I used neither of those arguments.
The reason why the status quo is better is that it requires no effort to acheive
You want effort applied to the system to change to suit your playstyle, but in a way that’s broken.
You need to present a change which will actually work, and then argue that it’s better.
If you didn’t make those arguments, maybe the critique wasn’t aimed at you…
Abyssals are not the same mechanics as epic arcs. Arcs have a 3 month cool down to them. Abyssals are not time gated, nor do they give you standings toward any particular npcs.
Abyssals were created in mind to fleet up the way they do, epic arcs are not made to be like abyssals. All epic arcs are the same as they are story driven. Abyssals are not
did you manage to do the career agents before attempting this?
The better question is why there isn’t some sort of disclaimer on these, ie: “New pilot is about to die…”.
i mean if they didn’t do the career agents before hand, and learn how to ■■■■■■■ fit a ship before doing the arc, thats their problem…
you wouldn’t do the soe arc without doing the career agents and upping some skills.
You know FC… always dangling shiny objects in front of new prospects…
the OP’s issue not being able to co-op with a friend, kind of occludes the horror of this epic arc sequence . it’s -really- bad. using a merlin w/ multi-spec jammer and remote shield boosting, then fighting 10 difficult drones. i re-shipped to a cormo and finished it , without jammer and remote booster fitted . using a vigil (had to re-log before it showed in inventory) to do some hard data hacking, then kill some drones (not the normal ones these are giant roid-rage drones). you can switch to a dessie, as long as it’s a T1 minmatar type, and i did kill them with a thrasher but the mission is bugged, perhaps as i removed the painter and data miner to enable sufficient tank to kill the drones. waiting on support response… so, perhaps a good idea for folks to wait as there’s some bugs and difficulty that needs adjusting imho …
*thanks to FC for very fast response; mission is reset and i’m able to re-start.
Carreer agents are Stations in 0.9 space. Extortium is advertised a the new a fresh newbie-friendly area. And is all in 1.0 space.
Those are the old Career Agents who still operate there for character’s created before June 9, 2026…
Going forward from June 9, 2026, all new characters will spawn in Exordium Region where a new set of Career Agents are also located…
DMC
o7
Not sure if this would help but I finished the Caldari one.
First part you just need to jam the enemy ships long enough for the transports to fly off. Shooting them doesn’t work. In the second part it turns out if you shields and armor get to zero the enemy damage drops and your hull doesn’t take any damage. This threw me off the first time. Also the enemy ships either get weaker or your damage increases. I believe since it is suppose to be a simulator mission you can’t actually die or lose a ship.
there was a patch the day after my post ; Patch Notes for 2026-06-12.1
Features & Changes:Balancing:Visions of Greatness (Epic Arc)
Extended times between NPC transmissions to give more time to read them.
Enemy NPCs are now easier to kill, orbit at closer ranges, and deal less damage.
Ships will now be given in supply crates rather than on completion.
The Tristan will be given instead of an Incursus in the Liberation of Intaki mission.
Supply crates will now also give basic fittings.
A significant bonus to hull resistances has been added when within a simulation site to further improve survivability.
Added Info Panel objectives that appear when in an incompatible ship, or a ship without weapons fit.
Improved visuals in the Caldari Prime Breakout and Gologthan Fields simulation sites.
Corvettes and Destroyers are no longer permitted within simulation sites.
haven’t had time to resume mission , but i had nice hull fires on three of the ships i took in . 
my feedback for the new epic arc after finishing it yesterday:
It’s…disappointing. I wasn’t expecting much. I mean, the old SoE Epic Arc wasn’t great, and the recent ‘mining’ Epic Arc felt like just a bunch of typical agent mission missions w/ the express purpose of getting a free Pioneer.
…but I was still disappointed.
The old new player experience mission, which had a brief trip to a Minmatar staging area w/ lots of ships, followed by a ‘large battle’ in a space/grid w/ a large circular (spiky?) structure, which, I think, ended in player ship destruction (and pod destruction? it’s fuzzy…might’ve been a decade or so ago since that got changed to the previous NPE?) was, I think, much better, overall.
Each mission felt rushed. The actual gameplay within each simulation didn’t feel good, at all. Is this supposed to help teach new players…something?
It’s nice that you’re given a free ship + some free modules, but that whole thing is, in itself, a wasted opportunity to teach new players something. The first one has you fly in a Merlin, and one of the things you’re expected to do is remote shield boost some transports?
IMHO, if you wanted to drive home the importance of logi, you could’ve given a full fitted logi ship and had the entire mission about flying as logi. Want to simulate a fleet engagement? Have an NPC anchor, and have the player ‘keep distance’ to that NPC anchor while they do logi ‘heals’. That would’ve been much more useful, IMHO, than anything from the 4 simulations.
As it is, tho’, you get one gun and a bunch of other modules for the free frigate, and the process of doing the simulation feels much worse for it (e.g., 1 gun made slow work of the hostile NPCs).
Please reconsider which ships and how they’re given: just give fully fitted ships, and add something like an aside, telling players what these ships/features/modules and rigs are (yes, please add rigs).
Please also reconsider what the content of each simulation is. It just felt really off. It didn’t help that some issues were there (e.g., objective: kill 4 ships, w/ a bonus if killed in x time…enemy ships are hundreds of kilometres away, and the frigate has an AB. Look, I don’t care for the paltry bonus, but that was frustrating (also, after killing the NPCs, I couldn’t warp to the acceleration gate because the whole simulation grid prevented; I had to warp outside the mission area, then back to the start…))
The scenarios and overall presentation were also underwhelming. For the Caldari one: I know who Tovil-Toba is, and what he did with his carrier. But, unless I missed it, and I did pan my camera around to try and see, Tovil-Toba’s carrier just warps off, and you get something like a ‘explosion sound happens’ in the text box for the Epic Arc. Come on…‘show, don’t tell’.
Can the EVE client not play cinematic cutscenes or something? 'cause that could’ve been a good moment to use that exact moment from the Caldari trailer/cinematic from a few years ago (but a new, better one, would be welcome, too).
'cause I know what happened. I’ve seen that trailer/cinematic. But this new Epic Arc is supposed to be for new players, yes? And, unless they’ve been directed to the trailers, they probably won’t have much context.
Also, please consider the overall ‘feel’ of each simulation. Part of the draw of EVE, IMHO, is the scale of how big it feels. The simulations made it feel…‘small’. Again, the old new player experience w/ a ‘big battle’ in the end did it better. I’m also not asking for something absurd like simulating TiDi content, but…it could be so much better than what I played through yesterday.
Lastly, the whole thing just…ends. No falling action leading to a conclusion. I guess you could excuse the ‘call to action’ by each empire’s agent as the ‘conclusion’, but…ugh. It just feels so rushed and lackluster.
I was just playing a story-heavy live-service game, and after the climactic fight, the falling action + conclusion was probably close to an hour, w/ almost all the interactions being fully voice acted. I know EVE isn’t raking in gacha game money, but I feel like much better could’ve been done for the new Epic Arc.
If anything, the overall feel of this new player experience may actually be worse than the previous one (which is weird, since a good chunk of it is from the previous one).
So, yeah…I hope the above helps. I rarely ever post in these forums, but I’m just disappointed, is all.
Seems if they push you into doing such quest with specific ships and modules, they should also provide skills and modules.
I actually had them reset after starting and never ran it at all. I told them to remove it from showing up in active.
First off, you are not forced to do any quests.
Secondly, finding stuff on the market is part of the game - it’s part of your quest.
Which is why I canceled it.
Not cluttering up my training with crap I won’t use. Fact
i just played Visions of Greatness… it’s embarrassing, if this is what they want new player to see then good luck getting new players. the “Story” they present is embarrassingly bare, missions are super short, scale in not there, dialog is in the middle of combat so you will miss it and it’s not voiced so you need to read… fire people that approved this
When it comes to story they should have newbros play these as part of the tutorial:
Why don’t you read the script and record it? Then you can paste it on Youtube, and new players can listen to your radio show while they pretend the tutorial is fun!