Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kiki Truzhari]

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?

[Lyn Farel]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[Lyn Farel]

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.

[Saikoyu]

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. 

[Esna Pitoojee]

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.

[Ryven Krennel]

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.

[Alain Colcer]

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.

[orange]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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.

[orange]

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.

[Kiki Truzhari]

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.

[Raphael Saint]

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.

[Bataav]

Seems there's a general consesus for a FW review.

While flicking around on the EVE forums I found this thread.