The pile-up on Caldari never actually happened you know, it merely looked that way because the Gallente was depopulated but the people leaving left FW entirely. The rest is/was down to normal fluctuations.

1. Caldari had a huge influx at the start due to the insane money making potential from COSMOS items becoming easily accessible through FW.
The standings grind needed for said COSMOS items was one of the reasons why Caldari "won". They managed to convince everyone that they might as well help plex rather than grind missions so their plexers outnumbered the frogs by a huge margin.
2. Not seeing how that relates to the pile-on effect, seems to be the opposite. But some good-hearted animosity is very much key if living in the rat infested trenches.
3. We do, just not quickly like our ADHD afflicted non-RP meatshields .. muhahahaha
4. Those new to PvP may well join what looks like the "winning side", but they are promptly eaten alive by the experienced PvP'ers who joined the under-dog side for the challenge .. door swings both ways
5. NPC balance or lack thereof had by far the biggest effect on the apparent pile-on of the Caldari. It has been neutered somewhat with the agent changes though as one can now almost pick-and-choose mission and location due to all purveyors being the same.
Would be super sweet, like rainbow farting unicorns sweet, if there were missions designed for small gangs similar to Incursions as PvP'ers who has a legitimate and often urgent need for cash generally function best with wing-men.
6. Sounds very good on paper, and would serve to make the militia stations the natural bases for the respective militia's. But as any pirate will tell you, sentries are not to be feared, with just a handful of people the damage they do is diluted to a point where even local tanking is enough..

I suggested a solution to the LP-for-plex conundrum a while that nimbly avoids afk-frig farming:
- Closing a plex awards a certain amount of LP that are put into escrow (think Incursion LP).
- Mission LP awards draws from this escrow can never exceed what is available. If pool is empty a mission only pays out half (or something like that).
Straight LP for closing plexes would make a complete redesign of the things mandatory to prevent farming and would most likely have to include your hated plex NPCs to help with this .. just sayin'

As for stations suddenly switching sides: CCP would need to RP it like mad to justify such a thing as they are merely satellite offices of multi-national corporations, but to have corporations that employ 100s of millions pull up stakes just because something as irrelevant as occupancy flips (which happens a lot in some systems!) makes no sense.

You go a long way towards preventing the snowball effect if you make it progressively harder to capture systems. The first enemy system is easy to take and hold. The tenth less so. The thirtieth almost impossible.

Factional warfare needs to be fixed

According to Zulu's winter expansion list, a FW iteration is coming soon.

No, really.

Stop laughing, it actually says it right here.

Stay tuned!

I want to make it clear that this is not a final list. As we go through design and implementation phases some things may require more work than initially expected and others may not hold water in the design phase and therefore may not make it into this particular expansion.

According to Zulu's winter expansion list, a FW iteration is coming soon.

No, really.

Stop laughing, it actually says it right here.

Stay tuned!

[quote=Shaalira D'arc]We will see. Im pulling for CCP to do what is right and keep peoples interest in FW. It is a great place for ppl to learn PvP (solo and gang) and leadership even if they have aspirations of moving on to other things like 0.0, etc.

I agree with everything you say but this last bit.

IMO FW should stand on its own in this sandbox. New players can join a null sec corp and learn to blob just fine now. FW does not need to be a stepping stone to that.

Instead FW should be a mechanic in eve that provides frequent quality small scale pvp. If it did that I bet allot of players would "move on" from null sec to fw. Especially when they realize they need to prioritize real life yet still want to have fun pvping in eve.

...Of course, I do hope it does hit us in winter, really. And if not then some time close after.

..IMO FW should stand on its own in this sandbox...

And how much do you think it will be worth, considering that the current implementation took a full expansion (+cycle) to put together and practically every facet of our little universe needs to be redone?
CCP has not made any strides to even discuss possible FW changes internally according to a Dev a few months back, since it was barely a louse on a hair on the ass-end of their priority list. Do you really believe that FW will be better off with whatever they can cook up in less than a week, which is probably what is left when they are done fulfilling all their other Winter promises ..

There is no "fix" to FW. It is so fundamentally flawed that it will remain on life-support without some major surgery.

Screw the FW centric thinking Low-sec as a whole should be the 'unique' partition of the sandbox, driven by PvP and YarrRP, FW can then fit neatly into this unique part of the sandbox as the empires fight for supremacy of the wilderness between borders.

And how much do you think it will be worth, considering that the current implementation took a full expansion (+cycle) to put together and practically every facet of our little universe needs to be redone?
CCP has not made any strides to even discuss possible FW changes internally according to a Dev a few months back, since it was barely a louse on a hair on the ass-end of their priority list. Do you really believe that FW will be better off with whatever they can cook up in less than a week, which is probably what is left when they are done fulfilling all their other Winter promises ..

[
Screw the FW centric thinking Low-sec as a whole should be the 'unique' partition of the sandbox, driven by PvP and YarrRP, FW can then fit neatly into this unique part of the sandbox as the empires fight for supremacy of the wilderness between borders.

Yeah, you are right. It should be in its own sandbox, to some degree leastways.

I think it depends on what some folks mean by 'small scale' pvp. Some of the pvp blobbs I have seen in FW are large, 50+ man fleets and we have seen fleets of well over 100+ ppl (a while ago tho). I've been in a couple fleets with nearly 150 members little more than a year and a half ago. During POS takedowns the numbers can go up (tho recent months there has been a sharp decline in the fleet sizes). Third party involvement inflates this too. I'd call a lot of these fleets medium to large scale gang warfare.

I dont think CCP can regulate the size of a fleet in FW to keep it 'small scale' since that definition is relative and people shouldnt be limited to fleet size to keep the scale 'small'. One man's small scale may mean 5 people whereas another may mean 50+..

I think we agree on this.

If they fixed fw plexing then there would be allot more small scale combat. The plexes do not allow ships of various sizes in. So it tends to make it so there are not large blobs.

The reason you tend to see only see fw pilots in large blobs is because the plexing mechanic is broken. So with nothing to do people tend to just form a large blob and roam around. Of course there will still be blobbed after the plexing is fixed. But you will also have allot more small scale pvp too. Right now you get very little of that in fw or really anywhere in eve.

There is such a thread located in the "Features and Ideas" section, where it won't be buried intensely like things are in "General Discussion".

So far it looks like people are sticking to submitting write-ups of their vision of FW, which is nice because although back-and-forth discussion is great, it can result in an extremely cluttered thread. So, do as you please, but consider that it may be more effective to copy this write-up format when posting.

Hope this is helpful, here it be:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=18059

I honestly hate the idea of plexes, unless they are generated by players who decide to attack a certain system and thus setup a plex/forward command bases to start the invasion/start to take the system.

Having random plexes spawn about to orbit while they are capturing the flag with an npc or two present is of 0 interest to me. Purpose, focus and player management is.

I still think we need some sort of T1 minor plex for our new pilots to allow them to experience plexing without having a dram or faction frig land on them. Minor plexes were originally great pvp, but thrashers started to take over, and then with the easy mission isk they are now full of expensive ships.

Maybe a scale

T1 frig plexes (additional restrictions so high ranks can't enter i.e sasa etc who will **** any newer players)
T1 Dessies down
Minor plexes - as current
And then the same for med plexes.

Maybe restrict majors to bc up so it takes a group effort rather than speed tanking.

I believe that removing npcs *and* immediately notifying the militias when a plex is entered will make plexes pvp havens.

Of course, I *also* think CCP should not have more plexes spawn right after downtime. It is not "either or." CCP should do both.

The rest I, not surprisingly, agree with you.

Why the attachment to npcs? Let the miltias know when plexes are entered and decide for themselves if they want to fight for occupancy.

I honestly hate the idea of plexes, unless they are generated by players who decide to attack a certain system and thus setup a plex/forward command bases to start the invasion/start to take the system.

And how much do you think it will be worth, considering that the current implementation took a full expansion (+cycle) to put together and practically every facet of our little universe needs to be redone?
CCP has not made any strides to even discuss possible FW changes internally according to a Dev a few months back, since it was barely a louse on a hair on the ass-end of their priority list. Do you really believe that FW will be better off with whatever they can cook up in less than a week, which is probably what is left when they are done fulfilling all their other Winter promises ..

So it should be possible to do something that triggers an incursion-type event in system X?

I am intrigued by your idea, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Making FW more 'occupancy' focused gives meaning to plexing. Random spawns is a lazy mechanic that lends to no military strategy at all on the part of the player.

Time for out of the box crackpot idea here so bear with me...

FW should be occupancy focused giving benefits 'of some kind' to the occupying militia (as I mentioned before perhaps restrictions on docking at the occupying racial stations and those stations firing on enemies camping it).

Capturing plexes should be strategically thought out, sought after and fought for by the players. What could happen here is that corps can choose which systems to assault up to a certain number (Im thinking 1) per corp. When said system is chosen, it shows up on the player map (similar to number of ships killed in system, etc options) or faction warfar window, commonly brought up in station. It can show as being under assault (even perhaps which corp has chosen to assault it to let people prioritise the threat of the enemy by known reputation and activity) giving players an idea of what systems they should be focusing on for defense or attack. Type of plexes turn up in order and a certain number allowed per day in chosen system until the system is turned.

Plexing can still have NPC's for defense and ranked as Bob suggested to allow new players to have a chance. NPC drops, LP, faction standings and rank awards remaining the same, except of turning a system. Shooting a bunker and turning a system should also carry with it greater benefits (owing towards faction standing, LP and rank) than plexing as it is the fulfillment of a militia members ultimate duty that builds on everyday plexing.

Third party involvement should be nerfed, ie make supers more vulnerable in low sec. Restrict non-milita members from entering militia plexes. Keep pirates pirating and militia members carrying out militia oriented duties. Allow alliances to join or be formed in militia under the banner of the government they choose to serve to balance out pirate alliances that are active in the FW areas camping gates etc. *cough*AMAMAKE** which prevent new players from even getting to a militia fight or plex.

erm.... stepping out on a limb with crackpot idea. maybe more to come, but just some unformed thoughts here. Im sure it will bring some more life to the thread leastways. Enjoy!