Assembly Hall

Fixing FW is more than just fixing a single style of game mechanic for a single EVE Community (Faction Warfare pilots). Fixing FW will revitalize lowsec. Fixing FW obviously has benefits for participants of Faction Warfare. Pirates who live in lowsec have more targets available to them. It is a casual PvP environment for HighSec carebears. It is a casual PvP environment for NullSec bittervets.

FW is a small percentage of the player base due to chronic neglect, but a much larger percentage of the player base are pilots not in FW who want FW to be fixed so they can a) join FW or b) benefit from a more populated and active lowsec.

Good stuff here in this thread, especially for my morning coffee. Some things that I wanted to comment on



This is a type of small gang pvp that is vastly different precisely because it is in wh space. You need scanners, the ship classes are much different (t3's, recons and sb's are very popular compared to lowsec/fw). Although it is a type of small scale pvp, it is vastly different with its own costs. Many enjoy lowsec style pvp, and fw is one of the few mechanics that encourages small gang fights there.

It is in that sense it is unique and why a lot of ppl in fw use the phrase "fw promotes small gang/solo pvp"



This perception is precisely why we need fw representation in the CSM. Although the mechanics in this game do encourage blobbing, many find it extremely boring. FW has done an amazing thing with it though, most players limit to small fights and constantly attempt to avoid blobbing.

The earlier comment about the existance of rivalries in fw is true to the core, and because we fight each other all the time there is a ton of "if you blob we aren't even going to bring ships to fight". Most of the corps that do blob end up going to null, getting bored and coming back to fw with not enough players to blob with -> small gang fights again.

What we are asking for is to change the mechanics so that we are not getting punished by the game for our community's style of play

The above is really just me soapboxing, what really matters here:

Given two topics this is quite a confusing thread to read, I understand that it is a single session but perhaps two threads would have made identifying points for discussion easier.

Some of these things have been said already in various threads but these things would get my support. Oh and I am a militia Pilot and support Hans Thread.

• Rebalance or Remove NPC e-war from plexes


• Faction Warfare missions to count towards occupancy


• Faction Warfare missions to not be farmable in a stealth bomber and interceptor


• Move Pirate faction ships into the higher tier plexes, If it were up to me I would spilt out the special ability they get and give them it back via a Assault ship or HAC skill bonus. Makes them a little more skill intensive for their power level as well.


• Faction NPC’s should switch aggro/distribute when other pilots or neutrals enter missions and Plexes. Not to their own militia pilots obviously.


• Neutral Pilots should be engaged by the faction NPC’s in missions/plex as if they are the enemy regardless of standings; they can get a warning message when warping to the plex if you like.


• Move Plex spawning away from Downtime.


• Greater LP/ISK rewards for plexing and PVP kills.


• Leave High sec navies in place


• In order to even out engagements within plexes, a further spawn of your own allied factions ships when a war target enters the plex or is already present, not to engage the other player but for both sides NPC’s to lock each other up and ignore the players for a time allowing PVP to take place.


• Faction War Intel Mini map - 2D region based intel map, Highlight activity, shows number of plexes taken lost/missions completed and militia ships destroyed in the last hour and importantly shows current plexes in progress, perhaps with some delayed intel say 5 minutes so it does not take the place of proper scouting and maybe only for the region you are in.


• Faction warfare live events - Details up to CCP

Thank you for your support

Actually FW plexing is a mechanic that does work well to prevent blobs. The way it works is it should require pilots to be at many places at the same time in many different types of ships. (that is the blob should be split up) The problem is plexing is broken so fw players often ignore it and just fleet up and roam like everyone else in eve.

Let me explain a bit more:

There are about 4 regions in the Min amarr fw front and the same in the gallente caldari front. Each of these regions has about 50 systems in play each. That is a total of 400 systems that plex can spawn in. Now plex can be closed in anywhere from 10 minutes to 25 minutes and they only let in size restricted ships (minor plexes dessie and down - medium cruiser and down and closed major bc and down and then open major lets all ships in.)

So now lets say fw plexing is fixed. You are fighting for amar and like everyone else in eve you form a blob.

However there are 30 different systems throughout your region with plexes being opened and captured. Let’s say half are by your militia half are by minmatar. So that is 15 different plexes throughout 200 different systems that you need to get to in the next 10-25 minutes! It won't work.

I didn't even mention the fact that of those 15 plexes probably 30% will only let dessie and down in and another 30% will only let cruiser and down in.

The blob will need to split up if they want to plex efficiently. And the beauty is there does not need to be any artificial limits on the size of the fleets.

However CCP will have to balance and iterate on this. If there are too many plexes spawning then both sides will run them and never have to fight over them. If there are too few plexes spawning then people can form blobs and win them. This is what ccp has to iterate on to carfully balance things.

CCP has many untapped resources in helping them balance this. For example lets say caldari far outnumber gallente. Gallente can all get in small ships and run minor plexes throughout the regions. If caldari can’t organize as fast they will lose plexes. But also they can do things like if Caldari gains occupancy of 70% of Gallente systems they can let Gallente cruisers in minors and bcs in mediums etc. If Caldare gets 90% of systems then maybe gallente could put BSes in all the plexes.

They can also add pirate factions as needed. Maybe the guristas will come into play and do the old enemy of my enemy alliance with gallente. That is they would both be able to cap caldari plexes. So there are allot of balancing options CCP would have but it would take iterations.

Repackaging ships in the SMA would be great, too. It'd be nice to be able to haul ships out the same way they were hauled in (battleships in an Orca's cargo hold, for instance).

This one was apparently stealth patched with Crucible, yay...

My guys will check that tomorrow after DT :)

Any news about it?

1) allow repping with no penalties if you rep an fw member when your pirate
2) allow other factions to enter enemy space, if a person enters into war and join militia, then why should they be allowed to just carebear in highsec and be protected, thats wrong. they know what the risk is when joining fw

I, too, share the same vision of Lowsec's future and hope we will see a rebirth of Faction Warfare soon.

Personally, I've always said "A blob is just what you call the enemy fleet when you're losing".

Lets be honest, Eve will always have the element of outnumbering your opponent, theres simply no way to remove that without ruining the sandbox.

Faction Warfare's strength (in concept if not in execution) is that it provides an arena that *potentially* encourages PvP on all scales. I reject the idea that FW is only about small gang warfare, blobs were indeed common back in the day when it was most fun.

The problem is, that the scene keeps becoming less diverse as it ages. There used to be the option to join the large battleship fleets, but also elsewhere on a different front lines there would be roaming cruiser and frigate gangs.

You used to be able to have a choice where to go fight, not be surprised when there's actually a fleet out and about. There is still PvP around the clock, but usually only in once place at one time.

This is really an extension of the same set of problems nullsec faces - constant conflict needs a fat carrot to keep dangling in front of bloodthirsty PvP'ers. There has to be something worth fighting for. This is as critical for small gang or subcap fleet PvP gameplay as it is for the nullsec Capital fleet sovereignty-based gameplay.

Faction warfare held out remarkably long in terms of player interest, before the only remaining players are those who are willing to fish for fights, same as you would anywhere else. It has great potential to provide the large scale "blob" fleets once again, as well as maintain impactful opportunities for lower skilled pilots to assist in system takeovers as well. We need to get the whole region hopping again like the golden days of Faction Warfare, where being fresh and new was strong enough fuel to keep the machine going.

FW is running out of gas, its still loads of fun, but it's going to need a top-up for it truly to become everything CCP intended it to be. The players have done their part to keep the embers of FW (and lowsec in general) burning, its time for the developers to stoke the fires once again with some much-needed sovereignty impacts and plexing rewards.