Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Gallente Victor: Thoughts on the 2nd Warzone Sweep in 2 Years.

Congratulations are in order for the Gallente Militia. This is the second time I've seen the warzone get swept like this. Last time worked much the same, except without the Caldari throwing in the towel. As I recall, Gal Mil only held the whole zone for a day last time as Ev0ke landed up in the northwest and began their march to Eha where they were eventually stopped.

That said, this is looking like the beginning of a long painful drought for the Caldari Militia. Some people have brought up to me, and I would agree, that the current system is a bit too punishing for the side getting the screws put to it. It's something I'll bring up with CCP, though I'm not 100% on a solution yet. What is clear is that there is no incentive to join a side losing as bad as the Caldari are right now. That is bad for player retention on their end, and also for bringing in fresh blood. Only a true Caldari loyalist (Read: RPer), gluttons for punishment, and those too stubborn to back down would see much value in joining or staying with Cal Mil at this point. That is unhealthy not only for the Caldari's ability to remain competitive, but also for the Gallente that rely on decent Caldari numbers for content.

I don't think the pendulum should swing on the nuts of AFK plex farmers, but at the same time, there has to be some value to a player willing to fight for a side on a down swing.

A good part of this Gallente Victory is the also Caldari's inability to work together between corps and alliances. I was there in the meeting when the plan was laid out on which system would get hit in what order, the Gallente FCs and CEOs having full knowledge that none of the groups would move in to help one another hold their space, and would patiently wait their turn for the whole of the Gallente militia to come to them.

In a sense, I'm a bit sad at this victory. I saw flashes of brilliance from the Caldari side during the Okkamon campaign, with large Caldari fleets and several groups working together. There was one night in particular where you guys really brought it, and there were a lot of frustrated words on Gal Mil comms. Had you guys been able to keep it up, the Gallente might never have taken that system, but you didn't, and they did.

I also think there's a marked difference of attitude between the two sides. I remember a few months ago spending 12 hours attacking Enaluri and finally getting it to 28% that first day after losing hundreds of ships. I wanted to put a fist through my monitor that night when the node crashed from something that was happening several systems away, and we logged back in to find the system back down to 0%. We petitioned it of course, but the response was that the tools didn't exist to fix the percentage bar back to where it had been.

We had to start over from scratch, and what happened was that the following day, Gallente numbers swelled as people who had not participated in the offensive at that point, and hadn't really cared, rallied around the FCs and people who'd wasted their time and ISK the previous day, because "fuck that shit".

That's the real difference I see between the militias. When the Gallente get a bad turn, they seem to rally together tighter than before, and try harder. If someones home system comes under attack it's basically a guarantee that almost every major corp and alliance will be there to help in the defense. Help is asked for, and it's given without a second thought because each of us knows that those guys will be there for us when it's our turn to get shit on.

The Caldari could learn something from that, but it won't be easy. The Gallente core groups have the advantage that comes with flying together for years at this point, while the Caldari have gone through a lot of turnover in that time. If you were to look at the Gallente corps and alliances that bashed the final iHub in January of 2013, a lot of the same flags were flying in August of 2014. On the Caldari side, I don't think more than Templis and the Russians around OMS still remain from the 2013 Campaign.

In closing, while I will happily look at ways to incentivize a losing side to keep fighting (and take suggestions) to bring these ideas to CCP's attention, I also think the Caldari have some work to do in their own house. Any changes that could be made that would affect all sides equally at this point still won't save you guys from yourselves, and your inability/unwillingness to work together.

12 comments:

  1. ONe thing I would do is decouple the Minmatar-Gallente and Amarr-Caldari militias and make them all at war with each other. That would increase the number of hostile deplexers and fewer allies.

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    1. As a Gal Mil pilot. The minmatar pilots are all set to red. We've been on the wrong side of too many awoxers... Basically everything is hostile until proven blue.

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  2. I've never understood why the loosing side isn't the side paying more both from a balance perspective and a role play perspective (desperation leads to high pay for mercenaries).

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  3. LP payout for kills should be constant and therefore tier independent. I think i don't have to explain why.

    There should be fun benefits for actually living in a FW system as FW corp. Currently corps tend to give up early since they know they can just base out of the next best system without going through the FW hazzle. Systems are disposable, the lone benefit for having them is the tier which is only interesting for farmers. Long time members tend to stop caring about it. Imagine we would get the promised system wide cyno jammers? Imagine how interesting a system like amamake would suddenly become. Right now, they are just a number on a spreadsheet, the more you have the easier it is to hold the tier - thats it.

    Whats the point of having 5 systems? You need far more to influence the tier. Thats why caldari gave up and moved out of the warzone. Living next door is just as good as living in the warzone. Just take a look at egglehende where amarr and minmatar live side by side in the same system, 1j away from the warzone. There is 0 incentive to move back in.

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    1. The sad thing is, team Egghelende has wanted to live in the warzone for quite some time, but successfully holding systems is so timezone dependent, which is something we have historically lacked especially in the rusrus TZ that it didn't really make sense to.

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  4. ah and i forgot to mention that probably 80% of all kills i get in the amarr warzone are gallente. Since minmatar corps just swapped sides to gal to keep on farming on max efficiency. I don't think this was intended this way, i rather think CCP hoped when they allowed that that there would be more cooperation between amarr-gal and cal-min since they can help each other. But it ended up being the exact opposite and a farmer heaven.

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    1. sorry its late i obviously mean amarr-cal and gal-minmatar

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  5. The frogs with their fruity love of "liberty" just attract more space idealists who are still blind to the degree to which faction warfare is broken. Unless you're an rp-er, there is absolutely no incentive to fight. If you want fights in few low-sec, you pirate. If you want lp, you just switch sides or place an alt on whatever side has the highest rewards.

    You were all huffed up and organized against nothing. Why would the Caldari fight?

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  6. "What is clear is that there is no incentive to join a side losing as bad as the Caldari are right now"

    thats actually rather far from what im hearing. im seeing lots of reddit posts about folks joining calmil for the target rich environment. there is also something to be said for under-dog appeal.

    -Ciaphas Cyne

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  7. i think a large problem is the gallente missions are too hard to farm solo.

    the caldari ewar is too strong for solo bombers so you typically see groups of players running the missions together in VNIs/Ishtars or T3s. whereas when minmil was at T4, you just had people running around in bombers all the time.

    to get the quickest/safest LP in a T4 environment in galmil, you're gonna need to d/o-plex. so once gal hit tiers 3 and 4, and the farmers started jumping over. the lowest hanging branch for the farmiest of farmers was just dplexing anything around with a decent contested rate. that left the line members of galmil to oplex. once more farmers were about, they also probably started oplexing for the sweet sweet LP.

    thats my 2isk

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    1. You can solo them in an ishtar/T3

      - Than

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  8. Cromwell Savage29 August, 2014 12:47

    Docking rights tied to occupancy... There are other ways to make the 'losing' side feel the pain and give meaning to the victors without having to kick the other side out of low-sec, therefore causing this self inflicted demise of 'content'...

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