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

I despise ambush and domination.

Pub Skirmish has been the most balanced mode since the changes to matchmaking, and I'm enjoying it a lot more because of it. I'm worried that the lack of matchmaking in FW will ruin my favourite game mode.

maybe another Game mode will be in the Public Contracts

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.

Fully agree with this ^

Please don't make skirmish Factional only. It is my favorite game mode. I like being able to go into a casual game and run basic or advanced gear to try to save some ISK. Factional is proto stomp hell. Even adding ISK to Factional would not make up for the amount of ISK spent to survive long enough to make enough WP to make enough ISK to afford 1 proto suit. Being a proto logi is expensive. We run around with a giant "kill me" sign on our backs. Before I get anymore off topic, please don't change it.

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.

As an aside, the overall cost of running logi needs to come down regardless of any changes to Skirm.
The margin between a proto medium assault fit and a proto medium logistics fit is too large.

Right now there are no Vehicle BPO Modules on the Market Place.Old Vets had access to them.What if they were part of the reward system.
Vehicle Module Reward
Light shield Extender Mod BPO
Light shield Booster BPO
Light Armor Repair BPO
Light 60 mm Armor plate BPO
LAV Faction BPO
Heavy Shield Ext BPO
Heavy Shield Booster BPO
Heavy Armor Repair BPO
Heavy Armor Plate 120 mm BPO
Faction HULL HAV Only no turret BPO

Not that I don't disagree but if you're going to talk about the ISK cost gap between the two you might as well talk about the WP gap between the two as well. As unimportant as that might seem, some genius thought it'd be a good idea to reward veterans based on their Warpoint accumulation almost entirely so running Logi is more rewarding than running Assault by circumstance.

Running logi is more rewarding in raw gains, but less rewarding in resource accrual.
Put another way, you are more likely to go ISK negative running logi than assault due to the relative costs and survivability.
Thsu, lowering the over all costs of logi fits actually does address both by bringing the context of medium frames more within line of risk vs reward.

Isn't Acquisition supposed to be a King-of-the-Hill variant where the point moves every so often? Trying my best to remember what Rattati said about a new game mode like that during the round table at Fanfest...

I'd have to disagree actually. To many social problems. Friends and corpmates -forced- into fighting each other just because they both love Skirmish and don't have an alternative outside of PC but have different opinions on the usefulness of the others desired LP equipment and guns is not something I can get behind. It's not even like an awkward deployment where you see a buddy on the other side where you think, "I'll squad him after this match," it's guaranteed conflict.

Can we limit skirmish to maps with objectives that are close together

And FW to the maps that have 200+ meters between each objective? (Vehicle maps)

How so? If you iron out the ISK cost then there's still a WP discrepancy. Logis will always have more WP accrual than other classes just because of their role and thereby more SP rewards at the end of the match (at least, for veterans).

It's like an unofficial booster when you think about it. When I want to get a bunch of SP in a short amount of time for something I'm interested in, I run Logi - preferably with Squad Lead.

Further more, if you're dying a lot as a Logi - might be time to re-evaluate where you are on the battlefield =P Logis aren't meant for frontline combat so unless you're throwing yourself at the enemy or have really bad spatial awareness/tactical coordination with your team (getting flanked) then you should probably switch it up.

Sneaky Sneaky Shayz......trying to kick vehicles out of Skirmish mode too?