What's it going to take to become a praying mantis?

[Kitsune]

I've got a fresh trial going on after the latest patch to admire some of the shiny and whatnot, and the new ships got me to thinking that I'd rather enjoy getting one of the black ops battleships, heading to a low-security area's asteroid field with some miners in it, waiting for jackasses to come attack the miners, then OMGBATTLESHIP the jackasses.  The thought of the look on a frigate pilot's face when a battleship decloaks 10km away makes me giggle.  I'd have to leave the sector before the guy came back with twenty buddies, of course, but I figure there are enough people hunting miners to make it pretty much a full-time job.

That just leaves the question about whether it's feasible to swat frigates with the huge, slow turrets on a battleship in the first place, and if so, how much time and cash it'll cost to get the skills and the ship.  If anyone has any ballpark figure that they can produce, I'd like to hear it.

[Yoru]

Short answer: Get a Sin and some drones.  Drones + webs = dead frigs. Hell, drones alone = dead frigs. You can then use your big guns to swat cruisers.

[bhodi]

Evemon says almost a year's worth of training for that (black ops BS). I'm sure there are better ships for what you're looking for.

[Kitsune]

A year of training?  Holy fuck.

[Nija]

Well, do you know anybody who has played Eve that would let you use their account?

I mean, I've got two accounts with 20 million SP sitting idle, while I have one active that's at 20M SP... Both of those idle ones have BS5 and a bunch of crap that would probably speed up that black ops req.

But I ain't givin' one to you. Just saying.

[LC]

Black Ops are overrated. You can't cloak while warping, and they will cost over a bil isk. It's like a dread made out of paper.

[Yoru]

You could do the same thing with a dominix and a tech 1 cloak. You'd need some scan boosters to make your lock time not completely suck though.

[dwindlehop]

Use a cloak on a regular BS and rig it for minimum sensor recalibration time and max scan res? Or just warp in on them rather than decloaking?

It's not that hard to come up with a pretty good BS versus smaller stuff fit. Fit a neut or two, don't use torps, do use double 90% webs. Bring a wave or two of light drones for frigs and whatever else your hull will fit for opponents below 3km/s.

Also, get a friend so you can actually lock. Get multiple friends and just do a force recon gang. There are NRDS and antipirate alliances aplenty.

Also also, there's really no one mining in lowsec.

[TheDreamr]

Expensive, skill intensive, assumes pirates fly paper-thin ships and wont stop their typical squabbling to kill a multi-billion ship.


Your simplest "solo" option would be to use a suitable recon cruiser (Arazu?) in a similar way to described above, wait around in the vicinity of anything vulnerable looking and wait for it to get ganked.  Repeat until you encounter a pirate flying a ship you can kill solo.

Your simplest "gang" option would be to get someone in a cloaked covert ops to act as a spotter, you and a few friends in combat ships hiding in a safe spot, with the gang aligned and ready to warp.  Covert ops pilot feeds you intel, and positions to give you an ideal exit point when you warp to the belt / X km from him.

Your simplest "bait" option would be to fit a cheap cloak to a missile boat (BC or BS depending on expected target) and bring FoF missiles.  Put another new(er) character in a frigate or destroyer, add a couple of guns or mining lasers.   Now find a quiet spot, make the bait look like they're mining or ratting and have perhaps gone afk (silly noob!) then move out a little and cloak -- once the a suitable pirate aggresses, you decloak and start spamming FoF which don't need a target lock, and should make a bee-line for the flashing red pirate.


That still leaves a couple of flaws;

Most decent pirates don't run around in badly fitted T1 ships, more than a few run around in whatever T2 ship is currently flavour of the month (command ships & nanoships?).  I'd expect to have a serious fight on your hands unless you can lock them down with EW and keep them out of the fight - most won't just pop in 10 seconds either.

Busy low-sec systems will be a free-for-all, and I'd guess that you'll have a very narrow window between engaging your target (who's engaging the miner) and either his friends or other pirates arriving on the scene, and once you're locked you wont be able to re-cloak.

Quiet low-sec systems will be quiet, so might not be enough passing traffic to ensure the miner gets ganked.

[ajax34i]

Yeah, I was thinking "what you assume will happen isn't what will happen."  OMGBATTLESHIP my ass.  You'll be solo and most people fly in groups, and in EVE typically one ship can't do everything (tackle, DPS, and tank, all of them well), so you'll be killed fast and lose that billion ISK ship.  There are no solopwnmobiles in EVE.

And yeah, defenseless miners...  first of all, when the miners see you enter system they'll dock.  If not, they'll warp out and dock when you warp in to their belt.  If they trust you and they don't, they'll warp in when the "pirates" enter the system.  You won't have a bait.

EVE's been around for years.  There are no newbies; anyone you encounter is likely to be an expert at the game and likely to kick your ass.

[Furiously]

I was thinking a fun one would be to try attacking a miner in a gatecamped system. Then take off for a clear gate and have an ambush on the other side. Would likely go bad really quick though.

[Teleku]

This thread just further illustraits the major problems with Eve, and why, in the end, it gets Epic Fail.

Was very tempted to resub again, but this (along with some other stuff I was thinking/reading about) just reminded me why I most certainly shouldn't, and need to not give them any money at all.

Maybe World of Starcraft will do eve right! 

[Endie]

This thread just further illustraits the major problems with Eve, and why, in the end, it gets Epic Fail.

Was very tempted to resub again, but this (along with some other stuff I was thinking/reading about) just reminded me why I most certainly shouldn't, and need to not give them any money at all.

Maybe World of Starcraft will do eve right! 

As a matter of interest, what is the problem this thread suggests to you?

[Fordel]

A year of training?  Holy fuck.

Did it for me. In this thread at least.

[Chenghiz]

This thread just further illustraits the major problems with Eve, and why, in the end, it gets Epic Fail.

Was very tempted to resub again, but this (along with some other stuff I was thinking/reading about) just reminded me why I most certainly shouldn't, and need to not give them any money at all.

Maybe World of Starcraft will do eve right! 

Honestly I don't see how it would be any different in any game that allows for world pvp.

[geldonyetich2]

I get the feeling that combat in EvE mostly falls into these categories:

A) Veteran players get together in large prearranged pewpew engagements, resolute in potentially losing billions of ISK.
B) Veteran players gather in smaller numbers to run a death-dealing convoy looking to kill lone vermin, resolute in potentially losing millions of ISK.
C) Lone vermin sit at a popular warp gate in 0.0 space for hours, so bored of their wits that they don't care how many ISK they lose, hoping a helpless newbie comes out of the warp gate and not somebody from category B

Am I wrong?

[TheDreamr]

I get the feeling that combat in EvE mostly falls into these categories:

A) Veteran players get together in large prearranged pewpew engagements, resolute in potentially losing billions of ISK.
B) Veteran players gather in smaller numbers to run a death-dealing convoy looking to kill lone vermin, resolute in potentially losing millions of ISK.
C) Lone vermin sit at a popular warp gate in 0.0 space for hours, so bored of their wits that they don't care how many ISK they lose, hoping a helpless newbie comes out of the warp gate and not somebody from category B

Am I wrong?

Yes.

A lot of the organised "gang" PvP in EVE (as opposed to fleet combat) isn't just people in stupidly expensive ships & fittings with an army of like-minded friends, it's normally a core group of people within their corporation or alliance who enjoy PvP but would dearly love more people to get involved with it so they could field a better gang, or run gangs at different times.

Whenever there's organised PvP going on, show some interest and I pretty much guarantee you'll be surprised at the reaction you get - most groups will take you along even if you're flying a T1 ship, even suggest fittings (if you ask) or provide a ship & fitting if you're lacking the ISK yourself.  Long term there's obviously an expectation that you pay your own way, but short term provided you're not a total dick and can follow instructions most gangs will always welcome another member.



If you like that playing style and do it regularly enough, there's an expectation that you specialise and provided you can afford it, fly T2 ships with T2 fittings as it increases your survival rate, and by extension the survival rate of the gang.

You will encounter "T2 only" gangs - sometimes it's just snobbery, sometimes there's a very valid reason for it (nanoships?) but generally a good group would understand if you wanted to PvP but couldn't afford T2, and not hold it against you.



As someone once explained it to me: "These guys are flying around in freighters (1b), hulks (500m old prices), tricked out battleships (1b+ old prices) and have at least a billion in assets, but whenever they get asked to PvP they're out there in T1 fitted BC's and worrying about losing their ships when everyone else is flying full T2.  Makes me ashamed."

[Endie]

I get the feeling that combat in EvE mostly falls into these categories:

A) Veteran players get together in large prearranged pewpew engagements, resolute in potentially losing billions of ISK.
B) Veteran players gather in smaller numbers to run a death-dealing convoy looking to kill lone vermin, resolute in potentially losing millions of ISK.
C) Lone vermin sit at a popular warp gate in 0.0 space for hours, so bored of their wits that they don't care how many ISK they lose, hoping a helpless newbie comes out of the warp gate and not somebody from category B

Am I wrong?

Yes.

Most pvp outside the war is just people in small groups running around looking to fight whatever they come across that looks feasible.  That doesn't mean lone ganks: it can mean forces much bigger than you (see Pandemic Legion, Tri etc).

Gatecamps are not usually lone craft, although that can work.  They can be huge.  Most people will see them in small groups, again, though.

Empire wardecs, cloaking gangs, nano gangs etc etc.  Most PvP is in small gangs, across the game.  Don't be misled by the War thread.

[ajax34i]

They should publish some sort of statistics to advertise the game a little more.  Number of gangs formed per day, number of gangs seeing action per day, etc etc.  I know that the map shows ships killed and all that, but really, you see dots and don't really pay attention.  And then only the big wars are advertised.

You guys are saying that "small gang warfare" happens every day and is the majority of the game, but I've NEVER seen numbers to back that up, just personal experience talking.  And granted, yours is really extensive, so I'll believe it, but it would do good things for the game if they released some stats like that.

[Teleku]

As a matter of interest, what is the problem this thread suggests to you?

Year long training cockblock for ships?  Massive Billion credit cockblocks for ships?  All this on top of knowing exactly how mind numbingly bad PvE is (ESPECIALLY if you aren't in a 0.0 space wielding corp), and how painful it can be to make money solo or with a small group of friends.  I know this is something not particular to all ships, but that fact that they even have this sort of progression in for 1 ship (that isn't even a titan) speaks volumes.

The game is just to restrictive.  I mean, the more I think about it, theres no point to make people train that much to fly ships.  The ship flying progression already has a massive cockblock in the form of ISK costs.  That's basically your experience progression.  But on top of that, I have to sit and wait for "skills" to train before I can even fly stuff.  And unlike even the most basic Diku, there is not a damn thing I can do to speed it up with extra effort.  I just have to sit and wait. 

Would it really change the game at all if they didn't make you train to be able to fly ships (or at least, not have to train that long)?  Would it matter in the slightest if a 1 day old newb could fly a Titan?  The corp that builds it is still only going to let its most trusted members fly it.  Same goes for any capital ship really.  The person needs the capital first.  Even if its an alt or something, and a corp mate gives that person 2 Billion ISK (or just a Dred straight off), does it matter?  That's still capital drained for somebody (or alliance), and the Newb is likely going to get it lost faster due to incompetence or just lower gun skill type training.

Its just that there is so many better ways they could do this.  They need to let people be able to choose rolls that they want.  That's one nice thing about a class system, but they can extend the concept to this system.  If I want to be a stealth covert ops/force recon/asshole ganker (the rogue basically), then there should be a nice progression of basic skills and ships I can pursue for the very beginning, and after a few months, be at the top.  Same for all the many other rolls that can be performed with ships.  I think the stealth scenario just highlights one of the worst implementations of it, since many of my friends expressed interests in those ships, but of course are cockblocked out of the fun.

In short, they just pile up to many limitations on the players.  1 limiter is enough, you don't need another 2 or 3 on top of that. ;)  If somebody wants to fly any particular ship roll, it shouldn't take that damn long to train up to it, and the costs should be reasonable for him.

[Viin]

I think that's funny because there's no way in hell I would grind up a WoW character to play with my level 70 friends, but I could join EVE today and play with my friends - and actually be useful! Regardless if you are talking industrial, PvE or PvP you can have fun with existing players right out of the gate in EVE .. you can't do that with any other game.

And taking a week or two to start specializing is a 100x less time than it would take to start using any specialization in any other running MMO.

*And* they even have a company sanctioned way to buy ISK if you don't want to find it yourself.

What more do you want?

[Teleku]

The ability to viably fly/fight with a stealthed battleship, or a top end mining barge, or maybe even a low end cap ship (or what ever specialized roll you can think of).  All that is impossible to me and most players.

Its the ability and freedom to actually do what you'd like.  Yes, you can be "useful" right out the door, but if I don't find tackling in a frigate to be fun in any way, I'm sort of screwed, aren't I?  But its not even about being "useful" early, its just more about giving people the ability to reach the high end without soul crushing grind (in terms of skill and ISK put together).  This is what WoW did over EQ that made it so much better and fun.  Eve just seems to be at the EQ stage for me.  I wish somebody would cut the grind and cockblocks out like WoW did.

I've tried several times in my various reups to Eve to get into some of the fields I mentioned, and I just got bogged down and gave up.  I don't feel like I have any freedom of choice in Eve, unless I'm apart of some uber alliance.  And it kind of sucks to be forced to join a raiding guild 0.0 uber alliance to have a hope of getting the funding to get decent gear nice ships I'd like to fly.  Thats ignoring the training times...

[Polysorbate80]

I could afford to fly and lose cruisers well before I finished my two-week trial, and that was with the old character creation system.

Battlecruisers took maybe another two weeks total.  I lost my first one within a couple days due to personal ineptitude, replacing it wasn't painful though.  (In another MMORPG, you should be out of the n00b zones after a month, but you're certainly still running like hell from the majority of the playerbase...)

Battleships took another month or so to get into, another couple months beyond that to fly well and become disposable, although I still have (and fly) my very first ratting Raven despite more than one close call in low-sec.

Now, I spend 90% of my time in high sec, with peridoc forays into low-sec for fun.  I never go into 0.0.  I go stretches of several weeks only logging in to set skill training.  And yet, money has never been a problem--my net worth is still several billion, not counting whatever I've blown training skills I don't even really need.

I have a second character on another account.  I just looked, she's at the 1 month 24 day mark.  She has advanced learning skills to 3, and finishes up Battlecruiser V in about 5 hours.  If I'd actually trained her for combat instead of training learning and gearing her for Command Ships (and stuck with Caldari instead of immediately cross-training to Amarr) I could comfortably be PvPing her in a Drake by now.

The system works fairly well, even if it doesn't work for you.

[Teleku]

See, I'm still considering frigate through BS basic ship range.  I did that just fine with those while I played, and while that progression is just fine, it tends to get vanilla (and I still never really got to a point where throwing away BS's in PvP or even PvE was ok/viable).  I'm more talking about the specialized stuff that you tend to dream you can fly.  Like the stealth stuff the OP mentioned, or when I thought it might be fun to try and be a pro miner, or when I thought there was some way in hell I might actually be able to get myself a freighter for cool utility and ultra indy work.

All that took way to much grinding, both ISK and skill wise for me.  And for the majority of people who aren't totally hardcore I believe.

[Endie]

We had a competition on the GF forums to find the best 30-day skill plan.  Ie a plan that would make the character most impressive within 30 days (of which 14 are the free trial.

The results showed that this is idea of "wah wah Eve won't let me be awesome immediately" is a daft complaint.  T2 megathrons with huge damage; T2 drakes able to tank almost as well as command ships while handing out decent punishment: the list went on.

The fact is that Eve lets you be useful in a bunch of ways (of which tackling is one option, but not the only one) almost straight away.  The idea that the end game should be available at once would make for a disposable game with the learning curve of an overhanging cliff face.  And that's a goon saying that.  We had a newbie buy a character recently, go out in a carrier he had no idea how to fly, lose it in a retarded way and quit.  The fact is that you don't even have to grind for it to get there: just do various fun things in the meantime as you skill up.

Your sense of entitlement is strong, young padawan.

[Viin]

I understand what you are coming from, but I guess it just depends on what you call grinding.

I don't consider offline training as grinding - cause really, you don't have to play for 1-3 months (just login to change skill training) and you'd have a character capable of doing what you want. And as for isk, again, you can buy it, borrow it, mission it, market it, or beg it - I think you actually have more options to gain money in EVE than in any other game. It *can* be a problem but it doesn't have to be.

[Yoru]

When I first played Eve, in 2004, less than a year after it had come out, a very unemployed me was turned off by the fact that you couldn't modify your progression rate and thus "get ahead" in the skills game. I quit within my two week trial, because I didn't feel my catassing time in-game was being "well spent."

I came back to it a year of employment later and realized that the offline skill system is the greatest thing ever for casual or semi-casual MMO players like the one I'd become, precisely because you can keep up with your friends in terms of raw ability without having to commit much time, as well as being able to go away for long periods of time (voluntarily or otherwise) and still have shiny new toys to play with when you return.

[Teleku]

I guess I just suck at the game then ;).

Wasn't really trying to say the end game should be open from the begining, just saying that the combo of training and high ISK costs for ships tends to kill any hope of getting into anything above BS level at any sort of casual level.  Now, they have changed Tier 2 stuff since I last stopped, and if you really can be flying t2 BS's with good skills in 30 days now, then that seems fairly different from what I remember.  That still doesn't address the cost though.  In 30 days using that skill regimen, could I afford to constantly be losing T2 Megathrons (when I last played, that was a very big NO)?  The first several weeks of play for a new char in Eve for me was always the long ISK grind I had to do to get up to the next ship level.  Took me a long time to be able to afford even basic BS's.

I'm not saying I should be able to just fly things right out the window (my example of not having skill restrictions was just to point out that ISK already works effectivly as a level barrier and progression meter in the game, and its kind of harsh to have a skill grind on top of it).  I just wish I had some hope of actually getting to high end ships on my own (this might have changed since I left, as you mentioned) thats all.  ISK cost where bad in the past, and comments about a stealth ship that takes a years worth of training to fly just set me off (as per the original comment of which you asked about).

And Viin, I just cant bring myself to pay extra real world money for in game money.  It feels like I'm letting the terrorist win or something when I do that ;)

[Polysorbate80]

For a non 0.0 type like me a T2-fit battleship is 4-5 days profit as a reasonably casual player, so I'd rather it didn't get 'sploded if I can help it, but neither will the loss incite me to throw my mouse through my monitor.  It's more of an occasional treat. For instance, I gave up on my anti-Gallente bias a couple weeks ago and put together a blasterthron I'm itching to take out and get shot down--I guess I'll consider it a Christmas gift to the local pirates or something :)

Don't get too upset about the idea of the black ops ship taking a year worth of training.  Think of it as combining several three or four month roles--battleship, stealth operations, cyno operations, whatever--together in one package.

[ajax34i]

What I'm getting from reading this is that EVE is more like WoW now that it was in 2003-4:

WoW:  pick a class, grind to 70, have access to only the abilities that that class has.
EVE now:  design a class (pick your skills), train them relatively fast, have access only to those skills.

WoW: for more choices, pick another class, grind to 70, play it or play your previous character.
EVE:  design another class (pick another set of skills), train them (fast or slow depends on similarities), function as both "classes" when you play.

Because it takes so many years to become the jack-of-all-trades that those 60 million SP old-timers have, you have to go into EVE expecting a class-based game, even if it's one where you have the option to design whatever "class" you want.  WoW has aged and people have multiple alts; EVE has aged and people have multiple alts or characters that could fly a couple roles.

The cash grind is the same in both games.  Your guild/corp gives you stuff, basically.  There's no way I can get a capital ship solo, and there's no way I can get Tier4-Tier5 raiding gear solo.  Need a corp/guild to give them to me.

[bhodi]

It IS still a MMOG. They are in it to make money, they want to keep you subscribed.

It's all about how you play. People who want to grind to the end-game will find no pleasure, and people enjoying the journey will. Just like WoW. I enjoyed leveling, experiencing what the game had to offer, and I'm enjoying eve right now as well. The biggest difference for me is that I don't have to level to play with my friends -- I can be very useful within a week.

No, that doesn't mean the game will satisfy my every whim; if I want to run an empire I'd better damn well build it myself because it's not going to be given to me.

As skills go, you can fly a vast majority of the ships within two or three months, and as for ISK you need to look no further than people on this board -- trouble made his first billion ISK within the first month. No, I don't have that kind of cash but I'm not looking for it. I don't enjoy spreadsheets in space, so all I need is enough money to be able to pew pew.

[Polysorbate80]

You can buy and skill up for a cap ship solo (that doesn't mean you necessarily want to *fly* one solo, now...).  I own a freighter and a carrier (and the BPO for that carrier), as soon as Amarr BS V finishes up in ~20 days I'll buy the Amarr Carrier skill as well, and after that's had time to train up to a useful level I'll have an Archon parked next to my Chimera.  And then go get one blown up doing something utterly stupid with it  

[Teleku]

The cash grind is the same in both games.  Your guild/corp gives you stuff, basically.  There's no way I can get a capital ship solo, and there's no way I can get Tier4-Tier5 raiding gear solo.  Need a corp/guild to give them to me.

Yes, but now I can get PvP BG/Areana gear that is right up there with Tier 4/5 by just grinding honor/arena points.

 

And yeah, I probably shouldn't get to mad about the stealth thing, since it is kind of a specific case (though I think they should make getting into covert ops ALOT easier than it currently is).  Its just that I've shot for similar goals (like a top end mining barge or freighter) and what I was going through to try and get those felt similar to that, so it feels more widespread to me.

I don't know how you managed to get all those damn cap ships as a semi-casual empire person.  I was burning out long before I got close.

[Polysorbate80]

There are periods I play fairly heavily and make tons of cash, and times I don't log in except to train skills for long periods of time.  If I get bored with the game, I just set a 30-day skill and log back in a month later :)

I also make ~$3 million/day from datacores and BPC sales even if I do nothing but take 10 minutes every couple weeks to log in and contract out the copies for sale.  I used to make another 2-3 million a day buying & recycling modules (I'm too goddamn lazy to move and resell them, which would net far more), but I got bored with that.  Maybe I'll pick it up again sometime, since I now have a second character who can do the boring flying-around-collecting-junk while I blow up stuff.

[Slayerik]

What I'm getting from reading this is that EVE is more like WoW now that it was in 2003-4:

WoW:  pick a class, grind to 70, have access to only the abilities that that class has.
EVE now:  design a class (pick your skills), train them relatively fast, have access only to those skills.

WoW: for more choices, pick another class, grind to 70, play it or play your previous character.
EVE:  design another class (pick another set of skills), train them (fast or slow depends on similarities), function as both "classes" when you play.

Because it takes so many years to become the jack-of-all-trades that those 60 million SP old-timers have, you have to go into EVE expecting a class-based game, even if it's one where you have the option to design whatever "class" you want.  WoW has aged and people have multiple alts; EVE has aged and people have multiple alts or characters that could fly a couple roles.

The cash grind is the same in both games.  Your guild/corp gives you stuff, basically.  There's no way I can get a capital ship solo, and there's no way I can get Tier4-Tier5 raiding gear solo.  Need a corp/guild to give them to me.

A smart person can rat in 0.0 , even without a corp. Here's how. Find a NPC controlled space such as Venal (Guristas). Scout up (or just buy from market) a ratting battleship to an out of the way system. Have an alt make ammo runs for you. Ok, so this requires 2 accounts...but Eve in general becomes much easier with that 2nd account. I personally use one account as a looting/salvage bitch while I rat away in my Dominix (50 mil isk, cheap battleship). The Average battleship spawn in Venal is worth about a million per battleship (1-3). I looted a 100 mil implant off a Dread Gurista. I killed a 22 million bounty Dread Gurista. I killed an officer called Vepas Minimala and sold his loot for about 2 billion. This is all within maybe 4-5 months.

Id say in a decent ratting system you will pull in 10-30 mil an hour without any dread/officer spawns. All it takes is watching local and sometimes just logging off at any sign of trouble. Have your alt be safespotted. There are ways to kill off the Battleships and leave the small ships so that the BSes respawn (called chaining). I just damage any small ship into armor then they seem to stay around a long time. I do this for any 1.2 and up BS spawn.

Anyways, Ive seen liek 2 month old farming accounts in ravens taking down spawns.