CSM Campaigns

1. With timer rollbacks, it could penalize the defender as well. Just so I know we're on the same page, what I am talking about is a steady count back to neutral when no one is in range of the button. If you're being penalized, it is because you cloaked or bailed out of the plex when someone showed up. It's not going to count any faster than if the enemy stayed there to push it, and will stop again once it's smack in the middle. I don't see much of a negative here, but if you have a situation where it would be unfair, please give it to me and I'll clarify.

2. That's a tough one. D-Plexing should in no way be as rewarding as O-plexing. You don't even need to fit a gun to do it. I'm actually relatively happy with how it's set up, but as there is a 75% ceiling, maybe a 25% floor would be in order. If that's something people wanted, I'd get behind that. I think we have to be really careful with this, because with a decent reward, suddenly D-plexing becomes more farmer friendly than what we have currently, and I'd really like to see mass low-risk farming curbed a bit.

3. I've said elsewhere that I'm really not happy with the upgrade bonuses for systems as they stand now. The quote I made was "It seems to me that CCP was so afraid of making upgrade bonuses for FW systems too good, they didn't make them very good at all". Present bonuses are useless in roughly 1/3 of gallente/caldari FW space, and a slightly smaller % of min/amarr due to having no stations in system. The only bonus I would consider even half decent would be the clone cost one, and that's useful in maybe what? 20% of the systems? Probably more like 10-15%. Outside of tier pushes the FW upgrade system is nearly 100% pointless, and yes, I would like to see things changed.

Considering fully upgrading a system to 5 (not really counting a high warzone tier tax on the donations) costs several hundred million ISK worth of LP, I think more meaningful upgrades are in order besides a clone discount and a few extra manufacturing slots that aren't really needed in the first place. On top of that, I seriously doubt much of that donated LP comes from the farmers taking advantage of the huge payouts those tier levels enable.

In short, I'd like to see system upgrades do more to benefit the people making their home and living in a given system.... maybe even allow the person donating the LP and upgrading the system to pick from a list of bonuses to enable with their donation. Having to upgrade a stationless system with no strategic benefit aside from an LP dump to reach a higher tier is beyond dumb.


That I would have to think on a bit. In the situation given for the astero, yes, I like that. But I also see some potential benefits to cloaky farmers as well. I don't think there is any one change that is going to curb FW mass farming. It's going to take several. Timer rollbacks is a start. I think a rebalance on WCS is another. While we look at what we can do to deter mass farming though, we also need to take time to consider the changes don't also impact people actually playing the game in a negative way either.

I'm very glad that you're running, Funky. For as long as I've been playing I've watched you contribute so much to EVE, and have no doubt that your invariably well-conveyed wisdom and clear passion for the betterment of this game will serve us all well. Even the guys who fit 4 warp core stabs to their cloaky tech 1 FW frigates, whether they realize it or not :)

If you force someone out and then leave to do something else while the timer counts back to neutral, there's really nothing stopping that person from coming back in and running it further is there? Here's why I'm not too much a fan of dual timers. Often times, in a hotly contested system, there is a tug of war for plexes. One side gets forced off while another moves in. It takes some time for reshiping and getting the fleet back on field. I've been in fights where a plex has changed hands 3 or 4 times. That is helped greatly by having the single tug of war timer.

I guess where I'm trying to get at, is if you abandon your plex, and the guy that forced you out does too, it's your own fault for not going back in and getting the timer ticking back in your favor again.

And then of course, part of the reason for timer rollbacks is to make farming less efficient. Dual timers completely negates that, since cloaky stabbed farmer loses no time and can just pick his timer back up where he left off if you don't stay.

I don't really think a lack of people willing to spin timers on buttons is an issue, even if they have to wait for a bit longer of a timer in some of these cases. It sounds more to me like you don't like plexing, and I don't blame you. I don't care for it either unless I'm getting fights, or we're trying hard to take a system.

I'm going to make something very plain about my platform. I have no interest in seeing FW plexing become any more LP/Isk efficient than it already is. If anything, it needs a couple tweaks to make it LESS enticing to farmers, not more. I would like to see better rewards for plexing in small gangs though. Something closer to how incursion payouts work.

I support FunkyBacon!

Can't you burn a plex to transfer a character? Admittedly, I haven't sold a character since 2004 so I'm not too familiar with this issue, but I'd like to know more.

Greetings Azami-san,

I don't think you have so much of a bad idea, as what you are suggesting would concentrate PVP to a more limited number of systems, but I don't think it will solve the issues. Furthermore, when one side pins the other to 1 or 2 or 3 systems, it just invites an absolute stomping that will be VERY difficult for the losing side to push out of. What happens if one side for example takes the whole zone, which happened as recently as January of 2013? I believe both the minmatar and amarr have been pushed to a single system since that time as well.

Farmers don't take sov in FW. They might run up a contested % in a backwater system, but they never have an effect on any system that's actually being fought over actively. You generally won't find stabbed/cloaked farmers operating in enemy home systems for example. It's not efficient, and too likely that a defender will show up and push you out. since farmers generally can't fight, they have no way to hold a plex once someone in a combat ship shows up, they can only run. The more running they do, the less LP they are making.

There was a time when WCS didn't have any drawbacks. They were used by risk averse PVPers, generally in shield PVP ships to engage people. If they got the kill, great. If it looked like they would lose, they would warp off. This was unintended apparently, so WCS were nerfed with penalties to scan res and lock range. Now they are the defacto "I don't want to PVP" mod. FW plexes are designed to be PVP catalysts. To have people running them and profiting from them in ships clearly fit to AVOID PvP is a kick in the nuts to what FW was designed to be, and that's what has a lot of the people running FW sites in PVP ships frustrated.

While I'm not convinced that eliminating WCS all together is the best option, I fully believe that another balance pass on them is due. The use of WCS has evolved greatly since the last balance pass, and it's worth looking at again to see if the present fitting reqs, and penalties are where they should be. And should the use of WCS interfere with the use of a non-T2 cloaking device?

While we're looking at that, I think we might also need to look at the tanking capabilities of the single NPC inside a FW plex. They were tweaked to have beefier tanks, but I can still kill a medium plex NPC with less than 70 DPS in a pure tackle fit interceptor. Their weak damage is fine, as I don't want to see them become a major factor in a pvp engagement, but it's not hard to get a PVP fit frigate to put out 120+ dps, and a bit more difficult to do so in one fit to the brim with cloak and stabs piloted by a low-sp alt.

Honestly, that's one of the better ideas I've heard on the matter. Our biggest issue is that lowsec PVE is only marginally more profitable than highsec, while nullsec is quite a bit more than marginally more profitable than low. I've made the argument several times, and the stats would seem to back me up, that lowsec is far and away more dangerous than nullsec, especially in and around FW space. For people to do certain activities in an area of space, the reward has to match the risk involved. When that is skewed in favor of risk over the reward, people are just not going to do it. I think it would be a great idea to have the most PVP heavy systems where tons of stuff is destroyed to also have the richest available PVE opportunities, especially where those PVE opportunities are not used as a result of the increased risk.

How CCP would go about implementing a system like that is another matter, but yes, as a PVPer and a pirate, I WANT to see more profitable PVE available in lowsec, and I want it to be profitable enough that a PVEer would feel the need, and could afford to hire reputable mercenaries for protection. I see that as a win/win for all involved.

Define getting harder? If what you mean is NPC spawns, I'm fully against that. Plexes are for PVP, and we worked hard to get rid of the old spawning mechanic. Aside from the issue with speed tanked frigs spinning buttons while taking damage from hordes of npcs, no one in their right mind would PVP in an offensive plex on account of the npc spawns.

Plexes are mostly ok at this point, there is no need to re-invent the wheel. Farmers in triple stabbed frigates with a cloaking device are a bit of an issue, and this can probably be fixed by simply beefing up the tanks of some of the npcs, and a rebalance of WCS penalties.

If you were able to see my twitch stream last night of the fight over Oicx, you would see the way that plex fighting is meant to happen, and when it does, it's pretty damn fun and exciting.Tougher npcs would be a detriment to it, especially in smaller scale fighting.