EVE General Discussion

They are definitely a deterrent from my side of the war. The missiles and painters can really cut through a tank.

But the thing is to the extent npcs have power they decrease the prospects of pvp. So the goal should be to make them negligible. But if that’s the goal then just remove them. Save dev time that would otherwise be spent trying to “balance” something that should not have an impact anyway.


Just a couple of points I’d like you to consider on this:
1) The gank squads won’t really “form” at any given time. The war will be going on 23/7. So different pilots will be constantly burning to different plexes trying to hold or attack them.

2) If plexes are spawning throughout the day there will be plexes spawning throughout the FW region. So the forces will have to be split up into smaller groups and likely even solo pilots, until faction war grows.

Lets say amarr militia responds to a minmatar cruiser taking a medium plex in sosala. Lets say we amarrians send 4 cruiser over there to attack that single minmatar cruiser. Ok he warps out and opens a plex in TZVI. Now if all 4 amarrians stay and capture the plex he started in sosala then he will cap that one in TZVI.

So the the amarrians might leave one there to cap that plex and send the other 3 over to tzvi. (actually I think the smart thing would be for all 4 amarrians to split up and cap plexes solo until all the systems are darn close to full. But those tactics involving how to allocate pilots will have to evolve.) So let’s say they do that. Now let’s say they kick him out of the plex. From there he can continue opeing plexes until they he can fight them 2 on 1 or even one on one.

Or he would have other options! He could have a frigate in tzvi and undock in that and open a minor plex. The amarrians would need to get in a ship that can fit in the minor. If only one of the 3 amarrians has a ship that will fit in that plex near by he will have a one on one fight for the plex. Or he could get in a battleship that he had in that area and open a major plex.

Ultimately this will shake out that people who have ships fit and ready to go throughout the fw region will be more successful. Those who can only form up a large blob in a single system and then go plodding around systems will fare poorly.

Being able to quickly react with the minimum force necessary to get the job done will be key in this sort of warfare.

We are after the same goal here.


If plexes are constantly being run throughout the 4 regions each front has, then the militias that refuse to split up their blobs will lose occupancy.

Consider this: Militia A and militia B both have 30 active pilots doing plexing. Militia A insists on keeping all of its pilots together in a large blob all doing one plex. Miltia B spreads their pilots out into 30 different systems each one doing a plex. It’s easy to see that Militia B will have allot more plexes captured.

Even on a smaller scale this is true. If militia A must send 2 pilots to dislodge every single pilot from militia B then they better have at least 2xs as many pilots or they will not win the occupancy war.

If the plexing mechanic was really done right militias would use the minimum number necessary to take each plex.

You make some interesting points in your posts, just a side note...

I would be annoyed by the number of mails informing me of people warping into the hordes of plexes throughout the warzone.. some more than once as they get kicked out and return.

On the quote above, I dont think PvP alone is an incentive to take or hold occupancy. We all can get that without plexing, even if against a third party (someone not in any militia).

I would make 3 points in response:

1) This is relative. I think it’s very very hard to find decent pvp in eve. Now many people who agree with me have likely left the game already so you won’t hear from them. But I love the combat mechanics CCP designed so much that I am sticking around in hopes they will design a mechanic that brings about decent combat opportunities.

I have often signed in and flown around for an hour and a half in a t1 hull looking for a decent fight only to dock my ship unscratched with guns fully loaded. And by decent fight I’m not too picky. I mean if I am in a frigate I will engage against certain navy frigates, or interceptors or even sometimes 2 versus 1. If I am in a cruiser I might engage against say another cruiser or a cruiser and a destroyer type odds.

Yes you can join a large group and camp a gate. This will guarantee you kills but those aren’t fun fights imo. (I’m not faulting people who do that, nor do I want to argue the merits of gate camping, Gatecamping is just not my thing)

2) I agree there should be some other impact on the game. Lp rewards for capturing plexes and having stations possibly switch corps in the system. So if Gallente takes a system and there is a Lai dai station in the system there might be a 5% chance that that system will switch over to a Roden ship yards for every 3 months gallente hold it or something like that. If the locals run missions in that station they may actually join in the war effort, because the outcome would have some effect on them.
But again I don’t think that is the begin all and end all. If they just give rewards for doing plexing but it remains a carebear activity I think they made the game worse not better.

3) I’m not necessarily saying people will see pvp as the only reward. I am thoroughly convinced large numbers of eve players would love to have frequent quality pvp, but the pvp isn’t just for sh.. and giggles like rvb. It’s for a bigger goal. That bigger goal is system occupancy. That is they are striving to win the faction war. I realize right now that sounds stupid. With the current mechanics it is stupid.

If they change the mechanics so that in order to win you have to be good at pvp and strategizing how to use the pvp pilots then that is not so stupid.

It would be much more like winning the alliance tournament. I would think many eve players would like a medal showing they were on the team that won the alliance tournament. It’s not just for the rewards that people compete in the alliance tournament. The reason they would like that medal is because that medal would demonstrates that they have something eve players value – pvp skills. By making occupancy plexing into something that requires pvp skill then it would make those medals more valuable.

With any game – darts, chess, baseball, football, people think it is a fun and challenging to play these games. Hence many people play them just to win. It’s not that they get paid to play or anything like that. But if the game mechanics are not fun or challenging or otherwise seen as stupid then people won’t really care to play them or win at them. That is unless there is some other sort of payment.

Bottom line is that if ccp has to bribe people with lots of isk in order to engage in the game mechanic they create then that is pretty much proof that the mechanic is a failure.

CCP didn’t give isk to do faction war occupancy plexing because winning occupancy was supposed to be why you would earn isk in the first place. It was supposed to be fun to try to win occupancy. But currently with the npcs and very little pvp it’s more like drudgery. So players are saying you want us to endure this drudgery we need to get paid isk.

Make plexxing fun and people will do it. Yes give some rewards but they don’t have to be huge. Give some consequences because this is a sand box that supposedly has the butterfly effect. But they do it right the main reward will be winning at a fun and challenging game.

Hopefully answers before the next fanfest. Will be funny if this thread has stayed on first/second page for a year with no answers.

People will also be encouraged to go plexing if there was an actual point to holding occupancy.

Hmmm, brain just farted --->

Militia wars have never in the history of mankind been about taking and holding land, because it can by definition not be done against an organized/superior entity.

Attrition, Attrition, Attrition. Kill so many enemies, destroy all his stuff and make his life unbearable in general until he collapses/withdraws on his own ..

Where FW is concerned this translates into:
- Denying access to station services (docking permits will never be revoked for NPC stations),
- Removal/restriction of income sources (missions go to 1 predefined system per constellation unless a system in the constellation is captured for instance).
- Decreased performance while operating on enemy militia turf (crude simulation of all the invaders who have died in bogs, swamps and forests throughout history).
- Etc.

PS: Sorry, my brain always develops gas when this thread slips to page 2+ for some unknown reason!

Nahh. The "joining the winning side" issue is hypothetically a concern for ANY advantage brought to either militia for winning systems, but that hasn't stopped "bring meaning to sov" from being the #1 demand of all of us who engage in Faction Warfare and desire some improvements.

It all boils down to good fights, after all. What is the fun in being blue to everyone? No fun for those of us that pew. Same with militia, its not fun when everyone is purple. In a game like Eve - being the underdog means more gameplay and pvp opportunities, so it self-balances. If you talk to many FW pilots, I think the consensus is that it sucks when your side has the highest activity level, because it means less targets to shoot when the opposing team is too intimidated to undock and roam.

It is because of this that Minmatar players will often encourage interested parties to join the Amarr militia, and vice versa. I doubt that will change just because there is an advantage to "winning" the militia wars.

EDIT: I strongly disagree with being denied station services as a penalty for not being in control of a system. I propose instead that the station guns simply fry the opposing faction, same as if you were GCC. This would swat down much of the ridiculous station games, and also punish those who have their home systems invaded, without causing them to completely screwed because they get camped in, and cant undock their ships to repair, thus quickly having their fleets reduced to nothing without getting a chance to use them in fair fights.

I agree this acts as a counter balance for several pilots. In fact when I was in rvb I switched back and forth from red and blue several times for this very reason.

But I think there are several reasons to think this "pile on the winning team" mentality will have an effect:

1) it already happened even when there were no rewards. Around the time Caldari "won faction war" gallente had very few active pilots.
2)In FW its not quite as easy to switch sides as in rvb. You will be considered a spy, you have to move your stuff through low sec etc. It sucks to no longer fly with your friends and developing some sort of reasonable pretend hatred of the enemy makes the game more fun.
3)Role players won't change
4) Those new to pvp will likely want to be on the winning side not on the underdog side. Then all the reasons not to switch sides will kick in.
5) as far as income: I know players that explicitly said they went to caldari because the missions are easier. I know a player who missioned allot who went to minmatar (which also has easier missions than amarr). These players also pvp, its not the case that they just run missions. They figured if they prefer to pvp instead of missioning why join a faction where I have to mission longer to get the same isk. I can't (and don't) fault them.
6) if your talking about things that actually tip pvp battles one way or another like increased damage or resists or gate guns then I wouldn't do that, myself. If your just talking station guns at the enemy militias station then that would be fine and probably good by me.

That said I think if ccp did some things fw could be somewhat self balancing:
1) increased the number of fw lp items that are unique to each faction.
2) made the items that are unique to each faction worth something. (e.g. amarr plates should have lower fittings than meta 4 gallente plates should have the same fittings as meta 4)
3) require that plexes be run in order to get or cash in on the lps.

If you do not have number 3 then you will just ahve people farming the missions and not running plexes. But if they had to run plexes in order to cash in on the lp . Either by having only the plexes award lp or by having the plexes award something else you need to get the unique items. For example maybe the faction specific items required a different type of lp that you could only get by running plexes. Then the items would go up in value and economics would help balance things.

This would need to be tweaked over time. Even iterated on. But they could do something like that.

Moreover I think some effects from faction occupancy wouldn't directly impact the fw participants that much. Like a small percent chance npc stations will switching from an Amarr corp to a Minmatar corp if the minmatar take occupancy of the system.

Who pretends???