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Yet Another FW Plex Revamp Thread
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Milton Middleson
Rifterlings
#1 - 2012-07-14 23:22:12 UTC
Everyone else seems to be doing it, so it’s time once again to ship up the forum with an idea for revamping how Factional Warfare plexes work with regard to capturing a system. It might even be good.

Summary: Eliminate the distinction between offensive and defensive plexing, and replace respawning anomalies with a fixed number of static conquerable sites that add or subtract from the system’s contested level over time, depending upon who currently owns them.

At the present, you conquer a FW system by running plexes as they respawn in order to incrementally increase the contested level, and you defend a system to by running plexes as they respawn in order to incrementally decrease the contested level. I see the following as being at least part of the problem:

  1. It makes defending a highly contested system a task that is both incredibly tedious and unrewarding.
  2. While the attacker has the initiative in attacking, the sheer number of plexes that he must grind through to seriously threaten a system mean that there isn’t really much incentive for him to try and hold the plex he is running, nor is there much incentive for defenders to rush out an engage him, except in hotly contested systems. Not to mention the fact that the tedious nature of defensive plexing means that the offensive plexer is probably more concerned about someone else finishing his plex before he returns than he is that the defenders will close it.
  3. The plethora of available plexes and the fact that they respawn endlessly until the system is actually taken facilitates farming.



To replace this system and repair the above issues, I suggest replacing the plex anomalies with a certain number of static sites per system, each of which adds or subtracts a certain amount to the system contested level per unit of time based of their size and who holds sovereignty vs who owns the site.

The way you would go about capturing the site would be the following:

An attacker enters the plex, and must shoot the button for a brief period of time in order to lower its shields (the shield should require approximately 15-30 seconds for a ship of the appropriate size to bring down). When this happens, a message is broadcast in a constellation-wide intel channel to the opposing militia (something like: A Minor Stronghold in Oyeman is under attack by the Amarr. It will be captured at X:XX [EVE time]). Meanwhile, back at the plex, a transport ship full of marines will spawn next to the button, and a timer will begin counting down. [Optionally, NPCs will spawn to try and kill the transport]. (I stole this from someone in the F&I NPC revamp thread). Defenders need to get to the plex and kill the transport ship before the timer runs down.

Once a site has been successfully attacked or defended, it goes into reinforced mode and cannot be captured for a time equal to its timer. No one can enter a reinforced site, and it does not contribute to either side’s control of the system until it exits reinforced.

Under this system, the distinction between defensive and offensive plexing is eliminated, as you are always attacking an enemy plex or preventing an enemy from capturing one of your plexes. I don’t think this will eliminate farming entirely (anything repeatable can be farmed, and will be if it is profitable enough), nor will it force defenders to respond to an attack on one of their sites. What I think it will do is slow farming down and add a sense of urgency when it comes to defending a system. I realize also realize that this change does not address all the problems with FW plexes, and it probably generates new potential abuses. This is not intended to be a final draft.
Botagar
Royal Institute of Mining and Manufacturing
#2 - 2012-07-14 23:40:42 UTC
I quite like the idea of static sites which contest/decontest over time. Not sure about the whole spawning of transports and needing to kill it or defend it.
Maybe you could twist it slightly, so that if you are offensively plexing the site, you destroy the oppositions control point, and a transport from the closest system of your faction will be sent out carrying a new control point for your faction, and you have to guard the site until the transport arrives. Similarly the transport can be attacked and destroyed in transit. What the consequences of that are i cbf thinking of atm.

If your def plexing, you take out the oppositions control point, and the closest station of your faction will send out a transport with a new control point.
sYnc Vir
Wolfsbrigade
Ghost Legion.
#3 - 2012-07-15 01:51:30 UTC
It does make me smile how many minnies wanna "FIX" plexing now.

System is fine, could use a reason to defend but outside of that, tis great. Spawn bugs been fixed, Ewar balance happened, I guess not actually plexing, but I read. So thats a win.

So outside of stopping speed tanking by requiring NPC kills, and maybe resetting the timer if all Militia members warp out. I see no reason to make any major changes.

I've no reasons at all to believe anything other then minnies are upset Amarr gave up on plexing, and their farmland has narrowed to just 5 over populated areas. If you want fresh farmland, make an alt in amarr and go flip your own damn systems. We would do it, but well we don't want to.

Don't ask about Italics, just tilt your head.
Hurtado Soneka
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#4 - 2012-07-15 02:26:04 UTC
awesome post above, nailed everything on the head, make rats need to be killed and fw is pretty much working as intended
Milton Middleson
Rifterlings
#5 - 2012-07-15 03:04:47 UTC
sYnc Vir wrote:
It does make me smile how many minnies wanna "FIX" plexing now.

Yeah, mang. It's a shame that not a single Amarr pilot has made a thread about fixing plexing or gone on a podcast to talk about how to fix plexing.

Quote:
System is fine, could use a reason to defend but outside of that, tis great. Spawn bugs been fixed, Ewar balance happened, I guess not actually plexing, but I read. So thats a win.

What.

Quote:
So outside of stopping speed tanking by requiring NPC kills, and maybe resetting the timer if all Militia members warp out. I see no reason to make any major changes.

I, too, cannot imagine a system better than the one we have now.

Quote:

I've no reasons at all to believe anything other then minnies are upset Amarr gave up on plexing, and their farmland has narrowed to just 5 over populated areas. If you want fresh farmland, make an alt in amarr and go flip your own damn systems. We would do it, but well we don't want to.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Heh.

Anyway, if I wanted money I'd go to Caldari space. Or run missions. Or gouge my own eyes out.

P.S. Your post had some weird formatting error. I fixed it in the quotes.
Milton Middleson
Rifterlings
#6 - 2012-07-15 22:30:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Milton Middleson
Botagar wrote:

Maybe you could twist it slightly, so that if you are offensively plexing the site, you destroy the oppositions control point, and a transport from the closest system of your faction will be sent out carrying a new control point for your faction, and you have to guard the site until the transport arrives. Similarly the transport can be attacked and destroyed in transit. What the consequences of that are i cbf thinking of atm.

If your def plexing, you take out the oppositions control point, and the closest station of your faction will send out a transport with a new control point.


To be honest, I don't think the precise mechanic matters that much, so long as the defender has a way of terminating the attack or there is some other non-excruciating way of preventing the plexer from just coming back and finishing later. The current situation, where defending a plex means running off the plexer and then being saddled with a 30-40 minute timer, is absurd.