You can’t really say out loud that you don’t want to fill the logistics role in an EVE Online fleet. If you do you’re immediately identified and called out as a killboard whore. Mostly by people who don’t want to fly logi either, naturally.
That the folks at CCP still haven’t found a way to make logi pilots appear on killmails is one deterrent to do it, yes. People like green entries on their killboards, and I’m as guilty of that as (almost) anyone.
That’s far from being my main, let alone only reason for not wanting to be a space healer though.
I don’t mind playing a healer in most MMOs. I’ve actually very much enjoyed playing one in Everquest II, SWTOR and FFXIV, among others. While I never had one as my main character – that position was mostly held by a tank – I usually prefer playing a healer over a DPS class. So I’m obviously not averse to filling group-beneficial roles, nor to actively keeping my teammates alive.
In EVE it’s different. To me flying a logistics ship is extremely unfun, probably the most unpleasant kind of activity I’ve ever experienced in the game. So what are the differences to playing a healer in other MMORPGs?
One major aspect for me is the way targeting is handled in EVE: there’s no distinction between friendly and hostile targets. A target is a target is a target.
The tiny symbol at the bottom of each circle is all to tell someone who’s in your fleet from someone who isn’t – and someone not in your fleet isn’t necessarily a foe either.
So should you happen to have both friendlies and hostiles locked you need to be extremely careful as to not accidentally repair the hostiles or shoot the good guys. As you can only target so many ships at the same time anyway – and usually don’t have any weapons either – you mostly end up locking only friendlies when you’re logi.
Problem solved, right? In my opinion, no. The thing is, this makes me feel like I’m not really participating in the battle at all. Oh sure, I’m doing my part – and an important one at that – by keeping my mates alive, but doing that and absolutely nothing else doesn’t feel right to me.
When playing a healer in the aforementioned games I at least contributed a mixture of damage, debuffs, buffs and cures in addition to pure healing. I felt very much in the fight, just as much as when playing any other role.
Another problem in EVE is that you often find yourself in situations where you just can’t save people no matter how good or fast you are. If the enemy fleet has enough alpha (i.e. first-volley damage) and their pilots are disciplined enough to lock and shoot the same target all at the same time, it dies. That’s just disheartening. Now sure, if your fleet is the stronger one it’s the other way around, but that doesn’t comfort me when I’m sitting in a ship with no weaponry whatsoever because literally all I can do is sit there and watch.
In SWTOR’s Voidstar PvP battleground a tank player and I once held a door against waves and waves of attackers for I believe almost five minutes (don’t ask me what our team’s other six players were doing). They couldn’t take the tank down while I was healing him, and they couldn’t kill me either when they tried, while our combined DPS brought them down one by one. I’m still proud of that match, and the tank player even commended me afterwards although he contributed just as much as I did.
Of course I’m comparing a big fleetfight to 8vs8 battleground PvP here, but even in small scale PvP something like this just couldn’t happen in EVE. Because you know what? You usually can’t repair yourself as a logi, and even if you can it’s with much less efficiency. Hence a single logi doesn’t do you much good, so if you’re going to use them at all you need at least two. Better make that three or four. Damn, now we need a couple more DPS ships; we can’t heal the enemy to death, can we? Oh, and boosts would be great too. And just like that you’re not really talking about small scale PvP anymore because your fleet is suddenly 12+ strong.
So let’s recap. As a logi pilot in EVE…
I don’t feel like I’m actually participating in the fight because I have to pretty much ignore everything but locking my mates and activating my reppers in time. Incoming damage aside the enemy fleet might as well not even be there.
I contribute absolutely nothing else to the fight, I just make bars go up.
When my fleet isn’t being shot at I’m not even doing that, essentially turning me into dead weight.
When I’m being shot at I can’t even repair myself, I’m completely at the mercy of others.
And, yes, I also don’t get much recognition in terms of killboard stats for my efforts.
This is why I’m not flying logi in EVE. I don’t even have the Logistics Cruiser and -Frigate skills trained to 5, and I sure as hell won’t train a FAX alt. Let me fly booster, boosher, scout, whatever, but I will. not. fly. logi! Life’s too short for something as unfun (to me) as that.
Mailvaltar 
But making the bars go up can win the battle!
It is certainly not a role for everybody. I got into it primarily because few fleets ever have as much logi as the FC would like, so it felt like a place where I could make a difference overall. It is not the place to be if you want to get on a lot of kill mails, that is for sure. Unless we’re shooting a structure where I can drop a combat drone to get in a few hits, or we’re on an opp where I can assign my drones to somebody else while I focus on being the space priest, kill mails are not happening.
And, that said, I am totally against CCP spending time trying to get logi on kill mails. They have a lot of higher priority items to deal with. I fly a combat ship on some fleets just to remind people in my corp that I’m still alive by getting a few things on my kill board. The only thing I would approve of CCP doing on that front would be working on a way to get better battle reports so that you can see everybody who was involved rather than just those who got on a kill mail or were blown up.
Logi did get a section on the Activity Tracker, so it sure seems like CCP has the data to roll together either a better API for getting battle reports or creating a tool of their own that players could use.
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Making those bars go up can win a battle all right, but so can the performance of healers that aren’t quite as one-dimensional to play. 🙂
Personally I think they totally should work on getting everyone involved onto those battle reports ASAP.
Like I said, it’s far from being my major gripe with flying logi, and even if they fix this I won’t change my stance on that. Still, most people, myself included, don’t like to be disadvantaged like that. Boosters, logis, bubblers, scouts, they all should get credited for the very critical roles they play in every battle.
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