Warfare & Tactics

4 years + 4 months. I trump you, and therefore my opinion means more than yours. nublet.

Cearain, you've been wanting non-stop pvp for 3 years. Now you have it and you still complain. WTF?

Greetings fellow warriors. The new lay of the land has bought many more battles and skirmishes in my experience, and so the changes are very much welcomed by me.

I would like to see some method for the opponents to get back into the fight. Great rewards for the victors is of course necessary, although perhaps the losing faction could get some kind of speed multiplier to capturing systems or something of similar effect.

Also I feel that our defensive efforts should not go unnoticed, it would be nice if there was some reward for protecting and defending our captured systems.

One question which has puzzled me, I have seen players who are in the complexes not receiving rewards for being to too far away. I see some kind of range from capture point monitor has been implemented to reward only those who are close by to the capture point. It is no longer possible to guard the entrance to the complex and also get the rewards. Has any one figured out the distance we should be from the capture point to still be rewarded for our efforts?

My humble opinion. I am Amarr, have only played Amarr, and only played in FW. I have been playing right around a year. So my opinion will be a bit skewed as such.

What was done partially right:
-Pro: Shifting focus to plexing, and significantly more being needed to take a system
*Con: a good idea, poor implementation in having NO reward for defensive plexing. Nobody does anything that intermidably boring just for the warm fuzzy feeling of doing it. There are several fixes like refilling the 'pool' of upgrades by defensive plexing that would have made this far less pointless and sad.
-Pro: Giving systems upgrades of any sort, some sort of benefit for being held
*Con: the upgrades are "taken away" by offensive plexing - but not replenished by defensive plexing, this would be a great way to implement the rewards mentioned above without just giving out more LP. Additionally the rewards given are kind of flimsy - but I think that's good. Always better to play cautiously on this just to see how much it affects gameplay.
-Pro: Station lockout. I hated the whole thing at first, but it does bring more tension to FW, as evidenced by the vastly larger and more heated fights just prior to patch. Additionally it definitely gives that 'supply lines' feel.
*Con: I can dock in any station in Minmatar hi-sec as an Amarr militia pilot but cannot dock in a nearby 24th IC station? Really? This doesn't make much sense.

What was done wrong:
-LP for ship kills is non distributed, but LP for plexing is, they should both be distributed. Additionally, you can be actively attacking a plex, but oh, so sorry.. you were fending off enemies 1km too close to the warpin, and not right on the button? No LP for you! Better hope you last-hit something expensive, buddy. Additionally no reward for time. I can run a plex solo for 9/10ths of its duration only to have a fleet of 20 friendlies hop in and "steal" all my LP. Already on all sides we're seeing bickering over "stealing" a plex or LP from a plex. Maybe reward people based on the time spent in the plex?
-The inventory system is just painfully bad. While technically not FW-related, it slows down reshipping, makes fitting ships a paint, makes everything harder to find, and gives me a headache. Why force this on people when you could add it as an 'optional view' and lt people give you good feedback on it before making the switch. Or maybe just listen to the people on the test server who begged for it to be changed significantly or not implemented at all? Why not focus on any number of other things, its insult to injury that not only was this horribad interface not wanted, it took development time away from things that have desperately needed it for years? Really? I haven't spoken to a single player who likes this new inventory system. Is there a complete communications disconnect going on with this?
- No NPC balancing. Amarr faction NPCs are terrible. They can' track, don't shoot missiles, have no meaningful ewar, and have no range. It takes fewer pilots, less effort, and smaller/cheaper ships for our enemies to do their plexes and missions because of this, thus making their LP gain easier, faster, and with less risk. Its been this way since the beginning, and has always needed to be fixed. I don't just want Amarr ships "buffed" I want all militia ships to be balanced. Maybe let them all use all types of ewar, or none at all, whatever works to level that playing field. There is no justifiable reason not ot do this.
-LP penalty/bonus. I'm fine with the 'winning' team having some benefits, but the gap is too big. Essentially already starting the "new" FW in a huge hole because of inferior numbers, Amarr Militia now cannot make money off their FW LP, in addition to having next to no systems to dock in, etc, etc. EVE is all about harsh realities, and from that standpoint, I get it... militia cutoff from their supply lines, outnumbered, and surrounded don't get things handed to them just to make things "more fair" ... I like it that there is some very tangible win/loss out of pushing for sytems, but if you want a healthy back and forth, this definitely needs some tweaking and/or toning down.
-FW Missions. So many things here... from what I hear, with minmatar owning most of the space, they still have their missions spawn in this newly friendly territory. So you have a compounded problem: bonused LP, More LP buying power, Already easier missions (see above terribad NPCs), now in friendly territory with even less risk. While the losing side gains less LP, less LP buying power, and has most of their agents rendered inaccessible. Again, losing should still be losing, but there's a bit of a shortsightedness in the whole system. Honestly? I think the whole FW missions thing needs to be thrown out the window. Make plexing/fighting the only way to gain LP from militia factions. Remove at least a little bit of the FarmVille. Or maybe balance NPCs. Or both. Please both?
-That crappily written story about militia "deserters". That thing pissed me off. I'm not a RPer, but the whole thing had a tone of "you don't like the changes that we're making without listening to any of your complaints, requests, pleading,begging, or posting for the last 4 years? You don't like that we ignored every single bug with FW that we have been made aware of for years and only created more, refuse to reset the warzone, and plan to lock you out of assets? You plan to leave militia because we blithly ignored you? well screw you! We'll right an RP piece to call you 'deserters'!" Seriously its just an 'up yours' piece to the people who had for years hoped for some needed attention to FW only to get ham-handed and misguided responses. The attitude of the game creators to their customers represented by this little 'newspiece' is just sad.


Thats it, though there's stuff I've left off, this post is already waaay too long >.<

Crap.. I agree with everything you just said... In this post. Even the wall of text jab... I had to do the highlight line before scrolling trick to keep my place.

But seriously, I can see how the "diminishing returns" concept needs to be tweaked a little. Hopefully CCP will keep their promise and make some adjustments over the next few months. The losing side needs to be able to make enough LP to cover their loses.. at the very least.

I like this idea I heard a couple of nights ago concerning capturing plexes: Must kill all npcs inside a plex to capture it in addition to the timer. Or at least have to kill certain 'triggers.'

dp

I kill them all already. The minmatar target painters and missile spam gets to be too much for a lone pilot otherwise.


My problem with the minmatar npcs is they skrew up pvp opportunities. I often have to warp out and leave a plex when someone comes in a ship I would usually fight because half my tank is gone. Now with the inablility to dock up to repair the npcs will likely mean I will have to switch out of my pvp fit to a pve one that includes a cloak. In other words the no docking rule puts a larger wall between plexing and pvp.

I had no idea that CCP was glossing this over. HANS!!!!! WHERE ARE YOU!!!!

I'm OK with the NPCs mixing it up with the pew. The Ewar definitely sucks most (imho) getting jammed by Caldari rats, but i'll deal with it.

I like all the changes.
Buff titans

My impressions so far have been largely positive.

That being said, I want to say I fundamentally believe Cearain is wrong in his objections.

The station lock out is bringing a front line and concentrating where the fighta are occurring so people can find them. It is also giving some consequences. The "casual" pvper who logs in once a week needs to adjust to base out of high sec. That's a given. If you can't log on/monitor the war zone to see if a system you base in is getting close to flipping, base where it can't flip. Otherwise, you can log in casually, get a few fights and/or run a few plexes (worst case defensive plex to save your system!!!) - this hasn't changed. (Yes, CCP needs to look at where missions are spawned. They MUST spawn only in systems held by the enemy. No good sending the mission runner to Arzard if no one is there. The FW missions are about "furthering the war"...).

Where CCP screwed up was with the Escalation patch. This is where the NPCs SHOULD have been rebalanced and the plex VP adjustment SHOULD have been implemented PRIOR to announcing to the FW community the exact mechanics they were implementing in INFERNO.

This would have put all 4 empires on a somewhat even field. CCP was never going to reset the warzone anymore than they will reset sov in null (short of out of game Hacks etc...). If this was done, the Amarr would have had a better chance to push back again the Minmitards. Yes, they would still have superior USTZ numbers. That's fine. We must accept it in the same way a null sec alliance must accept the same thing. However due to the differences in NPCs AND the short time needed to flip a system, it made it very difficult to stop that USTZ juggernaut flipping a system. Any work the AU or EU TZ did could be undone and the system flipped before the next DT.

That being said, the Amarr FW guys who left must also accept they added to the issue. They could have moved to Kamela or saht for example. 7th fleet and WBR resolved to hold firm. Certain assets such as caps might have been moved to be safe, but fundamentally the resolve was to hold the line which we actually did. From that point of view, Amarr won the pre-patch fights in those last few days. The Kamela and Saht pipe held. Both sides had a great time and the buzz from it is the best I have seen in FW period. The SoTF move was just the icing on the top - a bit of good old back stabbing/dipplomatic argument/ally restting drama is what makes EvE EvE....

The Amarr FW guys are working together now in a way I have not seen in ages. The Fwedit noob injection is a nice morale boost. Yes they are making stupid noob mistakes, fitting some horrible setups at times, but knowing that in a few months they will have some decent frig/dessie skills is good to know for those who have been here for awhile and continue to hold firm in this belief we will prevail. We all know what the Goons did once upon a time with a fleet of Rifters. The minor plex mechanic ensures that this is still a valid fleet composition.

Yes, the Amarr are in a tight corner at this point in time. But we CAN fight out of it and push the minnies back IF people log in and fight. Yes Raa fell. It was too far away from 7th fleet to actively defend and that was also possibly the case for the people in Kamela. The strategic objectives will now be more defined around supply routes.

The question I must ask of those living in Egghelende is why we are not seeing more contesting of Auga and the other system BEHIND the current front lines? Go offensive plex the crap out of those systems and make the minnies split their focus or risk losing Auga etc... Downgrade their system upgrades so their LP bonus is reduced. Its currently at 4x. Drop their system upgrades and it will come down and make their LP worth less. You get LP for hitting these systems. They don't. They have to expend their LP to keep them at level 5...

I'm sure I will get some flames from some people for this. That's fine. Forums are for discussion. The main point is that for the first time in a long time, I am enjoying fighting in FW as there are consequences to my actions. That means there is sand in the sandbox, Eve FW is real and I AM THERE!!!

Amarr Victor