Saul Elsyn
Sturmvogel Squadron
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Posted - 2008.06.05 23:46:00 -
[1]
Lordy... there's a ton of problems with this setup, some more substantial than others but here I go.
Factional Warfare Problems:
Risk vs. Reward:
Lets face it the way factional warfare is currently built its an isk sink, nothing more. There is no real bonus to the conquest of systems, or even the securing of objectives. LP is fine and dandy but I can count on my fingers how often I've used those points in this game over the last year... twice.
The militias are paramilitary organizations that are an ancillary force to the Empire's own fleets. Basically they're the "Civilian Defense Contractors of the American force in Iraq". This means they're a sort of mercenary. As such, people and corporations participating in factional warfare should have it as a source of isk, not a sink. Now... How can you accomplish this with the losses that have to be anticipated and give motivations for the completion of objectives, securing of systems, and simple engaging the enemy.
Simple. Lets take a real world example. The "Flying Tigers" or AVG that fought the Japanese in China, each was paid a salary 4x that of their normal military pay and 500 dollars per aircraft destroyed.
So in factional warfare, lets give commissions and bounties for both completion of objectives (Each player who helped to capture a bunker gets a bounty, and each player that scored VP in a system gets a commission for the capture of that system) and for the destruction of both PC and NPC vessels. These bounties for killing factional warfare participants should be limited to those participating partly to keep non-align pirates from racking in factional bounties.
This can also be used as a means of keeping the ship sizes participating in the factional warfare in the smaller classes as has been a stated aim. If the largest bounty on an enemy player's ship is around 10 million (This suggests a means of implementation whereas for every one -1 of standing you get you're assigned a million isk bounty) and you have a 50-50 chance of winning most of the time, you're not going to use a 100 million + isk Battleship. Basically with that if you fly a cheap cruiser, frigate, or destroyer you stand a fair chance at making isk instead of loosing it.
The illogical mechanics and a cosmetic way of fixing it.
Early in testing I found and flew to a system control bunker, expecting a hoard of defending vessels, and partly to get a look at it. When I got there I found a brick painted factional colors and a note saying it was invulnerable when I tried to target it. I understand you want to make it invulnerable until the VP are achieved, but please give an in game reason for its invincibility.
VP complexes also only seem to feature a brick, so here's a simple solution for having a logical reason for those bunkers invulnerability. Give the system command bunker a shield bubble... and make those objective bunkers be devices transmitting the invulnerability shield to the bunker. When enough of those shield transmitters are taken the bunker's invulnerability field collapses and you can engage it.
There I just gave a logical explanation for the VP mechanic that is currently in place... sorta.
Getting greater PvE Participation:
For logistics pilots... factional warfare militias should have "Logistics Agents" whose job it is organize the shipping of war-goods from the empire's high-sec areas to the front line. They should offer higher pay then most agents, and would mainly deal in the trade of munitions, modules, and soldiers.
For combat mission runners... beside the basically normal missions we've got already. We need a set of missions that are designed specifically as a sort of challenge to the PvE community. Missions like destroying the other factions titan factory, or a doomsday-less titan, requiring the use of large fleets of PvErs. Who among them wouldn't love to claim a titan kill, even if its an NPC titan kill.
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Saul Elsyn
Sturmvogel Squadron
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Posted - 2008.06.06 17:31:00 -
[2]
You know, the LP rewards are generally pretty useless unless you fly the same ship and equipment as the faction you're fighting for. I'm a caldari pilot thats cross-trained to Minmatar, and I'll probably be fighting for the Amarr cause thats where I'm based. Aside from selling the modules at Jita that I got with LP there's very little use I have for those modules and ships... save implants, implants are always good.
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