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FW: rebalancing NPCs and you

First post First post
Author
Condor Amarr
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#61 - 2012-06-08 04:56:54 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hey folks,

It's not because we aren't posting anything that we aren't following such threads Blink

As a quick update, we first want to remove all EW from FW NPCs (starting with complexes, FW missions would not be affected for now). This should go out as soon as possible (working on it as we speak).

However, the proper way of fixing this on the long run would be to totally revamp the NPCs though, and that's something we highly consider for this winter as it is extremely difficult to do on its own (current NPCs are used in missions for example). There also are good points mentioned here that we will definitely consider when iterating on this further.


Many thanks for your time and ideas so far!



Thanks for letting us know you are still interested in this.

Can I ask that we PLEASE don't make the same mistake that was made with Incarna. Removing the EWAR from plexes but not from missions is not going to fix the imbalance. Mission runners are part of this war (otherwise why would you advertise their mission by putting a beacon in local) so having the NPC's unchanged in them is still allowing one side to farm them (and therefor farm ISK) whilst the other cannot..... What sense is there in that?

I could happily link another kill showing just how crazy this has gotten, but I think we have all seen enough and no one seems to be disagreeing.
Botagar
Royal Institute of Mining and Manufacturing
#62 - 2012-06-08 12:26:09 UTC
I think people agree that the NPC's need fixing. There are plenty of good ideas already posted so im not going to re-iterate on them.
I do want to however voice my opinion that the NPC's im missions should undergo the same balancing act as the NPC's in the FW Plex's. I don't do alot of missioning, but when/if i want to, as someone fighting for the Amarr, its quite impossible to do the missions to the same effeciency the Minmatar can.

NPC balance has to affect ALL aspects of FW, not just the FW plex's.


On another note, increase qualitiy of rats in upgraded systems?


Cheers!
X Gallentius
Black Eagle1
#63 - 2012-06-11 17:44:14 UTC  |  Edited by: X Gallentius
The ultimate goal of FW plexes is ship limited combat.

CCP should implement code that encourages ship limited combat with appropriately sized ships/gangs for a given plex size. For example, a T1 BC should be most efficient ship to solo a Tier 3 plex (for both attacker and defender).

NPCs should be "dps sinks" for opposing players with little else to do. Note that E-war and NPC dps will always be mitigated by "tankers" of one form or another.

Appropriate Sized Ships:
Killing all NPCs requirement in plex would encourage the attackers to bring appropriate amount of dps to a plex (especially if NPCs of both sides are designed to be "dps sinks"). This requirement would also make the plex more "realistic" as it is absurd and game breaking that the commander of an NPC force would surrender to some guy who orbits a button but does nothing else for 10/15/20 minutes.

Timer speed based on ship sizes in plex would also encourage appropriately sized ships to run a plex for both attacker and defender (this may be the only answer to afk-alt defensive plexers)

Encourage Combat rather than Bailing:
Timer to move to baseline feature if nobody is on timer (at perhaps an increased rate of 2x, or 5x) encourages plexers to stay and fight and to bring fighting ships to plexes.

Edit 1: LP rewards issues discussed here:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1464947#post1464947

Edit 2: Second part of the "balancing NPCs and you" part of FW - Balance the LP payouts of the plexes. Once we get the proper sized ships in the proper sized plexes we need to create LP payouts that are consistent with the effort involved in capping a plex. Right now the LP payout for a major unrestricted is similar to the payout for a L1 plex. This is contrary to everything else in Eve where LP payout is on an exponential schedule.

Assuming 64k LP/hour goal for unrestricted FW plex payouts (64k could potentially be 100k lp, whatever):

Non-stop payout schedule, assuming 20 million isk/10k LP (faction frig payout):
Unrestricted Plex: 64k LP/hour ----> 128 million isk/hour
Major plex: 32K LP/hour ----- 64 million isk/hour
Medium plex: 16k LP/hour -----> 32 million isk/hour
Minor plex: 8k LP/hour -----> 16 million isk/hour

Baseline Payout Example:

Now the sov level payout kicks in, and this is where it's make or break for farmers.

Sov Level [L1,L2,L3,L4,L5] for minors yields [4, 8, 16, 32, 64] million isk/hour respectively. 64 million isk is still over the top for a L1 anything (mission, plex, whatever), but it's within the realm of system control payouts. 4 million isk/hour for a L1 mission is still pretty damn good even at the Sov Level 1 payouts. So no noob in a T1 frig should complain about the payout schedule.
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#64 - 2012-06-11 17:44:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Hans Jagerblitzen
Looks like the NPC E-war removal in FW plexes is now on Singularity for testing, go try it out!

Condor - this isn't intended to be the "last word" on NPC balancing, but a temporary measure to cut back on the discouraging effect that the E-war has on PvP within the plexes.

Gallentius - exactly, those would be the goals when the actual AI and capabilities of the NPC's themselves are overhauled. That however is a much more ambitious project, this ewar removal is simply to address the fact that a lot of people don't want to engage a defender that has a boatload of E-war on his side. Hopefully it'll lead to more PvP in the short term.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary

X Gallentius
Black Eagle1
#65 - 2012-06-11 17:57:18 UTC
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Looks like the NPC E-war removal in FW plexes is now on Singularity for testing, go try it out!

Condor - this isn't intended to be the "last word" on NPC balancing, but a temporary measure to cut back on the discouraging effect that the E-war has on PvP within the plexes.

Gallentius - exactly, those would be the goals when the actual AI and capabilities of the NPC's themselves are overhauled. That however is a much more ambitious project, this ewar removal is simply to address the fact that a lot of people don't want to engage a defender that has a boatload of E-war on his side. Hopefully it'll lead to more PvP in the short term.

Hans, I'm just throwing out a suggestion that I think is feasible for FW plexing mechanics in the future. Spending significant time recoding NPC features nobody who wants to PVP is interested in (maybe people interested in PVE and farming care) may not be the best use of resources. I'm sure the devs will figure it out.
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#66 - 2012-06-11 18:08:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Hans Jagerblitzen
Oh, I see what you're saying now. Haven't had enough coffee yet this morning. You're talking about taking care of the issue from a timer angle, not the NPC angle. That definitely has its merits.

I think up to this point the line of thinking has been more on how to adjust the NPC AI themselves to encourage this "sweet spot" in terms of gang size and to discourage speed tanking / farming (by using smarter, incursion-like rats), but I like your angle of tackling the plex timer mechanic itself. That is certainly a good place for the developers to investigate the issue as well, I agree.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary

corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#67 - 2012-06-11 22:21:12 UTC
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Oh, I see what you're saying now. Haven't had enough coffee yet this morning. You're talking about taking care of the issue from a timer angle, not the NPC angle. That definitely has its merits.

I think up to this point the line of thinking has been more on how to adjust the NPC AI themselves to encourage this "sweet spot" in terms of gang size and to discourage speed tanking / farming (by using smarter, incursion-like rats), but I like your angle of tackling the plex timer mechanic itself. That is certainly a good place for the developers to investigate the issue as well, I agree.


Well, removing all ewar from all NPCs is not the way to discourage speed tanking by week old farming alts, that's for sure. Ugh

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo

Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#68 - 2012-06-11 22:26:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Hans Jagerblitzen
corestwo wrote:
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Oh, I see what you're saying now. Haven't had enough coffee yet this morning. You're talking about taking care of the issue from a timer angle, not the NPC angle. That definitely has its merits.

I think up to this point the line of thinking has been more on how to adjust the NPC AI themselves to encourage this "sweet spot" in terms of gang size and to discourage speed tanking / farming (by using smarter, incursion-like rats), but I like your angle of tackling the plex timer mechanic itself. That is certainly a good place for the developers to investigate the issue as well, I agree.


Well, removing all ewar from all NPCs is not the way to discourage speed tanking by week old farming alts, that's for sure. Ugh



Let's be honest, the EWAR isn't doing its job to prevent that anyways. At least this way no one will hesitate to go in after them, other than the fact that they could just warp off if they don't want to PvP anyways.

The only sure-fire way to force the ship up is to require the killing of NPC's. While I certainly agree this would reduce farming, I'm hestitant to require more NPC-shooting grinds in what is still a PvP system to me. I think that a lot of us would still prefer to let some speed tankers get away, than to be forced into NPC shooting. But its worthy of further discussion.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary

corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#69 - 2012-06-11 22:33:30 UTC  |  Edited by: corestwo
Well, I have very little experience with it so I'm not exactly knowledgeable, but to hear some people in the CvG conflict tell, frigate alts ninjaing plexes are ubiquitous on both sides and make gaining and holding any significant progress difficult. This could be heresy or exaggeration or both, of course, but it would seem to me that simply giving every plex a few long range webbing towers would be a decent bandaid while CCP comes up with a better solution.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo

Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#70 - 2012-06-12 04:57:39 UTC
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Let's be honest, the EWAR isn't doing its job to prevent that anyways. At least this way no one will hesitate to go in after them, other than the fact that they could just warp off if they don't want to PvP anyways.

The only sure-fire way to force the ship up is to require the killing of NPC's. While I certainly agree this would reduce farming, I'm hestitant to require more NPC-shooting grinds in what is still a PvP system to me. I think that a lot of us would still prefer to let some speed tankers get away, than to be forced into NPC shooting. But its worthy of further discussion.

The only "real" long term solution would be something similar to what I posted early on in this thread (P.1 I believe) .. AI coding.

eWar removal will not really do much other than speed up system flips as everyone and their mother will be able to solo cap everythin; gangs are already killing rats and solo plexers generally run regardless .. should help a bit with the occasional fight that happens on/near timer before rats are killed off but not that common to begin with so 'meh'.

By the by, requiring destruction of NPCs (aka. PvE grind) is more than OK now that people are paid massive amounts of LP for their time .. on top of tags/loot gained from said destruction. Once we start doing what null has been doing for years, asking for something for nothing, then we will well and truly be lost .. FW will decompose (already dead, being flogged) and the sky fall.

PS: Looking forward to seeing the difference in plexing speed Amarr will be able to pull off when they get the same ability as the Mimes has had since day 1 (solo frig capping).
Tikktokk Tokkzikk
V0LTA
WE FORM V0LTA
#71 - 2012-06-12 09:41:53 UTC
This is what I'd think would be the perfect fix to plexes:

  • All NPCs should be heavily nerfed (heavily decrease the numbers).
  • The amount of NPCs should depend on how many systems that faction has (I.E. Current Amarr would have more NPCs than Minmatar since Amarr have fewer systems).
  • Defencive plexing time should be around four times shorter.
  • Defencive plexing should give a small LP reward.
  • Defencive plexing should cause the plex to close instead of increasing the timer (not exactly sure how this works now).
  • NO E-WAR OF ANY KIND!
  • Balance NPCs so minor plexes are easier to do in a frigate than majors (should still be easy to speed-tank majors in a frigate).


This would hopefully encourage more people to do defencive plexing, which would force the offencive plexers to fight for their plexes instead of warping off to a safespot and going AFK. It would also encourage the offencive plexers to fight for their plexes, since NPCs would either have been killed or would just be a small bother. It would also encourage offencive plexers to do the smaller plexes because it would allow them to more easily deal with the NPCs and defencive plexers.
Hopefully, it would make it impossible to farm plexes in an eight day old Vigil.
Kreiga Khamsi
Black Watch Guard
#72 - 2012-06-12 11:41:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Kreiga Khamsi
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Let's be honest, the EWAR isn't doing its job to prevent that anyways. At least this way no one will hesitate to go in after them, other than the fact that they could just warp off if they don't want to PvP anyways.

The only sure-fire way to force the ship up is to require the killing of NPC's. While I certainly agree this would reduce farming, I'm hestitant to require more NPC-shooting grinds in what is still a PvP system to me. I think that a lot of us would still prefer to let some speed tankers get away, than to be forced into NPC shooting. But its worthy of further discussion.

The only "real" long term solution would be something similar to what I posted early on in this thread (P.1 I believe) .. AI coding.

eWar removal will not really do much other than speed up system flips as everyone and their mother will be able to solo cap everythin; gangs are already killing rats and solo plexers generally run regardless .. should help a bit with the occasional fight that happens on/near timer before rats are killed off but not that common to begin with so 'meh'.

By the by, requiring destruction of NPCs (aka. PvE grind) is more than OK now that people are paid massive amounts of LP for their time .. on top of tags/loot gained from said destruction. Once we start doing what null has been doing for years, asking for something for nothing, then we will well and truly be lost .. FW will decompose (already dead, being flogged) and the sky fall.

PS: Looking forward to seeing the difference in plexing speed Amarr will be able to pull off when they get the same ability as the Mimes has had since day 1 (solo frig capping).


I agree with 90% of the above (and 100% of his post on page 1). Removing the EWAR from plexes will not encourage PvP, in fact I contend it will make PvP harder. Removing the EWAR will simply allow all sides to farm LP in frigs and never have to commit to a fight. There is an ever increasing number of people farming LP from plexes in frigs (some without even having guns as can be seen by KM linked earlier in this thread) who will warp out of the plex as soon as you hit the gate; they warp to a safe, most have a cloak fitted and they just wait for you leave so they can go back to farming the LP. Plexing has become more like hunting WT missioning in SB than anything else. The only real way to catch them is hope they get complacent and you surprise them.

Hans please don't take this as disrespect but removing the EWAR will not take FW back to its PvP roots; all it will do is encourage carebears to come to lowsec and farm LP with relative ease. I have not read any posts on here (I don't think) that have asked for the plexes to be easier to cap, they want it to be fair. In fact the vast majority of the posts have said that it should be harder to cap a plex (e.g. kill all the NPC). You want the LP, then earn it.

I also agree with Veshta that the NPC grind will be far less of an issue given the reward people are getting for plexing now.

I would also like to acknowledge the good work the devs are doing at trying to show FW some love and improving this area of EVE, I just don't think they have got it quite right yet. There has to be a way to stop the ridiculous amount of farming that is currently going on and get FW back the PvP roots it was founded on.

Just my thoughts.
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#73 - 2012-06-12 13:43:35 UTC
There are allot of good ideas here.

XGallentius is right the npcs should really be a dps sink. Chatgris is right they shouldn't interfere with pvp. And pretty much everyone is agrees speedtanking plexes is a problem. I think the following changes - mostly proposed by others - would work well:

1) must kill all rats

2) the rats will orbit the button and not leave that orbit range and only agro when the timer is running. If the timer stops they stop aggroing. This will do 3 things:
A) it will mean if a war target warps in the person running the plex can go outside the timer range and fight without worring about rat damage.
B) It will prevent one ship from comming in collecting the aggro orbiting outside range while a small long range destroyer just shoots the rats inside the orbit range
C) If it is a newer player having problems with the rats they can shoot the rats outside the orbit button. This of course means it will take longer for them to run the plex. But gives them an option.

3) Have the rats use small weapon systems. Having battleships shoot torpedoes is just asking players to speedtank the plexes in a small ship. Instead of torpedoes the rats should use light missiles/assault and rockets. Battleships will just fit more of them and have more damage mods. They should also use smaller guns that can track. The rats might also get a speed boost. This will mean that a) the overall dps will go down,(allowing more pvp fits to be used in plexes) but also b)the rats will hit smaller ships almost as hard as bigger ships - which means people will use the bigger ships. Perhaps some of the ships will stay in orbits throughout the range instead of chasing us if that will mean it is harder to kite them inide the orbit range.

4) Possibly increase the tank on the npcs. I'm not sure how necessary this is but its something ccp can tweak if necessary.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815

Cheekything
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#74 - 2012-06-12 15:19:44 UTC
1) Rat AI needs an update.
2) Anyone not participating in the militia should be shot by the NPCs as well, pirates are having too much fun at our expense.
3) Less Plexes overall per system.
4) Longer Timers on Plexes and more rewards for more people (or bring the right amount of people).
5) Defensive plexes are needing an update, they give no reward and it just results in everyone ping ponging the space about.
6) More Plexes Sizes, have ones for capitalship and battleships that give huge rewards but are also highly risky, means we will have more than just destroyer and cruiser fleets to play with.
7) Only spawn Plexes in waring neighboring systems, this will create point of conflict rather than who can carebear the most plexes over all factional warfare space and there can always be ones as they will get pushed towards high sec.
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#75 - 2012-06-12 15:29:50 UTC
Cheekything wrote:

7) Only spawn Plexes in waring neighboring systems, this will create point of conflict rather than who can carebear the most plexes over all factional warfare space and there can always be ones as they will get pushed towards high sec.

This isn't a very good solution - it allows a dominating entity (such as Minmatar) to focus their efforts along a very small front, and the defender will be unable to open new fronts by ninja plexing in the rear. Don't get me wrong - I don't think ninja plexing should be IMPOSSIBLE but I think that it should require a group or at least a commitment of a larger, more capable ship, rather than a day old alt in an afterburning frigate.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo

Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#76 - 2012-06-12 16:01:46 UTC
corestwo wrote:

Well, removing all ewar from all NPCs is not the way to discourage speed tanking by week old farming alts, that's for sure. Ugh



I completely agree, but the EWAR change was suggested because of the overwhelming feedback about the current *imbalance* of racial e-war, not its effect on speedtanking. Removing E-war from plexes is intended to create at least a more fair plexing environment so that some races don't suffer more than others when offensively plexing until a complete overhaul can be completed.

The increase in speed tanking would be an unwanted temporary side effect, which has now sparked this new wave of "force us to kill the rats" feedback, ironically from an historically PvP-oriented crowd. I still don't like the idea of *forcing* anyone to PvE in FW, ever, but I also understand that counter intuitively it may actually increase PvP in the long run.

Let's put it this way - are you guys are saying that you'd rather have unbalanced Ewar but less speedtanking, or more balanced plexing enviroments at the cost of some anti-speed tanking measures?

We're talking short term vs long term here, I think its best to try to reach a consensus on whether ewar removal *alone* does more harm than good, like I said its a band-aid and doesnt have to be implemented in the meantime, but its on the test server and worth discussing sooner than later.



CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary

Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#77 - 2012-06-12 16:12:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Veshta Yoshida
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
We're talking short term vs long term here, I think its best to try to reach a consensus on whether ewar removal *alone* does more harm than good, like I said its a band-aid and doesnt have to be implemented in the meantime, but its on the test server and worth discussing sooner than later.

No, the eWar band-aid is sorely needed .. your mission, should you choose to accept it .. is to make sure CCP starts planning/scheming the "real" fix ASAP so they can not only make it fit in with FW (non-FarmVille™ version) but also use it to foster a proper PvP environment .. will require a lot of thought I think, not to mention a potentially heavy workload dependent on solution chosen.

Ideally we'd have the anti-farm band-aid in the form of "Kill Everything!" in conjunction with the eWar band-aid, but that is two FW items in between expansions which is probably one more than is allowed by CCP corporate policy, labour laws or some such Blink
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#78 - 2012-06-12 16:30:15 UTC
The issue with ewar, as I understand it, is the imbalance between factions, right? Particularly with regards to caldari ECM. So would there be a problem with removing all the ewar, replacing it with a stasis tower or three per plex to bandaid the speedtanking issue, and then working on a longer term solution?

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo

Fidelium Mortis
Minor Major Miners LLC
#79 - 2012-06-12 17:51:05 UTC
Kreiga Khamsi wrote:
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Let's be honest, the EWAR isn't doing its job to prevent that anyways. At least this way no one will hesitate to go in after them, other than the fact that they could just warp off if they don't want to PvP anyways.

The only sure-fire way to force the ship up is to require the killing of NPC's. While I certainly agree this would reduce farming, I'm hestitant to require more NPC-shooting grinds in what is still a PvP system to me. I think that a lot of us would still prefer to let some speed tankers get away, than to be forced into NPC shooting. But its worthy of further discussion.

The only "real" long term solution would be something similar to what I posted early on in this thread (P.1 I believe) .. AI coding.

eWar removal will not really do much other than speed up system flips as everyone and their mother will be able to solo cap everythin; gangs are already killing rats and solo plexers generally run regardless .. should help a bit with the occasional fight that happens on/near timer before rats are killed off but not that common to begin with so 'meh'.

By the by, requiring destruction of NPCs (aka. PvE grind) is more than OK now that people are paid massive amounts of LP for their time .. on top of tags/loot gained from said destruction. Once we start doing what null has been doing for years, asking for something for nothing, then we will well and truly be lost .. FW will decompose (already dead, being flogged) and the sky fall.

PS: Looking forward to seeing the difference in plexing speed Amarr will be able to pull off when they get the same ability as the Mimes has had since day 1 (solo frig capping).


I agree with 90% of the above (and 100% of his post on page 1). Removing the EWAR from plexes will not encourage PvP, in fact I contend it will make PvP harder. Removing the EWAR will simply allow all sides to farm LP in frigs and never have to commit to a fight. There is an ever increasing number of people farming LP from plexes in frigs (some without even having guns as can be seen by KM linked earlier in this thread) who will warp out of the plex as soon as you hit the gate; they warp to a safe, most have a cloak fitted and they just wait for you leave so they can go back to farming the LP. Plexing has become more like hunting WT missioning in SB than anything else. The only real way to catch them is hope they get complacent and you surprise them.

Hans please don't take this as disrespect but removing the EWAR will not take FW back to its PvP roots; all it will do is encourage carebears to come to lowsec and farm LP with relative ease. I have not read any posts on here (I don't think) that have asked for the plexes to be easier to cap, they want it to be fair. In fact the vast majority of the posts have said that it should be harder to cap a plex (e.g. kill all the NPC). You want the LP, then earn it.

I also agree with Veshta that the NPC grind will be far less of an issue given the reward people are getting for plexing now.

I would also like to acknowledge the good work the devs are doing at trying to show FW some love and improving this area of EVE, I just don't think they have got it quite right yet. There has to be a way to stop the ridiculous amount of farming that is currently going on and get FW back the PvP roots it was founded on.

Just my thoughts.


I'll give you a couple examples of how plex EWAR discourages pvp.

A couple of days ago, I decided to take my slicer and blitz a Caldari thrasher and merlin sitting inside a fully spawned major with the hopes of burning one down before the rats burn through my tank. As the merlin enters armor, I get jammed and the merlin bails and I have to warp out as the dps starts to pile on. I try again, this time going for the thrasher, and the same thing happens after I get off my first couple of volleys.

At least on the gallente side, any engagement in a medium or major plex usually takes into account losing at least 1 ship to jamming rats, if not more if the plex is spawned more. Which means you have to either bring additional people to compensate (which often means the targets warp off), or you don't engage (senselessly losing ships). This also severely limits your options for going in with an undermanned group where every ship counts.


ICRS - Intergalactic Certified Rocket Surgeon

Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#80 - 2012-06-12 19:44:36 UTC
Fidelium Mortis wrote:
Kreiga Khamsi wrote:
Veshta Yoshida wrote:
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Let's be honest, the EWAR isn't doing its job to prevent that anyways. At least this way no one will hesitate to go in after them, other than the fact that they could just warp off if they don't want to PvP anyways.

The only sure-fire way to force the ship up is to require the killing of NPC's. While I certainly agree this would reduce farming, I'm hestitant to require more NPC-shooting grinds in what is still a PvP system to me. I think that a lot of us would still prefer to let some speed tankers get away, than to be forced into NPC shooting. But its worthy of further discussion.

The only "real" long term solution would be something similar to what I posted early on in this thread (P.1 I believe) .. AI coding.

eWar removal will not really do much other than speed up system flips as everyone and their mother will be able to solo cap everythin; gangs are already killing rats and solo plexers generally run regardless .. should help a bit with the occasional fight that happens on/near timer before rats are killed off but not that common to begin with so 'meh'.

By the by, requiring destruction of NPCs (aka. PvE grind) is more than OK now that people are paid massive amounts of LP for their time .. on top of tags/loot gained from said destruction. Once we start doing what null has been doing for years, asking for something for nothing, then we will well and truly be lost .. FW will decompose (already dead, being flogged) and the sky fall.

PS: Looking forward to seeing the difference in plexing speed Amarr will be able to pull off when they get the same ability as the Mimes has had since day 1 (solo frig capping).


I agree with 90% of the above (and 100% of his post on page 1). Removing the EWAR from plexes will not encourage PvP, in fact I contend it will make PvP harder. Removing the EWAR will simply allow all sides to farm LP in frigs and never have to commit to a fight. There is an ever increasing number of people farming LP from plexes in frigs (some without even having guns as can be seen by KM linked earlier in this thread) who will warp out of the plex as soon as you hit the gate; they warp to a safe, most have a cloak fitted and they just wait for you leave so they can go back to farming the LP. Plexing has become more like hunting WT missioning in SB than anything else. The only real way to catch them is hope they get complacent and you surprise them.

Hans please don't take this as disrespect but removing the EWAR will not take FW back to its PvP roots; all it will do is encourage carebears to come to lowsec and farm LP with relative ease. I have not read any posts on here (I don't think) that have asked for the plexes to be easier to cap, they want it to be fair. In fact the vast majority of the posts have said that it should be harder to cap a plex (e.g. kill all the NPC). You want the LP, then earn it.

I also agree with Veshta that the NPC grind will be far less of an issue given the reward people are getting for plexing now.

I would also like to acknowledge the good work the devs are doing at trying to show FW some love and improving this area of EVE, I just don't think they have got it quite right yet. There has to be a way to stop the ridiculous amount of farming that is currently going on and get FW back the PvP roots it was founded on.

Just my thoughts.


I'll give you a couple examples of how plex EWAR discourages pvp.

A couple of days ago, I decided to take my slicer and blitz a Caldari thrasher and merlin sitting inside a fully spawned major with the hopes of burning one down before the rats burn through my tank. As the merlin enters armor, I get jammed and the merlin bails and I have to warp out as the dps starts to pile on. I try again, this time going for the thrasher, and the same thing happens after I get off my first couple of volleys.

At least on the gallente side, any engagement in a medium or major plex usually takes into account losing at least 1 ship to jamming rats, if not more if the plex is spawned more. Which means you have to either bring additional people to compensate (which often means the targets warp off), or you don't engage (senselessly losing ships). This also severely limits your options for going in with an undermanned group where every ship counts.





For the amarr its just that by the time we burn to the ships by the button, if there are a significant number of rats, we will have our tank decimated before we can even point the enemy. I remember I was in a drake in an open plex and another pirate was in a drake in an open plex. We were both drawing so much aggro that by the time we got into point range we were both had to warp out. How much the painters and missile spam cause this I don't know. But I think the lack of painters can only be helpful.

These are just examples. I have had too many times that the rats have screwed up a good pvp fight to count.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815