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[Louella Dougans]

I was flipping through topics looking at what was happening in FW and other places.

When something I saw struck me. Someone said that the only FW plexers they managed to catch, were "friendly alts", and that they had to let them go.

How is that going to work IC ? How does it work for RP entities ?

This meta FW thing, surely does it not mean that RP entities find themselves excluded from FW ?

Scenario:
Pilot A, enlists in their militia, goes off to shoot things. Finds enemy B, engages, B tells them they're an alt of A's militia.

So what does A do then? If they shoot the enemy militia, then it annoys their own, and A will not get invited to fleets, and may be fired on by "friendly" forces. If they do not shoot the enemy militia, then what are they supposed to do with their time ?

Is there any point for entities below a certain size attempting to play FW in an immersive RP fashion ?
Large entities like Ushra'Khan or Electus Matari are big enough for anyone to get a fleet to do things in, but small entities of say ~20 characters max, what are they to do ? When the only small gang targets (i.e. enemy plexers) are often alts of their own militia ?

[Victoria Stecker]

Tell them to take their alts up to the gal/cal warzone. The LP is just as good but no one really bothers to shoot you. Then you don't have the issue of catching friendly alts.

/sarcasm

[Jev North]

In my and ANSHs general experience, going after FW plexers is becoming less and less worth your time, anyway.  They will not give you fights; when you do manage to catch them, an increasingly large majority are no-gun speed-tanking frigates barely worth the ammo to pop them.

[Louella Dougans]

barely worth the ammo to pop them.

tech1 layz0r crystalz ftw!

[Bastian Valoron]

Spies. Spies everywhere.

[Aldrith Shutaq]

I dunno, I don't think there is a solution to this. My policy is to kill anything going after a plex, no questions asked. The fact that I have been in FW for 4 years and belong to somewhat infulential circles, most of which are anti-altfarmer, are my saving graces. And in all honesty, if someone's alt goes pop there's not much fuss about it - they admit the metagame bullshit, loathe it, but feel forced to do it due to the mechanics.

It's still very immersion-breaking knowing that you might be harming your own side by fighting the enemy, but it seems to be the nature of the game now. Using Minmatar LP to fund our own war is the only way many feel they can 'stick it to the man'.

[Alain Colcer]

it's sad really, because it is possible to "plex" a system beyond the 100% and never have a real reward for "de-plexing" said system...

so the real and only answer is to farm LP and then at some point flip it and plex it again from the other side using alts.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Kill it.

Kill it with fire.



No, really - there isn't a good IC answer to this. I suppose if it's one of those no-gun Incursus alts, they could at least argue that they aren't ending lives... but in the end, that's a pretty hollow argument. GJ, CCP - FW is now even harder to rationalize being part of than before the patch.

[Graelyn]

There are no good IC ways to deal with FW.

[Ken]

In my and ANSHs general experience, going after FW plexers is becoming less and less worth your time, anyway.  They will not give you fights; when you do manage to catch them, an increasingly large majority are no-gun speed-tanking frigates barely worth the ammo to pop them.

Oh but how they pop. 

I've caught maybe two or three in as many months (and really only on the warp-in beacon), but its still satisfying to blast them.  And even if I knew that any of them belonged to a friend who flies with me in the CalMil, I'd still try and shoot his/her farming alt.  I'd expect the same done to me if I had such an alt.

No, really - there isn't a good IC answer to this.

Oh yes there is...

Kill it.

Kill it with fire.

   Because that is what your character would do if they saw an enemy ship near a friendly complex.

Is there any point for entities below a certain size attempting to play FW in an immersive RP fashion ?
Large entities like Ushra'Khan or Electus Matari are big enough for anyone to get a fleet to do things in, but small entities of say ~20 characters max, what are they to do ? When the only small gang targets (i.e. enemy plexers) are often alts of their own militia ?

Fact of the matter is there are plenty of solo and small gang targets out there that aren't FW farming alts.  QCATS always shoot.  Villore Accords always shoot.  I usually kill or am killed by at least one such target every time I roam.  There are also nasty pirates in the FW warzones that are also nice to shoot at--like Anshar.    In 2 1/2 months in CalMil, I've achieved about 40 honest force-on-force ship kills that were either scored solo or in small gangs of 5 ships or less.  PVP jitters every time.  Perfectly IC actions every time.

There are no good IC ways to deal with FW.

Takes some SoDB from time to time, but the same thing can be said for any metagame concept or half-executed storyline and how it relates to RP.  There's no good IC way to deal with the fact that the Yulai and Malkalen stations are still in ruins, for example.  No good IC way to deal with the perpetual Sansha invasions, to mention another.  There's no good IC way to deal with the fact that agents send tens of thousands of capsuleers on missions to kill huge enemy fleets in hisec space every day, to drive the point home.

Doesn't change the fact that I:

• participate in FW
• read and enjoy the lore
• still want to try my hand at some incursions
• run missions for ISK and LP
• sometimes have to do things that require me to take off my IC hat and put on my MMO hat
• and still have enjoyable and substantive RP every time my character walks into a scene

Don't get so worked up about it.  What your character knows is far less than what you know as a player.  Every time we log in, we have to sacrifice some immersion for the fact that we are, after all, playing a video game.  EVE is not just a fictional setting where we do improv.  EVE is an MMO, part of which is a fictional setting.

Just take a breath and...

[orange]

I was involved in a conversation about this elsewhere... something about a TLF character passing a supposed Imperialist ISK as a way to keep the Imperialist in big ships.

The difference really comes down to how we see our characters vs how others view their characters.

To us, each character is a different entity to be handled differently to some degree (even when they are allied and working together).

The majority of Eve do not have a player/character divide - Lord Squishy is also Freedom Fighter Squishy is also Citizen Squishy, even if those there characters are all doing other things.

This is why people believe things like they are making a ton of ISK when running 15 PI planets producing X goods.  They the player are, but the individual characters are making about as much as they would if there were 3 players running 15 planets and actually talked to each other.

Kill it.

Kill it with fire.

Always a good option!

[Reyd Karris]

FW was not designed for RP. It was designed for PvP and to add a new feature that could be a stepping stone to 0.0. Sadly, many got stuck on the (admittedly horrible) mechanics, and that ruined immersion for the roleplayers I knew in FW.

That said, using selective tunnel vision helped me when I was doing it. "I'm a soldier, defending my homeland. I don't need to know why what I'm doing works, or how fair the mechanics are; I just need to push the Minmatar back."

This meta FW thing, surely does it not mean that RP entities find themselves excluded from FW ?

Don't over-think it. If I were RP'ing in EVE right now, I'd be in FW. I wouldn't care if the target I was fighting was an alt of my best friends second cousin's college roommate. I fired on plenty of characters I knew outside of FW. The fact is, if you're worrying about meta concerns, your immersion's already broken. It might not be the right fit for you, which is fine. EVE is huge, and there's tons of alternative options.

I left FW not because it wasn't a rich RP environment (in fact, at the time it was), but because it was boring. It was a grind, and a thankless one. Add to that the fact that after a couple months of FW my corp decided to try their hand at 0.0, well... I'd been there and done that already. Got the T-shirt. Sent it back.

Meh. It's not for everyone. I'd say at the most, some RP entities aren't a match for FW. I wouldn't discount some RP entities being able to thrive in it. It just takes a slightly different perspective.

[Merdaneth]

OOC: dude, if you are plexing when I'm in system, you better warp out or I blow you up. RP you know. Just smack me in local saying something about 'evil slaver' and go back to plexing as soon as I leave system.

I've never got problems with it. If worse comes to worst, I can always tell them I'm really an alt of someone in the TLF and am now obliged to shoot them

[Louella Dougans]

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=147682&find=unread

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Amarr_VS_Minmatar#kills24

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/Dammalin/stats

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/Mehatoor/kills

 

even if the minmatar occupy all the systems, there's still going to be a huge LP faucet, one that is trivial to exploit :\

unlike plexes, where there's competition for the limited numbers, missions are infinite.

[Merdaneth]

even if the minmatar occupy all the systems, there's still going to be a huge LP faucet, one that is trivial to exploit :\

unlike plexes, where there's competition for the limited numbers, missions are infinite.

This exploit was there before the Inferno changes, the boost in LP rewards just made it worth more. People are just getting more blatant about it.

At least you need one somewhat skilled pilot actually finishing the missions. I'm quite sure that people will still farm missions in the regular way as well: loads of stealth bombers.

Ah well, the more blatant and extreme the exploits get, the higher the odds of a quick fix from CCP. So by all means, go farm!