Warfare & Tactics

Alt corp has been trying out FW for the last month. We joined Cal Mil b/c it was more convenient to our existing office locations and logistics.

Here are the liner notes from our experience.

Summary

Overall, take whatever fun experience you are having in traditional alliance warfare, divide by 4, and you will be closer to what FW has to offer today. Cal Mil players seem to be genuinely disinterested in organizing any kind of mature PvP (RR, BLOP, EWAR, etc.) or scenario based play. The risk/reward aspect of FW is mostly one-sided (all risk, no reward). There's a real gap without shared goals or common objectives to keep people working together. There is an excessive amount of drama and band inappropriate behavior that would normally result in a player or corp getting kicked from a traditional alliance. There is no alliance leadership to speak of.

Pros and Cons

+

War Targets in convenient systems
Close proximity to Jita means resupply isn't an issue.
No bubbles.
Great resource for Noobs and Alliance rejects.

-
Alliance Structure and Operations

Complete disorganization at every level. ('herding cats').
No Alliance structure
No Alliance leadership council (stated or assumed)
No Alliance status updates or communications. (how are we doing?)
No connectivity back to NPC alliances in terms of alignment towards NPC alliance goals (Cal Mil is an NPC alliance, after all)
No shared goals or objectives that can be worked on.
No one knows what systems are important to capture or retake.
No continuity or persistence of presence means lots of peaks/valleys in terms of who you can find to play with.


FW Fleets
Players who gravitate towards leadership roles (former FC's, etc.) will find that their ops are like running a training school.
Lots of inexperienced pilots will get you killed, a lot. No way to tell who you are dealing with.
No regular use of voice comms means most engagements are crippled at inception.
Inexperienced pilots will make all-hands announcements for reinforcements (and draw everyone into a kill zone).
Fleets / Roams are non-existent.
Most PvP is still organized at the corp level

FW Alliance Mechanics
Alliance espionage is a real setback for travel, logistics, and hit-and-run guerrilla warfare by opponents.
Nothing to lose, so no motivation by players to participate.
Hundreds of players in Alliance chat, and less than a dozen in a group when an all-hands is called.
Alliance LP payouts are hard to accumulate and not worth much.
Plexes are typically a joke in terms of difficulty. If you can run L4/L5 missions, these will not be interesting.
Very few real isk-making opportunities related to alliance or FW.
Almost all FW missions are in lowsec, which is regularly camped and patrolled by hostiles and pirate gangs.
Risk/reward payout is weak, at best.


This faction seem incapable of directing its own resources. It is also incapable of securing and/or defending its own territory from Pirates and other FW Alliances. Most would say that means that FW is a Club, not an Alliance.


Conclusion
Overall, traditional alliance warfare is still the best bet for players who have even a tiny amount of pvp experience. In its current state, FW is nothing more than an RvB training camp where risks and losses far exceed stated or real rewards. There will, ofc, be at least a couple of exceptions that will attempt to tell you everything is fine.

Our overall dissatisfaction and disappointment should really tell you a lot. We came into FW expecting the worst, and it was all of that and more.

ymmv.

hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

Did you really come into FW and expect it to be something even close to a form of alliance?!

Oh boy! Then there was no way you would end up enjoying it!

For most of your " - " points a lot of FW player think are positives.

Really FW is nothing like alliance warfare. Yes at time it may seem that way to an outsider when once in a few years all the current players on one side do actually team up for short while but in reality FW is more of a 'Fight Club' like you mentioned.

It is a militia, not a military. These guys value their freedom more than most and find it in FW.

Lets face it FW has a lot to offer people like that (And me for eg)
No rules from 'Command',
Easy access to pretty constant pvp (FW has by far been the most pvp area in game for years),
Easy ability to fun pvp through the general course of play,
Can pvp in low sec without the sec status hits pretty easily.

What combat lusting nutjob wouldn't want that without all the hassle and bull shite etc that come with big alliance lvl crap (unless of course you are happy to be one of the F1 pushing crowd)

Really anyone who come to FW with a predetermined view of it is doing it and themselves a disservice. FW isn't for everyone just mission running (or pve in general) or null alliance stuff isn't for everyone. But if its fights you want you will get more fights in and around the FW area of space than anywhere else, proven.

Mute kept me sane

Also

B L A S T E R M E G A

And

GF SWEG., Ev0ke

lol -SPR-, so bad they whore on the guys they batphone

Traditional Alliance warfare is the worst place for players with pvp experience.

Tonights op, sit in staging station wait for everyone to get ready while hearing 'we need moar logi, not undocking without more logi.' Ok lets go grind this structure/timer oh enemy fleet! take fleet warps for randomly genereated time until both fleets land next to eachother. Press f1 on broadcast targets.

totally best place for players with pvp experience.

I understand the disappointment, it sounds like you've been dealing with pubby fleets militia chat and sprot, but this is not caldari millitia, you were never in caldari militia you just thought you were. The coalitions and alliances have their own doctrines and pilots who know how to fly them but you won't get many of those people in your fleets until they get to know you, and they can't just let everyone tag along on their ops either.

pubby fleets can be fun, and even effective if you know how to get the most out of low skilled pilots in sht fits, if you do a good job you might even be able to recruit them and get them to train into doctrines later, but don't expect to scrape a hac doctrine straight out of caldari militia chat, in fact don't expect to get any kind of doctrine out of militia chat. Expect to get a group of over enthusiastic newbro's and bitter drunks flying kitchen sinks looking for a good fight before they log off.

Your typical caldari pubby fleet is comprised of noobs in ab merlins who may or may not have the right guns fitted, there will be punishers, condors, kestrels, various tristans, rifters, and atrons, sometimes a t1 fitted cuiser or battlecruiser and there's always at least one guy in a garmur orbiting at 40km hoping to pick off a few wt's in the confusion. It must be distressing for wannabe fleet commanders when they call a primary and they're still the only ones putting damage on it 30 seconds later, but it's not because the fleet is ignoring you (except the garmur dude, he's totally ignoring you and he's probably got coms muted) but the rest are either still scrolling through the wrecks and asteroid belts and structures on their overview trying to find the name you called, or they're scared and confused, drifting away into outer space with their prop mod on and no clue where they are in relation to the battle or why they cant seem to lock anything.

If you want to be more effective it's up to you to fit up cheap t1 frigates and destroyers with simple tactics that even day old players can follow, you need to bring them into/close to the warzone yourself and have a stockpile of them ready to sell/give out or your fleet ends up spending most of the time flying back and forward to reship all over low sec. A blob of cheap derptrons is about as good as it gets, but we always get swaggering blowhards trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and it never works. keep it simple stupid.

Have you been spying on me? This is eerily accurate.

Ineeedio. I couldnt finish plexes yesterday when always aomeone came to pew pew schoosh kaboom ayoo gjhaa vicroryy.

This thread is good.

I mean... Regardless of who they are. This is the issue with Calmil. Something that effects it would seem individuals and the corps and alliances.

People laughing at the general militia trying to find content while sitting in your ivory tower of an alliance. The biggest issue with Calmil is that all the main alliances like to do their own thing. And the quote above is an example of the mindset.

To the OP: Come put an alt in my alliance youll see most of those points brought up by me so plus 1 on your accuracy.


fingers crossed when you kill us off this time people will realize change is needed. Until then, see you on the field <3.