Warfare & Tactics

I can see your POV.

However, although I too do not see timer rollbacks as a solution ( replying to both of your posts), I see timer rollbacks as an incentive to the hunter that arrives late (active defender).

For example

1. militia pilot arrives in system, having noticed the contested rate was rising
2. finds the aforementioned evasion plexer running a plex and already minutes in to capturing
3. Pursues target out of the plex
4. Target opens another plex of equal or smaller size in either the same system or neighbouring system
5. Militia pilot can chase target out of the newly opened 2nd plex or can run down and capture the original
6. In both options the target "evasion alt" can capture either the new plex or the original plex by moving back and forth between them.
7. Only option to the hunter is to give up on defending war zone sov by combat and instead join in the non interactive farming of victory points in the opposite direction or call in further pilots to sit in all the plex's available
8. Evasion plexer's will continue with non interactive play as they know that eventually they will be given time to plex without a pursuer or will find the opposing players give up due to boredom from unsatisfying non interaction play, instead moving on hoping to find another target that will consider interaction.

Yes their are options not covered here but in conclusion:

It is too easy for evasive offensive and even easier for evasive defensive plex capture. The result being a growing number of FW population that are not there for interactive play but simply to farm their isk for other activities.

Timer rollbacks at an accelerated rate (when moving towards the "neutral" uncontested plex state) prevent the scenario described above and would further decentivise this bad game style at the benefit of more interactive play. The FWzones need this.

It is one of the reasons why there are more fights between active Militia vs neutrals / pirates than there is between Militia vs Militia


Personally I would have to implement the reduction of the bonus's to LP rewards given by faction Tier levels at the same time. They are currently ridiculous and these are the two primary causes.

Portrait of any system;

System is maintained at a low contest rate by d-plex alts. a single/small gang pvper/s arrives. D-plexing is put on hold while O-Plexes are run. This may trigger a pvp response depending on system. The system grows in contest rate for as long as the O-Plexes are being run. Rising contested rates may trigger a pvp response.

When the oplexers leave for whatever reason, system stabilises. Or they dont leave and system is taken.

I dont see the major problem with this, however, any change to FW should get the pendulum slowly swinging again as an objective. This is happening in min/amarr wz but perhaps not in gal space. Its not optimal for one side to claim total victory and keep it by the nature of the advantages winning brings alone. Sure bouncing back should be hard, but it shouldnt need a washed up 2000 man null bear alliance joining the loser to do so.

I am not sure if it will solve the problem but it will help and it wouldn't hurt at all.

Right now if I am in a t1 frigate and see an enemy in a t1 frigate sitting a small plex I can go and try to fight him for the plex. He will most likely just warp off. Then I am looking at trying to kill 2 destroyers with tanks that are ridiculous for my t1 frigate before I can even run down the plex. At least if the timers ticked back down to zero day alt dplexing efforts would frustrated.

That is a step in the right direction for those who want faction war to be more about who is fighting for territory instead of who is willing to waste more their life putting 0 day old alts out in empty frigates.

If it doesn't solve the problem then CCP should look to other measures. I recommend other measures in my signature but I am willing to see if timer rollbacks do the trick. Rollbacks are traditionally the best supported proposal in the fw community. I am willing to put other less widely supported ideas aside so the focus can be put on pushing that idea to ccp. One thing I know is that if we do not give ccp clear goals and requests they will continue to fumble around with half way right solutions.

Rollbacks are something the community has thought through and supports (and that includes neutrals who in the area as well). I suggest we should give our csm member a clear mandate from us.

Actual result :
1. No interactive game play takes place (you don't really consider warping around after a d-scan entry interactive right?).
2. One player does not have motive for interactive play (most likely this is a side show to generate isk at lowest amount of effort)
3. Other player is looking for interactive play. Tries hard to find it but often leaves disappointed.
4. Other player chooses to log in less and less, choosing an alternative more interactive pastime.


Am I the only one that views timer rollbacks as conflict drivers?

The more conflict drivers in FW the better.
The more conflict suppressants that are removed the better (eg: suspect tags for first fire involving neutrals in a plex).

The deplexer only has power in systems with relatively high contested rates and no pvp activity. A rare combination at the moment. They are having a very similar effect to timer roll backs.

The main benefit over rollbacks, as XG pointed out, rollbacks would do nothing to discourage O-farmers unless working in conjunction with people chasing these farmers around all over the warzone. Design that relies on people chasing farmers is bad design. Therefor in retrospect the current design is more desirable than rollbacks.

Farmers being used to only defend is a better state of affairs than farmers being used to attack.

Maybe i think that o-plexers are far less common then before, i happen to think that is a good thing. Nerfing d-plexes is easy, reduce defensive LP. Maybe once this happens timer rollbacks are redundant since a higher amount of engagements end in PVP coupled with the fact that overall levels of VP scores are vastly reduced.

What proposals we like will depend on what sort of game we want to play.

Given the posts from XG, Crosi and the one I quote above it is clear that certain gallente (although I am sure not all) actually like the fact that fw occupancy is largely about having alts rabbit d-plex.

Given what they want fw to be their aversion to plex timer rollbacks makes perfect sense. As Theroine said, people who want fights instead of chasing rabbits are after different ends than he is.

Plex timer rollbacks is one proposal that clearly separates the 2 camps.

I don't understand these objections. not really needed 'right now'? what about not right now?

not effective for warzone control. what about effective for padding your wallet?

Actually my main concern with d-plexing is the warzone control. Rabbit plexing is, and always has been very effective at warzone control.


I will say that defensive plexing is not very good at padding your wallet because you only get a fraction of the lp. That is really why I would agree that that the d-plexers are not really "farmers." They are not in it for the isk they are doing this for the warzone control.

That is why I prefer to label the problem as "rabbits" instead of "farmers." "Farmers" suggest they are in it for isk. We had "rabbits" before there was any lp for plexing. People who wanted to fight for warzone control would just warp off and never fight because it is the most effective way to gain occupancy under the current and past mechanics.

The few crazy people like myself who really wanted fw occupancy to be a fun pvp game wanted changes like timer rollbacks even if there is no lp for plexing. We want the war to be won through pvp not rabbit alts. For me, LP is really beside the point.

I think the timer roll backs would be a bad idea because it would make any time you had to leave a plex unattended suck. And I already feel like oplexing sucks now, if I wanted to kill waves of useless rats that do literally nothing for me but waste my ammo I'd run l1 missions in high sec. What if neutrals show up and push you out? They aren't a part of the FW mechanics but now they are preventing my ability to contest the system, and are in fact defending it by virtue of keeping in me out of the plex I was in. What if I go help a buddy in another plex, on a gate, dock up for reps or literally anything that takes me away from the capture point? Realistically if you want the timer to roll back you should have a pilot there to run it down. It doesn't matter what you think the motivation of the pilot your dscan tells you is in a plex is. All that matter is what your goal is and how you achieve it. You want a warzone where control is determined by occupying a system? Then undock and occupy that system. If you're not willing to chase away or hunt down any fool who tries to plex a system you claim as yours then you will lose that system (Or you do that and the entire Gallente militia come along anyway to push you out anyway :P). These "rabbits" as you call them don't determine warzone control. At best they slow one side down a little bit and offer the other side a little more buffer time to figure out what is going on.

Are there fittings and tactics that favour one particular race/ship style. Clearly yes. A stabbed drone boat who can have their drones auto agro the rat while they watch a movie or take a nap is super lame. Flip side if you just tweak the rat AI to only attack pilots that target them then the game prevents that style of non-play. Or at least makes it require a little bit more attention to the keyboard.

I think a bigger issue with keeping a FW system stable is the completely terrible LP payouts t1 offers. Keeping a system stable while your faction is in t1 is literally a time sink because there is no reward (other than keeping your home system) to make it worth while. And lets face it, most people in EVE are motivated by ISK, or in some cases need it to keep the action going. I'm not saying that dplexing should be awesome or even really good pay. However, I think that tier 1 should be the base line LP payout all other tiers are based off of.

And seriously, plex rats need to lose that magic MWD that makes them skate across the plex faster than anything else on grid. I'd also like to repeat that attacking fellow milita pilots should flag you as a suspect, as shoudl warping into a FW plex if you're a neutral. I also feel like the oplex rat spawns need some tweaking, but if their speed is adjusted that might make killing them more bearable.