Warfare & Tactics

TL;DR at bottom even though I tried to get to the point :)

Alright, so I've been enlisted in Minmatar militia for about 2 weeks now, and it really is just a farm fest. Alts all over the place on all sides (more alts farm minmitar atm i wonder why), and I overhear too much about farming LP. Its sickening. I have read a lot of threads on here and there are other people that tend to agree. I took some time and thought of a few tweaks that could make FW better (for all sides). Some of these are summaries of other peoples ideas as well.

Before going into this list, I should note that all of the following changes depend on each of the other changes for a good end-result.

1) Defensive plexing LP should have no change in payout scaling based on the contested % level of the system. I plexed a novice after chasing a war target out of my system (he got one of the plexes and it went from stable to 0.05% contested), because I wanted it stable again. I live there, and I like the idea of holding space. I got like a 70 LP payout on a novice. There's no incentive to get your home stable, and keep it stable. Anyone enlisted in FW, that is based out of a low sec FW system will totally agree on this one. If you mission and/or mine in high sec, that doesn't qualify as living in low sec, sorry. You either live in low sec or you don't.

2) Offensive plexing should be opposite from the way it is now (I was goona say the same, but i think opposite would be needed to prevent excessive farming). More contested systems should get more LP for offensive plexing, and less contested systems should pay very little. The people that want to offensive plex should get more of a benefit on the front lines in a contested area (encouraging more PVP too). Therefore, if a person does happen to get behind your lines to one of your stable systems and farms all night while you sleep, your IHUB won't be as depleted, and they haven't made as much.

3) I like the idea of offensive plexing taking LP out of the IHUB directly. However, what ends up happening is that ihubs get left up to a select few people to donate very large amounts of LP to maintain high level. I propose that all LP payouts from defensive plexing go to back into the IHUB. If the buffer and everything is full, then payout LP to the militia member. I hate hearing about people talking about the next big LP cashout with their alts.

4) System upgrade level doesn't have enough meaning. Maybe if it gave LP discounts to non-FW LP stores (Some people don't go to high sec to run missions). Belt rat spawn quality? I would appreciate a few ideas on this. In order to have change #3 have a benefit, system upgrade meaningfulness absolutely needs to be addressed.

5) This has been mentioned before by Hans I think, but PVP kills on war targets should be a fixed tier payout. WT Kills should have a very handsome LP payout for both sides.

6) From what I've seem about FW missions, here are the ideas that I agree with the most:
a) You should only be able to grab one mission at a time.
b) You shouldn't be able to solo a L4 in a SB. You should have to kill all, or a large group of targets, like most (not all) other non-FW combat missions. To help with safety a bit, missions shouldn't send you deep into enemy space. Still make the mission beacon able to be warped to, but at least make it in a system you control so that you can reship to a PVP ship to defend the mission should you have visitors. On the plus side, maybe this will decrease tag prices too for the losing faction.

6) I'm not sure on the plex spawn mechanics, but I think a lower plex cap would be nice. Someone told me they saw this amarr system with like 9-10 plexes in it. I feel sorry for the guy that has to defend that when a fleet shows up and runs down like all the timers. They will just say F*** that is what will happen.

Station lockout is a good change. When there is that kind of risk involved, it does make me want to do my part and defend. Sadly the current mechanics just encourage alt farming.

Thank you to whoever reads this. Constructive feedback welcome.

TL;DR:
- FW IS TOO **** FARMABLE
- There needs to be more incentive to de-plex before it reaches a high contested
- There needs to be incentive to offensive plex on the front lines, in more contested systems, and less incentive to offensive plex backwater systems.
- IHUB should fill from LP of defensive plexing, before paying the player, instead of a select few militia donating hundreds of thousands of LP.
- System upgrades need to have much more meaning (ESPECIALLY with the defenders plex LP going directly to ihub first)
- PVP kills need its own LP payout system, regardless of tier.
- FW missions: Should only have 1 at a time, and spawn in a system your faction controls so its easier to reship to defend it if you get company, and shouldn't be soloable in a SB at L4. Might also decrease some tag prices, since they could be salvaged/looted easier.
- Some systems just have way too many plexes sometimes.

I wasn't even trying to read the Eve-O forums. I googled the word 'bitter' and it brought me here.

I think they will all switch to Minmatar after our allies reach Tier 5. People like Minmatar faction ships more than Gallente faction ships for some stupid reason.

even more dumb that no one likes amarr faction ships

Let me go through your points step by step:

• FW needs to be some source of ISK/LP income to keep it attractive. This also means it will always be farmable in some way. This is fine as long as you can easily interrupt the farming operations which is currently true. Current mechanics is much much better than the past ones.
• No. Current mechanics gives incentive to decontest highly contested systems, this is economically well designed and it doesn't demotivate the enemy completely. In low contested systems even a weak enemy can achive some results which is motivating.
• No. You should leave some choices to the people. If I feel bullish I go for high contested enemy systems to foster PVP. If you feel you need just to farm a bit you can go to less contested systems.
• This would completely discourage defending non-home systems.
• I agree.
• Not sure about this.
• I agree.
• Don't see the problem here.

I think what CCP really needs to rework is the faction warefare LP store. There are some items which are worth to be bought and used on frigates like Faction Medium Shield Extenders while other stuff like Faction Guns or Faction Afterburner / MWD are completely overpriced especially if compared to Gisti and the other similar faction items.

Partially agree OP. But the thing that bothers me most about FW plexing is how MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING it is to stare at a timer for 20 minutes! I mean, good lord! By comparison, any L4 mission is a visual feast! Seriously, I did some plexing this Saturday, and after about 40 mins I logged off before I seriously started to consider leaving FW and moving to do something else. The plexing is STUPEFYINGLY boring. I mean, I know EVE is queen of boring gameplay, but this new plexing with a single NPC at the start really takes the cake.

Faction Warfare is fine. FW offers a pilot anything you might want. Solo. Small group. Fleet doctrine. Kitchen sink fleets. There are a couple of threads complaining about this and that within FW now and I think they are approaching it from the wrong angle. The plexing system is simple and simple is very good. The problem lies more in outside factors that need to be addressed by their lonesome.

Null is one example. It's horrendously boring. There's no real reason to own space. There's no desire to go there for new pilots, corporations, or even alliances. Why does this matter to FW? Because it should be an escape valve of sorts. Do you feel like you won? Are you tired of chasing 10 guys with 40? Maybe you're on the losing side and just need a change of scenery. Maybe it's time to 'graduate' to another area of the game. That other area of the game isn't going to be Null. As a side note - all the threads complaining about ganking in high sec? A lot of nullbears bored out of their minds. If a couple more corporations had left Minmatar for greener pastures after Amarr had been reduced to just Sahtogas it may have been a completely different ballgame now. People complaining about symptoms without addressing the real issue.

Why should I want to own Dal outside of some bragging rights? What if one of the stations was famous for producing assault frigates and gave a bonus of 10% less minerals for their construction if owned by the Minmatar? Vard has a temperate planet in it and was originally owned my Minmatar. What if Amarr got a 5% bonus to lots of industry functions due to slave labor for conquering it? What if a quarter of all of Eve's isogen was in the Heimatar system in a large vein rather then boringly spread equally between systems? These are all just spur of the moment thoughts I have no real attachment to. Nonetheless, this isn't rocket science.

You want to make FW better? Fix null. Fix low-sec. Address OGB (preferably after the other two are addressed.) Have DCM and Johnpaul have a beer summit. Etc. Etc.

How are the Amarr Navy BS ?

gold fleet best fleet.
you can join A-VNG whenever.

Zarnak is, allegedly, my enemy, but I somehow feel like the inevitability of beer summits between us because he makes so much sense.

To the OP: your whole post is like "Hello 2013 this is September 2012 calling!"

Anyone who was present for the recent Battle of Aset could not claim that FW 'sov' is not important, and that this is just about farming everything up. The Amarr arguably farmed Lamaa, Roushzar, Vard to death just for the ISK payouts, and the Minmaar farmed Aset, Kurn, Saidusairos, Halmah, etc, for the LP's. Unfortunately this has resulted in over 1,000 kills in Aset alone in the past fortnight, which is a real bummer to all us farming alts, because the profit margins just aren't in it when 40-on-40 small fleet fights with the new ber-awesome T1 cruisers interrupt orbiting buttons.

In other words, yes, LP payouts accrue when you offensively plex a system. The Minmatar right now leverage as much off farming alts, who ratchet up contestation of all systems but also of the Amarr who clearly currently don't have the will, firepower, or sobriety to counter by defplexing - which is boring.

Likewise, wads of Metro are being farmed by the Amarr now, as is Gulm, etc, and someone must be dumping LPs into the Amarr i-hubs because they hit tier 3 for a while there, facilitating bulk cashouts. Certainly plenty of missions get pod-spawned by Amarr alts, and then run by chicken-livered Amarr mission bears (Elgrimm, etc) - clearly because the Amarr are entirely PVP focused. (also, its the holidays, egg nog does weird things to FW).

FW right now is dynamic; the Amarr bounced back from Sahtogas to claim a dozen or more systems. Now they are being beat back. This is occurring amidst massive amounts of PVP; if I can recruit ten people into my corp to join in the PVP, then this means there are scads of people who are seeing FW as a vibrant, active place for small gang PVP - and making ISK for toys.

None of your solutions, save for limiting the number of level 4's and making them less soloable than they are, have any chance of changing the game.

I would agree with Zarnak. CCP's next step aside from BC, BS, CS and T3 balancing, is to attemtp to rework the nullsec mechanic to make the whole nullsec experience more exciting and less inevitably owned by goons/test than it is now. Because, as he says, right now your only way of joining a smaller, independent, non-farming organisation in nullsec is to join FW lowsec, or get on the wrong side of history and be masochistic (ie; -AAA-).

Fixing the rest of lowsec? There's ideas for pirate-faction FW. It is worth looking at this, otherwise all of lowsec is going to be FW or nothing (aka Aridia).