Warfare & Tactics

Here goes my second post. I'm sure this one will attract more insults, but I hope to influence some opinions with this post.

My first post, if you want to see it, is designed to share some hard learned lessons with the rest of the player base. I hope to help some of the PvE base learn PvP. I believe it is getting harder to learn PvP in Eve as time goes on. I hope to sway CCP to assist in changing this.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=103760&find=unread

My new post is designed to demonstrate a need for a change in the game. CCP, please read. I propose that instead of restricting griefers, you could give them what they want AND more easily meet your EULA objectives. Give us the ability to have small scale fights in a regular and quick fashion and we'll leave noobs alone. Doing so will help people who want to fight in high sec stay in compliance with your EULA, create a place for people to learn the complexities of small gang PvP more easily, and create a way for people to dabble in pvp.

Learning - The Akiainavas Situation.
Currently, for an individual like me (but junior to the game) who wants to learn mechanic based PvP, it is extremely difficult to find a lot of small fights. When you're learning, the best thing is to be able to do is lots of 1 vs 1 and small gang fights in small ships (because they're cheap). Consequently, you need to go somewhere where there are a lot of people who can be convinced to fight you.

When I started learning PvP, I had no idea what I was doing. I went somewhere with a lot of people and a good cross section of the player base. I first tried faction warfare. Then I went to Akiainavas, which, I'm sure many of you know is a noob system.

Here is what I found. There were noobs, like me, some of whom were looking to get in fights. There were players slightly more senior than me who were looking to fight noobs like me. There were players better than the guys looking to prey on me who were looking to prey on them. There were even a few experts out there who were looking to fight all of us. Back then, you could log on and have a fight in 15 minutes almost any time. Win or lose, it's just frigates and I had a blast.

We were all there for "pick-up fights." We all just wanted to get a quick game without all the hassle of null or low sec. I loved it. Yes, we killed noobs. The best of us held standards against noob bashing, but when you'er a noob yourself it's hard to focus on experts only. We also killed the guys who were there to kill noobs. We fought anyone who would play and it was a scream.

Akiainavas is now dead. Nobody fights there anymore because any form of "can baiting" is against the EULA. Honestly, I don't know where to go to find that PvP haven where there are always 3 or 4 people looking for a fight outside station. I think CCP has destroyed the ability to get frequent small scale "Pick-Up" games.

For players like me, playing in high sec is like logging onto "Modern Warfare" where the server is filled with people who just want to run around and pick up the ammo and health spawns... but not fight. Now imagine that when you shoot those people, they get mad at you. I can understand that, they aren't interested in shooting. I'm perfectly happy to find a server filled with people who want to fight. I'll be happier there anyways.

My proposal is this. Choose a system with one station in high sec, somewhere like Todaki (close to Jita). Stop spawning noobs there and make it a .5 system. Put a good level 3 and level 4 agent there to get a crowd (all of whom are senior enough to run high level missions and choose to be there). Then add a new kind of "arena agent" who can arrange fights in deadspace between players. Maybe even let me make a few isk for winning a fight.



I know I'm going to be told "Stop being a sissy and go to null sec or low sec." I've tried both and neither offers the low investment fun or high pace i want.

Null sec PvP -
Honestly, I don't know how anyone puts up with the politics, egos, and slow pace of life in null sec. The time requirements to live down there are hard to accomodate. I find combat there to be very "feast or famine." I've spent a few months in null sec twice and what I found is that you're either fighting 150 ships or you're fighting 0 ships. Call to arms = flying 40 jumps with a battleship to watch a timer tick for 2 hours. The slow days are very slow, there are usually gobs of rules, and I find that I've got more freedom in high sec. Yes, you can make ISK very fast. However, you need it. Buying stuff null sec is usually a lot of work and requires a lot of isk. I spent 60 million trying to fit a hawk one time... and probably 20 jumps to get the junk together. It's crazy.

I like flying where mechanics matter. I really enjoy the eloquence of a well executed fight against difficult odds. I do not enjoy large scale fights because my actions don't really matter. There is no way to manuever in a huge fight to reduce damage... just set your ship to maximum speed and fire at at whomever you're told. That's all you can do... unless you're the FC. I mean no disrespect to the skill it takes null-sec FC's to do their jobs. I simply haven't got the time to dedicate to get down there and get into that. I know some of them are very good.

Low sec PvP -
You can't use small ships in low sec to initiate fights because the gate/station guns will blast you. As such, learning mechanics in low sec is hard and expensive. Faction warfare?

I started out trying to PvP in faction warfare. I learned more in my first 2 weeks in Akianavas than I did in the months of trying to fight Faction warfare in Tama. I lost a lot of frigates in Tama but learned little.

CCP, please give us a griefer system.

Yeah, I tried RvB. It was just too canned and restricted. I didn't care for it.

I also tried the merc thing (Orphanage, Concentrated Evil, etc..) That's great for a while, but eventually those always devolve into fleet fights / fleet camps which are no more interesting than the blobbing in null.

I miss the fun of can bait fights and I don't know where to find them with any frequency.

Is anyone else having this problem? Maybe I'm way off base.

Mo

I like the "arena agent" idea, or anything similar. Free unlimited consensual combat. Gladiator stuffs.
Even if it's just a becon somewhere where can flipping is allowed. It would give a place to go for easy small fights.

Maybe even an alliance tournament-style stuff?

There is ideas to dig, here.

Well, here is the problem (whether I'm technically a griefer or not):

I used to be able to find fights within 15 or 20 minutes most of the time. Akiainavas was a PvP haven... packed with both noob bashers (who are mostly noobs themselves) and people where hunting noob bashers. There are no more PvP havens that I know of. I'd move anywhere in the game to be able to get small 1 vs 1 or gang warfare interactions with that frequency. That's gone and I don't know what to do to find fights. I can spend a day looking now with no success. I'm so disheartened that I've nearly stopped looking. I don't want to spend hours on the game, I just want to log on and get a quick fight or two.

I've been called a griefer for a long time, but I never wanted the grief. I just wanted to find a fight. Many of my friends are the same. I know the rules are designed to get rid of griefing. I think the've been very effective.

I wonder if the carebears are seeing less war decs. All my friends are leaving the game... one at a time. All the old pvp corps and the long term players I played with are fading away. When we try to teach new players, we don't even know how to get fights to facilitate training.

I feel like people with my play-style are obsolete. The game has changed and now it takes so much work to find a fight that it's not worth it. Perhaps I've just been here too long and I need to move on.

I think high sec PvP in eve is the best I've ever seen... I just don't know how to get it anymore.

Amamake is EVEs endgame

lol @ restricted, if you wanna fly a frigate, and fight other people in frigates, this you can always do this in RvB. Now if wanna fly ECM and jam people, well I could understand your complaint kitchen sink doesn't happen often enough if jamming is what gets you going.

If you hate the nature of RvB (implants, agreed 1v1s, fleet fights, etc) Then just go set in amamake top belt, I was never a huge fan of the Amamake waiting game, but frig fights do happen out there, don't expect them to be fair though. IIRC last time I was there a comet engaged my crucifer and friendly hookbill, a fight that he had basically no chance of winning, but such is the nature of the game at times.

Aside from that go get in a minor plex and it is faction frigs and dessies fighting all day. Some of my best fights in lowsec were in milita plexes, the only problem with the mechanic is that it lets in pirate faction frigs along with the t1 frigs and dessies.

How about all interested parties join The School of Anger, we set aside a constellation, an interesting one, close to a market hub, and go at it, anything goes, podding, ecm, if you can think of it go for it?

If we all like frig combat, then we stick to frigs, cruiser next month, BC's the next?

When critical mass is reached I am sure there will be plenty of fights when you log in. Its reaching critical mass that is the trick though.

I love frigate combat, and I NEED to learn more. But de-claoking falcons, link boosting T3's, Alpha intsalocking Machs, SB'ing battle ships, hot drops, and blobs do not make a great learning environment for the mechanics of small gang, single combat, esp if you love your frigs.

I am keen and will apply if you like the idea....

Quit trying to **** in my sandbox