Why are certain Gallente arguing against the obvious and huge impact of alts d-plexing? They are down to 5 systems and want to "win" fw again.

The difference now is that the timescale for system flips by the "evasion alts" is much slower and puts much less stress on players who actually live in the war zone. Timer rollbacks would have the same effect, but wouldn't "solve" the problem. You might be able to argue that timer rollbacks would be worse since
1. the dps check is always applied even if the defender is not logged in, and
2. The timer doesn't run until the rat is destroyed. The "evasion plexer" can't kill a rat quickly enough before an active defender runs him out. Timer doesn't count down.

So anyways, that's the argument for no longer needing a timer rollback feature. Take it for what it's worth.

Now ask yourself if timer rollbacks would "solve" the issue of afk defensive plexing alts? Answer: Not really. The only way to "stop" a defensive plexing alt is to attack the system.

Hmm not sure I understand your logic, there.

1. Rabbit plexer has run a medium for 18 minutes
2. Shooter plexer chases him out
3. Rabbit plexer starts to run a novice
4. After 5 minutes, shooter plexer warps to novice and chases him out
5. Since they have nothing better to do with their playtime, Rabbit and Shooter proceed to chase eachother between the 2 plexes

Result: no plex is captured, the Shooter has succesfully defended the system.

Hmm not sure I understand your logic, there.

1. Rabbit plexer has run a medium for 18 minutes
2. Shooter plexer chases him out
3. Rabbit plexer starts to run a novice
4. After 5 minutes, shooter plexer warps to novice and chases him out
5. Since they have nothing better to do with their playtime, Rabbit and Shooter proceed to chase eachother between the 2 plexes

Result: no plex is captured, the Shooter has succesfully defended the system.

Sure bouncing back should be hard, but it shouldnt need a washed up 2000 ....

No the rabbit d-plexer will have made ground. Because he can run all the plexes in a frigate and never needs to spend time reshipping. The pvper has to go x number of jumps to get in a ship that can go in each plex and or shoot the rats. The d-plexer realistically just has to just go a few jumps over and run plexes there. Between the gate restrictions and the rat tanks the pvpers will likely not be able to run down his timer even if he wanted to.

This is a reason why systems are not as highly contested as they were. This was a huge boon to rabbit d-plexing alts.

If there were rollbacks then the rabbit d-plexing alts would have a harder time effecting occupancy.

The deplexer only has power in systems with relatively high contested rates and no pvp activity. A rare combination at the moment. They are having a very similar effect to timer roll backs.

The main benefit over rollbacks, as XG pointed out, rollbacks would do nothing to discourage O-farmers unless working in conjunction with people chasing these farmers around all over the warzone. Design that relies on people chasing farmers is bad design. Therefor in retrospect the current design is more desirable than rollbacks.

Farmers being used to only defend is a better state of affairs than farmers being used to attack.

I am not sure I understand what you are saying here.

Rollbacks would effect all rabbit plexers equally. Oplexers that leave a plex would start losing time they put into a plex just like defensive plexers would. Everyone would have an incentive to stay and fight instead of just running and hiding.

Maybe because your side is currently in control of over 96% of the warzone you think rabbit d-plexers are better than rabbit o-plexers. But really both forms of rabbits have far too much influence on occupancy. Timer rollbacks will decrease the importance of those who want to always run and will make people who are inclined to stay and fight relatively more valuable. That is exactly what fw needs.

Actual result :
1. No interactive game play takes place (you don't really consider warping around after a d-scan entry interactive right?).
2. One player does not have motive for interactive play (most likely this is a side show to generate isk at lowest amount of effort)
3. Other player is looking for interactive play. Tries hard to find it but often leaves disappointed.
4. Other player chooses to log in less and less, choosing an alternative more interactive pastime.

I would be more inclined to agree with your reasoning if the rabbit and the fox were both playing the game with the same end results in mind. As the rabbit, if I can't plex and get my tasty LP, then I at least prevent/slow your deplexing ability by forcing you to chase me. I might harvest some tears to fuel my soul as well. If you get frustrated and give up, I win our psychological pvp battle and you go on the forums and complain how my play style ruins the game. Those are also tasty tears. You might have not enjoyed our interaction, but we did interact. - Point 1 covered

I, as a proud member of Gallente Militia, want to do what I can to help the militia, so I pony up my hard earned cash and pay for an account to create a deplexing alt. While I go about my dirty pew pew lifestyle, my gentle alt helps to further the Gallente agenda of total domination of the warzone by deplexing systems. While he/she might not be engaging in a play style you consider interactive, he/she is doing her part for the Federation. If the system she is deplexing is important to you, chase her out. There we are at the different end game goal from point 1: interaction but not the interaction you want. - Point 2 covered

Point 3 - See above mentioned tears reference. As a side note, having a deplexing alt attacked or killed has led to pew as I now know where there is prey. After you chase or kill the next deplexing alt, if I show up, you know who my alt is and you now know how to get a fight.

Point 4 - Can I have your stuff?

Given what they want fw to be their aversion to plex timer rollbacks makes perfect sense. As Theroine said, people who want fights instead of chasing rabbits are after different ends than he is. Plex timer rollbacks is one proposal that clearly separates the 2 camps.

What proposals we like will depend on what sort of game we want to play.

Given the posts from XG, Crosi and the one I quote above it is clear that certain gallente (although I am sure not all) actually like the fact that fw occupancy is largely about having alts rabbit d-plex.

Given what they want fw to be their aversion to plex timer rollbacks makes perfect sense. As Theroine said, people who want fights instead of chasing rabbits are after different ends than he is.

Plex timer rollbacks is one proposal that clearly separates the 2 camps.

I don't understand these objections. not really needed 'right now'? what about not right now?

not effective for warzone control. what about effective for padding your wallet?

I will say that defensive plexing is not very good at padding your wallet because you only get a fraction of the lp. That is really why I would agree that that the d-plexers are not really "farmers." They are not in it for the isk they are doing this for the warzone control.

I think the timer roll backs would be a bad idea because it would make any time you had to leave a plex unattended suck. And I already feel like oplexing sucks now, if I wanted to kill waves of useless rats that do literally nothing for me but waste my ammo I'd run l1 missions in high sec. What if neutrals show up and push you out? They aren't a part of the FW mechanics but now they are preventingmy ability to contest the system, and are in fact defending it by virtue of keeping in me out of the plex I was in. What if I go help a buddy in another plex, on a gate, dock up for reps or literally anything that takes me away from the capture point? Realistically if you want the timer to roll back you should have a pilot there to run it down. It doesn't matter what you think the motivation of the pilot your dscan tells you is in a plex is. All that matter is what your goal is and how you achieve it. You want a warzone where control is determined by occupying a system? Then undock and occupy that system. If you're not willing to chase away or hunt down any fool who tries to plex a system you claim as yours then you will lose that system (Or you do that and the entire Gallente militia come along anyway to push you out anyway :P). These "rabbits" as you call them don't determine warzone control. At best they slow one side down a little bit and offer the other side a little more buffer time to figure out what is going on.

And seriously, plex rats need to lose that magic MWD that makes them skate across the plex faster than anything else on grid. I'd also like to repeat that attacking fellow milita pilots should flag you as a suspect, as shoudl warping into a FW plex if you're a neutral. I also feel like the oplex rat spawns need some tweaking, but if their speed is adjusted that might make killing them more bearable

My deplexing alt is at 1.3 million LP over the past two weeks because we're at Tier 4 and it goes to highly contested, unpopulated systems. So, yeah, it's great for padding the wallet.

Key isn't plexing mechanics, it's rewards at higher Tier levels. Farmers/rabbits come out when the rewards are high. Tier rewards also provide incentive for players to push the warzone. Pushing the warzone has proven to be the best conflict driver in the game this summer. So it's a Yin/Yang issue.

But anyway IMO ideally plexing would be a pvp mechanic and fw missions would remain a pve mechanic.

Using a tounge-in-cheek forum reply to shore up your argument is dubious at best. The main point I was trying to convey is that we should not be making sweeping generalizations on what interaction, play style, goals, etc. are. Considering that this thread is supposed to be geared to ideas on the low sec fw meeting, I should have gone for a more useful reply than a humorous one. I think that goes for all our replies.

I am on the fence when it comes to timer rollbacks. I think that the strengthened plex rat and increased spawn have done a lot to greatly reduce the offensive farming of plexes by afk alts. And, if you are serious in your stance on fw occupancy being largely decided by deplexing alts, I really don't see how you come to that conclusion. Does it give the defender an advantage? Yes, but how do you change the mechanic, other than rollbacks, to address the situation? If you implement rollbacks, how do you address your rabbit deplexing problem without the fix adding to the problem of limiting play styles.

Plexing is a PVP mechanic, or haven't you seen the killboards lately?
Top corporations on Zkillboard RIGHT NOW.
Brave Newbies Inc. 2,210 - Huge corporation
Justified Chaos 1,713 FACTION WARFARE
C.Q.B 1,630 FACTION WARFARE
Red Federation 1,586 - Huge corporation
Black Fox Marauders 1,582 FACTION WARFARE
Blue Republic 1,462 - Huge corporation
GoonWaffe 1,358 - Huge corporation
EVE Corporation 987654321-POP 1,189 - High Sec Gankers
The Great Harmon Institute ... 1,062 FACTION WARFARE
Love Squad 1,017 - Reasonably sized corporation

Most of the kills in FW are due to Gallente attacking home systems and Caldari defending.

Is it a 100% of the time pvp Mechanic? No it is not. The nature of this game is that both sides need to decide to fight and if one backs out then it's PvE.

This "PvE plexing mechanic" is generating more pvp than any other mechanic in this game right now.

How many plexes did your alt capture in the last 2 weeks?

1 million LP worth, so probably about 100. 8ish per day.

Do you concede that the plexing has provided more pvp than any other mechanic in the game this summer?