Warfare & Tactics

Recently I had an experience that reminded me what Faction Warfare is supposed to be. Since this experience, I've reflected on what happened and why it happened. I've given some considerable thought as to what could be done to ensure this experience is repeatable.

Rakapas: The Christmas Gift Experience
The Rakapas solar system is located in Black Rise, deep inside the CalGal FW combat zone, and it was the main staging system for the Caldari war effort. As such, it was the logical first choice through which to start our Gift to FW.

The Siege of Rakapas took place over a period of three days, including setting up a beachhead, bringing in ships, rallying pilots, and capturing the system. We needed to use a POS to stage out of due to FW mechanics that prevent docking in enemy controlled stations. Therefore, the siege began by removing one of the Caldari POSes to make room for our own.
With our beachhead in place, we began the invasion. For two days straight, we ran FW plexes to contest the system. On several occasions the Caldari undocked and defended their system. The largest of the battles took place in a medium plex and was reported on by both major media outlets (EN24 and TMC).

After two hard days of fighting in plexes and over 300 ships, worth some 40B, destroyed, we took Rakapas.


Reflection: Repeating the Experience
Many of the current FW mechanics are good and helped to spur this conflict. The idea of system sov and station lockouts defined the entire invasion. But, there are a few things that could be tweaked to improve the chances of this experience repeating. The following is not an inclusive list of all the aspects of FW I think need changing, but merely the two changes that would have the largest positive impact on FW.

Separate isk/lp rewards from system sov capture: FW needs two separate “LP” systems as capturing Sov should not have a direct isk or LP benefit. I would recommend the creation of “Capture Points” (or whatever name you like) that are rewards for plexing and whose ONLY function is to be spent on upgrading systems. The level of warzone control and the system upgrade levels would still have the same benefits they do now. The actual isk benefits of controlling the warzone will come from these benefits that change other mechanics (increased mission LP rewards, increased LP payout for FW PVP kills, etc) instead of directly from the act of capturing the warzone.

War shouldn’t be profitable, but controlling space should be.


Give us a clear warzone frontline: require capture to take place next to an adjacent friendly system. Allowing the players to create a clearly defined front line would go a long way to improving the “War Zone” feeling of FW. I envision a system similar to territory capture in Risk . Each faction has two low-sec “seeding systems” that have unchangeable sov; these systems would act as the starting point for each faction to begin their respective invasion of the warzone. They would begin the invasion by capturing the systems adjacent to the seed systems and then work out from there. It would be possible to create islands of sov, should strategic choke systems be flipped.

Edit: To clarify, you can still plex in a non-frontline system, you just can't flip it (bust the bunker). With suggestion 1, there would not be an capture motivation to run a backwater plex, only a PVP motivation.


In conclusion, I feel the two changes I’ve listed above would go a long way to increasing conflict in the warzone.


Addendum: I just want to emphasize the importance of separating sov control from direct money making. Plans are already being made to exploit (in a 4X sense, not in a cheating sense) our control of the warzone. In the current system, it is extremely profitable to have two “farm systems” near home. You then use two toons, one in GalMil and one in CalMil, to contest and decontest the two systems between 70% and 90% contested. If sov control continues to be directly tied to isk generation, then sov will be dictated by those who are farming and don’t actually care about sov.

Is it too much to ask for the worthy opponents to be caldari?

To be fair, we did capture an unrestricted with a Nyx, so I think that follows alliance mentality.

The two seeding systems to use as starter point would be nice place for ppl like me to live

Why?

FW pilots do not need to live in the "seed systems". These are just the starting points for where sov capture would begin. The fighting/plexing would be in the adjacent systems, not in the seed system itself.

Alternatively, the seed systems could just be high-sec systems. I'm not sure if that is better or worse, but is another option.

The model of sov capture I envision is similar to capturing territories in Risk.



It is good to see them, isn't it?

I don't see how what I've suggested returns us to the previous incarnation of farmville. I'm not suggesting we return to a system where bonuses reduce the LP store costs. I'm suggesting we keep the current incarnation where bonuses increase LP payout, but we remove LP payouts from plexing. The result is the current system we have where the winning side suffers from market dilution.

There is already a pretty decent thread out there covering how the difference in isk generating capability between winning and loosing isn't that large.

The real purpose of suggestion #1 in the OP is to turn contesting systems from something people do on accident (I'm really here to farm, contesting the system was not my goal) to something people do on purpose (I'm contesting this systems so I can use get more LP from PVP kills).





I think this happens a lot less often then you think. Looking at the top 10 systems for violence on the Gal side (taken from eve-kill), we have:



I see more high-sec systems on that list then back-end systems.

And these are the reasons I made suggestion #2! By having a front line that is defined, the actions of random groups of small people are guided towards a common goal. Instead of 5 groups of 10 people fighting in random systems all over CalGal space, they will be "directed" to a few systems where the fighting will happen.




I need to be more clear in the OP, so I'll edit it shortly. I'm not suggesting that you can't plex in systems other than the "front-line" systems; you just can't can't contest (bunker bust) non-frontline systems.

But, since there would be no LP payout for plexing, there would be no reason to plex non-frontline systems except as and advertisement to come PVP. So, this is sort of what you want, no?

Edited my last post since you responded.



But the fleet fights already happen (at least in the Minmatar/Amarr war) over frontline systems. The problem is that you're

a) Implying that each militia will have equal numbers at the same time. Under your system, if one militia has a larger/stronger fleet than the other, then the weaker one might as well log off.

b) Implying that I want to be part of a gigantic clusterfuck instead of having small fights.

FW is not woking as intended. Caldari has no reason to take systems, only gallente have.

I think these are fine suggestions. Again, the purpose of the suggestion of a front-line is only to provide a game mechanic that guides (but does not require) pilots towards a particular area for pew and to provide an extra layer of strategy when planning the takeover of the warzone.




Obviously we need better system upgrades to make them worth fighting for, but I do believe that the basic mechanic of "capture systems to earn benefits" is sound.

I've also edited the original post to clarify something I think you might be misunderstanding. I do not mean for the "Capture Points" (the points you get for plexing) to be spendable in an LP Store that gives you items. I intend for them to ONLY be used to upgrade systems.

To give you an analogy, applying the current FW sov mechanics to null-sec would mean that you would get paid LP directly for SBU'ing and then shooting someones TCU.

If this were the case, people would be out shooting TCU's all the time! Not because they want to capture the system, but because they are getting paid to do it.

I generally don't see any issue with having seperate LP (from kills and missions) and 'capture points' (plexing). Wasn't the Victory points used in that way before kinda thing?

My worry about increasing the LP for pvp kills would be a potential to farm alts by repeatedly killing them in noobships/shuttles/whatever else cheap **** you can get away with. TBH I haven't looked to deep into this to work out that actual maths of LP for pvp kills and probably won't cos I'm lazy. LP has to give the FW'ers an income otherwise there isn't really any point in being in FW other than RP reasons. They may as well become pirates and just kills all the things!

Just a random thought that popped into my head just now.....How about having the LP/CP flip around based on warzone control? EG. if you are less than 50% WZC you get LP for plex'ing not CP. but if you go over 50% WZC you get CP instead. This could be scaled to WZC percentage maybe? so at 25% WZC you get 75%LP and 25%CP to encourage o-plexing when getting beaten and encourage system upgrading/holding when winning?

I'm totally enjoying FW now and have no intention of moving on I just wish i could get ppl to be more pro-active. vOv keep up the good work in driving player generated content