MMORPG.com EVE Online Correspondent Andrew Wallace writes this look at some of the down sides to EVE online's factional warfare system and what can be done to fix it.

A few weeks ago, I wussed out of becoming a pirate again and instead decided to get involved with some Factional Warfare and re-enlist with the Caldari Militia. Factional Warfare arrived with the Empyrean Age expansion last June, and pitted EVE's four main empires against each other in a two sided conflict to claim areas of low security space. My old corp dove straight in at launch but, after the initial chaos we, like so many others, got a bit bored and moved on. Anyway, I signed up again; ready to smash some Gallente skulls, and maybe do a bit of low sec exploration to keep the ISK rolling in. Then the Caldari won the war.

Well, ok, you can't win the war- it's designed to be an ongoing territorial struggle -but they were the first militia to seize all of the systems owned by their racial enemies, the Gallente. They didn't win anything except for a medal, and bragging rights - the forums were almost instantly engulfed in the arguments that broke out over the supposed victory, with the most popular point of contention being that the Caldari only captured complexes and avoided straight fights, while the Gallente were far too manly to be bothered to go after complexes, blah blah blah. As usual, this wasn't anything more than the usual hysterical, "my gang is harder than your gang," nonsense that's been going on since the war started.

Read Factional Warfare Issues

Actually there is a dev blog saying in August is coming a patch that will introduce some LP rewards for FW.

FW plexing is boring and tedious, with the only current rewards are picking up the tags and module drops from the NPC wrecks, and salvaging them. Most people don't do this though.

Unfortunately i dont see LP as being a real solution, Eve is a world where player actions affect the whole cluster, the lack of that ability to affect the cluster in FW leaves players missing something. LP is fine, FW needed some reward for the people taking part, but the inability of FW to affect the cold war between the factions leaves it lacking in my opinion.

Originally posted by itpaladin

Actually there is a dev blog saying in August is coming a patch that will introduce some LP rewards for FW.

There is indeed. I sent this article off just before that blog appeared, so I'll be writing about the contents for my next article.

As one of those pilots in a faction RP alliance, Curatores Veritatis Alliance, that are well known as being strongly allied to the Amarrian Empire there are a whole raft of problems regarding Faction Warfare.

Alliances were "officially" excluded because the inclusion of a single motivated alliance, such as ourselves, with all our huge resources would radically change the balance of power and potentially sideline people who wanted to fight for the faction but were an individual or a small corp. The reality is that it would also give that alliance a way to project its power to any area where its opponents could be found and most of those alliances probably wouldn't care about the roleplaying element at all it would simply be a way to extend their ability to strike at new targets.

Instead, we and other alliances such as Electus Matari on the Minmatar side had members or corps who joined the struggle or helped by providing finances and materials - despite more recent problems we still maintain strong ties to certain corps within the Amarrian faction.

For us the main flaw with Faction Warfare was readily apparent and eventually came to a head when we had to step back from our material support of the whole Faction to just specific more ethical corps. We are a fiercely pro Amarrian and anti-pirate alliance that maintains our region of 0.0 space (Providence) as Not Red Don't Shoot - its an area where thousands of players get to experience 0.0 life for the first time in relative security no matter whether they are an individual, small corp or even an alliance and developing/settling it as an extension of the Amarrian Empire is our primary goal. As part of that we and our allied alliances have planted a total of thirty eight outposts and alliances/corps amounting to over 10,000 individuals now base themselves in our area. Our intel channel alone regularly includes over 1,000 online pilots and putting it in perspective the total online player base is usually 35-50,000.

Mission statement:

The Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA), is an alliance based in Providence and lower Domain. The alliance is loyal to the Amarr Empire, with their mission to provide security to the area of Domain that the Amarr Navy and CONCORD cannot, as well as extending the Empire into Providence.

So why did I divert to that background to explain our core motivations?

Well for us the main problem with faction warfare is that there is no way to control membership, exclude spies, or in fact maintain security. Any individual in game can join a faction very easily with the current mechanics. A standard tactic for any pirate was to join the Amarrian faction and then go pirating - quite a few of them in our own area that we were developing for the Amarrian Empire!!!! In fact corporations have joined faction warfare for no other reason than to attack that factions members - lunacy at its best.

The problem with pirate factions and indeed rewards is that it sounds great except it essentially just turns them into another npc corp - another way for people just to grind an income - rather than a way you can support your faction by pvp. Just a few seconds thought easily dictates how you can grind kills for LP's most effectively and never ever ever come near an unfriendly ship. Mmmh perhaps we could have people join opposite sides and kill each other repeatedly - yay easy and you can't stop us as anyone can join and you can't police our activity - we won't in anyway help the faction achieve its goals but we will make a lot of isk!

Unless you find a way to  balance that (sorry CCP as much as I love Eve Online and what you've created you don't have a great track record here) then it will just become the latest FOTM income source for isk farmers.

Anyway enough of my rant as a deeply disappointed FW person!

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Anyone who wants to read about our Allance or its goals/history the main links are as follows:

http://www.cva-eve.org/

http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Curatores_Veritatis_Alliance_(Player_alliance)

Alternatively the next issue of EON has a long article on us or you can get another perspective by talking to the Minmatar roleplaying factions such as Electus Matari (I'd link your forums if I could but no idea where they are or if you have a public element).

Well beyond the more serious issues brought out in posts here, Factional Warfare is definitely played out. It was fun and exciting at first, but once you realized that there were no real benefits/consequences for all the hard work you're doing, it becomes pointless, and not as fun.

I will say though, it is a decent way for new players to get their feet wet in PvP. Beyond that, eh.

EDIT: And I forgot to say that I don't think LP rewards will by any means bridge that gap. I think it will entice a few new people here and there to try again, and it will give the hardcore militia fanbois some goodies for the sweat&blood, but it won't really fix the issue at hand.

if they figured out a real risk vs reward system like in null sec type stuff- that would rawk. Faction warfare has been tried by every PvE game, they should look at those systems for ideas as what NOT  to do.