Warfare & Tactics

Concept fails when one side captures the entire warzone. Where do you mission then?

Might be interesting though if one side brought a massive fleet into a system and camped it all day while their guys ran missions 23/7. Say, your side takes all the enemy systems except Haras. Then you farm it nonstop while your corporation camps the single gate and keeps opponents out.

Anyways, there definitely ought to be a "griefing" feature for FW missions. Been suggesting it for years now. Would be interesting if they counted against Sov as well.

FW needs a shake up. This iteration has been extremely fun and exciting, but it has settled down into a very predictable pattern which is bad for any game.

listen punk. your the one who isnt opening you mind to new ideas. i fcking affect isk/lp incomes RIGHT NOW and your telling me if farmers came to my systems in greater freqency i wouldnt be effecting their incomes?

Mr one note chorus who is 'NO' 'i like how farming is i just want it to be that you need 30mil sp to do missions then i can reap the profits while the rest of you wait to skill pilots' unlike you i have been in both warzones and have effected both. And i have seen farmers on both sides.

FARMAMARR isnt a thing? i guarantee you if i had to do 1/3 or even 1/4 of my missions in huola at tier 4 they wouldnt get done. just because you refuse to use anything except a stealth bomber for missions doesnt mean everybody will. you no what we use in amarr? because our missions arnt easy as chips we use macherials, apocs, oracles, cerbs, tengus. and guess what? they are all fit for pvp. and beleive me we arnt the only ones who use big ships to do missions, ive even seen minmatar use legions and domis however none of them leave tandoriuos constellation.



X G, if you capture the warzone there is no where to offensive plex either. no offensive missions to run too since these missions are SUPPOSED to be run in enemy space.

farming haras would be intresting for sure. it would open up opportunities for large scale pvp and tons of small scale pvp happening in the hundreds of missions poping up. areas that were once desolate would become hot grounds for pvp. more reasons to undock in big battleships and get inside those missions and stop the farmers/ attack gate camps to get in interceptor pilots etc etc.

denying enemy missions needs to happen. otherwise the whole mission spawning in legitimate enemy space would be worthless, all missioners would have to do is wait a certain time during the 12 hours when the enemy militia has left the mission area. just like plexing you can deny it in time but the time is extremely short compared to camping a mission for 12 hours waiting for it to expire.

No, I'm saying there's no system you can put in place that will force them to come to Huola. Even if you restrict missions to enemy held systems, they'll just ensure they hold 41% of the warzone, hold Tier 3, and make plenty of LP that way. They'll never have to come near you or those systems you hold dear. It'll be just like it is now, with them running missions all over the place, and there's nothing you could do to influence that.

There is currently no incentive for taking more than about 60-70% of the warzone. Under your proposal, there won't be much incentive to take more than about 50% of the warzone, if that. In fact, holding the minimum number of systems to maintain the desired tier would be the optimal strategy for income purposes. Such a change would actively disincentivize PvP and occupancy warfare.

Look, here's the deal. You're wanting solutions to force people who have no intention whatsoever of engaging in PvP into fighting you. There is no mechanic you can put into place to force PvP. None. No matter what solution you try to implement, they will find a way around it. So stop trying to force them to PvP against their will and change the incentives that cause them to be in your space in the first place.

The issue is that the majority of EVE looks at FW as an LP ATM. Fix that. And no, making them come to your preferred hunting grounds isn't a fix, no matter how much you wish it to be.

yes there is its called development programing
yes there is its called higher tier which equals more isk. its up to you if you want to waste time and run more missions instead of getting better quality ones.
system lock out is a ******* forcing pvp mechanic. dont even try. o booo who if they dont want to pvp they can google 'picard theres the door' welcome to faction WARFARE


such is life of eve. exploiters will always find a way to exploit like the amarr campers who found a way to make navy rats never attack them.

now let me debunk.

BS camping the gate with huge fleet and instalocking whatever is really cute and will prevent only so many ships from getting inside before a neutral entity around decides to yolo hot drop drop it and chase/kill the gate camp. because it takes any amount of time to form any proper counter for easy kills. say there is no neutral entity around to do this (which is NEVER the case) that cute little stealth bomber gang will be fun and easy to chase down by just leroying interceptor fleets through the gate camp. sure some will not make it. but most will. or any ship sized fleet will get through and start causing trouble. OR just titan bridge in avoiding the gate camp entirely since it seems like every militia has at least 1 titan to use.

Any number of tricks can be used to get into the system an stop BS missions from being run. however it is very unlikely that nobody would be living in bosboger. infact there would be enemy militia living in bosboger just handing out ships for people to use to hunt down the enemy bombers. supplied VIA jump frieghters.

with the ability to deny missions many would be disappearing from overview as the enemy militia complete's their objective thus making it easy to isolate which missions are active. especially a system that is actively patrolled by opposing militia.

creating a reason to move into new fw systems and hold them. by taking more systems the missions would become even more spread and grabbing missions in only bosboger would soon yield less and less isk because less are spawning there.

the missions are required to be run in enemy space because they spawn in enemy SOV. the OLD SOV system. in which case the sov never changed but the occupancy did. they should be changed to follow the new sov system.
There is always people hunting mission runners/siter runners/plex runners. it would be easy for people like myself to setup a small tower with a ship array to ensure i have most ships i need to hunt mission runners in a specific system.

sure the travel would be less risk but again, people would search out and have a meaningful reason to d-plex a system. because they can wait for mission runners to show up and change gears.
while this is true it can happen, doesn't mean that it will. that would create a huge incentive for entities to fight over agent granting systems and take control of them.

In answer to the actual OP and rather then just adding my arguments to the war between Vesh and Flyinghotpocket, FW is not broken.

That's not to say that it couldn't be improved at all. I have a number of complaints about the way FW is set up. Being forced to fly Cruisers and down and never being able to fly anything above irks me. The tier system annoys me. Having to devote enormous amounts of time D-plexing simply so I can live closer to the WZ makes me extremely tired of EVE. And I will explain my reasoning for wanting to get rid of plex farmers in a bit.

BUT Faction Warfare still remains one of the most active places if not THE most, for PvP. Plexes are a beacon for solo PvP and probably the only reliable source anywhere in EVE. If you like PvP and don't want some faceless overlord you never talk to commanding your every move, and don't want massive Lag Fests every time you and your thousand closest friends respond to a CTA, and don't always have to worry about being insta-butt raped by 20 supercaps and 500 of their buddies, you will love FW.

However, one of the biggest and main problem's of Faction Warfare is the permanence of AFK Plex farmers in the WZ. I will try to counter a couple arguments by those who don't think farmers are a problem, or for farmers trying to defend their actions.

Argument 1: Farmers are easily countered.
Reply: Farmers are not easily countered. Primarily because of their use of cheap throwaway fits that rarely fit anything other than a prop mod, guns, and WCS and maybe a cloak. It takes about 30 minutes of plexing at Tier 2 to earn enough LP to buy ten of these fits. Not only are there fits throwaway, but because they are near impossible to catch without significant sacrifices in ISK and/or fitting concessions. Yes, sure I could fit two scramblers to my fit, it would be relatively easy, except making my fit relatively useless for grabbing anything EXCEPT farmers. But why should I have to? Faction Warfare isn't supposed to be about farming ISK. It is supposed to be about PvP.

Lastly, there are LOTS of Afk farmers. The exact numbers are hard to pin down because of their inherent nature but estimates vary from hundreds to thousands to dozens etc. At the very least there as many of them as there are of us PvPers. But unfortunately they are far more single minded in their pursuit of LP then most of us are. And thus effect the WZ immensely.

And if you dispute this by saying that "you can't tell me how to play". Its not just me, its the mechanics, and CCP. Here is how Factional Warfare is described on the official EVE Online WIKI.



Faction Warfare is meant to be about PvP. Earning ISK through LP is supposed to be something you use to fund PvP. And it works fairly well at the moment aside from the farmers. This is why they reiterated the plexes and tier after the orignal Inferno patch. Because they had made Faction Warfare into something purely used by everyone to make massive loads of ISK quickly with very little risk. Not the PvP mini-sov motivated Warzone they wanted it to be.

Argument 2: You are trying to force me to PvP, because you wan't free kills. Because I am low skilled etc.
Reply: How much would your Isk/hr ratio go down by Banning WCS? None, 0, nada, not at all. How would banning WCS force you to fight me? It wouldn't.

You already have extreme safety in a plex. You have your D-scan which shows if anything at all lands on the gate, and what ship they are in. You can sit anywhere from 20-40 Kilometers of the warp in and have more then enough ample time to warp out if something you can't fight warps in.

Would I take an Incursus in my brawler Merlin? No, I think he can out brawl me so I warp off when he comes in the plex. Would I try to fight a Fed Navy Comet in my Kiting Kestrel? No, so I warp off when he shows up on grid.

The only ability that WCS grants you is the ability to minimize your client and go do something else on your computer without consequence. Taking away WCS would simply mean that you would have to pay some attention, or be caught in a fight which you can't win.

And this is just a pet peeve. You are in Low Security Space. LOW SECURITY. CCP warns you, until you turn it off, whenever you are about to jump into a low security space. DANGER DANGER YOU ARE NOT SAFE IN LOW SEC. So why in the HELL do you think you should be able to fit a couple WCS and be able to effect my Warzone without a single hint of consequence.

Argument 3: Farmers do not effect the WZ
Reply: I could see how someone like Vesh, who has defended Eha from however many over powering threats, could say how you simply need to pick a system and then defend that.

What if I don't simply want to own a single system in the entire Warzone? Who currently effects the Warzone as whole right now? You ask most people they would say AFK-plex farmers, and I believe they are absolutely right. You could defend Eha or Innia. But what about Pavanakka? Aivonen? Two systems, one jump(or one and a half jumps if you count Innia's ridiculous size) which never saw a major gallente offenisve, but yet remained extremely contested due to farmers. What about Moclinamaud? Aldranette? Hikkoken? Were any of these systems regularly plexed by Caldari? I haven't seen it. Farmers control the WZ at the moment while us PvPrs are barely able to manage to hold a >Fraction< of that.

I want my WZ tier and control to be determined by our PvP, Organization, and other misc. skills. Not by hundreds of random 0.0 alts making ISK to afford their Alliances 500th Supercap.

In my opinion, the counter to your rebuttal is contained within your reply. Counters exist - fitting multiple scrams, etc etc etc - however they require you to make sacrifices in order to ensure you have the counter for the prey you're hunting. Banning WCS doesn't impact isk/hr, and that was never the argument. The point I and others try to make is that the farmers are using a specific fit designed to enable them to evade PvP. That is in fact valid gameplay, and shouldn't be discouraged simply to make it easier for you to use a single fitting style (generic PvP fit) to engage them. The counters exist, and like in so many cases, if your ship isn't suited to the target available you don't bother engaging it. Same goes for stabbed farmers - your ship is not equipped to counter them, so either reship to something that can or stop whining when they get away.

You bring certain ships to counter kiters, you bring certain ships to counter MWD brawlers, you bring certain ships to counter armor brawlers. Saying you shouldn't have to change your fit to counter evasion-focused fits doesn't make sense at all. And trying to change the sandbox so people don't use fits you don't like in your preferred hunting grounds (plexes) just smacks of entitlement.

Part of the issue, in my mind at least, isn't the evasion aspect - people on the ball watching D-scan can always evade a fight if so desired - it's the AFK nullbear alt syndrome. They can be doing something else entirely while earning LP in a plex, and yet you have to commit time and energy - and the opportunity cost of spinning a button without getting decent fights - and they just find another plex to run.

One solution is just to make sure you've got your own alts out deplexing - stabbed farmers won't warp in on them after all - and use your main to do more interesting things. Sure, your alt will lose a lot of ships and pods, but that's essentially an irrelevant loss as you've pointed out.

I would love to see some change that would require more active attention while capturing a plex, but banning WCS ain't it.


We define WZ control differently. To me, I control a portion of the warzone if I am able to use it freely (to the extent possible in any low sec environment) and if I control the ability to someone else to use it freely (with the same caveat). To me, then, the contested percentage of a system - especially non-station systems or ones situated away from major battle fronts - is essentially irrelevant.

The issue with farmers pushing up the contested percentage has far more to do with AFK alts and the stupid amount of income (with respect to at the keyboard effort) they provide rather than anything else. But those same mechanics are how a number of "legit" PvP focused FW pilots make their isk, so nerfing that income can have unintended consequences. In addition, the plexing mechanic and it's impact on system vulnerability is part of what makes FW so different from nullsec sov warfare - the requirement for consistent effort to impact control of a system or area.

In my mind, the current FW system kinda gets back to pre-tower based nullsec sov. The flag on the map doesn't really matter; it's all down to what you're willing to actively assert influence over. That's part of why GalMil focuses so much not on overall warzone control, but control of certain systems and their immediate environs. We recognize that there are limits to what we can regularly patrol and the willingness of pilots to do boring stuff like spin buttons to make a number on a screen smaller or bigger. Difference in culture and outlook I guess.


You and me both, brother. Fixing the FW as LP ATM problem is the key to remedying a lot of these issues, IMO.

Could you explain how connections to nullsec support larger fleets (for the FW corps)?

I can speak for the Amarr front. It doesn't support large fleets. If you show up with more then 20 guys there is a high probability of being blue balled. I can recall Annah Kitheran with his HAC / Guardian Fleets or Almity and his Navy Aug / Aug fleets - most nights they had trouble finding a fight. Alot of milita on both sides have gone pirate, gone to Null, or have simply stopped logging in. Both sides are really pale shadows of what they were even a year ago.

The Gallente however by all appearances are going very strong. I see the same faces in threads at least. If they can't get fights from Caldari then who are they fighting? I can only speculate that the null sec connections bring challenges and targets.