EVE General Discussion

I'm really not sure how much vp you get for each kill or whatever but I do agree that they should award some lp for plexing. (or otherwise involve plexing or pvp kills in the fw lp store).

Keep in mind though, just because people may switch sides to the smaller faction now - when occupancy has no real effect on people's wallet - we shouldn't assume people will switch sides if occupancy starts to really matter.

I know people who have gone from amarr to caldari because the missions are easier. I don't blame them. Why join the side where its harder to make isk? I suspect some people I know switched from Amarr to minmatar for the easier missions as well. So people do tend to follow the money.

If they just increased the amount of lp for plexing I would still need to warp off if an enemy player came because the minmatar rats in the plexes chew through my tank too fast. This means you need to show up with larger numbers to do plexes. As you increase the numbers in a gang the likelyhood of finding another gang that 1) will be willing to fight you and 2) you will be willing to fight decreases.

Frankly, there's no easy way of fixing Faction Warfare or FW missions. Both are inherently easy to abuse.

• The Plexing mechanic (the problem):
Let us assume, for a moment, spawn-timers were fixed to evenly distribute them throughout the day and the tiny standings boost was increased and matched with a LP payout that gives an incentive to run them.
Sounds great, doesn't it? I'm all for it, too. Can't wait to see it implemented.

Now, how long exactly do you think it would take for people to use all their alts to see-saw systems? Use Minmatar alt to make system vulnerable and get LP, use Amarr character to capture one Plex, get LP, rinse and repeat.
But wait, maybe we should use a notification system so other people interfere? Great idea!! Except.. no matter who comes to interfere – one of those characters is in the right faction.
So now we need a way to kick obvious spies? Yeah, good plan! Except.. we all know how many douchebags are in this game (and FW) and would stop at nothing to abuse it for griefing.

In short: There's no way to prevent abuse, and you would simply move people from currently farming FW missions to farming PLEXes with the same or even less risk.



• FW missions (the problem):
Making them harder so it becomes a group effort and cannot be done solo? Yeah.. except people are already using alts in Executioners to orbit at 150km while a different ship completes the mission. I'm sure there's ways to adjust the missions to where it really requires multiple well-tanked ships to complete them... but how exactly would X warp-core-stabbed Drakes be an improvement over the current situation?
And what about the people who are already using their alts in the opposing militia to complete their missions in the first place? And if we made those NPCs shoot at people from their own militia to prevent it, how would you run interference anymore?

It's basically impossible to come up with a scenario that can not be abused, somehow.


Faction war needs a complete revamp.



• Complexes (a proposal):
It starts with the complexes and how they're captured. I'm sorry, but orbiting a beacon is just silly in the first place. Incidentally, it also turns Plexing into a question of: “How to best circle a button without being hit”, rather than “How to form a sensible fleet and have some fun”.

Complexes should host NPCs of both factions, which do not engage each other due to the “Cold War” state between the Empires.
Capturing a complex should require killing the opposing NPCs, and those need to have Sleeper AI. Not necessarily exactly the same damage output, but the AI itself.
Killing a wave triggers a distress signal that calls in reinforcements with a delay of several minutes. That delay is needed so large fleets can't complete Complexes within seconds, and the opposing side has a chance to rally a defense.
Depending on the size of the complex, there's so and so many waves of reinforcements of appropriate but variable size and difficulty.
The system's occupancy status and how contested it currently is determines how strongly the Empires are represented in the complexes (in the form of Sleeper AI NPCs).

As an example: A minor complex in an uncontested system under Amarr occupation could initially host 5 Amarr frigates and 1 Minmatar frigate, and with each reinforcement wave on either side, 1 frigate is added.
If the same system was about to flip, it could initially be 3 Amarr and 3 Minmatar frigates.

This is just a random example. The intended effect is: Defenders will still have an advantage inside complexes, but they too have to account for some incoming fire.

Now, if this was to give any form of reward (and I think LP would be sensible), it could still be abused, right? Not as easily if you apply Incursion mechanics and only members of the highest damage dealing fleet inside the complex receive the payout.
The intention here isn't to make this just another form of low-sec Incursions, but using these existing mechanics goes a long way in enabling “The Real PvPers” to decide who they want to team with, and thus be rewarded when a complex is won.



• Rewards for PvP (a proposal):
I think it would be good to offer greater rewards to people who actually manage to shoot down opposing faction members. Unfortunately, what this means is that we first need a working Insurance system, that correctly calculates a ship's worth (yes, that should include t2 and t3). And then we deny FW players access to it, because no insurance company would want a customer who's actively engaged in warfare with thousands of other maniacs. O_o
What we give them instead is bounties for opposing faction members rated at 80% of a ship's worth. Say a fleet of 5 people kills an Abaddon worth 140 million ISK. 80% is about 112 million, divided by 5 makes an ISK payout of 22.4 million per player.
Again, Incursion mechanics could be utilized to ensure only eligible members of the main contributing fleet are rewarded in this fashion.

Not receiving insurance sounds harsh, at first, especially for new players. In fact, I think it is the other way around: New players flying frigates will have a much easier time replacing them, while having the opportunity to fund those doing actual PvP. This overall encourages the idea of flying ships that offer a nice bang for your buck.


If these changes are implemented, FW missions could be balanced in terms of difficulty and LP payout somewhat reduced, and things would be peachy. Why? Because now there would be added incentive for people to be out Plexing all over the place, and killing opposing faction members, both of which increases pressure on mission-runners. Problem solved.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. The alts will get kicked out of plexes because both sides will be notified when complexes are invaded. Notification = fewer alts doing plexes and more pvp.

How many alts do you think people are going to multibox? Please give a bit more detail as to how you think this would be gamed.

This isn't a bad general idea but it would take allot of work. CCP would need to fix the many problems with killmails. Moreover they would need to start calculating the worth of items other than the insurance pay out. This would be allot of work but it would be goood for eve in other ways too. It would help the bounty system and make killmails better.

However, it would be hard for faction warfare pilots to deal with non fw pilots in low sec. We would have to field ships that are not insured against their insured ships. Perhaps you could say there would be insurance if no one from the opposing militia shows up on the killmail.

The other thing I would be afraid of is that this would make people even more risk adverse. Again we all know the best isk efficency is gained by blobbing. I think this might just give people a further incentive to join blobs instead of the risky endeavor of small scale pvp.

Ok I see what your saying. Yes hopefully there will be people coming for both of your alts.

So what you are saying is you will warp your alt out and wait for the person in your alts militia to do the fighting and then warp back in and leach off his reward?

Yeah you definitely will not be well liked in the militias. I would say I think this might be a theoretical problem that never really substantially materializes. If it does then I think the players would have some options on how to address it and if they don't work ccp could do somethings including altering how rewards are given. Also adding the pirate factions would help this because then the plex could be capped by several different factions. There are actually several possibilities to address this sort of conduct - if it really happened.

When we defended caldari systems i used 6 accounts at same time.

I imagine people got tired of trying to keep track of where your alts were plexing. A notification system would take care of that.

Were these free accounts?

Well if you can keep track of all those ships more power to you. I don't think ccp can or should do anything to prevent that. I probably couldn't do that effectively (without giving the enemy lots of kills) even if I wanted to.

Hell I can't really keep track of two ships in low sec space very well.

You are my alt in the minnie militia, I use you to kill me in cheapest high-value from market and cash in on insurance addendum. Same problem as increasing LP-for-Kills by enough to make a noticeable difference.

This is easily prevented by keeping payouts below 100% reimbursement - just like normal insurance.

Same with LP for kills – the total given reward (if distributed) must be less than the cost of the ship, otherwise that will be farmed too. Lets take a Scimitar – worth around 120 million. If the payout was say, 90 million divided by all the people on the killmail, it would reward participants without being abused, since you’d lose money even if you used an alt.

I think payout for kills gets really messy and hard to calculate, depends far too much on market pricing, and invites whoring for the sake of whoring. And doesn’t reward logistics pilots doing their jobs to keep the fleet alive. Handling rewards on the loss end fixes some of these fairness issues. No matter how you work out pay-for-kills, (top damage, final blow, initial tackle, even split, etc) someone gets screwed.

Since you’re talking about LP here, this FW insurance supplement could even be given in the form of loyalty points, and could even be restricted to Navy issue ships if so desired. Currently, insurance pays tech 1 hull price for losing something you had to earn thousands of LP for. Think of it – what if you earned 50% of that LP back upon dying with it in battle, to a wartarget? Militias would fly faction vessels (including BS) much more often, and not lose as much of their hard earned work because they took a PvP loss. This would be a real treat for militia pilots without allowing the benefits of FW to be used elsewhere.

Again, as long as the payout is less than the cost of the ship, whether you’re talking about LP insurance for faction ship losses, or cash insurance for general losses, this wouldn’t be sustainable enough to be profitable. But it would make PvP much more sustainable in general, and that’s a goal I think we all share.

For casual PvP to occur regularly, FW pilots have to be rewarded somehow to be able to finance their ships. Many here advocate a mission nerf, I see this as a viable way to shift some of that isk reward to PvP without removing meaningful rewards completely.