People have tried that, I am not exactly useless at the game, I observe and test, I gather intel before I make my move, I wanted to see both sides. During that period I could see the in-balance and it is that stark that even very good players, just go nah!!!
If you look at the points of vulnerability, I have seen AG when it get numbers stop ganks, they catch people on the way, jam them rep the target and so on. But they are often one step behind because the Macherial bumper gives such an advantage. If AG was to sit in Niarja or Uedama with fleets ready theu will go to other systems. The stretgic flexibility of the Macherial is the reason. Now if we remove that then shadowing their fleet picking it off becomes more key, citadels will become more key, which is why thise NPC station thing is important. But do you really think you can keep a lot of good players interested picking off catalyst and SB’s
I am hoping that the north in PH see what the Goons and CODE have been doing and decide to go for it. I was not lying about the blue list, well if they do then this is where it gets more interesting. I so much hope that PH is doing this and once they do then perhaps key mechanics will get changed as the Goons suffer some losses.
The counter bumping thing, yes, but then the counter is multiple bumpers and of course you have to be very aware of the SB gankerrs coming into remove you. The counter play is of course much more difficult, if you really wanted to test yourself then try it. You are good at it and you could prove me wrong by doing it.
Go look at the killboard of his eliteness Australian Excellence (love that name) You will see him using a smart bombing Maller to kill Pandemic Horde Catalysts…
PH if they are doing it is a game changer, the hisec militia just do not have the resources to do it, where is the ISK to pay for it? But PH in a war against the Goon aligned ones is a totally different type of conflict. I so hope that this develops.
I would love to continue this conversation, but my wife wants me to head to bed , so I will have to call it a night. Put some more thoughts down and I will pick up on them as soon as I can tomorrow.
As always it is a pleasure to discuss with you.
PS There is not much left of AG now from what I can see…
I would like to comment a bit more on this post, on the face of it you say why not?
However there are reasons, the first thing is that you require either some very rich sugar daddy or a group of players who have vast wealth at their disposal and are looking for a challenge. Certainly the sugar daddies and players with vast wealth exist, but how many players want that sort of challenge with the current inbalances I have detailed. Most players myself included want a level playing field that enables us to have a chance, playing againts other players is one thing but playing against mechanics is another issue and this is important.
The first thing to note is that there is no ISK creation in AG, that is important because in ganking it is all about the ISK as you yourself know, this means that unless you have a lot of ISK you will have to focus attention on ISK generation to fund your activities and therefore by definition you will not be as dedicated.
So it is not so much their dedication and effort which is of course there, but the fact that the effort itself creates ISK from the ganking while the AG does not.
Your comment on counter bumping, the first thing to note is that bumping a bumper is not as easy as bumping a freighter, this means that your fit has to be set up to be agile, which then makes you vulnerable to a gank and you will be ganked. If you used a Stabber Fleet Issue for example could you do it. How many Macherials would you have to replace and what would be an acceptable loss rate.
The other issue is that the freighter pilots are in the main either stupid, unaware of mechanics and totally wary of being duped, even getting them to accept convo’s is difficult at times Some of them will after a certain period of time being bumped walk away and leave it. So you counter bump and the freighter just sits there, what now?
I thought a better approach was to carry out a campaign of bumper ganking, but we are talking about 3 to 4 Talos to kill one, which is about 500m a shot, AG does not have that level of ISK
Around that period when I took out a gankers POS in Niarja I had some able players who were high SP and were wealthy, initially they enjoyed blapping the gankers, but then I tried to develop the approach and they decided that gate camping the Goons in Cloud Ring was more their cup of tea, the fare offered up by gankers as in catalysts was not interesting.
You might be able to find a good group of people, you might be able to get them interested, you might be able to keep them interested, but after a while when they see the advantages which bumping gives which means they will always be one step behind, that the gankers can base out of any where and of course when they loot scoop only the ibis goes suspect they will realise that it is loaded against them, and you have to have very mentally tough people to do that and most players want easy stuff even if they say that they want to test themselves
And I can say this because I actually tried to do just that, and while we have the inbalances that I have detailed it is just too difficult on the AG side.
What I suggested was to remove bumping so that keeping eyes on the ganker fleet and location of the gank was key, so that the ganks happen in certain places and the AG can move to the choke points and main hubs along with the ganking fleets. At this point of time with multiple bumpers out can you work out which one will be ganked? That was a real issue in terms of counter play when I looked at it.
A war around the citadels would also be fun for AG players, that is why I suggested -10 cannot dock in NPC stations.
Finally ganking and war deckers are also working together quite often, many gankers also operate as war deckers, some are actually more war deckers than gankers but have ganking alts, so any group within a corp or alliance would have to deal with war decks and the like.
You are a very good player, do you think you can organise a group of people to do this and keep them interested as it is now? I could not as it is now, as I said they spend a lot of time trying to personalise it against me to get an enemy, but it is too loaded in their favour, I am not playing that game while the mechanics are so naff period, so they can bluster, try to wind up and get bored to death, because in the end that is what is going to kill them…
Let me take this as an example:
Think on the level of control that this gives in terms of the battle, they basically pick their time and place, it is just too much of an advantage. The only thing that might bother him is that it took him two hours to log all his accounts in.
TLDR: The game play is stale, boring and too unbalanced to be interesting and possible as an AG, AG is not funded by the game play while ganking is.
What will kill this stale boring game play is boredom, because the players doing it get very rich and the play is easy/boring, they want an enemy they can personalise which is why they try to get one on one personal angst going. But no one wants to play… That is why you see desperation by their players, such as Dom saying this:
What play that game, hell no. I have a lot more fun blowing up Rorquals and Titans and having fun skirmishes with BSOD AT level players in nullsec rather than play against naff mechanics.
As an AT level pilot myself whos seen you fail many many times in Uedama, I’m glad you left after your many hundreds of failures against the mighty CODE. alliance for greener pastures
I wrote: bring a friend. What part did you not understand? Your comment about the freighter pilot not trusting you is another onme of your idiotic statements you spout all over these forums.
And now I broke my own promise to never ever respond to any of your retarded posts again, just as to king idiot Salvos.
All youve done is troll and try to stir up arguments. When I tried to actually discuss anything with you, you turn to insulting people and semantics about specific channels.
You are the first to call others out for behaviour you use yoyrself, and when someone tries to have a conversation (god forbid on a forum), you simply try to cause a fight.
So go on, have your little jibe, it doesnt change the fact that doing what you claim to hate makes you just as bad.
Ill ask you not to reply but Im sure you cant resist it.
, so I will have to call it a night. Put some more thoughts down and I will pick up on them as soon as I can tomorrow.