Hello spacefriends and happy Easter!
Today we are excited to begin gathering feedback on a change we have planned for release in one of our upcoming Q2 2018 releases. This change specifically impacts factional warfare and the restrictions around entering FW capture complexes.
Warp Core Stabilizers are an extremely powerful tool for evasion, which can sometimes have a place in a game like EVE. However since the proper functioning of the Factional Warfare capture system requires pilots to trade a certain amount of risk (spending time at a spot in lowsec with a system-wide beacon making you easy to find) for a reward (FW warzone control for your faction, LP and opportunities for enjoyable PVP for you) we believe that warp core stabs skew that balance too far in the direction of reduced risk. These modules are also a significant part of the strategies employed by botters in FW space, which provides increased motivation for us to put some extra restrictions on them.
Our current plan is to disallow any ship with a warp core stab fitted from passing through a FW capture complex acceleration gate.
We are also considering the option of disallowing ships with a cloak fitted to pass through as well for similar reasons (we believe that cloak restrictions would have an even bigger impact on botters than stabs), but we’re less sure about extending these blocks to cloaks and we’re very interested in your feedback on that option.
We are aware that there will still be ways for warp core stabs to be used in FW even after these changes (including using them at the unrestricted large complexes and refitting with a depot inside the complex). We will not consider these sorts of uses to be exploits, but we do reserve the right to make further changes to restrict them later if they prove to be a problem.
We are very interested in hearing your feedback on this concept, so please let us know what you think below.
Consider the entire area of FW site denied deployment similar to how you can’t anchor objects near stations. Surround the location at 100km away from this with a damage cloud. Problem solved.
That said, it’s a step in the right direction for FW/Lowsec combat. However, my concern is the ability to refit to WCS will negate the gate check and render this change (partly) useless.
Would it be technically feasible to stop the plex timer from counting if the ship has either of those fitted? It would make botting/afk even harder, although the bot could potentially still refit when it was actually attacked.
“We are also considering the option of disallowing ships with a cloak fitted to pass through as well for similar reasons (we believe that cloak restrictions would have an even bigger impact on botters than stabs), but we’re less sure about extending these blocks to cloaks and we’re very interested in your feedback on that option.”
No Fozzie, anything but this! How will I lure 500m Worms into my novices and surprise them with my cloaky reseboing Astero and repping Navitas!
Also you’ll want to consider the force recon meme if you’re trying to eliminate surprises inside of gated plexes.
Can you consider removing the ventures ability to take gated plexes too, unfortunately I think it’s currently classified as a Frigate so may be not be possible to do in a short time frame , unless you can specifically classify it as a mining frigate or place it in some other class and give it similar restrictions to the mining barges.
Also please consider removing the ability to fit nanos or any prop upgrades. Agility and/or speed is just too hard to counter and prevents me from getting all the KMs I, obviously, deserve.
Plus botting programs have way better reflexes and are always aware of what’s on grid. Therefore they have a disproportionate chance of warping off (compared to players) when I come to shoot them!
tl;dr:
Don’t help bots, remove agility/speed as a means to escape my preferred fits and comps!!
