reddit formatting sucks

 Disclaimer: Ignoring questions/answers not related to FW

    Moderator: CCP Swift
    Participants: CCP Psych + CCP Aurora

    Q: How do you expect sieging a [frontline] system in the new FW system (question related to Citadel "changes")?
    Aurora: When a system is sieged now, both sides setup a citadel in that system and hurl ships at each other. When they die, they wind up back in that citadel and repeat. Alternatively you can go after the Citadel and wait for a war timer or take a standings hit (related to neutral citadels) which isn't very pleasant. The original proposal [from last stream] was to only allows pods to dock/undock if your militia does not have control over a system. Admittedly, this means that current siege mechanics would not work and we are discussing options. One such option from the community is that the pod limitation would only apply to non-frontline systems and there would be no limitation on frontline systems. This becomes a little complicated due to differences between Citadels and NPC stations which currently have different "docking rules". It's nice to have consistent rules applied which would be a change from the current NPC station lockout mechanic (i.e. you can dock in both Citadels and NPC stations in frontline systems). THIS IS STILL BEING DISCUSSED BUT FEEDBACK IS BEING HEARD.

    Q: There was a follow up question to the above, but Aurora's explanation was encompassing enough that it was answered.

    Side Note: Aurora admitted that Citadels were just kind of put on top of existing FW mechanics thereby undoing some of the original mechanics (docking access lockout), but that the existing siege mechanics that exist because of them aren't without merit/is pretty cool that sides can throw ships at eachother.

    Q: With FW being the vehicle for change in upcoming storytelling, why was FW chosen and not something else?
    Psych: Gave some pretext about recent material changes, nullsec ihub stuff, etc. FW hasn't received any changes in many years. There are currently many "systems" across all of New Eden and similar to the previous question, unifying systems is a bit of a [soft] goal (if possible). FW has players, war/combat, objective based gameplay, etc. Objective based gameplay is something that can be pushed into other systems (e.g. nullsec) and FW being the starting vehicle [since it already has it] just kind of made sense.

    Q: Will the learnings from FW be applied to other areas of space?
    All: Yes, it's a vehicle to learn how to bring changes to other [non-FW] parts of the game.

    Side Note: Entire system(s) may not be entirely based around PVP.

    Q: What is this propaganda system? Is it just spamming local/the forums? Something in game?
    Aurora: Tied into this Advantage system. Possibly a kind of "anchorable propaganda tower" which you can anchor or shoot. Thoughts like hacking sites that modify faction advantages (non-PVP explicit content).
    ^ There was a lot more in this answer, but I think that's the tl;dl

    Q: Minmatar/Gallente militia seem to have declined to participate in the current narrative (Authounen/Eugidi)? Is there going to be something to entice participation?
    Psych: Still in the introductory part of the current narrative arc. This question should be answered in the next few months/soon. Empires will have some goals that players can participate in [or not]. They will have the opportunity to get rewards/change things. (Psych being intentionally vague to avoid what can only be assumed to be spoilers).
    Aurora: There may be mechanical changes. Things may/may not enter the game depending on player choices.

    Q: Are you looking at resetting the FW map when things go live?
    Psych/Aurora: It's been brought up. There's apparently an answer but it may change. It'll likely be discussed more at the end of summer/towards the release. If there is a reset, it'll be driven through the arc/storyline and be announced well ahead of time so players are aware.

    Q: Is there any time where crazy ideas come up but you entertain to see the merits?
    Aurora/Psych: Yes, but we won't talk about one as an example because it's actually being done.

    Q: Will FW systems next to highsec systems next door to opposing faction systems be considered frontlines?
    Aurora: Yes, there won't be locking out an entire warzone. There's also talks about using the Advantage mechanics to try and balance the warzone back out (i.e. giving Advantage to one side to help them push back in). Reasoning: holding a lot of systems requires a lot of resources which may [scale] over time making it more difficult to hold a lot of systems.
    Swift (on behalf of Aurora at Fanfest): Don't really like the way that warzones flip back and forth based on essentially financial/payout mechanics.
    Aurora: We don't really want to force things. We're not a fan of completing an objective just to have your progress reset and a reward given (a very "game-ified" approach).
    Psych: Tier system getting deleted. Players on both sides of a frontline should have equal opportunities at wealth generation.

    Side Note: The original question asked above specifically mentioned "opposing faction high sec" but wasn't explicitly mentioned by Aurora in her answer. Not sure if that was intentional or not (i.e. are Amarr systems bordering Amarr high sec frontline systems?)

    Q: Current FW plexes respawn every 30 minutes? Are you changing respawn rates?
    Aurora: Yes, they will be altered. Vary possibly based on site type/state of frontline system. On "average" 15/30/45 mins for frontline/command/rearguard. Idea is to maintain a certain tempo, but frontline systems will respawn faster to make it feel like the systems don't run out of content [because plexes are all despawned for 30 minutes].

    Q: Clarification about Navy sites and Tech 2 ships?
    Aurora: T2 ships are higher than Navy/not allowed in Navy plexes. Bring a Scythe or something.

    Q: It's possible to overplex a system making it harder to capture
    Aurora: We want to decouple sites from downtime. Also that a system shouldn't necessarily be knocked out of ihub vulnerability by a single plex "you worked hard to make a system vulnerable, it should take a little more effort for the defenders to knock it out".

    Side Note: The question sounded [to me] more like it was framed around "defensive over plexing making systems hard to capture" (i.e. running timers down to a few seconds and leaving opposition with 40 minute capture times) but the answer was focused around offensive over plexing/ihub bashing at the end to flip a system.

    Q: Since there will be more granular complexes, will implants be considered?
    Aurora: Yes, this came up on the last stream. It'd be a technical addition, not planned for this year, but something they will probably discuss. They don't have a way of flagging "high level vs. low level" implants right now (e.g. letting someone in with a 1% fitting implant isn't as bad as a HG Assklap set).
    Swift: I used to fly offgrid-unprobeable linked Garmurs. I was part of the problem.

    Q: There are a lot of people that can't join FW because of standings (from missions/piracy/friendly fire)? Also some players worried about the permanent wardec mechanics. Thoughts?
    Aurora: There's a lot more that needs talking [internally] about related to this. We need to answer/define what kind of experience we want players that are joining FW to have. Some discussion about repairing standings as well. It will require some amount of time (e.g. 8 hours), but it can be done but mechanics will exist to avoid rapidly gaming the system.
    Swift: Being able to go to Jita is a big deal which can unfortunately shape militias.
    Aurora: Yes, we want there to be some kind of important choices, but remember that this is a game as well meant to be fun.