After reading Sugar's post http://lowseclifestyle.blogspot.com/2013/06/gratification-now-or-later.html I have found myself thinking long and hard about how much of a losing fight I keep having with Eve. Literally.
Whether it be a stupid mistake of falling for a trap and getting hot dropped 15 vs 1, or just traveling from system to system and being forced into combat, or actively seeking a fight, I tend to lose 90% of the time. I'll admit, I love PvP, but my stats show that I'm horrible at it. I do have some victories I'm proud of, but they are few a far between.
I only have 5.5 million skill points right now, and there is easily a million or two of random crap skills that I never should have trained in there. If I could go back in time I would decide what type of pilot I wanted to be much sooner so I could focus on those skills only. If you've read my blogs, you'll see that I was a logi pilot, a stealth bomber, battlecruier, blah blah blah. Because I spread my skills all over the place I'm decent at a lot, but not good at anything.
I'm hoping that the primary cause is the fact that I'm still not even 6 months old in the game, but I truly don't know. I can fully fit a frigate or destroyer with full T2 guns and T2 mods. I don't have T2 medium guns yet, but I'll be focusing on that here soon. That being said, I don't typically find myself out roaming around in a frigate looking for a fight. I tend to favor flying cruisers, and have 5 more days till cruisers is trained to V. After that's done, I'll be training my T2 medium guns. Perhaps I should be flying frigates and destroyers more often until then, but they tend to pop so quickly I never even get a chance to fight back. It seems to be more about who caught who off guard, or who shot first, rather than skill or technique.
I don't want to get disheartened, but 6 months of playing a game, and I lose 9 out of 10 fights??? I think the average player would give up by now if their primary goal was PvP. Luckily I still enjoy stealth bombing, fleeting up with my corp mates and killing NPC's and other players from time to time, otherwise I think I'd probably lose interest in this game.
I don't want them to change the game at all, so please don't take this rant as a "Eve needs to change" soap box. I love Eve but that doesn't mean that it can't be very difficult to break into the PvP world, especially on a solo level.
Participating in big fleets can actually be just as difficult too though. Not the actual fighting part, but following commands, figuring out who needs to do what and when, and that's only if you're lucky enough to even get an invite to a big fleet. Nobody trusts anybody in Eve and if you haven't proven yourself, you don't get fleet invites even if you are a member of a big alliance. They don't want spies revealing the position and plan and fleet composition (and I respect that), but for the noob trying to help out and learn some PvP skills, it's very frustrating.
I may only bring about 400-500 dps to a fight on average but I still want to pew pew shit just like the rest of capsuleers out there. Our corporation is currently working through an identity crisis and I think once we're done redefining who we are, I'll see a lot more positive changes in the PvP world. There are two or three opponents out there that have racked up more than a few kills on me, I just can't wait for the day that I can stand an even chance of getting some revenge.
I suggest you try faction war low sec. It tends to be frig/dessie/cruiser warfare which is both fun and cheap and the FW people are less elite than the long term veterans of low sec.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought is - pick your fights. You know when you have been sat there 30 minutes seen nothing then - ha, that looks hard but maybe possible. Skip that fight.
Also who you fly with. Some groups are terrible. Some quite good. There is a lot of learning and it takes time to become comfortable.
ReplyDeleteJust going out there well fit and with other spaceships is only one step. Tactics and talent are another big part.
A big part of it is also discovering what your level of acceptance for loss is.
ReplyDeleteI have over 30mil sp, been playing for over a year, and I suck at PvP. And I currently live in null :) It used to bother me quite a lot, but recently I've been able to spend some time reflecting on why my lack of skill bothered me. I realized that I was measuring my success my fun - against what other people thought it should be. Once I came to that realization, and began to disregard what others thought, I started having more fun.
I still suck at PvP, I probably won't get better than average, but I don't care. I'm picking up bits and bobs here and there, slowly sucking less, but I'm flying with a group that mostly cares about the fact that I'm willing to show up and less about the fact that I'm not elite.
Also, FW is huge fun, btw. Lets you learn without the huge pressure of losing vast quantities of ISK or causing others to do the same. I only wish my group had stayed in FW a bit longer, but if nothing else, flying in FW really allowed me to start having fun in PvP.
Of course, if you can find someone experienced/more experienced than you to help you by actually undocking and doing dress rehersals, it helps a lot. I had a corp mate in my first null alliance who did that with me once. It really helped. Thinking on it, I'd completely forgotten that lesson until writing about it just now :) Maybe I'll remember it next time I'm in a frig.
Don't despair. Try to find out what your fun level is in PvP, ask questions of more experienced pilots, and above all, Keep Buggering On.