Warfare & Tactics

Yeah like i said above i think im going to have to spend some more time scouting out the area, i seem to have got the wrong impression first time around.

Here are some stats from today:

Caldari: total pilots -6891; kills last week- 3,042 systems 32; vp last week .24m
Gallente: total pilots- 5412; total kills last week - 3070 systems 69; vp last week .31m
Amarr: total pilots- 4108; total kills last week - 2177 systems 8; vp last week .13
Minimatar: total pilots- 5361; total kills last week-1668 systems 62; vp last week .16m

The relation between kills and sov is a tricky one. There may just happen to be allot of pvp unrelated to plexing that still comes in.

Minmatar are clearly the most dominant in this war now with 88.5% of the war zone. Yet they have the fewest kills per pilot and fewer kills per vp than amarr. Gallente which is doing second best in the sov war with 68.3% does have the most kills per character in fw but has the fewest kills per vp.

To my mind the kills per vp is the more important figue. Lots of those characters counted as pilots are alts that may not actually be logged in let alone in space. Getting vp actually requires someone to be in space. When I was farming some missions for minmatar the last 2 days there appeared to be well over 2xs as many minmatar in local than amarr. Maybe even 4xs as many.

But even vp per kill is pretty lacking. CCP doesn't include the vp gained from cross plexxing. This leaves a huge hole for example in the number of vp per kill for the minmatar plexing in gallente caldari space and caldari plexing in amarr space. However the caldari probably have enough to farm in their own front.

TLDR: Statistics given aren't sufficient to say much but what they do show tends to confirm fw sov is more about rabbit plexing alts than it is about pvp.

Id like to identify the main problem with faction war. Its all there in this post. While *pockets may be a tedious presence in any local or forum (cant be too harsh, dudes gotta get release from the frustration of working the deli counter), saying they took arzad in a pve drive is basically saying that you didnt fight for your home system. A shady pve insult doesnt hide that.

Choosing between Amarr and Minmatar for FW is a very simply proposition. On one hand you can make good isk and find PvP almost at the drop of a hat. On the other hand you can make fantastic isk but at time struggle to find the same frequency of combat. For myself - having chosen Amarr - the choice of lower isk I make is the premium I pay for not having to wait for my PvP.

I plex a lot. When I log in I'll typically grab a frigate, destroyer, or cruiser, head to a random system, and open up a plex. Typically someone is along in short order. Plexes are how I find 90% of my combat fun. The other 10% comes from nightly alliance roams. Plexes are also how I fund my ships. I can average about 2 billion isk a month playing part time for a militia habitually at tier one. As much as people want to min/max the game and complain about the LP discrepancy - the profit margins for FW regardless of which side you're on are just stupid. I can replace most ships 3-4 x and have 5 different clones for different ship types.

IMHO FW revolves around two simple factors - docking rights and bragging rights. Isk over time is inconsequential. Docking rights can be circumvented with a POS. Bragging rights are important and I'm not going to thump my chest and declare, "I didn't want those systems anyways." However I've:

Defensive plexed for 8+ hours a day. And watched those days turn into weeks turn into months.
Fought sleep to complete one more plex while one day old alts quietly watch and wait for me to log off.
Fretted the day at work wondering how much of our progress the Russians were going to undo.
Shot out desperate messages from work inquiring about the status of certain systems.
And on and on.

I did the above for nine months straight. And then I went away for three months. I'm not alone with Amarr who went away. And surprisingly there seems to be quite a few of us returning at the same time. I still like those bragging rights. But if I'm going to stress out about a computer game war - it damn well better have better benefits in play then simply bragging rights.

This all sounds like Post-FW Stress Disorder. Occupancy warfare is HARD, requires effort, and leads to massive burnout. What FW needs is a good set of Psychologists and Counselors to help our frazzled vets transition to a normal Eve life after they are done.

Just think of all the harm done to the families of FW pilots all over New Eden. Did CONCORD think about these unintended consequences when it implemented this feature? Well??!!

This made me smile.

Well having been back now for half a month I think I have found the problem. Not going to tell anyone though, there may be spais watching my every move

Little bit sad that rocking anything larger than a stabber right now is going to get me murdered by every pirate from here to the opposite side of the warzone but MEH... **** happens. While a few mates are gone for a while I'll prob head to caldari/gallente warzone and see what's up. Since Amarr are only going to get back right now to a stable place with an influx of plexers. Never actually spent much time with my caldari bro's and frankly I wanna fight FW targets not neuts all the time.


GALLENTE IMA COMING FOR YOU NEAOW!! No need to be scared though, I can't fight without links, minnys told me so

Er what?

I'm none of those things, I'm terrible. I would join you but I'm not leaving TMFED and I don't like pewing purples :(

Trust me you'll like shooting me, I'm like that loveable puppie trying to hump your leg. You COULD stop it but its funnier watching him hump your mates leg....

Mate, as much as this pains me to say, do you even know who you're talking to? Have you even heard of Annah Kitheran or have any remote idea of how much of a powerhouse Iron Oxide used to be? The new FW is a system that you grow or burn out of.

A lot of Amarr oldschool FW moved onto other things or took a break from EVE after Arzad and the realization all the decent Minmatar PVP groups had already moved on themselves. Some like FHP might call it 'winning' but personally, I would say its just the realization that the people you fought so hard against for so long that you came to define each other, are no longer there.

In fact, a lot of the oldschool vets that have come back are enjoying themselves in the cal/gal warzone, because *gasp* the Gallente can actually PVP and thus are a source of decent fights. Winmatar will probably accomplish something that the old guard Minmatar never could, taking all the systems is a pretty cool accomplishment even if was against only a handful of pilots that only care about PVP, but implying that it makes you superior to the PVP and warzone tactics of your militia's old guard is just erroneous.

For once, we're just going to sit back and enjoy Tier 5 on our Minmatar alts while we do nothing but pew. We may never get a medal, but at this point we honestly don't feel like we need one. The pendulum might swing back and forth, but no medal will ever replace the experience of being in the Amarr/Minmatar FW warzone for the past year and a half.

BSC is back too?

Dear God...