How to unbork FW megathread

I have four JF pilots: my main (this character), and three alts. I do logistics for myself currently, and, a year ago, for a fairly large alliance. Requiring either a station or a second, unaligned citadel for neutral logistics wouldn’t kill the game for anybody. On the contrary, hostile-territory structures would only be stockable by militiamen, and that’s perfectly fine. It’d lead to some interesting challenges, which is not a bad thing.

Spoiler

I also feel hostile-territory FW structures should drop full loot, like in wormholes, but I don’t see that happening, unfortunately.


You would have to imagine that a fw structure would at least require that the party anchoring it should be IN faction warfare as a prerequisite.

It’s naive to assume anyone with citadel-anchoring capabilities wouldn’t be capable of rolling a fw alt. Especially given that alpha clones exist and that citadels are handled at a corp level, it would be a trivial matter.

Anyone willing to waste the resources to anchor a citadel that is poorly defended and crewed should be welcome to make that mistake.

It’s not always a mistake to deny strategic assets to your enemies. Also, as per your own suggestion, the system would have to be vulnerable to begin with, and it’d only be vulnerable to your own side. That is significant.

There is no other way…

yes there is

…to apply the benefits of system upgrades that benefit those respective citadels and corporations quite like this. It makes things simpler and easier, while at the same time applying the same target restrictions against third party intervention when the hybrid ihub citadel becomes vulnerable, keeping this special content within fw entities. Does that have no appeal?

You’re suggesting that one and only one player corporation gets benefits for owning a certain structure in a system. It’d be locked out from neutral interference, and “allies” cannot attack it, because it’s on the same militia and the system has to be vulnerable to begin with. Nobody except who’s on the ‘allowed’ list can dock, much less manage modules or implement changes to the structure. On the contrary, other people who might make legitimate use out of it are now locked out, with no counterplay except to lose the system, re-capture the system, and try to win the anchor race again. That does, in fact, have no appeal.

Also, we don’t need player-structure “target restrictions against third party intervention”…

Plex timers shouldn’t even count down if the pilot has stabs. I would go so far as to say you should be drummed out of the militia if you so much as warp to a plex with a stab fitted. Sure there are ways to combat stabbed farmers, but there are very few who would find it fun. They only serve to devalue the rewards earned by those who actually provide meaningful content.

I’m more in favor of making WCS penalize inertia. if you guarantee warpout, the least you can do is let another shot hit.

No. Now you are just being masochistic. No one in Gallente fw is going to make a Jita run for their Corp with a JF. That is ridiculous and I’m afraid you are being unrealistic to not see that as a massive disadvantage.

Part of the counterplay would involve putting limitations to how many citadels can be used and their skill requirements to anchor. They are too good, their ease access too high. I see these as problems, others as benefits. You would probably be of those who lean towards the latter opinion. We are not going to agree on some points.

Hmmm interesting question. I think faction warfare is one of the best places you can get ‘fair’ 1vs1 fights. This is what I come up with with a small brainstorm.

  • FW could be made more intense by only spawning contestation sites in FW systems on the borders of the empires. It would result in more conflict over a smaller area.
  • Recently conquered systems could (temporarily) be appointed as special systems. Maybe spawn special ores/combat sites. Would be cool if you can salvage/mine/explore special scannable sites. Example: ‘Obliterated amarr station’, you would be able to mine/salvage the station for valuable resources. They could also spawn amarr ‘rebel’ combat sites, pve-ers could scan down and complete for valuable (amarr) faction loot/blueprint drop.
  • Maybe the complexes should be completely removed. Instead you would be able to change the contestation by doing FW missions in ‘border systems’ where you have to destroy a structure and rats (which will take a certain amount of minimal time). The defenders could complete the site by warping some ships in the pocket and repairing the structure to full shield/hp to a certain percentage. Defenders should not be attacked by the rats, but enemies and pirates should.

complexes have, without a doubt, been one of the leading sources of pvp content and countless 1v1 opportunities. PvE is not the answer, my friend. PvE has and will always call for maximum efficiency fits that are incongruent with pvp meta.

p.s. There is nothing wrong with complexes or their role. The problem is getting pilots into them. Even though they offer militia pilots the opportunity to fish for a fight, while also serving as a back alley of sorts, a limiter for what an opponent can bring against you, and rewards you even if you don’t get pvp content, it still takes much too long to complete a site or take a system. Two full days of constant pressure is quite a bit for some folks now that a citadel can give someone a perch to squander that investment of manpower.
It’s not worth it. The reward is not what it used to be (no lock outs, no pushing them out into high sec), no recognition (no more legit medals), no penalties.

Losing has lost its sting, victory its laurels.

2 Likes

For the most part FW isn’t broken…its the players who think it’s just a PVP arena…it’s warfare and should be treated as such so solution number 1, players need to stop being whiney little girls.

The point, Blackdog, is that FW could be better. It could bring back things that were proven to work, like system lock-outs. Some balance changes that encourage investment rather than the opposite. Medals were great, were you ever around to see how much they inspired the militia to push on for one? I’m asking for changes that make things more difficult, not easier. So I contest the accuracy of being defined as a whiner. Things have indeed changed. The river has been stopped near the source and the valleys run dry. Dig in the ground for your optimism, but don’t pretend the player fallout has not been woefully high, morale depressingly low.

A lot of great suggestions in here.
While I’m new to FW, I had a few ideas.

  1. The LP is split between pilots in a plex (correct me if I’m wrong). This encourages solo PVP, which is fine. But it discourages fleet plexing. I want to plex in a fleet; first, it would prevent neutral solo pvpers from entering plexes if they see 6 Kessies sitting in a Novice Plex. Second, newbros would actually get together and maybe we would see a new generation of fleet-minded and faction-minded pilots in it for the pride.
    The neutrals entering plexes doesn’t bother me; I signed up to learn to fight. But it sucks to be engaged in a 1v1 that ends up being a trap, which is how I lost my Hawk earlier today (still got the km, so that was cool, but I lost my hawk which sucks). It would be nice if there was encouragement for other plexers to stay when they enter the plex I’m in; all too often a ship enters, sees me and warps off. Also, there’s incentive to steal plex LP the way the system is now. Again, doesn’t bother me, but it’s one more thing that drives people away. Reduce the LP given, but give the same amount of LP to each pilot in the plex, whether there’s 1 pilot or 10 pilots.

  2. The other thing is, I hate giving up the first shot to someone who’s obviously coming in to the plex to take me out. With a 5.0 sec status, I’ve decided, at least for now, not to worry about it; if they’re there, they’re going to hit me so I should just suck it up and hit first. But that sure would suck to be negative, simply because I shot first at someone who was definitely going to attack me.

  3. If someone is in my Militia, but they have a suspect timer, they show up as yellow on my overview, and they have a flashing suspect timer in local; I have to click “Show Info” to find out if they’re in my Militia, and that could be the difference between losing my ship and not losing my ship. Maybe this overview setting can be changed, but it’s not immediately obvious to me; perhaps if so, set the default to “Show my Militia” over “Show Suspect Timer status.” Otherwise, change the overview so that someone in my Militia shows up to me as Purple and not suspect.

This wouldn’t work well. It would only encourage farmers to fill as many alts as possible within each and every plex. You would see more stabs, and they will be found in droves. ::shutters:: But, yes, the shared system does encourage you to fly with fewer pilots, and that’s a good thing. We want this. Small gang is wonderful content. ps. Keep an eye on local and take fights you have a good chance at winning and finishing before back-up arrives. Always assume this is not a fair fight and play evasively until you can determine what the odds are. Or fly dangerously. However you do it, aim to fly well. A loss mail can be as much a good reminder as it can be a bad one.

Yes. You should.
Luckily, there are clone soldier tags found inside lowsec too. Make some money or just bump it back down to prevent it from going too low. If for nothing than to even things out around stations and gates. Either way, say goodbye to positive sec status.

Un**** your overview.

Takes me less than a minute to change default overview to my FW settings and that works fine

In all honesty, I’ve never considered looking at my overview settings. I just did after I read your post, and I un****ed my overview. Thank you!

I see your point. I considered it when I said that they would have to lower the amount of LP given out for plexing, but I guess the problem is finding that sweet spot where it’s not worth it for farmers while it is worth it for everyone else… that sweet spot probably doesn’t exist now that you mention it.

If any of you guys have this set to Watching, I have linked this FW Rountable announcement. Give that thread some bumps. Cheers.

Round table recording linked here.

Roundtable breakdown. Some things I couldn’t hear. Forgive some bias. Add anything you feel I missed.

Had 2 minutes spare, have a wordcloud of this thread in the shape of a rocket. Yes I forgot to remove the reply button on each post from the word count. I am bad and feel bad.

1 Like

Plex!

Although we go about citadels, missions, farmers and a variety of other subjects. It seems that getting the plex mechanic right would be a good place to start.

1 Like

The system needs a good long term incentives / targets to trigger loyalty to faction and give a real arc to players in this area of operations.

Replace the current raking system with a combat and VP acquired mechanism. The Militia elite should have killed hundreds of enemies. Add a rank full reset on immediate leaving militia or at least on joining of another militia.

Rework the LP Store so it is more reward for risk not reward for grind. Put new items in like Faction Tech II ammo and Faction Tech II guns / weapons (how about an Imperial Navy Tech II Giga Laser?).

Make the most high value and sort after items in the new LP store have a purchase requirement that includes a high Militia (new version) rank.

Create conflict drivers. More locations in space to attack and fight. Why not have hard points on the i-hubs that are directly linked to the system rank and have them as valid targets of aggression. LP pays for them. DPS removes them (not afk plexxing).

Make system rank bonus’s mean significant value through bonus’s and discounts so they’re worth fighting for.

Citadels need to be linked into the FW mechanism.

Still not seen the suspect status for entering a FW complex… Why was this not done?

Flatten the bonus’s on the tier system. Seriously they’re over the top. Do not penalise Tier 1 Militia. It makes no sense to discourage capsuleers from joining or fighting for the losing side.

1 Like

I don’t think stabs should be restricted in the militia. This would just make it impossible for newbies and alphas to farm LP. This isn’t a personal killmail factory for solo nerds…

If they don’t want to fight, chase them off, be content with that.