Faction War Plex Post Kronos

At the weekend mynnna made this post. TL:DR why not introduce a hacking-mini game into faction war:-

Part of the changes in Kronos were aimed at Faction Warfare. The NPCs found in the complex got a serious buff to their capabilities and actually respawn as they were (I believe) originally intended to. The point of the change was to put a damper on the heavily stabbed semi-AFK plex farming. Unfortunately – at least, going by what I’m hearing from regular participants – the new NPCs put a crimp on active players as well. Someone comes in and jumps you and having this annoying NPC glued to your ass is not helpful, right?

So we’ve swung back the other way, I guess. What about a third option?

What if, instead of a timer and NPC spawns, orbiting a FW plex button meant that you’d have to beat the hacking minigame a few times?

-o0o-

Personally I have no interest in hacking mini-games or other PvE content. I'm inside that plex to fight another player, if any grow a pair whilst I'm in there waiting. There are other ways to get around these issues without making me play hacking games when all I want is PvP. We need the NPC spawns to remove farmers as much as possible and make people fit their ships for combat. Yes things need to change but there are ways without turning Faction War from PvP to Archelology.

Firstly lets talk about that annoying NPC. By the look of it, they spawn every 3-4 minutes in a small plex. If you are running a decent fit ship you should be able to dispatch them with relative ease. The chance of a player, who is looking for a fight, entering your plex at the same time of you engaging a rat that just spawned are fairly small. The issue is if the rat spawns during such a fight, you'll have extra DPS to contend with.

This should be easy to solve. The "capture timer" ticks down as you are in there alone right?

And when there is an enemy pilot or rat there with you, it pauses.

So just link the "NPC rat respawn timer" to the "capture timer". If you are pew-pewing with an enemy militia member the rat will not spawn as the timer is paused. Once one of you is dead, the capture timer will start ticking and so will the rat respawn timer. Solved!

The next issue is the curse of the warp core stabs! CCP decided to hurt the stabbed and cloaky farmers by stopping cloaking within the capture radius and also to make the rats respawn and make them tougher. Unfortunatly the farmers are like the Borg. Not in a "Hur-Hur-Alriiiiiiiiight" Seven of Nine in that skin tight onesie type Borg but the standard drone that wants to assimilate you and nobody really likes. They have come up with two counters. The first one is even worse than what we had before. Damn Borg!

Basically the farmers have swapped to defensive plexing (and so do not need to shoot anything) and totally forgone weapons!

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=24066274

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=24059109

Now I don't know why they are doing this. Defensive plexing at tier 1 must pay even less than mining... in a 1.0 system.... in a noob ship. However, they are still doing it. The mind boggles!
The other way is that they have moved to using stabbed cruisers fitted for drone DPS. That way they don't need a lock!

CCP Fozzie would not be drawn into a discussion on warp core stabs at Fanfest when their use in FW LP farming was raised. He said that he had plans for them when they start the module rebalancing soon(tm). I propose a quick and easy solution to 'balance' WCS:-

Change it so that Warp Core Stabs nerf DPS like.....

The mechanics are already there for bonus to damage, just add a negative modifier for stabs. 50% reduction in DPS? Add one and your damage is severely nerfed. Add two and you are buggered.

Yes, there will be a few fits that will be adversely effected by this. Smart bombing battleships are the obvious ones. Also some fits that rely on drones. However, how many of these fits do people use on a very regular basis? I do not see a need for warp core stabs to be fitted to combat ships. This change does not effect your stabbed hauler. This change does not effect your stabbed travel fit battleship.

There are other ways this could be tackled. Another one would be to increase signature radius massively. I'm talking MWD style. However this would effect the haulers and travel fits. Increasing CPU to restrct other fittings is another. This again hurts haulers who might have to sacrifice tank to fit stabs. I think the DPS nerf is the best route all round.

The final way is reward those who are actually taking part in faction war and excluding farmers. Why not tie the LP rewards into system capture? Now this would require more work from CCP to impliment the mechanics but I think it would be worth it.

Defensive plexing stays the same. You defend a plex, you get LP.

With offensive plexing you are 'promised LP'. Basically as you capture enemy plex the LP you would be awarded is placed in a pool with a 30-day timer. If that system is captured then those LP will be transferred to you. If the system isn't captured then the LP are lost. Therefore those who are fighting to gain control of space will be rewarded and the farming is only rewarded if the bunker is flipped within 30-days.

Now in the past when I've suggested things like this a common response is "Moaning about stabbed farmers? Fit your ship to combat them!". Really? You put 3-point faction scrams on a T1 frigate do you? Have you tried flying a ship with triple long point against someone who is combat fit? Currently its a case of engage enemy, watch enemy run away, fly back to home station, swap to stabbed asshat catching ship, fly back to where stabbed asshat is, chase him, catch him, kill him, fly back to home system to swap out of stabbed asshat catching ship, get into combat ship, undock and go looking for another fight.

No, Faction War is about PvP. The clue is in the second word! WAR!!!!!