I take a few weeks off an "win," EVE, come back and loose another bunch of frigate hulls.

It might not be the wulfpax (I run with 3-10 pilots on average) you're referring to, but we bounce from various stations in NPC null regions and do find fights between lop-sided ganks and getting stomped by a blob.

I do it because structure bashing is equally pointless for me (I don't have the free time to regularly grind sov anyhow), I don't have to put up with the politics, and it's more efficient and amusing to fly a frigate swam than a bog-standard BC gang which everyone and their cousin is accustomed to. Is it the best pvp avalible to me? I can't really say, I haven't bothered doing much else. When I get bored, I simply return to the top here (skill-training game for a few weeks). What I -can- say is that it does keep me coming back every few weeks, so it's currently better than the other games that could occupy my time.

TL; DR: Why do you run small gangs when there's no point in it?

Ok - I love small gang 'warfare' in Eve - I think it's one of the strongest points in the game, gameplay-wise. Warfare where individual skills and knowledge about the game matter, rather than the mere capability to ctrl+click primary and hitting F1.

Having that said, I've never run any recently.

Partially, that may be contributed to me being bored with unchanged mechanics in years, partially to bittervet-syndrome, partially because they have become even more pointless the longer the game progresses.

There's hardly any profit to be made, there are no strategic goals to be achieved by running small gangs, except demoralising some scrubs.

Anything in 0.0 involves structure grind, which small gangs aren't particularily good at, followed by a timer, which will give the opposition plenty of time to form up the biggest blob possible.

Of course you may catch the occasional drunk ratter (heh - bots don't get drunk). And there may be others looking for fights just for e-peen (KMs), but otherwise, there's no single goal to run a small gang gameplay-wise (except for fun, but Eve is pretty bad at rewarding fun at all).

And no - I don't want instanced pvp in complexes or some terrible crap like that - just anything meaningful that can be achieved with a small gang - I don't talk about taking sov here - that should involve huge fleets all the way - but being able to deal any damage doing thousands of little stings and softening an alliance up with e.g. raiding their moon-mining arrays may get Eve's warfare out of its apathy.

Could try RvB.

he isnt talking about frigate pvp where everybody flys with hg slaves and crystals so their puni and merlins are op. hes talkinga bout bc' t2 t1 cruiser small gang.

he isnt talking about frigate pvp where everybody flys with hg slaves and crystals so their puni and merlins are op. hes talkinga bout bc' t2 t1 cruiser small gang.

Is this what the no-podding rule in RvB has come to?

Being a FW babbie, as Mittens would put it, I find small gang stuff makes a refreshing alternative to the blob derp. Also, I like to spank ladies.

Yeah - guess i have to edit the TLDR. Small gangs are fun (was in FW for 2 years with an alt for two years after EA enrolled).

You're running them because they are fun and blobs are mind-numingly boring. Still no point in doing them gameplay-wise.

he isnt talking about frigate pvp where everybody flys with hg slaves and crystals so their puni and merlins are op. hes talkinga bout bc' t2 t1 cruiser small gang.

[quote=Nimrod Nemesis]
Thanks for the confirmation - for fun only. Nothing wrong with doing that - kept me coming back and playing for 6 years now.

Concerning gameplay mechanics, it corroborates my view of small gangs being entirely pointless. No profits, no goals.

Well, I consider the goal to be the enjoyment of the roam and the engagements. If I needed really elaborate or structured objectives i'd probably be playing a more linear game than EVE, tbh (no offense implied). As far as profit goes, i've actually made out with black ink about as often as i've been podded for nothing but "lulz." My gang is a fairly equitable bunch so we tend to divvy up the spoils of a nice gank. One resonably fitted ship is all it takes to fund a small gang of frigates.

I mean, it's certainly not going to earn you a PLEX + spending money per month like say, camping a nice pipe, or some other low-risk pseudo-pvp venture. But, i'm more than willing to pay my sub the traditional way and do the VERY occasional grind session to live comfortably. The only thing I miss about lowsec (my home for the first 2-3 years of my career) pvp are the implants which I can't really afford to get spendy with anymore. I used to be peeved about the logistics of living far from a decent hub too, but the advent of wormholes took care of that for me.

- If I could e.g. run a small gang into 0.0 and actually reach any crumbs of the 0.0 alliances cake, I'd do it.

- If they could be hurt in the smallest way at all by small gangs, they'd have to rely on space populated with actual humans rather than botting renters.

- If there was anything meaningful to do for a small gang in 0.0, eve's gameplay would flourish. Small gangs are tremendously complex and enjoyable, yet Eves gameplay only favours F1 hitting blobs.

- If there was anything meaningful to do for a small gang in 0.0, eve's gameplay would flourish.

You're in luck! CCP is giving you customs offices to shoot...structures so meaningless the blobs won't care about them.

heh raid black op holes, take out some concept fleets and gank those pos bashing fleets.