Amarr Opinion Poll: Removing Faction NPCs in Enemy Highsec?

On a thread regarding FW at the EVE forums, CCP Soundwave recently asked, “One thing we might be able to do very easily is remove the faction NPCs, letting you freely travel in other factions space. How would you guys feel about that change? I’ve always found it a bit sad that we’ve isolated FW in low-sec when it could be done on a much larger scale.”

What is your opinion on removing faction NPC’s in enemy highsec?  

 

 

“I would love the tears of carebears and ♥ the faction loot.” – Predator Elite, Amarr

“I’m -9.5… so for the most part it would not effect me either way. However I think it would be a bad thing because the Navies represent a form of protection within your faction’s high-sec areas. As much as I would love the additional targets, noobies need a place to go when they’ve been getting stomped in the low-sec warzone. And to be honest expanding an already bare warzone would just make it worse.” – Vadeim Rizen, Amarr

“I would love that change. There are currently a total of 11,047 war targets for my militia. Of those 11,000 war targets, 5,000 are in minmatar militia, Amarr’s closest enemy. Of those 5,000 there are maybe, and I say maybe, about 200-300 pilots that actually engage in PVP (by choice). That 200-300 estimate includes people running 2 or more characters. The rest are either running FW missions with stealth bombers, or hiding in hisec.

After 2 years of faction warfare, I’d like to see more of the enemy militia. And by see them, I mean see them explode. If the intent was to slowly turn militia members to piracy because of lack of targets, don’t change a thing. But if your intent was to get the Amarr and Minmatar to fight each other, open up the war zone and stop having npcs interfere with our pvp.

Now I’m sure you are going to have some people scream bloody murder at this. Why? Probably not for the reasons they say. People don’t want to open up hisec because they want to protect their supply chain. They want to fight their battles when and where they want to, but still feel safe and cozy every time they jump into a 0.5 system or up. Yes, the occasional hisec gank happens, but only when the risk/reward ratio is extremely favorable.

Opening up hisec would also provide wardec access to alt corps that are supplying the enemy militia. Yes, we can currently wardec. No, we cannot execute it properly if every fight is at a huge disadvantage.

At this point most militia pilots are living in a small fishbowl. It’s time to build us something larger before we decide jumping out is a better alternative.

PS (off-topic): Fix plexing. Think… incursions. Think… rewards. Think… why tf would people do this if they weren’t being forced to. Even most of the RP community doesn’t give a shit anymore. When that happens, you know you have failed.” -SaB0TaG3, Amarr

“Well… the thing about it is, my sec status wouldn’t allow me to go into high sec anyways, but… if I did have better sec status, I think it would be a great addition. Anything to get more fights or ganks. The range of our fleets is quite small, we need more targets and more systems to find those targets. Hope this helps :)” – Tashi Yurka, Amarr

“Hell to the yes.

I’ve been doing ops in high sec anyway and had to use a stupidly tanked BS to kill some guys in just 0.5 sec, above is a nightmare and for no good reason! Yes, yes Yes!” – Muad’dib, Amarr

“I think it would just increase high sec ganks. The vast majority of the PVPers would remain in lowsec. Also I could see new people to FW having a vary hard time. If you are in noob FW corp or with out back up you could be perma camped in high sec.” -Almity, Amarr

“After a bit of thought I think that at this time any change that upsets things a bit – and this definitely would – and opens more options for combat is good. Removal of NPC’s would also remove more dead weight from the militia’s. Of course people like Loren Gallen, Jalmon or Bobamelius Two will have to collect unemployment ;)” – First General, Amarr

“I don’t think this would have any positive effects at all, it would just force more people out of FW. We have to promote fight in low sec and not move it to high sec. Most serious FW players have -10 to hostile milita so the navys would just shoot us anyway, also it would just promote griefing and would just totally destory one side when one has overwhelming force. In my opinion, high sec should have some security for people that lost much to regain strengh without leaving milita.

But, they definaly should bring the navys in line and give them all the same EWAR and omni dmg.” – Nephilim Xeno, Amarr

“It wouldn’t change anything. Just means high-sec whinebears aren’t safe, and no one cares about high-sec whinebears.” – Mystical Might, Amarr

“It’s my opinion that removing faction NPC’s from highsec is a bad idea for FW. Just on the RP side of things, am I to believe that the Amarr Empire or the Caldari State (and those other 2 factions of no consequence) do not have the military might or incentive to keep their “High security” space secure, from foreign invaders of the opposing militas and enemies in general?

Sounds a bit strange.

Incursions into enemy militia highsec space should also be something of a challenge, a risky task with great rewards if successful, not something anyone in his t1 fitted omen should be able to do.

PVP in lowsec is intriguing, keeps it exciting:
escalations in terms of capital warfare, pirates, unknown neutral parties, gcc, black ops .. etc etc. Removing a big chunk of pvp’ers of FW to highsec would just make it so much worse for all of us .. less targets, less pew.

Highsec pvp is just so …. meh.

It would also make life terrible for those new to FW (and just getting their toes wet in pvp) when they can’t even set up a base of operations without getting ganked by gang X, Z and Y on this and that tradehub pipe.

It’s bound to happen, squads of gatecampers will camp the popular tradehub routes killing noobs while most of the serious FW players and veterans don’t really give a damn, staying in lowsec and using neutral alts to do their supply runs with.

I will be staying in lowsec, I hope the Navy stays in highsec.” – Caldari One, Amarr

“I feel that the removal of the faction NPC’s from highsec is a mistake.

While I’ve seen the arguement for opening up hi-sec “to create more targets”, I think that is disregarding the work that’s already gone on in hi-sec since the beginning, and also doesn’t actually add any additional targets.

As it is now, many wartargets will mine, mission-run, or haul things around their hi-sec with relative confidence of their safety, but only because the Navy is there. Removing those NPC’s will remove the will to do these things on wartarget characters; these activites instead would shift to NPC accounts or neutral corporations therefore reducing targets.

Some may argue that the enemy roaming gangs in hi-sec are the targets and should be the focus. Well, the truth is that Amarr Empire is 3-5x larger than the others – try hunting a roaming gang through 100+ systems while still managing to focus on whatever’s going on where the FW complexes are. In addition, what kind of targets are these going to be? Solo or small gangs that will only engage when odds are in their favor. People familiar with hi-sec style war-decs force people to camp stations or log-off. This isn’t particularly fun, and not something I want to be participating in.

Right now it’s already possible to engage in enemy hi-sec, you just have to be very quick, large, or organized. Why can’t people just learn these tactics instead of asking for hi-sec warfare similar to what you can already get if you camp Amarr EFA or Rens BTB with your hi-sec gank corp?

What really needs to be addressed is the imbalance of the NPC’s. Removing them is the cheap and easy route out and shouldn’t be done. Make the NPC’s fair and balanced, and give players a reason to get interested in FW again. Make Complexes matter, balance missions so theyre no soloable in a stealth bomber. Make people put their necks out there for the FW missions and give tangible results from system occupancy.” – Eran Mintor, Amarr