Possibly use them to assist a losing faction; for example, have tougher NPCs than usual spawn for a faction with less solar systems, or attack opposing members at gates (not neutrals)

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Possibly use them to assist a losing faction; for example, have tougher NPCs than usual spawn for a faction with less solar systems, or attack opposing members at gates (not neutrals)

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The rats are necessary to prevent farming now. The problem is, they are unbalanced across the races.

Here is the best example I can think of - last night one of my corpies chased off a solo condor that was speed tanking a gallente major. I have seen km of these ships in the past, and many of them dont even fit guns - just an overdrive or two. People are now just going to go to backwater systems and run buttons for 30k LP with solo condors or atrons on unskilled alts. PLEASE DON'T LET THAT GO LIVE. I cannot tell you how many ways i have heard to exploit this already. I have 3 suggestions that might fix it:

1. Give all races frigate and cruiser rats that can hit frigates. Ships that have light missiles and/or painters. Some should spawn with wach wave. It wont make them impossible to run with frigates, but it will make people have to kill the rats. Solo or dual boxed unskilled frigs should not be able to speed tank plex.

2. Even easier - make it so a plex will not complete or award LP unless all rats have been killed. This won't require changing the rats at all.

3. Award LP for both offensive and defensive plexing, but ONLY when a system is contested. This will prevent farming by making conflict systems where players will gather and fight and prevent people from afk farming backwater systems.

Honestly, I think it should be a combination of #2 and 3 above.

NPC's could all be the grossly overpowered Concord vessels if only the AI/behaviour was coded right. Not sure if the actual ships need much changing at all to be honest, eWar could do with a downwards tweak but I am hoping that the eWar revision will make any such change pointless .. you are still planning on revising eWar I take it?

Have them protect that which they were meant to first and foremost .. the complex, aka. timer, instead of everything with the proper standings.

- If a person enters capture range (CR), check standings, if hated -> shoot him down.
- If a person leaves capture range, but has taken no hostile action -> keep him locked but do nothing further.
- If more than one with hated standings are in CR, then use threat list akin to the one used by Incursion Sansha.
- If a person is in plex but not in CR, lock him up -> do nothing further.
- If a person is in plex but not in CR and takes hostile action against guards -> shoot him down but never leave striking distance of timer which is to be protected.
* Basically have them ignore anyone who is not a direct threat to the plex or its personnel.

Add some sentries around the timer to assist with LR targets (especially in Gallente plexes where NPC weapons are worse than BB guns) and to make the solo AB frig capture an impossibility. It is a military installation damnit, surely they have some gun emplacements .. even the smallest of the small pirate installations have some defensive guns in place!

The NPCs are now something to do when no pew is present and they don't interfere with the pew when it is (provided it doesn't happen on the timer ).

A common and recurring complaint I hear from friends in FW is summed up pretty easily in two words: NPC EWAR.

More specifically:
Amarr Militia: "OMG my frigate is suddenly a stationary battleship because the Minmatar NPCs have hax webifiers and target painters!"
Caldari Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Gallente NPCs are damping my targeting range down to 5km!"
Gallente Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Caldari NPCs are permajamming me!"
Minmatar Militia: "OMG I can't hit anything because I was already fighting in falloff and the Amarr NPCs are tracking distrupting me!" (alternatively: "lol, tracking disruption doesn't work on stealth bombers, n00b NPCs")

1. Give all races frigate and cruiser rats that can hit frigates. Ships that have light missiles and/or painters. Some should spawn with wach wave. It wont make them impossible to run with frigates, but it will make people have to kill the rats. Solo or dual boxed unskilled frigs should not be able to speed tank plex. 2. Even easier - make it so a plex will not complete or award LP unless all rats have been killed. This won't require changing the rats at all. 3. Award LP for both offensive and defensive plexing, but ONLY when a system is contested. This will prevent farming by making conflict systems where players will gather and fight and prevent people from afk farming backwater systems. Honestly, I think it should be a combination of #2 and 3 above.

The rats are necessary to prevent farming now. The problem is, they are unbalanced across the races.

Here is the best example I can think of - last night one of my corpies chased off a solo condor that was speed tanking a gallente major. I have seen km of these ships in the past, and many of them dont even fit guns - just an overdrive or two.

If the NPCs had to be destroyed for a plex to be taken, much of the problem of NPC balance would go away.

+1.

Minmatar E-war - ?? No experience. TPs + Missiles are probably very devastating to small ships.

A common and recurring complaint I hear from friends in FW is summed up pretty easily in two words: NPC EWAR.

More specifically:
Amarr Militia: "OMG my frigate is suddenly a stationary battleship because the Minmatar NPCs have hax webifiers and target painters!"
Caldari Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Gallente NPCs are damping my targeting range down to 5km!"
Gallente Militia: "OMG I can't target anything because the Caldari NPCs are permajamming me!"
Minmatar Militia: "OMG I can't hit anything because I was already fighting in falloff and the Amarr NPCs are tracking distrupting me!" (alternatively: "lol, tracking disruption doesn't work on stealth bombers, n00b NPCs")

Any chance of a Dev posting to say you are still reading this?

Having just read the entire thread, it seems an easy and fairly universally agreed first step would be to require killing all npc's to cap a plex.
Speed tanking will work to count the timer down, but you still need something else to cap it.

Do that first and see what people think afterwards. *cough*iterate*cough*

... its implied especially since it was a Dev that opened the thread.

So all (as in OMG Dev SPAM!) the Dev threads from F&I (or was it TSF) that were opened just prior to the forum change and never re-created are still being consulted/read?

Hey folks,

It's not because we aren't posting anything that we aren't following such threads

As a quick update, we first want to remove all EW from FW NPCs (starting with complexes, FW missions would not be affected for now). This should go out as soon as possible (working on it as we speak).

However, the proper way of fixing this on the long run would be to totally revamp the NPCs though, and that's something we highly consider for this winter as it is extremely difficult to do on its own (current NPCs are used in missions for example). There also are good points mentioned here that we will definitely consider when iterating on this further.


Many thanks for your time and ideas so far!

Although I have never done faction warfare on TQ, I have tried it out on SiSi. I am sorry to see EWAR go away. No military force in its right mind would deny itself the use of such weapons if they were available.

The problem is that the various types of EWAR are not balanced. This is irrespective of FW. Rather than covering up the problem by removing the offending issue, try fixing it.

All factions should web and scram. These are the basic EWAR needed to hold an enemy down and destroy them.

Minmatar get TP (for their bungholes) to increase damage.

Caldari get ECM do reduce incoming damage.

Gallente get damps to force players to work at close range where their weapons do the most damage.

Amarr get neuts to reduce an enemy's ability to tank damage or even escape at all at close range. Tracking Disruption should be focused on optimal/falloff reduction to force players into close range where neuts are effective.

I also support the idea of having to destroy the defending NPCs to capture an installation. Flying around in space while cloaked or with no weapons for 15-20 minutes and calling ti captured is just not within the realm of believability. It utterly destroys all immersion.

Additionally, I would like to see better AI for faction NPCs. Given an enemy fleet, targets at close range obviously do not need to be range damped. The snipers do. High value targets like logistics, EWAR, and other support ships should be targeted regularly. Target switching should also be possible. The current targeting algorithm is too predictable and completely illogical.

In short, a single player in a frigate should not be able to capture a plex of any kind without some serious effort.