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What is Combat like?
Hoobies
Member Posts: 12
in EVE Online
I'm considering EVE and was wondering if someone could describe what the actual combat aspect of the game is like, both PvP and PvE. Specifically the only space MMO I have played was Earth and beyond so its the only point of reference that I have.
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http://myeve.eve-online.com/download/videos/Default.asp?a=download&vid=144
So do most people us the keyboard/mous as in most MMO's for combat or are we using a joystick?
keyboard and mouse only
If pitbulls could lock their jaw the first pitbull would still be hanging on
Combat isn't twitch combat, it is point and click, but there it can become very complex and strategic. I've seen a lot of people knock combat in EVE, and most of the knocks are unfair.
EVE is a game best played in teams, you can 1v1, but that's the big knock on EVE. Point and Click and best equipment/skills win. However, throw that out the window in team play. A small team of relatively new players can take out a seasoned vet with good tactics and foresight. PvP runs the gumut from Covert Op ships (cloaking, intel), to Logistics ships (transfer shield, cap, etc to other ships), to EW (target jamm other players, steal capicitor from players, etc). Plus you have your heavy hitters, and Tanks that can take a lot of punishment. In a team, the way you do combat is limitless in variety and strategy.
You will see solo pirates try to get quick easy kills in industrials roaming the lower security systems with valuable ores or loot, or you may see 20 - 30 pilot fleets engaged head on. The depth is amazing. But it is not a twitch game, your brains will be tested more than your reflexes, although you have to be quick thinking because everything happens in real time.
Combat for trial players will be limited due to the amount you can train in 14days, but if you find a decent team, you can quickly train up as a tackler or forward scout (tacklers are semi-kamikazee pilots that warp scramble and web or slow down another ship so others can come in for the kill). I find 1v1 somewhat boring, but find a good team and the combat system is golden.
EVE's PvP also has a hooking mechanism call the "shakes".
The vets know it all too well, and when the carebears have experienced it they usually become converts. Because of the significant death penalty in EVE, ships and items tend to have a more tangible value in this MMO than any other. So when you go PvP, you really are putting your money and time on the line and you know that your opponents are doing the same.
You know that whoever loses the fight is going to be set back by a few day or even a few weeks worth of effort. A lot is being gambled on that fight and you sure as hell don't want to have to mine or run trade routes for the next week or so. So you want to win the fight...you NEED to win this fight..dammit you GOTTA win this fight or else you're stuck mining for a while and you sure as hell don't want to do that!!
When the firing starts it occurs to you, "oh shit! I might lose my ship here....oh crap! I don't wanna die!!" That's when the adrenaline starts to pump. Time starts to speed up for you, your brain is working overtime, and your reflexes are as sharp as ever. Target the enemy...maneuver into optimal gun range...open fire!...toss your drones and send them to harass the enemy. You're taking enemy fire now and they're slowly chewing at your shields, but you're already starting in onto the enemy's armor and now you've closed enough distance that you can warp scramble him to prevent him from escaping. Things are looking good...until you realize that this guy is tanking his armor, SHIT! While you're nibbling at his armor, the enemy is taking mouthfuls of you...this is looking bad. Both of you are almost out of armor now and starting to work on the hulls.
In a moment of clarity, you consider your tactical options and decide on opening up the distance between you and your enemy's ship. Maybe you can put in enough distance to put him outside of his optimal firing envelop while maintaining yours...this just might work. So you fire up your afterburners and move away and you notice that you're taking less hits now while still dishing out a serious beating on him. You don't want to go too far away and outside your warp scramble range or else he can warp away and escape. Just as you're about to turn off the afterburners it happens...a blue flash, a pod, and your flashing mail box icon. Yup, you popped the little bastard.
You lean back in your chair and let out a huge sigh...and that's when it starts. For some people the shaking happen just in their jaw, others find their legs shaking uncontrollably, many find out that it is extremely difficult to use the mouse much less type with the arms and hands shaking. Almost everyone finds it difficult to talk over TeamSpeak b/c their throat muscles and jaw are uncontrollable. And for the next 5-20 mins you're fight the "shakes", you do what you can to relax yourself and slowly bring yourself down from the adrenaline rush. Some people go for a smoke, some fix themselves a drink, and a few will try to meditate their way out of the adrenaline crash. After you've calmed yourself down, you think "Damn! I was shaking hard....That was f*cking awesome! Let's do that agian!"
I hope you don't mind. But I am quoting you in my thread in Dev's Corner to help prove a point.
My sig is the link.
And the rest of it.But, unfortounatly... the combat in EVE is quite lame. Point and click- who has the better ship wins is quite disapointing. I should be able to manuever around him and hit him from the back while he is trying to find me on his scanners. The only problems I have w/ EVE are the combat and the slow movement (but that could be overlooked if the combat was more exhilarating) other than that EVE is perfect.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
But, unfortounatly... the combat in EVE is quite lame. Point and click- who has the better ship wins is quite disapointing. I should be able to manuever around him and hit him from the back while he is trying to find me on his scanners. The only problems I have w/ EVE are the combat and the slow movement (but that could be overlooked if the combat was more exhilarating) other than that EVE is perfect.
A vid of some people getting owned by inferior ships
No offense, but from this post alone it can be seen that you haven't played EVE a lot or didn't do a lot of PvP combat. Especially "who has the better ship wins" thing can't be more untrue. Yeah, ofc a Frigate usually can't kill a Battleship (though there were cases where exactly that happened), but shouldn't be it that way? And the "i want to sneak around him and hit him from back" is also implemented. Use the map and your brains and lure your enemy in a trap... happens everyday in EVE. Or do you mean you want a button on the viewscreen saying "sneak around and attack from behind"?
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Originally posted by Mandolin
Designers need to move away from the old D&D level-based model which was never designed for player vs player combat in the first place.
Oh man. So true.
/signed & best post EVAR
I completely agree with above...
The adrenaline rush from PvP in this game gives me a bad case of the shakes every time.
I'm just too into building / trading to be a full-time PvPer, but oh man! That rush.... whew!
This is excellent description of combat for a newb like myself. Thanks for taking the time & I hope to see you all in EVE soon! (Reminds me of how I used to feel in UO pvp)
This is a trailer made and released by CCP itself, not a player-created vid.
For those, some of which are truly amazing, go to :
http://myeve.eve-online.com/download/videos/?type=5
No offense, but from this post alone it can be seen that you haven't played EVE a lot or didn't do a lot of PvP combat. Especially "who has the better ship wins" thing can't be more untrue. Yeah, ofc a Frigate usually can't kill a Battleship (though there were cases where exactly that happened), but shouldn't be it that way? And the "i want to sneak around him and hit him from back" is also implemented. Use the map and your brains and lure your enemy in a trap... happens everyday in EVE. Or do you mean you want a button on the viewscreen saying "sneak around and attack from behind"?
I played for a little over a month. I joined the Imperial Dreams who I know from a Browser Text Game that was based off Trade Wars and I have also played Trade Wars. (EVE was based off Trade Wars) I understand, there are little things around it... but the fact is there is no player skill to PVP. Better equipment, the right equipment, etc. that's great.... but there needs to be a little bit of player reaction skill involved. Which is why I called it lame.
A Work in Progress.
Add Me
Combat can be a rather varied expierence. I agree with the guy on getting the "shakes" sometimes.
I've been playing so long that I don't panic anymore, though occasionally I have to reactivate a module. Even in non-stressful periods I sometimes have to control click a name or red icon 2-3 times out of habit. Sometimes EVE is just boring camping depending on if you fail to inspire your squad mates to go on a rambling rampage looking for candy (teh legendary occator of candy). Then it's like "oh hey the gate is blinked" lock, pling pling. the tackler might get a moment or two of "oh get on him, move you piece of junk." I don't know why so many people do this.
Then there's getting ganked. If you don't panic right away you get 30 second of gatecloak in which to contemplate your fate. "Hey fellas, we should really talk" Bzow, ping, ping, clank.
Then, sometimes, you get someone who is really sporting. Like that Harpy guy with an faction hardner and a gistii shield booster. Then you're really worried because you're is alot weaker than that one by even the natural resists distribution, and it's new cause you haven't found any real good mods for it. But you press on anyhow for whatever insane reason, like a mistaken belief that you can get under his guns in time.
Then it's like, "oh I have him at the gate, charging." And then you are ambling gamely towards each other (cause AFs aren't that fast actually), and you partially hear some message of "incoming" or "I'm getting chips, wait for me." And then this dude has totally ripped your shields off and you haven't even got in range to nick him yet. Then you just sink into falloff and activate your weapons. By now, your rep is in full swing and failing and your at half armor or so. You look up and see that you've only knocked off 1/3 shield on this guy, but you're nos is only 2km away from working. You think, I'm going down totally, and your brain is getting fuzzy. You wonder how far that gate you were near to eariler is and look back to see it's 30damn km away, and your vision just swings around to face that damn harpy. Even as you sink down to 10% armor suddenly the universe just stands totally still. All you can see is the harpy and it's got this huge aura around it. Even though you're not close enough, it's the only thing you can see. You're mind is utterly silent in this utterly religious experience.
You're kindof aware that you're seeing your hull shrink away and that your rep has fired once to give your inner hull a brief respite. But you're not seeing this because in the corner of your eye you see two cruise missiles fire from your distant friend zoom right past your view and slam into the Harpy, which you finally realize has actually lost it's shields from your lasers and nos. (You'll think about this later and realize the harpy was almost out of capacitor at this point.) The cruise missile slam home, and you realize that it wasn't just your orbit that was kicking in, this guy is initiating warp even though he had actually activated his scram on you expecting a kill. Turns out the guy had initiated it as soon as the stealth bomber had warped in for support. You see a streak and your weapons display an error message about their target.
You have about one second to think, "Hey where's my pod?" And then you have a world of pain hits you as your heart resumes pumping. When you recover from that you notice your shiny AF is still sitting there with a third of it's understructure left, drifting peacefully while your armor rep continues to drone.
It's a draw this time. But that's ok, because frankly, safespotting and getting a glass of water seems like a pretty swell idea right about now. The stealth bomber pilot is mumbling something about his stealth timer reactivation period and resuming the watch, but you're probably thinking about all that extra cap you had and wouldn't it be a good idea to fit a second armor rep, and why hadn't you thought of that before?
Well that was my point that there *is* player skill to combat... actually a lot. Sure some of that skill is invested pre combat when you fit your ship, but if two similar characters in identical ships fight off against each other, the one with the more RL PvP skills will win. That is because a good fittting does not gurantee you a win in EVE. Even slight inefficencies in your decisionmaking can lead to defat. Release the drones too late? Engaged MWD/AB too soon? Did you activate booster/repairer too early or too soon? There are a lot of variables to EVE combat.
We can gladly make a test: make two identical characters and put them in two identical ships. You fight off against a PvPler. The PvPler will win, becuase he knows how to move his ship, when to activate modules, and when better not, and generally be more efficient in his tactics. The player that just warps into an egagement locks target and starts to shoot and waits till enemy is dead (happened) will find himself in a pod all too soon, even against an inferior opponent. There are people in my current corp which would wtfpwn me if I would fight them even with same fitting and even if my character has more SP.
Join an experienced PvP corp and try it.
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Originally posted by Mandolin
Designers need to move away from the old D&D level-based model which was never designed for player vs player combat in the first place.
Awesome post
I actually had an account with pvp not too long ago. first off my roomie n I have been playing this game for about a month. We both made caldari and while I went mining we went arms and we've trained a bit in eachothers fields.
anyways we were hitting the belts one day for some minerals. Both of us were packing cormorants. Mine was set up with 2 miner 2's and 3 150mm small rails (more was on but offline due to power/cpu usage). Roomie had 2 miner 1's and 5 75mm's. These were mainly for the npc rats in the system. The system being 0.7
I was getting ready to head back to base and grab my badger when a cruiser came in and immediatly targeted the roomie and rushed up to him but it didn't open fire yet (although flashing red). So we both put a target in on her and she warped out. I waited for a moment and decided to head back and get my indy again.
Just as I left docked my roomie said she was back and had opened fire on him. Not wanting to waste time I flew in with the indy which was setup with a 150mm and anti-matter rounds. In the mean time we were putting a mayday to our corpmates. I got in just in time to see the roomies ship go up and proceeded to start shooting at the cruiser so he could escape. She trained on me and started working on my shields. Luckily I've trained a bit in shielding and had my best shields on this ship. They were still dropping but not as fast. Just and she started working on my armor 4 corp ships came in and just started doing a number on the cruiser. Unfortunatly we didn't have a warp disruptor so she barely made it out. But she warped to a jump gate and since she had the aggression on her CONCORD promptly finished the ship while mine was down to a half a hull. In local chat she vowed to come back for me.
Overall it ended as a stalemate although she lost more from this
This has to be the absolute BEST description I have read of what PVP in Eve is like. I have experienced no other rush like the ones you get PVP'ing in Eve.
This has to be the absolute BEST description I have read of what PVP in Eve is like. I have experienced no other rush like the ones you get PVP'ing in Eve.
Every game that has significant pvp or death penalty is this way. For me it was back in the Rainbow Six days that it started, but after a while the "shakes" go away except for the first couple times you are in a battle. It will return periodically when you are faced with significant battles but it is never like the first few times.