Yesterday an update was introduced that reworked the NPCs at factional warfare beacons, making them similar to the NPCs at pirate faction beacons.
Now NPCs warp in as a group, and their landing spread is very wide. Moving around inside the beacon on an AB has become unpleasant — just like it is on pirate beacons.
On top of that, the NPCs now apply a disruptor. So once again, if you’re on an AB, you won’t be able to pull away from them.
A sniper can sit at 60 km on the beacon, and if someone on an AB approaches, the NPC will point them, and the player will pick them off from range.
Closing distance to an ambush victim at 24 km is no longer necessary.
There are also friendly NPCs, which seem to help by adding DPS to enemy NPCs, reducing the need to bring something with extreme damage output. This opens the door for kiting, long-range fits.
It seems to me that with this change, pure AB scram-kite fits on beacons might become a thing of the past. Factional lowsec fits are going to resemble nullsec fits more closely, and the meta will shift toward kite and anti-kite gameplay.
What do you think — are major changes coming to beacon fights, and will some ships or playstyles take on new life because of this?