Recently CCP created a cluster of threads on the DUST 514 forums explaining their intentions to revamp how the DUST side factional warfare works, and in quite a big way. Link to the main thread can be found
here, along with the links to other threads further detailing the changes.
But in its essence, the DUST FW is going to be more involved with EVE and get some FW mechanics from EVE, biggest of them being standings to empires when you win or lose battles, loyalty points and the loyalty point store with exclusive top tier weaponry and equipment.
I'm sure everyone here knows how the LP store works, so I'll skip to the part where you can gain them. When you complete a factional contract, aka. complete a battle win or lose, you gain LP and standing towards the empire you fought for. The higher your standing level is, the more LP you will get from completing contracts.
But with the new LP system, you will no longer be rewarded ISK from FW battles, only loyalty points and standings which would make it an option to public contracts, and an ISK sink. Friendly fire is also going to be enabled, but you can't kill too many teammates or you will lose standing towards your empire. Get your standing below 0 and you get locked out from FW for 24 hours, after it gets reset back to 0.
Warbarge orbital strikes are also going to be removed from DUST FW too, after the update you can o ly call in an orbital strike with the help of an EVE pilot. And in general dusters are going to see a lot easier how their battles affect the entire war at large, along with what happened to the district they fought and other stats involving FW. They also hinted at letting non-NPC corporations sign up for FW too, which would be nice.
So that's pretty much the gist of things with this new update. It doesn't have any set release date yet, but it will probably/hopefully come out someshere during this year. I am definitely looking forward to these changes, even though I'm not going to be participating in them. But I'm a little concerned that since there is no player market, FW runner would have a hard time making any profit out of faction contracts, and grindingnpublic matches to repay your losses doesn't sound too fun. What do you think?
