30 replies to this topic

[Azual]

If you have any feedback on the class (or roam) content, we'd love to hear it. For those who watched the tracking and spiralling video, it'd also be great to hear any comments on that - the ultimate aim is to get most of the theory content for the class into this format, so anything you have to say. For those who haven't seen it, you can find the video here:

[Sir Locutus]

Verry good and detailed class. Clear voice and alot of patience from Azual. Also i think that idea to cover part of theory on video is verry good. Instructor have more time to explain other things and spiraling video is verry good , i dont think anyyone could have a problem with understending this material after watching it.

[Askaden500]

The video was very well done. I showed it to my co-worker who wasn't able to attend and he's gonna sign up for the next available class. The class itself was very helpful. Having the reading material prior to the class helped. Azual was also very clear and adressed all the questions people had before moving on to the next topic. Unfortunately I had to leave about half way through the class. However I'm eager for the roam tomorrow!

[Bacon]

The class was a very well designed intro, lots of great information and general fleet conduct to be had. It might be good to try for more voice comms activity from the newer players, although I can't think of an activity for that ATM besides taking more volunteers. Also with some of the extra class time from turning the content to video, you might think about running a scanning exercise like having everyone jump into a new system and attempt to find the elite frigate at a belt...just a thought to get some more interaction. Thanks again!

[Hitonme]

The class is very well designed and organised, and even though I have covered probably 95% of the content before in E-Uni classes you managed to keep my attention for the entire four hours. I missed the video as I hadn't signed up to the mailing list, however I have seen it before courtesy of your blog. The video content is very good, clearly described and uses very clear visual references to illustrate the learning points. The teaching was calm and clear, and the material was very well presented, it is always a pleasure learning PVP from Agony. I look forward to seeing you at some of the advanced PVP classes in the near future

[Azual]

Also with some of the extra class time from turning the content to video, you might think about running a scanning exercise like having everyone jump into a new system and attempt to find the elite frigate at a belt.

While it's not an official part of the class, I actually often do this after the end of my classes. The only reason I didn't this time is because we were running a little late.

[Garan]

Really loved the class. It is, both in content and organisation, top notch. Being in education business in RL, I appreciate the effort put into this class even more. I've been playing EVE for half a year now and have participated in a decent share of PvP while sucking on all the information scattered around forums and various guides, however the class did not fall short on offering both major stuff and fine details to be learned - tracking mechanics, in-between safespots not really being all that safe after all, meaning of yellow boxing and dynamics of missile damage to name a few. I've seen the video pre class and there is really little to add to it, would love more of em . I'm certain to get enrolled in other agony classes once they become availabe, in the mean time looking forward to tonite's roam =)

[SungJo]

Great class and roam. The information was well laid out and supplemented the written information on the wiki well. I really liked the video - it made a lot more sense 'watching' the spiraling after the talk than trying to read or listen in on how to do it... Great time, Thanks for everyone's hard work making these things happen.

[Sir Locutus]

Greate roam , 2 x machariel , 1 x tengu and alot of other targets , its good to see how agony actions are well organized. I cant wait another class , roam to fly with you. Thanks Azual , you are v.good FC and teacher. It was also good to see Caldak and greatest secretery Greygal and of course all alumni and agony pilots.

[Ensign X]

The video is a great start. Information is concise, easy to understand and grasp, even for long-time missile users like myself. Very much anticipating any other releases that will accompany it in the future. The class was exceptionally well run and very informative. Azual, as always, was a great lecturer, teacher and host. Kudos to him for putting so much time and effort into this. The roam was more than anybody could have asked for. Great fights, both the arranged and the ones that Caldak and his hungry pack of wolves hunted down for the rest of us. I will most definitely be joining in any future Alumni roams that I can. On a personal note, I'm glad to get the PVP Basic out of the way so I can move onto the more advanced classes. Wolfpacks, Advanced and anything related to Covops or Scouting. I can't wait!

[Unbent]

The BASIC class was all I had hoped for, thanks a lot, Azual!

As my job requires teaching students two weeks a year, I know that praise feels good but that constructive criticism is needed to make one grow as a teacher.

Theory Class
Azual's voice was very clear on the coms and I thought he was easy to understand (I'm not a native speaker). His accent is much more noticable in the video.
Having read through the theory beforehand and having already heard most of it in recorded E-Uni classes, there were still a few new ideas in the class. Like not only knowing how a track works, but also thinking about the best targets.
Getting practical exercise in fleet movements was nice and I was surprised that I had no problem concentrating for the four hours, kudos to you.
There are additional topics I would suggest talking about in class since they were relevant during the roam:

• Fleet window - order by hierarchy, where the broadcast buttons hide, broadcast targets & right-click them to lock onto them, how to take command of a squad
• Kill mails - what they are, how to get onto one, how to post them & your losses + analysis of what went wrong (I still have to post mine)
• I think you forgot to mention the 'Battlecoms' command

Roam
For the most part the practical exercise on fleet movement the day before meant that it was very clear, what to do.
Even having two FCs worked really well, beginning commands with 'alumni' or 'students' was perfect. Caldak wasn't easy to understand, his voice was low on the coms and there was a lot of interference.
Kiling a Tengu & making it's pilot lose a level of their highest ranking subsystem skill was pretty sweet.
You might want to mention something about the ships we fought against, since knowing your enemy (great blog by the way) is so important for PvP. Even during a fight, it might be helpful to inform the fleet of PvP noobs if one of only a few targets is a missile boat, so that no one waists time spiralling in.
The fight against the RvB fleet was excellent, I'd even recommend to ask them to come (if that was not already the case). The confusion of suddenly having 100 enemy ships near you is exactly what I wanted to experience and I did get confused. That was the point where I noticed that broadcast targets are displayed with the useless ship name, something I have turned off on my overview... squad leader broadcast: 'target Rifter' and I tried to find it in the overview. Only afterwards did I notice that I could have right-clicked the broadcast to lock that particular Rifter.

Spiralling Video
All in all very well explained although I think you do need to play Eve and have already looked at turrets vs. missiles beforehand to really get the most out of it.
I'd explain that a radian is a measure of an arc, since you and Eve only imply it and we scientists hate undefined measures. The mathematical definition is too complex for many people I think. Maybe this is not such good idea...
When the battleship first blows up the frigate (6:30) I'd enlarge the part of the HUD that shows the frigate health since it is what you should be looking at and only takes up a tiny part of the screen.

[Sir Locutus]

• Kill mails - what they are, how to get onto one, how to post them & your losses + analysis of what went wrong (I still have to post mine)

Kill mails are confirmation of killing some ship or get killed. You can find them in your Character sheet --> combat logsm you have 2 tabs with kills and losses
To post kill mail on killboard you have to copy it by clicking right mouse on kill mail and "copy kill information" then go to agony public kb

http://www.agony-unl...llboard/?a=home

press post mail and past info into big window, password is riftersrule. Process! Same process with kills and deaths.

You have posted succesfully your first killmail .

[Azual]

Only afterwards did I notice that I could have right-clicked the broadcast to lock that particular Rifter.

You can actually just ctrl+click the broadcast to lock it.

We probably should have practiced that a little beforehand, unfortunately we were a little rushed because I didn't want the RvB guys dropped on us while we were unprepared (as it turns out, they were just going to mess around for the next half hour anyway, but hey!)

[Mangala Solaris]

Only afterwards did I notice that I could have right-clicked the broadcast to lock that particular Rifter.

You can actually just ctrl+click the broadcast to lock it.

We probably should have practiced that a little beforehand, unfortunately we were a little rushed because I didn't want the RvB guys dropped on us while we were unprepared (as it turns out, they were just going to mess around for the next half hour anyway, but hey!)

I had stragglers - and no one wanted to miss out fighting your class / whoring on an Azual mail.

Would like to say a huge thanks to both Agony and all the students who died in lastnights fight (possibly even the alumni...) for 1)being patient & 2)dieing so gracefully

[fletch]

Great Class, both days were very informative, and a lot of material was covered very efficiantly, Definatly a lot of material and information for even someone who does a lot of PVP. what stood out in my mind was the clarity of fleet comms, both how in how it was tought and then put into practice. at no time was there any doubt on what we needed to be doing and what was going on, somthing that has been lacking on most of the fleets I go on, especially considering the size of the fleet and the fact that the fleet was split into two parts. The speed and efficiancy in which we moved was very impresive. and what can I say a truly EPIC roam. Hat's off to all the agony guys that made it possible. Thankyou Fletch

[Ari Black]

Good class, and informative. Good, relaxed/neutral voice during class and roam. Great video, hope to see some more soon. The Altruist, http://www.evealtruist.com/, is a must read if you want more information on ships, and other great info.

On a personal side, I am reasonably comfortable tackling, spiraling in, fleet movements and generally staying relatively cool in a fight, before the class. But being in RvB we don't get to use ECM, unless its a special weekend, or when we are in a gankfest, like on dropped on us yesterday. Because of this i picked a Griffin for the class. I will say being in a Griffin made me feel completely new to pvp again -> selecting the correct targets for jams, auto-cycling or not, calling out Jams, off racial jam use, etc. Oh and don't forget to align so your ready to GTFO since they are gunning for you. I forgot to do 1 or more of these during each fight. The class was definitively worth it for this practice alone.

On the RvB blob. Having 100 RVBers dropping in on us is a super tough situation to be in. Especially if its going to be an in your face brawl. A lot of them have a good deal of experience in PvP (I thought that RvB would have more newbies to PvP when I joined), have high number pvp skill points, comfortable in null sec, they are generally fitted with full t2 load outs. It was good practice on keeping cool, target calling, switching target callers, etc.

Looking forward to more classes, and Alumni roams.

[Mangala Solaris]

Oh look, the RVB side got videoed, utter chaos:

[Prudance]

Oh look, the RVB side got videoed, utter chaos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5LIqKPTVvM

Ah I was so surprised at 4:30 and 6:20. Never knew that I was so famous that even when Im not FCing the opposing gang would make a priority of killing me and getting my corpse, makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Makes me feel like I've achieved some sort of Eve milestone

[Mangala Solaris]

I love you really And guys, I will really love to do this again sometime - and of course, theres always the open invitation for anyone to attend a Ganked as well. While they are in no way as structured as the wonderful classes Agony offer, I do feel they are a good alternative way to experience nullsec.

[Prudance]

Aww I love you too Mang Looking forward to the next ganked (though I may be in a WH by then but I'll try to get out)

[Kaden Vajsh]

It wouldn't do terribly much good to reiterate the points already made in this thread, as one more person saying, "Good class and roam," doesn't add much to the discussion. There are a few things I would like to add though that I was particularly impressed by. The first was the demonstration of Rolling TAMs and why they are important, especially after we had already been bombed once during the roam. Having an AGONY AF taking point and and demonstrating these concepts in a live fire situtaion was more valuable than a hundred theory videos. The second thing that really impressed me was the catching of that Tengu. Throwing an interceptor out front and having everyone warp to 50 on the 'ceptor to land on the target ship was really clever, and it really demonstrated the value that improvisation brings to live combat. The third thing that impressed me was the way that the fleet operated like a well oiled machine. Having vanguard scouts and rear guards along with interdictors and the Alumni/Student split was probably the most ideal demonstration of the hydra principle that I could have asked for. Far and above though, the value of this class is not in the knowledge that I gained during the roam, but in demonstrating that I still have lots and lots to learn about PvP in EVE. So thanks for that.

[Scars McKenzie]

Like always loved the class (my second time tagging along as alumni) i have been out of eve for a long time and I had remembered almost nothing. Azual the your voice loud clear and calm makes all the difference. I cant wait to get into some of the more advanced classes and tag along on more roams as alumni and start trying to get my skills up. the one thing that I had a problem with was Caldak's voice and the alumni group. I must have missed the part where alumni were sent off with caldak so I stayed with the main group then when we had a break and got ready to Tango with the rvb's I moved back over to the alumni group and had problems understanding our orders. this is probably more my own problem then anything that you all did but it was the one downfall of my day. again much fun was had by this capsuleer and I will be back.

[Fitch]

Feedback: Class: A large volume of information presented well. Clear and concise. Good flowing structure with practical elements. Time for questions. As has already been mentioned in earlier posts, I too would have liked more depth on the Fleet window functionality, ie how to identify your squad leader. A practical exercise on D-scan would also have been appreciated. I found the tracking and spiralling video an excellent way to illustrate and reinforce the principles detailed in the wiki document. I had originally signed up for Oct 2011 PVP-BASICS prior to the video being available, and although practising the spiralling in after reading, the video was great for confirmation that I had got the gist. It is a great idea to cover the PVP-BASICs material with a series of video lectures. Roam: Great fun; practical application of the classroom theory and more. Very interesting to hear the two wings both in roles and interaction. Demonstrated how to be in fleet. Showed how essential the good comms practices are, no more so than when Caldak was FCing the Wormhole sorties, and the importance of concentrating and listening to your FC (I got separated a couple of times, inadvertently went through a gate when should have been holding and forgot what to do). I found the course immensely enjoyable. Thank you to all who contributed to a great experience, in particular to Azual for the class and FCing the roam, and to Caldak for FCing on and continuing the roam. Looking forward to doing both some more learning and roaming in the future. PS on the wiki page for setting up ts3 you may consider adding a line detailing how to turn of the audible channel notifications ("user has joined your channel" etc.). I had not used ts3 before and it took a little figuring out and there were a few questions in channel on how to do this. Fitch.

[AkJon Ferguson]

Ah I was so surprised at 4:30 and 6:20. Never knew that I was so famous that even when Im not FCing the opposing gang would make a priority of killing me and getting my corpse, makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Makes me feel like I've achieved some sort of Eve milestone

Yeah, but was the guy who killed you a 'fucking hero'?

[Cynn Ayres]

Class was superb as always. The roam was top notch and the best one that I have attended so far. We almost had non-stop targets for good chunk of it.