Warfare & Tactics

Just sharing some observations I've seen in the evolution of many (succesfull) PvP corps in EVE. Of course, some corps manage to remain in a certain phase for a long time, or experience a big shake-up that many change their position, but for most remaining in Phase 2 (which is arguably the most fun) is quite hard.

Phase 1 - Learning the ropes
In this phase, most pilots in the corp are just starting to learn PvP. They take risks, do foolish things and laugh about their own antics. Every loss is a learning experience and fits, tactics and results are eagerly shared between members. Getting as many fights as possible and affordable is the major objective. Losing doesn't matter that much as long as fun has been had.

Typical characteristics
- Corp members fly affordable ships
- Corp members aren't afraid to experiment with fittings
- Corp members take large risks in PvP
- Others pilots ridicule them for doing foolish or noobish things
- New applicants are judged on their enthusiasm for PvP and the energy they bring to the corp
- Leadership is ad-hoc and not hugely important
- Capitals are irrelevant

Phase 2 - Glory Days
All the risks taken and the culture of sharing and encouragement results in a huge learning curve. Many of the pilots are actually becoming quite skillfull at PvP and their antics get increased respect from their peers. The pilots who discover PvP is not their things have dropped off. The corps reputation grows and they find that many other pilots putting in application to join their corp.

Typical characteristics
- Getting many kills becomes a major goal for many corp members.
- Respect is gained from making lots of impressive kills
- Losses are still relatively unimportant as long as people can afford them.
- Ship and fits become more standardized as newer corp members follow the guidance from the older veterans
- Corp management puts more burden on the regulars, as the corp expands into POSses, Jump Freighters etc.
- Corp grows as many new pilots apply
- Leadership becomes formalized, and clear leaders and followers emerge
- Other pilots speak of them with respect
- Corp members start to dabble in capitals

Phase 3 - Reputation First
At this stage, the corp members are starting to believe their own reputation: that they are truly elite. The focus of the PvP activities shifts: getting many good fights becomes less important while avoiding embarrassing losses becomes the new unofficial corp goal. Because each loss is both a reminder that the pilots aren't as elite as they think they are and is potentially damaging for PR when it appears on the killboard. The desire to appear competent and professional trumps considerations such as 'fun'.

Typical characteristics
- Maintaing positive kill:loss ratios and similar killboard statistics becomes a major corp goal.
- New applicants that have poor killboards stats are rejected out of hand or put into 'training corps' or corp becomes 'invite only'.
- Corp members who suffer embarassing losses are openly critized, ridiculed and threatened to be kicked.
- Corp members increasingly using isk to gain an advantage, either trought expensive implants, faction mods, drugs or OGB's.
- Corp members increasingly use meta-game tactics (spy alts, logon traps) to gain an advantage.
- Corp members take less and less risk in PvP engagements and learning drops off sharply.
- Other pilots speak about them with a mixture of fear and derision.
- A large distance exists between the old-boys-network of veteran corp leaders and newer members.
- Members do not fly anymore to get great kills, they fly to avoid embarassing losses.
- Capital ownership and deployment is considered important to the corp.
- Creativity is punished. Fly the corp approved fits or don't fly at all.

Phase 4 - Degeneration
Corp members start to log in less and less often, as the time required to find that elusive 'gf' becomes longer and longer. Corp members complain that their enemies hardly provide them with 'gfs' anymore, conveniently ignoring that the combination of their reputation and the lack of willingness to take losses has caused this situation. Corp members become inactive or start looking for other opportunities. Infighting erupts between veterans and newer members. Most corp members know that the corp is not about fun 'gfs' anymore but don't really know how to get back to that time again. Some people create new alts and go off PvPing elsewhere without the burden imposed by their current corp

Typical characteristics
- Corp members log in less regularly
- Applications drop off, as steep requirements are still in place, but no one really wants to bother with checking up on newer players
- Corp management stagnates, as really no one wants to bother with it for little to no reward
- Corp members spent more time waiting for 'gfs' to happen than actually going out their to create 'gfs'
- CEO and corp leaders are absent or don't provide direction or inspiration for long periods
- Killboard stats drop off sharply, foremost in quantity, but also in quality
- Some corp members start to 'do their own thing' without sharing their activities with other corp members
- Loss avoidance is still hugely important, but fewer people care to patrol members

As far as I'm aware, either the corp falls apart, or a new leadership rejuvenates the corp. But its not always visible what happens at this stage, so simply lacking data.

I personally think all the mess for a corp start with introducing and enforcing fleet doctrines. Before fleet doctrines people have fun in experimenting and people usually keep costs low because they know that an experiment might go wrong too.

Once the corp introduces and successfully enforces a fleet doctrine then following things happen:

1. They get very successful at the beginning, because a well organized fleet is much more powerful than any "Kitchen Sink Fleet".
2. Experiments are forbitten, because people start to use more expensive stuff since they are at lower risk to lose. If someone does experiments and this results in a loss he will get heavily insulted.
3. At the end they end up as the usual blob which don't get many kills because everybody is avoiding the 5-Repper, 3-Falcon and what else supported fleet.
4. It takes longer and longer to assemble the fleet and people start to get bored because of lacking of good fights.

This is the reason why I am so happy that T.R.I.A.D. never managed to establish their fleet doctrines
We are still running in the adhoc Kitchen Sink Fleets and it makes in my opinion much much more fun.

i am not sure about phase 3. reasons may not be always same than you listed here.

Some people does not find it funny to play with noobs anymore, they want that their fleet members know what they are doing.

Personally i do not find pvp even funny anymore, no matter how good are fleet members.

EVE is weird game, people say that losing ships is mandatory to have fun, but i have never felt that fight where i lose ship by my own fault has been fun. There has sure been fights where i lose ships because it is name of the game that someone will be primaried 1st and will explode no matter what he does, those have been usually quite funny fights even i lost ship.

I have asked from people why or how they lost their ship on 'unacceptable way', usually answer has been that they did not play well, they just did something stupid and it ended badly mostly because they did not want to play like they can play but because it was too much effort to play well. I do not find it funny either that people are lazy and play like **** without trying to do their best.

I have nothing against newbies losing ships on stupid ways if they have done their best and even tried to do something right.

While i think some or all of these are true of many PVP corps in eve I dont think its necessarily true of all of them. Some very good and active pvp corps have managed to last the entire 10 years of eve onlines existance. Others came along more recently but have still lasted for years with good activity.

Certainly if you fail to purge inactive members and dont continue to recruit then your corp will wither and die. You can see this in many of the corps and alliance that controlled significant portions of null sec in recent years. Their failure to keep a current active member base resulted in them being unable to field the numbers needed to defend their space.

My own corp is on its fifth year now. We began as high sec griefers. We did some merc work and a whole lot of war decking and can flipping and low sec piracy before moving to null sec and getting into the sov warfare that drives so much of null sec pvp. From a corp with no one flying anything bigger than battleships we went to a corp fielding more super capitals than the rest of some of the alliances we were in.

One of the other real problems with sov holding alliances is that they often begin as PVP oriented but once they conquer space they become flooded with people who joined for the ratting and mining opportunities and not for pvp. When the fall comes later on it is because they discover that the only ones continuing to play are the bears and not the pvpers who got tired of the pve and moved on or quit playing. Then they get crushed and lose space and either rebuild or die.

Best post/thread I've read lately.



I think it varies depending on corp culture and many find themselves sitting somewhere in between stage 2 and 3 for most of the time.



+1 OP.

Isn't this more like life? Everything starts this way without proper leadership :P

Most people think running corps and alliances is easy hehehehehe

many corps go well overboard on API checks and such too.

Often a "bad event" in the corps history can cause a choke hold on its members who soon seek a career else where.

step 5 instead of being fail employee and pvping at work. Reading eve online forums and blinking

So many thoughts, based on my experience. I will try to make them fluid.

Phase 1 was a recruiting phase.
Lots of time and work went into this, and a couple of people took responsability for that effort.
sorting out carebears from PvP pilots, spies, awoxers, guys who just wouldn't listen, and complete nutcases was just part of the process there.

Phase 2.
Ventures into Low Sec for pirateing and such. Funnest times ever!
Wardecs that we could, and sometimes couldn't handle. Members would thin out after 1 or 2 losses and this phase seperated the "men from the boys".


Phase 2.1
As our reputation got better, Bigger fleets would roam into our neighborhood to look for a GF. Hot Drops ensued. But eventually we knew who we couldn't fight, and targets started to be limited.
During these times we became good at fighting outnumbered. A core group of good pilots was established.


Phase 3.
Moving, Changing locations. NPC 0.0
Also fun times, where we had to find a niche.
Again we were a small entity and we held our own for a long time.
Picked up some great pilots and lost some others.


Phase 4. Devolving
We were starting to take some moons that had some value. And we had crushed a couple of fairly large entities.
(Sounds like progress, right?)
The isk from the moons caused a HUGE rift in the main corps of the alliance. There were accusations of mishandling, opinions about funding programs, who would anchor the moons, etc. You name it, it was a sour apple for sure.

At the same time, we had an FC who was becoming suicidal. He didn't mind if he lost everyones ship, every night.
We also had FC's who would not fly with each other. Pilots who wanted full time PvP, pilots who wanted doctrine fleets, pilots who wanted cap fights, pilots who refused to fly doctrines, etc, etc.

Yet due to our 'success/reputation' even bigger and more experienced alliances started coming out to engage us.
The same guys that were crying about "We're too small!" were also the guys yelling "We don't want any blues!"

It wasn't any one thing, but the accumulation of many things that ended our growth.
Eventually our 'core group' was splintered, and the less loyal people just scattered like the wind.
Some of them quit playing more or less because of the drama and bad experience.
Some people had real life issues and they just played less.
The alliance had become more of a *JOB* than a game. None of the remaining members had the heart to start over.

Everybody has bad experiences in eve. Everybody. When those experiences start to accumulate, pilots think that changing directions can stop the bleeding. Or they think that a fresh start somewhere is what they need. (And it probably is)
I think the bigger Alliances can absorbe the losses better, so they carry on. Smaller Alliances generally fold up