Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Unfortunately, it probably won't happen. I doubt messing with the FW mechanics is even on their extended list of things to do.

I fully support a decaying timer. Cheeky FW farmers need to go to hell

Why, is a good thing? Why should any neutral (willing or unwilling), not enlisted in any militia, automatically used as defender militia (and not being a legal WT)?

Again, timer rollback, if not handled and balanced properly could easly destroy FW mechanics.

Automatic timer rollback means: no need of militia activity or presence to hold a captured system. And is already proved as this kind of mechanics in EVE lead to stagnant or no gameplay.

The current attacker/defender balance mechanics work fine. Any change giving an advantage to one or the other need to be balanced.

I'd say poisitvely a rollback triggered by oppoisite militia and not requiring to stay there the whole time. But this simply cause defensive plexing is terribly boring and nobody does it.
But this also should be re-balanced since makes defending easier

The issue with neutrals doesn't really impact timer rollbacks any more then it impacts everything else that has to do with 2 or more parties that are at war with each other. The mechanics are there for the most part to deal with them (aggression mechanics, security status, gate guns, etc.). The one mechanic in FW that I would like to see implemented with regard to "neutral pilots" is to have faction rats inside plexes shoot everyone that isn't in their militia (including neutrals). But that is a different topic.

For now lets just focus on the timer rollbacks.

[quote=paritybit]
What? If a system has been captured by militia A, militia B can come in and take it provided that nobody is actively stopping them.
/quote]

Oh, really...

But if we change the system to an automaatic rollback when the plexer run means:

1. you're capturing a plex
2. a neutral eneter the plex and kills you and force (that's fine)
3. The plex timer start to rollback with no opposite/defending faction actions taken

Basically any neutral would act as defendener in the warzone control
Is an huge advantage for defending militia; and basically means to hold FW control one not only don't need to be there but don't even need to be enlisted in any militia.

This kind of sovreignity linked to passive gameplay to be hold already proved to be terrible and lead to stagnation.

What I'm saying is that a presence or action from militia pilot need to be required to start the rollback (and balanced with an equivalent advantage for the offrnsive plexing).

Automatic timer rollback (whit no action/gameplay required to the opposite militia) do not affect WCS farmers, it penalize ANY kind of offensive plexing in general. And dramatically lower the effort to hold/defend systems (don't even need to be there, someone else will do it for you).

FW WZC works cause is dynamic, shifting balance in a way that penalize offensive gameplay simply cause stagnation (like in 0.0 sov, all unbalanced to make things easy for the defender, that don't even need to daily operate there to hold sovreignity).

Rolling back timers has very little effect on a dedicated attempt to complete faction warfare complexes for purposes of flipping the system. If neutrals dedicate themselves to keeping you from taking a complex then you won't take it unless you force them out anyway. It has an effect on plexing solely for the purpose of gaining loyalty points.

If you're worried that you won't be able to roll over so many plexes because splitting up will be less effective, then I'd be all for changing the mechanics of how long it takes to capture a site reducing the total time by 10% for each additional pilot with a floor of 50% of the total time or something.

If you're worried that your LP gain will be lower I'd even be okay with scaling the payout to the number of pilots where each new pilot involved in capturing the plex by adding 10% to the total value with a cap at 150% of the total value and split the value equally among all the pilots.

Both of these together would mean that 6 pilots could capture a complex in 50% of the normal time with a loyalty point gain of 150% the normal payout. Assuming a gang of 6 hopped from plex to plex they would individually be earning roughly 50% less than normal LP but capturing a system twice as fast. Collectively, though, they'd be gaining approximately 300% of the normal LP per time unit. It's not optimal for LP gains, but it's optimal for capturing a complex and flipping a system. Using sane percentages doesn't allow some gross exploit where a hundred pilots hop from plex to plex capturing it so quickly it can't be stopped and paying out gigantic sums of loyalty points.

Maybe it makes more sense to scale the values as you scale the numbers so that it's not linear. Maybe pilots 2 - 3 decrease capture time by 15% while pilots 4 and 5 decrease capture time by 7.5% and pilot 6 decreases capture time by 5%. Or make it a a better function that scales up with diminishing values like modules on your ship do.

This also makes it terribly difficult for [often] solo pilots like me taking advantage of solo plexers.

Obviously I made these numbers up on the spot and there's lots of room for tuning, but it's an interesting starting point for discussion. In any case, the current state is terribly broken.

I believe that if you could say "go away stabbed farmers" and all of them disappeared, it would have a roughly similar effect on the state of zone control in faction warfare as rolling back plexes -- because I believe many of them won't be able to capture enough complexes to make the time worth it. Right now those pilots who have the most influence on faction warfare are the farmers; this is just wrong. They have almost no risk aside from the possibility of losing a cloaked, stabbed (or both) or unfitted ship. They gain a large quantity of LP for this which has a direct impact on the economy. If this results in less movement in the zone control struggle but more impact coming from people who are actively engaged in playing the game then it would make me happy. But I admit that my primary concern is the large amount of nearly free LP generated by the farmers.

Oh But I agree with you here. And yes, need to be adjusted. Where I disagree in implementing an automatic defensive timer with no actions from a single militia pilot. Having a timer rollback triggered by a milita pilot in range and that keep running even if he leaves sounds more reasonable to me. It's still a straight advantage toward easy defending and this should be balanced in some way. But at least is not plainly stupid.

In the end the system work if you have people motivated/rewarded to stay inside plexes, to attack or defend them. Making not needed to stay there, not even to operate in the system is not good. Farmers or not.