Alright, this may be my last forum post for a while, as I’d imagine what I’m about to say is going to be blasphemous.
But these rules are not good for new players. As an older player they make sense but to a newbie I remember misinterpreting these. Following these rules made me quit the game at least twice. Here are my updates that brought me back to a regular schedule:
Be able to afford a loss You can never afford a loss, ever. Peroid. No matter how small. Loss of isk = loss of time, and time can’t be bought with PLEX (but ISK can be traded for PLEX, and ISK can buy a new ship. Is that what you want? To keep shelling out real money for virtual money to buy virtual ships?)
New Advice: Fly what you want with whatever fitting you want, understanding that there IS an optimal fit for each ship, depending on the task(s) at hand. This is a strategy game, not an RPG. The only way to lose is to pay more than you want, or waste more time than you intended.
Consent to PVP There is no PVP, there is “strategy” vs “strategy”, the outcomes of the battles are predetermined by two things: the stats of your ship (which are affected by which modules you have and your skill level, both of which are based on time spent), and whether or not anyone is asleep at the switch when the fight starts. A mining frigate will lose to a combat frigate, every, single, time, unless the combat pilot has made a very serious series of errors. A mining frigate will be able to escape a combat frigate every single time if they stay alert and aware of their surroundings, and see the combatant on their scanner before they’re in range/“on-grid”.
New Advice: Part of PVE is avoiding PVPers, the PVPers are part of the environment, and unlike NPCs, are prone to human error.
Everyone can Scam, and so can you To scam, you must talk to someone first. At this point in the games history you’ll be lucky to even get anyone to so much as respond to you in game, I’m assuming due to the paranoia around “Everyone vs Everyone”. Or maybe I’m just ugly, either way no one seems very social in Local these days
New Advice: Play the game solo until you find a specific thing you want to do that needs 2 people or more, then join a corp for that specific thing. Leave when you’re done.
Experience Matters, not ISK or Skills ISK saves you time, and can buy skills and skillpoints, as well as ships that are strong enough to take enough damage so you have a few seconds to react to combat instead of being insta-killed and wondering “what was I even supposed to do there?”
New Advice: Make money as quickly as possible, buying nice things saves you precious time, and losing nice things teaches you exponentially more than losing cheap things.
Bigger is not always better Math simple, if player DPS and HP is small, and enemy HP and DPS is big, player will have bad time. Bigger is better, 100% of the time. Bigger mining lasers haul bigger loads faster, bigger hulls, bigger shields mean bigger hitpoints. Bigger engines mean bigger thrust, now all these bigger stats do in fact make you a “big target”, but what does that matter when you’re in a 1 v 1 fight? Bigger stats, bigger wins.
New Advice: The trick is not everything labeled as Tier II is actually that much “bigger”. There are indeed solo-pwn-mobiles in EVE, they are every ship that’s stronger, faster, and more expensive than yours. You can have one too, you just need a ship that’s stronger, faster, and (therefore) more expensive than other peoples. Experiment with unorthodox fittings.
Use the in-game info Setup a second monitor and google everything at first. The ingame menus have a non-zero amount of old/outdated stats and things that’ve been deprecated (anyone remember hacking/relic tools “access difficulty bonus modifier”? It’s still there in game, nothing to indicate it’s deprecated)
New Advice: Google “eve ” and filter by results from the past month/year
You will lose stuff, don’t worry! Losing stuff costs you ISK, which costs you time. Time is all we have in this world. Without worry there is no relief. Without danger, there is no safety. Without risk, there can be no reward. If your adrenaline isn’t pumping by the end of your session, did you really get your moneys worth?
New Advice: LEARN from what you lost, if someone picks a fight with you and wins, message them, be sportsman like, ask “how did you do that so fast?”. You might even make a friend
But the 9th and not mentioned rule, that needs to be added, is “Don’t let anyone tell you how to play this game, it’s for you to figure out”, so on that note of advice, please disregard everything above.
Again, I only post this because the biggest question around here these days seems to be “but where are the new players?”
They’re begin scared off, this is a sandbox game, not a career path