Skill Discussions

Unlike most MMO's EVE has a death penalty, when you die you lose your ship. This has lead to the establishment of the first and most important rule of EVE. "Do not fly what you can not afford to lose." If you actually played EVE, and knew the game as you should before trying to change it, you would know that it takes far longer to establish a steady enough isk income to actually afford to lose battleships than it takes to train the skills to properly fly them.

The skill progression in EVE is exactly as it should be. It is true that with the game being over 10 years old there is a huge skill gap between the veteran players and new players trying the game for the first time, however that gap has far more to do with experience and knowledge of the game than it does with skill points. EVE is a very complex game, with a very steep learning curve, for this reason a slow skill progression is needed to force you to learn the game and its mechanics in small steps before you jump into a ship you can not afford to lose.

Take two new players, that started EVE on the same day.

The first is so hung up on the skill points that he just logs in every day to update his skill que, but never actually plays waiting for the skills to train for the activities he wants to do before actually playing the game. He reads a lot of information and game guides, and feels he has a good handle on how EVE works. He decides he wants to fly cruisers to start. frigates just seem to noobish. So he is just going to let the skills build up for a few weeks before jumping in.

The second player wants to PVP and is out in his noob ship while his first skill is still training looking for fights. He flys into low sec a few times and gets killed then decides to go try the tutorials and figure things out. He plays every day for a few hours learning how the game works, and getting used to dieing whenever he goes to low sec for PVP. After a few weeks he has learned what style ships he likes to fly, has several frigate class ships in his hanger and enough isk in his wallet to replace and fit them several times over. He has run the SOE epic arc, and has joined faction wars to get his Pew Pew on. He has gotten blown apart at least 100 times but is starting to get a few kills here and there. He is having a lot of fun playing EVE. He knows that he still has much to learn, but that in EVE he will be able to play for years before he runs out of new things he wants to try and/or train for. He was so boarded of WOW, he could roll a fresh character and have it up to max level and ready to run raids within 2 months, But in EVE he can't even imagine having to roll a new character when his main gets maxed out there are just to many options.

Now back to the first player. He finally feels he has enough skills trained to give the game a shot. He goes onto to EVE web page and buys a PLEX to sell, just to give himself a boost to get started, so he does not feel like a total noob. He sells that PLEX on the market and buys himself a navy version of the cruiser he has been training for. he fits it according to a leet fit he saw on Battle clinic with faction and officer mods, and feels he is going to kick some butt, he has PVPed in WOW for years, and with his experience, and this urber ship nobody will suspect him of being a noob. He undocks and heads for low sec and the PVP fun it holds.

As player 1 enters low sec looking for some PVP he just happens to bump into player 2. both being PVPers they start to fight. Player 2 is flying his favorite PVP frigate, a blaster fit Incursus, While Player 1 is in a Caracal Navy Issue with HAMs and some very expensive shield mods and T2 rigs.

The fight goes on for a while, only due to the fact that player 1's Caracal is way over tanked, but for some reason he can't figure out why he just can't hit player 2 in his noob frigate. After a battle that lasted over 5 minutes, player 2 finally broke player 1's tank and got the kill. He was thrilled to get a few module drops with a combined value of over 200 million isk. that was 10 times more isk than he had made since he started a few weeks ago. What a great game, where a noob pilot in a frigate can kill such a pimp fit cruiser worth 100 times the isk. he decides EVE rocks, and that he will never stop playing.

Player 1's reaction however is very different. How could he be killed by a noob ship? He was in a pimp fit cruiser, he should have been able to eat that frigate for breakfast. He spent over 500 million isk on that ship, And lost it 10 minutes after undocking it for the first time. What a screwed up game, how could a 10 year old game be so out of balance? There was no way he was going to buy more plex just to spend on ships that would be gone as fast as he fit them. This game is impossible for new players to get into, the vets just have way to much advantage, he feels he needs 100 million skill points before he has a chance of competing. It is just not worth it, and he rage quit. He just had no clue how combat in EVE actually works. He had no clue that the player that killed him was also a noob. He did not understand how tracking and missile explosion mechanics worked, or how frigates were to small and fast to be hit by larger weapon systems. His biggest mistake of all, was he flew a ship he absolutely could not afford to lose.

Both players had comparable skill points, and both players came to EVE with PVP experience from other MMO's. but they had completely different experiences in EVE. EVE is a sandbox MMO, it is what you make of it. Skill Points are only one of the many aspects of character development, but do not hinder you from enjoying the game.

I started in Castor and it was already gone by then...

By playing the game you are already rewarded with having a good time with yourself or with others, whatever you decide to do while you are logged in.

It would be nice, but it would lead to "abuse" of sorts. I.e. people just afk orbiting their POS, an astroid, etc. But hell, I would actually log into the game for more than the minute it takes me to queue my skills if we gained extra SP by actually *gasps* playing the game.

I think the main problem that most people on the forums have is that they are higher SP players who don't want there to be an equalizer for newer players to catch up. They invested the time, and money into skilling up ever so slowly.

Just be glad you weren't around when you had to train learning skills for a month before you could start training anything else effectively, or when you actually had to be logged into the game for your skills to train. Those days were a female dog.

You got reality in my excel spaceship simulator....

You got excel spaceship simulator in my reality....

This isn't a reeses cup, it doesn't work.