Was trying to get a friend to try the game, which he did today - with me. My first idea was that we’d run the Gurista sites… only to then realize there’s nothing he could really do to assist, help, or anything. A brand new alpha clone in a freebie corvette can’t take out Gurista rats (or even help in that regard) and can’t really even warp into the site without getting blown to smithereens.
My next idea was that I’d fit him for exploration and let him run some data and relic sites. So I gave him a data analyzer and a relic analyzer, and I scanned us into a C2 wormhole. Found a combined total of 4 data and relic sites, and I’ll be damned if all 4 of them didn’t have sleeper rats guarding them. Which meant we could do… nothing. So he spent several hours playing the game where he accomplished and did… absolutely nothing.
Anyway, first question: As a newbro, running these wormhole data and relic sites was my bread and butter. I ran thousands of the things, and could count on one hand how many I ever found which had sleeper rats in them. Yet today, we go into a C2 and all 4 of the sites have rats in them. I figure it can’t be coincidence. How could my luck have been that bad? Did they change the sites so that all of them have rats nowadays? What are you supposed to do, fit your heavy cruiser or battleship with probe launchers and relic and data analyzers (which the hull won’t be bonused for), and go in with that? What are the exploration frigates good for then… just non-WH sites?
Secondly, what would you recommend for me to do in-game with this newbro, alpha clone friend? He’ll give EVE at most 1 more chance and that’s it. (Don’t suggest running tutorials and stuff - he hated the tutorial so much that he almost quit right then and there.)
TL;DR: 1) What’s up with the WH relic/data sites? 2) What to do with a newbro friend to show him the game and get him interested in playing?
Pirate data/relics in C1-C3 space are identical to null-sec counterparts and do not have rats
Wormhole data/relics (non-pirate names) are basically combat sites with cans. The loot is mostly garbage and as far as rats go they are the hardest relative to their class of space
I would say do something in LS. PvP and the thrill of the hunt (even if you are the hunted) is the peak of eve. There he can help you watch local/dscan, being two makes you twice as intimidating and much less likely to be engaged by a solo player and he might even help you in fights (if only by giving you an extra few seconds while the other player kills him first!).
Somewhat related…I’ve noticed the loot tables to be really unbalanced as of late. It’s either a 10 mil isk site or a 100 mil isk plus site. Kind of strange.
If he hated the tutorial that much then it might be a total no go. Tutorial covers a lot of the basic mechanics and provides an equivalent of good starter gear. So if he can’t stand the games mechanics, including how to pick up missions, interact with agents, objects in space for various purposses, etc. then he most likely just won’t like the game at all.
On the other hand, what I found great when I was starting out on PvP front back in the day, was skilling up for Atron. Had it fitted for shortest possible align time. As I got a bit better skills where cap became somewhat stable and I could fit stuff easier, I made myself a really awesome tackle fit. It was 10MN AB fit, cap stable running either a scram or web.
I also learned how to manually fly, manually orbit and manually use transversal and angular velocities to hit things. Figured this out all on my own doing security missions. In particular, level 3 sec missions while flying an all T1 catalyst. It was quite challenging and I lost a bunch of catalysts before I got it right, but the repeatable military tutorial provided me with new ones. The flight and combat mechanics knowledge I gained from that I took and applied to PvP and later on more advanced PvE.
Maybe your friend can enjoy something like that. But keep in mind that it took me about a month or 2 to be able to do things like this because of skill training. Sure I could have optimized it better, but then I wouldn’t have any QOL skills which makes this game kinda horrible to play IMHO. You need some basic trading, social, fleet, hauling just to be able to transport your own frigates and destroyers at least from place to place, etc. Being reliant on other people for the very basics sucks major ass and makes the game more difficult.
what do you mean he cant assist in Gurista Hunt sites. he could be the one that runs to get the eggs fromt he containers, of course, as long as you go first to take the aggro or something.
I was assuming the aggro might switch or something, and in a noob ship, 1 hit would be all it would take to go BOOM! Not that he’d lose anything, but we would lose time with him waking up in a medical clone and him having to slow boat over to me over and over again. But perhaps I was wrong in all of this, and it would have worked out fine.
EDIT: I guess NPCs don’t pod, so he would have been fine in that regard, but being blown up all the time (if that happened) wouldn’t have allowed him to participate much except watch.
For a days old newbie, not much to do : most of the learning curve comes from getting lessons from the seal clubbing. “Get blown up 40 times and get your first kill after” philosophy. And yes, the tutorials and career missions allow someone to learn the basics but are boring as hell “go there and kill x rats or bring this or do this” missions.
All depends on your friend :
If he is more strategy oriented. Maybe the best way is not to play at all but explain how the eve universe works itself : economy made by the players themselves, the rock,paper, scissors pvp, the politics. Can work if your friends likes games like eu4, dwarf fortress and so on.
If he is more “what’s the feel of this game” approach. Well, you can both enlist in FW and give him a tackler fit to do some pvp plexes. He will be useful scrambling your prey and get a feel of what is small pvp gang. As for exploration : maybe try low sec ? Wormholes can be a pain if too many signatures are there and high sec is farmed. At least in low sec, you have good odds that the 4 or 5 signatures are pirates’ data/relic sites ( the ones without npc).
Otherwise try to find a roaming fleet and give him a e-war T1 frig. He won’t change the outcome of the battle but e-war are always useful.