Warfare & Tactics

Confederation of xXPIZZAXx recently joined Faction Warfare. Initially, we believed that recent changes had made for a better PVP experience, but we quickly encountered problems.

#1 - The ease of running both defensive and offensive plexes solo, using low sp afterburner frigates makes flipping and defending systems impractical for larger, PVP oriented gangs. Forming a fleet to run individual plexes is pointless; fights are not forced.

#2 - Defensive plexing is risk free and needs no real investment. A t1 frigate alt can defensive plex with impunity, faces no immediate threat, and ship losses are trivial. This only serves to stymie the rate at which systems come under threat, and fighting for these systems.

#3 - Plex behaviour is unpredictable. Plexes spawn and de-spawn in an inconsistent fashion, can fail to award lp, and can stack to huge numbers in specific systems.

#4 - Acceleration gates favour ‘camping’ behaviours and limit the viability of long range fleets.

#5 - Reward tier disparity. A Slicer at tier 1 costs 40kLP, 2.5kLP at tier 5, and pilots gain LP at a 20% increased rate at tier 5. Pilots may simply play both sides of the war, using alts, for personal profit; faction loyalty isn’t incentivised. This further serves to stagnate the progress of system conquest.

#6 - Reward disparity. The Amarr LP store itself contains fewer high demand ships and modules than the Minmatar LP store. This is a minor issue, and mostly the fault of the larger EVE sandbox. But is an issue nonetheless.

As a small gang PVPer, I feel that faction warfare has too much emphasis on alts, incentivising low risk play with LP, and fails to offer enough opportunities for fleet combat. Ultimately, Faction Warfare is still focused on a PVE metagame.

Any constructive comments regarding these issues would be appreciated.

As a female small gang PVPer I agree on all points.

See here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=121960

if faction warfare really is just a ratting contest, then we have no interest in continuing with it. in nullsec there are incentives to fight, and ways to punish people for not fighting your gangs. i don't want to bully my members to go out ratting solo for monopoly money that might be worth something one day, in the vain hope that maybe we can rat more than our enemies and their alts, so that maybe they will fight us over an ihub. **** that.

If sitting at range in a sniper fit waiting for prey to land at your optimal isn't camping I don't know what is

I actually agree with you, and in practice, we were able to get our fleet burned out to range while taking minimal losses, but soon after the first SFI died to our caracal fleet, they simply buggered off. Whatever was left behind to tackle was eaten up shortly after.

We held field, and if they tried to warp back in with that same gang, they would be further disadvantaged by the fact that we have the initial range dictation, a strong disincentive to even try to fight the long range fleet once it is in the site.
But what did that mean? We got to sit on a PVE site for 37mins to take our 0.7% of one of the 70 systems in the amarr-minmatar FW zone, and we wouldn't even be given a proper brawl over it because who in their right mind would warp to the optimals of our ships?
It is not conductive to ~fun~

well we can make minmatar militia avoid fighting us pretty easily, whatever that accomplishes. (which is absolutely nothing, btw)

This I strongly oppose: Factional warfare is differentiated from null in that dispersed solo work is more valuable than big fleet fights in determining who wins. If you want fleet warfare, null is the place for it. FW actually provides incentives to disperse and run small gangs/solo rather than who can form the biggest blob and win.

50 guys is still a blob IMO. I far prefer the 2-5 man gangs myself. Which have a purpose in fw. I DO NOT WANT to be stuck in a fleet to play my game: That's why I do not and never intend to live in nullsec.



Which is a far preferable situation than one where I am forced to sit in a fleet all day to play the game.



A change in the system is great: killing all rats for example is an almost universally proposed solution to slow down the afk frigate farmers. A change in the system that turns this into blob warfare is not. Right now people already blob to avoid risk: At least the mechanics of the game (how plex LP is split up among those on the button, LP split on kills and occupancy) provide some incentive to move away from the natural "safety in numbers" that eve tends to move towards.

If you want a system that is geared towards fleet pvp, then my gosh there is a LOT of eve waiting for you. Go enjoy it, don't try to make everything in eve need a 20, 30, 50 man blob.



I have one boosting alt, and I don't bother to drag it around with me when I'm roaming solo with with a friend or two. I do bring it for fleets. I do sometimes bring it out when I find myself significantly outnumbered. I also tend to ditch it when things change and I end up with greater numbers etc. Please, find the last kill of mine which is just me and a falcon. You'll be looking a long long ways back.

And if you want to start epeening about killboards and solo-ing and lowsec do please post with your main. It sounds like you're a nullbear to me, afraid to roam without your fleet and logis trailing along. (At least I make these accusations without even knowing your main, unlike your post above).