Post Cycle 5 & The KoB Co-op Initiative

Now that Cartel Competition Cycle 5 is officially nixed, I've thought a lot about the usefulness of cartels. How does the lack of a cartel competition change simply more than the tenor of our cartel? For one thing, CXP (Cartel Experience) means much less now than it did before, since our Global Rank only indicates how close we are to the Top 50. Personally, I feel a sense of accomplishment from a Top 100 rank. It means we're a healthy, active cartel. But, now that competition is over, rank shouldn't significantly matter.

I realize that I covered some of this ground in my previous post, "KoB 3.0," which is now featured in the sidebar. Even so, I'd like to share with everyone a few recent thoughts about cartel membership. To do so, let's touch upon its most important feature.

So far as I can see, the most important feature of a Post Cycle 5 cartel is that it's a social forum. Rather than chat in GC (Global Chat), you can chat about your latest Imp Op drop or what the weather's like in Chattanooga with familiar, friendly people. No trolls. No randos. No baiting. No kidding. And, especially for low-mid-level members, there's usually an Officer online to answer a quick question or two about gameplay.

On that note, for those of us who still run Daily Assaults, we can co-op. Now that the SB (Sector Battle) rewards have been restructured, even the most casual of players should find them very  attractive. Of course, to run deep into a SB, even the highest level players need to run Daily Assaults for BPs (Battle Plans). Insert groan here. But, if the sociality of cartels is a strength now highlighted, then multiplayer Daily Assaults should, in turn, prove an asset. Personally, I've run Daily Assaults with cartel members lately and it's been very fun to do so, whereas, alone, they were a chore.

So here's an idea: The KoB Co-op Initiative. While not everyone is always online at the same time every day, we do have tendencies, don't we? Just after refresh seems an ideal time to talk with other members online. For me, that's between 8-9 pm EST. My suggestion is to find members who are online at similar times specifically to run multiplayer. Use CC (Cartel Chat) to work out times and planets to hit. Remember, this is not for CXP, but rather to earn much needed BPs. For low-mid-level members, these Daily Assaults yield much needed gear and mats, too. As for higher level players, I just sold 200 pieces of dupe gear. That's a lot of credits.

All this is as much to say that, without Cycle 5, the great strength of a cartel is how it can facilitate cooperative play. This is not to devalue individual achievements. On the contrary, working with cartel members to help one another achieve personal goals seems the fundamental point of cartels nowadays. This can happen in-mission, or else simply talking in CC about how to kill that creepy boss on Anoat, what Ability Set you use during a SB, or whether Lando is, indeed, worthlessly drunk all the time.

Good hunting!

P.S.

Two things. First, the upcoming SB is also a great time to co-op on BP runs. This particular weekend is a little nutty for me, but, generally speaking, if you see me online during a SB, then by all means pm me to organize a set of BP runs! Secondly, since we're now playing in a post Cycle 5 universe, I've taken down the rank info on the blog. I'll also stop posting it on our cartel header. I do reserve the right, however, to post a killer SB rank to simply toot our own damned horn!