Faction Warfare Novice Outposts

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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As it is commonly known, Faction Warfare is low sec territorial warfare. These territories are lost or won on the basis of accumulating points by occupying complexes of varying levels of “difficulty”. These complexes are gated to only allow ships of a certain size to enter after activating a gate. The common complexes are Open, Large, Medium, Small, and Novice. Small is for T3-T1 Destroyers, T2 frigates, and T1 frigates. The Novice is for T1 frigates and below. My suggestion is about the scaling of the Novice complex.

The term Novice, “a person new to or inexperienced in a field or situation” (Webster’s Online Dictionary), implies that this complex is for inexperienced players. Most inexperienced players are going to be regulated to T1 frigates and T1 modules of varying meta levels for the first few months of their introduction into EvE. T1 frigates are generally accepted as beginner ships as they have a low skill point threshold to pilot, and a high skill point threshold to pilot master. The average new player, whether Alpha or Omega would find it challenging enough to just to fight against players of the same class of T1 (non-faction / non-pirate) frigates. Allowing T1 faction and pirate frigates into a Novice plex (ships that out class every T1 frigate in a 1 v 1 fight) doesn’t promote a positive learning experience or EvE experience. It affords experienced high skill point characters the opportunity to take advantage of inexperience low skill point characters. I do believe there is a time and place for all types of combat, but I strongly feel Novice complexes are not that place. As such, I would like to recommend the following changes to the Faction Warfare Novice complex:

  1. Restrict Novice complexes to T1 (Non Faction/Pirate) frigates fitted with Meta 4 and below modules.
  2. Add an Intermediate complex that allows for all T1 frigates with Meta 5 and below modules.

In terms of the war contribution to capturing and fighting in these complexes. Scale the Novice and Intermediate complex to contribute more capture or defense points, but lower LP. Scale the Small to contribute less capture or defense points, but increase the LP.

I believe these changes could prove a more positive and less toxic experience to the new player community as well as introduce new opportunities to mold small scale combat and its overall contribution to individual War Efforts.

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Pretty sure D3’s are medium and above.

I agree with taking pirate ships out of novice sites. I’m on the fence about faction ships.

Most ships in FW space are faction frigs. So noobs that don’t have Frig to level 5 or can’t afford a faction frig at all are at a significant disadvantage before piloting skill or mods is even considered.

This has a big effect on what fights noobs can take. The most common answer to seeing a faction frig on shortscan will be to simply leave the site. And the ones they stick around for, there isn’t much constructive feedback you can give to them when their opponents is faster, tankier and has more firepower, range and tracking all in one fit.

If novice sites were T1 only (or if there was a new site only for T1 frigs), you’d certainly see a significant increase in T1 frigs in the warzones and you’d dramatically increase the fights that noobs can realistically take. And not only that but the feedback you can give to players will be much more ‘rock-paper-scissors’ than telling players they were out matched in every way.

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