As you can probably imagine yesterday was rather busy what with promoting the launch of the Eve Posters, real life work, making hats, and trying to find time to work on a long list of commissions. Not to mention a new Alliance logo for A Band Apart. (More on those things later.) My playtime was limited to say the least and I didn't get on-line until much later in the day. Sadly I missed our RR Vexor fleet. Which was a bummer for me, but I heard things went well, so that's good.
I didn't have long so I decided to fit up a new Comet and run around a bit. My roam was somewhat limited because of several nearby lazy-ass gate camps, so I hung around the local area instead. It wasn't long before I noticed the two Algos in system. They were obviously FW pilots each running a different small plex in local. I suspected they'd be stabbed but I went in after them anyway. Sure enough they each warped off shortly after I landed on them inside their individual plex. This happened a couple of times. With nothing else to do I decided to dock up and ditch the Web for another Scram.
I don't fit a Web on my Comet for cosmetic reasons, the darn thing is important, so a dual scram fit is not optimal. But nothing else was happening and these guys were flaunting themselves in my local. (And let's pause here for a moment. I had Corp mates on that could have been called to help, ensuring a victory and a measure of safety. This was not my goal. And such a strategy would present less of a challenge. Yes, I often purposefully and knowingly put myself at a disadvantage. Things tend to get boring otherwise.)
A properly fit and flown Algos can be challenging and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. If they ganged up on me so much the worse. But I managed to finally catch one of them alone and made quick work of his ship and pod. Lo and behold, no stabs. Certainly the other one had them? I finally tracked him down and got him pinned under my dual scrams and he exploded also. Also no stabs. What is going on here?
Before I had time to think about it another Algos appeared on scan. They were at it again! I didn't even have time to re-load nanites in my ancillary repper, a lack of patience that would get my killed shortly. This time the Algos was bait. And while he also exploded, he lasted long enough for his buddy to show up in a Coercer. This time the Algos did have stabs, two of them. Remember those nanites I didn't have time to load? Yeah, that was the difference between me killing the Coercer or exploding. A web would also have helped.
I mention this story for a couple of reasons, but primarily as a response to Kirith's post over on Ninveah. He makes the argument, which so many people have, that there is nothing wrong with people being allowed to play the game anyway they want. Which I happen to agree with. But he also lumps in the use of stabs in a combat zone into the argument. And I would like to make an intelligent counter point to that insane circle of logic. You don't need a crutch.
These two FW players avoided capture WITHOUT the use of Stabs on their ships over several encounters with a well trained and highly motivated Pirate. How did they do that!?! By simple intelligence and the knowledge that being aligned means a faster warp. They stayed frosty and kept their eyes on d-scan, saw the enemy approaching, and simply warped away when danger dropped in their lap. How about that?
I applaud them. Well done. I prefer my targets be intelligent, knowledgeable, and canny in the use of game mechanics. This makes things more challenging for me and much more interesting. I appreciate being out-played. Because that is the heart of Eve. And they managed to do this without a crutch.
Imagine that?
Look, with or without, I'm exploding your ship anyway. The idea that stabs are a right is just as ludicrous as me saying they aren't. The point is that you don't need them, you only want them. You want the comfortable blankie to wrap your cold ass around and feel warm and cozy. But you could just as easily get up off your lazy butt and turn the furnace up a little.
Which makes the whole house warm. Something the rest of us would appreciate.
Time for you to give up fitting scrams too. They're just a crutch and you can catch ships by bumping alone. :-p
ReplyDeleteI think you are not seeing the situation from the other side very well. Not all farmers want to be on constant vigilance when doing something as boring as plexing can be, similar to afk mining in high sec or ratting in null sec. I don't see stabs as a crutch for bad players but as a tool for a player to casually farm the plexes while doing other things with their attention.
ReplyDeleteI can see why people like yourself may not agree with that, I am just not one of them.
"Not all farmers want to be on constant vigilance when doing something as boring as plexing can be, similar to afk mining in high sec or ratting in null sec."
ReplyDeleteI don't want to speak for Rixx, but I think that is exactly his point. FW players shouldn't have a boring, farming task to do in the first place. They are trying to capture a warzone, why should that be boring?.
Better gameplay is the goal.
Gwyd
Nice article, I appreciate the balanced view.
ReplyDeleteThough the issue I have is not with stabs but the FW mechanics. Plex capturing in FW is goal oriented, it helps to gain control of a system for your faction. It is intended to generate conflict between opposing militias. Some FW pilots feel that plex capturing is a defensive task as they must put themselves out their as the target for any hunter.
From the perspective of a FW pilot with the goal of capturing plexes, engaging pirates is not always desirable, especially since the plex runner can not choose his targets. So, stabs is a reasonable insurance plan to allow the prey a greater ability to run and survive vs being a sacrificial lamb to the pirate gods.
Are they needed, I run without them and survive. Should they be a choice for those that don't want to be mashing D-scan and monitoring local constantly while doing an otherwise boring task? Yeah they should be kept in.
Not every target is a good target. Those that don't want to fight you, well it is up to you if you want to dual scram, and assure your victory, or keep your web and pursue more worthy targets.
Removing stabs just means you'll be killing more completely unfit ships like my 3 deplexing alts.
ReplyDelete- Than