Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Faction Warfare's unique rule set / fleet meta needs to be retained.

Wormhole Space & Null offers players the opportunity to use AOE systems without restrictions. That heavily influences the fleet meta in those parts of New Eden. The limited or non-availability of AOE systems in FW space creates a unique FW fleet meta. If FW players want the "Full" experience, they can move to Wormholes or Null. Removing the AOE restrictions & the resulting standings hits from FW space eliminates the unique environment their constrained use creates and will make FW fleet combat like Null.

As a compromise on the issue, is it possible to remove the FW standings impacts when Militia pilots are in Null or Wormhole space? Currently when Militia pilots roam in Null or Wormhole space they are at a disadvantage because of FW standings designed for FW LS follow them. The standings hit for the use of AOE weapons is a product of where they are being used. Militia pilots operating outside of Empire space should not suffer standings hits for using AOE when operating in Null or Wormhole space. Quite simply, the Empires can't follow them into Null/Wormholes and any standings hit is inconsistent with that fact.

I don't do FW - but from reading this post and expanding on the point of standing and security - there might be a need for CCP to redress the whole system from the ground up (large scale task. Something they can do after SOV changes settle)

My understanding is
1: Standings only now effect what missions you get and your refining tax in HiSec (low enough standings make those empires shoot you)
2: Security Status seems to be worthless and easily fixed if you know what your doing.

What I feel could change
1: Standings need more merit for the grind - NPC support while running missions? Lower LP store cost? Cheaper repair cost?
2: Negetive security status should be a PITA to crawl out of - the lower it is the harder the climb back out (with this in mind - major security hits should come from players attacking Empire ships, and Capsulers allied to that Empire. Not so much maybe from POD kills as the Empires both hate and love Capsulers.).

Perhaps the best way would keep FW rules and then move up in strictness for HiSec and lower the hardness of the rules for Null (FW tends to be heavy LowSec)

@Myra

Sorry about the confusion with regards to AoE weapons. The real reason to apply it to AoE weapons is two fold.

1. It makes it broader than a narrow exception for one weapon (Smartbombs)
2. It encompasses all future AoE weapons, such as the proposed Citadel AoE defense.


We aren't suggesting bringing Bombs and Bubbles into Lowsec. Ick.

Quoted for truth.

I could care less about missions (I am one of those weird nerds who doesn't run them at all) what I do care about is having to chose between kicking a pilot out of my corp because he used smart bombs to counter drones, having to kick a corp out of my alliance because of the same reason or having to suffer my corp/alliance being booted out of the militia until we can grind enough standings to rejoin again and then wait another 24 hours before we are in the militia. Needless to say, if that were to happen WHILE a system I base out of was also being attacked we would lose the system because for all the power a PVP pilot has if he is not in the militia he can not run a timer.

@Thanatos

Thanks for clarifying.... from my previous post "unconstrained smartbomb use is also problematic"

Have you guys looked at the impact the change would have on plex fights?

- Without the potential for standings hits, fitting up SBing Destroyers and Cruisers is easily done. Everyone sits their SBing ship 1500m off the beacon. Now we have Pipe Bombing Faction Warfare style.

Thoughts?

It's already an option for anyone not in faction warfare in lowsec, and I haven't seen it done effectively yet. The range and damage on smalls isn't enough to effectively do it in those size plexes. The damage and range on mediums is pretty bad as well, one cycle of 6 tech 2 medium sb's (which you would have to gimp any t1 cruiser to fit) is 840 damage before resist. It's just not something I'm even remotely afraid of happening on any large scale. It can be done in larges but there is no guaranteed warp in point and no cynos, so not really feasible.

Again, this technique is already possible to people in the same corp and to pirates and has been for years. I have never seen it done successfully once. Have you?

There're a couple of things to do regarding FW mechanics :

1. 2 factions vs 2 factions :
Let FW be a 1v3 space. With this, no more awoxing possible from the other "allied" faction.
Plus, from a RolePlay point of view, alliance would still be possible, as long as you chose to cease fire with a said-corporation of a said-faction. Player relations would "really" matter / diplomacy as well / history / reputation / etcetera...

2. Faction standing hits :
While hitting Militia allies in the same fleet, or destroying a wreck with a militia tag on it, or a pod being in that fleet you should not lose FW standing.
Would match point 1. as FCs would allow people getting in their fleets carefully to avoid any kind of "gaming" that rule around.
Like in RL, errors would still occure, that's a good thing !
Another way would consist of raising by an enormous amount the standing bonuses we get from plexing, and even more while DEplexing.

3. SecStatus hits :
It's been discussed already, and i think that's a great idea : getting timers on accelaration gate activation.
But i was thinking about something more "radical", i admit it's not well thought yet :
If a neutral chose to come and hunt for a militian he should therefore "suffer" from such a choice one way or the other.
By getting a Faction standing hit ? Why not ? We are fighting for this very faction after all, right ?
Just like one would take a hit by firing upon a Sansha NPC or Blood Raider NPC ?
Limit that in complexes, otherwise it would kill fleet roams Neutral Fleets vs Faction Fleets.

4. Emphasising PvP over Farming complexes :
Raise LP earned from KILLS / Lower LP earned by plexes alone.
A lot of what is STILL annoying with farmers is not that they just flee combat with cloacks and WCSs but that they PUSH systems while farming and not taking care at all of the impacts to "true" militians.
They farm as a militia of Faction A in a system of faction B to earn the best possible LP amount, but at the same time, they raise its vulnerability to the point where "true" militians of faction A come to take it over without any "push operation", just jumping onto the occasion.
On the other side, faction B if well aware, has to farm back to stablise it, and that could be a pain to do this specially if there is no fight from the ennemy faction that would have pushed this system in purpose and for an ACTUAL conquest operation.

5. Emphasise the "faction" membership :
In order to prettify (?) FW reputation it would be great if, let's say the number of systems earned by Faction A would give bonuses in each and every Faction A systems (even High Sec, specially High Sec) for all sorts of activity : PvE / Industry / Mining / Taxes / .. i don't know.
This way we might see some HUBs changing locations, or people engaging even for a month or 2 or 3 in FW just to get bonuses, so what ? That's good ! It's like engaging people for a War we need to win, till we have to fight again !
Bonuses in HS mean more potential engagements in FW, more activity, more fights, more turn-over AND a positive reputation as their destiny would be tied to a whole Faction area.


Excuse my french.
Hope i was understandable.

Possible Ways to use AOE type weapon systems and if the person who uses it gets a standing hit, there should be a way a person can turn in tags to fix FW standings, similarly to the way Sec status is fixed via the tag system. And if people don't fix there standing then they are out of FW,

A proposal - link Faction Standings hits for aggressive actions to the Corp PvP flag.

In short, if your corporation has elected to allow pilot-on-pilot violence, then folks don't take standings hits for aggressive actions against you. If you have your "safety flag" set to prevent awoxing, then folks would still take standings hits.

This would allow similarly-minded FW groups to pursue riskier strategies involving AOE defenses, while keeping standings hits for those who are more carebear risk averse oriented. In addition, tying the mechanic to the corp PvP election makes intuitive sense, because you're in essence electing a higher risk strategy as a corporation.

yeah, this is what I refer to as "The Santo Quandry". It still isn't as bad as using the allied militia overview nonsense to kill people because that can be done with every single weapon system, but hopefully that will be going away.