Does eve have an elitism problem?

(Rexxar Santaro) #146

The dashboard like zKillboard has its advantages and disadvantages. As an advantage - it is a statistically informative source of data, while as a disadvantage - it is a hyped object, over which many players are very focused to get more “green” stripes than “red” ones. Being a rookie pilot in a big fleet you can get more green stripes in one day than any solo flying veteran during a month. More red stripes doesn’t mean only that the pilot is a noob or whatever, it just means that he is playing a different game also, which can’t generate green stripes. If to talk about pure PVP, than I’ll be more concerned to be in a systems with a player with a lot of red and green stripes and solo kill ratio over 50% (not due to his ALTs) than with one with a green dashboard and gangs kill ratio over 90%. I can’t call players focused on the zKillboard bad, good, elitist or something else, even if they using smartbombs in fleet. More red or green stripes means that player is active, a learning process, mistakes and successful situations.

For example, I want to share few scenarios from my small zkillboard dashboard.

My first Alpha Probe was destroyed at Hagilur gate just because he was on Autopilot. I passed that system few minutes before that and nobody were there. I though, what can happen?

My second AFK Alpha Probe was destroyed because I warped at a safe spot in low-sec and, at that time, I was sure that those bookmarks are truly safe. Well, that way I found the existence of Combat Probes and that there can be somebody in the middle of nowhere also which can scan you down at that moment.

I lost like a bunch of expensive ships in PVE due to DC and low SP (by doing burner missions). I lost a couple of Worms by doing Burning Talos missions. So, there I found that a simple unlucky orbiting isn’t enough to survive, just because there is a point at which you have like zero angular velocity with one of three Taloses (which can 1 shot a Worm). So, that way I found - you can do burner Talos missions in a cheap Worm by navigating manually with max angular velocity relative to each of Taloses. My Internet speed is 100 Mb/s, but due to these random DCs, I’m not doing high-tier Abyssals or Null-sec roams in a T3 Cruiser and, just because of it, my zKillboard hasn’t respective “stripes”.

Finally, recently I got my last red zKillboard stripe in Fountain in an interesting scenario. Well, during my current nomadic trip across Fountain, I become somehow bored by scanning possible WHs and Relic Sites. Those current Fountain dwellers - Initiative Associates - new Initiative renters. System after system, as soon you jump into a system, like one or two VNI fly towards their docks. How much cost per system is Fountain renting - 3B or 5B ISK per month? Looks like half of those dwellers are refugees from upper Cloud Ring and Pure Blind/Fade systems since Summerset War and Snuff’s “Pure Blind” expansion. They are very painstaking with their renting activity - looks like it’s hard to afford renting and I found that not many Relic sites are available around.

I decided to move towards Aridia. Suddenly, I entered in a system with 2 foes in Local. Looks like that one in a VNI is an ALT to another one in an Astero, which scanned something. I decided to scan those signatures also and voila - two Relic Sites closely situated to each other. Well, that guy docked his VNI and began to hack the cans uncloaked. He was like “It’s mine!”. I decloaked at a spot not so far from the second Relic site and he didn’t reacted i no way. I warped there and began to MWD towards the farthwest can in that site with my Stiletto. As soon I did that, in a few seconds, he warped in also. So, I decided to kite around a bit. Hmmm? This guy must be from Gallente/Caldari FW operations and come here to make money or whatever. Because the “cone” D-scan mode is frequently well practiced by FW pilots to check plexes for possible targets. Soon after that, I warped away and left the system for two minutes and then come back again.

As you suppose, the VNI docked again and the guy sits in the first site. I warped towards the second site at 100 km and in two seconds, after I landed, the guy appeared there at 0km. Just imagine, he warped there forwardly to land at the same time as I did. That was the sign to get out of there, because this guy know what he is doing. Ahh, I remember my FW time with my ALT. But what I can do with my interceptor? I’m not flying armed exploration ships with EWAR systems and that Astero, if is blinged, he can tank like a beast, like a Cruiser. So, I decided to play a veeery risky game with this renter - to ninja relic cans - I decided to use my agile and fast interceptor, to jump from site to site by hacking a random can while he is in warp. I didn’t jetisioned my cargo at a safe spot by thinking “if this guy will catch me, than he deserves it”. But I did a mistake, - I didn’t took into consideration that the distance between sites is too small, his Astero is very agile also and he warped uncloaked which removes the 5 sec locking delay after decloaking. Therefore, I warped at a distance to the first site and cloaked by aligning towards the second one. He did the same thing and released his droners by flying in opposite direction, by showing that he has a bad align time and can’t warp until he will scoop the drones back. I decloaked and warped towards the second site and, as a second mistake, I choosed the same can as previously there by MWD towards the can. I was able to hack like 50% of the scheme and I saw a landing Astero on the grid. That was very fast, like 7 sec interval. I’m not sure, but I think he left his drones there to not waste time. Moreover, surprisingly he didn’t land at a beacon, which is 50km away, but at 15 km from me.

Just imagine! That dude made a bookmark near that can as soon he saw me there firstly, without any plans or escalating intentions that these kind of things can even happen! Well, my cloak was on CD (15 sec) and at that moment I was bumped by a can and wasn’t enable to warp fast in an opposite direction. I was like “Well done!”. He only scrambled my ship and began to shoot with Drones, as soon he noticed that my fit is without AB - he stopped for a while and brought the VNI for killmarks. Even loot “fairy said yes” and he got under 70M ISK, which costs as much as his Astero or VNI.

So, this is a short story behind that single red strip on zKillboard and, as I mentioned above, in solo scenarios these stories are much more bright and experienceful than in trivial fleets. But fleets have their stories no doubt. I don’t think that the actions to stack killborad points by any means is wrong thing, but in EVE it turns a lot of players from risky operations, from content scenarios, even bad content scenarios, because nobody want to lose anything and nobody wants to have a “red” dashboard which even doubles a passive activity.

BTW. I’m in Stain for over a week currently. In which system are you living, Aaron? I’m going to leave Stain soon, because I’m like tired with this mad exploration marathon here. So, I would like to visit the system of famous Aaron before that…

(Dracvlad) #147

Good post, enjoyed the read.

At one point we lived in UF-KKH, but that system has been taken over by people from the first Hub Zero period and they gate camp the hell out of it, do not warp gate to gate in UF-KKH as they do smart bomb traps and be ready for sabres and fast tackle too.

I noticed that Aaron’s last loss mail was in F9SX-1 and the last time we interacted with each other it was in that area. I hope that helps.

(Herzog Wolfhammer) #148

You see, flying with Drac made me realize I was bad at Eve.

(Dracvlad) #149

You are very good at Eve, you were doing exploration and had an excellent niche until it got removed by game changes, like my niche which was gun mining from belt ratting, the reprocess nerf did that in for me.

But that does make me think at the min/max elite attitude because I was belt ratting and at one point I perfected it in a drake making it difficult to for hunters to catch me and I said that I was making 5m per tick at that point and I had min/max type players tell me I was bad because they got 20m ticks in anomalies in sov nullsec. But I was having fun avoiding hunters all the time while still making this ISK.

(Herzog Wolfhammer) #150

Sometimes I came “home” empty handed, across a dozen wormholes and harrowing nullsec jumps. But that was the fun. Some days I made hundreds of millions of ISK in minutes, others I got nothing for hours of effort.
But it was all in the FIND. That’s what it was all about. Then exploration was turned into this min-max canned-result thing for the same kids who were raised on “structure” and Ritalin to obsess over. The heart and soul went out of it all along with the enjoyment.
Of all things, the min-max mindset probably did the most damage to the game. From the “ISK uber alles” to “Killboard uber alles”, they were not fun people to play with. Oh well.
CODE. was fun to play with until their ISK started to suffer. They became that which they claimed to hate. Then so did most of the goons in the end. They didn’t live up to their own memes.
Eve’s banner ad looks like every other free “browser game” now. Not very elite, if we consider it.

(Aaron) #151

I’m around F9SX-1 . Completely dead in the US timezone and very active in EU timezone. I don’t log on very often as I play alone. I have many characters dotted around cloaked up in the area so i get to do 8/10s 10/10s. It’s a great area to live in if you know what you’re doing and are able to stay safe.

Look forward to seeing you around.

(Rexxar Santaro) #152

I didn’t met any smartbomb camps in Stain recently nor during my previous visits to Stain. And yeah, that UF-KKH system if frequently camped as entire Eastern Stain Constellations - the most unpleasant Stain systems to be in. There aren’t so many smartbomb camps ovearall over null-sec systems nowadays.

In a post, somebody argued that hi-sec is much more protected than null-sec and has very good rewards, nearly as good as null-sec systems have. So, I decided to make a big null-sec nomadic trip like few weeks ago again. I began a counterclockwork nomadic adventure from Curse across Great Wildlands systems towards Cache and further. At the beginning, in the second GW system of VXO-OM, I walk into a big gate camp of Bright Side of Death. Oh nice, what else, I was in the middle of their blob of like 70 ships. They had everything there, - T1, T2 frigates, T2 and T3 destroyers and some Cruisers - they had everything, even ability to catch 1.8s align time ships. BTW, that alliance is the most PVP skillfull in Winter Coalition, like PL was/is in PanFam. Well, cloak + MWD trick let me fly away. Maybe null-sec really become dangerous again…

I jumped through a countless number of systems with any sign of real danger after that. Like, with a right ship you can be very safe in hostile null-sec and with an alt intel you can do it in a Cruiser or above class ship similarly. The reawards varied from Region to Region, based on the amount of Heaven/Sanctum signatures, green mining belts, good combat signatures and data/relic signatures. The were Regions without a single data/relic signature, but with a bounch of lvl1-2 combat signatures and vice versa. Overall, if your are lucky, you can gain much-mych more assets in null-sec than in hi-sec during the same amount of time, otherwise - the differency in rewards is not so sufficient.

I reached Tribute by passing Geminate, Vale, many gate camps, hundreds of systems. I have no time to check everything, every gate. I jumped gate to gate across Tribute, which is probably the only region after Delve, where you should not do this. I knew about Tribute smartbomb campers of Militaris Industries Corp, but didn’t spent time to check that in local. So, they smartbombed my travel fit Stiletto and my pod for over 300M ISK in total (not abig loss). Therefore, that NC. corp have a different color status since.

This is an example that some type of ships (like travel ones) are very safe in null-sec, but they aren’t absolute immune. This makes some sense and a balanced mechanic - you can use travel Interceptros, but beware of smartbombs or you can use CovOps ships by avoiding most smartbombcams, but beware of bubbles. Anyway, the more intel and bookmarks is made - the safest your trips can be. In a friendly SOV space, where a lot of players around are “blue”, the safety is much higher than in any hi-sec system with a lot of neutrals around you.

During a long trip around galaxy, only very few constellations are frequently smartbombed: Tribute LLAP-1 and 52-JKU, Catch EM-L3K (F2R2-Q), Placid Amevync (especially system Alsavoinin) and Delve bosons.

Here is my journey statistic during the last two months, since Activity Tracker was implemented. I performed over 13800 jumps through far and hostile null-sec gates (based on the overall statistic). I passed like 7 big blob camps, 3 smartbomb camps, like dozens of simple buble camps and hundreds of camps without bubles (with simple tacklers). My ship was destroyed only two times just because I was lazy to check things and/or played a dangerous game.

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(Rexxar Santaro) #153

Ah, one of the most isolated system in Stain. You have to pass a long chain of pipeline systems to get there from any direction. You choosed a strange system to live around btw. I thought you based in similar constellations like 5VN-B7, H26A-B or VH1-NS, V-H3V0.

The interesting fact about Stain is if you scanned a good Combat Signature and you share it in Local (guys, look, here it is!), everybody reacts like “pffff, no, no. no… heh, lol”. But passing back across the same systems in 30 mins after that - like no combat signatures around anymore, they are mowed down very fast… hehehe. Without decent intel it’s hard to do anything in Stain.

I don’t want to point at anybody, but surprisingly, I met many active forum members in Stain.

(Serena Cobalt) #154

There’s elitism issues in every game, not just in Eve. The ones who think are better than everyone else, even when they are wrong will eventually pay for their arrogance, one way or another. They’re easy to spot, so avoid them like the plague!

(Herzog Wolfhammer) #155

Hmph. Elitists we. So you say. Such prole dribble. Do you shoo the flies away from your face when you eat or is that how you get your protein?

(Aaron) #156

Anything for sale? It can be long finding a wormhole.

(Dracvlad) #157

I would be happy to sell you stuff.

(Herzog Wolfhammer) #158

Hey guys, I still got stuff out there I’ll be happy to give away.

(Nana Skalski) #159

You are leaving?
In such case I would be glad to receive all livestock of all kinds.

And some industrial ships. Thank you. :kissing_heart:

(Uriel the Flame) #160

Feel free to contract me whatever you won’t need in the future. Don’t forget to keep enough for yourself for the time when you will return even if years from now so you can start over. o/

(Foggy Bernstein) #161

Send me some happy thoughts and wish me well as I do for you.

(Tater-nuts) #162

Elitism and masculine toxicity are huge problems in EVE, mainly centered in Null Sec.

(Black Ambulance) #163

Q : Does eve have an elitism problem?
A : You can’t have such a problem in a DEAD game.

(Mevatla Vekraspek) #164

You don’t know my mother-in-law.

(Herzog Wolfhammer) #165

Well I have for the most part left the game only returning for events and to check on “muh stuff”. What I meant was if Aaron wanted the stuff I have out in Stain.
I want to come back but RL has a death grip on my bawls.