49 replies to this topic

[Othran]

Caldak's voice was fine for me but I know people from that part of the world (I'm assuming Zim/SA here?). First FC on a class? I'm astonished - not only did he manage to deal with a bunch of semi-headless chickens he dealt with the gate bug and didn't get annoyed although I think I caught the odd bit of impatience when some of us (me included) went wandering off

[Dr oozy]

Many thanks for all your comments. Agony really do take your impressions, suggestions, complaints and compliments seriously and I will certainly take on board what people have said, your posts help a lot thanks. And yes I agree.. too much bio time this class ;D less pee pee.. more pew pew!

[Othran]

3) Directional scanning was pretty good. I was going to make this suggestion last night but thought it'd be better here. Most people will have mice with multiple buttons and in general their driver software will allow you to assign actions to the buttons. Now (on MS mice anyway) one of the options is "Precision Booster" which basically allows you to move the mouse a LOT more accurately but a LOT slower too. This is ideal for 5 degree scans where you basically have to overlay your ship box on the object of interest. A word of warning though - I initially used the middle button to toggle this on/off but even with Eve voice turned off and nothing assigned to middle button in-game it didn't work well. I use one of the thumb buttons now to toggle it on/off. I recommend people give this a try;

I like this, gonna have to find that in my mouse setup. But normally, I'll not go below 15 degrees, trying to get stuff down to 5 for me is just too slow. (I'm not the fastest scanning person either.)

Its useful for sitting in a SS and scanning down gates/etc in a new system. Eg jump in, 360 scan, map open, warp to furthest celestial, make mid-warp SS, warp to SS then scan. You'd be surprised how fast the precision boost option makes 5 degree scans. Its a solo sort of thing though and some of the really good guys in low-sec have this sorted inside 10 secs of hitting the SS. I'm not that good but it was second nature for a while.

[Vora]

As an attending alumnus I won't give a feedback on the class per se, but have a few words for the students who were on their first hydra fleet:
That was my 6th roam with AGONY and if you have never flown with a hydra fleet before you cannot know how badly this fleet was affected by the jump bug. The FC was consumed most of his time with reassembling the fleet after every single jump, our range was reduced big time so that we never got beyond L-T, thus a meager target list, no surprise attacks possible, bogged watchlists etc pp. It was astonishing what the FC and the skirmishers/scouts could accomplish nonetheless. I'm sorry that Caldak's premiere was made under such stark circumstances, he earned himself the skill Crisis Management V for that, imho.

That being said...
On tuesday CCP will patch this annoying bug and if not an even nastier bug raises its ugly head I urge you all students to attend a future roam, be it as alumnus in a Basic fleet or, even better, as student in the Wolfpack fleet! If you think this roam was great you ain't seen nothing yet!
An AGONY unleashed from that bug (pun intended) is an experience in itself: deep strikes into the north, Fade, Tribute, Venal, Deklein, leaving a trail of utter destruction... many alumni could tell you hair-raising stories about that!
My 3 Thrashers are already humming in their docks with excitement (or the Helios if needed) and although the Wolfpack is at an ungodly time for me petty Euro I wouldn't want to miss it for any reason... RL is overrated anyway


PS: Oozy: that was the strangest British dialect I've ever heard as a non-native speaker. Where do people speak like that???

PPS: Darkwind: If I heard correctly over Vent, your selfless endeavour made somebody demand having a child with you... how is it going? !lol !lol

[Othran]

Many thanks for all your comments.

Agony really do take your impressions, suggestions, complaints and compliments seriously and I will certainly take on board what people have said, your posts help a lot thanks.

A couple of times when you said "any questions?" and it all went deathly quiet I thought about saying "must be just like work for you eh?" but that probably wouldn't have helped !lol

You really were very good though. I think perhaps the issues are sort of along the lines of "teaching granny to suck eggs" where people know the basics of how to solo-PvP but not how to behave in a fleet op. In fact there was a couple of occasions last night when a few of us (me included) reverted to "lock it first" mode - the Raven is the one I'm thinking of - by the time someone called it on vent the Raven was locked/jammed/damped and half its shield was gone

I think maybe PVP-BASIC might benefit from a few Agony members (not in fleet) warping in and people breaking into comms to report it while we're still in high-sec would be beneficial? Give people points for it if you want but encourage people to shout "break break" when necessary. Last night was difficult though given the gate bug.

[Othran]

PS: Oozy: that was the strangest British dialect I've ever heard as a non-native speaker. Where do people speak like that???

Ooop north - or south for me

North-west England at a guess although I have this habit of confusing Lancs/Yorks accents which is somewhat hazardous at times

[Pesets]

A minor point that just came to my mind - i remember being confused when FC called "warp to Darkwind", because i went looking for a person whose name starts with D (and my watch list was messed up through having to relog too many times). May not matter as much once the gate bug is fixed, but it's probably better to call people by either "full name" or "first name" in class, as most of us don't know Agony members that well.

The last time I flew with a FC/scouts that good was 5+ years ago in Space Invaders. I really can't give you guys a higher compliment than that

And you wanted to skip the roam...

[Vora]

I'm not sure if I should admit that this was the first time Caldak had FC'd a class before. He's somewhat legendary inside Agony for his epic 50+ systems each way roams.

Oh boy, what does that mean if Caldak is unleashed next saturday...

ISD Newsflash: "Unknown fleet self-destructs in southern Paragon Soul"

!lol !lol !lol

I will place fluffy pillows around my chair...

[Dr oozy]

PS: Oozy: that was the strangest British dialect I've ever heard as a non-native speaker. Where do people speak like that???

North-west England at a guess although I have this habit of confusing Lancs/Yorks accents which is somewhat hazardous at times

Good guess. Born and raised in Manchester (North west) but now live in the North East .

[dormio]

You left not too much to add from me 8) The training material wasn’t quite new for me, but I was quite impressed that all you have posted in Wiki is working in so smooth way (practical session). As far as I recall my experience even with jumpbug in it was great to be a part of such a fleet. So, again – thank you for showing the way how the PVP should look like and how roam fleet can engage. On more thing to add - I would like to see the training to be a bit more focused on e-war modules (i.e. describing how they have an impact on PVP) as there is a quite good article on Wiki about. Even more – I would like to see the math behind e-war but enough for me if I could find it in Wiki. Thank you for great training and for sure I will be looking for more in other trainings of you ! :amazed:

[Othran]

Good guess. Born and raised in Manchester (North west) but now live in the North East .

Not really. My wife's family is from St Helens and now live in Wigan so not exactly a million miles away Thats what makes confusing Lancs/Yorks accents "hazardous"....

[Hilen]

Really liked the class. Theory part was easy to follow and seemed to cover all basic things about pvp. Practical part got it's own flavour with gate crashing and was actually really good to see how FC pulled the fleet together after every crash. Took a bit out from the roam part but definitely gave more insight into good practice when FC loses half of the fleet after gate. The scout reports were really informative. And after graduating from BASIC I know now what I want from Agony courses. Could you tell me which course I have to attend to learn scouting like Oli and Darkwing? And which course teaches to FC like Caldak? Thank you in advance.

[FoxOne]

I was just wondering if anyone else noticed on the killmails that a couple of our kills seemed to be hunting the class. A couple of battleships highslots all filled with smartbombs and that manticore that kept trying to bomb us on the gate over and over until we finally got him. It seems the class is attracting more people trying to wipe it out but even with the bug we had almost no losses to them. I really want to thank Caldak for being cool and calm with dealing with the gate bug and still keeping everyone focused and alive. At the end because of the bug the entire fleet display was all messed up along with the watch list.so it was really had to follow some of the commands at the end but even with us spreading out everyone stayed cool and looked after those that got a little lost. I also had a really messed up grid at the end with ships at the edge appearing then disappearing and some never showing up at all even people next to me saw them. Not to mention the gate bug also made it so it was very hard to tell friend from foe. I can not wait until I can come on a basic roam without the gate bug. Still had a great run and because it was slowed by the bug I had more time to reflect the mistakes I made each encounter so that I would try not to make them again. Only real wish on the roam would have been a bigger fight with more then a couple of targets at a time. Here is hoping to next time. Some more Class Thoughts after time to think about it some more. --------------------------- I also very much agree with Othran also that the spiral movement most likely needs a couple more examples and practice runs. It took me a couple of times on my own even with the tactical display up zoomed out to 50km to watch the movement before I was even close. It takes 5-6 runs to really get it down. That was really the only thing that hung me much and wished we had more time on it. The bio breaks were a little long but I did not mind at the time since I had the flu during the class. :sick: I loved the sideshow PowerPoint that was being linked in chat as we went along. I would recommend expanding it out so that it covers all the sections of the class so that people can read the bullet points along with the voice to get more reinforcement. Plus it is a very good reference that one could Alt Tab out to recheck on something fast. I also agree that maybe a full class on the overview/grid would be great. It is too important for the brief overview we got in the basic class.

[Kaiman]

I was just wondering if anyone else noticed on the killmails that a couple of our kills seemed to be hunting the class.

A couple of battleships highslots all filled with smartbombs and that manticore that kept trying to bomb us on the gate over and over until we finally got him.

It is actually a pretty common sight that once we go out with the Basic-class, people try to smartbomb us. Somehow it seems to be the only tactic people can come up with to deal with that kind of situation.

I blame the killmail whoring

[jorshan]

Hilen-

It's likely they teach some of the skills in the COVOPS classes for the reconaissance and scouting that they were doing.

More information on prereqs and stuff for the various classes can be found here:

http://www.agony-unl...es_and_Seminars

That's the way I'd like to head myself. I already enjoy flying my covops and cloaked ships, but I have no training to use them "the right way".

It looks like they also hold seminars for the FC stuff as well.

[Deep Rising]

Even though I spent a lot of time travelling from Nonni to whereever the fleet happened to be at the time (and sometimes blundering straight into a bubble camp and having to do the journey all over again!) I still enjoyed the roam.

Either everyone was picking on me :dodge: , or I can't even pretend to call myself a PVP pilot. However, I think after I attend the basic class as an alumni a few times (is there a limit? ) I might be able to work out what I was doing wrong.

A couple of things that might be useful for future classes:
Importing the overview settings that have been saved by an AGONY member might save a lot of time going over details that will only be used once if the pilot has any sense. Using the directional scanner could be expanded a little, so that during the theory section of the class we could locate a member of AGONY who is in the system, or pretending to camp a gate. A small video showing the mouse-clicks required for the spiral approach maneuveur might help. This might also help with ideas on UI layout. If the FC wants us to warp to a particular member of the fleet, that member should enter a W in fleet chat so that everyone can just right-click his name instead of look for it in the fleet roster. (Maybe a W10 if that member doesn't want to lose their cloak?) And finally, beg CCP to fix their critical bugs BEFORE the class.
Kudos to Dr Oozy, SkrewedUp, Tokatu, Caldak and his scouts.


Cheers,
- DeepR

[Othran]

If the FC wants us to warp to a particular member of the fleet, that member should enter a W in fleet chat so that everyone can just right-click his name instead of look for it in the fleet roster. (Maybe a W10 if that member doesn't want to lose their cloak?)

If it wasn't for the gatebug this wouldn't have been an issue as we were told who to add to the watch list. Adding people to the watch list time and again was a bit tedious but that's CCPs fault I reckon

[Pesets]

Speaking of which, has anyone experienced the bug since the patch, or does it seem to be gone for good?

[Othran]

I've been on my trade alt all morning, must have done 60+ jumps including Rens, Dodixie & Jita. No hangs here. Once they identified it as a race condition the fix is fairly simple, so I'd say its fixed. I can't help thinking its way past time for CCP to make Eve properly multi-threaded but in the short-term, given CCPs "QA", this is likely to be very painful indeed. Long term it would address a LOT of client-side issues (like the graphics framerate stuttering each time a big db/cache lookup occurs).

[Dr oozy]

Could you tell me which course I have to attend to learn scouting like Oli and Darkwing? And which course teaches to FC like Caldak?

As far as FC'ing goes there are 2 main things I suggest you do in reverse order of importance (IMO )

1) Get on the Agony PVP-ADVANCED class as one of the key parts of this class covers how to maximise your own effectivness in a fleet and how to work with the FC well. It covers a lot of FC related stuff.

2) Get your corp mates in cheap frigates and take them out on a roam. Practice is the only way to build conficence and get experience. If you make it cheap ships using the hydra principle noone cares about gettign wiped out... even better if you can get a small Corp-pvp fund and get yourself a stock of T1 fitted ships youll find you will soon have an effective bloodthirsty regular pvp fleet happening... and its soo much fun.

[Othran]

Either everyone was picking on me :dodge: , or I can't even pretend to call myself a PVP pilot.

What happened? I remember one friendly getting popped (danski?) on the Torrinos gate, which was odd as the last time I was sat on Torrinos gate I popped a friendly. Not this time tho, honest guv.

Were you coming back through Saranen or Torrinos?

[Deep Rising]

I was popped by three different Eagles at three different times in EC-8PR. Well, the first popping was par for the course. I don't know why the first Eagle selected me from the fleet, but you can put that down to random choice and my low PVP experience. I stayed where I was in my pod, so that I didn't have a long round trip to Nonni, and I wasn't disappointed with that tactic. Returning from Nonni in my next ship meant I needed to travel through Torrinos to get to the fleet, and as we had seen off the campers there only 10 minutes before, I assumed it would be safer. I was wrong and lost my ship and pod before I could even work out which direction was the nearest edge of the bubble. The third popping was caused by me sitting alone near the gate while everyone else was warping to fleet members to get a shot at someone. I was watching the Eagle (who was sitting out at 140KM from me) trying to decide if I could try out the spiral maneuveur. Someone said over chat - "Watch out! Eagle's can hit at that range!" and before I could respond I was heading for the gate in my pod. I got that pod back to Nonni safely, though, so there was one minor victory! Now that I've written it down and read it over, I don't feel so much of an eejit. However, you can see I have a long way to go to become a successful PVP pilot. Maybe I'm just missing the killer instinct, genetically speaking?

[Othran]

No I wouldn't say you're an eejit but in future give some consideration to never ever going through the EC-P8R<->Torrinos gate without a scout. Last Saturday was the first time I'd been back in EC-P8R for maybe 5 years (different account) and nothing much has changed (bubbles obviously). Saranen was always quieter but then again it wasn't generally "friendly".

[Sar Hasarin]

I would only ditto all the comments about the truly informational and educational content of the class. It was excellent in every way. I look forward to trying again without the bug. As someone that doesn't shoot or get shot at often, the roam was a real eye opener. It took me half the class to stop going bogle as soon as the bullets started flying. The last half was great; I actually felt I was making a contribution. The second comment is: I am stunned at the damage this group of Tech 1 ships could do. I read the material and said this fleet will last until we hit something bigger than a cruiser. I was totally wrong. Sort of makes you wonder why anyone spends the time and ISK making theirs bigger than mine. This bunch of little ships just ripped apart a lot of very expensive hardware. I still shake my head thinking about it. My only suggestion is I would like to have had a bit more about fitting these ships. I tried to ask about the tradeoffs of fitting 2 modules (points in my case) versus a point and a sensor booster with scan script. I went with the latter in the end to target quicker. I think this was correct. I would have like to see the AU thought process as you moved modules around in the fleet. The overview bit was a little too "do it the way you want" for me since I struggle with that sometimes. I understand the complexity of doing more detailed overview in class but a little more insight would have been useful since it appears the readings are based on the latest patches ( I have no -5's in my overview options). Finally does Agony Unleashed just fly these small ship fleets or do you use the bigger ships? I meant to ask that in the class but forgot. Thanks again for an outstanding adventure. It was worth the hangover the next day ( I was so wired when I quit, there was no way I could go to sleep!); it took me two days to recover and I still going around saying"point" to myself. This was so great it was even worth my wife giving me the evil eye in hour eight and calling me a "real idiot". She didn't get see see me finally figure it out! Great job to all. WOW!!! Regards Sar Hasarin

[Othran]

it took me two days to recover

Tell me about it mate. I'm way too old for going to bed when the sun is coming up !lol