EvE progression system

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Hello!

In one of the themes an interesting idea appeared during the discussion.

What progression in Eve?

Atm this is all about “awaiting”.

For example: you start to play and you get involved to Eve. You even like it.

You browes ship category in the market and found a ship that you like. Moros.

You are a HUGE time needed. It can be 150-200 days! In 2017 year you need 150-200 days to play with a ship that you like?

Why?

Do you really think that people get “feeling of progression” while they are learning Moros?

It is not.

You just wait this days to finaly sit into Moros.

For sure you can actualy. PLAY the game. Killing NPC or do PvP. But all this days you will have NO progression at your current ship. You will drive, for example, thorax for all this days while learning skills for Moros, and thorax wont be better this days.

Of course you can say: “Hey man, dont invest to moros from start! It is stupid!”

And i ask: “Why?”

Is my feeling and preferences stupid?

If I want to drive moros why i need this unnecessary timewall?

My point - Eve never have progression through direct gameplay.

This simultaneously allocated it against the background of other MMOs. And at the same time it is a stopping factor for beginners.

Many people dont want to wait for this crazy time to drive and play what they want and like.

Next thing. Do you feel progression even when you drive moros and keep learning some skills for it?

Very poor. Becusae will never know what it is like to drive Moros without callibration or fuel compensation. These skills are simply required to start driving Moros.

And no, I’m not whining. I have been playing since 2008 and I am able to drive many capitals and almost all sub-capitals.

But I’ve never experienced that my character is progressing. I played, got a fan, and one day I sat on a new ship.

So … Item and skill requirement is just timewall that denied access to some content or playstyles.

What if … remove requirements at all (wait dont burn me).

1 day newbie can drive titan if he wants and use all fit as he wants (or t1 only it is just concept).

But items still get benifits from skills. If you want to now the difference between all5 skills and all0 skills - use EFT. It is really devastating difference so it isnt broken or smth.

Just imagine. You are the newbie. Flying a few weeks and you like it. You saw a beautiful Megathrone in space. And you can drive it right now. It will be totaly uneffective but you start to play just right now as you want to.

While you flying this Megathrone you start to learn skills that Megathrone need. And with every skill done - you feel your progression becuase this directly affects your current gameplay.

The main problem of the current system is the huge time required for studying.

Even in order to learn the battleship and start at least somehow use it, it takes 2 months of focused study.

Allow players to use what they want. At the same time, time progress still remains. you do not want to fly megathrone, which is almost 3 times worse than it could be.

You (CCP) told us that injectors are needed so that newcomers can learn what they like faster.

Has it been 2 years already and how is it going? They are still leaving the game, because see the huge time to achieve their goals and desires.

Removal of requirements wont kill any Eve “coolnes”. It still will be special MMO with special progression.

You still need time to master something.

I repeat: the main point is that players can use what they want. And not in half a year, but now. At the same time, the feeling of their progress is preserved, because the effectiveness of quiet things will grow as you learn the skills.

It still takes a long time to start using the portal on titan effectively.

But your progression on your current game will give much more impact.

There is a big difference between:

learn skills to start fly titan

and

to improve your effectivity while flying.

I propose an idea, not a final solution. Many things can be discussed, but the main idea is that beginners do not leave Eve when they realize that it takes a very long time to start using what they want.

Sorry for bad english :slight_smile:

3 Likes
2

</ create character…

OK, let’s say new players were able to fly a nice big expensive Dreadnought within two weeks of starting playing. How are they going to pay for it? There is no way they make enough ISK in two weeks of just starting the game. So, they dump a bunch of money into PLEX, turn it into ISK and buy the skills, the ship and all the blingy modules for it. That’s great, they are happy in their nice new ship and didn’t have to wait months to learn how to play the game, or fly the ship properly.

BLAP! First time in low sec their brand new, paid for with real money ship, is blown up as is their, probably highly augmented, body and they wake up in a clone. No blingy ship, out hundreds or real dollars. Oh yea - they have nothing now.

Yea - that’s a fantastic idea.

…rage quit after bitching on forums />

6 Likes
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You do not. Just be a good customer for CCP and lube your credit card to buy skill injectors.

Furthermore, progression through direct gameplay sounds fun in theory, but once you had to grind through hundreds of level of the ever same bosses or opponents, it turns into a very boring and repetitive experience that no one likes. Not to mention that it is not any shorter than EVE’s skill training. In fact, I would argue it is slower because you have to play to progress, whereas with EVE’s passive skill training you progress regardless whether you can play or not. You do not have to grind SP, you can just enjoy the game.

I find this approach very troublesome. You can sit in a ship that you cannot use, cannot equip, nor understand how it works. And you will lose it the moment you think you can do something with it that you clearly do not understand, nor have the skills for. What you want is people waste their ISK (and more importantly RL money) to look at something in their hangar that’s a waste of time at a given stage of their learning experience.

Instead of catering to this detrimental gameplay approach that counts in a predatory way on people lubing their credit cards to pay for their expenses ingame, they should be made aware of how the skilling system in EVE works and the benefits of the system over the mindless grind of so many other games.

4 Likes
4

The way skills, modules and ships are designed, you don’t need to spend much time training for anything particular to be able to do it. Sure, you can get better art it by training more, but to get started, it doesn’t take long.

You do not need to have everything maxed out to do something. Eve isn’t about the end, it’s about the journey there.

5

There are many ways to progress in Eve but they aren’t defined by the mechanics of the game. Set reasonable goals and work toward them.

  • PVE progression. Most players are running level 4 missions in a battleship within 6 months. From there you can move to incursions, DED sites, etc… but eventually you reach the top. PVE in Eve is limited.

  • Economic progression. Start a business and grow it. Watch the 5,000 ISK you started with grow to a billion, then 100 billion, then a trillion.

  • Political progression. Do you aspire to become a corporate CEO, alliance leader or fleet commander?

Eve is also a game where player knowledge and skill matters more than character skill. As others have said, you can buy a titan and the character skillpoints to sit in it with your credit card but, without the player knowledge and skill to use it properly - it’s probably going to die. The only way to get player knowledge and skill is play the game!

1 Like
6

Exactly this. Player progression in EvE is equal to knowledge, insight and skill to use the tools and interact with others. The tools (also ships) and ingame SP are meaningless if you don’t know how your tools and New Eden work.

Once you know, you will have a very different valuation of sitting in a Moros as your “end game”.

I’m very happy that I can focus on playing the game and not have to work for ingame SP, but get them over time or faster with injectors.

7

Right.

And mb you dont get the point. For sure i know that eve progression isnt about skillpoints. So why we still have timewall?
Let newbie drive moros if he want. Mb he will lose it or smth else. But he can play as he want. And do thing that really matters in Eve.

All i say that the time that you need to start drive smth bigger than a frig - really long. And this is stopfactor for many beginners.

In other hand mechanic as it is - pretty old. Why do we still have it??

If access to ships is just a tool. Why not give it from start?

8

Emmm, no you can use it and fit it if there are no requirements.

9

They do it right now. With SP injectors and plex.
What will change?

10

You miss the point, that you can have everything at day one, if you are willing to pay for it. You wait or pay, how is this not clear or unfair? Why should a company like CCP give you everything for free?

11

No, you need. Creat new pilot and look how many days you need to start fly Thanatos + fightets.

12

And I miss the point? :slight_smile:
Please read what im trying to say.
You still need skills because ship and items benefits from them.
If you let 1day newbie to drive Megathrone, it will sooooooo uneffected!
So you still need to learn skills. BUT while ypu fly Mega and learning skills you will feel your progression. Because it will affect your actual gameplay (of flying mega right now). Impact, you know?

13

It’s minutes if your credit card is lubed enough. And this is, after all, the direction CCP takes EVE with recent expansions and development. You can just buy PLEX, throw them on the market, buy skill injectors and inject all the SP you need within minutes.

14

I stopped reading at this point. I’ve found your problem. You’re picking ships to fly based on dumb reasons. You’ve picked an expensive, late-game ship by using factors that don’t consider the ship’s expensive, late-game purpose.

You picked a ship for looks, and are upset that it’s a late-game ship.

1 Like
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And why my reason is dumb? Im dumb because i want fan from the game? Or what?
Why you telling me how to play and what to fly? :slight_smile:

16

Emmm and how this fits with theme of the topic?
How many people want to pay tonns of $ to buy tonns of SP?

But a lot of people can pay few $ to get plex for isk or a few injectors for skills recently in queue.

17

Because you are going 'I want to fly a Thanatos and ONLY a Thanatos.
You aren’t going, ‘I want to fly carrier type ships which use little sub ships to fight for them’. Which is a play style.

If you were looking at the play style, you would be realising that you can fly one immediately if you started gallente, or within a day if you started as any other race. Because you start with the Frigates, and work through the chain, also building all your drone skills while you do. Then when you finally get into carriers you have experience with the general idea of combat and only have to learn the differences, rather than the entire principle of the game play.

To compare to another MMO what you are doing is looking at loot from a raid boss for a DPS and going ‘I want to wear that suit of armour because it looks cool’, and ignoring all the progression to get there whereby you learn mechanics along the way and as you gain power some of those mechanics change as you reach certain points, slot certain traits etc.

I.E. The ‘problem’ you are talking about does not exist as a problem in EVE, it is a problem in the player wanting things right now, rather than working through the MMO’s carefully designed progression system.

2 Likes
18

Wut?
I am telling you, that the time that you need to unlock ships - damn huge.
This is unnatural timewall for no reason. Well, the reason is “to get customers in game as long as we can by putting before them long achievale goals”.
This design just not actual at 2017. People dont want to wait 3 month to get BS.
This why online going down. Less and less newbies stay in game after 2-4 weeks.

This thread not about “I WANT CAPITAL RIGHT NOW!!!”

What will change if newbie can use BS and t1 fit from day 1?
Without skills it will be totaly uneffective. But this give feeling of progression.
Each skill that you learn will give you an impact of your current gameplay.
For now - it isnt true. You will never know how ot feels to drive carrier w/o callibration because you need to fly…

19

WHY is the time to unlock ships huge for some ships, but not others?

You can unlock dozens of ships in a matter of hours as a new toon.

20

Yes, you miss it. It is a benefit and selling point of EvE that your ingame skill progression does not depend on what you actually do in game. The reason is simple, using a single tool like a specific ship gets boring very fast because it fills a very specific niche. For other things you want to do in order to diversify your play you use other tools which need different skills.

1 Like