Agreed…it just so happened that this kill was literally a brand new player who wandered into losec on his first day. I killed and podded him before I’d checked him out and he pm’d me to ask about what happened. So I explained. We had a good conversation where I gave him some links to learn about Dscan etc…and I decided to give him the replacement value of his ship. An experienced player -who is still someone I fleet with to this day - did the same for me when I was a newb, five years ago.
Free stuff sometimes is an incentive to stay and learn…that’s all i’m saying.
I did that for a time, showed them the basics, how politics, mechanics and content worked… Then pointed them to go null, low or wh . when THEY WANTED to go. most ■■■■ heads in forums says it was slavery, or we taking advantage of the newbros like INCAP did. Well I can say I spent more isk with the new guys than the corp acquired via taxes anyway
You have to find the right balance, which is very tricky. Give too little and it’s meaningless, give too much and it spoils people.
Something you could do to accustom people to loss or more dangerous areas could be a special mission in the Advanced Military Career path to, for instance, bring an item into low sec. In this mission you are supposed to build your own ship or buy it, you get a fitting from the Community Fittings (which would be a great way to make more use of them and introduce new people to them) and have to source the modules as well, either by buying or building. Then you are sent on your way to a low sec area which has different ways to get into. For instance, if you start as Amarr in Sehmy in Kor-Azor region, you get a mission to Daran in Kor-Azor region, which has 3 different access ways via Ami, Gademam and Noranim from Genesis. Ami is usually camped so people would probably die there. The mission could introduce people to killboards as well and how to check systems for adversarial activity before you yolo in. If you lose the ship with the mission item, you don’t get a standings hit, could still get a base reward (reward could be base reward for “heroic scouting the area for hostile activity” and bonus reward for successful delivery), and you could get the additional info on the combat that Scoots mentioned above. No new features or functionalities needed, everything is possible in the current mission framework and you have a nice introduction to destruction and dangerous space beyond the somewhat static Military career agent ship loss tutorial.
Well good on you bro! Anyone who makes it through the first 6 months of this game is likely to stick around and that just makes the whole glorious sandbox more fun I reckon…and if guys like you can help facilitate that, then fantastic.
TBH I’d be very happy to help with that process, although I could only realistically offer help with transitioning to lo-sec from hi-sec: I know a bit about WH but my knowledge of 0.0 is pretty much rudimentary.
That sounds like a really good idea…and I do agree that “giving too much” after popping a newbie is not the right move. TBH I think the most important thing after a kill is the interaction. Advice is good. Salt mining though imo should be reserved for those who should know better lol.
The first time I was killed I’d just discovered wormholes - I got zapped as soon as I went through one. I foolishly went back through the same wormhole a little later, thinking he’d be gone - rather than zap me this time, he messaged me saying he didn’t want to kill me again, and that I should go back out.
That was when I first appreciated the helpful attitude you often find in Eve.
It is not always about ISK. Just the losing itself is a huge hit for a motivation to keep playing. I often took a break that day when I lost ship just because of that. Especially if that loss happened to external factors such as bug, server issues or my internet connection issues. Losing is not fun.
The other issue is that nothing in this game is simple. You cannot just easily start over when you lose. In other games, usually you just lose some time but that is it. You keep everything else, you just need to start that mission or get to the area again which costs some time. Or the loss is meaningless as you just start a new round. This is why are arena games so popular, you are having fun almost entire round and when you lose that match in the end, you just go into new match.
In eve, not only you lose extreme ammount of time, you also lose whole ship (equipment) and you need to get new ship somewhere. Even if you have a replacement ships prepared in your station it is still annoying to go back there, jump to new ship and get back. And eventually you run into situation where you won’t have replacement ship ready and then you need to get it, which often takes hours of efforts. Either you need to fly to tradehub buy it and fly back (and survive the trip obviously, which is further problematic if you are buying slow large ship like bs while in war), craft it (which (takes a lot of time and effort) and go to tradehub to buy remaining modules you cannot craft, or find a contract or random sell orders around your area and assemble it there.
Seriously, I am not playing for a longer time by now and despite the last update got me interested, because of the hassle with getting ships, fits, and replacements, I keep avoiding EVE. Right now, I have no mood or time for this, I just want to quickly jump into short action, without spending 2 hours to find a good fight, and then go back to some stuff I am working on.
I lost a ship the other day, rather stupidly, not to a player, but to an NPC, ship loss happens… Luckily it wasn’t my BS but a travelceptor…shiploss happens.
I’m back in Eve because my wife wanted to try it out after hearing me talk about it with some mutual friends. I warned her it was a brutal and unforgiving game that didn’t reward you with quick gratification. She persisted and I gave her a refer a friend… and now, I’m back to playing.
As long as Eve has been around, its reputation should be known. Eve isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. I’m not a huge fan of FPS games, but my friends love them… and that’s okay. So its okay (and probably for the better) if players realize this isn’t the game for them. Better for Eve for them to leave than demand core elements of the game change and this chase away veterans… thus losing more than what is gained (see SWG’s NGE for what I’m talking about).
But to answer the question: we need to explain it to them in words. Let them know this is part of the game and how they can improve their chances of survival. You can do everything right and still get killed.
I’m in wormhole corp and most of us will private message a young character after we kill them in a wormhole. We talk to them nicely and if they are nice back, some of us will give them ISK to cover the loss. If they give attitude like we were in the wrong for killing them, they get nothing. Wormhole space is dangerous, you accept that risk coming in.
Mentorship is a good idea, but not everyone wants to do it and some people would exploit it.
@OP you are wrong. Losing ships is not OK.
It’s not the isk the issue. It’s the the time to set it up, and the time to get back to playing.
Well, isk IS also time.
That’s why people who lost a cheap fit but that have very small game time and so very small value, actually lose like 50% of the time they invested in the game playing. Value is relative and subjective, it’s not the same for the same breacher.
What I do is I give newbros cheap T1 meta exploration frigate and I tell them to learn to scan, then go in a WH and lose them while trying to get value out of the wh. If they have 10 fits ready and their clone set to Jita, that’s IMO the best that can be done to teach them to not fear loss.
Being used to PvP, and more importantly the only kind of true PvP, non-consensual PvP, helps a lot.
Overall I don’t really see any way to make people accept this fact.
You accept it or not as being part of the game, there is no magic behind it. If you think loosing things is not OK, which can be a valid point of view after all, you are better of playing something else, than force yourself playing this game.
As much as I would like more player, like everybody, bringing players that won’t even actually enjoy the game is not the point.
Absolutely wrong.
And, I would either dare to say that this is something scary to read from an adult.
Loosing is part of every (good) game as much as winning. I know, you are gonna tell me something like “bUt ThIs Is JuSt A gAmE”, but I honnestly feel like such a mentality will probably cause you difficults moments in real life too.
And… this is why I absolutely HATE them with passion.
Everything is just ““fun””, meaningless, without consequences.
It feels like you are just loosing your time doing something useless. Which, some will argue, actually IS what you are always doing while playing a game. But when the game let you FEEL this fact, it’s definitelly a bad product, to me.
I attach myself to a game when I have some sort of a feeling of progression, that the time I put on this game is actually helping me going forward to reach one or several goal(s). Don’t get me wrong, I know those goals are just virtuals and mostly irrelevants, but it’s all about the feeling.
And you can’t have this feeling when nothing mater, and everything reset the next game.
LEts talk about hardening up the biggest null bears in all of new eden and then we’ll teach newbs to HTFU. You could try playing the game you want the way you want and leaving the new guy to figure stuff out without your veteran “wisdom”.
What you’re talking about is classic canflipping, which was the norm before CCP wrecked the culture with the suspect state and the protection button, which stupidly defaults to GREEN.
There’s plenty of those guys out there and if you look up posts by @Ghost_O_Mo you’ll notice that he has a LOT to say about exactly this!
You are right! It’s a form of natural selection and must have helped retention dramatically. I’ve witnessed way too many people talking about how they met new friends that way, than that it could be just a fluke.
Suicide gank young players and contact them afterwards.
Find jetcan miners, steal their ore and let them attack you.
Probe down mission runners, steal loot and let them attack you.
Hunt explorers.
All you need to do is playing the game and contacting your victim afterwards. You just need to be a bit more picky about your targets. Tell you what, today I was in lowsec mining and got blown up by some guy who contacted me five minutes later, asking me if i was looking for a job.
Literally had a case of what you are talking about, today.
I’m not up to date on this thread. Plenty of people seem to have answered your question already, one way or another. There’s a few spineless cowards and losers, as always. While such exist, assuming that most people are spineless cowards and losers is silly.
Well i am playing eve for an year or so.From all these days ive seen new people quit for the following reasons.
1.Losing ships and not having Isk
2.Cant understand UI
3.Dont know Drag and Drop and saving a fit.
4.Dont know how to train skills.
These are the main problems encountered by the new players as per me.
But i have been meeting new players trying to mentor them and teach them the ways of Eve.
And give out a combat ship for doing the Security Missions or a Venture to do the mining missions as the new player requests.
I am thinking that if CCP limits new players to 4 systems that linked to each other and the new players can get into remaining systems only if they complete the tutorial and understand how to fly their ship.
You have to find the right balance, which is very tricky. Give too little and it’s meaningless, give too much and it spoils people.
