Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The upgrade feature of FW just seems way too complicated, nonsensical, and doesn't benefit the people who actually do the work on the ground. FW is supposed to be about pvp - not low sec industry. You shouldn't have to pump LP into a hub to get certain benefits - too mechanical.

Benefits should be on an individual level based on how much that player has helped defend a system. These benefits should decay with time if there is no activity. And finally these benefits should help with pvp oriented activities - repairs, marginal pvp boosts in that individual system, etc... These benefits should be AUTOMATIC - dumping LP into a hub is immersion breaking, just like timers are immersion breaking. They make no sense.

So:
1. Benefits should be pvp related.
2. Benefits should be applied to individual pilots
3. Local Benefits: the more a pilot defends a system the better his reward in that system.
4. Global Benefits: The more a pilot defends any system (or attacks an enemy system), the more he benefits in all friendly controlled systems (not at same level as a local benefit).

That's it. If you want the reward, then put in the work. All this other stuff about industry boosting whatever that can be applied to any tom, richard and harry who has never done anything to earn them is stupid.

By stupid, I mean this: If CCP really wants to boost low sec, then these upgrade boosts should be applied to all of LOW SEC, not just FW low sec through the FW mechanic.

I like this idea. Benefits should make it more difficult to to attack these systems. Improve the strength of the NPCs in a plex of an upgraded system... something like that. Another idea, give the faction which upgraded the system some system-wide improvements... 3% more scanresolution for example. You could hunt plexrunner much easier with such improvements.

All together: give some PvP-improvements for upgrading systems!

Even more reason to pile on the winning side.

And to the extent we are concerned with "immersion" and "making sense" how does that make sense? Your ship's scan resolution is somehow improved in system, locally, and globally because you hold a system? Are we giving the winning side's ships superpowers? Not only that but the ships superpowers decay over time?

delete

Locals are helping you out a bit. If you don't help them out over time, they stop helping you out.

BTW, any amount of "rewards" give people "even more reason to pile on the winning side."

So I assume you do not want rewards of any kind. Am I correct?

Well, I just read this:

Pinky's Blog

And I really think that everyone is overthinking everything at this point in time. The primary motivator in Faction Warfare right now is not system ownership or the upgrades thereof but the loyalty points involved in plexing. Now don't get me wrong, I like getting paid to pew - but this is ass backwards.

Why should I care about system ownership in FW? The upgrades don't give a satisfactory answer to that equation. What if, however, we discussed a general low-sec buff? What if all the materials needed for construction were reduced by 5% across the board for lowsec? 5% less isogen, tritanium, pyerite, etc for all industry jobs started in low-sec.... This would reflect less taxes and regulations in a less law-abiding area. It would also put pressure on industrialists to move to low-sec whereas going the less efficient high sec route is just an annoyance.

On top of that - we're going to give a racial bonus to each of the Empire's lowsec regions. Ammarians use slave labour. Industries in their region can deduct another 5% in material needs for construction for 10% total. (an example). If minmatar conquer this space this advantage obviously goes away. But it would draw in people from Empire and connect low sec to high sec a bit more. The other races would get their own bonuses.... I'll spare everyone ideas in this regard.

You can also add specific bonuses to specific systems. Let's say Auga Industry has made advances in Tritanium use - 5% less tritanium needed for industry jobs started there. This would generate conflict over specific systems.

Superimpose the upgrades over a low-sec that I just described above and you'd have something interesting and powerful. It would be something a low-sec corporation or alliance would want to own.

I was told that they were having internal discussions with the team and with CSM. Are you guys not getting any updates from them either? If not, perhaps the ship rebalancing is taking more time than they thought, and FW is being put on the backburner. There's still a bit of time before Winter, and the FW changes don't seem to be as code intensive.

As I stated in the post, it was just a fun little musing that popped into my head while I was writing another post so I figured i'd let my fingers keep writing. I'm well aware of the fact that there aren't dev resources for any sort of change like that at the moment.

....and one more thread to house the discussion surrounding dockblocking.

Sadly it might be best not to change the benefits from upgrading. Right now they are pretty pve orientated, which is weird for pvpers. But if it went to pvp, or some thoughts above, of drastic benefits given for upgrades. It could get real bad.

One thought I had, (it could already have been covered) is that people are sitting on a ton of LP right now. In a way they could upgrade the new Ihubs to lvl 5 pretty easily perhaps, and get all the spoils the first day of release. With the way benefits are, perhaps those AFKers see the standard sell out for faction items the best route and will go that way. But if they are made better, plus the change to make it longer to take down an Ihub, could spell disaster in a new way.

I mean this expansion will go live, with perhaps enough LP from players, to do crazy stuff or keep the parody of faction warfare going.