Quick Fleet And PvP Ramblings

The group or team dynamic plays an important role in Eve.  Having flown solo for a vast majority of my Eve career, I'm finding it to be a different experience right now in Stay Frosty.  The other night I was in a fleet with four other members, and we roamed about shooting stuff that came across our path.  I have never flown in a fleet with more than two people in it, and whenever I did the two man fleet, the other person was always my brother.  So I found it quite enjoyable to be able to fly with some of the more experienced members and get to know them a little bit.  Now I haven't gotten to know a lot of the members of Stay Frosty, but the few I've chatted and fleeted with have been really neat to hang out with.

Now working within a group is not foreign to me.  When I played World of Warcraft, I actually organized and led 10-man raids on a weekly basis.  Having everyone there and working together can make all the difference in whether you succeed or fail.  Something which applies in Eve except there are bigger consequences when you fail.  It's not just a quick respawn, everyone buffs up and you try again.  There is time spent re-shipping, jumping to another system, and then finding a new target.  Not to mention the cost of the ships depending on what you were flying. 

I think this has bred a more alert and detail oriented player.  When I was leading World of Warcraft raids, I would constantly have to request that people do not stand in the fire or to manage their aggro, etc.  Since there wasn't any real consequence it would sometimes take people a few tries to get the idea.  With the way consequence works in Eve and the natural response to minimize loss, I've found a lot of pilots pay more attention to what is actually happening. 

Which is why I've found PvP a lot harder than other games.  You are up against someone who may have the same attention to detail that you have.  But unlike World of Warcraft where you have the stats and abilities of the class you are facing right off the bat, you only have a general idea of what your opponent has.  You won't actually know some of the specifics until you land on grid and start to engage. 

I'm finding that there are tons of ways to set up a situation to your favor, and a lot of success comes from planning before the fight how you will react makes it easier to actually act when the pressure is on and your shields and armor are dropping.  Setting it up so you survive long enough for your fleet mates to warp in and then trusting in them to get things done so you can warp out or at least kill the target.  Not everything goes to plan, and a plan only survives until contact with the enemy, but having people you can trust and have fun with makes all the difference whether you win or lose.