Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

Sundown

Sorry about the lack of posts over the weekend.  It's been quite busy in Jesterland.  I'll be making up for it today, with at least four posts in a variety of topics (Guild Wars 2, KOTW, a picture of the week, and most importantly, a little Syndicate-related announcement).  So check back often today.

However, I thought I'd start today by highlighting an announcement which CCP has made, but which most of you may have missed because they've gone to great lengths to hide the announcement:

Starting in 20 hours as I write this, tier 5 faction warfare pushes will almost certainly be impossible until after the release of DUST 514.  If you intend to cash out of faction warfare, better do it now.

How do I know this?  The details are in the patch notes they've released this morning.  On their face, they're minor preparatory changes intended to ready Tranquility for the release of DUST 514 which looks increasingly like it's going to be out at the same time as Retribution or so.  You certainly won't see any overt announcement that tier 5 will be impossible tomorrow.

But this is :CCP: we're talking about.  They don't exactly always announce this sort of nerf, do they?

By all means, go read the patch notes, because they discuss a major change to EVE Online Faction Warfare.  Still, the tl;dr version of the patch notes is that DUST 514 is going to affect FW capture status of any system with one or more temperate planets in it.  For each temperate planet to a maximum of four, 12.5% of the system's capture status will be controlled by DUST 514.  So if a system has two temperate planets, 75% of the system's capture will be governed by traditional EVE Online means and 25% will be controlled by DUSTies.

But until DUST 514 is implemented, those systems that have temperate planets in them will have those planets set to the faction that "traditionally" owns them.  And while that's going to make some systems between 12.5% and 50% easier to capture, it's also going to make other systems ("traditionally" Amarr systems, for instance) between 12.5% and 50% harder.  If a system traditionally controlled by Amarr has four temperate planets in it, 50% of the capture status of that system will be controlled by DUST 514 and EVE players in the Minmatar faction won't be able to change it.  Tomorrow.

Here's the two key lines straight from the patch notes:

• Each temperate planet in Factional Warfare space contributes by 12.5% to the System Capture Status Victory Point pool, for a maximum of 50% Victory Points in Factional Warfare solar systems with four temperate planets.
• Until DUST514 is fully implemented on Tranquility, planetary districts have been set to belong to the NPC faction that traditionally owned the Factional Warfare solar system before players interference.

Now I haven't done the math here but it seems quite likely to me that there are enough temperate planets in the FW systems to make pushing some of those systems to tier 5 impossible... and if that's true, then it seems equally likely to me that tier 5 overall is also going to be equally impossible.

Until DUST 514 starts being capable of helping with those tier 5 pushes, that is.  When that will be, CCP has not announced.  What changes CCP will have made to the mechanic for even getting to tier 5 have also not been announced.  But CCP Soundwave has stated that he does want to change those mechanics to make FW less about pushes to tier 5 every two weeks and more about the tiers reflecting the real status of the faction wars at any given time.

Anyway, I could be reading all of this wrong.  But I thought I'd read between the lines for those of you who might have missed it.  One more time: if you intend to cash out of FW, I'd do it today.
Source: Sundown