These new FW NPCs have a lot of HP, do a lot of damage, and fly off in crazy directions. This makes fighting in FW with blaster ships insanely difficult. For example, I have a no prop Catalyst I like to use, and it is nearly impossible for me to complete either the offensive plex or the defensive plex. When I add an afterburner, I spend a lot of time burning helplessly after the frigates and destroyer NPC enemies, and it makes me completely out of position to catch ships sliding into me.
How to fix:
Offensive plexing enemies (defenders) should be the same as they are now, except they always try to return to the central tower when over 15km away from it. This will prevent them from getting too far away and dragging the other NPCs off to wherever.
Defensive complex enemies (invaders) should have very little HP, enough active rep to comfortably tank the defenders, lower numbers (only 1-3 of them), and a guaranteed warp disruptor on all of them, with the tradeoff of far less damage dealt (maybe 80% reduction in damage?). They stay within 10km of the tower when no player ships are present (then they can chase).
They should have a large signature, moderate MWD speed, slow orbit speed, tight orbit radius, and a high preference for attacking capsuleer ships. This will make defensive plexing far easier, and offensive plexing more reliable and less aggravating. As it stands I’ve been running Slicers a lot simply because they can actually hit the NPCs when they spawn. Forcing kitier ships into the lowsec meta is not what we need.
Also needed: reduce the time to spawn. When I finish clearing a wave and the next one spawns after only 45s of timer, it’s very discouraging and wastes just a ton of ammo on my destroyers.
CCPls take another look at the sites next balance pass. I have enjoyed the lack of as many farmers so far, it’s now just too difficult in my opinion.