EVE General Discussion

This is what worries me. It was one of the very first requests made, came up during the discussions prior to expansion deploying but it hasn't even been on the table 'for realz' until now .. when a new crew are in charge of the code.
Smells like the old crew saw some of the implications and shelved it until measures could be put in while the new crew is trying to tick off boxes on their web-spider collated FW wishlist.

If that fear/assumption is realised then FW is toast

There goes the neighbourhood.

I joined FW just to NOT have to deal with the big megalomaniac Alliances.

If its going live i forsee a big downfall for the FUN that fw can bring, and fights that can be brought down
to "who has the biggest wallet."


Hope its a fail on sisi.

Eggduck

To CCP: Do you envision a dynamic that sets FW apart from other gameplay in EVE, if so, what is that dynamic?

Personally, I don't think making FW simply more accessible is the route to go. If there's a great enough incentive people will come and will find ways to make the system work for them. Think of the initial progress towards player alliances in the early days.

Who says all the big 0.0 alliances will join? Lets see how it transpires before the sky is falling in.

You get the bigger 0.0 people doing drops anyway, hopefully this will give us FW people more to shoot at and is going to provide a lot more high sec pinatas :)

Very unlikely, but all those that can when it launches probably will .. you see, it is 100% extra for them. Expect many others to setup splinter alliances or work standings up .
They retain ALL the benefits of being null-monkeys, get access to stuff to shoot and a place to send the overflow from the workcamps when sanctums systems are full up.

They gain everything else while we lose what is the only revenue source for most of us as well as the reason FW is still breathing .. small gang/solo casual PvP.
We get some more carebears to shoot in high-sec, but is that why you are in a militia and is it enough to keep you occupied when you can't be arsed dealing with the umpteenth blob fight of the day/week .. because the blobs will probably be everyday, all day .. you cannot dump hundreds of active pilots into <50 systems (or 2-3 hub pipe systems) without bringing them about.

Wonder why they have refused the last years call for clarity as to what they intend FW to be .. bet you they don't have a clue which is why they are flinging random **** at us to if it sticks, oblivious to the fact that no one particular likes having **** thrown in their faces.

Bad pun: The whole thing stinks.

PS: Yes I am rather miffed at the whole thing.

Hirana,
I've already said Ithink its a bad idea to let alliances in but I'm starting to waiver.

As has already been said they can set up splinter corps now if they want. They don't. So why would they set up splinter alliances? It doesn't make sense.



I think these are good questions.

Moreover its not so much that its hard to get a .5 standing with a faction but the negative of not being able to enter the other high sec is pretty bad. Plus anyone who actually participates in FW will kill their faction standings with the other 2 militias. Most alliances will no doubt have a substantial number of members who have ground up standings with the other 2 factions. They won't be happy to see that work go down the drain for LOLFW.

I really think most non rp alliances care about FW about as much, or less, than we care about null sec.

It seems the only realistic danger this poses is that a few Alliances will join FW, thereby doubling our ranks and CCP will say "See we fixed FW. Done!"

The other problem is that null alliances may start to lobby that FW become more like null sec. After all that is what they are currently choosing to do.


But there are some benefits that likely balance off these theoretical harms.

Moreover lets say for example Goons join Amarr. Then lets further assume White noise wants Goons to stop attacking them so they join Amarr FW. Now if goons attack Whitnoise they lose faction standings with amarr. Is this really going to be worth it? I doubt it.

I guess my view is that if this causes the sky to fall lets complain then but I'm not really hearing how this will be a significant problem.

I strongly think missioning is something that should be doable solo without penalty. (although *not* solo in a stealth bomber maybe solo in bc or bs.) The thing is if I sign on and there are other people in my corp active and willing to team up, I want to use that time to pvp!

When I sign on and no one is active pvp wise I would like to use that time for solo mission running.

I think the mission mechanics that the amarr militia face (we have tps and missiles spams) are fine and balanced. The risk reward is reasonable. Make other factions equal to that and mission issues are done. If large alliances want to come down and farm those thats fine. They will make less than high sec incursions and realize the lp is worth very little.


As for mixing pvp and pve the 2 don't mix. CCP has tried it with plexing. It doesn't work. Making the rats even stronger/smarter will make it so you have to warp out more often not less. Its time ccp acknowledged that players don't want to have combat against a computer ai unless it yields isk. And they don't want to die horrible deaths where there BS is scrammed by an ishkur long enough for the rats to kill them off.

1) We have plenty of empirical evidence that 2 don't mix. Do low sec missions lead to allot of pvp? Do fw missions? Do null sec missions? Do low and null sec incursions? Does killing sleepers in wormholes? The only things these activities lead to are occasional ganks. They do not give rise to quality pvp fights.

The fact that fw plexes often give rise to good pvp fights is in spite of the rats not because of them. I get allot of good fights in plexes by immediately moving away from the button so the rats don't aggro. That way I can get good fights without the rats ruining it. But of course I can never do the plex because I can't go in range of the button.

99% of the time the npcs do nothing but suppress pvp.

2) Here is an example of a blog where the blogger doesn't even realize it, but the npcs ruined his chances for pvp. He never counts the rats he only counts the pvp ships and gets upset when they warp away.

http://factionalwarfare.info/1565/pvp-are-you-willing-to-engage/

This happens allot. I got a lol when I had to warp my drake out of a mission when a thrasher came. The rats are strong enough that I don't have spare midslots for a point. And indeed most missions I running against a timer that I need to get my ship out. Just holding me ship in place a minute longer will lead to it exploding from the rats. So I always warp when I am out to shoot rats.

Personally I have seen people in plexes but couldn't even reach them before the stupid npc dps decimated my tank requiring me to warp off.

3) You just never know how many npcs are in there and therefore you never know how to calculate their impact. Hence the side that has to deal with npcs will figure they need extra ships. The side that has the npcs on their side will see the extra ships and gtfo.

4) NPCs take control of the fight out of players hands. If the npcs do well then the side that has them on their side will win if not they will lose. This makes the pvp more of a crap shoot than based on piloting.

The only good npcs do is prevent people from running plexes with alts. But that can be prevented by giving players a notification of the plexes or using different npcs mechanics as have been discussed earlier in this thread. But in no case will it be good if the npcs are there "pitching in" on pvp battles. The pvp battles should be up to the players.

5) Since ccp can't really add huge isk rewards for plexing, plexxing should provide some sort of bragging rights. No one cares how good you are at shooting npcs. So requiring that detracts from the “worthiness” of winning the war.



TLDR:
Every attempt at trying to mix pve and pvp has failed miserably. It’s a bad idea. Its time to accept that.

We probably need our own thread for these PvP vs PvE debates, but I'll just keep it here till everyone else gets sick of us and asks us to get a room.

Mixing PvE and PvP works. Our corp's done it. We've gotten a lot of kills doing it. It's pretty simple - instead of grabbing a bunch of missions and running them solo, you grab a bunch of missions as a group and take out *PvP fit* cruisers in a gang to complete them. Stabber fleet Issues with long points and artillery can tear up a Faction Warfare Level 4 quite nicely. Cruisers are mobile enough to evade the mission NPC fire long enough to take them down. Missions SHOULD be soloable, obviously one of us could have brought out a beefy Maelstrom (which like you said could not afford tackle mods) and accomplished the same thing, albeit at a much greater risk. PvE doesn't HAVE to be done the way you describe using a single, tanky, one-tackle-frig-and-you're-screwed approach as you describe.

This is a method our corp has used to both make isk and grab PvP kills with one operation. No secrets here, the enemy knows this because they've ganked us and been ganked back. The FW missions already work as a PvP driver, as intended. If we're mission roaming in non-bombers, there WILL be enemy engagements. I simply wish that everyone in Faction Warfare did more of this, instead of defaulting to bombers, because everyone would have a lot more fun this way.

The economics of course, are where the problem lies. Running them in cruiser gangs like this, the isk is in a different source - the NPC dog tags. Having plenty of pilots means loot scooping (something a solo bomber would never take the time to do, and forfeits the additional isk) is much more viable. You can make a decent side-income while baiting PvP fights, since you're lingering in a mission longer than usual, giving the enemy time to engage.

The issue is that this isn't the most efficient way to make isk. If the corp is cash strapped, most of us would rather just solo roam in bombers, because if you're going out with the specific purpose of making income, you aren't going to go with the cruiser method outlined above.

This is where other, terrestrial MMO's have an advantage on EvE. Traditional MMO's often scale up the experience points when you're teamed with friends, to encourage killing NPC's in groups. This can be done in EvE just as easily. Since group mission running favors tag collection over a fast, raw LP grind, CCP could tweak the tag requirements in the PvP store, and favor tag collection over LP cash in as far as ultimate isk / hour earning potential.

This way, those looking to spend a few hours making money could have a chance to make a solid income if solo, or an even better income if they team up to do the same thing, with the added bonus of not having to forsake a golden PvP invitation because you're needing to make isk with your time. This isn't really "penalizing" solo players, the way I see it, but in the end Faction Warfare shouldn't be favoring solo play anyways, though I agree it needs to be viable for those times when no one else is online, or you need a social break.

There are lots of variables and ideas as to how all these adjustments could be made, and how AI and rewards can be shuffled around, but I continue to reject your notion that PvE and PvP don't mix only because I've seen it in action and participated myself. It's just not the BEST way to make isk when you mix the two, and that, to me, is where FW missions fail to work as originally intended.

Requoting a post I've made in this thread:



This, combined with Caerain's idea of NPC removal and introcudtion of alarms, will result in a good dynamic for territory control in FW. Even if you include 0.0 alliances in the list, since most of the plexes do not allow for caps/battleships, you are not going to get supercap blobs. On the other hand a frigate blob fight in a minor plex would be something...well....different :)

Heh, I latched onto that idea as well after it was launched. Haven't given it much thought for a while though but its a good idea to have a 'trigger level' before it really kicks off.

Example:
1. Minnies attack Arzad (their secret Blue Oyster Bar is there I suspect, very keen on keeping it at least ), and take plexes enough to put it at 25% contested state.
2. Incursion type mechanic is triggered and plexes throughout constellation (6 systems total) now count towards Arzad VP. No VP can be gained outside Arzad as long as it remains under attack.
At the same time an alert (flashing militia TAB!) is given to Amarr militia indicating system under attack and constellation in question (like Incursions).
- Not happy with giving too much free intel to be honest, doing the rounds is pretty fast for Amarr at least so no reason to make people lazy.

3. Amarr pilots can now send available people to occupy plexes in constellation and confront Shakor's Death Squads as time allows (if SDS does not interdict them that is) .. due to entire constellation being involved the onus is on the attacker to keep the pressure on, as it should be. Too easy to defend limited plexes if opened by oneself (been around the plex circuit a few times so know this to be true )

4a. If Amarr manages to outplex the Matari then Arzad is reset (0 VP). All VP gained by Matari in other systems prior to Incursion mechanic trigger remain in place, so a constellation could theoretically be under attack for a long time.
4b. If the Matari manage to make Arzad bunker vulnerable, VP feed from constellation is stopped and a random size plex will spawn in Arzad .. and it will keep spawning (as in always a plex available).
Losing the plex (ie. forfeiting vulnerable status) knocks contested status back to 75% and restarts constellation feed.

Will need to address the way plexes are captured and/or provide equal opportunity for all factions
- NPC balance and/or removal.
- Difficulty revision, married to above. Concerns the ability of single frigs being enough for some factions but not others.
- Timer, Yay or Nay.
- Offensive plexing = defensive ditto or skewed one way. Personally think defence should be less time consuming than offence, if a bad guy wants my stuff he should have to work for it, or locking a door is easier than breaking it down.
- Compensation for plexing. Currently get 30M for majors in tags or there about, but requires :effort: to get .. if NPCs stay in one form or another then it could/should be increased. Else a re-numeration system tied to VP might be in order.

Note: Since CCP/CSM seem intent on adding hundreds of active pilots to all sides (lol-Blob), the need to spread the fighting out is of utmost importance, doing it based on constellations/Incursions provides that.
Now if only we could make CCP/CSM understand that the system need to be fixed before they empty the 18 wheeler sheep transport we'd be golden.

PS: Have I mentioned how much I hate the forums ungodly post-eating addiction?