Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: ValentinaDLM on 25 Jan 2016, 08:42
-
Because, I don't want to ruin Utari's thread, and derail it from his CSM topic, I decided to start a new thread to address some issues brought up in it.
I simply couldn't disagree more with Nieyli's position on this. I have been a Director, then later CEO of Zaratha Zarati (at the time a LS Pirate group), and a Director of Pyre Falcon Defence and Security, and now Cofounder of #2LC a Minmatar FW coalition, Alliance leader for Of Questionable Repute and CEO of Khushakor clan. So needless to say I have been involved on many levels with corporation and alliance funding.
Bottom up funding, is incredibly important to corporations between 15-100 in size, that aren't part of a major alliance or coalition. Smaller corporations very regularly put taxes on line members, and during my time (on an alt) in Skulldogs. which was in Red.Overlord we even went to 100% taxes during CTAs. This was very normal. The vast majority of corporations do this sort of funding system. It has been provided by CCP so that corporations can grow.
In Faction Warfare, you have a large amount of new people coming in, with very little in the way of funding, and even less knowledge of doctrine fittings, and likely without logistic alts of their own. This compounds the problem dramatically for newer and smaller corporations, which many times struggle to grow and find their way, while not being a very big roadblock for very large corps/alliance or for very small groups that don't have very many needs.
There are several problems with the assertions made in that other thread. The assumption is Corps use funds for SRP, while many corps do use a form of SRP and my own does SRP in the form of giving out fit ships for doctrines or to newer players, But Capital investments and heavy assets (Like those JFs for the services mentioned in the other thread) are the biggest reasons corporations need these income sources. In small corps, being able to fund a dread might be difficult on the players level, but in a nullsec corp, it isn't very difficult at all, and it is all the funding method. Large corporations and alliance can protect moons, but smaller ones simply cannot.
Also, many people simply don't have the gametime to run FW missions, and they can be very difficult for the solo player in the current state of Minmatar or Caldari Faction warfare due to the recent changes that were made. While it is still possible for a older player to run those missions in a bomber, for newer players this isn't very viable, combined with the fact that in low tiers it isn't terribly profitable. Also it exposes people, especially newer players to a great deal of risk when done solo. But, in proper mission fleets they have to contribute a great deal of time to it. Running plexes also pays very little in tier 1 and not enough to support higher end ships in tier 2.
To say that there shouldn't be bottom up funding methods available to Faction Warfare corporations is very elitist and hurts those new players who aren't self sufficient yet. My alliance has had over 9 Billion isk lost so far this month, not to mention about 4 billion in investments and 1.2 billion in heavy assets. So, who if not the members collectively should share the burden of that? Should we have to get Sov, and upgrade a system, just so that we can get a way to provide isk that can be properly taxed so that the corporation can have isk? For the Record, that is exactly what we had to do. We also had to get moons in order to keep this up, and guess what Snuff Box has just RFed one of our moons, does my 70 person alliance have any chance at keeping that moon? No, no we don't, but we shouldn't even have to be getting into that sort of thing, incursion corps don't have to, nullsec corps don't have to, mission runners don't have to, etc.
In my opinion, all denying bottom up funding methods does is allow large moon and sov holding entities to farm their space with impunity, while preventing smaller groups from being able to compete in a reasonable fashion.
-
I can only reiterate my support for an LP tax option, as mentioned in the other thread. Top down income is great if you can start it off, but for the vast majority of corps/alliances it is supplimental in nature. It is as true for a corp in the CFC/Imperium (I was in a small-mid size corp that relied on bottom up funding before it could start its own moon mining operation) as it's true for a wormhole corp.
To recap from the other thread, my idea was that there is a seperate tax mechanic in place, so you can set an lp tax rate and an isk tax rate individually to cater to needs. This includes the option of no tax at all if that's what is felt to be appropriate.
-
+1 vote for ability to tax LP.
-
+1 on the idea.
In addition to the obvious isk faucet aspect it also promotes corps/alliances using their own race's ships (why pay market prices for slicers to supply as a doctrine to your corp when you get hookbills to hand out for relatively dirt cheap via lp)
-
I suppose it might be necessary for some corps, but I'm not at all sure I'd bother flying for a Corp that made me plex and then taxed me.
In other news, FW should really award more LP for kills and less for circling da butan.
-
I suppose it might be necessary for some corps, but I'm not at all sure I'd bother flying for a Corp that made me plex and then taxed me.
In other news, FW should really award more LP for kills and less for circling da butan.
I absolutely agree here, the current system basically is Missions>Plexing>PVP but, while plexing has an impact on the WZ somewhat, and PVP has a pretty big impact, missions don't have any at all while being the largest source of LP. This part is kinda messed up, ideally PVP should have the largest LP gains, but it needs to be a way that isn't exploitable.
My idea on exploitability was take the base LP payouts we have now, and treat players more like an ihub, for each player you kill and collect LP for you create a LP bounty pool for yourself when you are killed. This means if Rude X kills 50 people and has 1 loss he should pay out quite a bit, assuming he was killing other active PVPers.
Also interesting you should mention racial ships, Dietra, we are running a slicer doctrine recently for Novices, and we didn't really want to deploy it before due to the isk cost involved (Our slicers cost several million isk more than our caracal or rupture fits after all), but now that Amarr are winning the Warzone we felt that it would start to be cheap soon to buy them off the market. So Corporate level purchasing choices are certainly being made with LP and tier in mind. We would have a much larger incentive to stick with firetails however, if we had a corporate supply of LP.
-
Ya, that's what I was thinking it would also support the "purists" by adding an incentive to fly their corp's mother militia. Not to mention cut costs down for doctrines to be handed out. To branch out from this they could also add more variety into the navy ships (rf breacher for example) to flesh out the different races. That or allow, I don't know, "captured" ships when a system flips that has a lp store for an opposing militia with a different color scheme reflecting the capturing militia ("captured augorer navy issue").
-
A rust bucket with an imperial paint job is just a rust bucket with fresh paint :/
Serious note it would most likely be implimented as a skin if such a thing were in the pipeworks of CCP.
-
100% tax during CTA is used to check who's ratting when they shouldn't be and purge them.
-
To say that there shouldn't be bottom up funding methods available to Faction Warfare corporations is very elitist and hurts those new players who aren't self sufficient yet. My alliance has had over 9 Billion isk lost so far this month, not to mention about 4 billion in investments and 1.2 billion in heavy assets. So, who if not the members collectively should share the burden of that? Should we have to get Sov, and upgrade a system, just so that we can get a way to provide isk that can be properly taxed so that the corporation can have isk? For the Record, that is exactly what we had to do. We also had to get moons in order to keep this up, and guess what Snuff Box has just RFed one of our moons, does my 70 person alliance have any chance at keeping that moon? No, no we don't, but we shouldn't even have to be getting into that sort of thing, incursion corps don't have to, nullsec corps don't have to, mission runners don't have to, etc.
In my opinion, all denying bottom up funding methods does is allow large moon and sov holding entities to farm their space with impunity, while preventing smaller groups from being able to compete in a reasonable fashion.
Ok, so here's the problem. Out of those 9b lost, how much on average is lost per member (A) and what's the average monthly tax income per member (B). If B>A, that's disincentivising me to join your corp. I'd be paying you for content that I can find myself. At that point I'm a customer, not a member.
-
Don't forget C, the opportunity cost of buying, fitting, and schlepping around your own replacement ships.
-
Multibuy, courier services and fitting a ship at the click of a button. C might as well not be there. Regardless, if you're paying someone to be your friend, he's not your friend.
-
The average loss of a ship is irrelevant since there is a lot more to funding a corp than SRP, who finds the transit of the ships? Who funds heavy assets like bridging ships, staging towers, structures and structure upgrades, etc.
In our case SRP is done thru handing out pre-fit doctrine ships, so there is also the time and energy to fit the ships too not just move the parts.
You seem to be making the argument that taxes are disincentive because they provide nothing more than SRP but that simply isn't true, if it were than any player with a reasonable income would have no reason to be in a corp at all.
-
Multibuy, courier services and fitting a ship at the click of a button. C might as well not be there. Regardless, if you're paying someone to be your friend, he's not your friend.
All those things basically do themselves in the timeframe of 10 minutes!
Anyways, taxing LP is long overdue. You'll find out who taxes too much quite quickly - if it's not worth it, go somewhere else.
-
Ok, so what else do taxes provide?
-
What do you mean, 'what else'.
It's all about group income. You don't really want anyone to elaborate why a group may require money separate from individual people's wallets/assets?
If a corp taxes the living crap out of its players without offering enough in return it's bound to fail anyways.
-
What else as in paying for logistics expenses, putting up staging towers where needed, et cetera, et cetera. I think people are under the impression that you, as an EVE player, desperately need to be in a corporation. It's the other way around, corporations desperately need more players. People should have standards. Otherwise you get things like TEST.
-
The fact people join TEST should show there's a wide variety of opinions on corporations and standards out there. Personally Nieyli, it feels like you're against taxation of any kind, but unwilling to accept some people are ok with it and that there are many things groups can achieve with taxation. From funding events like corp tournaments, srp, holding sov (corp/alliance needs isk to pay for bills) fuel, loans towards expensive ships for players, paying for the plexes of FCs and other content generators, rewards.
Could go on, as the limitations really are just imagination and the amount players are ok being taxed on. LP tax is long overdue to bring parity back. Outside the personal issue you have with taxation itself, could you demonstrate why taxation would be bad and harmfull to the game?
-
In TYRIN, tax is typically around 4-5%, and between the three people actively doing stuff in EVE that gets taxed, it manages to pay pretty consistently for corp offices while still leaving some wiggle-room - even with offices sometimes costing upwards of 250m/month total. Currently it's at zero, though, because there's enough in the corp wallets to deal with what expenses the corp-as-a-corp has for a few months even if rent for our offices stays high.
I'm not sure if I'd use an LP tax, but if I did I'd probably want to restrict it to only the corps for which the LP is useful for my corp and Rote as an alliance, and atm only two are coming to mind.
-
What else as in paying for logistics expenses, putting up staging towers where needed, et cetera, et cetera. I think people are under the impression that you, as an EVE player, desperately need to be in a corporation. It's the other way around, corporations desperately need more players. People should have standards. Otherwise you get things like TEST.
I don't know if you are in a corp or what your corp offers, but this highly depends on the group in question. Different sizes have different requirements and possibilities for income (such as a moon empire), different activities have different requirements.
SRP and redundancy is the biggest aspect why you need money. Easily 75% of PY-RE's non-capsule losses are corp assets financed through loot off 0% tax. The more money in the wallet, the more we can offer. If we could tax LP earned from one of the prime FW activities it would be fed directly back into the hangars for people to use.
The alternative is people buying their ships entirely on their own terms which is problematic with availability and cohesion. Another possibility is making heavy use of the contract system which makes it more complicated, a lot slower both in setting up and requesting and not necessarily fairer.
-
The fact people join TEST should show there's a wide variety of opinions on corporations and standards out there. Personally Nieyli, it feels like you're against taxation of any kind, but unwilling to accept some people are ok with it and that there are many things groups can achieve with taxation. From funding events like corp tournaments, srp, holding sov (corp/alliance needs isk to pay for bills) fuel, loans towards expensive ships for players, paying for the plexes of FCs and other content generators, rewards.
Could go on, as the limitations really are just imagination and the amount players are ok being taxed on. LP tax is long overdue to bring parity back. Outside the personal issue you have with taxation itself, could you demonstrate why taxation would be bad and harmfull to the game?
I'm not against taxation of any kind, as you claim. I've also never claimed that it would be bad for the game. Just for the corporation. What I'm against is the corp putting its hand in my wallet then wasting the money.
-
The fact people join TEST should show there's a wide variety of opinions on corporations and standards out there. Personally Nieyli, it feels like you're against taxation of any kind, but unwilling to accept some people are ok with it and that there are many things groups can achieve with taxation. From funding events like corp tournaments, srp, holding sov (corp/alliance needs isk to pay for bills) fuel, loans towards expensive ships for players, paying for the plexes of FCs and other content generators, rewards.
Could go on, as the limitations really are just imagination and the amount players are ok being taxed on. LP tax is long overdue to bring parity back. Outside the personal issue you have with taxation itself, could you demonstrate why taxation would be bad and harmfull to the game?
I'm not against taxation of any kind, as you claim. I've also never claimed that it would be bad for the game. Just for the corporation. What I'm against is the corp putting its hand in my wallet then wasting the money.
Well this has nothing to do with taxation itself then. What corps do with taxation is down to them, and the bad ones are normally pretty obvious and don't grow well.
-
It just gives another venue to get squeezed on. Now, I know that people enjoy Space Communism, hence why TEST hasn't imploded catastrophically yet. I don't. I'm your Scrooge McCapitalist Duck. Along with a lot of other people. Getting taxed for infrastructure is fine and good. Getting taxed for the hell of it is not.
Basically, what I'm saying is that corp income should be a reward for having a really cool and strong corp, rather than a requirement for it to function.
-
But Nieyli none of that has anything to do with the ability to levy a tax to begin with, which is what this thread is about. What corportations do or don't do with taxes is well beyond the scope of the csm or even the desire of CCP to police. If you don't like space communism then don't join space communists no one is forcing anyone here, you can always make a corp with 0 tax and sit in it of you want.
As for me I am a proud space communist and giving out thrashers and talwars to each according need and getting PVP from each according to ability has made my Eve career much better.
-
Actually it does. The ability to tax LP is just an element of the overall desire to shift the game into bottoms-up corp funding model, which I personally find suboptimal. Let me reiterate: having corp income should be a reward for running your corp well, not a requirement for it to function.
-
I'm struggling to pick up on your logic, Ria, and I'm sorta coming up empty handed. Are you just arguing against this for the sake of arguing against it, or do you actually have a point you're trying to arrive at?
Because unlike some other things CCP is wanting to do, an LP tax that is optional - just like the ISK tax! - doesn't affect you in the slightest if you're not in a corporation that enables that entirely optional feature. Some of us would use it. Some of us wouldn't. Whether you find it suboptimal or not is irrelevant: at least try to find an argument that suggests it would be objectively bad for the game as a whole as opposed to your personal sense of ~optimal~, because you seem to be the only person objecting to the idea and you are doing a pretty poor job of making your argument cohesive or even coherent.
-
OP's saying that bottom-up funding is required for a corp to work. I'm saying that it shouldn't be.
-
How would you address the issue of raising money?
-
Raising money for what?
-
You say taxation isn't inherently bad for the game. Then, you say a taxation mechanic shouldn't be introduced because space commies might steal from your wallet for no good reason and it encourages bottom up funding which you're against (but not giving a clear argument why it's bad for the game). Which is it? Are you ok with taxation mechanics or not? Can you actually make a stand here because you seem to be flip flopping a lot and not making a coherent case.
Infact I'll straight up ask you. Are you literally dancing round this issue just to annoy people? Because it kind of feels like it when this thread is stock full of examples of what corps want to spend taxation money on, and you ask "raising money for what?"
-
No, I'm not doing it just to annoy you.
You want to know how it's bad for the game? Once this goes down there will be zero mechanical reason to hold sov whatsoever. A lot of people will jump ship. It's just the latest travesty in line after jump fatigue, fozzie sov and ADM indexes. LP tax is just a part of bottom-up funding.
And if you think that bottom-up is good, let me give you this scenario: I put a pvp character in your corp, take SRP that other people pay for but do nothing save for pvp. Meanwhile, I have an alt in a tax shelter corp and I make my money there. What are you going to do? Would I be a more or less valuable member than someone who generates income for the corp but doesn't pvp as much as me?
-
Sov Null doesn't have anything to do with LP as it has no LP faucets outside a tiny trickle from ESSs so I don't know how you think an LP tax would affect it.
Isk taxation is a thing. Jump fatigue has been a thing for a while, yet new groups still seem to be taking a bite out of Sov Null. The map hasn't seen as many diverse colours since before the rise of the CFC so... I'm not seing the argument there.
In the case of tax havens, again, people already have this option right now and have taken advantage of it for years. Since it seems not everyone wants to take this approach, I guess space communism must be alive and kicking and popular. CVA happens to finance its SRP programme almost all off of isk tax on the member corps, who raise their isk off of isk tax on line members, and not a lot of people seem totally bothered by it because everyone is getting something out of it. LP tax wouldn't affect us that much at all since not a lot of people mission since we're almost perma wardecced.
Finally, what you presented is a narrow hypothetical situation and you know it. But I'll answer it anyways. It's yes and no. Yes, you are being usefull in terms of pvp and that's great. However, no, because you're not contributing to the srp pot which could be considered bad when you're happy to claim from it. But whether corps are happy to be in that situation is entirely down to them. Each corp is free to practice how they like, whether to not accept someone like that or turn a blind eye to it.
You say bottom up will be bad for null. As a nullbear, I disagree, and it seems on the whole even Goonswarm likes living off of bottom up when they happily publish the multiple billions of isk out of taxes they get and how they spent it. On that basis, since space communism is so alive and kicking despite the same issues you outline, and you've not brought up a unique problem specific to LP taxation, I still firmly endorse this mechanic.
-
LP tax is just the first step. Next one would be shifting moons to more personal income. It's already being talked about. Bottom-up income is in the works and the LP tax is just a facet of it. What's going to happen is the depletion of strategic objectives for sov holders. Eventually a sov holding alliance's only purpose would be ??? Null needs better incentives than afk ratting for 60m/hr to make people want to be there.
The narrow hypothetical situation is already a reality for many people. If you've seen Goonswarm talking heads complain about highsec income, it's for that very reason. It's because people dodge the tax with alts. It's because people farm in highsec instead of being renters. They can't do anything about it, so they want nullsec to be more rewarding to shift the people's characters to where they can be taxed. Now, this is bad enough, but imagine what would happen if coalition top-down income stops.
And yes, fatigue has been around for a while, but with each thing like it introduced, the game loses some people. They become disenfranchised. The question is, does it help retain enough new people. I don't have an answer for that.
-
LP tax is just the first step. Next one would be shifting moons to more personal income. It's already being talked about. Bottom-up income is in the works and the LP tax is just a facet of it. What's going to happen is the depletion of strategic objectives for sov holders. Eventually a sov holding alliance's only purpose would be ??? Null needs better incentives than afk ratting for 60m/hr to make people want to be there.
I'm afraid saying LP tax is a step towards ruining the game without outlining the specific damage it does on its own as a mechanic isn't valid in this case. It's like saying going from toasted sandwiches to bagels is bad for Britain as an eating culture, without bothering to explain why bagels are bad outside it might lead to a more continental style of eating.
And yes, fatigue has been around for a while, but with each thing like it introduced, the game loses some people. They become disenfranchised. The question is, does it help retain enough new people. I don't have an answer for that.
If you don't have an answer if it retains more or less people, it's a bit of a stretch to then use it as an argument against.
The narrow hypothetical situation is already a reality for many people. If you've seen Goonswarm talking heads complain about highsec income, it's for that very reason. It's because people dodge the tax with alts. It's because people farm in highsec instead of being renters. They can't do anything about it, so they want nullsec to be more rewarding to shift the people's characters to where they can be taxed. Now, this is bad enough, but imagine what would happen if coalition top-down income stops.
The narrow hypothetical situation is a reality, yes, and yet here we are with groups still managing. The specific introduction of LP tax wouldn't have any more or less an impact on this then current mechanics already do. Future mechanics or changes might, but that is not the scope of this thread.
If top down income ends, most groups will adapt. A lot of groups already live almost all off of bottom up income because they have few if any moons. POCOs aren't on the chopping block at this time.
-
Goons don't like highsec income because it means people who don't want to play their game don't have to. It has nothing to do with alts or taxes, and everything to do with the typical nullsec attitude of "anyone who isn't playing with us in nullsec is a cancer on EVE because they're not out here for us to shoot at them."
-
Eh... There's a little truth in what Nieyli is saying about Goons and Hisec alts. Sure, maybe not to the extent of leadership hammering line members over it, but I'm pretty sure they'd rather the income be in null. But yes, there's the narrative of Grr Pubbies as well, but it's a bit more nuanced then that.
Still, they make a shit tonne of isk out of taxation so they're not doing awfully.
-
I think that the LP tax is a part of the whole package of bottom up, so I think that it should be discussed as such rather than a standalone feature.
As for "grr pubbies" that died as soon as they instituted renters.
-
Raising money for what?
Standing fleet of doctrine ships or SRP. Logistics services. Running costs.
The more ingame support you have for different ways of raising money the better you can finetune it.
LP taxing would be especially interesting for FW groups as it allows to instrumentalize the main group activity as a source of income, which in turn can be used to support this main activity in the ways described above.
-
Does a corporation need SRP though? Or rather, does it need SRP to function rather than it being a strategic value gained by doing well as a corporation/alliance?
Logistics I pay for anyway, so there should be no problem if the corp charges me for them. And the running costs, well those need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, but unless the CEO is actually embezzling funds from the wallet, it should be relatively simple to come up with them from other services you're providing.
-
Do you need a corporation - except as tax haven if you're a ratter/missioner - at all?
-
Do you need a corporation at all? No, absolutely not. And that's the problem with mechanics like this one. They disincentivise people from joining while providing little to no reward to the ones that still do.
-
Why are they joining then?
-
They join because they read that "x is recruiting" on reddit. People are practically killing eachother for that crowd. It's quite literally interns. They fly cheap ships, do only what you tell them, albeit a bit badly, and have high turnover. Much like fairweather friends, once stuff goes sour and you can't keep up the narrative, they just vanish. That's the majority of the talent pool ingame.
-
If only everyone would listen to you and see the light.
-
You don't think that it's happening? Then what do you think is happening?
-
People may not join corporations based on their needs, especially early on in their EVE life, but they will stay where they're enjoying themselves and where they get something out of it according to the old formula: time/effort in, fun out.
-
Ok, but if you're an active contributor to the system, rather than just a beneficiary, you're spending time/effort for someone else's fun. It causes burnout, it causes bittervetting, elitism, you name it. People don't want to be treated like second class citizens, especially in a hobby.
-
Everyone's free to use their own calculations for their effort/fun ratio as this is highly subjective, both on individual preferences and to the groups in question.
Furthermore, odds are that if you're a top contributor you're also utilizing more than someone not spending his time logged in.
Of course, people like recognition for their efforts. This is up for the group in question to handle. In EVE, unlike IRL, a corporation can not force people to join (there's no unemployment in EVE) or stay joined (and active). If it stops providing enough people will lose interest and wander off or cease playing and the corporation will wither and die.
-
Some people, myself included, do also actually enjoy contributing and providing fun for other players. Not everyone's view on what is fun is the same. Not everyone's view on what they want out of a corp is the same either.
-
Everyone's free to use their own calculations for their effort/fun ratio as this is highly subjective, both on individual preferences and to the groups in question.
Furthermore, odds are that if you're a top contributor you're also utilizing more than someone not spending his time logged in.
As a raw number, you might be eating up more than someone who only logs in to pvp, but proportionally his ISK ratio would be way worse than yours.
Of course, people like recognition for their efforts. This is up for the group in question to handle. In EVE, unlike IRL, a corporation can not force people to join (there's no unemployment in EVE) or stay joined (and active). If it stops providing enough people will lose interest and wander off or cease playing and the corporation will wither and die.
Yeah, and that's the thing - the harder you fleece people, the faster they lose interest in being part of your thing. And we've all seen what happens to max fun per hour organisations.
Some people, myself included, do also actually enjoy contributing and providing fun for other players. Not everyone's view on what is fun is the same. Not everyone's view on what they want out of a corp is the same either.
But there are other, better, ways of contributing and providing fun for people than just ISK. Organise an event, run a fleet, you can teach them stuff too, etc. etc.
-
That's just like, your opinion, man.
-
What is the case for you is not for everyone else. Just because you won't use an option that is provided because you don't like it isn't a valid reason to say that it shouldn't exist when other people who do like it and will make use of it.
That's the point of the word optional. As in, you don't have to use it if you don't want to.
So instead of talking out of your ass and telling the rest of us who are okay with the concept and would make active use of such an optional feature that it's bad for EVE (it's not; it's bad for YOUR specific style of play based on YOUR sensitivities, which is entirely negated by it being optional) and that it shouldn't even be considered by CCP, let alone implemented, you should perhaps get over yourself and accept that not every feature in EVE is meant for everyone to use.
I don't fucking touch sov, or POS, or anything of that sort. I don't want to - I don't enjoy the gameplay offered. It doesn't mean I get to stamp my feet and scream at the top of my lungs that any development on it is bad for the game.
Which is exactly what you're doing.
-
What the fuck is your problem?
-
Dunning-Kruger persecution complex activating in 5...4...3...
-
Sure if you point out where I'm screaming and stamping my feet or talking out of my ass.
-
I believe, from my reading of the discussion, that the others are attempting to point out that the existence of a tax does not premeditate the enforcement of a tax.
Bottom-up funding has its place: such corporations survive by benevolence (taxation agreed upon by members with transparent benefits) or malice (exploitation of newcomers/less observant pilots who leave quickly, but might bring additional tax-cows in before they go). Their success depends on a variety of factors, but benevolence is the long-term winner due to sustainability and transparency inviting comment form the more numerically gifted line members (who may rise through the ranks as a result).
Similarly, top down (my corp model) is very effective. Paying members for work done is a matter of negotiation and transparency, but the ISK flow is reversed. Similarly it can be benevolent or the ISK is essentially a paltry appeal to the 'employability' desires of vulnerable pilots (malicious).
These are independent of the factor you, Ria, bring into the equation - the concept of service. Service through time spent is arguably the most precious resource in EVE and highly active contributing corp members (especially those with few roles nor desire for them) are fought over quite literally. However, as I have pointed out the concept of service is independent of ISK income. It may contribute ISK or drain ISK, depending on the activity. If self funded (by the beneficent pilot) it may have no net effect.
Realistically a corporation will be the sum of choices made regarding the expenditure of time and isk, and the accumulation of players, talent and (you guessed it) ISK. ISK, used in this discussion, refers to any income stream - so minerals/materials/moons/LP (anything that can be taxed by mechanic or by domination of the source). The decision to tax or not to tax is freely made, from 0-100% and some corporations (houses of cards) fall by their ill-intentioned over taxation of line members. Others prosper by feeding back in a manner that exceeds the perceived loss of income that taxation represents.
Players may game the system as you, Ria, have mentioned. They may have tax-evasion corps, and some CEOs (like myself) won;t mind this. Others that do will soon learn a harsh lesson in the woeful inadequacy of API checks to enforce some fiscal regime. And so even after a tax is applied to a resource - it is purely optional. You can participate in it in good faith (if you feel it is worthy), leave, or evade at your leisure.
So my question to you, directly, would be:
"Considering that you can choose not to tax a thing (LP for example), what is the downside of there being an option to tax it?"
My thought is that the addition of a multitude of taxes (hello Citadels) will provide options. Poorly executed they will annoy, wardecs may fly or stations lie fallow (and corps burn) as people say no to the tax. Well planned and communicated, they could form the foundation of community investment (market seeding/free-ship fleets funded by loyal custom or membership). Yes these things can already be achieved through other means, but honestly, what is the downside of choice?
To me that is the crux of the matter. Choice. Having it, even if that choice can be a bad one to make in some scenarios, opens up the sandbox a little more. It allows more emergent game play as movements around the issue rise and fall. And if all it takes is an additional variable and function in a class within the game code, I think that's a small cost for a world of choices.
-
To answer your question, I don't think that you can view the LP tax by itself. For me it's part of a package that's going to shift corp funding models strictly to bottom-up. This thing is the foot in the door. So, yes, LP tax by itself is an option. However, it will ultimately come at the expense of another option, the loss of which I consider worse than the benefits gained by the choice whether some people tax LP or not.
Yes, it is a sandbox, but there are walls and they are moving. You have no guarantee that they'll leave you with as much space once they're done.
As for citadels, paying for the services they'd offer already exists one way or another ingame. Those existing options are mostly spread out in outposts right now, but as those get phased out in favour of citadels, it will just open them up to lowsec and wormholes. It will increase parity between areas somewhat, but the point is that paying for those services is much more akin to giving money to your CEO so she can keep POSes in the wormhole you live in fueled.
-
It will increase parity between areas somewhat, but the point is that paying for those services is much more akin to giving money to your CEO so she can keep POSes in the wormhole you live in fueled.
Isn't this what current tax models are already used for? How would an LP tax be any different?
-
To answer your question, I don't think that you can view the LP tax by itself. For me it's part of a package that's going to shift corp funding models strictly to bottom-up. This thing is the foot in the door. So, yes, LP tax by itself is an option. However, it will ultimately come at the expense of another option, the loss of which I consider worse than the benefits gained by the choice whether some people tax LP or not.
Yes, it is a sandbox, but there are walls and they are moving. You have no guarantee that they'll leave you with as much space once they're done.
As for citadels, paying for the services they'd offer already exists one way or another ingame. Those existing options are mostly spread out in outposts right now, but as those get phased out in favour of citadels, it will just open them up to lowsec and wormholes. It will increase parity between areas somewhat, but the point is that paying for those services is much more akin to giving money to your CEO so she can keep POSes in the wormhole you live in fueled.
I guess the fundamental disagreement we have here, is that I do not subscribe to the fatalistic notion that the implementation of a choice is a move to restrict choice in the future.
if the public at large choose the bottom up model over all alternatives, that's the free market of ideas in motion. Ways of life are pressured out by more successful memes and trends all the time, usually by popular demand (the old way is still possible, but so few agree with adherents that it is a dying practice). I doubt CCP will stop 0 tax corporations, personal donations and benevolent plutocrats carrying on without a thought towards taxing their peers.
You mention: "However, it will ultimately come at the expense of another option, the loss of which I consider worse than the benefits gained by the choice whether some people tax LP or not." What is this option? You mention the existence of it, but not what it is. And how is it lost?
-
It will increase parity between areas somewhat, but the point is that paying for those services is much more akin to giving money to your CEO so she can keep POSes in the wormhole you live in fueled.
Isn't this what current tax models are already used for? How would an LP tax be any different?
Well, people keep tacking on SRP in the corp expenses section, so no. That's not all the current tax models are used for.
I guess the fundamental disagreement we have here, is that I do not subscribe to the fatalistic notion that the implementation of a choice is a move to restrict choice in the future.
if the public at large choose the bottom up model over all alternatives, that's the free market of ideas in motion. Ways of life are pressured out by more successful memes and trends all the time, usually by popular demand (the old way is still possible, but so few agree with adherents that it is a dying practice). I doubt CCP will stop 0 tax corporations, personal donations and benevolent plutocrats carrying on without a thought towards taxing their peers.
You mention: "However, it will ultimately come at the expense of another option, the loss of which I consider worse than the benefits gained by the choice whether some people tax LP or not." What is this option? You mention the existence of it, but not what it is. And how is it lost?
Top-down income will be getting cut from the game. Have fun.
-
You've still not answered a single question.
-
It seems Nieyli just doesn't like bottom up income. Nieyli, have you been to nullsec and been a part of the coalitions? Have you run a group that covers expenses and done the day to day activites of managing a corp, corp assets and the like? Do you have any understanding of these areas of the game by personal experiance?
If you haven't, and I'm beginning to suspect you haven't, then you're talking from a platform of ignorance. As someone who does live in nullsec, bottom up isn't scary nor undesireable. As someone who has run several layers of expenses to keep a wormhole corp running and sustainable, bottom up would be a god damn blessing.
You seem to just not want people to take your space money in a space game, and that's fine you can go ahead and enjoy sitting in your one person tax haven, that option is not going away. The option of the LP tax is one that's not going to affect you since you're not taxing yourself. Further bottom up income options won't hurt players since corps will have to encourage people to make money, take on people who just want to rat and all that good stuff.
Either way, nothing new or constructive is being brought to this thread at this point, we're all running around in circles.
-
Top-down income will be getting cut from the game. Have fun.
I am going to assume your good intentions here and politely request a source or compelling argument to the truth of this fact. I appreciate you feel strongly on this issue, but let us deal with the facts here.
I appreciate your point of view and wish to see if I can come to incorporate it within my own.
-
It seems Nieyli just doesn't like bottom up income. Nieyli, have you been to nullsec and been a part of the coalitions? Have you run a group that covers expenses and done the day to day activites of managing a corp, corp assets and the like? Do you have any understanding of these areas of the game by personal experiance?
If you haven't, and I'm beginning to suspect you haven't, then you're talking from a platform of ignorance. As someone who does live in nullsec, bottom up isn't scary nor undesireable. As someone who has run several layers of expenses to keep a wormhole corp running and sustainable, bottom up would be a god damn blessing.
You seem to just not want people to take your space money in a space game, and that's fine you can go ahead and enjoy sitting in your one person tax haven, that option is not going away. The option of the LP tax is one that's not going to affect you since you're not taxing yourself. Further bottom up income options won't hurt players since corps will have to encourage people to make money, take on people who just want to rat and all that good stuff.
Either way, nothing new or constructive is being brought to this thread at this point, we're all running around in circles.
It's not that I don't like bottom-up income. I just don't like throwing money into a hole. Why? Because time is money. Doubly so for EVE, which is a hobby. So if I'm going to be in a corporation so I can get taxed so I can be in a corporation so I can get so I can... You get the idea.
And yes, I have been in a nullsec bloc. Our corp had expenses, but we had money moons to offset that. We did other tings too, but that's the most common example. It's an easy income stream that can be managed by just a few people to cover expenses. It's also a direct benefit of being able to exert power over an area of space and claim the moons.
Another thing that nullsec has is outposts. Those do fun things such as halving research time, giving you better refine yield, lowering construction materials required, etc. They're strategic assets as well, but the income generated by them comes from alliance members using the relevant services. It really is the best of both worlds, because it requires active interaction for income to occur and it requires the ability to exert force for it to be there in the first place.
The problem with those is that lowsec and wormholes don't have outposts. With the advent of citadels, however, the aforementioned services will get normalised across all areas of space. The effect in wormholes is going to be enormous, since you'd no longer need to fuel dozens of towers if you're in a larger corporation. Everyone would be able to safely share a single citadel. Broker fees, clones installation costs and all the other little things people do would get funneled towards the corp that owns the citadel. That is, if you can keep it alive.
So far, so good. But where does the LP tax fit within this model? Short answer: it does not.
Long answer: Rather than it being inherently tied to a service, it's a flat income tax. I'm glad that you mentioned wormhole funding models, because one of the methods they use is a loot buyback programme. You drop off your sleeper loot or relic site loot or what have you in a hangar, and after a while you receive let's say 90% of its value. Hold up, what? Isn't that an income tax? And the answer is no. No, because that way the corp member saves on time. He doesn't have to haul billions of sleeper loot and sell it. He's paying you to do it. He doesn't have to train up market skills to make the most of it. He's paying you to do it. Similarly, instead of having a flat LP tax in your corp, tell your members that you're going to be buying items A, B and C in station H for X ISK. Provide them with the items needed for conversion and pay out 90% of the final value of the items you get. That way your members don't have to worry about hauling, figuring out which items to buy, market, etc. Because they're paying you to do it.
It would still be possible for them to do it themselves entirely for higher payout, but a lot less people would go out of their way to circumvent something that ends up saving them time and hassle.
And that's the whole problem that taxing your members as a form of bottom-up income presents: It takes them time to do it. If someone spends real money on a plex to fund his pvp and logs in for an hour here and there, are you going to encourage him to spend time on grinding something so you can tax him? Offer him some services that he can spend some of the plex isk on and everyone is happy. Yes, I know, limited example, but it keeps true at all levels to a degree.
Conversely, taking on people for the sole purpose of taxing them means that you're taking on renters in your corp's membership. Now, considering that the main scope of the LP tax (correct me if I'm wrong) is FW, what kind of FW farmer is going to join a corp to be a renter?
I am going to assume your good intentions here and politely request a source or compelling argument to the truth of this fact. I appreciate you feel strongly on this issue, but let us deal with the facts here.
I appreciate your point of view and wish to see if I can come to incorporate it within my own.
Preview of a drilling platform at Fanfest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhUC9gNxg7U&feature=youtu.be&t=1400)
Interview with CCP Nullarbor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbi1d7d4mgQ&t=39m40s) about moon mining and relevant topics.