Tuesday, March 5, 2013

What We Meant

I’m generally a positive person. I hate spouting doom and gloom because of some game mechanic flaw, or claiming that it’s the ‘beginning of the end’ because I don’t like something in particular about where things are headed. So, you’re not going to get a ‘sky is falling’ speech from me today.

But there is something about Faction War that has been bugging me.

And, I know that there are tons of new people in Faction War and that people are fighting over systems and pvping left and right, just as they should be.

The thing that concerns me, is that the single largest thing the Faction War community asked for, was not realized in either Inferno or Retribution.


We get LP for kills, LP for plexes. Taking systems has meaning, as far as warzone control goes. But, Faction War itself has no meaning –has no impact on the greater EVE community.

The fact that Faction War is the most tightly closed system in EVE, is probably the biggest thing I hate about it. Who wins, and who loses has little to no impact outside of FW beyond a few faction item market prices.
I can write about which systems were taken, who is gaining a foothold, what interesting battles took place.

But unless you, my reader, are in Faction War, none of this really impacts you in any way. It’s nothing more than a cool story bro.

So what can be done about it? I’ve heard several interesting ideas over the past months:

1. The warzone control in FW could impact taxes in highsec. If you’re losing, the taxes could soar in the NPC stations of your Faction. If you’re winning, they drop through the floor.

It makes sense from a storyline perspective. Though I think that if not done very carefully there could be a lot of unforeseen consequences.

2. The warzone control in FW could impact security in highsec. This is a lot more controversial, but also very interesting. What if, as a Faction is ‘pushed back’ they send more and more of their highsec navies/police to the front? It would become more and more easier for the winning militia to ‘hunt’ in their opponent’s high-sec systems, with a much slower response from the faction navies. Furthermore, that faction police may have a harder time responding to pirates in system. (CONCORD would be unaffected.)

3. Warzone control could impact highsec mission payouts.

4. System Upgrades that affect non FW pilots, such as cyno jammers, or significant industrial bonuses.

What are some of your ideas? How could Faction War be opened as a mechanic so that the rest of the EVE community is interested in it and/or affected by it's outcome?


  1. You are right but did not look far enough. Not just FW doesn't matter outside of FW. NOTHING matters outside of itself.

    - Does highsec, WH, NPC-null or lowsec pilots give a damn who controls this or that nullsec sov? If Goons would be exterminated or Goons capture all sov, would you notice?
    - Does anyone notice WH outside of it?
    - Does anyone care about highsec?

    The EVE universe isn't much connected, and yes, that's a problem. My fix would be making certain item classes zone-specific and you could gain these items only in these zones. So the life within these zones would affect people outside of it. For example Empire LP should only be gained in lowsec in significant amount (removing L4 from highsec), so you either do L4 in "NPC-low" or do plexes in FW. If the militia is badly beaten LP item prices increase significantly since you can't just mission for them in highsec.

    1. I almost agreed with you!

      The EvE universe isn't much connected, true! But that isn't a problem. It's a sandbox. I don't know why you would want choices other players make to dramatically affect your game experience. I know I don't.

      Let FW be FW. Let highsec be safe for carebears who want to play there. Let 0.0 be dark and dangerous for those interested. Wormholes are fine as long as people are having fun in them. Why would we want all the aspects of the game to make big differences for the other parts of the game? The economy is the only aspect of EvE that should be pretty universal in it's affect.

  2. I suspect the next FW iteration might be along the lines of the Pirate Faction idea suggested by Ripard (in his Jester's Trek blog) not so long ago. But back to the subject matter at hand ... whilst I do like the idea of an evolving Empire space, dependent upon what happens in the FW arena, I think it would have to be carefully balanced;

    1) Tax changes - I would imagine you would see a lot of economic migrants heading from the losing side hi sec space to the winning side hi sec space and thus eroding a valuable ISK sink.

    2)I like the idea of flexible sec status, not just in Empire space though. What that would do to the map and if the game would be left in a playable state is another question entirely - but certainly worth considering, given the very rigidity of the system we have currently.

    3)Hmmm, not sure about the mission payouts. Other than say faction kill missions; there would have to be some lore reason to make it believable - also, see economic migrants issue above, the migrants. Btw, @Gevlon, didn't they already do that with L5 missions?

  3. Scares the hell out of me to think about it just at the moment but like yourself and Kinis above I'd be thinking about moving sec status of systems up or down by 0.1 after a certain percentage of the FW zones were captured. People in system would get a day or two of warning. Can you imagine the disruption to trade routes? Villore in Essence for example might drop to 0.4 if some threshold in Old Man Star was reached in combination with the overall situation. Can you imagine the exodus? "You have two days before Villore will be declared a low security zone. Please evacuate all non essential personnel from the system". CONCORD response times would rise or fall with the sec status making hi sec feel a little more dynamic without really taking anything from anyone but lots would change.

    BTW @Goblin : stop trying to crowbar the New Order anti HiSec agenda into everything. Yes. We are aware you follow James 315. We are aware of his particular beef. We either support it or not. It doesn't mean you have to spout off about it everywhere. Damn it. You've gone and made me do it now.

  4. TBH, the reason it's taken me over a year to finally get in to FW has been the lack of meaning. I have always lumped FW in with RvB - meaningless PvP that might be fun for a while but in the end amounts to nothing. I still feel that way about RvB (though it is a great way to learn how to fight, no question) and, in many ways, FW as well.

    Why am I in FW? Less drama than null and more fun than null.

    But it still needs to have meaning beyond flipping systems. There is meaning in nullsec sov warfare and w-space, just as there is in living in highsec, but FW is forgotten. I have no concrete thoughts on what should be done to give FW meaning, but something needs to be done.

    Oh, and ignore most of what Gevlon says outside of industry, he's usually wrong.

  5. And what if FW did affect other parts of EVE. What then?

    The mission carebears aren't going to join FW, because they don't want PvP. Neither are the industrialists, for the same reasons. If FW changes their game, they aren't going to chip in to help, but get frustrated at external sources affecting them in ways they've chosen not to get involved in.

    If there is the possibility of mission running or industrial activity aiding FW then maybe there would be merit to the idea of stirring circumstances up. But, even then, what are players supposed to do? Drop corp to sign up for a militia? Leave their buddies behind so that they can get their environment back to normal, for a week or two? That doesn't sound reasonable either, and this may also prevent PvPers from getting heavily involved in FW.

    Ultimately, however, I would say your bias is showing. Why should FW have any more meaning than it already has? Why should fighting over complexes and system control for militias affect anyone else, any more than who controls Syndicate affects mission runners? This may be glib, but if you're looking for meaning in a game, perhaps you're looking in the wrong place.

  6. Yeah, I think I have gotten the meaning in FW that I was asking for. System control does SOMETHING. It used to do nothing. That's all I wanted. The idea that FW should affect highsec, or taxes or other people playing EvE but not in FW beyond some prices on mods seems extravagant to me.

    I, for one, do not see how there is any meaning in null sec sov war or in wormhole life any more than in FW. Someone is mining moon goo in 0.0, it doesn't matter who. Sov war doesn't really affect anyone not involved in it. Goons losing a titan, or a 500 v 500 brawl in NULL sec makes no difference to me. It sure seems like FW is about on par with all that stuff. It makes a difference to those involved, but does not have a significant impact on anyone who does not live there and did not participate. Sure, if no one at all was in wormholes, that would affect the rest of EvE because some things would not be available. In FW, if no one was doing anything, it would affect the availability of some of the LP store items. Maybe that is less significant, but it is similar. And the fact is, wormholes and 0.0 are not about if someone is out there at all. The action out there is about WHO is doing it, and the WHO does not matter to the rest of EvE. And neither should FW.

  7. Actually I'd like to see something that works both ways so that high-sec can have an effect on FW without having to go all the way into the fray. Something that could inconvenience them but also provide something new to do.

    Maybe something like incursions so that the winning side invades the losing side. So if Amarr are at T3, they send an incursion into Minmatar high-sec (that has the same system effects as Sansha Incursions). If they're at T4, then they send two, T5 sends 3 or even invades an entire region. Or you could have it effect the relative strength of the invasion, T3 invasion would be relatively weak, T4 would be stronger and require bigger fleets, T5 is full-on invasion with slave ships and npc's attacking anyone with low enough Amarr faction standing MUAHAHAA.

    Anyway, if the high-sec people in Minmatar space beat the faction incursions back, the Minmatar side might get a bonus to how long it takes to complete a plex (shortens plex timers) or some other tangible benefit that would help the losing side some. And the high-seccer's got to do something new, help their side, and maybe get some faction LP to put toward their corp of choice (like Concord LP).

    I dunno, just a quick idea I thought I'd throw out there.
    -Baljos Arnjak

  8. Just curious:
    What do you mean by "winning"?

    I am hearing allot of gallente pilots say they don't care about occupancy in 90% of systems?