Player Features and Ideas Discussion

^This is a good idea. Additionally, make all the NPCs have uniform damage and range. The NPCs should have no EWAR, no webs, no points, no neuts, just damage.

As far as FW complexes go, increase the base capture time on all the plexes. If there are no hostile NPCs left on the grid, the timer counts time 3-5 times faster than normal. Defensive plexes should still get the base capture times as they are today.

You could use the FW NPC's as a testbed for adjusting all rats in EvE; Bring their stats up to 80% of a player's ship, give them pvp fittings (based on the current modules, not the ancient variants of things like sensor damps or 80km torpedo launchers) and the sleeper AI (or at least the AI we see npc's use in 'Worlds Collide' where they aren't quite as intelligent). And yes, fewer NPC's in each location, fewer still if there are players fighting each other, 'cause that's more important.

A few ideas here:

Have scrambling NPCs on gates/stations/customs offices, whose numbers and firepower scale inversely with how much territory you control, and scale linearly with how close to friendly highsec you are, and how upgraded the system is. This makes it easier to defend systems when you are losing (all the NPC dudes fall back to hold the line), on home turf or have a more upgraded system, which makes sense to me. The customs office thing just makes plain sense; why would they let an enemy harvest planet resources? Tie this to DUST, so that this goes away if the dusties win a planet, stays if they don't, and it'll be nice.

Also make sentry guns of FW corp stations fire on FW targets (why, fiction-wise, wouldn't they?) which is little more than an annoyance, as they can be tanked pretty easy in a BS anyway. Possibly make a system upgrade more sentries on stations, only these particular ones only fire on FW targets, or neutrals attacking friendly FW members. Again, makes sense, gives incentive to upgrade your system, which is nice.

Upgrade the spawns in plexes to faction-police grade spawns, but only very few, and have them spawn constantly so long as you are attempting to capture it. Augment them with sleeper AI (somebody mentioned a very good aggression management idea for NPCs, do that please) so that they provide a challenge, but if you know how and bring one or two friends, they'll die pretty quick. This means with the right tactics/gang it can be beaten, but if you charge in solo, guns blazing without any kind of strategy expect to die very, very quickly. With a small gang they'll be pushovers, at which point it's over to the players to save the complex and stop the enemy gaining influence over the system.

NPC fleets, including capitals, at the IHub once it becomes venerable. So what, they're meant to just sit back and watch themselves lose sov? Erm, not very realistic; i'm not getting a sense of conflict here. Where is the home-field advantage? Where is something NOT a structure grind? I wouldn't mind structure grinds, but mix it up, make it a proper siege, fending off players and NPCs for just long enough to convert sov. It makes victory more satisfying rather than the current: 'oh, we won. That's nice' not-very-gratifying sensation, and makes it actual effort rather than 'stare and hit f1-f8, maybe change targets if something warps in.'

Note: Ideas aren't serious, just ideas floating around in my head. No idea if they're any good, just throwing them out here for discussion.

The rats are necessary to prevent farming now. The problem is, they are unbalanced across the races.

Here is the best example I can think of - last night one of my corpies chased off a solo condor that was speed tanking a gallente major. I have seen km of these ships in the past, and many of them dont even fit guns - just an overdrive or two. People are now just going to go to backwater systems and run buttons for 30k LP with solo condors or atrons on unskilled alts. PLEASE DON'T LET THAT GO LIVE. I cannot tell you how many ways i have heard to exploit this already. I have 3 suggestions that might fix it:

1. Give all races frigate and cruiser rats that can hit frigates. Ships that have light missiles and/or painters. Some should spawn with wach wave. It wont make them impossible to run with frigates, but it will make people have to kill the rats. Solo or dual boxed unskilled frigs should not be able to speed tank plex.

2. Even easier - make it so a plex will not complete or award LP unless all rats have been killed. This won't require changing the rats at all.

3. Award LP for both offensive and defensive plexing, but ONLY when a system is contested. This will prevent farming by making conflict systems where players will gather and fight and prevent people from afk farming backwater systems.

Honestly, I think it should be a combination of #2 and 3 above.

One thing I believe is needed is you should have to clear the npc's for an offensive cap to occur.

And I like the ideas in the OP.

I would be against this. Try to put some sort of balance in the systems so players will continue to fight for both sides. Don't make it so everyone joins one side and then just does pve against rats.

Please look at data on incursions. When incursions go to a low sec system does the amount of pvp there increase or decrease? If it decreases then please reduce the influence of npcs in faction war.

The idea of using npcs to assist a faction that is struggling is a good idea. It would mean that taking all of the space of a faction becomes more difficult. And given how many people prefer one race over another, this would artificially balance power between the factions in a positive light. No one would want to join the war on the side of the gallente if they've lost all their systems.

I've only been in FW a week and the above seems to be one of the most annoying issues when watching a Vigil able to go and complete an Amarr Major Outpost solo. It is quite a crazy situation, devalues the game and should be fixed asap.

As the above poster suggested in point 2, it would be a very easy change to make capture dependent on killing all the npc's and running the timer. There are a lot of other ideas that can be evaluated, and just this one change will not fix the issue completely, but I it must be very easy to implement, as many missions work in this way.

It would also make the mechanics more logical, as it is not very realistic to suggest an outpost/plex is caputured if the guarding fleet is still intact. They would just capture it back!!!!! Maybe the timer shouldn't even start counting until the fleet starts being attacked.

Shall.

This. Fix all NPC's, missions too while you change the FW. This is a problem everywhere.

Below are my views on FW and some of them have already been discussed previously, but you did ask for suggestions...

STATION LOCKOUT
Get rid of it, in it's current form it's crap. My preference would have been to have stations across the WHOLE of eve allow acces or charge docking fees based upon your standing. Hey if I want to dock at a player owned station in 0.0 I have to pay or I may not be allowed in at all right?. So why not make it across the board. If your standing is say below -6 or so then the racial station will lock you out "Sorry mate your isk aint good enough to get you in here". Military stations linked to FW deny access to the enemy regardless. If they are in a system controlled by the enemy then the friendlies have to pay to dock, hey you have to pay for the dodgy paperwork to be done.

PLEXES
Plexes are the bane of existence to FW. You are either going to have to balance the NPC rats across the board so that you can't speed tank them for example, as currently they act like morons. This is especially needed for the missions as they are being farmed like crazy with stealth bombers due to the crap rats on some sides of the militia.

The other alternative is to remove the spawned plexes all together and make all plexes missions. Something like;

• Agents are available based upon your standing in the militia (Agent Level) and possibly allow the choice of offensive or defensive missions when you speak with them.
• The size of the complex that will spawn is based upon the level of agent you speak to. (Lvl 1-Minor, Lvl 2-Medium, Lvl3-Major, Lvl 4&5 -Major Unrestricted). Ship restrictions remain as they are or if you want new players a step into FW, then perhaps Lvl 1 agents will spawn a Minor Restricted plex that only allows T1 frigates to enter, this negates the effect of faction frigates, T2s, destroyers etc and is only just a thought.
• The system chosen for the mission can be randomly determined with a weighting based upon how contested a system is. Highly contested systems would have more resources thrown at it by the respective militias. Higher level agents would also look at putting the larger missions in the most contested systems to try and stop the enemy.
• NPC rats may be included in the missions based upon the storyline of the mission, but they need to be intelligent and balanced. You shouldn't be able to speed tank a mission in a stealth bomber to farm them for example. Not having come across the EWAR stuff much myself I can't comment, although I can imagine the annoyance against Caldari with the missile buffs and ECM kicking in. Especially against frigate sized ships in minor plexes.
• ALL FW MISSIONS must have a way for either side to close it and it shouldn't necessarily have to be the same way e.g. a timer or shooting a rat so the other guy can't finish the mission.
• This last point is more of a story-line one which could affect missions. As the war progresses each sides military strategy may also change based on political back story etc. This would then affect the type and way missions are handed out. For instance, the Amarr Militia is losing a significant number of systems to the Minmatar. The Minmatar Command decides that at this stage it may be stretching itself thinly they begin a campaign of consolidation rather than purely offensive or perhaps the Empress decrees a spring offensive and all Amarr agents will give offensive missions only with every 5th mission given being a defensive one.

Plex Restrictions
With the idea above re new players and a Minor Restricted plex it got me thinking. CCP has indicated in their 'latest' ship re-shuffle that faction ships are above T2 ships with respect to abilities and such. If that is the case then why are faction ships so cheap to build (once you get a BPC/BPO they only cost around $400k isk for a Dramiel or Slicer) compared to T2s and secondly why are they allowed in a minor plex when a T2 is not?

Restrictions need a little bit of a rethink in my opinion to balance out the PvP somewhat. A number of people like the small skirmish type of PvP that has, lets face it, been somewhat lacking with the use of booster alts and blobs. A Dramiel, Slicer or Firetail etc will for the most part take apart T1 & T2 frigates, and quite a number of destroyers from my experience (obviously if the player is crap the ship type doesn't count for much). But it is still allowed into minor complexes without issue, while T2s frigates have to enter mediums. It doesn't add up in my mind anyway.


Well that's about it for the moment, I'm sure I may think of other stuff later on and if I get a chance post it for critique or ridicule.

If you got this far, cheers for reading the whole thing

PS: Yes the original post was about NPCs but they all tie in together in my opinion