Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This was a problem before there was lp for finishing plexes.

I think this is a fundemental issue that needs to be understood by ccp and others talking about this issue.

Many players (moslty pvpers) would prefer a great sov war mechanic that does not necessarily give any isk rather than a horrible mechanic that gives lots of isk.

Lots of players said giving isk/lp for capturing plexes as well as the tier system would solve everything - because now there are consequences for losing space. CCP seemed to think this was the case too. So they really didn't do anything to prevent rabbit plexing and they just threw isk at faction war. So now we have a bad sov mechanic with consequences. Which in my opinion is worse than a bad sov mechanic with no consequences.

CCP needs to make the actual sov mechanic better. Piling consequences on a bad system is no fix. Specifically they need to make it so rabbit plexing is not the best way to gain victory points. (yes the issue is victory points not loyalty points) The way they do that is by implementing rollbacks and giving real time intel on plexes being attacked. They said they would do both of these things due to the players asking for this. But they dropped the ball and it has been years since anyone explained why they didn't follow through.

Here is a post that gives the history:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6082412#post6082412

If you like rabbit versus wolf play there is plenty of that mechanic in eve already. Like I said you can do fw missions low and null sec missions. Belt ratting in low null and running anom in null and whs. We have plenty of the wolf rabbit dynamic. We don't need fw sov to be yet another mechanic that is won by rabbits. And anyway I am not interested in fighting rabbits.

EVE could use some wars that are actually fought by wolves and really has no place for rabbits.

Your question seems to suggest you think the rabbits in faction war space are what brings the action. You are wrong. The plexes themselves bring the action and most pvp in these plexes are not with rabbits.

Of my last 100-500 low sec kills far less than 5% were rabbit fit. (probably less than 1% but I will just play it safe and say under 5%) Yet probably 99% of my low sec kills were in and around fw plexes. The rabbits are not driving the pvpers to faction war space.

We agree it is more efficient to use a **** fit ship than an actual combat ship to capture plexes. IMO this is a problem. It is a problem mainly because it ruins the fun of fighting for fw sov.

If you most efficiently won sov in null sec by flying **** fit empty ships and constantly running away then people in null would complain. We already saw that a bit, and that is why you can no longer fit an entosis mod on a ceptor. Its also why null sec alliances are notified in real time when actions that jeopardize their sov are taken by an enemy. And yes null sec even has a version of timer rollbacks.

Not everyone likes null sec sov - but the above mechanics are all considered good by the vast majority of players.

Yet when it comes to the faction war sov mechanics CCP leaves it broken - for years. This is why I think CCP drastically underestimates how big faction war could be in this game.

If you take out WH exploration as a place for non combat oriented players - I'll go to the prom with you.



As an aside, I find it interesting that stabbed LP farmers comes up, gets debated and fixes proposed on one hand and that some much larger issues like citadel asset safety just get accepted and folks move on.

Stabbed LP rabbits - risk averse and bad for the game
Citadel space magic - nothing

We humans truly are fascinating.

I think you are right about stabs. I also think you are right to ask the very basic question as to who is FW supposed to appeal to in this game.

For me FW sounds great. I do not want to join a null sec alliance where a prepubescent sounding unemployed person tells me he is my dictator and I need to follow his orders or get out. Now sure not all null sec alliances are like that all of the time. But plenty are like that enough of the time such that null sec will not appeal to me.

And to be fair null sec is harder and more time intensive - unless you just want to be a grunt. Its no surprise that the leaders in null sec tend not to have families and/or jobs. So while I think pvp in faction war (and low sec generally) tends to involve better pvpers, I do agree that at the leadership level FW is Null sec Lite. Faction war (and low sec generally) are like the middle class. Null sec has tons of people who don't know a thing about pvp (and often very little about eve generally) but then the leaders are like full time eve employees.

But fighting a war and having some overriding point to the combat does very much appeal to me. Fighting for goons/PL/Test/NC or their pets is IMO worse than fighting for fictional factions Amarr Gallente etc. Smaller alliances need to cozy up to one of those or they will find they are spending allot of their play time moving their assets around and re setting up.

So the fact that no one has power to kick people who do their own thing is both good and bad for Faction war. I think it will have the most appeal to people who just want to pvp in a war and for some sort of cause instead of just racking up more random kills.

The problem is the cause of gaining sov for your faction is too far seperated from pvp. If you want to really get the most sov for your faction then you should rabbit plex on several accounts. When PVPers see this is how it works they tend to say forget fw sov and stop caring about it. CCP can just tweak the system a bit by adding rollbacks and better real time intel tools and that would fix the problem. Suddenly fw sov would be about who is better at pvp and who can coodinate better over a large area. (as opposed to now where a faction will go for a single system by forming a blob. In that respect fw is null sec lite because those "blobs" are very underwhelming compared to what null sec brings.)

Faction war will appeal to people like me who value the pvp in eve more than hoarding isk. Making isk is a necessary evil you need to do to pvp. If you think pvp is a necessary evil so you can hold space and rat up isk then null sec is likely more for you. CCP just needs to focus on making the FW sov game fun. It does not need to worry about making the fw sov war pay better isk. Also if you want to be that guy saying look at me and how many powerful ships I can bring to a fight null sec leadership is for you. Faction war has always been the junior league for that aspect of the game.

TLDR: Faction war is for the medium player who has a busy real life and so cant run an alliance but doesn't want to just be an eve grunt either.

Both changes you propose, timer rollback and plexes intel, would still enable rabbits. The only difference is they would lose their progress instantly on this one plexe so they start from scratch if they evade you and then come back. People would still fly in stabbed ship because it would still be the most efficient way to grind the victory points or the LP. People doing this do it based on a logical thinking of risk reduction during their farm time just like anom runner in null dock up when neuts come in system. If you want to remove pure farmers, you have to drastically reduce the payout which mean most people won't sustain their loss rate out of just FW so to recover, they will leave the warzone to go grind ISK and possibly come abck for another round of PvP until their losses add up too much.

Unless you expect people to fund themselves through alts or PLEX selling? PvP cost ISK so either you make it in the war zone by optimizing the process since ISK making is usually boring or you don't make it in the war zone and then you have to leave once in a while.

If you want less farmers, make their hunt more prevalent in way that actually kill them like fitting 2 scram so they need 4 stabs to escape.