EVE New Citizens Q&A

First of all, yes, confirming that you are restricted here because of trial account.

Okay so on to the rest:

CO-OP:
Well I can agree with it being more highlighted, but really is more having to do with it all being a sandbox where you arent handheld in how to do things. Nearly everything you do in EVE can be done better in a group. It's your job to recognize how and to organize said group. Or at the very least join a group that already know what they're doing (i.e. a corporation)

GUI:
In most regards many are in agreement here, and the GUI really is improving a lot over the years. The game has been live since 2003 and been in production since the late 90s, so yeah there's quite a few spots where things were done in stupid ways. But year after year (since about 2011) CCP has been devoted making sure these interfaces get the love they deserve. The other problem is the raw amount of data that needs to be represented. The last few overhauls were with the panel system, which can be rearranged and collapsed, faction warfare interfaces, the bounty boards, and most recently the scanning system and tool tips have seen some great improvements.

Point is, this cluster **** of windows you're seeing all have a purpose, so you can't remove them without removing functionality or features from the game. It;s more about rearranging the windows to be more intuitive we you need to use them. Look into the HUGE industry changes that are slated for July: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/industry-ui/

Combat:
Well, yeah you and every other newb that has ever touched the game wanted this. But here's the problem. EVE is entirely too tactical for that sort of thing. If you want thing to be more visual then just zoom in. But you'll quickly find that you feel like you're too restricted. We do most our fights zoomed way out to get a great overall view of the battle. It's meant to play more like an RTS than a FPS.

This become much more clear as you start getting into the details of PVP. When you're trying to manage your guns, your tank, your speed, your angular velocity to your target, and your position in relation to all the others on the field all while trying to keep your modules from overheating and keeping your cap in balance....it can get hectic. Btw did I mention that during all of this you'll probably have an adrenaline rush too? Because you will if you put any value on the time and effort you put into affording the ship you're using.

Alts:
This rides a fine line. When it comes to bots, yeah we all hate the bots. But what people are doing with alts is they are actually controlling both of them. Which plays right into the RTS idea I just mentioned. In some of the extreme cases people use duplication programs to make the same click happen on like 5 clients at once to which CCP has stated is okay because they're still controlling the clients manually.

Here's the balancing factor though. Sure the individual person makes more money at a time, but he has to split it between both characters. If he lives off of PLEXes he still has to pay for them both. If playing on two clients at once is immersion breaking for you then just don't do it.

You wanted co-op didnt you? Well then make a friend instead of an alt.

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I don't want you to think that we all think you're just blatantly wrong about everything, just that you need a bit of perspective on how our little world turns. If you wanna see change badly enough try contacting a CSM member to get the devs to hear about it directly. In regards to the GUI, they'd probably agree in some aspects. In regard to co-op, yeah the new player experience could highlight that more, and CCP is aware of that. Combat changes, well the system works now, and any changes to make it flashier are probably low priority, besides maybe adding in damage effects to our ships. Alts aren't going anywhere though.

Group play in EVE is heavily carried by players - on the contrary to your claim, mining is much better as a group activity than solo because you can get fleet and Orca boosts. But there should be some effort to encourage cooperative play on CCP's part, especially in missions where teaming up reduces your reward.

The interface is a little confusing, but there's a lot of information to convey in EVE. You have industry and contracts and market orders and missions and corp management etc. Can you suggest specifics on how to streamline the interface or make it easier for new players to grasp?

Manual steering in EVE is pretty undercooked and could be useful in a variety of situations. I could imagine seeing an arrow key or WASD control scheme where some decals would appear around your ship indicating which direction each key would take you.

Finally, on the topic of alts: I doubt many players have a problem with a player using his alt to haul while his main toon mines, salvage behind him in missions, scout ahead in null, etc. There's a lot of division on the use of ISBoxer to command whole fleets of alts with the same clicks as one or two characters. Personally I have a problem with being able to command a whole fleet with that amount of effort, but bear in mind that 30 multiboxers sell 30 PLEX a month for CCP...

Co-op - The game is full of it, and almost every activity is better with it, but you have to go out and find the social part yourself. Sometimes that means going through 4 or 5 player corps before finding one that suits you best. There isn't a function like other MMOs for finding people to help you with specific things (except the corp finder, which is general), so a little work is needed.

GUI - Don't think of the UI as archaic, think of it as modular. Yes it may look like spreadsheet windows, but it can provide you with a lot of useful information once you have it setup the way you like.

In terms of a tactical overview, maybe something like this would suit you? Where when you hover over your modules that work on various ranges it tells you exactly what is in range based on the sphere it created. Combined with an overview to show ships, velocity, etc, is almost everything you would need for a tactical overview for combat.

Combat - The combat varies depending on what ship your are flying. Flying frigs required a lot of quick thinking and sometimes manual piloting. Try running fast tackle in some fleets for a few weeks. You'll find its much more than "hit approach target, overheat MWD, scram". Angles, weapons tracking, speed all come into play in large amount during this type of stuff, and the best way to pilot the situation is sometimes manual piloting. As far as how manual piloting is done, I don't think that'll ever change. The server works on one second tickets, and I can imagine a lot of gamers getting frustrated their commands aren't "registering" when the server when they try to send 5 at once. Think if combat in terms of naval combat, constantly thinking ahead rather than immediate use.

Alts - Nothing is wrong with alts. Everything is wrong with bots. I myself keep several alts for scanning, hauling, mining, and now flying capital ships. Even mutli-boxers are actually commanding their characters to do things and monitoring parameters about them. If someone can afford the accounts, there isn't really any harm.

Mining should only be done as a group. Some of the best times I've had have been mining. But it's not because of breaking rocks. It was the friends we had in team speak all talking together, doing stupid pranks to one another in our barges, etc. Mining for 2 hours in a corp group that is talking to one another, is actually quite fun. Also, it usually ended in us getting riled up and getting in out frigates to get blown up in a blaze of glory.