So I made a new character. It was eye opening

Communications Center General Discussion
81

We need more reasons for players to play, learn and interact with other players .

100% agree.
I just happen to have the opinion that this learning and playing should not be gated behind paying hundreds of dollars in game time, or for the more savvy players, gated behind performing min/maxed tasks like running the abyss to get as much isk as possible to pay for omega game time so they can keep skilling.
Because that is completely counterintuitive to your other point, that newbies don’t see the game from a min/max viewpoint.
They have to, really damn fast, or pay up.

Edit:

Also,

Why do you think there isn’t a single serious MMO out there, or has ever existed, that gives new players access to every skill, gear, talent and ability in the game as soon as they log in?

I never said gear.
And EVE is so deep and complex in HOW you play it that there’s still pleeeeenty of space to learn, even if something like Skills would not exist.

And for the skill, ability and talent thing: Let’s look at WoW, where you can pay 30 bucks to have exaaaactly that, so you can skip the majority of the, ironically for the endgame totally unnecessary, grind. Better yet, when buying a character boost, you even get to try out all the classes before you decide on which one you want to play.

82

This pretty much undermines your credibility, and shows just how little experience you have on the subject of big lowsec/nullsec battles involving supercapital ships.

2 Likes
83

I have stayed on many titans in subcap fleets during many battles waiting for our go, which was not happening, because everything was going fine and our FCs wouldn’t risk crashing the server.

Mind you, not a 3 weeks old rifter pilot that is eager to fly tackle. Useful doctrine firepower or support.

84

Which is absolutely not the same as telling newbies to ■■■■ off, which is what you said before. Say what you mean.

85

It was a hypothetical conversation in real life between to friends and on the value of having a new player in a rifter for a battle happening soon, and how much different this whole expierience could be if the one friend that didn’t play eve yet could get lifted into a useful ship that will see action during that fight without violating EULA/TOS.

Which is what I said before.

86

And I am saying it isn’t merely a hypothetical conversation, but a completely imaginary one.

1 Like
87

Seriously, ask yourself the question what would you answer if one of your friends would take interest in EVE Online, because he read about those big battle that cost hundred thousand dollars.

None of you would be saying AWESOME, COME ON IN.
Everyone already playing EVE and having seen these battles themselves knows that the ships in there cost billions of ISK, require months or years of skilltime, the battles don’t happen that often, and when you start, that the first few weeks/months are a pain in the ass before you make decent ISK and can start doing the NORMAL things. The things that are the regular sources of income.

I’m also sure almost everyone would happily welcome their friend in EVE and help them get along and get them into the social aspect of it quickly.

But the endgame, which is the main attractive advertisement, is heavily gated.

88

You might not. I have.

There is no „normal thing“ nor „regular source of income“. Just because you want a menial wage space job doesn’t mean I try to invite my RL friends into a space Ponzi scheme.

The universe is full of adventure, big space battle is merely one part of it, they don’t have to be in a fleet to show up in system in a shuttle and have fun or gawk in awe of both hostile sides. And then be excited about „I was there“ and create aspirations and goals.

It isn’t. And this imaginary friend in your imaginary conversation doesn’t have to be a gatekeeping asshole to his friend

89

I think this is a thing that is unique to EvE. If you said “end game” and were talking about WoW and all the other WoW want to bees, I would know exactly what you meant. But in EvE there really is no single “end game” activity.

2 Likes
90

You might not. I have.

Out of context, you omited the part where you would have later told your friend about what i described further down.

There is no „normal thing“ nor „regular source of income“. Just because you want a menial wage space job doesn’t mean I try to invite my RL friends into a space Ponzi scheme.

Agree, but there’s the stuff that is readily available for people playing the game, as is presented in The Agency, many of those activities require you to spend skillpoints worth a few months to do decently.

The other stuff that is around is niche, soldier of fortune stuff, which does indeed make EVE a great game, but you wouldn’t recommend your friends to make it their niche. You would maybe smile as they choose that niche for themselves.

The universe is full of adventure, big space battle is merely one part of it, they don’t have to be in a fleet to show up in system in a shuttle and have fun or gawk in awe of both hostile sides. And then be excited about „I was there“ and create aspirations and goals.

Agree, full of adventure for those with the skillpoints to do it. The other players have those SP. The new friend, not so much.

It isn’t. And this imaginary friend in your imaginary conversation doesn’t have to be a gatekeeping asshole to his friend

He sure doesn’t have to, and should not be, but I would really like for him to have the ability to give him a hand and lift him right into the action that interests him so much.
You can show them how to do it, give them a ship that can do it and is tailored around their character’s sp, help them do it, etc etc. that’s all there people do that, i did that, you did that.

But I was never able to take my newbro whom i invited into my corp and give him a ship for what I was about to do now - to show him how this game CAN be. Sure, i can give him a rifter and tell him how to orbit and how to web & scram, but I can’t give him a Heavy Interdictor to do that. I would love to,
however. I would really, really love to.

Neither can I give him a Venture with a Cyno and tell him what to do over stream.
I can also not give him a Covetor, because that is gated behind Omega and skillpoints. I’ll have to take him into my mining op in his little venture, where he can look how the big boys do it.
I can bring him into my burner mission hub and take him with me. I can even give him one of my blinged out burner frigs and teach him, but he won’t perform like I do, cause he is lacking what, 10m SP for that?

91

I think this is a thing that is unique to EvE. If you said “end game” and were talking about WoW and all the other WoW want to bees, I would know exactly what you meant. But in EvE there really is no single “end game” activity.

I know that there is not “the” endgame. But EVE does have it’s endgame. It’s doing the stuff that is available with high skill and proficiency.

For some people, that endgame is, however, realizing that they’re months away of doing these things, and will just stop logging in.

I wish they would never have to have that conclusion and would happily keep logging in.

92

I started a new, clean spy account about a week ago and have been walking in the shoes of a newbie in order to create a backstory that will stand up to scrutiny.

First of all, the NPE nowadays is outstanding. Bravo to CCP. The AIR career program really gives great incentive to try different things. Newbies start off with more skills and a better progression. I was especially impressed by how seamlessly the cinematic beginning merged into actual gameplay. It’s really well done.

After about a week, my new character has about 2 million SP. Between the referral link, login rewards, cerebral accelerator, I definitely have enough SP to get a good jump start into any career path, or to dabble at several of them. I really can’t see where OP is coming from. My new character can do plenty of things. They also have a nice nest egg of isk, thanks more to login rewards than anything I’ve done in game.

Is it enough? I think so. I have no strong feelings whether additional measures, such as removing the “magic 14” would be good or bad. I don’t think it would hurt anything. I kind of doubt that it would impact retention much though. EVE already has a top notch NPE. Worlds away from what it was like in my day.

3 Likes
93

I am really confused about the direction this thread seems to be taking, that new bros should be able to partake in endgame content right away, and the fact that they can’t is disheartening to them and is making them quit.

I played EQ and WoW, and the “end game” for EQ came after approximately a year of play and hitting the level cap, and then consisted of doing the raids to get enough gear to do the next harder top end raid. Not only did one have to hit the level cap, but one also had to have good enough gear, and without both one would be a liability to the team in a raid. There is no way a character who was not close to the level cap could participate in top end raids. If players give up playing EvE because they are months away from joining “high end” content, why is this not the same for almost every other MMO?

EvE, if anything, is much more newb friendly than games like EQ or WoW, because small, lower skill ships like tackle frigates still have utility in many if not most fights.

4 Likes
94

Mechanically speaking, Day 1 Alphas are perfectly capable of being useful in a fight flying tackle or ewar. I typically put them in ewar in a fleet setting.

There’s also several cheap, Day 1 Alpha-friendly ships I have available which can get solo kills, and I’ve taught pilots who have learned this way and went on to be successful small gangers.

The percentage of new players willing and able to quickly learn the “soft skills” necessary to do this, however, is very small. Maybe 1%. Skills like reading a dscan, a basic understanding of matchups, understanding local, and learning the right lessons from losses rather than yeeting over and over are what separate the wheat from the chaff.

That’s a lot harder to teach, and giving players 5-10m more starting SP wouldn’t change that.

There’s a few trains which could be shortened. I don’t think the train for DCU II creates any meaningful choice, and it gatekeeps new players from a wide variety of frig fits. Giving starting players Thermo and the ability to overheat would also be smart.

3 Likes
95

I would definitely not recommend EVE to any of my friends. They would not understand it and CCP’s marketing portraits EVE in a completely wrong way. The needed training for a character would not be an argument against EVE, however. EVE’s training is just as ardous or quick as any other MMO’s. I even go so far as to say that EVE’s training is much better than any other MMO’s. Why? Because you can do lots of different things much quicker than in EVE than in any other MMO.

Take Albion as an example. You have to grind days worth of cotton farming to have good enough XP for the better sickles and then also days worth of ore farming to be able to build the sickle yourself and earn money with it. And then you still have done hardly anything for your combat, which limits you to 1 very specific weapon and attack type and also requires a crap ton of grinding. Even after weeks, you only have ground enough XP for 1 weapon and 1 attack type. If that’s something your guild or group doesn’t want or need, you have to do the grind all over again.

In EVE you can just rain a crap load of basic skills to open up a myriad of possibilities and specialization requires much less time compared to grind based progress games like Albion. You can fly a T1 tackle frigate or explorer within hours and go where ever you like in the cluster. EVE’s training is not nearly as punishing as people make it out to be.

3 Likes
96

Can we please stop calling Omega a “gatekeeping” mechanic? Omega is “normal” and anything in question should be balanced around it, the company offers a great product and they need and deserve to make money. Alpha is a “free gift” for anyone interested, an invitation to test out and experience parts of this universe for absolutely no money. There is really really nothing Alpha Players should ever complain about that they cannot get there (fast).

5 Likes
97

Good point of view, thank you.
I was wrong in citing Omega as the reason stuff is gated, my intention was to highlight that the training queues are what’s responsible, or more precise, the SP in the skills that is accumulated through the training queue.

98

This.

I love the fact that EVE respects our time, when it comes to progression.

Every MMO has a mechanism to give players gradual progress to keep them from instantly accessing everything at once and keep them engaged with the game over years rather than a week.

If people get everything at once, there are no more aspirational goals, no new things to look out for, to play for. People simply try it all out and get bored a few weeks later.

To keep players bound for years, there needs to be some sense of progression throughout those years.

Many games solve that with grinding. ‘Kill X amounts of enemies to unlock a better gun’. ‘Mine Y pieces of ore to get better mining equipment’.

In most games, this progression is tied to spending time doing repetitive tasks. You won’t progress unless you spend/waste time grinding.

Not EVE. Passive skill training means progression happens automatically. It’s still there and still stops players from instantly unlocking everything, but it doesn’t force players to waste time doing boring tasks they would rather spend having fun.

You can still grind to get ISK to buy more expensive ships to lose, or to buy injectors to progress faster, but that’s all optional. We players are not forced to play in any specific way in this game to progress, and that’s what makes this a good sandbox: there is no predetermined way we have to play the game.

I love EVE’s progression system.

SP and passive skill training respects our time much more than any other MMO that makes you grind to progress.

5 Likes
99

The training queues are indeed gated, but by time rather than grind - though the grind option is also there.

One of the great things about eve (other than the tales of deception and massive battles) that got me into the game years back was that skills train all the time. It’s a great mechanic as you feel like you’re making progress even if you can’t log in (well, it does now that there are skill queues and no more learning skills!)

When an old mate of mine suggested I try eve, he sent me a referral link and said to give it a go, and if I liked it come back in a few months when you know how to play it. Still seems like good advice to me.

If you put a day one player into a 4000 player tidi fleet fight they will not know what is happening, get bored, and never come back again. It’s the context of those fights that make them rewarding, not actually being in the damn things.

I was at both M2-XFE fights, killing bubblers in a jackdaw (clicking broadcasts and pressing F1 every few minutes while looking at a black screen covered in tables). Saw more of the fight on stream than in the client. There is no way in hell that experience is enjoyable if you don’t know who Goons and Papi are, why things are happening, or the awesome story of how that whole shebang kicked off.

2 Likes
100

My noob accounts are flying this within a few days of starting. This is a pic from my latest noob. Not bad for a noob ship. Eventually the DPS can be got to 800 or so, and the EHP to 100K…but this is not bad for a starter ship and really doesn’t take all that much skills training…

And for those who can’t be bothered with the ISK mining/hauling, etc, grind…heck its essentially just 50p worth of PLEX.

gnosis
gnosis892×643 144 KB

3 Likes