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Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.03 00:48:00 - [1] The NPCs in FW need a defined role. Regardless of what role you envision for them, they fail to fulfill it. 1) NPCs of different factions add very different difficulty levels to complexes. The most apparent imbalance is with Caldari NPCs compared to other factions. They have enormous range, the missiles can not be speed tanked even close to as easily as the turrets of the other factions, and the ewar they employ (ECM) is extremely strong in interfering with PvP, especially compared to the ewar of other factions. But this also applies to other factions. Minmatar NPCs also utilize missiles, making those complexes difficult to speed tank compared to, say, the Amarr complexes. Amarr TDs interfere with combat much more than the painters of the Minmatar. Gallente dampeners are annoying only if you have a long-range fit, a single frigate can easily keep them occupied as they have no range. Etc. Regardless what the role of NPCs in FW is - and especially if that role is to provide something to do while there are no hostile players around, as CCP stated - the NPCs of the different factions should be equal in danger level. Proposed solution: Replace all stats of the FW complex NPCs with a single set of stats that is identical for all four factions. The only difference between the factions should be the model they use, and at most the damage type they are weak against (and even that is unnecessary). 2) NPCs care too much about standings The FW complex NPCs will not shoot you if you have high standings with their faction, even if you are in a hostile militia. In the actual primary hostile militia, this is somewhat balanced by gaining standings fast for capturing complex, and thus losing enemy faction standing fast, so you can not do this for long. But if you are in the "off militia" (e.g. Caldari for Minmatar, Amarr for Gallente, etc.), you do not gain or lose standings for plexing. This leads to the situation where the most effective offensive plexing is done by a rookie alt with sufficient standings in the "off militia", as they can run offensive plexes without NPC interference, i.e. a t1 frigate is enough for even unrestricted complexes; and as the "off" militia do not get any standings from plexing, so do not lose that ability. I do not think that this is the way FW should be played, so this game mechanic has to change. Proposed solution: Have FW complex NPCs shoot members of hostile militias regardless of their standings. Alternatively, to diminish the ability of third parties to interfere, have FW complex NPCs shoot everyone who is not part of their associated militia or the allied militia. (If you need an RP justification: Hell, you are trespassing on a very important military installation, even if you're blue, GTFO! And yes, I'm in one of those 3rd parties, so I'll hate that change, but it's a lot better than the current situation.)
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.03 01:13:00 - [2] Edited by: Arkady Sadik on 03/12/2009 01:13:43 Originally by: Z0D First part has already been raised by Erik Finnegan in CSM3 and will be fixed. I must have missed that, sorry. For the curious, here is the link I found: http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Factional_Warfare_-_NPC_Review Originally by: Z0D Second part I agree with but I do think that allies should be able to capture eachother's plexes without being shot at by NPCs. Oh, I surely did not intend to say that allied FW factions shouldn't be able to capture hostile plexes (e.g. Gallente should be able to capture Amarr complexes). "3rd party" above refers to outside groups such us my alliance, who are working with a militia, but are not part of that militia.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.03 20:10:00 - [3] The question whether a game mechanic is "good" or "bad" does not depend on whether it is "unbalancing enough", but on whether it encourages the kind of game play you want to have encouraged. This game mechanic encourages the game play where you create an alt, get him high standings, and then run offensive plexes in very cheap ships, primarily avoiding PvP (as it's a very low-SP alt). That does not seem like the kind of game play I want to encourage in FW. Hence, this should be changed.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.03 23:33:00 - [4] Could I ask all of you to move the discussion about Caldari vs. Gallente, the accusations of hypcrisy, and other such stuff to a different thread? This issue deserves more than another derailed thread of personal dislikes.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.04 18:08:00 - [5] Edited by: Arkady Sadik on 04/12/2009 18:08:54 Originally by: Nephilim Xeno i just think it would be better to have one big issue that covers all FW problems rather than multiple small ones that will all get ignored by the CSM 0.0 lobby anyway vOv There is a general "FIX FW!" thread here: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1225788 The other thread I opened about post-DT plexing was thankfully noticed by a CSM member, and will be raised with CCP (again). I am sorry that I gave the impression to be impartial to the Minmatar in this case (it wouldn't be surprising, being in EM, but I try not to be when I look at game mechanics; the original post included a request to rebalance FW NPCs, for example).
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.06 14:45:00 - [6] Originally by: Drezdyn I've heard the CCP response to this issue has been 'working as intended', though I won't assume that's the case without seeing their statement. I honestly don't see how this could be the case. When I first witnessed an incarnation of this, an Amarrian capturing Minmatar complexes without being shot at by the NPCs, I bug reported it (#60498, 2008.07.26 16:27:37). The reply then was: Quote: Thank you for your report. This is by design. Enemy NPCs will trust you as long as you maintain a certain level of standings with them. This trust will not last forever, if you abuse it though. This is indeed the case there. A Minmatar (just to cycle factions around a bit, all sides have used this at some point or another) capturing Amarr plexes will get Minmatar standings, thus lose Amarr standings, so this will solve itself over time - actually, rather quickly. This "new incarnation" is different, though, as the "allied faction" does not get any standings. So the Caldari FW pilots with high Minmatar standings do not get any Amarr standings for capturing Minmatar complexes, which in turn means they do not lose Minmatar standings, so this does not solve itself as the other bug does. Hence, I have bug reported this "new incarnation" of the problem (#88013, 2009.12.02 19:35:40), noting that the original design of this problem "balancing itself out" does not work here. No reply on that bug report so far.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.06 15:52:00 - [7] I can not blame PIE for making RP out of it. I would love to make RP out of it, too (the Minmatar are supposed to be the underdogs, and hell, my alliance has been saying we'll be losing the war fast if it's started, so it actually fits into my RP background) - but it's just not possible to go "uh, well, the Caldari have brought a large group of barely trained pilots that are not being shot at by our Fleet if they are capturing the complex, and we failed to set up regular 12'o'clock fleets, and I'm not helping because the Republic doesn't want my alliance to help, ..." - the bugginess of the mechanics makes ICerizing the whole thing absolutely impossible for me. On the other hand, I am not worried about losing systems. That just means there are more options to capture them back. What I am worried about is that the Minmatar Militia will lose active pilots interested in plexing because "losing" is demoralizing, thus breaking the nice balance we had between the Amarr and Minmatar militias for a very long time. The lack of balancing factors in FW just means that the normal failure cascades in large groups have very permanent effects.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.06 18:13:00 - [8] Now after the sov revamp, a full FW revamp would be nice. I think it can be made into something usable, but to make it into something really good, you need to remove the division between plexing and pvping, so you don't have two different (and almost disjunct) crowds for those. But that would require a rather drastic change to plexing all in all. And I have no idea what kind of change. Fixing the bugs and making it balanced (even for vastly different militia sizes and participation) is quite straightforward and doable, so doing that first would be a great.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.06 23:09:00 - [9] Originally by: Kade Jeekin To be honest the bugged timers are worse than the standings issue. What makes the standings issue more of a problem is that the plex bugging can be petitioned; the standings abuse can't. So the former can not be abused on a large scale such as it is currently done with the standings. But yes, there are so many idiotic bugs it's not funny anymore.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.07 00:51:00 - [10] I have the greatest respect for 1PG for that. That can not have been an easy decision.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.07 11:50:00 - [11] Hypocrisy is strong in any discussion about bugs. I have seen Amarrians use the standing bug before (but as Amarrians, not as Caldari, else I would have created such a thread before). I have seen Amarrians use the timer bug. I have seen Minmatar use the timer bug. I'm pretty sure there are Minmatar who have used the standing bug. And even our friend from PERVS is right: Just because you have a dozen alts running around your space in T1 fitted frigates for close to 9 hours a day does not mean all is lost. What makes it a lost cause is that plexing is such a damn boring thing against alts because it does not bring any useful fights. So those who do not have the "alt army" lose patience much, much faster. Not to mention that using (perceived) bugs in the system demotivates people even more than they already are. "Clever use of game mechanics", I think it's called. Does not make the standings issue any less of a ridiculous game mechanic. So please fix.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.07 20:26:00 - [12] Edited by: Arkady Sadik on 07/12/2009 20:26:18 Originally by: Neu Bastian extra bunker HP can't hurt, either I replied in the other thread, which is about FW as a whole.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.07 23:38:00 - [13] Originally by: Veshta Yoshida PS: Timer abuse is not an exploit as far as I am aware, properly merely frowned upon. It is considered an exploit and petitionable. I have asked explicitly that question via petition, got a "yes, it's an exploit" back, and have petitioned a few pilots for it.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.08 09:15:00 - [14] Originally by: Merdaneth If the Caldari had come in and used Vigils to speed tank the plexes with poorly skilled alts instead of standing tanking the plexes, would it have been ok? You greatly overestimate the famed solo-plexing Vigil. :-) E.g. it can't really do minors solo (takes ages), you can't really be afk (sometimes it doesn't work), etc. You also underestimate the ability of a crusader to solo capture Minmatar complexes. I have seen them do it. It works. (No, I do not claim that it's "just as easy". No, I do not claim that it's ok as it is.) Neither is comparable to just put your alt there and sit afk. You can AB to some of them for 70km and blow them up, only to get the first reaction a minute later. They aren't watching the screen for most part. THAT is why they can plex with around 8 alts at once (one has to admire the dedication, though). Besides, all it takes are two ships instead of one to tank any plex. Not that much more difficult. Why hasn't it been done before? This whole "look, even WITHOUT this bug, we would have won now" is highly annoying and nothing but trying to avoid the sour taste of this victory. You can not have both I'm afraid. Had PERVS decided to go to Amarr space, Amarr would have lost just as fast, just as much, just as unreasonably - not because losing systems is bad, but because this game mechanic is borked. Quote: The problem with the plexing mechanic is that the most efficient way to do it is have an alt semi-afk capture it. This. Quote: The system is poorly designed, period. And this. Let's stop talking around it.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.08 10:13:00 - [15] Also, this thread started before any system in Metropolis fell, as an attempt to raise all NPC-related issues to the CSM. Including the different power levels of the NPCs, as you can see in the first post. The power levels are being addressed. Hopefully, the rest is as well.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.08 12:00:00 - [16] Originally by: Bad Messenger Originally by: Arkady Sadik Besides, all it takes are two ships instead of one to tank any plex. Not that much more difficult. Why hasn't it been done before? This was used by caldari on gallete complexes quite often, maybe not by alts but by mains. Yep. Like all "clever uses of game mechanics" - they have been used before. What makes this different from all the other cases is that you PERVS put a lot more dedication and time into it than anyone else has so far. Which brings out all the bad parts of the game design: The game mechanics mean that the most effective way to "capture" systems in FW is to semi-afk plexes on a large scale, something you do while your (player) attention is somewhere else. The simple fact on the Amarr/Minmatar front is that both sides had trouble getting "sufficient plexing" done, and the defensive plexing was barely enough to keep up with single dedicated attempts (AB-C in Metropolis, Arzad in Amarr space) before either side just gave up because of the silliness of plexing. Both sides have had their rationalization for their lack of success. Minmatar have the "well, can't keep a system without post-DT superiority", Amarr have the "well, what do you do against the uber-Vigil-of-doom" - both problems real, but workable with. Both sides get frustrated with the silly mechanics. Both sides use outright exploits (such as bugging timers - it was awesome to close a plex in an empty system while five others around me closed for the enemy). So far, both sides did this apparently in roughly the same amount, as neither side managed to skew it in their favor. What broke this delicate balance of "can't be arsed to do more" was a group of people who put in a lot of time and dedication into plexing. This was helped by using a silly game mechanic (and can't blame them for it) which demotivated and demoralized the defenders even more. It's sufficiently proven that FW is completely and utterly broken. The mechanics encourage a game style that can not be what CCP intended with the game, and even those silly game mechanics have so many bugs it's not funny anymore. Now, please stop blaming each other for being "bad players". It's a game. Let's get the game designer to fix it, and not bite each other for playing the game the best way we can.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.08 12:51:00 - [17] Originally by: Bad Messenger I did some testing before operation and managed to speedtank amarr major plex with 60k sp alt in executioner. I do not say that you can tank all plexes with low sp alt but some of those yes. I can totally believe that - the larger plexes are easier to speed-tank than the smaller ones because often, they don't spawn smaller ships at all. Even the missiles from the Minmatar NPC BS do very little damage if you are moving fast. The idea of spawning frigates in larger plexes has been brought up very early in FW, and was put down because according to CCP, NPCs are only meant to serve as a distraction in case no players show up. Which is quite silly considering the vast differences in NPC power levels and ewar strengths (amarr TDs are pretty bad for PvP, btw, just not as easy to notice as ECM). Luckily, as Z0D pointed out, this is being addressed by the CSM already (see first post). Let's hope the rest is, too.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2009.12.08 15:30:00 - [18] Originally by: Veshta Yoshida Funny. I have been petitioning people with irrefutable screenshots as evidence, even a chat log admitting guilt at one point and the pilots are still at large. They get a nice mail from a GM saying "hi, you are using exploits. This is a warning, stop it, or you will get harsh consequences" - they need to repeat offenses to actually get banned or anything. And the person petitioning always gets the same standard message: "Thanks, we're looking into it". CCP does not tell you what they're doing.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient	Posted - 2009.12.11 21:59:00 - [19] My bug report has been assigned to a defect. The bug being that allied factions do not get standings, which results in no repercussions, not that NPCs don't shoot. This means that this issue is officially classified as a bug, and not intended game design.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient	Posted - 2009.12.14 19:30:00 - [20] Originally by: Veshta Yoshida Originally by: Arkady Sadik My bug report has been assigned to a defect. The bug being that allied factions do not get standings, which results in no repercussions, not that NPCs don't shoot. This means that this issue is officially classified as a bug, and not intended game design. Anything that is reproduced by the BH is labelled a defect, essentially just means the report has been validated and continues up the chain (at least that is how I understand the system). The usual reply is "this is by design, if you think it is bad design, please post to the features and ideas discussion forum" - if it's a bug, it's not by design. Quote: If the standings not transferring is unintended game design, why have they brushed off all comments about it the past (almost) 2 years? Because the bug is not that standings avoid being shot at by NPCs, but that you can avoid the standing loss for capturing complexes by being in an allied militia. Very different things :-) I just petitioned someone for using this, and got a standard "thank you for bringing this to our attention, we'll look into it and take the appropriate action" reply - not the "this is not an exploit bla bla" reply they usually do.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient	Posted - 2009.12.14 22:56:00 - [21] Done - to repost the relevant part from there to this thread: The definition of an "exploit" is as follows: Quote: You may not exploit any bug in EVE Online to gain an unfair advantage over other players. You may not communicate the existence of any exploitable bug to others directly or through a public forum. Bugs should be reported through the bug reporting tool on our website. (Technically, we all violated the TOS because we explained the bug in various threads ;-)) I'm afraid we will not see a big news post about this being an exploit. Only very few bugs whose abuse is considered an exploit get so much attention. Hence, please do petition the abuse of this bug whenever you see it (feel free to point to the bug number above).
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient	Posted - 2009.12.15 20:51:00 - [22] Just (finally!) received a response to my petition. No, using "off-militia members" is not an exploit. There, CCP said it. I had a rather lengthy discussion with the GM. Nothing to be done. Customer Support (the guys answering petitions) have no influence on this, they need some dev to tell them what is and what is not an exploit. PERVS, enjoy the "creative use of game mechanics" you found (and I mean that in the best possible sense). It would be great if this complete mess that is FW could be fixed at some point. This is getting from the silly to the grotesque.
Arkady Sadik Minmatar Gradient	Posted - 2009.12.23 16:05:00 - [23] Yes. NPCs also make most "good fights" impossible - single hostile cruiser defending a major? Can't bring something that can take on a cruiser, you need a useful "blob" (at least one frigate for aggro), so you can kill the cruiser before the NPCs do too much damage. Even though that allows for very nice "single malediction defends plex against overwhelming enemies" situations (respect Vaarun!), NPCs are bad in general for pvp. My preferred solution would be to get rid of NPCs alltogether, but add some kind of minigame to plexing so it takes a while to capture it, to avoid excessive afk alt usage. If you want a "minimum size" for plexes ("you need a BC in fleet to capture a major!"), make it so that only that size can actually do the minigame. Complexes should be PvP challenges. Someone saying "HAH! Here I am, throw me out!" - not something you do ideally unnoticed by the enemy.

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