One thing I will add is that while I 100% love the convoluted mechanics that make Highsec tricky I think it’s dumb that new players have to deal with them.
I can’t imagine it’s satisfying dying to something and having no explanation. While I don’t think they should be insulated from PvP, maybe just set off to have a better start than all the meta game pvp that can happen in Highsec. Luckily I firmly believe through my own observations that Highsec isn’t primarily occupied by new players, but by veterans alts and carebears just playing the “think of the new players” card as a way to try and achieve risk free farm in Highsec.
So I try to punish those players by going after ships that are typically fielded by players with more tenure in the game. Of course in the golden age of skill injectors sometimes it’s hard to tell a new player from a veteran… oh well!
Allow me to help you with your uncertainty! Each area of space has its own merits and mechanics that make them unique or interesting. I’ll just go through a quick and dirty laundry list of comparisons.
Nullsec is sold as being apart of being a small cog in a huge wheel. Most times you don’t make your own decisions about even when to press fire. You are there as another soldier in the N+1 meat grinder. In Nullsec very often it’s only the FC and maybe a few specialized roles that understand what’s going on.
In other areas of space the previous can also be true but the space isn’t hinged or built on it. This creates a situation where Nullsec players are actually rather stupid and ignorant. They don’t have to think about mechanics. They aren’t pushed to understand things.
In comparison for Highsec PvP it’s literally a competition of who better understands mechanics and how they can be used/abused. It’s often more psychological than skill based but that in itself has plenty of merit over the typical combat you find in Nullsec. So when someone says that the fight was unfair in Highsec to me they are just admitting that they are literally dumber than I am.
You want to know what’s actually impressive about any PVP in all areas of space? When you do something of your own volition. Specialized roles like knowing when and where to bubble a fleet, FC’ing a bombing run, and plenty of other PvP scenarios that require you to actually understand what the hell is going on and how to manipulate mechanics to your favor.
So no the colonial style of combat you find in Nullsec isn’t skillful or intense at all for the most part other than the FC’s that are playing the macro game and other specialized roles. 99% of the players are brainless zombies that are only there because the FC can’t run all the clients himself and input broadcasting is a no-no.
Oh but you will have to destroy the target in time and that depends on various factors. Do you even know what they are and how you calculate that stuff?
Go for it and show us with a killmail how easy it is. Otherwise it’s pretty obvious that you don’t know what you are talking about.
And suicide ganking is just one mechanic of many in Highsec. Null bears are usually completely oblivious to them.
Ah yeah, the good old “please walk voluntarily into a situation we created where we have the upper hand, we are to dumb to fight you where you are now or use some elaborate trick to get you there”-tactic
I loved your post and think it’s spot-on, but for the sake of giving the thread a “complete feel,” and in very broken English, I’d like to add:
“m8 y dont u come down to nullsec then we show u wat real pvp is like oh wait ur to scared bc u dont fight u just gank cuz u have no skill & need concord to protect u”
Well there is provi-block. More open than some. If you can deal with the infighting, the confusing coordination with their convoluted kill don’t kill lists and at some point some one gets bored and steam rolls them.
But they do try. Beat em down 50 times, they get back for try 51. 52…152. You see no one really wants the space. Its just something to do on a slow saturday.
I was thinking that NPC nullsec was the end game which really developed you as a player. As far as I am concerned @Aaron was right.
So true, having been in various big alliances in nullsec over the years. You are often in blinded ignorance what you are about to jump into and I often did not like that.
However this is wrong because a lot of players go into those nullsec alliances from other areas, but they are forced to act like that when in sov nullsec. No one tells you anything because of spies and you just have to do everything on trust because of that. Many people I met in nullsec knew the game very well, but they had to be dumb with everyone else because nullsec…
I always think that abusing mechanics which are left to be abused makes a bad game.
In many of the major alliances you have to get into the inner circle, though if you are in a decent corp you can actually set that up for your small group. One of the things I liked about Intrepid Crossing was that they allocated systems to corps, so you ended up with your own self-defence setup. ANd they were never as bad as people made out, they were just steam rolled by superior firepower in terms of Supers and stuff, like Providence was. And before anyone sniffs at that remember this was some time ago when Supers were kings and there were still not that many Titans.
The game makes you act like stupid brainless zombies, which is why ganking works so well with input broadcasting and tabbed clickfests… And if that is elite PvP, which it is then this makes the game crap…
I think it depends on the mechanic and how it’s being abused. See most instances of people using interesting mechanics to tip the scales towards their favor is knowledge-based and is free for everyone to use or at least be aware of. I’d argue that unless it’s a bug it’s not necessarily contributing to a “bad game”.
A good example of this is the cloak+mwd trick. That is the result of unintended mechanics working together to benefit the player. If you know how to use this it’s a valuable tool, everyone can do it, and doesn’t really break the game (ok I disagree with BATTLESHIPS being able to use it). While I personally hate the mechanic, I realize that its balanced in a sense when you pull back and look at the entire pictrure.
Using and abusing game mechanics are the last bastion of hope that any smaller and more skillful / more knowledgeable group has against larger groups. Sadly it often isn’t enough because as we all know very well that N+1 is so overbearingly effective, you don’t have to do anything other than colonial-style combat.
True, and honestly the #1 reason why we’ve arrived at this point right now is because of skill injectors. Prior to that there was multiboxing and stuff, but it was NOTHING like this… not by a long shot. So for me personally when I think of Elite PvP only one activity comes to mind and that’s like small-gang / nano / AT style gameplay. Mostly because each individual has to know exactly what they are doing and what their role is.
I do also like to meme and say that the type of combat I’ve typically done in this game is “ELITE PVP”, mostly because it takes more knowledge, timing, and finesse than most other activities. I also think that many of you underestimate how difficult multiboxing 26 clients can be, even with the assistance of keybinds, software (not input-broadcasting), and such.
Just for my own information, what’s the connection there? Sorry, just not following injectors (which I do loathe, but for different reasons) affecting gank alts as its pretty quick to train up a bunch of Cat Gunners. Is it BC gunners you mean?
So what I’m actually referring to is the cycle of SP farming making maintaining a fleet of alts trivial. Prior to this there has always been multiboxing, but you either had to open your wallet or make sure you made enough isk to cover the PLEX. Today it’s as simple as taking an hour or so every month to do your account maintenance.
So you can train 20 gank alts (like I have) as alpha up to 5m SP, then use all the unallocated SP from login and daily bonus to get you to Cybernetics 4 or 5 and actually make ISK if you do it right.
So now you can scale this up to the point where your computer can’t handle any more clients at maximum potato mode. So I personally run 20 gankers, I have a friend that ganks with us that just got 13 gankers running, then we have 2 friends that each run 20 gankers. That’s 74 gankers between 4 people. This is actually one of the games largest problems at the moment I believe but CCPs survival depends on it at this point I think.
So what also sped up this issue was the bump timer. It PUSHED gankers to run their own personal gank fleets if they didn’t have time to rage-ping for a fleet to form while a target was pinned down. Since suitable gank targets can sometimes have a fleet waiting hours, it’s kinda lame for me to expect a bunch of dudes to just chill while we wait for the whale to appear lol.
