Wasteland Diaries: The battle of Haietta

There are new PvP objectives in Fallen Earth. Well, the objectives are the same, but the means of achieving those objectives are now different. Conflict towns remain largely unchanged, but the taking and holding of one is now dramatically different because of a few subtle changes. No longer are the non-timed towns captured by doing repeatable missions. Timed conflict towns haven't changed at all. But the other towns had a silly mechanic: having the PvPers do PvE missions to control a town. The attackers and defenders would roam about doing missions and possibly run into one another and fight. More often than not, there was little fighting.

The new system concentrates the action on a certain point -- actually, three points. The Faction Control Points (FCPs) are placed near or in the town. They are now the key to controlling the town. Of course you can still do it the old-fashioned way, but it's much quicker to control all three points at once. Controlling all three points will give the controlling faction a steady stream of faction points toward its cause. Each tower held contributes 2500 points to the controlling faction about every five minutes.If you've ever done the missions in a conflict town, you know this is a much faster method. PvP is rampant in Fallen Earth right now. Well, in Haietta, it is. After the cut, I'll give a first-hand account of what I've seen on the front lines.

The fighting in Haietta has been practically non-stop ever since Wolves of War decided to take it and hold it. As a member of Exile, I was the only non-Wolf in the force that attacked. We struck the first tower; it was Traveler-controlled. There was an immediate response by a couple of Travelers from the Saints. We knew it was just a matter of time before a full attack was mounted, so we quickly captured the other two towers for the Vistas. I'm an Enforcer, so my kind doesn't typically consort with Vistas, but since most of the Travelers whom we expected to face would be members of the Saints (a long-time rival of Exile), I would fight alongside the Vistas.

The first hour saw a few small skirmishes, and we split ourselves up to keep the three towers secure at all times. We were driven out by larger, more concentrated forces and decided to choose a single tower to be our base of operations. From this tower we could respond to any of the alarms that the guards would raise. The tower was also near the garage and the Traveler camp, and we could watch both from it. After sending the entire group to any and all alarms, we decided to send scouts instead and started doing regular patrols. This kept us from chasing our tails all night and allowed us to be able to bring our maximum firepower to bear quickly.

The fighting continued into the night, with several full assaults on our positions. It was nice, for a change, to employ sniper rifles effectively in Fallen Earth from the tops of the towers. Fighting inside the towers is an exercise in futility, however. Trying to maneuver and attack inside such a small space when it is packed full of combatants is the epitome of chaos. The fights on the rooftops were nearly as chaotic, but once someone was taking vast amounts of damage, he would jump off. Most of the battles finished up in the blood-soaked grass at the foot of the tower. The towers are quite defensible when employing proper tactics.

The town was owned by the Vistas before morning. We even went as far as to upgrade the merchants and the guards. But it was all for naught, because the following day, it was back in the Travelers' hands. The next night we began taking the towers again, though this time we were more interested in fighting the Saints than capturing anything. And they brought a fight.

One night we had driven the Travelers from the town and they regrouped at the Traveler camp in Haietta. A couple of Techs from Orion joined their ranks to fight against the Vistas. They were outnumbered but took refuge in the heavily guarded camp. We then started to engage them at long range with rifles and rocket launchers. We used our cars as cover and advanced slowly by moving our bullet-proof barricade up a few meters at a time. Once we were in range to rush the camp, we did. We were slaughtered. Lesson learned, we then tried a more castle-siege strategy and waited for them to come out. They eventually did, and we pounced. The battle was over, and both sides left Haietta for another night.

There were fights every night since the battle kicked off, but with six different warring factions in Fallen Earth, the lines on the battlefield aren't always clearly drawn. On one particular night after the Saints had left and the Wolves still held the town, Exile and Orion gathered a force to try to take a few towers. I joined them. After a few failed attacks, we called off the offensive and gave both sides a needed break. Some of the Vistas had been fighting for 20 hours straight. I went from fighting against Travelers with the Vistas to fighting against Vistas with the Techs. I was tired too. The Fallen Earth faction wheel can take a lot out of you.

Another night the Travelers had complete control of Haietta. The Vistas were employing guerrilla tactics to harass the occupiers but not really gaining any ground. I thought this would be a good opportunity to mount an attack with my Tech allies from Exile and Orion. We gathered our forces and attacked, hoping to catch the Saints off-balanced by the Vistas harassment. We had no such luck, except for one fight when we happened to hit them at the same time. It ended up being a three-way blood-bath, and the fighting continued at our camps just outside the cloner.

There has been more PvP in this past week in Fallen Earth than I can remember. I have been working on the craftable storage slots and keeping my food, drinks, medicine and ammo stocked during the down-times. Considering that only subtle changes have been made to the game, I'm happy with the outcome.

Fallen Earth PvP seems to be revitalized for the moment. A lot of it is thanks, in part, to the new Death Toll rewards in open-world PvP. Most of the regular PvP crowd is out in Haietta every night, duking it out over some tiny town in the Kaibab Forest. I don't think too many of us actually care who runs the town; we are mostly just there to fight. We will continue to fight, so feel free to join in. Kill some heathens in the name of your chosen faction. Join forces with the brave warriors from the Vista, Tech and Traveler factions. Or fight for your faction. There haven't been too many Enforcer, CHOTA or Lightbearer presences as of yet. But I welcome you to add to the chaos of the Haietta wars, or I'll just catch you here next week.

Ed Marshall has been playing Fallen Earth since beta and leads the KAOS clan. Wasteland Diaries is his weekly column that covers all aspects of Fallen Earth: PvE, RP and PvP. To contact Ed, send an email to edward@massively.com, find him on the official forums as Casey Royer, or hunt him down in the wastelands as Nufan, Original, Death Incarnate, and Knuckles Mcsquee.