Warfare & Tactics

(this is not actually a troll despite the overly chirpy subject name)

Back before inferno FW had no rewards for the winning side. People wanted a reason to win, and that's what inferno gave us. The amount of PVP skyrocketed. In the past few months I've had the most fun I've had in FW since I joined nearly four years ago.

The Amarr were crushed in terms of sov, due to a combination of numbers, some imbalanced mechanics, and something that hadn't really been seen before on the Minmatar side: meaningful cooperation between corps.

I found myself at least partially agreeing with this post by Jade Constantine of all people,
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1822671#post1822671

I say, "Of all people" because IFW and Jade have a long history of not getting along (to the point of nearly initiating wardecs despite being "on the same side") , as it turns out he's a pretty good guy to fleet with.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's possible to know precisely how much impact farmers, bad mechanics, or actual PVP and organisation had to do with shaping the WZ, anyone who says they can is fooling themselves. But they all had their own impact.

Strategy has played a part in shaping the WZ, and I even believe there was a point at which the Amarr COULD have potentially ended Minmatar dominance. The fact is that ISK is just one of two resources which make a fighting force in EVE, the second is pilots. If you can create a hopeless situation for your opponent you'll win, nobody really likes dieing for no reason at all no matter how much isk they have.

This basically happened when Nulli joined and you took Kourmonen. It happened so fast. It seemed like Amarr were already outnumbering Minmatar before Nulli joined. WZ inactivity had pushed Minnie numbers down and you just needed a kick up the butt to start throwing your weight around. Nulli did have an impact, whether you can admit that or not. They may have only come into that system for a couple of hours but seeing a 100man fleet with logi support even for a brief period of time was enough to make us beleive that holding Kourm was NOT going to happen, and we felt like losing Huola was an inevitability.

But it wasn't, because The Amarr had no communication and no strategy, well, no good strategy. Nulli farmed and got their asses handed to them up in metro. Treating it like a farm was their downfall, because while farmers can contest lots of systems quickly when there's no opposition, they don't do jack to actual combat pilots. Five combat pilots can defend five systems from one MEEELLLLLION gunless merlins. Combat pilots are the backbone of the militias, and you let us off the hook.

The Amarr had the numbers and assets to kick Late Night out of Huola, after that you could've gone to Arzad and done the same to IO, then hit Metro. Why hit Kourm? It means very little to us, you could have taken Huola with almost as much ease if you had simply hit it first and convinced Nulli of it's importance. Resistance would have all but disappeared until we regrouped. One thing's for sure, things would have turned out a LOT differently.

Now you don't have the assets to do that anymore. Minnie numbers are a bit low atm due to WZ inactivity, but Amarr numbers are even lower. Props to Almity for bringing out fleets when he can, and of course to Agony for being one of the most BOSS Amarr corps I've had the pleasure to pvp against since joining.

If you do ever gain the assets to make a decent push, go straight for the jugular. Don't be fooled into thinking this game is entirely about ISK, because it isn't. Make me regret giving you this advice, though tbh I'd wager a lot of Amarr don't really need it.

I'm seeing a lot of talk about making it easier for the underdog. Removing faction specific mechanics that impact one side regardless of who's winning is one thing, but removing the reward that the winner receives takes us right back to pre-inferno, where there's no reason to push your side to win.

It's a bit of a catch 22. People are discouraged from joining the underdog because of lower rewards, but it's higher rewards that make the game worth playing, otherwise it's just a big war-dec. The WZ map and it's hof-eszur bottleneck might need looking at, but tbh I'm on the fence, because that choke could quite easily become a pain for the Minmatar if the Amarr ever broke into Metro. Whether the exact mechanics are good, well, *shrug*, whether the gap between winner and loser is too big, *shrug* again. I do think that the WZ ping-ponging that was occuring was a little stupid.

Removing all the PVE components would be nice, but how are you gonna make ISK or push sov if your opponent doesn't want to PVP? Anyway, this isn't really a discussion about mechanics, just a response to the hysteria from some Amarr who seem to think that the winner in this game is dictated entirely by ISK and who has the most, it isn't.

Pilots determine who wins.

I think you'll find that the statement rings true for the vast majority of Eve, Jade does so enjoy playing the Devil's advocate after all

As for the rest, decent enough propaganda ..

Amarr were crushed in terms of Sov. because CCP in all their wisdom (against all warnings and logic) decided to implement FarmVille without first addressing the four year old balance issue (geography, npcs) .. would have happened without your much vaunted "cooperation" just a tad slower.

Nulli joining tripled or quadrupled active Amarr numbers as far as I am aware, been years since any sort of equal numbers has existed exact date falls suspiciously close to CCP implementing their Winmatar paradigm that made projectiles and their platforms kings of the hill ... FoTM = ISK when in a supply business such as FW.

No one has ever managed to last long in Metro, had absolutely nothing to do with them "treating it as a farm" .. see the geography thread if you want to know more.
Wonder if Amarr's lack of strategy/communication might be attributed to the fact that only a fraction of pre-FarmVille pilots remained at that point, practically all the organized groups left in disgust.

The war might right itself after december when/is NPC changes go through but I doubt it. Amarr has over the years proven that one could overcome the NPC imbalance by sheer will (and DT numbers), so chances are that the numerically superior Minmatar militia will copy what we did in the early years and remain at tier 4-5 in perpetuity.
Opening up Metro, removing/revising the godawful LP for plexing and tier system should prevent that and make the war revolve around waging war once again but I fear CCP's mind is set (and the farm lobby too is strong) when it comes to rewarding everything.

All the blame rests squarely on CCP's shoulders. In their rush to appease after the Jita debacle they neglected to apply thought and appear to have implemented the most whined for items "as is" with no further work done, now they are in damage control mode and unfortunately seem destined to repeat the same mistakes .. still hopeful, but as long as they keep treating FW as a collection of disparate things instead of a meshed whole they are bound to miss the mark once again.

In short: The war had merit and unlimited fun when there was no money involved in the plexing bit. CCP dropped the ball. Minmatar are full of themselves and in complete denial (for the most part ).

Amarr arnt giving up ever, this latest tweak to the inferno system has pretty much taken out the gunless frigs and opened a window for losing side to make a bit of money, this is already a lot more attractive for new comers to FW.

Things havnt looked so good for months and months, its getting back some larger and more frequent fights but its going to take a bit of time for confidence levels to rise up. Bit of a chicken and egg situation atm, you cant hunt a gang thats not there, but both sides while wanting to fight gangs whos going to fly around for nothing just to show the other side theres a gang here to form for! :P

I think ccp over did the isk thing big time with inferno. When people had to use a combat or decently fitted pve ship for missions, in enemy space to make money, some did and got good money for their time, most did not, pvpers had missions to hunt in and we all had a merry old time. It worked but was a little boring since doing those plexes sucked for nothing, now we have A LOT of isk more accessible and some repercussions for not defending systems etc and too much impact on the pvpers from the isk chasing pvers.

Inferno was a very bad thing, i think everyone agrees there was more wrong with it than right, but with more changes and tweaks if certainly more interesting and im sure the pvp will follow.

Spirits are getting better in Amarr and i think more pvpers and new comers will crawl out of the woodwork and we will slowly rebuild the pvp reputation we had pre inferno while keeping the new cool things that inferno did get right. I think theres a little too much isk still which is always going to stress a fun pvp environment, we all managed to do fine before it was all about riding our isk pooping gunless ponys around, so theres no reason it cant work, but the "winner/loser isk ratio" thing having less impact is the thing thats going to jump start old times.

We are coming for you minmatar, be afraid.

It's all my fault. I'm TERRIBUBBLE.

I'm here for the fights.

Now that the gun less plexers are pretty much bye bye the plex mechanic is perfect for generating fights. It always was but inferno kinda mucked up the isk reward (but that's been/beinf fixed)

I go out in pvp ships looking for fights. I use the plex mechanics to help generate them and on the of chance the fight doesn't happen I get a little bit of LP to help fund my explosion generation hobby.

I'm not space rich as I can't stand pve for any great length of time. I still go out and pirate to some of the 'other' occupants of LS and I try to shoot WT's at every opportunity.

Since the Amarr high command drafted me and threatened me into the militia I've had a blast. Life in FW is good.

That's good to hear. Most of the Amarr blogs/posts/propaganda I've seen lately is just more crying which I can't fathom seeing as this change is something good for the entire Warzone and the upcoming changes as well. vOv

Can't speak for anyone else but I will keep bitching and moaning until I am convinced CCP has a plan, any plan, for FW and are not just throwing random **** at us to see what sticks .. which is very much the impression I have post fanfest.

We shouldn't settle for anything just because we have been attention starved over the years, help the clueless in Iceland think and we ought to be able to cut down on the horror FW has just lived through (FarmVille).

OMG! I just once again asked CCP to present their overall plan for FW now that their old one (FF) has fallen flat on its face .. GIMMEGIMMEGIMME!!!!

Who you want me kill?

hmmmm


I fly minnie ships, I'm caldari and fight for the Amarr........so what does that make me??


....




Confused probably!

This is what usually happens when Minmatar cash out. They flip the systems (if needed, if not they work with what they already have), bump all or most of them to a tier 5 and, while the amarr are plexing those bumped systems to try to shorten the Minmatar cashout, the Minnies continuously inject lp to the ihubs to prolong the tier 5. In other words, the minmatar use the lp they have earned to maintain their tier 5 cashout so folks get the opportunity to cash out.

What I saw happen on the amarr side when Nulli gifted them with the tier 4 cashout. Nulli flipped the systems, bumped the ihubs to a tier 5. Meanwhile all the amarr ran to their lp stores to cashout all the lp they were hording since the start of inferno. The ihubs were not continously injected with lp to prolong the cashout. What really happened was most of them cashed out and got the f*** out of the amarr militia.