Warfare & Tactics

They will, the carebear is too dominant in their genes for them to ignore a pristine field such as ours to frolic in. The delay is probably due to needing to grind a bit of standings and/or shuffle corps around to meet minimum .. if alliance standings are like corp ditto then the average is only calculated once or twice per week.

HEY! Don't knock the cabbage!

All things are relative, judging by the constant high pitched whine emanating from null over their sanctums/belts/plexes/etc. I bet a squashed cabbage leaf looks even better than a pristine field their starving flocks of sheep.
As for missions not being good, you get a large ISK payout for minimal work, the LP is has been reduced to gravy now though. If they were as bad as you suggest then the bomber swarm would not continue to grow as it does now 6+ months after the market bottomed out.

Doubt many alliances have standings ready to go without shuffling some corps/characters. The delay is to be expected.

The whines mostly come from utterly worthless regions like Provi, Catch, etc. in decent regions like Trib, Dek, Fountain, etc. you're looking at 120-150m isk/h in raw isk payout (assuming you're decent and skilled for dualboxing). If time is money, so is effort; meaning that dudes like being able to ignore **** like LP and tags. And if you can spare :effort: to get spacemoney, might as well live in the Drone Regions where you gunmine high-end minerals 23/7 for a similar level of risk as lowsec.

Even the good regions have a finite number of sites where that kind of income is possible and as far as I know the population far exceeds what is available .. that is why I have postulated that FW will be used as an overflow camp for null slaves/sheep/monkeys/parrots.

What happened to CCP's plans to shift drone regions partially/wholly towards bounties instead of alloys, were they scrapped or are they waiting until they figure out how to make mining less of a danger to mental health?

A lot of good regions are partially or completed abandoned right now, Delve in particular.

I absolutely think a lore update is sorely needed, especially if anything major is tweaked to the game mechanics. CCP Dropbear is an expert in creating compelling Live Event content (as well as authoring Lore articles) and I think he could probably create some amazing ways to transition into new a new age of renewed Faction Warfare.

But no stories, no fanfare - not till the core mechanics are fixed. They should supplement the mechanical updates, not supercede them. This was my major objection to Alliances being allowed in now rather than later. While I predicted that we likely wouldn't seen any major changes (and there hasn't been) I don't like the fact that CCP seems willing to try to expand the participation numbers and expand the warzone without actually making plexing and Faction Warfare more meaningful and PvP-oriented to being with.

EDIT: Also - regarding piracy - I think that in the long-term, once the core FW system is iterated on in an fashion that pleases the community and revives activity to its original levels, it needs to be expanded to include the pirate factions. Angel or Guristas sympathizers should be able occupy pockets of lowsec, and pirate plexes already exist so I see no reason why those can't be made PvP as well. Faction Warfare doesnt have to be limited to Empire Factions, pirate role players deserve a chance to be a part of the scene as well. Pirate PvP corps have traditionally been an enemy of the militia factions, so it could be interesting to create war fronts there.

Its a shame that the only place to do pirate content is in 0.0 space, when lowsec has always been where the majority of actual pirates reside.

Null roaming gangs are usually after fights and killmails. This actually differs a lot from some low-sec pirate groups, who often make a living from ransoms and looted mods.

I've never seen a nullsec roaming group ransom a ship. Meanwhile, the Tuskers go so far as to maintain a ransom board.

So yes, they are actually engaging in piracy.

It happens. More rarely than in lowsec, but some guys do it, usually with the Sabre+Falcon combo. I had a corpmate who cleared about 3-6B a month in ransoms just with Hound, Sabre and Falcon.

I hear tell of a more recent interview about FW. Is that true and if so dose any one have a link?

Personally I think there are a few things I would like to see...

1. Rewards other than VP for Plexing. Maybe the value of the equivalent FW mission level in LP spread across those in the plex
when it Flips. I.E. a major plex is worth 25-30k in and that spread across the group active in the plex at the same time. Defenders and offenders would earn LP.

Advantages - The biggest complaint currently I see for new people joining FW is that hey don't have income to support the replacement of ships. Rewards for plexes would help with this.

I'm sure there are disadvantages although happy to discuss here.

2. Making FW missions contribute to the capture of the system. In the scheme of things I would think killing a field commander should weaken a system. I also then think missions should be specific for whether the system is being defended or attacked and will be determined by the current occupier. So yes that means in theory missions for Minmatar could spawn in Minmatar territory that is currently contested.