Its difficult to imagine a new player warm to the idea that they have to wait 2+ years to compete on an even playing field with an established player - even if it’s 2 years of active experience (sitting in a hull) rather than watching the calendar. Being able to pay to win just makes that even harder to swallow.
Returned after a long gap - thinking about whether to stay - but one thing is pretty obvious already - the narrative of the eve community is pretty similar to what it was 10 years ago, whether its forums, csm or ccp - its all very focussed on the established (and dwindling) vets, with very little real awareness of what a demographic of new players entering want or expect. That isn’t to say Eve should be made easy, but if it doesn’t provide pathways or players can’t find the pathways, then they won’t stick around.
Eve should provide content for a wide range of play styles. I don’t think it ever did really, but maybe there wasn’t so much competition 15 years ago… CCP really need to consider all sorts of play style with reasonably interchangeable risk/reward balances, and similar development effort in revamping and creating content for them - and not just what they perceive as the one true way of Eve…
Personally I think it is largely a myth that people learn via having ships destroyed. There’s never really any direct connection between the ship destruction and a bad fitting. Other players may comment, but its not like any automated ‘that was an appalling fitting’ notice comes up. If the player didn’t know the good fitting before the incident…why would they suddenly know it after ? If people do ‘learn’ via this process then it must take quite some time.
Whereas I, and I suspect a lot of other players, practice and review the consequences of fittings in the mind before ever undocking. Almost a third of my entire time in Eve consists of going over fittings and seeing what can be improved…what better modules could be fitted…and so on. The learning is done before ever undocking.
ppl dont learn because the ship got destroyed, they learn by reflecting after a fight/loss and with trial and error which also can results in a loss. been there done that and it works great.
this works as well, for guys who already have some experience
Try for a moment and imagine EVE being just released.
I think that by today’s standards, maybe it wouldn’t attract many customers, or at least, it wouldn’t be a huge hit. Maybe it would be done in a few years, if not months.
There is a huge challenge in evolving such complexity, both in and out, in content and perception, market target and features.
That aside, playability is still fundamental and difficulty was a welcome challenge… something to overcome.
It was a mistake, to think that CSM would replace or perhaps even improve a player’s experience, as it’s those who disagree, whom often ring the bells.
It was never crystal for me, what CSM does… but I’ve talked to a cpl of them and there is not much they could have done anyways. It’s wrong to believe they have some power. They just don’t, but they listen, and a few things they have forwarded, or proposed, have come to be, which is good regardless numbers.
And it is a bigger mistake to believe that providing better new player experience through coding features, as replacement for real player interaction, paves a way to those beloved numbers.
More, as you see… tend to rely on the features to “grow” in a game where what matters is eyes on the gate.
Except every new player that has started in the last decade has done exactly that. Doesn’t every human on the planet go through that process with everything every day? No one starts out knowing everything and being experienced at something anywhere in life. Why would it be shocking that some people are just fine with doing it in game as well?
Except that pool of people willing to be behind gets smaller and smaller as the game ages and new players start further and further behind. As well we shouldn’t be limiting the pool of new players to that already small pool, why make a game struggling to get new players and that’s bleeding players have a harder time getting and retaining players? Just seems like a self harming ideology to not provide new players ways to catch up.
“Catching up” might be a concept that makes sense in other games, but not in Eve Online.
People who complain about catching up don’t understand the game, and their kind are better suited endlessly roleplaying a robot by grinding out levels and items in WoW or Guild Wars 2 or FFFFFXIVXIVX.
Hallucinating other people’s mental state on these forums is never a winning strategy. In my years participating on these forums, it is clearly a common tactic repeatedly used by people who are very much not mad.
Edit: If you’re asking “How did we get here? A tanked discussion?” might I point to:
There is no such thing as an even playing field, even for “established players”. Much like “catching up”, these are made up ideas. That newbie who believes in the mythical “even playing field” will keep complaining about how the game is unfair as they keep playing. At first it’ll be because they don’t have the skills. Then it’ll be because they have the skills but don’t have enough ISK. Then they’ll have enough skills and ISK but not enough alt accounts. Then they’ll have enough skills and ISK and accounts but not enough friends / sov / systems / sites. It’s all “unfair” and “can’t catch up” turtles all the way down. It’ll be for any reason that they can come up with. There will always be another reason.
It’s a mentality problem at its core.
It is possible for new players to accomplish just as much as experienced players in game, if not for a newbie’s lack of game knowledge. It just takes the right mindset.
It is often the case that 28 days worth of training can take the experienced player from 98% to 98.5% of theoretical max efficiency, but for a newer player those 28 days of training take them from 0 to 90% of theoretical max efficiency.
For the new players that aren’t afraid of space explosions, they might have low ISK/hr, but they can earn an “established players ISK/hr” as their own in the form of: blowing up the “established player” and taking their loot. Plus the “established player” is out the ISK.
But no, it’s easier to sit and complain on the forums instead than to do something about it in-game.
