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[Ria Nieyli]

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?

[Utari Onzo]

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.

[Ria Nieyli]

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.

[Utari Onzo]

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.

[Morwen Lagann]

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."

[Utari Onzo]

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.

[Ria Nieyli]

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.

[The Rook]

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.

[Ria Nieyli]

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.

[The Rook]

Do you need a corporation - except as tax haven if you're a ratter/missioner - at all?

[Ria Nieyli]

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.

[The Rook]

Why are they joining then?

[Ria Nieyli]

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.

[The Rook]

If only everyone would listen to you and see the light.

[Ria Nieyli]

You don't think that it's happening? Then what do you think is happening?