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FW: I-hub and system upgrades

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Deerin
East Trading Co Ltd
#121 - 2012-07-13 07:33:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Deerin
Here are my (wall of text) 2 cents on the subject:

I couldn't read all posts up to here but I've seen some very nice ideas. Some of them are blended within my suggestions below.

Station Lockouts:

All we wanted before inferno was to make occupancy of a system matter. If CCP removes station lockout completely from game we'll arrive back at old occupancy system. I think some sort of lockout must still be implemented.

Binding the station lockouts to level of ths system is a good idea. This way we have to keep spending LP/defending the system if we want to deny docking rights to an enemy. A tiered system like

L1=agent denial
L2=services denial
L3=Complete lockout looks ok.

Furhtermore I'd like to make following suggestion:

Make upgrade levels limited by the contest amount of the system.
0%-20% contested Upgradeable up to L5
20%-40% contested Upgradeable up to L4
40%-60% contested Upgradeable up to L3
60%-80% contested Upgradeable up to L2
80%-100% contested Upgradeable up to L1

Thus if you want to keep the level of your system at a certain value you need to defend it. Right now there is very little incentive to keep the level of a system high though. To change that:

To flip a system your warzone control level must be up to a certain tier.

If you control 0%-20% of warzone you need to have a minimum T1 warzone control to be able to flip a vulnerable system.
If you control 20%-40% of warzone you need to have a minimum T2 warzone control to be able to flip a vulnerable system.
If you control 40%-60% of warzone you need to have a minimum T3 warzone control to be able to flip a vulnerable system.
If you control 60%-80% of warzone you need to have a minimum T4 warzone control to be able to flip a vulnerable system.
If you control 80%-100% of warzone you need to have a minimum T5 warzone control to be able to flip a vulnerable system.

This way the more systems you control, the higher the upkeep becomes to be able to capture more systems. You'll need to keep levels of your systems high if you want to be able to continue capturing more systems, thus you'll need to do defensive plexing to be able to continue on offense.

Then modify defensive plexing. Make it so that a defender does have NO effect at all on a plex of its own faction. The timer can only be ran by enemies and counts back when there are no enemies in the plex. To decontest system you need to run plexes belonging to the opposite faction which begin spawning in a system once it becomes contested and despawn once the system is no longer contested.

Change minmatar rats to projectiles and caldari rats to hybrids. The playground must be evened out. Yes this will result in more speed tanking, which brings the next point.

As a final touch. Change the way to run down the counter. To run the counter one pilot needs to go in capturing range of button and interact with it for (insert RP reason here). Once the connection to bunker is established timer begins counting and the pilots warp drive turns off. To turn the warp drive back on the pilot needs to sever the connection, which results in stopping of the timer. Severing the connection can be done by just interacting with the button. It takes 100 seconds for the warp drive to re-initialize. Optionally during these 100 seconds the pilot also might get a %50 penalty on speed, though it would ruin kiting setups (Just don't sever the connection and you get no speed penalty). Running the timer all the way down and capturing plex does not involve this 100 seconds wait time.

So when you begin the timer you are dedicated to it. If nobody cares for defending the system you can get away with just speed tanking. If enemy shows up you cannot immediately warp off. You'll have to fight. So you better be prepared.

Caerain had an idea about alerting plexing presence. I believe this can be connected to the upgrade level of the system.

At L1 there will be no alerts.
A L2 system wil alert if there are any offensive plexes open in system. On the FW tab these systems will have a different hue. When mouse hovers on the system normally there is only name.
A L3 system will make a list of open plexes sizes in the system and put it below name of system on mouseover.
A L4 will colorize those being actively run as green.
A L5 system will give you plex timers.

For example Lets assume Amarr are offensive plexing in Auga. There are 2 minors and a med open and there is a slicer in minor and a Omen Navy Issue in Med.

If Auga were a L1 system it would be just another system on the FW map.
If Auga were a L2 system its system color would turn from light blue to dark blue on FW map. (For defending side that is)
If Auga were a L3 system, when you get your mouse over it you would see the name followed by minor, minor, medium
If Auga were a L4 system, one of the minors on the list and the medium would turn green
If Auga were a L5 system, you would get the timer information along with the sizes.

So if you want to have an information network going on you should at least have L2. To see if the plexes are actively being ran or not would require the system to be minimum L4.

Well...that would be all I guess.

Edit: The MWD penalty.
Edit2: Button range connection severing removed. MWD penalty changed.
Edit3: Alert idea
Fidelium Mortis
Minor Major Miners LLC
#122 - 2012-07-13 20:26:30 UTC
IbanezLaney wrote:
Neuts should not get any gain from Militia upgrades.

If anything - neutrals should pay a penalty to use the stations services. The penalty should be directly converted into LP and dumped into the iHub. This gives the system holder a form of payment for their work and stops the leeches gaining for no work.

The tier system is far too extreme on both ends of the scale. Tier 1 and 5 should simply be removed - leaving 3 workable tiers.


How about having an upgrade benefit that would encourage neuts to enter low-sec, but also have part of the charges for the services paid back into the system sort of like a POCO.

Honestly, I would like to encourage more neuts (so it should be a bonus not a penalty), it just means there's more to shoot at and the low-sec markets will probably be a bit better stocked. A few things they could add, are bonuses to refining/reprocessing, research, manufacturing, invention, copying. Even a 1-5% bonus I think would be enticing enough.

ICRS - Intergalactic Certified Rocket Surgeon
Justin Cody
War Firm
#123 - 2012-07-15 02:14:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Justin Cody
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
This is a discussion about system upgrades received when donating LP into the FW infrastructure hub, and how to make them more appealing after Inferno. Please refer to the FW blog for more details.


At the moment they are:

  • Upgrade level 1 - 10,000 LPs required: +1 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 10% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 10% reduction in market / contract broker fees

  • Upgrade level 2 - 25,000 LPs required: +2 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 20% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 20% reduction in market / contract broker fees

  • Upgrade level 3 - 45,000 LPs required: +3 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 30% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 30% reduction in market / contract broker fees

  • Upgrade level 4 - 70,000 LPs required: +4 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 40% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 40% reduction in market / contract broker fees

  • Upgrade level 5 - 100,000 LPs required: +5 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 50% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 50% reduction in market / contract broker fees

  • Buffer - 100,000+ to 150,000 LPs


* Slots are only given for stations that already have that given activity before upgrade. For instance: a station only having science slots will not receive extra manufacturing slots.

It's a start, but nothing fancy. We would like to iterate on that after Inferno, and we have already heard some good comments, but your input is welcome.


Some ideas, not necessarily in any order:

  • Bring back the cyno jammer, if polished enough to be shot down by neutral third parties. Fanfest taught us it is a very tricky move, so we want to hear from all interested parties here
  • Move station deny docking from being automatic when a system is captured to something that only happens when the enemy upgrade a system to level X
  • Provide science, manufacturing time reduction bonuses to further encourage industry in low-security space


Speaking of which, how do you feel about neutrals having access to your precious upgrades? As explained in the blog, the original goal was to promote an industrial backbone in low-security space, but you may feel differently.



Thanks for your time!


Neutrals are fine as long as noob corps are also banned from docking.

cyno jammer would be great; +1 if we can get gate guns on our side (or at least not shooting us)
IbanezLaney
The Church of Awesome
#124 - 2012-07-17 06:46:00 UTC
Fidelium Mortis wrote:
IbanezLaney wrote:
Neuts should not get any gain from Militia upgrades.

If anything - neutrals should pay a penalty to use the stations services. The penalty should be directly converted into LP and dumped into the iHub. This gives the system holder a form of payment for their work and stops the leeches gaining for no work.

The tier system is far too extreme on both ends of the scale. Tier 1 and 5 should simply be removed - leaving 3 workable tiers.


How about having an upgrade benefit that would encourage neuts to enter low-sec, but also have part of the charges for the services paid back into the system sort of like a POCO.

Honestly, I would like to encourage more neuts (so it should be a bonus not a penalty), it just means there's more to shoot at and the low-sec markets will probably be a bit better stocked. A few things they could add, are bonuses to refining/reprocessing, research, manufacturing, invention, copying. Even a 1-5% bonus I think would be enticing enough.



Good perspective -
We just need a workable idea that gives the Militia who gained the upgrades slightly more benefits than the players who didn't gain the upgrades.
If someone dumps 150k LP in a hub and it's Tier4 push day. That player has just wiped well over a billion isk off his wallet - I feel that this deserves better reward than you get for being a neutral who just happens to dock in an upgraded system.

Invention chance being 10-15% higher would be a good tie in with the LP store Datacores for an upgrade.

So many good ideas in this thread (and some not so good). I hope CCP actually go out and play some FW on secret alts and get a feel for it before they make any decisions on the next patch.

https://soundcloud.com/ibanezlaney
Saul Elsyn
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#125 - 2012-07-18 22:15:07 UTC
Faction Warfare: Issues
System Upgrades and Defensive Plexing

Faction Warfare’s current system for System Upgrades is rather broken in a number of different ways. For one thing, the idea of Militia members paying LP to upgrade systems seems rather… strange when you step back and look at it. Essentially, aren’t we paying the faction we’re working for to secure and upgrade their own territories? We’re essentially bribing them to decrease prices in the LP store resulting in a rather weird pulse mechanic to the use of LP and the securing of systems.

The problems with the current tier system and how it affects the market for factional equipment is something I could write several dozen articles on and still not fully explain, and that’s not the point of this post either.

This is about system tier mechanics, not overall tier mechanics. The benefits to upgrading a system should be two fold… for one thing upgrading a system should benefit the nation that upgrades it, and it should improve the economic viability of the system for neutral players in the no-man’s land between empires.

In short, upgrading a system represents securing it for the faction you’re flying for. In null-sec this means a number of different things from jump bridges being established, POS structures being put up, and ultimately cyno-jammers and stations being anchored.

Nothing happens in low-sec except increasing industrial output at stations and if enough systems are upgraded… a kick up the overall tier so you can purchase more stuff from the LP store. I mean, what if there isn't a station in the system?

This goes hand in hand with another sad fact about faction warfare. There is very little to no benefit to defensive plexing.

Solving both things could be done relatively easily…

Instead of being based upon LP donations, the tier should be based on victory points. Defensive plexing awards victory points to the defender which are logged in the I-Hub much like how LP is now. Hostile plexing in the system removes victory points from the I-Hub. When a system runs out of victory points it’s I-Hub becomes vulnerable and can be taken by an attack by the hostile militia.

Defensive plexing upgrades a system… upgraded systems are easier to defend as they only become downgraded by hostile plexing… we don’t futilely spend LP to surge a system’s tier in order to cash out our LP and so forth.

Making upgrades more worthwhile could take a number of different routes. Take for example the mechanics of having a fleet booster in a system. Imagine if an upgrade to leveling a system was a factional boost from the systems command center or something similar of 5 to 10% boost to shields, armor, structure, what have you... There are tons of things that could be done from defensive NPC patrols at gates, asteroids, and stations to cyno-jammers and other things that have been seen in null-sec.
Plyn
Uncharted.
#126 - 2012-07-19 19:09:43 UTC
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1656529#post1656529

Post I made earlier on exactly this subject in regards to a roundtable discussion linked at the beginning of that thread:

Heard some great ideas in that roundtable. To throw in my two cents, and elaborate on some of what I liked:


  1. Change system upgrades to modify plex behavior.


    • In a completely unupgraded system there are no rats in plexes at all. This means that newbies can come into FW and lurk around the less populated areas still earning their LP, having a tangible benefit to the militia.

    • Each level of system upgrade increases the defensive hold the faction has on the plexes in that system. Starting off with just some basic rats.

    • Level two can add some elite rats, maybe some scrams but not necessarily webs, meaning the plexer is more commited to the plex because it's harder to gtfo, but they aren't a sitting duck forced to PvE.

    • Level 3 upgrade can add those webs in. At this level of investment into a system the plexers have to consider better strategy. Multiple pilots in PvP ships working together, or maybe a PvP + PvE team.

    • Increasing difficulty at level 4 and 5 upgrades. At the highest level the plexes should be difficult enough to do that a decent fleet is required. Not incursion level or anything, because you are expecting some PvP conflict, but definitely not something you would want to afk either.

    • This provides fleet conflict points and protects core systems from being over-contested by LPfarm alts. Scale loyalty points for plexes with the increased difficulty. If a plex normally gave 20k LP and you could do it solo, at level 3 you need a couple of people to do it, put a multiplier on that LP so when it's split it's worth it for fleets to do them together.

    • Modify LP costs to upgrade systems so it's fairly expensive to fortify your position. Include a cost modifier correlating to your militia's Tier, meaning if your militia controls almost the entire warzone it will be MUCH more costly to upgrade systems, making it unprofitable for players to make the whole warzone harder to capture.

    • Sounds like a lot of grinding right? Modify bunker HP in upgraded systems... or rather, modify bunker HP in general and give a bonus to upgraded systems. In a fully upgraded system a bunker would have about the same HP as it has now. In an non-upgraded system these should be much easier to destroy. This allows no-name backwater systems to become hotbeds for small gang FW conflict, where a small contingent of players might work up contest for a day or two then come in with a 5 man fleet and flip the bunker in half an hour. The other militia can scramble to put a defense together, but neither side will feel like they have to wait for off hours to make a play on a system that has little tactical significance. Sure, you can bring a huge fleet and flip that non-upgraded bunker really fast, but your exposing a larger group of assets to accomplish a goal a smaller group could do.

    • The need to defend systems with middle level upgrades will feel more urgent, as militias will not want the LP dumped into upgrades to be wasted.


  2. As mentioned in that wonderful round table, modify the Tier system's benefits to give bonus LP when you gain LP instead of modifying the LP store's item cost.


    • This gives a direct, tangible benefit to capturing systems instead of sitting on vulnerable systems. There should be a constant sense of urgency to flip or defend systems. Being able to completely dismiss your systems being captured and experiencing no real loss in the long run is both immersion breaking and conducive to player apathy.

    • This will give players more incentive to defensively plex, as losing any one system could actually matter.

    • Militias that are currently losing won't feel such a morale hit because their LP will still feel like it's worth something, even if they aren't earning as much of it.




Bender 01000010
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#127 - 2012-07-31 06:02:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Bender 01000010
What if:

- you make local chat beacons (which authenticate, detect and show every player in - LOCAL chat - of the current solar system) to be an upgrade which can be purchased and can be anchored in your newly conquered solar systems)

- you need to place more than one of this local chat beacons in a solar systems, in order to have a good coverage so you can detect and authenticate automatically any player in that solar systems. This have some flaws because there will be blind spots where you cannot be detected thus you can "disappear from local chat" as you left the solar system.

- you could scan with your covert ops frigate for some blind spots in a solar system, where you can warp in that area and disappear from local, because the local subspace beacon don't have coverage in certain areas (like behind planets, certain space clouds, etc).

- Black Ops ship will have native the ability to see the coverage of the local chat beacons on map and be able to warp to blind spots in order to disappear from local chat for some serious guerrilla action.


For comments, click for this thread
Garviel Tarrant
Beyond Divinity Inc
Shadow Cartel
#128 - 2012-08-06 04:17:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Garviel Tarrant
The upgrades should work for neutrals.

The citizens reap the benefits of the army, why shouldn't they?

BYDI recruitment closed-ish

Cheekybiatch
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#129 - 2012-08-14 01:10:36 UTC
Honestly the iHub system doesn't work.

LP is not a good source of fuel, I think that when you do a FW plex or get a kill you get another kinda of currency, as LP is just that another form of currency, however this one should just for upgrades.

The reason I say this is that people are greedy and don't want to see their investment made null and void after 24 hours, which happens oh so too often.

So the more systems you control the more LP you get and the less upgrade points, the less systems you control the less LP but the more upgrade points.

As for upgrades copy null sec, get more mining and plexing going on then people might actually try to keep areas as currently once you upgrade a system it's kinda pointless.

Oh and jumpbridges and cyno beacons would be kinda cool too, I mean if cynojammers are on the table.

And the sov should be claimed by a corp within the FW or something you know to get their name on the map and look tough and cool and macho.
Zarnak Wulf
Task Force 641
Empyrean Edict
#130 - 2012-08-14 15:14:25 UTC
This thread hasn't had any dev love in almost two and a half months. It either needs some feedback to redirect the conversation or it should be unstickied.
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#131 - 2012-08-14 15:16:53 UTC
Zarnak Wulf wrote:
This thread hasn't had any dev love in almost two and a half months. It either needs some feedback to redirect the conversation or it should be unstickied.



I think it should be unstickied. It should be clear that faction farming has more pressing problems than fine tuning the Ihub rewards.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#132 - 2012-08-14 21:42:36 UTC
Cearain wrote:
Zarnak Wulf wrote:
This thread hasn't had any dev love in almost two and a half months. It either needs some feedback to redirect the conversation or it should be unstickied.



I think it should be unstickied. It should be clear that faction farming has more pressing problems than fine tuning the Ihub rewards.


And those pressing problems will be addressed as well. No one should assume that because these are the only two things that are stickied that they are all that's being worked on or that they are necessarily the utmost priority. But I know for a fact that CCP is still actively seeking player ideas not only for what they want to see as IHUB rewards but also what they want to see in a plex content revamp. As long as they're still gathering input, these should stay stickied.

The reason you haven't seen dev love in two and a half months is because they've been working on other release builds and on vacation. Everyone's returning to work on the Winter expansion now, I'm sure you'll hear more as time goes on, and these threads are still monitored as long as they're up and being contributed to.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary
Zarnak Wulf
Task Force 641
Empyrean Edict
#133 - 2012-08-23 13:21:30 UTC
Another idea:

IF you have an office in a system and IF your corp/alliance put LP into the system upgrades - you get a portion of all the fees your station generates for repair bills, manufacturing, research, ect. If three militia corporations had offices in one system, for example, and only one had upgraded the system - that corp would get all the fees. If two put in equal shares it would be split. If one put in 60% and the other two did 30%.... you get the idea.
Cearain
Plus 10 NV
#134 - 2012-08-23 14:18:13 UTC
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
Cearain wrote:
Zarnak Wulf wrote:
This thread hasn't had any dev love in almost two and a half months. It either needs some feedback to redirect the conversation or it should be unstickied.



I think it should be unstickied. It should be clear that faction farming has more pressing problems than fine tuning the Ihub rewards.


And those pressing problems will be addressed as well. No one should assume that because these are the only two things that are stickied that they are all that's being worked on or that they are necessarily the utmost priority. But I know for a fact that CCP is still actively seeking player ideas not only for what they want to see as IHUB rewards but also what they want to see in a plex content revamp. As long as they're still gathering input, these should stay stickied.

The reason you haven't seen dev love in two and a half months is because they've been working on other release builds and on vacation. Everyone's returning to work on the Winter expansion now, I'm sure you'll hear more as time goes on, and these threads are still monitored as long as they're up and being contributed to.



Somehow I have a feeling we will still have a broken system (that will still resemble null sec mining more than combat) after winter but with more fluff on upgrades. Keep them focused hans.

If I were king of the forest (on csm) I would refuse to discuss anything until I was sure that they were taking steps to ensure plexing was a pvp mechanic.

Make faction war occupancy pvp instead of pve https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=53815&#post53815
CCP Ytterbium
C C P
C C P Alliance
#135 - 2012-08-23 16:47:20 UTC
There is a reason why this thread is still a sticky and will stay as one.

Moar info soon. And it's soon, not soon™, so expect it soon, Mr. Spoon™.
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#136 - 2012-08-23 19:27:49 UTC  |  Edited by: corestwo
I wrote a few (hundred (ok more than that)) words about my thoughts on FW here: http://themittani.com/features/dissection-game-system-faction-warfare

Discussion after the fact spawned what I think is a really great idea. Credit where credit's due: Weaselior (of Goonwaffe) came up with this idea, and its definitely a "more elegant" solution to the problem of "coordinated cashouts", among others.

Basically, do two things. First, make donating LP directly to infrastructure hubs not a thing. Remove the ability.

Second implement a system where hubs gain LP through player action. Attacking a hostile plex, or scoring PvP kills in a hostile system, would add LP equal to a percentage of the earned LP to the nearest friendly hub ("nearest" most likely by absolute astronomical distance or something). In friendly systems, LP generating kills contribute to the system's hub, and players could be rewarded with LP for defensively plexing - a smaller reward than offensive plexing, to be sure, but the contribution to the system's hub could receive a bonus as an extra incentive.

These bonus contributions to the hub could also come in the form of a tax, which may be preferable, as it still means players are losing LP to upgrade their systems - they're just doing it involuntarily. That'd be for CCP to decide. Likewise, the size of the contribution would have to be tweaked - too small and it remains too easy to offset with offensive plexing, and achieving and maintaining higher levels of warzone control is too hard, but too large, and its too easy.

The overall effect here would be that defending systems would be incentivized, as it would give your hubs a larger bonus, and it would force players to actually participate - the "coordinated cashouts" that are the norm now would be dead.

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

fofofo
EvilweaselFinance
GoonCorp
Goonswarm Federation
#137 - 2012-08-23 19:51:43 UTC  |  Edited by: EvilweaselFinance
It also happens to make it entirely unnecessary to try and bribe people to keep their systems upgraded (which they won't: maybe you bribe people into keeping a top-tier system or two around, but anything more than that ain't happening).

Your faction's tier will reflect how well you are doing, and the only way to change it will be by winning or losing - just as it should be.
Hans Jagerblitzen
Ice Fire Warriors
#138 - 2012-08-23 21:40:04 UTC
corestwo wrote:
I wrote a few (hundred (ok more than that)) words about my thoughts on FW here: http://themittani.com/features/dissection-game-system-faction-warfare

Discussion after the fact spawned what I think is a really great idea. Credit where credit's due: Weaselior (of Goonwaffe) came up with this idea, and its definitely a "more elegant" solution to the problem of "coordinated cashouts", among others.

Basically, do two things. First, make donating LP directly to infrastructure hubs not a thing. Remove the ability.

Second implement a system where hubs gain LP through player action. Attacking a hostile plex, or scoring PvP kills in a hostile system, would add LP equal to a percentage of the earned LP to the nearest friendly hub ("nearest" most likely by absolute astronomical distance or something). In friendly systems, LP generating kills contribute to the system's hub, and players could be rewarded with LP for defensively plexing - a smaller reward than offensive plexing, to be sure, but the contribution to the system's hub could receive a bonus as an extra incentive.

These bonus contributions to the hub could also come in the form of a tax, which may be preferable, as it still means players are losing LP to upgrade their systems - they're just doing it involuntarily. That'd be for CCP to decide. Likewise, the size of the contribution would have to be tweaked - too small and it remains too easy to offset with offensive plexing, and achieving and maintaining higher levels of warzone control is too hard, but too large, and its too easy.

The overall effect here would be that defending systems would be incentivized, as it would give your hubs a larger bonus, and it would force players to actually participate - the "coordinated cashouts" that are the norm now would be dead.


I see where you're going with this, you're certainly zeroing in one a very important problem, but I really believe the solution is much simpler. Fix the LP store prices at pre-inferno levels for all factions, and modulate the LP rewards for the various activities by a multiplier instead. This instantly eliminates the ability to "spike" the market, and it holds factions accountable for their current progress. Right now a faction can live at Tier 1 all week long, and cash out all their LP in an hour window on the weekend, and go right back to living at Tier 1 all the time. This is pretty broken, and it encourages everyone to chase the tier 5 spike (and discourages them from cashing out UNLESS they hit the tier 5 spike).

The problem people will point out right away with this change is the bleed-out - its way too easy to drain an IHUB quickly of its upgrades, which provides a disincentive to use them for anything other than spiking the market. This is easily fixed by tweaking the rate of the bleed-out. The other obvious problem is "snowballing" of the winning militia, meaning the more LP you earn the easier it is to maintain your upgrades. This is also easily fixable by scaling the amount of LP it takes to upgrade, based on your WZC control.

With a few mathematical adjustments to make it easier to maintain a given Tier level, scaling LP payouts instead of the store pricing will reward factions based on their current performance, and allow all players to cash out their LP freely at any time (helping them stay in the game and supplied with isk and ships) instead of the situation we have now where the losing faction just accumulates their LP, spending little and waiting for a savior to come in and help them achieve the magic system number needed to spike the market to the appropriate level. This change also heavily encourages those that are merely in FW to farm LP and isk (a valid reason to participate) to actually care about the state of the war on a day-to-day basis, which was the original design intent.

CPM0 Chairman / CSM7 Vice Secretary
Bienator II
madmen of the skies
#139 - 2012-08-23 21:53:14 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
There is a reason why this thread is still a sticky and will stay as one.

Moar info soon. And it's soon, not soon™, so expect it soon, Mr. Spoon™.

Bienator II wrote:

- no LP payout for plexing in vulnerable systems (or equivalent mechanic which discourages farming)
- timer runs backwards if you leave the flag of a plex
- requirement to kill all NPCs in a plex
- no FW missions in friendly space

please!

how to fix eve: 1) remove ECM 2) rename dampeners to ECM 3) add new anti-drone ewar for caldari 4) give offgrid boosters ongrid combat value
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#140 - 2012-08-23 22:07:05 UTC  |  Edited by: corestwo
Hans Jagerblitzen wrote:
corestwo wrote:
I wrote a few (hundred (ok more than that)) words about my thoughts on FW here: http://themittani.com/features/dissection-game-system-faction-warfare

Discussion after the fact spawned what I think is a really great idea. Credit where credit's due: Weaselior (of Goonwaffe) came up with this idea, and its definitely a "more elegant" solution to the problem of "coordinated cashouts", among others.

Basically, do two things. First, make donating LP directly to infrastructure hubs not a thing. Remove the ability.

Second implement a system where hubs gain LP through player action. Attacking a hostile plex, or scoring PvP kills in a hostile system, would add LP equal to a percentage of the earned LP to the nearest friendly hub ("nearest" most likely by absolute astronomical distance or something). In friendly systems, LP generating kills contribute to the system's hub, and players could be rewarded with LP for defensively plexing - a smaller reward than offensive plexing, to be sure, but the contribution to the system's hub could receive a bonus as an extra incentive.

These bonus contributions to the hub could also come in the form of a tax, which may be preferable, as it still means players are losing LP to upgrade their systems - they're just doing it involuntarily. That'd be for CCP to decide. Likewise, the size of the contribution would have to be tweaked - too small and it remains too easy to offset with offensive plexing, and achieving and maintaining higher levels of warzone control is too hard, but too large, and its too easy.

The overall effect here would be that defending systems would be incentivized, as it would give your hubs a larger bonus, and it would force players to actually participate - the "coordinated cashouts" that are the norm now would be dead.


I see where you're going with this, you're certainly zeroing in one a very important problem, but I really believe the solution is much simpler. Fix the LP store prices at pre-inferno levels for all factions, and modulate the LP rewards for the various activities by a multiplier instead. This instantly eliminates the ability to "spike" the market, and it holds factions accountable for their current progress. Right now a faction can live at Tier 1 all week long, and cash out all their LP in an hour window on the weekend, and go right back to living at Tier 1 all the time. This is pretty broken, and it encourages everyone to chase the tier 5 spike (and discourages them from cashing out UNLESS they hit the tier 5 spike).

The problem people will point out right away with this change is the bleed-out - its way too easy to drain an IHUB quickly of its upgrades, which provides a disincentive to use them for anything other than spiking the market. This is easily fixed by tweaking the rate of the bleed-out. The other obvious problem is "snowballing" of the winning militia, meaning the more LP you earn the easier it is to maintain your upgrades. This is also easily fixable by scaling the amount of LP it takes to upgrade, based on your WZC control.

With a few mathematical adjustments to make it easier to maintain a given Tier level, scaling LP payouts instead of the store pricing will reward factions based on their current performance, and allow all players to cash out their LP freely at any time (helping them stay in the game and supplied with isk and ships) instead of the situation we have now where the losing faction just accumulates their LP, spending little and waiting for a savior to come in and help them achieve the magic system number needed to spike the market to the appropriate level. This change also heavily encourages those that are merely in FW to farm LP and isk (a valid reason to participate) to actually care about the state of the war on a day-to-day basis, which was the original design intent.


So, let me summarize. "You get rewards for joining the losing side, and you get MORE rewards for joining the winning side."

Assuming I've summarized correctly, how does your system do anything but encourage more and more players to join the winning side? The closest thing that I see seems to be increasing the amount of LP it takes to upgrade the higher you get - presumably doing so to a greater degree than already exists, since upgrading a system from 0 to 1 is already cheaper than from 2 to 3 and so on. This doesn't really seem to incentivize joining the losing side, it merely makes an already snowballing winning side have a little bit harder time maintaining their WZC.

I also find railing against "a savior" curious when you argued in your comments on my article that success "needs to be achieved through tactical and organizational superiority by those participating in the combat." While the examples of flip-flopping we've had have come through outside intervention (namely Nulli), is this somehow different from an organized corp of what are otherwise regular FW pilots working together?


e: It occurs to me - your explanation makes sense if you see the coordinated cashouts as a problem, but have no issue with one faction being entirely dominant. I don't suppose this is the case, is it? If so, how is that interesting?

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

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