Your proposal is long and needlessly complicated. It also throws out the very essence of what FW and low sec is all about. Most of us in the militias and in low sec in general once lived in null. We left because of the mind numbingly boring nature of it combined with blobtastic lagfests. FW and indeed low sec in general should not be viewed as a stepping stone to null. They aren't, never have been and hopefully never will be. Low sec is more of a pvp arena and that arena-ish style is what draws virtually everyone to FW currently in it. It would be a dire mistake to attempt to change that..

So with that in mind, what's really needed are smaller tweaks and additions. For starters, the mission system needs to be trashed. I don't think anyone will disagree with me on that other than the mission farmers who never pvp. The LP should be tied to pvp and plex capping. Plex capping should require the eradication of the npc's in it, whether or not we keep the timer is debatable. I also think the LP/reward payout for said plexes should be set up like it is with incursions. Not the amounts mind you, but the style of how different sized groups impact it. Obviously the npc's in them need some balancing as well. As a final note on plexes, they need to be less dependent on DT. Currently the system sucks pretty hard for anyone who isn't playing 5 minutes after DT.

The current LP bounties on ships are very much a joke but I know they were set so low as to make profiting off killing your own alts impractical. I think the LP bounty can be increased by 10x without causing any alt farming issues. This would have been too much originally but with the insurance nerf it should be fine. It could go even higher for t2 and faction ships as those are basically uninsurable..

Just FYI I'm following this thread and when CCP ask for CSM input I'll definitely chime in with some stuff here if I think it's awesome. If you have any specific things or any blogs you want me to read and you don't want to post about it just eve-mail me.

RANKS...
....Imagine being able to say "Ya, that guy's an Ace pilot" as a rookie. That feeling of, "i'm a small guy, but I'm looking up to that guy". ....

You haven't read my ideas really then.


The point of all of this is to make it about PVP.


Throw out everything you know about the militia game mechanics today, and read my ideas, and then we have a foundation to discuss.

Zones of Conflict

You get in a fleet of 5 frigates and go to one of the sites spawns in close orbit of a planet in the system, and shows Industrials flying to and from the planet picking up slaves. You go in and a team of 4-5 of you are tasked with killing the Industrials. Your rewards scale based on the number of pilots that enter, so you get less rewards for more pilots. As you go in to start destroying industrials and NPCs with the new AI (who are scaled down in difficulty to properly represent a fair challenge, rather than an Incursion level challenge). 2 Acceleration gates are provided at the entrance to the site, this is so that the incoming opposition isn't forced to enter on top of an enemy if they choose not to, they can come in at the other side of the complex if they choose. As hostile players appear on the gate and warp in to defend, the assaulting Minmatar ships are able to hack a nearby node and get Minmatar NPC reinforcements to arrive as well. The NPC's begin to engage each other, and the players are left to deal with each other. So, as the players are fighting over the node, there is a war appearing around them that gives a greater sense of conflict. The objective is to destroy 6 Industrials, but the Amarrians take control of the system and are able to push back the damage done. They do this through another site in the system that is for providing escort for Industrial ships coming in to the area. The site for the escort can be countered by the Minmatar, and so the Minmatar pilots now move over to the industrial interdiction site to blow up the incoming industrials, and to halt countering the hard work that they did. ALthough they can't defeat the Amarrian force, they call for backup and try to hold up the Amarrians from coming and protecting the Industrials as long as they can..

[quote=Cearain][quote=Bloodpetal][quote=Cearain][quote=Bloodpetal]


Well, the NPCs should be targets - something to interact with while the PVP comes to you. Something to hold you there and keep you there. I would rather that they don't get in the way of the PVP - if there was a way for the NPCs to get "distracted", "hacked" or whatever to get them off the field (except the objective NPCs) as soon as PVP arrived, I would love it!..

Missions: Great isk maker, gets pilots out and about and moving around. We're not like 90% of the pirate groups that sit in one system running L5's all day. I wish there was a way to grief ***** mission runners who run, but that's just me.

...

There would a limited number of constellations contested at any given time. They would be chosen and viewed in the Militia Info Screen (see bellow). This would centralize the fighting, although that could be a bad thing since there would be other areas with little fighting... It could be opened up to allow any and all constellations to be contested at any given time (throwing out the voting system I outline in "Militia Info Screen") if there can be a good way to initiate the contesting, perhaps by completing a special officer site that only spawns in non-contested areas.
...

Lots of people do lots of PVE in Eve without ever pvp'ing. What's the big deal?

In any case the solution is pretty straight forward and doesn't require a set of complicated rules. Modify missions to have a "poison pill" that allows you to grief a mission runner if he bails from a mission. Something like with documents in Cutting the Net - he need them to complete the mission. A misison griefer, however, can take them from the cargo container and then either destroy them or ransom them back to the mission runner.

I agree that people who run missions in FW ought to also pvp, but FW missions are a PvE activity, just like any other type of missions, and there is no requirement anywhere in Eve that somebody who does PvE also needs to PvP.

More importantly, you can never enforce a rule like that without somebody figuring out a way to exploit it with alts. So good luck trying.

If CCP thinks FW missions are too easy for alt mission runners to exploit, then they know what they can do to help me put an end to them. :)

Damar Rocarion undocks Joanna Ramirez (who has joined QCATS and is now in Gallente FW) in Eha and then kills her with Yuri Intaki. Yuri then picks up a L4 mission in Eugales where she opens it and runs back to Eha and kills Joanna again while Damar finishes the mission.

This example is complete fiction and could never happen because 1) Damar doesn't run FW missions, and 2) he has likely recycled Joanna by now. Haven't seen her flying around in a while.

So what you're saying is that I'm right and that you can't create a set of rules that can't be "manipulated". Agreed. .

You're also saying it's ok to for some players to manipulate these rules as long as... what? Your personal isk/hour isn't affected too much by their alts running FW missions? .

The drawback is that it can't be enforced. Farming alts are going to farm. That's what they do.

I did some checking on what CCP wanted when FW was created. System occupancy is one of many features - not THE feature of FW.

http://www.eveonline.com/empyreanage/features.html

You agree and then want to use Incursion mechanics for occupancy? (PvE) I don't get it. Please explain.

Cearain's main point in two years of threads are that NPCs are bad and shouldn't be a part of the occupancy mechanic. He still wants ship limited combat and for people to orbit buttons for a set amount of time. The one decent idea he has is to notify militia that a plex has been opened, but what he nor anybody else does not quite comprehend is this:

Players don't fight if they don't think they can win.

What happens when the other side disengages and leaves you hanging with no pvp? Sit on timer like he suggests? That's where his proposals fall short every time.

Your suggestion w.r.t incursions is decent even though it involves NPCs because your group will have something rewarding to do if the other side decides not to fight.

To go along with the station discussion. Why not just have a station in FW systems instead of a bunker that is flipable. 1 station in the middle of the system that is controlled by the faction that holds the system. That station is then only usable by that faction, guns shoot the opposing faction, it can have lp store for that faction as well. Then no neutral RR undocking from it from either side, guns make it harder to camp, and if you use the station alot you won't want to loose that system. Just an idea

The mere fact that it's in low sec will encourage other militias (and pirates) to grief each other when the opportunity presents itself.

Yay. I win! Now what do I do now that you've left system? Orbit a button for 29 minutes?

I'm positive it won't happen often enough to keep me interested for a long enough period of time. I've been there, done that. Still do it (rarely these days) due to insanity. Running people out of plexes is fun. Sitting on plex button waiting for people to come in and fight is just too boring to do long term.

Let me know when your name appears on the following link:
http://api.eve-online.com/eve/FacWarTopStats.xml.aspx

Then maybe your opinion on when, why, and how often people will fight in plexes will hold some weight.

Cearain has never hidden the fact that he abhors plexing and that he has never done it to any great extent though, so that bit at least is valid enough ....

F'ing forum eating long winded posts.

1. My post was harsh, but point remains.
2. As stated many times before. You can notify, but after getting blueballed so many times, people will quit coming. This conclusion is based on experience. (see also Bad Messenger's comment on how to use proposed mechanics)
3. From your post it seems that you just want fights in plexes and care nothing for occupancy - otherwise you'd close the plexes. You're in it for the same reasons 95% of everybody in FW now - PVP! Higher goals... meh! Why would you close them in the future if you don't now?

I meant instead of shooting the bunker, you shoot the station. Then the station changes to the other faction. This could really suck if you had stuff in the station that you can no longer get to. So by flipable i meant when system changes occupancy the station does as well. If it only allowed militia pilots to dock in it gives incentives not to loose station since you can't even use neutral alts to get stuff out.

My point was me already have to shoot a bunker. Just Change the bunker that's in the middle of PW systems to a station. The mechanic could stay mostly the same even. It's more like a dockable bunker that have station guns that shoot other militia and only holding militia of the system can use it. It's ment to be more of a safe zone that when you are out roaming and need to take a break you can go to one of your militias systems and not worry about 2-3 opposing militia guys camping undock waiting for you to come out.

Doesn't need to be a station per say could just be a dockable bunker, I mean they are already there anyway make them usefull rather than just shoot it when system goes vulnerable.

Blobs even happen in high sec when there's a decent war dec between particularly active corps going on. I don't think there'll ever be a way blobs will go away. Plus, what would you expect.

What about implementing number restrictions (in addition to the size restrictions) to some plexes. Since a huge problem in getting a good fight is being outnumbered, if the accel gates were smart enough to only allow 5 (or whatever) members from each militia to be inside simultaneously, you could force a maximum size to the fights. Sure reinforcements could be waiting, but it would still be much much better than having all of those enemies spanking you at once. Plus it could start fights on the accel gates themselves since people might get stuck on them if the plex is full when they try to enter it.....

Keeping with the idea of various styles of plex, what about a variation of plex that has an AOE warp-disruption inside it? This style might even give the timer new life. If you are close to the timer, you can't warp, so if someone comes in after you, you either fight to the death (maybe not affect pods :P) or you have to burn off the button to warp. This could affect how you fit your ships as well. If you intend to do this variation of plex, you have an extra mid to play with....

w.r.t NPCS: There are many current ways to keep the NPCs out of fights.
1. Warp to plex, don't go in. If you want decent fight, then burn off gate and wait. Opponent will have to burn at you and when he calls in for warp in they will warp to plex gate, not to opponent.

2. When you enter plex, don't fire on and don't go within 30km (or some varying distance based on plex size) of the plex button. In many plexes the timer won't start and the NPCs will remain in sleep mode. Perhaps this feature should apply to all plexes.

So there are some current options, but they are not universally applied across all plexes.

This goes back to the practical question of.... why?

Why bother going into a plex?

And why bother fighting for it?

Yes, correct answer.

And thus I award you a strange man holding a piece of paper.

Ohhhh man... going one step further, ships could have a point value associated with them, and the gate could track the total value entered by each militia. Just like the tournament. That would be AWSOME.

Again, I envision this as being one of many types of plexes available to players to mess around with, not how all plexes should work.

2. Caldari and Amarr militia should show up on overview as friendly to each other. Gallente and Minmatar militia should show up on overview as friendly to each other. At the moment they don't and not a week goes by when we don't have a friendly-fire incident as a result.