EVE General Discussion

Anything like this that the Devs have done in the past, or could do in the future will only cause more problems than they solve.

This was shown with Training Skills and Implants. In the end, everyone just trains a bit faster.

there is no "catch-up" in EVE for a simple reason: there is no level 6 in the skills.

Eve's skill tree is more like real life then any other mmo.

When you pick up a new skill or hobby, like guitar for example, do you sit here and complain that you are not catching up to the caliber of say Jimmy Hendrix fast enough? No you don;t.

People specialize in eve, and because of both the skills they trained, and the time they took to horn there craft, be it mining, industry, mission running, or pvp, they should be better then you. But in a short period of time, you can be just as good if not better then they are.

Again the guitar, your skill set is how you learn where to put your fingers and what string does what. Experience and practice teaches you timing and how to arrange the cords to make a song.

Same with eve, the skill set lets you use the tools then you playing and doing things makes you better.

All this complaining about 'whaaa he has 200m sp and i have 1m i'll never catch up!' is the wrong mentality, and maybe you should head back to theme park game.

No there can not.

Why? Because if 99% of the player base has zero issues with the skill tree, and its just the new blood coming in thats whining, then there is no constructive discussion. to make eve grwo, because you ate minority. Adapt to eve or die.

Not a surprise that long termers have no problem with new players being food.

Sure, as a new player I can max out frig skills in a year. However if I focus my skills solely on frigs I will be stuck running low level missions until my skills make me not completely outclassed.

Nothing wrong with that per se, but the long termers acting like it isn't a huge hurdle to overcome is a part of the problem. Then again, given how many multi year accounts I see only farming new people, it seems a design decision.

There isn't catch up because there isn't really a falling behind. Every skill and every ship, and every module has its uses, some are available within a few days, others take months/years to get to. They aren't necessarily better or worse, just have different applications.

A T1 Pirate Frig with Pirate Faction fittings is going to give a T2 Frig with T2 fittings a decent run, the difference you can fly that T1 Frig in a couple weeks, to fly the T2 Frig you need a month or two of training. The great equalizer is pilot skill, not skill points. If you learn the fundamentals of the ships you can fly, and what that ship can work against, you can do quite a lot as a new player, even out of the box.

And that is what separates EVE from games like WoW. There actually is a strong skill factor involved, you can have 100M SP and not have any idea of why you fit ships or fly them a certain way. (F1 Monkeys). Or you can have 10M SP sit in a nice T1 Frig and poses the actual mechanical understanding of how to fly your ship and maximize its effectiveness.

Bigger isn't always better.

Don't worry about "catching up" Just enjoy the journey. It's a game.

Said no thempark mmo developer or player EVER

That's a big point though. People who really enjoy EVE are the kinds of people who aren't in any hurry to get to the "end game" so to speak, where as the traditional (by today's standards) MMO player is looking to skill up as soon as possible so they can 'catch up' to older players.

You see it all the time among the PVE community and forums. People RUSHING into battleships they aren't trained for to run lvl 4 missions they aren't prepared for, only to then see that play ***** and moan about how unfair the game is because it takes too long to get to the "good stuff". It's gotten so bad that now INCURSION COMMUNITIES have SP requirements like null sec corps do lol.

It boils down to the fact that most people are just too impatient to ever like something like EVE. most quit, some stay around and complain, begging CCP to give them things like 'faster skill progression if I use the skill" and such. Point blank, CCP should add a pop up in installation saying "theme park players need not apply" lol.

Being a person who needs the things that regular thempark MMOs have and thern choosing to play EVE is like being a dude whose favorite book is Das Kapital who chooses to play a game called 'Reganomics Online' (known as 'Thatcher's Revenge' in the UK)...then complains about all the damn economic inequality in the game....

Correct. But what should a new player do for the two months required to get competent skills in Gunnery, Navigation, Engineering, and Targeting?

Level 1 missions? Or should they just buy plex to fund the huge amount of frigs they will lose in their first 60 days of play?

Any game that requires you to be cannon fodder for the first months of play is a bad system.

If someone wants to play against people instead of against mindless and repetitive AI, they are best served by either starting an account and not playing for some months to allow skills to train, or buying an account at the cost of several hundred dollars.

I understand that people who sell toons, and those who feed off of noobs have no interest in changing that system. I don't pretend that I know enough about it to say it needs changing. I will say that it is needlessly difficult for new players to get into though, and that is problematic.

that isn't a flaw with the skill system, that's a flaw with you thinking that you've got to run missions.