Greedy Goblin

Friday, September 19, 2014

The reason of ALODs

ALOD posts (awful loss of the day) are common in EVE community sites. Everyone is happy to see Darwinism in action. Their common explanation is "stupid".

But the losses I saw yesterday got me thinking. A guy lost 1, 2, 3 blinged Machariels within 3 hours to the same killers. Losing one blinged Mach could happen anyone who is dumb. But fitting another one and losing it to the same guys in an hour? And doing it again? One thing is for sure, he did it on purpose. It's similar to the Chremoas loss.

Now the question is, why would someone want to do that? To find the answer, at let's replace that blinged Mach with a PvP fit frigate. Would you still consider him an idiot? No, most people would call him "PvP-er who was looking for fun fights", despite he'd still lose his ships for zero kills.

The crucial point in ALODs is that the EVE community doesn't look down on ship losses, on the contrary! Driving your ship into certain doom is "fun" and receive cheers instead of laughter. Being defeated in EVE PvP doesn't put the "loser" stamp on you. Avoiding losses on the other hand does, you'll be called a "carebear".

Now, most people lose T2 fit frigates and cruisers. Maybe a faction frigate or cruiser. The ALOD doesn't stand out from the average by its actions but only by its pricetag. However pricetag is a relative term. An OK-fit Cynabal can be someones total fortune, while it's rounding error for a trader. So average PvP-er says "I fly ships that cost 5-10% of my total fortune and I fly them dangerously losing a few per week" and everyone agrees him. If I'd do the very same, I'd be called an idiot for dropping a dreadnought on ratting carriers.

The term ALOD doesn't mean "I would never do that" but "I would never do that with such ship". The speaker isn't mad for losing a Cynabal, he did it on purpose for "good fight", but he strongly believes that the fishing Hel ex-owner is very mad, since he'd be very mad if he'd have to grind for a new Hel.

The income of people is very different, both in-game and out. A casual player who runs missions or anoms with one account can earn 50-100M/hour. A trader can earn 10x more. Someone who has a $100K/year, 200hours/month job can earn 2B ISK by working an hour and buying PLEX. It's not right to laugh on someone doing the same thing as you just because he can afford to do it with 10x more expensive ships.

Of course I'm not calling losing Machariels smart. I just point out that the common opinion of "throwing away ships for fun" is mutually exclusive with yelling ALOD! The smart thing from the Machariel ex-owner would be doing what I'm doing: using his money to enable the PvP of those who have less money. If I'd throw away 60B a month for PvP ships, I would never ever get 200-300B damage on CFC. Probably I wouldn't get 20-30B, I'd just lose my ships for miniscule kills.

If you are rich in EVE, doing PvP yourself is either waste of time (you lose more on opportunity cost than on the ship) or making ALODs. If you are good in making ISK (or have lot of real money to spend on the game), you should support those who are good in PvP but horrible in making ISK. If that pilot would donate the cost of the Machariels to Mordus, he'd be on top of the donation board instead of the Pursuit of Happiness killboard.


PS: as the Goon renter alliance constantly lose members, in their desperation, Goons opened NOBUX for individual players wanting to rent in CFC space. So for only 250M ISK you can put in a cyno tackle ratter pilot into PBLRD! I fully endorse this initiative!

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surprise surprise. Years of you calling out 90% of kills as being morons, no that a MoA pilot loses 3 terribly fit macharials in a row, he's suddenly not a moron. The weird thing is you've been called out on this before with people pointing out context being an important part, and you've always dismissed it as if there's no possible way they could be a non-moron.

Gevlon said...

Can you read? He is a moron, just not for the reason other think.

Others believe: losing frigs is fun, losing Machs is dumb
I say: losing stuff is dumb, if you are bad at PvP, earn money and support those who are good.

Anonymous said...

So the smart thing to do is instead of playing the game, just give your isk to someone else so they can play? Why would I not just go play another game? What benefit is there to playing as someone else's income source?

Gevlon said...

Earning ISK is just as much "the game" as shooting ships. Also, the interesting part of the game is the big picture, not a particular battle.

Foo said...

Earning ISK is just as much "the game" as shooting ships.

Eve is the best MMO I know of for market / industry PVP. For some, that game is more important than the pew pew component.

Anonymous said...

I'd definitely not agree there. The entertainment of the game is from actually playing the game. If you enjoy making isk, that's fair enough, make isk, but earning isk to pay for someone else to fight because of some weird notion of a "big picture" sounds remarkably like treating the game as a job. Worse than that it sounds like being the bottom of the barrel peon as it doesn't involve actually playing the game. It's like being a potato peeler in a restaurant.

If I ever found myself in that position I would simply quit playing EVE, since I don't play games to fund someone else's playstyle. I play them or my own enjoyment between work, not as work.

Anonymous said...

The only good thing about earning isk in Eve is that it can be done while you sleep, or even while you are not online for a week.

It is the ultimate slacker way to play, minimum input, maximum output, and nothing to do but sit in chat channels while ingame while your wallet blinks.

Esteban said...

@Anon #3: So what you're saying is, you'd rather be Luca Brasi than Vito Corleone? A defensible choice, but hardly the obvious one.

Unknown said...

Why not leave everyone to decide what 'their game' is inside EVE?

For a lot it's blowing up ships (including getting blown up).

For a lot it's running missions or shooting roids.

For fewer people it's hauling stuff around.

For a few its all-out battles on the Marketplace.

Me personally, I find the latter part damn interesting, even though I play this game to turn real life earned $$$ into space debris. Why? I earn a lot of $$$ :)

Still it's anyone's right to chose what's fun for him. And looking at how the big block style wars in real life are waged today... it's no longer carriers and troop transports, it's container ships and wallets that make China the global superpower of the future. No need to defeat the US on the field... you can just make them dependent on your cash reserves.

I have the impression that Gevlon is playing the same game: interrupting CFC's cash flow, thus impacting their cash reserves, to gradually drive them off their no. 1 position. He's a damn clever little Chinese... erm Goblin :)

Anonymous said...

@Esteban
I don't think Corleone is a very good comparison since he holds power. Gevlon doesn't get to be in charge of anything, he simply pays isk to other people who are in charge to do whatever they want with. Bad analogies aside, do you honestly think it's a good thing to be grinding isk day in and day out to make someone else's playstyle easier? It's a game, it's designed for entertainment. If I were to do it as a job I'd expect to get paid, not to pay out.

Gevlon said...

The one with the money always holds the power over the one without it. It's just stupid to try to use it in a way "John, come here and camp that gate", because John doesn't want to and will suck. The correct way is "who will camp that gate for me"?

This way the gate is camped by the best offer maker, while John is free to roam around in a frig and be irrelevant.

EVE is a game of strategy, where PvP-ers are the pieces on the table that the real players move.

Anonymous said...

But what if John doesn't want to fly a frig?

Also, why are those losses so awful? Because of the isk value? Isk loss alone does not an ALoD make. In that case, every titan kill would be an ALoD.

Think of it this way, if I had a billion dollars, what is better... Me buying a high end sports car and racing it around a track or buying a racing team. It depends on my goal. If it is for more profit, the team would be best. If it is for my own enjoyment driving, the sports car is the best. If the Mach's pilot's goal was to kill the most for his isk, then yes he would be better served highering a group to do the killing. If it was for his own joy, the machs are fine. In either case, that doesn't make any of the losses ALoD.

Anonymous said...

The one with the money always holds the power over the one without it.
"Always" is a push, but true, in many cases this is accurate. The problem is though that you don't have "the money", you have "some money". The CFC has far more. As an entity, even Marmite has more.

EVE is a game of strategy, where PvP-ers are the pieces on the table that the real players move.
Do you consider yourself to be a "real" player? You aren't moving the pieces so much as throwing money at the pieces and hoping they happen to move. You could fund your own actual war making you an actual player in null groups, the problem is you have about enough isk to last a couple of weeks at most.

If you really wanted to be a "real" player, you'd either start or become a leading part of a null group, teach others how to generate isk at a comparable scale and use your ideas to actually push for a change.

Gevlon said...

No. I know for sure that the pieces want to move. They wanted long before I came. Marmite always wanted to permadec CFC but couldn't. I let them move.

Anonymous said...

Part of going through Waffles is figuring out how to make enough cash on your own to fly in PL fleets. When you actually get into PL you understand what people mean when they say 'no poors.' I'm not sure paying out wellfare to people too stupid to make their own cash is a good solution.

The model in PL is 'You buy your first X and we replace it when we ask you to jump into a thousand dudes. If you do something moronic or get lazy with the fitting it isn't going to be replaced.'

Anonymous said...

@gevlon

There is no guarantee that the guy with the best offer is the best gate camper.

It is better to find out who is the best gate camper, and go "Hey,John, here is 1B, sit on that gate for 6 hours for me, thanks"

Gevlon said...

The best gatecamper is defined by his results. ISK destroyed typically. It's not opinionated.