so you can only declare wars against corps with structures.

Bullshit.

From a game design and player retention standpoint, it is absolutely the right decision.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 19 Oct 2018, 18:19
Honestly, I'm hoping the 'easy interim solution' requires structures on both sides, with knocking-down of structures qualifying as war conclusion, and various caveats on structures needing to be in certain proximity.

Otherwise, as it stands, the filter feeder wardec corps will just have fewer targets, but will have no incentive to change their behavior.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 19 Oct 2018, 18:23
This would basically mean that the last 4 years of RP war with Nauplius couldn't have been done. It'd mean no one could war PIE. Those wars from EM and others back in the day (if they're towards PIE), or Miz now? Couldn't be done.

And this still doesn't create any kind of victory conditions for the defender. It means purely PvP groups who can actually deal with war will be the ones who can't be warred, while industry groups who want to avoid PvP are the ones who can get warred. Miz will no longer be able to war PIE, and only be able to war with ARC/SFRIM - the people who don't want the war. If Nauplius ever does one of his one million slave sacrifices again, we'll have even fewer options to fight it than we already did.

This is complete and utter fucking bullshit. There are far better solutions to be had than this.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 19 Oct 2018, 19:27
It's a bandaid. It's not even a good bandaid, but it's at least CCP realizing that this needs work.

Insofar as ARC is concerned, honestly, I expected we'd draw more attention the moment SFRIM joined the alliance proper, because numbers on dotlan equate to wardecs. The usual wardec shenanigans are to be expected, and dealt with in the usual way. In this case, it's, uh, a bit different than normal wardec shenanigans.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 19 Oct 2018, 23:06
From a game design and player retention standpoint, it is absolutely the right decision.

It's the most half-arsed band-aid CCP has ever come up with, and given that it's CCP, the half-arsed band-aid is all we'll actually get because their bird-brained aversion for actually finishing anything they start will make them go "eh, good enough", while it actually didn't do anything. Check the Reddit thread. There's already a small fuckton of ways and ideas how to exploit this, bypass this, and so on.

Oh, and who relies on structures in highsec? Oh right, yeah... it's the bears. Well shit, the bears remain valid targets, gorsh.

Ah well, PIE gets to be wardec invuln, hah! Same with Napkins and several others. Good work CCP. This solves nothing, causes a ton of new problems and is about as thought out as anything you do. Fucking morons, I swear none of them ever fucking logs into the game. It's the only explanation as to how unfathomable shit they are at actually fucking doing anything with it.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 19 Oct 2018, 23:17
Look at the numbers they showed and tell me something didn't need changing?

It is a band-aid that, if Burger is to be taken seriously, will be in place for 6 months or less.

It's not even in the game yet! They're at Vegas, revealing things like this, for the express purpose of receiving player feedback. There's a month and a half for them to talk to players, read Reddit, and see that it's not a perfect solution and things could be changed to make it fairer.

That's not even really the point though. The big news is that CCP are even acknowledging that there is a problem and committing to doing something about it. Wardecs haven't been touched for 6 years (unironically FW has seen more recent development) are a black pit of griefing and lost subscriptions, and the first reaction you have to "we're changing things, with more changes to come" is "Fuck you those are the wrong things and you probably won't fix anything anyway"?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 19 Oct 2018, 23:26
When their 'temporary' fix doesn't actually fix anything, and they have a history of leaving 'temporary' things rather permanently... yeah, I'm going to bitch at them for it. This solves nothing, adds a bunch of problems and is just as likely to be permanent as temporary.

Literally makes things worse..

Now, if they'd actually sat back and thought about it, put some actual effort, thought and work into it, it'd be something else entirely I'm sure. We've lasted a decade and a half with this shit, we can wait another month or two while something that isn't a half-arsed worthless annoyance is come up with. This 'solution' is just pointless and worthless aggravation that doesn't actually fix anything.

We need change, definitely. But it kind of have to be actually functional change, not nonsensical horseshit.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 01:53
Quote
we can wait another month or two while something that isn't a half-arsed worthless annoyance is come up with. This 'solution' is just pointless and worthless aggravation that doesn't actually fix anything.

We literally are waiting a month or two while they come up with something.

It fixes corps of brand new players/real life friends/new growing corps being wardecced for weeks on end by the same 50 people as always. It fixes casual mission running players being pushed to stop playing when they're not interested in PvP. It fixes the most immediate and (to CCP) pressing issue of wardecs, the negative impact on player retention.

It is a stop-gap and nobody is denying that. Including CCP themselves.

They've also shown in recent months that they are much more willing to listen to player suggestion and feedback than they have been historically (HIC changes, interceptor changes, PI QOL changes), as well as publicly committing to a relatively quick development cycle. CCP do not give a time period for a release if they are not pretty fucking sure they'll have something to show by then. Soon(TM) might be a meme but it exists for a reason. I wouldn't be surprised if they've got the bones of a rework in progress already.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 20 Oct 2018, 02:11
How does it fix any of these things? Haven't you seen the endless list of ways to get around this, already come up with by the playerbase? How does this fix anything for those reliant on structures, i.e. the bears that cry the most about wardecs? It breaks shit that doesn't need to be broken, while fixing nothing at all.

It's not even a stop-gap when it literally does nothing but harm, while fixing exactly nothing.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 02:21
If you anchor a structure, you must be prepared to defend it. That's a fundamental of Eve that's existed as long as there have been structures. If you anchor a structure with no willingness or ability to defend it when challenged then you deserve to lose it. This hasn't suddenly changed just because we have upwell stuff now. You said yourself earlier in the thread that the vast number of neutral Freeport engineering complexes and citadels can provide all the services required without having to drop a citadel of your own. If someone is reliant on structures then they either need to be prepared to defend their own, or pay taxes to use someone else's.

The only properly broken problem I've seen is there being no current option to reject someone transferring a structure to you, but somehow I doubt this is a difficult thing to fix. Even that requires the attacker to drop 750m on top of the war fee, which goes a long way towards cutting down on how spammable decs are.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 02:25
I would also like to see this "endless list". I've seen a few discussions about it, but I think I've only seen about 3 problems in total.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 20 Oct 2018, 03:27
The problem is that they're coming at this from the complete ass backwards direction. The ability to declare wars on anyone isn't the problem (though there should be a limit on how many wars you can have active at once), it's the lack of means for a decced corp to work towards ending the war and earning a reprieve.

And shit about structures should not have anything to do with any solution. If you make it so a corp has to have a structure to be decced, that just leaves industry corps the primary victims still, still leaves those victims without any means of working towards an end to the war or a reprieve, encourages people to put structures in offshore alt corps, and creates a situation where you're inclined to leave their structures standing so you maintain the ability to prosecute wars against them (IE we leave Nauplius's citadels up so we can actually war him). If you go at the other way people have suggested, of making the attacker have to put up a structure, then all you do is balance decs around who has the most numbers (IE, professional dec corps won't have any issue defending their own structures from the newbies they war). Structures are not a good solution to war decs in any way.

It's also a complete misreading of the statistic. The KPW values only say that corps with structures are more active than corps without structures. It doesn't say whether or not they actually want or try to fight back, how many of them have been destroyed by the fighting (RP examples: Sanxing or KSCS), and so on. Of course there will be less kills per war with decs on non-structure corps, because of how many of those corps are alt or social corps, how many are filled with inactives, etc.

And the big worry here with the bandaid is that: A) The actual system takes far too long to be implemented, or is even dropped, a common thing with CCP, or B) The actual system still includes the structure requirement as part of it. It also reflects the way their thinking is leaning towards: making the fix related to structures somehow.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 03:41
I agree with you, and in the longer term I would like to see wardecs reworked fully (preferably with a "war goals" system like I mentioned previously).

This change isn't about that though, it's about what CCP can do right now to alleviate the particular issue of negative player retention due to wardecs.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 20 Oct 2018, 05:02
And what CCP can do right now appears to be nothing useful. I mean, they could have implemented a whole host of limiting features, introducing limits to amounts of outgoing wardecs, time-limits, changed costs to scale more appropriately with size differences between aggressor/defender, a bunch of little things that would all have a bit of impact each. It'd send the message that they're working on it, and it's a priority.

Instead, we have this. Completely useless.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 05:54
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You could always try unsubscribing about it.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 20 Oct 2018, 06:05
I've looked at the reddit thing, and all I see that's an exploit/bypass, is transferring structures to the target corporation (apparently you have no control over who is transferring structures to your corporation).

Anchor structure, transfer to target, declare war, shoot structure, ~~~dank structure killmail~~~.  :psyccp:


not exactly an "endless list", but :psyccp: right enough.

especially, as someone transferred a structure to one of CCP's testing corporations, and CCP's fix was to make it so you can't transfer structures to that CCP corporation, rather than implementing anything that would be a control over structure transfers.

 :psyccp: :psyccp: :psyccp:
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 20 Oct 2018, 06:17
I've looked at the reddit thing, and all I see that's an exploit/bypass, is transferring structures to the target corporation (apparently you have no control over who is transferring structures to your corporation).

Anchor structure, transfer to target, declare war, shoot structure, ~~~dank structure killmail~~~.  :psyccp:

If someone wants to transfer me a structure that I can transfer off to someone else before the war goes through, or even if they have it at 1%, transfer, then suicide reinforce it, they paid for it. I'd expect that to be patched out anyway, but if it's not and someone wants to drop 3/4 of a billion to deck some mission runners or indy bears who will dock up anyway... More power to them I guess?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 20 Oct 2018, 09:27
Bandaids on top of bandaids wont' stop bleeding.

There's a lot easier ways to disuade decs from stronger, older groups on younger, smaller groups instead of this silliness.

You could twiddle all sorts of dials for wardec costs, relative assets, relative skillpoint calculators, etc to effect the cost of the conflict. 

Actually hell the client could do a quick SP check of corporation A membership and apply a cost factor vs SP of corporation B.  So elite pvpers A will have to pay ridiculous fees to dec newbiew corp B.  They can still DO IT but costs should be a factor.

I don't like fundamentally changing what people can and can't do, they should only face persuasive measures for conduct.

It actually goes against the central tenants of the game, where you can DO it but face consequences.  You can totally shoot someone in high sec but you die. You can totally do x but there's a price for it.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 20 Oct 2018, 09:43
It actually goes against the central tenants of the game, where you can DO it but face consequences.

This.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 20 Oct 2018, 13:01
Implied pretty heavily during today's presentation that this thing about structures remains in their thinking for the permanent war dec solution.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 20 Oct 2018, 13:40
Though they also indicated that they don't want to touch mutual wars, and that they're very open to suggestions.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 21 Oct 2018, 00:12
(https://i.imgur.com/q3i2aBR.png)

Great game design and a necessary change! The super blobs must be able to cross New Eden in ten minutes max!

- CSM, it seems.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 21 Oct 2018, 15:19
Weren't the player stargates supposed to take people to new uncharted k space systems originally?

I'm not sure what this does as there are plenty of other ways to move from A to B already? 

I thought the new stargates were going to be these huge expensive megastructures to send out explorers to new systems?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 21 Oct 2018, 15:24
Weren't the player stargates supposed to take people to new uncharted k space systems originally?

I'm not sure what this does as there are plenty of other ways to move from A to B already? 

I thought the new stargates were going to be these huge expensive megastructures to send out explorers to new systems?

these are probably part of the plan to replace the existing jump bridges and stuff. So that there's then nothing left that's tied to the POS, which will then be completely withdrawn from service.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 21 Oct 2018, 16:57
Yeah, these are basically the new jump bridges and part of the plan to be rid of POSes and POS code entirely. Which is fine, I mean if you live and hold space you should get to construct some logistics around that stuff. Allowing the biggest super blobbers (i.e. the people who can afford to spread those gates far and wide) in New Eden to fatigue free rush across the maps again? That's just... a really bad call.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 21 Oct 2018, 21:22
I wonder how much fuel it'll take to jump supers via these gates. If it's significantly more expensive than using a jump drive, that might be a thing.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 21 Oct 2018, 23:10
Yeah, these are basically the new jump bridges and part of the plan to be rid of POSes and POS code entirely. Which is fine, I mean if you live and hold space you should get to construct some logistics around that stuff. Allowing the biggest super blobbers (i.e. the people who can afford to spread those gates far and wide) in New Eden to fatigue free rush across the maps again? That's just... a really bad call.

Only 1 per system though, it says.

So you can fatigue-free jump from A to B, but to then get to C, requires a normal jump, causing fatigue ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 22 Oct 2018, 02:28
I wonder how much fuel it'll take to jump supers via these gates. If it's significantly more expensive than using a jump drive, that might be a thing.

Price isn't a limiting factor, but sheer volume might be. If it takes 75% of the gate's total fuel bay to jump a titan through it, you'll need multiple frieghters sitting on each gate shovelling fuel in to move even a mid-sized titan fleet that way.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 22 Oct 2018, 02:30
Yeah, these are basically the new jump bridges and part of the plan to be rid of POSes and POS code entirely. Which is fine, I mean if you live and hold space you should get to construct some logistics around that stuff. Allowing the biggest super blobbers (i.e. the people who can afford to spread those gates far and wide) in New Eden to fatigue free rush across the maps again? That's just... a really bad call.

Only 1 per system though, it says.

So you can fatigue-free jump from A to B, but to then get to C, requires a normal jump, causing fatigue ?

Alternatively, bridge-gate, NPC gate, bridge-gate, NPC gate, bridge-gate, cyno jump. You'll still take fatigue jumping to cynos, and you'll be vulnerable to interdiction travelling between any gate, player or NPC.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 22 Oct 2018, 11:17
Yeah, these are basically the new jump bridges and part of the plan to be rid of POSes and POS code entirely. Which is fine, I mean if you live and hold space you should get to construct some logistics around that stuff. Allowing the biggest super blobbers (i.e. the people who can afford to spread those gates far and wide) in New Eden to fatigue free rush across the maps again? That's just... a really bad call.

Only 1 per system though, it says.

So you can fatigue-free jump from A to B, but to then get to C, requires a normal jump, causing fatigue ?

Alternatively, bridge-gate, NPC gate, bridge-gate, NPC gate, bridge-gate, cyno jump. You'll still take fatigue jumping to cynos, and you'll be vulnerable to interdiction travelling between any gate, player or NPC.

Oh right, all the capital ships can use stargates now, can't they ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 22 Oct 2018, 12:01
They can, yes.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 22 Oct 2018, 13:11
Which basically means nothing to the huge blocs. When your titan blobs count in the several hundreds, you aren't going to have much trouble organizing a few freighters per gate, nor is the cost going to be particularly bothersome. You don't even need to take titans, or even supers entirely into account either. This will let these already giant entities deploy normal capitals - dreads, carriers, faxes - fatigue free throughout New Eden in next to no time.

The logical conclusion to the way these gates are designed is that the big entities will be able to drop in on any mid to large size fight. If it causes tidi, they'll have plenty of time to drop in.

... so the fights will stop happening, if they're not under the friendly super umbrellas, or are small and inconsequential.

I thought they were tinfoiling earlier on /r/eve , but the more I see, the more it does look like they're trying to Serenityfy TQ, largely splitting New Eden up between a very few super coalitions making space "safe" and the same approach to Hisec becoming "safe". They just want the steady bear subs milked.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 25 Oct 2018, 18:27
For the record, this has now been changed. The gates are mass limited, nothing larger than a normal capital will be able to fit.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 06 Dec 2018, 11:41
I saw that they've put in a mechanic to reject structure transfers.

So no transferring structures to a corp you want to beat up on.


And mutual wars continue even after any structures are destroyed.

So, a bit more interesting, I think, no ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 11:50
Not particularly. If anything it just ensures there's no more accountability at all in Eve RP. You can literally be impervious to anything if you so choose now.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 06 Dec 2018, 12:56
And mutual wars continue even after any structures are destroyed.

So, a bit more interesting, I think, no ?

No. It's as utterly shit as it was the first time it was suggested.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 06 Dec 2018, 13:35
Sami, Mizhara;

I'm curious. You've both certainly made your dislike of this bandaid clear.

What's your 'perfect world' system? Ideally, I'd love to see something cohesive that looks like it could be polished into a design document, paraded around, and lobbied for in the direction of CCP. At present, my concern is that all we've got is the barest concept of things we want (victory conditions, 'defensive wins,' mutual wars, consequences for misbehavior, etc.), but nothing comprehensive enough to actually debate and work on, or to examine for continuation of existing issues.

We'll also need to acknowledge and ideally address the incentives that currently exist for: wardec groups to hub-camp and pipe-camp, and reduce down to the role of filter feeders for dumb or otherwise unaware carebears; carebears to just log off for weeks on end due to lack of incentive to fight, essentially stripping away the prey population.

Please note that at no point is this advocacy for 'risk-free EVE,' because that's some serious bull, but instead is a question aimed at examining at the structure of incentives in a way that fosters creative, interesting competition.

(edit: and to make sure this isn't a one-sided burden, I'm thinking of things that might be useful in a 'casus belli' sense.)
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 06 Dec 2018, 13:44
Miz posted one on one of the previous threads on the official forums.

https://forums.eveonline.com/t/the-csm-13-winter-summit-minutes-are-out/110726/1007
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 06 Dec 2018, 14:03
An interesting exploration of the war objectives thing! And adding defensive objectives, which could be 'keep doing what we're doing' stuff is also handy. My guess is that CCP's increased data gathering for the activity tracker'd make it a lot easier. I do think any sort of objectives/eligibility stuff would need to be limited to highsec/lowsec, though, to make sure bears don't just go to their rental system, rorqual out a bunch of minerals, and close off the war.

My one worry: how does this address serial wardecs? After all, use of multiple shell corporations or even just successive wardecs would make the objective system sort of useless. "Oh, we won! Oh, wait, new wardec live in 24 hours from the same people."

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 06 Dec 2018, 14:30
That's why I've generally been in support of limited immunities. If you win a war, you should get some kind immunity to wars for X amount of time. The problem there, though, is people fabricating a war with an alt corp in order to make themselves immune to other wars. But if you make it targeted, then people can create a new corporation in order to bypass a targeted immunity. Etc etc.

People love finding loopholes.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 06 Dec 2018, 14:57
Yup. Interesting all around.

CCP might be better served by backing way up to high altitude with more global questions about how much and what sorts of danger should players be exposed to at what stages of their subscription, and then iterate from there. 

This all or nothing thing lacks any granularity and is silly no matter how many times they rearrange the deck chairs on the wardec system titanic
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 06 Dec 2018, 15:03
Agreed on limited immunities being a potentially useful mechanic, though finding ways to limit corp-hopping for wardec initiators would be necessary in a targeted system, what with shadow wardecs and shadow corps being the issue they are. If you want to see some hilarity, look at the corp histories for pilots in the Hogs Collective to see how that all shakes out. The question is how we balance cost/difficulty of the wardec to make it more than peanuts, but also to prevent it from being easily (or cheaply) gamed. I wonder if a 'forfeit' or 'deposit' system might be worthwhile? For instance, the attacker has to essentially 'bid' for their victory conditions; if they win, the deposit's largely returned and they've got their killmails, etc; if they lose, a part of the deposit is given to the defender. Wardec costs would then scale with bids, but also put direct incentive to pursue completion of objectives for both sides.

Alternatively, I wonder if limited wardecs might be a thing: region limited, or ship-class-limited, sub-week durations, and so on.

I'll admit, though, that my mixed feelings on the wardec eligibility component still tend toward it being a not-terrible idea. As it stands, there's essentially no barrier at present for a wardec initiator to make highsec extremely dangerous, indefinitely, at little cost. The trick, for me, is that eligibility needs to be more broadly founded. Imagine casus belli functioning sort of like killrights, excepting you get them if, say, the person tries to flip your can, or tries to gank you, or kills you in lowsec, etc. So, PIE'd have plenty of reasons for people to wardec them after lowsec roams, provided the parties then sell those casus belli permissions. Hell, I'd love a pseudo-FW where corps can 'declare allegiance,' thereby opening themselves to wardecs even if they don't go full FW.

Of course, the PIE example does sidestep one thing: it's easy to end up in a war with PIE, even with the bandaid system. Join GalMil or MinMil. This, I think, highlights one element of the philosophies clashing here. In the case of PIE, for instance, "But they're my enemy!" is indeed exactly reasonable, and the game already provides mechanics for it. For that matter, no mechanics are needed to pew with PIE or other lowsec PvP groups in their notional areas of operation.

Honestly, in my view the issue one of the overarching issues is that we need better kiddie pools for introducing new players to pew; highsec wardecs are so mechanically flawed that, between that and ganking, highsec paradoxically ends up being surprisingly dangerous by comparison with some sections of nullsec.

Also, agreed with Silas, essentially.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 15:28
That post I made was a very quick and dirty "off the top of my head" thing. For a design document, it'd obviously require several heads putting in the hours to work it into something actually usable. The specifics of it doesn't really matter much to me though, since it's becoming abundantly clear CCP gives zero fucks what players want and are happy to just throw shitty band-aids at every problem and then ignore it as hard as they can afterwards in the hopes that something new comes along and distracts the playerbase.

Which tends to work. Almost no one's bitching about FW, Incursions and so on and so forth at the moment. Next up on the agenda is more bot bitching followed by some more teleports to Yulai I'd wager. CCP truly is useless when it comes to this stuff. There's obviously a whole bunch of potential solutions, while there's very clearly no actual good data gathered about WHY player retention is so shit. Again, and again, and again I will repeat this: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Blaming wardecs for poor player retention is a very bad idea, especially when you knee-jerk a band-aid into place that might end up being a fuckin' tourniquet that kills the fucking limb instead.

This is one of those situations where CCP really needed to have some fucking patience, use some fucking brains and start gathering some actual proper fucking data. Questionnaires for unsubs and alphas going inactive for instance. More data gathering, questioning what might be behind the poor player retention. THEN working on the solution.

Yes, wardecs definitely needed a re-do but this nonsense is just insultingly shit. It solves exactly fuck all, it makes RP completely pointless and worthless and it does significant damage to Eve's one defining trait that sets it properly apart in the sea of multiplayer bullshit: Everyone vs Everyone. "Harden The Fuck Up" is integral to Eve as a game. The gameplay isn't and frankly never will be good enough to stand on its own, which means the player interaction is vital and key, and if you Hello Pussy it up like this you are basically telling people they might as well fuck off and play something that also has good gameplay.

Consequence, risk, permanence. Without them, you don't have Eve. What's left without them I don't know, but it's sure as fuck not worth playing.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 06 Dec 2018, 15:36
Unfortunately, FACWAR was supposed to be just that, right? A perma wardec with gated kiddie pools of ship classes and location-specific tug-of-wars that (as usual) never got iterated past launch into something workable.

It would be really fun to totally reimagine the dec system and faction loyality, I just spend like 5 minutes writing up some ideas and then thought better of it :P

TLDR it would be nice as a new player to have to make some 'loyalty' choices just like rolling your character, and they could tie this in to early facwar style gameplay and consequences based on where you start out, and you can slowly advance into more risky areas as you get more comfortable with the game, eventually declaring yourself 'independent' or recommitting to faction loyalty at the end of this process and then being open to more 'war dec' style gameplay.

They could easily tie this in with a reworked security status system and various sizes of kiddie pvp pools so players can get used to getting shot at in cheap ships with little risk and then working up to larger things and eventually full risk/reward. 

I think those new deadspace complexs are set for 1v1, 2v2 right? Tune that stuff for new players and integrate it with new player experience levels and you are on a path to success.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Jev North on 06 Dec 2018, 16:13
Again, and again, and again I will repeat this: CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Blaming wardecs for poor player retention is a very bad idea, especially when you knee-jerk a band-aid into place that might end up being a fuckin' tourniquet that kills the fucking limb instead.
Well, it managed to convince the CSM and CCP have serious monetary stake in getting the statistics right, so I'll trust them over someone who hasn't seen any of the work, and is frankly throwing a tantrum over the changes and looking for a justification.

This is one of those situations where CCP really needed to have some fucking patience, use some fucking brains and start gathering some actual proper fucking data. Questionnaires for unsubs and alphas going inactive for instance. More data gathering, questioning what might be behind the poor player retention. THEN working on the solution.
The CCP marketing research team has been asking questions during the unsubscribe process and sending out exit surveys on a sample basis since at least 2014. My guess is someone finally had the idea to correlate the data with wardec history.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 16:29
That's a lot of guessing there, Jev. The thing is though, you're wrong. They already told us what data they showed the CSM and it's not the exit surveys. The data only showed how many returned after going inactive during wardecs. That is the data that 'convinced the CSM' as if that matters for fuck all. CSM aren't exactly voted in for their damn game design chops now are they, and when exactly has CCP shown even the slightest fucking competence when it comes to reading their own damn data?

Players literally tell them the real issues when they're raised in devblogs and elsewhere, but CCP still decides both when it comes to rebalancing and other things to just go with their completely detached view that comes from looking at detached data that doesn't take the actual damn game into account. So tell me, what questions are in the unsub process that relates to these wardecs, hmm? I've recently deactivated accounts and can tell you right now: Exactly fuck all. Exit surveys that does not gather any data on wardec effects.

Your "guess" is wrong. Go read CCP and CSM's own damn posts to see what data they used, then come tell me I'm "looking for a justification". As for tantrums, go fuck yourself. The fact that I'm angry about this shit does not in any shape, way or form devalue my view on this, especially given that unlike you I actually paid some fucking attention to what CCP and CSM has actually said.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 06 Dec 2018, 16:41
They haven't exactly been reading the statistics they do have very well, anyway. They've shown a tendency to go by a very surface-level understanding of the stats they've taken, ignoring considerations as to the various reasons why the stats are the way they are.

Either way, it doesn't matter. It could be entirely true that war decs drive people away, in as great degrees as has been said. Has this stopped EVE from being one of the most successful MMORPGs ever made? No. What it has done is establish EVE as a niche game, that you're either prepared to handle or you aren't. The core fundamentals of the game should not be thrown out just to appeal to the hope of gaining a larger playerbase. SWG tried that, and it suffered greatly for it.

War decs needed changes. Literally everyone agreed to that. But the changes it needed was counterplay, not safety.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: The Rook on 06 Dec 2018, 17:29
(https://giantsecurecontainer.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Doqq3yUUYAA0EL2.jpg)

(https://thenib.imgix.net/usq/1d97429f-4a64-4d52-bfdb-c36172c05228/this-is-not-fine-001-dae9d5.png?auto=compress,format&cs=srgb&_=dae9d5fc0800f12f5c720be598b6bea6)
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 17:40
So exactly what we've been saying, yes. There's nothing in there that shows the wardec itself is the primary problem with player retention, and worse yet even if it did the 'solution' is so hamfisted and knee-jerky it barely even counts as a band-aid.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: The Rook on 06 Dec 2018, 17:57
I am a bit confused because on my screen it clearly states that players play less during war dec times and lose interest in the game afterwards. Highsec PvP is the most retarded of all PvPs and the only things you can do there are fighting someone who wants to fight back without outside influence, remove someone's space castle or club the most unskilled and harmless seals this game has to offer. You can still do two out of three things so I guess nothing of value was lost.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 18:12
I'm sure you're quite confused. What you're reading says that the data shows that people don't return after the wardec is over. You are inferring that this means it's the wardec's fault. This is an assumption with very little backing it up, especially when we take into account that if wardecs were the real problem people would be returning after they are over. Don't get blinded by the symptom, find the actual fuckin' disease.

And you're on an RP board saying that people fighting their enemies when they try to hide in highsec is 'retarded'.
Maybe I should head off the inevitable "y u no losec/nullsec" nonsense, I've killed my wartargets everywhere but w-space and at least one war-target can confirm I could have had alts in their whs if I hadn't deliberately avoided crossing certain lines in these RP wars.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 06 Dec 2018, 18:13
There's nothing in there that shows the wardec itself is the primary problem with player retention

I'm sorry, but "considerable activity drops in all activities during the war" does seem to imply that activity is present before the war is declared.

Players are playing.
War is declared.
Players stop playing.

The war is the cause in this scenario.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 18:22
Of lower activity during the war, yes. No one is contesting this. No one is even arguing against this being something that needs changing. This however does not mean that the wardec is the cause of the lack of player retention once the war is over. I would argue the wardec at best acts as a catalyst. It provides that one week of reduced activity and... then what? Why aren't they logging back in?

... answer that question. In some cases, sure it might be "I might get wardecced again" but it's highly unlikely that'll be the only or even the main answer. The data we need, the data we don't have, is the answers to that exact question. My money is, as I've said many a time already, that the week off is just the catalyst. The week passes, it's over and... people just don't feel like logging in because the spell is broken. The addiction to virtual progress and numbers growing higher has been broken. The nicotine is out of the system. The gameplay isn't actually fun or rewarding enough that they want to come back. As I've said - yet again - no one ever came back to Eve after a hiatus going "Gosh, I really missed those L4s and mining in a Retriever u guise.". The social aspect? People keep in touch through a million different social venues without ever logging in. Most Eve people I know I barely ever talk to in-game, but constantly talk to out of game. No, the thing that can draw people to logging into a game is the gameplay and progression of it.

If a slight disruption of the sunk cost fallacy, the skinner box addictions etc is enough to make people go "meh, don't want to log in", then the wardec was never the problem in the first place. It just revealed the real problem.

Unfuck highsec gameplay. Dulling it down even further by even removing risk from it isn't going to provide any long-term benefits to the game. If anything, it'll harm it long-term.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Ukeko Ahrzi on 06 Dec 2018, 18:29
When I started playing years ago I got wardecced when I was in a highsec mining and missioning corp on my main. Several friends of mine did as well. For them, and for me, it wasn't the pvp specifically that was the problem. It was partially in game income.

As missioner/miners we didn't know how to pvp well or cheaply. As almost all of us had a 'bigger is better' mentality, fit up as much of the biggest stuff we could, and lost it. Lost a lot of our net worth in those mistakes. Many of us unsubbed and quit because it took us months to amass what we lost in days due to high sec wardecs.

I came back when someone told me about the money one could make running Incursions. Many of my friends did not and still to this day refuse to get back in to EVE. They don't want to PvP, that's why they stayed in High Sec. But for some cheap lols some high sec war deccers convinced most of my early EVE friends that EVE was not for them despite the fact that I know that if they were better educated in how to deal with wars that they could survive and thrive as PvEers even under threat of PvP.

Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I don't know. But there is a line between keeping EVE dangerous and losing subs.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 06 Dec 2018, 18:31
Sound like the problem there was that the game and its community didn't set the expectations right, nor taught you what you needed to know.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Ukeko Ahrzi on 06 Dec 2018, 18:35
Sound like the problem there was that the game and its community didn't set the expectations right, nor taught you what you needed to know.

EVE is a very hard game to get in to for some, maybe most. So I can't disagree with you there at all.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: The Rook on 06 Dec 2018, 18:42
You can't force someone to fight you in space. If one side is significantly weaker they will opt out 99% of the time. PvPers complain about blobbing or upshipping at that point while the other side complains about the lack of balls.
Furthermore: I've heard there are entire areas of space where free PvP is enabled. Even there people leave when a bigger threat comes.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 06 Dec 2018, 20:03
You can barely force people who 'want' to fight to actually fight in space when they don't know they are going to win ahead of time  :lol:
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 06 Dec 2018, 20:13
This whole issue does butt up against core EVE game design and marketing;

They want to market a game that's sexy and dangerous where you can do a lot of nasty things without the game stopping you, and 'isn't like other games' but that means it's then a very tough forge for players to go through and then come out tougher on the other side, and it's simply not for most people not used to that sort of thing.  CCP would do well to figure this shit out and learn to gradually dip people into these waters. They would reap so many more players with a tiny bit less throwing into the deep shark waters.

I'm not saying they should change gameplay in any core way, but sometimes we people forget how 'unique' this idea is in mmo game design, how much what we call normal war dec pew pew is sort of by definition unconsentual griefing in almost any other game.  We feel proud of this, like we earned our way through the new player crucible, and that we aren't wimps like those people playing 'x' carebear game.   

Consequently ccp uses this sort of thing for marketing but it also drives away the unwashed casual masses in droves. Niche rules, niche game.

I ran into this dichotomy quite hard in the Star Citizen forums where I was sort of discussing sort of eve 101 level pirating and hunting sorts of gameplay and how I would be murderizing people and taking their shit who absolutely didn't want me to murderize them and take their shit, and the carebears lost their minds and I got reported a few times, it was hilarious. Like eve basic level forum chat was looked upon as very aggressive and evil there, it was amazing.



Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 07 Dec 2018, 09:05
maybe you're thinking of the wrong examples.

Quote
something like 70% of all wars are declared by three alliances

trade-hub campers, right ?

that's why it's a problem.

people find that during war, they get shot at, and because of how the eve economy is structured, with Jita and Amarr being fairly well stocked trade hubs, and other places much less so, then even if you want to fight back, you find the process of replacing stuff much more tedious.

activity depressed during the war, because of the impacts on making money. and then activity continues to be suppressed because people have learned that going to Jita or Amarr draws the wrong kinds of attention. So you either sell your stuff to buy orders for less than its worth, or have to faff around with alts and stuff (who are also at risk of being shot by trade hub suicide campers). which reduces your ability to do the stuff you actually want to do.

people talk a lot about "don't fly what you can't afford to replace" and all that. but have forgotten how much of a grind it is in eve to get to a point where you can comfortably afford to replace stuff.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: MakotoPriano on 07 Dec 2018, 12:33
As for tantrums, go fuck yourself. The fact that I'm angry about this shit does not in any shape, way or form devalue my view on this, especially given that unlike you I actually paid some fucking attention to what CCP and CSM has actually said.

So, here's the thing. This may not be your intent, but when you roundly dismiss others' views as wrong, insult them, berate them, and likewise toward the developers, etc, it feels very much like you're devaluing everyone else's view on things. Your anger does not make other people's views any more or less valid.

I remember trying out the beta winter of my freshman year in college, in the dorms, poking around with other folks on the floor. I remember forumwarrioring State RP back in the dark ages, when Jera was posting tongue-in-cheek soft drink stuff and Caldari RP consisted, occasionally, of blowing up those terrible hauler spawns off stations.

Though I've taken breaks, EVE's been a consistent part of my entire adult life.

Almost every single person on this particular forum has given EVE years of their life. All of us are invested, deeply, in this game and in this fictional universe.

Not a single one of us is the guardian of The Real EVE.

EVE has changed, evolved, slid back, climbed onward constantly over the course of its lifespan. Whatever changes are made, or whatever changes aren't made, EVE as a game will never be the same as the past. It might be better. It might be worse. There will be things that are broken. There will be things that are sublimely wonderful. It will be EVE, whatever that means.

All of us are stakeholders.

And, as before, there will always be people who talk shit but don't want to get hit. The roleplay community will, as before, do what it's done with the people who talk a big game from inside their invulnerable bouncy castle of choice.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 07 Dec 2018, 14:45
People can have whatever views they want. When they're factually wrong though, and on top of that throw personal insults into the mix, they can go fuck themselves. I have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to be polite to people who have shown none themselves. As for the developers, they can doubly go fuck themselves because not a single fucking one of them have shown even the slightest fucking hint of having invested even the most insignificant amount of effort or thought into something that is pretty fuckin' significant. CCP gets the respect they earn, and when they betray everything Eve ever was about in order to suck Korean bonus dick, they have earned nothing but scorn and loathing, every last one of them.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 07 Dec 2018, 15:10
I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of that, but simmer downnnn cmonnnn ;)

We are getting into fanboi territory where we feel ownership of the IP and then personally affronted for whatever terrible decisions the owners of the IP make with their toys.  Every cool thing we nerds like ends up being terrible after a while, and the things we loved about it aren't the things it does anymore. 

It happens with almost everything and it's only gotten easier to give up the ghost on caring too much about awful corporate bastardizing of a thing you used to love as I get older.

I remember -really- being into Star Wars, in the years before the prequels (early 90s) and the novel conveyor belt hadn't started.  At first it was super cool that there was NEW Star Wars, and then every year it got worse and worse and worse and I was personally affronted with each new, terrible thing and decision by Lucasfilm until I had to give it up that this thing doesn't belong to me, if Lucas wants to make a bunch of dumb shit and sell toys it's his stuff.  At a certain point you realize the thing you liked isn't for you anymore, its weird and different and clearly meant for other people.

Eve was(is) like that for me.  I loved the shit out of it, played it religiously for like ten years, and then when after the 500th time ccp shat the bed I decided it wasn't for me anymore. It just got to be too much to be that emotionally invested in being abused all the time :P    I used to feel total rage about every -stupid- decision ccp was making until I could get some distance. 

 
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 08 Dec 2018, 06:39
All of us are stakeholders.

Well, this stakeholder is seriously considering just cutting her losses.

You know, I heard about things like MonocleGate and Tony G and figured that stuff was in the past. But nope, seems CCP still has plenty of utterly-fucking-stupid decisions left in its reservoir.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 08 Dec 2018, 09:22
I missed something when I read the devblog.

So, you need to have an inspace structure to declare a war, as well as be eligible to be declared upon.

And if the defenders kill the attacker's structure(s), then the war ends.

So, what this bit does, is that it gives the defenders in a war a mechanism to force a non-consensual end to the war.

That's new, isn't it ? Previously, the ball was always in the attacker's court, and it was solely up to them if the war continued or not.

So is that not a good change ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 08 Dec 2018, 10:23
When the war can't be declared in the first place, there's nothing to end. More importantly, think any war targets are going to be able to chase down every little hidden structure the aggressors have? Some random POCO somewhere, a back-up structure in a wormhole, maybe pay for blue with Goons and drop a Citadel within Fortress Delve or whatever the fuck? Hell, make it a Fortizar somewhere and see how many war targets are willing to even be on grid with it at any point.

The number is likely zero.

The supposed problem is that wars chase people out of the game (Unproven hypothesis, most likely far from that simple and part of a far more complex problem to solve) and attaching structures to that doesn't change that one bit. In fact, you think anyone who pussies out of Eve over a wardec is going to form up no less than three times on a grid controlled by the enemy, with structure support, at a time decided by the enemy and quite likely not even the only structure needed to be taken down? They won't even undock because the war exists, much less take on the enemy where they're strongest.

The solution isn't tying it to structures, which is a fucking moronic idea to begin with. The solution lies in providing counter-play and incentives to be active during a war. Imagine the war between me and ARC if there'd been an 'end the war through activity' type mechanic in play.

I scout and chase ARC... well okay SFRIM people 99% of the time but let's call it ARC for now... people around, hunting and occasionally killing them. This is undesirable to them, so they organize, knowing that if they... say Mine X Amount Of Moon Goo, or collect Y Amount Of NPC Bounties or Explore Z Amount Of Sites or Produce So And So Much Value And Manage To Trade It and whateverthefuckelse bears do with their time the war will end because of the mechanic that says "aggressor incapable of pursuing an effective path towards their victory conditions, war declared unsuccessful, defender now have X weeks of war immunity from those involved in this war" or something. They succeeded in this since they organized, scouted and watched their aggressors, coordinated their bearing and maybe even defended it and so on.

Same thing on the offensive side with war goal mechanics in play. Declare war, mechanics look at aggressor and defender and determines some upper and lower bounds, then the aggressor gets to set some war goals like "X amount of destroyed structures, Y amount/value of destroyed ships" and so on. Upon successful completion of the objectives, war is declared won/lost and those involved can't be at war again for a certain amount of time. Add some reward mechanics to both sides for succeeding in attacking/defending (whether it's through fighting or successfully remaining active while avoiding losses) to incentivize activity and you are starting to get somewhere.

It'd ensure that the only way for it to become a forever war would be if both sides remained inactive, and the best way to end the wars would be to be active. One way or another. It'd encourage coming together as a group and it wouldn't be so incredibly easily cheesed as 'toss random structures around where they're incredibly hard to find' and so on.

I wonder how many people are going to forget to tick that "automatically refuse structure transfers" thing. I bet there's going to be a bunch of people finding out they suddenly own property in WHs and other hard to reach places, making them wardec eligible anyway.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Jocca Quinn on 08 Dec 2018, 11:22
I think this discussion is getting heated simply because "war dec" covers a huge variety of actions. There are the small RP wars which most people in here see and which are probably NOT causing any issue to people (the odd individual maybe). Through the Jita pipe camping mass war dec spamming mercenaries to the absolutely downright nasty "we are going to hell camp you until you quit the game" infinite dec's.

Coming up with a solution to cover all of these won't be easy. Miz mentions some clever ideas in the post above this but honestly (wearing my bitter vet hat) there is NO WAY I can see CCP managing to develop / code something with that amount of subtlety and complexity.

I really hope that this is a stop gap measure as even the massive carebear that I am can see the holes / exploits available when things are tied to structures.

Honestly I think they should have just pulled war dec's (maybe leave the option of mutual ones) altogether until they had a better solution.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 08 Dec 2018, 11:22
So is that not a good change ?

No, it's not, because it's tied to the structures bullshit. A means for defenders to end the war through their own efforts was needed, but this is not the way.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 08 Dec 2018, 11:47
I wonder how many people are going to forget to tick that "automatically refuse structure transfers" thing. I bet there's going to be a bunch of people finding out they suddenly own property in WHs and other hard to reach places, making them wardec eligible anyway.

Quote
This setting will default to the “reject structure transfers” state for all corporations on patch day.

okay.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 08 Dec 2018, 12:40
okay.

Yeah, because people haven't played with settings and forgotten to unfuck them before. I mean, it's not like the biggest battles in Eve history and entire Keepstars and shit has gone tits over arse because someone cocked up a setting entirely on their own.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Norrin Ellis on 08 Dec 2018, 16:49
Throughout EVE's long history, every change CCP has made has elicited this response from some group of players:

[spoiler](https://i.imgur.com/9kXJc.jpg)[/spoiler]

The pendulum will swing soon enough.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 08 Dec 2018, 17:08
Am I the only one who doesn't think this change matters much? You can already escape wardec mechanics by going to an NPC corp, which is basically the same thing as being in a player corp without structures. Now you just get to keep a few amenities when wardec immune. Whoopdedoo?

Tying eligibility to structures is whatever. It makes little difference, really. Most groups worth deccing have them. Some groups like wars and will put some up just to participate, as PIE has. Baby seals maybe won't, but where's the fun in clubbing them anyway? Now your opponents needs to have some money and be willing to risk it. Not much has changed.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 08 Dec 2018, 17:09
Woops, double post.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: kalaratiri on 08 Dec 2018, 19:39
Am I the only one who doesn't think this change matters much? You can already escape wardec mechanics by going to an NPC corp, which is basically the same thing as being in a player corp without structures.

I agree with this. As I mentioned before, the people wanting to avoid wars were already doing it.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 08 Dec 2018, 21:08
If the goal of this is to prevent people from picking on newer/inexperienced players there's probably a better way to do it than to tie it to in-game resources. 

This system lets super-old players who don't want to be wardecced get out of being wardecced, which is a thing you shouldn't be able to do in EVE.

In fact if you are a super old player you shouldn't even go back to an NPC corp at any point in time.

They need a better way to slowly get new people used to all of these things with a titrated system of danger until they are fully vulnerable like everyone else. 

Something like
NPC corp invulnrable from all decs
NPC facwar light corp only at war with other npc facwar light corp (red vs blue for starter ships or whatever in a few kiddie-pool systems with free ship replacements and a tiny constellation to learn about gates and jumping and fighting)
Off you go to join rest of cluster after that



 
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Norrin Ellis on 08 Dec 2018, 21:51
This system lets super-old players who don't want to be wardecced get out of being wardecced, which is a thing you shouldn't be able to do in EVE.

In fact if you are a super old player you shouldn't even go back to an NPC corp at any point in time.

They need a better way to slowly get new people used to all of these things with a titrated system of danger until they are fully vulnerable like everyone else. 

You basically just made the argument that people should be forced to play the way you want them to play.

Sorry, but the rest of us pay our subscription dollars, too.  If other people want to pay for my game, they can tell me how I should play the game, but I don't see that day on the horizon, so folks who think I should have to be griefed to enjoy some shiny space pixels can kiss my ass.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 03:28
"What the fuck man, your piece just took mine."   "... yes, it's chess."    "But I just want to much about with my white pieces!"    "... it's chess."    "I play the game how I want to!"   "Still chess."    "Griefer!"
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 09 Dec 2018, 04:00
"What the fuck man, your piece just took mine."   "... yes, it's chess."    "But I just want to much about with my white pieces!"    "... it's chess."    "I play the game how I want to!"   "Still chess."    "Griefer!"

and you complain about other people making ridiculous examples. lol
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 09 Dec 2018, 04:03
Anyway, I expect that in the longer term, the capabilities of NPC-owned stations will be reduced, such that using your own structures is far, far more attractive a prospect, leading people to consider taking the risk of war declarations, in order to benefit.

Much like how staying in an NPC corp has the 11% tax rate on it, to make people consider being in a player corporation instead.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 05:56
This has been addressed many times already. There's literally no reason to keep the structure in the corp/alliance if you want to remain wardec immune. People are as we speak moving structures to alt holding corps, so the only things that can be targeted is the structure itself. In most cases in highsec, this means a pretty worthless target compared to the effort and time required to take it down.

These corps are now wardec immune, without having the slightest drawback. They can still use all their structures (now squirreled away on alt corps) with zero tax etc whatever, having however much corp tax they want, and being entirely immune to anything even resembling competition or aggression. Every benefit, no drawback. All hail Eve Online 2.0: Hello Pussy Online Adventures.

Yes, the newbcorp existed in the past, but that doesn't have any of the things you need for decent industry. Corp hangars alone are vital for blueprint management, as well as industry job management and corp wallets and the whole nine yards. There used to be drawbacks to wardec immunity. Now there's literally none.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 09 Dec 2018, 08:07
So they're putting their assets into even more vulnerable corps with fewer potential defenders?

Sounds like easy pickings for bashers.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 08:36
What "potential defenders" would this be? The ones that were going to log off for the week anyway? The bashers are gaining nothing, rather losing even the potential of fights and kills, while the bears get to keep using the structures through the entire cycle with no drawback. You can't even suppress their industry, in effect ensuring that the wardec invulnerable bears can now regain the entire cost of the structure being bashed in less time than it takes to destroy it. Can't stop them moon mining, can't stop them moving materials, manufacturing and moving goods and so on and so forth. Unless the structure corp is wardecced the moment the structure goes up and it's immediately put into reinforced, it's pretty much guaranteed to be profitable long before it's destroyed.

Well, not my Fortizar obviously. That's just a fuel sink and RP thing that makes zero money, but every indy structure I own can very easily make back the investment cost in less than two weeks. The production one in far far less. And that's with just me having alts. An actual industry corp putting some effort in it, completely wardec immune and with a bit of brainstem ensuring they are very hard to gank can't possibly fail to be highly profitable on every structure they stuff in their alt corp, even if they're bashed regularly.

Literally no sustainable counter-play left.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 09 Dec 2018, 12:46
Well, not for small groups that can't take down structures on their own. I guess not.

Get some friends to help with bashes?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 12:52
... did you not read the post at all? The bashes are irrelevant. I can hire bashers all day long, they can't actually do anything at all to the enemy. The enemies are wardec immune and there's nothing that can disrupt their industry (which is entirely drawback free, as they now have all the benefits of corp hangars, corp/alliance contracts, corp wallets, corp jobs etc etc) and bashing structures doesn't actually do fuck all when they're free to get all the profit out of them in less time than it takes to bash it. Unless the enemy is functionally fucking retarded, going for their structures - which is the only thing you can do - does zero harm because they generate more profit than they lose anyway.

Please actually read what you respond to.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 09 Dec 2018, 12:59
Even if it was worthwhile, fuck structure bashes. And all of this is assuming they even bother putting their structures in an alt corp. Considering how prolific structures are in high sec now, finding a public one where you can do everything you need is incredibly easy.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Nissui on 09 Dec 2018, 13:15
So, uh... when do the rest of the wardec changes get announced?

Considering putting up a POCO so I can still be decced.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Ché Biko on 09 Dec 2018, 13:20
Announced? When they've got more to announce, I guess.
The new wardec mechanics go live Dec. 11th.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Teinyhr on 09 Dec 2018, 13:21
I honestly don't understand the fuss.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 09 Dec 2018, 13:37
So the invulnerable industry is now invulnerable because you can't declare on corporations that don't own a structure.

As opposed to the invulnerable industry that was being run on alt-corps with no visible connections to the characters who the ISK is funnelled to. Or basing out of public structures.

Okay.

You going to wardec Chribba's corporation, if people are basing out of his structures ?


All it means is that a 1-character pvp corp can't declare on a large corporation and then log off for a few weeks with the bills on auto-pay, and have a psych effect on the larger entity because any neutrals could be alt-spies. And even if they did throw up a POS somewhere, then it can be taken down by the defender to end the war while the 1-player dude still has weeks to go before they're back in game. Big deal.

vOv
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 15:03
So the invulnerable industry is now invulnerable because you can't declare on corporations that don't own a structure.

As opposed to the invulnerable industry that was being run on alt-corps with no visible connections to the characters who the ISK is funnelled to. Or basing out of public structures.

That was never invulnerable. That was more or less hidden. In a lot of cases, poorly so. Especially among RPers, since every char is a special IGS snowflake.

Quote
You going to wardec Chribba's corporation, if people are basing out of his structures ?

Do you not grasp just how poorly you understand the issue? Someone using a freeport or alt corps or whatever else is exactly the same at this point. That's the whole problem. You used to be able to disrupt and target their industry by going for the people doing it, whether they're in NPC stations, freeports or their own structures. Now this is no longer possible.

Quote
All it means is that a 1-character pvp corp can't declare on a large corporation and then log off for a few weeks with the bills on auto-pay, and have a psych effect on the larger entity because any neutrals could be alt-spies. And even if they did throw up a POS somewhere, then it can be taken down by the defender to end the war while the 1-player dude still has weeks to go before they're back in game. Big deal.

Yeah, what it means is that now you can be completely invulnerable in highsec, while having every single benefit of corporations, while having every single benefit of structures, without running even the slightest risk of facing consequences for actions, words or choices. Risk free, completely. That you don't seem to grasp the issue here isn't all too surprising of course.

Quote from: Tein
I honestly don't understand the fuss.

It's pretty simple, if there's something specific you don't understand I'm sure it can be explained.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Teinyhr on 09 Dec 2018, 15:27
The reason I don't understand the fuss is probably tha A) I don't do alts B) Griefdeccing or deccing over trivial crap in general is really not my thing C) Relating to A, I've felt alts have provided immunity to consequences and diluted the supposed hardcoredness of EVE for as long as their use has been prevalent.

Those who can be bothered, have been able to dodge everything for the past 15 years. This is barely anything new or gamechanging on top of that.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Aldrith Shutaq on 09 Dec 2018, 15:31
Clearly the solution is no alts, ever.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Teinyhr on 09 Dec 2018, 15:39
Clearly the solution is no alts, ever.

That's what I've been saying for years! Hey Zangief, you're not a bad guy!
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 15:46
The reason I don't understand the fuss is probably tha A) I don't do alts B) Griefdeccing or deccing in general is really not my thing C) Relating to A, I've felt alts have provided immunity to consequences and diluted the supposed hardcoredness of EVE for as long as their use has been prevalent.

Those who can be bothered, have been able to dodge everything for the past 15 years. This is barely anything new or gamechanging on top of that.

The fuck is 'griefdeccing'?

More importantly, alts you still had to keep hidden and tucked away somewhere secret if you wanted them to be at lower risk and even then they still ran the exact same risk everyone did. The only place you could be wardec safe was in the newbcorp and as an organization that was never tenable. No corphangars, none of the organizational tools needed for proper progress etc. I shouldn't have to keep repeating myself, because it's not a difficult concept. Now, you can have all the benefits risk free. Every tool in the box.

With zero counter play.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Teinyhr on 09 Dec 2018, 15:59

The fuck is 'griefdeccing'?


CODE., PIRAT, and whatever it was that corp of yesteryears that had practically half of EVE decced so they had to change the war dec costs years ago to rein them in. Basically zero-effort-zero-risk PK's that wardec everything they see around tradehubs for easy kills.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 16:51
Ah, hubcampers. You know, I never understood the problem with them. It's not like they really have an impact. I've been decced by them many a time, since I've been flying shinies in/near hubs, or they join in as defenders in my wars opportunistically. Haven't lost to them once yet. Five of them once caught me, and I still managed to slowboat back to gate ultrawebbed down to something like 20 m/s. They barely even stick their noses further than the hubs.

Just be a little bit careful and they're harmless. None of them'll ever actually hunt you anyway.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Teinyhr on 09 Dec 2018, 16:58
I've not been caught by them once, probably because I don't fly with anything valuable in my cargo, so I don't have a personal problem with them. But as far as I understood those people are the root of the whole problem and the wardec change, though I see you've been already debating that at length earlier.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 09 Dec 2018, 18:03
Do you not grasp just how poorly you understand the issue? Someone using a freeport or alt corps or whatever else is exactly the same at this point. That's the whole problem. You used to be able to disrupt and target their industry by going for the people doing it, whether they're in NPC stations, freeports or their own structures. Now this is no longer possible.

Npc corp miners, feeding minerals to an industrial management corp based out of structures operated by a freeport group.

Nothing has changed. There was a way to avoid industry being targeted before.

Quote
Yeah, what it means is that now you can be completely invulnerable in highsec, while having every single benefit of corporations, while having every single benefit of structures, without running even the slightest risk of facing consequences for actions, words or choices.

Like that didn't already exist before. Only way to avoid that is to ban the transfer of items or isk between characters.


Quote
That you don't seem to grasp the issue here isn't all too surprising of course.

well look at you, throwing out obvious forum rule violations, just so you can play the wounded martyr if and when they get catacombed, and whine again about how Silver/Morwen is persecuting you. Transparent as a pane of glass.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 18:14
Miners barely represent a fraction of the issue and you can't possibly be daft enough to not grasp that. And no, there has never before been a way to be invulnerable to wardecs while having all the benefits of corp hangars, corp jobs and so on, all the hallmarks of actually functional industry. The NPC corp has always been a barrier to any real industry and transferring isk/items between characters never changed that the industry still needed to be vulnerable.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 09 Dec 2018, 18:35
there has never before been a way to be invulnerable to wardecs while having all the benefits of corp hangars, corp jobs and so on, all the hallmarks of actually functional industry.

O rly. Rent an office in a station or structure, you have the corp hangars and corp jobs available. You don't own the station or structure. You don't do the hauling or collection of material either. Once set up, the production management characters don't need to undock. Finished products are handed over to the intended customer. So where is the vulnerability ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Mizhara on 09 Dec 2018, 18:40
... are you deficient? Renting said corp office required being vulnerable. Having access to said corp hangar, corp jobs etc all required being wardeccable. When you have dozens or more industrialists managing multiple industrial logistics chains, including all the material acquisition, refinement, hauling, product hauling, RnD, Blueprint Management and so on and so forth, you're not going to be doing it by individually trading all of that crap between NewbCorp Alts.

You've never actually done industry worth fuck all, have you?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 09 Dec 2018, 19:40
You basically just made the argument that people should be forced to play the way you want them to play.

Sorry, but the rest of us pay our subscription dollars, too.  If other people want to pay for my game, they can tell me how I should play the game, but I don't see that day on the horizon, so folks who think I should have to be griefed to enjoy some shiny space pixels can kiss my ass.

I most definitely did not.  It's just that it's been this way since what, 2004? Anyone can dec anyone not in an npc corp for any reason they want, anytime, anywhere. Much of the marketing and reputation of this game pushed by CCP for many years was entirely built around the concept that you aren't ever really safe and that you can do almost anything and that it's all interconnected and what you do matters.  With these changes they are trying to have it both ways, and doing both poorly.   

I've got no problem with new players having all kinds of super invulnerability and protected status and giant rubber bouncy castles to play in for as long as they like.  There's no reason to take a hatchet to the rest of the playerbase when a scalpel will do.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Garion Avarr on 09 Dec 2018, 20:24
I scout and chase ARC... well okay SFRIM people 99% of the time but let's call it ARC for now... people around, hunting and occasionally killing them. This is undesirable to them, so they organize, knowing that if they... say Mine X Amount Of Moon Goo, or collect Y Amount Of NPC Bounties or Explore Z Amount Of Sites or Produce So And So Much Value And Manage To Trade It and whateverthefuckelse bears do with their time the war will end because of the mechanic that says "aggressor incapable of pursuing an effective path towards their victory conditions, war declared unsuccessful, defender now have X weeks of war immunity from those involved in this war" or something. They succeeded in this since they organized, scouted and watched their aggressors, coordinated their bearing and maybe even defended it and so on.

Same thing on the offensive side with war goal mechanics in play. Declare war, mechanics look at aggressor and defender and determines some upper and lower bounds, then the aggressor gets to set some war goals like "X amount of destroyed structures, Y amount/value of destroyed ships" and so on. Upon successful completion of the objectives, war is declared won/lost and those involved can't be at war again for a certain amount of time. Add some reward mechanics to both sides for succeeding in attacking/defending (whether it's through fighting or successfully remaining active while avoiding losses) to incentivize activity and you are starting to get somewhere.

That actually would have been pretty fun, and I think a number of us would have enjoyed things if those had been the mechanics.  Not a perfect system (though no system is), but definitely a cool idea.

And no, there has never before been a way to be invulnerable to wardecs while having all the benefits of corp hangars, corp jobs and so on, all the hallmarks of actually functional industry.
While technically true, there was at one point a way to make it cost so much to dec you that no one in their right mind would do so (possibly making it cost more than anyone actually had at the time, if one were so inclined) without, as I recall, paying any of the costs yourself.  E-Uni used it way back when to make ourselves effectively immune to wars.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Samira Kernher on 09 Dec 2018, 21:02
I've not been caught by them once, probably because I don't fly with anything valuable in my cargo, so I don't have a personal problem with them. But as far as I understood those people are the root of the whole problem and the wardec change, though I see you've been already debating that at length earlier.

Really, those could be handled in a number of ways (that CCP isn't, of course). First off, any system that would reward people for continuing to do what they normally do would quickly end any war with people who don't bother to do any hunting. Secondly, they could limit how many active wars you can have going at the same time. Wars should be targeted, not bundles. Third, new players should be taught about instant docking/undocking in tutorials. And fourth, when pointed outside of a station, you should not be allowed to dock even if you de-aggress. Anyone camping these hubs with stupid expensive fuckoff ships shouldn't be able to easily dock whenever faced with someone that can actually hurt them. Death to station games.

But no, instead CCP is just doing structure bullshit.
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 09 Dec 2018, 21:13
I agree with Samira.

There's just... soo much low-hanging fruit to tackle so many of the big issues instead of this. 

The current situation rewards intricately knowing arbitrary and generally arcane game mechanics and exploiting lack of knowledge rather than any sort of skill or strategy fight.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 10 Dec 2018, 00:19
Again with the personal insults.

... are you deficient? Renting said corp office required being vulnerable. Having access to said corp hangar, corp jobs etc all required being wardeccable. When you have dozens or more industrialists managing multiple industrial logistics chains, including all the material acquisition, refinement, hauling, product hauling, RnD, Blueprint Management and so on and so forth, you're not going to be doing it by individually trading all of that crap between NewbCorp Alts.

You've never actually done industry worth fuck all, have you?

Nope. Renting a corp office never required anything being vulnerable. Vulnerability was optional.

hauling stuff is the only part that is vulnerable to in-space attack. And that can be handled by non-corp haulers.

Industrial corporation A. Rents a corp office in structure owned by B. Hauling done by courier contracts. End user of products is corporation C.

Explain how Corporation C's industrial support is vulnerable to attack ?
Explain how anything in Corporation A was actually vulnerable if they were wardecced ?
Corporation B could be wardecced. Ooo, but what if they didn't exist at all, but were actually a NPC corporation ?


The change just makes A and C invulnerable to non-suicide attack in highsec. If corporation C is a rp militia member, they could be shot anyway by opposing militia.

So what really changes ?
Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 10 Dec 2018, 15:17
We are all going off on tangents, maybe back to the central issue:

How safe should people be able to be in this game, and at what points of their space-career?


Also if a small number of organizations are responsible for 75% of the wardecs or whatever, maybe they could just institute a dec fatigue system like jumping, it would easily slash this behavior while not affecting anything else, solving the problem immediately.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Louella Dougans on 10 Dec 2018, 16:08
We are all going off on tangents, maybe back to the central issue:
How safe should people be able to be in this game, and at what points of their space-career?

endgame stuff is safest. cynojammed systems crawling with rorquals, vomiting out materials at a ludicrous rate. materials that allow those systems to be sewn up tight against any potential aggressor.

earlygame stuff has the greatest personal risk, and tiny rewards.

moaning about highsec corps of a few players doing stuff for low rewards, while nullsec rorqual silliness goes on, is more than a bit lol.

logistics ships were a bad idea. Structures were a bad idea. capital ships were a bad idea.

logistic ships make it possible for a large battle to be fought with zero losses on one side. this encourages risk aversion, avoiding fights wherever possible unless possessing the logistics advantage.

structures make a game into a job, creating commitments and alarm clock ops. People waking up to shoot things in the middle of their night, because of stupid structure timers.

capital ships being used to intervene in lowsec frigate fights, suck the fun out of lowsec, act as a powerful disincentive to players.

Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silas Vitalia on 10 Dec 2018, 20:07
Yea most of that stuff should have/could have been solved with balance and gameplay tweaks :/  They might do well to borrow a bit more from the RTS concepts of rock-paper-scissors counterplay and unit support?  Big expensive shit should only be good at mostly killing other big expensive shit, and even the best things without the proper support ships should be next to useless. In trying to be too 'hands off' with some of the economy and ridiculous accumulation of wealth they've fucked themselves for the sort of fleet fights they show on CGI trailers and that most people would like to participate in.

The null safety thing is definitely an issue that spills out to so much of the rest of the game, distorting markets and sov and fights or lack of fights, it's all tied together.  It seems like there are too many mechanisms in the game designed to make it safe and easy to just pound out the money and resources into huge snowball issues inside your walled-off castles.

Castles and walls certainly would have been nice in the middle ages if the resources inside the walls magically respawned for all the occupants to keep using for infinity and just accumulate more and more  :psyccp:

It would be nice if they had a low ceiling of valuable resources available that were quickly depleted for most of the low and null areas, and for some sort of completely variable and randomized resource wells to spawn almost like incursions across the cluster.  Force people to fight over limited things that changed locations to discourage walling it all off.  There'd be enough of you smart people to figure out a way to make the mechanics work and divide up the types of things so that you didn't just get 2 giant roving bands of blue that would pounce on whatever came up.    Make the regions unique for the types of resources and types of things those resources can be used for.  That everyone can farm bounties into infinity in every region is not healthy.

The game is way too far down the pipe for some of this stuff though, the largest orgs have basically unlimited amounts of cash and ships at this point.





Title: Re: Redux: Can you expect safety in Eve, as RPers?
Post by: Silver Night on 11 Dec 2018, 00:54
[mod]Locked due to frequent violation of Rule 3.[/mod]