Thoughts on New Fleet Paradigms

Last weekend I got into not just one, but two really good ops. Both were part of the new paradigm of nulsec warfare, where logistics, speed, and heavy durability are favored over raw firepower. This amounts to either armor fleets with guardians and zealots or shield fleets with scimitars and drakes. We were in shield fleets and I was flying a drake.

It was really nice to be back in space, but my honest opinion of the new paradigm is that it’s pretty awful. It doesn’t feel like Eve space combat. It feels, in all honesty, like boss raiding in EQ2 or WoW. You have your healers and your DPS and everyone’s a tank. The slow concentration of fire on a single target, the endless healing and slowly grinding down. Except it’s pure tank and spank, there’s none of the complexity of an actual raid encounter. It’s rather like going back to original Everquest.

It’s not all bad, I did get on 25 or so killmails even if we didn’t win. And honestly, the losses don’t seem to be nearly as drastic as they were in battleship fleets I’ve been in where hundreds of ships were lost in very short order. I personally made it back to the barn on both ops, which is somewhat of a record I suppose.

But overall? No, I do not like the direction gameplay is taking here. Not one bit.