I dont think this really fixes anything and at best it introduces a whole slew of new problems.

Forcing people to play fw to get prototype gear is kind of a problem. It removes functionality and choice.

Yes, the AV vs Vechicles balance is totally out of wack. As you clearly state you need proto-av to be and kind of thread against advanced tanks. This is a separate issue and one that should be addressed. If this idea was implemented without that av balance change occurring advanced tanks would have to be treated like proto-suits, and would only be able to be earned through FWs lp store.



Remember the OP does not in anyway imply that content should be gated off. People would still be able to use proto and officer gear anywhere they liked. They would only be able to buy it through the lp store or player-player trading though. This means that people who don't want to play FW wouldn't have to, they could still by proto-gear from people who do play FW. There is no gate created just an opportunity for a secondary market.

Think of it like wormholes and T3 ships. You want one you can either grind your way through waves of sleepers or you can by parts (or even ships) on the market.



Everyone can run FW. Not choosing to do so would be entirely up to you.

The player market isn't a third party system, it is the goal-line that every transaction should reach for. I agree that the current mechanics of the are wonky and that this should be deployed along with a rebuild of the markets to allow market based player sales. If something like this were implemented sans a market relaunch though tons of chatrooms would spring up to facilitate player trading. I seriously doubt that it would really be hard to by the gear you want.



Umm AFK farming FW would be a waste of time. LP payouts from fw matches are pretty poor when you loose so earning any meaningful number of protosuits would take forever. As far as earning loot is concerned CCP would simply have to change the loot mechanics to not reward loot drops to players who don't hit a certain WP threshold (something that should be done anway). 400 wp woud be a low enough barrier to allow newer players to still have access to LP and high enough to force players to actually engage in the battle.

Mind you I don't think that what the OP has layed out is by anymeans a finished concept that CCP could implement as is. It is a gateway idea. One that could be built upon to create something amazing. My excitement is in the way the OP tried to create a viable pathway to isk positive FW playing (something that doesn't exist) via the player market (something that also really doesn't exist in a meaningful way at this point either).

Rather than thrashing the idea out of fear, make modification propsals. Think of how this will influence in game mechanics and encourage the OP to make changes so that those mechanics are positively impacted.

Disagreed.

AFK farming in FW is actually incredibly lucrative given the flat rate of LP that you can get. If the pendulum swings towards one faction and one kind of gear becomes popular, higher tier players would shift towards player for that faction. This leads to things being easier for AFKers as that faction then wins more often.


Regarding the 400 WP limit, that's far too high. Leaderboards regularly have the bottom half with less than 400 WP, and it's honestly not that achievable for a new player.

Having directly mentored some new players, given them squad logi support and directly tutored some one on one, guiding them through matches... Some still fail to hit 400 WP. It's not really because they're bad, but the game is inherently extremely harsh to newbies.

The biggest issue I see is the price of gear from factions that are getting steamrolled (current meta is fight for Am/Cal) will skyrocket. If wins are hard to come by, why would I sell my gear on the cheap? This then causes people to queue for all factions, with a full 8 and 8 q-sync, and discourages loyalty to any given faction. A huge pet peeve of mine is people playing all factions, with no repercussions. You can literally maintain around level 5 in all factions currently, and that is a problem.

We could allow people to fight for all factions, but make the gear not in your chosen faction cost 100% more LP. This might encourage trading from dedicated FW vendors. You should be able to lock into 2 factions, as long as they aren't direct enemies (Am/Min, Gal/Cal), and then those factions you lock into would give you a discount on their LP items. Say 5% per loyalty level? So level 10 loyalty gives you a 50% discount on LP gear from your chosen faction.

The best gear is already in the LP stores (proto weapons with adv cpu/pg, cheap proto suits), isn't that incentive enough?

I like your idea, but I see a few problems.

Let's look at what I just quoted.

Since most players prefer the Eve Online version of the market were you have buy/sell orders established and even actual item exchange contracts, establishing full player trading takes time unless you are referring to flipping the switch on all FW items in the game under the current trade system. Brokers will still be in business, but we are still talking about operating on a very rudimentary trade system.

In regards to having full racial version such as a Republic Shield Extender for one faction and an Imperial Shield Extender for the other, this creates a problem. This will just add redundant data to the server and the server is already having to deal with Odin knows how much data already in addition to that of Eve Online's data. Someone came up with an alternative to this by recommending CCP to allow players to convert LP from one faction to another with a set tax on that conversion. If I have 50,000 LP with the Gallente but like to purchase Caldari gear for some of my fits, I would convert (with taxes imposed) some of my LP to the Caldari suit and finally get that Rail Rifle I wanted to try out. I forgot who it was that came up with this idea.

Then there is the issue of the vehicles. There is no Amarr or Minmatar tank model available. So that alone already throws racial parity in FW out the window and causes further problems for those players who want to use the best vehicles in a pub or PC match but can't fight for a faction they already hate. Try forcing a Gallentean to grind for the Caldari for a Caldari HAV. It's not gonna happen.

I don't fully understand what you mean by equal amounts of weapons, but I like to point out the vehicles once again for not having racial parity. Then there are the unusual weapons such as the Nova Knives which are used by the Minmatar with the help of the Ishukone Corporation. Nova Knives have NO racial variant of their own AT ALL. Just like the HMG, they are the only weapons of their class to be exclusively designed by one race. That and none of the non-Minmatar races have any bonuses to their suits suitable for the knives. Only the Minmatar Scout has that bonus.

You are right to assume that until we get racial parity for all weapons, we will only be limited to the suits for this idea of yours. But again, this still has problems even for the suits. I fight for the Minmatar very often because of the Scout Mk.0's ability to be extremely fast but there are times where I need to depend on the Scout Ak.0 (Amarr) instead for its endurance if I have to travel long distances without any regard to speed while utilizing the EWAR bonus it has. I don't want to be forced to fight for the Amarr for that suit especially when that will hurt my standing with the Minmatar.

EDIT: On my last point, even with brokers helping with selling LP items for ISK, we are still talking about expanding trade in a rudimentary trade system which most players have issues with.