My EVE

Ive got a active BS video coming soon.

ATM i only have nightmare footage

it died :(

EDIT:

After reading (skimming) through some of the posts here, herse my 2 cents on the whole solo thing.

ASB's:

I think ASB's are a great little addition for the solo pvper, they provide a strong enough boost in shield tank for you to engage way over the odds and get a good fight. Dont get me wrong i think they need to be limited to 1 per ship and have the capacity changed about.

It also helps bring about interesting new fits like the XL ASB vaga which i think is a cool little idea, mainly because people dont expect it.

Solo in general:

I personally think it is getting more and more hard to solo, especially in expensive stuff, i recently lost a 1.5b nightmare (nearly died twice before that). Because more and more people are playing eve, there is a bit of a "oh a faction ship on its own, call every man and his dog to come kill it" mentally which can be hard.

Nano'ing around in vagas, machs and Talos' and such is definatly a "safer" way to pvp, and while it is rewarding, there is just nothing like a good old tank and spank :)

This prolly makes no sense as im super tired but hey

edit 2:

Yea pretty much what wildcat said :) ECM drones are stupid right now :)

Im not gonna condone or suggest piracy but pretty much the only way to get free decent video editing software is by visiting a certain bay where pirates hang out, if you know what i mean :)

CCP fozzie posted in one of the ship balance threats for winter that he will change ECM, but not how.. so there is hope :)

This is a really good thread - lot of interesting ideas in here.

I thought of one thing that no one has mentioned - does it seem to anyone else like a huge portion of the current pvp is happening in high density / low organization environments? It seems like a lot of new/enthusiastic pvpers are spending a huge amount of time in faction warfare and rvb. These environments seem great in some ways, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is that they punish people who ship up. Fights deteriorate at a much faster rate because of the density which means you need to have extremely fast engagements (frigs/destroyers), and because organization is generally low, its hard to form fleets that take advantage of larger and more complex ships.

Just a thought.

Outside of that I'm fairly unsure about where I stand. Its certainly true that slow/large ships do not have the same access to small scale pvp that they used to because of a few things. Most importantly as Zach states, people are better now so you cant just sit on gates and expect people to fly their hacs and drakes into your scram/web, but also tier3 bc and some other things have pushed them out of the meta some. Still though, small scale pvp has become more dynamic in some ways and I think theres lots of room to be creative at a fitting level and a piloting level.

I would encourage anyone interested in this topic to listen to my podcast episode that I'll be posting on monday. We got to interview CCP Fozzie and he told us about an enormous amount of balance related topics.

Did you ask him what happened to highslot target painters? I just want torps to be good again

The day nano died, PVP lost 50% of its appeal.

People spent BILLIONS on ships that went too fast, but had zero tank. This led to 1 mistake instantly killing you.

Then again, im sure all the retards who thouht fitting slow ships with close range weapons where right, and im sure guys who used speed to dictate range where wrong. Makes sense.

Oh well... back to my blasterthron.

While I currently have adobe production premium, I started off with this: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Studio-Platinum-Production-Version/dp/B0051M6IPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347178743&sr=8-1&keywords=sony+vegas+movie+studio+hd+platinum+11 which was an awesome program and a steal at $40. There is a new version out if you want to drop $90, but I really like it as an entry level editing suite.

Going to be intentionally dramatic here, first because its called for, and second.. because its fun :-) But that over dramatization consist of current game realities & truths as I see them.

I think solo PvP needs to be looked at, with great care. It needs love, it needs it so bad, that from that super rare moment when it will actually get it, you will ask yourself how you could even think about soloing for the last X years, fighting against the current of the ocean, struggling so hard, when people from now on are going to have such a smoother sailing. You'll be gobsmacked to the point of wanting to quit for the unfairness of life.

And I don't mean it will be smoother sailing as in solo PvP would become easier, all I mean is that it shouldn't be such a ridiculous uphill climb, that almost seems like torture in some aspects. For example, the amount of time a pilot has to spend in order to get a fight he can actually engage without 100% certainty of loss, is sometimes is just unacceptable by any online gamer standards. Even the craziest ones without any real life commitments heh.. (and that says a lot).

Or by repeatedly being a test subject for the experiment of ECM drones dice rolling, where you doom as a solo pilot is already insured. In other words: being constantly slapped by CCP and MORE or less being told "stop soloing its not worth your time or effort" by Eve itself. The miserable state of ECM drones, and the sheer time span that it has been this way, is nothing less than an abhorrent disrespect and a complete lack of care from CCP to all solo PvPers as I see it.

I think many of us got so used to an impossible situation, that we no longer even realize how bad it is. Eve has become an inhospitable environment for Solo PvP! Such a statement imo is a huge downfall for any online game who claims to revolve around PvP.

Solo PvP is a pillar, if not THE pillar, of PvP. Even a game that points more towards big scale action, needs to have a vivid lively solo scene active, to be a complete and whole 'universe'. Legends needs to be roaming space. And true legends are born out of solo. If a PvP world lacks such living legends, it will not continue to thrive forever. It will not be apparent, and no statistic or economic plan will show it, but I assure you, that such a lack DEEPLY affects the overall collective morale, motivation, and enthusiasm to truly explore a virtual universe. It can't be explained in numbers and graphs. It can only be proven in one way - by giving solo PvP the love it needs. You'll then see the upclimb out of nowhere. And not necessarily towards solo PvP. The numbers as far as CCP concern, could be elsewhere and unrelated to solo. But it is the supernova of life that the solo pilots bring to the game, that light that shines far and beyond their corp or alliance, but throughout New Eden as a whole, the solo PvPer pilot's is the brightest light in the sandbox, and it pumps the blood of Eve... When you let it die, you're diluting Eve's truest most loyal blood with water!

Not meaning to rile up a bee hive, and not referring to the reasons of such, but only pointing out to show: Letting players such as Garmon and others from Hydra, to go inactive, by not caring enough to find a solutions (that can be easily found with some care), equals giving the finger to all solo PvPers in New Eden. It is not even that, but more like.. simply not caring enough to give anything, not even a finger, because that would be something- solo PvP gets nothing in Eve. It leads to an overall decrease of the true spirit in the world of New Eden. You may not believe it, but by removing (or giving 0 incentive to stay) to true legends, to pilots forged in the furnace of Solo PvP (a.k.a Hell), you remove major arteries of Eve. They don't directly affect your income, but they indirectly make your game... more than just a game.

Solo pilots have to adjust to the changes that are constantly introduced for the benefit of other aspects of Eve. Well, lets give ourselves some credit, it made us very, very strong. Eve being as real as it is, moreso than most or any other online worlds, the fear of loss is somehow connected inside us to the great fear of actual RL death. The connection is there. In other games you don't give a damn when dying, in Eve, you can panic, you sometimes sweat, your hands shake, then you explode. Solo PvPers are the fiercest most ferocious entities who sail the vacuum of space. We have transcended the last thing that makes an Eve pilot mortal... fear of death itself! Our mere glace delivers an impact that can send a shudder through a fleet of a 1000 sheep... or ships, take your pick. Translated into RL: I think a lifespan of a pilot, 5,6 years in Eve is already a very old 'soul' in the game. CCP amazingly manage to continuously ignore the state of solo PvP, to deny the love. Well, even the oldest creatures, myths and legends of old, give up eventually. Well done CCP!

I agree with Wildcat, such a panel would be an injection of true life into New Eden. Though in order to select such a comity. a certain level of understanding of the current situation is required, and judging from... so many facts, well, there's just 0 evidence that anyone in CCP knows or really cares. I'm looking forward to hearing that chat you had with CCP Fozzi, Kil2. But nothing CCP has done thus far would give me a spark of hope that anything that was said there is of any true weight.

A true gesture to solo PvPers is required first. For example, lets see ECM drones get seriously nerfed or removed. That would show they actually give half of a 0.1% of a damn. Anything other than a true gesture is empty talk. "ECM changes"... wow, thanks CCP! Now show us!

We got so very used to it, that when, or if, true changes take place, so much weight will be taken off our shoulders, we'll be flying so 'high' in space they'll have to add another dimension to the New Eden map.

I'd also like to add to the alliance level idea for a larger than titan ship but sorta same concept.

Create a ship that is worth 2 trillion isk . It's role would be this.

Stargate Portal - It can open a gate from venal to stain , Syndicate to Great wildlands * that sorta of idea / effect * . It can only be used Once per day. and fueled by planetary interactions , But make it as easy to kill as a carrier or freighter.

If you want full fledged alliance level PvP , that is it. Opening a backdoor to an enemies home and infiltrate. the possibilities are endless.

CCP should set up a fund to put all solo pvpers on 24/7 suicide watch