Kyang Tia wrote:This is, from a purely technical standpoint, probably the best video ever made about this game.
However, its contents are slightly boring, and, to me, very saddening. I'd like to explain why. Please note that the following rant is not meant as a criticism of the people in RnK: They know their game mechanics well, and it is not surprising that they use everything at their disposal to their advantage.
What this video does, in my eyes, is shed light on the severe problems with game mechanics we have in Eve today, favouring larger numbers at every point. As someone who values a GF above all else in this game, and as someone who believes that no fight is a GF if the enemy can not fight back, I naturally dislike the idea of pipebombing. So what does it say about this game if pipebombing is the only remaining option if you want to have some actual impact with less than 500 people?
In Matari Exodus, we of course have the same problems RnK has. We, too, like to fight outnumbered, and, increasingly often, find ourselves confronted with amounts of repping that we simply cannot break. We, too, have found ourselves in an arms race where, at some time in the future, no more options will be left to us, because all our enemies can endlessly outtank and out-escalate us and there are simply no upgrades available to us any more because we're already in the most powerful ships.
Now RnK have taken the arms race one step further and showed us the usage of a weapon of mass destruction. And while it honors them that they chose not to use it against random NPSI fleets, there is no going back from such a thing. All of us are already feeling the consequences: Many alliances have stopped using gates altogether because they're scared of being pipebombed, eliminating chances of a fight that isn't a hotdrop or a docking game almost completely. Every step further in the race makes it less and less likely for people to find a fight where both sides can have fun. This arms race is good for no one, but, of course, there is no way out either. What will be next?
So I thank Lord Maldoror for making this video, in the hope that other people will watch it and feel like I do. Maybe some of the guys at CCP will see it too and start thinking about how this game could be made better for people who like to win fights because they played better, not because they had a larger amount of even simpler-to-pilot ships.