DrButterfly answers questions about faction warfare

One of the fans of my show has written in with some questions about faction warfare, so in this episode, we’re going to do a little Q and A. Big thanks to long time viewer @yellow_parasol for the questions.

Do people operate with, or against, any (non fw) lowsec pirates? Were there ever plans, or the idea, of working with lowsec pirates?
Most of the time pirates are there for the kills and will happily attack either faction. There are exceptions of individual characters who have friends in one faction or other though. Sometimes too, particular hostility can arise between a particular pirate corp and a particular FW corp and therefore on the basis that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, short term collaboration can occur for a specific objective such as an i-hub bash.

What is the current political state? Who are the big guys, who are the upcoming small fries?
From the Minmatar side, Ursha’Khan is the big alliance and most people are either part of UK, working with UK regularly or playing the warzone pretty much on their own. Within UK there are various language groups, the most famous of which is the Italian corp (Global Isk Network) because they are crazy, always fleet up in good numbers and get good kills. The French pretty much keep themselves to themselves.

On the Amarr side the milita is pretty much dead. There are a few small groups that can pack a punch when they get a fleet together but nothing big and often they are dependant on the Russian Caldari milita corps who have recently moved to the area.

What’s the currently preferred ship-meta, and why?
I love firetails because they are quite cheap, good at defending sites, but also good at running away when needed. We also see a lot of fast kitey frigates, who like to swoop in and kill somebody drifting from the herd and then fly off at crazy speeds before they get caught.

How’s the situation with (from opposing factions) awoxers and bluekillers?
I’ve heard this is bad for Amarr at the moment, maybe because of all the Caldari in the warzone. I’ve not really seen it for Minmatar recently and often we are in fleets so awoxers don’t risk trying anything.

How’s the social climate in the Minmatar public militia?
Pretty good I think. I don’t hang out in text chat because I use VR and can’t see my keyboard, but our voice comms have good banter and are very friendly.

How’s the situation with farmers, who influence the war?
There’s an unfortunately large number of bots (or bot like characters) on both sides who will plex a system constantly for hours on end, which is hard for real players to compete with. We have a few players in Minmatar who will actively hunt and kill bots, using dotlan statistics to find them. For example, this screenshot shows how killing a bot prevents the steady increase in contested status of a system: http://imgur.com/GEKfSUj

I see the contested status as a bit like the tide. It goes up and it goes down and it takes a heck of a lot of effort to move it significantly. Instead, what you have to do is wait until the tide is high and then catch it at that time to push it the rest of the way up to vulnerable. Thats why I made http://evewarfare.com/orders.html - so you can see what’s the best place to go attack or defend.

I hope you found those answers interesting @yellow_parasol. Any other questions from the audience?

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:grin:

thank you, this actually beats my expectations. you’re doing it right; i’m impressed. now if i may tap into my wisdom of old EVE times for a minute and allow me a spark of iC…

you’re likely not following my posts, but i talk a lot about solo farmers, who are a cancer that needs to be chemo’d out of this game. literally. i use lowsec as good example, often, but they’re everywhere constantly spreading their cancer throughout the game, trying to mutate it into something they want, without any care for anyone else. literally cancer.

Given that you’re lowseccers, you’re not as soft, weak, cultureless and degenerated as most of high- and nullsec, so…

What has been done to get rid of the cancer? coordinated efforts? riots?
how many friends do you have spread accross all faction warfare?
how many people, a guesstimate is fine, want to get rid of the cancer?
is there a widely used slang term for them?

I’m not going to stop anytime soon. i will not let the cancer bait me into discussions and i hope others won’t either.

thank you for your time. :slight_smile:

I actually have no problem with people playing and running sites silo. Doesn’t do me any harm and if they are with the enemy, its nice to have some prey to catch.

The bots I do object to though, and there are peoole actively hunting them down and reporting them to ccp.

that reply is rather weird.

i didn’t ask you if you had a problem. you said you answer questions about faction warfare and i asked several. :slight_smile:
also, how do you catch warbstabbed frigs that warp out immediately, bot or not?

and why do you sound like you have no issue with people who influence the state without playing?

Ok. I’ll have a go at going through thise specific questions later maybe.

You can get stabbed frigates either by having a lot of points or by alphing them before they can warp off. It helps if you can be there waiting and have them land on top of you.

sitting in a plex, waiting for a farmer, really isn’t a good solution. :slight_smile:

please take your time. be excessive, if you want to. i write huge posts sometimes. i can wait. :slight_smile:

thanks! :slight_smile:

Are we talking about bots or human farmers? Two very different things.

i’m not sure why i would differentiate, because the outcome is the same… no?

A bot can run 24 hours a day without stopping to eat or sleep. It has a disproportionate impact on contested status and gives the player running it an unfair lp reward which reduces the value of lp for everybody else.

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Hm, yeah they’d have a disproportionate impact on the warzone. Still, that doesn’t mean the human farmers shouldn’t be put into the same bucket. They still have an impact they shouldn’t have, because they don’t give a rats ass about the warzone.

That’s why i lump them together. You’re absolutely right with what you’re saying, but farmers are farmers.

Looking forward to the other answers. :slight_smile:

@yellow_parasol can you elaborate a bit more or what you refer as “farmers”? I used to think you are referring to bot or people running the bot. But seems it is not the case.

A farmer is anyone who only ever cares about the isk, with disregard about the game itself, and its population.

Farmers are in every kind of space. In nullsec, you see them coming out of their holes, when they make threads complaining about afk cloakers.

In highsec you find them regularly on the forums, calling themselves “solo players” (which is fine per se, but: ) who will not ever stop declaring every new player a victim of the evil ganker menace, and or how WiS is the one thing this game really needs, and who constantly hate on anyone potentially touching them (aka normal gameplay keeping them from farming). Right now you can find them spreading their poison in the lifeblood thread.

Farmers are everywhere in this game. The smart ones stay silent. The rest continuously appears to be trying to ruin the game for some, or everykne, one way or another.

I see lowsec fwplex farmers as the same, because they influence the warzone, while not caring about it at all, and while not caring about the shitty experience they provide for others. Usually i wouldn’t complain about that, having provided shitty experiences a few times myself :), but this is different, because they have no regards for the game itself. They just care about the isk, for whatever selfish reason.

I hope this sufficiently explains my standpoint? When i’m missing something, please add it, so i can learn more! :smiley:

Hmm, that is a very big coverage.

Basically all activities in game, any game, are drawn in by incentives. In Eve will be isk or item (lp or others are just different forms).

I am not sure why you are against solo player doing the fw plex, it is the game mechanics and they are benefiting the faction they sign up.

PS: I played a few others mmo and usually farmers are refer to people collecting in game currency / items (usually using bot) and sell for real money.

A classic farmer thing to do is have a character in each faction. One character plexes the system up, the log in to the other ti plex it back down, making lp on both.

I don’t think farmers are bad for the warzone though. They create the tides that pvp pilots can surf. Like deer, as long as there are enough wolves to keep their population in check and keep them moving around, they are actually good for the ecosystem. They even can be herded by one faction or the other to their advantage.

I’d like to weigh in on this subject. There is a difference between the guy farming LP on his alt in a stabbed and sometimes afk manner and the autonomous plexing bot. The former can often be caught with little more than a maulus navy and quick dscanning. The latter will run when you appear on scan or often when you appear in system, as they can be programmed to recognise pilots who have killed them previously.

To deal with the former I will roam with a navy maulus, set up traps with a multiscram astero or just cock block them by running the timer with my own alt.

The latter is harder to deal with. I use my alt to run back timers while trying to probe the bot in its safe spots. However, the bots can run 23/7 and I have to sleep, work, etc.

Yes stabbed farmers are far from ideal but they are in a way the fw equivalent to afk ishtars or vnis and should be viewed as such. They are a food source for content and require someone to occasionally sit at a computer and input actions. Bots on the other hand should be more proactively identified and banned. Not just the account with the bot on but all accounts owned by that player.

/rant

Edit: before you ask, the only stabs my alt uses are tech 2 gyrostabs

2 Likes

Ok, here’s the answers you’ve asked for. I’m answering these questions on the assumption you are talking about farners, not bots.

  • What has been done to get rid of [farmers]? coordinated efforts? riots?
    Nothing.

  • how many friends do you have spread accross all faction warfare?
    So many friends. But mainly all Minmatar.

  • how many people, a guesstimate is fine, want to get rid of [farmers]?
    I think it’s just you.

  • is there a widely used slang term for them?
    farmers

  • how do you catch warbstabbed frigs that warp out immediately, bot or not?
    You either alpha blap them before they warp or tackle them in something with lots of points. You can often predict where they will run to because there are not many sites in systems. If there are two of you, one can chase them into the waiting embrace of the other. Even if you are solo, you can sometimes get ahead of them and catch them.

  • why do you sound like you have no issue with people who influence the state without playing?
    I don’t. Farmers are playing and are a vital part of the ecosystem. They are just playing a different game to me.

Can someone explain the term “stabbed”? I am still trying to pick up terms used in Eve.

Some Sanshas ships have large spikes on them which they use to “stab” other ships.

Read more here: http://www.eveinfo.net/complexes/ind~2205.htm

Oh, so it is referring to ships using a warp core stabilizer. Thx!

interesting.

hm. isn’t your way of knowing who is real, and who is a bot, flawed? you can, at best, recognize the worst bots, while the better ones, who look more like plaers, get away unreporte?

of course farmers are a part of the eco system, but why would you tolerate that? tolerating them means risking more farmers joining and having an influence, which means that those who actually fight for their space are becoming irrelevant. why would it not seen better to oppose the carebearing farmers, as well as bots, so they don’t take over control of the warzone tl the point where actual players become obsolete?

it baffles me, and makes me wonder how many in game generations must have passed for it to becoming accepted as the norm. fascinating! for me, given that there is no reliable way of differentiating between a good bot and an attentive player, it makes no sense accepting any one of them, especially because they only care about the isk and not about your warzone at all, meaning they just stomp their boots into your faces and apparently some of you even like it…

i’m confused. no offense intended. just mind boggling how you see this…