EVE General Discussion

There is one clear reason why people in Eve cant do PvP. The simple reason is because they believe they can't. Once you have made up your mind that something can't be done, you will not be able to do it. You will then be in the grip of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you dont think it can be done you wont do your best, you will hold back at critical junctures, hesitate at the important moment or pull back when you should press the attack.

I founded Agony Unleashed with my alt Keersom (RIP) in .. was it 2006? Time flies. For years I captained the corp before turning it over to Bamar who has now passed it on to Gizznitt. During that time we proved conclusively that conventional wisdom was what comes out of the south end of a northbound male bovine. I originally founded Agony because I was sick of being told to get in a big battleship (at the time they were the flavor of the year) and sit at 150km sniping at opponents. I thought that there was a better way to play the game, that frigs could be made to hurt the opponent.

I believe agony was a principal player in changing pvp in eve to make people think more out of the box. We took out classes of people who had never fired at another player. We put them in tech 1 frigs fitted with market cheap stuff and proved to them that if they coordinated their communication, their tactics and their fit, they could destroy opponents with years of skillpoints in massively expensive ships. People constantly tried to use smartbombs on the frig fleets and lost their expensive battleship for their efforts. We flew into null sec space with crowds of rookies and fleets learned to avoid the class gangs. In the process we taught playyers about communication, scouting, recon, ship fitting for teamwork and so on.

At one point a class was started to fly destroyers. The forums flamed like a supernova at the announcement. In the first encounter with an eagle, the covert ops scout dropped us 10km off the eagle and only 3 of my guns went off. The 20 destroyers in the gang, flown by newbie pilots, vaporized the expensive HAC in a single shot. Later the class grew and at one point the 30 destroyer class (near the max manageable limit) got into a fight with multiple battleships and HACs and destroyed them all. Sure they took casualties but all were elated. We remembered to tell the rookie pvp pilots to breathe afterward because we knew the people behind the computers would be shaking from adrenaline.

Later agony pilots fitted up some tech 1 frigs and had a bit of fun. They sat off a gate and waited to be attacked by a passing interceptor. What the interceptor didn't know is the pilot of the frig was waiting for just this occurrence. There is no rush in eve quite equal to killing an interceptor with a tech 1 frig and any pilot that can fit tech 2 weapons can do it with the right skills and tactics.

We were a small corp and often confronted with largely superior forces. Imagine the massive gate camps with tackler interceptors, interdictors and other ships. Now imagine they are rendered importent by a gang of 15 destroyers with long range weapons. All of their smal craft must flee or die. Tactics prevail.

And the ultimate in possibilites occurred when agony discovered whenever they went out Razor alliance would come after them with 60 HACs. With no more than 20 people online at the time, it was quite the challenge. Imagine the astonishment of our neighbors when the word went out that Agony wiped out almost the entire fleet with less than 20 pilots. Nothing in gaming can top that kind of rush.

When you say you can, when you believe it, you will find a way. When your opponent becomes predictable, they are easy to defeat. When your opponent uses standard tactics, they can be defeated. Defeat wont always be wiping out the whole fleet or destroyeing their POS. It might be just making their lives miserable. When a high sec corp is war deced by another and turns tail, the war dec corps wins. When they fight back with tactics, skill, coordination and goals, they make the war dec corp withdraw their dec with losses and the high sec corp gains respect.

I have no respect for sheep. But i have the highest respect for the small little wolverine that makes the grizly bear think "im not THAT hungry"

In there lies the key. Winning in Eve isnt a matter of skill points or isk. Its a matter of intelligence, understanding of psychology and proficiency at the arts of war.

Listen to the man, he knows what he's talking about. Good pilots in cheap ships will always be better than drones in expensive ones.

Well said. I can't agree enough.

Kidd hit it. Everyone can do PvP and not everyone wants to.

Im so happy for you that you changed PvP in Eve. You are legendary.

Lol sike.

I feel like the correct title for this post should be why everyone can't be a pvp god and decidedly doesn't pvp. It is easier to pvp in other games than it is in eve for the fact of clones and ship loss. People put losses up on a pedestal while kill board whoring goes on top of the temple of accomplishments. There is also the issue of making pvp out to being some quintessential game play feature that everyone must take part in to be an accomplished player.

I agree with Rells, though I feel it should be noted that EVE is a sand box with borders. Rather than being a global, rounded environment of never ending choices. Which is fine... However PVP is still a choice not a decision. So putting everyone into the category of believing they can't is fairly stereotypical.

I feel in total Rells is describing competitive play in almost any game. True specialty has its strengths, he points out the weakness it breeds. How the average beats the specialty in the long run. All in all I feel people don't pvp for the same reason people blindly vote. It is not in their interest to spend that much time on something they feel doesn't impact their play style.

In a lot of ways this topic is the same as comparing cliques from a social setting. You have your nerds, geeks, jocks, pop, losers, and valedictorians. Rather than fitting people into groups why don't we agree EVE is pretty close to a true sand box? Why spend time worrying about what the other fish are doing.

On a personal note Rells, I see what you are pointing out. It is true for a large amount of the player base which makes it an average for EVE. I just wanted to make mention of why not to put people into averages before we go any further down the road of removing tonsils because everyone else is.

In a game where anyone can explode you, at any time, not being prepared for the eventuality is rather silly. If someone doesn't want to do combat PvP, that's fine and their choice. They just need to know how to a. minimize risks of getting blown up and b. accept loss when it eventually does happen.

As for PvPers preferring helpless targets, of course they do! A few seconds of work, and BAM, free loot. Does that mean they shrink from a fair fight? Not necessarily. But if you don't do anything make yourself a wolverine, like the OP says, then you have no one to blame but yourself if you get devoured like the weak sheep you are.

Everyone can do pvp... not that hard.

And if u suck at it, just pay people to do it for u!

Pilots also want to wait till they are ready for PvP. That is their first mistake, if you are going to wait till you are ready then there will always be a reason that you aren't. People don't like losing things they worked hard for even if it is a game and they don't want to take the risk. Their are risk takers who make it big but lots of them fail. People don't like failure and are usually content with something they "win" at.

Maybe it's something to do with how learning to pvp has been ruined.

These days it's like a school experience with many of these "training corps". You pay money to join the school, you study hard, you attend ******* classes even. Then at the end of it you get a piece of paper that says you can PVP. And just like in the real world, that piece of paper doesn't means ****.

people get different things from playing a game like this.

I understand that beating another in competition, be it pvp market systems social experiments etc how ever it comes is what drives most people.

There is also a general level of respect for intelligence in this game, thats far far higher than any other mmo ive ever encountered.

I dont solely judge a player on their fighting ability or prowess, but sure its very well respected as a career.