Couple questions & actual skill in PVP?

New Citizens Q&A
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Hey all, I last time played a long time ago while trying to get into solo PVP with frigates, but I found it really dull and boring.

I found that you can never actually fight people who didn’t want to fight you as they always would warp away easily, so only people that want to fight would fight you. Is this really the case? Is there no way to catch targets that are already aligned to warp points? It’s basically dueling and not really true wild west dog fighting. Can you use a cheap ship for solo PVP that can probe and launch warp bubbles and catch targets?

And the combat itself is not fun at all where you mainly select keep at distance or orbit and activate some weapons/modules, maybe overheat or inject capacitor, etc, but you mainly just watch your ship and there’s not actual gameplay with player skill in the battle. What I really mean is that the APM (action per minute) is something like 10, where even a game like WoW has more engaging combat. Is this really the case for PVP? This was the main reason I left as I found solo PVP in lowsec and nullsec dull and lifeless.

Also, fleet PVP was even worse because you would just activate your weapons and modules on painted targets, aka being an F1 monkey. I really don’t see the appeal at all.

Correct me on my assumptions on PVP.

Another question I have is, is it viable to do solo hauling from high-sec to low/null for making profit via trade? Or is it just pointless because of warp bubbles and gate camps?

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Yeah, pretty much.

You can set up Warp Interdiction methods (anchored and online’d Mobile Bubbles, or Warp Disruption Probes (Interdictors), or Warp Disruption Fields (Heavy Interdictors), etc.) to catch them before they enter warp, or pull them out by catching them before they reach their destination (i.e. a Stop or a Drag bubble).

The only ship that can launch warp bubbles are Supercarriers (using a Warp Disruption Burst Projector) or an Interdictor.

The short answer is: No. It would be difficult to fit an Interdictor to combat probe AND be an effective killer due to the fitting requirements of the Expanded Probe Launcher.

If you’re fighting in a brainless engagement, or if you’re bad, yes. Most people just think PvP is nothing more than “orbit 500, F1” which may be the case for certain styles.

There’s a lot you can be doing. Dscanning to check for a response fleet. Checking your position and manually piloting around.

You can be looking to maintain the highest amount of transversal against ships that rely heavily on it. For example, if there’s Omen shooting at you with Medium Lasers, you may able to keep damage on your main target, while increasing your transversal relative to the Omen, since Medium Lasers generally don’t have that great tracking. This way, you can reduce the incoming damage from the Omen, while dealing with your current target.

If you’re in a gang and flying as fast tackle in a Scram Point Ceptor, you’ll want to be able to keep the target pointed. If it’s a Battleship or Battlecruiser, it may try to escape by using a Micro Jump Drive. Being able to spot when he’s trying to use it, driving by it, and landing a scram to shut it down, while also skirting away from the battleship, so that you don’t get scrammed yourself.

There’s a lot more you can do, but it requires you know what you can do first.

It is. Whether you are willing to take the risk is a different matter.

Warp bubbles don’t exist in low, but gate camps do exist to catch bad players who aren’t paying attention.

You’ll almost never get access to major nullsec markets unless you’re part of the alliance that controls that area. A random neutral character will just be shot and killed.

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Is it really pointless to bother solo PVPing if you’re in a T1 frigate against T2 or more expensive ships?

What can you do if you want to get kills flying in cheap ships that aren’t from duels? Is it possible to gate camp in a T1 frigate to get any kills?

I still don’t get how PVP isn’t brainless. You have anything more in-depth showing this like videos?

I’m thinking of getting back into EVE but I felt the whole game design and mechanics just felt very restrictive as a low SP and poor in ISK player. It just seemed pointless farming ISK for duels that had 0 to little actual PVP gameplay where the fights ended in less than a minute usually. I don’t mean the dscanning or hunting/searching/escaping, I mean the actual fight.

In actuality, I think the only fun I had in EVE was doing trading. But the PVE and PVP content just felt like a mini-game where you build ships and play a game of strategy where you win via counters + meta, and where the actual combat had 0 depth because when it comes down to it you basically try to maintain optimal distance + traversal for the fight, activate your weapons/modules, and hope for the best. If you are slower and weaker, there is no escape or there’s no way of keeping up with your target and that’s that.

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It’s not pointless. EVE, especially Frigate fights, are very rock-paper-scissors. For example, a T1 Kestrel can more than handily kill T2 Interceptors with no problem. Hookbills can kill almost every other frigate (with some exceptions of Assault Frigates) very easily due to its extremely high DPS.

It’s not pointless, but it requires that you have the knowledge necessary.

One of the most common things to do is fly around and harass krabs in nullsec, and then kill the (often) disorganized defense fleet. They’ll usually send a lot of fast (and poorly fit) Interceptors to try and capture you. They’re pretty easy to kill.

It is.

Videos don’t convey the same level of thought that takes place in the mind of the pilot. You’re just seeing the baseline mechanical things on the screen. Most youtubers are also very bad at explaining why they are doing what they are doing. Some don’t because they don’t want to give away any secrets.

You won’t find this from just watching youtube videos.

This is a common view from casual players. You really need to dive head first into some more intense PvP. Reach out to some lowsec/wormhole gangs that are primarily focused on solo/smallgang PvP and less on empire building and krabbing. They’ll be able to help you a lot more.

Sure. But you have to realize that like 80% of EVE players are absolutely trash at the game. They don’t know how to fit their ships, they mindless copy and paste stuff they see other people use without knowing why.

A lot of fights end very quickly because the ships are fit like trash, don’t have enough tank, and die instantly. Or they engage in fights that are horrendously against their favor (like 1 battleship against 4 battlecruisers), die immediately, and don’t take the time to figure out what happened.

I mean, it seems like you’ve got your mind set.

A lot of people talk like this because they know what they should be doing, but when you actually put them in the hotseat, they freeze and just resort to pressing F1 and looking at the pretty colors and lights.

Do you know HOW to maintain transversal? Do you know what counters what, and why? You can take all the time in the world to just read, but actually putting it into practice is different.

If you’re looking to distill the game to an intellectual “well, you do a, b, c, and win.” then sure, that’s basically EVE. I would say that the excitement actually comes into putting that into practice.

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PVP is basically rock-paper-scissors? I remember how annoying it was that I was only able to get duels for fights and the duels were almost always counters against what I was flying. You cannot win against your counter right?

Are you unable to win as a newbie against a veteran because they won’t take a fight unless they counter you since they know all the counters and meta?

If I reach out to lowsec/wormhole gangs, isn’t it still just boring gameplay of follow and do what the fleet commander says and be an F1 monkey for painted targets? You’re basically another pawn that is on standby and does what is told like an NPC where the combat itself has very little action and gameplay.

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Pretty much.
If you’re flying an Imperial Navy Slicer fit to kite and use your speed to avoid damage, getting Scrammed and Webbed means you’re pretty much dead.
If you’re a brawling ship like an Incursus that gets hit by a web point kiting Atron, you’re also pretty much dead.

But like you’ve already figured out. It’s pretty easy to avoid fighting ships if you don’t want to fight them. So you just leave and go look for something else.

No. This also depends on what you mean by “newbie” or a “veteran”. There are only like 30-40 people in the game who are (admittedly very active) good enough to win most fights. The vast majority are just people trying out PvP.

Chances are pretty high you’ll meet someone else who’s only got a couple of fight’s worth of experience below the belt. If you intentionally go to high traffic areas, of course you’ll meet more people of higher skill levels (since there are more targets for them to shoot at).

That depends on the corp. Some do that stuff, others don’t. Reach out to the ones that don’t Easy.

Yeah, this only really happens in major fleet fights where you need to focus your DPS or your lose. In major fleet fights, if you try to rambo something on your own, you’re just gonna get volley’d, die instantly, and then be useless to your fleet.

I don’t know why you keep bringing this up though. Just don’t join those corps.

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Are ship fittings essentially locked to whatever they have on them because of bonuses? Like I shouldn’t use rockets on a merlin? Isn’t it more advantageous if I don’t follow the ship’s meta so I can trick others?

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Some ships have bonuses that allow them to do different things. For example a Worm can be fitted for bot rockets or light missiles, depending on what style of fights you want. But for most ships, there is one or two optimal fits.

For example, a Kestrel will almost always be fitted with Rockets, because of the dps, where as light missiles do so little damage that they’d only really be used in gangs.

Pretty sure you can’t fit missiles on a Merlin. You can fit them on a Hawk (T2 Assault Firgate variant) or a Worm. But yes, you usually don’t want to try and get cute with fits since theyve mostly been figured out after all these years.

That only real thing that’ll happen is that you will die and people will be confused why you went for a significantly subpar and vastly inferior fit.

You can try, but there really is no “surprise” factor that will help you win a fight outside of like, a Cyno.

9

Yeah, I tried getting back into it but it’s just boring and dull. Hunted for like 4 hours until I literally had to go to an alliance null home system just to find people. Ended up getting my ship blown up just from observing from a perch.

All the times I found miners and ratters on the way like every 1.5 hours they would just instantly tether/dock. I don’t even know why I bothered to force myself to play this crummy game again.

10

Some good advice thus far.

Here is mine:

PvPing in EVE is less like World War II planes dogfighting and more akin to large water-based ships fighting.

It is less about “jinking” and “twitch” based moves and more about putting together a “loadout” to use certain tactics you prefer, assessing situations you encounter, and maneuvering accordingly to put yourself in the best position.

In a sense… you, the “pilot,” are more of a “commander” on your ship.
True, lore-wise your “pod” is rigged such that it replaces the command and control personnel on the ship to allow for “faster” responses… but you are still working with a ship that is quite large (Frigates are larger than Boeing 747s).

In short: Adjust your expectations accordingly. EVE is more about planning, maneuvering, and mind games than “LEEEEROOOOYYYYYYY…”

.

I would suggest going out into Faction Warfare areas as there tend to be “hot zones” in them. Find those and hang around for a bit. Go to the “Novice/Small/Medium/Large Complexes” and you will eventually find someone willing to fight.

Win or lose… talk with the people you engage with. Pick their brains, get to know them. Make a joke. Be social.
If they like you, they may pick you up and you can learn more of the nuances of PvP with them.

Sure… teaming up with others may not sound “interesting” or “sporting” (or you may be an ardent “soloist”), but there is something to be said about socializing. The phrase “I don’t know what I don’t know” comes to mind.
The exposure you gain by being around others will help you in the long run.

And there are many, MANY groups out there that will treat you differently. Smaller groups will lean heavily on you as a person while larger groups will have you feeling more like a “number.”
It is not uncommon for most to go through multiple corporations until they find one that is to their liking.

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11

I have no problem with the game being a boat game or whatever. But in a real boat game you wouldn’t be able to avoid combat so easily like with an align+warp to your system’s PoS. The only times I ever managed to get a scram/disrupt on a player is if they made a mistake by committing to a fight they shouldn’t have, if they weren’t paying attention, or they can kick my ass. The first two happen 1/50 of the times I PVPed where people mostly only take fights they know they can win. And FW lowsec PVP is basically the same where people will never take a fight unless they know they can win; good luck catching people who refuse to fight you in 1vs1 T1 frigate fights.

And on top of that the fleet or person who spends the most will most likely win. Drugs, implants, T2 modules, faction/T2 ships, T2/faction ammo, etc. I don’t have billions of ISK to spend, I don’t even have a billion, and I don’t want to farm for hours where I finally get to enjoy PVP where I get out kitted so hard by my opponent that I have a 1% chance of winning. And apparently EVE is already solved where you basically use only efficient popular fittings on ships where there’s a meta and the pros have essentially memorized the meta along with counters so no pro in their right mind will accept a fight unless they don’t care about fighting an uneven fight and losing.

As for catching players. Sure, I could get a ship that uses warp bubbles or whatever, but you require a fleet and a very expensive ship which is too expensive for someone like me where it will definitely get blown up and destroyed.

Also, I played before Pirates of the Burning Sea, a boat mmo, and what you said is a bad comparison. Pirates of the Burning Sea is not like EVE where you activate modules and orbit/keep-distance. I know there’s manual EVE piloting, pulsing, nanites, overheating, etc, but it only goes so far. And most frigate fights last less than 1 minute if you don’t get instapopped that is.

I can let it slide that EVE is just a ship fitting game where you mainly plan, maneuver, strategize, etc, but so far I experienced that you will never get fights most of the time and I hear the same from people who are “PVPing” as a fleet where they spend hours just hunting for a fight. I want to enjoy a game and not share internet links and music to socialize and pass time while waiting hours to finally get a fight.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

12

This is flat out wrong, and a common misconception from people who talk a lot but don’t actually PvP. Experience is the best teacher, and it’ll teach you that this is not the case.

Another misconception.

Look, instead of wasting any more time, I’m gonna leave you with your negativity.

You’ve already set your mind on it. And now all you’re doing is coming up with hypothetical examples to try and justify your preconceived notion. You can spend all this time whining and complaining about it without actually going out and PvPing.

Or you can go out and PvP.

You are INCREDIBLY wrong, but just words on a forum post aren’t going to convince you, since for some reason, you are blocking yourself from accepting it.

You don’t need billions of ISK. You can PvP very well with a 30m Hookbill. You don’t need to use Drugs, I’d be willing to bet you don’t even know what drugs do or when to use them. You don’t need a huge fleet to kill things. etc. etc. etc.

Good luck kid. With that attitude, you’re really gonna need it.

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30 million ISK is quiet a lot for one ship as I only have about 270 million ISK.

I done previous PVP, you can look at my crappy kill mail.

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The only recommendation I can give … join a small, PvP focused lowsec corp. We can’t teach you the complexity of EvE PvP on the forum.

In principle you are right, EvE combat is 75% strategy, planning, and 25% execution. I personally like it that way.

16

i fully agree with scoots choco. Eve does not seem to be a game for OP. Not only because the game mechanisms do not seem to meet his expectations, but also because he seems to think he already knows everything and he has made his opinion.
Even after several years i am still learning every day

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Autopilot to Amamake system.

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First time I logged on I wanted to roam nullsec in a true pirate fashion but I was really bored and disappointed of not being able to catch any targets. Since it was boring, I went back to lowsec solo pvp which is what I was doing when I last left EVE. I wasn’t good at it but I just realized how pointless PVP was most of the time because it was all about matchups. You can see my cruddy killmail of yesterday and previously playing: https://zkillboard.com/character/1699997418/

I have the impression that PVP is only rock-paper-scissors and you can never win against a competent pilot that counters you like you having a t1 frig fighting against a t2 frig. Or a brawler merlin vs a kiting condor that started with distance on you. I hear you could try manual piloting to up your chances, but double clicking in space has a 3-5 second delay for me. Can I be enlightened on this? Only thing I got close to doing was slingshotting but most of the time it is no success because I’m webbed.

Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t EVE PVP all come down to matchups when the pilots are competant? That is my main complaint.

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Not always, some ships (If flown right) can punch above their class.
My breacher (Barely) killed a Fed Navy Comet for a number of reasons. He was range fit and I managed to get on top of him, and I believe that his piloting skills may have been subpar. Then later I fought another Fed Navy Comet who was a great pilot and was brawl fit and I promptly got rekt.

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