Warfare & Tactics

I'm considering trying FW as it's something I haven't done before. Plus I've been inactive for much of the last year and it seems like a decent way to get my pvp legs back.

Reading many of the 'looking for corp' posts in the recruitment forum, it seems like a lot of people are vehemently against getting into (or back into) FW. And I'm wondering why this is.

Can anyone with experience please give me a general idea of what they do or don't like about FW? Are there particular frustrating/broken components you deal with a lot?

EDIT: I've got 75M+ SP that are well divided amongst all race's ships and weapons, so this thread isn't about choosing a side. It's more about hearing opinions regarding game mechanics that make FW fun or not fun.

Good points (IMO):

No sitting on titans for hours waiting for a hot drop.

Fights that rarely enter TIDI

A constantly evolving conflict zone full of drama (civil wars, new entrants to the WZ etc)

A PVP environment where even a week old toon can be involved in the 'sov ' mechanics.

There are challenges and roles for bitter vets also.

Home system invasions are great - see 'Burn Huola' etc

Bad Points (IMO)

You are practically limited to cruiser fights and below - this is because powerful third parties will drop capitals on anything bigger out of boredom (Pandemic Legion et al)

You cannot pick your coalition partners - so yes things that drive content as a hood point can also be a bad point (civil war!)

It can be hard to find a fair fight if you solo PvP - bait and bank is very common

Capital engagements virtually never happen

Pros:

- if you are friendly and a team player you can work with more organized groups in FW and gain opportunities to other areas of the game (this is true for any "good" groups anyways).
- you do not have to pay for any war decs... you have a steady supply of enemies to go through... some of them might even be "regulars" so you get to match wits against them constantly.
- complexes do offer you the ability to nominally set the terms of an engagement in that they disallow people from "up-shipping" you (if you are in one of the smaller complexs) and gives slower, brawling ships a viable chance to fight.
- Loyalty Point rewards for running complexes and missions gives you the ability to have an income while looking for PvP.... rather than forcing you to completely separate the two in terms of time and effort.
- you experience a wide range of combat from solo (mostly in the back-end areas) to skirmishing to medium-large scale "killdozer" fleets.

Cons:

- joining FW means that you are effectively the "enemy" in two large areas of high-sec (the Faction Navy will chase and engage you in high-sec).
- you will suffer significant standings penalties against the empires you are fighting against... which, after a certain period of time and activity, will create the same result as the previous point even when you leave FW completely (note: it takes awhile before this happens though).
- you do not get to choose who else is in your militia. As a result, militia chat and NPC militia corp chat is rife with spies. You also get the occasional AWOXer.
- following the previous point... groups that are part of the same militia but do not like each other will often have some kind of drama going on.


Points of frustration:

- station lock-out mechanics apply for FW people in low-sec. If the enemy has control of a system then you cannot dock in any of the stations in that system. This rule does not apply in high-sec however (you can dock anywhere).
- "farmers" are still a thing in FW. They will often sit in complexes in warp stabbed ships and run away before you can engage.
- control over a system requires "farming" the complexes. This does not sit well with many PvPers as their ability to live in a system often has little to do actual PvP and more "chasing away" farmers and farming themselves. The opposite is true for taking a system.
- because of all of the above, it is usually more advisable to live in a system where there are other friendlies around rather than in a far-flung system. A bunch of people can defend against a couple of plexers and have a bit of fun... a single guy will spend most of his/her time chasing off farmers.
- militia groups are often fiercely independent and will resort to shooting first before being diplomatic (this is both good and bad).
- several major 0.0 groups have staging systems littered throughout low-sec. And these groups are often bored. They will not hesitate to hotdrop supercapitals or battleshp fleets on a sizable enough FW fleet... especially when fighting has lasted for more than 10 minutes.
- newbies that join FW often do not have their overview set up correctly... and many of the FW vets have low security status... leading to friendly fire incidents.



Overall? Try it. See if you like it.

pros heavily outweigh the cons imo.

Sure you can't enter enemy high sec (you really don't need to if you full-time FW anyway)...
Sure you get linked + snaked "soloers"...
Sure you get bad people in your militia...
Sure you can get kicked out of systems...



Nothing even comes close to the ability to log in and literally be in a fight within seconds. I have done this solo in Eha. I have done with with 100v100 fights in Huola.

Pros:
all things frigate
Many of the FCs are pretty full of themselves (leads to drama/content)
It's downright funny when an FC gives crap orders then rages for lack of success
It's funner than nullsex (this is primarily filler to balance the pros and cons - nullsex is just plain bad)

Cons:
predominately frigate stuff (if you don't like frigate stuff fw sux)
FCs are generally cranky
FCs are better at blaming others than at being an FC
It's meta/flavor of the month dominated (there is a distinct lack of individual creativity)