Warfare & Tactics

Terrible idea from OP. Far to easy to manipulate and as Maud said, you have to get them to come to a system to kill them to flip it. They will defend the remote systems by never going there!!!


I raised this with CCP at fanfest - requring the rats to be killed to cap the plex. NO MORE 6 DAY OLD MINNIES CAPTURING MAJOR'S WITH A RIFTER SOLO!!!
One thing CCP is looking at is making it so the rats only spwan if no one is around to PvP you and reducing the number of rats but making them harder so they are more like "crap" pvpers instead of then pve content. Not sure how they will go, but an interesting idea.

Good God, quoting from Ankh to support pvp ideeas ? Know your crowd dude, know your crowd ...

I doubt my meaning is coming accross correctly.

My point is that carebears like ank are what the current mechanics (at least the ones that lead to consequences) still cater too. Nothing changed in inferno to make occupancy plexing more pvp oriented. We just added consequences to the sort of carebearing she did.

I do agree that abiltity to dock is important to your ability to pvp.

I also agree that plexing was likely structured with pvp in mind.

However to say it never really took because it was meaningless and disconnected is only partly true.

It took pretty well for the caldari who took all the gallente systems. It just didn't really take for the gallente.

You are right that part of the reason it didn't take for the gallente was because it had no significance. But there is another important reason why it didn't/doesn't take for many pvpers.

That reason is because it is best done pve style like ank did it. Its not that people in general didn't want to pvp back in 2008. I wouldn't be surprised is there was just as much pvp per player back then as there is now. The problem was, and remains, that occupancy plexing is still best done in a pve ship and avoiding pvp.

Get your alts out and orbit as many buttons as you can. If you don't do that you are not fighting for your faction as effeciently as you could. The fights at gates or even in plexes when you then just warp out after killing them doesn't do much, if anything, for occupancy. The disconnect is between the pvp and the occupancy/consequences. Get angry at people when they warp off when you come all you want. But they are actually doing the plexing smart - in terms of the consequences ccp gave.

This is is just a fact of the current mechanics. A few people understand this. Others don't really get it, so they still value who is winning the war as if it is something to be proud of.

Ok I do agree that plexing does lead to fights. It lead to fights before inferno and it still leads to fights.

Lets leave station lock outs aside for a second.

You are right ccp decided to add consequences before they addressed the problems with plexing being an unbalanced, pve activity. (You would think they would make the game fair and bug free *before* they start heaping on consequences but whatever)

Now I see that they are going to address the imbalances of the npcs but they are not going to do anything to make it less of a pve activity.

Damarr may have chased Ank out of faction war, I don't know. But really that was due to personal animosity more than any sort of efficient tactic. Who really wants to spend their time online chasing after pve ships that just run away?

You say:

"Farmers and those purely interested in occupancy for epeen reasons are gonna "efficiently plex" systems where station lockout doesn't matter."

But its not for "epeen reasons."

First, station lock outs matter where ever you are unless you base all your ships outside the warzone and never want to dock anywhere else.

Second, all of the consequences ccp introduced are based on occupancy plexing. (with the possible exception of pvp for kills but even that lp is going to be valued based on the occupancy war.) So to say plexing as efficiently as possible is just for their "epeen" is a bit odd. Its doing the activities that the mechanics are set up to reward.

Those doing plexing as efficiently as they can are doing the central activity that all the consequences for faction war are based on. IMO, the fact that it is done most efficiently as a pve activity is a problem. The strategies should be based on how we can gain systems. Unfortunately the best strategies to do that would mainly involve pve.

I agree for the most part.


But would point out a few things:

1) Pvpers only base out of a de minimis number of systems. For example, Minmatar can easilly get all the highest economic rewards and completely ignore Kamela and Sahtogas.

2) To the extent you say epeen is the driver to do plexes then you are to that extent saying consequences added by ccp are not the driver. I don't really care whether its epeen or isk that drives people. I just want some sort of sensible backdrop to this war. I want a larger context that my pvp efforts fit into. Currently pvp efforts are too far removed from the new consequences. Alt plexing is the most efficient way to actually garner the rewarding consequences ccp added.

Should a system flip without PVP happening?



I'd be p happy if FW capture mechanics were designed to produce fights 100% of the time for a system flip to happen.

You're aware that structure grinding in 0.0 also can lead to systems flipping without PvP happening, right? Some alliances may choose to let the enemy waste their time grinding structures as a strategy then eventually pushing back with a higher morale. At first, I thought the gallente militia was employing a simillar tactic, letting the caldari burn themselves out from grinding plexes then take back a flurry of systems. However it seems that a lot of the gallente militia just don't want to leave their hives. It seems like most of the gallente militia must be herded by an FC to go out and do stuff in a blob rather than small gang. Guys like loren, chatgris, and princess nexx at least have the balls to go out in smaller (even solo) gangs to get fights while dothers sit in their stations and cry for fights to come to them because they don't want to put forth the effort to go out and find them. If you don't go out and stop people from plexing chances are you're likely not going to get PvP because you're not going out to look for it, and yes systems will fall because you're not out defending them (what a concept!). Sometimes you'll die to a 40 man frig gatecamp when you roam (sometimes twice a day ) but that's part of the game. Yes there are farmers that will blueball you and yes it's annoying, but in the end everyone has to ask "how much do i value this system?", if it was nenna/nis you guys would be orbiting buttons to decontest even if there was no fight to be had. I imagine stationless pipe systems will flip-flop between militias because there's no incentive to defend them (except catching plexers in the act and trying to get fights).

I for one and excited to see a lot more gallente going out in smaller gangs to find fights rather than the "jesus blob" sitting in heyd, nenna, nisuwa, or rakapas all day waiting for a caldari gang to knocking at the door and attempt to overblob/reship to get the exact counter fleet comp to the caldari gang. I see qcats, villore accords, and the screaming war eagles/other corps in my area getting constant fights, I don't see that many SOTF around i'm not sure if that's due to bittervet syndrome.

Minmatar don't need another excuse to avoid pvp.

If nobody shows up to defend, then hell yes it should be flipped.