Merdaneth
Amarr
PIE Inc.
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Posted - 2007.03.20 22:32:00 -
[1]
Just sit down and think for a minute how engagements work.
Someone usually engages when he thinks he has good odds of winning. He won't if he doesn't. The side that is being engaged will most often try to disengage, because the engaging side probably has better odds of winning (otherwise he would not have engaged in the first place). Since disengaging (running) is also fairly easy, most actual fights come about in the following way:
1. Attacking party made a mistake in estimating the odds
2. Defending party acts as bait (and thus doesn't run) and the attacking party could not see reinforcements (they were in the next system over for example)
3. Defending party made a mistake in estimating the odds (and didn't disengage in time)
4. Defending party was not paying attention (surprised).
5. The attacking party doesn't mind engaging with poor odds (he's dying for a fight)
In EVE, the attacking party rarely engages with poor odds: he has the information gathering tools to avoid such, same goes for the defender. Remove those information gathering tools, and suddenly we see less one-sided fights, because more mistakes will be made.
With local if there are 10 people on one side, and 5 on the other, the first will try to engage, the others will try to disengage. Odds are that no fight will take place. The 10 may try to bait the 5, but it usually won't succeed, since the 5 now there is backup nearby. However, with neither party knowing what the exact enemy strength is, the 5 might engage the bait, and get jumped. Thus creating a fight that would not have happened in the first place. Of course, the 10 might feel nervous themselves, because those 5 might be just bait for another larger group....
Currently I've had many situations with 6 friendlies and 6 hostiles in local. I knew 3 friendlies were afk, but didn't know how many hostiles were active. Obviously nobody of us engaged figuring 3 to 6 odds were too poor. Possibly the enemy was in the same situations, the info from local effectively paralyzing the situations. Less information means more mistakes, more mistakes mean more battles. More mistakes mean more even-sided battles.
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