Alora Venoda
Caldari
GalTech
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Posted - 2007.09.14 18:26:00 -
[1] - Quote
i can see this system working as follows:
- since it will involve PvP and empire space, anyone participating should have some kind of flag that will act similar to the current wardec mechanics. basically, it means you are "enlisted" by that particular faction, and shooting a faction warfare opponent will not invoke CONCORD or change your sec status. and the flag should be a global thing, not related to specific objectives and you could be vulnerable from enemy players at any time. and it will also have a 24 hour transition period like with normal wardecs.
- since the objectives will be in publically accessible space, there could be problems with "neutral" or "civilian" players interfering with faction-based combat objectives. i think the most reasonable solution would be treat it exactly like a wardec in that regard. non-aligned players would be treated the same as a 3rd party between 2 warring corps/alliances. but should they be allowed to attack the NPC navy ships when not flagged for factional warfare? or maybe in that case, doing so could give a temp-flag similar to current corp-warfare assisting mechanics.
- objectives will be publically available "missions" that spawn/despawn in the same way that exploration sites and encounters do. there will be some kind of bulliten board for these objectives, possibly from agents. regardless of how objective info is provided, the availability of the intel should be based on standings. but unlike missions, there will be no "mission offers" but rather you just go complete the objective and receive credit for doing it, similar to rat bounties and triggered events.
- some objectives can be counter-objectives to prevent the enemy from succeeding. its war, so only one side "wins". it could be things like "don't let them destroy X ships/structures" or "don't let them steal X loot". or it could even be something that spans multiple systems, such as courier missions and the enemy tries to destroy or even steal the courier package.
- rewards, in addition to pure loot from the objective itself, will include standings boosts, ISK payouts, or maybe even some new type of loyalty points. of course, the PvP factor is so unpredictable that the risk/rewards may need to be determined simply by "who shows up to the party"... with small variants based on static PvE elements of the objectives.
- to prevent this system from circumventing the existing faction standings system, a second type of standings may be used. basically, we want to prevent the scenario where a few faction warfare gang missions replaces many storyline agent missions. if they used the same standings systems, then either the objectives would need to be VERY difficult or yield very small standings increases. and since we want this to appeal to small gangs and solo players, they should not be super difficult.
- last but not least, factional warfare should have some kind of impact on the markets too... maybe being an enemy of the faction that owns a given station could prevent you from doing business there, or add lots of taxes/fees.
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Take away the risk and it would make flying around in space utterly pointless.
Take away the flying around part and you make EVE into a space themed spreadsheet application. |
Alora Venoda
GalTech
Giant Space Amoeba
|
Posted - 2008.03.14 19:31:00 -
[2] - Quote
what if factional warfare was basically a PvE-driven way to fight for control of resources? the perfect way to do sov-warfare for carebears!
like, for example, the group that runs the most missions or mines the most ore within a set amount of time wins!
i know it goes against all the pew-pew stuff EVE is designed for... but LOTS of players out there would rather fight NPC's or shoot asteroids than other players, and they don't really like being the rock jocks for big alliances either since they feel more like employees or slaves that part of a team, and often still end up in fleet battles etc.
i think the main difficulty with adding in factional warfare "contested areas" would be finding where to add the new content without taking away facilities that are already being used by many players. it would seem much more reasonable to add all new systems, or new NPC stations, or deadspaces instead of converting any existing ones to factional warfare contested areas.
i do strongly feel that players should not have to join an NPC corp to participate in factional warfare, however.
~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~
Take away the risk and it would make flying around in space utterly pointless.
Take away the flying around part and you make EVE into a space themed spreadsheet application. |