Warfare & Tactics

I happily report a reduction in plex farming and a gnashing of teeth in militia chat. As Amarr is currently only at Tier one I can only imagine the tears in the Minmatar militia channel. (Please share. Pleeeeease!)

WTB: Offensive Plexing Farming Alts. They ain't in Anchauttes today. Will be interesting to see the VP numbers over the next couple days.

yes tears has been bountiful in the militia chat.

so far:

"They are ruining Eve with these changes."

"FW farming is now dead?.."

"Omg so now I cant do any more missions?"
followed by two guys comforting him that it still works with SB and that its still easy to escape ganks.

will take a look tomorrow and see if I find some more quotes. Today was a good day.

http://i.imgur.com/KDdNP1r.png

this is all we need to know for now. we will see tomorrow

Just to clarify, could you capture a plex while cloaked? Or do farmers cloak up when a hostile arrives and decloak when it leaves?

It's been a while since i been in FW, maybe I should return

about time CCP "Ruined" FW and made it more PvP oriented than orbit oriented

I don't care for farmers, but I do care that the constant attempt to appease the anti-farmer lobby has damaged solo pvp in the plexes. I went in a novice plex yesterday in a Breacher, a proper PvP fit that I've killed dozens of capsuleer faction frigates, dessies and even cruisers with. But I couldn't kill the frigate rat. I gave up after about 5 minutes and left. That was just the first one, remember they now respawn every 2 or 3 minutes.

This may damage farmers. Some will leave FW, some will change to just deplexing high contested systems and some will start fitting proper combat ships. All that seems to be a good thing, but I can't see it resulting in more fights in the plexes at least for solo players. Very few will actually stand and fight in what is an offensive plex to them. Even if they do clear the initial rat, another will spawn in the middle of the PvP fight and of course instances of attacking an offensive plex with a player in it, where you know a hard rat will definitely be up will reduce considerably. Unless of course the attacker is a neutral.

Instances of gang fights in the plexes could possibly suffer too. Because there will be less need to deplex generally. Thus, you see a 10 man fleet in your home system and there is only 6 or you online, why try to take a one sided fight when it won't make a difference? There won't be the fear that if you leave them, they will run the whole plex stack and reach a momentum that could threaten the system. Instead one man can run down a couple of defensive plex later, cause you don't need to worry about enemy farmers or even solo PvPers continuing the offensive during their off peak times.

The OP has suggested the tears are in the Minmatar militia over this. Well there might be more farmers over here at the moment, but the real victims in this warzone are the Amarr. It is going to be very difficult to swing the warzone back to the Amarr without (offensive) farmers. It is going to be very stagnant IMO and the Amarr are in for a very lean time ahead, stuck with just 18 systems and tier 1. I for one don't think that will be a good thing long term for the PvPers or FW in general. A bigger watershed effect has been created.

Long term there is a ray of hope in that warzone stagnation or stability will reduce burnout and encourage the use of large fleet operations to take systems. Some very good fleet fight could be had. However, I think most FW veterans are currently bordering on plex burnout from the old tidal system. So it might be a few months before we see such large organised operations coming together.

I'm kinda on the fence atm. We need to give it a few months to see how things settle before we can say for sure whether FW will be improved or ruined by these changes. But one thing I am sure about is that farming will return in one guise or another. Only in this case I think it will be in defensive plexing in high contested systems on the dominant side. ie It is going to be bloody hard work for the side on the back foot to recover.

As a new player, my ability to assist my militia has been severely restricted.

It is probably worth watching to see what happens with defensive plexing over the next week as well and then revisiting after most of the good deplexing is gone.

Care to make any bets on how much of that VP was done deplexing or using a neutral alt to kill the rats if oplexing?