lol. This post might have gotten a little long.
Different Ways to Learn
Just like in real life, there are different ways to learn in Eve. I personally tend to categorize them in three ways (You can probably ignore this list, as I don’t think it’s necessary for my argument):
Ways to Learn In Eve
- Formal Instruction
- Live Classes, Recorded Lectures, Articles, Blogs, Youtube Videos.
- Information Dense
- Highly Accurate
- More Factual in Nature
- Will Bore the Crap out of a Lot of Players
- Lowest Risk Way to Learn (An intelligent man learns from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from other people’s)
- Informal Instruction
- The communal knowledge that you pick up by talking to and playing with others
- Knowledge can come piecemeal
- Accuracy Can Vary
- Often Includes Lots of Subjective Opinions
- Not Boring Like Formal Instruction
- Low Risk (Rather low risk, but you are more likely to get bad info that might bight you in the ass later).
- Experience/Experimentation
- Learning by doing and experience
- Can learn a lot, but you have to have understand what’s going on to be able to learn from it
- Often learn things that don’t get taught with formal instruction
- Practice also improves execution
- Most Exciting Way to Learn
- High Risk
Naturally, each of these methods have different advantages and disadvantages, but they all have advantages, and different people will have different preferences for different types. More importantly, however, learning by one method doesn’t prevent that person from learning by other methods. Nor does the existence of one method prevent others from learning through their preferred methods.
You're Not Teaching People How To Think/Do for Themselves
So, this is something that I spoke about in my last post to you. Here’s an Excerpt.
Now, I don’t always explain everything in every video, as doing so would drastically increase my workload, and turn my videos into bloated messes that make it difficult for players to find the information that they actually came for. So, I have to assume that my viewers have at least a certain understanding of the game, so that I can build upon that understanding instead of getting bogged down in the minutia.
Second, newer players often don’t need in depth explanations of things like every fitting decision I made, because it would just be information overload. Sometimes, giving them a capable fit and telling them how to run content that they would otherwise stay away from is the best way to help them learn (and have fun). They’ll not only get the experience from participating in that content, but also start getting an idea for what good fits look like.
Now, you might say that they would be better served by learning things on their own, but this is not always the case -especially when a player would have not have even engaged with the content had they not been given instructions and/or assurance that they could do it. So, giving them that instruction might not have helped them to become fitting wizards, but it did help them to get out there and learn all the things that you tend to learn through experience (such as managing cap, maximizing damage application, securing loot drops when being contested, and so on.). Moreover, the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition asserts that rigid adherence to taught rules is a natural step on the path to being able to think for one’s self.
Indeed, I started my Eve career by joining Eve University. And, aside from some early failboats of my own design, I got my fits from the Eve Wiki (back when they used to have fits). In spite of this, I am not reliant on others for my fits today. Nowadays, I make every fit I use, and am constantly trying to tweak them in order to improve upon them. I love making fits. I love theory crafting. And of course, I’m now making fits that other people use. So, was I harmed by being given those fits? Did they make me reliant on others for fits? Did they slow my growth? I don’t think so. In fact, I think it would have taken me even longer to figure out how to put together competent fits had I not been able to see what a crap ton of competent fits looked like. Lord knows how long it would have taken me to stop mixing long range and short range guns, and all the other stupid ■■■■ that I used to do.
Of course, there is a downside to learning from others, which I will get into later. I promise.
Not Everyone Wants to Learn
Another game I play is Warframe. Now, I could sit down and theory craft my own builds, and try to find my own optimal ways to grind for focus/standings/loot/whatever. But I don’t want to. Eve already scratches that itch for me. So when I play Warframe, I just want to be able to turn my brain off and collect my goodies while I watch Youtube or Netflix.
Without even asking, I know that there are Eve players that don’t want to learn everything there is to know about all the ships and mods, or have to have a deep understanding of the meta just so they can put together a fit that isn’t a complete failboat. They just want the answer so that they can get on with the part that they enjoy. And I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that.
Schools of Thought
Okay, so learning from others (either through formal or informal methods) does have one drawback that I think that we can both agree on -namely, it can cause people to think in certain ways. For example, the teachings of Eve University probably contributes to a greater level of risk aversion in it’s alumni. Of course, they’re very good at teaching their members risk management strategies, which helps to minimize the number and severity of losses, but I think it also contributes to them thinking and acting in risk adverse ways. In fact, I think it’s no coincidence that the way I view risk is pretty much identical to how Azual Skoll (another Eve University Alumni) used to view risk.
Of course, Azual Skoll did eventually break his risk adverse habits. So, I guess the big question is how many Eve University alumni also increase their risk taking as they move up on the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition, and how many remain risk adverse for the entirety of the careers?
Shorter Points
Okay, this is an absurd wall of text, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this stuff.
- I don’t think tutorial videos limit options, I think they expand upon them. They show more of what this game has to offer, tells people that they can do it, and tells them how they can get started. Of course, there does seem to be a shortage of videos on certain activities, so you could argue that they do do some funneling. But the game is far worse (career agents funnel a lot of players into missioning and mining, and the agency largely ignores PvP). Thus, I think player created resources open up the possibilities.
- Have you considered making content that you believe will help players?
- Skill-plans don’t push you into a certain direction. Players decide what direction they want to go in, and then either make their own plan, or follow someone else’s. lol. Like, no one starts a skill plan all willy nilly, and then 2 years later are like, “■■■■, I ended up with a titan pilot!”
- And, I don’t think it really matters, but I wasn’t actually providing anyone with a skill plan. The first list consists of the skill levels that brand new characters start with, and the second is the maximum skill levels that an alpha can achieve. So, they’re not actually a skill plan that any player should follow. Their only function is to help theory crafters to be able to design fits for alphas.