Last night, I killed a Rifter.

I cannot link kill mails on these forums, so I will have to spell out the fit for everyone.

HIGHS:

None. Nothing fit here. No guns, no missiles, no salvagers or scanners. Nothing.

MEDIUMS:

1 Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
1 Small Converse Deflection Catalyzer I
1 Small Ohm Capacitor Reserve I

LOWS:

2 Mark I Modified SS Nanofiber Structure O

RIGS:

1 Small Auxiliary Thrusters I

According to the killmail, this fit costs 1,168,464.90 ISK and can be built and used by a 1-day old character.

What is the use of this kind of ship you might ask? It cannot fight, it cannot tackle, it cannot mine, it cannot scan, it cannot codebreak. I will tell you what it is used for. It is used to move moderately quickly in a 20km - 50km diameter circle.

In an Amarr Faction War Complex.

It can generate about 90,000 Tribal Liberation Force Loyalty Points in one hour. This is equivalent to about 18 Republic Fleet Firetails, or about 252,000,000 ISK at 14 million per ship, the current average price. One hour. A day-old character. A 1.1 million ISK ship.

I will leave it to the rest of you to speculate where this is leading.

You still have a timer: You have to complete the timer AND kill all rats to capture an offensive plex.

You only have to complete the timer for a defensive plex.

I'm not sure being required to kill all NPCs would discourage plex farming. Its quite easy to take a minor plex with a T1 destroyer and in my opinion it should be. Newbies to FW should be able to contibute by capturing and defending plexes. However, I accept that being able to speed tank a medium or major plex with no guns is a bit ridiculous and the mechanics of that need to be reviewed for all factions.

I think you should just remove LP for plexing in FW altogether (or at least reduce the amount earned to only a token one). After all, the ultimate reward for plexing should be seeing that little system status bar move up or down. No...?

Instead you could keep the standing increases and promotions for plexing but just reward FW PVP with LP (missioning would stay as is). The LP rewarded for each PVP kill could then be multiplied based on the total warzone control of the relevant faction. So, more warzone control, more LP awarded for PVP kills and vice versa.

That way you remove the financial incentive for plex farmers, encourage PvP in FW, but still have an overarching incentive to plex (the warzone control multiplier).

The way I see it, the problem is that you can't hunt those nanoships down since they can be in any system they want. Also, it makes no sense to invest LP into the systems because they can be plexed so easily. The system as it stands now favours PvE, but doesn't let PvPers catch them.

It might be a long shot, but here is a solution I have been working on.

Don't change NPCs too much. Let players use their nanofits if they want to.

BUT: Only allow sov-changes within the border-systems. Yes you heard right. Only systems that are bordering to the other faction may be flipped. The idea behind it is to funnel all those PvE people into a bunch of systems that are numerous enough so people can plex them in peace, but predictable enough so that PvP fleets can hunt them down more efficiently. By extension, any fleet that wants to seriously flip a system needs to protect the plex fleet, which leads to bigger (and real) fleets.

As to the LP stealing, sure leave it in. But make the minimum level to which LP can be stolen dependant on the amount of jumps to a border system. A system 2 jumps away from the border can only be reduced to level 2, etc.

What I am hoping from these changes is:
1) give PvP people a better chance at catching the PvE people without serving them on a plate
2) Motivate people to actually donate LP with the knowledge that, as long as they defend the border regions, they can't be taken away.
3) More battles and pewpew since fleets are more likely to patrol the border regions and maybe even bump into each other by accident.

"Killing all rats" limits the damage to minor plexes. LP should be given to plexing in FW, but in proportion to effort involved.

L1 = 1/2 L2 = 1/4 L3 = 1/8 L4 would be one way to do it. Especially if a "kill all the rats" requirement were put in.

Last night, members of the Amarr militia were using Minnie alts to offensive plex Amarr systems and were then complaining on local when we tried to shoot them!

But my defensive plex is someone elses offensive plex. Its just not as simple as it sounds.

*SNIP*

You generate value out of nothing, but you're not selling it to an NPC, you're selling it to another player. ISK has changed from his wallet to your wallet, it's not created out of nothing. In your example 27 million has moved from one player to another, a ballpark 1 million has gone in taxes, broker fees and LP store costs, you've in effect taken 28 million sloshing around Eve's economy and made it 27 million.

The only way this would inject ISK into the economy would be if plex rats had bounties, rewards were in ISK instead of LP or there were some way to convert LP directly into NPC generated ISK.

Once they remove the EWAR from plexes, everyone will be able to farm to their hearts content.

EWAR doesn't change a thing about farming except for the Amarr militia.

EWAR removal will be very nice for pvp, but outside of the Amarr militia changes (which will be significant) it'll be the same old imbalances.

It doesn't matter if it's imbalanced or balanced, it's absolutely ridiculous to have practically non-existent characters making a massive impact on the game economy and deciding the fates of entire factions by affecting the layout of the FW battlefield. Wars in a game should be won by PvP characters who enjoy a good fight, not children with squirt guns that get paid billions to run around in circles.

And the imbalance lies in the fact that nobody with a brain is going to try to put their bulls**t plex alt in the Amarr militia - they will all go to the profitable Minmatar side, thus giving them a massive plexing edge because of economic factors that overwhelmingly (and arguably permanently) favor the victor. Guess what many Amarr are doing: That's right, putting their alts in the Minmatar militia to make bank on the demise of their own faction.

The nightmare worst-case scenario is one side completely securing a warzone, keeping themselves at Tier 5 so they have the cheapest possible LP Store prices, and just grinding missions for the rest of eternity while what PvP'ers are left fend off any resistance from the defeated side with a practically free and limitless supply of faction ships. This will probably never happen, but the fact it is even conceivable means there is something wrong.

I also support the notion of the "kill all npcs to finish plex" requirement. The removal of EWar solves nothing.

It doesn't matter if it's imbalanced or balanced, it's absolutely ridiculous to have practically non-existent characters making a massive impact on the game economy and deciding the fates of entire factions by affecting the layout of the FW battlefield. Wars in a game should be won by PvP characters who enjoy a good fight, not children with squirt guns that get paid billions to run around in circles...

I can't wait till they fix this, as we all know its the only thing standing between amarr and total control of the warzone.

....

These whinefests about wahh the rats and plexing are imbalanced are ridiculous. Nothing is stopping you from making a less than 12 hr old character to take advantage of these same game mechanics. With a barrier of entry that low, the only thing stopping you from taking advantage of these same mechanics is laziness. Once they remove the EWAR from plexes, everyone will be able to farm to their hearts content.

No bounties? Those tags dropped by every NPC in a plex are bought by NPC corps with NPC isk.

As for converting LP directly to ISK, it may be possible to buy a ship with LP, insure it, and get it blown up -- this certainly won't be as cost effective as selling the ship on the open market, but it is a way to convert LP into isk (assuming the isk cost of the LP offer plus the cost of the insurance is less than the insurance payout, of course).

A first year programming student could figure out that algorithm, so I disagree, it is that simple. The trigger would simply be based on which side was running the plex when it completes.

EWAR doesn't change a thing about farming except for the Amarr militia.

EWAR removal will be very nice for pvp, but outside of the Amarr militia changes (which will be significant) it'll be the same old imbalances.

yeah because i didnt catch this http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=13697207 offensive plexing other night...... of course on caldari t1's doing majors /sarcasim off

That alt requires pretty damn good tanking/cap skills to run any type of Caldari plex. Also I was testing a fit that we can use to counter your all's ridiculous farming in our back end systems without need to reship or even use ammo.

Except....I see week old toons comfortably running major plexes out here so you screaming about "skill points needed" is hilarious in the least.