Ships & Modules

This is most certainly not true.

* Griefing null sec carebears, killing pimped ratting ships can be very profitable not to mention the satisfaction of ruining someone else's day

* The many forms of suicide ganking that render a net profit

I could go on, you get the idea.

Yeah - you're right about the first part and that was what I did for quite some time, although all they need to do is checking intel and warp to PoS shields.

Anyway - all they need to do is running away and that's it - things like raidable moon mining arrays would require alliances to keep their space populated and the deserted AFK empires would cease to be viable.

I'd disagree on the second part - Suicide ganking invloves very little personal skill, knowledge and quite the opposite of a well thought out T2/faction cruiser gang.

Anyway - I'll stop here since I don't want to derail this thread.

If the matrix looks like this :



I don't see how twiddling with stats on hulls and modules would come up with anything different. The tactics look inflexible, but maybe there's wiggle room in strategy? What sort of changes would it take to get several small groups engaging in several small fights a more optimal doctrine than zerg vs zerg?

Red vs Blue. Seriously.

You want a "fair" fight or a fight with certain parameters. Normally this means "forcing" the players in the sandbox to act a certain way, which goes against the principles of the sandbox, especially one in which winning trumps honorable fights. However, you can use the high-sec war-dec mechanics and general safety of high-sec to organize and setup deathmatch/arena/battlezone type fights. Inferno is going to track war losses, so high-sec war-decs are your best bet, IMO.

Since low and null-sec are mostly a free-for all, there's not a lot you can do to place restrictions on fights in those zones.

IME, the closest anyone has come to a system that allows everything from the zerg to small scale PvP while having sandbox aspects is Planetside. It worked because small organized units could make a difference even against a zerg and via special ops, probably due to the lack of item loss, the ability to quickly get into the action, and having strategic targets that could be taken (e.g. back-hacking, base draining, bases provided certain useful bonuses, etc..)

Eve, on the other hand, as others have pointed out, isn't really designed with small scale deathmatch pvp in mind. If you find yourself in a fair fight in low/null-sec in Eve, then you've done something wrong.

I have written some rather lengthy posts lately, trying to answer that question. Feel free to hit my name and revisit them. In short it can simply be said that the game would benefit from all scales being important, and people on all scales being able to interact with each other. That creates more action in a sandbox game built around action emerging. Wouldn't more people, on separate occasions and with their own identity, to pew be better? As opposed to simply more people on grid (or more people refusing to come on grid, because they can't match your numbers).



The biggest downside of the numbers game is that it creates an armsrace and stalemate. As large groups need to grow bigger while the pool of players do not, we will see less actors. Less actors on the scene mean less action. When interaction does not scale both up and down, encouraging differently sized gangs to interact with each other, you will also see less people even attempting to engage. "You brought 'a blob' we will not even try". Less incentive or action also mean that the larger entities keep growing, as there's a down-and-outage at the smaller scales.

It also have continued implications on the gameworld, where the "big war" nature of the few-actor game today have almost become nomadic. There's a war in a given region, and all interested groups will move there - emptying out all other regions, forcing more groups to congregate in one place, because that's "where the action is". That is not healthy for the game, since even if someone attempts to punch above his weight - he might not find action in any adjecent regions anyway, due to the clump-up. During the recent Drone-region wars, there was essentially nothing else happening anywhere else. No sov-upsets or good fights being had that would translate to noteworthy news on the community sites or entertaining movies. While everyone, from big to small, began to gravitate toward the east.

That's why solo- and small-gang PvP is important, because the scales need to be balanced, as that is what create emergent action, which is the beating heart of a sandbox MMO. Fights are bigger than ever, but they are fewer and further apart; and their impression on the world mean less. The CFC losing 500 Drakes and 300 Maelstroms mean essentially nothing. Interaction need to be meaningful.



That said, i don't agree with Wildcat about many of his nostalgic "reasons". Just the general notion that numbers is the largest imbalance in the game at present, and that it's unhealthy for the game because it does not create emergent interaction. It creates pre-organized interaction between few actors. The 0.0 political life is not much more emergent and vibrant than empire RvB, at present. The game feel smaller. That is bad for the game, for EVE.

Aside from that nano was nerfed without a counter-balance applied to numbers for over four years, most of what Wildcat bring up is mostly a result of the average experience and organisation in the game going up. Most of the other things he bring up are either contradicting each other ("nano was good, 100mn is bad") or he is pointing to the right changes but focusing on the wrong results (things like Hotdrops or more directed use of Logies, Recons or Bonuses had it's root in small-gang roaming entities).

I have to agree compleatly with Wildcat on this one, The problem lies with CCP just giving into the hordes of whiners when idiots cant figure out setups to deal with the smarter fitting that other players come up with.

So instead of just realising there are better pvp'ers out there and letting them dominate till corps relise their faults and creating setups to counter them, CCP just nerfs what the noobs cant deal with, making what used to be viable solo and small gang fits absolete.

I remeber when Burn eden used to camp R3 in providence with a sabre, rapier and 2-3 sensor damped ravens and would reek havoc on cva killing every thing that came through. You just dont see that anymore, the setups for ships now are generic and nothing new seems to come into play due to the nerfs that CCP have put in place.

I just hope the new improvements with inferno changes things up a little and lets the single man or wolf packs become a part of eve again and not just my blob is bigger i win which it is now.

Solo pvp has been "dead" for 9 years and counting.

All of your points can be adapted too except for Logi ships. I don't mind dying terribly while outnumbered, but I do find it not fun to have to fight outnumbered and not kill anything due to the enemies just blobbing with no skill logi. This simply means that I have to bypass a lot of enemy fleets and potential fun. There's a reason why multiple logi are banned in the alliance tournaments, it's lame and no fun.

Also posting in a 'shocked that DHB WIldcat turned into a bittervet' thread. The past wasn't nearly as fun as you make it out to be. 10km/s vagabonds and 7km/s battleships that aligned like intys were lame as hell. The hp buff was +50% to t1 hulls, not 2x. Old hp with current arty would be stupid.

Blobbing with no skill logi? Bring ECM or Damps.

It's not more fun for me when you kill one of my ships. I could care less whether you are having fun killing me. For me, fun is winning. Fun is beating the crap out of an outmatched adversary, who never should have tried to fight me or come into my space. Fun is using superior tactics to win a fight against the odds. Fun is playing Eve better than you.

It doesn't make it more fun for me if I kill your 10 man BC gang, but lose 10 of my own BCs in the process. Attrition warfare is stupid. Use every tool at your disposal to put the enemy on the horns of a dilemma and kill him.

I'm all for fighting with what you have available, but what you are asking for is the ability to zerg 10 ships into my 50 ships and come away with 10 kills. I'm looking to kill you and not take any losses if I can.

Multiple logistics ships are banned in alliance tournaments because it's an artificial environment with a hard cap on numbers. No one wants to see two fleets of Basilisks or Guardians sitting impotent on each side of the field.

Yeeeeeah ... And Iran is making nuclear technology just for peaceful purposes, north korea is a lush farmland where people are wealthy and fat , european economy is going strong and americans aint running around the globe amok grasping every bit of oil producing land .. but for peace and liberty for the people.


When you carry a case of whine bottles ... they are still whine bottles even if you deny it.

You claim EVE aint a sandbox ... Id disagree on that on this issue. If this wasent a sandbox then people would be restricted by some jackass artifical rule to be prey for those "Me,myself and I" soloplayers ... But since EVE is a sandbox the people can group up to find security and combat effectiveness beoynd their personal capabilities.

What is so wrong with that ? Unless your one of those egomaniac players that think this is a powerfantasy game. Gears of War III is that way ->

I agree with the points.

Another 2 issues are:
1) The greatly increased use of Assault ships and Faction frigates. If 3 inties came to tackle you, no real problem, just use your WarriorIIs, neuts, or just ignore their weak damage. If a Harpy, and Enyo and an inty comes to tackle you, they can tank your drones, cap boost past your neuts and do massive damage so you cannot ignore them.
This increased frigate power has reduced the ability of soloers and small gangs to engage and disengage quickly by quickly killng/neuting tackle.

2) T3 cruisers like the Tengu. If 1-2 of these turn up, it severely changes the power equation.

The impact of these 2 things may be small, but the cumulative impact of all these changes add up, making it harder and harder for solo and small gang.