Warfare & Tactics

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. My opinion is that as long as you win sov by running away, fw will remain a joke for the vast majority of people. There are only 2 proposals that address that and those are the only 2 proposals that will significantly change fw for the better. Those 2 changes are the only ones that actually make fighting for sov fun instead of "grunt work" or "soul crushing" as has been described in this very thread and hundreds of threads like it. If there are other changes that will change what I, Bienator II or so many others have repeatedly said is the underlying problem then I am happy to listen.

It’s not like these 2 changes including the intel idea have not had decent support over the years. It has had as much support as just about any faction war idea. And that is why ccp has even promised to make both changes. But they dropped the ball. Now Fozzie in a podcast said he was aiming at fw plexxers with the navy maulus bonus.

But there are the same few people who have been in fw for a long time and never really understood why anyone would leave, shouting both proposals down and saying only people who like faction war enough to participate should have a voice. They are there with their plexing alts oblivious as to why people think what they have been doing so long is moronic. Those same few (I used to call XG crosi and alucard, mo larry and curly) are not going to keep me from expressing my own views. Yes they have posted quite a bit on these forums to preserve the system we now have. They will continue to deny that maybe they were wrong. They will refuse to admit that maybe people are leaving faction war because the basic sov mechanic where you win by running away sucks.

Have you read what they claim and looked at the data. What do you think of the data as to XGs claim that vp and pvp go hand in hand? More vets need to call these guys out as the same people who have argued extensively for the bad system we have now. I realize that may not come from the fw community for diplomatic reasons. But people just need to have some backbone and recognize the nonsense they spew for what it is. (This isn’t really directed at you as you have spoken out but I think your view that we can put this critical issue to one side and talk about minor tweaks is doing the same thing and expecting different results.)

If anyone has a legitimate question like the one above I will answer it. (alucard posted this question before and I gave him the same answer and he is almost always a troll, so I don’t think he was legitimately asking, but to the extent others might wonder I answered.)

I am sorry but I highly doubt adjusting anything with fw ranks is going bring more people into eve so long as the fw sov mechanic is junk. Getting a high rank playing a horrible game will never be something rational people care about. As far as rewards CCP has had the game give no consequences,(pre inferno) tons of consequences (inferno) and then moderate consequences (now) and none of this really changed the underlying problem.

Sure throwing lots of isk at fw will get more characters (likely alts) into faction war just like throwing lots of isk at incursions will get lots of characters running those. But that will not make eve as a whole any better.

As Bienator II pointed "none of the changes addressed the underlying issue that running away or hiding is LP efficient"

Its true many of the people who understand this is the underlying problem no longer do fw or frequent this forum, but sadly many of the trolls remain here. But don't confuse that with consensus of faction war players, let alone eve players.

As long as you win sov by running away fw will remain a joke for the vast majority of players. You can agree or disagree. But if you agree, then understand we need to change that. You might think the 2 changes I propose won’t change it, that’s fine. I gave my reasons and if anyone wants to discuss them I am open to that. But any changes that fail to deal with the bold sentence is ignoring the elephant in the room.

If ccp is going to give any time to faction war we all know this only happens a few times a decade. So we shouldn’t waste opportunities like we did in the past by asking them to polish a turd. Let’s get them to finally fix the real issue that has existed since fw came out.



I am not surprised your plexing alts are in a different corp. You know we want to keep the façade that vp and pvp are related.

As to what I and others will do if we have a real time intel tool I posted my answer here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6855913#post6855913
and here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6855603#post6855603

If you read that as me saying I will just start chasing rabbits in Teimo, I can’t help you.

You have the source for ccps promise of this exact method of intel? all i ever remember them saying is better intel tools and never elaborated on them.... CCP do this for every part of the game mention an idea so people are in awe of them at round tables like they are going to add super new features that never materialise

I do like the rollback idea i just think the realtime intel is ****

I didnt leave FW due to any mechanic the reason i left is that after 6 years service i wanted to do something different, leaving SPDR and the FW community in general was one of the hardest things id done (in Game) but i was given the opportunity to Join DHSJ and work with my longtime friend Pred Elite if this option hadnt arose i would still be were i was

I asked pages ago, how you expect intel of farmers in systems, that pvpers already know are haunted by famers, will incentivise pvpers to now go chase them. When they already know that farmers are there before any free intel.

I think XG was just trying to personalise that problem for you, to see if you perform the mental gymnastics to bridge your 'issue-solution-outcome' postulation here.

Im going to assume you cannot connect the dots of your argument on the bases of you getting suddenly defensive and accusing other people of dishonesty, instead of smugly explaining exactly why pvpers would suddenly want to chase farmers around in systems they dont and will continue not to care about.

Ill take it to a practical level.

Ive not undocked this character in months. If any of you are not already aware of the location of farmers in your locality. But if you were would like to chase them around systems that dont matter.. EVEmail me and ill give you their almost certain locations.

Still waiting on anybody to commit to running rabbits in the new "Cearain FW"....

One day I might just see a post from you that "adds" something to the ideas around for FW rather than just "takes away" from someone else.

Perhaps you have been involved heavily in discussions in your "closed circle" which is possible considering most of your posts tend to be "exclusive" rather than "inclusive" in attitude. I don't see you publically making any suggestions...

Or is it that you think there is absolutely no need for any change?

XG supports the minor tweaks that marathon put forth. I think we can all pretty much agree on those, they are good so far as they go. But I think most agree they are mostly quality of life and other relatively minor improvements. (maybe citadels is a big one but he doesn't actually say what should happen there and its unclear we will get much agreement there) The criticism of the list is basically that they do not address the brokenness of fw sov at all. And if CCP is going to work on faction war we have to assume that they will not touch it again for another 3 to 4 years. So everytime they do work on it we better have a clear message as to what we want or they won’t make changes that deal with the core problem of rabbit plexers.

Hans pushed for intel and rollbacks when he was on csm. But they got buried in all the discussions about lp and rats so we still have a fundamentally broken sov system.

With Crosi and XG, understand, some people can disagree with someone without feeling the need to vilify them. That is not the case with everyone. Also you need to understand the history with XG and Crosi to how they got where they are now. They have pretty consistently argued that farming had been fixed when ccp boosted the tank of the npcs and that rollbacks or other measure were no longer needed. They are unlikely to admit they were wrong. Crosi - to his credit is at least now saying perhaps some sort of rollback might be nice but for years they have always been against the any sort of direct anti-rabbit measures. (And Crosi’s rollback is probably the weakest rollback I ever heard and probably won't change much if that is all ccp does.) But really he is going to continue to side with XG in their stance that they were right all along. No reasoning, no data, no discussion will change that. Some people can't get over their biases.

They will say things like “look at all the pvp I got yesterday!” “No one cares about those other 90% of systems anyway”, “It’s the players fault for not being more active.” They will also misrepresent those who disagree (BTW I never said I want ccp to reinstate the cash out system, and I never said the intel needs to be "free") etc etc and round and round. This has been the state of these forums whenever talk of fw changes comes up these guys come in and derail and obfuscate.

I mean I do think strong rollbacks and a good real time intel will solve the problem. But if ccp did those proposals and the problem still existed as strong as ever 6 months out then I would say ok maybe I was wrong and we need to take a different approach. But as of now I don't think any other approaches will work. Not allowing stabs will not change much since people can just warp out long before you land on grid and get in point range. Having the whole area bubbled has some other undesirable issues.

It seems to me we can look at the npc corps and see what their vp to kill ratio is to gauge this. The npc corps are always in the top for both and therefore listed. Last I checked the FDU had like 86000 vp for the week and 429 kills. That is 1 kill per 200 vp. (although even there the top killers in FDU which accounted for about half of the kills were not even listed as one of the top 100 vp gainers so even that disgustingly low number of kills per vp is probably more like 1 per 4-600 vp.) If rollbacks and real time intel do not work to change that ratio to more kills per vp after 6 months I will give both of them a carrier.

Crosi and XG,
Players already chase rabbits. It happens every day. You hear about it on the forums on how the rabbits just warp off. No one needs to commit to doing it more than they already do. But intel and rollbacks will make the rabbits less efficient. If you see someone is running a plex one system nearby you won’t know if they are a rabbit or not and you might go there when otherwise you would have gone to a different system. If they are a rabbit then you will have chased a rabbit and forced them to go through a rollback of some form. Without the intel you might have just gone to a different system and never bothered the rabbit. This really isn’t hard to understand. And lots of smaller scale pvpers will converge on plexes if tthey can easily see where they are being taken. Especially if they know the player will suffer a rollback if they warp out. The two ideas work very well together.

Hell if you know all of the enemy militia knows where you are running a plex then you might sit and stay in a plex yourself instead of roaming because you will find more people will come to you. The rabbit that was in that system will lose all his time while you gain your time. It will be like you just ran 2 plexes. If he goes next door to run a plex you can likely finish your plex and then immediately kick him out of that new one and again run a different plex in the system and effectively run 2 plexes. But none of this will be as effective if you don’t know where the plexes are being run.

And do you think players will need to commit to chasing more rabbits for rollbacks to work?

Crosi:
Intel about sov relevant events happening is not anti-eve. Your saying this just demonstrates your lack of knowledge of the game as a whole.

We have expent four pages of posts just talking about a proponsal that most people think is not optimal, it would produce some benefits but will produce more negative than positive results to the whole enviroment in the factional warzone. I think we can descrive the last 4 pages of this thread like that.

We end up in a situation that Master Sergeant MacRobert describes like "a dog with a bone", because basically there are 4 pages of posts trying to explain cearein our point of view which is basically what you MSM exposed in your first post in this page, and cereain explining us his point of view too. I've got the feeling that MSM was not following the thread totally, correct me please if I'm wrong.

I think everybody here must respect the position of everybody else, but honestly we can't continue typing another bunch of pages about the intel tool, it is not productive. Basically we are not convincing Cearein and Cearein is not convincing us.

Cearein what you want to achieve with the intel tool, reducing the influence of pure farmers in fw sov making defenders life easier, maybe could be done in other ways. I'm sure is possible. But not sure if CCP will do as they design the current system to be driven by the isk/lp and oplexing/dplexing asymetric rewards, motivating people to attack more than defend, that's my feeling.

I think we should be productive and start to work from the proponsals that everybody see as positive, the list that Thanathos compiled from other posts coiñd be a good starting point, looks that everybody agree those points.

What could we add to such list ?

Do you think guys that farmers plexing influence should be reduced ?

If ok, which other ways would you think are positive to the whole community of fw.

My proponsal: the conquer ratio per plex - 0.3 per plex - could be reduced to 0.15 and a plexer could donate a fixed amount of the just earned lps to conquer/defend the system instead of putting the lps in their pocket, so the offensive/defensive ratio would be converted from 0.15 to 0.3 if thre is a "donation".

Pure farmers, rabbits or people not interested in sov will not donate so sov influence would be reduced, defender's life will be easier, people is still motivated to atack, pure farmers would get their lps, etc...

EDITED: to correct my wording, sorry about my english, not my first language.

Somethings to get out of the way first:

1. Capsuleers who enter FW complexes get a suspect timer. No more security status hit for FW pilots who have to shoot neutrals first.

2. Tier / LP rewards... as previously discussed ad nausea.

---

What I'd like to see implemented is a change to how system sieges/takeovers are achieved in FW. I'm drawing from mechanics / material from other areas of Eve to include Incursions.

System Contested Dynamics:

- The current mechanics of plexing from 0% to 100% (vulnerable) is mind-numbingly tedious. Each plex captured increases/reduces the system contested level by 0.7%. With little or no action by the opposing force, you can generally only get 3-4% per hour... about 1 full day of continuous plexing to make the system vulnerable. This is 24 hours of endlessly circling a beacon and shooting a re-spawning rat... mind-numbingly awful.

Recommendation: Provide alternative means of increasing the System Contested Levels.

- Establish a certain x% (say 50%), that when the system reaches it certain optional/additional FW sites open up which provide more varied/diverse completion. Sort of like Incursions, these sites require specific objectives to be accomplished before the site can be completed... and a larger system % (5-10%) increase/decrease awarded to the FW pilots. Inside of these sites, the opposing militias will need to contend with each other while seeking to completing objectives/prevent the other militia from completing objectives. ONLY FW PILOTS CAN ENTER THESE SPECIFIC SITES (NO NEUTRALS/PIRATES).

- Example: Galmil, after sufficient plexing gets a Calmil system to 50% contested. Upon this occurring, a special FW Event Site appears. Seeing this new site become available, both Calmil and Galmil direct their pilots to enter these sites, hoping to successfully complete it, netting both a hefty system % increase and large LP payout (and/or isk payout like incursions).

- FW Event Site Mechanic:
(a) These sites can only be entered by FW pilots (those enlisted in FW NPC corp or in a corp enlisted in FW). The entrances to these sites can only be accessed by their respective militia personnel.
(b) Inside of these sites, each force will be pitted against the other to accomplish objectives that will result in the site being completed by one side or the other.
(c) There will be different kinds of sites, with different objectives to provide variety.
(d) There will be different entrances to this site, Militias can only enter their race-specific gate. These gates will take pilots to different beacons within the site (basically allowing re-spawn/reinforcement locations for each side).
(e) There can be restrictions on ships numbers/types. I.e. each side can bring unlimited frigates/destroyers, 20 cruisers, 10 BC/BS, 3 capital ships, etc
(f) These events sites could be mandatory in order to get a system to 100%... or they could just be optional for attackers/defenders to try to more quickly raise/lower the system's contested level.
(g) Only one of these sites spawns at a given time. Maybe the first site spawns at 50%, the second spawns at 70%, and a third spawns at 90%... or some similar mechanic.

- Some FW Event Site Scenarios Possibilities:
(a) Invading Fleet vs Defending Fleet:
*There are 2 NPC fleets inside the site. Members of each militia must destroy the other militia's NPC fleet in order to complete the site. You have to destroy your enemy's fleet while simultaneously preventing him from destroying yours. NPC Fleet + Militia Fleet vs NPC Fleet + Militia Fleet. Have the fleets spawn 100-200km from each other and prevent on grid warping (like in other FW/deadspace plexes).

(b) Invading Fleet Assaulting Defending Station:
*An NPC invasion fleet is assaulting a space station (with a smaller NPC fleet). The objective of the attackers is to destroy the defender's space station. The objective of the defenders is to destroy the flag ship of the attacking fleet (maybe something like a Titan). Defend your base... destroy your enemy's!

(c) Space Station / Capital Ship Sabotage
- There is a structure of some kind, ship, or some other kind of target, when a force will need to deliver an item to the target to achieve victory. Sort of like reverse-capture the flag. Something similar to hacking/data analyzing mechanics on the target, etc.

(d) Retrieve/Capture Important Item/VIP
- In contrast to scenario (c), opposing forces would have to capture something/someone and bring it back to a specific location to achieve victory. Opposing forces would essentially be engaging in a capture the flag game of sorts... but with space ships... and trying not to get blown up.

---

TLDR:

I'm tired of orbiting a beacon for days on end just to magically make a system more contested... give militias an alternative means to affect contested levels in a system... make these require teamwork to do (be well beyond solo-ing) and make it so that the militias face off against one another.

*I HATE PLEXING.

Surely your comments weren't directed to me?

If so, you might've missed the intent of my post. As most of the other FW pilots have said here, plexing sucks, it's ridiculously boring and tedious. Most fights follow these two formulas:

(a) Kitey Doctrine & get inside plex first (hold the high ground)
(b) Have a bigger blob

PvP is the tactical consideration of FW (the immediate and often shortsighted perspective). Capturing systems is the operational consideration of FW. Taking the warzone is the strategic goal of FW (at least by definition).

I suggested some variations to the current system contesting mechanics that would provide a much needed "change of pace" to current plex fighting (aka king of the hill) for the tactical level of FW as well as providing alternatives to the long grind of operational objectives. Most of my recommendations use ideas already present in game.


FYI: I get plenty of action in FW space when I undock: https://zkillboard.com/character/96259200/