12 replies to this topic

[Sen Gyounen]

I recently took the Dec 6, 2008 PvP-Basic course (BASIC - 0612082100), and posted a review of it on my corp's website (I am a member of Eve University), and decided to post a copy of it here also, mostly unedited. Usual disclaimer, I am not an officer in E-Uni, this is not an official statement or endorsement by them, simply my opinions. So here is a review of the course from a student's perspective: --- Well, I told someone I was going to review the AU PvP-Basic class, then forgot - wups. So here it is. Warning, incoming Wall of Text: As background: Agony Unleashed is a pure PvP corporation: http://www.agony-unl...ed.com/news.php They periodically offer classes to non-members (for a Fee): PvP-Basic (30 students/8 hours) PvP-Wolfpack (destroyer packs) PvP-Covops (which I'm still waiting for PvP-Advanced The PvP-Basic is usually 7M isk, and also usually fills up within hours of being announced... I have missed several being a few hours late However, they did a Christmas special with 100 students for 3M Isk recently, which they described as ‘experimental’, and a test of CCP’s new Stackless IO First, the downsides -The course started in the middle of nowhere, Berta this time, instead of the previous Nonni. Nonni is close to Jita, easier to get ships to than Berta. Ah well... Plus, it’s a fairly major time and cash commitment. Finally, they don't offer *enough* classes But they're working on it. Before I discuss the (considerable) benefits of the course, I want to add a disclaimer that nothing in this review, should be considered a criticism of my corp, E-Uni's PvP classes . The Uni has good classes and teachers, and lots of good information in their forums. However, PvP is *all* that Agony Unleashed does, and they're very good at it - and teaching it. After paying/being accepted into the course, a week before the class, they give students access to their PvP-Basic Wiki, which contains an extensive set of articles in one location, including: Basic PvP Mechanics Bubbles and Warping Configuring the Eve client for PvP Frigate Fleet Fitting: using the Hydra Principle Getting Maximum PvP Value from your skill training Introduction to Bookmarks in Eve Overview Setup PvP Comms 101 PvP-Basic Preparation Checklist Recommended Modules for Basic Your Clone and Your Pod The articles have many pages of information, which, printed out, gave me plenty to read during the 30-jump alt-hauling of five frigates to Berta... And they make it clear that the student is expected to read and be familiar with all of it, *before* class starts. The class was intensive, and despite having nearly 100 students, generally moved at a good pace. Since it was 8+ hours, there were frequent docking bio breaks, fortunately. The first half was roughly 3-3.5 hours of theory/practice in highsec, and the next 4+ hours was nullsec operations. We started with all the basics - fleet composition, why take all the specific modules in the recommendations, etc. As might be obvious from the name Hydra Principle, they use similar tactics to the Uni - large combined-arms fleets with a mix of EWar/tackling/dps. Their materials are copyrighted, but I don’t think they’d mind me quoting this paragraph as an example of their approach to fleets: “A frigate fleet is not simply a blob of people in frigates. Blobs are disorganized, often poorly fitted mess of ships that rely on sheer numbers to win. The tech one frigate fleet, properly configured, would utterly destroy a frigate blob of the same size. Agony Unleashed has proven this to be the case a number of times in our classes (by students such as yourself. The key to learning how to build a fleet and not a blob is to study the configuration of a frigate fleet. This article will teach you how to take a blob of frigates and turn them into a lethal force that can absolutely crush much larger ships.” Then on to forming a fleet, moving, aligning, voice comms, etc. Running exercises such as finding the optimal orbit size, with/without an AB active, and Spiral-approaching a larger ship. Basically, rather than running a frigate straight at a battleship, with zero traversal angle, you aim at a 45 degree angle, AB in, and continually spiral in. The designated target checked our angle in his overview, to give feedback on how close we were to the correct angle. That's how most lessons were, a mix of lecture covering the theory - how you do something, *why* you do it, then practicing it, with feedback from the instructors. The second half, it was off to explore strange new star systems, meet new people - and shoot them... As they made clear, the fleet was going to keep moving until it found targets, even if we all cloned home And we did find many targets, I think the KB had 19 kills [updated, I was told many more]. Unfortunately most of them were 1-3 ships, we never found a large fleet, but a kill's a kill... After 4+ hours, they had circled back to Berta, and docked up. I think they setup an in-fleet combat after that, red versus blue, but I had to leave at that point – it was a long 8 hours. Overall, the class was excellent. There was a lot of information to absorb, then put into practice, and it went extremely well, especially considering they had never had that many students before (a few glitches due to size/Ventrillo limitations, but they said it was experimental The PvP-Basic course was intended to instill the core PvPs skills quickly, *and* form a framework for more advanced classes and training, and it accomplished that very well. I was happy with it at the Xmas price of 3M, but it would have been worth 7M easily - it was time well spent. Three things I really liked about it - first, the Wiki format for articles. Everything related to the PvP-Basic class was in one spot. Second, the fact that it *was* text articles. Many resources on the net are MP3s or video. Which is good, but personally, I simply prefer *text* - I read fast, and text is easier to scan through, back up, re-read, underline, make a checklist of required mods, etc... And the text went into a high level of detail, with several pages explaining things like Signature Radius and every factor that affects it. Third, the class was focussed, and moved fast. Not that we didn't have the occasional screwup, (clicking 'warp to' when the instructor said 'align to', etc). But in general, the students took it seriously. Now, I'm not saying that students in my corp's class aren't serious - much I think part of it is that the Uni is a more relaxed atmosphere than AU. Plus the AU situation was very different. In the AU class, people have paid a lot of *money* for the class, and spent lots of time hauling ships a long way, and read a dozen articles of prep material. Basically, we put in a huge up-front commitment to the class, and wanted to get our money's worth So there is a different psychology on the part of the students, and different expectations in the AU class from both students and teachers. The bottom line is, the AU instructors are obviously professional PvPers, they know the material, and have the skill to transmit it to a big bunch of newbies. If you have the time and cash, this course is highly recommended. I am definitely planning on taking their other courses, especially Covops (hint, hint...) Sen Gyounen (E-Uni Freshman once again) "For all your days, prepare, and meet them ever alike; When you are the anvil, bear - when the hammer, strike."

[Spinward]

Nice article; thanks for sharing it with us.

[Bergon Darek]

Great review! I was also in that class, and it was a blast. Especially the free-for-all at the end (which I should have begged off from; I was way tired by that point). May I forward this on to my corp, now that I've joined a PC corp? I don't see any harm, but would prefer to have permission.

[Sen Gyounen]

May I forward this on to my corp, now that I've joined a PC corp? I don't see any harm, but would prefer to have permission.

Fine by me. You could put a link in your corp board to this forum post, so they could see the classes list. I put it here because it's a Public forum. But forwarding is fine also. (Unless your corp is CVA...

Sen Gyounen

"For all your days, prepare, and meet them ever alike;
When you are the anvil, bear - when the hammer, strike."

[Kerzack]

Thanks for the review and feedback! We appreciate it greatly - we're working on the covops course, but it is a very tricky thing to teach and takes lots of time.... coming soon ™

[Penny]

I read the review when first posted on the Eve Uni forums and was intrigued enough to come here and register. Currently training an alt in the required skills and looking forward to a class, well, really looking forward to all of them. Good review and it sounds like it is well worth the time and money. Penny Reynalt/Jax Durley

[Ecatherina W]

I read the review when first posted on the Eve Uni forums and was intrigued enough to come here and register. Currently training an alt in the required skills and looking forward to a class, well, really looking forward to all of them. Good review and it sounds like it is well worth the time and money.
Penny Reynalt/Jax Durley

Penny, you will not regret it. I admire Eve-U a huge deal, but Agony teaches basic pvp in a very comprehensive way for new players and old. I think the biggest credit for Agony is that they are able to "retrain" old carebears to enjoy t1 frig pvp.

:heart:
Kath

[Sen Gyounen]

We're working on the covops course, but it is a very tricky thing to teach and takes lots of time.... coming soon ™

Okay, now I'm curious what's involved in offering another course? Is it that hard to find instructors, or time?

Also - is the Wolfpack class really needed before taking the Covops class? Seems like they are really two different activities, scouting versus fleet DPS. I can see where you'd want PvP-Basic before a Wolfpack class, but Covops? My goal is exploration and Scouting/Covops, not so much actual pew-pew - I don't mind not being on the killmails

Thanks.

Sen Gyounen

"For all your days, prepare, and meet them ever alike;
When you are the anvil, bear - when the hammer, strike."

[Ecatherina W]

As one of the few non-Agony to have done Covert Ops, I will try to answer a bit... Covert Ops is hard to do. Harder than any other class in the Agony repertoire. 1) The ships are expensive 2) The gear is expensive 3) The skill requirement for a good covert ops pilot is more than 10 mill SP, probably for most pilots nearer 15 or 20 mill. 4) The preparations are extensive and CCP has in the last 6-12 months made it harder by making cans disappear if they are not used 5) A lot of material in the covert ops class has had to be re-written due to CCP making changes. 6) Only a few are as exceptionally gifted in the covert ops skills as the best of the Agony covert ops pilots and not all of them are gifted w. teaching abilities too. Good covert ops pilots tend to be towards the silent types or the lone wolf types. 7) Yes, Wolfpack is needed. In basic, you learn to listen to orders and perform as a fleet. In wolfpack, you begin to learn to think for yourself. Also, there is a lot of techniques which are taught in Wolfpack (mainly related to bookmarks and how to use them) which is absolutely necessary for a covert ops pilot. Anyway, that being said, you can learn a lot about being a good covert ops pilot just by flying along w. basic classes and listening to the covert ops pilots, observing what they do. One of the hardest jobs I have done for an Agony gang was scouting... leading a fleet is childs play in comparison to being a good covert ops pilot. Kath

[Sen Gyounen]

Thanks for the reply. It's not that I mind taking the Wolfpack class, it's just that, if it follows the same trend as the Basic class, I'll never get to *take* it The 30-student basic class filled up repeatedly - every month I'd log in to see an email about a new class... closed... It was only when they offered the 100-student class I managed to register. As for following a Basic class, that was something I was going to ask about, next class. They let alumni attend, so I was hoping I could go in a Helios. Not sure what use I would be without training, alas... Sen Gyounen "For all your days, prepare, and meet them ever alike; When you are the anvil, bear - when the hammer, strike."

[Ecatherina W]

No alumni is allowed to come in a covert ops ship, AFAIK. I have once done it, but being former Agony, I do get special dispensation. A few other former Agony has done it as well. Kath

[Ripard Teg]

The final say for using a tech 2 ship on a class is with the instructor. Usually, covert ops are right out, as is anything bigger than a frigate. (except an interdictor and that'll be covered by AGONY). EAFs are good, as are Assault Frigates.

[Weeks]

Right, covops/scout tends to be a very pilot-skills intensive role and will almost always be filled on a class by an Agony pilot. The covops seminar is, at this moment, under intense scrutiny and reconstruction. We're examining the old curriculum and updating as necessary and writing new articles to cover new tactics. One of the problems with the old curriculum was that it tended to run too long (over two hours), so we're shortening things in certain places and adding new content where we feel we need to. WOLFPACKS is definitely one of those classes that is absolutely necessary for any advanced seminar such as Skirmishing, Interdictors, Fleet Command or Covert Ops. These skills require more than the cursory introduction to nullsec PVP that is BASIC. (Not knocking BASIC, it's a fabulous way to introduce new PVPers to small/medium-gang PVP, as the article above makes clear) I think once we get these advanced seminars dialed in this month, you'll be able to get a feel for WHY we restrict them to pilots who have flown in both BASIC and WOLFPACKS. The content simply assumes some skills on the part of the students, and those assumptions are made much safer by having these prerequisites in place.