War

[tgr]

Comstar: Awesome rewrite of that sketch.

More on the enemy forces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftd9ky4jj_4

[Gets]

[Kageru]

Needs an update I guess :)

The "great" northern war is truly over with Russian super-cap fleets rolling up the wreckage from the Northern Coalition unopposed by any actual players. The NC super-pilots looked at Eve, their FC's and the possibility of losing 10's of billions of Isk and decided to take a break from the game. At which point it was pretty much just a lengthy surrender. The once great NC is now down in venal getting beaten up by niche alliances in the null-sec PvP equivalent of the kindergarten.

The forces of Elite super-capital drops, led by PL, appear to be either testing or beginning their attack on the Deklein coalition space (Deklein / Fade / Pure blind / Cloud ring). Wildly inappropriate on the front line, with space that's pretty much worthless, appears to have decided a 2K alliance has no place in modern Sov warfare and parts of it will be merging with goonfleet federation. It should be fun in that the goons will put up a more organized resistance but they certainly aren't the favorites to win.

CCP are largely distracted by adding pretty dollies and a small room to walk them around in an entirely cosmetic expansion containing no game-play. However they did manage to find time to nerf jump bridges because PL and the even worse Burn Eden (who are 100% focused on abusing game mechanics to pad their K/D ratio) are obviously finding it too hard to camp random goon noobs in Deklein and need assistance.
 

[tgr]

And with various PLs deeming the deklein/clusterfuck coalition as the New Northern Coalition, I put forward a much more realistic name which'll still fit within their "NNC" gimmick: Naked Neckbeard Coalition.

[palmer_eldritch]

Why did the NC collapse?

[Sparky]

Off the top of my head:

* BFF was always precarious with the NC's byzantine political structure where trampling over your allies is the way to sweet, sweet Tech gold
* Wasting Tech income on god knows what rather than joining in the supercapital arms race
* Supercaps they were building were usually sold on the open market to enemies
* History had made them complacent with the attitude that they could leave the NC B-Team territory to burn and recapture it later
* When the B-Team did burn it quickly became apparent they had been making up the bulk of NC fleets lately and didn't feel like fighting for core space any more

[Kageru]

Mostly that. Terrible leadership and disaffected members as a result. Someone released all the NC High Command logs if you want to see how broken they were at the end.

But another factor was the DRF treated super-caps as alliance assets. They're built by the alliance, provided to pilots and if the pilot loses it (in a non stupid fashion I assume) they'll be in another one at the next fight. The NC treated them as personal luxury yachts (so do goons, but partly because they're not as old and rich) so when the risk of substantial personal loss became a distinct possibility their super-cap fleet evaporated or took a long time to replace. And the current eve balance means super-caps in a decent size blob are effectively immune to anything but a bigger blob of the same. Once the sub-cap pilots realized this, and that the leadership was terrible, they followed suit. End result being a massive conflict that was largely a boring walk-over.

From a game design point of view if you have a PvP environment, and put in super-weapons that only extremely dedicated players can achieve, then expect that environment to eventually be dominated by your hardcore players and discourage participation from anyone else.

That said, even without super-caps, the NC probably still would have lost. But it would have been much slower and given them a chance for a counter-offensive, some minor victories and maybe a chance to work out their problems.

[palmer_eldritch]

Thanks for the info.

I guess they just looked invincible in the past because the campaigns against them were organised by Molle.

[eldaec]

People are focus too much in the technical theorycraft involving spacesips and technetium.

The NC were unable to recover from early losses because communication between leadership and line membership has always been non-existant. This meant NC stopped logging on while DRF logged on in ever greater numbers.

In the months we spent in the NC last year, I had not the foggiest idea of the ~grand NC narrative~ and I suspect things only got worse since then.

[Miasma]

How are EvE's subscription numbers doing, is that "pilots currently online" stat on the login screen still slowly going up?

[Numtini]

In the months we spent in the NC last year, I had not the foggiest idea of the ~grand NC narrative~ and I suspect things only got worse since then.

Despite being a pet, we got pretty good updates and info when I was with LAWN. Much better than MH.

But I thought last years invasion of the north was a lot closer than "history" seems to show. The titan kill in H-W was a big turning point in morale.

What a difference a year makes. A single titan kill being a big morale thing. But CCP musn't nerf supercaps at least not until the far more pressing issue of jump bridges is dealt with!

[Sparky]

How are EvE's subscription numbers doing, is that "pilots currently online" stat on the login screen still slowly going up?

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

Drifting downwards but it usually does mid-summer before an expansion.

[tgr]

MAX2 would've been successful if they'd had more stamina. As it was, they had shit coordination between IT, Atlas, AAA etc, and when that was compounded with losing a few supercaps, they just fucked off back home. The DRF invasion was different, it was well-coordinated, methodical, had tons of supercaps (which were used and replaced like our maelstroms), and it was relentless.

The old NC defense of packing the node until it became so unfun to attack worked in MAX1, they got lucky with MAX2. What I think killed them during MAX3 was primarily that they couldn't use the old tactics of MAX1, they didn't have the supercap superiority of MAX2, their space had just gotten nerfed (the anom nerf) for grunt-level income while hisec missioning got buffed (meaning why fight for staying in 0.0?), they had worse organization than DRF (and towards the end they had closer to no organization at all), tons of their supers pilots lost their supers and didn't get a replacement quickly enough, everyone were trolling them about "where is your tech money going?", etc etc etc. It just looks like it all ended up with everyone (including their supercap pilots) going fuck this, holding space in 0.0 isn't worth it".

Based on what's been seen of MM in Delve, I do agree that they would indeed have lost regardless of whether or not DRF had supercap superiority. Someone analyzed one of the fights they had with MM in Delve, where 39 out of 44 abaddons had different fits. I ended up throwing out "ctrlacats" as an offhand comment, but it looks like everyone liked the name, and it does sound like it does fit.

[eldaec]

How are EvE's subscription numbers doing, is that "pilots currently online" stat on the login screen still slowly going up?

It's stable.

[tgr]

So, goons lost 2 supers to NCdot/ev0ke/merciless today, one avatar and one aeon.

http://kb.bunkerhub.de/?a=kill_related&kll_id=159087

Funny thing about it was, the cynojammer was up the last 24 hours, and it was eyeballed continuously by the capfleet keeping reps on it, yet they were able to light two cynos. vOv

[Morfiend]

What is the state of the NC now? Who owns Dek?

[tgr]

NC is dead, deklein is under goon control, NCdot is trying to call us (deklein coalition/clusterfuck coalition) the new nc. vOv

[Kageru]

NC is dead and most of its parts have either collapsed or been reduced to minor powers. I assume the vast bulk of their players unsubscribed or went to empire while the super-cap pilots probably found a way to join the winning side.

Deklein and -A- are waiting to see what sort of attack they'll be under. I'd say Deklein being attacked by the leet-PvP alliance (PL/NC./Evoke maybe WN) and -A- being attacked by the main DRF will be likely and enough to evict the remaining opposition. The goons will probably put up a better fight than the NC but they can't really do much offensively so the best result is continued survival as the new north builds up ever more resources.

Delve + Fountain are basically non-events at that level. I'd expect PL to go back on amuse itself by terrorising the locals once DC and -A- are dealt with.

Really the only thing that would change my opinion is the DRF + leet-PvP coalition getting bored, splitting up or turning on each other and I don't see that happening until there are no meaningful threats left.

[Simond]

How are EvE's subscription numbers doing, is that "pilots currently online" stat on the login screen still slowly going up?

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility
Look at dat fukkin graph. 

[Kageru]

The all-time graph is somewhat weird in that it reads right to left. That said there's a nice dip shaping in the last section of the yearly.

[Simond]

Alternate graph:



 

[Comstar]

Patch downloaded...10 minutes of my time.
Getting a Vulture to be a wing commander...15 minutes.
Titan Bridging to target system...1 minute,.
Lighting a cyno on hostile POS...10 minutes.
Doomsdayed by Hostile titan 15 seconds before my cyno drops...1 second.

Hearing a hostile Titan get killed...that's priceless.
For everything else, there's Auram.

[tgr]

A new campaign will start Friday 1st of July at 1800 Eve time.

Get you stuff ready:
- All Supers / Capitals
- Abaddon fleet + replacement ships
- AHAC Fleet
- Bombers and Herasment ships
- Tons of Dictors
- FC Coverts (All coverts lost during scouting and FC insanity will be reimbursed)

Corps plz make sure you have 2 towers ready with fuel for 30days each.

More info will follow later on. Now the time has been set. Make sure you help your corp m8 that are close to supers in them. I will try the best I can to make sure that the tech payouts will happen before the 1.st to give a little time to shop.

The Supremacy

Looks like the old BOBs either want to continue the foreverwar, or they're going after the russians, it's hard to tell from that mail. But things might get more interesting.

[Kageru]

If you connect it with some of the PL chest-beating and staging and Evokes letter to PB residents it's quite likely to be PB/CR ahead of squeezing Deklein.

And here I am on a crappy wireless connection to a netbook, can't even set a skill to train let along blow up ships :/

[Trigona]

I was in a goon fleet passing through X-70 and there were Raiden in system, which makes me think Pure Blind is the target

[Kageru]

The clean-up process continues. With the north-west under pressure from the forces of elite-PvP who are eager to stake their claim as part of the new northern coalition. Wildly Inappropriate is merging with goons, Mostly Harmless are heading south to become RA pets and both are probably going to shed numbers and in-actives in the process. The goons are putting up a good fight but with a clear super-cap deficit they are on the defensive and the long term prospects are probably bleak. The leaked post from MH indicates they'll be part of a south-east offensive to shift -A-'s borders back. Effectively that would leave Eve with one coalition controlling the vast majority of the map including the extremely lucrative north and the mineral rich drone regions. Opposing them, in the case of -A- and Goons being suppressed, would be... well, TEST alliance I guess. heh.

[tgr]

Apparently this is BDV (the unjammed station system being fought over right now):


 

[Kageru]

Yep, saw a lower res version of that and didn't realise all the small ships are either dreadnaughts (why?) or super-caps. Just silly, but also inevitable so 100% of the blame rests with CCP.

And with the new northern space effectively free from any real threat (the goons have no capability to launch an offensive) and pumping rich technetium into alliances that aren't fat and lazy like the NC there's probably a lot more coming. Plus I believe MH gave them firesale prices on some titans in exchange for being allowed to finish the build.

[tmp]

lol, mudflation.

[Kageru]

It's pretty much convinced me that an open world PvP game with territorial control needs to be about numbers. If you allow a small number of veterans to dominate large swathes of space through material advantage they will. And then you reach a point where the dominant group has a massive resource advantage to cement their lead. Of course the matching question is how do you keep the bittervets happy when their progression needs to be capped somehow?

Still, CCP didn't even try to come up with an answer and are busy playing dress-up dolls 

[Numtini]

It's pretty incredible that a year ago killing a single titan in H-W ended Max 2 and now we have titan blobs. I realize I'm just a semi-afk fleet pilot, but I'm pretty much feeling unless they nerf the living shit out of supercaps, the game of Eve is over and someone's won.

(bittervet)But at least they nerfed jump bridges, which as CCP educated us, were a far greater danger to game balance than titan blobs.(/bittervet)

[Kageru]

The null sec war is indeed over until CCP nerfs super-caps hard (may well not happen, certainly won't happen quickly) or the new northern coalition splits (unlikely, they all hold more than enough space to keep their actual pilots supplied). I imagine PL intends to keep Delve as a hunting preserve though.

[tgr]

It's pretty incredible that a year ago killing a single titan in H-W ended Max 2 and now we have titan blobs. I realize I'm just a semi-afk fleet pilot, but I'm pretty much feeling unless they nerf the living shit out of supercaps, the game of Eve is over and someone's won.

My impression of the killing of that one titan in H-W is that just broke the back of an already tenuous coalition of alliances. If they'd been a strong alliance and hadn't gone for the headshot, then MAX2 would've turned out rather differently I think.

(bittervet)But at least they nerfed jump bridges, which as CCP educated us, were a far greater danger to game balance than titan blobs.(/bittervet)

In my mind, JBs shouldn't have any major restrictions at all, in fact I think we should've been able to setup exactly the kind of jumpbridge network we wanted to, with as many JBs as we wanted to put in any given system. That'd be more sandboxy than both the old and the new system. On the other hand, there could possibly be some sort of RP lore thingy about one JB disrupting any other JB in a solar system, I dunno. I don't use them much, I don't care all that much.

[Trigona]

There is an interesting situation occurring in the north.  Raiden, Ewoks, Evoke, NC. and PL are the main players in a move on Pure Blind and Deklein.  The Goons are coordinating a defensive war, doing well when able to fight under cynojammers, getting blobbed by super caps and losing if the cynos are down or not in system.

I'm hoping we force the new northern blob to fight for every system and grind them down.  It would help if Mostly Useless pulled their finger out and actually did something other than not tell us about attacks on their systems or suicide fleets into the northern blob. The other day a MH FC told us that their station system c8, right next to Deklein, was in its second cycle of reinforcement.  The Goon mumble channel exploded in rage at their incompetence and trolled the shit out of the hapless FC, as the strong Goon fleet had been kicking around not doing very much when they could have been actively defending the system.  It's probably now too late for c8, PL have 40+ supers in the system and will be unstoppable.

[slog]

So what are people's predictions?  Do goons move back to NPC space?  It doesn't appear that they can win, or am I misunderstanding?