Warfare & Tactics

Anybody who's been in FW for any length of time knows the plague of low SP newbie plex farming alts that are attaching themselves to all sides of the FW battlefield. Since I'm a member of Gal Fed, I will only be speaking about our area, and yet, I'm sure it is the same for Minmatar/Amarr as well.

Current game mechanics allow, or more accurately, promote the use of low SP alts in cheap frigates that speed tank the plexes. The Gallente use the incursus, afterburner, with dual reps to sit on the button and tank every plex, yes, even the majors. It is a singular person that is soaking up rediculous amounts of LP that is meant for multiple people. While I agree that it is always nice to have lots of LP and lots of isk for very little effort, I think we can all agree that it goes counter to the whole FW ideal.

I've spent countless nights and hours hunting these plexing characters, and this is what happens times beyond count when I attempt to engage anything with an un-cloaked ship (you'll see why this is important later):

I scan a plex with 5 degree scanner, and find a target. I warp to the acceleration gate and activate it, landing inside the plex. I spy an assault frigate/t1 frigate orbiting the button with afterburner running, the timer counting down. I engage my MWD and burn at the frigate as fast as I can, but every time the person orbiting the button simply warps out. Then, I am presented with a couple options: Orbit the button myself to deplex it, which is just an annoyance to this person, or simply leave and hunt someone else. This cycle then repeats for the next person I find. No kills for many hours of work, and no rewards either, while these alts just open another plex and begin the timer once again.

This is what USED to happen. Then I sat myself down and thought about the predicament for a good long time. I thought to myself, what is it that these people are using to their advantage? What kinds of behaviors can I exploit? Eventually I came to the conclusion that each and every time these people warped out, it was because they saw me, either on a close range scan of the acceleration gate (directional scan set to 500,000km) or visually after I warped in. They never wanted to fight in the first place, they only wanted the LP so whether or not they could have killed me was irrelevant, they always warped out when I arrived. So, this means to eliminate their scans and their visuals, I had to use a cloaking ship. But what one? I decided to use a specially made Bomber fit with autocannons and rocket launchers (I called it my plex farmer killer) and this is what would happen:

I enter system, scan a plex, and see a frigate in there. I warp to the gate at 20, and painstakingly approach the gate so I'm within 2500m and outside 2000m so I can warp in under cloak. Then, based on pure chance and luck, the beacon when i land inside the plex either decloaks me and the target warps out, or the beacon doesn't decloak me and I start approaching the target to try and get within his orbit. Eventually, I either screw up and get decloaked by an object, which means he warps out, or I get within his orbit. Even now it's more luck than anything because I have to decloak, lock the target, and get my scram and two webs off before he leaves my scram range. If this happens, then I typically get a kill because they are speed tanking large spawns.

Finally, a way to counteract the plex farmers, but it's still not a sure thing, and I have to use an extremely unconventional fit. Though, that's the beauty of eve, right? There was an issue (plex farmers not wanting to fight, and warping out) and I was clever and came up with a solution that seemed to work alright.

Some of you may have figured out where I'm going already, but I'm just going to say it now: Tonight I went to do my bomber thing against plex farmers that were grinding away at some systems, and I noticed something. The plex is no longer activated at 2500m, but rather 1000m. I can no longer warp in under cloak with my bomber, meaning the plex farmers see me every time now, and they warp out. Where was this mentioned? I dont recall seeing this anywhere (granted it could have been tucked away in some of the change logs), and why the heck is this even like this? Activating any gate, acceleration or otherwise, has always been 2500m. Why is it suddenly 1000m??? Now there is no counter to these plex farmers, and they can simply farm away all day long, by themselves, warping out whenever anybody comes to their plex only to go back to farming later.

Rather than simply saying that the acceleration gates need to be put back to 2500m, there really needs to be radical changes. This has been said many many MANY times, but i'll say it again. PLEXES need to have NO TIMERS. The only condition that needs to be met is the condition that all the rat spawns within the PLEX are DEAD. Think about what this will fix: Newbies who want to get LP still can, and easily. Their t1 frigs or destroyers will completely obliterate minor plex rats still. It will mean that people need to use larger, tankier and higher dps ships for bigger plexes. People can't just plex alt everything all day long without fear or getting caught in something nice. If they want safety, they can get tons of friends in there and finish the plexes quicker. This means more chance of a fleet fight, but also less LP for each person, but that's only fair, right? They're doing it in relative safety.

You may ask, what about defensive plexing? Honestly who cares about defensive plexing. It's easier to just take the system back as it is anyways rather than deplexing the rediculous amount of plexes that it takes to do that.

All of you farmers that are likely to flame this post because it will hurt your isk/hour can just bite me. I've had enough.

-Feral

That was indeed and interesting argument. It is not broken because everybody can do it. It is good game mechanics because everybody can do it. EVE is a good game because the most profitable activity is orbiting a button in one week old toon and you should do it too because otherwise you fail at EVE and deserve to be broke.

Isn't that basically what CCP said with their "fix"?

As for the gates, it was changed when they changed all gates/docks to work that way to fix the "You can't do that while cloaked." bug ... now you decloak and move towards the item, then jump/dock/warp.

That's simply too bad.

I disagree with the argument "Why fix it when you can do it too?".

Yes, I've made isk through this method as well. Any sane person would at this point. That doesn't mean it's right.

I agree with the OP. We must do something about these players making lots of ISK or it will ruin the game. We stopped the Incursion Bears. Now we will stop the FW Bears. When that is done and the next ISK making adventure rears it's ugly head, we will destroy that one as well.

We can't allow players to make ISK. You have been warned

I confirm all the issues which you have named. Basically the following things should be fixed with regards to FW-plexes:

1. Time should stop counting down while NPC are on grid. As compensation timers of larger plexes should be reduced, e.g. make all timers be 15 min.
2. Larger plexes should context / decontest a system at a high level than small ones.
3. Cloaked sneak in into a plex should be re-enabled: Allow activating warp at 2500m from the gate as it was in the past. The warp in beacon should be removed or should not uncloak you.

These changes allow to defend a plex while still giving noobs a good way to user their cheapisch frigates to context and earn money with small plexes. On the other side it will also give more incentives to use larger ships to go for the larger and more valuable plexes for the older guys.

And why?

To kill those pesky gunless farmers?

Its debatable whether plexes should be enterable while cloaked. Being able to speedtank the "button" without having to clear the NPCs stinks of an exploit to me.

I'm appalled that CCP "fixed" a situation where a SB with guns on was actually a threat to something, while not touching the other issue of just speedtanking stuff but not having to remove the NPCs. It smells of imbalance while in reality its probably just CCP responding to one petition rather than looking at FW balance.

I have no problem of maintaining the presence after NPCs are cleared with a gunless frigate.

Good job to the OP. Im a little confused as to why you didnt use a Buzzard/Cheetah/Helios/(Amarr Cov Ops) which actually do have bonuses for small weapons & can still warp cloaked. A cheetah with ODs in lows, max navigation skills without speed rigs will get you to 636m/s with no prop mod. What advantage does flying a SB give you over the other Cov Ops?

Yeppers, K8 nailed it.