This is a discussion about system upgrades received when donating LP into the FW infrastructure hub, and how to make them more appealing after Inferno. Please refer to the FW blog for more details.


At the moment they are:

• Upgrade level 1 - 10,000 LPs required: +1 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 10% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 10% reduction in market / contract broker fees


• Upgrade level 2 - 25,000 LPs required: +2 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 20% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 20% reduction in market / contract broker fees


• Upgrade level 3 - 45,000 LPs required: +3 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 30% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 30% reduction in market / contract broker fees


• Upgrade level 4 - 70,000 LPs required: +4 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 40% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 40% reduction in market / contract broker fees


• Upgrade level 5 - 100,000 LPs required: +5 more station manufacturing, ME, PE, invention and copy slots*, 50% price reduction for medical clones (not jump clones), 50% reduction in market / contract broker fees


• Buffer - 100,000+ to 150,000 LPs

* Slots are only given for stations that already have that given activity before upgrade. For instance: a station only having science slots will not receive extra manufacturing slots.

It's a start, but nothing fancy. We would like to iterate on that after Inferno, and we have already heard some good comments, but your input is welcome.


Some ideas, not necessarily in any order:

• Bring back the cyno jammer, if polished enough to be shot down by neutral third parties. Fanfest taught us it is a very tricky move, so we want to hear from all interested parties here
• Move station deny docking from being automatic when a system is captured to something that only happens when the enemy upgrade a system to level X
• Provide science, manufacturing time reduction bonuses to further encourage industry in low-security space

Speaking of which, how do you feel about neutrals having access to your precious upgrades? As explained in the blog, the original goal was to promote an industrial backbone in low-security space, but you may feel differently.



Thanks for your time!

"War zone control and LP store prices

On the bigger scale, we wanted to help participating players feel more like they were in the middle of a fluctuating war zone rather than just participating in a line of unconnected skirmishes. That is why progress will now be tracked by counting the number of solar systems held, how many upgrades are installed for each faction and compared to the faction's enemy over the regions being competed for.


[picture]
Click to enlarge

As individual factions conquer space and upgrade systems, their respective war zone control tier will increase to unlock several benefits.

First, the offer requirements in the respective faction LP store will decrease. As such, at the lowest tier, LP store offers will be 4x times more expensive as they are now, while at the highest tier, they will be 4 times as cheap. This only applies to ISK and LP requirements for offers, not tags or items. It also only counts for the 4 Factional Warfare militia LP stores; no other corporation will be affected."

If one side of FW gets curb stomped by the other it should at least have a target rich environment that it can choose where and when to strike. There are intel tools that allow militia pilots to see if plexes have been run in a system. It would be too much to allow more of a heads up. If your side conquered 70+ systems, you should have to patrol them.

All I'm saying is that there needs to be a mechanism that kicks in to bring equilibrium after one side "wins" the FW war. If Minmatar completely conquers the 70 systems, for example, they should have a difficult time defending those 70 systems. Implementing an intel tool that helps them does nothing for allowing the Amarr to make a comeback.

How would fighting cruisers with frigs/dessies improve combat? If anything you end up taking blobbing beyond mandatory when hitting those systems.

Suggested elsewhere that defensive plexing should be done with considerable time benefit (ie. 3-5 times faster) than offensive ditto.
Would make attacking space a much more involved and focused endeavour instead of the "run everything in constellation" approach we are seeing now .. combined with diminishing returns (and its inverse) you'd reach an equilibrium based on available manpower with pushes (which we love) bringing loads of pain, suffering, blood and tears (which we also love).
* Note: Faster defensive + inverse warzone control modifier would ideally cancel each other out.

Favouring snowballing is all fine and dandy, but we need some mechanic that allows the downtrodden to make a come back or it will degrade to pure meta-gaming and farming.

Yes, if and only if, tactics remain the same. An offensive campaign is now hit a system and hit everything within 1-2 jumps while waiting for spawns in target all the while a semi-heavy blob lingers in target system to be called to any counter.

Try doing that when defender can reship to appropriate ships for each and every plex. Attacking sovereign soil is not a 'job' for weekend warriors .. sure they can make it so like they did in null, but look how that turned out. Either make offensives "major" things or make the pew flow fast and freely .. neither holds true and never has (least not mechanics wise) ..

Hey folks,

Moving the docking-lockout from being automatic when system is captured to level 3 upgrade and higher

Thanks for your time and ideas people!

+1 for this Idea. I don't think anyone but the tiny, vocal minority still is against station lockouts. Having that absolute penalty does give much more impetus to the willingness to plex, and that is what has been driving the fights lately. The problem with upgrades is that, at least on the Gallente front, upgrades are too easily stripped away. It's become a meaningless isk sink that can be undone with a few t1 frigs and some time.

And do you have any statistical basis for this, either?.

This idea just seems silly. CCP is not going to make game design decisions just to cater to personal taste. Having special rules for one warfront just for the sake of being different than the other would be incredibly hard to justify, I sincerely doubt you'll ever reach ANY kind of player consensus over which warzone should have lockout or shouldn't.

The Caldari / Gallente warfront involves FAR more multi-jump travel and it is currently teeming with small gang roams. The Amarr / Minmatar front is the most compact, most connected to highsec, and has two bastions of factional power in adjacent systems. The idea that someone is forced to live out of the back of a Jump Freighter, moving their ships around constantly in order to get anything done, just doesn't hold water, and much less in our own warzone. .

With as many people as are out having fun right now, taking plexes, getting kills, seizing space, getting solo fights, small gang fights, as well as big fleet battles, and just about every activity in between, the argument that these changes have killed one activity or another dwindle every day. For every pilot that says "I can't do this anymore" there's a half dozen others that are doing exactly that, and having fun at the same time.

That doesnt mean FW is in a perfect place, it doesn't mean there aren't problems, and it doesn't mean anyone's about to stop improving the system. But this notion that station docking has crippled anyone or anything is going to need some actual evidence before either the CSM or CCP take the complaints seriously.

We've been talking a lot about diminishing returns issues, the "problem" (or lack thereof) regarding defensive plexing being boring and unrewarding, and about ways to reduce "snowballing".

One observation that has been made is that since WZ control points are easier to obtain by upgrading systems to level 1 upgrades instead of upgrading a single system to level 5, this essentially means that the factions that have the most systems have a much easier time maintaining their WZ control point level through LP investment.

In other words, the Minmatar, who own 60 systems instead of the 10 for the Amarr, can easily replace lost WZ control points at a cheap LP rate by reinforcing backwater systems. The Amarr on the other hand, have to invest all of their systems all the way to level 5 (costing more LP / WZ control point gained) and even that only works if they have enough systems to begin with.

Does anyone feel this is working well, or should it cost more LP investment to gain WZ control points as you continue to win and win and win? Is it fair that the more systems you own the cheaper it is to maintain your LP store price point?

This really jumps out at me as a great idea.

I suggest it because it's a way to add some ying into too much yang. Imagine if upgrading a system to +5 meant that the enemy militia had to spend an extra five minutes on a button as well as had to fight harder rats to clear that plex. Imagine that the defending miltia had to spend five minutes less on a plex to defend a system. Systems would be upgraded all the time, even at tier 1!

Now imagine that we had a new aspect to upgrades as well - the higher your warzone control tier, the more expensive it is to upgrade a system. Think of it as the LP store in reverse. Amarr, at tier one, would have to spend 37.5k LP to upgrade a system to 5 and get all the benefits above mentioned. Minmatar, which bounces between Tier 3-5, would have to spend 150k, 300k, or 600k to upgrade their systems.


If you eliminate running Caldari plexes for Minmatar LP, as well as missions in controlled systems - you have added a seesaw that will eventually lead to a back and forth fight. The winning side would have to defend more systems and compete for less LP that needs to do more. It would address steam rolling as well as week old farmers.

I'll start with my third paragraph. If I as an Amarrian militiaman plex Gallente plexes, then I should be rewarded with Caldari LP. Right now there are hordes of pilots running Caldari plexes in exchange for Minmatar LP. The system should be closed end in order to truly regulate. Otherwise it's kind of like having a counterfeit money machine in the basement. To answer your question, - in this regard the seesaw is broken.

The upgrades right now are ONLY there for the LP store. This thread is about how to make upgrades more appealing and worthwhile. ....

Let's say the Amarr have 10 systems. We are at Tier 1. We capture Oyonata. (yes, I know we own it right now.) We spend 37.5k LP to upgrade it to Tier 5. We spend another 37.5K to buffer it for a total of 75k LP spent. To the enemy it still takes 150k LP to get through the buffer and 150k LP to tear through the upgrades. This makes taking it for the Minmatar longer, harder, more difficult, ect. It makes defending it easier.

Now say the Minmatar take it back. They are at Tier 4. In order for them to 'harden' the system, it costs 300k for upgrades and 300k for a buffer. The Amarr only take 150k and 150k LP to burn through buffer and upgrades. On the other side of the world, both Caldari and Gallente can't get beyond Tier 1 or 2 due to the sheer number of plexers. Hardening some systems would allow at least a base to develop.

Any monetary reward given by the upgrades has to compete w/ the LP store. So if we gave an upgrade for better rats, for example, it would have to compete with a Tier 4/5 LP store. Upgrades right now are just a means to get that better store.

Rehashing this thread the most promising things seem to be: Reduced repair costs and a temporary cyno jammer. There's also a possiblity of better industrialist benefits. This is fine and good but it seems awful thin for a brain storming session.

Neuts should not get any gain from Militia upgrades.

If anything - neutrals should pay a penalty to use the stations services. The penalty should be directly converted into LP and dumped into the iHub. This gives the system holder a form of payment for their work and stops the leeches gaining for no work.

This thread hasn't had any dev love in almost two and a half months. It either needs some feedback to redirect the conversation or it should be unstickied.

And those pressing problems will be addressed as well. No one should assume that because these are the only two things that are stickied that they are all that's being worked on or that they are necessarily the utmost priority. But I know for a fact that CCP is still actively seeking player ideas not only for what they want to see as IHUB rewards but also what they want to see in a plex content revamp. As long as they're still gathering input, these should stay stickied.

The reason you haven't seen dev love in two and a half months is because they've been working on other release builds and on vacation. Everyone's returning to work on the Winter expansion now, I'm sure you'll hear more as time goes on, and these threads are still monitored as long as they're up and being contributed to.

Cearain: In a general sense I agree with you that PvP should be emphasized. Heck, I just spent entirely too much isk on a frigate specialist that I hope to get to PvP on in FW, so I'm definitely there with you. Your suggestion for an alert system is really good (of course a war installation would issue a distress call if attacked). I've also seen a suggestion to move the beacon that you orbit to capture closer to the warpin, and that capture progress on a beacon reset to the neutral state if you leave the complex - either you stand and fight when attacked, or you have to start over. Implement both of those and some other sweeping changes, and I think removing NPCs would be okay.

I take some issue with some of your other points though.


To the first point - there's incentive to hold systems so that you have things to upgrade for a coordinated cashout. There is zero incentive to actually maintain higher levels of WZC though..

To the second point - the system allows for defense of sorts by defensive plexing, which serves to deny attackers who may show up later use of the plex to attack the system. In other words, its proactive defense - attacking them while they're in the plex is reactive defense. Both should be viable, but the lack of reward, either to the player or in the form of bolstering the upgrade level of the hub, means no one bothers, which contributes to the near impossibility of maintaining high WZC...which in turn makes coordinated cashouts the only way to cash out..[/quote.

Ahhh great question. You're not misunderstanding anything necessarily, you correctly point out that this indeed removes one of the financial incentives for enlisting in the losing miltia. This would be a pretty critical flaw if financial incentives were the current primary motivation for enlistment, or if those that enlist in the winning militia for financial purposes played a major part in the success or failure of the militia militarily. This doesn't appear to be the case in practice, however.

Since Inferno, we've witnessed several large outside entities enlist in the Amarr militia, and enlist explicitly for the increased number of war targets for PvP purposes. These groups are joining for the fun of it, a target rich environment to feed their PvP appetites. ....

I understand your concern here, but I'd argue that the coordinated cash outs are actually causing dedicated Faction Warfare pilots to suffer the worst of the market crashes, but sending them all to the market at the same time to collect on their LP gains. There isn't much question that having hundreds of pilots try to sell their Fleet Stabbers in bulk during a 24 hour period isn't causing many to settle for lower buy order prices than they might otherwise face on a day-to-day basis if the sales were distributed much more evenly. Having all of us career FW pilots go to the market on the same day pits us directly against each other..

There is simply no debate that a system that rewards winners and punishes losers financially will encourage profit-seekers to enlist in whichever militia is winning at the time. This sounds in theory like it would lead to "snowballing" and an unbreakable power monopoly over time. But the numbers show something a little different. As CCP disclosed at the summit, and as publicly available data shows, the "army of plexing alts" that have joined Minmatar haven't really translated into a noticeable increase in plexing behavior. The Amarr have been able to put forth as much warzone activity in terms of kills and victory points, despite the on-paper size advantage that the Minmatar have.

Cearain: In a general sense I agree with you that PvP should be emphasized. Heck, I just spent entirely too much isk on a frigate specialist that I hope to get to PvP on in FW, so I'm definitely there with you. Your suggestion for an alert system is really good (of course a war installation would issue a distress call if attacked). I've also seen a suggestion to move the beacon that you orbit to capture closer to the warpin, and that capture progress on a beacon reset to the neutral state if you leave the complex - either you stand and fight when attacked, or you have to start over. Implement both of those and some other sweeping changes, and I think removing NPCs would be okay.

I take some issue with some of your other points though. ....

"Make it a pvp system" is an interesting line in the context because you're talking about Amarrian lack of progress. To progress they'd have to attack - are you saying that attacking systems should be based on PvP too? Because, that won't work - any method of capturing systems that is based on PvP can be defeated by simply not providing the PvP. For better or for worse it has to be a PvE solution - you press the button, and if the defenders avoid PvP, they lose the system..

Yes, I do. I had read this already.

There is simply no debate that a system that rewards winners and punishes losers financially will encourage profit-seekers to enlist in whichever militia is winning at the time. This sounds in theory like it would lead to "snowballing" and an unbreakable power monopoly over time. But the numbers show something a little different. As CCP disclosed at the summit, and as publicly available data shows,. the "army of plexing alts" that have joined Minmatar haven't really translated into a noticeable increase in plexing behavior The Amarr have been able to put forth as much warzone activity in terms of kills and victory points, despite the on-paper size advantage that the Minmatar have.

I see where you're going with this, you're certainly zeroing in one a very important problem, but I really believe the solution is much simpler. Fix the LP store prices at pre-inferno levels for all factions, and modulate the LP rewards for the various activities by a multiplier instead. This instantly eliminates the ability to "spike" the market, and it holds factions accountable for their current progress. Right now a faction can live at Tier 1 all week long, and cash out all their LP in an hour window on the weekend, and go right back to living at Tier 1 all the time. This is pretty broken, and it encourages everyone to chase the tier 5 spike (and discourages them from cashing out UNLESS they hit the tier 5 spike).

The problem people will point out right away with this change is the bleed-out - its way too easy to drain an IHUB quickly of its upgrades, which provides a disincentive to use them for anything other than spiking the market. This is easily fixed by tweaking the rate of the bleed-out. The other obvious problem is "snowballing" of the winning militia, meaning the more LP you earn the easier it is to maintain your upgrades. This is also easily fixable by scaling the amount of LP it takes to upgrade, based on your WZC control.

With a few mathematical adjustments to make it easier to maintain a given Tier level, scaling LP payouts instead of the store pricing will reward factions based on their current performance, and allow all players to cash out their LP freely at any time (helping them stay in the game and supplied with isk and ships) instead of the situation we have now where the losing faction just accumulates their LP, spending little and waiting for a savior to come in and help them achieve the magic system number needed to spike the market to the appropriate level. This change also heavily encourages those that are merely in FW to farm LP and isk (a valid reason to participate) to actually care about the state of the war on a day-to-day basis, which was the original design intent.

You state that RF Firetails sell for 12M as if it is some kind of high price .. check the store with your FW alt .. 12M 'was' rock-bottom or "at cost" so to speak prior to the ridiculous x4 modifier was put in. Base is 10k LP and 2M ISK and the market is capable of moving insane volumes at 12M a pop, especially now that AFs have gone again after their boost, so it is a natural low.

As for Slicers, when we left militia service the price had been bottomed out for over a year (thank you mission whores!) and they were wholesaling for 12M .. if you want to know how/why they got to 35+M then look no further than the Shakorite bum-rush in the last weeks before patch and the logically following scarcity of product as Amarr militia members suddenly had to pay 40k LP due to the ridiculous x4 modifier if they wanted a Slicer.
"But that does not make sense because 35M is a ****-poor LP exchange rate if they are 40k LP!!!" I can hear you think .. well my dear, the system was so wonderfully thought out (*cough*cough*) that rock-bottom for Empire mission whores selling faction frigates is lower (30k LP+10M ISK vs. 40k LP+8M ISK) than the corresponding militia when they are steamrolled .. I can almost guarantee that the majority of those 35M Slicers came from Empire and not FW..

I may be alone but I do not have a problem with the current war zone control swing and cash out events.

....

Q: LET'S GET BETTER NOTIFICATION/INTEL TOOLS WITH SYSTEM UPGRADES MR. HOLMES!

A: Interesting argument Dr. Watson. More water Sir? We definitely agree having better notification tools should be part of the whole package, but it should maybe be independent of Factional Warfare and something you need in all cases. After all, Starbase, corporation, war declaration notifications also need love too, let's not be selfish here. Such revamp is in the pipeline, even not for immediate release. Better intel tools for system upgrades however is definitely something we are thinking about.

....

Q: HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT ENCOURAGING BORDER FIGHTS BEFORE CLAIMING SOVEREIGNTY IN A CENTRAL SYSTEM?

A: Yes, we have quite a lot actually. It's a good idea, as it spreads fights along an outer rim of system while giving a geographical meaning to a war effort. However, implementation is very time and resource consuming, which is why we don't have it actually planned for winter.
[/list]

Hope that helps a bit

The entire motivation for defensive LP is "Man, it sucks to win so hard." Right? It's a King complaining that his crown is a little bit heavy?

Why should it be surprising that a feature motivated only by that would have so many perverse consequences? Defense is already buffed in this expansion by the halting of the 'push for the cashout' mechanism at work at present.

Susan Black's Number Crunch

This is an interesting read.

Again: That's what I already said back in May. What is still missing is the aspect of 'diminishing returns' mentioned by the Devs. I like the proposed system far better than the old one, but it looks like diminishing returns is not implemented yet, so the pendulum has no real momentum to swing back for the losing side. While it may be funny for a while to rule a region, it quickly becomes boring pvp-wise. And as FW is all about PvP, this aspect has to be prioritized.

Just my 2 ct

Time will tell.

Alot of people are assuming that the plex farmer population is going to remain constant and that's just a bad assumption. If you raise the price of admittance and lower the reward - some people will decide that circling buttons isn't worth it anymore.

Here is another math blog that somewhat refutes Susan Black's:

Greedy Goblin's Blog

Essentially the current system allows higher tiers to halve or quarter not only the LP cost of an item but also the Isk cost as well. The post-winter FW system will only give you an LP benefit. The higher tiers will not give as big a bang - but the lower tiers also won't get a double penalty either.

....

My opinion of these changes (and the others regarding NPCs) is that on the whole they are a rather drastic "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" proposal. Rather than amending the designs you went with in Inferno and keeping some of the good parts - like some of the dynamism of the warzone, you're adding yet more time sinks via "inefficient upgrading" for still rather shoddy upgrades (Cynojammer will have very limited use, POS fuel discount? - all uninspired) and making it even more a war about who has the most alts to run (now defensive) buttons.

From what I have read the warzone will become a dull never changing landscape with farmers simply switching to defensive plexing and less people attempting to offensive plex because it is still boring orbiting a button, just now it is now 10x less effective and more risky.

Hans, if you've helped CCP along this road you will be culpable too. Current FW is broken yes, but not stale. Why not just fix the broken parts with the current system like worthwhile system upgrades for ALL FW systems, not just a hotch potch few systems; Stop farmers by making people kill all spawns, make the LP store require a wide variety of tags for all items etc etc.

The proposed changes as they stand do not improve the latest broken system (which is flawed but interesting), they instead introduce yet another broken system that will actually be more akin to the old boring broken one than something new and exciting. These proposals are a step backward in making FW more 'fun', adding only more grind, and that is a shame.

Somehow I have a feeling we will still have a broken system (that will still resemble null sec mining more than combat) after winter but with more fluff on upgrades. Keep them focused hans.

If I were king of the forest (on csm) I would refuse to discuss anything until I was sure that they were taking steps to ensure plexing was a pvp mechanic.

How precisely will this increase farming to absurd levels? Remember, the payout for defensive plexing drops dramatically for less contested systems, so your uncontested backwater systems will not be available for this kind of farming. In fact, defensive plexing is paid out highest at systems which are about to flip hands, which means front-line systems will be a little hotter, and it means your defensive plexing is far more likely to be interrupted by PvPers. And if the system is completely stable, no defensive LP is being paid out at all..

I should also point that if you're on the winning side of the war, running offensive plexes as the underdog only to defensively plex them back is one of the least isk-efficient uses of a farmer's time. Why everyone thinks this is incentivized I'm not sure, it makes more sense for the winner to just continue fighting the war straight up and taking plexes offensively rather than to play this back and forth farming game for a fraction of the income. .

Having vulnerable systems still maintaining some degree of upgrades accomplishes a few things - first off, it motivates people to actually put LP into the IHUB in the first place. This eliminates one of the weaknesses of switching to a payout multiplier as opposed to a price multiplier. Current bleed rates combined with a system that modulates payouts would mean that both militias are making tier 1 income, the vast majority of the time. Upgrades to systems have to "stick" or they're not worth the investment, and if the miltias are always at tier 1 regardless of investment that there is no more conflict driver.

The other reason that vulnerable systems holding some upgrades is as I mentioned above - they are worth more points when won or lost. This places the emphasis on the intense PvP that is fought when two militias both really want a system - rather than encouraging one militia to give it up knowing they can profit more taking it back. When losing a system means threatening your tier level because of the increased point loss, it makes more sense to fight the war straight up and hold your ground rather than to try to farm the loss for profit.

The ultimate goal should be a system that encourages you to:

1.) Always fight for more systems
2.) Always fight to hold systems
3.) Always keep your upgrades intact.

Than pilots can relax and fight the war, without making poor strategic moves for farming or profit-based incentives. Payout multipliers (to replace price multipliers) take care of all three objectives, the slow bleed rate supports objectives 2 and 3, and the fact that defensive plexing is only a fraction of offensive payouts supports objective number 1.

Instead of ransoming vulnerable systems but not capturing them, or losing systems to profit more on the takeback, or defensive plexing for isk instead of aggressively invading hostile territory, all of the various "pursuit-of-isk" strategies start to break down under the current proposed mechanics. The best thing a pilot can do for his pocketbook is to keep winning the war, and that's a good thing.

False. The winning side wants to make sure it still has plexes to run, so it will run up the few remaining systems to 90%, and then use plexing alt to run them back down to 75%. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Really, after 80% warzone control, then what? Why would you bother capturing the last 20%?

The majority of the reward for defensive plexing should be to hold onto system upgrades and warzone control, not LP. If LP is involved, then defensive plexing should require something more than an unfit frigate.

People can still use plexes to help find pvp. But they will have very little incentive to actually finish the timer if no pvp arrives. It will be like before inferno.



What history are you refering to? You think i am wrong to say history demonstrates that plexers tend to go to the side that gives more isk?

Are you ignoring the mass exodus from amarr militia? Even with a relatively balanced system with no lp for defensive plexing Amarr still continues to lose players.

Are you going to argue that Minmatar lost just as many plexers as amarr leading up to and after inferno?

Really hans what history are you talking about?


[quote=Hans Jagerblitzen]
You're also making the gross assumption that the changes to plexes to eliminate the PvE interference with PvP won't support the cause of people enlisting for PvP in plexing, rather than just the isk.

All of it, from FW's start to present. I've watched players switch factions for years not for isk, but for pew.

You've already agreed that the NPC changes are a step in the right direction towards making plexes more PvP friendly, why do you assume that this motivator is suddenly non-existent?

We've also seen many corps sign up for the pew *despite* the economic incentive stacked against them, even post inferno. Moar Tears, Fweddit, And Agony to name a few. These corps did this despite all the predictions that one one would enlist because of stupidity of doing so economically.

With fewer economic penalties for losing, and an immediate reward once you rise up even a single tier, the economic barrier to those that want to enlist for the pew is lower than ever. Part of the "mass-exodus" was because of the economic hardships created by the status quo you are now trying to protect, and which are eased significantly by the new reward system.


You continue to frame the argument in terms of plexing profits and isk income. That's fine if you see these as what motivates Faction Warriors at their core, I will continue to staunchly disagree. Like I said, history tells the story. We have about 4 years of FW without the lucrative rewards, you can't just discard all of that and only look at the last couple of months and pretend that it defines us as a community.

This is true. But if it becomes understood that offensive plexing is feeding in the DotA sense, the only way to make that superior income will be to perform an act that's shameful. The proposed system runs the risk of becoming what the current system was understood to be before people like Cearain solved it and started to only flip a huge number of systems at once: it becomes that any act you make to better yourself is mainly to the benefit of your enemy.

Simply removing defensive LP from the proposal would remove all risk of that. So long as defensive LP is included... well, it should be easy to imagine an extreme level of defensive LP that would cause the initially-losing faction to instantly give up on ever offensive plexing, if you want an emotional handle on what you want to avoid.

Another angle: right now, even the most hopeless act of contesting a system is one that harms the enemy (by making him sit around doing nothing for a bit for no reward) and that personally benefits you. So there's any reason at all in the present system for people to poke bee's nests like Sahtogas, and also the bees are likely to come out and sting. Would you really rather the bees mock you in local, thank you for taking the plex, promise to earn sweet LP after you slink away?

Even after minmatar flipped enough systems to tier 5 some amarr militia mates said they wanted to keep our alts in minmatar to farm plexes. I had one and only one argument I could use. That was due to no lp for defense, we can plex for our own side and hit a tier 5 cashout.

Tell me what should I tell my militia-mates who say "hey after winter lets keep our alts in minmatar and plex for 2xs as much isk." Should I tell them "No don't do that! Be happy you are making half the isk of our enemies!" ??

What is the argument to plex for the losing side hans?

Your statement that the named corps left for Caldari militia for the isk is precisely why I've advocated for and we now see a bump in the low-end income for the underdog. It's also why I'm advocating a system that pays people the isk they need to fight the war today, not tomorrow, helping the underdog actually have the resources they need to make the recovery you expect them to make using zero income because they're sitting on their loyalty points.

[
You're ignoring all of those that say that tier 1 income was too low to mount a proper defense, and ignoring the fact that the promise of double income, within closer reach thna ever before, is a major motivator to put effort in despite falling to tier 1. It is a motivator that is absent in the current system, and a motivator you've repeatedly ignored every time you discuss this issue because it doesn't support the premise you refuse to abandon.

The real question they are asking is this: "Where can my alts farm to make the most isk with least effort?" The answer could be Minmatar FW, Low Sec L4/L5 missions, High Sec L4 missions, Incursions, 0.0 ratting, Exploration, Industry whatever. The potential answer is not limited to Minmatar FW.

You tell your corpmates this: "Do what you want with your alts. They're alts. If you want to contribute to Amarr winning FW Occupancy, then get them the hell out of the Minmatar Militia, get them into a Minmatar corp as a spy, or run Minmatar FW missions and crash their market!"

Cearain, you are deliberately ignoring most of my post and pulling out key sentences to support your argument without regard to their context. That, combined with the fact that you are once again using cheap emotional appeal ("If you think minnies have it rough, go with Han's plan") rather than rational argument to make your case, is why we don't really speak much anymore and why every time I respond to your posts it ends up in a completely unproductive circular conversation that dominates the thread.

So, let me summarize. "You get rewards for joining the losing side, and you get MORE rewards for joining the winning side."

Assuming I've summarized correctly, how does your system do anything but encourage more and more players to join the winning side? The closest thing that I see seems to be increasing the amount of LP it takes to upgrade the higher you get - presumably doing so to a greater degree than already exists, since upgrading a system from 0 to 1 is already cheaper than from 2 to 3 and so on. This doesn't really seem to incentivize joining the losing side, it merely makes an already snowballing winning side have a little bit harder time maintaining their WZC.

...


e: It occurs to me - your explanation makes sense if you see the coordinated cashouts as a problem, but have no issue with one faction being entirely dominant. I don't suppose this is the case, is it? If so, how is that interesting?

Yeah, there's not really much point in these wild "what if" scenarios. No one is seriously proposing giving billions of LP for a defensive plex. When thats being discussed, we can talk about why it will cause everyone to snowball into the same militia, and in the meantime lets stick to the proposal at hand.



That's just it, you don't have to "help the enemy" for a long time, and much less so before you start reaping rewards under the proposed system. After Inferno, the only way the underdog will reap rewards us in the extreme case of a large nullsec entitiy joining with the specific purpose of farming isk, and assisting the faction to reaching a teir 4-5 spike. This is not only an unsustainable method of recovery (such saviors will leave after accomplishing their goals), its also not one the rank-and-file members can achieve themselves. On the other hand, modulating payouts means that the underdog will reap rewards much much sooner, the minute they hit tier 2. This is much more achievable, and allows the underdog to stay in the game financially and not get washed out when he hits bottom and Nulli Secunda isn't around to help..

It's not objectively foolish. Preventing the enemy from taking the plex is still the most efficient way to deal with an enemy offensives. Defensive plexing is still the least efficient use of a pilot's time. It makes more sense to kill the enemy, than go into his system and plex there for moree income, than it does to ignore the enemy and just undo his work later for a fraction of pay for the same time orbiting a button..

On a side note: Would you undermine your faction for:
1. 1% increase in rewards
2. 10% increase in rewards
3. 50% increase
4. 100% increase
5. 200% increase
6. 1000% increase?

This reminds me of: "We've already established that you're an isk *****, we're just trying to set the price". Your price is apparently at most 2x (100% increase).

Faction Warfare right now doesn't encourage direct conflict - it encourages equal efforts in separate locations, not a competitive environment in a single location. When any militia has to defensive plex for any extended period of time (and this has identical effect on both militias, regardless of those that say this is all about the winner), it washing them out of the militia completely. It makes them not want to do FW at all, not just make them not want to do defensive plexing. Burnout is bad game play design. Some envision a system where this burnout and member depletion help the underdog recover, but I think its asinine to have a balancing system that depends on solely on recruitment for the underdog, or burnout of the winners. ..

This is statement is false. The weaker plexing side on either front has not cashed in at Tier 5.

Problem is incentives, ones you add them you get ants farmers. The obvious solution is to remove the artificial separation twixt LP/ISK, PvP and PvE as much as possible.

...

I will answer this question one last time, and it will be the last post I make between us for the day, Cearain. Too many other people deserve to get a word in edgewise without circumventing walls of text that you fire off in rapid succession without waiting for a response, or even reading through and acknowledging the ones you do receive before you bounce off more rebuttals that show you never listened to begin with.

The reason to plex for the losing side is because you want PvP opprtunities and because you care about helping that faction recover. Yes, thats right, there are players that will defy economic logic as long as they can make the base income necessary to support PvP with high target availability and will fight for bragging rights and factional pride as long as they can afford to do so whether or not they make the maximum isk possible....

I've made these points explicitly clear, I will not be repeating them over and over again no matter how many posts you want to clog the thread up with after this asking me to repeat myself.

The fact that we disagree on whether the balancing factor should be PvP opportunities or Isk opportunities is a subjective issue. There is no right or wrong. You are absolutely correct that economically it doesnt make much sense for someone to join the losing faction, I've said every step of the way that the PvP incentive will always be stronger, and there is over four years of evidence to support that.

High Incomes are due to Farming and it is this that needs to be addressed.

I do not think the proposed warzone control changes are the thing that will solve farming, the plex changes in regards to NPCGÇÖs both being required to be destroyed and the fact that they will tank are the things that will change the farmers. Players may still try to do it, but at least they will be combat fit and perhaps a little more willing to stand and fight.

....

These new changes give an underdog a much greater opportunity to make isk. Really - tier one is the only tier with a penalty. Amarr need 12(?) systems to get out of it. I hope no one is seriously complaining about 12 systems..

If you are going to list your evidence, at least fact check your evidence. Villore Accords is in Gallente not Minmatar.

Maybe you should be asking for tools to help Amarr organize rather than bitching about favoritism. Oh wait that would require no in fighting. Who am I kidding. That will never happen.

+1 to this. No sovereignty system you can imagine will be pvp-based if the other side is a no show....

I will say this much to everyone as we continue the debate going into Winter - the way we value incentives will dictate the type of player Faction Warfare attracts. We have a choice as to which direction we can shape the feature. We can choose to develop a system that uses the profit off of wild economic swings to drive conflict, and we'll likely continue to see growth in Faction Warfare amongst the crowd that wants chase economic benefit. PvP-ers at the lower tiers may starve in the short term, but if we wait long enough an outside forces that's greedy enough will help them.

Alternatively, we can continue to push to make plexing as PvP-risky as possible, and open the war up to more direct conflict in more locations (including defensive plexes), and attract the type of players that are interested in the pew pew that Faction Warfare has to offer more than the isk incentives. In this case, those that do come for the isk place their lives on the line and add to the pew content in the process.

Regardless of which side of the debate you are on, I personally believe in building the system to encourage the latter, not the former. If we're going to continue to call Faction Warfare a place for PvP, than we need to make it comfortable to live and fight all the time, regardless of what side of the war you are on. Hitting Tier 1 shouldn't be so crippling that you wash out to another miltiia, there should be hope at Tier 2. Faction Warfare players are casual PvPer's. They don't have the patience or time or money in the bank to wait around weeks for a lucrative comeback. Those that pew pew gotta eat.

Nice words, Julius.

While I agree we need to have the rats shoot you in a defensive plex if at all plausible from the programming end, I still maintain that the absolute priority is making sure the proper PvP incentives are in place. Making plexing dangerous because of the likelihood of PvP will do far more to cut down on farming than any NPC-based solution.

NPC's are only part of the equation, all they do is guarantee that your victim is in something other than a gunless, warp stabbed, nano-frigate. They dont make it more likely that the victim will stick around in the first place.

If we can get CCP to implement the timer rollback and institute some kind of alert system to bring PvPers out to the plexing (offensive and defensive alike), the PvP risk inside plexes will dwarf the risk caused by rats. Once farmers realized there is no hiding their plexing efforts, they'll cease to become risk-averse farmers and become consensual PvPers whenever they enter the plex.

So yes - rat aggro for both types of plexing is great, the PvP incentives are better and I hope others keep speaking up in support of this. Otherwise all we'll be left with is farmers using new ships and still running constantly to plex wherever they can hide from the PvP crowd, little will have changed. PvP incentives are king this winter - they are the most badly needed fixes.

CCP hasn't ruled these out, they're still discussing this internally, so I could use your support in bringing plexing to the place we've wanted it to be all along - the premiere venue for guaranteed sub-cap PvP.

If I could dictate the order in which they work on things, this would be the way I'd do it. I've already sent the message loud and clear that these are the most important fixes. Unfortunately, CCP is free to do things their own way, and in this case they've committed to the other changes first. I dont know whether this is because they dont want to fix them or haven't figured out exactly how yet, all I know at this point is they are talking about it.

I can't wait for the day where I can just "have them do" anything I want, really. It would make my job so much easier! In the mean time, all I can do is keep the pressure on publicly and continue to negotiate privately. I'm on it.

+1. This is exactly what will happen.

Isn't that the whole point of this exercise, to come up with a system where that is no longer true?

Problem so far has been the complete lack of a mechanic that would allow an underdog to fight the odds without quadrupling in size over night ..

And without the horribly broken bits, where is your illusory "underdog can prevail" then?

The obvious error (why wasn't this caught in testing is beyond me) that allows infinitely vulnerable systems.
Low-skilled alts doing vast majority of orbiting.
Etc.

What tweaks could possibly 'fix' something as fundamentally flawed as the current FarmFest?

Yes. Underdogs can 'function' within the current system provided they can gather enough firepower (read: dreads) for the couple of hours it takes to jump around nuking the 50+ bunkers.
But is that really what you want? 99% of the time spent dual-boxing an alt to get a thirty minute window in which to cash out knowing full well that the enemy might not be getting full value, but is getting a slightly lower value almost non-stop regardless of your actions?

You may not be my enemy, but you sure sound like you are the enemy of fun*

* Fun meaning all parties involved enjoying themselves by challenging each other in a constant gay-as-can-be frolicking game of "Shoot the other guy in the face!"

Over the last week I've seen the Amarr militia channel have between 48 - 131 pilots in it. How exactly is it expected that such a horribly outnumbered group is going to flip 40 + systems in a timely manner? The short answer is you're not. Any kind of Minmatar focus will turn an Amarr spike attempt into a fiasco. Amarr needs bodies more then anything else. People will fight for the sake of fighting. They will fight for the sheer reason that seeing fat cats rolling in cash pisses them off. Did people not suicide into incursion fleets in the past? The future tier one is nowhere near as soul crushing as it is now.

On another note - farmers are min/maxers. At tier 5 they can grab 4 to 6 level 4 missions that will pay around 100k LP each. Knock those out in an hour. Or they can defensive plex a major every 20 minutes for 56k. 500k vs 168 k. Hmmm. Waves of defensive plexers is a stretch.

The upgrade feature of FW just seems way too complicated, nonsensical, and doesn't benefit the people who actually do the work on the ground. FW is supposed to be about pvp - not low sec industry. You shouldn't have to pump LP into a hub to get certain benefits - too mechanical.

Benefits should be on an individual level based on how much that player has helped defend a system. These benefits should decay with time if there is no activity. And finally these benefits should help with pvp oriented activities - repairs, marginal pvp boosts in that individual system, etc... These benefits should be AUTOMATIC - dumping LP into a hub is immersion breaking, just like timers are immersion breaking. They make no sense.

So:
1. Benefits should be pvp related.
2. Benefits should be applied to individual pilots
3. Local Benefits: the more a pilot defends a system the better his reward in that system.
4. Global Benefits: The more a pilot defends any system (or attacks an enemy system), the more he benefits in all friendly controlled systems (not at same level as a local benefit).

That's it. If you want the reward, then put in the work. All this other stuff about industry boosting whatever that can be applied to any tom, richard and harry who has never done anything to earn them is stupid.

By stupid, I mean this: If CCP really wants to boost low sec, then these upgrade boosts should be applied to all of LOW SEC, not just FW low sec through the FW mechanic.

I like this idea. Benefits should make it more difficult to to attack these systems. Improve the strength of the NPCs in a plex of an upgraded system... something like that. Another idea, give the faction which upgraded the system some system-wide improvements... 3% more scanresolution for example. You could hunt plexrunner much easier with such improvements.

All together: give some PvP-improvements for upgrading systems!

but what if they did?

When people are seen to be raising their voices, sometimes it's because they're just jerks, and sometimes it's because someone keeps raising the noise level with comments like "you don't like defensive LP because you want the underdog to starve."

There is simply no debate that a system that rewards winners and punishes losers financially will encourage profit-seekers to enlist in whichever militia is winning at the time. This sounds in theory like it would lead to "snowballing" and an unbreakable power monopoly over time. But the numbers show something a little different. As CCP disclosed at the summit, and as publicly available data shows,. the "army of plexing alts" that have joined Minmatar haven't really translated into a noticeable increase in plexing behavior The Amarr have been able to put forth as much warzone activity in terms of kills and victory points, despite the on-paper size advantage that the Minmatar have.

Most don't want to do this, and I want everyone to have the tools they need to pull themselves up from the bootstraps, ratcheting back up one tier at a time, instead of just phoning some powerful friends when the chips are down and you need a savior.

/o\


Why so much tinfoil ?

I thought this might happen when we elected a FW CSM that thus HAD to be from one of the militias. But I never thought it'd be this bad...
Come one Cearain, you're almost at Poetic Stanzils level of hate and bitterness .

Who exactly? There are two FW alliances based out of Eszur and neither were consulted. Sounds like the Amarr carebear whine commitee has been in action ...

Put 20 gates in the system we really couldnt give a damn - carebears will still be popped - but don't continue with the usual mendacity by pretending you've done it with a quorum of opinion.

http://i43.tinypic.com/25unvh3.jpg

The mechanics in place now, systems seem to take days or weeks to flip, and they only flip if the defenders really don't seem to want the system. Perhaps someone has the exact numbers, but the warzones have seemed pretty stagnant since the change.

... or defensive plexing should be removed entirely by using aut-run timers (lots of possibilities, debated since forever).

It seems from Hans' latest CSM update, that he's personally pushing for the plex timer in the overview change. I can't say enough how much i disagree with that change. The overview already gives out too much intel for free, there's no need to give it even more. It might lead to more fights, but simply having the system name flashing in the FW window showing that a plex is being run would do the same, without making it easy on people.

Pirates should have to scan plexes down in the first place, but it doesn't seem that will change. The militia scrubs that just jump around trying to split the lp from the plex will increase. People will be able to dscan, and have a much better idea if there's an acceleration gate camp or not, actually leading to less pvp. If you see 1 person there, and the timer is counting down, you automatically know that one person is inside, with perhaps cloakers, but you'll know from local how many people you have to worry about.

Timers on the overview is just a bad change. Simply have the system name in the FW window flash. The pvpers can go there and hunt the offenders down. Handing people a sign that says "here i am" is just an idiotic change.

my guess is you didn't actually read my entire post, since i said the FW window show flash when a plex is being run in that system. Attacking a military complex and having the opposing militia arrive to defend it is one thing, having pirates have free intel for no reason is idiotic. Having your own militia wait until the last minute to crash the plex and split the lp is idiotic. atleast currently, you have to dscan to know which plex someone is in, and have to scout to know if they're in the plex or gate camping it, etc.

if you don't think you should have to work at all for your pvp, there are many other games where you log in and just start fighting people. if you think you should have to plan, etc. then this change is going too far.