/start_rant
Many of us in faction war are suffering a mix of burn out or are just plainly pissed of with the mechanics. Please CCP, do something! Risk vs Reward is utterly broken.
Take a week old alt. Put them in a 2m ISK frigate and go run some FW plex for the Caldari. With the squids at tier 3, a small plex will net you over 30,000 LP. If the LP store prices are low, that LP will get you around 18,000,000 ISK when you cash out. If the market isn't saturated and prices are normal, you'll get around 30,000,000m ISK. If you hold on to that LP and wait for the cycle of FW to spin round and LP prices to rise as the otherside dominates, you can make 45,000,000m ISK. All that reward from that single 15 minute plex (plus say 5 minutes for travelling) where you just have to kill one easy destroyer rat!
THAT IS UP TO 45M ISK FOR 20 MINUTES WORK WITH A WEEK OLD TOON IN A 2m ISK SHIP!
Seriously? 60 to 90m ISK per hour and if you lose your ship and get podded so what? In fact most people want to get podded after losing their ship! They are still on their free clone and the 'Pod Express' means they are back home much faster and can jump into another 2m ISK frigate and get back out there. Where is the risk? I can see the reward, there is plenty of that. But there is no risk. A free clone and a 2m ISK loss is not risk. Running level 4 missions in high-sec is not that profitable and carrys substantially more risk. You need a much more expensive ship to run level 4's in high sec. Why risk a 200m ISK battleship or a 1bn ISK Marauder when you can make more money using a 2m ISK T1 frigate, a low SP character and a free clone?
But what if you don't want to even risk that?
Well then, you grab your Venture, your triple stabbed Merlin or Punisher, your kitey Condor with cloaking device.
Now the problem is this. These arseholes are trying to kick me out of my home. OK, not directly but if the Caldari take Nisuwa I'd not be able to dock there and access my five years of Eve Online stuffz. So I, and my fellow Nisuwa residents, have to play whack-a-mole constantly with these risk-adverse asshats.
"Point! Nevermind, he's stabbed."
"Going after Merlin in Novice Outpost. Oh, he cloaked."
This is 95% of the Caldari militia. So we resport to dual scram ships and fast 'decloaking' set ups. Then once you are in one of those ships you are bound to run into one of the one-in-twenty in the Caldari who are flying an actual combat ship!
Risk vs Reward is utterly broken in faction war. Yes, we have more people than ever in low sec, but most are low SP alts flying either ghetto fit T1 frigates or stabbed/cloaked T1 frigates. It needs sorting. Here are some ideas:-
Timer Roll-Back
If a ship leaves or cloaks up in a faction war plex then the timer resets. To capture a plex you have to get in there and HOLD it! If you warp off to a safe and then wait until the enemy has left the plex then your 'hard work' should be undone. This will make a massive difference to LP farming. Rather than playing whack-a-mole constantly we just need to chase them out of the plex once every ten minutes or so.
Pimp the Rats
CCP, we made a mistake. When we asked for the faction rats to be nerfed it was to level the PvP playing field. We never expected farming alts to become such an issue. Please pimp the rats a bit. Either add extra rats or buff their tank and/or DPS. Balance the risk with the reward.
Gimp the Stabs
This goes with the above. The faction rats are so weak that even with three warp core stabalisers, a new-ish toon can still easily beat them. If we upped the PG requirements of warp core stabalisers that would hurt the DPS of the triple stabbed Merlins and Punishers. Another option would be to further gimp scan resolution and targetting range. Haulers or travel fit ships don't need to target anyone so it is not hurting 'legitimate' users of warp-core stabs.
Have the 'Button' Ghost-Target Enemies
It doesn't have to show, but have the structure in the plex 'lock' any hostile that enters. Same agro mechanic as the NPC rat in there. So when farmers try to cloak they get the same message as a militia pilot gets when he tries to cloak in hostile hi-sec "You cannot cloak as the enemy navy are tracking you" or whatever it says. This is supposed to be a military outpost. Surely they have a method of tracking hostiles entering that space!
The timer roll-back and the inability to cloak will have the biggest effects on faction war. It will severely hurt the farmers who do not want to fight, don't care about the war. They are simply there to leach LP.
FW is in danger of turning into a ISK fountain that rolls backwards and forwards every six to nine months. One side will get a high teir and all the farmers will farm like mad. Eventually the LP market will be flooded and the prices will crash as the othersides spikes from low supply. So the farmers will swap alts and farm the otherside. Faction War is supposed to be about PvP. Currently its a lucrative PvE with less risk than high-sec level 4 missioning.
/end_rant
Edit - To the forums! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=303513
Many of us in faction war are suffering a mix of burn out or are just plainly pissed of with the mechanics. Please CCP, do something! Risk vs Reward is utterly broken.
Take a week old alt. Put them in a 2m ISK frigate and go run some FW plex for the Caldari. With the squids at tier 3, a small plex will net you over 30,000 LP. If the LP store prices are low, that LP will get you around 18,000,000 ISK when you cash out. If the market isn't saturated and prices are normal, you'll get around 30,000,000m ISK. If you hold on to that LP and wait for the cycle of FW to spin round and LP prices to rise as the otherside dominates, you can make 45,000,000m ISK. All that reward from that single 15 minute plex (plus say 5 minutes for travelling) where you just have to kill one easy destroyer rat!
THAT IS UP TO 45M ISK FOR 20 MINUTES WORK WITH A WEEK OLD TOON IN A 2m ISK SHIP!
But what if you don't want to even risk that?
Well then, you grab your Venture, your triple stabbed Merlin or Punisher, your kitey Condor with cloaking device.
Now the problem is this. These arseholes are trying to kick me out of my home. OK, not directly but if the Caldari take Nisuwa I'd not be able to dock there and access my five years of Eve Online stuffz. So I, and my fellow Nisuwa residents, have to play whack-a-mole constantly with these risk-adverse asshats.
"Point! Nevermind, he's stabbed."
"Going after Merlin in Novice Outpost. Oh, he cloaked."
This is 95% of the Caldari militia. So we resport to dual scram ships and fast 'decloaking' set ups. Then once you are in one of those ships you are bound to run into one of the one-in-twenty in the Caldari who are flying an actual combat ship!
Timer Roll-Back
If a ship leaves or cloaks up in a faction war plex then the timer resets. To capture a plex you have to get in there and HOLD it! If you warp off to a safe and then wait until the enemy has left the plex then your 'hard work' should be undone. This will make a massive difference to LP farming. Rather than playing whack-a-mole constantly we just need to chase them out of the plex once every ten minutes or so.
Pimp the Rats
CCP, we made a mistake. When we asked for the faction rats to be nerfed it was to level the PvP playing field. We never expected farming alts to become such an issue. Please pimp the rats a bit. Either add extra rats or buff their tank and/or DPS. Balance the risk with the reward.
Gimp the Stabs
This goes with the above. The faction rats are so weak that even with three warp core stabalisers, a new-ish toon can still easily beat them. If we upped the PG requirements of warp core stabalisers that would hurt the DPS of the triple stabbed Merlins and Punishers. Another option would be to further gimp scan resolution and targetting range. Haulers or travel fit ships don't need to target anyone so it is not hurting 'legitimate' users of warp-core stabs.
Have the 'Button' Ghost-Target Enemies
It doesn't have to show, but have the structure in the plex 'lock' any hostile that enters. Same agro mechanic as the NPC rat in there. So when farmers try to cloak they get the same message as a militia pilot gets when he tries to cloak in hostile hi-sec "You cannot cloak as the enemy navy are tracking you" or whatever it says. This is supposed to be a military outpost. Surely they have a method of tracking hostiles entering that space!
FW is in danger of turning into a ISK fountain that rolls backwards and forwards every six to nine months. One side will get a high teir and all the farmers will farm like mad. Eventually the LP market will be flooded and the prices will crash as the othersides spikes from low supply. So the farmers will swap alts and farm the otherside. Faction War is supposed to be about PvP. Currently its a lucrative PvE with less risk than high-sec level 4 missioning.
/end_rant
Edit - To the forums! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=303513
Cloak-and-stab may be most of the State Pro guys, but out in northwest Black Rise there's CalMil guys flying combat-optimized ships out every day. Granted, the PVP-seekers can get lost in the noise of the farmers and the mega-alliances, but we're out there. Check the Templis Dragonaors loss-board. (The Interstellar Steel loss-board isn't big enough to get a representative sample, but we do collect the occasional GalMil pilot in a triple-stabbed Atron - not an FDU pilot, either...)
ReplyDelete:)
I could stand to see more rats in the plexes as well, though. Tags for some LP store items became scarce with the re-worked mechanics...
Don't get me wrong, there are proper Cal Mil pilots out there looking for fights. Had some proper solo and small fleet action over the weekend
DeleteBut every time Caldari hit T3 or 4 we are playing wack-a-mole with the farmers ans the gf's get lost in the background.
+1 from me! Do eeet
ReplyDeleteTimer roll-back, you would imagine could be so easy to implement and yet make for such a better place to play the game.
ReplyDeletePeople will read your post and think YOU MAD BRO and other lame comments but the truth is these people are meant to be fighting a war. There should be no rewards for cowardice. We used to shoot cowards at a time of war!
Bubble the button and put in timer roll back. Oh and have the plex announce its being attacked. Npcs shouldn't even need to be in a plex then
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Get hot CCP and fix this please...
ReplyDeleteSupported. Farming has to end, it has completely ruined FW for me and I'm not coming back until it's fixed.
ReplyDelete"So we resport to dual scram ships and fast 'decloaking' set ups. Then once you are in one of those ships you are bound to run into one of the one-in-twenty in the Caldari who are flying an actual combat ship!"
ReplyDeleteThis is what the Astero is for. Fitted properly and with dual scrams, you can catch the farmers while still having the power to solo a hookbill.
FW is not an ISK fountain. It's a sink. I get what you're saying, that it's a too-good ISK redistributor, but if you don't use the correct terminology you undermine your point.
ReplyDeleteFW is an ISK fountain to those that do not participate in the actual warfare part of it. If you are farming LP on an alt, with no intention to use earned income on combat ships to support the war effort, then your drinking from the ISK spring for whatever means you have for that ISK.
DeleteOn the other hand, if you are earning income via LP to invest into hubs, work sov, kill wts etc, then it is a sink indeed.
So tldr, Farmers=Fountain, real FW players=sink
fw doesnt create isk infact even farmers have to put isk in with lp for good all isk comes from other players not from fw
DeleteI know this, have been in FW for nearly 5 years. FW is an ISK fountain as I called it as in you make billions of ISK personally. That ISK originally came from rat bounties or mission rewards. The only two real major facets in the game.
DeleteI think I've said this everytime this comes up. Cloaks have legitimate uses in plexes as mentioned in your scass this week and should not be disabled. Stabs on the other hand have no legitimate use and should be disabled by the same thing that prevents warp directly into the plex
ReplyDeleteI know your views on the subject. My view is the mass problems of a T1 frigate with a prototype cloak outweigh the benefits of the much rarer proper covert ops cloak combat ship. Disable all cloaks inside plex I say imho.
DeleteIn that case, while I still say there are legitimate uses, only disable t1 cloaks
DeleteSome of these are good suggestions. But really, if you don’t like it when plex farmers scuttle away or cloak up, only to return or uncloak when you leave, the solution is quite simple: don’t leave. Stay in the plex. I know it’s not elite PvP, it’s about as much fun as watching paint dry. But it is faction warfare. And no, plex farmers aren’t cowards, they’re simply exploting the roaming PvPer’s main weakness: impatience.
ReplyDeleteYou do realize that in worst case this means doing nothing for over half an hour of your game time for no reward, right? While the farmer simply opens another plex.
DeleteWhat that guy said. I play Eve for the PvP. Faction War is supposed to be about PvP. Sitting still watching a counter tick down from 20:00 to 00:00 is not what I want to do.
DeleteDisable all warping in and out of the plex.
ReplyDeleteA gate to get in, a gate to get out.(and something that holds a lock on you too for cloaks)
That would be an issue with the solo roamer like me. Sat in a plex and a BNI, RvB or Eve Uni blog land on the gate. Bugger.......
Delete"Eve Uni blog …"
DeleteHow often have you seen an E-Uni fleet roll up to an FW gate and jettison a can of reports? I think you're making this up!
;)
On a more constructive note, what would be the consequences if
(1) the button effectively emits a warp disruption bubble about 5km larger than the capture zone
(2) if you leave the capture zone, the timer resets?
Someone lands on the gate - do you stay within the capture zone and try to fight, or do you fly out of the bubble and let your timer reset?
One concern that comes to mind is that a ship landing after taking the gate is immediately warp scrambled until it can fly back out of the bubble.
+1.
ReplyDeleteWarp core stab nerf would probably affect standard Industrial fits and SB'ing BSs. Although I don't sympathize with either, this is just to point out that messing around with modules is extremely delicate.
Timer roll-back, on the other hand, is something that would only affect farming and people who run away from blobs. IMO it would be a bit extreme to instantly get it back to 0, but I can't think of a good reason not to make it run backwards when there's nobody running it. That would ofc go for both sides, defensive or offensive so that an empty plex would always "try" to stay with it's timer at a neutral point.
Then we're back to whack-a-mole. Squid runs from plex to plex running it down a bit at a time.
DeleteEither one of the above mentioned "fixes"...or go back to the "old way" and remove docking rights being tied to sov... Then some lazy, stabbed douchebag, no-skill toon won't have a physical affect on the war zone...just the economy.
ReplyDeleteVery much against the rat buff, but the rest, oh yes!
ReplyDeleteMake only the maximum size of ship that can enter the plex be able to run the button - smaller ships can still enter. This will both decrease the number of 1 day old stabbed ships, and add variety to plex combat.
ReplyDeleteTimer rollbacks are a must IMO. I am fine with the rat DPS as is but let's see them gain enough tank to thwart the ships that forgo the damage mods in favor of cloaks and stabs. Ventures as well as the double/triple/quad stabbed frigates with cloaks eating CPU and low slot space shouldn't be able to break a rat. Anyway +1 to any attempt at seeing some action on this.
ReplyDeleteExcellent read and suggestions. It's really starting to get out of hand with all the farmers. +1
ReplyDeleteYour ideas address the concept that strictly farming plexes is a problem, but I don’t think they address it in the right way.
ReplyDeleteTimer Rollback
A complex should slowly reset itself back to normal when unoccupied by the appropriate forces, but an instant reset is too harsh. Instantly resetting the timer hurts farmers insanely, but also hurts pilots legitimately looking for small 1v1 fights. The ‘reward’ for instant reset is just too high, for presenting an obviously unfavorable fight you undo several minutes of ‘work’ instantly; the tears/time ratio is too in favor of tears in this case.
Instead, a more fitting solution would be to cause the timer to slowly reset to neutral at a modest rate of 1 second per second, and, if the opposing faction is now occupying the complex, increase the rate to 2 or even 3 seconds per second. This method prevents a roving gang of pilots from completely shutting down any solo FW activity in a fairly large swath of space, and also gives a defending faction a way to fight against enemies plexing their systems.
As a side note, the plex shouldn’t then display one time and not tick off accordingly, if you are retaking a plex at 2 seconds/second from 10 minutes captured out of 15 it should read the appropriate 20 minutes to capture.
Rats
The rats in a plex should serve a purpose; otherwise they are just there to be there. Currently, they don’t serve a purpose and their presence doesn’t mean anything other than you should at least fit a weapon to your ship to deal with it.
The acceleration gate’s purpose is to restrict access to sites to ships ‘too large’ for them; the rat should do the opposite, they should restrict access to ships ‘too small’ for them. The rat should be defensively focused and have an active tank able to stop ships below their class from doing the site. A frigate should be able to kill the frigate easily, and the destroyer with time, but a medium plex’s cruiser should be nigh impossible for a t1 frigate and still take an extended time for fancier one.
The damage and buffer of a plex rat should also be looked into. A rat should not deal enough damage as to kill the pilot by itself, but enough to turn a fight in the defender’s favor is a distinct possibility. The buffer should be large enough to be quick to dispatch, but not too few as to be too fast. The balance of damage and tank should fall to a point where a buffer tank fit ship isn’t suffering unrepairable armor damage just by taking the rat out. Jumping into an enemy plex should be risky, if someone follows you in you’re in danger of being caught between them and the rat should be real.
Another idea to combo with this is that a plex can call in reinforcement rats at percentages of being conquered. Adding more rats would lead to it being less mostly afk spamming the D-scan key and give at least a little more pew. Don’t’ make it where frequent crossing of the same threshold spawns another rat, though, otherwise obvious abuse cases would be too prevalent. Don’t want enemies plexing your sites? Run a cross-faction alt in and run the plex until the first reinforcement and then leave, re-enter, repeat until the plex is full of ships.
Side Effect: People looking to cash in on the most lucrative sites (arguable medium sites, the lack of any gate at a large is often too much) are now going to be risking larger ships to do them, namely cruisers. Who says faction warfare should be solely a frigate game?
(Continued)
(Continued from above)
ReplyDeleteWarp Core Stabilizers
Warp Core Stabs are a very common complaint, especially in faction warfare, but they aren’t necessarily the problem. Currently, simply warping away costs little to nothing, so simply leaving isn’t a problem, a single pilot can jump around many plexes leading a group of enemies. If these enemies are pirates, the running pilot will actually come out ahead, albeit extremely inefficiently, by ticking a few seconds off of each plex as he visits. I believe simply making plexes to slowly reset to neutral will solve most of the warp core stabbing problem without deliberate changes to the module.
Alternatively, WCS can also affect the timer in ways other than just not working. When you jump into a plex with at least one fit, you get a popup much like other random sites that states “Interference from your Warp Core Stabilizers disrupts your ability to capture this site”. This doesn’t have to be a binary all-or-nothing effect, either. One WCS can inhibit your ability by 25% and additively stacking from there. This would appropriately decrease the reward for decreased risk, if you want to be safe from a single warp scrambler you are halving your LP/minute for your sites.
Cloaks
Simply preventing people from cloaking in sites limits our wonderful sandbox, and that is always a bad idea.
Like WCS, I don’t believe cloaks are the problem, but simply the lack of punishment for ‘leaving’ the plex. With a plex counting back to neutral when no one’s around, a pirate sitting around waiting for the farmer to uncloak or leave is costing the farmer twice as much time as he is now, while a friendly faction is costing them three times as much.
This may not completely eliminate the use of Stabs/Cloaks but I believe it would lower it to much more reasonable levels.
Great post, +1 primarily to the warp core stab and t1 cloak affecting the plex timer. Modifying the module is out of scope IMHO, but having stabbed and t1 cloaked ships run down the timer 5x slower or whatnot would address most farming without affecting PvP at all.
ReplyDeletehmmm, thanks for the info. I have a spare time code sitting around, time to go roll a faction warfare alt... i like the caldari navy faction stuff anyways on my main. You say a venture works well for this? danke
ReplyDelete