Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Kiki Truzhari on 23 Aug 2011, 01:44
-
So, I know a lot of people in the RP community are involved in the militia, and a lot of your are about as dissatisfied with it as I am if the tone I've been getting from people is anything to go by. With that in mind, I've sorta fiddled my way through a plan to revamp Facwar that I can give to CCP and the CSM for them to ignore. I'm looking for feedback and ways to improve it, the shinier we make it, the more likely it is to get noticed.
So here are a list of problems I've noticed:
1. The current plexing beacon ship limits are too loose, and lead to a few ship types being the only ones useful, IE: In small minors, destroyers, which are an almost perfect counter to a lot of frigates, are allowed in, which makes it hard on those frigate pilots, same for Faction Frigates.
2. Pirates join the militia and then attack both sides, and live out of enemy faction space. Example: Koza Z Piekla are in the 24th IC, live out of Aset, in matari space, and blow up other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar, I've been informed this problem is pandemic, and effects all the militias.
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
4. Its much harder to find ways to defend your space then it is to attack enemy space. In enemy space, you do missions and you can flip any plex you find. In your own space, there are no missions, and you only get standings for flipping plexes in contested systems.
5. There's little drive to flip plexes since you aren't rewarded for it with anything except standings, and once your standings are maxed out, most people stop plexing and just start using the isk printing machine that is facwar missions. This is less a problem with RPers, because we actually care about occupancy, but for everyone else...yeah no point.
6. Occupancy means nothing. It effects nothing, it changes nothing, it has no ramifications outside of faction warfare, and in general the entire mechanic system is a glorified game of capture the flag.
Now then, having looked at these issues, I've come up with a comprehensive revamp of the militia mechanics that are both fair, and interesting.
First off, the Plexes are tweaked with ship classes, and new levels of plexes are created. Minors become restricted to T1 frigs, Heavy Minors can take T2 frigs and dessies, Standard can take up to T1 cruisers, heavy standards can take up to T2 cruisers and battlecruisers, and so on and so forth. Also plexing is changed to award LP for doing it, this encourages everyone in the militia to actually go out and plex, instead of just mission running.
Second off, missions are changed, and two types of missions are created Offensive and Defensive.
Defensive missions involve doing supply drops, moving around workers, taking out enemy raiding fleets, defending construction sites, etc. As the missions are run, the system becomes harder to take. The rats become more beefy, the sentry guns start actively targeting the enemy militia, local chats across the constellation start annoucing when a system in that constellation is contested, that sort of thing, stuff that generally makes it harder on the attackers. Defense missions are scaled in an interesting way, the less defensive installations in a constellation, the harder the defense mission, but the better the rewards for doing it. The agent allows the player to pick which constellations to go to.
Offensive missions are the opposite of Defensive ones, in them, you go in and blow up the stuff improvements made by the defensive ones. They're scaled the opposite way, the more defense installations in a constellation, the harder the mission, but the better the rewards for doing it.
Finally, its made that occupancy matters, by doing the following:
1. Militia members are not defended when the law is broken in the space of that militia IE: A pirate aggresses a member of the amarrian militia in Minmatar space. But the gate guns don't help them, and they don't become GCC, just flagged to that corporation.
2. Militia pilots cannot dock in space controlled by their enemies.
3. Militia pilots cannot cyno capital ships into space controlled by their enemies (unless the system is vulnerable.)
4. Militia pilots cannot conduct PI in space controlled by their enemies.
5. Militia pilots NPC kills do not earn them bounties in space controlled by their enemies.
That's the basics of it. Its a lot of changes, but it really doesn't change the gameplay, faction warfare would still be conducted largely the way that it is now, it would just be more fair, more fun, and more interesting, at least in my opinion.
So...thoughts?
-
1. The current plexing beacon ship limits are too loose, and lead to a few ship types being the only ones useful, IE: In small minors, destroyers, which are an almost perfect counter to a lot of frigates, are allowed in, which makes it hard on those frigate pilots, same for Faction Frigates.
I thought the same initially, but now I would disagree. I mostly plex in frigates (especially slicer), because its way more convenient than destroyers. You can ofc do it in long range destroyers, but the result is even worse if you face someone coming for you (another guy in a plexing frigate). Usually people reship to destroyers when a fight for a minor is about to happen.
2. Pirates join the militia and then attack both sides, and live out of enemy faction space. Example: Koza Z Piekla are in the 24th IC, live out of Aset, in matari space, and blow up other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar, I've been informed this problem is pandemic, and effects all the militias.
Yes. The militias are plagued by piracy, and your example is only an extreme one. All militias are filled with NBSI and piratish people that would shoot anything, and I am not pleased by that. I can understand that a capsuleer militia, ICly, is full of dodgy people and privateer-like pilots.
My solution would be for members being under the CONCORD limits for being outlaw (under -5 of security status) would be automatically kicked out of the militias, or the corporations (being in the militia) they are in. It is totally moronic to see CONCORD allowing the formation of militias and allow outlaws to hide behind the flag. Dodgy people between -5 and 0, sure. But not below.
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
Missions are ridiculous. You are right, and everyone admit that most of the militias are filled with parasites, meaning alts of people that have nothing to do with FW and just sitting here running missions to get phat and happy while they give their money to their 0.0 mains. They disgust me.
The rewards are huge, and they should instead be tied to plexing. Plexing should be the main LP income revenue. They can still keep missions if they want, but they should only bring much much lower LPs, or just simply something else, for example, I don't know, points usable to call for NPC reinforcement in plexes, something like that... They are the designers, they have the imagination to do so.
4. Its much harder to find ways to defend your space then it is to attack enemy space. In enemy space, you do missions and you can flip any plex you find. In your own space, there are no missions, and you only get standings for flipping plexes in contested systems.
I see what you mean but I disagree. Usually you do not run offensive plexing with mission ships while you are missioning.
And offensive plexing is harder, because you have to face the enemy NPCs guarding the timer (while in defensive, they defend you). The main issue is the lack of balance between factions, but everyone agrees on that (Caldari with their full spawns of missiles and ECM, Minmatars its even worse against speed tankers because its missiles + the shitload of painters, while you can run gallente and amarr major plexes with a single vigil ! @_@).
5. There's little drive to flip plexes since you aren't rewarded for it with anything except standings, and once your standings are maxed out, most people stop plexing and just start using the isk printing machine that is facwar missions. This is less a problem with RPers, because we actually care about occupancy, but for everyone else...yeah no point.
See 3.
Note : and even worse, missions give you easily 20 times more standing when you are above 5.0 or 6.0 with the militia corp.
Now then, having looked at these issues, I've come up with a comprehensive revamp of the militia mechanics that are both fair, and interesting.
First off, the Plexes are tweaked with ship classes, and new levels of plexes are created. Minors become restricted to T1 frigs, Heavy Minors can take T2 frigs and dessies, Standard can take up to T1 cruisers, heavy standards can take up to T2 cruisers and battlecruisers, and so on and so forth. Also plexing is changed to award LP for doing it, this encourages everyone in the militia to actually go out and plex, instead of just mission running.
Second off, missions are changed, and two types of missions are created Offensive and Defensive.
Defensive missions involve doing supply drops, moving around workers, taking out enemy raiding fleets, defending construction sites, etc. As the missions are run, the system becomes harder to take. The rats become more beefy, the sentry guns start actively targeting the enemy militia, local chats across the constellation start annoucing when a system in that constellation is contested, that sort of thing, stuff that generally makes it harder on the attackers. Defense missions are scaled in an interesting way, the less defensive installations in a constellation, the harder the defense mission, but the better the rewards for doing it. The agent allows the player to pick which constellations to go to.
Offensive missions are the opposite of Defensive ones, in them, you go in and blow up the stuff improvements made by the defensive ones. They're scaled the opposite way, the more defense installations in a constellation, the harder the mission, but the better the rewards for doing it.
I love the idea of defensive missions, especially as I am uneasy ICly to run offensive ones. Anyway ofc, offensive ones should bring a little more rewards, just because you have to fly deep in enemy territory (minmatars are lucky, our systems are all close to the entry pipes, at the contrary of theirs :/).
I do not like the idea of missions having impact on the occupancy mechanisms. You can basically do as many mission as you want, and this is definitly a can of worms in terms of balancing. People like sasawong will just run them 24h/24 and... well. It will just become farming land instead of pvp in plexes land.
1. Militia members are not defended when the law is broken in the space of that militia IE: A pirate aggresses a member of the amarrian militia in Minmatar space. But the gate guns don't help them, and they don't become GCC, just flagged to that corporation.
Mhh, why not, but only if you are aggressed by a pirate in enemy territory. In your territory, you would get defended by concord and sentries.
2. Militia pilots cannot dock in space controlled by their enemies.
Definitly. Would also make the use of offensive outposts starbases (POS) a lot more interesting.
3. Militia pilots cannot cyno capital ships into space controlled by their enemies (unless the system is vulnerable.)
The idea makes sense, but in terms of balancing... Well, I do not want to imagine fighting against an enemy fleet when you can only counter their hotdrop by calling for a NEUTRAL hotdrop instead of yours.
4. Militia pilots cannot conduct PI in space controlled by their enemies.
I suppose it makes sense.
5. Militia pilots NPC kills do not earn them bounties in space controlled by their enemies.
Huh ? Why ?
__________________
To finish, I would like to add my own ideas on the plexing mechanisms. I would like to see these idiotic timers disappear. I am bored of CCP obsession for timers. I want to see real assault operations to take plexes. I would like to see NPCs of both navies attacking each other inside, the attackers escorting transports NPC ships while defenders shooting at them.
Basically, in offense, you would have to escort your transports, which is much more complicated than just shooting at them in defense. Then, the more transports can board the bunker of the plex, the more they kill the soldiers inside, and can take control of it eventually.
-
FDU does not have any members that pirate other militias. It may because the FDU is the most unified of all militias (from what I've learnt of others, we have one joint intel channel, one joint VoIP etc), and thus it is able to weed out or include NBSI elements into the main body.
Skimming by, will give the rest of the suggestions a look. Been at this for...oh god two years now, I know the mechanics off the back of my hand.
-
1. The current plexing beacon ship limits are too loose, and lead to a few ship types being the only ones useful, IE: In small minors, destroyers, which are an almost perfect counter to a lot of frigates, are allowed in, which makes it hard on those frigate pilots, same for Faction Frigates.
The current system is fine, but Faction ships (perhaps not Navy ones) need to be classed as tech 2. Dramiels in minors outdo anything, as do Cynabals in mediums. They are often superior to their tech 2 counterpart as well.
2. Pirates join the militia and then attack both sides, and live out of enemy faction space. Example: Koza Z Piekla are in the 24th IC, live out of Aset, in matari space, and blow up other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar, I've been informed this problem is pandemic, and effects all the militias.
Internal player problem. The FDU does not this problem because we work together other than the 80% of militia who are actually in highsec and are never seen.
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
Fix NPC imbalance and the problem will be abated. You can solo missions against the Gallente in a Manticore due to shitty range and whatnot, whereas it is impossible to do so against Caldari due to missiles and ECM. If they were equalized, then it would be more tricky.
4. Its much harder to find ways to defend your space then it is to attack enemy space. In enemy space, you do missions and you can flip any plex you find. In your own space, there are no missions, and you only get standings for flipping plexes in contested systems.
It is easier to defend your space than attack enemy space. Missions do not contribute to VPs, and doing a defensive plex in friendly space earns more VPs than doing an offensive plex in enemy space (similarly, doing an offensive space in a friendly occupied system yields more VPs than them securing it)
5. There's little drive to flip plexes since you aren't rewarded for it with anything except standings, and once your standings are maxed out, most people stop plexing and just start using the isk printing machine that is facwar missions. This is less a problem with RPers, because we actually care about occupancy, but for everyone else...yeah no point.
6. Occupancy means nothing. It effects nothing, it changes nothing, it has no ramifications outside of faction warfare, and in general the entire mechanic system is a glorified game of capture the flag.
Yep, the whole thing needs to be reworked.
First off, the Plexes are tweaked with ship classes, and new levels of plexes are created. Minors become restricted to T1 frigs, Heavy Minors can take T2 frigs and dessies, Standard can take up to T1 cruisers, heavy standards can take up to T2 cruisers and battlecruisers, and so on and so forth. Also plexing is changed to award LP for doing it, this encourages everyone in the militia to actually go out and plex, instead of just mission running.
Current plex sizes are fine, just as mentioned faction ships need to be classed as t2.
Second off, missions are changed, and two types of missions are created Offensive and Defensive.
Defensive missions involve doing supply drops, moving around workers, taking out enemy raiding fleets, defending construction sites, etc. As the missions are run, the system becomes harder to take. The rats become more beefy, the sentry guns start actively targeting the enemy militia, local chats across the constellation start annoucing when a system in that constellation is contested, that sort of thing, stuff that generally makes it harder on the attackers. Defense missions are scaled in an interesting way, the less defensive installations in a constellation, the harder the defense mission, but the better the rewards for doing it. The agent allows the player to pick which constellations to go to.
Offensive missions are the opposite of Defensive ones, in them, you go in and blow up the stuff improvements made by the defensive ones. They're scaled the opposite way, the more defense installations in a constellation, the harder the mission, but the better the rewards for doing it.
Interesting, will have to mull that one over.
Finally, its made that occupancy matters, by doing the following:
1. Militia members are not defended when the law is broken in the space of that militia IE: A pirate aggresses a member of the amarrian militia in Minmatar space. But the gate guns don't help them, and they don't become GCC, just flagged to that corporation.
2. Militia pilots cannot dock in space controlled by their enemies.
3. Militia pilots cannot cyno capital ships into space controlled by their enemies (unless the system is vulnerable.)
4. Militia pilots cannot conduct PI in space controlled by their enemies.
5. Militia pilots NPC kills do not earn them bounties in space controlled by their enemies.
That's the basics of it. Its a lot of changes, but it really doesn't change the gameplay, faction warfare would still be conducted largely the way that it is now, it would just be more fair, more fun, and more interesting, at least in my opinion.
Hm...not being able to dock in enemy space will make it near impossible to try and take a system, especially in a place like Black Rise which has the LEAST amount of stations in any lowsec region. As for the rest of this...addresses the symptoms but doesn't fix the cause, if you know what i mean.
-
FDU does not have any members that pirate other militias. It may because the FDU is the most unified of all militias (from what I've learnt of others, we have one joint intel channel, one joint VoIP etc), and thus it is able to weed out or include NBSI elements into the main body.
Skimming by, will give the rest of the suggestions a look. Been at this for...oh god two years now, I know the mechanics off the back of my hand.
I was not specifically speaking of aggroing only other militias. I was speaking about pirates hiding behind the flag in general. They are in ALL the militias.
And the amarr militia also has a strong core of pilots and intel channels, and work together too. Except one or two entities like Kikia was refering to. Thats not the problem.
Fix NPC imbalance and the problem will be abated. You can solo missions against the Gallente in a Manticore due to shitty range and whatnot, whereas it is impossible to do so against Caldari due to missiles and ECM. If they were equalized, then it would be more tricky.
Not the problem imo.
I have the same issue when I do missions against the minmatar, so I have to use a pilgrim instead. It is looong, but it works. People also use T3 ships, or just dualbox. Whatever. In the end, these missions are not hard to do. And if they were and required to bring BSes, or groups of people, nobody would take them because it would be suicide.
-
Most of these ideas below are not what I want to see in an ideal world, but what I would suggest as mostly quick fixes that hopefully would not take a lot of dev time, sime it seems that all that is accounted for. Also, these are in no particular order.
I would suggest the complete removal of NPCs from plexes to solve the balance problem. OOC, its the fastest and easiest way to do it, and IC, this has always been pitched as the capsuleer's war, and that the empires were forbidden to actually fight it, so why are we facing navy ships? Add to that none of the empires seem to care about it anymore, and CCP can just write it off as strong home pressure has lead the empires to agree to reduce naval assets in the wars to minimal levels or keep for home system defence. And this way, if anyone who cares wants to keep a system, they have to go into that plex to secure it.
I would also have CCP cryo jam all current faction war systems. I don't think anyone likes getting hot dropped, so this would even out the field more, keep it at a more newbie friendly level, and keep the null sec alliances out of it.
Missions should be more like the pirate epic arcs, doable in AFs or 'ceptors. They should also be scaled like that, so that you have to complete several linked missions before getting a large reward at the end. Say something like you have a mission to get intel, and then a mission to follow the intel, and then a mission to get a key to the evil bad place the intel led you to, and then a mission to draw off support from the evil place, and then a mission to blow up the evil place. None of the missions should show up on the map for everyone, but should be scannable, and at the end, you should get something like enough LP to get a faction frigate or something similar. Try and balanced the rewards so that at the end of the chain, you would have enough to replace your ship, assuming you insured it. This might take some time, so the simple part would be to remove all lvl 4 missions, which should turn off the major isk pipe.
And I agree that there should be rewards for doing anything in fac war. Everything should get you some standings, some isk, and some LP. Missions, plexing, PvP, all of it. And this can be balanced at the same time. I don't think that would be too hard.
And occupation should get you something, but I don't think station access is it, unless they also cut off sstation access to outlaws and everyone else who is negative whatever to someone. Historically, stations don't care who docks in them, so I don't think they should start now. Again, being simple, maybe just menction of who has what currently, and some made up piece on what happened to the planets, at least until Dust launches. Like a fac war week in review. "This week, Auga changed hands three times, however, it was not in anyones hands long enough for forces of either side to land troops. In the meantime, Intaki continued to be under the hand of the Caldari forces, who continue their hunt for insergents while Ishkone Police forces try to keep order." Might be high on dev time to write, since there are only two of them now, but a lot easier to do that finding something in game mechanics.
Like I said, this is not ideal. I would love to see escort missions to take over plexs, or even filling up your cargo hold with faction marines and loading them into the plex to take them over, but stuff like that needs programming, maybe lots of it, which doesn't seem likely to be done any time soon.
Ultimately, I would love to see Dust intergated into faction warfare, and with everything revolving around the planets rather than plexes, just because the planet is what matters, space is just what you have to control to get there. But that won't be for another year at least.
-
1. The current plexing beacon ship limits are too loose, and lead to a few ship types being the only ones useful, IE: In small minors, destroyers, which are an almost perfect counter to a lot of frigates, are allowed in, which makes it hard on those frigate pilots, same for Faction Frigates.
Frankly, there are still some uses for T1 Frigates, and destroyers are so easy to get into that I don't see a huge harm in allowing them into Minor plexes. I do agree that faction frigates need to be reassigned to Mediums, but I would also say that it should only be Pirate faction frigs - Navy factions should still be allowed in.
2. Pirates join the militia and then attack both sides, and live out of enemy faction space. Example: Koza Z Piekla are in the 24th IC, live out of Aset, in matari space, and blow up other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar, I've been informed this problem is pandemic, and effects all the militias.
Frankly, there are 2 seperate issues here:
- Pirates who engage non-militia. Frankly, I'm not sure that much can - or should - be done about this. EVE is EVE, lowsec is lowsec, etc.
- Pirates who engage fellow militia. This is a hairier issue, since if they're doing it in any significant numbers they're also killing their native faction standing, requiring that they be running the epic arc or highsec storylines near-constantly to compensate.
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
While I don't doubt there are those who simply farm missions for LP, the missions are also used by PvPers as well as carebears to fund their constant pewing.
4. Its much harder to find ways to defend your space then it is to attack enemy space. In enemy space, you do missions and you can flip any plex you find. In your own space, there are no missions, and you only get standings for flipping plexes in contested systems.
This is directly related to the plex respawning issue (for those unfamiliar with it, plexes have a chance of respawning outside facwar low-sec, making them unscannable. They only return at downtime, hence the post-downtime rush). However, plexes also have a habit of piling up in unconstested systems, which is problematic since, as you say, it favors the attacker.
5. There's little drive to flip plexes since you aren't rewarded for it with anything except standings, and once your standings are maxed out, most people stop plexing and just start using the isk printing machine that is facwar missions. This is less a problem with RPers, because we actually care about occupancy, but for everyone else...yeah no point.
6. Occupancy means nothing. It effects nothing, it changes nothing, it has no ramifications outside of faction warfare, and in general the entire mechanic system is a glorified game of capture the flag.
I'm grouping these as the same, given that people would plex a lot more if occupancy meant anything.
Personally, I feel that this reflects changing views at CCP on where FacWar fits into EVE. Originally, it was very much aimed at RPers, with the national objectives and all that... however, with the ending of major interaction between actors and FacWar people, the revamps to the LP store, and the ability to hop into FacWar straight out of the tutorials, it's become a sort of PvP-primer for rookies. This, however, was never followed up on with changes to the mechanics.
Now then, having looked at these issues, I've come up with a comprehensive revamp of the militia mechanics that are both fair, and interesting.
First off, the Plexes are tweaked with ship classes, and new levels of plexes are created. Minors become restricted to T1 frigs, Heavy Minors can take T2 frigs and dessies, Standard can take up to T1 cruisers, heavy standards can take up to T2 cruisers and battlecruisers, and so on and so forth. Also plexing is changed to award LP for doing it, this encourages everyone in the militia to actually go out and plex, instead of just mission running.
I personally think that simply bumping pirate faction ships up to the next "size" of plex would assist with this problem. That said, I reccomend that the LP be dependent on ships killed, but only delivered when the site is closed - this to prevent people from farming them in interceptors or anything.
Second off, missions are changed, and two types of missions are created Offensive and Defensive.
Defensive missions involve doing supply drops, moving around workers, taking out enemy raiding fleets, defending construction sites, etc. As the missions are run, the system becomes harder to take. The rats become more beefy, the sentry guns start actively targeting the enemy militia, local chats across the constellation start annoucing when a system in that constellation is contested, that sort of thing, stuff that generally makes it harder on the attackers. Defense missions are scaled in an interesting way, the less defensive installations in a constellation, the harder the defense mission, but the better the rewards for doing it. The agent allows the player to pick which constellations to go to.
Offensive missions are the opposite of Defensive ones, in them, you go in and blow up the stuff improvements made by the defensive ones. They're scaled the opposite way, the more defense installations in a constellation, the harder the mission, but the better the rewards for doing it.
This looks interesting, but is there any way to prevent people from farming them in bombers/recons/cloaky T3s?
Finally, its made that occupancy matters, by doing the following:
1. Militia members are not defended when the law is broken in the space of that militia IE: A pirate aggresses a member of the amarrian militia in Minmatar space. But the gate guns don't help them, and they don't become GCC, just flagged to that corporation.
Eh... I'm not to hot on this, because it will essentially mean that roams into Minmatar territory would become shootable by anyone and everyone; logi would become all but an absolute requirement even on small roams.
2. Militia pilots cannot dock in space controlled by their enemies.
Eh. I'm hesitent on this; while it would seem to force players into using POSes or not docking, I suspect people would simply throw up POSes with neutral alts (I've seen it happen before).
3. Militia pilots cannot cyno capital ships into space controlled by their enemies (unless the system is vulnerable.)
So they'd use neutral caps instead? I'm going to say no.
4. Militia pilots cannot conduct PI in space controlled by their enemies.
This seems more reasonable. The only concern I would have is if a certain kind of planet cannot be found in one faction's space or is extremely common in another - i.e., like how plasma planets are all over The Forge for some reason.
5. Militia pilots NPC kills do not earn them bounties in space controlled by their enemies.
I'm unsure of how this would effect militia pilots - ratting or normal missioning isn't exactly a huge thing to do in hostile space.
That's the basics of it. Its a lot of changes, but it really doesn't change the gameplay, faction warfare would still be conducted largely the way that it is now, it would just be more fair, more fun, and more interesting, at least in my opinion.
There are a great number of improvements here, but I would warn you that players are extraordinarily imaginitive - if there's a way to get around or gain an advantage outside of what was intended, they will discover it.
-
There are a great number of improvements here, but I would warn you that players are extraordinarily imaginitive - if there's a way to get around or gain an advantage outside of what was intended, they will discover it.
This. Exactly this.
-
no no no ......most of the points mentioned tend to revolve around "current" implementation, which is inherently flawed, there needs to be a total revamp, not just refining
1) All FW is happening in low-sec and that is GOOD, but in order to survive in such an enviroment you make choices (t3 cloaky, or nano-ship for example, no solo armor BS will survive for long). Look at what people who lived and prospered in low-sec before FW was ingame used on a regular basis to take context, said choices dictate the tools that pilots bring to the table in their peformance/cost ratio and therefore it gravitates to the best isk can offer (angel ships). If that is really the landscape in which pilots are fighting, why create content for BSs? (read large complexes with numerous BS rats).
2) Plexing as is currently designed requires the pilot to stay STILL for a 10-20-30 minutes, which is absolutely boring and creates stupid tactical scenarios (you get ganked by pies or by WTs who had the time to go back and reship to take you), there is really no advantage to being "passive" and run the timers , what should be rewarded in an ongoing war is the ability to become an "opportunistic" exploiting enemy weaknesses.
3) Effort/reward in general, missions currently are farmed because of the LP items and other goodies offered, but they are meant to be a unique source of income for those who live and fight regularly in FW scenarios. That is a GOOD game design feature, but if you are complaining players managed to design everything around Bombers/Hac/t3, that is just a result of the "avoid/be quick" philosophy needed to stay alive in low-sec. All FW is, is just an excuse to keep doing PvP, if you really wanted occupancy to mean anything something fundametally different must be brough to the table.
Personally i believe the simplest choices are:
a) Make FW missions be part of the equation in the Victory point count, so someone farming isk/lp is also contributing to the whole war effort. For PvPers and carebears it becomes an interaction point (killers will want to stop carebears, and carebears can contribute to the sov effort).
b) Systems will spawn NPC complexes that are meant for frigs (minors) and cruisers/dessies/frigs (medium), both will have 10min timers. This will remove the requirement to speed tank large and difficult complexes, foster fights with lesser ships and move the role of battleships as bunker busters. The combined effect of running missions in hostile territory (and therefore contesting the system) while also being able to defend and contest systems with smaller plexes (althought greater quantities of plexing would be needed) create a more dynamic conflict. Plexes of course give LP for those who complete it (i believe this is currently implemented with kills also counted in the scheme).
c) NPC rats NEED to be balanced, with specific shipt types given specificor something, its absolutely horrendous that most if not all NPC ships can do some form of EWar, in particular caldari have an overpowered one.
d) Gallente Militia channel should exist not only as a copy of what alliance chat is, but also as a "broadcast" tool from NPC factions issuing warnings or strategic goals. Its the intel channel between capsuleers and the NPC faction ater all. Bunkers being hit should request assistance, if a system is vulnerable a warning should be clearly visible on the channel MOTD, if the top brass wants a specific target system all plexes captured will give double reward.....etc
FW in the very essence is a "semi-sandboxed alliance" mechanic for corps to step up their game. As it currently stands, its just eternal wardecs with side-activities.
-
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
Fix NPC imbalance and the problem will be abated. You can solo missions against the Gallente in a Manticore due to shitty range and whatnot, whereas it is impossible to do so against Caldari due to missiles and ECM. If they were equalized, then it would be more tricky.
Explain the FDU pilot in a Stealth Bomber running complex missions in Black Rise (with a neutral Dramiel as escort)?
Clearly not impossible.
Edit: More to come as I actually read through the thread.
-
Explain the FDU pilot in a Stealth Bomber running complex missions in Black Rise (with a neutral Dramiel as escort)?
Clearly not impossible.
That stealth bomber is not solo.
-
Explain the FDU pilot in a Stealth Bomber running complex missions in Black Rise (with a neutral Dramiel as escort)?
Clearly not impossible.
That stealth bomber is not solo.
Ah, neutral being jammed over the actual mission runner. I should remember that next time, means that the Dramiel is probably jammed and I can go after the SB pilot.
-
3. Missions have no value for non-carebears, they don't help sovereignty, they don't really result in pvp, people just use them to print isk from massive LP bonuses they get from missions and avoid any pvp using cloaky tengus and stealth bombers, which leads to inflation, and a large number of people in the militia who add nothing of value to it, and just want easy isk.
Fix NPC imbalance and the problem will be abated. You can solo missions against the Gallente in a Manticore due to shitty range and whatnot, whereas it is impossible to do so against Caldari due to missiles and ECM. If they were equalized, then it would be more tricky.
Explain the FDU pilot in a Stealth Bomber running complex missions in Black Rise (with a neutral Dramiel as escort)?
Clearly not impossible.
Edit: More to come as I actually read through the thread.
I would say that mission runners in cloaky, warp stabbed tengus, and stealth bombers with vigil alts are all part of the same problem: people who want nothing to do with pvp are gaming the system using ships designed to avoid pvp at all costs. Facwar is, at the end of the day, a Pvp feature, people should have to pvp to rake in large amounts of isk. They shouldn't be able to carebear the way they are.
-
2. Pirates join the militia and then attack both sides, and live out of enemy faction space. Example: Koza Z Piekla are in the 24th IC, live out of Aset, in matari space, and blow up other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar, I've been informed this problem is pandemic, and effects all the militias.
I don't know why I felt the need to investigate Koza, but they've only killed 2 members of the 24th in the past three months (exempting an Omen kill who had a whole 24th fleet turn on him,) which I wouldn't say is blowing up 'other Amarrians about as much as they blow up minmatar.' Yes, 85% of their kills are non-TLF pilots, but I don't see any evidence that they're preying on their own militia.
They do like to kill eachother, though.
-
Seems there's a general consesus for a FW review.
While flicking around on the EVE forums I found this (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1564744) thread.
-
There is a consensus from the players to fix FW, there is not a consensus from CCP to review FW.
It will never be given proper importance because it is meant to be a "mid-step" between corps working alone in high-sec and null-sec alliances working across several corps. Its that simple.
So just exploit the system for the next 3 years as it is.
-
It will never be given proper importance because it is meant to be a "mid-step" between corps working alone in high-sec and null-sec alliances working across several corps. Its that simple.
That just feels like a cop-out (regardless of whether or not it's really true). I don't think any company working on any game should leave something so broken because it's 'not meant to be good'. Especially in a game like EVE, where the main driving point has always been to find your own way to have fun, telling people they're supposed to 'Move on to X' when they don't want to is counter-productive.
I think CCP is really missing out on something that could be a big deal for EVE. It feels like a lot of the stuff they've been working on recently (Incarna, NeX) is geared more towards pulling in newer players (which I think they're doing a terrible job of, but that's another post), and having faction warfare as another interesting and supported route for players to go would be an excellent addition.
As for the possible fixes addressed in this thread... I actually have no idea, since I'm not a FW person myself... When I tend to think about it, I always redesign from the ground up (meaning CCP would never listen to my suggestions).
-
I would say that mission runners in cloaky, warp stabbed tengus, and stealth bombers with vigil alts are all part of the same problem: people who want nothing to do with pvp are gaming the system using ships designed to avoid pvp at all costs. Facwar is, at the end of the day, a Pvp feature, people should have to pvp to rake in large amounts of isk. They shouldn't be able to carebear the way they are.
A problem I perceived at the time I started was that there were loads of FW pilots who were there for the PVP who didn't care at all about the plexes. From a story point of view, this didn't make sense, so I put a character in FW to run plexes and avoid PVP. I was running plexes in the Minmatar FW regions. I ran no missions for the first 3 months, got no isk, did no pvp.
If your goal is not PVP, but "winning the faction war" then avoiding PVP is a legitimate tactic. Especially since PVP in plexes doesn't make sense for at least one side. If you're doing a defensive plex, then nobody is going to try to gank you unless they can cope with the NPCs as well, at which point you're probably over-matched. If you're doing an offensive plex, then your options are constrained for an engagement, and you should really bug out if someone shows up with an equal or better force.
The thing that bugs me the most about FW is the plexes resetting at DT, since I'm usually sleeping. If you can't make it to those fleets, then it is much harder to contribute significantly to the occupancy fight.
-
Well, if people want it to be more about the PvP.
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
I'd also favour locking enemy militia out of opposing militia and fleet/navy stations. Though they should be able to use stations of corps from their own faction or neutral entities, wherever they are.
-
Alright, so before we go further - I started writing of an explenation of the means that I would see for abusing some of the tactics that have been suggested. Halfway through, I realised that this could come out sounding quite rude (i.e., "ur stoopid, ur idea is broken and dumb").
Just to make this clear, I'm not trying to say that anyone or their ideas are stupid. I'm just playing the devil's advocate, in an attempt to design an abuse-proof system (or at least abuse-resistant, since proofing is nigh-impossible in EVE) by using my viewpoint as an FW participant to explain how I think things might be used abused - hopefully we can then get around these issues.
Nonetheless, if any of you guys feel like I'm being rude/insulting/trollish, just say, mmmk?
-
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
Some systems never see any change because they are out of the way and unlikely to see any substantial action. Places like Sarenemi and Athounon would never see any change.
-
Well, if people want it to be more about the PvP.
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
I don't think this is a good idea. People would take throw-away alts (that they already use to spy on rival militia chat) and repeatedly gank them in contested systems.
-
Well, if people want it to be more about the PvP.
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
I don't think this is a good idea. People would take throw-away alts (that they already use to spy on rival militia chat) and repeatedly gank them in contested systems.
I can see that. But people "game" the current system as well. Maybe you could refine the base idea to make this less likely?
Some systems never see any change because they are out of the way and unlikely to see any substantial action. Places like Sarenemi and Athounon would never see any change.
If constellation occupancy resulted in some further benefits this might change.
Here's a thought. What if you used the Incursion mechanic in a non random way to spawn core empire invasion forces in the border faction warfare constellations? The associated militias would naturally come in to support their side. If the invasion is repulsed within a set timespan the system stays with the defenders. If not occupancy changes.
This would also have the benefit of controlling where the major fighting would take place. As a result server resources could be concentrated on the frontline systems.
-
Well, if people want it to be more about the PvP.
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
I don't think this is a good idea. People would take throw-away alts (that they already use to spy on rival militia chat) and repeatedly gank them in contested systems.
I can see that. But people "game" the current system as well. Maybe you could refine the base idea to make this less likely?
The biggest problem with that system that I can see is that the most efficient defense then becomes to simply not fight in contested systems. Whatever mechanic you use, you need to have some factor of "defenders need to actively do something to prevent Bad Things."
This is actually my main issue with FW. The current plexing mechanics actively discourage combat. First, the NPCs (like Ulphus explained) mean attackers will always need to bring some kind of overkill (even more so than usual in EVE). Even worse, effective plexing against NPCs means you need a PvE-geared fit - doing it in a PvP fit is actively gimping your efficiency. And I'm not (only) talking about solo plexing frigate fits. Second, effective plexing usually means that it's better to avoid engaging anyone in your plex and simply start running a different one instead.
Both of those mean that FW basically has two variations: Either you plex or you fight. During EM's time in the militia, we even had a "plexing" wing and a "combat" wing in our fleets. And that, is a silly mechanic.
My favorite first simply step would be to simply remove all NPCs from FW plexes, but then require a "max size" ship to actually capture a plex. I.e. T1 cruiser or T2 frigate for mediums, T1 BC or T2 cruiser for majors, T1 BC or T2 BC for unrestricted. Other ships simply can not run (or stop) the timer. Make the different plex sizes actually give different contestation VP while you're at it.
Some kind of overview somewhere on when plexes are actually run would be nice, too. A simple list of "Tararan, Medium, 12 minutes to go", "Brin, Major, 2 minutes to go" etc. would be great.
Also, faction ships should be treated the same as T2 ships as far as plex entry goes (return minors to T1 frigs and destroyers instead of Dramiels and Daredevils, and mediums to T1 cruisers instead of Cynabals).
Ceterum censeo post-DT plex shuffle esse delendam.
-
Even if I agree with the fact that offensive plexing means that it favors overblobing to avoid NPCs unbalance inside, I have to admit that when I started FW and the years after, it was not that much the case. Now, the main issue and problem is that people do not understand anything else than blobs. Honestly, I have incredible difficulties to find duels and solo pvp in FW (while pirates are actually more inclined to do it, had a T1 frig duel yersterday). It was not the case before. I have had countless T1 frigates/AFs nice fights in the past, now people just run away and avoid any "fair" fight, prefering to call for friends to simply gank. And this has been the case for the past year in plexing. Before that, even if it was already the case due to plexing mechanisms themselves, it was not systematically : had countless of nice fights in plexes.
Well, if people want it to be more about the PvP.
Scratch the plex/bunker mechanic entirely and alter system occupancy based on the kill rates each militia inflicts on it's opposition in those systems. Keep the profitable missions so that militia pilots have some means of funding their ship losses.
I'd also favour locking enemy militia out of opposing militia and fleet/navy stations. Though they should be able to use stations of corps from their own faction or neutral entities, wherever they are.
It would kill all the originality of FW, and at least half the interest I have in it.
-
Alright, so before we go further - I started writing of an explenation of the means that I would see for abusing some of the tactics that have been suggested. Halfway through, I realised that this could come out sounding quite rude (i.e., "ur stoopid, ur idea is broken and dumb").
Just to make this clear, I'm not trying to say that anyone or their ideas are stupid. I'm just playing the devil's advocate, in an attempt to design an abuse-proof system (or at least abuse-resistant, since proofing is nigh-impossible in EVE) by using my viewpoint as an FW participant to explain how I think things might be used abused - hopefully we can then get around these issues.
Nonetheless, if any of you guys feel like I'm being rude/insulting/trollish, just say, mmmk?
It'll be fine Esna, the idea here is to come up with good game mechanics, not for me to stroke my ego, if you have a solution you think of as better, point it out.
If constellation occupancy resulted in some further benefits this might change.
Here's a thought. What if you used the Incursion mechanic in a non random way to spawn core empire invasion forces in the border faction warfare constellations? The associated militias would naturally come in to support their side. If the invasion is repulsed within a set timespan the system stays with the defenders. If not occupancy changes.
This would also have the benefit of controlling where the major fighting would take place. As a result server resources could be concentrated on the frontline systems.
I don't think that would work quite that well on its own, because I feel like the faction defending would farm the sites instead of quickly defeating them, which is the problem with Sansha incursions right now, and those don't matter in the scheme of things.
Okay, this is gonna sound like a really crazyish idea, but hear me out. Well, here's the non-crazy part first, since that might actually be a good thing to have ingame. Taking each constellation causes a defensive bonus and maybe gives the defenders some trickle passive income. If they're active in the warzone, and killing enemy ships, and taking sites and things, they earn LP based on the number of constellations their faction controls. This provides clear, obvious reasons for people to go out and actually help out, and to try and fight the war. You toss in some objective based plexing as well, like the plexing version of sansha incursions, and Couple this with the mission changes I talked about in the OP, and you have some decent mechanics.
On to the ridiculous. You have enemy forces invade the border highsec and lowsec constellations of their opponent faction. When this happens, Militia forces can enter the highsec without getting killed and the systems drop into a combat state. The two sides battle it out and run plexes and combat sites and try to do as much damage or to mitigate as much damage as possible. When all is said and done, if the defenders win, that system is uninvadable for the next month, if the attackers win, the sec status of the systems in the constellation drops by .1, and when all the systems in that constellation have dropped into lowsec, the system becomes a normal facwar constellation, and when that happens a constellation on the other side gets 'targeted for increased defenses' at which point the sec of that constellation starts trickling up, continuing at a set rate until the entire constellation is highsec or the enemy militia manages to take one of those systems in that constellation. As sec status goes up, it becomes exponentially more difficult to take a system, meaning that taking a .9 might require a 1500 man fleet and several weeks of concerted effort, and taking a 1.0 in theory possible, but requiring more people in system then are online at one time in eve right now.
Now that idea is very rough, and very needing to be polished, and I know it would never be accepted because it destroys the precious status quo that CCP is holding onto for fear of carebear retribution.
-
I am not in a militia, and I have little desire to be, because at times it has seemed to me that system occupancy for contested systems was determined by who laid down the best smack talk. The amount of sincere effort and coordination involved in presenting IC and OOC smack in Intaki local seems to be some sort of new fleet action. They've got tacklers (trolls), bait (false noobs), DPS (insult professionals), and remote reps (yes men) in every smack gang.
On a more serious note, I think the biggest problem with FW has already been mentioned in this thread several times, namely that there is no real effect at all for conquering systems other than chestbeating. There's no bonuses or penalties to either side for operations within a conquered system. It's just a name change, which seems silly to me.
-
The amount of sincere effort and coordination involved in presenting IC and OOC smack in Intaki local seems to be some sort of new fleet action. They've got tacklers (trolls), bait (false noobs), DPS (insult professionals), and remote reps (yes men) in every smack gang.
Thank you for brightening up my gloomy Monday morning at work.
-
If constellation occupancy resulted in some further benefits this might change.
Here's a thought. What if you used the Incursion mechanic in a non random way to spawn core empire invasion forces in the border faction warfare constellations? The associated militias would naturally come in to support their side. If the invasion is repulsed within a set timespan the system stays with the defenders. If not occupancy changes.
This would also have the benefit of controlling where the major fighting would take place. As a result server resources could be concentrated on the frontline systems.
I don't think that would work quite that well on its own, because I feel like the faction defending would farm the sites instead of quickly defeating them, which is the problem with Sansha incursions right now, and those don't matter in the scheme of things.
I'm not sure you understood me. You seem to think that I'm suggesting Sansha incusrsions. This is not the case.
What I am suggesting is CCP use the code and adapt it so that an invasion force of the opposing empire spawns in a FW system. The attacking militia would be trying to stop the defending militia from running the sites spawned in this "Incursion." The sites would either be full of attacking fleet NPC ships doing logistical stuff, or be ongoing fights between the NPC's that militias could intervene in.
Also. This would allow non militia supporters to fire on enemy NPC's in support of militia pilots. Ideally this would make them go flashy to the miltias associated with those NPC's.
Okay, this is gonna sound like a really crazyish idea, but hear me out. Well, here's the non-crazy part first, since that might actually be a good thing to have ingame. Taking each constellation causes a defensive bonus and maybe gives the defenders some trickle passive income. If they're active in the warzone, and killing enemy ships, and taking sites and things, they earn LP based on the number of constellations their faction controls. This provides clear, obvious reasons for people to go out and actually help out, and to try and fight the war. You toss in some objective based plexing as well, like the plexing version of sansha incursions, and Couple this with the mission changes I talked about in the OP, and you have some decent mechanics.
On to the ridiculous. You have enemy forces invade the border highsec and lowsec constellations of their opponent faction. When this happens, Militia forces can enter the highsec without getting killed and the systems drop into a combat state. The two sides battle it out and run plexes and combat sites and try to do as much damage or to mitigate as much damage as possible. When all is said and done, if the defenders win, that system is uninvadable for the next month, if the attackers win, the sec status of the systems in the constellation drops by .1, and when all the systems in that constellation have dropped into lowsec, the system becomes a normal facwar constellation, and when that happens a constellation on the other side gets 'targeted for increased defenses' at which point the sec of that constellation starts trickling up, continuing at a set rate until the entire constellation is highsec or the enemy militia manages to take one of those systems in that constellation. As sec status goes up, it becomes exponentially more difficult to take a system, meaning that taking a .9 might require a 1500 man fleet and several weeks of concerted effort, and taking a 1.0 in theory possible, but requiring more people in system then are online at one time in eve right now.
Now that idea is very rough, and very needing to be polished, and I know it would never be accepted because it destroys the precious status quo that CCP is holding onto for fear of carebear retribution.
I doubt they'd do it because dynamic adjustment of sec status would require a whole new set of code. Variations on existing stuff would, I presume, be easier to implement. I do like the idea that near enemy high sec should become acessible to attacking militia during an invasion though.
-
On a more serious note, I think the biggest problem with FW has already been mentioned in this thread several times, namely that there is no real effect at all for conquering systems other than chestbeating. There's no bonuses or penalties to either side for operations within a conquered system. It's just a name change, which seems silly to me.
Recently I will agree with you, but in the past Heth gave out a shiny medal to all FW pilots. Also some storyline progression was enacted when Heth sold occupied systems.
-
I think you guys are steering out of the conceptual design of FW itself:
-It was meant to be a playground so people could do perpetual war on behalf on their "empire" faction (for cheap obviously).
-Complexes were meant to replace "TCU"s or POSs.
-FW missions were meant to be income that you can farm when being a participant of FW, much like moongoo when you hold the moons in the system.
The main points of criticism is not that "plexing" can be done in any fashion or not, or that missions are a poor source of isk (quite the contrary), the issues revolve around the current implementation is "OMG boring to plex" coupled with constant grinding, and obviously not offset by the reward it gives (flipping occupancy). That and NPC imbalances of course.
I prefer if occupancy does not change any status quo on territory, but instead review plexing so it becomes a more enjoyable experience.
It is true most people had nice pew pew in the first iteration of FW, t1 frigs, assault frigs, cruisers and destroyers were seeing more often. But eventually people gravitate to the best isk/performance solution that can grief others, in particular FW suffered greatly from this because there are a couple of one-size-fit-all solutions to its game mechanics. That needs fixing.
Occupancy being contested should be a sort of "soft grind" process that involves many variables, some time after a break event happens, and the system becomes vulnerable. Up to that point everything was kinda "slow" but then you must complete 3-4 plexes and the bunker rapidly in order to really make a change and flip control. Those critical activities should have incredible rewards in LP (busting a bunker should give tons of LP for example).
The idea of plexes limiting ship type and size were good in the beginning, but once you put a dramiel and any-t1-thing else in the same space, its obvious who will win, or who will survive by disengaging and calling backup. This of course is not a problem of the plex mechanics themselves but more related to ship balance, either way, creating tactical scenarios for players to "make the best out of it" is a nice change and should be explored further.
Finally to close the idea, many here mentioned people "who have no interest" in the conflict, go to any null-sec alliance and see how many would rather stay docked than go out to fight? its the same thing. What you need to consider is that those who choose to risk their ships, should do it in a fun enviroment balanced across the 4 factions and under circumstances that do not become exploit-able to the point that is better to avoid it altogether than to be involved.
-
The issues in FW are largely reflective of issues everywhere else in game.
1) No reason to contest or hold systems.
2) Little or no solo pvp, aside from a few people on both sides.
3) Cynabals, Dramiels, T3s, and the other ridiculous crap people fly now. Ships that they can fly, that are rather stupidly OP, with little risk of loss.
4) Isk printing press that is FW missions with virtually NO risk.
Want a starting point? Make it possible to cause others to fail their missions, if theyre unwilling to fight for it. Since my corp cannot actually do a whole lot by ourselves, however, we have discovered that our niche is to be extremely annoying...
-
The issues in FW are largely reflective of issues everywhere else in game.
1) No reason to contest or hold systems.
2) Little or no solo pvp, aside from a few people on both sides.
3) Cynabals, Dramiels, T3s, and the other ridiculous crap people fly now. Ships that they can fly, that are rather stupidly OP, with little risk of loss.
4) Isk printing press that is FW missions with virtually NO risk.
Want a starting point? Make it possible to cause others to fail their missions, if theyre unwilling to fight for it. Since my corp cannot actually do a whole lot by ourselves, however, we have discovered that our niche is to be extremely annoying...
Oh I definitly agree with this, except for one thing : it is definitly possible to cause others to fail their missions, I can assure you. I have already shot down a lot of mission bombers and stuff like this, and if I was motivated enough to hunt them mercilessly every day, it would be a total rampage. It is pretty easy to do. Main issue though : when they start knowing you, they just leave their mission as soon as you get in system. And they ALWAYS have more patience than you have.
Which denotes one thing : the gap and inadequation between PVE missions and the rest of FW. The former will always try to avoid fight, its even more annoying than in plexes.
-
Want a starting point? Make it possible to cause others to fail their missions, if theyre unwilling to fight for it. Since my corp cannot actually do a whole lot by ourselves, however, we have discovered that our niche is to be extremely annoying...
We have two or three pilots who dedicate themselves to hunting mission runners and gank them inside their beacons, and they have been VERY succesful at that. It's true the pilot may return later and finish the mission at another time, but the loss offset part of the profit.
-
i seem to recall one of the devs mentioning how they didn't want FW to affect players not enrolled in FW too much.
Unfortunate, because in I think the Minmatar contestable area, there's one of those systems which is/was infested with the lowsec courier farmer chars. If FW affected those, then things might have been different.
Then they had incursions a long time later, which affected players non-consensually. So there's a (slim) chance, that FW could have some effect on non-FW players in the future.
Assuming there will be a FW revision.
However, given the attitudes expressed in the past "We didn't want to fix rockets, nobody used them anyway, but sometimes you have to placate the players" as an example, then FW revisions seem rather unlikely.
As for missions being an isk-printer, well, that was a conscious decision by CCP, when they removed the penalties for declining/failing missions. They reintroduced the one for declining, but afaik did nothing about the failing penalties. So instead of declining till you get the "right" mission, you have to decline, accept & fail, accept & fail to get the "right" mission.
tl:dr Outlook:grim.
-
No, failing the mission gives you a severe standing impact.
The only thing that has no consequences standings wise is to let the mission expire (they expire after one day roughly).
-
Really? Well, that's something then.
Still, i think one of the devs mentioned something about how penalties act as "a barrier to participation", which doesn't help. :ugh:
-
As a longtime FW guy, no, there is nothing you can do to even slightly set-back an FW mission-runner.
If one loses standings, it's because he/she is not very smart that day. No other factors are involved.
-
I am not sure what you mean by "set back".
If it means making him waste his time, you definitly can : you can camp his mission or follow him everywhere he goes and piss him off, or just kill him (it works too, he has to get back to his home to buy a new mission ship).
If it means making him lose standings, yeah, if he is smart enough he will let the mission expire (even if accepted), and he will lose nothing.
-
Camping the mission doesn't work, any good FW Runner has 8 or so active at any given time.
Follow him around? Now you're being more inconvenienced than he is, or just as much.
Kill him? 99% of FW missions are run in cloakies, from all races. Goooood luck with that. It's possible, but again, he's now making you waste more time than he is.
Again, all of this involves folks who do the reading and use the documented techniques for running these things. Nooblets will explode and encourage other newbs to bother trying to stop them.
One might as well suggest 'camping them in station with a big fleet' as a proper method of discouraging FW mission running.
-
Kill him? 99% of FW missions are run in cloakies, from all races. Goooood luck with that. It's possible, but again, he's now making you waste more time than he is.
An easy way to do this is follow suspicious looking enemies in bombers around until they open a mission. Then warp straight to the beacon, and try and catch them on the acceleration gate. Works best in a tackly interceptor, even better if you can fit a sensor booster.
-
Dunno. Judging from local smack, I have good experience with being seriously inconveniencing friendly Amarrian mission runners. Take a Rapier, warp to mission, cloak up inside. Go do something else. Look at screen every once in a while - if he dares to come in to run the mission, decloak and kill. Otherwise, keep reading forums or do whatever else you were doing. Beats station spinning any day. You can also follow them around. Tengus are more annoying.
Likewise, I have had the most annoying people blocking my missions when running them (<3). So it is possible to be extremely annoying.
It might be that the somewhat peculiar layout of the Minmatar FW zone makes this easier against Minmatar than Amarr. Picking up more than 6-7 missions from the Minmatar side takes a serious amount of jumps. The agent quality changes made things easier there.
And well, there are always two sides to a coin.
If you make missions too dangerous, most people will just not run them. Which is bad - we don't need more incentive to do L4s in high sec. So running FW missions should be "mostly safe" - just not fully safe. I'm not sure they currently have the right balance, but I'd be careful with asking for them to be too dangerous.
-
The Rapier technique...huh...I might try that. Cheers.
-
Camping the mission doesn't work, any good FW Runner has 8 or so active at any given time.
Follow him around? Now you're being more inconvenienced than he is, or just as much.
Kill him? 99% of FW missions are run in cloakies, from all races. Goooood luck with that. It's possible, but again, he's now making you waste more time than he is.
Again, all of this involves folks who do the reading and use the documented techniques for running these things. Nooblets will explode and encourage other newbs to bother trying to stop them.
One might as well suggest 'camping them in station with a big fleet' as a proper method of discouraging FW mission running.
Oh yeah, as I said above, I would never try to piss a mission runner off by following him all around, they ALWAYS have more patience than you have.
Though, for killing them, it is absolutely a piece of cake, really. You just have to fly a cloaky ship, and follow them inside their mission. If you do it well, you manage your speed to stop your ship between 2500m and 2000m of the acceleration gate, then you activate. The only random thing that can uncloak you is that fucking entry beacon, or a container that the guy could have dropped at the entrance (but they never do this, for all their missions... too lazy, and more than anything to sure of themselves to be safe).
Those have been done like this :
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=203466 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=203466)
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=163808 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=163808)
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=143759 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=143759)
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=137213 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=137213)
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=127762 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=127762)
http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=105492 (http://www.amarr-empire.net/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=105492)
It might be that the somewhat peculiar layout of the Minmatar FW zone makes this easier against Minmatar than Amarr. Picking up more than 6-7 missions from the Minmatar side takes a serious amount of jumps. The agent quality changes made things easier there.
Not really, it works in both ways : amarr militia have to do a ridiculous crapload of jumps in enemy territory.
-
Currently, the major issue I see with FW is that in its current iteration it promotes negative engagement as there are no tangible benefits for putting assets on the line other than the prospect of some hot F1 key action, which for those who enjoy killmail whoring is no doubt a reward in itself. However not everyone in FW has the ISK/asset base and attitude to do so and for those that do find that it can get mighty boring roaming endlessly to find things to shoot at only for the few targets available to bugger off (Not to say that roaming endlessly in mostly empty systems only to have the few targets available bugger off happens elsewhere besides FW).
As to how I'd like to see FW repaired though: why not have it fought like an actual war?
By that I mean, why not introduce the actual navies into the picture attempting to capture the systems with the capsuleer militias acting as the specialist force in assistance? The capture system could function like so:
- Each system has a variety of assets and orbital defense systems used by a defending fleet.
- Capsuleer militia members with their mad skills and functional immortality are perfectly suited to conduct suicide operations to neutralize these facilities.
- The goal is to assist friendly naval forces in establishing space superiority in the system and over planets by capturing/destroying hostile facilities and defenses.
- Attacking forces would establish an initial beachead on the closest planet to their 'in' gate. Militia elements assisting the attack have to destroy the orbital defenses over each planet for their navy to 'occupy' it. Defending militia elements have to attempt to push the invaders back by destroying the orbital beacheads of the attacking navy and push them back out of the system. Once all planets belong to either one side or the other then the system is considered captured and secured.
- A system is in a contested state until it is captured and secured.
- Naval forces can only use the stargate system. As such they can only attack/defend along the routes of the stargate network. This would mean (at least initially) the only systems able to be captured would be those along the borders of each empire (i.e Nennamaila/Aldranette or Auga/Kourmonen ) with further systems only being able to be captured as navies advance along the stargate networks assisted by their specialist militias.
- FW missions can only be spawned in systems currently being contested. Instead of them being "shoot a specific BS in under 1 minute" have them be specific facilities that might require different ships/tactics other than stealth bombers/cloaky T3 to capture or destroy.
- Each system captured/lost incurs a minor FW LP gain/loss. Perhaps something like +/- 20% if all systems are captured/lost for a given faction (per system gain/loss would have to divided by the amount of systems available to be gained/lost as the amount of systems varies for each militia).
If FW operated in that fashion I guess a few things may change such as:
- The creation of hotspots/flashpoints centered around systems under contention. This will hopefully have the effect of channeling FW pilots/activities in smaller areas promoting a higher rate of contact/engagement. This may be enhanced if a militia sends automated updates to its members along the lines of "x system is under attack - you should really head there and maybe blow some things up, no?" along with a flashy arrow on the map stating, "You need to be shooting things here."
- Removes some of this boring post-DT plex offensives, respawn mechanics watching, spinning around something for 30 minutes in an empty system waiting for something to happen.
- Merging the sometimes separate activities of pvp, plexing and FW mission whoring into the activity of capturing systems for [insert faction here].
- There's actually some financial incentives to capture/defend systems.
- Makes some more sense I think if FW will incorporate Dust 514, as the primary objective would be to establish superiority over a planet before dropping troops and the fleet proceeding to blow up the beleaguered defenders with orbital bombardments for fun.
- I get to say something like, "Yeah man, I was there with the 24th Fleet Division during the assault on Hykanima in 113. Those CalNav and Lai Dai assholes didn't know what hit them." As opposed to, "Yeah, we spun all these plexes in Hykanima. It was terrible son, I still can't get Dead or Alive's 'you spin me right round' out of my head to this day."
My ideas anyway to hopefully promote some more action in FW and convey the sense that there is in fact a war going on that doesn't involve spinning around timers endlessly and then shooting a bunker in 20 minutes for victory.
-
I like the general idea of that proposal, but it needs some work. Be careful with rewarding "more people" too much.
Shooting structures is no different from waiting a timer, except you can't capture a timer faster if you bring a huge fleet. Structures incentivize blobs.
Making attacks go too fast means defenders have barely any chance to defend. If I can capture a system in 10 minutes if I bring a nice-sized fleet, I do not expect anyone to be able to defend against it - it would be useless anyhow, as it's much easier to wait 2-3 days and take it back with a big and prepared fleet.
Also, be careful with incorporation mission running. The different faction militia sizes are very apparent here, and if using the more numerous mission runners of either side for this would be problematic for the smaller factions. In general, trying to avoid supporting the bigger factions too much shouldn't be forgotten.
-
FW cannot be fixed.
-
Re: Arkady
You bring up some valid points and I'd agree that there would be issues regarding, "more ships = better" with it. I think given my own experiences with FW there should be less of a divergence between 'plexing' and 'pvp'. Because the current system offers no tangible benefits, is mind-numbingly boring and for a lot of people in the militias is completely irrelevant.
I'd be in support for any FW system that offers actual incentives, rewards and objectives to be fought over that helps concentrates the 100 - 200 militia people usually on at any one time in the warzone. For me, that's a fundamental issue. Because right now it seems FW is mostly running up and down the OMS/Tama pipe for FDU/STPRO or roaming the Kourm/Auga/Amamake area for 24IC/TLF with occasional plexing done by those invested in it. There really isn't much reason for that to change currently, because FW as a system does not provide any need to do it differently.
-
Don't know why CCP made Incursions when they could have put that effort into fixing FW with a similar mechanic.
-
If they want to break blobs, there is a way. Might be a little tough though, but well :
You basically create a system with deadspace pockets (like plexes, etc), with a number scaling. The first one getting into the installation can set up the gate to accept only a certain number of enemies. Meaning, if you are 2 of you going inside, only 2 enemies for example can get inside too (unless you are a little crazy or overconfident), even if their fleet has 2972379[...]832783 members. If you want to get more of your friends inside, you can definitly do it by changing the gate settings. Eventually, the one that controls the gate controls the numbers to get inside (so, the size of the fight). Of course, you can't set the gate to accept less enemies than your own numbers inside.
Of course, for more immersion you can still add NPC ideas where the capture is not based on timers anymore, but on different objectives depending on the kind of plex, much like in incursions : hacking something when you are on the offensive, so defenders would have to protect their NPCs not to make the thing to hack vulnerable, or just capturing a bunker where you have to drop enough marines inside (ofc, you have to destroy the defending NPCs before too), etc etc.
In the end, this would mean that even a single plexer or a solo player can do its part. But to avoid people just allowing one people inside and spreading everyone of their pilots each in a different plex, you can also cap the lower limit depending on the size of the plex : the size (small, average, large, XL, etc), not the type (minor, medium or major). That way you could have small minors, large minors, small majors, large majors, etc.
Too complex ? Maybe. Immersive and less boring ? Definitly. Blob breaking ? Yes.
My main issue with this is that I can't find a solution for neutrals getting inside. The easiest solution would be to make them unable to use the acceleration gates. But is that a good solution ?
I am pretty that this idea, very radical in itself, is pretty flawed in its current state.
-
You basically create a system with deadspace pockets (like plexes, etc), with a number scaling. The first one getting into the installation can set up the gate to accept only a certain number of enemies. Meaning, if you are 2 of you going inside, only 2 enemies for example can get inside too (unless you are a little crazy or overconfident)
So I put an alt into the Amarr Militia, go into some plex with that guy, and am totally safe from defenders? I'm not sure that will create exciting PvP ... :-]
-
Mh I am not sure to understand. If your alt enters the plex, it starts the plex and makes it run for the Amarr side...
-
Mh I am not sure to understand. If your alt enters the plex, it starts the plex and makes it run for the Amarr side...
I think the "not understanding" is mutual :-)
Currently, you need to be within 10/20/30 km of the button to run a plex. If this is still the case, I park my alt at 50km and run the plex, and because there's an Amarr and a Minmatar inside, no one can interfere.
Are you proposing to change this? If so: Is there a majority rule (1 Minmatar + 2 Amarr means it's running for Amarr - currently not)? How does it deal with cloakers (currently not affecting the timer)?
-
Who said it was still going to be a button ? :p
Yeah sorry, it was not obvious in my post, though I added this : "Of course, for more immersion you can still add NPC ideas where the capture is not based on timers anymore, but on different objectives depending on the kind of plex, much like in incursions : hacking something when you are on the offensive, so defenders would have to protect their NPCs not to make the thing to hack vulnerable, or just capturing a bunker where you have to drop enough marines inside (ofc, you have to destroy the defending NPCs before too), etc etc."
I find buttons running dumb anyway.
Sidenote : currently, if 2 WT enemies stand in the timer range, the timer usually stops running until one of them leaves or dies if I am correct.
-
[quote author=Lyn Farel link=topic=2659.msg38798#msg38798 Sidenote : currently, if 2 WT enemies stand in the timer range, the timer usually stops running until one of them leaves or dies if I am correct.
[/quote]
Yes. Actually, if 10 pilots of side A and 1 pilot of side B are in range, it still stops running, i.e. it stops running without majority.
In your system, if side A is capturing a plex (regardless of how they do it - orbiting a button, hacking some cans, whatever), it is highly relevant what happens if the pilots park hostile alts in the plex. If they can continue whatever activity they are doing to capture the plex, they can effectively lock out any interference that way.
-
Hm yes, you mean that minmatar alts in the amarr militia for example would get in the plex and do nothing to capture it to prevent TRUE amarr pilots to capture it.
I am pretty sure a lot of solution can be found, but I will have to think a little about it.