I didn’t enjoy it on my first character when my corporation was war declared and everyone in the corporation went inactive. I didn’t enjoy it on this character when I stayed NPC and bought a scorpion in a high security island and was killed by pirates. I didn’t like it when some douchebag attacked me during a crimson harvest event and got condorded and I didn’t like it when CCP dropped support for my version of OSX because the launcher ( not the game ) needed a new QT library.
This game isn’t what it was when released. There is no unclaimed frontier. The universe is pathetically small, capital blobs owned by dominant power blocks move around as if jump fatigue never existed. The number of MMO’s has grown to the point of saturation. Its has as much resemblance to its beginnings as a jumbo jet does to the wright brothers’ flyer.
Ships just randomly explode. This is how Eve used to be, there was a whole capital fleet of 300+ ships blown up because they cyno’d into a grid that already had several hundred on it. Those who cyno’d in were met with a black screen or disconnects. CCP’s response to their petitions was denial of reimbursement. If it was the lay of the land then, why not today?
Yeah? New person in Eve. Wants to do big fleet fights like on the youtube and the EN24. If they don’t join one of the big power blocks, their gamelplay is to be rofl stomped on a regular basis by their massive super fleets instead.
It can’t help but to feel like its lying if a new person is told their choice of corporation won’t massively limit their enjoyable gameplay options.
If you believe that new players need more SP to have fun when they start playing the game, you should just increase the base SP of all characters, instead of hiding said fun behind a paywall and pissing off your veteran player base. On top of making potential new players get the P2W feel from the game and uninstalling as a result.
The decision you made to introduce this into the game is bad on multiple levels, for both Vets and Newbros, and it’s worrying that you either don’t realize it or don’t care.
What about creating a new player skill bank - players obtain bonus skill points for activities in their first three (?) months. The points build in a bank but are only accessible after three months (and Omega?).
Very mobile appish idea but main points are to encourage new players to stay and to give out bonuses after some players have had time to choose a playstyle.
Maybe at the time the bank pays out, new players have enough bonus SP to choose a V skill or three (or a decent variety of II and III skills).
New player only.
Rewards for activities/actually playing the game.
Delayed until more new players can appreciate the value of the SP, maybe they join a newbie corp poised to pick up an instant doctrine or two on graduation day.
If bonus SP only come from PvE and PvP activities this would/should require actual playing of the game, create content and might be able to be shared with the recruiter in the RAF regime. Bots, such as mission runners, might kill the RAF bit tho.
I’m probably one of the few bittervets that has no issue with this, and is fine with selling SP for Cash.
I mean, seriously, guys, you already can, it’s just a matter of buying and then selling plex and then injectors. This just brings the price down to something reasonable.
I generally don’t do forums… I play games to play them… not do this kind of thing.
I just wanted to say that as a fairly new player with less than 3 years in none of my rl friends stuck with EvE.
In every single case it was getting ganked that did them in.
None of them could comprehend not having a pvp free start zone for noobs so they can figure things out.
It really should be a choice… you want to pvp? fine go there and do it. Painting a target on every single char from the first second is ridiculous.
I’m a new player with only a couple of weeks experience. I stumbled upon this topic and have read most of the comments and thought I would reply. First of all I come from a long tenure in WOW having played since it was released and trying Eve Online has been a real eye opener for sure. The first week honestly was stumbling around, scanning rookie help and doing the base missions and mining (seems the safest thing right now) and most times I want to just give up on the game not because of SP which frankly I don’t really know how to use or how it works, let alone injectors/extractors etc., but I’m giving the game a real try. I did buy the DLC but again not sure how to use exactly.
I can understand the outrage of some, and the arguments being presented, but for me as a new player, I would prefer to have more missions, more tutorials and clearer instruction to keep the new players engaged. I’m not sure how to do that exactly, but would suggest that additional trainings be introduced that guide the new player into certain areas. Yes, having 10 missions into data and relic mining is good but it left me with little information about how it really works in the real world. This could be expanded to all areas as well to provide more experiences and more in depth understanding of which paths to take and where to apply the SP.
I find the game with huge gaps between doing something and what’s next and most times just find myself sitting in chat asking questions and reading everyone’s replies, which has been a tremendous help for me and I know all new players. It’s sad to see that only 4.09% of new players stay after a month, but honestly I can see why and most of it’s the world we live in and how everyone has to have that immediate satisfaction “right now”. I hope CCP takes some serious time out to think about retention of new players and not be like most have said, “instead of cashing in on new players” by selling them things they don’t even know or understand how to use.
I’m a new player with only a couple of weeks in and I couldn’t agree more. At this point I’m honestly afraid to fly anywhere or do anything out of fear that I could simply be shot down and lose everything. To those who have billions of isk, no problem, but to me who only has 49k isk that’s a big deal. Sure I get a free corvette, but soo… doesn’t seem that fun to me…
When you log into your account and the character selection page loads on screen, at the bottom of the screen is a ‘Redeem Queue’ menu that opens up when clicked which allows you to drag and drop the items on any one of your characters. After logging into the game, your items should be in the stations hangars and the skill points will be in your character sheet, skills tab, down at the bottom listed as un-allocated skill points.
Or if you don’t do that…
After selecting a character and entering the game, you can access the redeem queue in the EVE menu, E icon above the character portrait in the NeoCom bar - left side of screen. Click it to open a list of menus, each with a series of submenus. Select the Inventory menu and then select Redeem Items sub-menu to redeem your items into the station hangars.
As stated above the skill points will be in your character sheet - skills tab - listed on the bottom as un-allocated.
You’re right that the NPE (New Player Experience) needs work. Most players and the devs would agree there.
The guiding concept behind EvE was (it seems to be shifting a bit) that the game did not guide players in along premade paths in their game.
I’m sorry to go all uphill-snow-both ways on you - but it used to be no tutorial and the running joke was ‘EvE; here’s a ship, good luck’…yet the game grew…
There is a PvP-free starting zone in the starter systems. But you aren’t a new player 3 years into the game. This game is a single-universe arena-style game where there is no safe space outside of a station, and after 30 days and/or leaving the starter system, you are playing with the rest of us.
Maybe that starter experience or zone needs to be expanded or better at explaining the nature of the game to new players. But loss is integral, even necessary, to how Eve Online works. A starter zone that teaches the basics of the game is fine, but a perpetual safe zone where you can grind free from risk or loss isn’t in the cards.
Such players it is impossible to keep long-term. And that isn’t a bad thing, as long as other players are here for that experience are happy and stay.
Thank you on that, but I do know how to redeem the items and already have, it’s actually knowing how to use things like SP (I know it speeds up skills but never used before) but not sure how the points system works for sure, or even what skills to upgrade this point as I’ve learned that I want to be sure of the skills as respeccing is a huge waste.
I also noted that when I skill up something my points increase? this doesn’t make sense to me if I’m granted skill points, wouldn’t they be removed once I use them?
Sorry for my ignorance of the game, it’s a steep learning curve as you well know. In a year or 5 years from now, I will have it down I’m sure, but for now it’s complex.
“4.09% is also a hard number. That’s the percentage of new players that have stuck around in EVE after 30 days during Q1 of 2019. We’ve already talked a little about the challenges that face new players this year at both EVE Down Under and EVE North.”
What is your target growth? Do you have other ideas to bring in new players?
“We’re also very aware of the community’s concerns regarding this kind of sale being a cash grab. For reference, historically the sale of these DLC packs makes up less than 1% of our daily revenue.”
If it makes up so little revenue why make new players pay for it rather than play for it? A few SP missions out of the tutorial, FW SP bounties with cool downs so you can’t farm an alt.
The main thing or I should say the first thing to train up would be the Core Fitting Skills.
Core Fitting Skills
Acceleration Control - To maximize Afterburner & MWD speed.
Advanced Weapon Upgrades - To reduce turrets and launchers powergrid need.
Afterburner - To reduce Afterburner duration & capacitor need.
Capacitor Management - To maximize Capacitor.
Capacitor Systems Operation - To maximize capacitor recharge rate.
CPU Management - To maximize CPU.
Electronics Upgrades - To reduce sensors & co-processors CPU requirements.
Energy Grid Upgrades - To reduce power modules CPU requirements.
Evasive Maneuvering - To increase acceleration & agility.
Fuel Conservation - To reduce Afterburner capacitor need.
High Speed Maneuvering - To reduce MWD capacitor need.
Hull Upgrades - To maximize armor.
Mechanics - To maximize structure.
Navigation - To increase ship velocity.
Power Grid Management - To maximize powergrid.
Repair Systems - To operate best armor/hull repair modules.
Shield Management - To maximize shield.
Shield Operation - To maximize shield recharge rate.
Shield Upgrades - To reduce shield upgrades powergrid need.
Spaceship Command - To increase ship agility.
Warp Drive Operation - To reduce capacitor need for warp.
Weapon Upgrades - To reduce turrets and launchers CPU need.
These are listed in alphabetical order only, which skill to train first depends on your needs.
I suggest taking them up to level 4 to start, then work on maxing them asap. Don’t just queue up one skill to train multiple levels, queue up multiple skills to train up one level each, that way you’ll be able to utilize their benefits much sooner. Don’t forget to include the other main / support skills such as specific ship class, defensive, offensive and career based skills. It will be a juggling act right at first.
As for skills, each skill has 5 levels and each level requires a certain amount of skill points to achieve the benefits of that level. Each progressive level requires more skill points to complete and takes longer to train. As you complete each skill level the amount of skill points your character has will continue to rise.
When you’re granted skill points, they’re just sitting in your character sheet as un-allocated which need to be manually added to whatever skill you place in the training queue. When you apply those skill points, they are then added to your characters total skill point amount.
Anyway, you can do a google search for more info on skills, skill training and anything else associated with Eve. Hope I explained it correctly and if I didn’t, I’m sure someone will be along to correct and or fill in any info I might have missed.
For me being a new player, I would say that more in the way of 75% of the people who start out playing Eve Online should be playing after 30 days and shoot for 60% of players to purchase a subscription for at least one month and 30% for more than one month.
Ideas of bringing in new players is different than retention, but advertisements, refer a friend, bonuses for referring players regardless if they stay or not and having more advanced beginner level story lines, voices on mission and clearer instructions with onscreen walk throughs pinpointing quest objectives etc.
So to start a mission it says you will be given an item, I know for me it took awhile and had to ask questions in rookie chat about where the item even was, or one mission that set a specific asteroid belt to get certain minerals from and it put it in your places menu item, again, had to ask and look up the quest online to figure it out. Have an arrow with a guided with arrow system that points to the menus you have to open, or the item you need explaining things in more detail. The exploration missions were very rough in detail on how to use the scanner, probes, maps etc…
Yes, I’m all about learning things in game on your own and not dumbing it down as a whole, but initially for new players it would be ideal to have clearer instructions and walk throughs for some of the more complext components. Also, I would have an area where new players can farm stuff without being able to be ganked and have everything gone in the blink of any eye by rats. Maybe 30/60 days or something, then once completed they get moved to highsec and pick a base and go from there… I think that initial few days, there has to be more exciting things to do, missions, mining and explanations (maybe videos) of what each role does in the game, such as being scientist, or a miner, or exploration.
As far as the comments of others calling the DLC sale a cash grab, for me I don’t see it this way as a new player, I see it as your honest effort toward retention.
Thank you, I found the information very helpful and yes, I’ve been on the wiki and help pages for days and am learning more and more. I’ve yet to really settle in on a specific path to take however and am taking my time to do this.
I also have that 1 million SP unallocated at this point as I don’t know which way to go yet, but I had a question, do these SP expire or anything like that? I would hate to lose them due to not using them in time.