Faction Warfare right now has some flaws and CCP is addressing some flaws with the recent changes, mainly adding rewards. But even after these changes, faction warfare will still lack a sense of progression and EVE players trying to give support to their Dust players will still end up getting ping-ponged across New Eden. So why not knock out two birds with one stone?

Part of the progression issue is that it seems odd that a 15 minute skirmish is all that decides the outcome of a district. Instead of making the battles longer, I propose the following.

Say the Imperial Guard is attacking a district owned by the Republic Command. The battle will proceed as follows:

1. Ambush. The attackers are trying to gain a foothold in the district. If the defenders win, then the district is successfully defended and temporarily locked up. If the attackers win, proceed to case (2).
2. Ambush OMS. The attackers gained some ground and opened up the battlefield to off map support. If the defenders win, return to case (1). If the attackers win, proceed to case (3).
3. Skirmish. The attackers have made their presence known and are trying to seize as much territory as possible. If the defenders win, return to case (2). If the attackers win, proceed to case (4).
4. Domination. The attackers are going in for the finishing blow on the critical objective. If the defenders win, return to case (3). If the attackers win, the district is successfully captured and temporarily locked up.

Here is a flow chart by everyone's favorite cat to help you visualize this,
http://i.imgur.com/fnaa7RI.png
EDIT: It came to my attention that a mod may mistake me for a Cat Merc alt. Obviously this is not the case, he simply helped me in collaboration of this idea over skype.

Each battle would happen on the same mega terrain, but would use different maps and moods as you are moving to different portions of the district (perhaps rotating moods between matches to give the illusion of a day/night cycle). After each map, players will be returned to the warbarge where they wait about 5 minutes for the next stage of the battle to happen. If players leave, new players queued for FW will replace them. Bonus rewards for players who stick from the beginning of the battle to the end if successful. This would also help solve the case of EVE players ping-ponging across the warzone, as they would spend more time sticking around the planet then flying several jumps to the next one.

Additionally, imagine you take all the districts that the Amarr and Minmatar fight over for example and string them together to form this circular track such that one district leads to the next nearby district and so on and so forth until the last district leads back to the first district. Now imagine you are on a GÇ£trainGÇ¥ following this track. Once the district you are fighting on gets GÇ£locked,GÇ¥ you advanced along the track to the next district. This will give an even deeper sense of progression for the Dust players as well as further help in keeping the EVE players localized. To accomodate for the large player base, new GÇ£trainsGÇ¥ will be created to follow this same track but be evenly spaced out. Also in this case, the district wouldnGÇÖt actually need to be GÇ£locked,GÇ¥ instead it simply wouldnGÇÖt be attacked again until the next GÇ£trainGÇ¥ arrives.

And even better, CCP wouldnGÇÖt have to create anything new as this uses entirely existing resources.

An amarrian came up with this? How?

I support this.

An interesting wrinkle (but I don't want to derail the thread), but maybe Eve militias can spend LP to start one of these "trains" in a desired system/planet or increase the rewards for players that are heavily involved in taking a particular planet.

Top stuff, evenly matched teams could pit themselves for hours in nail biting seesaw battles over a district, meanwhile eve pilots can remain over one planet and fight for dominance of the connection point (whatever it's called). Very glad a CPM has spotted this one already

Exactly! If you get two evenly matched teams, then this process will drag on a bit thus drawing a lot of attention to EVE players to help give one side the edge it needs to win, creating some epic battles in the space just above!

I like it a lot.

Although, can I add in a suggestion?

How about instead of returning to the warbarge waiting to proceed to the next case (ie: case 1 to case 2) how about introduce a dynamic redline just as what was once featured in Skirmish 1.0 in closed beta (Replication Build)?

Case 1: Ambush-like redline which is small and constricted as usual.
Case 2: Ambush-OMS redline which is still small but more expanded to accommodate the installations.
Case 3: Redline in Ambush OMS will expand outward to the nearest outpost to include the objectives.
Case 4: Redline in Skirmish expands further to include a final objective to fight over.

Note: Just like Skirmish 1.0, the default spawns move closer to the objectives with each case and the MCC slowly moves in.

I like it a lot.

Although, can I add in a suggestion?

How about instead of returning to the warbarge waiting to proceed to the next case (ie: case 1 to case 2) how about introduce a dynamic redline just as what was once featured in Skirmish 1.0 in closed beta (Replication Build)?

Case 1: Ambush-like redline which is small and constricted as usual.
Case 2: Ambush-OMS redline which is still small but more expanded to accommodate the installations.
Case 3: Redline in Ambush OMS will expand outward to the nearest outpost to include the objectives.
Case 4: Redline in Skirmish expands further to include a final objective to fight over.

Note: Just like Skirmish 1.0, the default spawns move closer to the objectives with each case and the MCC slowly moves in.

It's a cool idea no doubt, but the problem with this in my opinion is it makes the individual matches too long and gives the players no convenient opportunity to leave. I know some of us can have massive gaming sessions, but not everyone always has that much time. To me, it is important that individual matches still last about the same length.

Again, just my opinion.

It's a cool idea no doubt, but the problem with this in my opinion is it makes the individual matches too long and gives the players no convenient opportunity to leave. I know some of us can have massive gaming sessions, but not everyone always has that much time. To me, it is important that individual matches still last about the same length.

Again, just my opinion.

maybe put together a new fit for a situational issue

Actually, that is an amazing point in favor of having these breaks. In this scenario, you're going to be playing against relatively the same people each match. So why not give you an opportunity to make fits based on what you learned about the enemy?

precisely, you get a few minutes to discuss how the previous round went, decide on tactics now that you have a feel for your opposition, eat little segments of oranges your mum sent.......oh sorry wrong game! lol

you get my drift

I don't actually "laugh out loud" often when reading, but this cracked me up.

I am going to get the addresses of all my regular squad mates and order them nicely packed orange slices for the breaks!

The exciting thing about this idea is that there is not a lot of new stuff that CCP would need to get into the game, it feels like it could be achieved relatively easily, this is of course said from a position of extreme ignorance when it comes to games programming!

I wouldn't have the cycle fully reset but maybe back down a notch so it becomes a tug of war. Overall cool idea until we get more game modes in.

Yes, that was exactly the foundation for my brainstorming: "How can CCP make Dust FW infinitely better without needing to actually create anything new?"

Well, if it's better to have breaks in between matches, then fine by me. I just threw in my suggestion to see if others like it.

Well, if it's better to have breaks in between matches, then fine by me. I just threw in my suggestion to see if others like it.