My success for the night was killing a Heron.
Now, killing a Heron (T1 scanning frigate) with my Jaguar (T2 assault frigate) is not an amazing feat. I did not even do anything amazing to find the Heron. The Heron, it seems, had forgotten to cloak while sitting on the sun at zero.
Whenever I scan, I set my scanning character to moving into empty space. If I am in a system without bookmarks I warp to a customs office and from there off into dead space. Sitting still, near any warpable object cloaked is not the best idea in my opinion.
We were out hunting things. The FC was casting orders on both sides of the gate. He at one point said something about going to the sun and aligning. Some of us (was one more person than me!) warped to the sun at zero as told although he meant the people in the other system.
When I landed on the sun I saw the Heron. I was warping back to the gate to rejoin the fleet, realizing my mistake. I thought, "I should stop and shoot this thing" but I did not do it. When I landed on the gate and people were still scanning the system for wherever the prey was I decided to take the initiative and go and see if the Heron was still there.
A few things could happen:
Now, killing a Heron (T1 scanning frigate) with my Jaguar (T2 assault frigate) is not an amazing feat. I did not even do anything amazing to find the Heron. The Heron, it seems, had forgotten to cloak while sitting on the sun at zero.
Whenever I scan, I set my scanning character to moving into empty space. If I am in a system without bookmarks I warp to a customs office and from there off into dead space. Sitting still, near any warpable object cloaked is not the best idea in my opinion.
We were out hunting things. The FC was casting orders on both sides of the gate. He at one point said something about going to the sun and aligning. Some of us (was one more person than me!) warped to the sun at zero as told although he meant the people in the other system.
When I landed on the sun I saw the Heron. I was warping back to the gate to rejoin the fleet, realizing my mistake. I thought, "I should stop and shoot this thing" but I did not do it. When I landed on the gate and people were still scanning the system for wherever the prey was I decided to take the initiative and go and see if the Heron was still there.
A few things could happen:
- The Heron might be gone.
- A fight might appear.
- I might kill the Heron (wat?)
I'm not one to take the initiative when I am by myself. I assume I will die. Most of my interactions with people wanting to kill me when I am solo have resulted in me dying. It has left the impression that if I am alone, I will immediately die. It could be an Ibis self-destructing and I will still die. And it is not that I have a problem with dying in general it is that I have a problem with dying for being an idiot in my decision making. Attacking something by myself means I will die immediately and therefore it is a bad decision.
But, I found myself thinking that I really should have pointed that Heron and shot at it. That my habit of just leaving when I have a chance of killing something is bad. It leaves me a confidentless puddle and somewhat disappointed at my inability to improve my game.
Most of that now comes from not wanting to die stupidly and being mocked. I will admit that I don't thrive under mockery. The heckling and harassment that people give each other over loses, even in good fun, are unappealing to me. I simply do not learn or improve in that environment and it is so common within the game that I've taken to avoiding things that will place me into a situation where I will become a target for that behavior. I'm not supposed to admit that. I'm supposed to say that, "It's just a game" and "It doesn't matter" and "I enjoy exploding" and such things.
I hate that environment and its everywhere. I know it is 'good fun' and I am supposed to enjoy it and bask in the comradery of people harassing me about my failure for their own amusement and waving my losses in my face because it is all good fun. I am not supposed to admit that I do not like it and it negatively affects my gameplay because that is what people on the internet mock you about. You are not allowed to do anything but act arrogant or dismissive. Honesty is rarely treated well. Mixed with my general lack of confidence over my skills and it causes me to avoid situations when I am alone. I guess I am risk averse because of it. At least, when solo.
I hate that environment and its everywhere. I know it is 'good fun' and I am supposed to enjoy it and bask in the comradery of people harassing me about my failure for their own amusement and waving my losses in my face because it is all good fun. I am not supposed to admit that I do not like it and it negatively affects my gameplay because that is what people on the internet mock you about. You are not allowed to do anything but act arrogant or dismissive. Honesty is rarely treated well. Mixed with my general lack of confidence over my skills and it causes me to avoid situations when I am alone. I guess I am risk averse because of it. At least, when solo.
However, I am a bit tired of it. I want to improve and I know enough to make reasonable decisions. I was not the only tackle in fleet. We had another Jaguar and a Broadsword. I decided to go and poke the Heron. Kill it or start a fight for the rest of the fleet and go from there. Our fleets require a certain amount of self thought.
I went back and the Heron was still there, sitting at 0 on the sun. My natural instinct is bait but I decided what the hell, stop avoiding shit. I pointed it anyway and told the fleet what I was doing. The FC told me to kill it, so I did. I didn't get the shakes. I was rather comfortable with my decision making process. At first I figured that it was AFK. However, the POD warped. There was a cloak in the wreck meaning it was probably another cloaky ship that forgot to cloak.
I went and rejoined the fleet on the gate and shortly we moved on.
It is not an amazing kill. It is nothing that I can pick up and show to the kill overlords about what an exceptional PvPer I am and how anyone would love to have me filling their killboards. No. My success is not the actual kill it is putting myself through the steps of going and making the kill with no exterior influence. It is a little hurdle that I just hopped over. It may not have moved me far or it may have changed many things. I won't know for a while.
I think this is the kill: https://zkillboard.com/detail/29981420/
ReplyDeleteI checked the victim. He had no other killboard activity than 2 more dead Herons. The pilot is 1 month old.
You are now massacring helpless newbies.
Good. The dark side always have cookies!
Gotta start somewhere.
ReplyDeleteYou could always tab out of local after a loss. That might make it so you can gain the experience and confidence, but not have to deal with people who enjoy parading your loss in local. If your corp does it to you, you might want to ask them to ease off so you can gain the confidence and experience to shrug off losses and banter. Only if you want to develop that, of course.
The first offering to the skull throne!
ReplyDeleteKhorne doesn't care whose ship blows up save that one does. It's just a matter of time before you're yelling "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!" with the rest of us :)
If it looks like bait, it's probably not bait, unless it is. vOv
ReplyDeleteNow I try to shoot all the things, whether they're idling or not. Life's too short to not risk dying repeatedly.