EVE General Discussion

There are hundreds of pages of player feedback on FW. CCP just need to sort through and actually implement some of it.

Unless Dust is going to fix FW, don't hold your breath for seeing anything for FW in 2012.

Which is exactly what's been going on.

I understand everyone's frustration with FW improvement delays, no one wants to see this fixed more than I. The fact remains that CCP has admitted to not working on spaceship features as much as they needed to, spending over a year to develop a dead-end feature with Incarna. Now that the company as been restructured and resouces reallocated, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the future holds for EvE proper. Unclogging the Incarna hairball has released a glut of new features, updates, and improvements, and there simply is a massive backlog of features to plow through. At least its all underway and at record speed.

I can tell you for certain that the CSM is fully aware of the full range of FW issues (I've personally spoken with many of them to oversee that) , and is discussing them with CCP. CCP also is fully aware of what needs fixing, since most of the main FW issues have been on record in the official backlog ratified years ago. I truly believe, from everyone I've spoken to - CSM and CCP alike - that it is not a matter of if Faction Warfare will be improved and updated, but when. All I can do is share my experience, whether anyone is encouraged by that or not.

As for what CCP's own vision is for Faction Warfare - that is a fantastic question, and one I'd love to hear an answer for. Unfortunately, its up to the CSM to share what they've heard during the high-level discussions they're having with CCP at the summit that is underway as we speak. And if they're unable to answer this question to our satisfaction, the only way we'll learn that vision will be for all those interested in Faction Warfare to unite behind a candidate in the upcoming elections that will ask those questions.

Okay, i'll bite to the dev post.

I never was a roleplayer before EvE and i actually have never ever played a MMORPG before EvE,
simply because they didn't have the requirements i expected from a MMORPG (Freedom of choice and impact!).
EvE is the only real MMORPG out there.

The first time i heard about factional warfare, it got me quite exited.
FW is all about role play and i thought: "Hey ... why not ... sounds great!"

And then i realized ... "wtf? Why should i do this?"

The ranks are worthless, have no meaning and can be too easily obtained.
Winning a system does not have any impact whatsoever.
Given that it's EvE, this is a major flaw.

FW seems to only be about small scale PvP, which for itself is okay,
but on the other hand simply is not enough given the topic of having
FACTIONS COMPETE AGAINST EACH OTHER.

Of course, many will consider FW the holy grail of small scale PvP
and i accept (and i'm glad) that they have fun with that, but FW could/SHOULD be so much more.

If there's no way to be a "hero", then it lacks intention to play it.
One could have more kills than others, but that's only something to brag about.
It does not have any impact. There's no "bigger scheme" that rewards this.

If there's no way that my own faction can stand out compared to the others,
besides silly bragging rights which have no impact,
then it lacks intention to play it.

Of course, there's plenty of gray between all that black and white,
but that's simply how i see it. Statistically speaking,
there's plenty of others who see it the same way as i do in one form or the other.

Also - Solstice, you hit the nail on the head. I don't think anyone could have summarized the Faction Warfare situation better than you did.

This is why I urge players and developers alike to not use current participation metrics to evaluate whether Faction Warfare is worth iterating on. So many like yourself have come in and said "whats the point?" and left, with arguably good cause. All those that have walked away from feature stand to benefit from its revision, not just those of us that left for whom the killmail race and abundant small gang pew pew are entertainment enough to keep fighting amongst each other.

Essentially FW is alive not through any form of central driving mechanic, but rather the sheer force of will amongst a dedicated community who believe too strongly in the potential of CCP's original concept to give up advocating on its behalf. The fact that most players would rather participate in other activities with greater large-scale impact should be just as much impetus to improve the Faction Warfare system so that it, too, lives up to the EvE standard of dynamic and meaningful gameplay.

Guess ill use EvE-Search and try to pull up all of the FW threads and list the ideas in a consolidated list. Obviously troll post ideas wont make it in the list, but it may take some time before I complete the list due to the dozens of threads and several threadnaughts.... oh boy

Corrected spelling, stupid phone...

If any one would like to help with the orginizing/spelling corrections/removing double/tripple/umpteenmillionth copies of same idea, it would speed things up considerably. As well as not make your eyes bleed reading it like its making mine trying to orgnize it.

I honestly was slightly gladdened when I found out that the plexing spawn Mechanic was fixed, but the overall Occupancy system was not. Coming up with a good system will take time and at least this shows that CCP is at least thinking about it.

Honestly there can many many ways to fix Faction Warfare but as many have said it all depends on what the vision of FW is today.

For me(and I think most of you agree with me on this), FW should be focused on the encouragement of small-scale PvP i.e 1-50 man gangs. There have been many many ways discussed on the forums how to do this so I'm not going to state my own.

The One thing I do not want is for Faction Warfare to turn into a smaller-scale null sec. I fight Gallente(and occasionally Minmatar) all the time without the motivation of money. We just want fights, for some reason Null Sec PvP'rs who are for the most part are only part-time PvP'rs(their are rare exceptions) can't understand this. In a nutshell most Null sec people imo think PvP to Earn isk, while most of us in Faction Warfare think Earn ISK to PvP. I don't want to be encouraged to fight Gallente over a plex so I can earn money, I want to be encourage to fight Gallente because if they win it will change the way I have to play (i.e station rights etc) and there will be a very noticeable difference in the appearence of my gameplay(i.e. Station Models, a better UI for the Occupancy System etc.).

Also while were on this topic I want to put forward a variation of Faction Warfare for Dust 514, if clone Capsuleers can fight for the State/Republic/Federation/Empire, why not clone Mercenaries?

Just like hybrids.

That's why I cross trained Minmatar and hell I'm happy I've done it and strongly advice every noob to do so.

If this is a topic that CCP would like more info on from the community, Might I suggest that we sticky this topic to the top as to encourage more participation and thus producing a consensus among the community faster. (<- ROFL!?)

Quafe Zero works fine, and is much easier to send :)