Thoughts on ranks and defensive plexes

Team Game of Drones did a lot of great things this expansion tackling ship re-balancing, overcoming language barriers(yes i watched CCP Yitterbum on fanfest), and most of all the FW overhaul. But did they give us a relatively big bone to chew on for a while? I think so, because even though the new FW system is quite fun and has that new feature smell it was half done so to speak. Yes great rewards for offensive plexing, good kills in the defensive plexing but that's about it for defending your space. How does this match up in 0.0 terms? Well in null defending your space does get you the fights, but it also allows your alliance(s) to continue holding the resource rich space bringing in the bacon. The offensive side can take the tech moon but will they use it as soon as as they have it? In most cases no, they'll continue their conquest until the region has stabilized.

I understand CCP's logic here, I mean this is a "forever war" and keeping things topsy-turvy keeps things interesting. But with no way to actually deny LP's to an enemy faction in a rewarding way people may just get bored and go back to shitty incursions. Drudge matches start and the tug-of-war happens without defense or can favor a winning side for a long time. The tug-of-war is being seen in the caldari-gallente contest not many want to defensive plex because it pays nothing! So when one side reaches tier 3 they are reduced to tier 1 within days.

The Bacon 

This inevitably brings me to my next point why not when you defensive plex contribute to going to a system upgrade? Let it effect it the same way offensive plexes work half the LPs going to the ihub. And then the other half going towards your promotion when you get said promotion. As i remember it CCP wanted ranks to be more meaningful and what better way to do so then this. I posted the idea of rank LPs on my last post, I'll explain the idea again if you rank up you get LP's toward each rank and every time you get podded you lose a rank.  Now tying in the idea of LPs going toward an upgrade so your faction can still rapid deploy LPs to a an important hub if you choose. 

This would be more to par as a "stepping stone" to null as more strategic points would be attacked. As well as bringing awesome small gang fights to the newer players needing the pvp experience. As I  said before this gives noobs time to learn pvp while training those skills for the offensive actions. And provides them steady income after a good podding but not just for newer players older ones as well. Iteration needs to happen at some point hopefully, this is an outcry we need as FW pilots. I see things could become quickly one sided or dull over time with efforts down the sink and burnt out pilots. So what do you say Game of Drones you up for another challenge or did you stick a fork in us already?

SHAM

Defensive Plexing

Defensive  plexing in faction wars is as boring as it gets. In fact its more boring then mining and i do absolutely  zero mining. And i know everyone in the militia is giving CCP a wtf moment. So when inferno was released, offensive plexes gave away "op" lp's and when you sat at a defensive plex for ten or twenty fucking minutes you got nothing but standings. I first found this out last week and was kinda disappointed to say the least. People don't want to waste their time defensive plexing and I get that but the whole point it is LP denial.

I thought maybe having a LP distributed by rank would be a fair system. Each and every time you rank up you get a bonus amount of LP's for your efforts not only offensive plexing but defensive as well. But each time you get podded you drop a rank because the gallente person stole it from you and his fleet mates. I feel this would make a more balanced war zone and bringing more kills inside of plexes. The solo pilots would love finding more targets and would probably make a steady income because of it. With all the newer players joining each faction it would give them a purpose while still flying "under the gun" so to speak. Noob squids are dead squids the way they have it now, I'd the defensive rewards be as such to get these young squids to stand on while training their pvp skills. A lot of the time you fight one-on-one and they'll eventually gain experience and be productive killing machines.

If the devs were to have it this way I think a lot of people would appreciate it. Providing newer players to learn pvp and forge their skills so they can fly with the big squids in fleets. Whilst still giving others good fights and a decent mode of spraining traps on the LP farmers.

 SHAM

Entry One

The recent change in faction wars has definitely reignited interest in the warzone. Switching from a "Big Wardec" to a resource based system has been pretty fun. Each faction has grown due to the changes and I applaud CCP for being very balanced in they're approach to how faction wars works. Although not the perfect system *cough* defensive plexes the fights are still prevalent and actually mean more. And the war between the frogs and squids has been fierce from  the new changes. A huge game of tug of war is occurring nether side is able to gain any kind of concrete war zone control.

The current strategies being employed are short term and are meant to cash in the LP's one faction has earned for a new supply of iskies. But the repercussions of this are being felt by the Fallente by now. It seems they've burnt the supply of iskies  from the push they had this weekend. The start of friday they had an organized LP drop to get them into teir 2 but by the start of today they have been plexed back to teir 1 and had a intense week of fighting leading up to friday through to the weekend. This has something I've been exploring as far as the "Economics" of warzone control and it has lead me to conclude that teir 3 with organized LP drops to teir 4 is the most effective way for a faction to be successful as far as steady cash flow.

The reason why? look at the minmatar for example. They currently control 56 systems out of a possible 70. This is going very well for them against they're hated foes bringing they're faction steady cash but if they're conquest goes unchecked they're factional market will tank and burn a in a fiery crash. The results are already  being seen  in rens.

The tempest fleet issue market was soaring pre-inferno and if you stocked up on minmatar lp's before the expansion then you made it out fairly well.At its peak fleet issue tempests were selling for 410m-420m now look around the time of inferno given the minmatars war zone control at the start they severely depressed they're market when it comes to this faction battleship. But I calculate the minmatar's war zone control to be in the high teir 3 which is the "Goldy Locks" area of control if they are careful they can flat line (stabilize) the prices and keep them consistent.

 Now the stabber fleet issue that we have been seeing prevalent amounts of. Again we see a downward trend at the start of inferno the prices are even cheaper in jita. The minnies are again seeing a depressed market and can easily push supply over the demand for the ship if not careful. But i'm sure enough of the damn things die so demand will be up for awhile.


These are interesting things to observe the "diminishing returns" CCP spoke of. Underdogs have a means to fight back effectively with planned drops and offensive pushes an underdog faction (like the amarr) can ramp up they're capacity for war. But lets say the tug-of-war we see in the caldar vs gallente the war here is different, we have a huge warzone totaling 606 points over 101 systems. Having 25 systems to lvl 5 would mean 1/4 of the warzone is under total control and is equal to 150 points toward warzone control if you account for a tolerance zone of 15 lvl 4 systems and leaving the rest at lvl 3 and keeping the out lying systems @ lvl 3would push one faction to a very desirable teir 3. I say keep the rest at teir 3 because its manageable LP to feed the hungry ihubs. It costs one person 50k LP to bring a system from 0-3 and that equals 2 20min majors to do. But if you were to having to constantly bring a system from 0-5 or even 3-5 is taxing to do on a daily basis.

Target selection of space is crucial to a long term tier 3 goal if a faction goes after targets that are too far away from where they are staged and don't push a plex to vulnerable into a favorable  timezone they how are they gonna keep it? These short term lp drops have proved effective when a faction needs isk, but burn pilots out trying to defend systems that players aren't at, even going on a push can be taxing after seeing the efforts of the weekend shrivel and go back to where they started.

It will be interesting too see what happens next as the competition for systems reaches a fever pitch. If one faction is placed itself strategically placed in areas that are close by and have high LP values in them, and they defend those systems while only having to give low amounts of LP to keep those systems sustained they'll do well, in the market and apparently on the field. It gives me goosebumps thinking about the major engagements yet to come, don't worry frogs we'll make enough rape sauce for you too.

-SHAM