It was less than a month ago that the Gallente Militia had conquered all the Gallente-Caldari warzone and forced the Caldari militia into high sec bases. Now, the Caldari are dominating the plexing war and rear stronghold of Heydieles has fallen. What was once Glorious Green has turned into majority Bombastic Blue.
Why? Have the Caldari suddenly found new vigor? Have the Gallente suffered a leadership crisis?
I’m going to speculate on why I think this is happening because what else are blogs for? I think it comes down to a small number of minor factors for the recent pendulum swings.
1) Evoke. The famous null sec alliance has joined the Caldari militia in January and the discipline and coordination of null sec fleets suddenly made itself felt against the more casual Gallente fleets. This bolstered the Caldari euro timezone considerably and gave the Gallente militia less flexibility to operate freely.
2) Meta Changes. With pilots just coming to grasp on what the revamped cruisers, destroyers, and frigates can do, there is a lot of uncertainty in the warzone about what works and what doesn’t. This experimentation can lead to more volatility in military operations.
3) Psychology. Quite simply, its easier to log in and join the fight when your side is winning. Defending the gains is less exciting and with fewer people logging in and organizing fleets, the enemy can gain ground and momentum for their own side’s enthusiasm.
4) Plexing is harder… thus easier. Come again? The plexing changes of Inferno 1.1 or whatever it was changed the plexes so that warp ins were right on the button (and fewer NPCs in the plexes) so that plex farming was a more dangerous occupation. This means that each side lost a lot of plex farmers only in the miltia for ISK. Thus pilots who are plexing for occupation control don’t have to compete with the other side’s plex farmers, thus making their plexing efforts count more in comparison. In a nutshell, plexing for conquering purposes is more effective and gains made in out of the way systems are not rolled back by the enemy farmers and thus don’t have to be re-plexed. Thus plexing is easier and more effective, which when coupled with (3) leads to more momentum.
5) Burnout. A lot of Gallente FCs put in a lot of hours leading fleets to conquer the warzone and maintain momentum. Once accomplished, they took a deserved break allowing the angered Caldari militia to strike and gain ground.
6) Lack of ownership. This is a big one. Its hard to motivate people to defend systems once they move any of their assets out of the way. Yes, militia pilots can invest in the systems and get minor improvements to number of slots and such in the stations, but their is no rallying “protect the
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Do I think the pendulum will swing in favour of Gallente again? Do I think Caldari will continue on to conquer all the warzone in reprisal for the enemy’s earlier success? Its hard to say at this point as there are a few big Gallente militia corps that would not like to see Nennamailia or Vlillier fall, but then I doubted Heydieles would ever fall and its gone now.
Time will tell. Until then, I’ll see you Caldari scum in space. 
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All of this has happened before and it will all happen again.
Time flows like a river and history repeats.
Add Brosef's to #1, EVOKE. That is another 1000 man alliance that recently joined the Caldari side. Otherwise, I think you are correct in that its a combination of what you described.
lol. 1000 on the paper
I am so sick and tired of people talking about faction warefare. If you don't live in null and are not in Goons you are pathetic.
and if you do you are as well
You have a lot riding on other people believing that, don't you?
If you guys are going to neg rep my comments you can at least try to show some intelligence and explain why?
Sorry I don't want to have to wear a plunger on my head for losing ships.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”
- Albert Einstein
goon tears
There is also DUST 514 to think about. Once DUST 514 came to TQ all the systems that were originally Caldari had planets owned by Caldari still, and so became easier to take back.
Honestly, Gallente went all out and conquered everything. Then they stopped caring. Call it apathy or fatigue if you want. Honestly, that's the fw cycle. One side wins, then apathy sets in, and another side starts winning.
I really think FW will be a cycle of warzone control from here on out. I don't believe that there will ever be a "doomsday" scenario where one faction or pair of factions is totally dominate. Regaining ground is too easy, defending a wide warzone too difficult to result in that. And inertia has a LOT to do with control. When Gallente were steamrolling Caldari, they had momentum, and the Caldari not so much… so it went to Gallente. However, the moment the Galle captured all systems, they lost the initiative, because where else could they go? So Caldari begin to push back, and as they did so, the got momentum.
This is the good thing about the current mechanic. I think it will leave us with a constant level of fluctuation in the warzone, without ever letting one side all out "win" forever, or even for long.
I know, saying that CCP did something right in a forum comment is akin to being sacrilegious (OMG EVE IS A HORRIBLE GAME), but I really think they have hit a good balance in FW.
im in gallente in one of the top corps 2 its not burn out there nt taking real key systems. we only went for total warzone control to prove a point. defending is no fun chasing claoky stabbed farmers around all day its alot better on attack.
the farmers switch sides to whatever has the most systems there able to farm and the rest of there militia just knock over the hub. granted evoke did make a small impact but fleet doctrines please, they fly thrashers and mallers thats it…..
fw mechanincs should be applied to 0.0. drop sbu and when sbu's are online plex-es should start appearing.
just imagine having fleets of frigs to conquer a plex in order to take a sistem, having their own frig vs frig fight while the big boys are potentially fighting outside the acceleration gate or in another plex
Its all about the farm. Gallente is losing because Amarr is the only t3 faction right now… so all the farmers join amarr and plex gallente space, because there are so many more systems in the north.
tldr faction warfare has nothing to do with fighting and everything to do with the same ole grind of nullsec sov
nullbro is mad that he doesn't get gfs while fwnoobs do.
1. 75% of it all right there
2. not at all
3. maybe 1%
4. not at all
5. the remaining 24% right there. SOTF, DARK, and QCATS all wandered off to find newer avenues of excitement
6. not at all
Wowo so many trolling
Your ideas are interesting and while I believe nul numbers and discipline (lol) may play a roll, the only points worth posting about are 4 and maybe 6.
Capture the point style is inherently cyclical, difficulties mostly coming from point 6 reasons. Without the farmers backing the front line rprs it comes down to skill (read: sheer numbers)
Frogs only got all the systems with CCP's ninja patch and nothing will change the fact that CCP directly interfered in ongoing war with sovereignty mechanic change before announced shcedule. We will never forget this travesty and will keep reminding about it for years to come.
so u had to posr 3 times with diff names u douche
STFU Damar! U guys got owned. Look at the battle reports. And we'll just see if Squids can keep it together to take and hold so many systems. The cap fights haven't even began. Wait until Heyd gets taken back to prove a point. I will see you there when it's vuln.
We got owned but you still lost Heyd. Makes perfect sense. Or perhaps this is the general attitude of your militia then as Alucard posted "when u take a home system like nisuwa or nenna then start crowing all u took was heyd the militia nubtards home noone elses ahahahahaha…"
Glad you appreciate your militia members.
No. I won't deny Heyd was a big take. You guys definitely have momentum, like a damn freight train it seems. But we have a great team and most of us fly together like a zoo of corps. No one can rally like Galmil. I for one am glad the farmers leave, and most of the def plexers, now, as Calmil did then, are getting close to nothing for their dedication. The good fights will come, but we'll fight tooth and nail for our homes. See you on the bloody hills, Damar.
There are 5 gallente guys sitting in EHA/OICX holding every day agains the caldaris .. they are my heros .. and I'm caldari.
whos this madafackars?never saw them
Love speculation. Got the evoke thing right. Failed the rest. CCp's ninja patch permited frogs to have the victory in the war without firing a single round. The "burnout" factor doesn't even apply. Caldari will devour gallente again like it was supose to be. Well time to cash those lp's before prices go down
>CCp's ninja patch permited frogs to have the victory in the war without firing a single round
that is not true at all. Happy Endings was being lolroflstomped every day before and after the patch, and without them to support plexxers nothing was going to happen for the Caldari.
>The "burnout" factor doesn't even apply.
lol ok bro, thanks for the deep insight
damar post with ur real name asshat we know its u
You are so terribly wrong about almost everything.
1) Evoke are a non-factor for 5 days a week. Form up against them and they flee. Only on weekends can they field a superior force.
They did bring more plex farmers to the "war". Will coment later on this.
2) We adopted the new cruiser/destroyers as soon as the patch hit. In fact cruiser/dessie fleets weren't a rare thing before the patch. We adjusted our doctrines to the changes. With succes.
3) This might be a factor I admit, especially in the general militia, outside the core groups. Which translates in less padding in open fleets. Some core corps might also be affected by this with them in translates in moving out of the zone and adopting the classic "we didn't want that anyway".
4) This is so far from reality. I can't imagine how a player with this little insight feels he can make an article about faction warfare.
The latest changes reduced the number of NPCs in plexes to just one. This makes it so you can plex with a double stabbed, cloaked frigate without any problem. Result: the number of pure farmers without interest in the faction warfare has reached the levels of this summer, when you could speed tank plexes.
Farmers have (again) become the major drive in sovereignty changes. Simple proof for this can be found in the fact that farmers contest systems faster than pvp groups can flip them. They are a plague that you cannot fight. You cannot keep 50-70 systems clear of cloaky stabbed farmers. Not if you play to have fun rather than go on a holy crusade against them.
Yes, Heyd and OMS were plexed and taken by what you could call a pvp group (Hi Damar o/) but in that time farmers got 15+ systems to vulnerable.
5) Yes and no. Some of the important FCs of this falls push seem to have gone inactive. However others took their place.
You do not need FCs and fleets if you're not getting fights. This is the case in over 90% of the systems. Heyd is again the exeption. What happened there was lack of caring and fleets passing by, not getting a fight and moving on again rather than stay an deny the enemy the plexes.
6) Most of the FW space is indeed unowned. Even Heyd had hardly any residents left.
The true home systems are hardly in the firing lane yet.