Wednesday 29 April 2015

Proposed Changes to Wars and High/Low-Sec (mostly high)

Disclaimer: This isn't my usual fun story so if you don't want to read a fairly lengthy Blog about current mechanics in High-Sec (and lowsec) then stop here. The ideas here are a mixture of thoughts I've had watching the Null-Sec changes and some great ideas that came up here and there between 5-6 pages of trash on the eve-o forums. I was able to assemble and tweak and add to these thanks to the fine community of C&P forum who gave more solid input in 3-4 pages the this topic has seen on any one thread.

TLDR

Issues with Wars
Reasons for Fighting
People who want no part
Corporations
Current structures
Costs

Reasons for Fighting
At Present a defensive corp that has not structures under threat has no real reason to fight back against an agressing corp other then for the hell of fighting back. While it is quite rewarding to do so a lot of people feel it is near impossible to win and as such turn away from it.  The problem lies in lack of incentive to try anyways when there is such a focus on going to Low/Null-Sec for PvP.

An aggressive corp has no way to prod a defensive corp to fight them other then to deny them High/Low-Sec. This is something that is heavily biased in the defenders favor and it should be. However short of the defender having a desire to fight or a structure reinforced they can simply drop and re-roll corp or ride out the dec in a NPC corp with no ill effect and I feel this gives no meaning behind wars.

People who want no part
People who want no part in wars and simply want to gain ISK for (whatever you spend it on when ships aren't blowing up) have as much a part in this game as others but should not receive the same rewards as others willing to put it all on the line to continue to gain reward in a hazardous enviroment. This is a huge imbalance in the RISK/REWARD system and needs to be fixed.

Corporations
Corporations in High/Low-Sec (mostly high) lack a real sense of meaning. There is little benefit other then to utilize POS structures or access Corp Hangers. At present I see very little reason a Corp agressed by unwanted wardecs would stick around. There is simply not enough benefit for staying in your Corp to justify the risk unless again you want the fights.

Current structures
POS's smaller then a Large can easily be taken down by a handful of people if they are being used for industry. But for the most part are ignored because of the time it takes to do so. They only reason to try it is to provoke a fight or it looks particularly tasty. Large towers are the devil and should only be killed when somebody is paying good ISK to kill it. Or if you have a serious grudge then it could also be worth it.

POCO's are not enough incentive for most corps to even investigate they are losing their structures unless again they are looking for a fight. They simply do not represent a sizable enough income to be worth defending most of the time in High-Sec. With a few exceptions that can be quite lucrative

Costs
The Costs of wars at present isn't really an issue. Increasing them will see even bigger High-Sec Merc Alliances then current to share the costs. Decreasing them will see more wars. The cost of corp creation however is broken. It costs less then I would be willing to pay at a trade-hub for a frigate skill book. I think it should cost at least 50 mil to start a corp. This figure is achievable by a group of friends starting out in no time and for anybody else its pocket change however you wouldn't be willing to disband your corp so quickly for this cost.


Proposal 1
Constellation/Corporation Structures
ConstStructs
There would be ONE of these in every single High/Low-Sec Constellation. It's function would be to boost current output of ISK, LP and mining yields by 15%(Figures may need adjusting) throughout the whole of the Constellation as well as have a minor tax cut to station trading. I also think that they could be used to display who has control of the area like sov but to a lesser degree (capsuleers taking over from the empires). To take it would require a Wardec (or in Low-Sec yellow safeties same as shooting a person) and the use of the entosis link. It would only be vulnerable during the 4 hour window set by the Corp/Alliance that owns it and would enter RF for 48 hours giving the defenders time to plan and react. If it is RF'd with the war having less then 48 hours to go the war is extended a further 48 hours after one side takes control of it (after it comes out of RF). If neither side takes it or it continues to be RF'd by either party before the war expires then the war could theoretically go forever (mutual wars). Similar indexes would be applied for activity in the Constellation to make it take longer to take the Structure. A Corp/Alliance could only hold ONE of these making enough for smaller corps to have (and fight over) their own while making the most valuable Constellations a real source of conflict between the powers I could see arising from this.

CorpStructs
These Would be a much lesser version of the Constellation version and would need to be anchored at a moon. A corp could Purchase/Build one and it would provide a lesser bonus of 5% yeilds and the same station trading tax cut except both would only be effective System wide instead of constellation wide. Should a Corp take a Constellation structure the Corp version would be rendered inert. A Corp could only hold ONE of these at any given time. They could be unachored and re anchored as needed with an appropriate cooldown. They could not be taken down in times of war or on the warm up period. If the corp were to be disbanded the structure would unanchor and be claimable by any interested party or vanish on the next downtime (or several later or never). A wardec would be needed to destroy this and it would be vulnerable during the 4 hour window to the entosis link just like the 'ConstStruct' and have all the same mechanics. However should it be taken on the RF timer by the aggressor instead of the aggressor claiming the structure and benefits it would simply blow up. Cost I think costs of building one of these should be roughly 300mil isk as a ball park figure and will be subject to change

Proposal 2
Carebears Bane
A structure so Devious that it Leeches ISK, LP, and even ORE/GAS straight out of the Bears hands and into a POS/other structure it is attached to. It would have a giant storage bay and require a largish chunk of cpu/pg of the POS. It would store the ISK and LP in the form of tokens like the ESS's of Null-Sec. Taking down these could be big business and owning them even bigger business. Several could be placed in a system and the amount 'stolen' would be spread across all the structures thus creating competition on the highly populated systems. I am open to ideas on how to stop a stupidly large group from curb stomping everybody that wants one of these in High-Sec as I can see a large NS bloc anchoring these in every popular system and stomping all competition that could ever be provided. It would be fun trying tho :D

Proposal 3
Corp Changes
I propose 3 types of corporations in the game instead of the current 2.
NPC - starting corps with heavy taxes (20%?) applied to Bounties/Mission Rewards/LP gains/Ore/Gas Yeilds to characters older then a certain age (30 days?)

Social Corps (SC) - Intermediate Corp that is invulnerable to Wardecs but can NOT own a structure. Capped at 20 people. Smaller Concord imposed tax (10%?) for the benefit of not being wardecced, Creation cost of 50 Mil ISK. Can be upgraded to a PC for 200 mil isk

Player Corporation (PC) - PC's will be the standard corp as is now and will have no Concord imposed tax. PC's will require a minimum number of 10 characters to function and if this number slips below 10 then there will be a 72 hour warning issued to rectify this problem. If not all structures will unachor/be forfeit. The corp will then default to a social corp and drop from any alliance it is a part of. This will eliminate the one man corps owning structures and make the biggest baddest things in high-sec a group activity. To be fair 10 people is 4 accounts utilizing alts with 2 to spare.

Leaving a PC while at war or with the 24 hour warm up active will result in the inability to join another Corp for a period of 1 week.

Proposal 4
Wardec changes
Wardecs would be able to be assisted on BOTH sides. This means that a corp could chose which side of the war to join should the be so inclined and the corp they are assisting accepts the help. A fee for assisting a war would be incurred by the Corp offering assistance that would rise/fall with the corp size they are assisting against. Wardecs would be limited to 5 offensive wars at any given time whether assisting or initiating. Unlimited defensive wardecs would be acceptable however the ISK cost for assisting would still be incurred by the corp offering the assistance so random assistance would need to be thought about carefully as it will cost ISK.

Half the ISK goes to the victor. Huzzah. So if you are on the defensive and cost 50 mil to wardec but KEEP your structure/objective you get the 25mil isk. meh. If you cost 500mil ISK to wardec and the aggressor asks for 2 of his friends to assist him it would cost 1.5bil total in dec fees of which 750 mil goes to the victor. While this isn't a great deal of ISK to make from a war it may be enough to cover the cost of the hulls lost in the battle for the structure.

Should the Corp/Alliance Executor Corp have no ConstStruct or a CorpStruct a temporary unbonused version would appear in their home system in dead space and be warp-able to like an anomaly. This would have the same mechanics as the previously mentioned structures but would have to have been set at corp creation time or altered by the CEO/Director of the Corp/Executor Corp

I also feel wars should get much more expensive if any of the changes to affect the number of wars are put in place. The ISK sink must Flow


Obviously not every idea in here is going to inspire every person but I feel there are quite a few solid ideas collected and presented here and would welcome all constructive feedback. Again thanks to all those who contributed to these thoughts and made suggestions to help refine them.

2 comments:

  1. Production structures are usually weak. They are usually an effete version of what npcs offer, only available in remote areas. Unfortunately, this drives people to avoidance rather than confrontation.

    CCP could give corps more power by giving them structures with improved refining, improved build costs and build times, or access to industry forbidden to npc facilities, assuming it is allowed in highsec at all.

    Corps should have lower market fees, lower docking fees, and many other perks that come with office or structure ownership. Presence should be a quantifiable aspect of corporate activities. In addition, corp market order listings should be on a per region basis. Alternately, buying an office should give a set increase in market slots available in that station, system or structure.

    Wardecs could be made more meaningful by making them on a system, constellation or region-wide basis. Allow them to be expanded to a couple of regions for exorbitant cost. System-wide decs should be extremely cheap. This promotes corps pushing each other around, rather than simply camping stations and chokepoints. With alt logistics, it's not like groups can really be isolated from their assets.

    Nullsec could be made more valuable by allowing sov level to increase structure sensor strength, thus protecting some of it from probers.

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  2. Area decs sound intresting but after taking a day to think on this its going to cause more issues than anything else by turning areas into nullsec ofr a group of players. Personally I would abuse the hell outta this and others would too. Incursions would never be run again. every Hot mission system would be hell camped. I just don't see it working tbh. good idea tho

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