Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Intro:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&nbid=74031
After reading this new devblog I think CCP has missed the mark a bit.
While the new updates are better they aren't perfect for encouraging PVP.
The New NPCs I think are a good start.


Problems:
LP is too easy to farm via plexes, this doesn’t help anything as if you have only 1 rat you can easily gank it with a few friends then then leave a smaller ship to cap the point.

There is no focus in system captures which means there is no frontline for people to focus on and as such it seems to lead to a stale war.

Solutions:

Part 1 Systems:

i) Contested States
To start with systems should also only be contestable if they are adjoined to a waring system or if the Dust ground troops have flipped it past 50% on the planet meter thing.

This would promote people having a front line to fight on and allow Dust players to cause problems and interact without making them unfair and it wouldn’t go amiss if they didn’t exist.

ii) Capturing
To Capture rather than the current you have to complete 140 plexes, which I can tell you is boring and doesn’t encourage PVP at all, you would have to tick down a timer from say 72 hours (seems like a good number).

To capture you will need to enter one of the 6 beacons in space (that can move daily as so to not make them as campable) each will have a multiplier that 1,1,2,3,5,6 depending on their class (see Part 2).

This will allow for the maximum capture speed of a system, bearing in mind you would still have to kill the iHub, of 4 hours (72hours /18 from the above points) which again is a maximum time and would need 6 small gangs on each button.

To Defend you will get 0.25x multiplier on all plexs of all sizes, which can seem unfair but is purely because you would be able to counter a mini or small with 4 people in any of the other plexes.

Part 2 Plexes:

Plexes should be changes to the following.
Size - Ship Classes - NPC foe
1) Mini - T1/faction Frigs only - 2 Regular NPC frigate spawn
2) Small - Destroyers and T2 Frigates and below - 1 Frig, 2 Destroyers
3) Medium - T1/faction cruisers and below - 1 Frig, 2 cruisers
4) Large - BC and T2 Cruisers (no T3) and below - 1 Frig 2 BC
5) Extra Large - All BS and below - 1 frig 2 BS
6) Unlimited - no gate or restrictions - 2 frigs 5 BS (really nasty ones)

Now each plex would have a button as normal but the difference is that there is no timer, they count down in time with a multiplier for each size 1,1, 2, 3, 5, 6 respectively which means in total there is 18x timer in which the system can count down.

The NPCs will regularly warp in while the button is active and land on it to stop people afking on a hostile but not too often so that it disrupts PVP (say 30 minutes)

The reason for at least 3 NPCs is that a single NPC is too easy to kill but 3 would give most people a run for their money and encourage small gangs not solo players capturing systems.


Part 3 Reward:


LP is not given out until a system is captured, which will likely kill all PVE in factional warfare that are not missions.

This way you have to take a system to take your reward, however you are given ghost LP like with the incursions.

However for each 5/10/15 minutes of being on a timer you get x amount of LP base it on the current amounts they work well but again split between everyone on the button.

For defenders the LP will be given only for the time you have reduced but at a lower rate as it is currently (I think it’s 10times less or something).

Conclusion:

Hopefully this will encourage PVP and less PVE and give a focus for people on system to capture.