Ripard's post, "Being good in space"is a repost of a Rote forum post by Cassius on Fleet PvP philosophy and mindset and as Cassius says, it's about Attention in Fleet.. It is a very good post. It also made me to ask a question I have oft asked myself ever since I first locked and fired on a live player for the first time in EvE...
"Why do I suck at PvP?"
Read the post, it's really good... but it makes some assumptions about the capabilities of players. Ima take it point by point...
First he touches on 3 basic points...
(1) "having skillpoints to be useful"
(2) "being staged for all eventualities"
(3) "not fitting your ships like a shit-lord"
(1) Skillpoints...
SP is a time and choice thing. New players aren't gonna have high skillpoints regardless of what they choose to skill on, its time based. If you focus skill, a very narrow path to get to say, Logi 5, then you can have overall low SP and yet still be a Logi 5... or if like so many like me, you have dabbled here and there in your early months and years, your skills can be a bit all over the place as you tried different things and end up with fairly high overall SP but nothing really all L5ed...
So much of SP is about choice. I bumbled around a bit at first just working my way up the ship tree until I found a love of the Noctis and salvaging. I felt I could really contribute in a way that was sorta leet and soloish, both of which I like and yet be of real value to my corp and fleet mates. We ran L4's missions and I nom nomed up the L&S behind the DPS fleet adding value to our joint ops and adding ISK to our wallets.
Then we found wormholes... and I skilled up for ships n fits as necessary for life in Anoikis and my skilling changed. Finally, after we joined SYJ, I found I still wanted to play a 'small but important' role and so began skilling into logi and support roles such as dictor and Ewar, and so my skilling changed again...
Tur will break 45m SP before I turn 3 this Thanksgiving... but my skills are all over the place. Unless you buy a focus preskilled toon (which is allowed and such but I personally consider it cheating yourself out of the full experience of what EvE can be and treating it like nothing more than 'just' a game... but that's just me) or join Gewns and do the whole Bloodjump into deepest Null when you undock your toon for the very first time thing... (where you are 'given' a Skill-Q cheat sheet along with free ISK and ships) then you are probably somewhat like me in that your skills are a bit like the transcript of a college student who has changed majors 3 or 4 times.
(2) Staging...
I can only assume he means having enough and the right types of ships located in or near the corp/Alliance most usual AOs (Areas of Operation, IE home system and any usually roamed systems & constellations etc.) This is driven solely by ISK as is so much of EvE... makeada ISKies you canna buya da ships... don't and you can't... 'nough said.
(3) Fits...
What can I say here? He specifically states "not fitting your ships like a shit-lord"... I have written my take on this in my post "Failfits N Winfits..." where I discuss fitting in EvE. A topic that many consider themselves expert and leet in and who will hound and troll any who dunt blindly follow their fitting strategies and freely-driven-down-your-throat advise.
This is different in fleet. There are comps (ship types n fits) that are far far better than any 'ol kitchen sink, because the FC will be better able to utilize the ships under his command by knowing their capabilities based on carefully theorycrafted doctrine fits.
But fitting is intentionally a contentious and highly debated subject in EvE because of the very large number of mods and possible fits for each ship type. So 'shit-lord' fits are any non-doctrine fits in fleet (that don't work as intended) and any fits your FC/leadership and corp/Alliance mates disagree with... no matter what they may have died in when they were new/younger or experimenting...
Then he discusses 5 main points...
1. Listen to the FC.
2. Be good at Combat Meta.
3. Proper Range Management.
4. Grid Assessment/Situational Awareness, generally.
5. Hostile Fleet/Ship assessment.
1. Listen up...
This I could not agree with moar. Do as yer told, period. This I try to do. If we work as the fingers of two hands, a good FC can make us into his tools to grab and smash our opponents... if we act individually then it is like the fleet is retarded, has palsy and all we do is die.
2. Meta me this...
This I could not agree with moar also... just nowhere near as good at it as I'd like. I have had days where I was able to report needed info in that calm cool James T. style... but I've had far moar where Panic made it hard to do the 'Once and Calm' thing. A lot of the panic comes from things like his next part...
Understand Damage Types.
I'm shooting at X;
What ammo do I use?
What are Xs normal resist holes?
Has he plugged his holes or not?
Understand combat ranges.
I'm in X ganking X;
Do I engage with X ammo type @ long range, or X ammo type @ close ammo range?
Hostile X sitting on gate with fleet at zero;
How do we INSTANTLY split fleet to grab him?
FUCK IF I KNOW...
This is an area where things really break down for me. The sheer amount of shit one needs to know and actively think about is staggering. Look at that list, and it is by no means complete or exhaustive... and he left out FLYING your own ship for one thing... This is where I, and I am betting a lot of the PvP Challenged, panic.
3. Hold fire until...
This is vital and I am getting better at it... "...knowing ahead of time.." whether you are part of a brawling or kiting fleet is something I am getting better at as I learn to immediately recognize what ships are normally fitted for those roles.
What would be cool (Ripard the All Knowing, hint hint) would be a Chart showing the ships of EvE 'by role' with a basic T1 fit and an advanced T2 fit... now THAT would be cool and really helpful for ALL of us but especially for noobs and the PvP Challenged.
4. Where did they come from?...
This, for many, is really difficult. Situational Awareness moar than any other aspect of PvP in EvE takes a really calm levelheaded focus AND the ability to really 'see' the whole battlespace and understand the gestalt of what is happening, not just your little lazor beam and missile infested section...
Things like zoom level, do you fly with the tactical overlay on or off, do you focus on your ship or on the ship you are engaged on or on your local AO or on the whole battlespace... Add in listening to the FC and perceiving whether or not is 'seeing' a change in the battlespace.
Then, understanding if you are the guy who should be calling it out or not. Voice comms cannot be shitted up by everyone talking all at once. Usually, the FC and a few guys, trusted players, are the ones who control voice comms. The guys who fly scout and any ancillary unit leaders, the guy FCing the Logi group usually, have priority. The rank n file are expected to listen primarily but are are also expected to interject 'relevant intel' relayed in the proper manner if it is being missed by command.
Ripard has a very good "Guide: PvP Voice Communications" guide... WELL worth a read and an occasional re-read."
5. Know Thy Enemy...
This is damn near impossible for the PvP Challenged. Putting all the above together... He says (paraphrased)...
"If you hear 'X-fleet'... you should know ranges, DPS, tanks, resist holes... get a logi count... guesstimate how much they can tank... if an Archon comes on field, whether you can break it or not. The FC should have advised what the comp and rough DPS is..." and "...you should be following scout/FC commentary, understanding FCs decisons."
He sums up with... "The bottom line is that if you aren't getting A's on all those report cards, then you should not be complacent."
A's hell... Complacent hell... I'd give anything to just be able to fly my ship well, contribute in fleet and not make stoopid mistakes. I shouldn't be afraid to fly... I shouldn't be worried about trying and learning. Everyone knows EvE is harsh and hard... but it's players can be far far harsher and harder than even the cold cold airless black.
It's the sheer overload of amount of data that NEEDS to be taken in, processed and that decisions MUST be made ON that causes Panic... That feeling of not understanding just What The Hell is going on that causes the Fight reflex to switch to the Flight reflex... I don't know the answer to the Info Overload I go through. But I'd bet my last red ISKie that's the same problem we... the PvP Challenged of EvE face most.
That is our Challenge.
Fly wreakless and see you in the Sky... =/|)=
To my mind expertise is a matter of combining practice with attention.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't practice a lot you get rusty very quickly. It's really easy to lose the mindset and take an expensive loss when you had enough intel to make better choices.
If you're not self-critical you'll keep repeating mistakes without realising it. After most engagements I ask the people I flew with how they feel the engagement went, look at the killmail and ask someone who only did a small amount of damage if they could have applied more and so on. Particularly if you lose a ship there's a whole bunch of things to check - did you overheat enough? did you fight at the correct range? did you control range? why were you unable to disengage? was it an appropriate engagement to take?
TLDR just fight more and if you fall off the horse, dust yourself on and get right back on it again.