There is a lot of talk within FW circles about burn-out - mostly burn-out caused by having to defensively plex your space for no appreciable gains, versus PVPing or offensively plexing for reasonable gains.
EVE is already a very, very intricate way to waste shitloads of your life. You play games, of course, to enjoy the puzzle, the challlenge, or in MMO's for crafter-types or builder-types or acquisitor-types, you play an MMO like EVE to get the shinies, build the shinies, or forge magic weapons (eg; Republic Fleet Warp Disruptor 5-run BPCs).
Of course, the PVPers are those who don't see farmer-type activities as a means to an end, neccessarily, and resent imposition of FW plex button orbiting in the defensive as detracting from PVP. These are often the same people who then complain about FW farmers who do invest the mind-numbingly boring effort into offensive plexing and never PVPing, because they see their precious systems wound up and close to vulnerable, and then it's an imposition on them to defplex it.
From my observations in the past 3 weeks, this is precisely the position Ushra'Khan alliance and hangers-on found themselves in the Isbrabata pocket. True, a hell of a lot of the plex wind-up was caused by Cynthia Nezmor and 5 alts. merdaneth, Taoist Dragon and others make cogent points that it is simply one dude leveraging 5 toons worth of plexing against 5 other dudes who don't want to indulge in such pathetic shennanigans. FW sov is thus reduced to a boredom or toon-hour game where the guy with the most time to waste makes the most progress. Put simply, U'K were outplexed.
This led to the whole pocket being wound up to 40-50%, and Swift Angels tried to keep it under control with AU TZ evening deplex fleets, which weren't matched in the US or EU timezone. It worked for 2 weeks, and progress was made, but we got sick of defplexing for zero rewards, and refocused towards more exciting shit, like a T1 Hauler Thunderdome, etc. And then shit got skwerly and here we are.
Nearly five months in to faction warfare, we have gone from the Amarr keeping only Sahtogas to owning half the map, and Minmatar being reduced and worn out. It shows the better organisation of the Amarr militia, their hunger for conquest, their strength with the Fweddit blob, and the prowess of their multi-boxing mega-farmer and alleged PVP ace, Cynthia Nezmor, et al. Minmatar are sick and tired of the situation, and arguably, held too much of the map and are too fractured and disorganised.
However, this is a pendulum. It is swinging against us, which compresses our pilots into smaller and smaller pockets. We are losing corps and members, but soon we will get organised and excited again and the AU and EU timezones will begin to carry the battle.
Remember, when Retribution launched, the entirety of metro was contested to the hilt by the Amarr and Caldari farmers. They didn't flip the systems because there was no point and they could keep farming LP's like motherfuckers, in vulnerable systems, till forever. Yes, we owned nearly the wwhole map but Minmatar wasn't defending anything (there being no point). Thus, the pendulum is swinging and we are seeing what Minmatar actually wants to defend and needs to defend, and has the manpower to defend.
Finally, it is clear to me that the Aset pocket was probably a bridge too far for the Amarr; there isn't the EU and AU presence to defend and deplex the whole 8-system pocket. It will be a giant field of plump wheat for our Scythe Fleets, and we can farm and till and hoe them down. This also forces them to do more defplexing - so we will see how much of that they can achieve.
In the end, though, FW is a plexing game with PVP thrown in. Misunderstand that, or drop the ball, and your system will get flipped. Isbrabate may be burned - but it is merely from burn-out.
There's always been a disconnect between the Metro TLF and the BL/Devoid TLF, it's just that due to geography, Metro was largely ignorable. The problem is that it isn't anymore, but the TLF old guard hasn't picked up on this yet (besides which, they've gone kind of stagnant from what I can tell).
ReplyDeleteI expect Essin will be a rougher show for the Amarr than Eugidi, since Essin is more populated and more defensible. I don't know if the guys presently in Metro have the willpower or numbers to actually counterpush Eugidi again, or if that is even a good idea.
I think that Essin will be fine. We will probably lose Ardar due to the Dust modifier, but that won't last. The siseide-eszur gate has brought Devoid and Metro closer geogrphically...but yu're right. IFW and FeO and LNA seem content to sit in kourm-huola and complain about Fweddit's daily blob and threaten to leave FW whenever huola gets wound up and don't contribute too much to pushing Amarr space or defending metro.
ReplyDeleteAside from petulant threats about leaving FW, this is understandable. Defending constellations takes way too much effort, so you have to stick to your own. Pushing space takes effort, but is more rewarding, but you want to do it closer to home. The problem is that the warzone is shrinking fast for Minmatarr, so everywhere is the front line now.
The miners in Sirekur will be finding this out tonight, i think.
The real problem wasn't Cynthia (we hate her too), it was lack of adjustment to the changes.
ReplyDeleteWhen minmatar were T2, I bet they weren't d-plexing at all - we certainly had no troubles taking key systems.
I think they didn't realize what we did while still T1 - if you defensive plex you get LP, and that LP ALSO goes up significantly when you're in a higher tier.
The net effect means that if you want to keep making LP, you HAVE to push and keep pushing. It will burn your side out eventually.
What happens then? The other side takes a turn.
If you look at it from afar, it seems like CCP is basically making the rules affect the desired outcome - a constant back-and-forth of winning and losing the war, so everyone gets a chance at the prize money.
I wish you guys weren't leaving, you gave us good fights, and were a lot of fun.
o7, my enemy.
Space Chikun - ushra'Khan has left, but SWIFT is still in Essin, fighting and defplexing, and going around offensively plexing what we can. We are intending to hold as long as we can - i doubt we can hold all of it forever. Certainly not against Fweddit's blob.
ReplyDeleteThe problem I have with the current mechanism is we risk it going to a welp-sov war, where everyone just attacks and never defends.
The other problem, frankly, is Egghelende is the unsinkable aircraft carrier of the warzone, without which the Amarr would have a vastly different strategic position. The closest Minmatar gets is the highsec island out from Hagilur. Such systems skew the winnability of the warzone because you can't take them.
I think it's a better system than it was before, and it IS good too see Amarr resurgent, but the momentum won't break very quickly because when the Minmatar corps lose their home systems, they have to go to highsec, not Egg. Lose it all, and your carriers have to go further afield.