Interesting point. If what you’ve said it true then I have rarely seen a PVPer in EVE and I can’t remember ever loosing a ship in one on one combat. Again, I play stealth and normally only get killed when I’m in an Ishtar doing a combat site in low or null sec. Generally when I’m flying to and from the site. Never really get attacked while doing the site. And it’s always at least 3 on 1. I have lost ships to 1 v 1 when I’ve bee in the wrong ship in the wrong place but that in my own fault. Otherwise its usually GvP
Have you never been interested in trying the other side of the gameplay? For a lot of explorers, by learning how to evade targets properly they learn how the people hunting them think, and give it a go themselves. Personally I started off entirely solo, mostly doing exploration and some combat pve similarly to you, but dipping my toes into group pvp (predominantly sneaky or hit-and-run stuff in cloaky ships) was a completely transformative experience.
I’d advise at least trying out some lower-commitment PvP with some other players (like NPSI fleets) before you give up on the game to see how you take to it.
As a result it opened up a lot more self-driven goals to strive for, like perfecting the art of finding and catching targets, or becoming one of the most prolific Widow pilots.
Funny you mentioned Widows. My last ganking was an Arazu and 2 Widows against my Ishtar. I lost but managed to kill the Arazu. The sad thing is an PVP spec’d Arazu vs a PVE spec’d Ishtar would be a fun fight to watch. The Ishtar is a better ship but in PVE spec has no battlefield control and the Arazu targeting range would make a fun fight to watch. By the way did you recently kill me? Hehe
I’m really enjoying this forum… Maybe I should join a Corp and stop playing solo…
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No, that wasn’t me 
This is precisely it - there’s so much to learn, like how range control and lock-range control from an Arazu is not so effective against drone ships like Ishtars due to the drone auto aggro and control range. It’s a particularly bad matchup for the Arazu so it lets the Ishtar become the hunter.
Destiny’s portrayal of group pvp being mindless ganking has a lot of truth to it, but only if you take the perspective of not being willing to do the more skilful and engaging tasks required for these groups to function.
Not to mention the whole concept that there’s always bigger fish.
Did they want you dead? Yes.
Are you dead? Yes.
Thus, they got what they wanted. That’s success.
I never said that it’s mindless, but the skill ceiling gets lower and lower as group size increases. At some point you’re sitting in TiDi and control-clicking a name on a list every two minutes, and that’s about as engaging as watching a Windows screensaver from 1996. That’s PvP in name only. It doesn’t teach any practical skills, and it doesn’t make you put anything on the line. I see it from some null-sec players I catch in high-sec, and even though they’re in combat ships and should be ready to fight, the moment that they’re caught alone, they get immensely shaken and have no idea what to do and how to respond. They will launch repair drones instead of combat ones, accidentally slow-boat away from the gate in a random direction, forget to change their ammo, forget to turn on their hardeners/speed mods, burn out their modules, and even not try to engage back despite the fact that their ship outclasses mine. They have no idea how to actually fight.
Players who only do massive fleet warfare PvP seem to me that they’re actually afraid of combat/losses, and are only willing to accept the risk of dying when they have the benefit of doing so in a group, as a sort of “it’s easier to do it when others are doing it too” psychological crutch, which is a form of cowardice, though one that is very easy to train yourself out of very quickly because the underlying willingness to engage in PvP already exists in the subconscious layer.
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Phew ! My 3 second align time battlecruiser is safe from you then.
I think that’s nonsense. You actually have less control of who gets blapped in a large fleet. 45 Typhoons all aimed at one Apocalypse ( for example such as at the big Finanar battle ) can destroy it in seconds despite an EHP over 100K. And it is purely the luck of the draw who they aim at. Which is actually scarier than one on one or smaller fights as one has little or no control over it. It was pure luck that nobody targetted me.
Well if you just wanted affirmation for a position you already wanted…then quit, w/e.
Lack of control isn’t necessarily a fear element. You’re effectively anticipating the destruction of your ship due to the environment to which you bring it. Additionally, danger in a big group is much more psychologically palatable than danger in the midst of few (if any) allies. As group size goes up, combat simply becomes less intense, because you have so many others with whom to commiserate about loss and adversity. If I have to be the first one here to admit that engaging in group PvP results in much less stress and anticipation, I will. That feeling of “the shakes” is much stronger when I’m fighting in EVE or some survival game alone, than when I am with friends. But it is a well-documented psychological response as far as combat/warfare is concerned in general.
It’s good that you’re enjoying big fleet warfare, and I think you should continue doing it, but you should also seek out other types of PvP experiences, which would vastly broaden your perspective. Seeing as how you’re lucky enough to have direct access to multiple groups that routinely engage in blanket wars, this should be very easy to achieve. You can also attempt some rudimentary low-sec/wormhole hunting, or even try hunting some suspects (or even be a suspect yourself). You’ll see what I mean when you have that full range of experience.
Alternatively: People who only do massive fleet warfare PvP want combat that matters. They want to be part of the ‘grand narrative’ of nullsec politics and warfare, and not just some thug in a back-alley jerking off about how many miners they can ambush, or killboard dicksizers in FW arenas that player actions never really change. The ball moves, but the ball moves back. Meanwhile, out in null, you’ve got the people who aren’t afraid of real losses: losing keepstars, losing supers, losing titans.
G’wan. Tell me these guys were afraid of losses:
If you can’t lose it, you don’t fly it.
I’ve taken subcaps worth more than capital ships into brawls we knew nobody was flying home from—and no, they weren’t SRP’d, because they weren’t doctrinaire ships. They were purpose-built to do my job in a fight, and when they blew up, I ate the multi-billion ISK ship loss, and the multi-billion ISK pod loss (Yes, implants in null. More common than most believe.). And as I said above, I’m arrogant enough to say I’m pretty damned good at that job, which is impossible if you’re afraid of losing crap, because you’re always a priority target in logi. That only goes up when you’re easily recognizable as ‘Arrendis is there, that’s their logi anchor’ because half your enemies have been your friends in the past.
I own the first Pirate Force Auxiliary to ever have the BPC drop, first one ever built. It’s sitting idle now simply because I’m not doing the null scene these days. But it’s been blooded, in fights where it was hands down the highest-value potential kill on the grid. My only concern w/that ship hasn’t been that I’d lose it… but that when it blows up, I intend to make damned sure I’m the one flying it.
I’ve killed ships and lost ships in combat in every part of the game, and I’ve always found the small gang stuff boring AF, because it just doesn’t matter. Oh, some guy blew up my Stabber? Eh, no real loss, no real effect. A Mack got ganked? Meh. A gang camped a gate and fought another gang coming through? Yeah, ok, and that’ll happen tomorrow on the same gate, just like it does every damned day and nobody cares.
Burn down Fountain and drive one of the biggest alliances in the game out of null completely for over a year while they rebuild? That has an impact. Destroy every PanFam structure in Tribute and hand the region over to small groups trying to get started? That impacts people. Move all your crap to the opposite side of the map to help out some friends who are desperately trying to defend their homes? They tend to remember it.
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Why yes, yes we are. 
We’re a neutral exploration corp that provides services to the greater New Eden community. Here’s a link for more information.
Can confirm, Signal Cartel are good people.
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I still disagree. The reason I can expand my PvP is because of the huge buffer that comes from having 300 kills and only 5 losses…which is a direct consequence of all that fleet activity.
What you’re describing applies only to a small cadre of upper-echelon alliance leaders, and not to the everyday grunt composing those fleets. But then again, what these elite players do isn’t truly combat; they’re not fighting, but are essentially playing a very high-stakes board game, or Poker, between each other. This is a completely separate and different EVE experience from what the average player experiences.
You are talking about your unique experience, but the exception doesn’t make the rule. Most players in null-sec show up to SRPed fleets and hit F1. They do this as part of the requirements of being part of those alliances in order to be a null-sec resident (and thus have access to certain economic activities), and also because they’ve been sold this naive, romantic notion of prestige conveyed by being a null-sec player.
However, this doesn’t really have anything to do with my argument. I’m not criticizing null-sec life (at least not here; it does deserve its fair share of criticism), nor am I saying that that gameplay is irrelevant. What I am saying is that players who tend to go solely for large-group PvP often do so because it’s a low-impact version of PvP with a lower skill ceiling, but one they can still leverage to claim to be PvP players in order to command respect. This is according to my own fairly extensive experience in null-sec. These players tend to be brave in a group, but alone, they become the same kind of prey animal you can find near a 0.9 Veldspar rock. This is obviously a generalization, and doesn’t apply to everyone, but in my observation it certainly applies to the majority.
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Most of your kills are stations and fighters, of which most weren’t defended. A total of 216 of 282 kills were like that.
Now, I’m not criticizing you, as I’m generally more concerned with whether someone talking about game aspects is an active player in that sphere as opposed to necessarily having some kind of subjectively-desirable, “elite” record. However, I guarantee that your perspective on PvP will change as you discover more and more of the game, kind of like it did from your first months when you weren’t particularly fond of the “griefers.”
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106 of 282 were not stations. Some of the stations were very heavily defended…with multiple losses on our side. Including the biggest battle in highsec for years. Hmm…now where did that Sotiyo killmail get to. Oh yes…CCP ‘lost’ it.
To me it is all incremental. Bear in mind I’ve actually only been with WM for 9 months…in which time I’ve progressed from flying ‘squishies’ to T2 battleships…Apocs, Drekavacs, Nightmares, etc. For me it is all about skilling up to be a serious solo contender as well…a point I have pretty much reached now.
Yesterday I flew a Nightmare solo for 32 jumps. All a far cry from when I was a timid miner in a Venture. I go at my own pace…but rest assured I’ll be up there with the ‘elite’ sooner rather than later.
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No, it does not. What I am describing is what motivated me from the moment I first joined LAWN, months before I got my first taste of anchoring logi in combat. I came to null as a grunt line member, having been in a J-space (and earlier, high/low-sec) corp.
In addition, even once in leadership, the people I talked to most were my line logi pilots. I know why they’re there because we discussed it, and because I kept discussing it with them as new people came in, for over ten years. Don’t presume to know what motivated my guys better than I do.
A)The average null line member doesn’t give fetid fedo fart about your respect.
B)That’s what you’re saying now, but only because what you were saying was…
and got called out on your crap. When’s the last time you risked a ship you’d have any trouble replacing? When’s the last time you were willing to spend a whole day on a fight with no guarantee of success? The system you’ve gotten most of your kills in is Amarr, with RIOT. And that means you’ve been flying with backup available, ganking high-value war targets that mostly can’t shoot back.
That one was a real profile in courage on your part, wasn’t it? Took a lot of skill to lock, scram, and shoot a guy who can’t fight back, right? Hell, it was on the EFA station, which means he was probably trying to align to the gate and just hadn’t slowed down enough. No prop mod means he never had a chance (now, I’ll grant you, he was dumb to not have an insta-undock, but stupid prey doesn’t exactly make the hunt harder for you).
You’ve got some high numbers on the losses, but then, when we actually dive in… the value’s all in the cargo taken from previous ganks.
But you’re gonna talk about people who throw damned-near-irreplaceable ships into the woodchipper being afraid of losses? You’re gonna sit there and tell me that investing time in what may easily be a lost cause is ‘cowardice’? A hecate ganker is gonna go lecturing people on skill?
C’mon.
Calm down carebear.