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Attraction of Eve fleet combat?
VultureSkull
Member UncommonPosts: 1,774
I have this discussion many times with my friend and would like to ask your opinions.
Essentially fleet combat goes the same each time, when two fleets meet, the Fleet Commander calls out a primary and a secondary, all fleet members target the primary and open fire. Repeat, untill all the enemy ships are dead or all of your fleet is dead. As they are using a similar method of calling primaries.
As a single pilot in fleet combat you out fit your ship with a big buffer of hitpoints and whilst in combat you align for a quick get away in case you get called primary, and hope your buffer will have enough hit points to ensure you survive till you warp out. If you do manage to warp out then you can warp back again and continue the fight. Other tactics used are spider tanking making use of remote armor reps to get each other alive. Very standard stuff all round.
This is my understanding of Fleet combat. Please correct me if i am wrong.
I find this kind of game play boring in comparision to small gang warfare, where a whole heap of different tactics come into play, where the multitude of modules in Eve can be used to good effect. Where the outfiting of the ship counts and the skills of the pilot, both learnt skills and experience come into effect. Each ecounter is different etc etc. This is my preferred combat style in Eve.
Love to hear other opinions.
Comments
hmm.. it is boring, but I dont mind it.
While fleet combat is boring, you have to forget that and open up your mind to the larger picture. Your defending your home, your attacking enemy territory or your mercenary and have been paid to fight... Basically your a small cog in a big machine.
I do like feeling part of something more, and I like it when our corp gets involved on an alliance level. But would I chose to do fleet combat?.. probably not. But if I was called to arms.. I would go and I would enjoy it as part of a healthy eve diet.
And to be very honest, I love Faction Warfare as well, always something going on... but that can get boring as well. Mainly because there is no much reward, ok you get LP etc, but its not as serious as defending your own space.
I'm also reminded of 'wolf pack' pvp up in Venal... that was small gang warfare too... but even that often ended up as a fight exactly as you describe. So I'm not sure that the size always determines fun.
Anyway, its been a very long time since ive been in a 300+ fleet pos bashing, I know pos bashing doesnt happen as often anymore but yea, I'd love to get some of that pvp done once again... when I re-sub to eve next I'll be looking for a sov space pvp corp
Yeah, I 'd have to say, OP's description of fleet combat is pretty accurate but I don't find it boring. I suppose it can get tedious if that's all you do but when I've lived in 0.0 that was never the only thing I ever did.
Sure, some nights was a call to arms to defend the mother country, but other nights it as offensive or defensive roams of smaller gangs, sometimes small roams with a few friends, sometimes (rarely) solo hunting of defenseless miners etc.
Mix it up with ratting for ISK and I'd say I kept pretty busy in 0.0. I'm not out there atm but sometime this year I'll find the right group and return to all of the activities I listed above.
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I don't even bother with massive fleet stuff. I became casual a few months ago so i decided to do the low sec small roaming thing.
Cool thing about eve is you have other options if you dont want to partake in a certain main feature. Try to do that in another mmo and see what your left with. Rolling alts until you uninstall.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I don't know if I would call fleet battles boring, but I do think most players basically feel the same as you. I think allot of it depends on what you're doing, who you're with, and how much you're winning when in a large operation.
Although i haven't played EVE very long and i also still consider myself a newb, i feel like fleet combat is... out dated. like the british in the american revolutionary war. they would stand in lines and shoot while the americans (having help from the indians) would ambush them. There is no such thing as a fair fight in EVE, but how open to expirimentation are people? Is there a more effective way to get an edge?
Personally I enjoy fleet fights far more than roams.
What you are forgeting about OP is the fact that there are dictors on both sides trying to get bubbles on the enemy fleet. A good few bubbles can decimate a fleet. It's essentially a game of chess between the fleet commanders. The fleet that can position themselves better and tackle the other fleet will be far better off.
Secondly, throw in caps and super caps into the fight, and you have a lot of isk on the line, as well as more dynamics in the fight. The large amount of isk on the line makes the fight more fun (as your killmail is worth more, and you may have more to lose).
Note, by fleet fight I mean a fight between two big (100+) fleets. POS bashing is not a fleet fight.