Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This idea seemed sort of obvious to me, so I was shocked to see it wasn't in the commonly proposed ideas thread.

What I'd like to suggest, and I have trouble thinking of a reason not to immediately implement it, is to create a PVP system where players are separated by skill level. This would be a completely voluntary system, with the existing PVP system remaining intact.

The problem I would like to suggest a solution to is the inaccessibility of PVP. It seems that to do anything other than tackling in fleets, months or more of training is required. This is VERY discouraging for those who are interested in EVE's PVP aspect.

My specific suggestion is to implement a factional warfare-style system where players are separated, either through ranks or factions, by skill point count(perhaps only counting SP in combat skills), and only at war with those in a similar SP count.

This could be created in multiple ways:

New factions could be created to fight for, for example NPC corporations(Aliastra, Fedmart, Lai Dei) or criminal groups(Guristas, Angel Cartel), with the player being passed up to 'subsidiaries' or other connected groups as skills are gained(perhaps borrowing the SP counts used in clones?).

Different ranks in an existing faction created, with the player only being at war with those of the same rank.

This could even be fleshed out to allow more than just combat ship to combat ship fighting. For example, a Iteron pilot could take a PVP mission to fly goods from one system to another, while the other faction sends similar skilled pilots against him.

To prevent players from sticking to this lower-level PVP as skills are gained, it could be discontinued above a certain SP 'ceiling'.

This would make PVP more accessible to new, low skilled players or those who are transitioning or looking to diversify from an industry background. It would prevent that discouraging conversation when a hopeful newbie discovers that in EVE, there is a long waiting period before PVP is anything more than a one sided slaughter.

I would greatly appreciate this idea being considered. A CCP response would be awesome.

You missed the OP's troll.

join any faction warfare corp, you'll see plenty fo pvp soon enough

Whats so bad about tackling in fleets?
Unless your corp is a pile of crap, its not like you're a second class citizen or anything if you fly a tackling ship.

If people thread you in fact like a second class citizen because you dont have 20m sp laugh at them and find a new corp.

There is absolutely no need for any form of sanctioned pvp.
Any form of sanctioned pvp will just ruin open world sandbox pvp and make the game worse.

First off, Additionally, no matter what ship you fly, only a fraction of your combat skills effect that ship. A 100m sp character might have a slight advantage or disadvantage over a 20m sp character depending on how each pilot focused their skillpoints.

More importantly, skillpoints only matter to a point in EvE. A 10m sp character can easily destroy a 100m sp character when dueling heads up. How you fit your ship, how you start the engagement, and how you fly your ship during the engagement all have MAJOR impacts on the outcome. Sure, a brand new player, that seriously lacks in support skills needs to skill up to be effective. However, with eve's skill tree, when an all-primary-support-skills-at-IV character (3 week) engages an all-primary-support-skills-at-V character (3 Month), the victor is primarily determined by Fittings, engagement circumstances, and in-combat flying... and skillspoints become much less important.

You are ill-informed: PvP in EVE requires neither an extensive pool of skillpoints nor expensive ships. Nor is it in ANY way "inaccessible."

Try joining RvB, EVE uni, or something. There are people that will teach you to PvP. How you fly is much more important than what you fly or how many SP you have, and you wouldn't learn good techniques and habits from fighting other newbies (or with other newbies) anyway.

Pretty much this. "Crawl before you can walk... walk before you can run."

This is not a game where you can "be the hero" right from the get go. You have to work your way up and actually learn how certain mechanics work in which situations.
The skill system aids in this effort by effectively "throttling" new players... so they MUST work with the ships at their disposal and figure out how to apply them as effectively as possible... which is a concept/mentality that transfers well once the newbie gains access to bigger, tougher, and more expensive stuff.

Also... for the record... once a newbie has most of his/her "core skills" up to level 4 or 5 (takes about 2 or so months... 3 if you add in some "fun" skills)... the line "separating" a newb and veteran becomes "blurred."



On a personal note: I've been seeing a few RvB guys joining up with Faction Warfare recently... and they struggle in organized gangs (with it's many nuances and "rules") and utterly crap their pants when faced with a battlecruiser or battleship in their frigate.