Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Foreword

Recently one russian player has started some threads in several eve-related forums, including this one and the biggest russian community forum eve-ru.com. It was quite a common whine thread about Rorqual's (in)ability to fly and mine in hisec. At first glance, there was nothig unusual - another noob, another obvious mistakes and wrong assumtions and another request to reimburse SP and isks spent. But some people (not me, to be honest) took a closer look at the problem and they found a flaw in user experience. And I can say that it can be considered a major flaw.

So, what is broken?

Ever heard of weapon hardpoints? And where did you hear about them? I bet, you learned about their existence from the frustrating message that you cannot fit a mining laser to a drake (or that was bantam?). Anyway -There is NO information about weapon hardpoints ingame. The only mention of weapon hardpoints is located in ship fitting window, and even there its location is not obvious. To learn about hardpoints you have to read carefully a tutorial and then click on a link. And how do you know where does the right link located? To dig evelopedia or other forums or use any other source of information, you have to state a right question, and this is impossible, because you have no idea what to ask. All this can lead a new player to a frustration. While I (and many others too, I beleive) deeply appreciate the efforts of developers used to produce tons of drama from noobs, this situation is not good at all for many players, both new and old.

And how to fix it?

• Add the information about the type of hardpoint used by every high-slot module to Show info window of that module.
• Add the information about available weapon hardpoints to fitting tab in Show info window of every ship ingame.
• Add the tutorial about different hardpoints type (missile, turret or utility)
• Fix or update flavour text used in Show info window to reflect the (in)ability of a given ship to fit certain modules in its high slots.
• Of course, some consistency must be present: a Miner I is a turret, but a Strip Miner I is (surprise!) an utility.

Anything else?

Yes, please. Some unobvious things also should be made more clear (even if they are not quite suited for new players):

Add a tutorial about ship sizes - let newbie see (not board) all racial ships, including capitals (I think the supercaps can be omitted here, to preserve some mystery) and do a briefing on every shipsize, describing all their strengths and flaws (such as multitude of EHP and the inability to get to a hisec systems of capitals, or high warpspeed and fragile hulls of frigates, etc).

Add some way to learn about jumpdrives ingame - not from chronicles or evelopedia.

[*] And please, make evelopedia available in languages other than english.

Even if those threads were sort of trolling, the problem still exists AND should be fixed

Already there. Open your eyes

I don't understand the problem. The show info window already shows the number of high slots and the number of turrets/launchers available on a ship.

Well, I'd actually support that. It can be done easy way - through ISIS, or more fun way...

I think I can remember that basic tutorial ends with mission where you have to warp to some outpost to recieve certificate (or something something; I didn't know a thing about EVE back then and therefore my memories aren't exactly well structured). The thing is, you could see almost every racial ship in that pocket parked nearby. So maybe add some features to recieve some general info on them there (something newb-oriented instead of what you can get already by checking out "info")?

Where did you learn that Gas Cloud Harvester I is a turret?



Yes, you got the point. As to ISIS, this suggestion is a synergy, not a replacement, because this tutorial can be an introdiction to ISIS.

And it will be really easy for you to tell me where does this tutorial located, right?

Just in case you didn't know - all tutorials are available through F12 key to any character at any time. And there is no tutorial mentioning hardpoints.

Thats valid point anyway. Yes it sounds stupid but it isn't. If we need specific hardpoint to fit module it should be listed in requirement section, just because we can't be sure that every client translation is 100% valid and maybe all requirements (skills, grid, cpu, hardpoints and so on) should be in one tab.

Something like this:

- Miner I
-- Requirements
---- Skills
------- Mining I
---- Fitting
------- CPU
------- Power Grid
------- Hardpoints
------- Shiptype
------- Whatever

I agree that simply adding "Requires hardpoint: Turret" to showinfo of stuff wouldn't hurt anyone, and would be of some benefit to new players. The rest is either already implemented or ranting about stuff the OP doesn't understand.