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Extended, Comprehensive Analysis of the Facwar Mechanic - CCP respond?

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Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:40:00 - [1] Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 17/12/2008 18:10:55 Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 12/12/2008 21:46:46 Author's Note: This is a LONG document on the good, the bad, and the very ugly about Facwar. It's an attempt to cover nearly (High-sec raiding the exception) every aspect of Facwar, classify it, and identify areas for improvement. This is NOT short reading, or for the faint of heart. If you don't want to think about, analyze, or discuss the mechanics of Facwar - not which side is winning or you want to win - click "back" now. This is not for you. It's a lot of reading. Edit note: I've modified part of the proposal slightly based on some feedback from some of the posters here. Thanks folks! ----------------------------------------------------------- Although I'm by no means the first to talk about the problems with Factional Warfare, I hope my attempt at it will gain CCP attention and action. As a former game designer before taking slightly more sane and stable work, I have a pretty good idea of what accomplishes balance, and what has huge amounts of unintended consequences. As an EVE player, I've done the 0.0 thing at all levels long enough to appreciate the beast, and spent enough time in both parts of Empire to recognize their worth and failings. I currently run a corporation which I would suggest is highly successful in all aspects of Factional Warfare (love us or hate us) and I've even played with all the new factional cruisers, to boot. All in all, I feel very qualified to offer up this analysis. As a disclaimer, I am currently in the Gallente Militia, but I have taken great pains to ensure there are no partisan remarks or bias here. /self trumpeting off The current state of Factional Warfare is unfortunate, but very predictable. It is the result of a new product - naturally a little buggy - not getting the kind of feedback and updates required. When Factional Warfare started, a LOT of people signed up. These people fell into, for the most part, one of three categories: - Disillusioned 0.0 types - Midlevel Casual Players - Completely New-to-EVE types Obviously there were curious Alliancers, a few mercenaries, pirates looking for ganking, etc - but for the most part, those were the three main body groups. Unfortunately, those three groups were looking for entirely different experiences. Most players who left 0.0 did so either to avoid the drama, the blobs, or both. Midlevel players were looking to get their first taste of "real" PVP, and new players, of course, signed up for the latest and greatest neat thing. Unfortunately, 0.0 veterans looking for smaller PVP were disappointed. Since there is no new or different mechanic or motivation for combat, the large number of people in Factional Warfare reverted to the same type of combat which always occurs in the unregulated environment of 0.0: blob warfare. There was no logical, tactical reason to do otherwise - the vast majority of midlevel players hadn't done enough PVP to hate the blob yet. New players clung to the blobs as a way to stay alive. While older players hated the blob and would deliberately avoid it, in most cases they had nothing else to engage. Veterans, disgusted with the blob, returned to Syndicate and other small-gang centers, or to piracy. Midlevel players, discovering the joy that is lag, either went to 0.0 (may as well get the most isk for your lag buck) or grew disenchanted and returned to highsec. New players found themselves slaughtered outright, or unable to sustain losses with their poor budgets, and left in frustration. CCP assumed that "PVP was its own reward" and for a time, it was true - but PVP-for-its-own-reward can be found all over EVE, and for Factional Warfare to succeed, players needed more to balance out the restrictions. They didn't get it, and so they left.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:40:00 - [2] Who remains? - Communities who don't care what they do, as long as they do it together, and have a leader who wants to do FacWar. Some roleplaying groups fall in this category. - Groups of universally casual players; they don't have a lot of time to spend, but they want to do something as a group. Many of these folks stay in highsec, but get bored with EVE because they don't like endless missioning. - Very mentally tough individuals willing to take their lumps alone, or learn through the school of hard knocks while making contacts and friends. These folks are the core of EVE's "old school" but lone wolves are few and far between. - Grief-types, either groups or individuals, who specifically aim for and hunt newer players for the jollies. Ex-mercenaries, pirates who want to go partially legal, etc. The problem exists: Factional Warfare, a low-sec (primarily) game, needs to be more rewarding than high-sec, less rewarding than null-sec, and interesting enough to retain players on its own. Right now, it fails to do that. Many suggested changes, though, violate one of the above principles, or are simply too awkward or weird to implement. Before we can realistically talk about change, though, we need to acknowledge both what is and isn't working about factional warfare. The Good in FacWar - There's Actually a Fair Bit of It -GOOD! The casual nature. There are few things in EVE where you can log on, and in thirty minutes, accomplish a goal - but you can undock, fly around, find a plex (or an opposing militia member) and capture/kill in that amount of time, all before you have to go back to work/bed/whatever. That's powerful, as it has the potential to retain a playerbase EVE struggles with - those who want to do something meaningful instead of rote missioning/mining, but don't have the time and desire for massive fights/alarm clock ops in 0.0. -GOOD! In Facwar, you have the first place in all of EVE where PVP and PVE really can mix. Plex-fighting, at its highest form, is a bizzare critter, especially in Majors and Unrestricteds. When the DPS starts becoming significant, it makes lopsided fights change suddenly. Fighting among NPCs that jam can also change the equation a great deal - the Caldari have an advantage there. Problem: No other NPC ewar is comparable. Anywhere else, the NPC effect is trivial unless hostiles arrive right when the plex spawns a wave. -GOOD! In Facwar, CCP has achieved a "variety" of PVP you never see elsewhere. Plexes force you to improvise and adapt with new ships and shipfits you'll never see anywhere else - because nowhere else has these restrictions. Destroyers become a serious consideration. Ospreys and Exequrors aren't just for mining. Heaven help us, Faction Frigates may even be a good idea! Problem: The ability of the defender to use any ship and weak reward for defenders make these encounters far too rare. As a result, the appreciation of "diverse PVP" is not commonly known to most players, and often disparaged by those who have never come to appreciate it. Why risk a real ship defending this plex? I'll just defend it in a T1 frig and run if a threat comes. That's boring for defenders, frustrating for attackers. -GOOD! In Facwar, a determined effort is required in order for a major, consequential change like a system flip to trigger. (Ignoring for the moment that the actual EFFECT of a system flip is mostly trivial.) Even the most aggressive groups will require two or three weeks of patrolling an area before a system can actually change hands - and this is assuming there is no competition for the system.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:41:00 - [3] Problem: As is well known, plexes shuffle around after downtime. Unfortunately, this is the only time they shuffle on their own - the rest of the time they must be cleared in one location to reappear (in theory) in another. CCP has indicated that for now there is little they can do to correct the power of the post-downtime plexer, and that's fine. The other problem, though, is that plexes have a habit of stacking up massively in backwater systems where no one goes; it is not uncommon to see as many as fifteen plexes in a dead-end no-station system. This problem is further exacerbated by the absolute lack of motivation for defenders to run plexes in systems which are uncontested - for all they know, the plex they run which is uncontested in this backwater will appear all the way across the universe. That's of no use to the defensive plexer, and it effectively removes plexes from the Facwar mechanics until downtime. By the end of the day, quite a few plexes are effectively "gone" - banished to an unexplored backwater. It is very much not an accident that the majority of system captures occur earlier in the day. How many have happened from 03:00-10:00? The number is lower than you think. -GOOD! While it is possible for neutrals to interfere in Factional Warfare, it requires a lot of extra effort. Pirates attacking plexers still must conform to the rules of the plex - camping acceleration gates is largely fruitless if the Factioners have a brain. In high security, neutral reppers draw faction navies as well, now. In short, "unaligned" parties CAN get involved in the factional conflict, but they do so on the same terms as any member of the factional conflict, for the most part. The Bad in Factional Warfare - 'cause there's plenty that needs fixin'! If we're going to improve a system, we need to spend just as much time on what is truly functioning poorly as we do on what is functioning well and merely in need of tweaks. Faction Missions and Loyalty Points -BAD! FacWar missions are not significantly, substantially better than any other type of mission. There is no evidence they contribute to system flipping. The pay and loyalty points are (at best) on par with agents elsewhere, but here you're doing missions which are broadcast for everyone in the system to see, in systems which are certain to be hostile. This makes the risk factor very high, with no increase in reward other than faction ranking, which is of very mild value at best. -BAD! Factional Loyalty Points are not substantially better than any other type. Faction Cruisers (we'll get back to those in a bit) are not available solely from Faction LP. Other items are not cheaper in the Faction stores than elsewhere. While there may be a wider variety of implants in a single LP store, again - they can be had elsewhere in different stores without the massive risk increase involved. -(Not so bad) A note of due credit to slip in here - the difficulty of Facwar missions was toned down, and that WAS a good idea.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:41:00 - [4] Complex Balance and Rewards -BAD! Plex completion rewards are too stretched out. For each rank in factional warfare, you must run the following number of plexes… Rank 0-1: 4 offensive plexes. (0h 40m - 1h 20m) Rank 1-2: 6 offensive plexes. (1h 0m - 2h 0m) Rank 2-3: 11 offensive plexes. (1h 50m - 3h 40m) Rank 3-4: 18 offensive plexes. (3h 0m - 6h 0m) Rank 4-5: 29 offensive plexes. (4h 50m - 9h 40m) Rank 5-6: 44 offensive plexes. (7h 20m - 14h 40m) Rank 6-7: 70 offensive plexes. (11h 40m - 23h 20m) Rank 7-8: 135 offensive plexes. (22h 30m - 45h 0m) That's a staggering amount of plexes - the 9th rank is downright horrifying. That's assuming the moment you hit the plex, you're on the beacon. Add in some travel time, some warp outs, a few "scanned for plexes and never found one" and you've got a staggering amount of time to grow in ranks. Even defensive plexing, which gives more bonus per plex, is still going to be an immense grind. (The fact that defensive plexing gives more reward we'll discuss shortly.) If you're going to ask people to run plexes in those numbers and timeframe, some type of reward (ANY type of reward) needs to happen along the way. - Plex completion rewards are not well-considered in terms of offense-vs-defense. Part of the problem with plexing right now is that there is very little motivation to be aggressive. By taking a T1 frigate into a friendly compound, you get more reward than you would for crashing a fleet into a hostile one. Historically, wars are started and fought because the aggressor believes he/she has more to gain by being aggressive. The loot you get clearing the NPCs in an offensive plex capture is largely insignificant and does nothing to draw people out of defensive plexing. As a result, people wander in enemy space far less often and plex less often - and so the system, while functioning, does so less than ideally. People have less motivation for offensive plexing, and so far less do. - Plex completion rewards are not balanced against each other. A frigate-only Minor Installation encounter is as of as much significance to the overall campaign as a massive battleship fleet-destroying encounter in a Major Stronghold. Given the relative difficulty in capturing the two types of locations, it would seem ludicrous to hand out the same level of reward. - The actual reward for any type of plex itself is unacceptably minor. You gain a faction bonus, which is good, but see above for the problem with the amount of time required. You could argue that this amount of time is intended by CCP, and that's fine - but if so, the rewards along the way need to be improved, so as to motivate more people to continue the journey. The only other benefits for completing a specific complex are a slight push on the capture level of the system (which has a trivial impact,) and possibly the loot involved (which is irrelevant). Since the loot is no better than missioning with the exception of tags, this is relatively unmotivating. Obviously the tags are an increased benefit, but they are offset by the lack of bounties on the vessels. Given the number of tags required to get specific gear, the "turn in" value is low - and you still need to run missions to pick up the loyalty points required anyhow to use the tags anyhow, making them more hassle than they are worth much of the time.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:42:00 - [5] Bunker Captures - Arguably one of the most important events in Facwar, and the least publicized. Bunkers have wisely been improved so that they take a pretty good beating - but even that beating doesn't take forever. Meanwhile, neither militia has any idea that a major geographical event is taking place unless the participants say so! You would think that the Empires themselves might spread the word that a system is teetering on the brink. The anti-climactic nature of the culminating "plexing event" of Factional Warfare does absolutely nothing to help Facwar's cause. - As has often been mentioned, there is absolutely no effect of consequence in the capture of a system. The flavor of the NPCs in the plexes change. That's it. This does very little to encourage plexing or PVP related to strategic locations. No loot, either - all you do is burn ammunition without so much as a thank you or another case of uranium. Factional Cruisers - Faction Warfare loyalty point cruisers are neither Faction Warfare specific nor particularly potent cruisers. It's not entirely clear if they were ever intended to be Facwar specific, but since they were introduced with Facwar and their storyline nature is "vessels of war" they seem to fall within this envelope. Unfortunately, the fact that they are available to many loyalty point stores other than the four Faction stores removes them as a tool for motivation. Even more problematically, they would not draw pilots even if they were exclusive - of the four ships, only the Omen Navy Issue is clearly, inarguably better than its T1 cruiser counterparts. The Osprey Navy Issue is eclipsed by the standard Caracal - more so when cost is considered. The Exequror Navy Issue is definitely a weaker ship than the Thorax in nearly every regard. The Scythe Fleet Issue is a fascinating ship, but it is no mini-Typhoon. Most players who would fly one lack the huge skillset to balance the three different skilltrees that make the Typhoon scary. The SFI might be a great ship for veterans, but veterans for the most part will fly Tech II - and if they're flying Tech I, they'll look at the Rupture, which is cheaper, sturdier, capable of equal DPS, and save their LP. Factional Statistics - Unfortunately, even the Factional Statistics are sub-par, and this is the most worrisome because the changes to fix them (and make no mistake, people follow the FacWar Stats page) are so trivial. On the front page, it appears as though many systems have exchanged hands, when this is not the case. Systems which are captured by one side, and then recaptured by their original owner, show as an "occupied enemy system." This results in "Enemy Systems Taken" statistics which are wholly inaccurate. The graphs - which could be interesting data points - are merely swirly lines without annotation. The General Militia statistics are shown for all-time and the previous day, but there is no ability to look at a monthly trend beyond the current month. - On the Pilot/Corporation Statistics page, the same strange fascination with "Week" and "All Time" is displayed. Even though any campaign to capture a system/constellation/region would be measured in multiple weeks or months, we have only two parameters to study. No mention of the pilot's rank is given, either. - Graphs are sadly missing from the Pilot/Corporation Statistics page. Statistics are interesting, but people eat up graphical displays, and here too, a minimal amount of work for computation would be required - the code is already in place on the front page!
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:42:00 - [6] Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 17/12/2008 18:12:32 Factional Warfare: Going Forward (Or, great, lots of complaints, but how about some solutions?) Factional Warfare when first released had a lot of issues, but since it was new, people forgave them. It was tolerable as a new product. Now, however, that product is no longer new - and the issues are still unresolved. It may sound like I think Factional Warfare is a horrid mess and a complete waste of time - nothing could be further from the truth. The framework and thinking behind Factional Warfare is absolutely brilliant - but the execution must be fine tuned. If CCP is genuinely committed to making Factional Warfare a legitimate, active, serious part of their game, though, some fairly significant changes will need to take place. (And make no mistake, properly developed Factional Warfare could draw and hold an entirely different population to EVE - players who haven't the time or desire to get involved in the "big" 0.0 game, but want to do more than run missions and dodge Empire Wardeccers. I'm sure we've all heard of/know people who found the game in high-sec interesting, but never made the jump to the PVP half of the game. Factional Warfare could be, should be, and was intended to be that bridge.) The key, as we've seen multiple times, is motivation. Right now, there isn't nearly enough motivation to get into, participate in, and remain in Factional Warfare. Let's take it from the top. The Plexes The idea behind plexes is brilliant. Combined PVP/PVE combat - even with the AI as it is - has huge potential. 1. The NPCs must be relatively equal in terms of their threat level. Jamming NPCs are considerably more dangerous than the other three - and rather than weaken jamming NPCs, the others should be improved. Buffing the other racial EWARs would have little effect. Instead, play to each race's strength. Increase Gallente NPC damage (but ensure they suffer from their range issues), increase Amarr NPC pulse range (but they still suffer laser-damage-flavor-drawback), improve Minmatar NPC closing speeds (and that is both a bane and curse as well.) The NPCs should matter in all plex flavors - right now, for the most part, they do not. If the NPCs are not intended to matter, they should not matter in any plex - as it stands, showing up in a Caldari plex at the wrong time can matter quite a bit. 2. Plex capturing needs to make ship choice a lot more relevant. Level 1 and Level 2 plexes should be capturable by any ship. Level 3 plexes, though, should require at least a Level 2-type ship to capture (assault frigate, or T1 cruiser.) Level 4 plexes should require at least a Level 3-type ship to capture (t2 cruiser or battlecruiser.) It is important that this affects both offensive and defensive captures. Alternatively, require multiple (more than just "two frigates instead of one") ships to capture higher level beacons. More pilots means more chance of standing up and fighting for your plex - more motivation for more PVP! Forcing defensive plexing in larger vessels/numbers increases the possibility for PVP in plexes, and increases the motivation for groups to defend to protect their ships. In turn, larger, heavier gangs draw more offensive attention for the possibility of a good fight. Result: more PVP in the plex. There are myriad storyline methods you could use to justify such a change. Say the Empires hardened their beacons against weaker enemy ships, but that it had the side effect of doing the same against their own, too. 3. Plex capturing rewards are badly in need of improvement. The NPC loot is no better, on average, than anywhere else - but you lose out on bounties. Let's see more Empire Faction gear than just ammunition - module drops, albeit rarely, makes plexing a lot more interesting. People rat in 0.0 hoping for a rare officer spawn. Let them plex hoping for a rare Republic Overdrive, Federation Tracking Computer, Caldari Invulnerability Field, Amarr Armor Repairer.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:43:00 - [7] 4. Plex capturing rewards step 2 - give loyalty points proportionate to the level of the plex. L1 plexes give LP equivalent to doing a L1 mission, and so on. Since not all missions are equal, use the minimum values for each mission - obviously, the 6 hour bonus mission LP isn't appropriate, but the 30 minute bonus mission LP would be. (Why would people bother to mission, then? See below.) Defensive plex capturing would give LP equivalent to a lower quality agent; offensive, a higher quality agent. (Again, the impetus here is to encourage offensive play, which increases the probability of PVP conflict as well as its variety.) 5. Plex capturing standing rewards need to be inverted in terms of offensive/defensive. Offensive work paying more than defensive work will NOT result in a stoppage of defensive plexing - defense is easier and safer. It will, however, increase the motivation to go offensive and as a result, be a part of a solution to increase plex participation and PVP. 6. Plex capturing standing rewards need to be scaled in terms of the level of the plex. Defending a minor installation in a backwater that's barely contested should not give anywhere near the reward of capturing a major stronghold in a system that's about to flip. The Missions 1. Mission rewards, like plex rewards, should have a rare chance of yielding faction-type loot. It can happen with pirate missions in 0.0, why not here? This makes faction missioning slightly more rewarding than non-faction missioning, which is a step towards making them valuable despite the greatly increased risk. 2. Faction Mission rewards should be noticeably greater than non-faction mission rewards of the same agent level/quality. Standard empire agents increase in pay as you go up in level; travel distance also increases. Travel distance for all Faction missions tends to be greater than anything but some L4 missions, yet the pay is the same, if not inferior. Again, an increase in LP and isk payouts alone - unless they were massive - would not make Faction Missioning worthwhile; it is one more step in improving them. 3. As faction mission difficulty scales upward, so to should the pay-greater-than-empire-missions scale upward. It's one thing to travel in an assault frigate to do a L2 Facwar mission. It's very much another to have to travel seven jumps in lowsec (with pirates and opposing militia!) in a heavy vessel to do a L4 Facwar mission. You're going to have to pay your friends to come along, and splitting makes higher level Facwar missions less profitable - especially when you consider that L4's are Unrestricted Sites, and that's a beacon screaming "Pirate, easy target here!" for everyone in the constellation. 4. Lastly, missions should count for system capture points. "But that means you could take one system in a day!" I hear you cry. Not so; the missions are still targeted randomly, and you can't shuffle missions madly without losing lots of standing. It would increase system activity, yes - but that would also increase roaming defensive traffic, which would, again, increase the likelihood of conflict-in-Facwar style, which means more retention from the unique Facwar PVP flavor. Missions and plexes should achieve largely the same results, with one significant alternative - in plexing, you find the "mission" by scanning and have already done your dangerous travelling. In missioning, you already know where the "plex" is, but you still have to get there, which can be quite dangerous.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:43:00 - [8] The System Captures This is the biggest event in Factional Warfare, and it has absolutely nothing to promote it as such. 1. There should be significant - more than just one plex worth - factional gain for being on a bunker "killmail." The actual act of capturing a system, logically, would earn a lot more gratitude from an Empire than simply capturing an installation there. 2. A system becoming vulnerable should be a loudly known event. This could be accomplished in two ways: by having the "Faction Influence Map" which brightens and dims as a system is threatened get VERY bright during a Vulnerable time, and by having the event broadcast as a system message in militia chat. Want to see some large-scale faction combat? Make taking a bunker worth something, and then make sure both factions involved know when it goes vulnerable. Have the message repeat every twenty minutes in chat until the system is captured, or the defending militia captures a plex there and "defends" the system. 3. The bunker should have some defenses! If the Empires are spending time defending individual plexes, isn't it a bit strange that no NPC defenders show up when you're about to take the entire SYSTEM out of their hands? 4. Consequences! For a game with so much effort put into consequences, it's not surprising people react very poorly to a lack of consequences here. Because Facwar is still in lowsec, total denial of station access isn't an option. What is an option - and it already exists in 0.0 Outposts - are things like discounting/free repair at Stations, docking fees for less-than-entirely-welcome entities, lower taxes, etc. The Ranking System 1. Easy way to get people to care more about plexing and PVP - pay them! Shiny medals with no rewards attached are simply shiny medals. Rank doesn't matter to most people, because rank means nothing until you get to rank 8, and then you've got jumpclones - which aren't worth that many plexes. Instead, dole out a payment when someone reaches a specific rank for the first time. It doesn't have to be huge, either - call it 1000 LP and 10 million isk per rank starting at rank 3, with 500 LP and 5 million at rank 2. The effort there isn't enough to justify account spamming, but it's enough to at least give people a bone. 2. If the higher ranks are indeed intended to be as hard to get to as they are - and that's fine if so - make the higher ranks mean something significant. Jumpclones at 8? Great, sure. Why not an extra "Militia General" channel at 7, to cut out some of the spam in standard militia chat? Why not free repairs at all militia stations when you reach rank 9? The highest rank of militia is a SERIOUS pain to get to nowadays - let's make it worth something real. 3. Want to draw more people into plex PVP? Make kills on people of rank 5 and above worth a small amount of faction as well (less than a plex.) It stands to reason higher-ranked players spend more time in plexes, so you look there for the bonuses. Again, this bonus alone would draw very few people into plexes more often, but it would be one part of a system. It is already possible to lose standing for killing pilots; can't we at least make it a zero-sum game by giving a positive hit with the faction that wants to see them dead?
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:45:00 - [9] Faction Cruisers 1. The first and easiest fix here is obvious - take them out of the non-Facwar loyalty point stores. If you're trying to make Facwar interesting, you need to make sure at least one kind of real, tangible reward can only be found in Factional Warfare. This - and possibly other LP rewards - is a great way to do so, particularly if plexes become LP gainers. 2. The ships need fixing. They must, in some way, become significant vessels. They aren't bad now, but they don't stand out nearly enough to justify their cost in most cases. The Amarr Omen has the right idea - it's sturdier and hits harder than any other Amarr cruiser. That makes sense. Good call. The Osprey Navy Issue is supposed to have speed as its selling point, but that's the ONLY thing it has going for it. It's not a harder hitter, longer-ranged, or more sturdy than a Caracal - and it needs to be at least one, if not two, of those things to justify sinking LP into it. A fast missile boat would be pretty scary (the Crow is a respected interceptor for that reason) - but we don't have one here. It's fast for the Caldari and the Amarr, but not compared to Gallente or Minmatar cruisers - and that's who the Caldari are fighting. The speed fails to matter - it either needs to be able to outpace (or nearly) Gal/Min boats, or it's an irrelevant "edge." 3. The Exequror Navy Issue, touted as a slower-than-other-cruiser, much-higher-damage-than-other-cruiser vessel, is the fastest of the Gallente Cruisers by a healthy margin, and its damage is almost exactly parallel to the Thorax, gun-for-gun. The Thorax, though, has a larger drone bay, pushing it over the top. Since the Vexor is capable of doing more damage than the Thorax, that would make the Exequror Navy Issue the lowest of the three Gallente damage boats in damage, and the fastest - but still not fast enough, or high damage enough, to justify the LP cost. If this is the blasterboat amongst cruisers to shame them all, let's see it - right now, it's an expensive, funny-looking, Thorax. 4. The Scythe Fleet Issue - a genuinely fast cruiser with a small sig - was intended as a mini-Typhoon, but any Typhoon pilot can tell you that to fit the kind of thing that makes Mega and Raven pilots cry, there's a LOT of skill training involved. If the aim of Facwar is to make PVP interesting to less-advanced pilots, that's a pretty unfair LP ship. Even if the ship is intended for strong pilots, the benefits for that gun-missile-drone training regimen is only marginally better than what you can get out of the vastly cheaper Rupture. This ship needs to be sturdier, or fast enough to make that its primary tank alone - because the "flexible" thing is a great selling point, but doesn't do much when brackets start going red on your overview. Ultimately, all the Navy Cruisers save the Amarr suffer from the same problem- what makes them unique is too underpowered for their cost, and so they have no appeal - in factional warfare or out. Make them a ship you can only get in Factional Warfare, and make them really worth having, and you've got a reason to plex or mission in Facwar. Right now, they're not there.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.12 21:45:00 - [10] Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 12/12/2008 21:48:39 The Faction Statistics As if the ranking system needed any more obscurity, we have no measurement of the number of Rank 9, 8, 7, or 6 pilots across the militias. Instead of tracking the Militia's general stats for the day - which do little to describe overall trends in the war - replace it with a graph indicating the number of active high-rank pilots in each militia. Growth by promotion and decline by people leaving Facwar would be far more relevant - high-rank pilots are those most active in Factional Warfare, and their growth or departure is a significant "health" factor to a Faction. The graphs - which need annotation, as already mentioned - need more flexibility. A week and a month may tell you about current trends, but the overall progress of the war is impossible to measure. Adding a sixty-day, ninety-day, and "duration of Facwar" mode to the graph would make for a much more useful measurement tool. Lastly, how about a little graphical love for the pilots? The weekly lists tend to be quite flexible, but the all-time pilot and corporation lists tend to evolve rather slowly. Showing the top ten in terms of how they compare to each other graphically might actually settle the long standing "Who is winning, Caldari or Gallente" debate - or at least add more fuel to the fire, and more motivation to the campaigns. (Which is, after all, what we're after here.) The Final Tally Speaking as someone who's done a fair bit of professional game design and balancing, FacWar as an idea DOES have what it takes to become a major and successful part of the EVE product. In order to do so, it has to motivate its users by having rewards that are unique to its methods - like Officer Spawns are in 0.0 - while remaining "Better than high sec, worse than null sec" in quality. Right now, there are no unique rewards. Right now, the rewards as a whole are weak. CCP created Facwar with the assumption that "PVP is its own reward" and that's correct. The error, though, was in assuming that Facwar PVP would be able to compete with other kinds. The biggest potential source of fun Facwar PVP - plexes - are badly underrewarded and underutilized, and the next big source - missions - are horribly neglected, despite having had a lot of work put into their design and execution. PVP for fun is what all of EVE is about - if FacWar is to be a successful device in EVE, it needs to have a unique, distinct PVP flavor, and it does not. By drawing more people into plexes - either to capture or to disrupt - we can capture the unique PVP flavor intended for FacWar, and by drawing more people into missions, we can do the same. By making the plexes themselves more challenging, more rewarding, and more meaningful (system captures!) we can do a great deal to enhance Facwar for all pilots - and in so doing, retain a great deal of EVE players who would otherwise leave: those not interested in 0.0 drama, but looking for more than the relatively bland Empire life. ----------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading the entire beast; if you didn't, fair warning that I reserve the right to be annoyed and point to the part of the analysis you missed. I'm hoping people will bump this - whether they agree with all of it or not - fairly frequently to generate some significant, real, non-moderator (no offense mods) CCP response. I think the solutions here are attainable, reasonable, and balance Facwar's place in the EVE universe well. Most of all, I think any attention at all from CCP would be a big vote of reassurance for those of us who think Facwar could be a great part of the game - if only it got the little more attention it needs.
McSkanky	Posted - 2008.12.12 22:04:00 - [11] Excelent and well thought out, as always. Good job Friedrick.
Ephemeron Retribution Corp. Initiative Associates	Posted - 2008.12.12 22:11:00 - [12] Dang, impressive, even tho I really don't care for empire faction wars. Can I hire you to analyze small gang pvp in 0.0 as it relates to latest EVE patches, specifically the great speed nerf, 0.0 alliance jump bridges, sovereignty system? I'd pay 300 mil for a well written report
Trebor Notlimah Lone Star EVE Group Veni Vidi Vici	Posted - 2008.12.12 22:28:00 - [13] Great read - I've never done faction war but the above changes sound appealing. Until some changes are done, I'll stick to 0.0 :)
Bone Jammer	Posted - 2008.12.12 23:56:00 - [14] Nice Job Fried!! CCP, Get crackin! Facwar could be SO much better with a bit of work!!
Nilder Shadowfiyah Caldari 3rd Millennium Group Revival Of The Talocan Empire	Posted - 2008.12.13 00:18:00 - [15] Excellent post! Long read but definitely thought through, while i may not completely agree with everything said, I do certainly support any effort to address these issues and make FW more enjoyable and rewarding to those that participate.
Corduroy Rab The Executives IT Alliance	Posted - 2008.12.13 00:24:00 - [16] I think you hit the nail right on the head and presented factional warfare in a very true light, and far more effectively that I could have. Like you said, there is a lot of good in FW, but it is being drowned under the weight of its short comings. If some of your suggestions are implemented I think it could breath new life, I might even be persuaded to stop by again at some point.
Joskken Inx LurkerZ CURSE.	Posted - 2008.12.13 00:46:00 - [17] I appreciate your willingness to lay it out like this, and very eloquently so. Much props for identifying and offering solutions. Bravo zulu!
Sadumon Conflagration. Wildly Inappropriate.	Posted - 2008.12.13 04:46:00 - [18] Edited by: Sadumon on 13/12/2008 04:47:57 All that number crunching and no credit? Bah. I fully support this post about Fried's relevancy^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhow to fix faction warfare.
EChaos Gallente Damage Distribution Incorporated	Posted - 2008.12.13 04:57:00 - [19] That's definitely it, in the biggest nutshell I've ever seen But seriously CCP, do it; those reasons are exactly why I and so many others left FW after its promising debut.
Hatsumi Kobayashi D00M. Triumvirate.	Posted - 2008.12.13 09:45:00 - [20] If changes are made according to this report, I sure as hell will rat up my sec status and standings and join FW. Good read. tl;dr version for lazy people: read it anyway.
Veshta Yoshida Amarr PIE Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.13 10:50:00 - [21] Well written! (OOC: Wow, that is a lot, will try to make my take short as I don't have the stamina for multi-post-posts. First off, a lot of the things you mention are rare to non-existent on the Amarr-Minmatar front (AMF) so can only comment on what I have experienced. FW was not just a PvP gimmick, but also a RP vehicle. After CCP dismantled the storyline department Eve turned into a 0.0 slug-fest/empire mission grind with no real goal - MMOs are boring, MMORPGs are fun! The current numbers on the AMF are nearly perfect, fleets rarely get to the blob stage and the people who are left usually stand and fight; the "Sir Robin's" have gone to greener pastures. I spend all day doing solo/small-gang PvP in and around plexes, thank Goddess for the size restrictions! The Navy doesn't really come into the mix at-around the warp-in unless the spawn was activated prior to combat. Missions: Bah, I have tried twenty or so, fun for some PvP in slow periods but their impact needs to be increased significantly (VP for system, higher rewards etc.) Your comments are pretty much bang-on. Bunkers; If a militia does not have the wit to keep track of heavy enemy activity in a given system and never checks the map, then they bloody well deserve to lose the system. Announcing bunker vulnerability is akin to hand holding the lazy, maybe use a one time notification when shields/armour take damage like a POS - that would force attacker to come prepared (easily detected/scouted). The "improved bunkers" take a 30 man BS heavy fleet over fifteen minutes to destroy - add to this assembly time and there is more than enough time to respond if you want to. Plex Rewards; We are volunteers in a war not of our making not paid mercenaries. If you start paying people for FW you go straight back to the RP-less MMORPG. Rewards for mandated goals might be in order though. The 317 plexes you say are needed for top rank is worth in excess of one billion ISK if looted/salvaged, and that is for purely minors - going bigger scales up nicely. Tags can be sold on market to NPCs or players - some are very valuable as they are used a lot in LP stores. Between plexing and PvP I am actually making money, not a lot mind you but it's trickling in, as it should be. There has been an idea floated that would give a discount in LP stores according to rank which in my opinion would be sufficient. Plexes; NPC's needs to be sorted, speed tanking cannot possibly be intended. LP for plexing would be nice, but again paying a person for volunteering defeats the purpose. A low probability faction drop chance for a last wave NPC is an excellent idea, maybe add it as a beefed up named ship - the commander of the site as it were. I want CCP to fix the issues related to plexes before adding anything; They still get 'frozen timer'/'stuck' when combat has taken place inside. Speed tanking NPC in all sites is still rampant A rethink of the spawn mechanism (DT shuffle) Many more are being discussed in ideas/features forum, fix first - expand later (like rewards) is what I want to get at. FWStats; have not actually looked at it since I stopped 100% plexing and went gung-ho. At the time it provided me with the data I needed, would like a listing of the various commands/codes to access the stuff not presented though - there is a lot more. Perhaps a modifiable second page similar to the modular thing that can be seen on an iGoogle page. Cruisers; The first to be targeted and the first to run, I doubt making them better will change that significantly. Dumbing them down to cater to lower skilled characters wouldn't make sense though, why would an Empire provide their finest weapons to an inexperienced pilot? You mention the Navy Omen repeatedly, but its old .. the FW addition is the Navy Augoror which is just as poo as the others :) Either way, it is a ship balance issue and not specifically a FW issue - at least until they are restricted to militia LP store
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.13 11:43:00 - [22] Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 13/12/2008 11:44:05 Respectfully, Veshta, you and I are exceptions to the rule. FOOM, like PIE, has its own motivations and reasons for engaging in Facwar. We, like you, have found our niche already and are quite happy with it. The problem isn't us - you, like I, feel the militia should coordinate about bunkers. The fact is, they don't. You, like I, think "the payout is in the service." The fact is, the average consumer of EVE obviously does not - Facwar is hideously unpopular for the number of players. And one billion in loot for the amount of time expended? Come now, friend. If you spent that much time in any other area of the game and got only one billion for your effort, you'd think yourself very, very poorly used. Now you counter by saying "We're war volunteers" and that is true - for you and I. My goal here, though, is to increase Facwar rewards for everyone else - for those who measure their current level of reward and reject it. On a personal level, I, like you, think Facwar is fine and some people are wimps. On a designer and analyst level, I see a product which is not retaining customers, and a game mechanism which is badly, wildly underutilized. ---------------------- Speed tanking - at least against the Caldari - is far more difficult than other means at this point, btw. I've never seen this frozen/stuck timer thing, though, and I've run a LOT of plexes (I have a 6th, 7th, and 8th rank character) - what's that about? For the purposes of keeping this thread pure, though, evemail me in-game about it? CCP says "DT shuffle" is something they can't easily fix, so I'm just looking to use missions as a "pressure vent" to keep the system running. As for the rest, I agree that the "volunteer's reward" SHOULD be enough - but it's not, and Facwar is badly underplayed. So the evidence is clear and inarguable; it is not enough. The consequences for volunteering are not nearly potent enough - and so we must increase them, both geographically (capture-related) and financially (player-related.) Don't forget that Facwar finances are much easier for you and I - veterans - than newer players picking up the product, as well. Thank you for your commentary, though. It is well-considered. :)
Harlequ1n FireTech	Posted - 2008.12.13 12:07:00 - [23] The speed tanking issue of plexes would be helped by making a plex only captured when all enemy forces had been destroyed, whether player or NPC (although whether this should be forces on grid or within the plex capture distance is another matter for discussion) It seems nonsense to capture a plex when it is surrounded by enemy faction cruisers and frigates...
Kessiaan Minmatar Final Agony	Posted - 2008.12.13 12:26:00 - [24] Originally by: Harlequ1n The speed tanking issue of plexes would be helped by making a plex only captured when all enemy forces had been destroyed, whether player or NPC (although whether this should be forces on grid or within the plex capture distance is another matter for discussion) It seems nonsense to capture a plex when it is surrounded by enemy faction cruisers and frigates... I can agree with this. Though, honestly, since QR I haven't seen anyone speed-tanking plexes, unless you count an AB'ing AF which still needs to kill the rats to keep incoming DPS at a level it can deal with.
Terianna Eri Amarr Senex Legio Get Off My Lawn	Posted - 2008.12.13 12:55:00 - [25] Originally by: Veshta Yoshida You mention the Navy Omen repeatedly, but its old .. the FW addition is the Navy Augoror which is just as poo as the others :) Not quite. Originally the four faction cruisers were the Augoror, Caracal, Vexor, and Stabber. You might note that the latter 3 are of the same teir (that of the second-best combat cruiser) whereas the Navy Aug is based on a logistics cruiser hull. The 4 new cruisers that came with FW (Omen, Osprey, Exequror, Scythe) - note that in this case the latter 3 are the logistics whereas the Omen is of the same teir as the caracal/vexor/stabber. when FW hit CCP gave Amarr a better faction cruiser (to be in line with the original / recently buffed faction cruisers) and the other 3 ones were created to be in line with the (recently nerfed) navy Aug.
Parmenides Elea Gallente Wrath of Fenris	Posted - 2008.12.13 12:56:00 - [26] Faction war isn't just about plexes and missions Friedrick but I appreciate thats how you play it. Personally I see faction war as a pvp engine that provides an environment free of 0.0 politics, bubble camps, pos warfare and blobs whilst not having to deal with the sec hits and gate guns of low sec piracy. You can normally find a fight within 30mins of logging on and it provides a great isk sink for those players that have multiple accounts (normally a carebear or 0.0 account and a pure pvp account). You stated that pvp like that found in fw can be found all over eve and I strongly disagree with that. Its only when you start looking for a tangable "reward" that faction war starts to fall down BUT it shouldn't be about isk/lp rewards, the pvp and the fun you get from doing it is rewarding in itself. Perhaps if you are looking for missions and plexes you should just stay in highsec as the rewards are much better, if however you just want to pvp free of 0.0 complexities and security hits associated with piracy then faction war, as it already is, is perfect.
Louis deGuerre Gallente The Rise of The Dragon Knights Void Alliance	Posted - 2008.12.13 13:20:00 - [27] Impressed at wall of text Executive summary : The problem exists: Factional Warfare, a low-sec (primarily) game, needs to be more rewarding than high-sec, less rewarding than null-sec, and interesting enough to retain players on its own. Right now, it fails to do that. I like many of your points, but I feel you neglect the casual player (of which there are many as you indicated). Not everyone is willing or able to gather a fleet to be able to do anything of note in FW, or has more than three hours to spend at any given time. Also, there are not always fleets going to join. So perhaps you should add more thinking to the casual player.
Friedrick Psitalon The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. Balance of Judgment	Posted - 2008.12.13 14:16:00 - [28] Edited by: Friedrick Psitalon on 13/12/2008 16:11:38 Originally by: Parmenides Elea Faction war isn't just about plexes and missions Friedrick but I appreciate thats how you play it. Personally I see faction war as a pvp engine that provides an environment free of 0.0 politics, bubble camps, pos warfare and blobs whilst not having to deal with the sec hits and gate guns of low sec piracy. You can normally find a fight within 30mins of logging on and it provides a great isk sink for those players that have multiple accounts (normally a carebear or 0.0 account and a pure pvp account). You stated that pvp like that found in fw can be found all over eve and I strongly disagree with that. Its only when you start looking for a tangable "reward" that faction war starts to fall down BUT it shouldn't be about isk/lp rewards, the pvp and the fun you get from doing it is rewarding in itself. Perhaps if you are looking for missions and plexes you should just stay in highsec as the rewards are much better, if however you just want to pvp free of 0.0 complexities and security hits associated with piracy then faction war, as it already is, is perfect. Again, you, I, and the PIE member are highly unusual examples of the system in action. That's like a professional sports player discussing the problem with high school eligibility rules. You assume that everyone who plays - even the casuals, which is the majority of Facwar's participants - have multiple accounts and isk to burn; not correct. You feel that Facwar shouldn't be about isk/lp rewards - and yet the number of people working in 0.0 (isk rewards) and high sec (LP rewards) clearly indicates that Facwar is missing something comparatively. You talk about the PVP you get from it, and you get that pvp and are successful at it because you are an unusual example - these forums are overrun with myriad examples of people who feel that the only PVP is boring-blob or nothing at all. With absolutely NO disrespect intended to Fenris - you know I respect you guys - you're not playing Facwar. You're playing "Empire Alliance Perpetual Free Wardecs." That's totally fine - I respect and encourage you to do so, and go nuts. But Factional Warfare was designed hook, line, sinker, around plexes, missions, and bunkers. The problem is that this is precisely the part of Facwar that was abandoned, and is now often ignored, in favor of the more interesting "Empire Alliance Perpetual Free Wardecs." A side effect of the Facwar system is now its only major draw - and that draw is, as can easily be statistically verified, weak, and even more worrisome: continuing to weaken. Respectfully, this is why I stated at the start that my own position as a Gallente militia member was going to be ignored when I wrote the article. I personally love Facwar. There is ample, massive, clearly observable evidence, though, that the great majority of players who would and could play Facwar do not. We are the exceptions to the rule; we must ask ourselves why the rule is "far too many people dislike Facwar." I like Facwar because I have a lot of isk to burn - as do you. The position intended for Facwar - transition between 0.0 and highsec life - is for players who would not have a lot of isk to burn or multiple accounts. "0.0 light" is a casual player's zone - and they do not have the tools we do. Currently, Facwar is accessible to us, and not to them. Therein lies the problem.
Dreamzane The Graduates Morsus Mihi	Posted - 2008.12.13 17:30:00 - [29] I agree with Friedrick! We need more incitaments to join Factional warfare. I stopped to play Factional Warfare after a few weeks becouse it was draining my economy in the game and it was not rewarding enough. Incitaments for participation in factional warfare could be to give good rewards for a capture or a defence of a plexe. Like in Warhammer Onlines Keep-siege-system where the players recievs a serious reward for showing up and winning.
Kuolematon Space Perverts and Forum Warriors United	Posted - 2008.12.13 22:17:00 - [30] Edited by: Kuolematon on 14/12/2008 11:25:02 Whatever, I just wanted to point out that PvP is reward itself and PvE rewards should not be in place. Before FW came, I asked same but I saw that CCP does not want to do anything to reward FW plexing what FOOM likes to do most so .. ain't gonna happen. Kinda sad thou.

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