EVE General Discussion

So, as is well known a lot of the more serious business PVP organizations throughout EVE - from nullsec alliances to hisec mercenary groups - generally have some sort of requirements they use to filter 'unskilled' applicants. These range from things like skillpoint requirements to kill/death requirements to killboard efficiency. They do these thinking that it will bring them better applicants, ensuring that only 'good' pilots enter their ranks.

However, virtually every method used by PVP organizations to prescreen applicants is horrendously faulty and better at attracting KM whores than skilled pilots (they are not always the same thing).

First off is skillpoints. To some extent these can be a good screening tool if all you're looking to do is filter complete newbies. I don't see the point, as competent newbies can become knowledgable and useful with only a minimum of assistance, but I guess some people don't like answering questions.
SP only retains its usefulness up to about 3 million. Once you achieve some bare minimum experience with the game, knowledge and competence ceases to be tied to SP. I can think of month-old characters in my old corp that are better PVPers than some years-old baddies I've run into. So, unless your goal is to prescreen trialers, this is bad.

The most popular method seems to be checking out an applicant's killboard history here. There's a ton of problems with this approach. The only thing that a killboard entry says is that X ship(s) used offensive modules on Y ship that was fit like Z shortly before Y exploded.

The most absolutely terrible and elitist corps will look at things like killboard efficiency..a stat that has more to do with the size of the gang you fly in and how cheap you are in fitting your ships than anything else. The better ones will look at specific kills and look for signs of skill or incompetence, but this is still imperfect.

A variant of this, that I didn't know existed until I read some Noir. guy's sig, was kill/death ratio, which is quite possibly the most offensively stupid prescreening requirement I've ever heard of.

The following are a list of important things that could affect a pilot's killboard stats without being any sort of indicator about their skill.

-Bitchiness. If you are a risk-taker, you will have significantly worse KB efficiency and a lot more deaths than someone who utterly refuses to engage if he knows he might lose. Some people just go into engagements they know they are very likely to lose in the off chance that his opponents are bad or he gets lucky. This does not make them bad, but it certainly does make them look worse on the KB.

-Implants, expensive modules, and boosts. A lot of people run with expensive hardwirings/pirate implant sets or neutral boosting alts. Losing the latter is almost impossible and, even if it happens, will not reflect upon your main on the KB. Implants only show up if you get podded, which will pretty much never happen if you happen to be in lowsec. Expensive mods don't show up when you get a kill; only when you die.

To the killboard, a Wolf with halos and loki boosts that kills a Rupture is identical to a Wolf without any special mods killing a rupture...and yet the latter is far more indicative of pilot skill. But when screening applicants, you won't know which of those two each person falls into.

-Opponent's skill. A lot of "impressive" kills come as a result of your opponent either being a baddie, or making a crucial mistake. Sometimes these will show up on the killboard in the form of fits, but most will not...And even the ones that do show up in the fit are often subtle and won't be noticed by someone casually flipping through.

Quick, can you find the hidden incompetence that led to this poor bastard's demise? It's the Fury heavy missiles he was using against the smallest ship in the game. But of course, few people would examine the mail in detail enough to notice that, and many stupid mails won't have any such indication at all.

So how the hell do you prescreen applicants if you only want above-average pilots in your corp? There are few ways to actually determine someone's skill without flying with them. The Tuskers have an interesting requirement, which demands solo above-class ship kills. Of course, this does not necessarily measure skill, but it -does- ensure that the applicant is ballsy and willing to risk his ship in combat he's not guaranteed to win.

So, the only reliable way to ascertain skill is to fly with them. However, many people miss the fact that someone does not need to be in your corp to fly with them. Invite your applicants on a roam. The baddies will sort themselves out quickly.



TLDR stop using superficial quantitative measures of "skill" in your srsbusiness ELITE PVP corp.

Goonswarm. I paid the security deposit and everything but I couldn't fulfill the t2-fit velator requirement

You just did it all wrong, you simply deserve what you got because:


You haven't took the necessary time use "search" function and read forums. You haven't read properly Goonswarm wiki because if you did, you should have read those red letters saying if you pay isk to join Goonswarm you're being scamed.


You did it all wrong.

Giving them RL cash was your first mistake. Are you that 'desperate' for kills ?

You... are really that jaded with Eve baddies that you can't notice someone mocking the whole "scammed by Goonswarm" thing?

What is a velator.

Can you pump up the volume? -I can't hear you

When trolls get trolled peasants get a hard time living.

I'm throwing ya some bone go ahead and jump

Can I be in before you, can I, can I

You're a little bit contradicting yourself there - a requirement like the one Tuskers make encourages people to fly around with an offgrid booster and implants.


A good measure would also be to divide the overall K/D ratio with the average number of participants on the pilots killmail (suicide ganks don't count of course). If that is still above 2, at least the corp the pilot was in usually punched above its weight.

Examples:

- Pilot has 3000 kills, 300 deaths and a 10:1 K/D ratio - all his killmails are in a DRAEK and have at leats 30 participants on them -> score 0.33 = pilot is a blobsheep without a clue about pvp. (I'd still recruit him as cannonfodder if I was recruiting for a blobbing alliance)

- Pilot has 500 kills, 100 deaths - all his kills are solokills in frigs/HACs/Recons -> score 5 = pilot probably has a very good clue about what he's doing in PvP.


Anyway - best way to find a good and usable pilot is to give it a try and then keep the people that fit within the corps desired profile.

It sort of does, however if you PVP enough in smaller ships and are willing to engage in fights you aren't guaranteed to win, you're bound to get a kill or two like that eventually. You'd get those kills more quickly with offgrid boosters and whatnot faster, of course, but it's more about risk-taking than 'skill' in my opinion.

Regardless, I agree that the best way is to fly with them. I was just giving that as an example of something far better than say, KB efficiency.