CCP Rattati wrote:Dear players,
I have been mulling and considering an idea passed on to me. So bear with me for a second and read it all before jumping to conclusions.
What if Skirmish, as the most tactical game mode becomes FW only.
Players that want to play Skirmish will migrate over there, which in turn will make queuing shorter and more attractive.
Domination, Ambush and maybe another Game mode will be in the Public Contracts, thematically "smaller affairs" which makes sense. Skirmish to me is taking over a district, for your own in PC or for a Faction in FW.
To make the transition easier, we would add ISK rewards to FW so players can make LP and ISK at the same time. Solid ISK rewards to make it a closer match between PC and FW.
To get rid of the AFKing, as obnoxious as it is, we would add a WP threshold to FW for all rewards.
New players no longer get thrown into a 5 point skirmish, which is always a disorienting experience.
Please discuss.
Other things that are more difficult to do
Team Deploy
Locking to Faction
Hmmmm ok, well I understand what you're going for, but I don't think I agree with the solution entirely.
For one, in many ways Domination is far more brutal for new players, as it can easily be dominated by whoever gets the point first and sets up shop. This is a fundamental flaw in the game mode but that's for another thread. Regardless, in its current state I think that having Domination (in its current form) as the only objective-based game mode to new players would be harmful to the NPE.
You do also raise a good point that I never considered, but having large 5-point battles for new players can be very disorienting. If you were to go along with this, and I'm not sure if it's even a technical possibility, but perhaps leave 3-point Skirmishes in Pubs, and move 5-point Skirmishes to FacWar only? At the very least it helps with the NPE issue.
As for encouraging Vets to do Facwar....from the sounds of it, the planned Acquisition game mode is pretty much as close as we're going to get to a true "Attack and Defend" game mode, which to me seems like it would be far more appropriate for FacWar (and PC for that matter). If you're going to use a game mode and make it exclusive to a theatre of battle, I would do so with Acquisition.