Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As a relatively new player (Just over 2 years), I find the time taken to get a toon "competitive" in PVP is a genuine barrier to playing. The game currently rewards (or at least doesn't discourage) sticking a character in a station for 6 months with a focussed training plan, expensive training implants and not undocking until you've got your core skils to a reasonable level (one tank & weapon type to t2 and a racial frigate and cruiser to 5 or so). This isn't good for the game and its definitely not good for the player themselves.

My suggestions to the way new player skills are looked at have been done with three things in mind:
1. We want people to undock, as that's putting themselves at risk (albeit in a potentially limited fashion)
2. We want people to feel that they aren't at an impossible disadvantage over the 11 year old vet (when in fact they really are).
3. We want to get people understanding skill training straight away as CCP tell us that a huge percentage of players never even train a skill (!?).

As such I have a small proposal that I believe would achieve the above without any significant changes to the game system.

1. Bonus to rate SP is earned whilst undocked. This need only be a small bonus, but its logical that capsuleers would learn faster in their natural environment (in a soggy egg, plugged into a spaceship) than whilst hanging out in their quarters wondering where the door goes. This also puts them at slight risk. Yes, people could sit in POSes with their expensive implants in and also be "all but" safe, but not completely safe and that distinction is important.

2. The first character on a new account (could be limited to paid accounts rather than plex powered ones) should have a small amount of free SP to spend on a very limited set of skills. These would be the core skills, one racial weapon type, one tank type and one racial frigate type. This would be set based on the racial choice of the player. Explaining the skill system and allowing/guiding this spend would become part of the character creation process, this introducing the (not very complex) skill queue to new players.

Apart from potentially annoying bittervets (you've already got 11 years of SP and all the ISK in the game, pipe down!) and maybe the odd station trading toon, I don't see that this proposal would do anything but make New Eden a more accessible and busier place.

*awaits incoming flak*

This really belongs in the SP remap/buying sticky at the top. Don't expect a positive response though as it's been suggested before in many forms.

Buggerit, you're right.

Can a mod move this to the correct place? *does embarrassed face*

Just post your ideas and feedback into that thread and report this one yourself for closing will do the trick. No guarantee that responses will be any different though

no not to just be some brave F1 monkey you can go out and be light tackle in a small gang or a scout or bait and much much more


and no that tiny advantage only makes a difference if you are piloting with the same skill


the biggest problem new players have is splitting there skills amungst a large area rather than focusing it no amount of SP boost will solve this. what needs to happen is better instructed new players

Just because someone can do something vaguely useful, in a very specific niche (which would require a skill plan and guidance, as well as a group of experienced players to guide them), doesn't really counter my arguments that this would help proper first time players (without detriment to older players) and would really help introduce them to the skill queue - At the moment we know for a fact from CCP that a huge number of players never even work out how to train a skill.

Which then suggests the problem isn't with SP. Anyone who interacts with new players will have had this conversation a thousand times. You do what you can, throw them free ships, give them cheap fits but in the end relying on players to push players into uncomfortable areas is inadequate.

The NPE has many failings that are getting addressed but one aspect that seems to be overlooked is getting players in the right frame of mind to PVP in Eve. Making people realise early on that no, you don't need to train endlessly to be 'competitive' as you say and yes, it's not only okay but you should be losing ships and pods even if you don't explicitly PVP would do 100x more to solve these issues than having a Scorch Executioner out of the box.

Lugh has broken a long standing tradition by being right instead of banging on about redundant threads, you can quite reasonably PVP after a week. That so many refuse is not a failing of the SP system.

Another problem is that new players come from MMOs they need to be LvL 80 to be competitive in PvP so they bring that mindset with them to EvE


then you have the fact that you can't get to max level in a month or two you can in those other games and players feel like they can never go out and PvP because they can never reach max level

Although I'd love to see everyone getting into PVP I know this is either something that new players either want to do or don't and it takes a long time to turn the latter into the former. I can't quote extensive knowledge from lots of other MMO's as Eve is the only that piques my interest; Its the only one where forms of behaviour aren't programatically prevented (I probably give WOW/GW2 a go if you could just decide to stab the bloke in the mob next to you and nick all his kit....there's just no risk as they stand, so it's boring).

However your point, which seems solid, doesn't really offer a counter to my suggestion that this would be a great introduction, even with just a few thousand SP to spend, to the skill queue and would help lower the perceived barrier to PVP entry.