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He posed the question: "How do you build the initial relationships that will enable new players to stay in the game?"


my spontaneus reaction was : Newbie space.. ie Ultra HS that you can stay in relative safety during the first six months of your life in eve. kinda like how you seperate young fish from older ones by setting up a space where the older fish cant enter.

this gives firstly an even playing field . secondly it gives new players some where to learn the game.

ofc if the new player wants to leave early he can do so.

For a mission runner, the risk involved in a high-sec mission is very small. Not quite zero, but not much above that. This makes it practical for a solo mission runner to bring an expensive, highly specialised boat.

Note also that most missions involve sitting in one place for several minutes at a time, tanking large numbers of NPCs while you burn them down.

As soon as you go through into low-sec, the risk jumps enormously.
- while travelling to/from the mission site
- while sitting in the mission site
- while trying to salvage the mission site

This increased risk almost immediately crosses heavily shiny ships off the list, at least for the low-mid range runner. So not only is the risk increased, the mission is harder to complete, as cheap ships are the order of the day. Oh, and did I mention that they need to be PvP tanked as well?

Given how massively both the risk and difficulty has increased, there needs to be a commensurate increase in rewards. I should also note that I'm not afraid of low-sec - I do PvP roams, and have R&D jobs there. But hanging around in one place and travelling short distances in a slow-aligning PvE ship is not profitable.


Given this, I really like the patrol idea presented earlier. By focusing on roaming small groups rather than slow-moving single battleships, it encourages the sort of ships that are naturally drawn to low-sec. I'd like to propose some further tweaks:
- high rewards
- total distance of ~10 jumps
- given by hi-sec agents on low-sec borders

I think all three of these are important. The relatively high rewards are required to compensate for the potential risks, and the fact that these "patrol missions" will be done in small groups rather than solo. The total distance requires that the gang enters low-sec proper and stays there for some time (which also requires higher rewards).

The hi-sec agents on low-sec borders requirement is potentially contentious, but I think it is important. The goal of "patrol missions" is to get traffic moving into and out of low-sec. If the missions can be done entirely in low-sec, they can be ghettoed off by pirate groups, and thus earn high rewards for no additional risk. Putting the agents in high sec means at least on fleet member (the one who gets the mission bookmarks) needs to be non-outlaw and thus bridge the two zones.

Possibly, the missions should be "visit all these sites, kill some or all assets at each site, including leaders X, Y and Z", where X, Y and Z might potentially disengage and fly to another site. Visit sites until you find X, and kill it, forces the mission to either chain (you don't get site 2 until you reach site 1, which is less interesting) or risks ending the mission on the first site explored.

The risk is increased if your alliance isn't part of a low sec sector, if it is, the rich will get richer...

I would like to give feedback regarding the proposed "elections" for faction war militias. It seems the CSM and CCP want to inject drama, spying, and meta-gaming into faction war. First and foremost, an "election" process will be abused by null-sec alliances with the most membership. If you want to spy, meta-game or whatever it should be through the means you have to use to infiltrate nullsec alliances, or any corp or alliance. Which is generally, getting a cover invited, earning trust, and eventually stabbing them in the back. The fact is FW goers should at least have the opportunity to decide or not to trust one of these covers. The choices FW goers make to trust or not to trust people is in their hands. This shouldn't be where an alliance with several thousand players just make alts and place them in the militias on election day to elect a puppet leader.

That is what meta gaming should be. Players should have control as to who or who does not enter their corp, their alliance. They can make the mistake of inviting spies. Truth is, it's in their hands. The proposed "in-game" election process is a bad idea. Just give faction war players resources to fight over in the FW lowsec areas and drama will ensue, trust me. It should be in the hands of players. There is much "meta" in metagaming if the mechanics to do what eve is so famous for are just thrown into the game.




TL;DR: I would rather be done in by a classy PL spy that had to work to earn my trust than have the unwashed masses of goonswarm just vote in an alt.


P.S. There is a thread going on in the WF&T forum regarding faction war and the recent CSM minutes, I hope members of the CSM have the time to check it out. You can find it here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=58742&find=unread

It's the "little" things like this that make a HUGE difference to those who actually engage in FW. The problem is, both the developers and the current CSM do not participate, and so it is no surprise that the big picture ideas that get brought forward basically entail emulating what makes nullsec fun for them, and bringing into our feature.

The best improvements to Faction Warfare will be simple, elegant, and transformational - much like your suggestion here.

I am grateful for the CSM's time speaking about Faction Warfare, and am thrilled to see that it will finally get some attention. I just pray that CCP pays close attention to all of the blood, sweat, and tears that the community has put into providing feedback, because there are clearly still some fundamental misunderstandings about what Faction Warfare brings to the game, and what will actually turn it back into a vibrant, exciting, place to find fights like it was in its early days.

Faction Warfare players want, above all things, to be able to fight every day. To fight PLAYERS, and not to run PvE. PvE has been a means to an end - its a means to bait fights, and a means to pay for ships But the goal - the carrot - has always been the fights.

Improvements to the Faction Warfare system that draw it closer to emulating nullsec will ultimately alienate the thousands of players its has entertained so far.

Complicated is not better to militia pilots. Spy's, intrigue, politics, economic infrastructure to maintain, etc, are all seen as barriers to steady fun. Its just a different mentality. Its why many have ended up in FW after being bored with nullsec and not finding enough PvP out there.

I know the minutes represent the planning stages, and are subject to change. Hopefully there is still time for CCP to look past the admitted experience-deficiency the current CSM has with regards to the feature and listens to what their customers really want to be happy and keep playing.

That'd be quite typical them tho. Rushing in the FB's (even tho many of us pilots, me included, were raising concerns already when they were on SiSi and being tested) was one of those occations of adding a "toy", and all focus on that fun new thing. That's probably what CCP see right now too:

"Hey let's look at the checklist.. hmm FW is next, what to do with it?" "Let's add a leader, and tax and make a structure, so it's like an alliance and a good stepping stone for the 'true' endgame! /CCP adds 'cool toy' and afterwards realise this was not a good idea, 2-4 years later it get nerfed, few years later revamped completely to a new toy. But 'cool toy' is never removed. Full circle.

"Hey alot of people whine about AFK cloakers, what can do we?" "Let's add a 'submarine' that finds them!" /CCP adds 'cool toy' and afterwards realise that, combined with present mechanics, this makes blobs immensely powerful, cloaks useless, and is generally not a great idea. 2-4 years later the submarines get nerfed, few years later revamped completely to a new toy. But 'cool toy' is never removed. Full circle.

CCP always prio toys, never think of long term implications, always think about nullsec interests first, don't consider dangers and fears posted on forums, and when they eventually balance things that we already told them would be broken - they are still too proud to actually remove that faulty toy that is the cause of all trouble, rather than actually solving the issue. And it's always being 'fixed' by adding or revamping things to be a 'new toy'. CCP = Toys'R'us?

I hope I get the submarine in time so I can sit underneath the iceberg, watching the nullbears crash into it.

I spent a year in WH space - and I never picked up the habit of opening local back up. This is easily visible in my videos too ( http://vimeo.com/user9887127 )... and IMO its actually improved my game a lot.

-Liang

Hmm ... I never participated in FW. I do plan to at some time, just not yet. However to my knowledge there is a ranking system in the Militias or not ? Then the opposing militias could award ISK bounties based on the ranks of enemy militia member kills etc. Based on the class of ship destroyed probably. Thus is would be interesting to hunt specific militia members. However since I have little knowledge here, it's hard for me to come up with a balanced system.

The biggest problem with FW for me is that the fights have no influence on the rest of the universe. It's basicaly like running missions. Sure you reduce the ranks of enemy militia if you are winning for a longer time, but that's it. There's nothing visible on the map, no history books written. Even the sov changes can be traced via 3rd party sites that track this. FW has nothing similar.

The ranking system in FW is pointless - it means you've run a few dozen Level 4 FW missions.

I agree that FW should have more significance, affecting the story in a greater way, or being able to reach beyond a limited zone in lowsec. But I think it is important to point out that there are limits as to just how much freedom and levels of control the militias want to mess with.

Most Faction Warfare pilots enjoy the frequent, local PvP - that is the main draw. Players have kept this fun over three years of CCP neglect because they've made a point of getting out, flying around, and blowing each other up. But overall, the problems with the Plex system, mission system, LP payouts, and the like all lend themselves to farming far more than they do to serve the core appeal - frequent, casual, PvP.

The militias don't want to be burdened with excessive poltics, or pooled resources, or high-maintenance sov solutions. They want to be able to get into small groups, engage other small groups, and "win" stuff. Its a simple pleasure.

Some of this desire for frequent, simple fun has clearly been lost in translation - saying we want more consequence to "winning" has been interpreted to mean we want the same grandiose meta-gaming that dominates nullsec. This couldn't be further from the truth. Dedicated FW pilots are often refugees from nullsec who wanted a more challenging PvP enviroment, and didn't want to wait for the political wheels to turn before they could go out and have a good time.

Consequence to winning occupancy could be simple, and work off existing systems - LP payouts can be tied to PvP kills or losses, as well as Plexing victories, meaning that pilots would earn their money from fighing and not from grinding PvE. Stations can be rigged to fire on enemy faction members, alowing more interesting "turf" terrritory, and eliminate station games.

Simple, elegant changes will be the key to "saving" Faction Warfare - if that truly is the goal. Some may see FW as already dead, and now useful to be molded into a very different system with a very different purpose for the game as a whole - but I think the most successful improvements will be the result of listening to the pilots who have lived there all along.

No, just no. You are not thinking it through. Eve is built on two things, PVP and the Market. The market being the most important because the market hides PVP from you. If you did a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game on all the stuff you enjoy doing, somewhere, PVP happened to make it possible. So many systems would have to be ripped out, rewritten, and re-purposed that it would take years of rewriting to do what you want.

I understand you don't like getting blown up, no one does. But... your issue isn't PVP, your issue is when PVP happens to you, which are two very different things. Without even knowing it, every time you log on, PVP somewhere in the game has benefited you, even if you choose not to take part in it.