After being reminded how special contracts were selected I came to firmly believe that FW should just generate X amount of contracts at a time and display them in the same manner after you select your factions. These contracts would still be generated based on Eve interaction as they are now but Dust players would be able to actively select which of these to go into.

There would always have to be 2 contracts available with zero people in them so that 16 man teams can enter those.

Players who have selected a battle would wait in the warbarge until a 14 people have been queued on the opposite side.

This would seriously help with the whole blueberries being able to pick all 4 issue which makes me want to puke every time I think about it.

This would give the possibility of left behind squad members being able to join back in with their squad.

Battles should disappear once either MCC has lost its shields.





The only flaw I can see is that AWOXing becomes a real possibility by locking out battles in a losing manner for opposing teams and then leaving battle. This would be prevented by causing faction standings loss after leaving X amount of battles. Players who go negative in faction standings would be locked out for 24 hours just like if they had been booted for team killing.

There are still some minor details for this system that need to be worked out but I really think it is the ground work for keeping things stable in Eve like that team wants it while still giving the ability for Eve and Dust players to work with a bit more unity.

On the Eve side, players can dictate more effectively where the next Dust battle will occur by simply destroying more of the ships belonging to their opponents

No,no, no Sir. That's not a good idea.

This is half-measure solution and if it would be already in game players would exploit it by joining opposite faction with they alt just to eject from noobship somewhere in space and destroy it right after with they main character, to have impact on system ship-killed statistics - if you are talking about players ships here, because that what we can see in DUST at the end of FW match is lie, it's purely NPC ships.

Majority of EVE players did not join FW for PvE, but for PvP(and small warfare gangs), and I think that should be a target here - creating mechanics that would work with EVE pilot PvP routine. I would agree that PvE actions are way in order to 'take' control over starsystem, by capturing NPC complexe's but they are impossible without PvP players that secure area. Beside decent FW pilot do not care much about taking those complex's in system if he is not forced by his CEO/Alliance Leader to do so. Making mission's for FW agents are way much more valuable for FW players.

From my experience as EVE player and Dust player as well, I think that decision on which system Dust players are fighting should be completely depended on EVE players actions in form of anchoring some-kind of structures in system.
- The first solid footstep that pilots need to do in order to start massive attack on system is anchoring and on-lining they own POS in one of moons with have some tactical meaning for them(for example it's the closes one to the stargate that lead to they home system, or it is between stations etc.). Player Owned Structures is safes way of hiding from PvP actions for pilots, and it's allowing them to support they activity in system with important tools like hangar for they corporation ships, or other items - with that they do not have to go 20 jumps back to home to change fleet proprieties they can do it instantly in area of operation without risking of being shoot-down on one of many camp-gates. So I think they should be able to anchor some kind of structure in they POS that is Merc docking station, allowing them to enter system and launching invasion on selected planet, may by the closes one to POS.
- Defenders should already have that structure in they assets as default.
Both sides should be able to support Dusters with destructible structure that gives them more clones in battle.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Factional_Warfare#System_upgrades_and_warzone_tier

Faction battles in Dust could be dynamically generated based on the tier of the star system as described. The higher the tier, the more likely battles get generated there.

The problem with your idea is that it still depends largely on the current system of FW which is vastly flawed as I described it. Sure your idea would allow me to pick battles through the Special Contracts, but those contracts will likely take me to systems that don't have any strategic value to the faction in question because farming complex in Eve usually happens in a system that is out of the way from any major conflicts.

It's a nice idea you gave and I would love to see the Special Contracts finally have some use for once outside of CCP-sponsored events, but it still doesn't address the issues.

PS: I just tweeted this thread to CCP Rattati and CCP Foxfour. I like to know what their thoughts are on this.

https://twitter.com/Henry_Haphorn/status/607729601117360131

Imagine that you just started playing EVE, and you instantly know that FW is your 'thing', so you pack up your stuff and fly with them to some lonely system at edge of Minmatar FW low-sec, there is a station you can use, and some planets 2 or 4, 3 moons. So you starting your own corporation, and because you are born leader, youre corporation very fast grow in numbers. You starting with your own academy, to train new players and thanks to that your corporation is starting to be recognize by neighbors because of efficient killboard, some awesomely good pvp'layers are joining your group.
So you starting to fill a bit squish in your system, and at the same point you do not want to separate your people acros two systems, so you are starting to looking at alternative way of generating ISK like planetary productions, moon reaction etc. sooner or later everything that is in your system have your corporation logo, and gives you profit. Beside that system is now camped 23/7 by 3 different time zone fleet, and you feel very safe to invest those thousands of LP to upgrade it to level 5, now one can take it because as soon he open new complex he instantly get send back to his own system..
..and suddenly your system is being contested by some Merc, 16 randomly selected defenders were not able to find exit from their MCC unfortunately , and they loose battle(but they were paid for trying).

Do you asking yourself how did those Merc find a way in to your system? I bet you do, it's pure magic they just appear from nowhere - that's wrong.

Being able to select from a list of active areas allows you to pick a system of strategic importance just like you are referring to while also maintaining stability on the link between the two games. I think what you may be over looking on deeper strategy in my idea is the fact that any corporation that operates on both sides would be able to easily form a small fleet and make sure that a system shows up on that list so that their allies on the ground are able to enter there. This would seriously take Q syncs to the next level and bring a depth to the connection between the two games that is almost beyond measure.

The current system actually works far better than you may think but explaining that would require explaining every nuance to FW in Eve.

As far as changing it to ships destroyed in a system that will turn into absolute farmville and would not even serve the purpose you are looking for. The systems with consistently the highest kills are just the systems that are gate camped and no one really even tries to take them. Right off the bat you have actually gone from the possibility of strategic importance to being almost guaranteed fighting in systems of no bother to either side.

I'm sorry. I lived in the Amarr/Min warzone for months and gatecamps surely boost the numbers of kills but not of people in the militias.

At least by yourself:
If you're in a frigate and you get caught on a gate; You're bad.
If you're flying anything bigger that isn't covops/mwd+cloak; why?

There's a few things to do in FW:
Farm in a frigate
Go looking for fights in a small gang. Usually cruisers/frigates.
Farm L4 FW missions in a bomber/Ishtar/Stratios/T3

All of these things really shouldn't get caught on a gate. And if they do, you either had no scout or a ****** scout.

That might work.



If you are correct, I would like to know more about Eve-side FW. But for the sake of Dust players here who never played Eve, is there a way you can make a TL;DR or a graph about it?

@ Maken Tosch I would love to hop on comms and discuss further when you have time. I think we could meet some middle ground between our perspectives and come up with a really nice well thought out presentation to turn over to CCP.

What are your main game times? I can try to hop on at the time that is most convenient for you.


EDIT:


I have created an Eve moderated channel for further discussion by all other FW channel leaders and anyone that is interested in this project. I will be saving and formatting my chat logs for record keeping (obviously only when one of my characters is in the channel) as well as holding a couple of scheduled think tanks that will be recorded.

I will also be creating a trello board for this to post the chat logs, and recordings so that we can really evaluate every angle and present CCP with the best possible solution.

The channel name is

DFW initiative

Thanks for getting this started. Every little bit of extra dialogue helps.

Looking back at what UnclS2 told me in Lucent Echelon, I realized that the idea of tying ship losses in a system to Dust Faction battle generation could be adjusted to count ONLY ship losses that are the result of being destroyed by an opposing faction pilot. If you are enlisted Minmatar faction and you lost your ship to that of an Amarr faction pilot, that would count. However, if you lost the ship to a neutral player, it won't count. If you try to destroy the ship yourself, it won't count. You have to get someone from the Amarr side to destroy your ship. The Eve API should be able to track that kind of thing.

What do you think? Does that at least mitigate the chances of being exploited?

That........ is an awkward time.

I enjoyed the talk while playing FW its was really good and informed me more about the serious problems of FW