Cazaderon, you're missing the point. The idea is that CCP wouldn't have to develop anything new. Obviously game modes can be swapped for new ones later, but the point is this could be done using existing stuff.

Also people want taking a district to last longer, but not individual matches to last longer.

How long will the district be locked for?

In the Skype chat people were saying 24 hours which I believe is too long, and then they lowered it to 12 hours which could work. I also think as low as one hour could work. Basically you just want to keep it locked long enough to give the EVE players a proper window of opportunity to take advantage of the plexing bonus.

Do note though that if we also include the "train" idea then locking districts would not need to happen at all.

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.

Individual matches in dust are quite short when you think of it. If they seem long it's only due to most games being boring out of lack of activity \ enemy dropping the ball.

Overall, i'd love to know what makes you so sure people dont want longer matches as in longer action packed fights. On the contrary, i tend to think there is a tremendous wait for a bigger game mode, with larger player count, and a more attack\defense feel.

You know... That conquest game mode we hear about now and then since the last 2 years.

Bottom line. I wouldnt want to play more FW if i had to be forced to play an ambush game mode, then an OMS , then a skirmish and then a domination. In the end, such a process would probably take 1 hour and a half. And i'm being gentle with all the loadings, lobbies, server starting that would require.

I'd rather see a game mode that lasts 30+ minutes in general. that features a real conquest feeling with different stage (defense relay to multi hack, unlocks access to the main outpost, hack central mainframe, game over.) with several fail safe (defense relay not took after 15 minutes = loss / tickets exhausted = Loss).

With installations dropping etc. Oh but Wait... Aint that skirmish 1.0 with minor changes ? Could it be the answer was here all along ?


Or let's be totally crazy. Why not a game mode that lasts VERY long. Something you could jump in and out when you want knowing the fight will keep on going. People would still benefit from participating without seeing the end (time relative ISK and SP). That would feel like conquest ! You could be sending message during the fight to get people you know because a squad had to leave the fight.

The longer the game also, the better the chance to see Capsuleers jump in and provide orbital strikes as the event will have more visibility in EVE where the moment to moment gameplay is very much slower.

Not bad, Not bad!

A few tweaks/suggestions if I may?
I like the train idea but not necessarily the match types! If you want to make it feel more inclusive try

1) skirmish 1.0 (renamed "ground war") Enemy has to move mcc succesfully to point for win condition
2) standard skirmish, they are approaching the district null cannon
3) domination

If you really want you could add an ambush in their somewhere.

Also to make it a little fairer on the defenders, if at any point during stages 1 + 2 the attackers mcc is destroyed, they loose period!

What about the possibility of people taking advantage of this - like two factions decide to win one round and lose the next - if the prizes are cumulative, they could use this to their advantage and get a crap ton of salvage..

And what if the rounds never end - if one side wins round 2, but then loses round 3 and repeat ad infinitum..

Some cool *initial* ideas but need fleshing out - which is why we're here.

Not trolling - just my opinions.

15 minutes is not near long enough for most eve pilots to get to the district unless you have extended warbarge time between battles. You likely would not even get a orbital strike in....which we don't have metrics yet for exactly "how long" the beacon has to be held to earn one.

For the attackers to win, there would have to be at least 4 battles on that district (Ambush, Ambush OMS, Skrimish, Domination). Now lets say for argument that there's a little bit of back and forth between the teams, so about 6 battles per district. Even though each one is only 15 minutes, the length of time that you are fighting on the district is much longer. And then once you finish attacking that district, you either move onto another district on that same planet or the next nearest planet if you already went through all districts on that specific planet. The EVE pilots would have plenty of time to provide orbital support. The only thing extending the warbarge timer would do is provider longer delays where EVE pilots cannot provide orbital support.

Lies I can make it from Amarr to anywhere in Devoid and Bleaklands in 15 mins.

That's exactly my point, and when you get there you'll have plenty of time to support the battle and it would be very easy to follow the battle as the move to new districts.

That's exactly my point, and when you get there you'll have plenty of time to support the battle and it would be very easy to follow the battle as the move to new districts.

Not that EVE players could remain in orbit for long without a fleet to support them. That's perhaps one downside of this....how many fleets are willing to sit in space while they could be plexing or hunt down enemies?

That's actually a good point to which I have an answer (maybe).

You don't need a single fleet. If something big starts going down, Eve pilots will start showing up - maybe in the one's or twos - as news spreads of the fight even more will show up. Eventually a roaming fleet will get involved. Just look at some of the recent battles - I Titan mistakenly jumps to low sec and thousands upon thousands of pilots from around New Eden show up to fight whoever they can target.

Also, if this is managed like incursions, and there is a way to find them like incursions, and there is notice when they begin a new train - well hundreds of pilots respond to those every day events as well.

Have Eve side people, I think, may work itself out. In fact, if you are within x jumps of the train, perhaps you automatically get put into a channel Eve side like with incursions? Fleets form up, and these notices to go people in high and low sec. They don't have to be in FW to fight, after all, just to be able to connect to the planet.

There are some flaws, but I'm sure with all the good feedback someone can iron them out for me.

But isn't that what CCP wants? Full fleets actually caring about Dust? And then fleet battles occurring over Dust districts? As for why they would want to, that's for CCP to figure out. I'm sure throwing LP at them can solve some of it. In fact, don't most EVE players only plex for LP? So yeah, just give them enough LP to make it worthwhile.

This - PvP players will be happy to do this - the fight won't just happen in orbit - they will happen at stations in the hot system, they will happen at stargates leading into the hot system - you just have to look at the very patient pirates in Eve to gatecamp for hours to know they have the patience for it, and that is when there is no promise of reward. Add to that LP for those pilots that is guaranteed on top of the potential for loot drops, and you have a very dynamic and attractive mix for different kinds of PvP pilots in Eve from pirates to null sec to FW, to the casual PvPer. This can work, I can virtually promise you it will.