Warfare & Tactics

TLDR: Short flip times in faction war would be awesome

This thread is to discuss the flip times in faction war. I think this is an important topic that deserves its own thread.


The changes on sisi make sytems flip much more slowly than they currently flip. I think this was done in a somewhat hasty reaction to ccps decision that stations will lock the non-owning faction out. However I think that this solution to the problem ccp created actually makes the situation worse.

First it appears the rational of having slower timers before a system flips is something along the lines of “If I am going to be locked out of a system or suffer large consequences I don’t want it to happen overnight when I am asleep – in short I want to personally be able to do something about it, or at least get my stuff out.”
So now we have flip times that at the fastest speed will only flip after @ 40 hours. I suppose this will be a good solution for someone who logs in every day. But for people like myself who might go a week without logging in this is no solution at all.

And indeed I don’t really think there is a problem that needs to be solved. My pvp characters are not trained to fly any sort of transport ships anyway. So if I have to move I need to give the stuff to an alt anyway. So if I find that the system flipped a week ago I still have to do the same thing I would do before. I realize that not everyone has an alt, but again many people do or are in a corp with an alt that can help move stuff. So for them this is a solution to a nonexistent problem.

But what about the notion that I personally was not able to fight for that system? Well If the flip times are fast I can fight to get it back when I do log in. But if the flip times are slow then I know the side with the bigger blob will always win anyway and my one extra ship is not likely to make any difference. I have played eve enough to know this.

I suggest that the time it takes to flip a system should not be tied to how often you personally log in or not.

Here are the reasons I think it’s a bad idea to have the long flip times:

1) There is no sense of urgency to stop an individual plexer. I often plex in systems full of war targets. I open the plex and sit there doing plexes. Most times no one bothers to chase me off. Why should they? I mean they are rightly thinking there is no urgency. Maybe in 4 hours they will go and start addressing the issue but right now I am easily ignored. Hence no fight.

2) Long flip times means that the underdog – the side with fewer active pilots – will never be able to try to accomplish a flip by using coordinated attacks across the region before the larger side has the chance to send over the blob. Hence just like in null sec it will always be a situation where the blob wins and the underdog can accomplish nothing. Even with a 7 hour flip time there is more than enough time for a blob to form and go to a system and prevent a smaller gang from doing any damage.

3) In general faster flip times will mean more dynamic play that is not currently available in eve. We have the slow timers that are defended by big blobs in null sec. Eve is missing a fast paced dynamic war system. These slow flip times leading to one side or the other getting the bigger blob already exists in eve. Things that make faction war a unique alternative are good.

Personally I would like the flip times to be fast. I know I am not in the majority on this but I am wondering why we can’t flip a system in an hour or so. Before you rage just hear me out.

Yes that means that when you wake up the map might look allot different than when you went to bed but it would mean there would be a certain urgency to fight for each and every plex. There would be none of this “yeah we see you there plexing. We will catch back up with you in 4 hours. In the mean time, have fun shooting npcs.”

Would a short time mean that plexing is meaningless? I don’t think so. I think the consequences are a separate issue. The same consequences can attach whether it is a slow or a long timer. Let me explain:

I am personally against the ship lockout idea (but I don’t want to discuss that here unless it relates to the timer issue) but let’s assume that the enemy flipping a system means I can’t get my ships. So lets’s say I had a bunch of my ships locked into a system so now I can’t access them. But also assume that with well planned coordinated attack I could have access to them in an hour! Wouldn’t that make for more dynamic gameplay with a sense of urgency with every plex?

Personally I would be inclined to still leave *a few* ships in the faction war area if I knew I could unlock them without getting a blob to do it. But now with the 40 hour flip time? No way. I am moving all my pvp ships out of the faction war area. Why because on the whole I know amarr cannot out gun the minmatar in a civil war style (null sec style) lets all line up and shoot at eachother blobfest. If each side gets plenty of warning this is how systems will be won or lost.

If the flip times are short enough the outnumbered side can still put up fights and possibly win plexes for short times with coordinated attacks.

time zone war counter.
deal with it.

flipping a system / station in 48 hours sounds to short imo.
Null sec is more or less a week I believe.

Thanks for the post.

I gave multiple reasons why the longer flip times of even 5-7 hour flip time is too long.

Do you have any reasons for dismissing out of hand flip times shorter than 5-7 hours other than your real world analogy. I mean I really don't know if a solar system could flip in an hour or if it would take weeks months or years. The real world argument is just not one I think is awefully hard to apply.

Do you have any other reasons why you think shorter timers would make for bad gameplay?





Allowing us to control the spawns is interesting. But again if it is going to take 5-7 hours to accomplish anything then the side with the numbers advantage will still have plenty of time to form up and crush the attack. This means that there is no point for the smaller side to even attempt a take over and hence fewer or no good fights for occupancy.

Came here expecting a poor thread about how FW is ruined now, found an actual valid idea and discussion. Cool.

Something that you ought to consider is that the really long flip times (along with reinforce timers and all that jazz) was implemented in nullsec to nerf timezone wars. If there were very short cycle times (a few hours), FW space would resolve to constant hand-swapping of systems. The Minmatar have the numeric advantage in late USTZ and capture a whole constellation; DT rolls around and the Amarr have the numeric advantage, flipping everything back over. Strong plexing movements are responded to with apathy because "eh, we can just flip it back in a few hours".

The good part of this is that it does encourage constant plexing, and for people for whom the immediate sovereignty of a system matters, this will trigger response fleets and thus fights.

There needs to be a balance reached in flip time, however. Too short, and it becomes a trivial chore to gain control of a system. Too long, and as you said, FW gets stale with blobs.

I'm interested in what some of the larget FW entities who can field big fleets (like LNA) think about this. Is this simply a matter of small gangs wanting a buff, or something all of FW can get behind?

And yes, shorter flip times would mean more fun for us and our band of crazy frigates, plus more chance to defend our home system. +1 set of players who would likely benefit from this change.

The key point here is the shorter the time it takes to flip a system, the more trivial plexing becomes. We had a massive fleet fight on the Huola bunker a month or so ago, it was a blast, we held the field, but the Amarr flipped the system anyways with numbers. After DT we quickly flipped the system back rendering the previous day's work completely moot. After we lost Huola, not a single one of us was down because we knew we could quickly flip it again anyways. We just showed up for the pew

I disagree. They certainly should not be shorter than now, but I think 5x may be too long. As others have suggested, maybe 3-4x would be better.

Short times are punitive to people who have other things to do besides EVE. Longer times allow more of the player base to contribute - one way or the other. Short times disproportionally favor one or two hardcore plexes with umpteen alts. One or two people should not be able to effect the star map like that without all time zones getting a shot.

Basically, your suggestion favors the few to the exclusion of many. Longer times exclude no one.

Just re-read your post Cea .. one hour flips .. really .. read it as "old schema" before

The current 6-7 hrs makes it ridiculously pointless, not sure if turning it into Whack-a-Mole is the answer to that. If the goal is to get lots of small quality fights, it might be better to change the way plexes are generated/captured as the current (and coming) blob friendly system only really leaves noobs/ignoramuses for roamers to nibble on.
From my last blurp elsewhere:

All the power in our hands and much higher chance of getting fights in plexes as one must assume an attacker has an interest in capping it when he went through the bother of pressing more than a single button to open it. Do something like that and the actual flip times becomes inconsequential as we all get our blood donations.

Pardon? Take a timemachine (read: use search engine) and look at everything I have complained about the past 3-4 years in regards to FW .. it has been quite a lot, and since Amarr has had the "upper-hand" for considerably longer when tallied your assurances are as useless as your desire for freedom.

Just sayin'

PS: The gripe with suggested (ie. inevitable come hell or high water, CCP style) changes is based on the fear that CCP implements their atrocious null consequences without addressing the easy-mode plexing that the Shakorites enjoy compared to our valiant forces.

Since system flip times and plex spawning rates were rejigged recently I have had more plex fights than before so yes more pew has been happening recently it seems as a result of more plexes / quicker system flips.

However if the new system invovles spending time, effort and more importantly LP to upgrade systems, then I think longer system flip times are necessary to ensure it is not too easy to wipe out those upgrades.

It is also wrong to assume that with the upcoming changes and longer plex flip times this automatically means back to less pew pew because of slower system flip times - because now when people have a real reason to fight both on attack and defence, I'd actually expect more pew, but we don't really know what will happen yet.

Holy **** batman.

I wonder where he got that expression from? :)