Assembly Hall

I would have them remove the npcs from plexes and leave it to the players to defend entirely. (thats the other part of the proposal)

But if the enemy attacks our military complex then we should know about it. I agree no one wants the job to check all the systems to see if someone is attacking our complex. Why wouldn't the complex that is being attacked report it? It doesn't make any sense at all. Why not let us know so we can try to quickly react. Make the game dynamic and fast paced! Just think about it.

Again the purpose of this proposal is to have eve offer something for people who don't have hours on end looking for fights. Eve offers lots of opportunities for those who like to "hunt" for hours waiting for a fight. It offers very little for those who don't want to wait hours at a computer screen hoping something will happen and often leaving disappointed.

I do not want to change all of eve around. I just want *one* mechanic that brings about frequent quality small scale pvp. FW plexing would do very well. If you like warping around hunting you still could. You can do that in fw or in null sec or as a pirate. That is basically all the game offers now.

I joined a militia that is at war for a huge faction! They should tell me where the fighting is going on not just tell me "Go wander around see what you can find." Imagine if you joined world war 2 (for any side) and they said "ok take your gun and wander around the world looking for a fight."


This sort of change may not be for everyone. But the thing is it would provide a something you simply can't get in eve now: frequent quality small scale pvp. By adding something new to what we can do in the sandbox eve will attract more players and keep existing players who may get tired of constantly warping alt scouts around.


Anyway just think about it.

We are after all fighting for an npc faction. I mean it can never be entirely player driven unless you want to buy into the politics of null sec.

But the npcs should share information with its own militia about when important military complexes are being attacked. By allowing this it really can be an advantage and not a drawback.

The whole idea here is to have fw offer something new. Specifically it should offer frequent quality small scale pvp. This proposal would go a long way toward that. FW would be too fast paced and dynamic for the slow blobs to form and be effective.

If the mechanics just end up giving us more of the same "blob up send alt scouts out and gank what you find" mechanics then it doesn't offer anything new for subscribers.

When I talk about the plexxing I'm talking about occupancy plexxing not missions.

I'm glad your warming to the proposal.

I often go in plexes and do not go near the button because the minmatar npcs will start spamming missiles at me. It is one of the best ways I know to get a decent fight in this game. But when I do this, I can't say I am running plexes or in anyway helping my militia in the occupancy war, since I am not really running the plex.

Yes there will be situations where people will open plexes and then camp the acceleration gate or even the gate into the system. But those ships that are sitting outside the plex camping could potentially be running plexes different themselves. So while they are playing it safe they are not helping their militia as much as they could if they split up and *all* started running timers. The militia that has the courage to split up and run many timers at once will be rewarded with more plexes captured. That will be the main reason why blobs will be split up.

CCP will need to tweak with the number of plexes that spawn. There can't be too many such that both sides can all plex and never have to fight over the same plex. But there can't be too few that the side with larger numbers can easilly camp them.

I would err on the side of having too many at first. I think allot of people - like myself would just go looking for plexes that the enemy started in order to fight for those. If I saw a wt opened a minor plex in a t1 frigate within 7 jumps I would likely be there before they could finish the plex. Of course all minors will now be fought over with nnothing but destroyers but that is another issue.

I really think if they did this people who are looking for pvp would find their killboard blowing up with kills and losses in great fights.

I agree that the changes ccp made are welcome. But they are not enough. They brought the number of dedicated plexers from what 30 to 100? Thats still pretty sad for an mmo with about 300k accounts.

As far as the npcs I can only speak for amarr fighting the minmatar rats.

It can be easy to kill the spawns if you start the plex and keep killing them. But even then if fly a passive tanked pvp fit, you likely have to warp out ot repair your tank if a enemy comes. If the plex was started earlier by somone else then you will definitely not have an easy time clearing it and fighting a wt. You will need to warp off.

Plexing is still primarilly a pve activity. By that I mean I will do 5 plexes before anyone even bothers to come in for a fight. Then if my tank is already demolished which it usually is by the npcs I need to warp out anyway.

I thought I had already liked this so here is my like.

For the record I am still in favour of a more graphical interface but the principal is there.

Garr thanks for posting. That looks like a pretty good run, and exactly what I would like out of eve. When I say I think we should be able to get about 4-7 fights per 2 hours some people say that is crazy. But I think you might agree that with some tweaking it could be possible. At least its worth striving for.

Let me try to clarify what I am getting at with this proposal.

I think *using* plexes is the best way in eve to get small scale pvp fights. So I am always a big proponent of people giving fw a try and using the plex mechanics to get fights.

However if you want to actually plex *in order to gain the most occupancy* under the current mechanics you are better off doing it pve style.

The goal of this proposal is to make it so the best way to gain the most occupancy would require lots of small scale pvp. That is why the notification system is key.

I went out the other night and did some plexing. Now I use plexes in order to get fights not really to get occupancy. Let me explain how each is different:
Using plexes for for fights:
1)go to a system with lots of wartargets and open a plex.
2) move away from the button and rats so they don't cut into your tank and force you to warp out if someone comes
3) Dont actually capture the plex. Even if you are not getting a fight then leave the beacon up and try a different system. That way that plex is open for you to come back to later.

Plexxing in order to actually change occupancy:
1) Go to an empty system - again getting pvp may result in me having to leave the plex or having to reship this just slows plexing down.
2) Run the plex in a pve ship so that you can run the largest variety of plexes. If I fit a frigate/destroyer for pve I can run many more types of plexes than if I fit anything for pvp.

Now know plexing doesn't have consequences and people have pretty much abandoned plexing other than to get a fight. But when I first started people still held on to the idea that occupancy was the goal.(BTW I think occupancy should be the goal of fw) So what I did was I fit pve ships and did plexing. Here is the type of ships we would use:

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=7303164

LOL ok that is horrible and I mainly posted it just for a laugh. But really the whole idea of just warping out if pvpers arrived and going to a different quiet system was effective. And it would still be effective if people really want to start plexxing for occupancy sake again.

So will this proposal accomplish the goal? I am not sure but I think it will bring us much much closer.

Consider the things I do in order to use plexes for fights versus capping plexes for actual occupancy.
1) go to a system with wartarget as opposed to an empty system. You might say well you would still go to an empty system with these changes. However the effect of going ot an empty versus wt filled system will be greatly reduced. Why? Because everyone in the militia will know you are there anyway due to the notification system.
2) There would be no longer a reason not to run away from the rats in order to preserve your tank for pvp because there would be no rats. You could go ahead and actually run the plex even though you are mainly looking for pvp.
3) Capture the plex? Well its true that would make the beacon go away in that system. But the notification system will tell the other militia where you are anywhere you do a plex. So you might as well close that plex and open another. All the wartargets will know you are there.
4) Pve ship so you can run more types of plexes? No there are no rats so there is no reason to fly anything but a fully pvp fit.

Just some things to consider.

I agree that ccp needs to rework what the minor plexes. They should let af in minors and create a rookie plex that only lets t1 vanilla frigates in. T3 cruisers are allowed in medium plexes but T2 cruisers are not. I think they should just not allow T3 cruisers in mediums and the problem is fixed.

As far as cloaks not working in plexes or missions that does sort of cut both ways. One of the best ways to catch stealth bomber mission runners is to put a cloak on your ship warp into the mission and immediatly cloak. When the sb lands on top of you, you will both uncloak and you can lock the sb. Its a pretty good trick that I actually had pulled on me.

The biggest things they can do to help FW plexing is
1. Build a better in-game militia tab. That thing is worthless, and offers nothing of value.
2. Update the map.
a. Use absolute and not relative value for deciding size of contested dots on maps.
b. Refresh map more quickly (like every time a plex is closed).
3. Fix respawn bugs. Get a dev to talk to Damar to figure out what is happening and get it fixed.

TL;DR but I agree with OP