You think it is small scale when all runs to plex to pvp after announcement..

And how do you prevent me and Damar for swarming alts to open lot of plexes around FW area giving 'false' alarms?.

And it still does not remove basic problem. If there is plexing group of people who kick your ass everytime you meet them, you stop to care about plexing because it does not matter anything..

FW has lot of features that makes it good, but ccp balancing, couple bugs, and fact that it does not matter anything makes it unplayable as warfare on long term.

Good day:

The willingness to engage.... http://www.factionalwarfare.info/1565/pvp-are-you-willing-to-engage/

Thank you.

Alerting the other militia everytime a plex is being ran doesn't fix some of the core issues that makes plexing unappealing. Stabbed alts will still warp off and run a plex elsewhere and you can still chase them (it's not hard to find where certain people are plexing it's not rocket science). This mechanic will not induce more small scale pvp, infact it will diminish it.

Who do you think will become disillusioned/tire first, the responding PvP'er or the plexing alt?....

What you say may well be how it is for a few weeks after such a change, but people will very quickly stop responding to reports of frigs since "they always run" -> frig plexing moves from being the norm to being 'why use anything else .. ever?'. Essentially decoupling plexing from PvP entirely thus exacerbating the problem you are trying to solve.
Changes to FW need to be extensive and all-inclusive for it to have any impact on the behaviour we can observe today. Plex reporting might be part of it but will not be what moves FW in the PvP direction (ex. rewards/carrots for 'staying the course' would have a significantly better effect).

Love your optimism, but we play to be entertained and hunting ****-fit frigs simply does not satisfy that need .. it is barely satisfied by hunting the mission bombers, but at least the payout from those can be quite high (best one yet was a 500M+ hound .. bling FTW!).

While you are sitting on that timer he is on his .. you may run the timer you just "won" but by the time you arrive at his new site he is ready to move .. I have been playing the 'seconds left on timer' too damn long to buy into that illusion.

And now you also want to reset timers every time it is taken over by the other side as well?

Your lack of understanding of the mental strain involved in "serious" plexing is shining through, you will never be able to sell that idea to any of the organized plexing crews.

Also, just what do you expect to give to the PvP pilot to encourage him to sit on his ass for 10-20 minutes at a time? Whenever some major plexing push is being planned we spend hours upon hours convincing the combat centric population that it is in their interest to assist (pretty sure this goes for plexers in all militias).
Orbiting a button has never been fun, so unless you introduce some golden carrot (which will be abused to hell and back) there is just no way to make people twiddle their thumbs for the amount of time that we are talking when they could be bonking heads at their usual gates/stations.

On timer mechanics: One of my former corp mates suggested that defensive plexes run themselves once started and only offensive plexes require someone on timer.
Puts the pressure on the attacking party who quite literally has to be there and thus expose themselves to response, effectively solves your problems in a much smoother fashion (provided spawn mechs. are not post-DT biased) without the use of plex-spam channels and what not.

In short: The idea will massively favour whomever has the most people/alts available and will not improve on either fight frequency or quality. "Numbers > All" paradigm has been tried and it has failed so miserably that even null is starting to ask for change.

PS: This is the last bump you get

The whole NPC situation is tricky. Completely removing NPCs will give rise to just everyone and their mother making several trial (or non trial) accounts with recycleable, untrained, stabbed plexing alts in cheap little frigs. NPCs serve some purpose in this fashion. I believe that EWAR should be completely removed from all NPCs in FW plexes (or at the very least, have the number of EWAR NPCs severely reduced in a plex). Another Issue at least with major plexes is NPCs take too long to die if you're solo/in a small gang. I think the EHP of the NPC battleships/Elite EWAR boats should be reduced, making them easier to dispatch with a BC. A full spawn (at least in terms of missiles) is devastating and the DPS should be lowered (but increase explosion velocity to help with smaller targets, ie, kill afk speed tankers), maybe even nerf npc dps across the board some. The overall function of the NPCs should be to force players to at least bring an appropiately sized ship and to eliminate the "untrained alts" so people just can't afk cap plexes with them. There's a lot of tweaking to be done with the NPCs but I think this is a step in the right direction.

Cearen you need to read the last part of my post earlier, the "nothing to do" syndrome and the fact theres no incentive to hold occupancy.....

Lastly, there's the nothing to do syndrome. After downtime most plexes are captured and there is very little left to do in some areas, which leads players having nothing to do for the rest of the day. (There is "shifting" a practice that involves plexing in other systems within the same region to get seemingly random respawns within the region. It's a lot of work and really boring, but it's the only way to hold your systems if you don't have the European timezone dominant presence. It's not even possible to hold occupancy in systems where the opposing faction holds sovreignty unless you have EU timezone dominance, as AFAIK, you cannot get respawns with shifting in these systems). When there are no plexes to take, people obviously aren't going to participate in this activity because they just can't. The "casual" nature of FW should allow people to log in and find something to do within a reasonably short amount of time, NOT wait one to two (or more) hours for a random respawn (that resulted from shifting) that may or may not occur. (Note: Shifting becomes less and less valid of a tactic the smaller the region is). .

We have to take into account population discrepencies that may occur over the course of time on daily basis and even the longterm. For instance, FW usually has times during the day where one side has a stronger presence than the other and it shifts from one side to the other as people log on/off, when the faction thats outnumbered is plexing, the other side should have to do some legwork to find them because, well they have the advantage and the side that's outnumbered has the chance to capture the plex before the full fury of the blob descends upon them (or at least they get to kill a few first responders before being forced out). When one side is outnumbered (in some instances, severely) they need to attack where the enemy isn't prepared. If the enemy is too lazy to hunt you down that their problem. It forces people to spread out because you have to be out there scouting, looking for the enemy. . .

No, just the pirate faction and T2, leave the navy faction to have entrance (they aren't nearly as powerful). However, if the dessy changes are true this will no longer become and issue.

I am not convinced about the intel channel idea not because of the intel it provides but because it is a more limiting mechanism. You just logged on what do you see?

I posted these ideas in one of the other faction warfare threads, what do you think?

Faction War Intel Mini map - 2D region based intel map, available through militia office, Highlight activity, shows number of plexes taken lost/missions completed and militia ships destroyed in the last hour and importantly shows current plexes/missions in progress, perhaps with some delayed intel say 5 minutes so it does not take the place of proper scouting and maybe only for the region you are in.

Don't get me wrong I support the Intel channel idea, if it's an intel channel or nothing then I would take that, I just believe that the same information can be presented in a slightly more user friendly way.

I also have problems with the star map, what we need is something much simpler and more focused almost like Dotlan but live and specific to faction warfare.

The slight delay I would prefer although maybe 5 minutes is to much, you see I enter plexes to provoke a fight or limit the ship classes that I have to fight and a few minutes delay means I can engage people within the current system without the hordes descending on me. However if I am just sitting orbitting a timer then it should leave just enough time for someone to get too me and try to stop me.

I am also normally a solo pilot a little bit of the unkown is prbably good for us.

Regarding bubbles in plexes, I have seen this idea before but I feel it may put people of rather than encourage people to PVP within them and may result in a lot of sniper camping.

I suppose I should add that plexes shouldn't mainly spawn at downtime but that should be pretty obvious.

No, just the pirate faction and T2, leave the navy faction to have entrance (they aren't nearly as powerful). However, if the dessy changes are true this will no longer become and issue.

Nah. Dessies are fine inside of Minors. If you're in a minor to fight, then some frigs sitting on the warp in would work fine methinks. I'd sure as hell engage with with even numbers against destroyers if I'm already inside the plex. 1/2 the time a dessie is range fit, so it's a nice gamble to take with expendable frigates.

Hell, I even caught a Catalyst outside a gate (I was in a punisher) while his friends went in and survived long enough to my friends to get there from a stargate and pop him. However if I'm frig soloing in a plex with absolutely NO reinforcements nearby and I see a destroyer inbound, I'll be doing a nice GTFO maneuver for sure.

Well, I don't want to have a big sign saying WE'RE PLEXING IN AKIDAGI RIGHT NOW!!!! ...'.

It's still pretty easy. Heck, if the Caldari want good fights, then they should just come and plex over near Nenna. Open plexes, sit in plexes. Cap plexes. Soon enough it'll get noticed by us and we'l come a fightin'! A few of us have been known to come into a plex with even numbers. Or down 1. We just want fights, same as them.

I guess where you go from our disagreements is what kind of notification system do you want? Something in Militia chat? Something in your notifications (that I largely ignore because of PVP notification lag)? I'm guessing what you want is something that's non-intrusive that gives an up to the..... 10-15 minute update of current systems being plexed?

I also wonder if all of this is a moot point because of the last CSM and the fact that they discussed FW during it.

That's WAY MORE than knowing where the fighting is occurring. I would almost keep the intel open ended and let the militia coordinate on their own.Like if a militia had a channel specifically for plexing. I think CCP is trying to stay away from NPCs as much as possible and get that kinda stuff into the hands of the players. I don't think there's ever been someone's job to just check all contested systems and see if there's someone currently plexing there.

IF there was to be an NPC plex reporting channel, then I'd also have less intel in that it. Maybe just letting you have a real time list of what's contested or...... where there's plexes that are currently being run with updates around 10-15 minutes. From an RP standpoint, you could say that the intel/comm routers in low sec are old and in disrepair so that they don't give EXACT intel.

I'm still not sure if I would want NPC updates though. Maybe if FW gets some sort of Sov system where we can install upgraded comm relays, then sure. Otherwise, I dunno.

I'm still against any form of automated system that gives automatic intel with no work. Updating the map would be a good way to go about this, perhaps have the systems that are contested blink or change color if they had a plex taken within the last hour. But beyond that, everything should be in the hands of the players.

That's WAY MORE than knowing where the fighting is occurring. I would almost keep the intel open ended and let the militia coordinate on their own.Like if a militia had a channel specifically for plexing. I think CCP is trying to stay away from NPCs as much as possible and get that kinda stuff into the hands of the players. ....

I'm still not sure if I would want NPC updates though. Maybe if FW gets some sort of Sov system where we can install upgraded comm relays, then sure. Otherwise, I dunno.

FW: do plexes in complete safety in bomber -> go own noobs who don't do plexes in bombers in dramiel whatever wtfpwnmobile

They've actually reduced the differential between NPCs in different plexes lately. Caldari NPC do not jam in many plexes, and in reality they are a nuisance to the properly sized ships in a given plex. There are also numerous ways to avoid them altogether. 1) don't fight inside plex, 2) Don't go near button to "activate" them. So, CCP is listening and making alterations that are clear to anybody wishing to actually run plexes.

The proposal for telling militias where the plexes are spawning is a decent one, and it will help when two like-minded gangs are itching for a fight. Good stuff. [It can easily be gamed, which is fine. Example: You have a minimum number of guys enter a plex and the rest stay out. Response fleet arrives to find opponent has 3x the number the intel map says they do. Example 2: Plexing fleet "spams intel" by opening large number of plexes in far off area, and then bails when response fleet arrives.]


However, if you are fighting for your militia and are more interested in occupancy than fights, your side will blob a plex and discourage even fights when you can. You want to win occupancy, not get good fights.

So, there you have it in a nutshell. Nothing CCP implements can encourage one side to suicide into another side and lose all of its ships.

Everybody who engages in plexing warfare has this figured out and it's not a big deal. Fight when you can, avoid fight when you can't.

CCP has altered plex spawning and has also erred on the side of too many plexes. A minor, medium, and L3 major are available 30 minutes after one closes. It's easy to kill off the spawns in these plexes as well.

I fought in and on plexes yesterday. This happened:

Kill 1
Loss 1
Loss 2
Kill 2

If you'll notice, that's 3 separate systems that plexing was occurring in. I realize that you color your 'plexing is a PvE activity' with the word primarily. I think that since the recent update with more plexes spawning, it's shifted a fair bit toward the PvP side.

The biggest things they can do to help FW plexing is
1. Build a better in-game militia tab. That thing is worthless, and offers nothing of value.
2. Update the map.
a. Use absolute and not relative value for deciding size of contested dots on maps.
b. Refresh map more quickly (like every time a plex is closed).
3. Fix respawn bugs. Get a dev to talk to Damar to figure out what is happening and get it fixed.