I’ve come back to EvE after a few years now since I’ve been jumping MMOs and I’ve wanted to give this another shot since I enjoyed it all those years ago because, well, space. But I’m having trouble choosing a Faction.
Amarr.
Minmatar.
Caldari.
Gallente.
I know Faction doesn’t matter now outside of what you start with because you can train into everything eventually but I still want to start somewhere instead of running around trying to choose but never doing so. So? What do you guys suggest? What’s been the most fun for you? I’d have fun playing anything and that’s what’s making it so hard to choose. Who have you enjoyed the most as a Faction in EvE Online?
For us, depends on what you want to do with the character. For pve, we think Amarr is nice, benefits of lasers and less ammo having to be carried around. For pvp, maybe Minmatar or Caldari, giving you all dmg type selection across their weapons platform. If you specialize in pvp, we would probably guess Gallante could be a good choice, being they tend to do a lil more dps over all, but we think that can be arguable on most cases.
But as you said yourself, it really doesnt matter. We guess it would depend on your needs and specific goals, should it matter.
Federation and Empire have beautiful skies. If you plan on staying in hisec then those would be solid choices, if for that reason alone. Other aesthetic factors might include ship designs you find exciting, but I think all the races have their strengths in this regard.
Speaking of ships, playstyle might be a factor. I’ve heard Caldari ships are very accessible/capable for PvE, while Amarr are apparently more skill-intensive for PvP. Minmatar are sort of your Swiss army knife since they are fast and have versatile weapon types. With the latter I think you can probably have your cake and eat it too.
Can’t say much about industry as it’s not for me really. Faction shouldn’t be a factor anyway, AFAIK.
When I started, I read that Gallente were sort of easy mode in Faction Warfare, but then decided I didn’t really want to play that way. I got with a small player corp that dipped their toes into wormholes, did some ninja Venture gas-harvesting and that was exciting when the Sleepers spawned and I needed to GTFO in a hurry. Good ISK for a rookie. Then I found out the Imicus is the ugliest ship in the game, so I swore off exploration. Cross-training other factions is sort of expected eventually, I suppose, so maybe someday. I like combat probing but you can do that on any ship no matter the faction. Just need a utility high slot.
Game has some fiction, too. I enjoyed a bit of it and maybe you’ll see something there that scratches your sci-fi/cyberpunk itch.
Early morning ramblings.
Some is more general as there’s going to be other new players all having the same “what do I want to be?” questions.
The ships of the four main Factions do feel different to fly - much to CCP’s credit - although as others have commented you are not locked to your starting Faction. Indeed, you may start Gallente and at some point join a corporation where the doctrine is built around shields and missiles (more the Caldari line) or an Amarrian Golden Fleet style of doctrine. The initial differences can be cross trained out in a few days if you need to. Indeed there are even slight differences between the bloodlines within the Factions - it’s a deep game as you probably already know.
It’s more “can I build an avatar I can live with?” - the race, gender and bloodline AND YOUR NAMEare fixed and can not be changed. Your bone structure is also largely fixed, but a resculpt certificate can cure that (currently about 500m ISK - a lot for a new player). Only the cosmetic stuff; clothing make-up, hair and a few other bits, can be changed freely.
So, call yourself, say “WombatButtKicker” and ten years from now (not uncommon in Eve) you’ll be thinking - I wish I’d been less crazy. You invest a lot in your character - time, effort and emotionally. You may as well not end up embarrassed every time someone mentions you.
Eve is played in many ways, and has a deep in game story and history as well as the history and empires pilots (Capsuleers) have made for themselves. There is, unsurprisingly, a reasonably large Role Playing (RP) community - the “Intergalactic Summit” part of these forums is where some of that goes on. There’s deeply confusing stuff in there, but some good guides.
Of the Empires, Amarr has the largest active RP community - the oldest corporations are Amarr Loyalists.
You can make three characters (“Alts”) on an account - you can’t fly them at the same time, and normally only train one at a time, pushing skills from one to another is limited and expensive. But they provide options to try something and restart or have a different character for a different purpose. People often have a neutral character for errand running in high-sec - hauling stuff around, trading and so forth. Doing stuff a character embedded in an “at war” corporation may find less safe or easy.
There are many people playing Eve in different ways. Jump into the pool - it’s all “deep end” but the water’s lovely and once you get over the initial panic and disorientation you’ll do fine.
This is exactly what I was going to bring up.
You can live in any space and fly any ships with just a little bit of training.
That’s the important part.
