Faction Warfare

I haven’t been involved in Faction Warfare at all but I really like the idea of it.  I’ve heard that it needs some work though and I have had a few thoughts on what I would like to see it become.  My idea would require a whole revamp on what faction warfare is however. 

What I think could be a fun idea is to create a new type of space; 1.1 or Faction Space, War Space, Fact Space whatever we want to call it.  It would comprise of 20 border zone systems 10 between Amarr and Minmatar, and 10 between Caldari and Gallente.  Faction Warfare would only take place in these 20 systems. If you sign up to participate you are still allowed access through all empire regions, just the opposing side npcs will shoot you on sight in these new 1.1 systems.  Your free to shoot other players that also participate only in 1.1 systems, and you don’t need to be in a special Corp anyone can sign up regardless of the Corp you are currently in. Think of it as a tag that you enable.  This way you can do your normal thing with your friends, and not be excluded allowing for more participation.

These systems would be objective based similar to the new Sansha Incursion sites.  A new fleet format would be introduced.  Each system acquires its own automatic fleet formation.  If you are on a faction side and you enter a 1.1 system you are asked in a pop up window if you want to join the battle. Selecting yes leaves any current fleet your in and places you in an npc fleet, with an npc as the fleet boss. Free move would be on and no leadership skills take effect in order to prevent exploiting from the other team in case they filled up a side with alts in leadership roles.

Each System will have areas warpable on the overview and can vary in objectives.  One idea would be to have two weapon manufacturing outposts. You would warp to your own faction outpost bringing you to an acceleration gate which places you 75k from the outpost, and loot a bomb item from it.  A new bomb item would not spawn until the first one has been destroyed.  You can jettison the bomb but if not picked up in 30 seconds the can will despawn. If an enemy picks up your bomb it will blow up their ship.  The objective is to destroy the enemy outpost by looting it and placing a bomb which will drop the outpost’s health by 10%.  So you need 10 bombs to win. 

One catch is that surrounding the weapons outpost is a new stasis webifyer bubble that only affects the opposing team.  It would be 10 – 7.5k in radius allowing for more tactics.  Once one side wins the outposts are immune for 1-2 hours and no bombs are spawned giving that side temporary control over the system. Bonus LP is awarded for the victors.  The map will reflect who has control.  Holding 75% of the systems will grant you a bonus to LP gain, holding 100% of the systems will give you an even higher bonus.  Destroying the opposing faction player ships will grant LP and isk by size of ship, small, med, large.

Another scenario would apply to only 2 systems. With each side having 5 initial areas, across the bordered systems on one end of the line is each team’s main staging system. You would have to control all 4 of the middle systems for a dreadnaught to spawn in the final system.  Only when defeated will you gain control of the last area which then after 2-3 hours your dreadnaught will spawn.  This allows the other side to attack it to press on; the attackers will also get additional npc battleships as reinforcement to encourage constant flipping of control.  The bonuses are meant to just be temporary rewards for players who were recently active. This idea is more for casual players where systems are constantly being flipped and short term bonuses apply allowing for casual pvp with minimal organization.  You should be able to log in if you only have a short time for 30 mins to 2 hours and get right in on the action.

I’m sure it would need a lot of tweaking but that’s the general outline of the idea.

Any thoughts or complaints on how there could be issues feel free to leave a comment.