Warfare & Tactics

Ok, I'm making this thread to list off ideas I've seen that can be construed as reasonable as a way to rebalance FW to make it more interesting, engaging, and relevant. Not promoting any particular idea over the other, just putting out a few that sound good and leaving the discussion open.

1. Shift points towards system capture:
Generally the main issue I've seen with the warzone system since it was implemented was the upgrade system itself. It forces cooperation which is idealistic at best, doesn't follow any parallels to any form of realistic warfare, and the only good things is it offers are that keeps the LP gains from getting too absurd and crashing the market. Making the number of systems captured be the sole defining factor in how points towards WZ control would be ideal because it would shift the focus over to territory gains over income denial, which the current system promotes since it's easier to snub your enemy than maintain WZ superiority.

2. Expand FW to more factions, open all of lowsec to it:
If you took a poll today, I would bet you that you would see a fairly even divide for people who like to RP in some capacity vs those that don't. Quite a few people in this game either swear loyalty to or have an interest in working for specific non-empire factions that have very interesting backstories of their own. Pirate FW has been kicked around for a bit as a good idea, and it makes sense for it to be implemented. Pirate NPC null is set up almost as a mirror to hisec in relation to how the empires are situated in relation to nullsec. It would be a fairly simple matter to open it up to each of the pirate factions, excluding Sansha, since he kind of has control issues. Adding Khanid FW as a fifth playable faction would also be quite wonderful and be a boon to the area, as the warzone control window could easily be recalibrated to display regional control and systems, and have points from the entire cluster add up to four separate bars for wz control...2 pirate factions, your empire faction, and their counterpart you've been fighting most of the time.

3. Capture Point Complex Rebalance:
One of the most lamentable changes with the warzone control from the old system were how many rats were cut out of the system. While it makes capping the plexes themselves and the pvp within easier, it is not a very practical way to defend a military installation, or provide content that bridges pvp and pve. Having more of the same NPCs and some normal elite rats in there would be a good way to up the ante a bit, and force pilots to band together a bit. Making life more difficult for individuals to capture plexes means that it also cuts out extemporaneous factors like pirates who have no business being their in the first place, and gives better odds to defenders against the evil blob. The former could also be easily solved by barring entry to the plex to non-combatants.

4. Include missions in the system capturing/decontesting mechanic:
One of the largest untapped resources, missions currently do not affect the contested level of a system, despite containing very large and well-defending installations. Making the mission level relative to the current size mechanic, of novice, small, medium and large would integrate perfectly, as they are already in four levels. This would ensure that people who need to make money in the profession doing the missions don't effectively waste their time doing something that doesn't help the war effort, and being useful in general.

5. FW mission rebalance
There is currently an extremely lopsided favoring to which missions for which race are easier to run. Caldari and Minmatar generally have an easy time, as the lack of missiles and directly offensive ewar allow for even t1 frigates to be run, as is the case with caldari. Gallente and amarr, on the other hand have always faced the prospect of missions with dread, as the hail of missiles and storm of ecm against the gallente pilot is extremely difficult to surmount, even with a t3. Amarr FW pilots must contend with the enormous amount of varied firepower that minmatar npcs put out, which makes close combat impossible, and kiting without getting blown out of the sky by a well-placed arty shot or continued missile bombardment difficult.
An excellent suggestion I heard awhile back was that you are the mop-up force for a first strike battalion that took out a good chunk of the enemy's forces, disabling their electronic warfare capability and limiting their reinforcements to a certain degree. Knocking ewar out of the equation would make it easier, certainly, but it would level the playing field a bit and not play favorites with who gets their war boners bankrolled by easy PVE.


I would love to hear more suggestions, including anything that critiques concerns with ideas posted or expands on them. Ideas?

EDIT: For #1, I am not advocated getting rid of infrastructure hubs. That particular post advocates simply shifting more points over towards the number of systems controlled by each side to stablize things more, and force the focus to be more on system capturing.

Now i know why bad messenger is always in a bad messaging mood..

Not another thread like this...

Srsly guys its not like we don't want fw to change in one way or another for the best but... The key things that need to change have already been said over and over..everything else will just get shut down and not by us. Also most of the other stuff have been suggested before aswell .

Nah mate, it's cos one of my Fedo's took a liking to his collection of monocles yesterday - they have a magpie like tendency to steal shiney things. (Been trying to train them to infiltrate Gallente held stations).

Turns out the little farker ate them. Things are a little tense right now as we await the expulsion of said monocles.

Suggest no-one gets in BM's way for the next couple of days. He's not amused.

Anyone have any good ideas to add instead of just poo-pooing the OP? Would be open to anything, however small or unique.

Oh man...one of the things I missed the most from the old style was how many BCs were in lowsec, and how popular they were. Maybe limiting AFs to smalls, and t3s to larges would be an appropriate way to go with that too? The main point for making the plexes harder is not to 'cut out newer players' as I mentioned, but to encourage them to join up with groups, and corps to encourage cooperation with ops. You don't see soldiers or marines turning the tide of war on their own; you see them working as a team. So I'm sticking by that particular point, even if it's just running them with one guy.

Just because something is more balanced and active doesn't mean it's good or perfect; it's just better than it was with the old system. A great example of this is the iHub mechanic; It's extremely popular because of the big fleets, but a lot of emphasis gets put on system upgrades over actually capturing territory, while it should be the other way around; wars are generally fought over territory and control, so emphasizing that more would be an important part of making it more balanced gameplay. That and making the FW missions less lopsided with who can run them are major issues that need to be evaluated.

The incentivization you talk about is exactly my point; making the focus of how money is made in the profession be from the UPGRADE system means that that's the enemy's focus for attacking and dismantling, defeating the purpose of it in the first place. If they made it secondary to system capturing, you'd see more stable environments for people to work out of and upgrade the systems, making it more appealing to set up, live in, and fight for said stable systems.
And in regards to the order of things, sure that's definitely going to be the case, but it doesn't hurt at all to take a look at the state of things, since having an ongoing discussion for how the FW mechanic works in relation to the other changes that are going on the game is essential, since it grants greater perspective to the changes that ARE going on.

It is a good idea, but it hinges on CCPs ability and/or willingness to do a days work. Rats properly balanced against the 'to be expected' PvP setup largest ship a plex can accommodate and that acknowledges player jurisdiction when appropriate.
That is: Much stronger rats that warp out/stand down when an ally shows and restart spawn cycle when only one side remains .. easily exploited obviously, but since CCP has had no qualms about decreeing using opposing faction alts to tank in missions (until they decided to just break missions entirely that is ) a sanctionable exploit, there is no reason why they could not do the same for plexes.

That was the essence of the idea (mine by the way) that gave us plex specific rats, as a shortcut to entities that could be changed/tweaked without disturbing rats everywhere else .. hell, with the blanket nerf to plex rat eWar they could probably get away with simply deactivating their highslots for the duration of a pvp bout and they'd be nothing more than a backdrop.

If you are in it for the money most certainly, but that is the (almost) only thing that "good" about it, has been since their 'crowdsourced' (read: unilaterally decided upon changes with no feedback period whatsoever) revamp that introduced alliances with zero caveats, plexing LP and all the other junk that maxed the farm over night.

But just for arguments sake, if it really was true: why are the calls for changes (some more radical than others) increasing rather than decreasing .. and why does this forum-subsection contain little else than questions about "best faction for making isk!!" and aforementioned cries of lament when it used to be filled with blustering, chestbeating, mocking battle reports of last nights/weeks shenanigans with but a handful of balance/change threads mixed in?

To original poster: Tough it out. CCP will no revisit FW until they have broken fixed null, followed by worms .. looking at 1-2 years more by my reckoning as they get more cash from null/worms and are thus more inclined to linger to actually make those work before moving on.

how about fill current area 1st, now almost everyone are on same system. Rest is just farm land.

That's part of why I am advocating a change to how missions are performed; for one, changing the contested level of a system would be a great start, but the issue lies with accessability. Sure, running them in a bomber is easy to farm, but you have to deal with the inherent issue that the ships normally used for running hisec missions, especially level 4s, are completely impractical to travel in lowsec with, even if you stab them up. In my mind, gearing the mechanics more towards being group efforts are ideal because you promote more cooperative gameplay that way.

Certainly we can say that while the system has its issues it's come a long way (and it has), but we do have to consider how over-exploited it is in regards to farming, and how lopsided the missions favor different races and snub others. Finding ways to give equal opportunity WITHOUT nerfing it to lend to more farming, and promote cooperative gameplay is the holy grail for people like myself who love FW, but have become disenfranchised with it due to all the petty politics and unchecked, unhelpful farming.